How Can We Hurt Our Conscience?
The Meaning of Our Conscience
In a previous study, we answered the question, “What is your conscience?” We said that it is “our inner sense of right and wrong.” We also recognized that our conscience isn’t automatically accurate, though it does govern our choices in life. Therefore, we must learn to train our conscience with a rigorous study of God’s Word.
At the same time, we must also recognize that not every believer – or member of our church – will have an identical conscience on everything. For this reason, we must not only learn to train our conscience, we must learn to work together with fellow believers who are doing the same.
Negative Effects on Our Conscience
In this lesson, we will answer the question, “How can we hurt our conscience?” In other words, how can respond to our conscience the wrong way. In a future lesson, we’ll ask the opposite question, “How can we improve our conscience?” and respond to it properly, so stay tuned for that. But for now, let’s take a look at some bad ways to handle our conscience and the conscience of others.
Our conscience may be handled or affected in a negative way, and this negative influence may occur in varying degrees and for various reasons. In the book called “Conscience,” Andy Naselli and J. D. Crowley provide the following breakdown of how our conscience may be negatively affected:
- It can be weak (1 Cor 8:7, 10, 12)
- It can be wounded (1 Cor 8:12)
- It can be defiled (1 Cor. 8:7; Tit 1:15)
- It can be encouraged or emboldened to sin (1 Cor 8:10)
- It can be evil or guilty (Heb 10:22)
- It can be seared as with a hot iron (1 Tim 4:2)[1]
Let’s take a look at each of these conditions to find out what they mean and how to avoid them, for both our own good and the good of others.
A Weak Conscience
A weak conscience (1 Cor 8:7, 10, 12) refers to an oversensitive, hyperactive conscience. The word weak means something like “sick, ill, unhealthy, and in a weakened condition.” Our current experience with COVID19 helps us understand this condition from a physical standpoint because we are familiar with what it means to be “more vulnerable” to the virus due to old age and preexisting conditions. People who fit these descriptions are in a weakened position due to their past condition, and that’s what Paul is referring to here but in a spiritual sense.
As an example of this condition, Paul portrays a believer who converted to Christ, but with a firsthand history and experience with demonic activity and worshiping idols. These past religious traditions often included the practice of “offering meat to idols.” It was customary in Greek culture and religion to offer meat to idols as an act of allegiance and to secure blessing and favor from that deity. According to this practice, a portion of the meat would often be returned to the worshiper, who would either eat it for himself and his family or sell it in the marketplace (the agora).
Like Paul, some believers knew that followers of Christ should not participate in idolatry, yet they also recognized that meat which had been offered to idols underwent no inherent change in the process and was nothing more than meat from beginning to end. Therefore, believers were free to eat such meat, just as they were free to eat any meat in general.
However, some believers struggled to accept this conclusion because their consciences were “weak.” This means that whenever they knew that a portion of meat had been offered to an idol, the fact that it had been offered to an idol and was associated with idolatry in that sense disturbed their conscience. Even though there was nothing wrong with the meat itself, such believers viewed such meat as “bad” meat based upon their preexisting experience with idolatry. A nearly direct example of this scenario today pertains to whether or not a believer should eat halal food, food which has been prepared “in the name of Allah.”
Another example of this scenario may be whether a believer may listen to instrumental jazz music. Some believers with an appreciation for complex chord structures, harmonies, and improvisation may find great intellectual value and personal relaxation benefits from listening to some jazz tunes at the end of a long workday. Yet other believers may fail to see how this is even remotely possible simply because the bars and late-night establishments they frequented before they were saved played jazz music. The same may be said for much of classical music too, since the lifestyles of many classical composers were quite ungodly; even so, they composed some beautiful scores.
In summary, a weak conscience is hyperactive and oversensitive because it associates sinful qualities with harmless choices based upon past experience and an inaccurate perspective.
A Wounded Conscience
Wounded means to be “beaten or struck,” as when a boxer lands a blow on his opponent in the ring. With regard to our conscience, this refers to what happens when a believer who doesn’t have a weak conscience knowingly, blatantly does something that disturbs or offend a believer who has a weak conscience. Understanding this requires spiritual maturity, because it involves doing something which you have the right to do.
The example Paul gives pertains, once again, to eating meat offered to idols (1 Cor 8:12). Though we have full liberty before God to eat such meat, we should set our liberty aside when we’re in the presence of a believer who feels differently. In Paul’s context, this meant abstaining from eating or purchasing meat offered to idols if a weaker brother or sister in your church would observe you doing so.
Why was this important? Because doing so would be like landing a blow and punching them hard in their conscience before they’re conscience was able to handle it. Examples of this for us today would be (a) buying lunch from a halal truck for a coworker who you now has a weak conscience about doing so or (b) inviting a weaker member from church to your home for a birthday party and playing jazz music over the loudspeakers. When we do this sort of thing, we “wound” our neighbor’s conscience.
A Defiled Conscience
Defiled means to be “polluted, stained, and unclean” and especially refers to the inner condition of a person’s heart or the conscience. As such, it describes a conscience that is messed up and malfunctioning, that doesn’t work right. If you know a little about cars, then you know the importance of preventing foreign substances from getting into the engine block and gas lines. The only thing that goes into the engine block is oil, and the only thing that goes into the gas lines if fuel. If dirt, pebbles, or water get in, then the car won’t function properly and will eventually break down.
A defiled conscience isn’t the end of the road for a conscience can be in even worse condition, but it is a step in the wrong direction. So, what makes a conscience defiled?
- This can happen to one degree or another when a believer with a weak conscience continues to observe or participate with other believers in doing things which they feel are wrong, even though they’re not (1 Cor 8:7).
- This also happens when believers submit themselves to legalistic teaching that insists on following both Old Testament laws and manmade traditions as a means of receiving God’s grace and growing as a Christian (Tit 1:15).
If you are a weaker Christian whose conscience is hypersensitive and overactive due to past experiences in your life, then you need to take steps to prevent a defiled conscience from developing. To do this, you should conscientiously avoid participating in things that you still feel are wrong (even if they’re not). At the same time, you should avoid placing yourself under legalistic teaching that encourages, reinforces, or intensifies your conscience in the wrong direction rather than molding it and shaping it according to grace as taught by the Word of God.
An Emboldened Conscience
An emboldened conscience occurs when a weaker believer sees a more mature believer do something that he, the weaker believer, still feels hesitant to do (1 Cor 8:10). The key here is recognizing what it means to “have knowledge.” For instance, if you have been properly, carefully taught from Scripture that eating meat offered to idols is okay to do, then you may do so with no problem. But if another believer sees you doing that without having first been taught properly about why you are doing that, then they might go ahead and follow your example but without proper knowledge.
Consider the example of listening to jazz music. If a mature believer who enjoys listening to instrumental jazz attends a classy jazz concert at Carnegie Hall, he does so to the glory of God. But if another believer who believes that jazz music is inherently evil, based upon past, personal experience or inaccurate teaching, finds out that you attended the concert, he may be encouraged to go to a jazz concert too, just because you did.
Why is this wrong? Because he is following your example without having first been taught why it is appropriate. In such a case, he is doing something that is okay to do even though he still feels like it’s not okay. He is doing something he feels is wrong just because you did it, and that is a bad precedent to set, isn’t it? It’s building a habit of doing things that ignore the conscience rather than training the conscience first. It’s like teaching a person to ignore the “check engine” light on the dashboard of his or her car without knowing why, when the fact is that sometimes you do need to take that light seriously, though at other times you do not. But failing to know the difference may eventually result in a serious accident or worse.
A Guilty Conscience
Heb 10:22 refers to an “evil” conscience. This word can express a wide range of meaning, which includes: “poor quality, deterioration, sickness, guiltiness, immorality, and wickedness.” This description presents the conscience as being in a guilty condition that is insecure and not confident about entering into the presence of God for prayer, worship, and service.
Nonbelievers live with a guilty conscience like this because they have no assurance that Christ’s blood has covered their sins and that God has forgiven their sins and accepted them as believers. Believers can also experience a guilty conscience. Though they know that Christ has covered their sins with his blood and that God has accepted them as his children, they can feel insecure about this and guilty if they commit sins as believers (whether known sins or violating a weak conscience), approaching God with known, unconfessed sin.
This is the condition of a person who repeatedly violates his conscience repeatedly without either (a) acknowledging their sin to God and being restored to fellowship with him or (b) retraining their conscience with Scripture to ensure a more accurate perspective about what is right and wrong in God’s sight.
Proverbs 28:1 provides a good example of what this means when it says, “The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.” Such a person lives with a perpetual feeling of guiltiness, a fear of being found out, and are therefore unable to pray to or serve God with confidence because their conscience is in a state of chronic unhealthiness and insecurity.
A Seared Conscience
The seared conscience refers to a person who has sinned so persistently and to such a flagrant degree that they have developed a calloused, desensitized conscience (1 Tim 4:2). Such a conscience is the total opposite of being hyperactive and oversensitive. It’s a conscience that no longer feels anything at all, just when if you burn your hand with a hot iron. The pain is excruciating at first, but the nerve damage is so bad afterwards that you no longer feel anything that you touch. People like this reach a state where they can sin and teach false doctrine without feeling guilt, remorse, or shame of any kind. As believers, we must avoid this kind of conscience at all costs.
Conclusion
In summary, let’s consider our consciences from a personal perspective. We should learn to detect if we have a weak, wrongly informed conscience in various ways. If we do, we should be careful not to place ourselves in situations that wound or defile our conscience. We should also avoid emboldening our conscience to do things that we feel are wrong just because other believers do them. Even more importantly, we should avoid going about our lives with a perpetually guilty conscience, doing things we either know to be wrong or feel to be wrong so that we may approach God and serve him with confidence and that we may avoid coming anywhere close to developing a seared conscience that feels no guilt at all.
Let’s also consider our consciences from the perspective of other people. We should take note when another brother or sister in Christ has a weaker conscience on various things. When this is the case, we should be gracious not to wound their conscience or to pressure them into doing something, no matter how well intended, that their conscience forbids. We should also avoid teaching and pressuring people into developing a hyperactive or oversensitive conscience as a form of spirituality. We don’t want to be the cause people living with a guilty conscience or, worse yet, searing their conscience completely.
What is the answer to these negative effects on our conscience? We’ll answer this question in depth next week, but the short answer is first (a) to receive the forgiveness of sins that Christ alone provides through faith and become a Christian, (b) to confess your sins to God whenever they occur as a Christian, and (c) to strengthen and shape your weak conscience to better align with God’s will through a careful, prayerful study of God’s Word.
Which of these three steps are important for you to take right now at this present stage in your life, either as someone who has not yet believed on Christ as God and Savior, or as someone who has believed on Christ but needs to strengthen your conscience for a more confident, secure, and satisfying life in God’s sight?
[1] Andy Naselli and J. D. Crowley, Conscience, Kindle ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016), 41.
