Key Moral Principles

• Leviticus 19:34 (‘...you shall love the alien as yourself’) shows that love is greater than nationalism.
• The Hebrew term ‘aheb’ = sibling or friendship love.
• Luke 10:25-28 (‘You shall love the Lord your God...and your neighbour as yourself’) uses the term ‘agape’ (self-sacrificial love) and is followed by the parable of the Good Samaritan in which ‘neighbour’ is interpreted broadly.
• Exodus 34:6-7 (‘...a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger...’) uses the term ‘chesed’ which can be translated as ‘kindness’.
• This passage is a part of the covenant given to Moses on Mt. Sinai.
• I John 4:19-21 (‘...those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.’) teaches that loving God cannot be separated from loving others.
• I Samuel 12:24 (‘...serve him faithfully with all your heart’) was said in the context of Israel losing trust in God and turning to human kings.
• Christians believe it is more important to serve God than to obey powerful humans.
• Ephesians 4:25-27 (‘..putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours’) shows that Christians value truth-telling; the writer of this passage may have been thinking of Zechariah 8:16.
• II Corinthians 1:12 (‘...we have behaved in the world with frankness and godly sincerity’) teaches that the way to have a good conscience is to not act in ways that are not true to oneself.
• I Timothy 1:5 (‘love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith’) comes from a passage in which the writer is concerned with the ‘sophisticated’ discussions of some teachers.
• The point of true religion is to live rightly.
• Matthew 6: 14-15 (‘...if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you’) follows the Lord’s prayer and makes the case that we access God’s forgiveness by embodying that quality ourselves.
• Colossians 3:12-13 (‘...just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive...’) teaches that what Jesus has done on the cross, Christians must also do in their relationships with others.