Series › Developing a Healthy Conscience
- April 28, 2002
Paul said, "I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and man." (Acts 24:16) How do you acquire a conscience without offense? Part 1 in the Conscience series deals with the theology of the conscience, as part of God's imagine in man (both pre-fall and post-fall), the conscience's legislative, executive, and judicial functions, how sin distorts all three functions, and how to recognize a good conscience vs the counterfeit. Dr. Kayser likens to conscience to a light on the dashboard that sometimes doesn't work properly, which should be neither smashed nor ignored, but fixed.
- May 5, 2002
Part 2 of the "Developing a Healthy Conscience" series describes the positive changes that happen in our consciences at conversion, but why the new baby conscience still needs to be strengthened, and what happens when it isn't. Dr. Kayser expounds Paul's teaching on how to both make sure weaker brothers are protected in their conscience, *and* that the church be protected from the legalistic doctrine of the weaker brothers. He shows what happens when the three functions of the conscience become sensitized to man's opinions rather than to God's opinion, how to help rather than hurt brothers with weak consciences, and also how and when weaker-brother-ism becomes Phariseeism.
- May 19, 2002
The Pharisees show us that legalists — people who add man's laws — always end up being antinomians, that is, people who disobey or throw out God's laws. In Part 3 of the "Developing a Healthy Conscience" series, Dr. Kayser shows how the hedge around the law that modern evangelicals have erected to try to keep people as far away from sinning as possible simply do not work in overcoming sin or promoting holiness, and why those who seem to think sin comes from without rather than within, focusing on issues of dress, activities, substances, etc. almost invariably focus their attention on something other than the heart. He ends with going through several diagnostic questions to help you apply Jesus' teaching about the Pharisees to your own life, and see how your own conscience is calibrated.
- June 30, 2002
In the final part of the "Developing a Healthy Conscience" series, Dr. Kayser walks us through the benefits of having a healthy conscience, from confidence in witnessing to accelerated maturity and peace and freedom before God and man, and then walks us through the Bible's methods for developing a "good conscience" — how to cleanse your conscience, retrain your conscience, deal with things still troubling your conscience, and more.
- October 17, 2023