Week 1: What is Virtue?
Recently, I was asked what virtue meant to me and how I would define it. I’ll pose the same question to you as we start this 5-week series on Virtue. What does virtue look like to you?
The dictionary has multiple definitions for virtue. One is, “behavior showing high moral standards,” and another is “a quality considered morally good or desirable in a person”. Those are very broad and could mean a lot of different things depending on what your moral standards are. Your definition of virtue could depend on what you think is a good trait vs a bad trait to have. The possibilities are endless.
When I was asked this question, my mind first went to purity. I think we associate virtue with cleanliness and then a straight line to purity. Are we morally and sexually clean? But virtue can be so many other things too.
Some of the acclaimed Greek philosophers like Plato and Socrates stated that prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice were some of the basic virtues for one to hold. The Bible adds onto this list for us. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-24).”
Virtue, to me, means being like Christ. Virtue is doing whatever we can to do what He did and to act the way that He did when He was on this earth. This can come from a combination of many values. Faithfulness is a virtue that is lacking in this world. We’re told to only believe in the things we can see, hear and touch.
Moses was a faithful man. His life was turned upside down when he found out about his true lineage and then He was called by God to rescue his people. God spoke to him through a burning bush and required a lot of him. But I sometimes just think about how God spoke to him through a burning bush. There’s a handful of nice bushes on the path to my front door. If one day, one burned and a voice spoke to me through it, I might think I was crazy. Moses had so much faith. Even when he felt like he wasn’t the right person, with the right skills for the task. He is faithful through the constant pleas to the Pharaoh to free the people that go rebuked. He is faithful through the plagues. He is faithful through the overwhelming complaints of his people who are struggling in the wilderness.
What I love about Moses is how time and time again, he goes to the Lord for help. He seeks the guidance of God when the people are doing all kinds of crazy things. He wasn’t faithful once through a hard thing but faithful constantly through many hard things. He showed faith by doing what was asked of him by God and clinging to God’s help.
Virtue is something that I feel is getting lost in the many high-emotion issues of the world. Virtue isn’t something that we focus on too much anymore. The world pushes self love and self confidence as a quick fix for everything. The virtues that the Bible and God tell us are important work when we place them at His feet. When we ask for His help over and over again. We need His strength and His support for our faith to be like Moses’.
Next week, we’re going to look at how the world defines virtue.
Scriptures to Study: Exodus, Proverbs 10:9, 1 Peter 2:9
Journal Questions:
- How would you define virtue?
- Who in your life is a great example of virtue?
- How can you show more faithfulness in your life?