What does First B Jackson teach about conscience?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on conscience runs through several different passages, but a consistent picture emerges across them. Conscience is the inner voice Paul has in mind in Romans 2 when he says that Gentiles who never had the Mosaic law are still accountable, because all people everywhere recognize some difference between right and wrong. Pastor Brian, working through that passage, described conscience as what accuses or defends a person's own choices before God, and he pointed out that ignorance of that inner witness is no more an excuse before God than ignorance of a civil law is in a courtroom.
First Corinthians 8 adds another dimension. Pastor Raymond taught that conscience is not just about what a person knows to be true in the abstract, but about where a person actually stands before God at a given moment. For someone whose conscience is still shaped by years of idol worship, eating meat offered to idols is genuine sin, even if the theology says the idol is nothing. For the more settled believer it is neutral. Both of those things can be true at the same time, Paul says, and the person with theological confidence has a responsibility not to act freely in ways that lead someone with a weaker conscience to do what, for them, is genuinely destructive.
The 2018 message on 1 Timothy 4 takes the darkest turn on the subject. Paul describes people who will depart from the faith by following deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, and the human messengers who carry that teaching are marked out by consciences that have been seared. The teaching traced this back to Paul's opening charge in 1 Timothy: that the goal of the whole letter is love issuing from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. A seared conscience is the opposite of that, and the thread running through all three messages is that what a person does with their conscience, whether they heed it, train it, or numb it, has real and lasting consequences.
Taught from 1 Timothy 4:1-5 · Romans 2:12-24 · 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 · 1 Timothy 1:15 · Romans 2:11
The passage taught · 1 Timothy 1:15
15 The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- May 20, 2018 Seared Consciences and Deceitful Spirits A Wyoming pastor walks through 1 Timothy 4:1-5, warning against false teaching, seared consciences, and the pull of deceitful spirits in the latter days.
- March 13, 2016 All Other Ground Is Sinking Sand Romans 2 lays out hard truth: God shows no partiality, and religious pride offers no cover. The pastor walks through the bad news that makes the gospel good news.
- October 5, 2014 Who You Love Is More Important Than What You Know First Corinthians 8 on Christian liberty, idol-offered meat, and why who you love matters more than what you know, from a verse-by-verse series.