"How Should I Live In This World?" by R.C. Sproul

No ISBN available

This work is actually a short 104 page booklet written by R.C. Sproul. As such, I had high hopes for this booklet and I was not disappointed. In it, Sprould tackles the issue of ethics and morality as it relates to being a Christian. Towards the end of the booklet he tackles the issues of abortion, warfare, the death penalty and others.

As usual, Sproul does an excellent job of taking us to the Word of God to address the issues that we encounter. What I really like, however, is that he does not subscribe to the cop-out I hear too often that if the Bible is silent on an issue then we can just follow our conscience. This is not to say that I don't think there are issues upon which we must do our best to follow what we feel is right, but on most issues this is not the case. As Sproul says, "God has not given us specific instructions for each and every possible ethical issue we face, but neither are we left to grope in the dark and to make our decisions on the basis of mere opinion." No indeed.

In any discussion of how we should live, of course, we come across the extremes of legalism and antinomianism. Trust me, I know. Anytime you talk about what the Bible says about how we should live our lives, you will have at least one person who accuses you of being legalistic. It does not matter how clear the passage is, this person will declare that you are forcing your views on someone, completely ignoring the actual definition of what legalism is! Sprould defines legalism as "concerned simply with external conformity and is blind to internal motivation." I would add that legalism is when you add to what the Bible says and require something of them the Bible does not require.

Anyhow, whenever someone accuses you of legalism, rest assured it is usually the antinomian in the group (unless, of course, you actually ARE being legalistic!).

Overall, the booklet is well worth the read, and you can probably finish it in an afternoon. It took me a little bit longer than that to read it but that was only because I overloaded myself with three other books at the same time! Don't make this mistake and you should be able to read it quickly! ;-)