Acts 24
16 And for this I always strive to have a conscience without offense before God and before men.
Commentary
In Christianity we compare actions with those of Jesus Christ, what he would do, in our place. The conscience is the knowledge of the moral, the moral are the acts of the human being in terms of good and evil; More than this in Christianity, conscience is closely linked to the voice of God, who guides us. Consciously translated consciousness "with knowledge" is intrinsically linked to what we know (we know) is wrong or right. So consciousness is a line of defense against doing wrong. How often do we do something and the conscience rebukes us? This is because we know it is wrong. We must not under any circumstances betray our consciences. There are circumstances or actions that is not sin however if the conscience acts by saying that it is undue we should keep out 1 Corinthians 8: 7 But not all there is this knowledge; For some, accustomed to idols hitherto, eat as sacrificed to idols, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. In this passage Paul addresses the Jews living among the Gentiles. Obviously the Gentiles had no problem eating something sacrificed to idols (even though they were Christians) but believing Jews themselves, so Paul suggests not to eat it so as not to betray Their consciences.
To betray or to ignore the conscience brings as consequence its cauterization . To cauterize is to hardening, unfeeling for. Paul says Acts 24:16 And for this I try to always have a conscience without offense before God and before men. A free conscience is when we obey the commandments of God and do what he commands us, this provides a clear conscience, the psalmist said Psalm 32: 2 Blessed is the man whom the Lord does not blame for iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. There is a dark side when you do not hear the conscience, we often hear say: how is it possible that person did that ?? This is because already his conscience is not sensitive having been hardened (cauterized). we say the has no conscience. 1 Timothy 4: 1 But the Spirit says plainly that in the latter times some will depart from the faith, listening to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons; 2 by the hypocrisy of liars who, having seared the conscience, here makes obvious the fact that the cauterization of the conscience is the creation of a person incapable of being corrected or of being sensitive to the voice of God.
The problem here is that these people were people "consenting" but now they have no conscience. 2 Timothy 3: 2 For there will be men who are lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, ungodly, without natural affection, ruthless, slanderers, intemperate, cruel, haters of the good, all Because they will be void of all conscience. In Sodom and Gomorrah the men of the city were so "unconscious" that they were ready to rape angels, when the voice of morals suggests them not to do such vileness the answer is: we will make you worse, that is to say we will violate you even more What we intended to do to those. The present society is no different, when the Christian speaks of the sins committed by society and are now legal we receive threats: we have rights like all and if they do not shut up we close the church, we remove tax exemption status. We are in the same or worse decay never seen by this says the word Ephesians 4:18 having the understanding darkened, alienated from the life of God by the ignorance that is in them, by the hardness of their heart; Who, after having lost all sensibility, gave themselves over to lewdness to commit greedily all manner of impurity. They lost all sensibility, they gave themselves with lust to commit greedily all kinds of impurity! Knowing this, should we ignore our consciences?
Written by Robert Pool
Translated by Bruno Smith