How to Develop a List of Christian Virtues for a Strong Christian Life → A More Beautiful Life Collective

1 Shares

We are commanded to be ‘conformed to the image of Christ.’ But, how do we know what this image looks like? It seems like such a simple statement, but the Bible can seem like such a big, intimidating book. What characteristics do we need to have in our lives? What should we value in our lives? We are looking at creating a list of Core Christian Virtues today that we can base our lives on that will help us to look more like Christ every day.

S2E15 – What You Need to Know about the Christian Creeds – A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast

In this episode, we are talking about the high-church confessional documents and why you should engage with them. No matter what denomination you belong to, these confessional texts – like Christian creeds, confessions of faith, catechisms, and liturgies – have been incredibly influential in the history of the Church. We need to wrestle with what they say and determine how it fits in with our own personal statement of faith. Today, we are going to talk about why you should read these texts, and then, turn our focus to the Christian creeds in particular. Read more on the blog: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-christian-creeds/ Get a PDF copy of the Christian Creeds here: https://a-more-beautiful-life-collective.kit.com/d080819cc1 Get the Doctrine and Theology Cheat Sheet Here: https://a-more-beautiful-life-collective.ck.page/bd897d28d0 Get a list of the names of God here: https://a-more-beautiful-life-collective.ck.page/43d2d5cf6b Get a copy of our personal statement of faith creation guide here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/we-believe-your-personal-statement-of-faith-workbook-pdf-download/ Get “Building Our Foundations: 10 Week Study” here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/product/building-our-foundations-11-week-systematic-theology-book-bible-study/ Visit our Shop to get a copy of any of the resources mentioned in this episode: I’m your host, Cayce Fletcher, and you can learn a little bit more about me here. While you’re here, would you consider leaving a comment, rating, or review? You can find our podcast, A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or watch on YouTube. Subscribe to the blog for access to our latest content and some freebies. I love creating and sharing resources with you. You can find all of our resources at A More Beautiful Life Collective Shop. Keep creating a life you love, and cultivating your heart for God.

This is Episode 31 of Season 1 of A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast. We are in the middle of our series on Why What You Believe Matters. What we are focusing on is creating a method of living. A method is guided by principles. It is flexible and encompassing. It is holistic.

To create a method of Christian living – what I’m calling Practical Theology, we first have to figure out what we believe. We have to create a statement of faith, which we did in the last episode.

Then, with our understanding of our key doctrines, we develop a list of Christian values, or virtues, that we base our lives on. These virtues then help us to create the guiding principles of living. These principles inform our practice; ultimately, the principles create our entire lifestyle. These are ideals that we strive to reach in our lives.

Today we are focusing on this second step: Creating a list of core Christian virtues. These virtues become what we base our lives on.

Let me know your thoughts by leaving a 1-2 sentence rating and review wherever you listen to Podcasts to help others find the show. You can share with friends or even take a screenshot of you listening to the podcasts to spread the word!

Check out our resources on the AMBL shop to go through this process of creating a method of Christian living.

Visit A More Beautiful Life Collective Shop for bible studies, planners, and other resources.

Visit Shop

Why isn’t our statement of faith enough to develop our method of Christian living?

Romans 10:9-10 says, “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.”

If all that it takes for us to be ‘saved’ is to believe in God, why do we need to do anything further? Why can’t we just create a statement of faith and call it a day? Why is that not enough to create a method of Christian living?

James 2:18-19 says, “Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.” Having right doctrine is incredibly important; it is the foundation of belief. But, the foundation is just the beginning. We then have to continue to build the house. We build on that foundation by determining how we live – determining the right deeds for the Christian life.

Romans 8:29 says, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” We are being conformed to the image of Jesus. The Christian walk is all about becoming more like Christ, becoming more like Jesus. We want to be holy, righteous, and filled with goodness.

The Bible is all about this pursuit of holy living. We are a set apart people because we are God’s. We should be a holy people because we are God’s.

We can’t just stop at creating a statement of faith. Our statement of faith leads to transformation. That transformation comes in the form of changing who we are to be more like the image of Christ. We “put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Eph. 4:22-24)

The Christian virtues we will create in this episode describe a life that reflects this righteousness and holiness. It is the life that summarizes all that the Bible teaches.

***If you have enjoyed visiting A More Beautiful Life Collective, please like, comment, share, and subscribe. Let’s make the world more beautiful together. This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase something through this link, I earn a small commission at no cost to you. It’s a win-win!***

Are core values the same as guiding principles?

Why do we need to create a list of core values or virtues? Why shouldn’t we just jump to principles – the things that we can quickly and easily apply to our everyday lives?

Core values are generally one-word descriptions of values (like honesty, integrity, etc.). The guiding principles would then be a one-sentence description of how you would accomplish that guiding principle.

Core Value: Honesty

Guiding Principle: I will tell the truth, even if it makes me uncomfortable. I will deal honestly with customers, family, and friends in my actions, words, and intentions.

Both, our values and principles should be based on the Bible and our deep study of it. We develop our guiding principles through study and prayer. Creating guiding principles based on core values is a way to prioritize our actions.

A Better Word: Christian Virtues

Creating value-based principles has almost become a cliche in the world of business and self-help. Because of the sheer amount of information, actions, and distractions that clog up our focus, people are constantly looking for ways to narrow their focus.

Though Core Values can help determine principles, I would argue that we should avoid using this word. Values by definition are somewhat of a judgment call. Often, values are lumped in with opinions. Part of our issue today is that we have lots of values that don’t have an agreed-upon basis, and so, we get the ‘you-do-you’ atmosphere of today.

A better word for values is virtues. The idea of Christian virtues is an ancient one. In fact, much of ancient philosophy was concerned with what the virtuous path was (like Plato). Virtue is just another way of saying moral excellence, and indeed, this is a high calling for the Christian life. We want to pursue moral excellence, and holiness, in our lives.

Proverbs 16:17 states, “The path of the virtuous leads away from evil; whoever follows that path is safe”.

When we move our focus to just defining our values based on what we care about and instead shift the focus to biblical virtues, we stop being blown and tossed by our feelings and culture at large. The guiding biblical principles of life should be based on the Bible.

Some Core Values I found include achievement, Health, Success, Innovation, and Equality. Though these are all great things to have, the question we need to ask ourselves is: Are these Biblical virtues? If we find that they are not, should we base our life’s guiding principles on them?

What Christian Virtues should be on our list?

At first glance, when we talk about Christian Virtues, you may have a list of a few that come automatically to mind. Love, Peace, Faith. These are traits or ideals that we all strive to have in our Christian life. But, how can we go from an amorphous list of high ideals to a concrete list of virtues that we can work to add to our lives daily?

First, we need to create this list. There are a few places in the Bible that we could turn to for this list. I would recommend that you try to trace patterns of virtues from all sections of the Bible. In my workbook, I primarily focus on four areas:

The Law
The Prophets
Jesus’ Teaching
The Work of the Spirit (Aka The Epistles)

Each of these sections of scriptures has a specific purpose and goal. But, we can see some virtues across all sections. When we see this, we know that is a virtue we should have in our lives.

The 10 Commandments

You shall have no other gods before Me.
You shall not make idols.
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet.

The Prophet Isaiah’s writings in Isaiah 1

Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right;
seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.

The Sermon on the Mount, particularly the Beatitudes

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Verse 3)
Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land. (Verse 4)
Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted. (Verse 5)
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill. (Verse 6)
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. (Verse 7)
Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God. (Verse 8)
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. (Verse 9)
Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice’s sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Verse 10)

The Fruit of the Spirit

Love
Joy
Peace
Patience
Kindness
Goodness
Gentleness
Faithfulness
Self-Control

Are these commands, traits, fruits, or virtues?

If you look through this list, you may notice that these are not necessarily virtues in the sense of one-word descriptions of traits required for moral excellence (though some are). Instead, much of the Bible is written as a story, short proverbs, laws, and parables from which we have to extrapolate the overarching pattern of virtue.

This is why there has been so much written in the Bible about the way we should live. The Bible is not written as a black-and-white step-by-step guide to living. We have to read, study, and think for ourselves about what we believe the Bible is teaching as the right way of living.

Much of the commands of the Bible guide us to certain virtues. Through deep study of the Bible as a whole, you can begin to trace patterns of Christian virtues that are found throughout the Bible.

For instance, in these 4 places, we see a pattern of selflessness, humility, and meekness in the way that we should seek others’ well-being as more than our own. This selflessness is repeated when Jesus says we must take up our own cross and follow him, dying to ourselves daily. When we do this, we will not commit murder, adultery, theft, or deceit against our neighbor.

This pattern of selflessness shows us that this is a Christian Virtue. Your decision then is to figure out what to call this virtue so that you remember it and take it to heart.

Benefits of A Narrow List of Christian Virtues

Obviously, the whole Bible contains virtues that we aim to base our lives on. There are probably millions of sermons from the past and present that attempt to expound on these virtues while showing us how to apply them to our everyday lives.

But, by choosing key texts in the Bible to draw from, we are better able to narrow down our list to virtues that we find repeated throughout Scripture. The goal is sticking power, which means we need to narrow down our list to 10-20 virtues that we can easily remember. It’s not that we can find too little in the Bible speaking to virtues; it’s that we can find too much. This leads to a large list that we won’t easily remember.

The ancients of the past recognized this tension. At the beginning of the monastic era of Christianity, leaders attempted to put together a list of these virtues. The first list was “the four cardinal virtues of Greek self-improvement philosophy: prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude combined with the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.” The list was later revised to chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility (each virtue being a foil to the seven deadly sins of pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth).

To create a list of biblical virtues, you could use the 7 heavenly virtues of the ancient world or you could make your own list. As always, if you make your own, you need to ensure that they are (1) biblically based and (2) not a list so long that it becomes unwieldy to work with.

7 Heavenly Virtues of Ancient Christianity

Chastity
Temperance
Charity
Diligence
Patience
Kindness
Humility

Other Biblical Virtues Examples

Service
Thankfulness
Compassion
Endurance
Creativity
Justice
Peace
Wisdom
Hope
Humility
Stewardship

So, how do you narrow down your list?

To begin to create your list of Christian Virtues, it’s helpful to study the passages we mentioned in depth. Then, you can start to trace some patterns of virtues by writing out as many virtues as you can think of as a brain dump.

Then, as you narrow down your list, you have to support them. Choose what you believe are the most commonly mentioned virtues. For each virtue, add 3-5 references to this virtue in scripture (or more if you want to!). Describe what this virtue means in practical terms.

Does a narrow list of virtues mean that these are the only virtues we can find in the Bible?

The Simple Answer: No.

Narrowing down a list of virtues does not mean that other virtues don’t exist. Courage and Bravery are admirable virtues, but I would argue that these are not key Christian virtues found in scripture – especially with the influence of cultural understanding of courage and bravery. Boldness, sacrificing for the gospel, endurance, and perseverance – these are characteristics that are advocated more often in scripture.

That being said, courage is found in scripture, especially in the book of Joshua and the story of David and Goliath. Your list is just the beginning, but others can be found as well. You want to choose virtues that can be traced repeatedly across the entire Bible for your core key doctrines. Though the book of Joshua demonstrates the importance of courage, I believe that obedience is the virtue found in that book that can be found across scripture.

Want to go deeper in your study of Christian virtues?

To develop a list of Christian virtues, you should gather up a list of Christian virtues from every part of the Bible, and then, narrow down a list by noticing patterns of virtues in each part of the Bible.

Once you have a set list of 10-15 overarching Christian virtues, then you can delve deeper by studying what a life that exemplifies this virtue looks like.

I created a workbook for you to do just this, called the “Highway of the Upright” which you can find in the AMBL shop.

Visit A More Beautiful Life Collective Shop for bible studies, planners, and other resources.

Visit Shop

For each virtue that you develop, I recommend that you flesh out your understanding by:

Defining the virtue and identifying synonyms to refine your meaning
Find other scripture references for the virtue
Explain what God wants us to know about this virtue
Describe a life that lives out this virtue

Let’s review

A statement of faith is just the foundation of your method of Christian living. The second step is to create a list of Core Christian Virtues that help you to live out your faith well.

To do this, you need to determine which virtues, or characteristics of moral excellence, are taught across scripture.

You can get my workbook, “The Highway of the Upright”, to go through this process and identify your 15 core Christian virtues.

Join us next week for our next episode in this series on creating a list of 20 principles that can form your guidelines for everyday living.

Please leave a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts to help others find the show. Until next time, keep creating a life you love, and cultivating your heart for God.

Pin1

1 Shares

A More Beautiful Life Collective