A popular level study for Christians written from an evangelical perspective.

Located BCSA Christlikeness shelf 7/5/19

LT Conscience, what it is and how to train it, Andy Naselli and J. D. Crowley, Crossway, 2016, 7/10/19
Recommended and given by Alan Grover

Theme:
Type:
Value: 1-
Age: college
Interest: high (if interested)
Objectionable: suggest conscience should not be informed/calibrated by parents or church 65; “many” conservative churches land here versus “it seems” 92; weaker versus godly not analyzed (confuses) 98, 104-5; “always” 100; I Pet 5:5 110-1; did Paul have to? 129
Synopsis/Noteworthy:

29 Conscience as a voice box
(Weak analysis 30-31, 79
32-3 No OT word for conscience (“heart”)
38-9 Cleansing, Heb 9:14; 10:22
40-41 Positive-negative
42 Defined “Your conscience is your consciousness of what you think is right and wrong.”
46 Stress the blessing of a clean conscience with the unsaved! See below p 46
47 The Holy Spirit is comforter Rom 5:5; Gal 5:22 See below p 47
48-51 Our knowledge of God will increase faster than our obedience to God’s will
48-51 How do we deal with this guilt?! See below
59, 60 Generally always follow
61 Implies a conscience more tender is weaker
63 Calibrate conscience by pulling out weeds
68 Justifies diminishing role of parents
82 M.L. Jones could have been right in his day
92 Help the weak to train their consciences
108 Spiritually mature should draw lines 110
109 Don’t tempt a weaker brother to criticize unnecessarily (omitted truth)
113 Blessing follows cleared conscience See note below
118 JD’s culture mango story 124-5 women’s coverings
122 Every culture has some good value—learn from them
123 Elenctics “in Christianity, is a division of practical theology concerned with persuading people of other faiths (or no faith) of the truth of the Gospel message, with an end to producing in them an awareness of, and sense of guilt for, their sins, a recognition of their need for God's forgiveness, repentance (i.e. the disposition to turn away from their sin) and faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord” Wikipedia
123 Bob Priest—elenctics expert at Trinity
126 Preach according to cultural conscience
129 Did Paul have to work through conscience issues one at a time?
136 Our challenge of not giving up convictions, but submitting to others
138 Christ left heaven’s culture to submit to Jewish culture 137-9

MJH 82, 102, 108
CBC 78, 82, 131-4, 136, 138, 141, 148

CONSCIENCE Naselli
The blood of Christ clears all the condemnation we feel from our moral consciousness. It cleanses our moral consciousness, which enables us to serve the living God. Naselli 38-39
We should draw close to God with a sincere heart and with complete confidence that faith brings because Jesus has sprinkled our hearts to cleanse us from a guilty moral consciousness.” Naselli 39
As you can imagine, the promise of a life with a clean conscience before God is a powerful attraction for the lost to come to Christ. We know of no other religion that freely offers such comprehensive and eternal cleansing at the deepest level of conscience. “Your sins are forgiven,” Jesus pronounced (Mt 9:2). “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Heb 9:14). When we share the gospel with non-Christians, we should stress this incredible promise of a clean conscience. 46

The Holy Spirit comes in to encourage you, comfort you, and to be your dearest friend. But he also comes in to reveal to you any sin that is robbing you of joy and to lead you into mortal combat against that sin (Rom 8:13-14). When the Holy Spirit comes in, he superchargers your consciousness of sin by writing his laws on your heart (Jer 31:33-34 [cf. Rom 2:15]). He opens your eyes to see sins that you didn’t even know were sins, like pride, greed, and covetousness. 47

A Clean Conscience for the Saved
Only an ever-increasing trust in Christ’s work on the cross can fill this ever-widening gap and keep us from despair. God’s solution for us is to have a clean conscience throughout our lives is simple and profound: “If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9). The sentences before and after the solution capture the world’s solutions for a defiled conscience, namely, to deny that we have any sin at all and to defend our sin (vb. 8, 10). The solutions are still popular today in secular counseling. 49

When Conscience Tempts You to Despair At times you may fail so miserably that your condemning conscience tempts you to despair of all hope that you could ever draw near to God. But we can draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings “because we have had our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water” (Heb10:22 NET). God’s word repeatedly promises that God can cleanse your conscience so that you can draw near to God. 50

Only the cross can fill that ever-widening gap between your consciousness of what you ought to be and your actual obedience. As you mature in your faith, you grow increasingly in love with Christ and his gospel; you place your trust more and more in Christ to make you acceptable before God; and you wait with greater and greater anticipation for the day when Christ will come back and make your obedience match your knowledge. 51
A person who lives according to their conscience is blessed (Rom 14:22b-23). … God gave us the gift of conscience in order to significantly increase our joy as we obey its warnings. Naselli 113