The Power of a Healthy Conscience – Part Three: Training the Conscience

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In part two we noted that the conscience bears witness to what one believes. Therefore, the conscience must be trained by training what one believes. Belief must be based on truth.

In addressing a weak conscience, Paul commented, “Howbeit there is not in every man that knowledge” (1 Cor. 8:7). Consciences function according to knowledge. Therefore, consciences are only as good as the accuracy of what one believes. Although everyone is born with a basic knowledge of right and wrong, that understanding can be warped or it can be honed.

In the days when Great Britain colonized India, some British officers came upon a scene where some locals were about to throw a live widow on the funeral pyre of her husband. When the officers objected, the local men claimed their consciences demanded they throw live widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. The British officers replied that their consciences demanded they execute those men if they did. Both parties appealed to their consciences in opposing directions.

The New Testament reveals three types of consciences, two of which are unhealthy and the other one healthy.

First, there is the insensitive conscience. Over time a conscience that is disobeyed can be desensitized and become insensitive. “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled” (Titus 1:15). When nothing is pure to someone, it indicates a defiled conscience. The word defiled means corrupted or polluted. Like a polluted water source, the conscience can be polluted. Even worse, the Bible says, “Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Tim. 4:2). Like the old branding irons that seared a logo on to the hide of an cow, the conscience that is trampled becomes seared. The insensitive conscience is dangerous as it lessons or negates needed cautions.

Second, there is the oversensitive conscience. In idolatrous Corinth, people offered food to idols as a part of worshipping those idols. But then they sold that same food for a profit in the marketplace. Paul instructed that since idols are nothing and believers worship the one true God, that believers could in good conscience eat the food in the marketplace that had been offered to idols, knowing they were not worshipping the idols. But Paul also made clear that until someone trained their conscience according to this truth, they should not eat that food that had been offered to idols since to them it was considered wrong, and therefore, they would be going against their conscience. Better to know the truth, as Paul sought to teach, but until you do, obey your conscience. But this dilemma is described as a weak conscience (1 Cor. 8:7).

Those with overly rigid positions that go beyond the Bible prey (even if they do so sincerely) on weak consciences and ironically call them “strong” consciences. There can be a pride in having the “strongest” position. But in reality, overkill positions are positions of weak consciences. Weak consciences are false consciences that bind instead of free.

Both the insensitive conscience and the oversensitive conscience are unhealthy. It is possible for one individual to have an insensitive conscience in one area of life and an oversensitive conscience in another area of life. Strange how we can compartmentalize things.

Third, there is the sensitive conscience. This is the healthy conscience we must seek. The sensitive conscience is based on truth and truth sets free. The Scripture speaks of a “pure” conscience, a “good” conscience (six times), and a “conscience void of offense toward God, and toward men” (Acts 16:24).

Since the conscience exhorts us according to what we believe, we must inform our conscience with truth: the Word of truth taught by the Spirit of truth. H.C. Trumbull said, “Conscience tells us that we ought to do right, but it does not tell us what right is—that we are taught by God’s Word.”

In the next article we will consider the importance of the properly sensitive conscience based on truth.