All of us have a conscience, but the problem is that we have a conscience while living in a fallen world where sin has affected all that we are—including the conscience we possess.
What is a conscience? It’s that inner faculty of moral reasoning that spans cultures and continents and generations. This inner faculty tells us about right and wrong. Simply possessing a conscience is not enough, though. We need a good conscience.
A good conscience is important because a conscience could be weak or seared. It may cease to function as it should. A good conscience is when our moral reasoning functions as it should, and a bad conscience is when our moral reasoning is faulty.
Paul wrote to Timothy that if he would effectively fight the good fight (1 Tim. 1:18), he needed to have faith and “a good conscience” (1:19). To combat the false teachers and their corrosive teachings, Timothy needed sound judgment. He needed mental clarity about right and wrong. He needed conviction shaped by and rooted in truth.
Because our moral judgments are susceptible to the influence of sin and deception, we cannot always trust what our conscience tells us. For example, our conscience might approve of activities that are wrong, and in that sense our conscience would be faulty.
A conscience must not be evaluated by merely human instinct, as if we get to decide for ourselves whether our conscience is “good” or “bad.” Paul’s reference to “a good conscience” implies some standard by which the conscience is evaluated. He told Timothy that Scripture is profitable “for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). The word of God is the objective standard to which we must submit our moral reasoning.
How do we develop a good conscience? A good conscience is the result of the Spirit’s work upon the heart over time through the word of God. We hear the Scripture taught, and we learn. Discipleship involves learning and unlearning. The Spirit persuades our heart of what is holy, what is good, what is true, what is beautiful, what is honorable, and what is wise.
But what is the danger of rejecting a good conscience, of not attending to our moral reasoning or submitting our lives to the word of God? Referring to a good conscience, Paul says, “By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith” (1 Tim. 1:19).
Rejecting a good conscience is not safe; it is spiritually hazardous. When we ignore what the Scripture says about what is right and what is wrong, and when we refuse to follow the signals of our conscience about what is dishonorable to the Lord, we are headed for spiritual shipwreck.
We know that embracing false doctrine can lead to dishonorable living. There is a connection between belief and behavior, and corrupted teaching can foster disobedience. Unsound doctrine doesn’t facilitate holiness. While rejecting sound doctrine can lead to rebellion, sometimes the path of apostasy is the reverse.
Moral rebellion can lead to the abandonment of sound doctrine. Paul warns that if we reject a good conscience, we will make shipwreck of our faith (1 Tim. 1:19). Haven’t you known people who have left Christianity because they followed the impulses of their flesh and the cultural pressures of this present evil age? They didn’t start their apostasy by rejecting sound doctrine. They started rejecting a good conscience. And eventually, as their conscience conformed more to the culture’s winds and less to Scripture, they adjusted their theology so that it would justify the way they wanted to live.
An important exercise for our spiritual health is to ask ourselves this practical question: is there anything I am pursuing right now that I know dishonors the Lord? Is there a sinful habit I’m cultivating, an inappropriate way I’m behaving with someone who isn’t my spouse, a deception I’m committing at my job, or a wicked strategy I’m executing against someone to acquire something I want?
Don’t reject a good conscience. Your moral reasoning is so important, and yet it is vulnerable to the deceptions of sin. The danger of willful rebellion against the Lord is that it may get easier to sin against him the next time and the time after that.
We should make the state of our conscience a subject of our prayer. Pray that the Lord will keep your conscience sensitive to the standard of his word. Pray that he will guard you from a seared or dulled conscience. Pray that you will not make a shipwreck of your faith.