Ethics of time

The Ethics of Time

TIME MANAGEMENT

Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts…

Psalm 90:10 The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

Psalm 90:12So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Ephesians 5:15–17See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Colossians 4:5Walk in wisdom toward those who are

outside, redeeming the time.

GOD IS ETERNAL & TIMELESSThe concept of time has no meaning before the beginning of the universe. This was first pointed out by St. Augustine. When asked: what did God do before he created the universe? Augustine didn't reply he

was preparing hell for people who asked such questions.” Instead, he said that time was a property of the universe that God created, and that time did not exist before the beginning of the universe.

God’s Name:

God’s Nature:

GOD IS ETERNAL & TIMELESS

CREATED BY GOD

Genesis 1:3–53 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

CREATED BY GOD

Genesis 1:14-1514 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.

CREATED BY GOD

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: 2 a time to be born, And a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

CREATED BY GOD

Ecclesiastes 3:1-86 a time to gain, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; 7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

RECKONING OF TIME

The Julian Calendar (46 BC):

• initiated by Julius Caesar

• changed the beginning of the year to "January" 1st

• solar calendar was very popular with the "sun" worshippers of the day

• every month was named after a pagan "god”

RECKONING OF TIME

The Julian Calendar (46 BC):

• loses 1 whole day every 128 years

• Though commonly used until the late 1500s it was eventually rejected

RECKONING OF TIME

The Gregorian Calendar (590–604):

• initiated by Pope Gregory

• names and symbols of Julian Calendar kept

• continues in use to this day

• based on the solar method

• loses 1 day every 3000 years

RECKONING OF TIME

The Hebrew Calendar • based on the Bible

• called seder olam rabbah (book of the order of the world)

• reckoned by the moon• Incredibly accurate at keeping time –for

thousands of years -- keeping perfect time.

• Jews regard 2013 as 5773 in a 6000 year series of events leading to Messiah

PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

• Herbert Butterfield’s (Interpretation Of History) observation:

Historiographybegan with Moses


• Georg Hegel (1770–1831)

a comprehensive philosophical view of history

"dialectic” "absolute idealism” "Master/Slave" dialectic

PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY• Oswald Spengler (1880–1936)

The Decline of the West

“The will-to-power operating under a pure democratic disguise has finished off its masterpiece so well that the object's sense of freedom is actually flattered by the most thorough-going enslavement that has ever existed.”


“For the Age has itself become vulgar, and most people have no idea to what extent they are themselves tainted. The bad manners of all parliaments, the general tendency to connive at a rather shady business transaction if it promises to bring in money without work, jazz and Negro dances as the spiritual outlet in all circles of society, women painted like prostitutes,


“the efforts of writers to win popularity by ridiculing in their novels and plays the correctness of well-bred people, and the bad taste shown even by the nobility and old princely families in throwing off every kind of social restraint and time-honoured custom: all of these go to prove that it is now the vulgar mob that gives the tone.”

Hour of Decision (1933), as transl. by C.F. Atkinson (1942), p. 95


• Arnold Toynbee (1889–1975) 10-vol. A Study of

History Toynbee explained decline

as due to their moral failure


• Christopher Dawson (1889–1970)

"the greatest English-speaking Catholic historian of the twentieth

century”


• William Durant (1885 –1981) 11-vol. The Story of Civilization

“There have been only 268 of the past 3,421

years free of war.”

“When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near.”

PURPOSE OF TIME

• Psalm 90:12 So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

70 yrs. = 25,550 days66 yrs. = 24,090 days

John 17:4 I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.

PURPOSE OF TIMEEcclesiastes 3:1–15

11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. 12 I know that nothing is better for them than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives, 13 and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor—it is the gift of God.

PURPOSE OF TIMEEcclesiastes 3:1–15

14 I know that whatever God does, It shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it. God does it, that men should fear before Him. 15 That which is has already been, And what is to be has already been; And God requires an account of what is past.

PURPOSE OF TIME

Ecclesiastes 121 Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, Before the difficult days come, and the years draw near when you say, “I have no pleasure in them” 13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all. 14 For God will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret thing, whether good or evil.

PROVIDENCE

• 1636 Roger Williams, a religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, named the area in honor of "God's merciful Providence"

PROVIDENCE

• Prophecy • Leviticus 23• Daniel 9:24-27• Galatians 4:4

Spiritual

Ethics of time