Vice And VirtueSample

The Seven Virtues and Vices might be an interesting part of Church history, but do these lists have any practical value? Prudentius (348-c. 410 AD), another early Church Father, created a slightly different list of virtues that appeared in his poem Psychomachia (Battle for the Soul). These remedial or healing virtues were ones that could triumph over particular sins: 

Humility defeats Pride 

Kindness defeats Envy 

Patience defeats Wrath

Diligence defeats Sloth

Charity defeats Greed 

Abstinence defeats Gluttony 

Chastity defeats Lust 

In the Hebrew language, the word for sin is hata. It was originally a term used in archery or spear throwing. It meant the archer hadn’t hit the target, that his arrow had missed the mark. 

This presents another way to think of sin: it is bull’s eye virtue that the arrow of our behavior missed. Behavior can't redeem us because it is infused with sin.

By contemplating the target of Patience, the sin of Wrath becomes a behavior that comes properly into balance. The transforming power of God’s grace and the practice of patient choices can then work together to destroy the root of Wrath, as well as balance our anger to be used in the proper way; anger only then surfacing toward issues of injustice, the suppression of truth, or toward all ways that defame God's glory or his children's dignity. 

Paul makes a similar point in his letter to the Galatian Church:

“Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these ... But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Gal. 5: 19-25).

The ripples of these virtues not only touch us, but they transform us. They are from the Spirit. They are not behaviors, but characteristics of God pressing his nature into us through the work of resting in Christ's work for us.

For Day Two read through Paul’s words to the Romans on right-living, considering especially his final instruction: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”