Article March 17, 1997 Issue

Is a little evil OK?

Robert A. Johnson

When I was a very young boy, I brought home a fifteen-cent item without paying for it. I didn't mean to do anything dishonest; I just didn't think about paying for it. My mother ordered me to go back to that store immediately and return the item. That made a big impression on me. It was plain that my mother didn't think a little evil was OK, but she never said why. Her reprimand was enough, though—I never took anything again without paying.

Not until a number of years later, when I began to read the Bible regularly on my own, did I begin to understand why a little bit of evil was not OK. I found that to live up to my full potential as a child of God, I had to resist evil in all its forms. To heal and to be healed—to be prosperous in the most spiritual sense of that word—I had to live and think as closely as I could to the way God would have me live and think. As Christ Jesus said, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. ... Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God" (Matt. 5:6, 8). Nothing in Christ Jesus' teachings contradicts these sayings. He consistently condemned evil and told those who sinned to stop sinning.

To teach what it means to be truly "righteous" and "pure in heart," Jesus not only directed attention to the Commandments but also gave them a deeper, more comprehensive meaning. For example, he expanded the commandment about not coveting our neighbor's possessions to include self-indulgence—selfishness of any kind. He said, "Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth" (Luke 12:15). Then, to explain, he told a parable of a rich man who tore down his barns and built bigger ones in order to hold all the crops his land brought forth (see verses 16–21). After he had stored up a great deal, he planned to take it easy and to "eat, drink, and be merry." His motives were purely selfish, however. He gave no consideration to anything but his own pleasure. Jesus' parable continues: "But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." In his discussion of covetousness, then, Jesus also condemned pride, selfishness, or evil of any kind. Likewise, in Jesus' teaching, "Thou shalt not kill" becomes a prohibition against anger as well (see Matt. 5:21, 22), and "Thou shalt not commit adultery" a prohibition against lust, too (see Matt. 5:27, 28).

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