Lessons:

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #1
The Good and Beautiful Life

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #2
The Gospel You May Not Have Heard

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #3
The Grand Invitation

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #4
Anger

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #5
Lust   

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #6
Honesty

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #7
Bless Those Who Curse You

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #8
Learning to Live Without Vainglory

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #9
Learning to Live Without Avarice

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #10
Learning to Live Without Worry

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #11
Learning to Live Without Judging

The Good and Beautiful Life, Lesson #12
Living in the Kingdom

Sin has many defenders and no defense. Sin is ugly. It is the opposite of beauty. When I see a man leering at a woman, it makes me cringe. Anger can be ugly. When I see someone become enraged it is unsightly. Worry is unbecoming, and judging others is repulsive. When I hear someone saying terrible things about another, I feel ill. Pride and prejudice, deception and degradation—all are ugly. When I see these in others, it is clearly unattractive. But when I see them in myself, I am quick to rationalize and minimize them. Despite its ugliness and destructiveness, sin still manages to lure us into its illusion of happiness.

In contrast, virtue—not the outward appearance but the inner reality of a heart that loves goodness—is beautiful. When I see someone tell the truth, though it hurts them, it is lovely. When man treats a woman not as an object but as a person, I see beauty. A person who does a good deed in secrecy is a marvel and wonder. In The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton describes his life of sin and his eventual turning to God in his early years. He despised and ridiculed the word virtue, which had come to mean “prudery practiced by hypocrites.” But Merton discovered that virtue, the power that comes from moral excellence, is the only way to the good life.

Without [virtue] there can be no happiness, because virtues are precisely the powers by which we can come to acquire happiness: without them, there can be no joy, because they are the habits which coordinate and [provide an outlet for] our natural energies and direct them to the harmony and perfection and balance, the unity of our nature with itself and with God, which must, in the end, constitute our everlasting peace.*

“Sin is always ugly; virtue is always beautiful.” Give some examples to back up that statement.

Sin is always ugly, and genuine virtue is always beautiful. Sin leads to ruin, virtue to greater strength. And this is why everyone, even atheists, love Jesus. Jesus was pure virtue. He lived a good and beautiful life, which he is calling his apprentices to live. A virtuous person is a light to everyone around them. I met such a person a few years ago, and he is still having an impact on me.

James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Life: Putting on the Character of Christ, The Apprentice Series (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2009), 15–16.

Check out our Bible Study on The Good and Beautiful Life by James Bryan Smith.

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