Revival Fires Baptist College

Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

I. John 15:12, 17, “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

These things I command you, that ye love one another.”

II. “One another”

A. Love His people.

B. Anytime “one another” appears, He is talking about relationships.

1.Husband to wife

2.Church member to church member

3.Friend to friend.

4.Pastor to people

5.People to pastor

C. How I am to treat someone in a relationship.

III. The first thing we must assume as the people of God is the right crowd.

A. My relationship should be with people of like faith and like practice.

B. You don’t need to have your friendships, marital status, etc. with someone who is

Catholic, Lutheran, or someone who does not believe the Bible.

IV. Someone who believes what the Bible says about separation does not mean that they should

yoke up with some worldly person.

A. All you are asking for is heartache and trouble.

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 Revival Fires Baptist College

Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

B. You will not marry or get in a strong friendship with someone who is a liberal and

change them.

C. You are asking for compromise.

D. You must have those going in the same direction.

E. If I am going north and you are going south, we can’t go together.

F. If I am going north and you are going northeast, we can’t go together for very long.

V. Relationships must have the right basis.

VI. “One another” talks about the ways we are to be ethical with one another in relationships.

A. To enable us to properly treat one another in the relationship that has been established.

B. If relationships are not built on Biblical principles, they will sour, collapse, and will not

be lasting relationships.

VII. If you are his friend, you can’t be my friend, is an immature type of friendship.

A. Immature friendship is too possessive.

VIII. Relationships should be built on contribution.

A. Not on what I can get out of it, but on what I can contribute to it.

B. When I enter friendship, I ought to enter into it to contribute to it, not to meet my own

needs.

C. Real friendship is not trying to get it’s 50%.

D. Real friendship is setting out to be a blessing to someone else.

IX. Friendship, fellowship, and love is a giving thing, not a taking thing.

X. It is unethical for me to establish a relationship to try to meet my needs.

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 Revival Fires Baptist College

Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

A. That is not friendship, that is exploitation.

B. That is going to be a disappointment piece.

XI. I cannot decide if I have a friend, I can only decide if I am a friend.

A. I cannot make anyone be my friend, but the Bible does say, “He that will have a friend

must show himself friendly.”

B. Friendship has to do with me deciding to be a blessing to someone.

C. I should enter any relationship as a contributor.

XII. 50/50 marriages don’t work.

A. 50/50 means that each side is trying to get their part.

B. 100/100 relationships work.

1.Both people put everything in, instead of worrying about getting their half

out.

2.You will have a better, richer relationship, and you will personally get more

out, if you put 100% in and that causes the other person to do the same.

XIII. Proverbs 18:24, “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that

sticketh closer than a brother.”

A. Friendly means you are showing yourself to be a contributor.

B. You show yourself to be a need-meeter.

C. That is what friendships and relationships are built on.

D. You show yourself to be unselfish.

E. Someone who is genuinely trying to help the person and meet their needs.

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 Revival Fires Baptist College

Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

XIV. Romans 12:10, “Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring

one another;”

A. Almost every time you find the words, “one another”, He is talking about love in the

verse.

B. Love is the governing rule in ethics.

C. If I do not love, I will not be ethical.

D. If my love is focused on myself, then it is going to be misdirected.

1.Your motive

2.If my motive in this relationship is to meet my need and I love myself and not

the other person, then I will be unethical to get my need met because that is

all I am concerned about.

3.The reason why the friendship goes bad is because there isn’t one.

E. “Kindly affectioned”

1.Not talking about husband and wife.

2.Not intimately, but kindly.

3.You should have two intimate relationships in your life, one with the Lord

Jesus and the other with your spouse whom you marry.

4.There ought to be a certain kind affection you have toward the brethren and

toward other people where there is not so much the matter of intimacy.

F. “Preferring one another”

1.To prefer someone means you put them ahead of yourself.

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 Revival Fires Baptist College

Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

2.You give them first place, you give them preference.

3.The real difference in being ethical or unethical is when I decide to prefer

someone or not.

4.Truth is we all love ourselves.

a. If I am going to be what I ought to be as a friend, I must give them

preference, not myself preference.

5.Proverbs 13:10, “Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised

is wisdom.”

a. When you find contention, there is pride involved in it.

b. One or the other or both parties.

6.Sad thing is that familiarity often breeds contempt.

a. That is contrary to the Bible.

b. Familiarity breeds contempt because we are ceasing to prefer one

another.

c. We are not giving them honor and respect.

7.For any relationship to last, there must be a mutual respect.

a. No relationship will last without respect.

8.It is ethical for me to prefer someone else in a relationship.

a. It is ethical for me to respect them.

b. To honor them.

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 Revival Fires Baptist College

Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

9.Every single relationship that you establish, if you have these principles and

apply them, you can make it last.

XV. Galatians 5:13, “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an

occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.”

A. He is dealing with two major problems.

1.Legalism adding to salvation.

2.Using their liberty as the people of God to the occasion of their flesh.

B. He was trying to balance it.

C. People by nature are extremists.

1.Too hard.

2.Too easy.

D. Server one another in love.

E. Serve because I love you, not because it is my duty.

1.If all it is is duty, you won’t keep doing it.

2.There is a time when someone does something because of duty.

3.If you are going to do something for the rest of your life, you must find some

delight in it.

4.I must turn duty into delight if I am going to continue to do it.

5.Not just because I am scripturally commanded to, but I ought to obey the

scriptures.

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 Revival Fires Baptist College

Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

F. 1 Peter 4:9-10, “Use hospitality one to another without grudging. As every man hath

received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the

manifold grace of God.”

1.I am supposed to use hospitality toward one another.

2.I am supposed to minister or serve one another.

G. If I just do strictly my duty, there are a lot of people I won’t serve because I don’t have

a duty to them.

1.Jesus had no duty to wash his disciple’s feet.

a. He did it in love.

b. He did it to set an example of humility in serving one another.

2.The reason why we don’t want to serve is because we think we are above

someone else.

a. I don’t have to serve him.

b. Don’t forget that you are a servant.

i. That is your primary function.

c. You will get to the place where you don’t think you need to do anything

for people because you think you are above them.

i. Usually after you have been in your pastorate for a while.

ii. You hear all the wonderful statements people say.

iii. You better not believe the statements people say about you.

a) It is okay for them to say it.

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Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

b) If you start believing it, you are a gonner.

H. The person with a servant’s heart is looking for a need to meet or a way to serve.

1.He is looking for a need.

I. Greatest things about old-time preachers is that they are servants.

1.They are looking for needs.

2.If God can find someone who wants to serve and meet needs, he will give

them the means to meet it.

a. God will give them the power to be a good servant.

b. God will give them the ability financially to be a blessing if they have

that sensitivity of heart.

J. We ought to enter a relationship to serve the other party, not to be served by them.

K. Don’t serve with the idea of payback in mind.

1.Don’t serve to be served.

2.Don’t serve them to get them to serve you.

3.Serve freely because you are doing it for Jesus and you are doing it in love.

4.Love is not a thing that expects payment.

5.If I love freely, I will be loved freely.

6.It is ethical to enter a relationship seeing myself as a servant to the person I

have chosen to be a servant to.

XVI. “Bearing one another’s burdens”

A. Sustaining one another.

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 Revival Fires Baptist College

Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

B. Not talking about me doing their responsibilities for them.

C. God wants me to try to lift the unbearable load when someone is about to be crushed

into oblivion by the load.

XVII. “So fulfill the law of Christ”

A. The law of Christ is a law of love.

XVIII. 1 Thessalonians 4:18, “Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”

A. Don’t spare when you are going through hard times.

B. Comfort one another with encouraging words.

XIX. If you are not interested in another’s problems, you are not deciding to be a friend.

A. If all you are interested is someone to pour your problems, you are not deciding to be

a friend either.

B. We are selfish by nature.

C. Most things we do we do selfishly.

1.What is in it for me?

2.How is this going to benefit me?

3.What do I get out of it?

D. If you establish relationships like that, you will bring a lot of disappointments upon

yourself in relationships, because you built them on a false premise, something that

cannot last.

1.Something that is totally unethical.

XX. Hebrews 10:24, “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:”

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 Revival Fires Baptist College

Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

A. We are good at provoking one another.

1.Not to love and good works.

B. I am to stir you, giving you a wakeup call, creating something that is uneasy, so you

will snap to it and get provoked.

1.You might get upset, but it is a good outcome.

C. God saved us to bring forth good works.

D. A lot of folks go around the world to get people saved, but let those in their backyard

go to hell.

XXI. Amnon

A. He had a “friend” named Jonadab.

B. Was not a true friend.

C. What he told Amnon to do ultimately cost him his life.

D. He provoked him to evil and ungodliness.

XXII. A real friendship can be found in the relationship of Jonathan and David.

A. Jonathan came to David in the field and strengthened his hand in the Lord.

B. Romans 14:19, “Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and

things wherewith one may edify another.”

1.Edify – Build up or strengthen

XXIII. 1 Corinthians 14 has to do with public service.

A. He is telling them to have everything to be done decently and in order.

B. Everything is to be done for edification.

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Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

C. Everyone was displaying their own talent, their own gift.

D. There was nothing being done:

1.To provoke one another to love and good works.

2.To strengthen one another.

3.For the purpose of serving one another.

E. Someone you call a friend that consoles you in wrongdoing is not a true friend.

1.Someone who encourages you in wrong doing is not a friend.

2.Someone who makes you comfortable in wrong doing is not your friend.

XXIV. When you violate the principles of separation, you are weakening yourself right away.

A. It all goes downhill from there.

B. Soon he was back in his old bad habits.

C. You are not helping them by going down to their level.

XXV. We are poor friends because we think that to be a good friend we must be in total agreement

with everything everybody does.

A. Taking their side of the issue whether they are right or wrong.

B. We are not friends, we are damaging them.

C. We are encouraging them in that which is destructive.

XXVI. A real friend will take a stand for the benefit of the person.

XXVII. Proverbs 27:6, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”

A. If someone is your enemy and they are falling all over you, they have an ulterior motive.

1.They are trying to get an advantage on you.

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Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

B. I may say something that you really didn’t want to hear.

1.But you do need to hear it.

2.I am more concerned about your welfare than what you think about what I

say.

3.I am more concerned about your life and how it turns out.

4.I can’t decide how you will receive it; I must decide to be a friend.

5.You must let me be a friend; I cannot force that.

C. I must be willing to say things that you don’t want to hear for your sake.

XXVIII. Sometimes our enemies are better friends than our friends are.

A. Sometimes when you are doing the wrong thing, your friends will pat you on the back

while your enemies will criticize you.

B. Someone ought to take you to task.

1.Someone who loves you ought to do it.

2.Those who love you don’t want to do it because they are afraid they will upset

you.

C. Sometimes your enemies do you more good than your friends do.

XXIX. A real friend does not just tell you what you want to hear.

A. Paul withstood Peter in the face because of his dissimulation, his hypocrisy.

B. Try to provoke to love and good works, to do the right thing.

XXX. “Forbearing one another”

A. Lowliness instead of pride.

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 Revival Fires Baptist College

Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

B. Longsuffering is a self-restraint that does not hastily retaliate wrong doing.

XXXI. Proverbs 19:11, “The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a

transgression.”

A. If I am discreet and have good sense, it will defer my anger.

B. Instead of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, when someone does something, I

will let it pass.

C. I will not fight for my rights.

D. I am not going to fight to get something out of the relationship.

E. I want them to give it willingly.

F. When someone says something harsh, he says, “He doesn’t mean that, he is having a

bad day.”

G. Forbearance does not exercise all of its rights.

1.Pride stiffens up and takes everything hard.

2.If you stiffen up before an accident, you will get a lot more injury.

a. You will take more of the brunt and the impact because they are not

flexible.

3.Forbearance absorbs some of the shock and keeps us from getting hurt so

easily.

H. Forbearance says, “If I can’t be kind, I’d better just be quiet.”

XXXII. “Forgiving one another”

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Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

A. Ephesians 4:32, “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another,

even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.”

B. Romans 14:13, “Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather,

that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.”

C. Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”

1.Judge means don’t hurl condemnation upon someone.

2.Same text says not to throw pearls before swine.

3.How will I know what is a swine and what is not if I don’t have any

discernment?

D. If I forgive someone, instead of condemning them for what they did, I will give them

another chance.

1.Lasting relationships are not built on perfection, they are built on principle

and they must deal with one another’s imperfections.

XXXIII. One word is connected with almost all of these statements.

A. Love

B. Love is a choice.

1.I must decide to love.

2.Love is an action.

3.I do not always choose my emotion.

4.If love is an emotion, it wouldn’t be a choice.

5.I don’t always dictate how I feel, but I can always dictate how I act.

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Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

6.Love is the act of doing that which is best for the object of my love.

C. Love is not self-seeking

1.Love is the thing that enables me to put the proper building blocks in place to

make the relationship what it ought to be.

2.No matter what relationship it is, these building blocks must go in if it is going

to be what God intended for it to be.

XXXIV. These kind of relationships will never be disappointing.

A. Because if I set out to be a friend instead of to have a friend, I don’t have to be

disappointed, I can always do that.

B. If my motive in this relationship is to be a friend, then I will never be disappointed

because my motive is to be a friend no matter how they respond to it or whether they

are a friend to me.

C. Chances are that if I show myself a friend Biblically, I will have a friend.

D. There will be folks who return it.

E. If I do it strictly for the return, I will be disappointed.

F. I need to be a good enough Christian that I can be the friend I ought to be.

1.If someone else is not the friend they ought to be they can become the friend

they ought to be by watching my friendship.

XXXV. 1 Samuel 18 – Friendship between David and Jonathan.

A. True friends have a bond of souls.

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 Revival Fires Baptist College

Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

1.1 Samuel 18:1, “And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking

unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and

Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”

2.It has to do with deeper things than any kind of physical attractions.

3.It was not just a carnal thing.

4.They had a kindred spirit.

B. True friendships are bound by a covenant of loyalty

1.1 Samuel 18:3, “Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved

him as his own soul.”

2.There should be a covenant of loyalty involved in any kind of friendship.

3.Loyalty does not mean that I become such a yes-man that I am not willing to

tell you what you need to hear.

4.It does mean that I will not betray your trust.

C. True friends are bound by love.

1.1 Samuel 18:3, “Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved

him as his own soul.”

2.Love caused a friendship.

D. True friendships are bound by sacrifice

1.1 Samuel 18:4, “And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him,

and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and

to his girdle.”

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 Revival Fires Baptist College

Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

2.Friendship is a giving, a contributing thing.

E. True friends delight in one another and in one another’s success.

1.It is not a competitive thing, it is delight.

2.The friend of the bridegroom rejoiceth.

3.1 Samuel 19:2, “But Jonathan Saul's son delighted much in David: and

Jonathan told David, saying, Saul my father seeketh to kill thee: now

therefore, I pray thee, take heed to thyself until the morning, and abide in a

secret place, and hide thyself:”

4.He looked out for him.

F. True friends are loyal and protect one another.

1.1 Samuel 19:4-6, “And Jonathan spake good of David unto Saul his father,

and said unto him, Let not the king sin against his servant, against David;

because he hath not sinned against thee, and because his works have been to

thee-ward very good: For he did put his life in his hand, and slew the

Philistine, and the LORD wrought a great salvation for all Israel: thou sawest

it, and didst rejoice: wherefore then wilt thou sin against innocent blood, to

slay David without a cause? And Saul hearkened unto the voice of Jonathan:

and Saul sware, As the LORD liveth, he shall not be slain.”

2.Jonathan spoke to his father on David’s behalf.

G. True friends rejoice in the other’s exaltation even at their own expense.

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 Revival Fires Baptist College

Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

1.1 Samuel 20:13-17, “The LORD do so and much more to Jonathan: but if it

please my father to do thee evil, then I will shew it thee, and send thee away,

that thou mayest go in peace: and the LORD be with thee, as he hath been

with my father. And thou shalt not only while yet I live shew me the kindness

of the LORD, that I die not: But also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from

my house for ever: no, not when the LORD hath cut off the enemies of David

every one from the face of the earth. So Jonathan made a covenant with the

house of David, saying, Let the LORD even require it at the hand of David's

enemies. And Jonathan caused David to swear again, because he loved him:

for he loved him as he loved his own soul.”

2.Jonathan rejoiced in the fact that David was going to be king.

3.As Saul’s son, he could have been the next king.

4.I wasn’t the will of God.

H. True friendship grieves over one another’s calamity.

1.1 Samuel 20:34, “So Jonathan arose from the table in fierce anger, and did eat

no meat the second day of the month: for he was grieved for David, because

his father had done him shame.”

2.He was grieved when David was hurt.

3.It bothered him when David was in a bad situation.

I. True friends have a relationship that is based on the Lord as a common denominator.

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 Revival Fires Baptist College

Christian Ethics

Professor: Dr. Dennis Corle

Ethics in Relationships

1.1 Samuel 20:42, “And Jonathan said to David, Go in peace, forasmuch as we

have sworn both of us in the name of the LORD, saying, The LORD be

between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed for ever. And he

arose and departed: and Jonathan went into the city.”

2.Not a common iniquity, enemy, like in the sense of material things.

3.It was a fact that they had a common love for God.

J. True friends come to one another’s side in adversity.

1.1 Samuel 23:15-16, “And David saw that Saul was come out to seek his life:

and David was in the wilderness of Ziph in a wood. And Jonathan Saul's son

arose, and went to David into the wood, and strengthened his hand in God.”

K. True friends strengthen one another’s hand.

1.1 Samuel 23:16, “And Jonathan Saul's son arose, and went to David into the

wood, and strengthened his hand in God.”

2.He did not weaken or discourage him.

3.He encouraged him in spiritual things, in the Lord.

XXXVI. In life we will have a few hundred acquaintances, but if we have a true friend, we ought to

thank God for someone who meets this kind of criteria that Jonathan and David had.

A. You ought to set out to be that kind of friend.

B. Thank God if you have even one.

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