The Examined Life

A sermon preached on April 23, 2006, in the evening service at Capitol Hill Baptist Church

Lamentations 3:40 – “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord.”

About two and a half millennia ago, while on trial for his life before the citizens of Athens, charged with atheism and corrupting the city’s youth, the Greek philosopher Socrates offered a defense of the life he had lived. His actions and his words, the things that had gotten him in trouble, he said were the product of his philosophical, contemplative way of life, of his pursuit of the truth. From this defense comes what may be his most famous statement: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” He showed that he truly believed that statement, as he chose to have a death sentence carried out on him rather than go into exile or change his way of life.

Well, what do you think? Is Socrates right? Is self-examination the key to the good life, the only kind of life that is worth living? It certainly doesn’t seem that most people in our society today live as though this were the case. Among the things that we often turn to for meaning, fulfillment, and a happy life—money, possessions, pleasure, work, whatever—contemplation and self-examination probably doesn’t rate very high on the list. In some ways, one might say our society isn't altogether different from the one with which Socrates clashed so many years ago.

Read the rest of this post...