Transcript
COMPROMISE Based on Dan. 1:1-8 By Glenn Pease
A man who had been a notorious thief was telling a friend how going to church had really changed his life. He was in a store just that week and saw the nicest pair of boots. They were just his size, and while he was there the owner of the store stepped out. He could have easily slipped them under his coat and gotten away, and ordinarily he would have, but this time he resisted the temptation. The devil said to take them but the Lord said not to, and there I was in the middle. He concluded, "I didn't know what to do, so I compromised. I took a pair of shoes instead." Obviously his life was not as dramatically changed as he thought, for his compromise still left him as a thief. The question is, however, is all compromise of this same worthless nature? Is Reginald Kauffman accurate when he says, "Compromise is never anything but an ignoble truce between the duty of a man and the terror of a coward." Or is Edmund Burke the one who speaks the truth when he says, "All government indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act is founded on compromise and barter." Any wise student seeing these on a true or false test would mark them both false, for one has a never and the other an every, and an absolute is almost always false. Neither extreme can be defended which says that compromise is always a virtue or always a vice. This question on compromise is stimulated by this first chapter of Daniel because it appears that there is a contradiction in Daniel's attitude. He refuses to compromise when it comes to eating heathen food, but he submits without objection to a heathen education and a heathen name. Some commentators question Daniel's values here. They wonder why he draws the line where he does. It seems to be such a minor point on which he resists, and then he goes along with more major issues. It has to be admitted that Daniel did enter into involvement with the pagan culture on many levels. But he refused to do so on this level of eating. I think it is worth our time to try and discover the difference, for this would give us instruction for our own lives as to our own relationship to our culture. I think there are at least three kinds of compromise, and each of them is illustrated by Daniel's experience in Babylon. First we seeI. COMPROMISE WHICH IS A VIRTUE. The first thing we have to do is establish that this can be so, and that compromise is not an absolute evil. John Herman Randall Jr. wrote, "Now anybody who is capable of learning anything from experience knows that the only way to get along with people, the only way to do anything together with anybody else, is through compromise. You don't need exceptional brains to realize that. You need only to be married or to have a friend." If your wife insists that you go on a picnic on a Saturday, and you insist that you go on it on Sunday, and both of you hold your conviction with the view that it is evil and cowardly to give in, you have a situation
which one can predict will lead to a dark future. If one yields to the other and avoids the conflict, it is a virtue. It is a virtue because it compromises only personal interests and not any principle or moral that affects your relationship to God. Examples of this kind of compromise are endless. It would be tragic if there were no such thing as compromise between management and labor. It neither made any concession, but were uncompromising in their demands, our whole economic system would be in chaos, and nothing would ever get settled. One could make 20 compromises a day on the level of human relationships, and not in any way be out of God's perfect will. This is the kind of compromise Daniel made on the matter of the pagan education he was to receive. He no more compromised his loyalty to God at this point than does a Christian youth who goes off to a secular university to study ancient mythology under an atheistic professor. Daniel was getting one of the best educations of the day. The Chaldeans were advanced and cultured, and they had plenty to offer. The fact that they also had some weird courses on astrology and magic made no difference. A youth like Daniel, who had been instructed in the truth, and who had an intimate relationship with the true God, would be no more disturbed than a mature Christian today would be by taking a course in mythology. It was a good thing for Daniel to get an education, even if it was from a pagan viewpoint. Moses was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and this also was in God's providence. If Daniel was going to be a leader of great influence for God, he had to learn the Babylonian language, culture, etc., just as missionaries today study all sorts of strange things in seeking to understand the culture of the pagans they are trying to reach for Christ. To be used in this world we must see that it is a virtue to compromise and give some time to the learning of what is part of a pagan culture so we can understand those who are captivated by it, and be more effective in combating it. Daniel may have had other plans for his life's studies before he was taken captive, but had he been unbending and refused to study under the Chaldeans, he would have been no good to God or his people. Daniel was too wise to be stubborn here. He gladly took the opportunity to learn all he could, and such a compromise was a virtue. Next we look atII. COMPROMISE WHICH IS A NECESSITY. There are compromises which are not in any way virtues, and are even partly tinged with any evil, but which are the lesser of two evils, and, therefore, are necessary. An example would be, if a drunk comes charging at you with a knife, and in the fight you are forced to save your life by fighting so furiously that you kill the attacker in self-defense. Here is a case of a necessary compromise on the commandment against killing. It is no virtue to have killed the man, but it is less evil than if you who are innocent are the one who is killed. This illustration does not leave much room for choice, but the same thing can apply where there is premeditated choice. It happens all the time in politics. A man can be an idealist and refuse to settle for anything less than utopia, but he will get nowhere. It is the man who is willing to compromise and take little steps at a time who can move forward. He may have to stand for less in
order to get something rather than nothing. If a man always says all or nothing, he is more likely to get nothing. So there are points in life where a believer must compromise in a way that is not virtuous, but yet not totally evil either. It is a matter of the lesser of two evils. Luther said that we must exist in compromise where there is no such thing as existential perfection. For example, if you were in Russia and two Christians escaped from prison where they were political prisoners falsely condemned to die, and they came to your home for refuge, and the state police come searching and asking if you had sent two escapes convicts, would you say, with Washington, "I cannot tell a lie," and give them up, or would you compromise on what you believe about lying. Would you insist that love for your brothers in Christ is greater than the obligation to tell the truth? Would you say then that you had not seen them? Situation ethics says that love alone is the absolute, and if need be all other laws can be broken to keep the law of love. Dwight Eisenhower said, "People talk about the middle of the road as though it was unacceptable. Actually, all human problems, excepting morals, come into the gray areas. Things are not all black and white. There have to be compromises. The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters." This is not just a made up illustration, for there are decisions like this that people are making all the time, and they are forced to compromise truth and principles for the sake of love, or for the sake of a greater good. Winton Churchill said that this is essential in political life to escape total impotence. But the fact that it is necessary does not make it a virtue. Let us never think that it is good in itself to compromise because love demands it, or because it is a matter of necessity. It may be the lesser of two evils, but it is nevertheless an evil. How does Daniel's experience fit this category? On the matter of accepting the chance of his name from one that gives a witness to God to one who gives a witness to a pagan god, we have to admit there is no virtue in this at all. There was a tinge of evil, as Daniel comes close to the system of idolatry. He may have despised it, and he would have denied he would ever do such a thing earlier, but now he compromises. He had no choice because it was a matter of necessity. He could not control what his captures called him. He and his companions may not have called each other by these names, but likely they did. Most Christians know the three companions by their pagan names of Shadrack, Meschack and Abed-nego rather than by their Hebrew names. They might have put a futile fight over the issue and lost their chance for an education, but they choose to endure the change. It was a compromise of necessity because resistance would end only in lost opportunity to be used of God. It was better to allow the evil of the names and offset it by living for the glory of God in that negative situation. Next we seeIII. COMPROMISE WHICH IS VICE. For Daniel this was the compromise over eating meat offered to idols, and wine
dedicated to a pagan god. This was the line they would not cross. Compromise like this was totally evil. In the New Testament this particular issue changed, and eating meat offered to an idol was no longer an absolute sin. In the Old Testament, however, it was a matter of law and God's clear revelation. The mark of a godly man was his loyalty to what he knew of God's law. Daniel's contemporary was Ezekiel, and he wrote in Ezek. 4:14, "Ah, Lord God! Behold, I have never defiled myself; from my youth up to now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has foul flesh come into my mouth." The issues they faced were certainly different from what we face today, for we are free from all those provisions of the law on clean and unclean foods. Nevertheless it was God's final word up to then, and it called for absolute loyalty. To compromise on what is clearly revealed is outright rebellion against God when one is not trapped by necessity to do a lesser of two evils. Daniel was not trapped by necessity on this point. He had the opportunity to try and escape from partaking of the food. Had there been no escape Daniel may have chosen to die rather than compromise, for he did so later on the matter of prayer, and he was cast to the lions. There are absolutes, which are not to be compromised even if the consequence is death. Such was the case with the many martyrs who were killed by refusing to deny Christ. Rudyard Kipling wrote, Man, a bear in most relations, worm and savage otherwiseMan propounds negotiations, man accepts the compromiseVery rarely will he squarely push the logic of a fact To its ultimate conclusion in unmitigated act. This is true for Christians also. It is rare that our stand must be absolute and uncompromising, but when it comes to matters of clear revelation concerning Jesus Christ the Christian dare not compromise, but push the logic of Christ's Lordship to its ultimate conclusion, and recognize that death is the lesser of two evils if the choice is between death and the denial of Christ. We need to pray for wisdom in our dealings with the world that we might be able to clearly discern when compromise is wrong, and when it can be legitimate and beneficial to the kingdom of God.