When Doing the Right Thing Is Complicated

To live life is to make a series of choices. Some are simpler, such as what cereal to eat for breakfast or what color of shoes to wear. Other choices are more complex because they challenge you ethically.

The scenarios offered here are for personal reflection, or maybe for discussion in small groups you belong to. They remind us that being like Jesus is being ethical always, whether in seemingly small matters or grand and dramatic contexts.—Editors.

You have $30,000 to spend on a car. Should you buy a car with all the “bells and whistles” and spend the entire $30,000, or should you buy a car with fewer features and use the $5,000 saved to support some mission or community service initiative?

You, or someone you know, needs an organ donation. To what lengths would you go to improve your chances of getting a donated organ?

In a public place you see a friend being intimate with someone who is not their spouse. What do you do? Whom do you tell? Do you have to tell anyone?

A friend is posting on social media material that is demonstrably false. What course of Christlike action will most help your friend to be more careful in what they post?

Someone you’ve known for many years moves to your community and begins attending your church. You’re aware that they’ve experienced a number of failed relationships and business disappointments. Should you share with others what you know? Why or why not?

Some of your neighbors have been commenting about the new family that has joined your community. They’re uncomfortable with the new neighbors’ ethnicity, and have been mumbling about whether the new family is even “legal.” What do you say in such conversations?

A ballot initiative seeks to raise the salaries of public school teachers, funding the raise by increasing property taxes. Which side should you be on? Why?

You’re invited to attend a rally against gun violence scheduled for a Sabbath afternoon. Should you go?

One of the public schools in your community has been exposed as having a culture of bullying. What will be your level of involvement in putting an end to bullying and raising the standard of tolerance for vulnerable kids?

One of the Sabbath School teachers in your church is slowly losing the ability to teach. How do you tactfully—and honestly—ease them out of such a public role into a more behind-the-scenes role?

Your community has an intersection at which several pedestrians have been killed or injured in the past 12 months. What, if anything, would you do to help civic authorities create a solution to this problem?