We have all read the words so many times....We hold these truths to be self-evident....
What truths?
1. That all men are created equal
2. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights
(unalienable means they can't be taken away or transferred)
3. That these rights include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
4. The purpose of government is to secure these rights
5. Governments get their power and authority from those who are being governed
6. That if a government neglects to secure their rights, the people have a right (duty?) to change or abolish that government and establish a new one that does protect their rights.
Such basic, fundamental rights. They are so well-known that we tend to treat them lightly and forget their importance and how the document changed the history of the world.
We talk today about a lot of rights. Is the pursuit of happiness a right? What exactly is happiness?
People seem to have various ways of defining happiness.
It usually has to do with owning objects,or possessions, that bring pleasure. A new, larger boat? A home in a prestigious neighborhood? Fame? Winning the lottery? Being debt free? Or some would say it means financial security. But in any event, it does usually tie into money.
I mean, has anyone ever said to you, "To be happy I should have as little as possible. Just the barest minimum I need to survive." (I can remember a song from younger days that said "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." But I'm not sure that really means anything in real life.)
Parents talk a lot about what they want for their children. "I just want him to be happy." (Surely that is not all they want, is it?)
What did Thomas Jefferson mean by happiness?
That's easy. The original wording of the phrase is found in the writings of the French philosophers who very popular and respected in those days -- life, liberty and the pursuit of property. That's the way others wrote it.
Jefferson thought that those words reflected a materialistic view of the world, and felt the new, independent states of America had a higher calling.
The new Americans should care less about material things and pursue happiness?
To Jefferson, and the other Founding Fathers, happiness meant the pursuit of a virtuous life. The concept of happiness comes from a Greek word, eudaimonia, which refers to a life well-lived, a life rooted in truth, mercy, goodness, honor, justice, compassion, and all the other things we think of as virtues.
Happiness had nothing to do with self-indulgence and self-gratification, as it appears to mean today. The goal of life was not pleasure, but righteous living.
And that's what our Founding Fathers wanted to say: that we should be free to pursue a life of righteousness.
WOW. Looks like we have come full circle. The very thing Jefferson was trying to negate by changing the word property to the word happiness has been turned around to mean exactly what he didn't want to say. (Now how did that happen?)
So let's get back to basics. If "happiness" means "living a life of virtue" then how do we pursue that lofty goal? For Christians it means to pursue holiness.
Train yourself to be holy (1 Timothy 4:7)
Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God (2 Corinthians 7:1
But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." (1 Peter 1:15-16).
To be holy is to be morally blameless. It is to be separated from sin and, therefore, consecrated to God. The word signifies "separated to God and the conduct befitting those so separated." To live a holy life is to live a life in conformity to the moral precepts of the Bible.
Some visible results of the pursuit of holiness? They are described throughout the Bible. In Galatians 5 there is a partial list: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That fruit of the Holy Spirit is the result of pursuing holiness, or happiness, as our Founding Fathers would have said.
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