Trying to find out how much her pupils knew about famous world leaders, a teacher in the US described two people to them. She said: “This man loved children and formed national programs for their education and welfare. He also helped rebuild a bankrupt economy and restored national pride to his people, and the people loved him for that.”

Seeing the smiles on her charges’ faces, she then described the next person, saying: “This man, on the other hand, had very little education and manners. When he was leader of his people, he got them involved in a war that set father against son, brother against brother and daughter against mother. By the time that was over, hundreds of thousands of people were dead or suffering.”

When the children gasped in horror at the second tale, the teacher brought out the twist in the tale. The first man was Adolf Hitler, the German dictator who condemned six million Jews to their deaths in the concentration camps of Europe and caused great suffering by starting the Second World War. The second man was Abraham Lincoln, the US president who set the laws in motion that freed hundreds of thousands of slaves in the country and gave strong leadership as the US went through the dark years of the American Civil War.

And yet what the teacher told her pupils was absolutely true – Hitler did love children and wanted what he thought was the best for German youths. And Lincoln had only 18 months of schooling, was considered ill bred, and the Civil War split families whose members had different views about the slavery cause.

We love to label and have a reasonably good idea (or so we think) of what or who we consider as good or evil. Philanthropists, social workers, selfless doctors, and the likes are who we view as good people. We would even go so far as to call some of them heroes. And there are many who are worthy of the name, like Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mother Teresa. Meanwhile, we reserve the label of evil, or villain, for violent criminals, paedophiles, serial killers, and others like them.

But my earlier tale should remind us that good and evil is not as clear cut as that at all. In fact, all of us have the capacity for good and evil in our lives. As recent court cases have shown, people originally looked up to as paragons of virtue have been shown to be guilty of offences ranging from financial mismanagement, corruption, and even adultery.

Jesus said it correctly when he told the rich young ruler who approached him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good – except God alone” (Mk 10:18). Only God is good and the rest of us are sinful, doing good and evil in our lives all the time. The reality is that all of our lives are a combination of good and evil, none of us are completely good or completely evil.

But does the occasional lie or petty theft or swear word register us as evil? One of the ways The Oxford English Dictionary defines evil is “morally depraved, bad, wicked, vicious.” The Bible refers to evil as the sins for which we have a direct responsibility, e.g., dishonoring our parents, lying, and sexual immorality.

But how does one explain what is good? Micah 6:8 explains the Lord’s commands to us clearly when the prophet says: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” So if one links the two points together, evil is when we do not follow the Lord’s commands on what is good. And that means that all of us are guilty of evil, as the injunction in Micah 6:8 covers public and private life.

One cannot hide behind the cover of saying that we are not as bad as the next door neighbor, or rationalize that evil is anything that has links to “really bad” deeds like rape, sexual molestation or mass murder.

God’s standard places us all at the same place – sinful creatures in need of grace.

In his book, People Of The Lie, the late author M Scott Peck referred to evil people as people whose lives were a blatant lie to all the good that they professed to do, people whose lives were at variance with the good qualities they claimed to follow. In his view, to be evil was to live a life that was a lie, plain and simple. Therefore, according to him, an evil person was anyone whose life principles are in direct opposition to godly principles. And that unfortunately, refers to all of us at one time or another. So every time our lives do not match our beliefs, M Scott Peck said we lived a lie and we become as evil as the serial killer, mass murderer or tyrant in the news.

Jesus knew this well. During His ministry on earth, He criticized the scribes and Pharisees for the way their own lives had become blatant lies to God. Look at the words He used for them – “whitewashed tombs,” “snakes,” “blind guides leading the blind.” Definitely not the kind of words I would use to compliment someone. They were all villains, just as much as the crooks in movies or the characters in story books.

Even Nelson Mandela, the man who led post apartheid South Africa and won the world’s respect when he showed graciousness and humility to the men who imprisoned him for nearly 30 years, recently admitted that he had made many mistakes and could not be considered a saint. And former US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, known for his steadfast leadership during the Second World War, was known to be a womanizer with at least one affair.

But it is one thing to be a petty thief or bully and quite another thing to turn into a serial killer or maniac ala Hitler or Stalin. While we all sin, a life of evil is possible when there is a clear intent to do evil, lack of remorse, self reflection, moral awareness, empathy, and understanding of the impact of our actions on our victims and ourselves.

Evil can also take hold when good people are aware of it but do nothing. Edmund Burke put it most succinctly when he said, “All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.” If evil is so widespread, who then is a real hero?

Let us read Micah 6:8 again:”He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

In my book, anyone who follows this teaching is a hero. That can mean the single mother who tries her best, even taking on two or more jobs, to care for her children. Or the single man or woman who forsakes the joy of married life to take care of his or her bedridden parents full time. Or the poor man who finds it in his heart to set aside some of his food for someone who is in a worse plight.

Those are the real heroes, because they do not make a fanfare of their good work but continue to do what they have to do silently and without fuss or self pity. They are heroes because they follow our Lord’s teaching to do their giving in secret, and they will receive their reward from Him.

“But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Mt 6:3-4).

So how do we live heroic lives and shun evil? The remedy therefore is for us to make sure that we live our lives in tune with God’s laws and commandments daily. And while it is not pleasant when we sin and fall, we can take heart that the Holy Spirit speaks for us and Jesus Christ is our advocate before God the Father (1 John 2:1-2). The rest of 1 John 2 clearly spells out our duties to live lives that are clearly a reflection of God’s glory.

“We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did” (1 Jn 2:3-6).

So if we know these truths, we have no excuse to not know how to live. All we need to do is read Micah 6:8 and 1 John 2: 3-6 again and follow what they say. But take heart, if we sin and then repent, there is no need for us to berate ourselves further. All that is left for us to do is to read God’s Word, and then, as Jesus would have said, “Go and do likewise.”

Arulnathan John works for Singapore Press Holdings, and worships at Acts Centre, a daughter congregation under St Andrew’s Cathedral. He loves to read, go to the movies and the theatre, chat on the Internet, and keep his mind open to new experiences.

The New International Version of the Bible has been referenced.