This is Part 3 of a three-part series. Read Part 1 and Part 2.
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Matt 7:24)
As people who follow Jesus, we want a firm foundation as we seek to live well and wisely in God’s world. We long to be blameless and innocent, without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom we shine as lights in the world (Phil 2:15). But how can we know how to live righteously in each moment when we don’t always have a direct word from Jesus that we can hear and do? How can we know what is the most loving and just thing to do in these circumstances?
In my two previous articles, I have argued that proper Christian ethics must flow out of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is through the gospel that we have life and that we know how to live it. The gospel is the key to doing good in the here and now.
This article will begin to explore how we hear and do Jesus’ words, especially when he doesn’t appear to have addressed the particular problem in front of us directly. We will consider how the arc of the gospel—from crucified servant to reigning Lord—might help guide the way we live. We shall also begin to trace a bit more of the shape of ‘doing good’, drawing out the biblical themes of love and wisdom.
Following Jesus: Between the martyr and the prince
Being a ‘good’ Christian must evoke strangely conflicting images in the modern mind. On the one hand, Christianity has given rise to asceticism: poverty, chastity, obedience, and self-flagellation; on the other, to health, wealth and fast-talking Jeep-drivers. And indeed, when we look at the Bible, we see that the Christian life necessarily involves both suffering (2 Tim 3:12, 1 Pet 5:9) and joy (Rom 12:12, Phil 4:4, 1 Pet 1:8). How can these images be reconciled?
Let’s begin by noting that in Jesus’ life, there is a movement from suffering to joy, from cross to resurrection, from shame and humility, to vindication and exaltation. We shouldn’t be surprised, then, to find in the New Testament a similar pattern for those who are in Christ: we might share both in his sufferings (as servants) and in his authority (as God’s image-bearers). Our temptation is always to privilege one of these over the other: we like to think of ourselves only as miserable worms, or only as privileged children in the royal household. But both are true, and this will affect the way we live as we seek to do good in the world.
If we are to make any sense of this, we need to recognize that our contemporary western idols of comfort and happiness are not the highest goods. Instead, in all things—pleasant or no—God is working for our good—that is, conforming us to the likeness of his Son (Rom 8:28). While we should never label ‘good’ what is, in fact, ‘evil’, we must notice that God can bring good out of evil consistently. This is most evident in two views of the death of Jesus: it is the most abhorrent violation of the moral order, and yet it may also be seen as the good fulfilment of God’s justice and mercy (Acts 2:23, Rom 3:25-26).
On far less grand a scale, the same ‘two views’ may be applied over time in our lives:
… we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Rom 5:3-5; cf. Jas 1:2-4).
Suffering is not to be masochistically pursued, but it is sometimes God’s chosen means to discipline us (Heb 12:4-11), so that we will bear the good fruit of becoming more like Jesus. But more like Jesus how—servant or king?
Some Christians suffer terrible poverty or persecution, and the circumstances of their lives restrict the concrete options available to them as they seek to follow Jesus. For some, it is a daily struggle to avoid violence, disease or starvation. These conditions existed for the early church, too, and so we find that the primary ethical call in some New Testament books (e.g. Mark, Hebrews, Peter’s epistles, Revelation) is not pro-active ‘love’, but ‘faithfulness’, ‘patient endurance’ or ‘taking up one’s cross’. In such instances, the focus of the resurrection is not the vindication of the created order, but the vindication of the victim: God will raise up his unjustly downtrodden servants! I am, by no means, suggesting that persecuted Christians can never initiate good; God has shown again and again how he works through the humblest and meanest circumstances! But let’s acknowledge that the kinds of good that some Christians can do are limited by their surroundings. Street evangelism may not be a wise option when it leads immediately to execution. Should a widow feed strangers when her own children are starving?
But what about those of us who aren’t victims of this world’s injustice? God has granted some of us an embarrassing amount freedom and power with which to serve him. Being martyred remains a serious probability for some, but it seems quite unlikely for me. Therefore, it is not necessarily the best reference-point for me as I orient my life. Instead, I need to recognize that I belong to a group of Christians in peculiarly blessed circumstances: I live in a peaceful, safe country, with an abundance of worldly goods, and endless options for education and employment. It is not difficult to use these gifts to do good; the difficulty is choosing how best to do so. People in my circles tend to have wealth, might or other influence that open up numerous possibilities for being a blessing in the world. We may expect such Christians to be ‘not many’ (1 Cor 1:26-29), but perhaps that only increases the call on us to exploit our favourable conditions for the glory of God and the good of his creatures—not least fellow Christians who are suffering (Matt 25:40, Gal 6:10)!
Obviously we should be doing this on the small and local scale (e.g. caring for poor people in our suburb, or supporting stable marriages and families in our neighbourhood), but we can think and act in larger spheres as well. The histories of, for example, Joseph, Daniel, Nehemiah and Esther show how wise and godly believers can bring God’s blessing to people who do not know him, especially through leaders. The apostles clearly saw it as their task to pray for and to preach Christ to those in authority (Acts 4:6-31, 26:2-30, 1 Tim 2:1-2). How much more should we, whose governments do not threaten us with even a metaphorical sword for doing so?
Of course, our rejoicing in the victory of the resurrection must be filtered through the cross or our ethics will become distorted. The still-to-come aspect of the New Testament teaches us that we are “fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:17; cf. Acts 14:22). The normal pattern is for good things to come only through (painful) effort. Suffering and joy, weakness and power, are twin companions of the church who await Christ’s return.
Thankfully, however, the arc of the Messiah’s life provides guidance for us, whatever our situation. For all of us, discipleship (i.e. faithfully following Jesus) will not mean merely standing at a safe distance and thinking about his life. Instead, we must emulate that life!
Love: the bond of deeds and character1
If we emulate Jesus, we will love (Mark 12:28-34, Heb 10:23-25, 1 Pet 1:22, 4:8, Rev 2:19). We are to follow his example of self-sacrifice (Phil 2:4-5, 1 Pet 2:21). If the gospel is at the heart of all theology, love is at the heart of all of its practical outworkings. This love is not soppy sentimentalism; any proper interpretation of the term will include repentance, discipline, sacrifice and transformation.2 So when we look for love, we should find both deeds and character.
Living a godly life does not merely consist in performing various loving actions, it involves the development of Christ-like virtues and character. In the first instance, the shape of our character is determined by God’s gospel love and forgiveness: he who is forgiven much, loves much. As God through the gospel grows a ‘new self’ in us (e.g. Eph 4:20-24), we find that all its virtues might be summed up as ‘love’. This must be an implication of 1 Corinthians 13, and a similar idea appears elsewhere in the New Testament (Eph 5:2, Col 3:14, 1 Pet 4:8). Indeed, ‘love’ might even be described as what marks Christians apart (John 13:35). Of course, Christian moral character is never completely formed, but is always being refined: love grows (Eph 4:16, 2 Thess 1:3).
A loving character and loving actions are interdependent: good character helps give rise to moral decisions and deeds, while acting rightly grows a righteous character.3 To make moral decisions, we will need to hold to a gospel-centred biblical theology, learn to draw from the Scripture’s moral principles in accordance with love, and obey appropriate rules. We develop a moral character as we pursue the various virtues emphasized in the New Testament (including patient endurance, gentleness, kindness, humility and purity) and as we avoid vices (such as those listed in Mark 7:21-22 and Rom 1:29-31), all the while educating our conscience. Such character is developed in community through particular instances of being, say, patient or gentle, or of experiencing such treatment from others. Over time, we might hope that, out of our transformed character, we will more easily perform loving actions. Of course, this may well be a slow process, but we have much reason to thank God when we see him at work in us and in others to grow us in love!
Love: The fulfilment of the Law
For the New Testament writers, the Law of Moses may be summed up as ‘love’ (Matt 22:37-40, Rom 13:8-10, Gal 5:14; cf. 1 Pet 4:8). It is difficult to know exactly what this means, and these sayings are much discussed.4 It should help, however, if we press the notions of ‘loving God’ and ‘loving neighbour’. Loving God cannot mean less than honouring and obeying him (John 14:15, 1 John 2:3-4). If we obey God, then we will worship him with our whole lives and thus fulfil the law of Deuteronomy 6:5 (cf. Rom 12:1). Moreover, if God is the creator and sustainer of reality, loving him also implies loving his creation: as he seeks its good, so should we.
Thus we cannot see ‘love of God’ and ‘love of neighbour’ as potentially opposed.5 Instead, if the command to love our neighbour is a necessary result of loving God, we really only need the one commandment! Perhaps Jesus insists on loving our neighbour to remind us that loving God is not an airy-fairy, mystical affair: we show we love God in the real world he has created (1 John 3:17). Our own Christian culture may not be so far removed from Jesus’ contemporaries’ who claimed to love God and yet were indifferent to his creatures (Mark 7:11-13, Luke 10:29-37).
The command to love our neighbour becomes difficult, however, when we start to think it through practically.6 With our human limitations, we cannot love the world concretely; that is God’s job! But we can—and must!—love our neighbours—that is, the people in our vicinity. Even here, of course, we are limited: beyond praying, how can I love the 12 million people in my city, the 200,000 people in my borough, or even the thousands of people in my street? Naturally, I can love them in an indirect and shallow way, by, say, working hard, paying my taxes, and contributing generally to peace and well-being. But if I want to show self-sacrificial love (in which I love people in deep, particular and quantifiable ways), I need to choose a smaller group: my family, in the first instance, then, perhaps, my small group at church, a few colleagues, and my neighbours across the landing. Whomever I choose, I must choose someone, and begin to love them prayerfully in concrete ways.
As we puzzle through ‘love’ as the fulfilment of the Law, we should observe one more thing: love helps to define our Christian freedom. Love is both an expression of freedom and a limit on freedom. That is, the command to love is completely open-ended, and puts no limit on Christians’ service of one another and of God. At the same time, it constrains the kind of freedom that is on view: Christian freedom is not a licence to live badly, but the freedom to serve (Rom 6:17-18, 8:2, 6-7, Gal 5:1, 5-6, 13). Thus the ‘law of love’ gives us both boundaries (things we must not do) as well as contours (things we should consider doing if we want to call ourselves Christian). We might use the metaphor of a river: it has banks (specific negative commands which give the limits of what is appropriate), but within the flow of the stream (positive commands to love), there is almost boundless freedom to do good.7
The New Testament also provides us with a few worked examples which should help us understand the shape of Christian love and freedom. For instance, as we contemplate an action, Paul invites us to ask such overarching questions as: “Am I fully persuaded it is right?” (Rom 14:5, 14, 23); “Can I do it in service of the Lord?” (Rom 14:6-8); “Am I being a stumbling-block?” (Rom 14:13, 15, 20-21); “Does it bring peace?” (Rom 14:17-19); “Does it edify my brother?” (Rom 14:19); “Is it profitable?” (1 Cor 6:12, Phil 4:8); “Does it enslave me?” (1 Cor 6:12); and “Does it bring glory to God?” (1 Cor 10:31).8
And, of course, we must not see ‘love’ as a principle that somehow trumps everything else. If we want to take the ‘loving’ course of action, we shouldn’t expect it to be inconsistent with being, say, ‘just’ or ‘courageous’. On the contrary, we learn what it means to love as we see the breadth of what God values (and indeed, how he acts), even as our understanding of other laws and virtues is informed by our view of love.
Having said all this, we may find that there are some actions (such as shrewd business management that leads to material prosperity, or positively influencing government) that do not easily fit under the rubric of ‘love’, and yet are not inconsistent with it. Perhaps here we might appeal to a biblical notion of wise or righteous living.
Wisdom as right living
The freedom and knowledge we have in the gospel will allow us to live well, which will include behaviour that that we would not ordinarily describe as ‘loving’. For example, the Bible instructs the employee to work hard (Prov 6:6), the home owner to be vigilant (Eccl 10:18), the king to be just (Prov 29:4) and his subjects to be canny (Prov 16:13, 20:2, Eccl 10:20). Such strains of thought run throughout the Bible, but are concentrated in the books of Wisdom.
Getting wisdom is not an easy process; it requires intervention from God (Jas 1:5), and, on our part, it demands careful contemplation rather than unthinking obedience. The opening of Proverbs tells us that the book will teach us wisdom, but we first need to learn how to read the book in order to understand its “words of insight” (Prov 1:2)! Many of these proverbs are cryptic sayings in sparse Hebrew; just comparing some different translations shows how difficult they are to interpret. Moreover, we find that contradictory principles are sometimes juxtaposed, e.g. 26:4-5: “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.” The sayings appear to be compiled in such a way as to draw the reader into reflection: in some situations, we must answer a fool; in others, we must not. We will be wise when we know which situation is which!
The wisdom on view here is aligned with righteousness (Prov 1:3, 9:9, 10:31, 23:24; cf. Ps 37:30, Eccl 7:16, 9:1)—that is, living rightly in the world. Perhaps this is clearest in Proverbs 9 where Ladies Wisdom and Folly call people to righteous life (v. 9) and to death (v. 18) respectively. We find a similar thought in the New Testament where wisdom, like love, might be seen as a summary of ‘doing good’ (Matt 11:19, Eph 5:15, Col 4:5, Jas 3:13-18). Jesus himself is, of course, the ultimate wise man and the very wisdom of God (Matt 12:42, Luke 2:52, 1 Cor 1:24, 30, Col 2:3). Time and again, we marvel at his control of his surroundings and his skill in making judgements (e.g. Matt 13:54, 22:22).
It would seem that this wisdom-righteousness consists in knowing how to live rightly, and then actually living rightly. That is, much sin and selfishness in the world arises from not knowing (or deliberately ignoring!) the uses of God’s good gifts. Thus, food and wine and celebration are wonderful gifts from God (Eccl 10:19), but the foolish twist them into gluttony, drunkenness and debauchery. We are created in God’s good purposes to enjoy our work and the bonds we build through it (Eccl 2:24, 4:9-12), but if we lack wisdom, we idolize our job to the detriment of our families and other relationships, and we develop an unquenchable thirst for money. Sex and marriage can be the source of great joy, but the fool in lust debases both God’s gifts and himself. In contrast, the wise person knows how to read Scripture and observe the world so as to benefit from the blessings that lie in God’s created order.
The moral order revealed in Scripture and the world
Even a shallow reading of Wisdom literature shows that Scripture does not simply give us a set of rules to follow or promises to claim, but rather a shape to conform to and a pattern to keep. That is, because of the contradictions mentioned above, we cannot blindly obey the Proverbs. Experience teaches us, too, that the Proverbs are not iron-clad promises; we all know good and just parents with children who have gone off the rails, despite Proverbs 22:6. Instead, what Scripture reveals to us is the shape of God’s created reality. In general, hard work pays off; in general, righteous people will live longer; in general, undisciplined children will be a curse for their parents and the society more broadly. In this fallen world, we will find counter-examples, but these do not make the pattern worthless. There are still moral principles stitched into creation, and we can still discern them in both the Old Testament and New Testament.
Deducing moral principles is one thing; knowing how to apply them is often another. When it comes to gaining wisdom, there is a complex interrelation between the pattern of Scripture and observation of the world. Christians often seem to privilege one of these completely over the other, to the detriment of wisdom. That is, some Christians have come to believe in a ‘natural law’: God has written the moral order into the creation in such a way that it can be grasped by reason alone. Certainly some wisdom can be gained just by looking at the world: some sections of the Proverbs are almost identical to other Ancient Near Eastern wisdom writings, and we benefit every day from helpful things non-Christians have discovered about living well. But human reason is twisted, and the creator alone knows all his purposes (Job 28:20-23). When we are building our worldview, we need to know the shape of the whole edifice: it is not just individual bricks (pieces of knowledge) that we need to have correct, but also the order in which they are put together.
The flipside of the same error is to think that the Christian scientist has no advantage over the non-Christian when observing the world. This is not always true! God describes his created reality to us in his word, so there should be times when Christians know where to look. For example, a Christian psychologist might learn from Scripture what authority is for. She should therefore be able to help managers learn how best to lead their employees. A Christian sociologist should perceive from Scripture (against the societal tide) that fathers are important figures in children’s lives. We shouldn’t need Dr Phil to point it out to us. We have an opportunity to be proactive in bringing God’s wisdom to a world that is sorely short of it.
Meanwhile, other Christians will claim that the Bible alone can supply all our necessary wisdom. Without question, the Old Testament and New Testament have a lot of instruction and ethical guidance, including various laws, general principles, moral examples and narratives, parables, visions, sermons, and outright commands. Moreover, we have been given spiritually renewed minds with which to discern what pleases God (Rom 12:2; cf. Phil 1:9-10, Eph 5:8-10, 1 Thess 5:19-22). But Scripture itself encourages us to use these minds to examine the world and so better understand the created order (e.g. 1 Cor 15:36-42, 2 Tim 2:4-6; numerous instances in the Proverbs). This must at least hold where Scripture gives us broad principles; we may need to go to the world to fill in the details. Scripture tells me I should look after my children; I need to look at the world to discover that McHappy Meals won’t suffice. As we dwell on God’s word, we will be spiritually equipped to ‘read’ reality rightly; as we observe and live in God’s creation, we should find, at points, new significance in or more light shed on his word.
It is as we gain wisdom that we will learn how to do good in those instances where the Bible says little directly. We must use the whole of Scripture to build a comprehensive view of God and his world, and of our relationship to both. This is, by no means, an easy process, and we very much need one another’s help because, again, it is inadequate to read Scripture as if it were just a set of timeless laws to keep. After all, we face some issues that were unknown in the ancient world. So we must use God’s description of his moral order (and our Christian forebears’ insights!) to know how to deal with the same created reality. We must apply the same boundaries and contours in new and creative ways.
Take the example of voluntary childlessness. Someone might ask, “Where does it say in the Bible that Christians should be open to having children?” There is no single verse we can point to as a ‘rule’. But the shape of the Bible’s teaching speaks at every point about children being part of the created purpose of marriage. Children are a blessing (Psa 127:3-5); childlessness is routinely cast as an unenviable position that we should call on God to reverse (e.g. Gen 25:21, 1 Sam 1:10-11, Prov 30:15-16, Luke 1:6-7); Jesus welcomes children despite the annoyance they were to his disciples (Matt 19:13-14); there are endless reminders to raise children so that they will be a blessing to the community (e.g. Prov 19:28). A married couple choosing not to have children is simply unthinkable in biblical terms—not just because of inadequate contraceptive technology, but because of the goodness of the created ‘package’ of marriage-sex-children.
Therefore, we cannot follow a culture that locates the value of children in the will of the parents. The tragedy of involuntary childlessness is not just that people’s desire has been frustrated, but God’s design has been as well.9 If we understand properly that children are human and precious in God’s sight, we won’t need a rule to tell us to be open to having our own. We may well recognize that raising children entails some loss of personal freedom and other difficulties. But as we come to value what God values, our hearts will delight in the blessing they are. We will spend time getting to know and caring for other people’s children, and we will trust God for our own.
In brief, then, the arc of the gospel (from cross to resurrection) will inform our orientation towards God’s world and our action in it. Whatever our circumstances, we are called to emulate the life of Jesus. This will mean being loving in deed and character, and growing in the treasures of the Lord’s wisdom. This we do as we dwell in the Scriptures and, by the Spirit, learn how to live in the real world in conformity with God’s created order.
While I hope that these articles have helped you to think better about how to do good in the world, let’s pray that God always make us people who do better than we think!
This is Part 3 of a three-part series. Read Part 1 and Part 2.
Endnotes
1 For this elegant phrase, I am indebted to SN Williams, ‘Outline for ethics: A response to Oliver O’Donovan’, in Themelios, Vol. 13, 1988, p. 87.
2 So Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation; a Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics, Harper, San Francisco, 1996, p. 202, citing Luke 14:25-35, Heb 12:5-13.
3 This paragraph is almost entirely dependent on Michael Hill, The How and Why of Love: An introduction to evangelical ethics, Matthias Media, Kingsford, 2002. See especially pages 247-260.
4 For an accessible and interesting introduction, see DJ Moo, ‘The Law of Christ as the Fulfillment of the Law of Moses: A Modified Lutheran View’, in WG Strickland (ed.), Five views on law and gospel, 2nd edn, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1999, pp. 319-376.
5 I owe this insight to O O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order: An outline for evangelical ethics, 2nd edn, Apollos, Leicester, 1994, pp. 226-7. This book has been a major influence on much of my thinking for this article.
6 I am indebted to discussions with Tim Adeney for much of the material in this paragraph, as well as more generally throughout these three articles.
7 I first heard this metaphor from Andrew Cameron. For a brilliant, potentially life-changing observation of how Old Testament Law and narrative have these twin functions, see chapter 5, ‘Ethical Ideals and Legal Requirements’, in G Wenham, Story as Torah: Reading Old Testament Narrative Ethically, Baker, Grand Rapids, 2000.
8 Feinberg and Feinberg, Ethics for a Brave New World, Crossway Books, Wheaton, 1993, pp. 44-45.
9 Again, I am indebted to Tim Adeney for this observation.
