The pen wobbled in my fingers as I reached for the restaurant check. $93.87. The receipt asked for the tip we’d like to leave; numbers floated into my head. $9 led the charge. It was a good dinner after all I thought, full of good conversation and good food. The receipt suggested $18.76 as a 20% tip. $18.76 I thought! Golly that’s expensive, almost an entrée by itself! As the pen floated, unsure of itself above the paper a nagging thought struck me: 3.5 trillion.
Just a few minutes prior, over Alaskan halibut, the current state of politics had been discussed. How could the government even consider spending 3.5 trillion dollars on “social infrastructure”? Can that amount of money even be known? It is a mind bogglingly huge sum after all. How did we get to this point in our national situation? The answers and questions passed back and forth across the table. Notably absent however were any kind of solutions. Quite a bit of the proposed 3.5 trillion was supposed to go for welfare programs. The debate is bigger than dollars after all. At its core is the question: how do we take care of people in our society? As the conversation continued, I felt my mind wandering backwards into the first century…
“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” Oh, to sit at the feet of James as the words scratched onto the paper for the first time! What does it mean to be a “doer” of the word, I wondered? Was he thinking of the frightening words of Jesus, who declared that not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord’ would enter heaven, but instead only the one who, “…does the will of my Father.” James seemed to think that taking care of orphans, looking after widows, putting clothes on the destitute and carefully watching what we say, qualified as doing the word. In the language of today we might say those same things are called: foster care, social work, social security, and welfare programs. Have we done so well as doers of the word that we’ve incorporated the doing of the word into our very governmental structures?
It is an interesting thing to notice how many hospitals have Christian names: St Peter’s, St. Luke’s, etc. In a time, maybe not so long ago when one considers the grand scheme of things, medical care was viewed as a Christian charity. It was the family of God who took it upon themselves, often sacrificially, to provide for their neighbor’s physical needs. I’ve noticed in my travels around the world, that in countries that aren’t as developed as ours, in poor countries especially, that the medical systems are still mainly run by Christian ministries. Often, it is only the Christians who are willing to give sacrificially to take care of their neighbor. In our society however, Christians have ceded much of the social work that they used to do to the government.
Yet, it seems wrong to describe our government as a “doer of the word.” Scripture tells us that it is only Christ who can restore brokenness. When a Christian gives a dollar, a dime, or some of his time to orphans, widows, the poor and the homeless, he is doing it because of his faith in Christ. Sacrificial giving only flows from the sacrificial lamb after all. When a Christian combines works with faith, the Holy Spirit responds with restoration and healing. The problem with allowing our Christian responsibilities to be assumed by the government is that the element of faith is lost and consequently we are left simply with socialism. It should be a terribly convicting thing for a Christian to be put in the position of arguing against help for the poor, against social security for widows, and against finding homes for orphans. When he finds himself in that position, he will also find he has boxed himself into an impossible situation. He can no longer be a credible witness for faith when he argues against works.
Of course, the reason it is popular for the government to assume the Christian’s God-given role is that Christians are perceived as cheap. They build multi-million-dollar temples and hand out pennies to the poor. Think about it in your context. How many fellow followers of Jesus struggle to find more than pocket change to contribute to their church’s benevolence ministries? How many Church goers order their lives, by living debt free, so that they can be abundantly generous? How many God-dependent people hold on so tightly to heavenly treasure with one hand while holding onto earthly treasure just as tightly with the other?
I wondered that very thing as my mind returned to the present and the problem of the dinner receipt in front of me. $9, or 10% would say cheap. It would show how tightly this Jesus follower holds onto his earthly treasure. My convicted heart scribbled out a much bigger number and prayed that if anyone in the place had caught on to the fact that I am an emissary of King they would also see that the King has loosened the strings that bind my heart to my treasure…
Faith without works...
Faith without works…
Greg Ireland
The pen wobbled in my fingers as I reached for the restaurant check. $93.87. The receipt asked for the tip we’d like to leave; numbers floated into my head. $9 led the charge. It was a good dinner after all I thought, full of good conversation and good food. The receipt suggested $18.76 as a 20% tip. $18.76 I thought! Golly that’s expensive, almost an entrée by itself! As the pen floated, unsure of itself above the paper a nagging thought struck me: 3.5 trillion.
Just a few minutes prior, over Alaskan halibut, the current state of politics had been discussed. How could the government even consider spending 3.5 trillion dollars on “social infrastructure”? Can that amount of money even be known? It is a mind bogglingly huge sum after all. How did we get to this point in our national situation? The answers and questions passed back and forth across the table. Notably absent however were any kind of solutions. Quite a bit of the proposed 3.5 trillion was supposed to go for welfare programs. The debate is bigger than dollars after all. At its core is the question: how do we take care of people in our society? As the conversation continued, I felt my mind wandering backwards into the first century…
“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” Oh, to sit at the feet of James as the words scratched onto the paper for the first time! What does it mean to be a “doer” of the word, I wondered? Was he thinking of the frightening words of Jesus, who declared that not everyone who says, ‘Lord, Lord’ would enter heaven, but instead only the one who, “…does the will of my Father.” James seemed to think that taking care of orphans, looking after widows, putting clothes on the destitute and carefully watching what we say, qualified as doing the word. In the language of today we might say those same things are called: foster care, social work, social security, and welfare programs. Have we done so well as doers of the word that we’ve incorporated the doing of the word into our very governmental structures?
It is an interesting thing to notice how many hospitals have Christian names: St Peter’s, St. Luke’s, etc. In a time, maybe not so long ago when one considers the grand scheme of things, medical care was viewed as a Christian charity. It was the family of God who took it upon themselves, often sacrificially, to provide for their neighbor’s physical needs. I’ve noticed in my travels around the world, that in countries that aren’t as developed as ours, in poor countries especially, that the medical systems are still mainly run by Christian ministries. Often, it is only the Christians who are willing to give sacrificially to take care of their neighbor. In our society however, Christians have ceded much of the social work that they used to do to the government.
Yet, it seems wrong to describe our government as a “doer of the word.” Scripture tells us that it is only Christ who can restore brokenness. When a Christian gives a dollar, a dime, or some of his time to orphans, widows, the poor and the homeless, he is doing it because of his faith in Christ. Sacrificial giving only flows from the sacrificial lamb after all. When a Christian combines works with faith, the Holy Spirit responds with restoration and healing. The problem with allowing our Christian responsibilities to be assumed by the government is that the element of faith is lost and consequently we are left simply with socialism. It should be a terribly convicting thing for a Christian to be put in the position of arguing against help for the poor, against social security for widows, and against finding homes for orphans. When he finds himself in that position, he will also find he has boxed himself into an impossible situation. He can no longer be a credible witness for faith when he argues against works.
Of course, the reason it is popular for the government to assume the Christian’s God-given role is that Christians are perceived as cheap. They build multi-million-dollar temples and hand out pennies to the poor. Think about it in your context. How many fellow followers of Jesus struggle to find more than pocket change to contribute to their church’s benevolence ministries? How many Church goers order their lives, by living debt free, so that they can be abundantly generous? How many God-dependent people hold on so tightly to heavenly treasure with one hand while holding onto earthly treasure just as tightly with the other?
I wondered that very thing as my mind returned to the present and the problem of the dinner receipt in front of me. $9, or 10% would say cheap. It would show how tightly this Jesus follower holds onto his earthly treasure. My convicted heart scribbled out a much bigger number and prayed that if anyone in the place had caught on to the fact that I am an emissary of King they would also see that the King has loosened the strings that bind my heart to my treasure…
James 1:22 NRSV
Matthew 7:21 NRSV
James 1:27; 2:15 NRSV