Words and Deeds, and a Few Comments on Balance
What would it be like to watch a movie that didn’t have a musical soundtrack? It wouldn’t be as powerful, that’s for sure. Consequently, it’s the same with ‘the words we say’ and ‘the lives we live’—they go better together.
Currently I am studying for my ordination exams in the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA). It’s a three-year process that has three major steps in it: one at the start, one at the end, and one in-between. The steps at the beginning and the end of the process are similar; each requires a long, doctrinal paper and an oral examination over that same paper. The difference between the two is that the first step requires a 20-page paper and a three-hour oral examination, while the last step is double that—40 pages of writing and a six-hour oral exam.
What’s the middle step? Three years of faithful, gospel ministry in the context of a local EFCA church.
On May 21 of this year, I participated in the first step and passed. (If interested, you can read my paper here.)
While preparing for this step, I read Evangelical Convictions, which is an exposition of our denomination’s statement of faith. One place I found the book particularly helpful was in the discussion of the relationship between gospel deeds and gospel proclamation. When you hear “gospel deeds,” think of Christ-like acts of service in the church and the world. And when you hear “gospel proclamation,” think communicating the content of the gospel with words. To explain the relationship between the two, the authors of Evangelical Convictions use a musical analogy. They write:
Words often attributed to Francis of Assisi are frequently quoted in [regard to sharing the gospel]: “Preach the gospel all the time; if necessary use words.”
This is misstated, for our words are necessary, just as God’s words are necessary for us to understand his message. But it is true, nonetheless, that how we live provides the context for the content of the message we proclaim. It provides the music that accompanies the lyrics of the gospel—the music which helps to display the beauty of those lyrics to the world.
Thus, proclaiming the gospel in words and living the gospel through loving service to others ought to go hand in hand. Actions without words are insufficient, but words without action lack credibility. We declare God’s love to the world with more power when we also demonstrate that love in how we live. (Evangelical Convictions, 208)
This analogy—words and deeds likened to lyrics and music—is helpful. Gospel deeds by themselves are like instrumental music: good and beautiful, yet open to ambiguity and misinterpretation. And gospel words by themselves are like lyrics without a melody: good and true, yet all the more powerful when set to music.
A Few Comments on Balance
Perhaps you have heard serious debates about the tension between these two and which is more important: practice or proclamation? Should I shovel the snow in my neighbor’s driveway or should I invite them to a Bible Study? Should I volunteer at soup kitchens or hand out gospel tracts? Which is it, deeds or words?
Often in the debate, the word “primarily” is inserted to soften absoluteness—should Christians primarily be involved in gospel deeds or primarily in verbal gospel proclamation. This helps a little, but I agree with the authors of Evangelical Convictions; there is no ultimate tension between the two—words and deeds should go together like lyrics and music.
But just because they “go together,” I do not think our ultimate goal should be to “balance” them. I say this—that balance is not the goal—for three reasons.
First, how could we possibly know if we have just the right amount of each, the perfect balance of words and deeds? Sure, it’s possible to see gross imbalances, especially in others, but what “scale” shall we use to know when things are slightly off?
Second, balance—however it is measured—is something that must be measured over a period of time. For example, in a given moment, I might be engaged in a gospel practice, and in another moment verbal gospel proclamation. The only way to know that my life is “balancing” these two, practice and proclamation, is if you look at the period of time that includes both.
To use a different analogy, if I say, “I haven’t eaten anything in 10 hours!” you might think, “Whoa, that’s unhealthy and out of balance.” However, it might be very normal if when I said this it was 7am and I’d just had a good night’s sleep. We all have natural rhythms of eating and not eating, and in order to see if a person has a balanced diet you need to examine the right period of time. This is what I mean about words and deeds; you have to observe the right period of time. In different seasons, a person (or even a church or parachurch ministry), might rightly be focused more on one than the other.
Third, to complicate this even more, Christians exist in a body, a body made up of different members with different functions just like the human body (Romans 12:3-8; 1 Corinthians 12:12-31). Therefore, by God’s great design, some of us will be more inclined to word proclamation and some more to deed proclamation. We can see this clearly displayed in 1 Peter. At one point, Peter writes that all Christians are to “proclaim the excellencies” of God (2:9). Yet later in the epistle, Peter notes that some Christians will do this through speaking and others through service. “Whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies” (4:11).
For these reasons, to make balance the highest goal is not only impossible to evaluate, but the wrong goal altogether. Thus, I’m not so worried about how I balance the two in my own life, as much as I am concerned about obedience for this is Paul’s emphasis in Ephesians.
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:15-16)
Notice the phrase: “when each part is working properly.” The goal is not to make sure we are always in perfect balance, but perfect obedience so that together—the whole body—can sing gospel lyrics to the tune of gospel deeds. That’s the concert I want to be a part of.
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MOM ENOUGH edited by Tony and Karalee Reinke (FAN AND FLAME Book Reviews)
Becoming a mother is to enlist in a war. And what makes this war so difficult, is that the enemies are not always obvious. MOM ENOUGH is written by women that know much about the difficulties of this war, but who also know about how to win.
Tony and Karalee Reinke (editors). Mom Enough: The Fearless Mother’s Heart and Hope. Minneapolis, MN: Desiring God, 2014. 120 pp. $7.99.
Being a mom is a wonderful but difficult job. Too often Pinterest does in subtle ways what Victoria Secret does overtly—crush women under the weight of airbrushed unrealities.
But it’s not only Pinterest and Victoria Secret that can inflict damage. Sometimes damage comes from other moms. Innocent playgroups turn into competitions over who has the perfect, God-ordained way of preparing organic, gluten-free, low-carb snacks. And sometimes damage can even come from the Bible, or, at least, from the mishandling of it. For example, Proverbs 31—a chapter that celebrates women and mothers—can be (mis)taught so that it becomes just another crushing airbrushed unreality.
This is why I’m so thankful for books like Mom Enough: The Fearless Mother’s Heart and Hope edited by Tony and Karalee Reinke. It doesn’t make this mistake. Mom Enough doesn’t crush; it gives wings.
When I bought Mom Enough, I knew it was a collection of short essays from various women, all published authors. However, when I received the book and read in the preface that each entry was originally a blog post for Desiring God, I was a little disappointed. I love the ministry of Desiring God, but at first I was annoyed because the last book I read like this (blog posts turned into a book) was lousy. Mom Enough, however, is not lousy. It’s excellent. As soon as I finished the book, I bought three more to give away. And with Mother’s Day coming next month, there is still plenty of time for you to get several copies to do the same (here).
The title Mom Enough is taken from one of the book’s essays of the same name, which in turn, is a callback to the Time magazine article from the summer of 2012 that had those words on its cover. If you saw that cover, you’d remember it; it pictured a woman breastfeeding a toddler that looked like he was about a year away from kindergarten.
In the book, author Rachel Pieh Jones pointedly describes the “mom enough” battle.
From television, Facebook, blogs, and Pinterest, the message screamed at moms is this: unless you are fit to run marathons, breastfeed into the preschool years, own a spotless and creatively decorated home, tend a flourishing garden, prepare three home-cooked meals per day, work a high-powered job, and give your husband expert, sensual massages before bed, you are not mom enough. (Rachel Pieh Jones, Mom Enough, 19, emphasis original)
But Jones is waving the white flag.
From my perspective, however, the Mommy War is over. Done. Finished. Kaput. And I lost. I am not mom enough. Never was, never will be. (19-20)
Yet quitting the “mommy war” does not mean she is ceasing to fight.
But I am on the frontlines of another war. The battles are raging and the casualties could be my children, my husband, or myself. This war isn’t about me being mom enough. This war is about God being “God enough.” (20)
And this war—the fight of faith to believe that God is an all-satisfying fountain of joy and big enough and caring enough to help us in our daily lives—is a war that began long ago. This war started in a garden when a serpent implied that God wasn’t God enough and when Adam and Eve believed they would be happier if they went their own way.
Right now, my wife is pregnant, which I know is a difficult season for all women, but it is especially so for my wife. No, she won’t spend the entire time in the hospital (Lord willing), but during past pregnancies, we have certainly made a few visits for extreme dehydration because of constant vomiting. My wife is a warrior, that’s for sure. I try to help her as best as I can, but what Mom Enough reminded me is that what my wife needs most—and what I believe all Christians need most (mothers or not)—is to know that in the midst of the battle, God is always God enough.
What’s Your Focus in Transitions: Re-inventing or Re-identifying?
Whether you want them our not, you will have them--lots of them. But how will you use them?
Recently, the young adult ministry at our church asked me to lead the devotional at one of their meetings. So I did. And having gone through a transition recently, and assuming that those in their 20s will go through many transitions in the next decade, I thought a devotional related to transitions would be relevant.
In the process, I reflected on my last decade. It was a decade of transitions.
From single to married.
From relying (heavily) on my parents, to being a parent.
From college student to full-time employee with a bona fide cubical and a commute.
From just a little money, to lots of money, and then to something less than ‘lots.’
And from Division 1 college athlete to, shall we say, old(ish) man.
Yikes. Or consider it by the numbers:
8 different houses.
5 churches in 4 denominations.
4 job changes.
4 cities.
3 changes of vocation (student to engineer to pastor).
3 (very) different areas of the country (Midwest, Southwest, East).
And from 0, to 1, to 2, to 3, to 4, and to 5 kids, with the 4th being a miscarriage.
I look at that list, and it explains my whiplash.
Transitions in the Bible
The Bible is full of transitions. We see this on the corporate level—from just 2 people in a garden to thriving cities; from one man (Abram) to a nation; from local, tribal rulers to powerful kings; from prosperity to desolation… and around that Ferris Wheel a dozen more times; and from the random altars used by the patriarchs, to the portable tabernacle, to the fixed temple, and then to the curtain torn in two.
We also see transitions on the individual level—Abraham leaves his family; David goes from shepherd to king; the disciples from fishermen to church leaders; and untold numbers of sinners to saints. Consider the upheaval in Moses’ life and his 3 major transitions: from being raised the son of a foreign king, to life as an obscure shepherd, and finally to leading the Hebrew people. Yikes.
What’s Your Focus in Transitions?
If you are normal, your life will be one of transitions, perhaps not of the magnitude of Moses’ or with the frequency of my last decade, but you will have them. And during your transitions, many good questions will arise: What am I passionate about? Who am I now? Who do I want to be later? What do I want to be known for? And so on.
Depending on how we answer these questions, you will move in either 1 of 2 very different directions.
On the one hand, we can ‘re-invent ourselves.’ The way this is most often carried out in our culture, re-inventing is a fairly godless endeavor. By ‘godless,’ I don’t mean that it is the sum of all evil. It is not. Not every re-invention is of the sort that Hannah Montana made.
By ‘godless,’ I simply mean that re-inventing one’s self is typically done without any consideration to God. God is not in the picture. People look inward: Who am I? And they look outward: I want to be like these people and not like those people. The assumption is that life’s outcomes are infinitely malleable, and if I try hard enough, then I can be whatever I want. But again, rarely is God in the picture.
For the Christian, there is another option—the better option. Christians should use transitions as an opportunity to re-identify who we are in Christ.
Transitions are a time to re-affirm that the defining reality of my life is not marital status, nor where I live, nor in children, nor income, nor vocation, nor looks, nor education, nor popularity; but rather, my identity is in this: Jesus Christ loves me and gave himself for me. This was the focus of the Apostle Paul. In Galatians 2:20 he wrote,
It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Paul is saying that in the life he “now” lives—that is, just before, or during, or just after all of life’s transitions—he is resolved to live in the knowledge that God loves him. This is where he identifies, and re-identifies, over and over again.
I’m not very good at this, but I want to be better.
During my recent job transition, several aspects of my job changed as well. And it wasn’t until the transition occurred that I realized how much identity I derived from one particular aspect of my job: if I was doing it well, then I was good; and if it was going poorly, then I was bad.
This is wrong.
Because of the Gospel, Christians have an immovable source of identity: the love of God for them. Because of the Gospel, God feels towards me the same way he feels towards his own Son—delight.
It is significant to me that when Jesus transitioned from carpenter to full-time, itinerate ministry, God the Father publicly shouts his delight over his son. “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).
As my current time of transition ends, and I await the next one—which I’m praying is not anytime soon—I don’t want to re-invent myself; I want to re-identify deeper with the Gospel and God’s delight for me in Christ.
In your next transition, what will be your focus?
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