Knowing and Doing
We who live in the West have perfected the art of knowing without doing. Many of us can discourse intelligently on the Bible and God’s commands while ignoring them on a daily basis. Of course, we are not the first culture to do so. Some Pharisees in Jesus’ day had also been infected with this kind of thinking. As Jesus pointed out:
“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.” (Matt 23:2-3)
This idea of practicing what we preach often makes us uncomfortable. The fact is, if we really did everything we said we believed it would make our lives look very different. There is a general level of comfort that we live in which would likely be disturbed if we did exactly what we say we believe about taking care of the poor, tithing, loving our neighbor and so forth.
Jesus knew that hypocrisy is endemic to all people. And one of His primary means of combating pervasive hypocrisy was the parable.
After all, the whole point of teaching in parables was to drive His followers to change their lives in light of the Kingdom of God. It does us no good to listen to the parable of the Good Samaritan, agree that it is important to love our neighbors as ourselves, and yet not love our neighbors more. To do so merely means that we don’t understand the parable.
Now some people may say that we can’t change our lives ourselves, that we are sinful, and that the Holy Spirit must do this for us. That is true. But as C.S. Lewis pointed out, we do have the dignity of causality (in other words, we can do things). And if we are regenerate (or saved) then the Holy Spirit is working in us. Jesus, Paul and the epistle writers all used imperative verbs on a regular basis: love your enemies; be holy; forgive others. We not only have the ability to do these things, we are expected to do them as followers of Christ. If we do not do them, we are in sin.
We are talking here about living as Christians on a day-to-day basis. We are talking about the choices we make from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep. We are talking about money, about prayer, about love, about trust, and about all the other things that come with being part of the Kingdom of God. All these things are the primary subjects of the parables. It was exactly because Jesus knew that these things would be the bread and butter of our lives that He told us parables about them. Our responsibility is to incorporate the parables into our daily lives.
Four Aspects of Living the Parables
In normal Christian parlance, we often talk about applying the Scripture to our lives. Application is putting something into operation, actually doing something. But it also suggests a conscious effort, something we have to think about and do.
The idea of living, however, is much more basic. Living is what we do whether we think about it or not. It’s the basic level of our being. If we’re not living, well… you get the picture.
Living is just the daily outworking of life. And Jesus tells us over and over again that true life is found only in Him:
“For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.” (John 5:21)
What is this life, and how does it work into our daily living?
At its base, this life is knowing God. (John 17:3) But knowing God is not a static thing; rather it manifests itself in an ongoing, redemptive relationship with God as He changes us from being naturally sinful to naturally holy (a process also known as sanctification). Dr. Daniel Doriani has identified four aspects of living in God’s Kingdom that are manifested in our living out the commands and principles found in the Bible.¹ He has expressed them as four questions:
- What should I do? That is, what is my duty?
- Who should I be? That is, how can I become the person or obtain the character that lets me do what is right?
- To what causes should I devote my life energy? That is, what goals should I pursue?
- How can I distinguish truth from error? That is, how can I gain discernment?²
We will briefly look at each of the questions here:
I. WHAT SHOULD I DO? THAT IS, WHAT IS MY DUTY?
The moral life begins with commands. As Jesus Himself said,
“If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching” (John 14:23)
and
“Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” (Luke II:28)
Jesus expects us to obey His commands. It’s our duty to love others, to give to the poor, to love God. In a Biblical sense, duty is what is expected of us. Duty is the ground floor where we all have to start.
There is a lot of controversy today about the idea of duty. Some Christians warn against being too consumed with duty; others see it as the key to a happy life. The fact is, were there no sin in the world, we would all naturally do our duties (loving God and loving our neighbor) and there would be no debate. However, our sinfulness can take the principle of duty and make it a means of personal salvation or condemnation (legalism) or we can rebel against it and make it a hated concept (antinomianism).
But let’s look at an example of duty put in the proper Biblical perspective. It is the duty of a husband and wife to love one another. Assuming they have a healthy relationship, it is an easy thing to love one another. Their duty can be very enjoyable and not seem to be a “duty” at all (evidence that the word itself has taken on bad connotations). Of course, if a husband and wife are in a fight and have sinned against each other, the duty of loving one another can be onerous and even impossible. The Holy Spirit is required in both instances: in the first instance, the Spirit was actively involved in the pleasant doing of their duty; in the second, one or both were sinning against the Spirit and needed conviction and change. The point here is not that the duty is altered, but that sin affects the exercise of duty.
Doriani explains it well:
“By schooling people in their duty we establish a necessary minimum standard for conduct.”³
And the concerns about falling into legalism?
“The best way to combat legalism is to join duty and character. Character balances duty by stifling the notion that Christian living consists in”
adherence to a set of rules.”⁴ And it helps us realize that we live the Christian life fundamentally in gratitude to God for saving us in a way we could never have done ourselves.
2. WHO SHOULD I BE? THAT IS, HOW CAN I BECOME THE PERSON OR OBTAIN THE CHARACTER THAT LETS ME DO WHAT IS RIGHT?
If duty is about what we should be doing, then character is about who we should be. It concerns the state of our hearts, our internal nature. Jesus explained it as:
“The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart.” (Luke 6:45)
Our character directly influences our actions; in fact, it is the source of our actions.
This does not mean that our character is static. Rather, due to the sin in our hearts, our character is flawed at its source. Were it not, we would naturally do the duties and obey the laws required of us. The Holy Spirit, however, is continuously sanctifying our character in order for us to do what God wants us to do. As Paul tells us,
“But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” (Rom 8:10–11)
In other words, our character is constantly being pulled between our sinful nature and our new nature in Christ. Not being robots, we do have the ability to choose between these two options. Our choices not only spring from our character, but progressively influence our character on a long-term basis.
Ultimately, the Holy Spirit is transforming our characters to reflect the character of Christ. As Paul tells us in Corinthians,
“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Cor 3:18)
3. TO WHAT CAUSES SHOULD I DEVOTE MY LIFE ENERGY? THAT IS, WHAT GOALS SHOULD I PURSUE?
The two preceding aspects of living out the parables, duty and character, were personal in nature. They related primarily to us as individuals. These two aspects are the twin foundations of living in the Kingdom of God, but they must naturally grow outward into the goals God has for our lives.
History shows us that God is redeeming this sinful world through the work of His servants. One need only glance at the ways Christianity has impacted the world for good to see how He is doing this: civil laws, hospitals, orphanages, art, business practices, and so forth. God is redeeming the world not only through changing the inner lives of people, but by using those people to alter the institutions and cultures of the world through the choices they make for their lives.
A classic example of this is William Wilberforce, the member of British parliament who set as his life goal the abolishment of slavery in the British Empire. He used the skills that God had given him and the position that God had put him in to push forward the Kingdom of God in a specific and important way.
Let us not forget that we are living in the midst of an enormous war. There are two kingdoms in conflict, and, as Christians, we are the soldiers fighting Christ’s battles with Him. This is the meaning of David’s prophecy concerning Jesus:
“The LORD will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies. Your troops will be willing on your day of battle.” (Psa 110:2-3)
Paul confirms this when he tells Timothy,
“Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” (2 Tim 2:3)
In light of this, the choices that we make in terms of our daily work, our friendships, our hobbies, our places of worship, our missions activities, our evangelism, our service to others, our recreation — all these choices relate to the goals we have set for ourselves. The daily choices we make are not inconsequential. A building is built one brick at a time.
But, as Klaas Schilder pointed out, there are only two possible uses of those bricks.⁵ For example, one brick is used to build an abortion clinic while another brick is used to build a church. In our daily decisions, we are following goals that support the growth of either the Kingdom of God or the kingdom of Satan. There is no middle ground.
The parables force us to examine our goals, and then to set them in light of the Kingdom of God.
“Pursuing the right goals, we improve our corner of the world and feel God’s pleasure at our actions.”⁶
4. HOW CAN WE DISTINGUISH TRUTH FROM ERROR? THAT IS, HOW CAN WE GAIN DISCERNMENT?
Solomon admonishes us in Proverbs to
“preserve sound judgment and discernment, do not let them out of your sight; they will be life for you, an ornament to grace your neck.” (Prov 3:21–22)
In this sense, discernment is directly related to Biblical wisdom. It is “the insight…to see things as they are from God’s perspective.”⁷
In our daily lives there are countless things that compete for our attention. We are constantly making decisions between competing duties, competing character issues, and competing goals. As often as not, the choice isn’t between good and bad, but between good and better. It is the attribute of discernment that helps us to see through the issues to what God would have us do at that particular moment.
The Bible is clear that it is the Spirit who gives us discernment. Paul tells the Ephesians that
“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ…may give you the Spirit of wisdom.” (Eph 1:17)
Biblical discernment helps us to look at our culture and see what is edifying and what is not. It helps us look at our work and see what is godly and what is not. It helps us look at our relationships and see what is Biblical and what is not.
In our day and age discernment for daily living is a necessity. The parables teach us to think God’s thoughts in relation to the world and to see things with His worldview. Such a worldview often means that we will be going against the grain not only with those outside of God’s Kingdom, but even with those lacking discernment within His Kingdom. It is to this end that Paul encourages us
“that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.” (Phil 1:9-11)