Works and Words

But if any one does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever. 1 Timothy 5:8

Denied – Do you really want to know just how much Greek philosophy has infected our view of following the Lord?  Well, then consider Paul’s commentary on the Old Testament in this verse.  It’s shocking!  Paul says that a person who won’t work in order to provide for his own family is worse than someone who doesn’t believe at all!  What?  Does this mean that “belief” is displayed in work or in words?  How many “Christians” are there who fall under the condemnation of this verse?  How many “believers” are sitting on the sidelines, more than willing for someone else to provide for them?  Paul calls all of these slothful ingrates apostates.  He says that refusing to care for your own household is the equivalent of rejecting the Lord.  It couldn’t be much stronger.

The Greek verb is arneomai.  You can see just how forceful it is from its use in 1 John 2:22 where it describes rejecting Yeshua as the Messiah, or Luke 22:57 where Peter denies that he ever knew the Lord.  Paul could hardly have picked a stronger term.

So, how did we slide from this forceful connection between working and worshipping into a condition where a significant part of our culture believes that someone else should be responsible for daily needs?  What happened to our thinking that allowed us to pretend that Christian charity includes offering assistance without commitments?

The problem is philosophical.  The results are practical indolence.  Philosophically, the Greek idea of belief means that my Christianity is a cognitive commitment.  I have the right words.  I say the right creeds.  I acknowledge the right doctrines.  But I don’t actually have to do anything.  My beliefs are nicely contained in the world of mental assent.  Once I separate believing from acting, it is only a matter of time before my slothful human nature asserts itself without causing me to recognize that I have abandoned my faith.  If faith is only my inner confident assurance that I will get to heaven, then what I actually do in this life is just a temporal inconvenience.

But Christianity is not Greek.  It is Hebrew, and in the Hebrew world there are three critical actions that constitute the nature of faith.  They are the study of Torah, prayer and giving alms.  In other words, I must exercise my mind in understanding God and God’s instructions for living (torah), I must be in conversation with Him and become more human in the process, and I must do something for others from the excess that I produce.  To ignore any one of the three is to deny what it means to have faith, and clearly I cannot give alms (charity) unless I am being productive and creating excess so that I can give it away.  When faith is found only in acting according to God’s plan for living, then mental assent alone leaves me no better off than the unbeliever.  In fact, I am in even worse shape since I claim something about my life that is untrue.

Welfare is a big deal in our society.  Unfortunately, the kind of welfare we practice is anything but faithful to God.  If we as believers endorse a faith that removes the necessity of work, then we might as well put the millstone around our own necks.  It’s time to remove that weight and get back to work.

Topical Index:  Welfare