Pound for Pound
And let our people also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, that they may not be unfruitful. Titus 3:14
Unfruitful – Soon it will be good fruit season in Georgia. Peaches will be ripe and plentiful. We will be blessed once more by God’s goodness as He provides for our bodies. If we’re fortunate, we might even find a roadside stand where we can get an exceptionally good price on these wonderful creations. Pound for pound there is nothing better than a great Georgia peach.
In Christian living, pound for pound there is nothing better than good deeds that meet pressing needs. Just like biting into a Georgia peach, delivering a good deed to someone in need is a most satisfying experience. And just like a Georgia peach, the fruit of the tree of my life is not intended for me. It is intended to provide nourishment to someone who is hungry. That is the principle of karpon (fruit).
However, Paul provides a little horticultural advice in this verse that we need to apply to our fruit production. First, we have to learn to engage in the process. The verb is manthanetiosan (let them learn). It comes from the stem manthano. It’s not about just knowing the facts. Reading a book about Georgia peaches will not put fruit in your basket. This verb implies instruction that includes a moral responsibility. In other words, learning requires action. It’s absolutely no good to teach about good works, learn about good works, budget for good works but never actually do the good works. Even more importantly, good works are not whatever we happen to consider noble efforts. They are actions that meet pressing needs. If you want the best Georgia peaches, you have to find a roadside stand with direct access to the orchard. You have to avoid the processor. The same is true of good works. Avoid the middleman. Proxy Christianity is a sure formula for unfruitfulness. It’s a great way to pass the responsibility to someone else, but you won’t learn anything about the immediate moral responsibility of good works. You won’t experience the first-person joy of being a vehicle of God’s grace in the life of someone in need. You’ll just be a processor. You’ll give your money to someone else who will witness the enjoyment of a hungry person eating the fruit.
By the way, the verb here is the first word in the sentence. That means it is in the place of emphasis. Learning the moral responsibility that comes with fruitfulness is first-place importance. Actions taken at a distance remove you from the real impact of fruit production. You see, even though your fruit is for another’s consumption, experiencing the grace that comes with providing for someone in need is for you. You are blessed in giving it away. If you just pass it along the food chain, you miss out on the intended experience of seeing God’s grace transferred from your hands. Proxy Christianity is ultimately effort without fruit.
Topical Index: fruit, unfruitful, akarpoi, learn, manthano, Titus 3:14
I’m so glad you hit on these very important points that go unnoticed or misunderstood due to the church organization’s accepted way of doing things. If everyone took this advice the church organizations would suffer financially.
I am little misled by your statement in the last sentence. Suffer financially?
Hi Skip, Your daily bible studies have expanded my understanding of the scriptures and I’m most grateful for that. While I may not always understand the full message in the studies, I’ve never taken an exception to any one of them.
I do have a concern/question about today’s study however. If I understand the contextual definition of a Proxy Christian correctly, it appears as though this would apply for example, to anyone who has a high-paying, time consuming job, and donates their financial resources (maybe due to a lack of time), to support ministries that are directly involved with the un-saved (supporting harvestors or sellers). Using this example and referencing the comments in the 3rd paragraph, the person (Processor) who supports others is missing out. I disagree. When we get to Heaven, I believe we’ll each see how our tithes and love offerings were used by people and in places we were clueless about. We may not have had the blessing of seeing the harvest, but we provided the shoes that allowed the harvestor to do their job.
Basically, seems like you’re saying the farmer who owns the land, read the books on how to grow peaches but then hires someone else to do the planting, harvesting and selling, is a Processor (Proxy Christian). If that’s the case, I don’t believe that viewpoint is accurate as far as Gods Kingdom is concerned. God’s economy allows for some of us to be farmers, planters, harvestors, etc., and we’re to give freely of our resources and/or our time, as the case may be.
I have say that I agree with Skip 100%. It’s one thing to have a high paying job, but it’s quite another to have a time consuming job. I have had both. What I have learned is that God’s call for obedience requires me to ensure that if my time is going to be consumed, it must be consumed with His purposes. If my job is consuming all of my time, then I find it difficult to be the husband and father God has called me to be; let alone the active believer He’s called me to be. I had to realize that god didn’t need my money. He needed my active obedience.
Blessings,
Jimmy
Some very good points about the need for those who are “givers” in the community. Those who wrote to say that they do all they can by contributing what God has given to them are correct. God uses all sorts of roles and relationships to accomplish His purposes. I stand corrected. I did not mean that “proxy” Christians were those who were steps removed from the final result. What I meant is that a proxy Christian is someone who gives money rather than anything else because money does NOT demand commitment. Just throw some money in the plate and my obligation is over. A proxy Christian is someone who wants to stay away from involvement. He retains his independence by being a donor rather than a participant. God asks us to donate – to give freely – but with cheerfulness, not with the expectation of relieving an obligation. Finally, I believe that there is something essential about direct involvement – reciprocity for the giver. What comes back to the giver is vital to understanding the heart of God. The Hebrew view of hesed means that when I am given loving-kindness, I am obligated to pass it on to someone else and I discover that loving-kindness boomerangs back to me.
And Jimmy is also correct. If my job takes so much out of me that I have only money to give, something is wrong with my job. God doesn’t need your money. He wants your heart. And the last time I looked, it’s not dollars that flow though that organ. It’s blood – and life.
Skip
Thanks for the clarification and your (as always) insightful comments Skip. Totally agree with you and Jimmy about the work/time management issue as well as God wanting more than just our tithes.
I have actually seen this principle in my own life (you call it “reciprocity”). I think it confirms a somewhat “triangular” principle in blessing others with our “fruit” (where properly motivated by agape love). The triangular principle is found in I John 4 – God loved us first, we take God’s love that flows through us and give it away to others and in this way, God’s love is made “complete” in and through us (we also, whether “givers” or “receivers” get God’s “WOW” factor).
Because of this, I now have a different view of someone who is on the “receiving” end of God’s blessing and who wants to give this blessing to me. Generally speaking, in the financial arena, God has amply supplied my needs and the needs of my family for many years now. I am not one who has needed someone to “gift” me money. But God has changed my attitude about this because….if God chooses to bless someone else and they somehow feel compelled to give me a gift of money, then, while I might have previously opted to say, “No thanks, you keep it and use it for your needs”, I now see that what I might just be doing is cutting off the blessing this “giver” wants/needs to experience and therefore, getting in the way of God’s conduit blessing to the “giver” and ultimately, to me, the “receiver” regardless of my “needs.” It is not true in every case but as Christians, we need to think way beyond just the material when someone wants to gift us with a blessing of some kind materially (whether we “need” it or not) because we may be diminishing the blessing that this giver will receive from God and therefore, somehow impeded God’s blessing “completeness” in and through us.
I think also that this was what Paul was saying in II Corinthians where he is commending the church for giving sacrificially out of their need rather than their abundance – always easy for the giver to give out of abundance but this isn’t the point of “grace giving”. They gave abundantly out of lack for other brother’s who were in need financially and in this way, God’s love and blessings were made complete (God, giver, receiver) – and Paul was jazzed by it!
Just a thought. Motive (agape love), of course, is everything in all of this. And money, only one aspect of all the ways that we can receive and give God’s blessings to others.
David, don’t think I’ve ever read a clearer explanation grace and the “Triangular Principal” as you called it. Thank you.