FAITH: Do you want to know God? Do good!

As a boy growing up under the guidance of a Baptist church, I was told to avoid “works” righteousness. Salvation (being made whole) was a matter of faith, not works. Over and over again I was told that salvation was by grace through faith and faith alone. I strongly suspect now that this kind of thinking is more Protestant Reformation than Bible. Place Luther in his context and it makes his obsession with salvation by grace through faith alone make sense. However, to get the Christian Faith right, we must rescue Christianity from the Reformation. We live in the 21st century, not the l6th. I know of no other path to Jesus than through the Bible.

While the gospels tell the story of Jesus as a doer of good, no place in the New Testament says it more succinctly than Acts 10. Peter describes Jesus as a person who “went about doing good.” When Peter left this message with Cornelius he was identifying Jesus with the best of Israelite tradition. Israelites were to be doers of good. It was their calling from God. Cornelius was to accept Jesus as their messiah because he was a doer of good.

In Israelite history the call of God to Abraham was not for his tribe to be rulers of the world but to be a blessing to the whole world. The doing of good was their tool. Paul, who was a Jew through and through, set out the great mission of the people of God. In his letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul states the mission of the followers of Jesus. “Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.’

The importance of the pursuit of good in the Bible cannot be overstated. In chapter one of the book of Genesis, God’s encounter with chaos is the subject. It was a subject with deep roots in Near Eastern history and culture. Some of the most important Babylonian myths are about what to do with chaos. The God of the Bible tradition counters chaos (The world was without form and useless.) with creative actions that are declared good. The acts of God in Genesis 1 need to be read as an expression of the words of Paul. Overcome evil with good!

The Old Testament can be read as the history of the Israelites becoming powerful through the exercise of armed might. It led to seemingly great success. However, it really is the story of their destruction, enslavement, life without land. The great prophet’s response was that the true God was a God of loving, caring, and the doing of good in the name of their God.

The Isaiah and Jeremiah writings are full of witness to a loving God, who did good things for his creation. They call for the people of God to do good things in the midst of chaos and loss. Much of the poetry of Psalms and Proverbs praise the God of good and the wisdom of people who live their lives as doers of good.

My readers have long known that I am not a creedal Christian. Creeds are dated by their contents. Creeds are much like the writings of Martin Luther. Placed in context, they are helpful in reflecting the setting of their origin. The Nicene Creed made sense in the 4th century and the writings of Martin Luther made sense in the 16th century. They are like newspapers that are a week, a month, a year or a century old. We are instructed by the past, but we are faced with living today. We need to be reminded that history never repeats itself and is always on the move. Theological rigidity is not wise in an evolving universe.

How then should we understand God? How then should we understand the living of life as the people of God? Much has been made of love as he key to Godly living. In our current setting, the meaning of love has been badly corrupted. “I love you” does not have the meaning it once did. “Love of country” seems almost useless. “God is love” is confusing rather than definitive. I have a dear friend who has come up with her own definition. “God is good!” She has her point. Good still has a lot of uncorrupted meaning. I like her conclusions. Driven to further theological definition, the best place to find God is in the doing of good. Do good and God is close by.

My father died as a thankful man. He felt privileged to have courted my mother in a horse drawn buggy. He then lived to see (by video) a man walk on the moon. However, he could not have envisioned the impact of Moore’s law and the changes that are in motion. All definitions of God seem off target. In our own time, time itself is racing, space is unimaginable, and life seems chaotic. I consider my friend a very good theologian. Doing good works in every situation. The Bible witnesses to the power of good from beginning to end. The great prophets of the Bible added their voices. Jesus went about doing good. The word “good” itself appears to have excellent staying power. My friend’s counsel is time tested. Do good…every day. God will be close by.

The End

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.