AND LET US CONSIDER
HOW TO STIMULATE ONE ANOTHER TO LOVE AND GOOD DEEDS: kai katanoomen (1PPAS)
allelous eis paroxusmon agapes kai
kalon ergon: (Heb
13:3;
Psalms 41:1;
Proverbs 29:7;
Acts 11:29;
Romans 12:15;
15:1,2;
1 Corinthians 8:12,13;
9:22;
1 Corinthians 10:33;
Galatians 6:1;
Colossians 3:16;
1 Thessalonians 5:11;
2 Thessalonians 3:9)
(Romans
11:4;
2 Corinthians 8:8;
9:2)
(6:10,11;
13:1;
Galatians 5:6,13,22;
Philippians 1:9-11;
1 Thessalonians 1:3;
3:12,13;
1 Timothy 6:18;
Titus 2:4;
3:8;
1 John 3:18)
Let us -
Another exhortation (click
for the 15 "Let us" exhortations in Hebrews)
The Jewish readers were in great need of exhortation to move forward
in the grace found in the New Covenant and (at least some) were having
a hard time breaking with the Old Covenant, with the Temple and the
sacrifices. They were continuing to hold on to legalism, ritual and
ceremony, all of which represented the outward manifestation of
their prior practices in Judaism. Old habits die hard, don't they.
Henry
writes that here the writer gives us...
the means prescribed for preventing
our apostasy, and promoting our fidelity and perseverance.
The able
Lutheran commentator Lenski aptly summarizes the three let
us exhortations in this section of Hebrews writing that...
The first ("let us draw near" - see note
Hebrews 10:22)
admonition deals with the heart, the second with the mouth ("let us
hold fast the confession" - see note
Hebrews 10:23),
the third with conduct (Hebrews
10:24). The first with
God, the second with the world, the third with the church.
Draw near in Faith
Hold fast in Hope
Stimulate to Love
Let us ever
seek to be stimulators and encouragers, not irritators and fault
finders for as George
Adams reminds us "Encouragement is oxygen to the soul."
Consider (2657)
(katanoeo
from kata = down [kata can be used to intensify the meaning] +
noéo = to perceive or think) means literally to put one's mind
down on something and so to observe or consider carefully and
attentively. It means to fix one’s eyes or mind upon and to perceive
clearly, cautiously, observantly. The idea is to think about something
very carefully or consider closely and includes the action of one's
mind apprehending certain facts about a thing so as to give one the
proper and decisive thought about the thing considered.
Notice the
present tense
which calls for
continuous consideration of how to stir other believers - not to stir
them in the sense of causing trouble, but stirring them up in the
sense of motivating them to live on earth as citizens of heaven who
are anticipating a better hope to be fully realized when "the day"
draws nigh. The exhortation is to take careful note of each other’s
spiritual welfare, for we are in fact in a very real sense "our
brother's keeper" in the flock of God.
Jamieson
writes that the idea of consider is...
with the mind attentively fixed on
“one another", contemplating with continual consideration the
characters and wants of our brethren, so as to render mutual help and
counsel.
Expositor's
Greek Testament writes that the author is here saying...
let us consider one another, taking
into account and weighing our neighbour's circumstances and especially
his risks, but this with a view not to exasperating criticism, but
"with a view (eis) to incite them to love and good work,"
acknowledging honest endeavor and making allowance for imperfection.
This is the
second use of katanoeo in this epistle, the first use being in
Hebrews 3 where he commands the readers....
Therefore, holy brethren, partakers
of a heavenly calling,
consider (aorist
imperative - do
this now, do it effectively, it conveys a sense of urgency) Jesus, the
Apostle and High Priest of our confession. (see note
Hebrews 3:1)
TDNT
writes that katanoeo...
is closely related to the simple
noeo, whose literal meaning is intensified, “to direct one’s whole
mind to an object,” also from a higher standpoint to immerse oneself
in it and hence to apprehend it in its whole compass... It can also
denote 2. critical observation of an object: “to consider
reflectively,” “to study,” “to examine,”... 3. In literary Greek
katanoeo...means especially apprehension of a subject by intellectual
absorption in it: “to consider,” “to ponder,” “to come to know,” “to
grasp,” “to understand” (Kittel,
G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. Theological Dictionary of the
New Testament. Eerdmans)
Matthew Henry
writes that...
Christians ought to have a tender
consideration and concern for one another; they should affectionately
consider what their several wants, weaknesses, and temptations are;
and they should do this, not to reproach one another, to provoke one
another not to anger, but to love and good works, calling upon
themselves and one another to love God and Christ more, to love duty
and holiness more, to love their brethren in Christ more, and to do
all the good offices of Christian affection both to the bodies and the
souls of each other. A good example given to others is the best and
most effectual provocation to love and good works.
Stimulate
(3948)
(paroxusmos
from para = besides, near + oxuno = literally to
sharpen, figuratively to incite or irritate) is a strong word which
literally means to sharpen and figuratively speaks of a sharpening of
one's mind or incitement to some action. Depending on the context,
paroxusmos can have either a positive or negative meaning. In a
positive sense (Hebrews 10:24) it refers to a rousing of one to activity
by
incitement or encouragement. In a negative sense (Acts 15:39, see
below), paroxusmos refers to a state of irritation, a
sharp disagreement, a "bristly" argument or a provocation.
Acts 15:39 And there arose
such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another,
and Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus.
Paul uses the
related verb paroxuno in his "definition" of Christian love
noting that such love...
does not act unbecomingly; it does
not seek its own, is not provoked (paroxuno), does not take
into account a wrong suffered (see note
1Corinthians 13:5)
There are two
other related words in the NT, both used with a negative meaning -
parorgizo (to make angry) in
Romans 10:19 (note)
and
Ephesians 6:4 (note)
and parorgismos
(anger) in
Ephesians 4:26 (note).
Expositor's
Greek Testament notes that paroxusmos is frequently used by
the classic Greek writers...
of stimulating to good as in Plato
(Epist. iv., p. 321) and in Xenophon (Cyrop. 6, 2, 5), et al... The
writer, in Hebrews 6:9-10, has set his readers a good example of this
considerate excitement.
Hebrews 6:9 (note)
But, beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and
things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way.
10
For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you
have shown toward His name, in having ministered and in still
ministering to the saints.
This Greek word
paroxusmos is related to our English paroxysm which
describes a sudden attack or violent expression of something. Although
that is not exactly what the writer is saying for his readers to do,
it does convey the sense that we are to be serious about spurring one
another. Perhaps you have had this experience -- You were driving home late at night with
someone else at
the wheel and you noticed them begin to nod off. How
did you stimulate them? A whisper? Hardly. Instead you would rather
vigorously tried to excite them and arouse them from their stupor to
prevent "the day" of your car crash from drawing near! In
the same way, we believers are
to consider seriously out to spur each other onward and upward and all
the more as the
day of His return draws nearer.
There are two
uses of paroxusmos in the Septuagint...
Deuteronomy 29:28 and the
LORD uprooted them from their land in anger and in fury and in great
wrath (Hebrew = qetseph = anger; Lxx = paroxusmos), and cast them into
another land, as it is this day.'
Jeremiah 32:37 "Behold, I
will gather them (prophecy of future regathering of Israel prior to
the Millennial reign) out of all the lands to which I have driven them
in My anger, in My wrath, and in great indignation (Hebrew = qetseph =
anger; Lxx = paroxusmos); and I will bring them back to this place and
make them dwell in safety.
Matthew Poole
adds that paroxusmos...
is a word borrowed from physicians,
who use it to set out the violent incursion of a fever, when the fit
is so strong as to make the body tremble and bed shake with the horror
and rigour of it. In this place it is used to set out the vehemency
(speaks of intense emotion, feeling or conviction) of affection to
which the sacrifice of Christ obligeth Christians, as those who had
their whole persons acted by love to each other, with all vehemency,
to the highest and fullest pitch of it; as who should exceed in
benevolence, beneficence, and complacency in each other, such as is
conscientious, pure, and extensive to the very end, see notes
Hebrews 13:1;
Romans 12:9,
12:20; 1Thessalonians
4:9;
1
Peter 1:22; and
manifesting itself in good works to them, especially merciful ones,
pitying, counselling, succouring, supplying, and comforting them, Jas
2:13, 15, 16 1 John 3:14, 16-18 and this freely, cheerfully,
and constantly, see notes
Ephesians 2:10;
4:32;
1 Ti 6:18. (Matthew Poole's Commentary)
One another
(240)
(allelon) is a frequent Pauline word which is found 40 times in
the NAS and makes for a very interesting study (click
the 40 uses).
Note that he does not say “Meet together so the pastor can stir you up
to love and good works, and encourage you.” One another means
that every believer can and should encourage, exhort, admonish and
even rebuke other believers to press on for the prize of the upward
call of God in Christ Jesus, to fight the good fight of faith, to run
the race with endurance. And to reiterate, the verb katanoeo does not
imply we are to give this activity an occasional thought but that we are to
continually be putting our mind to this task (of stimulating one
another), observing and considering carefully and attentively how we
can carry out this exhortation toward other believers. We need to
think carefully and not casually about how to stimulate one another. The end is
at hand and we are to redeem the time for the days until the end are
evil. In the meantime we are to think of ways to stimulate our
brethren to love and good deeds.
What can I do today to stimulate a
brother or sister in Christ to Christ-like loving deeds?
As John Piper says
This is a reason for living that is focused enough to be practical
and big enough to last a lifetime.
Solomon alludes
to this idea of the "one another-ness" our writer is calling his
readers to pursue...
Two are better than one, because
they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will
lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has
not another to lift him up. (Ecclesiastes 4:9, 10)
John Wesley
once said
There is nothing more unchristian
than a solitary Christian.
In the next
verse the writer says we are to do these things "all the more and as
you see the day drawing near." In other words this stirring one
another up to love and good deeds ought to be motivated by a sense of
our Lord's imminent return. Each day closer to His glorious Second
Coming should serve to motivate us to pour ourselves into acts of love
toward one another.
John Piper
has an interesting comment on this section writing that stimulating
one another...
...is the focus for your life. Here
is what you aim at from morning till night as a Christian. Notice
carefully: it is not what you might expect. It is not: consider how to
love each other and do good deeds. That would be Biblical and right.
But it’s different: “Consider how to stimulate each other to love and
good deeds.” Focus on helping others become loving people. Aim at
stirring up others to do good deeds. And of course the implication
would also be that if others need help and stirring, we do too, and so
we would be aiming at what sorts of ways we can think and feel and
talk and act that will stir each other up to love and to do good
deeds. The aim of our lives is not just loving and doing good deeds,
but helping to stir up others to love and to good deeds. (See the full
text of
Consider Each Other How to Stir Up Love)
A B Simpson
explains stimulating one another this way...
Every new experience is a
preparation for a higher ministry. We can only give to others the
Christ that we ourselves know. After coming closer to God we shall
always find some hungry heart waiting for our message and ready for
our assistance. Let us go out of ourselves as soon as we can, and find
our blessings in blessing one another. There is special reference in
the following verse to the approaching day of the Lord's coming, and
the ministry referred to has doubtless reference to the gathering out
and preparation of the Bride to meet her Lord. This, indeed, seems to
be the great work which the Holy Spirit has for the disciples of
Christ today, not so much the conversion of sinners, although that is
not to be forgotten, but the purifying and preparing of the Lord's own
people to meet Him in the air. We shall find as we endeavor to give
our blessing to others that it grows in the exercise, even as the
traveler who found that he had saved himself from death by the warmth
that came into his freezing limbs while he rubbed and chafed the limbs
of a fellow-traveler, who was dying in the snow. So let us "consider
one another to provoke unto love and good works." (A. B. Simpson.
Christ in the Bible - Hebrews)
Here are four ways
believers can be positive "irritants" to one another to incite them to
love and good deeds...
(1) Prayer
-
If we specifically pray for each other by name and pray for the development
of volitional, selfless love (agape) and for specific good deeds, God will
answer for John says...
And this is the confidence which we
have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He
hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we
know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. (1
John 5:14,15) As John Calvin well said "The door is closed to
prayer unless it is opened with the key of
trust...The true proof of faith is
the assurance when we pray that God will really perform what He has
promised us." The Puritan writer Thomas Watson put it this way "Faith
is to prayer what the feather is to the arrow."
Paul "shot his arrows" very
specifically as he interceded and importuned for the saints at
Philippi...
And this I pray, that your love may
abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so
that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be
sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with
the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the
glory and praise of God. (See notes
Philippians 1:9;
10;
11)
(2)
Example -
A second powerful way to spur one another on to “love and good deeds” is by
example.
"We are living a Gospel
A chapter each day,
By deed that we do,
By word that we say;
Men read what we live,
Whether faithless or true,
Say! What is the Gospel
According to you?"
Oswald Chambers said
It is a most disturbing thing to be smitten
in the ribs by some provoker from God, by someone who is full of spiritual
activity.
Example is the most powerful rhetoric.-Thomas Brooks
Well done is better than well said.
- Benjamin Franklin
More depends on my walk than talk.
- D. L. Moody
Our lives should be such as men may
safely copy. - C. H. Spurgeon
Example is more forceful than
precept. People look at me six days a week to see what I mean on the
seventh day. - Richard Cecil
It is a fact that loving God and
man and doing good deeds are more readily caught than taught. Precepts
may lead, but examples draw. To provoke others onward and upward by
example is the high road and one worth pursuing with earnestness as
did Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman who had what he termed "My rule for
Christian living"
The rule that governs my life is this: anything that dims my vision of
Christ, or takes away my taste for Bible study, or cramps my prayer
life, or makes Christian work difficult, is wrong for me, and I must,
as a Christian, turn away from it.
This simple rule would help all of us find a safe road for our feet
along life's road as we seek to encourage others to do the same.
Example is greater than precept. A
gentleman was seeking the directions in a strange city, and the person
of whom he inquired was vague and unsatisfactory. Another, coming up
and seeing the stranger's perplexity, asked him where he wished to go.
On being told, he replied, "Just come along with me, I am going that
way myself." When parent and teacher can say to the child, "Come along
with me, I am going that way myself," they talk in a language any
child can understand (Moody Monthly)
Life's Mirror
"There are loyal hearts, there are spirits brave,
There are souls that are pure and true;
Then give to the world the best you have,
And the best will come back to you.
"Give love, and love to your life
will flow,
A strength in your utmost need;
Have faith, and a score of hearts will show
Their faith in your word and deed.
"Give truth, and your gift will be
paid in kind,
And honor will honor meet;
And a smile that is sweet will surely find
A smile that is just as sweet.
"Give sorrow and pity to those who
mourn,
You will gather in flowers again,
The scattered seeds of your thought outborne,
Though the sowing seemed but vain.
"For life is the mirror of king and
slave;
'Tis just what you ARE and DO;
Then give to the world THE BEST YOU HAVE,
And the BEST will come back to you!"
—Madeline S. Bridges
(3)
God’s Word -
The Word of God is our basic primer for love and good deeds. When
we internalize it and allow it renew our mind and transform us, we become
veritable conduits of its virtues and gentle examples and provokers of
this Spirit wrought grace to our brothers and sisters in Christ.
(4)
Encouragement -
Lastly, there is the responsibility to verbally spur others on through words
of encouragement. Always remember that "A good word costs no more than a bad
one." And as someone else once said more people fail for lack of
encouragement than for any other reason. Spurgeon tells the following
stories...
You remember the story of the man
who had a good wife, and one said to him, "Why, she is worth her
weight in gold." "Yes," he said, "she is worth a Gibraltar rock in
gold, but I never tell her that. You know that it is necessary to
maintain discipline, and if I were to tell her how much I really value
her, she would not know herself." Well, now, that is wrong. It does
people good to be told how highly we value them. There is many a
Christian man and woman, who would do better if now and then some one
would speak a kindly word to them, and let them know they had done
well. — Barbed Arrows from the Quiver of C. H. Spurgeon
There was a blacksmith once who had
two pieces of iron which he wished to weld into one, and he took them
just as they were, all cold and hard, and put them on the anvil, and
began to hammer with all his might, but they were two pieces still,
and would not unite. At last he remembered what he ought never to have
forgotten; he thrust both of them into the fire, took them out
red-hot, laid the one upon the other, and by one or two blows of the
hammer they very soon became one. — Feathers for Arrows
Stimulation to Good Deeds -
The story is told of Ludwig von Beethoven. Born into a musical family
in Germany, Beethoven was compelled to spend a lonely childhood while
he practiced his music for hours upon hours every day. His genius soon
showed itself. At the age of eleven he was composing his own music and
conducting an orchestra, and in his late teens he went to Vienna for
further study. There he reached fame if not fortune. There he composed
what was perhaps his most bewitching composition. Beethoven was
passing a cobbler's cottage early one evening and heard someone
practicing one of his compositions. As he paused to listen, he
overheard the girl express the desire to hear a real musician render
it properly. He entered the house and discovered that the young lady
was blind. Offering to play for her, he sat at the piano and did so
for an hour or more. Dusk had settled into evening. The lone candle in
the room went out. But the moonlight glistened in the room and, under
its inspiration and that received from the blind girl who so loved his
music, Beethoven composed the "Moonlight Sonata."
Love
(26)
(agape)
speaks of
unconditional, sacrificial love and Biblically refers to a love that
God is (1Jn
4:8,16), that God shows (Jn
3:16,
1Jn 4:9) and that God enables in and
through His yielded, humble saints (see note on fruit of the Spirit
Galatians 5:22).
Biblical agape love is the love of choice, the love that
serves with humility, the highest love and noblest devotion, the love
of one's will (intentional, a conscious choice), a love not motivated
by superficial appearance, emotional attraction, or sentimental
relationship but initiated and energized by the Spirit in the obedient
saint. Agape is not based on pleasant emotions or good
feelings that might result from a physical attraction or a familial
bond. Agape chooses as an act of self-sacrifice to serve the
recipient. From all of the descriptions of agape love, it is
clear that genuine agape love is a sure mark of salvation.
By this all men will know
that
you are My disciples, if you have love (agape) for one another.
(John
13:35).
Agape love can exhibit
emotion, but it must always exhibit action. Agape is
unrestricted, unrestrained, and unconditional. Agape love is
the virtue that surpasses all others and is the prerequisite for all
the other virtues. Jesus when asked
"Teacher, which is the great
commandment in the Law?” replied ”‘You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
“This is the great and foremost commandment." (Mt
22:36-38)
F B Meyer has the following
description of agape love...
Wherever there is true love, there
must be giving, and giving to the point of sacrifice. Love is not
satisfied with giving trinkets; it must give at the cost of sacrifice:
it must give blood, life, all. And it was so with the love of God. "He
so loved the world, that He gave his only-begotten Son." "Christ also
loved and gave Himself up, an offering and a sacrifice to God." (See
note
Ephesians 5:2)
We are to imitate God's love in
Christ. The love that gives, that counts no cost too great, and, in
sacrificing itself for others, offers all to God, and does all for His
sake. Such was the love of Jesus--sweet to God, as the scent of fields
of new-mown grass in June; and this must be our model.
Not to those who love us, but who hate; not to those who are pleasant
and agreeable, but who repel; not because our natural feelings are
excited, but because we will to minister, even to the point of the
cross, must our love go out. And every time we thus sacrifice
ourselves to another for the sake of the love of God, we enter into
some of the meaning of the sacrifice of Calvary, and there is wafted
up to God the odor of a sweet smell. (Devotional
Commentary on Ephesians)
Meyer in
his book The Way Into the Holiest adds that agape love...
is queen of all the graces of the
inner life. Love is the passion of self-giving. It never stays to ask
what it can afford, or what it may expect to receive; but it is ever
shedding forth its perfume, breaking its alabaster boxes, and shedding
its heart's blood. It will pine to death if it cannot give. It must
share its possessions. It is prodigal of costliest service.
Such love is in the heart of God,
and should also be in us; and we may increase it materially by
considering one another, and associating with our fellow-believers.
Distance begets coldness and indifference. When we forsake the
assembly of our fellow Christians we are apt to wrap ourselves in the
chill mantle of indifference.
But when we see others in need, and
help them; when we are willing to succor and save; when we discover
that there is something attractive in the least lovable; when we feel
the glowing sympathy of others-our own love grows by the demands made
on it, and by the opportunities of manifestation.
Let us seek earnestly these best
gifts; and that we may have them and abound, let us invoke the blessed
indwelling of the Lord Jesus, whose entrance brings with it the whole
train of sweet Christian graces.
Good deeds
(ergon = work +
agathon
= good) (Click
incredible example of good deeds) is a frequent Pauline phrase used 6x
in the short letter to Titus (see notes
Titus 1:16;
2:7;
2:14;
3:1;
3:8;
3:14).
John Morley
helps us understand the "good" in "good deeds" writing that...
It is not enough to do good. One
must do it in the right way.
Chester A. Pennington
also adds the qualifier that...
No amount of good deeds can make us
good persons. We must be good before we can do good.
See related resource by A W
Pink -
The Scriptures and Good Works
Paul
emphasized the principle that good deeds flow from "ready"
vessels, writing that
if a man cleanses himself from
these things (Amplified - "from what is ignoble and unclean, who
separates himself from contact with contaminating and corrupting
influences"), he will be a vessel (instrument) for honor, sanctified,
useful (beneficial for honorable and noble purposes) to the Master,
prepared (ready, ripe, primed) for every good work (ergon
agathon)." (see note
2 Timothy 2:21)
In other words,
you get up, go to work, and immediately God gives you an opportunity
to perform a good work. Are you ready?
Every morning is
a new day of opportunity and we need to arise and "present (our)
bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God" (see note
Romans 12:1),
redeem (buy up) "the time (opportunities), because the days are evil"
(see note
Ephesians 5:16),
disciplining ourselves for godliness which is "profitable for all
things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the
life to come." (see notes
1Timothy 4:7;
1Timothy 4:8)
R. L. Dabney
adds that...
The gospel teaches us that while
believers are not rewarded on account of their works, they are
rewarded according to their works...While our works are naught as a
ground of merit for justification, they are all-important as evidences
that we are justified.
Spurgeon
put it this way...
I would not give much for your
religion unless it can be seen. Lamps do not talk, but they do shine.
Don't let the
opportunities slip by. Be "confessed up", "repented up" and "filled
up" with the Holy Spirit and you will be ready to recognize the
opportunities God graciously gives. And remember that although we are
to be seen doing good works, we must not do good works in order to be
seen!
Peter explained the vital importance of good deeds in a godless
society exhorting us to
Keep (our) behavior excellent among
the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander (us) as
evildoers, they may because of (our) good deeds, as they
observe (behold with their own eyes like a spectator or overseer)
them, glorify God in the day of visitation." (see note
1 Peter 2:12)
In light of the
importance of good deeds, the writer of Hebrews encourages
saints to
consider how to stimulate one
another to love and good deeds. (see note
Hebrews 10:24)
Your good
works will validate your good words (works are
fruit but words are leaves) which is in stark contrast to the false
teachers who
profess to know God, but by their
deeds they (continually) deny Him, being detestable (root word
= "to stink"!) and disobedient and worthless for any good
deed” (see note
Titus 1:16).
Good deeds
are not the root of salvation, but they are the fruit of
genuine salvation (cf
Mt 3:8,
Ephesians 2:10 [note]).
The lives of
believers should continually demonstrate the reality of the spiritual
regeneration and supernatural transformation they have received by
grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
Believers who
have been redeemed...from every lawless deed and now are the
rightful possessions of Christ, are to be zealous (afire,
ardent, fervent, eager, enthusiastic) for good deeds. (see
note
Titus 2:14)
Thomas Adams
phrased it this way...
Good deeds are such things that no
man is saved for them nor without them.
John Calvin
rightly reminds us (for a man is tested by the praise accorded him
- Pr 27:21)...
In our good works nothing is our
own.
Oswald
Chambers explains it this way...
Do good until it is an unconscious
habit of life and you do not know you are doing it.
Martin Luther
in his preface to his comments on Romans wrote...
Oh, it is a living, busy, active,
mighty thing, this faith; and so it is impossible for it not to do
good works incessantly. It does not ask whether there are good works
to do, but before the question rises; it has already done them, and is
always at the doing of them. He who does not these works is a
faithless man. He gropes and looks about after faith and good works,
and knows neither what faith is nor what good works are, though he
talks and talks, with many words, about faith and good works.
Spurgeon
wrote the following regarding works and our Salvation.
William Wickham being appointed by
King Edward to build a stately church, wrote in the windows, "This
work made William Wickham." When charged by the king for assuming the
honour of that work to himself as the author, whereas he was only the
overseer, he answered that he meant not that he made the work, but
that the work made him, having before been very poor, and then in
great credit. Lord, when we read in thy Word that we must work out our
own salvation, thy meaning is not that our salvation (see note
Philippians 2:12)
should be the effect of our work, but our — Feathers for Arrows (See
notes on
Ephesians 2:10
for a faith that works)
As alluded to in
some of the preceding quotes, we must be careful to notice that the
phrase is good deeds which differs from your deeds. Let
me explain. Paul is calling for good (agathos
= good in its character or constitution, beneficial in
its effect) deeds, and the only "good" deeds are
those borne by believers (like "branches") who are abiding in Christ
("the Vine"). Good deeds reflect Christ's life flowing
through us, initiated and energized by His Spirit and bringing glory
to His Father (see note
Matthew 5:16).
Paul reminds us in (see note
Philippians 2:13)
it is God Who is at work in
you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
Jesus stated the
basic principle of good deeds when He declared
"I am the vine, you are the
branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for
apart from Me you can do nothing (absolutely, totally
nothing!)...By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit
(good deeds = good fruit) and so prove to be My disciples...You did
not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go
and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain...." (John
15:5,8,16)
Paul reminded the Corinthian
church of this same foundational principle regarding "good deeds",
explaining that
"God is able to make all grace
abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything,
you may have an abundance for every good deed" (2Cor
9:8).
Paul
acknowledged that the key to his good works was the grace of
God writing that His
"grace toward me did not prove
vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I,
but the grace of God with me." (1Cor
15:10).
In his first
letter to the Corinthians Paul emphasized that
"no man can lay a foundation other
than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ ("the Vine"). Now if
any man builds upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones,
wood, hay, straw, each man's work will become evident; for the day
will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire; and the fire
itself will test the quality of each man's work. If any
man's work which he has built upon it remains, he
shall receive a reward. If any man's work is burned up, he shall
suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire." (1Cor
3:11-15)
One day in the
future the Lord Jesus will even
"disclose the motives of men's
hearts; and then each man's praise will come to him from God." (1Cor
4:5)
In sum, good
deeds in a Biblical sense refers to a genuine, sincere, loving, Spirit
empowered, God glorifying eagerness to serve others. No matter how
hostile the society around us may be, we are to be good to the people
in it whose lives intersect with ours. Paul reminded the Galatian
believers that
While we have opportunity, [we are
to] do good (agathos) to all men, and especially
to those who are of the
