Resolved #4: To Do Good to All People

[I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by London Institute for Contemporary Christianity; it’s the fourth of a projected five in a short series drawing on some exhortations from Galatians 5-6 attempting to reframe new year’s resolutions.]

Whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Galatians 6:8-10

We like to reap results from our resolutions – some indication that the fitness regime is paying off, that the boxes are being ticked on our ‘to do’ lists, that the bank balance is moving in the right direction. We sometimes forget, however, that ‘sowing’ and ‘reaping’ require hard work. What’s more, there’s a considerable stretch of time between the two activities that demands patience – not easy for those of us who want to see the outcomes of our labour before it’s ready to be reaped.

Here, Paul shows a delicate pastoral balance between the confidence that as we sow to please the Spirit we will also reap ‘at the proper time’, an implicit reminder that this way of living is to characterise our daily lives until that moment, and the encouragement not to lose heart in the process. Crucially, though, the sowing and reaping are not the things that bring us personal benefit, but helping others in need – ‘doing good’.

Interestingly, the exhortation to do good is not contradicted by the emphasis on faith throughout Galatians. In fact, Paul has already made it clear that, as well as being entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel, the apostles encouraged him to remember the poor – the very thing, Paul says, he was ‘eager to do’ (2:10).

All this resonates with what Scripture says elsewhere – that while our primary responsibility are those in the family of faith, our ‘neighbour’ is anyone in need. As Tim Keller points out in Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2010), the doing of mercy to others is indicative of our grasp of the gospel and the scope of its application.

Paul leaves unspecified what ‘good’ he has in mind, which allows us to reflect on its scope – not just the needs around the world, but in the street where we live, the place where we work, the church we attend. And, as Keller reminds us, the mixture of responses required allows for some things to be done by the church as the church, and for other actions to be carried out by Christians in their places in society – as we go about our business in the world, seeking to be a living demonstration of the mercy we have been shown by God himself.