Getting to the Good

“To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.”

The word “resolve” in my ESV translates a Hebrew noun that shows up elsewhere in Paul’s writings as “desire”, “good pleasure” and sometimes even “good will”. So the phrase “resolve for good” is not so much concerned with cultivating a steely determination as it is with the orientation of a believer’s desires.

I mean, how exactly do we arrive at an understanding of what “good” means in the first place?

Mining the Minors: Amos (22)

Towards the end of Deuteronomy, when God is renewing the nation’s covenant in Moab with a new generation of Israelites, Moses sets a choice before the people. The choice is life and good, death and evil. One road leads one way, the other in the opposite.

Obey God’s commandments as your fathers did not, Moses says, and you will live and multiply. These commandments are synonymous with “good”. Goodness is not a matter of personal opinion. God has declared what it is. No discussion is necessary. “Choose life,” Moses strongly recommends.

Getting Granular with “Good”

Yesterday I suggested that when God used the word “good” to describe his creative works, what is primarily in view is that each new thing God initiated was supremely suited to its conceived purpose, divinely calibrated to be absolutely appropriate to its intended use.

The end product was “good” in the sense that while it may be possible, for instance, to imagine other ways in which God might have constructed a goat — with three heads, five eyes and eight legs, perhaps — one would be hard-pressed to explain why the extra heads, limbs or eyeballs make the new form preferable to the original.

Mere innovation is not necessarily improvement.

Ten Kinds of Good

Seven times in the first chapter of Genesis, God calls something he has made “good”. This is not news to the average Christian, who has heard or read the story many times.

Still, it’s an important word for the believing reader, not least because the only way the human writer could have known to use it was that he had heard it directly from the mouth of God. After all, no human beings were present when God brought the world into being.

But “good” has a wide range of meanings, doesn’t it.

Not As Simple As It Looks

Getting things done in the Christian life is not a simple process.

Oh, maybe it looks simple. The apostle Paul could pray this:

“… that our God may … fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Simple, right? Christians like Paul pray, and a powerful God takes care of business.

Well, I guess we could read it that way. But I think there’s another side to it.

John Piper, Social Activism and ‘Doing Good’

Debt in the Americas by % of GDP
(hint: black is not good)

Extracted from their original context, many verses may be stretched to the point where they say almost anything we’d like them to.

John Piper, for instance, finds social activism in scripture in places where, try as I might, I just don’t see it:

“It is right and good to pursue obedience to Galatians 6:10, which says: ‘So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.’ ”

With you so far, John. But now things get dicey. In Mr. Piper’s view, “doing good” is a pretty broad term.