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Titus 2: 14 Our people must learn to devote
themselves to doing what is good, in order that they may provide for daily
necessities and not live unproductive lives. (NIV)
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The duty of the government is to protect us—not provide for us.* |
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We
think of good works as doing things for others, but Paul’s words to Titus
indicate that doing good also includes providing for our own needs. We live in
a society that is becoming more and more dependent on government to meet our
needs. I recently read a story that perfectly illustrates the modern mindset: a
young woman who was in trouble with the law was asked by a counselor if her
mother had ever had trouble with the law also. Yes, she said, her mother had
been on welfare while also holding down a job. When the counselor asked what
happened to the mother, the woman acted surprised that he even had to ask. “She
quit her job,” she said.*
Dependency
can come upon us in a sneaky fashion. For example: the price of a school lunch
doesn’t begin to cover the cost of the meal; when I worked for county
government, for a short time they subsidized the employees’ insurance premiums
for family coverage; immunizations are offered for free at county health
departments, regardless of your financial status. I’m sure you can think of
other ways we let our tax dollars work for us.
I
don’t have the immediate solution to
the mess we’re in but I can offer the ultimate
cure: devote ourselves to doing good. (You thought I was going to say, “Get a
job,” didn’t you?) Doing good involves submitting every area of our lives to
God. According to Paul, a child of God who does good in general receives
specific provision: daily necessities and productive lives. But it is a
contagious way of life: devotion to doing good will never bless the doer only –
it spills over into a world that desperately needs to know the force behind our
good deeds – Jesus Christ.
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If life on this earth were the end of the story, it would be easy to give up trying to do good.* |
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