Thoughts in the New Year

One of my Christmas gifts was this great set of CD's of John Piper teaching on the 5 points of Calvinism. I've been working my way through them, thanks in part to the fact that I was doing a lot of driving over the holidays.

The teaching on the total depravity of humanity (the "T" in T.U.L.I.P.) has me thinking. Prior to my having listened to Piper on this topic, I have wondered how it is that people who are inherently sinful from birth - that's all of us - have the capacity to do "good works", like acts of charity or giving. For some reason I was having a hard time getting these two ideas to jive. I was then reading something about how all of humankind is made in the image of God (not a new idea for me), and I guess realized that because we are made in His image - and God is all good - we have the ability to do "good things". Okay, so that kind of settled it for me.

Then I listened to what Piper taught (as a side note: I recognize that John Piper is not the sole voice of authority on the meaning of the depravity, and that good scholarship requires reading other sources as well. He's just the first person, apart from my dad, that I have been really spending some time listening to and reading.) Anyway, what I've learned from him is this: In humankind's depravity, everything a person does is sin - even "good works" like acts of charity or giving.

He explains it like this: "If all men are in total rebellion, everything they do is the product of rebellion and cannot be an honor to God, but only part of their sinful rebellion." Romans 14:23 says "Whatever is not from faith is sin".

So that means that even "good works" that unbelievers do are, on some level, an offense to God. Piper explains: "What we mean when we call such actions good is that they more or less conform to the external pattern of life that God has commanded in Scripture. However, such outward conformity to the revealed will of God is not righteousness in relation to God. It is not done out of reliance on him or for his glory. He is not trusted for the resources, though he gives them all. Nor is his honor exalted, even though that's his will in all things...Therefore, even these 'good' acts are part of our rebellion and are not 'good' in the sense that really counts in the end - in relation to God."

This point really struck me for a couple of reasons. First, it made me consider the actions and attitudes of the many people I work with every day who have committed their careers to helping the less fortunate. If these individuals are not believers, and are not working out of faith, then their labor - even though it appears "good" to the world - is offending to God. It's easy to see how the concept of a works-based salvation plays in here. Unbelievers may think they will be acceptable to God because of all the "good" work they have done in their lives, when in fact it is really the opposite.

Secondly, this teaching has me thinking about my own motivations and attitudes in work. I did pursue social work out of a belief that God cares about the poor and the broken, and that believers are to be compassionate to others. But are my day-to-day actions at work reflective of the fact that I'm depending on God to help me in this work and that I'm doing this in faith? Hmm...good stuff to mull over.