I don’t quite agree with the title of this chapter. I think we still need heroes. We need people for our sons and daughters — and ourselves — to look up to. My point here, though, is that the herothing has been overdone. It’s not even faithful to Scripture, for reasons I will unpack below. And it tends to reduce Christ to the Ultimate Hero, when what he means to us and for us is so much greater than that.
For many of us reared in the church, the example of heroes is deeply woven into the curriculum of our earliest memories. In Sunday school, the Old Testament was a gold mine for Bible heroes. Abraham is the man of faith, willing even to sacrifice his son at God’s command (aside from the fact that he kept questioning God’s promise and even told a king that Sarah was his sister, to save his own skin). Moses — well, Moses is Moses: there are lots of heroic episodes to pick out from his life. (Just don’t mention the part where God wanted to kill him because he was delaying circumcising his son, or the scene where he disobeyed God and was barred from entering Canaan.) David’s virtues as “a man after God’s own heart” are exhibited (while often skipping over his adultery and indirect murder, and the violence that kept God from letting him build the temple). Samson’s strength is encouragement to manly opposition to the world, the flesh, and the devil. Prophets like Nathan, Elijah, and Elisha show us how to say no to idolatry, and so forth.
This does not mean that we aren’t supposed to glean anything from the examples of these figures. But there are at least three reasons why we should be wary of making this the focus. First, the stories themselves don’t glamorize. Coming back to them as adults, we’re often struck with the fact that, like us, every single Bible hero acted unheroically, often falling into a cycle of sin or despair. We tend to turn the Bible’s stories into something like Aesop’s Fables or the saccharine “Christian novels” that make these biblical narratives far less interesting — and true to life — than they actually are. Even when such figures foreshadow Christ, they soon fall short and remind us why they need a Savior as much as the rest of us.
Second, we have to see how the New Testament interprets these stories. Yes, they’re “examples for us,” as Paul says, but in context (referring specifically to the unbelieving generation in the desert in 1 Corinthians 10), he says that they are examples to warn us against unbelief. Hebrews 11, often dubbed “The Hall of Heroes,” is filled with people who — according to the original stories themselves — were not always heroic. The writer of Hebrews uses these examples to build the cumulative case that it was by faith — faith in Christ — that they held fast to God’s promise and thereby overcame the world’s assaults. The more sordid scenes of their biography were just as essential to highlight in order to focus on this very point.
We must read these episodes in the light of the whole plot of Scripture, which coalesces around Christ. And that’s my third concern about reducing the Bible to a collection of “Dare to Be a Daniel” tales. Even the most heroically faithful figures in the Bible — at their best — fall short of the kind of Savior we need. It becomes clear from the story itself that they too need to be redeemed from the guilt and power of sin. We don’t just need another hero. We need God to descend to earth and rescue us.
The saturation of “Bible hero” vignettes is often followed by a trail of other great men and women. After all, you soon run out of biblical examples. So we turn to the great people in Western history. Again, there is nothing wrong about inculcating virtue by learning about those who displayed it and by shunning the examples of those who were characterized by vice. Yet the constant drumbeat is exemplary figures.
In more conservative circles, we even try to recruit people like America’s founders and other national heroes. It matters little that many of them were clearly skeptical of orthodox Christianity; they were moral theists, at least deists, and that’s enough to serve as moral inspiration. But we hardly need churches to inculcate an appreciation for the justly celebrated accomplishments of these great figures. It points up how far we will go to adorn the gospel with Christian heroes, even if we have to fudge a bit on what constitutes Christianity itself.
Then later, perhaps in youth group, we’re introduced to contemporary celebrity athletes and entertainers who “know the Lord.” Again, their hectic schedule may make it impossible for them to belong to a church (or at least to attend regularly), but they express a deep and very personal “relationship with Jesus.”
How many youth pastors bring in the elderly couple who has walked with the Lord through ups and downs, which exposes teenagers to their godly wisdom? What about the brother who never misses an opportunity to share the gospel with kids at the school that he cleans during the week as janitor? Or the sister who has struggled with doubts and despair through an ordeal with cancer, but who knows that in the next six months she’s been given to live (according to doctors), her life is not her own but belongs to her faithful Savior Jesus Christ?
Years ago, the pastor typically taught the youth catechism, preparing them to profess their faith publicly as communicant members. The shift from catechism classes to Sunday school, and then to the youth group, tended to distance believers from the church at precisely the moment that they were supposed to take that next step of maturity. And why do we think that young people need to hang out with other young people, led by a guy who is only a little older? I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have youth pastors. But I am questioning the factors that have gone into this transition from the apostolic model (older teaching younger, as in Titus 2:4) to one that is more culturally driven.
What do such transitions say about what we value? Where did we get the idea that older folks need to be given a “kid-free” environment with other “golden oldies,” and that men’s groups and women’s groups are more meaningful than the communion of saints? For each of these markets the faith is packaged in a way that distinguishes their interests and needs from those of the rest of the body. There are study Bibles and programs for every conceivable demographic. Often the notes seem more aimed at making relevant applications than in helping people understand the Bible itself.
To the extent that most of our formation in church happens in these niche groups, what forms us will be less the common faith we share than the questions, concerns, and takeaways that we read into it. Again, I’m not against the free association of believers in social settings, but I am simply asking the question: Are we dividing what God has joined together? Is “community” for us more contractual than covenantal, determined more by social locations other than Jesus Christ?
Of course, we need people to look up to, especially in an age of acute ambition — which is another good reason to have older saints mentoring the younger. More than heroes, though, we need a Savior. Then we also need ordinary people around us who exemplify godly qualities and take the time to invest in our lives. Paul even called his young apprentices and churches to follow his example. Yet the characteristics he mentions are his undistracted focus on the gospel, humility, love for all the saints, and contentment (2 Thess 3:9).
Ordinary Callings: Cultural Transformation or Loving Service?
First, the call to radical transformation of society can easily distract faith’s gaze from Christ and focus it on ourselves. Such people hold that the gospel has to be something more than the good news concerning Christ’s victory. It has to expand to include our good works rather than to create the faith that bears the fruit of good works. The church has to be something more than the place where God humbles himself, serving sinners with his redeeming grace. It has to be the home base for our activism, more than being the site of God’s activity from which we are sent and scattered like salt into the world.
There is a marked tendency in this emphasis to play off the “kingdom” against “church.” After all, all of life is worship. We can’t go to church, because we are the church, we are told by advocates of this approach. We aren’t receiving a kingdom through Christ’s Word and Spirit, but building it. Our good works are not the fruit of faith, which comes by hearing the gospel and is confirmed by the sacraments; rather, we are called to live the gospel, even to be the gospel.
Far too many people hold that it’s not who we are that determines what we do, but what we do that determines who we are. Community service becomes something more than believers simply loving their neighbors through their ordinary callings in the world. It becomes part of the church’s missionary task. It’s not what we hear and receive, but what we are and do that gives us a sense of identity and purpose. We need something more than the gospel to trust in — or at least the gospel has to be something more than the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for sinners. Apparently, Jesus got the ball rolling, but we are his partners in redeeming the world.
Instead of following the example of John the Baptist, who pointed away from himself to “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), we offer our own lives and transformations as the good news. But this is to deny the gospel and therefore to cut off the power of true godliness and neighbor love at its root.
Second, radical views of cultural transformation actually harm our callings in the world. The most basic problem is that it reverses the direction of God’s gift giving. According to Scripture, God gives us life, redeems us, justifies us, and renews us. He does this by his Spirit, through the gospel — not just in the beginning, but throughout our lives. Hearing this gospel, from Genesis to Revelation, is the means by which the Spirit creates faith in our hearts. United to Christ, our faith immediately begins to bear the fruit of evangelical repentance and good works. We offer these works not to God for reimbursement, but to our neighbors for their good. If we reverse this flow of gifts, nobody wins. God is offended by our presumption that we could add something more to the perfect salvation he has won for us in his Son. We are therefore on the losing side of the bargain, and our neighbors are too, since our works are directed to God on our behalf rather than to our neighbors on God’s behalf.
Third, despite its affirmation of our callings in the world, the call to change the world undervalues ordinary vocations that actually keep God’s gifts circulating. A carpenter, chef, or homemaker may know what it means to provide excellent service to others every day. In fact, they’re more likely to know the standards of excellence in their own field better than their pastor. But what does it mean to be a “world changer”? What does it mean to redeem your workplace, somehow annexing the office, lab, or shop to the kingdom of Christ? It is not always clear what this would look like on the ground, but we’re attracted to the vision of making a big impact — as quickly as possible. But like the others, this weighty expectation can turn rather quickly from enthusiasm to exhaustion. I’m not questioning whether Christ is Lord over all of life. Rather, the question is how he exercises his lordship in the various overlapping activities of our life. Does he require faithfulness or measurable impact in society attributable to direct Christian action?
Fourth, the call to radical transformation of society can feed a spiritualized version of upward mobility. If direct cultural impact is the goal, it’s easy to adopt an elitism that places a premium on high-profile callings. We hear this on the left and the right in our circles. It’s fine to be a homemaker, baker, or diving instructor. But what we really need are lawyers, politicians, artists, economists, scientists, New York Times editorialists, entertainers, and sports celebrities. These are “strategic” positions, it is often said. There aren’t a lot of agendas available for redeeming janitorial services.
Fifth, the culture-transforming mission can backfire in the other direction, against those who are in fact called to be novelists, painters, physicists, senators, and academics. They too are called by God to ordinary labors in the common culture that they share with non-Christians. When we expect them to somehow advance Christ’s kingdom as the elite guard in his culture war, the result is often disastrous. An economist knows the complexity of his or her field and how and why Christians with the same theological convictions can nevertheless differ markedly over theories and agendas. That is because Scripture does not give us an economic blueprint for nations in this time between Christ’s two advents.
Consequently, God’s common grace — enjoyed by believer and unbeliever alike — illumines people to study the relevant data and theories. It is precisely at this stage where Christians who agree over the same doctrine or principle will differ over the wisest strategy for applying it. The same is true of artists, who eschew simplistic and sentimental windows on the world; of politicians, who realize that public service is about compromise for the common good; of scientists, who marvel at fellow believers who reduce their discipline to ideology as much as secularists.
Reforming Our Theology of Culture
I suspect that our obsession of late with cultural transformation in evangelical circles facilitates the thinly “Christianized” versions of ambition, restless innovation, and impatience that actually make any real kind of culture, Christian or otherwise, impossible.
In the closing decades of the twentieth century, evangelicals suddenly became a cultural force in American society. Of course, there have always been socially-engaged voices in our circles, but nothing like this concerted level of engagement. It was a movement that determined the outcome of many elections. Yet now, in recent years, the predictable reaction has occurred — not only from society at large (which now has a fairly dim view of evangelicals), but within the movement as well.
On balance, this movement — known as the Christian Right — was a failure. I have neither the space nor the competence to offer a detailed account. However, I do have some supportable conclusions about some of the things that went wrong.
First, I think that the movement was shallow both theologically and culturally. Theologically, the movement to my mind displayed a shallow view of God, creation, the complex nature of sin, redemption, and the church especially in its relation to culture. Many of those who were given to apocalyptic predictions read the Bible in one hand with the newspaper in the other. Expectation of imminent destruction of “the late, great planet earth” merged with an ideal of changing the world, or at least America. It was a combustible mixture. In short, the theological coordinates were not well thought out as evangelicals stormed the gates.
A correspondingly shallow view of culture was also evident on many levels. While mainline Protestants are prone to follow the fads and fashions of high culture (the academy, arts, and sciences), evangelicals have usually been the patrons of popular culture. Thus, energy was focused on making a cultural splash through celebrity Christians and politics. This further reinforced the sense both that politics (specifically, government) is the main driver of culture and that evangelical churches formed another special-interest voting block. Not surprisingly, our neighbors’ reaction to evangelicals rises and falls with the winds of political patronage.
Cheered by initial success in rallying the troops, the leaders of the Christian Right continually added to their list of demands. The laudable concern to protect human life from the ravages of abortion on-demand spread quickly to a host of policy initiatives that reflected the Republican platform more than serious biblical exegesis. In the meantime, the evangelical left seemed captive to the Democratic Party. All of this stands in sharp contrast to Roman Catholic engagement, which was able to draw on centuries of social thought.
In short, I believe that the unrealistic call to cultural transformation is in large part to blame. Younger evangelicals may tone down the rhetoric and switch political allegiances in the ongoing culture war. They may be more culturally savvy than the previous generation. Yet the tie that remains is this: the illusion that we can make the kingdoms of this age the kingdom of Christ and that this is done chiefly through direct (especially political) action.
The alternative to the ideal of cultural transformation is not passivity. Much less does Scripture allow a separation of one’s calling in Christ from one’s callings in the world. We are not Christians at prayer and pagans at work. Our biblical convictions shape our approach to all questions of life. Yet that is precisely why we need to evaluate those convictions. We need to recover our biblical bearings. If we mature in our theological convictions and assumptions about the nature of culture, we will begin to see that societies, like churches, are shaped over long periods and through all of the various callings that occupy us every day.
We are living in the time between Christ’s two advents: the “already” and the “not yet” of our salvation. Only when Christ returns will he directly judge the nations and reign over his restored cosmos in everlasting shalom: justice and peace. “For in this hope we were saved.” But Paul goes on to add: “Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Rom 8:24 – 25). What we need, therefore, is a way of thinking about a relative justice and peace in a fallen world that lies under the dominion of sin and death.
We are citizens of God’s new creation in Christ, but we are also citizens of the common kingdoms and cultures in which God’s providence has placed us. God is building his kingdom in this world through his Word and sacraments, but we know that the kingdoms of this age will not be made the kingdom of Christ until his return. We live as salt and light, but with no illusions of Christendom. So we are neither utopian nor passive. Rather, Christ is building his church (Matt 16:18), and we are “receiving a kingdom” by God’s grace in the body of Christ (Heb 12:28; cf. Luke 12:32). The redemption that Christ has already won objectively for us is not only the salvation of the soul, but the resurrection of the body; not only of people, but of a renewed creation. The question is not whether God rules over the kingdoms of the earth right now, but how he reigns over his church through saving grace and over the earthly powers through common grace.
As we deepen and correct our theological vision, we need also to deepen and correct our cultural vision. One notable example of this convergence is provided by Christian sociologist James Davison Hunter. In To Change the World he explains how cultures actually develop and the danger of thinking that direct and immediate attempts to change society are effective.85 His own model of “faithful presence” seems to me to navigate wisely between transformationalism and apathy in our cultural engagement.
In the process of living out our ordinary discipleship, some may actually be called to remarkable acts of heroism and sacrificial leadership. In the course of their ordinary vocations, some may be extolled for their artistic brilliance, political labors, or scientific discoveries. It is crucial that Christians fulfill their various callings as salt and light in a tasteless and dark world. But the kingdom of Christ advances directly by the Spirit’s miraculous gathering of a people around the Lamb to the glory of the Father through the ordinary means of grace. In addition to collapsing Christ and his work into the church and its labors, as well as collapsing the age to come into this present age, the transformational emphasis can blur the distinction between saving grace and common grace.
Loving Neighbors Is Tougher Than Loving Causes
An earlier point is worth repeating: it is easy to turn others into instruments of our ambition rather than loving them for their own sake, as fellow image bearers of God. They become supporting actors — if not props — in our life movie.
Loving actual neighbors through particular actions every day can be a lot more mundane as well as difficult than trying to transform culture. Regardless of the role or place in society to which God has assigned us by our calling, we are content. Our identity is already determined by our being “in Christ,” not by our accomplishments. The measure of excellence is daily love for our neighbors during this time between Christ’s two advents. Paul let the air out of inflated Corinthian egos when he reminded them:
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, in order to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (1 Cor 1:26 – 29)
It is evident from Paul’s letters that the members of the Corinthian church were desperate to fit in with this culture. If Corinthian society placed a high value on style over substance, they would too. If lawsuits were common, then believers could also rush to court against each other. If sexual immorality was tolerated in society, it could be accommodated in the church. If strict socioeconomic divisions characterized civil life, you could have ranking positions in the church along the same lines.
Paul was not creating a new kind of elitism, where the truly spiritual were simply common laborers. If everyone were a janitor or carpenter, where would the other services — like ruling, study, and opening up large homes to fellow believers come from? Rather, Paul was targeting the envy and ambition of Corinthian believers who, with the help of the “super-apostles,” had been imbibing a version of the prosperity gospel. To be sure, “not many” of the elect are the people who appear on the pages of People or in CNN interviews. But some are. The point is that their callings in the world do not give them any rank or privilege in the body of Christ. The key is to realize that the church is the place where the many members of the body, whoever they are, can be seen as equally crucial to the functioning of the whole body.
The idolatry of both the common person and the cultural elite results at least in part from losing sight of the proper orientation. This idolatry places a burden on the idols to come through for us or else suffer the devastating consequences of our collective disappointment. However, if God’s pleasure and glory are ultimate and our neighbor’s good the penultimate goal, we will engage culture in the way that God has gifted, prepared, and called us to do.
Evangelicals don’t seem to care enough about “high culture” to invest in gospel operas or symphonies, but there is a longing for pop-cultural icons in our subculture. It is refreshing when someone with worldly fame refuses to be a “trophy Christian.” Jon Foreman, lead singer for Switchfoot, was asked recently whether he considers his band “Christian.” He replied:
To be honest, this question grieves me because I feel that it represents a much bigger issue than simply a couple SF tunes. In true Socratic form, let me ask you a few questions: Does Lewis or Tolkien mention Christ in any of their fictional series? Are Bach’s sonatas Christian? What is more Christ-like, feeding the poor, making furniture, cleaning bathrooms, or painting a sunset? . . . The stance that a worship leader is more spiritual than a janitor is condescending and flawed. These different callings and purposes further demonstrate God’s sovereignty.86
Of his own songs, Foreman adds, “None of these songs has been born again, and to that end there is no such thing as Christian music.”
No. Christ didn’t come and die for my songs, he came for me. Yes. My songs are part of my life. I am a believer. Many of these songs talk about this belief. An obligation to say this or do that does not sound like the glorious freedom that Christ died to afford me. . . . (I’ve heard lots of people say Jesus Christ and they weren’t talking about their redeemer.) You see, Jesus didn’t die for any of my tunes.
So there is no hierarchy of life or songs or occupation, only obedience. We have a call to take up our cross and follow. We can be sure that these roads will be different for all of us. Just as you have one body and every part has a different function, so in Christ we who are many form one body and each of us belongs to all the others. Please be slow to judge “brothers” who have a different calling.
In more concrete terms, the ideal of cultural transformation reflects a kind of collective ambition that overlooks ordinary faithfulness. I’m speaking to fellow ministers now. Think of the nurse who dragged herself out of bed to attend the means of grace after having worked a fifteen-hour shift. Pastors shouldn’t feel guilty for not having cared for the physical needs of hundreds of neighbors in the hospital this last week. But why should they load down this nurse for failing to “live her faith” because she extended hours of neighbor love in her ordinary vocation rather than as an identifiable churchrelated “ministry”?
Or picture the parents of four children, one of whom has a rare blood disease. They both work tirelessly, one outside the home, loving and serving neighbors. They would like to have more friends and open up their home. Stirred by the opportunities and needs to volunteer for all sorts of good causes, they find that all of their time, energy, and resources go to caring for their family. Are they world changers? Should they be giving more time to “finding their ministry” in the church, so that the church can receive the credit for having an impact on the community?
I also think of the banker who came to church today. On Thursday he stretched the “best practices” a bit to extend a low-interest loan to a responsible but disadvantaged young family for their first home.
I picture the mom and dad who, though tired at the end of a busy day, read Scripture and pray with their children and then tuck them into bed with an imagination-building story. Some nights they forget or just cannot reach the day’s finish line, but there’s another day.
There is the Sunday school teacher who labors over the lesson in between working two jobs; the high schooler whose vocation is to learn, grow, and assume civic as well as church responsibilities; the struggling artist who makes us all stop to imagine ourselves and our place in the world a little differently; the lawyer who prosecutes the claims of justice and defends the rights of the accused — who just this past week offered pro bono hours to a victim who couldn’t afford legal advice.
Now, all of these people are there before you. After their long week, filled with the hopes and fears of this present age, they are longing to hear something new, which they have not — could not — hear from the various institutions, media, and personalities they’ve encountered over the last six days. There are single people who are struggling with their relationships, wondering if they will always be lonely — and whether they’re to blame. Others are struggling in their marriages, troubled by the way their children seem to ignore them, wrestling with the real possibility that one or both of them will be laid off at work.
You are Christ’s ambassador, entrusted with his words. You dare not speak in his name, except for the fact that he authorized and commanded you to do so. What will you say? Are these folks your platoon for your own vision of having an important ministry that changes your community and your world? Is it not enough to “aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1 Thess 4:11 – 12)? To love and serve our neighbors — especially those nearest to and most dependent on us — regardless of the burden?
Thank the Lord for the Wilberforces, who can truly be said to have changed the world. However, they did so in their worldly callings as believers and neighbors. It’s what James Hunter calls “faithful presence.” Moreover, they don’t set out to change the world but to live out their identity in Christ where they are in all sorts of ordinary ways that sometimes turn out to present extraordinary moments of extraordinary opportunities for extraordinary service. There is that great scene in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia when Aslan informs Caspian that he is about to become king in Narnia. “I don’t think I’m ready,” the young prince replies. Aslan responds, “It’s for that very reason I know you are.”
Ordinary People
We must beware of missing the value of the ordinary by seeing it as just one more means to greatness. True, there are many ordinary people who, precisely through their ordinary callings, sometimes make an extraordinary impact. Yet it is just as true that ordinary lives have an ordinary impact that is beautiful in its own right. The choice had to be made, hardly earth-shattering at the moment, between ignoring a child’s complaint or taking her to the doctor. By choosing the latter, the busy mother saved her daughter’s life.
Less catastrophic but no less dangerous is the choice to do something big when something small is exactly what’s called for in the moment. The habit of reading stories to children at bedtime is often tedious. Family and private devotions can be tedious as well. So too can daily homework be a chore for students, along with grading for teachers. Making rounds is often tedious for doctors and nurses. Yet daily faithfulness to these callings — more accurately, to God and the neighbors he has called us to serve — is precisely what enriches life.
We don’t need another hero. We need a Savior, one who possessed “no form or majesty that we should look at him,” and yet bore our sins (Isa 53:2 – 3). In fact, we need to be saved from our own hero worship, whether of ourselves or others. Jesus Christ never disappoints us because he is not simply someone to look up to because of his achievements, but is someone to trust because everything that he achieved was for us. And we need a communion of saints he has chosen and redeemed with us and for us. We need ordinary believers of every generation, race, and socioeconomic background to whom we’re united by baptism to one Lord and one faith by one Spirit. We simply need ordinary pastors to deliver the word of life and its sacraments faithfully, elders to guide us to maturity, and deacons to help keep the temporal gifts circulating in the body.
The actual churches we know are often the most difficult places in the world, especially if we are creative, ambitious, and drawn toward novelty. The patient discipline of belonging to a community (preferably, the same local community) over a long period is difficult for those of us born after 1964. Church growth analysts often tell us that “brand loyalty” is a thing of the past and that churches will just have to catch up with that fact, just as they told us that niche churches grow faster because people like to worship with those who are like them (ethnically, generationally, and socioeconomically). We have Corinth written all over us.
The church in the abstract may be fine — the invisible company of God’s elect. As the saying goes, “To dwell above with the saints in love — Oh, that will be glory! But to dwell below with the saints I know, well, that’s a different story.” We see ourselves as “on the move,” making an impact — and we need others like us to be props or supporting actors in our movie. Contentment comes from knowing that the body of Christ is far greater than any of its members by itself. Even Christ considers himself incomplete until his whole body shares in his risen glory.
With that realization, what seemed like boring routine with boring people may actually take on a different aspect. Like a vast field, we are growing together into a harvest whose glory will only appear fully at the end of the age.
We need ordinary parents who care enough about the scads of small things each day that tend God’s garden and direct them to their heavenly Father, the true hero “who so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).
Even in society, we need ordinary neighbors who play their part in the story. We need fewer Christians who want to stand apart from their neighbors, doing something that will really display God’s kingdom in all of its glory. We need more Christians who take their place alongside believing and unbelieving neighbors in the daily gift exchange. The thief is not expected to become a monk or a famous evangelist, but to “labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Eph 4:28).
George Eliot concludes her classic novel Middlemarch with a profound eulogy for her lead character. Dorothea is an ordinary person who pursued ordinary interests that end up making a difference that no one might have expected:
Her finely-touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.87
1. Do we tend to read the Bible — especially the Old Testament — as a catalog of heroes? How do our cultural assumptions of “the bold and the beautiful” shape our expectations of what we should find in these stories? How should we read these stories?
2. What are “ordinary” callings? What are the criteria we use to rank vocations in the church and in the world? Are they biblical?
3. Are we called by God in Scripture to transform culture? What are some of the weaknesses of this approach, both theologically and in our understanding of culture?
4. What do you think of the response by Switchfoot’s lead singer, quoted in this chapter?
5. Consider/discuss some examples of the actual neighbors who cross your path each day. How do you love and serve them? Does it feel awkward to mention the ordinary “little” things, as if they’re too trivial? Why or why not?