In the summer of 1998 I took a trip to Colorado Springs, Colorado with a couple of friends to attend a Christian camp. While there, one of the speakers made a strong claim. He said, “Only those who have been saved can do anything good. Good deeds are impossible for those who do not know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.”
But the more I thought about those words, the less they seemed to line up with my own expereinces. I started thinking of many of my non-Christian friends at high school who had treated me kindly – anywhere from buying me a soda to helping me with my homework. And more questions began to sprout: What about Gandhi? He wasn’t a Christian, but he did good things. And how about the entire Muslim world that provides billions of dollars to help the poor?[i] The more I thought about it, the less the speaker’s claim made sense to me.
Later that week we took a day away from the campground to climb Pike’s Peak. But those who have hiked tall mountains before know that altitude sickness is nothing to fool around with. The higher I climbed, the sicker I felt. Eventually when I reached the summit at 14,110 feet, I was feeling terrible. I remember actually laying down on the floor of the public restroom and not even caring about how dirty it was. I was miserable.
Then something wonderful happened. A man came up to me and asked if I would like a ride down the mountain in his van. My friends (also feeling ill) and I jumped at the chance to get back down to where humans were meant to live – in the land of oxygen. As we descended the windy, narrow roads of Pike’s Peak, I gradually started feeling better and was able to express my gratitude to this stranger who gave me a lift.
But I learned that the man who was helping me was not a Christian. Immediately the words of that speaker were in my head and I wondered, “But this is cleraly a good deed that this non-Christian is doing for me.” I haven’t forgotten that man – a Good Samaritan who confirmed for me that even the unsaved can do good things.
People love clear lines. We love to be able to draw a line between the good people and the bad people. When a nation goes to war, this is the first thing that it does. It paints the enemy as evil.[ii] And we, of course, are always the good guys. (It’s interesting to think about the fact that the other side is thinking the same thing.) Lines make us comfortable. They help us to simplify the world, to categorize it neatly in clearly defined packages. But there’s just one problem with the lines we make… they don’t always match up to reality.
The world isn’t as simple as “Christians = good; Non-Christians = bad.” In fact, we often find Christians doing horrible things and Non-Christians doing such good works that it puts many of us believers to shame. Our lines, we find, just don’t match up with the real world. The real world is much more blurry.
In the tenth chapter of the gospel of Luke Jesus is sending out his specially chosen missionaries to carry a message of peace and salvation to the world. “We’re the good guys,” the disciples must have been thinking, “and we’re going out to face the evil people.” But then Jesus says something really weird. As he’s giving them instructions before they leave, Jesus says, “And if a man of peace is there, then your peace will go and rest on him…” (Luke 10:6a).
“Hold on a second, Jesus. A man of peace? Out there!?! I thought we’re the ones carrying the message of peace! What do you mean that we might find people out there who already have peace!?!”
The use of the word “peace” in Luke is basically another word for “salvation.” It referred back to the Old Testament idea of shalom. It’s much more than just the absence of war. “Shalom” meant a harmonious community filled with happiness, security, plenty of food, and cooperation – basically the way the world was supposed to be.[iii] So it’s quite striking that Jesus tells his disciples that this shalom might already be out there in the world.
You see, the disciples had drawn a very clear line between themselves (good) and those they were sent to (bad). But Jesus, we find, is constantly blurring these lines. The pharisees thought they had it all figured out – that God loved those who kept all the rules to a “T.” But Jesus comes along and speaks well of tax collectors, prostitutes, half-breed Samaritans, and sinners. He even tells the Pharisees that these “dirty” people are entering the kingdom ahead of them (Matthew 21:31).
So here’s my point: Christians don’t have a monopoly on God.
Did you ever play the board game Monopoly? The reason it’s called “Monopoly” is because by the end of the game (if you ever manage to endure the six hours it takes to get there), one person has all the wealth and all the properties. And that’s what a monopoly is. In economics it happens “when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it.” In short, one dude has all the stuff.
The disciples of Jesus always seemed to think that they and they alone had a monopoly on what God was doing. So when the disciples saw outsiders casting out demons (“bad” people doing a good thing), Jesus taught them, “whoever is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:40).
God is at work in strange and unexpected places. He’s not just the God of the Church; He’s the God of Creation. He’s not just revealing himself to those who confess the name of Jesus Christ; He’s revealing himself to those who haven’t even heard of Jesus before. John Wesley called this “prevenient grace” which simply means “the grace that goes before us.”[iv] In other words, long before any of us ever heard of Jesus or trusted in him for our salvation, he was already at work in our lives in ways that we may not have even been aware of.
That should impact the way we relate to the world. Rather than being the “know-it-alls” that are bringing truth to a pagan land, we can approach nonbelievers in humility recognizing that they too have God at work in their lives. We can learn from them.
Digging Deeper
Head
The Bible is filled with examples of how the grace of God is at work in unexpected places. In Jesus’ day the religious authorities drew very sharp lines between those who were “in” and those who were “out.” They used the Torah (the first five books of our Bible and the holiest of all Jewish Scriptures) to categorize people as either clean or unclean. Not to be crass, but, for example, women who were on their period were considered unclean and needed to be separated from the clean people. Read Leviticus 15:19-23 if you don’t believe me.
So with that in the back of your mind, read Mark 5:25-34. How would Jesus’ reaction to the bleeding woman have been different than the response of a good, law-abiding Pharisee? What does this teach us about Jesus’ understanding of clean and unclean?
We find that Jesus is constantly doing this: blurring the lines between those who are acceptable and those who are not. It really ticked off the Jewish authorities who had a vested interest in preserving the hierarchy.
Answer these questions as a group: What are some ways that we are guilty of drawing lines between the “acceptable” people and the “unacceptable” people? Do Christians do this? Does the Church? How would recognizing the fact that God is at work in all people change the way we talk with others and witness to nonbelievers?[v]
Heart
Think of a time when a non-Christian did something kind or loving to you and share it with your group. How did you respond? Did it surprise you that good works can be done by the “unsaved”?
Why do you think people prefer to draw clear lines between themselves and those who are different than them? What would it look like for Christians to stop thinking of themselves as better than others? Envision how nonbelievers might respond if Christians stopped being preachy and instead started listening to the stories of how God is already at work in the lives of others.
Stop and pray together for God to change the heart of his church from an attitude of pride to one of humility. Pray for your own eyes to be opened to the ways that God is at work in unexpected places.
Hand
Everyone loves to be listened to. Every Monday morning at my church we have a large group of people come into our sanctuary to receive some groceries from our food pantry. I am constantly amazed at how eager these people are to tell me about their lives – even the deep hurts and secret places of their journeys. Unfortunately, sometimes I get the impression that I’m one of the only people in their lives that really listen to what they have to say and ask questions to show my interest in what they’re telling me.
Commit yourself this week to lend an open ear to someone who has a story to tell (which is everyone). Perhaps you can jump-start a conversation by asking simple questions like “Where did you grow up?” or “What do you do for a living?” As the conversation progresses, you might be able to ask deeper questions such as “Do you think of yourself as being a spiritual person?” But don’t force it! Commit yourself to listening rather than directing the conversation. And as you listen, ask yourself if you see evidence of God already at work in his or her life.
Habits
Make it a habit to notice the good things that people do who may not think of themselves as good people. You might even consider jotting these things down in a small notepad, keeping a register of the ways you see God at work in the lives of those who don’t go to church, don’t talk the right way, and don’t dress the right way.
You can use the list you create in a couple of ways. First, you might be able to refer back to it as a reminder of the ways that God is at work in unexpected places and among unexpected people. Second, you could use the information to encourage those very people. Go up to her and say, “The other day I noticed that you gave Linda a ride. That was really nice of you. What made you do that?”
Before long, you will start to see how the peace of Christ is already at work in the lives of unbelievers. And this will give you a deeper appreciation for God’s prevenient grace – the grace that goes before us all.
[ii] Gregory A. Boyd elaborates on this in his excellent book The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005). See especially chapter 4 called “From Resident Aliens to Conquering Warlords.”
[iii] Refer to Joel B. Green’s The Gospel of Luke in the New International Commentary on the New Testament Series. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997): 413-414.
[iv] John Wesley develops this idea in his sermon titled, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation” (Sermon #85).
[v] Two great books about evangelizing in the postmodern world: Live to Tell: Evangelism for a Postmodern Age by Brad J. Kallenberg and A. K. A. Lost by Jim Henderson.
