And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope. | Hebrews 3:6b
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. | James 1:22
On Sunday, we looked at the verse above from Hebrews 3, talking about what it means to hold fast in confidence and to boast in hope. One of the things that was mentioned was that these two directives play to different parts of our humanity: holding fast is a defensive posture, while boasting in hope is more celebratory. Another way to say it would be that holding fast our confidence is more about thinking and boasting in hope is more about feeling. Along with thinking and feeling, the Bible also calls Christians to do – living in a way that reveals our faith in action.
This three-part breakdown – thinking, feeling, and doing – is a summary of what the Bible calls us to as Christians. We are to know God as He has revealed Himself, we are to taste and see His goodness, and we are to respond to Him in service. For some reason, in our overly industrialized mentality, we pull these apart and treat them as distinct from one another. This has a number of consequences for us.
First, we separate into the camp that is the easiest fit. The thinkers (theology-focused Christians) form their study groups, the feelers (charismatics and empaths) gather, and the doers (Social justice and service-oriented) get to work. The strengths of each end up getting isolated so that they cannot build the church up to fullness.
Second, these groups turn on one another and these aspects get pitted against one another. Too many blogs and books start with the premise of elevating one of these over the others:
‘don’t tell me what you feel, tell me what you know’ (thinkers over feelers)
‘we are not heads on sticks, we are what we love’ (feelers over thinkers)
‘I don’t care what you believe, I care what you do’ (doers over thinkers)
We end up posturing our strengths over the strengths of others, believing that God cares more about one part of His directive than others. We get further entrenched in our camps and further away from one another.
Third, we get comfortable being one-dimensional Christians, believing that thinking, feeling, and doing is more a matter of personality than formation. We turn this complete picture of what we are called to into a buffet of roles that we pick from based on what we are most comfortable with. While it is true that every person will find one part more natural and attractive (and others difficult), the response is not to rest in what is easiest. Instead, we should strengthen our weaknesses, find people who are different than us, and fight for a relationship with God that hits all of our senses.
Rather than imagining ourselves as thinkers, feelers, or doers, we should strive to be thinking, feeling, and doing Christians. Every one of these aspects of our relationship with God is necessary to keep us rooted in Him. There are times when the mystery of God will confuse us, there are times when we will not feel what we think we should, and there are times when the work of ministry will wear us out. In these times, the other aspects of connection that God has given us fill in the gaps and build up our faith. God has graciously provided a faith to be studied, felt, and acted on; we should be a people who exercise all of these muscles.