What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
When I think about James teaching about works I am pulled in two directions. The first direction is my personal walk with the Lord and my responsibility to be charitable. This application seems as simple as adding a potato to the soup or throwing some sheets and blankets on the sofa. It has been a source of pleasure for me to see a number of people pass through the bedrooms of my home and the chairs at our kitchen table. The second direction is what I will call the Institutional Body of Christ. Is it each local churches responsibility to make charity part of their mission? Is it a para-church responsibility? Is it driven by denominations that are specialist in this area such as the Salvation Army? Where is the tension between the responsibility to feed the church spiritually through the teaching of the Word of God and the charitable works to those in our flock?
Paul makes a distinction between the good works done for those in the church and those outside the church in Galatians 6:10 “as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” All people are included but Paul is interlocking charitable role and pastoral role when he talks about taking care of the “family of believers”
Acts 6:1 describes a controversy that presented itself in the early church, “the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.” The consequence of this controversy was that the first deacons of the church were assigned the task of taking care of widows in the church who needed food.
The Schaffer Institute tracked church growth among 1,103 churches for 15 years, the churches surveyed and tracked include reports from 23 denominations. Consistently it was found that “These Churches were marked with solid Bible teaching and treated each other and outsiders with good hospitality.” Good hospitality and charitable works are not always correlated but it does give you a sense of how God blesses both word and deed.
Does the charity we are called to include work within the systems the world has provided such as hospitals, prisons, and social service agencies or has the Body of Christ abdicated its role to the world in these areas as many believe? God has always honored institutions beyond religious bodies. His greatest servants were often in government, and sometimes in pagan governments. Joseph and Daniel immediately come to mind. They provide us great examples of the role of word and deed. Joseph was called to prepare for a famine in the midst of years of prosperity in order that life might be saved. Daniel provided solutions to kings who would have otherwise oppressed their people except for the word of God that Daniel spoke.
One of the greatest examples of institutional church preparation for good works can be found in Acts 11. Agabus a New Testament prophet “stood up and indicated by the Spirit that a great famine was about to come over the whole inhabited earth (which took place in the time of Claudius). So from the disciples, according to their ability to give, each one of them determined to send financial aid for support to the brothers who lived in Judea, which they also did, sending the aid to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.” Let us make sure that we know what happened here. A Spirit lead man reported to the church leaders that a famine was going to happen and an offering was taken to meet the needs of those suffering before the event happened. Let us also recognize that each gave according to their ability, and leaders could be trusted to carry the funds without a question of ethical conflict. Ephesians 2:10 that reads “for we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Freewill can cause us the miss the completion of those good works, but they are prepared distinctively for each individual generation and time. We can discern these good works if we are prayerful.
We as believers need to connect our Spirit lead lives to the good works that we do, both individually and institutionally. When we do this we will not question what our individual and institutional good works are thy will flow naturally from the throne of God and we will accomplish our purpose on earth.
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