Let Us Seek the Profit of Others
In my last devotional I shared I’d been reading John Calvin’s Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life. Over the last few weeks, I’ve read that, and two other older classic Christian books, On Christian Liberty by Martin Luther and The Mortification of Sin by John Owen. I’ve seen and heard these books quoted from many times but had never read the actual books. I’m glad I did. I recommend them to you. All three are short. Two are less than 100 pages and one is just 130. Yet, they are, all three, full of deep insights and practical wisdom.
Over the next few weeks, I may share some from the Luther and the Owen books, but here are some more precious nuggets from the Golden Booklet that, like what I wrote last time, also go to the heart of why we do prison ministry. Calvin wrote, “Let us rather seek the profit of others, and even voluntarily give up our rights for the sake of others.
“Scripture urges and warns us that whatever favors we may have obtained from the Lord, we have received them as a trust on condition that they should be applied to the common benefit of the church, [that is, of believers].
“The legitimate use of all the Lord’s favors is liberally and kindly to share with others.
“You cannot imagine a more certain rule or a more powerful suggestion than this, that all the blessings we enjoy are divine deposits which we have received on this condition that we distribute them to others.
“Whatever ability a faithful Christian may possess, he ought to possess it for his fellow believers, and he ought to make his own interest subservient to the well-being of the church in all sincerity.
“Let this be our rule for goodwill and helpfulness, that whenever we are able to assist others we should behave as stewards who must someday give an account of ourselves and let us remember that the distribution of profits must be determined by the law of love.
“The law of love does not only pertain to sizeable profits, but from ancient days God has commanded us to remember it in small kindnesses.
[We are commanded to first love God]. “But in vain we would attempt to enrich the Lord by a distribution of our talents and gifts. Since our goodness cannot reach the Lord, as the Psalmist says, we must exercise it toward ‘the saints who are on the earth,’” Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life, John Calvin, 35-36.
The benefits that we have been given—our time, talents, and treasure—have been given to us as “divine deposits on the condition that we distribute them to others.” We love God by loving others, especially other believers who are on the earth.
This makes me think of the well-known, and oft quoted by me and others, passage in Matthew 25. You know the one I mean, where Jesus said that when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give the thirsty something to drink, welcome the stranger, visit those who are sick, and visit those in prison, we do it for him.
In his book The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey wrote, “Commenting on this passage, the great American theologian Jonathan Edwards said that God has designated the poor as his ‘receivers.’ Since we cannot express our love by doing anything to profit God directly, God wants us to do something profitable for the poor, who have been delegated the task of receiving Christian love,” 232.
So, let us love God by liberally and kindly sharing what has been entrusted to us with the designated receivers that God has given to our care, our mentoring partner, our Metanoia corresponding disciple, our MINTS Seminary-in-Prison students. Let us give financially to the various funds that benefit them. Let us faithfully pray for them and write to them to encourage them. And let us not grow weary in well doing while anticipate the day when we will be able to return to the prison in person.
Much love, Barry