I don’t remember ever being allured by the prosperity gospel. By God’s grace, I grew up in churches that spoke regularly of Christ’s sufficiency amid suffering. I never thought following Jesus would be easy. I was trained to count the cost.
But, with a well-intended passion to make Jesus famous, I became convinced a life that counted for Christ was one of epic faithfulness. True cross-carrying, following the apostles’ example, meant “turn[ing] the world upside down” (Acts 17:6).
As far as I was concerned, a Christian life that rose no higher than “ordinary” faithfulness in practicing spiritual disciplines, loving and providing for one’s family, and serving regularly in church was for folks who had either lost sight of the mission or had yet to truly understand that God’s glory is worth burning out for. Run-of-the-mill faithfulness hardly seemed like an appropriate offering for the glorious God who called me to put on my armor and offer my life as a living sacrifice.
I wanted to change the world. My nagging fear wasn’t that I’d commit adultery or leave the faith but that I’d live a largely forgettable, quiet, “meh” life for Christ. While eternal life by grace through faith in Jesus felt like winning, a pedestrian contribution to Christ’s kingdom felt like losing. Thankfully, God used the parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14–30) to shatter and reconstruct my understanding of good and faithful service to Christ.
Where Are the Extraordinary Christians?
It’s embarrassing to admit in hindsight, but my distorted convictions led me to think no one God had placed in my life modeled exemplary faithfulness—not my godly parents, teachers, or coaches, or even my local church pastor. I appreciated them as great Christian folks. But as far as I could tell, they hadn’t turned anything upside down for Jesus.
God used the parable of the talents to shatter and reconstruct my understanding of good and faithful service to Christ.
The unwasted life was represented by missionaries, martyrs, public servants, famous pastors, and defenders of the faith; people who made real waves. True faithfulness looked like Calvin, Knox, Judson, Tyndale, Mueller, Spurgeon, Wilberforce, Whitefield, Graham, Piper, and Keller. Many weren’t prosperous by worldly standards, but their contributions in Jesus’s name were epic. That’s all I wanted.
Was my desire to be a franchise player on God’s team shot through with mixed motives? Of course. I genuinely desired to make a difference for Christ and his kingdom. I just hoped that difference would look more like that of my heroes than that of my Sunday school teachers. Only after a life of epic faithfulness could I sit back at age 85 and say with a clear conscience, “My life counted for Christ. I didn’t waste it.”
Parable of the Talents
In Matthew 25, Jesus describes a man who entrusts his servants with his property and then goes on a journey. “To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away” (v. 15). When the master returns to settle his accounts, Mr. Five-Talent and Mr. Two-Talent are found faithful. They return to their master double what they were given. Mr. One-Talent is found unfaithful, returning only the talent originally entrusted to him.
As I read this parable one afternoon, my paradigm for “success” in the Christian life was vaporized by the master’s evaluation of the two faithful men. Both Mr. Five-Talent and Mr. Two-Talent received the verdict “Well done, good and faithful servant.” My initial response was “Yes! This is what motivates us to avoid living a small and ordinary life!”
But what floored me was the reason the master offered his approving judgment: “You have been faithful over a little” (vv. 21, 23). That’s it. That’s why these men were deemed good and faithful servants. They were faithful over a little. Faithful with a few things.
I would’ve expected “Well done, good and faithful servant” to be followed by something like “You were extraordinary” or “You changed the world!” But the master’s final analysis was “Faithful over a little.” To my ears, that commendation hardly corresponded with the magnitude of John Knox’s “Give me Scotland, or I die.” But there it was in the pages of Scripture. Jesus offers a glowing endorsement of two men’s faithfulness with a few things. On God’s authority, that’s a well-lived life.
Comprehensive Faithfulness
Is Jesus setting a low bar for Christian faithfulness? No. Recall that “little” describes not the intensity of the men’s devotion but rather the resources they were originally entrusted with according to their God-given abilities. “Faithful” describes what they did with those resources.
Mr. Five-Talent receives the same commendation as Mr. Two-Talent even though the former returned twice as much profit, because the verdict isn’t based on the size of the return. Both men leveraged all their abilities to maximize what they were entrusted with. They both doubled what they were given. They were equally faithful.
If you’re Mr. Two-Talent and Mr. Five-Talent is your neighbor, it may be difficult to feel faithful. But it’s a mistake to measure our faithfulness by our believing neighbor’s work; it’s wrong to make Mr. Five-Talent’s output the litmus test for whose life counts for Christ.
Rather than thinking true faithfulness must be world-changing, we should aim to make it comprehensive. We should aim to multiply and steward all the abilities and opportunities we’ve been given, to not neglect any of the few things entrusted to us. Understood this way, faithfulness is primarily a matter of stewardship, not “impact.” It’s not seen in whether we achieve all we want for God but in how we steward the little God has given to us.
Labor for the Master
God’s gifting and call will lead some to have a public influence like the eloquent Apollos (Acts 18:24). But most of us will be more like the little-known Persis (Rom. 16:12), for whom the Bible’s commendation is that “[she] has worked hard in the Lord.” A shoutout like that used to feel like a participation trophy to me—commendable exertion with no impressive achievement to show for it.
That’s why these men were deemed good and faithful servants. They were faithful over a little.
But God hasn’t purposed for most people to be world-shapers. The vast majority of our faithfulness and work for the Lord will be exercised in the small, often boring, and monotonous rhythms of life. We’ll serve our families, churches, workplaces, and communities and do nothing particularly impressive. Among truly faithful Christians, only a fraction will have a biography written about them.
If that’s disappointing to us—if a thoroughly faithful but outwardly run-of-the-mill life for Christ is unsatisfying—we’ve forgotten who we’re laboring for. We’ve become enamored with entering the joy of the wrong master. Remember John Newton’s words:
If two angels were to receive at the same moment a commission from God, one to go down and rule earth’s grandest empire, the other to go and sweep the streets of its meanest village, it would be a matter of entire indifference to each which service fell to his lot . . . for the joy of the angels lies only in obedience to God’s will, and with equal joy they would lift a Lazarus in his rags to Abraham’s bosom, or be a chariot of fire to carry an Elijah home.
Faithfulness Today
I still want to change the world. I still pray, echoing Jim Elliot, “Lord, make me dangerous.” Those impulses are good. But I no longer conceive of true, sold-out faithfulness to Christ in terms of widespread influence. I understand “faithful over a little” to involve service that varies dramatically from person to person based on the abilities and resources God has given them.
Annie Dillard insisted that “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” If a faithful life is the sum of faithful days, we better make the most of what God places in front of us. Don’t wait around for a giant-slaying moment that will make all the years of training with your sling feel worthwhile. Instead, steward what God has placed before you. Labor for Christ’s approval, not man’s. Be faithful over little. You may not become a hero of the faith, but you’ll be a good and faithful servant of Christ. As Jesus sees it, that’s a job well done.