Be Good, Do Good, God Bless

Hey everyone.

Josh Allen, when he accepted his NFL MVP award, famously said "Be good. Do good.  God bless. Go Bills."  (Famous in Buffalo anyway.)  I borrowed three quarters of Josh Allen's quote for the title of this post, as Paul talks about 'doing what is good' in today's thoughts from Galatians. 

Anyway, we continue our examination of Galatians 6, now looking at verses 9-10.  Here is my translation:  

9 We should never grow tired of doing what is good, because at the proper time, we will reap a harvest, if we don’t give up.  10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, particularly the household of the faithful. 

Paul continues his agricultural analogy (sowing and reaping) that he startined in verse 7, in verse 9.  He syas, “We should never grow tired of doing what is good, because at the proper time, we will reap a harvest, if we don’t give up.” Even though our salvation is not based upon the good that we do, we should still strive to do what is good.  Paul encourages the Galatians to continue to do good even when they are not seeing the benefit.  The harvest will come.  

God has a proper time planned out for the harvest. His ‘proper time’ usually comes later than what we consider to be the ‘proper time.’ This often makes us question God's timing, (or at least that has been my experience.)  But, God knows what he is doing.  As we wait for the 'proper time' we must continue to do what is good.  The harvest will come after the sowing period, sometimes long after.  

If we connect verse 9 to verse 8, as we are talking about a harvest, we can see that continually sowing to the Spirit will lead to a harvest of the fruits of the Spirit, if we do not give up.  

What happens if we do give up?  We don’t see the harvest. Following Jesus is a long game, and sometimes the growth seems to be only incremental, but God does give the harvest if we keep moving forward.

Perhaps Paul is adding this in because there is concern that there would be some who misunderstand Paul’s teachings, and say, “Well, if my salvation is based solely on grace, then I don’t have to do anything.”  In chapter 5, as he was talking about freedom in Christ, he added, in verse 13, that they are not to use their freedom to indulge in the flesh.   He wants to deal with both extremes, the legalistic path, where we work for everything, and the libertine path, where anything and everything is ok. 

Verse 10 begins with Ἄρα οὖν (ara ouv) “So, therefore.” Paul has just stated that  we should never give up on doing good, and will, at the proper time, reap a harvest, “therefore” we should do good to everyone.  

The clause here that ends this thought is that we should do good, especially to the household of the faithful.  This is good and true.  We should take care of each other as a body of believers. That is one of the benefits of being in the body of Christ, the church, we carry each other's burdens.(Galatians 6:2.)

  

We don’t want to lose sight of Paul’s call to be a help to everyone.  The world is full of people in need, and they generally need our help and not our judgment.  The good that we do is to be “as we have opportunity,”  When an opportunity to do good presents itself, we should do it, and again, that good-doing applies to everyone, not just those that might be easier to serve.  

Douglas Moo points out that Paul is using faith as the delineation of a new spiritual family, “the household of the faithful.” He goes on to say, “he has argued throughout Galatians, faith (in Christ) is the fundamental and transforming mark of God’s new covenant people.” (Moo, 389.)  We are set apart as the family of God based on our faith in Jesus. So, let us do good to each other and we will see how God blesses it. 

          Douglas Moo, Galatians, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker Academic, 2013.