Leadership Thought: It's Not What You Know in Your Head but What Lives in Your Heart That Matters.

Dear Friends,

As believers it's so important that we walk our talk, that our belief coincides with our behavior, and our creed is consistent with our conduct. It is easy to be a Pharisee, our minds filled with religious knowledge and information, but seldom translating that knowledge and information into a lifestyle that loves and cares for others. As believers we must be careful to ensure that our biblical knowledge (knowing what to do) gets translated into (doing what we know).

The consistency between our walk and our talk, is one keyway to measure the reality of our faith. Too many times our head knowledge, which glories in providing answers for every kind of doctrinal question, never impacts our heart where it gets expressed in compassion, kindness, and concern for others.

I am embarrassed to admit the following experiment took place at the theological seminary I once attended. The Greek class was studying the parable of the Good Samaritan.  The young seminarians were asked to study the story and do an in- depth analysis of the biblical text, observing and commenting on all the major terms and syntactical factors, and once having done that, they were to write their own personal translation of the parable.

There were three students in the class who cared more about the practical implications of the assignment than its intellectual stimulation. The morning the work was to be turned in, these three students teamed up and carried out a plan to make a point. One volunteered to play the part of an alleged victim. They tore his shirt and trousers, rubbed mud, ketchup, and other realistic  looking ingredients across his ‘wounds,’ marked up his eyes and face so he hardly resembled himself, and then placed him along the path that led from the dormitory to the Greek classroom. While the other two students hid and watched, he groaned and writhed, stimulating great pain.

Not one student stopped. They walked around him, stepped over him, and said different things to him. But nobody stooped over and took the time to help. Their academic work may have been flawless and insightful and handed in on time, but somehow the biblical message never got translated from their heads to their hearts. (Story is told by Chuck Swindoll in his book Tales of a Tidy Oxcart.

It is easy to say we love people, but is that love lived out in our daily lives? Do we ignore the needs of others, walking right by them, when we could stop and help and meet their needs? We must constantly be on guard to translate the message in our heads, so it becomes a message in our hearts.

There is a phrase used in working with recovering addicts, “Show me don’t snow me.” It’s just another way of saying another message we've heard before: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him” (1 John 3 :16-17)?

Have a great day and remember that doctrine often has a way of dividing us, but service generally has a way of uniting us. We need both doctrine and duty, for one without the other is like rowing a boat with one oar, and who wants to travel in circles?

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom