#4. God-centred Duty, the Conduit of Love
Duty stops love from being an impotent, sentimental abstraction. Without some definite and defined responsibilities, we settle with merely good intentions and admiration. It is entirely natural to feel incredible warmth for our adorable children, to want to bottle up their cuteness forever, even while we set aside the good we owe them. That chemistry is not the same as biblical love. As I mentioned here, love is about choosing to do what is good for that person.
God’s wholehearted, delighted love for us brings about our wholehearted, delighted love for him. Our love is an imperfect imitation, but he’s growing us to love in his image. This wholehearted, delighted love—from God and for God—leads to more love for others. (have you read 1 John?). The pinnacle of God’s love is Jesus’ death on the cross. That monument of love is echoed, mirrored, reflected and refracted through the complex web of relationships and duties which God has ordained. As Paul says, marriage (a relationship with distinct duties) is a picture of Christ and his church (Ephesians 5). When the duties are done well, the picture is clearer. When done poorly, the picture of Christ and his church is blotted. God-centred duty channels and displays gospel love. God-centred duties are worked examples, living metaphors, signposts pointing to things otherwise unseen.
Duty is one of God’s means of getting love into the right places, in the right way, at the right time. Paul’s letters habitually list off the range of relationships and duties Christians are placed in by God. Paul’s expectation is that the gospel makes us better, not sloppier, at doing what we’re responsible for. Duty helps us discern the shape of love in different relationships. Duty clarifies what to do, how to do it and when to do it. God-centred duty, instead of being about bare minimums, means we end up giving more than we otherwise would. While disordered duty shrinks and shrivels, God-centred duty is expansive and enlivening.
God-centred duty respects the ties of responsibility God himself has made, because these bonds of duty were actually his idea. He made marriage, he made families, he made us to be social beings. Duties within these relationships are not merely social constructs that people have evolved. When God gives the gift of certain relationships, he gives the gift of particular responsibilities within those relationships. When God says something is good, we are not free to dismiss it. Duty acknowledges we are part of an economy of relationships, that we are connected to others. Duty says there are good things we owe to some people, in some contexts, which we don’t owe to everyone, everywhere, all the time. Duty is a concession to our finite creatureliness: we can only be in one place at a time; we need to choose what we do and don’t do. Duty helps us order our limited resources in a world of infinite possibilities.
We are born, or birth, into some duties (and cannot choose to be apart from these people without great cost). There are other duties we enter into by consent (like marriage or a business contract). Husbands and wives, parents and children, employers and employees, civil authorities, church elders, neighbours, buyers and sellers, all have responsibilities peculiar to their spheres. Part of being faithful followers of Jesus is understanding what God has to say in each of these. For a Christian, the duties of each relationship are met, not because the other person tells us to, but because God does. We fulfil our duties out of reverence for Christ.
“Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.
Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.”
Colossians 3:18-4:1 (emphasis mine)
Our duties to other people are done for the Lord Jesus. We give love, honour, respect and service where it is due, not primarily because of the merit of that person, but because God organised the world a certain way and we’re honouring him. We’re trusting his wisdom in the order he has built into creation. The duties of motherhood are created by God and are to be done for him. When God puts children in our lap, this is our work “as unto the Lord”. We don’t need a special message from God about what our primary duties are. If he has given you a Bible and joined you to a husband and children, he has spoken.
God-centred duties are not evenly distributed. There’s asymmetry, with some people owed and others owing. Parents owe their children more than children owe their parents. That’s not to say children owe their parents nothing, but what they owe each other is different and changes over time. The good owed is not a carbon copy. This asymmetry is why mums so often lament how empty they feel, like they’ve lost themselves. We need a supply for the giving, a source outside of ourselves. Christians, we have Him and he has us. Jesus is so much better than a Day Spa.
God’s grace is asymmetrical. God gives salvation, and all that is bound up in it, to the undeserving who lean entirely on him. He pours out his gifts, at great cost to himself. As we know God’s asymmetrical kindness to us, it is less jarring to live with the asymmetrical duties of motherhood. In fact, they become strangely lovely, unexpectedly (eventually) replenishing. Even as they empty us.
[God is kind and makes the rain to fall on those who love him and those who don’t, so love and goodness are not exclusive to Christians. All humans are made in God’s image and therefore reflect something of his character in the transactions of love and faithfulness which feature in the best of human relationships. We all bear a marred image of our Maker, but his image is there all the same. Duty can be the conduit of God’s love everywhere, despite the unbelief of the doers. But as I mentioned in article #3, the further away from God the duty drifts, the more likely it is to deform and devour.]
