In the summer of 2018, I joined an organization called The Strenuous Life (TSL). The purpose of this organization is to challenge men to be useful to others by learning and acquiring new skills and abilities. TSL is aimed at helping men to stop being sedentary and wasteful and start doing difficult tasks that will help sharpen them to the benefit of themselves and their communities. While I have been disappointed and annoyed by certain aspects of TSL, its core philosophy is admirable: action is important. Sometimes a Latin phrase is even used to talk about the supremacy of action, res non verba, “things, not words,” or “deeds, not sayings.”

Words are powerful tools, but only if they are linked with action. I can preach and teach all day, but unless the listeners take action, my words are only waves of sound. Similarly, I can make elaborate plans on how to win others to Christ or become a better Christian myself. However, if these plans do not produce action, they are utterly futile. It is not enough to know what to do, we must actually do it (Jas 4:17)!

There are even occasions where actions are more powerful than words. Peter commands wives, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, in order that if anyone [of them] does not believe the Word, they may be won over through the conduct of their wives without a word” (1 Pet 3:1; emphasis mine). Many non-Christians will look at us and see Christ in us through our humility and submission. Our actions, then, compose a ‘living Bible’ of sorts, encased in flesh and sinew rather than leather and thread. We may be the only Bible someone ever reads in their life. Will you be practitioners of the Word rather than hearers (or preachers) only (Jas 1:22)?