Behavior What does that word mean to you? Does it seem to require a descriptor, such as “good” or “bad?” The word “behavior” usually comes with an adjective letting us know it the behavior is acceptable or not acceptable, good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate, juvenile or adult, and so on We seldom use this word without a qualifier to label the behavior Like the word “weather,” it seems incomplete without a descriptor The term “behavior” by itself may seem strange to many of us.
For this article, however, we want to consider this word in just this manner. We want to consider behaviour itself – not good or bad behaviour, but the concept of behavior Behavior refers to our actions, our deeds, our comings and goings, it simply means what we do Behavior is the visible and measurable part of our existence Standing, walking, talking, sitting, anything physical that we do comes in the category of behavior Behavior includes little doings, like “smiling,” and large comprehensive categories, like “going to meeting,” which in itself comprises many smaller behaviors
Emotions, motives are not behaviors
Behaviors normally have thoughts and emotions associated with them, but the thoughts and emotions themselves are not behaviors Thinking “I’m lonely” is not a behavior, nor is feeling sad, that’s an emotion But crying is a behavior The three go together, the thought, the emotion, and the behavior, but we can only see the behavior.
Moving on to a religious context, we note that ritual observances are, of necessity, behaviors Works are also behaviors, such as tithing or preaching or singing praise to God All works are behaviors Again, in this sense we don’t mean good behavior or bad behavior—just an action, a behavior Something done with the body, something that someone can see and measure We can’t know what people think or feel when they do acts of service or worship, only God knows the heart Because we can only observe the tangible aspects of being (that is, the behavior rather than the attendant thoughts) we readily reduce great issues like religion and morality to strictly behavioral terms We think of righteousness as “doing good” and “obedience,” and we look for behavioral manifestations of our faith, such as giving or preaching or going to meeting We elevate behavior to the level of faith because that’s all we can see Yet God sees the heart from which the behavior comes.
A good deal of the New Testament addresses this issue, namely, “at what level does God measure righteousness?” Jesus said, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5 20 NKJV) How can anyone exceed the punctilious righteousness of the Pharisees? Paul said that he was “as to the law, blameless” (Phil 3 6) How can anyone exceed blamelessness?
Obviously, we look for the answer in another area than ritual observance.
We can exceed legalistic righteousness two ways In the context of Jesus’ words, our righteousness extends beyond behavior into thinking If adultery (a behavior) is sin, the higher righteousness even calls the thought of lust sin (Mt 5 28) So, to exceed the Pharisees morality, we must avoid sin at the thought level, not just the behavior level
Paul doesn’t command giving
Now let’s look at another example, one from the positive (doing good) realm, as opposed to avoiding evil Tithing is a good idea, but the behavior itself means nothing We must give with a willing heart Paul expended much ink on this issue in II Corinthians (8 1-9 15) He wouldn’t command the Corinthians to give (II Cor 8 8) He didn’t make a rule that they must give any set amount or percentage of their assets, because the behavior of giving wouldn’t yield righteousness Their attitude alone would determine God’s view of their giving Thus, Jesus and Paul taught that the way our righteousness exceeds the scribes and Pharisees comes not in outdoing them in good works, but in having a basis of righteous thinking from which the behavior emanates The Pharisees, working under the system of law, could only measure behavior God looks at the intent that drives the behavior.
The last example — that of giving — provides an ideal opportunity for showing the difference between behavior and attitude If all that mattered was the actual giving of a tithe or any specified amount, then Paul would have instructed the Corinthians to give the money, period He could have commanded their obedience But what Paul wanted to know was did the Corinthians really love their brothers and sisters in famine-struck Judea? (II Cor 8 8,24) Would they give without being commanded? Would they be truly glad to give, and count it an honor? Or would some only give because everyone else did and they felt ashamed not to? Paul left much of this territory unaddressed He only exhorted them to stir up their generosity, and then he let them act as their consciences directed them.
The nature of the situation made Paul’s non-directive approach even more thought-provoking Famine relief had immediate practical application The issue at hand meant meeting a basic need for the saints in Judea who had suffered from the famine prophesied by Agabus (Acts 11:28-30) This wasn’t an issue of ecclesial policy or worship practices This could well have been a life or death matter for the recipient ecclesias They really needed the behavior of giving to happen Still, Paul wouldn’t command it He would only exhort and appeal to their spiritual conscience, because if he made it a command, then love could no longer occur Once we have a law, behavior takes precedence (because laws only deal with behavior), and motivation becomes immaterial So even in this dire situation, when Paul probably wanted so much to raise funds for the suffering Judean ecclesias, he still deferred to the greater work of God in giving the Corinthians the chance to show their love.
So Paul refrained He typified God Himself, giving people the option to make the right choice of their own accord Sure, giving is good, and giving a lot is better But once it becomes a standard, a law, or a rule, then love can no longer operate Attitude becomes irrelevant Only the behavior itself would matter.
Behavior and attitude
The point we want to focus on now concerns the differentiation between behaviors as a category and thoughts and attitudes as another category For now we want to omit considering whether the behavior is “good” or “bad,” we’ll get to that shortly We want to make sure we understand the difference between what comes under “behavior” and what comes under “attitude”
Tithing is a behavior Loving your brother enough to give is an attitude We can see and measure the act of giving We can’t see or measure the attitude behind it We can know (although we ought not) if someone gives money We can’t know anyone’s motivation for giving, sometimes we don’t even know our own attitudes We can make a rule that says “you must tithe” We can’t make a rule that says, “You must be a willing giver”
Why shouldn’t we make rules that specify appropriate actions if they’re good activities? Why can’t we specify attitude as well as behavior) Why can’t we make willingness a rule? The answers to these questions will help us understand the nature of faith under the New Covenant and how it differed from the Old.
Let’s suppose for a moment we did have a rule that specified we must tithe If tithing is good, why not have this rule? Then everyone would do the good behavior, and we’d all accrue righteousness, yes? NO Because if we make a rule, then we have eliminated the possibility of doing good as an expression of our faith and love Once we make a rule, we have removed the possibility of freewill from the equation We have short-circuited love We have killed motivation We have replaced the New Covenant with the old, because we have gone back to the realm of behavior We have substituted the psuedo-righteousness of works.
Law or free will?
So why not take the next step and legislate love? Why not improve the rule of “giving” to a rule for “willingly give” Two reasons One, as we have just said, the presence of the external law to give precludes the possibility of true willingness If you have been told to do something, then you can’t think of doing something of your own free will For instance, if you tell your children to wash the dishes, can they possibly now do it of their own free will? No, because the command to do a task takes free will out of the picture They can obey your request, but they can’t show voluntary free will They either obey or they don’t, the matter now no longer concerns love or initiation.
But can’t someone willingly follow a command? Can’t the children willingly and cheerfully wash the dishes at your request? Yes, they can willingly obey, but they can’t offer, because you have asked them to do it That’s the key difference If we have a rule that asks for money, we can’t give of our own accord.
The second reason you can’t legislate love is because there is no way to measure it How would you measure attitude? How would you measure or quantify willingness? Look for a smile on someone’s face? That’s back to behavior We can neither detect nor legislate attitude It must come from a heart touched by God’s love A good attitude will produce good works.
Taking this one step further, we can see what would happen if we tried to regulate the attitude, also In other words, what if Paul had said to the Corinthians, “You must give much money, and you must do so with a willing heart” Can anyone command a willing heart? If one has a willing heart, he doesn’t need the command, if one has not a willing heart, no command can make it willing It’s plainly lose-lose to attempt to command attitude You can’t create attitude on command, and if you could, it wouldn’t be the right attitude anyway (God willing, we’ll later discuss John 15 12 and others — an apparent contradiction to this thesis)
We do not say that following commands cannot show faith, for Hebrews 11 lists several acts of obedience, all done by faith Abraham left Ur — at God’s command — by faith This was not his initiative, it was God’s Hebrews does tell us that Abraham’s motivation came through faith, we would not otherwise know this Had we lived at the time of Abraham, and knew that he left Ur at God’s command, we would only know that he obeyed, but we could not assess his faith We could see the behavior — leaving Ur — but not the inner workings of the heart (That is why we can never judge the faithfulness of one who does something godly, or the unfaithfulness of failure) We can only observe the behavior, but we can’t judge the motivation behind the behavior.
The basic principles of love, commitment, service, humility, and faith should suffice for generating our behaviors, initiated and given freely The more God leaves us with principles instead of directives, the more we can display our faith, our love and our spiritual maturity God allows us to struggle that we might develop character rather than mindlessly follow rules for behavior’s sake.
A faith of works, or works of faith?
James delivers the message the attitude of faith really doesn’t exist unless it manifests itself behaviorally We must show our faith by our doings Faith cannot exist at the attitude level only, it must show itself where it counts — doing something This is where behavior counts, but as humans, we can never judge a person’s faith by their doings God respects the behaviors of faith, and only He can distinguish them from their counterfeit counterparts.
On the other hand, if we establish the behaviors as necessary and mandatory, then we have reversed the Bible’s admonition When we make the behaviors themselves laws (in our day, known as “rules, standards, codes of conduct, etc “) we have reverted to the Old Covenant We can no longer exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees because we have returned to their level.
That’s why we took all this time to discuss behavior as a concept, not as good or bad behavior, but just as the category of behavior If we would live by faith, we need to have a clear appreciation that what we do stems from our faith, and our doing does not suffice alone or as some addition to our faith Nor is this at all a matter of balance, we don’t believe for a moment that somehow faith and works compete with each other You either have both, or neither If you count works as faith, you have neither If you have a faith that develops from a relationship with the Creator, you will have an abundance of both.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One