Curator or Translator?

A New Commentary on Philippians 4:8-9

“One thing we may be sure of: the life of the Christian church can go forward only when each generation is able creatively to reinterpret its gospel…out of its own experience of the Spirit and word which first called Christianity into existence.” -J.D.G. Dunn

The Beginning of My Virtue Board

When an organization is in turmoil, we turn inward, doing everything to defend what we fear we are losing. In our day we can pick between two very narrow options. Each morning we choose between two echo chambers. Will I choose media content that supports Trump as the one who will restore what we have lost or will I choose to fear him as the one who threatens all that I hold dear? It isn’t much of a choice. But Paul offers us another way.

…brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me – put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

Many self-help and entrepreneurial coaches encourage us to build a “dream board” as an impetus for success. The idea is to gather concrete expressions of what we are working toward. My dream board, for example, includes a family home with enough room for our kids, and, one day, our grandkids can be with us. But Paul is encouraging us to develop a “virtue board,” a single location where we gather the character traits we long to embody in our daily lives.

Paul doesn’t give them a specific list. Instead he highlights two sources for our virtue board.

Let’s take the last first because it is the most obvious. “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me – put it into practice.” In other words, we have the Ten Commandments, the Law spoken of so respectfully in Psalm 119, the teachings of Jesus, and the Letters of Paul. But before this, he suggests a less obvious source; we should look for character traits to emulate in the norms and values of the cultures around us. “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” By developing a vision board with these two sources we would not only walk in the faith of Jesus but also translate it in dialogue with culture.

This is rather counter-cultural advice in our time of turmoil. In many ways faith seems “out of fashion.” Fear urges institutional Christians to protect the faith as curators preserve a museum collection. This at the exact moment when telling others about following Jesus, in authentic ways that people can see and understand, is most important. Instead of curating the faith, we need to translate the faith into our everyday lives.

If we are ready for this challenge, we need to begin our Virtue Board by looking for the following:

• Examples of true thought, speech, and action in our culture.

• Those things in our culture that lift our minds from the cheap and tawdry to the moral, the good, and the noble.

• We should consider how relational obligations are fulfilled in our culture and how we can excel in this.

• We should to emulate people with the best motives toward God and neighbor.

• What are the forms of cultural beauty that elicit affirmation and love from fellow citizens? How can we participate in their creation and promotion?

• What kindly actions are likely, in our context, to encourage others to enjoy the benefits we have experienced following Jesus?

The best way to respond to the decline of Christianity in the West is to develop our character in ways that speak clearly of our faith to our family, friends and neighbors. We are called to translate the gift we have received by faith in a way that makes it understandable and appealing in our world.

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