My standards are exactly those I’d advocate for any believer

By Wye Huxford

A new series of occasional posts by one of Dean’s friends
telling us how they pursue the challenge of daily obedience to Jesus.

When I first saw the invite to write this devotional, I almost said “No!” The request was to write about how you model faith in “your career, workplace, and/or home.” My gut instinct was something like “Who wants to hear about that from a person who has spent his entire career in faith-based workplaces?” After all, don’t we expect that such people will model what faith should look like?

But the invitation came from my boss! How could I appropriately say “No thanks.”

This, however, is my challenge.  My entire working life has been either as a professor in a Christian college or the preacher of a local church—or a combination of the two! It seems axiomatic that I would model faith in both of those contexts. But sometimes what we think is “axiomatic” may be a cover-up for what is utterly missing.

Because I believe

Then I started thinking about my younger daughter’s Ph.D. dissertation at Eastern University. The title of the work was Workplace Faith Integration in Nonprofit Christian Camp and Retreat Center Organizations: A Grounded Theory.  In preparation for her dissertation defense, she asked me and two of my good friends who have life-long engagement in Christian camping to listen to her presentation and respond. We were all three impressed with her scholarship and disappointed at her conclusions. To put it as simply as I can, “Faith integration in faith-based workplaces isn’t quite what we might assume it to be.”

I don’t particularly see myself as a biblical scholar, though I’ve been working in this area for a long time. I prefer to see myself as a follower of Jesus working hard every day to better understand and practice what saying “Jesus is Christ” ought to mean in my life. Honestly, I tire a bit of those who can’t introduce themselves without indicating they are a “theologian” or “biblical scholar.” I’m certainly not opposed to those places in life, but if we need to make sure we say it, is that actually who we are?

From my place around the table, what I’m about to say isn’t true of me because I’ve been teaching biblical studies and theology my entire life. It isn’t true of me because I spent 20 years as the preacher of a healthy, midsized church that was in much better shape when I left than it was when I came. Rather, it is true of me because I believe Jesus is Christ.

All believers

• So, first, I’ve done my best never to ask of anyone something I wouldn’t do myself. It seems to me that the biblical ideal of the priesthood of all believers demands that we all stand on a level place. If I want you to “serve the least of these,” then I should be right there with you. If I want you to “go the extra mile” or “turn the other cheek” shouldn’t I be willing to do the same? But in my world, it seems that the sense of rank and position often interferes with the idea of the priesthood of all believers, and we expect of others what we clearly are unwilling to do ourselves.

• Second, I’ve done my best to model that the local church is important. My kids will tell you: Our family went to church on vacation! I’ve never attended a local church that I think got it all right. That’s true of the church I attended for 20-plus years as its pastor. But I can’t recall ever thinking that the local church was somehow unimportant. Or that if it somehow didn’t meet my exact expectations, it was okay to consider it of no value.

Paul’s comments about the “mutual encouragement of each other’s faith, both yours and mine” in Romans 1:11, 12 is a convicting idea for me. I remember reading from Howard Snyder way back in the late 1970s a line that said something like “the church is God’s only redeeming agency in the world.” He was right, and when it comes to modeling my faith, I can’t get past that reality.

Faith example

My life at the moment—professionally—revolves around being a faith example to a group of Christian college young adults, and sometimes older adults in online contexts. I hope they think I know what I’m talking about in the classes where I am the professor. I hope they know I am willing to bend over backward to help them be fruitful.

But . . . more than all of that, I hope they know that because I believe that Jesus is Christ, I won’t ask them to do what I am unwilling to do myself and that they know I am deeply committed to and engaged in a local body of believers where I can both encourage and be encouraged.

That shouldn’t be true of me because of what my career has looked like. It should be true of me because I believe that Jesus is Christ.

I hope that is true of you as well, no matter your profession.   

Wye Huxford is dean of the college of biblical studies and ministry at Point University, where he has been teaching since 1976. He also served for over 20 years as the pastor of a local church. He was married to the late Vicki Kindt Huxford for over 48 years, and they have two adult children, both of whom work in Christian higher education. You can read more of his work at wyehuxford.com.

To receive daily posts delivered directly to your inbox, complete the form at the bottom of our home page.
To download a printable version of today’s post, click here.