Is Godliness Active or Passive?

My home church in California has an Equipping Hour, or “adult Sunday School,” before the main service every week, and we just started a series on meekness and quietness of spirit. In 1 Peter 3:4, we see that the quality of a meek and quiet spirit is something that is precious in God’s sight. It is not the quality of being shy, timid, weak, or mouse-like, but rather a strength of humility, openness, and teachability. A spirit that is meek and quiet has control over negative passions, such as anger, and the sense of peace that comes from fully trusting God.

Some time into the class, I found myself raising my hand. Processing these topics presented me with a dilemma. Where was the line between a spirit that is meek and quiet and one that is simply complacent?

Is godliness active or passive? I found myself thinking of Christian friends I admire, and how their godly characters seemed to display themselves in ways that were completely opposite. The examples below are primarily hypothetical, with a little inspiration drawn from real-life cases.

Externally Active Godliness	Externally Passive Godliness
A friend is fighting to get into grad school, investing her utmost effort in extra projects and actively seeking out recommendations from professors. Her spirit does not feel peaceful in the uncertainty, but she is praying regularly and striving to trust God.	Another friend is also pursuing grad school, but she has found peace with her current progress. She does not have as many recommendations as she wanted, but she is content to apply to fewer schools and trusts that God will put her in the right one.
A friend has been hurt by something that another church member said. Her first response is anger, but she prays and surrenders her frustration to God. She then approaches the church member to lovingly call him out on his unkind words, offering the opportunity for them to grow in holiness together.	Another friend has also been hurt by the unkind words of a fellow church member. However, she does not respond with anger, but instead minimizes the offense. No harm is done, she thinks, and no harm was intended. No matter what others may say about her, she finds peace in God’s steadfast love to her.
A friend has a huge heart for her classmates to know God’s grace. She knows that they each have a soul that will experience eternal life after death, either in heaven with God or in a terrifying separation from God. For this reason, she actively tries to influence her classmates to accept God’s forgiveness offered through Christ.	Another friend knows and cares deeply about a few non-Christian souls in her life. Her primary goals are nonconfrontational: ask them questions to understand their beliefs better, love them well to reflect Christ’s love, and keep peace in her friendships. She’d like to share the gospel with them at some point, but she is waiting until later.
A small church has a huge heart for the people in their neighborhood who do not have purpose or hope. The church members actively reach out to work colleagues, families in their schools, etc., and welcome visitors to their church every week.	Another church is faithful with the little they have, preaching solid gospel truth every Sunday. Content and grateful for their small congregation, members invest their effort into deep friendships with other long-time members and homeschool programs for the kids.

Is one of these objectively better than the other? Are these simply differences in Christians’ personalities and spiritual giftings? This is the question that I sought to answer.

In a world that is anxious about so many things, as Christians, we are called to instead be “anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit.” In the context of 1 Corinthians 7:32–35, the Apostle Paul is sharing how it is easier for an unmarried man or woman to be anxious about the things of the Lord, since they do not have their interests divided between God and their spouse. But really, this passage is a call for all Christians to give up the anxieties of the world and of people-pleasing, and instead strive to fully trust God and pursue holiness.

But what does it look like to be anxious about the things of the Lord? Does it look like an externally active godliness, present in relationships and busy in the Lord’s work? Or is it an externally passive godliness, resting in God’s grace and moving slowly but intentionally?

To find the answer to this question, I would like for us to look at Jesus’s life to see how He exemplified active and passive holiness.

Active and Passive Godliness in the Life of Jesus Christ

Starting at the very beginning… A loving and holy God created man and woman, and He declared His creation to be “very good.” Yet the man and woman rebelled against the authority of their Creator, fracturing the perfect relationship with God that they once had. In their guilt and brokenness, mankind could never fix their relationship with God on their own. There was only one solution: Jesus Christ.

Jesus is our perfect example of meekness. We can read in Philippians 2:6-8 how although Jesus was God the Son, he “emptied himself” by taking on human form. The King of Kings was born as a helpless human baby in an underprivileged family. Rather than aspiring to be recognized for his greatness, he contented himself with a very lowly life. In our calling to give up our worldly anxieties, we may be called to have the same meekness and contentment in our circumstances. 

When we think of Jesus’s life, we often think of him as a good and kind teacher, yet we must remember that he wasn’t afraid to challenge people and make them uncomfortable. He called out and offended respected Jewish teachers (Matthew 15:7-12). He cared about his Father’s name enough to turn over tables in the temple (Matt. 21:12-15). He showed love to the underdogs and outcasts in society: touching and healing people who were diseased and unclean, eating with the cheating tax collectors who were hated by everyone else, and even letting children come to him. In our calling to be anxious about the things of the Lord, we may be called to more actively push against our comfort zones and the expectations of society.

Again, we see the incredible meekness of Jesus when he “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). In some respects, this obedience looked very passive in how Jesus acted. Knowing the horrible death he was destined for, Jesus bowed to the Father’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matt. 26:39). Although Jesus never committed any wrong, he was put on trial and falsely accused of many things by chief priests and elders. He never tried to save face or make any answer to these accusations (Matt. 27:11-14). When he was hung on the cross, he was taunted by passersby, chief priests, scribes, elders, and even the robbers hanging on the crosses next to him. “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross” (Matt. 27:39-44), they told him. He could have done it, that was true. Yet he did nothing.

Jesus died and his body was sealed in a grave. If he is still dead today, our faith is futile and we are still in our sins (1 Cor. 15:17), condemned to God’s judgment forever. “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). The only reason we have hope beyond this life is because Jesus rose from the dead and conquered death, achieved full forgiveness of our debt to God, and saved us from the condemnation we deserved for our sins. 

“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-11). This is why we pursue holiness. Not because we have any hope of saving ourselves, but because Christ has already saved us, and his name is worthy of our obedience. He gave his life for us. How can we not give everything we have to follow him?

Two Sisters in Active and Passive Godliness

Backing up a little… This same Jesus, during his life of ministry, met two sisters named Mary and Martha. 

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” — Luke 10:38-42

We all need people like Martha. How would anything get done if we didn’t have Marthas in our churches? You can probably think of several people who are always visibly volunteering and serving like Martha was. The heart of a Martha-like person is beautiful for the way she actively takes care of other people and demonstrates her love for God. This heart is like Jesus, who washed his disciples’ feet in the final days of his life (John 13:3-5). The Marthas in our churches are also probably more highly commended than the Marys. However, the tendency of any Martha is that she may get distracted, overwhelmed, anxious, and troubled about her neverending to-do list.

Mary’s godliness was externally passive. She wasn’t bustling around the house like Martha; she simply sat still at Jesus’s feet. She never raised her voice to make a point; she just listened. Mary’s manner was meek and her spirit was quiet. Everything in her focused on the words of her Lord, rather than being anxious and troubled about anything else. Knowing that Jesus would not be there for long, she savored the opportunity to be with him. And Jesus said that she had chosen the good portion.

Now, the moral of this story is not that we should always sit and never serve. I think it shows that there is a time to sit and a time to serve, and that there are certain pitfalls in serving we must avoid. Imagine if Martha had surrendered her anxieties and troubles, and accepted the rest that Jesus offered her? What if she was not distracted in her serving, but focused and intentional in it? If she took more time to be like Mary and listen, might she have a spirit that is more meek and quiet? Might she be less frustrated with her sister?

It might seem like “meek and quiet” and “actively serving” are opposites, but Jesus shows us that it is more than possible to have a meek and quiet spirit while having an active ministry of love to others. Rather than being distracted, his service was intentional and focused. He was not “anxious and troubled about many things,” but his service showed us what it means to be anxious about the things of God. We see in the Garden of Gethsemane that Jesus was deeply troubled about his coming death, yet still he surrendered himself to the Father’s will (Matt. 26:39). Jesus is the perfect example of active and passive godliness.

Nuance and Wisdom in Choosing Between Active and Passive

Wisdom is “the ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting” (Got Questions). Now, if discerning the right decision were always simple and easy, why would we have multiple books of the Bible dedicated to wisdom? The reality is that we live in a complicated world full of difficult decisions. It isn’t a straightforward choice between active and passive godliness in every situation. There is a lot of nuance. We need wisdom.

Maybe that feels like a cop-out. I don’t think it is. There’s a tension between what is a quiet spirit and what is complacency. There’s also a tension between what is serving and what is distraction. There’s a tension between the beautiful diversity of spiritual giftings in the church and a not-so-beautiful array of spiritual excuses. These conceptual tensions may feel uncomfortable when there is no satisfying, pre-packaged answer of what is right and what is wrong. But that discomfort is a good thing in my eyes; after all, there is no growth without discomfort. The primary goal of this blog post was to raise a good question.

This is where I invite you to share your perspective in the comments. Where do you land on the spectrum of active and passive godliness? What blessings and struggles do you see? How would you respond to the scenarios I set up in the table? Do you have a different interpretation of the Mary and Martha passage? I would love to hear your thoughts and collaborate in order to understand this topic on a deeper level.