EDITORIAL: Why I stopped urging, ‘Take care’

Take Care

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For several years, I closed emails with "Take care." As a long-term letter-writer, I understood emails should be more casual than formal letters. And I noticed young people and others who "get" the medium dropped salutations and closings altogether. But I couldn't. So, I signed off, "Take care."

"Take care" seemed like the perfect casual closing. It's neither too formal nor too intimate. It expresses an honest desire for the recipient to remain well and protected. It's friendly but not too familiar.

Then one day, while sending an email to a Christian friend, I realized "Take care" is an absurd admonition. "Take care" is lousy advice and even worse theology.

Obviously, taking care is appropriate in some circumstnces. It's why we teach children not to play in the street and to wear helmets when they ride their bikes. It's why we wash our hands often in flu season and buy anti-virus software for our computers. You get it. Prudence is wise.

But taking care is no way to live a life. The truly happy and productive people—the ones who come to the end of their lives with no regrets, who make their families and friends and communities better, who advance civilization, who expand God's kingdom — instinctively risk something big for something good. Taking care is not their concern, much less their priority.

Editor Marv Knox

Editor Marv Knox

If taking care were humanity's primary goal, we'd still be eating roots and berries and living in caves. Nobody would have dared stalk wild game, much less risk the primal intimacy required for domestication. Nobody would have taken a chance on the vicissitudes of weather to place seeds in the ground and wait for crops. Shoot, if taking care were the prime concern, humanity might not have survived the first few generations, because young men would not have gambled their reputations on the good graces of young women, fearing rejection more than desiring love.

Extreme illustrations? Maybe. But you can make a strong case that people do not advance unless they're willing to forego taking care, unless they're willing to risk. Every relationship, every invention, every new book or music composition, every business start-up, every church plant, every election, every discovery involves risk.


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Of course, wise people calculate costs, weigh risks against rewards and evaluate probabilities of success. Those are integral aspects of solid stewardship. But inevitably, wisdom says a life in which taking care is the prime value is not a life worth living. So, faithful people screw up their courage and act. Meanwhile, the care-takers sit it out. Maybe they never get embarrassed or defeated. Perhaps no one ever rejects them or breaks their hearts. They avoid colossal failures. They never lose. But they never win, either. And they never contribute to the betterment of others, to the advance of society. They live and perhaps help propagate another generation and die. But their lives don't count for much, because they always take care.

Whether they realize it or not, they also practice bad theology. The Bible clearly teaches God loves us and wants the best for us. Jesus incarnated this concept, sacrificing himself to atone for our sin and estrangement, securing our ultimate, eternal security.

But God never told people to play it safe. Not in this life. God always assigned ominous and dangerous tasks. God told Abram to leave home and family for a new land and future. God set Moses up against the leader of the most powerful nation. God sent the boy David to battle a giant. God commanded the prophets to rebuke wicked kings. In one famous parable, Jesus praised two risk-takers and condemned the person who played it safe (Matthew 25:14-30). Jesus sent his followers into a ferocious world, where they would be persecuted by the religious establishment and challenged by an empire's army. God repeatedly led the Apostle Paul on dangerous journeys into hostile territories. Many early Christians died martyrs' deaths.

While Scripture promises ultimate peace and security, it never tells us to take care. And throughout the history of the church, the testimony of the faithful has advocated risk. In the second century, Tertullian said, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." His truth continues to this day. And even where martyrdom is not required, God's kingdom calls for risk-takers, not care-takers.

A major reason why our worship often is anemic, our fellowship tepid, our ministries ineffective, our relationships shallow and our influence miniscule is we, the church, have taken care. Mirroring our culture, we have grown risk-averse, timid, fearful.

So, be wise. Embrace passion. Be of good cheer. Put on courage. But, for God's holy sake, don't take care.

?Marv Knox is editor of the Baptist Standard. Visit his blog at www.baptiststandard.com.


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