He Went Around Doing Good

He went around doing good. - Acts 10:38

When Peter described the ministry of Jesus, that’s his quick and dirty summary. Jesus went around doing good. Wherever he showed up, he made that event better, he made those people better, he made that neighborhood better.

As followers of Jesus, that’s what we get to be about. We follow in his ways. That mean we get to go around doing good.

An author that I (Bill) am reading right now (Miguel de la Torre, Reading the Bible from the Margins) writes about how his predominantly white students at a Christian college get unnerved by his teaching on the radical justice of Jesus. To ‘litmus test’ his faith, they ask him, “Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?”

I love his answer. Every time he gets asked that, he responds, “I have a public relationship with Jesus.” Sure, he loves Jesus. But it’s not about him and Jesus cozying up all the time and chatting. Jesus was out and about doing good, so de la Torre seeks to follow Jesus’s model. It’s not unlike what Dr. Cornel West says: “Justice is what love looks like in public.”

What might it look like for you these days to go around doing good? Anything practical come to mind?