Perhaps you’ve been in my shoes when the bill is offered at a restaurant. Out of cheerful generosity, you consider paying for others. Yet you stop to think, “what have they bought for me, lately?”
Or, after navigating carpooling schedules with another family for swimming lessons, you calculate who has done more, so that you can make sure you’re even (or ahead).
Or in marriage, you count the number of laundry baskets you’ve folded and dishes you’ve washed in comparison to your spouse. As if it’s a game, you keep the score.
I am guilty of having these thoughts. And I am growing more clear in what is going wrong. The Christian life is not a game where we compete with others to earn relational righteousness.
The issue is not seeking fairness and justice. The issue is both in our heads and in our hearts: theology and envy.
Good Deeds Aren’t Favours Earned
The desire to keep things even in our relationships can be appropriate. If a colleague buys you a coffee one day, it can be shrewd to return the favour. But this is a minimal cultural mannerism. Christians are called to something more.
As Jesus says, “if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same.” Christians ought to love out of God’s love, not human reciprocation.
For too long, my good Christian friend and I would split the tab whenever we went out. We got to a point where we asked, “why are we doing this?” It felt petty to nickel and dime our meals together, and it was. When we go out now, one of us takes the bill. We don’t keep track or take turns (we both offer more often than not, but we also don’t fight about it either).
There’s such great joy in this relational freedom. Yes, it is true that each of us owns our own money (the Bible commends the category of personal property). But we can share and enjoy being generous, rather than ensuring one of us isn’t ahead of the other. After all, haven’t we been given all things through the gospel (Rom. 8:32)?
The Envy of Self-Sufficiency
We must heed Paul’s call to examine ourselves (2 Cor. 13:5). One of the primary ways we should examine our moral walk is in comparison to the Ten Commandments.
The command against coveting is both the final commandment and an interpretative key. It is the only command explicitly focused on inner desires. And yet, as many theologians have noted, its place at the conclusion suggests all commands can be understood as having an inner component (Jesus models this in Matthew 5:21-30).
In her excellent book on vices, Rebecca DeYoung defines envy as sorrow at another person’s good. We should celebrate the successes of others and respect what they have in their possession. Envy replaces celebration with disgust and respect with frustration.
Envy is at the root of modern comparison games. When someone does a good moral act toward us, such as paying our bill, driving our kids, or folding our laundry, we should receive and enjoy their good gifts. Acting this way is not surface-level politeness; it’s heart-rich participation in God’s work. For it is God who gifts people to do good works.
We often think of envy as desiring what other people have. But it’s deeper than that. It’s the sadness that comes with the failed fulfillment of your wish.
Envy changes how we view a good deed: from a divine gift to an exchangeable product.
All Goodness Comes from God
We do not do moral acts primarily out of obligation to one another but out of reverence for Christ.
When we view our actions in light of our relationship with God, the scorecard is fundamentally different. Consider Heidi, a mom of three and a foster parent of two.1 Her friend, Rowan, is hosting Heidi’s children more than Heidi is able to reciprocate. With a polite Canadian posture, Heidi fears taking advantage of her friend. Shouldn’t she try to keep things even? Perhaps she should decline future offers?
What does a “fair” calculation even look like? If Heidi’s moral acts are primarily before God, then we may notice that she is “hosting” almost every meal (via fostering) while her friend, who doesn’t foster, is much further behind on that scoreboard!
Before God, should we compare the goodness of fostering with the goodness of hospitality? Of course not. It’s a fruitless exercise of moral scrutiny. And that’s exactly my point.
Heidi can say “thank you” and live in freedom rather than comparative shame. No need to count the meals delivered, prayers made, or hours spent listening. Good deeds don’t need to be kept even.
Comparison games have more in common with a Pharisee measuring dill than with a disciple loving his brother.
Love As You Were Called
We each have unique callings before God that we must live out according to our giftedness and life circumstances. We must grow in wisdom to do this well. For some, it’s foster parenting, and for others, it’s not. I should not feel guilty for not fostering—that would be coveting the good moral acts of that mom.
Paul says that love keeps no record of wrongs. Perhaps we should also keep no records of rights. After all, our justification is in Christ alone, our good deeds are only done through his grace, and our reward will be perfectly measured by our Father in heaven.
Now, all this said, there is nothing wrong with a sense of fairness that accords with God’s understanding of equity and justice. For every hundred Christians in my city of Kitchener, I’d guess two or three need to be rebuked for a lack of consideration of others; they receive generosity without realizing they also have an obligation to serve others. Paul rebukes laziness in his letter to the Thessalonian church, for example. And Paul’s rebuke of Philemon models a healthy reciprocal obligation (based on persuasion, not command).
My guess is that a majority of people overemphasize a sense of measuring and balancing our human obligations to one another. That’s not how the Bible speaks. It’s not good theology, and it’s not filled with joy. Much of it stems from a sinful desire for self-sufficiency, which is just another way of defining envy. This is why so many of us struggle to ask for help: we have not understood Jesus’ teachings, and we have envy in our hearts.
Jesus never felt bad for his expenses being covered by Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna (Luke 8:2). Are you more self-sufficient than Jesus?
God wants us to give generously and receive joyfully, so stop keeping score.
1The names used are fictional, but the story is real.
