My favorite Bible for my personal study, is a Key Word Study Bible. One of the key features of this Bible, is that most verses have the key words in each passage underlined and with a reference number for the corresponding Hebrew or Greek Word that the English word was translated from. I have found that studying with this resource helps me go deeper. By looking at the words in the original languages, I have discovered so much more depth to God’s Word.
This brings us to the word, poieo. When I first encountered this word, I found it in Acts 1:1. Here is the verse as found in the King James:
“The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach.”
What interested me is that the words “to do” were underlined and noted as key words in the passage. My first thought was, ‘how much deeper of a meaning can there be?’ I mean, ‘to do‘ seems to be obvious enough with not a lot of digging necessary. Yet, I was intrigued by this and looked it up.
In one of the resources I searched through, it stated that one of the meanings of this word was to do something once in such a way that it took on a life of it’s own. What beautiful illustration of the works of God. Jesus did not just do ‘good deeds’ or ‘religious rituals’ that were in essence, dead works. Instead, just like in the creation account, God did things once and gave everything life and seed within itself. Likewise, with life, He gave command to ‘go forth multiply, and fill the earth,’ and ‘to reproduce’ after our kind.
I can see the same in discipleship, the Gospel, and the Church. Jesus came to earth, born of a virgin. When the time was right, he began both ‘to do and teach’ in such a way, that His 3+ years of ministry would create a new life-giving covenant, a new body in the Church, and then He would breath life into it (and us) through His Spirit. This He did once, and it has taken on a life in and of itself. It work has lasted 2,000 years and will remain until He once again comes for His Bride.
Our challenge?
What are we doing with our lives? What are we doing with our new life in Christ? What are we doing with the time, talents, abilities, opportunities, and resources God has given us? Are we exercising our faith and utilizing our gifts in such a way, that what we are doing will take on a life outside of us and carry on without us?
The Dead Works of religion and doing what we think will please God is something that we should all repent of. Everything we strive for should be to give life to others that can only come through the True Gospel of Jesus.
Hebrews 6:1 reads, “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God.”
Additionally, Hebrews 9:14 speaks to this asking, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?”
We cannot serve the Living God with Dead Works.