Should we keep saying that God ‘uses’ His people? – by Jonny Price

I have recently been reflecting on the way we speak in church about how God works with us, walks with us, and uses us for revealing His purposes and His goodness in the world. I have come to the conclusion that we need to rethink how we talk about this because of the implications the language can have for those who hear.

There is a word that I am not sure we should continue using, at least without provisos, and it is a short, simple word. The word is use.

God uses ordinary people to fulfil His purposes.

God uses the talents of His followers to reveal His love.

God uses the gifts we have to reveal His Kingdom.

God uses.

What would we think of someone if all we heard about them was that they used people? What would our impressions of that person be? How would we feel about meeting them?

When we use this language to speak about God, are we giving people who don’t know Him a positive or a negative impression of Him?

Please don’t mishear me, I am not being a millennial snowflake arguing that we should change the truth to become more palatable to those who hear, but I would like us to reconsider the way we talk about being partners with God in His Kingdom work in the world. Let’s turn to the Bible to see an example of this taken to its extreme.

How did God ‘use’ Mary?

It’s Christmas at the time of writing, so obviously many of us are knee-deep in the Christmas story, so it seems a good place to start our thinking. Let’s travel back to Nazareth to witness the appearance of Gabriel to Mary.

This is a wonderful, terrifying, life-changing experience for Mary. She is told that she is highly favoured, that all generations will call her blessed, that she has a big part to play in the plan of God’s redemption for the world.

Now let’s change that language to that which is widely used in the Christian world; the language of use: 

God used Mary to be part of the plan for the redemption of the world.

God used Mary to bring His Son into the world.

God used Mary.  

Does that last point sit comfortably? Does it make you think positively about the character of God here? If we bring in the dynamic of Mary being a teenage girl, does that change the way we think about it?

If Mary was used by God, did she have a choice in what happened? If we say that God uses people, are we taking away their agency, their choice, or their freedom?

When we think about people being ‘used’ by other people, that should make us feel protective of the person used. Slaves are used, objects are used, tools are used. Does this truly reflect our relationship with God?

The actions of Christians should point to the love of God, they should give glory to God, they should show the transforming power of God in His followers, but I would argue that the impact of those things is severely limited if those same followers have no choice in the way they acted once they had chosen to follow Jesus. If we view it in that way, it could be that we are robbing these stories of their goodness by painting God as a puppet master.

Do we really need to worry about this?

In our contemporary context, language of consent, choice, and agency are key for many of the young people we work with. This means that they are highly aware of language that points to the opposite of this; to coercion or to a lack of choice. If, by using the generally accepted language of the Christian world, we unwittingly paint a picture of a God who forces His followers to do certain things – who coerces them into certain actions, or who treats people like objects rather than people – are we enabling our young people to respond positively to Him? Or are we giving them an image of God which they will run from?

How can we talk differently?

I have already used the language I think we should use to talk about this above. Language of partnering with, of working with, and walking with God to reveal His Kingdom in the world.

When we talk in this way, we are doing two things:

First, we are acknowledging that we need God’s help. We cannot reveal God’s Kingdom by ourselves, we cannot live as members of New Creation without God the Creator. We are acknowledging our connectedness, reliance, and our inability to do this by ourselves.

But secondly, we are saying that God offers each of us a choice. We stand with Him, looking at the world and its problems, and He says to each of us, “Shall we do something about this?”. This is the ‘Missio Dei’, the mission of God to bring the world to newness, to redemption, and acknowledges the special place that Humans have as image bearers of God in the world.

How does the Bible speak?

For a word we use frequently, it’s not found in the New Testament in that same way. Jesus didn’t talk about ‘using’ his disciples, nor did Paul talk about how we are used by God. Jn. 14:12 tells us that we will do great things for God, Matt. 5:14-16 tells us that our light will shine in a dark world, Gal. 5:20 says we are filled withJesus, revealing Him to the world, and Eph. 2:10 tells us that God has  good deeds for us to walk in ­– which of course we can do with Him strengthening us (Phil 4:13).

The Bible’s language for partnership is relational language, not functional language. We are partners, not merely tools; we are His people, not His ‘things’. Although God is clearly in charge, how God implements His love into a broken world is not by using us, but by enabling us to look more like Him.

Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash