And let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful.
The verse directs believers, called ours, to learn to keep up good works for necessary needs so that their lives are fruitful and not unfruitful. That learning includes giving according to means to support the cause and supply others, so that giving by the churches meets what is needed rather than leaving the work unfruitful. It is a call to continued practice, not a single act, with fruitfulness as its aim and unfruitfulness as what is to be avoided.
The phrase for necessary uses bears the marginal sense of professing honest trades, meaning to learn and carry on useful, honest work with labor and industry rather than idleness. Its immediate example is to provide diligently for Zenas and Apollos on their journey, meeting real traveling needs by careful provision. Learning such a trade supports respectable, independent living and helps keep people from idleness, bad company, and crime.
Maintaining these works also means obedience and active service for the good of the church, as Nehemiah's people rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem; such works are good and profitable, and right doing brings God's blessing. Work that harms others, such as selling intoxicating drink, is not the good work required and cannot bring salvation. The required good works belong to cooperation with God while God works within believers, so that when they choose to act God upholds their efforts and prosperity follows.
Those good works let the light of the gospel shine as part of the Christian commission, not as an effort to make a nation Christian by human law. The duty to practice good works that meet real needs stands together with the truth that the blood of Jesus cleanses from sin and that those who hope in him purify themselves. To separate these truths can produce lawlessness and reduce faith to mere theory instead of a life-shaping influence on daily conduct.
The verse directs believers, called ours, to learn to keep up good works for necessary needs so that their lives are fruitful and not unfruitful. That learning includes giving according to means to support the cause and supply others, so that giving by the churches meets what is needed rather than leaving the work unfruitful. It is a call to continued practice, not a single act, with fruitfulness as its aim and unfruitfulness as what is to be avoided.
The phrase for necessary uses bears the marginal sense of professing honest trades, meaning to learn and carry on useful, honest work with labor and industry rather than idleness. Its immediate example is to provide diligently for Zenas and Apollos on their journey, meeting real traveling needs by careful provision. Learning such a trade supports respectable, independent living and helps keep people from idleness, bad company, and crime.
Maintaining these works also means obedience and active service for the good of the church, as Nehemiah's people rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem; such works are good and profitable, and right doing brings God's blessing. Work that harms others, such as selling intoxicating drink, is not the good work required and cannot bring salvation. The required good works belong to cooperation with God while God works within believers, so that when they choose to act God upholds their efforts and prosperity follows.
Those good works let the light of the gospel shine as part of the Christian commission, not as an effort to make a nation Christian by human law. The duty to practice good works that meet real needs stands together with the truth that the blood of Jesus cleanses from sin and that those who hope in him purify themselves. To separate these truths can produce lawlessness and reduce faith to mere theory instead of a life-shaping influence on daily conduct.