Zeal, Prudence, and John Newton

When the days are busy I find myself turning to shorter readings to encourage my walk with Christ. Psalms and Proverbs are typically my go-to’s in Scripture, but when it comes to more devotional reading, I have deeply appreciated the letters of John Newton, an English pastor in the 1700s. Before his conversion, Newton was for years a slave-trader who later became a staunch abolitionist. Jesus radically changed his life. This is the same man, after all, who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace.” A self-attested “wretch,” once lost, now found, he personally knew the power of God for salvation that is found in the gospel and made it his aim to help others experience the same.

As a pastor, he preached countless sermons and counseled numerous members of his church. He even tried his hand at writing a book of church history. But the legacy he left behind was not bound in leather or heralded from the pulpit so much as sealed in an envelope for friends and family. Newton wrote letters. Today’s blogs and newsletters can easily adopt a similar tone and style, but nothing quite replicates the personal nature of a handwritten letter, and Newton’s letters were personal, written to people whom he knew, loved, and wanted to serve with the truth of God’s word as he understood it. Newton knew how to boil things down and apply universal truths to individual hearts and circumstances. The man could write.

I was struck recently by one such example. Writing to a friend, he evaluates the relationship between what he calls “zeal” and “prudence.” In this case, “zeal” has to do with the energy, effort, and excitement of following Christ and stepping out in faith. “Prudence,” on the other hand, is demonstrated by restraint and the patience necessary for doing things well. For a number of Christians today, especially younger believers in the west, idols of perfectionism and success, however, often cloud our sense of purpose before God. We lean toward zeal (rushing in where we should pray and seek the Lord) or prudence (holding back rather than serving the Lord). There’s a balance to be struck here, but as Newton points out, this is tricky.

He writes, “To combine zeal with prudence is indeed difficult. There is often too much self in our zeal, and too much of the fear of man in our prudence.” How easily we confuse serving the Lord with promoting ourselves! We use God-given gifts and talents to advance our own sense of greatness and usefulness to God. This is a particular challenge for those who might be gifted in more visible areas of service to the Lord—preaching, teaching, and singing, yes, but also hospitality and evangelism. Don’t confuse the rush of putting yourself out there with the joy of seeing God’s glory on display through your gifts.

Alternatively, we can also fail to act at all because we worry about how we’ll be evaluated—not by the Lord but by other people. If zeal’s pitfall is thinking too highly of ourselves, then prudence’s pitfall is expecting too much of ourselves. On any given day I have found myself in both ditches. Looking at my gifts and capacity, I determine not to step out in faith while waiting for a version of myself that will never materialize this side of eternity. You see, pride, like a coin, has two sides—arrogance and false humility. One looks at the ceiling of your service to God and says, “I’ve exceeded it!” The other looks at the floor and says, “I can’t even meet that expectation.” But in both cases, your eyes have been taken off of Christ and put onto yourself.

Romans 12:3 is clear that believers should be careful not to think of themselves too highly. It’s important that we look in the mirror and with sober minds acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses before God. But how we proceed from that evaluation is everything. It reminds me of the parable of talents recorded in Matthew 25:14–30, in which Jesus narrates the story of a “less-than-easygoing” master who commissions three servants to steward his vast wealth while he’s on an extended trip. Upon his return, he discovers that two of the servants had doubled the money entrusted to them, while one was so fearful of making a mistake and suffering his master’s wrath that he instead buried what was given to him. He was certainly cautious, but as the master points out, he could have just left it in a bank and collected interest. The master, being a rather shrewd man, is very upset about this and instead of rewarding the servant (as he did the first two) casts him out of the house and into the street.

Faithful servants of Christ capitalize on what their Master has given them, using their talents to advance his interests and magnify his glory. As Romans 12:11 says, “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.” Zeal propels God’s people into faithful service, while prudence is meant to steady them on the path. For many, however, prudence gives way to fear and becomes a roadblock. Romans 14:4 tells us, “It is before his own master that he [a servant] stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.” The Christian life is not one of self-reliance but dependence on the Lord. Newton continues his letter:

We seldom act wrong, when we truly depend upon Him, and can cease from leaning to our own understanding. When the heart is thus in a right tune and frame, and His word dwells richly in us, there is a kind of immediate perception of what is proper for us to do in present circumstances, without much painful inquiry; a light shines before us upon the path of duty; and if He permits us in such a spirit to make some mistakes, He will likewise teach us to profit by them; and our reflections upon what was wrong one day, will make us to act more wisely the next. At the best, we must always expect to meet with new proofs of our own weakness and insufficiency; otherwise how should we be kept humble, or know how to prize the liberty He allows us of coming to the throne of grace, for fresh forgiveness and direction every day?

Unlike the servants in the parable, Christ is not some harsh task-master determined only to grow his wealth. Rather, we serve a loving Lord who beckons: “Do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Prov 3:5–6). Our very salvation depends on this, that we rely not on ourselves but on Christ for our very life. Why do we then seek to live the Christian life differently? Whether we exalt ourselves or discount ourselves, we fail to recognize the potential of Christ’s work in and through us, but by putting our heads down, acknowledging our weaknesses, and stepping out in faith, we exalt our faithful Lord.