“God doesn’t want us to be shy with his gifts, but bold and loving and sensible.”
2 Timothy 1:5-7, The Message Bible
Tell someone that “and” is a value of yours and they will look at you funny. People of a certain age and disposition will write you off as hopelessly postmodern; everyone else will write you off as pretentious.
NavPress has drawn a lot of inspiration and energy from 2 Timothy 1:5-7, with its suggestion that boldness, love, and sensibility are spiritual qualities and missional metrics. We aim to embody these values in what we publish and how we go about our business.
Any aspiration is vulnerable to mishandling. In our desire to be bold we can speak more forcefully than we ought, slamming doors shut that are better left open, swinging gates wide that should be better guarded. In our desire to be sensible we can shrink back from things we ought to assert, equivocate when we ought to be unequivocal. In our desire to be loving we can be indulgent or avoidant—in the words of the upstart artificial intelligence in Avengers: Age of Ultron, “confusing peace with quiet.”
“And” is an equalizer. It tells us that these things are connected, even perhaps irreducibly complex. When it comes to God’s gifts, apparently, we are not free to select either boldness, love, or sensibility. Like so many features of the faith, there’s a paradox in play.
We hold these values in dynamic tension, each informing the others and keeping our program in check. Our boldness is tempered by love and sensibility; likewise our love is exercised with sensibility and boldness, and our sensibility suffused with boldness and love. Our work is made better by this abundance of ampersands—as, we believe, are we.
God doesn’t want us to be shy with his gifts, but
Dynamic.
Interconnected.
Balanced.
Expansive.
Values-driven.
Bold and loving and sensible.