Ambition is the sort of thing Christians don’t like much. It seems to stem from too high a self-regard, the idea that perhaps you could change the world (or your world), or perhaps from selfishness.
I want to argue that ambition can be a good thing, and even a Christian virtue. It is good to have lofty goals, though not all lofty goals are good. It is good to want to change things, though not all change is good. It is good to want to build things that outlast you, though not all… you get the idea.
A quick word search in your Bible gets you five references to ambition, four of which sound terrible. Philippians 1.17, 2.3, and James 3.14, 16 all refer to ‘selfish ambition’ which is clearly a bad thing. The context is even clearer that it is a bad thing.
I think that this has led some of us to assume ambition is itself selfish. That isn’t what’s being said. ‘selfish ambition’ translates the word eritheia which includes in its semantic domain English words like rivalry, faction, or strife. It’s a contentious disposition, a desire to serve a particular tribe over another, or—as usually translated—an ambition that is aimed at the self. Elsewhere in the Bible it’s translated as hostility (2 Corinthians 12.20), and rivalries (Galatians 5.20). Those are appropriate translations for their settings, but it gives you a sense of the range of ways the word is used. It appears in some of the New Testament’s vice lists, it is the literal opposite of a virtue.
What about that five reference? You’ll also have turned up Romans 15.20, where Paul details his ambition to preach the gospel in Spain. That’s the word filotimeomai which in its other New Testament appearances is translated aim (2 Corinthians 5.9) and aspire (1 Thessalonians 4.11).
While an ambition for the self is bad, aspirations can be good. Ambition can be good if aimed at the right object. What does Paul suggest we should aspire to do? Preach the gospel where it isn’t yet known (Romans 15), live quietly (1 Thessalonians 4) and please the Lord (2 Corinthians 5.9).
It is good to want to please the Lord even if your attempts to do so fail. It is good to want to preach the gospel and it is good to want to live quietly. Perhaps these aren’t the typical objects of ambition that the word conjures up, but you don’t have to act like a candidate on The Apprentice in order to have good aspirations.
In fact, let’s go further, you should have good aspirations. You should have dreams. Now, you don’t have to want to change the world. It is highly unlikely that you will. However, every Christian should aspire to change their world, which may not extend beyond your own household. We should want our worlds to be renewed and revived in the midst of the years. While we may not be successful it is an achievable goal for all of us. This, along with reviving the church, is how you change the world anyway—it’s just not something that any one person does.
We should have dreams in God, we should have a sense of something we want to achieve. I think we go wrong in two ways; we think too big, and we don’t think big enough. For many, probably most, of us it is a good aspiration to ‘live a quiet life’ worshipping the Lord. This, for most but not all, will including marrying and raising children. That is a good ambition, even if it is frustrated for whatever reason of circumstance, pain, or disordered desire. Whether we get to do that or not, we serve the Lord by building our local church. Our big dreams for ourselves aren’t needed.
At the same time our churches dreams are too small. We don’t aspire to long term enough goals—a trusted mentor once told me not to present my ten-year plan at a church-based interview because we don’t think that long term—good advice for the moment but I fear it’s an indictment of our culture. We should have hundred-year plans! Any Christian work that changes the fabric of the communities we live in is the work of generations. Which, I fear, stops us from starting. It’s supposed to free us to do the important and hard things without worrying about results. We wouldn’t build a Cathedral, and we would chide the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with oil about the money that could have gone to the poor (John 12).
We will need people to start businesses, build institutions, and live quiet lives of Christian piety that don’t find friendship with the world (James 4) if we want to do more than just survive what looks like the trajectory of the next couple of centuries in the UK. Of course, the Lord might revive us! We long and pray that it would be so, but we should also get about the business of living, which will require from us some aspiration for more than we have now.
Photo by Samuel Ng on Unsplash
To subscribe and receive email notifications for future posts, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page.
Would you like to support my work? The best thing you can do is share this post with your friends. Why not consider also joining my Patreon to keep my writing free for everyone. You can see other ways to support me here.
nuakh 