How We Live Matters

I’m still a substitute teacher. And recently, I was an extra teacher in a math class. The main math teacher challenged his class: “Practice makes perfect.” But then he immediately edited himself to say, “Actually perfect practice makes perfect.”

It forced me to stop and think. Even though my initial reaction was, “That sets unreasonable expectations for the students,” I quickly realized that this is fantastic advice. Here’s why:

• If we keep doing our math homework incorrectly, we reinforce the wrong way of doing it, and we will fail our test.

This principle applies to so much more than just math.

• If we constantly believe negative things about ourselves (I’ll never be anything more than a substitute teacher), we will act out those negative beliefs and our negative beliefs will become self-fulfilling prophecies.
• If we jump to addictions when emotions get too heavy, we will struggle to ever break free from said addiction.
• If we insist on shouting down opposing viewpoints, we will struggle to ever actually dialogue about difficult topics.
• If we read Scripture intending to only see what we expect to see, then we will never actually be able to hear God speak to us through it, because anything that goes against our pre-understanding will be labelled “unchristian” or—worse—“demonic.”

We have to be so careful about what actions and thought patterns we repeat. Everything we do forms us. And every repeated action reinforces that formation.

It’s like the famous quote from the movie Gladiator:

“What we do in life echoes in Eternity.”

And it’s a fantastic piece of advice. It’s an amazing motto to live by. And it’s a Christian idea through and through. Perhaps this is why many are quick to discard this quote as a historical problem with the film, even though Christianity was already spreading through the Roman Empire by Marcus Aurelius’s day (ruled 161–180).

Aurelius was a Stoic philosopher who recorded his thoughts in the twelve books (chapters) of the Meditations. He was no friend of Christianity, thinking their willingness to die foolish (Meditations XI.3), but just how directly responsible he was for increased Christian persecution during his reign is a subject of scholarly debate. The first official, empire-wide persecution occurred in 249 under Emperor Decius.

Is Stoicism consistent with the Gladiator quote? It would appear so. For example, as Stoicism contrasts with Epicureanism:

“[In Stoicism], not only does everything have its place in the hierarchical order of things, but also the whole world has been created by a benign deity and is maintained by the providential care of that deity. Every one of a person’s experiences, therefore, has been specifically designed for that individual alone; the world is thus full of meaning. The Epicureans, by contrast, saw the world as a randomly generated conglomeration of atoms, indivisible lumps of matter; they denied the existence of gods, except as special formations of atoms, which in their view exercised no care for human beings or any other aspect of the world. And they denied that it was natural for human beings to care for others.”¹

“Whereas the Epicureans believed that peace of mind could come only by withdrawing from the world, the Stoics believed that it came from engaging with the world in the right way, and especially from recognizing that all thoughts and feelings that disrupt tranquility are generated by one’s own mind and can therefore be dispelled by one’s own mind.”²

Obviously, it’s not a one-to-one equation between Stoicism and Christianity. Some Christians would even say—with the Epicureans—that we must withdraw from the world (citing 1 John 2:15) or that human love is actually not natural (citing Romans 3:10–18, or similar texts).

However, whereas those points can be debated as truly “Christian” or not, if we take a “philosophical” portion of the Old Testament—Proverbs—we see a clear overlap with Stoicism:

“For receiving wise instruction in righteousness, justice, and integrity; … a wise man will listen and increase his learning, and a discerning man will obtain guidance. … The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and discipline.”

Proverbs 1:3, 5, 7; emphasis added

The purpose of the book of Proverbs is for readers and hearers to grow in “righteousness, justice, and integrity.” Wisdom shows itself in these virtues. Solomon explains that fools despise this learning.

And when it comes to Stoicism, we read, “If virtue is knowledge, it follows that behaving nonvirtuously is a product of ignorance.”³ Again, it is not a one-to-one relationship between Christianity and Stoicism, but as Christians, we have quite a few virtues we are called to pursue (e.g., Matthew 5:3–12; Galatians 5:22–23; Titus 2).

Relegating these virtues to “natural results” of believing in Jesus is a foolish take. You will not magically become more loving because you believe in Jesus unless you are actively pursuing love. Just like you will not get better at math if you do not practice your homework problems correctly (and figure out where the error was when you make mistakes). Virtue is earned by hard work. That’s what makes it virtuous.

Jesus said they will know us by our love, not by our claim to be loving. And if we aren’t behaving virtuously, we are demonstrating ignorance—and in the words of Proverbs—acting the fool. Persistent wrong thinking on Christian virtues naturally results in “perfecting” bad results.

What we think in life, echoes in eternity.

And that for better or worse. If we harden our hearts to God’s love; if we harden our hearts to the plight of the poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden; if we harden our hearts to actively pursuing virtue—we will damn ourselves to hell. As R. Zachary Manis explains in his book, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell, “those who persist in sin long enough eventually form an incorrigibly wicked character, which alienates them from God and from other people, which, in turn, naturally makes them miserable.”⁴

In other words, we are always either moving toward more virtue or more vice, and the direction we are travelling determines our destination. Manis goes on, “What Jesus requires of his disciples is that they remain in fellowship with him, continually receptive to his Spirit—that is, responsive to the Spirit’s conviction and leading, open to the Spirit’s renewing of their hearts and minds.”⁵

The fruit of the Spirit is the following virtues: love, joy, peace, longsuffering (patience), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

What we do in life echoes in eternity.

What are you doing in life?
What will your eternity look like if nothing changes?

Live in Love; find your true reward!

In this with you!

Thanks for reading!

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Notes and References

1. Robin Waterfield in Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: The Annotated Edition, ed. Robin Waterfield (New York: Basic Books, 2021), xxxix. ↩︎
2. Ibid., xxxix. ↩︎
3. Ibid., xliii. ↩︎
4. R. Zachary Manis, Thinking Through the Problem of Hell: The Divine Presence Model (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2024), 96. ↩︎
5. Ibid., 97. ↩︎

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