Blogging in Christ — Issue 13

Do the Hidden Work

The reader sees only the finished piece: a paragraph that reads clearly, a quotation that lands where it belongs, a claim that holds when he checks it. He does not see the hours behind it. But the writer knows what he did not see, and that unseen part decides whether the seen part is true. A piece can be polished on the surface and hollow underneath, confident in tone and careless in text. The difference is not talent. It is the hidden work: what the writer did with the passage before he wrote a sentence about it.

The command names the work plainly. "Give diligence to present yourself approved by God, a workman who doesn’t need to be ashamed, properly handling the Word of Truth." (2 Tim 2:15) The workman is presented to God, not to the reader, so the first judgment on the piece is not whether it reads well but whether it handles the truth rightly. Shame is the opposite of diligence, not of success. A writer need not be ashamed when he has checked what he claims, even if the piece is plain and few read it. He has reason to be ashamed when he publishes what he has not verified, even if many praise it. Proper handling is the whole craft in one phrase: the text is not raw material to be bent toward an effect, but a word to be cut straight, kept whole, and delivered as it stands.

Ezra shows the order. "For Ezra had set his heart to seek Yahweh’s law, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel." (Ezra 7:10) Seek, then do, then teach. A man who teaches before he seeks has nothing to teach but his own first impression. A man who seeks but does not do has knowledge that has never passed through obedience, and it will sound thin when he speaks it. Teaching stands last because it rests on the other two.

Sitting with it means something slower than reading for a subject. "but his delight is in Yahweh’s law. On his law he meditates day and night." (Ps 1:2) Meditation is not skimming for a usable line. It is staying with the same words until they govern the mind that reads them. The psalmist confesses the same discipline: "How I love your law! It is my meditation all day." (Ps 119:97) All day, not an hour set aside for research and then forgotten. The command to Joshua binds meditation to obedience: "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it; for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success." (Josh 1:8) That is the test: meditation proves real when it produces observance, and passages the writer wanted to use drop out when they do not say what he wanted them to say.

Part of the work is keeping before speaking. "I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you." (Ps 119:11) The word is hidden in the heart before it is announced from the pen. Hiding is not hoarding. It is letting the word take residence where it can check the writer before the writer checks his readers. Mary kept the same posture when testimony came faster than she could explain it: "But Mary kept all these sayings, pondering them in her heart." (Luke 2:19) The writer who does the same will sometimes hold a piece back until the saying is ripe.

The searching itself is digging, not browsing. "if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures;" (Prov 2:4) "then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, and find the knowledge of God." (Prov 2:5) Hidden treasure is not found by glancing at the surface. It is found by digging where the map says to dig, and staying at it when the first shovelfuls turn up nothing. That is the true picture of research for a herald. He searches the text itself, verse by verse, until the knowledge of God in that passage stands clear. The reward named here is not a larger audience. It is understanding the fear of Yahweh.

Verification belongs inside the hidden work, not after it as a courtesy. "They read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly; and they gave the sense, so that they understood the reading." (Neh 8:8) Distinctly: each word in its place, nothing blurred. They gave the sense: they did not merely recite sounds, they made the meaning clear. So that they understood: the reading succeeded when the hearers understood, not when the readers sounded learned. For the writer, this means every quotation checked word for word, every reference confirmed, every paraphrase kept distinct from quotation, every passage read in its own surrounding verses before it is joined to another. This labor is invisible when done well, and no reader will applaud it. Its absence is visible at once: a quotation that does not say what the writer claims, a verse lifted from a context that reverses its meaning, a connection invented between passages that share only a word. Hidden diligence is what makes a public piece safe to check.

The reason this labor is worth doing is that Scripture itself does the equipping. "Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness," (2 Tim 3:16) "that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." (2 Tim 3:17) The writer does not equip himself by collecting tools around the text. He is equipped by sitting under the text and letting it teach, reprove, correct, and instruct him first. Reproof comes before teaching in that list for a reason: the hidden work will often correct the writer's own draft before it ever corrects a reader. A man who resists that correction in private will publish uncorrected work in public. A man who receives it in private publishes a piece already judged by the standard it proclaims.

When the hidden work is done, its fruit appears without announcement. "Be diligent in these things. Give yourself wholly to them, that your progress may be revealed to all." (1 Tim 4:15) Progress revealed, not advertised. The next verse keeps writer and reader under the same discipline: "Pay attention to yourself and to your teaching. Continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you." (1 Tim 4:16) Hidden work is a habit of sitting, checking, and obeying that outlasts any one issue.

All of this gathers at one Person, as all true searching does. "You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they which testify about me." (John 5:39) The hidden work is not finally about the writer's competence, his accuracy rate, or his reputation for care. It is about arriving, through the text, at Christ, of whom the Scriptures testify. A writer who digs and verifies and meditates, and never reaches Him, has mistaken the tools for the treasure. A writer who reaches Him will write differently, because he has stood before the Person the passage proclaims rather than merely mastering the passage as material. His diligence will not make him proud of his diligence. It will make him careful with the words, because he knows whose words they are.

Let the practice be plain, then. Before writing, sit with the whole passage, not only the verse you intend to quote. Read it again the next day, and let it correct the first draft. Check every quotation word for word, and drop any line the text will not support, however well it reads. Ask what the passage actually says before asking what effect it might have. Keep what you cannot yet explain in your heart rather than forcing it into print. Then write, and release the piece. The hidden work will not be seen, and that is its proper reward. The piece that stands after it will be true in the places no one applauds, and that truthfulness is the only ground on which a herald can stand without shame.