IS AMBITION A CHRISTIAN VIRTUE?

We do well to remind ourselves that those qualities in man that are highly esteemed by the world are not necessarily the graces of the Christian. The Christian virtues are explicitly listed in the scriptures, and they are clearly described as the fruit of the Spirit, including such things as love, peace, joy, kindness and gentleness. Knowledge makes at least one list, self-control at least two, while forbearance, patience, compassion and forgiveness appear frequently.

These virtues may be respected by the world, but they are not the virtues really esteemed by and sought after by the world. The virtues displayed on the athletic field are far more popular: aggressiveness, competition, strength, success, skill. One hardly associates compassion and gentleness with sports, and sports best represent the spirit of our culture, somewhat like gladiatorial combat in the Roman Colosseum represented that culture.

Some of the philosophers call for a “transvaluation” of the Christian virtues on the ground that they are not appropriate to our kind of world. Nietzsche looked to “the will to power” as man’s greatest virtue, despising the Christian graces that only justify men in their weakness, as he saw it. Thomas Hobbes saw brutal competition as the hope for civilized man. Aristotle, long before Christ, spoke of "the magnanimous man" as the one of virtue, the description of which would fit that of an intellectual snob as well.

The virtues esteemed by the Greeks and Romans are not necessarily Christian, especially when viewed as they viewed them, the effect of man's ingenuity and pride: justice, temperance, courage, and wisdom. Truth and beauty were also esteemed, but these too were humanistically conceived, more the work of man than God.

Since our culture has for so long honored ambition as a noble virtue, it is well to ask ourselves into what category it would fall, whether more characteristic of Aristotle's magnanimous man or Paul's spiritual man. Is it to be placed alongside cleverness and aggressiveness or with humility and compassion?

As one scans the history of man in search of those who excelled in ambition he thinks of the pharaohs and ceasars of ancient empires. Shakespeare has Cassius turning on Julius Ceasar because he was "an ambitious man." There is Napoleon, Cromwell, and Hitler, whose ambitions changed the course of history. Turning to the Bible we notice a difference between Saul and David in this regard. It is note-worthy that the latter returned to tending sheep after being anointed king of Israel. And it may well be that the main difference between Judas and Peter was in terms of ambition. The mother of the sons of Zebedee, who wanted her sons seated next to the Messiah in the coming kingdom, and the sick woman who sought Jesus through the crowds in hope of touching him, were both highly motivated women; but we would attribute ambition more to the former than to the latter.

And yet ambition, like industry and integrity, is highly valued by nearly all of us. We urge it upon our children and we impress it upon our students, for we suppose that an unambitious man will come to nought. We follow the thinking of Edward Young when he insisted that "Too low they build who build below the skies." To be successful, to get ahead, this is the order of the day.

The Christian's response to the question of ambition depends on just what is meant by ambition. It is all right to be a general, or rich, or even popular; but it may be something different to desire to be a general, or rich, or popular. And if he desires it, why does he desire it?. A Christian may not only be rich, but he may even desire it, if for the right reasons. This kind of thinking will take us to the heart of the question of whether we are to be ambitious.

If one wishes to be a general because he believes he has a plan for winning the war and thus bring an end to hostilities, it is the right kind of ambition. But if he aspires such leadership so that he can get ahead of the other fellow and in enjoy the glory of publicity, it is the wrong kind of ambition. When John F. Kennedy was aspiring to the presidency, he was asked by his father why he wanted to be president. He replied, "Because it is the ultimate in public service." If any man who becomes president really enters the office with that attitude, we could hardly call him "an ambitious man" after the order of Julius Ceasar.

To be ambitious usually means that one desires to be more successful, more conspicuous than someone else. Institutions are notoriously this way, for they survive by being aggressive, which often takes the form of "throat-cutting" competition. The individual will also be caught up in his kind of attitude if he is not controlled by the disciple of God. While ambition may not be listed as a work of the flesh, a host of its cousins are listed: rivalry, jealousy, strife, envy, contention, quarreling. It is noteworthy that the New English Bible translates "strife" in Gal. 5:20 as selfish ambitions, which identifies the ambition that we are speaking of and makes it a work of the flesh.

We need take a hard look at ourselves and some of our practices in reference to selfish ambitions. Whether it be an extensive subscription list for a periodical, a multi-million dollar edifice for an assembly of the saints, the social standing of those who serve as elders, or the prestige of the pulpit that one occupies, there is a real hazard that we have the wrong kind of ambition. Our system inclines us toward selfish ambition, causing us to confuse our values and shift our priorities. The young minister is taught by example, if not by precept, to compete for the better jobs with the larger churches. Congregations vie even with their own kind for preeminence in the brotherhood. Success has become a banal thing these days, measured as it is by the things esteemed by men.

Billy Graham once commented, when someone was praising his labors, that it may well be that some obscure preacher on skid-row ministering to drunks may be doing a work more highly esteemed in the eyes of God than his own. We spoke above of the humility of David, who returned to his work of caring for sheep even after being anointed king by the great Samuel. It was quite a lesson for Samuel to learn, and for us all, when all those stalwart sons of Jesse passed before him and God chose none of them. Most of us, no doubt, would have selected one of those mighty youths. It was the inconsequential shepherd boy that wasn't even being considered that God chose! Just as God's foolishness puts to naught our wisdom, to use Paul's language, so does God's wisdom make foolish our ambitions. I have no way of knowing that God is pleased with those things that seem to concern us most.

If the ambition that puts means before ends (and systems before personalities) is indeed a work of the flesh, then it is also a source of destruction. Shakespeare caught this important truth in his great tragedies. Caesar stood at the threshold of a new kind of Rome, one that would be ruled by law rather than by men. He would have been a great blessing to his people if he could have resisted the temptation to project himself rather than principle. Assassination resulted. So with Macbeth who lacked the discipline of those wise restraints that lead man to place reason above emotion. He was driven by a mad ambition to be king, and so murder beget murder. He speaks for many a man when he wailed "I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which overleaps itself and falls on the other."

It is not so with the disciple of Jesus who by the Spirit has put to death the works of the flesh, and thus, walks even as He walked. The Lord has given us an example that we are to walk in his steps, and this can never be the way of ambitious pride. Moreover the man who follows Jesus, unlike the carnal Macbeth who had only evil prophecies and a foolish wife to prod him on in his madness, has the disciplines of the Holy Spirit "to prick the sides of his intent."

"If by the Spirit you put to death all the base pursuits of the body, then you will live" (Ro.8 :13) –the Editor