WWJHMD?

You may love listening to a gifted musician play beautiful music, but listening will never help you play a note. Only daily practice will transform us into musicians. That's why the WWJD fad was so fleeting: We bought into the notion that to know is to do.

Remember those WWJD ("What Would Jesus Do") bracelets that were hot last year (see Homiletics, February 8, 1998, 51)? You still see them around, but there was one problem: They were too easily slipped off our wrists.

Why? Because they didn't demand that we DO anything. They only asked us to contemplate what Jesus would have done. You may admire the accomplishments of an artist. You may love listening to a gifted musician play an instrument. But your listening will never make you play a note. Only daily practice, daily exercises, daily drills will make us into musicians.

Keith Drury, a professor at Indiana Wesleyan University, says that one reason why WWJD was so fleeting was because we've bought into the notion that "To know is to do."

Wrong. To know is not to do. Knowing WWJD is only half the challenge. The other half is doing it. Obedience. And this is where discipleship comes in. The WWJD movement was right in telling us that God wants us to become like Christ. What was missing ...