Joy of Cooking – Broken Believers

“So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.”

James 2:17

Recipes are good. I used to sit and read “The Joy of Cooking,” reading it like it was a literary novel. I was quite fond about the simple way it divided everything up. You had sections on Meats, and Desserts, and even Drinks. And every so often it would insert a cooking tip. Sometimes, I would start to smell that recipe I was thinking about.

I have never told anybody about this odd preference of reading material. The really funny part is, I’ve read how to poach an egg, but I have never done it. As a matter of fact, I don’t cook. Hardly ever. You see I have saturated myself in reading cookbooks, but that doesn’t make me a cook. Only cooking makes me a cook.

We keep getting it messed up. We seem to put the wrong stress on things. We attribute value to things that we shouldn’t. I happen to think that “faith” is a verb. I also think that reading the Bible should activate us, and not to educate us.

Often, I treat it like a cookbook. I read and read, voraciously mind you. But I don’t cook! I have never put a single recipe to the test. I have read about terrific “Eggs Benedict” on page 222, or the luscious sounding “Grandmas Tasty Cherry Pie” on page 651. But it’s only filed away somewhere in my mind; I have never moved beyond this point.

Being spiritual isn’t how much you know, but what you do.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: we must realize that Scripture is first for our hearts, and not so much for our heads. Cookbooks are good, but when it all shakes out, are you actually and really, cooking? Or are you just reading?