Instability
Instability is the condition of the heart that cannot stay where it has been set. It is the soul that believes for a moment and forgets, the will that limps between two opinions, the disciple who receives the word with joy and falls away when trial comes. Scripture does not treat instability as a temperament or weakness of nerve; it treats it as a moral failure to remain. The Bible's diagnosis runs through every section of the canon — the boiling water of Reuben, the morning cloud of Ephraim, the wave-tossed petitioner of James, the lukewarm church of Laodicea — and its remedy is everywhere the same: stand fast, hold fast, stick to Yahweh, endure to the end.
Boiling Over as Water
The earliest portrait of instability is Jacob's deathbed verdict on his firstborn. Reuben begins with every advantage — "my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength; The preeminence of dignity, and the preeminence of power" (Gen 49:3) — and loses everything to a single act of unrestrained desire: "Boiling over as water, you will not have the preeminence" (Gen 49:4). The figure is exact. Boiling water cannot be contained, will not hold its shape, takes the form of whatever vessel happens to receive it. The character that boils over forfeits the firstborn's place even when the title is already his.
The same diagnosis attaches to David in his taking of Bathsheba (2 Sam 11:2-9), and to Solomon when "his wives turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart wasn't perfect with Yahweh his God, as was the heart of David his father" (1 Kings 11:4). Steadfastness is heart-perfection, and instability is the heart that cannot keep one face turned in one direction.
The Vacillating Will
Pharaoh's plagues give the canon its most extended case study of vacillation. Each time the pressure relents, his promise relents with it: "But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, and didn't listen to them, as Yahweh had spoken" (Ex 8:15). The pattern repeats — "And Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and he did not let the people go" (Ex 8:32) — until vacillation has hardened into ruin.
Israel under the judges runs the same cycle in covenant terms: "they turned aside quickly out of the way in which their fathers walked" (Judges 2:17). The Psalmist makes the diagnosis sharper still by setting belief and forgetting in the same breath: "Then they believed [the name of his Speech]; They sang his praise" (Ps 106:12) — "They soon forgot his works; They did not wait for his counsel" (Ps 106:13). To believe and to forget within a few verses is the very definition of instability.
Elijah names the disease at Carmel and demands a verdict: "How long do you⁺ go limping between the two sides? If Yahweh is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word" (1 Kings 18:21). The silence is the answer. The settlers of Samaria after the deportation embody the same compromise as a settled custom — "They feared Yahweh, and served their own gods" (2 Kings 17:33), and their sons after them, "as did their fathers, so they do to this day" (2 Kings 17:41). Hosea's word for it is precise: "Their heart is divided; now they will be found guilty" (Hos 10:2). Zephaniah's pictures the worshippers themselves split between names — "those who worship, that swear to Yahweh and swear by Milcom" (Zeph 1:5).
Goodness as a Morning Cloud
The prophets find the most haunting figures for instability in the weather. "O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you? For your⁺ goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the dew that goes early away" (Hos 6:4). The cloud has all the appearance of substance and none of the staying power. Jeremiah's question to a wandering Judah carries the same weariness: "Why do you want to go away so much to change your course? You will be ashamed of Egypt also, as you were ashamed of Assyria" (Jer 2:36). The instability is not innocence; it is shame about to repeat itself.
Proverbs translates the prophets' indictment into wisdom-saying: "As a bird that wanders from her nest, So is a man who wanders from his place" (Prov 27:8). And: "My son, fear Yahweh and the king; [And] don't company with those who are given to change" (Prov 24:21). To be "given to change" is the Bible's name for instability of will.
Sirach extends the same vocabulary. "Woe to fearful hearts and faint hands, And to the sinner who goes two ways" (Sir 2:12). "Do not be scattered in every wind, And do not walk in every path" (Sir 5:9). And of friendships that do not survive trial: "For there is a fair-weathered friend, Who will not continue in the day of trouble" (Sir 6:8).
The Wave Driven by the Wind
The New Testament's central image is meteorological in the same way. James names the disorder and gives it its diagnostic figure: "But let him ask in faith, doubting nothing: for he who doubts is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed" (Jas 1:6) — "a man who is double-minded, unstable in all his ways" (Jas 1:8). The double-minded man does not lack religious motion; he has too much of it, in too many directions. The cure is one direction: "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you⁺. Cleanse your⁺ hands, you⁺ sinners; and purify your⁺ hearts, you⁺ double-minded" (Jas 4:8).
Paul gives the same picture of the drift through congregational life. "That we may no longer be juveniles, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error" (Eph 4:14). Hebrews makes the warning concrete: "Don't be carried away by diverse and strange teachings: for it is good that the heart be established by grace" (Heb 13:9). And Peter warns of the false teachers who have built a profession out of preying on the wave-tossed: "having eyes full of adultery, and that can't cease from sin; enticing unstedfast souls" (2 Pet 2:14).
Receiving with Joy and Falling Away
Jesus' parable of the sower gives the most complete anatomy of instability in the New Testament. The first failure is rootlessness: "These are those who are sown on the rocky [places], who, when they have heard the word, right away receive it with joy; and they have no root in themselves, but endure for awhile; then, when tribulation or persecution rises because of the word, right away they stumble" (Mark 4:16-17). Luke's wording is even more explicit: "These have no root, who for awhile believe, and in time of trial fall away" (Luke 8:13). The second failure is choking: "The cares of the age, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful" (Mark 4:19); "they go on their way they are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of [this] life, and bring no fruit to perfection" (Luke 8:14). Joyful reception without root is the second profile of instability after vacillation; it is the soul that begins well and cannot continue.
Jesus turns the same indictment on the Pharisees in their reception of John the Baptist: "He was the lamp that burns and shines; and you⁺ were willing to rejoice for a season in his light" (John 5:35). The willingness was real; "for a season" is the verdict. The same chapter and gospel records the moment when many disciples turn out to have been planted on rocky soil: "On this many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him" (John 6:66).
Looking Back
The plow saying of Jesus draws together the OT figures and the parable of the sower into a single sentence: "No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62). To look back is to plow a crooked furrow; the eye that turns turns the body with it. Jesus' two-word commentary names the archetype: "Remember Lot's wife" (Luke 17:32). She did not refuse the angels; she went out, and looked back, and never finished her departure.
Paul's pastoral letters are full of the same anxiety for converts who began but may not finish. "I marvel that you⁺ are so quickly turning away from him who called you⁺ in the grace of Christ to a different [message of] good news" (Gal 1:6). To Peter, who began at the Gentile table and drew back: "When they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision" (Gal 2:12). To the Galatians as a whole: "How do you⁺ turn back again to the weak and beggarly rudiments, to which you⁺ desire to serve as slaves over again?... I am afraid of you⁺, lest by any means I have bestowed labor on you⁺ for nothing" (Gal 4:9, 11). And the warning at the heart of 2 Peter: "Beware lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked, you⁺ fall from your⁺ own steadfastness" (2 Pet 3:17).
Lukewarm and First Love Left
The risen Christ's letters to the seven churches give two final figures for instability. To Ephesus: "I have [this] against you, that you left your first love" (Rev 2:4). The works are still in place; the love that began them is gone. To Laodicea: "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot: I would you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth" (Rev 3:15-16). Lukewarm is James's "double-minded" expressed as temperature — not refusal, not commitment, the neither/nor that wants to be both. Christ would prefer either pole to the middle.
The Settled Heart
Against this whole catalogue Scripture sets the figure of the heart that holds its shape. Sirach's image is timber: "[As] timber firmly fixed into the wall Is not loosened by an earthquake, So a heart established on well-advised counsel Will not be fearful in time [of danger]" (Sir 22:16). Sirach's exhortation is "Direct your heart aright, and continue steadfast, And do not hurry in time of calamity. Stick to him, and don't be far" (Sir 2:2-3). And his testimony of the soul that has refused to swerve: "I purposed to wear away [the path] to her, I have been jealous for what is good, and I will not turn back" (Sir 51:18); "I occupied my soul continually with her, And in her heights I will not be at ease" (Sir 51:19).
Job in calamity furnishes the standing OT example. "My foot has held fast to his steps; His way I have kept, and did not turn aside" (Job 23:11). "My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go" (Job 27:6). "Yet will the righteous hold on his way, And he who has clean hands will wax stronger and stronger" (Job 17:9). The Servant in Isaiah sets his face: "I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I will not be put to shame" (Isa 50:7). Daniel's friends refuse the ultimatum: "But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods" (Dan 3:18). Hezekiah "stuck to Yahweh; he did not depart from following him" (2 Kings 18:6); Josiah "didn't turn aside to the right hand or to the left" (2 Kings 22:2). Of Zebulun's warriors the Chronicler says they could "set the battle in array... and were not of double heart" (1 Chron 12:33). The men of Israel under Antiochus accept death so as not to profane the covenant (1Ma 1:62-63), and Mattathias declares for his house, "I and my sons, and my brothers will obey the covenant of our fathers" (1Ma 2:20).
The forward-march imagery runs through the same line. "You⁺ will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left" (Deut 5:32). "Don't turn from it to the right hand or to the left" (Josh 1:7). "Don't turn to the right hand nor to the left: Remove your foot from evil" (Prov 4:27). Of the living creatures: "They went every one straight forward... they did not turn when they went" (Ezek 1:12). And of Jesus himself: "He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51).
Stand Fast
The apostolic exhortation gathers all of this into its standing imperatives. To the Corinthians: "Be⁺ steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord" (1 Cor 15:58). To the Galatians: "Stand fast therefore, and don't be entangled again in a yoke of slavery" (Gal 5:1). To the Philippians: "Stand fast in one spirit, one soul, struggling for the faith of the good news" (Phil 1:27); "Stand fast in the Lord, my beloved" (Phil 4:1); "Forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before" (Phil 3:13). To the Thessalonians: "Brothers, stand fast, and hold the traditions which you⁺ were taught" (2 Thess 2:15). To Timothy: "Stay in the things which you have learned and have been assured of" (2 Tim 3:14). To the persecuted: "Withstand steadfast in your⁺ faith" (1 Pet 5:9); "Hold fast that which you have, that no one takes your crown" (Rev 3:11).
The figure for the disciplined will is the runner. "Let us run with patience the race that is set before us" (Heb 12:1). "Let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we will reap, if we do not faint" (Gal 6:9). "Gird up the loins of your⁺ mind, be sober and set your⁺ hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought to you⁺ at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet 1:13). The figure for the disciple under chastening is the trained son: "It is for chastening that you⁺ endure; God deals with you⁺ as with sons" (Heb 12:7); "Blessed is the man who endures trial" (Jas 1:12); "Look, we call blessed those who endured: you⁺ have heard of the patience of Job" (Jas 5:11). The figure for the salvation-bound community is the company that does not shrink: "We are not of those who shrink back to destruction; but of those who have faith to the saving of the soul" (Heb 10:39).
Endure to the End
The promise that closes the New Testament's instruction on instability is the promise of an end reached. "He who endures to the end, the same will be saved" (Mark 13:13). "To those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life" (Rom 2:7). "Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you⁺: stay⁺ in my love" (John 15:9). The cure for the wave-tossed soul is not a calmer sea; it is the love it is told to stay in. The double-minded are summoned to a single mind. The heart that boils over is told to be established by grace and to direct itself aright. The plowman is told not to look back. And the church is told, last of all, to hold fast.