Carrying Something Real: Why True Faith Can’t Stay Hidden
In the Amplified Bible, James 2:18 reads, “But someone may say, ‘You [claim to] have faith and I have [good] works; show me your [alleged] faith without the works [if you can], and I will show you my faith by my works [that is, by what I do].’”
This verse puts pressure on the connection between what we say we believe and what actually shows up in our lives. And while we may nod along with it in agreement, it’s worth asking — what does that really look like in practice?
Let’s approach this question from a slightly different angle
The Risk of What We Carry: A Story That Forces the Question
Any time you cook a meal for someone, there’s an element of risk involved. Most of us don’t think much about it, especially if we’re comfortable in the kitchen, but the risk is there. You might accidentally add too much spice, or grab an ingredient that’s been sitting in the fridge longer than you realized. Maybe everything looks fine, smells fine, even tastes fine — but something is off. And in the worst-case scenario, someone ends up getting sick.
Cooking, in other words, has consequences. What you prepare and serve doesn’t just stay on the plate — it affects the people who receive it..
With that in mind, let me tell you a story about someone whose cooking had consequences far beyond a bad meal. In fact, her cooking made people sick in a much more serious way. And as we walk through her story, I want you to consider the following question: “What happens when someone carries something real and powerful, but shows no outward signs of it?”
Mary Mallon was born in Ireland in 1869 and immigrated to the United States as a teenager, likely in the early 1880s. Like many immigrants of her time, she came looking for opportunity, and she found it working as a cook for wealthy families in New York.
By all accounts, Mary was good at what she did. She developed a reputation as a capable and even gifted cook. She was especially known for her desserts — peach ice cream, in particular, was something of a specialty. Families were eager to hire her, and she moved from one household to another, building a solid career.
But there was something about Mary that no one could see.
In the summer of 1906, Mary took a position with the family of Charles Henry Warren, a wealthy banker. Like many affluent families of that era, the Warrens spent their summers away from the city, vacationing in Oyster Bay on Long Island which was a popular destination at the time — even President Theodore Roosevelt had a home there that served as a kind of summer White House.
Everything about the setting suggested rest, relaxation, and health. But before long, something went wrong.
On August 27, a member of the Warren household was diagnosed with typhoid fever. That alone would have been alarming, but what followed made it even more concerning. Within a week, several more people in the home came down with the same illness.
Typhoid fever, caused by the bacterium Salmonella typhi, was a serious and often deadly disease at the time. Symptoms included high fever, abdominal pain, headaches, and severe digestive distress, and roughly ten percent of those infected did not survive. Typhoid fever is highly contagious and outbreaks could spread quickly.
The Warrens — and the owner of the property — needed answers. How had this happened in what should have been a safe, comfortable environment?
A sanitation engineer named George Soper was brought in to investigate. Soper specialized in tracking down the sources of typhoid outbreaks and he approached the case methodically. At first, he suspected contaminated shellfish, but, as he continued his investigation, that explanation didn’t hold up.
So, he kept digging.
Eventually, through a process of elimination and careful tracing, Soper landed on a surprising conclusion: the source of the outbreak wasn’t the food itself — it was the person preparing it: Mary Mallon.
As Soper looked into her work history, a troubling pattern emerged. Since 1900, Mary had worked for eight different families and typhoid fever appeared in seven of those households. When the numbers were finally tallied, at least 122 infections and five deaths were linked to her.
And yet, Mary herself had never been sick. That’s what made her case so unusual — and so dangerous. Her body carried the bacteria, but she showed no symptoms. She felt fine. She looked healthy. There was nothing outwardly to suggest that anything was wrong. And because of that, she continued to do what she had always done: cook for others.
History would come to know her as “Typhoid Mary,” the first documented case of an asymptomatic carrier — someone who can transmit a disease without ever showing signs of it.
Public health officials eventually determined that she posed too great a risk to remain in the general population and, in 1907, she was quarantined on North Brother Island in the East River where she lived in relative isolation.
After a few years, she was offered a way out. In 1910, the New York City health commissioner agreed to release her on one condition: she must promise never to work as a cook again.
Mary agreed — but she didn’t keep her promise.
Instead, she changed her name and quietly returned to the only work she really knew —cooking — and, for several years, she managed to avoid detection. However, in 1915, another outbreak of typhoid fever occurred at a maternity hospital in Manhattan. Dozens of people were infected, including doctors and nurses, and two died.
Investigators traced the outbreak back to a cook working under the name “Mary Brown.”
This time, there would be no second chance. She was returned to quarantine on North Brother Island, where she remained for the rest of her life until she died in 1938.
An Invisible Reality with Visible Consequences
Today, we have more precise language to describe what was happening in Mary’s case. We would say she was an asymptomatic transmitter of disease. She carried something real, something potent, something capable of affecting others — but she herself showed no outward signs of it.
And that brings us back to James 2:18 because, in at least a couple of important ways, the Christian faith can be compared to an infectious disease. To be clear, the comparison isn’t perfect — but it is instructive.
Like an infectious disease, genuine Christian faith has symptoms — or at least, it’s supposed to. When faith is present, it shows up in observable ways. It affects how a person thinks, speaks, and lives. It shapes their relationships. It changes their priorities.
Scripture describes these “symptoms” in a variety of ways: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There’s also a growing affection for others, a deepening love for God, a resilience in the face of difficulty, and a willingness to persevere even when things are hard.
In other words, real faith doesn’t stay hidden. It expresses itself.
Faith That Shows: What James 2:18 Demands of Us
But here’s where the analogy becomes especially sobering.
Just as medications can suppress the symptoms of a disease, there are things that can suppress the visible effects of faith. Not eliminate it entirely, but diminish it to the point that it becomes difficult to detect.
A steady focus on self. A constant pursuit of comfort. An overriding concern for security. A preference for convenience. A desire for pleasure.
Individually, these things may not seem especially dangerous; in fact, many of them are woven into the fabric of everyday life. However, taken together, they have a way of crowding out the very qualities that should mark a life of faith.
Over time, the symptoms of faith begin to fade.
And that leads us to a question that’s both simple and searching: “If there are no visible symptoms, is the faith really there?”
The Christian faith is centered on something extraordinary — the Son of God’s power over death. This is not a subtle power and it can’t be neatly contained or politely hidden. It changes things. It produces evidence.
So, if we claim to have that kind of faith, it’s worth asking: what evidence is there?
James doesn’t leave us much room for a purely internal, invisible faith. He pushes us to consider the connection between belief and action, between what we claim and what we demonstrate.
“Show me your faith without the works,” he says, “and I will show you my faith by my works.”
That’s the invitation — and the challenge.
To examine not just what we say we believe, but what our lives are actually showing.