Removing Fear Out of Friendship
She sits across from me, perched on the edge of her seat, with her ankles crossed and fingers interlocked over her knee. She makes limited eye contact as she begins to describe the circumstances that brought her to this room. It’s obvious that she isn’t comfortable, but the hope for help and expectancy of change hold her here. She’s weary and searching for a hand to reach out and grab on to. I’ve had the privilege of being the biblical counselor sitting on the other side of this scene, asking the Holy Spirit to give me wisdom and gospel-clarity to share. These kinds of moments, however, when pain reaches out and love attempts to reciprocate, should not be unique to a counselor’s office. This is what should happen every day in living rooms, coffee shops, and crowded playgrounds. God, in his mercy and through his Spirit, has equipped every follower of Christ to be able to speak gospel truth and encourage others with the Word. Unfortunately, I haven’t witnessed this to be the norm for relationships in local gatherings of the Church. The need for more relationships saturated with the gospel and facilitating effectual growth, healing, and change should drive us to ask, “What keeps these kind of friendships from happening? What keeps me from pressing in to this?”
In my life the answer to those questions has been fear. Various fears—judgement, rejection or ineffectiveness—have driven me to stop short when it comes to developing deep relationships. By God’s grace alone I’ve learned how the gospel speaks directly to my fears and have been freed to taste and see how good true community can be.
I can remember thinking and operating this way. I was so afraid my friends would find out how truly sinful I was and that they’d politely opt out. I was worshiping others’ perception of me and denying what God had already declared about my identity! When God, out of the overflow of his love and by his grace alone, brings a dead heart to life and grants sight to spiritually blind eyes, he doesn’t begrudgingly tolerate us. He adopts us into his family and delights in welcoming us to his table! The perfect blood of Jesus atones for our rebellion and changes our identity completely. The Father looks at Jesus and says, “This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.” The Father looks at me and sees Jesus. The Father looks at me and is well pleased! When my heart is awakened to this beautiful truth, my worry of how I will look to others begins to fade. Humble gratitude stirs worship within me, and I let the veil of my own perceived self-righteousness be torn down. I can share my struggles openly, as well as extend judgment-free grace to others.
In addition to the fear of judgment or rejection, I have also seen how the fear of “not having anything good to offer” keeps women hiding behind the walls of surface-friendships. In Christ, we see that we can actually look this fear dead in the eye and say, “Yep. You’re right.” In our own flesh we don’t have anything good to offer. But by God’s grace we can echo Paul and affirm, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
They don’t need impressive sounding advice or more how-to’s; they need Jesus. So, all I need to do is move out of the way and let him love on her. How God actually works in each relationship will look very different, but we can trust that he will work.
And what a joy it is to be a part of sharing Christ’s love with someone else! God doesn't need me in order to accomplish his will. I get to be a part of his work, and as my joy in him grows, he is even more greatly glorified through me.
Remember, you have been redeemed for a reason. Jesus not only saves us from; he saves us to. When we are rescued out of the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of the Son, it’s for a specific mission. God has chosen to use each of us to bring the message of hope to the hurting world around us,
and it is solely in him that we will find the ability to do so. The same Spirit who defeated death, indwells each regenerate believer, empowering us to do his work in our own small circles of influence! So take heart, you do have something great to offer, the most beautiful Gift to give. Trust the Wonderful Counselor to lead, he is forever faithful.
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Myra Dempsey lives in the Columbus, Ohio area with her husband, Andrew, and their 3 children, Eli (5), Esther (3) and Gideon (1). Myra works part-time as a Licensed Professional Counselor and School Psychology Assistant. She blogs at dependentongrace.com, contributes to the blog for her home church, at vineyardgrace.org, and has been blessed to be the keynote speaker at the iAm conference in Powell, Ohio, an event for teen girls. She loves reading, writing, and talking about God’s glorious grace!
Fulfilling the Law of Christ Through Biblical Counseling
“Carry one another’s burdens; in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” —Galatians 6:2 (HCSB)
The mental health community recognizes September as National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. As a biblical counselor and former police officer who responded frequently to calls for service involving human tragedy (i.e., suicide, domestic violence, child abuse, rape, etc.), I’m reminded of the urgent need for spiritual hope in our communities and of the church’s role in providing the hope that so many desperately need.
Over the course of my law enforcement career, followed now by several years of pastoral and counseling ministry, I have grown increasingly convinced of the power of the gospel to not only save us in eternity, but to redeem us in this lifetime, including our disordered thoughts and troubled emotions.
When we acknowledge this, we are not denying the role of appropriate medical care—to be human is to possess both a body and a soul. Neither are we making outlandish declarations about the cure of organic mental illness through prayer and the reading of Scripture alone. But to deny the gospel’s power to restore the mind is to suggest that for most of human history, that is, until the advent of psychoanalysis and psychotropic drugs, that we were without any tangible hope for the restoration of our minds or the alleviation of emotional suffering.
A History of Care
“Counseling belongs in and to the church of God.”
This mantra of the greater biblical counseling movement raises eyebrows in an age that dismisses the authority and sufficiency of Scripture while uncritically assuming the efficacy of secular mental health care. This phenomenon exists despite serious questions about secular treatment methodologies based on research outcomes that cannot always be reproduced and counseling theories that do not otherwise align with Scripture.[1]
Through the effective use of media and its dominance in academic and medical arenas, secular psychology has a firm grip on societal mental health structures. Accordingly, mainline and evangelical churches have too often surrendered control of counseling to those who adhere to theories established by Freud, Jung, Rogers, Skinner, et al. The result is that today’s most common approaches to counseling reflect a societal shift away from a biblical worldview while embracing a medical model of mental health care that more often than not establishes a pathology for nearly every problematic behavior and emotion.
Dr. David Powlison observed that following the Civil War, “Professional jurisdiction over Americans’ problems in living gradually passed form the religious pastorate to various medical and quasi-medical professions: psychiatry, neurology, social work, and clinical psychology. . . . Psychiatry and psychotherapy displaced the cure of souls.”[2] While the debate concerning the church’s ongoing embrace of biblically questionable counseling theories continues, what is clear from Scripture and church history is the church’s responsibility to provide biblically faithful, clinically-informed counsel in the context of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20).
A Biblical Foundation for the Care of Souls
Galatians 6:2 is one important verse that urges the church to re-engage in the counseling task. Paul instructs the church, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” To understand this verse and apply it properly, we need to consider what “burdens” Paul had in mind. Were these burdens primarily physical (i.e. food, shelter, and clothing), or more holistic? Further, we need to consider what Paul meant by the “law of Christ,” because for Paul, its fulfillment was the desired outcome.
Although a few scholars find that 6:2 is independent of 6:1 because of the absence of a connecting article in the Greek text (as happens at 6:3), Paul’s point does not arise in a vacuum. Restoring a “brother” who has fallen into some type of “wrongdoing” is accomplished in part when burdens are shared. How then do we practically observe this passage? For many people, a season of intentional and systematic counseling of God’s word is central to their discipleship.[3]
It was in this context that Paul called upon the church to “bear one another’s burdens” and in so doing “fulfill the law of Christ”—a law that, according to Paul, transcends the law of Moses (3:2-3). To this point, Bruce wrote, “The ‘law of Christ’ is for Paul the whole tradition of Jesus’ ethical teaching, confirmed by His character and conduct and reproduced within His people by the power of the Spirit.”[4]
This law of Christ was nothing less than the command of Jesus for believers to love one another and their neighborsas they love themselves (Jn. 13:34; Matt. 22:39).
With the call to love one’s neighbor in view, the command to “carry one another’s burdens” takes on clearer meaning and may be applied more holistically to the whole man. Carrying one another’s burdens certainly includes meeting physical needs, but it does not end there. The spiritual and emotional concerns of those who suffer fall within the scope of Paul’s intent and may be properly addressed through biblical counsel.
Rapa agrees in his commentary on 6:2 that sin is, at a minimum, included in Paul’s admonition. He wrote, “Joining together to restore one who has sinned or to prevent others from being ‘caught in a sin’ in the first place is a way that believers may ‘serve one another in love’ (5:13; cf. Ro 15:1-3).”[5] Moo, on the other hand, takes an expanded view of “burdens” in 6:2 to include “all those problems that afflict our brothers and sisters”(emphasis added).[6] In light of Christ’s command to love, Moo’s interpretation should be preferred.
The gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all those who believe and by it sinners and sufferers experience transformation rather than conformity to the patterns of the world (Rom. 1:16; 12:2). Paul understands, however, that people live in the context of a world marred by sin and
‘[‘ therefore will go on experiencing the varied effects of the fall, both physical and non-physical (Gen. 3). For this reason he calls upon his audience to fulfill the law of Christ by carrying one another’s burdens in whatever form they may come (i.e. sin and suffering).
Tim Lane and Paul Tripp wrote,
“Kind people look for ways to do good. Patient and faithful people don’t run away when people mess up. Loving people serve even when sinned against. Gentle people help a struggler bear his burden. Galatians 5 and 6 are filled with hope.”[7]
As with Moo, Lane and Tripp see Christ-like love as the source of hope in 6:2 along with a call to enter into the suffering of others across the full spectrum of human struggle. This is the essence of biblical soul care and why the church must re-consider its obligation to provide intentional forms of counsel.
The Stakes Are High
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, in 2013 there were approximately 43.8 million adults aged eighteen and over in the United States with some form of diagnosable mental illness.[8] That statistic excludes children, which would only serve to increase the extraordinary figure.
While the definition of what constitutes “mental illness” is not a settled debate, that people struggle with a multitude of problematic behaviors and emotions that help fuel significant societal concerns is evident even if the source of those troubles are also debated (i.e. biological or spiritual). Whatever the cause of one person’s mental, behavioral, or emotional trouble, the gospel is everyone’s preeminent need and those needs are often properly addressed through a word-based counseling ministry.
With significant numbers of those diagnosed or diagnosable being found within the church at large, the issue of mental health and mental illness is one that affects the mission of making disciples. This ought to communicate to the church an area of immediate gospel-need and missional opportunity, yet many people, both inside and outside of the church, perceive the church to be less than responsive. This communicates to some a casual indifference to emotional suffering or even an unbelief in the sufficiency of the word of God to actually transform the mind (Rom. 12:2). The church can and must do better.
Paul’s command to bear one another’s burdens is founded upon the law of Christ, which calls us to love one another. As we’ve seen in our survey of Gal. 6:2 and the surrounding verses, the burdens Paul demands we carry run deep and the law of Christ that calls us to love our neighbor is necessarily wide.
The church has historically responded well to the physical suffering of others through such things as food pantries, clothing closets, and soup kitchens. The past one-hundred years or so have not been equally distinguished by soul care through counseling. With the advent of quality training programs available at both the academic and lay levels, inadequate preparation is no longer an reasonable excuse to ignore this critical ministry concern.
Whether that counsel is provided for through a lay ministry, pastoral position, or some other arrangement such as a para-church ministry is a separate matter for the local church to decide. My hope is to persuade Christians that counseling ministry is not an something the church should outsource to the state, rather it fits squarely within the command of Paul in Galatians 6:2 to fulfill the law of Christ by carrying the burdens of one another, whether physical or spiritual-emotional.
The church must recall that if it does not love people with the gospel in this way, that the secular world waits with a “gospel” of its own—and its “gospel” cannot save. Paul states this more positively in Rom. 15:14, where he writes, “I am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another.”
[1] A.D.P. Efferson, “How Many Laws Are Based On Psychology's Bad Science?,” The Federalist, September 8, 2015, accessed September 14, 2015, http://thefederalist.com/2015/09/08/how-many-laws-are-based-on-psychologys-bad-science/.
[2] David Powlison, The Biblical Counseling Movement: History and Context (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2010), 22.
[3] John Strelan, “Burden-Bearing and the Law of Christ: A Re-Examination of Galatians 6,” Journal of Biblical Literature 94, no. 2 (June 1975): 266, ATLA Religion Database with ATLASerials, EBSCOhost.
[4] F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians (The New International Greek Testament Commentary), Reprint ed. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2013), 261.
[5] Robert Rapa, ed., Romans - Galatians (The Expositor's Bible Commentary), Revised ed., ed. Tremper Longman III and David E. Garland (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 634.
[6] Douglas J. Moo, Galatians (Baker Exegetical Commentary On the New Testament) (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 376.
[7] Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp, How People Change, 2nd ed. (Greensboro, NC: New Growth Press, 2008), 214.
[8] “Any Mental Illness (AMI) Among Adults,” National Institute of Mental Health, accessed September 6, 2015, http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/any-mental-illness-ami-among-adults.shtml.
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A Case for Public Discipleship
What we talk about and the words we use when we approach discipleship are important. If the direction of our discipleship is unclear or incomplete, that shortcoming will affect our pursuit of the image of Christ. For example, if you were asked what do spirituality and discipleship look like what are your initial thoughts? Does it include people’s work place? Does it include business, art, or music? Just completing a quick search for “what is discipleship” pulls up this definition:
A Disciple is one who grows in Christ and in so doing models and teaches Christians the precepts of the Bible, prayer, doctrine, relationship, Christian living, service, and worship, to name the main ones.
This plays out in a discipleship relationship where we often, subtly, are just transferring information. For some this can be an emphasis in theology, for others it’s Scripture memorization, and in other groups it’s a deeper “level of the Spirit.” In the best case scenarios, we see how this knowledge applies to our hearts practically and what steps can be done to continue this walk.
While we should celebrate any areas where a believer is discipled I would contend that large portions of our lives remain untouched with this kind of knowledge transfer approach to discipleship. I am not saying the traditional approaches are bad or inherently wrong. Having a sharpened focus on spiritual disciplines and obtaining knowledge are a vital part of discipleship and should be integrated into any approach. Rather this approach alone is incomplete. It doesn’t integrated with our daily lives, work, or human flourishing through loving our neighbors in politics, art, education, culture, and other public spheres.
Why Is This?
As we approach discipleship, we assume that the focus should be primarily, if not entirely, on spiritual disciplines. Songs are written, blogs shared, books authored, and sermons preached that teach exclusively that this world is not our home and that one day we will escape from it to float in heaven and sing songs. This kind of teaching implicitly prioritizes “spiritual” practices like Scripture reading and prayer; meanwhile because this world is not our home, it implicitly teaches Christians to neglect “worldly” practices like taking care of the world, creating excellent art, or focusing on social justice.
Dr. Anthony Bradley writes that this deficient view is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of where our gospel begins. He argues that when we begin with man’s depravity in Genesis 3 rather than man’s creation and cultural mandate in Genesis 1 our starting point is faulty:
A Gen 1 and 2 starting point views the gospel as a means for human beings to have a realized experience of what their humanity was meant to be and to do, whereas a Gen. 3 orientation sees the gospel as a means of saving us from our humanity in preparation for the eschaton (heaven).
In order to see the need for our public lives to be discipled along with our private ones we must understand that our good news begins in creation, not the fall. This creation based approach prevents us from seeing creation as an evil to be avoided rather than a good to be stewarded.
When God created us he created us good. Sin marred this inherent goodness that Christ’s victory through the cross and resurrection has started to restore in us and the world. In a sense when we are being disciple, it is not to become more otherworldly in our discipleship process but rather more human, how God intended us to originally be from creation.
Public Discipleship
Misunderstanding the fundamental goodness of creation fosters a lack of engagement in our world.When Scripture speaks negatively of the world, it is not speaking to the material form we see around us but rather the sinful systems, desires, and worldviews that oppose God.
God created the world as inherently good in the same way that man was originally created as good. In the same way that God works a particular type of grace to save people there is also a type, called common grace, in which he works throughout his creation. This common grace restricts the affects of the fall on mankind as well as empowering us to better cultivate creation and serve the world.
In Exodus 31 tells us that Bezalel was “filled with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of crafts to make artistic designs.” Also, Isaiah 28:23-29 teaches us how God gives the farmer his abilities to cultivate the ground correctly in order to produce crops. God reveals his truth in a way that advances human culture beyond just personal piety. In every advancing stage of society, God is the one working through people and society to further display his glory in the world.
This is not just limited to farming but extends to all advances in human culture such as the utilization of electricity, the invention of personal computers, or even the mapping out of DNA by the Human Genome Project. These all imprint God’s restoring work in creation that we should fully embrace rather than ignore in our discipleship efforts. Abraham Kuyper, Dutch Reformed Theologian, in his Lectures on Calvinism says:
Henceforth the curse should no longer rest upon the world itself, but upon that which is sinful in it, and instead of monastic flight from the world the duty is now emphasized of serving God in the world, in every position in life.
This “every position of life” emphasis in discipleship could be termed—“Public Discipleship.” Practically this would encourage believers to steward creation in whatever area of influence they find themselves in and to do it well. This could be milking cows to produce the best milk possible or creating jobs by being a successful entrepreneur. This public discipleship is not less than spiritual discipline and knowledge but more as we work them out in our everyday lives.
However, if we see discipleship intersect with our jobs or the public square, we are prone to give lip service to Jesus when given a platform. Musicians are given quotas on how often they must say the name of Jesus, artists with how many crosses are painted in a picture, and businessman charged with how cleverly they can fit a Scripture into a business plan. Let’s honestly answer: Does this advance the kingdom?
Most jobs don’t provide daily opportunities to evangelize and pray with co-workers, clients, or customers. For those in these other jobs they might start to wonder how the grand scope of Scripture informs how they work if their discipleship is only knowledge transfer. Scripture tells us that that our faithfulness to work helps bring God’s plan for all of mankind to fruition.
In his recent work, The Political Disciple: A Theology of Public Life, Vincent Bacote promotes an idea called “Public Holiness.” This approach teaches how our sanctification overflows from our lives into the public arena and our interaction with those around us. This means that not only do we individually become more like Christ but we also extend that into making society more reflective of God’s intentions as well. He writes,
Though we may often think of holiness in in terms of our personal piety (and indeed we should), the pursuit and expression of holiness is hardly antithetical to Christian engagement in public concerns such as politics.[1]
This approach prevents the promotion of biblical values in issues of personal morality to the neglect of what God says on public morality. This approach engages our areas of influence holistically no matter where we have been placed by God. This approach means applying the ethics of the entirety of Scripture to the entirety of life.
How Does This Happen in Discipleship?
You may be saying to yourself, “Well that sounds good and we should affirm God’s plan in our vocation but what now?” There are numerous ways to highlight how our discipleship is related to all of life. In whatever discipleship approach your denomination or church may practice whether community-centered, one-on-one relationship, or another form the public discipleship emphasis can be adapted into the approach.
- Affirm Vocation – Communicate this clearly and consistently. Just that emphasis alone would be a great place to start. Timothy Keller’s Every Good Endeavor might be a good tool to jump start the conversation in small groups or traditional information transfer discipleship programs.
- Find Their Role – Encourage people to find how their work specifically relates to God’s work in this world. For example, if someone is building fences we could show how this demonstrates God’s common grace in restraining sin and protecting people and their property.
- Connect – Connect with others who value excellence in their craft. Often people in non-explicitly Christian vocations feel alone in their pursuit of doing things well. Help them connect with others in their field which can create persistence in serving in their role well.
- Challenge – Challenge people to be creative to help them serve better. That can be a more efficient way to work, starting a business to help create jobs, or providing quality care for their peers or employees. This challenge is to start viewing work as a way to extend God’s kingdom rather than just getting a paycheck.
What we talk about and the words we use in discipleship matter. It affects our emphases in how we seek to glorify God and become increasingly Christ-like. When all of Scripture informs all of life we have a public discipleship that extends inwardly to our personal piety as well as outwardly to loving/serving those around us. As we pursue various ways to disciple people in our given contexts, let’s affirm this area and make much of God and his reign wherever we can.
This worldview has reshaped my way of working at my current job. Daily I would have such a struggle to see how my work was accomplishing anything meaningful. I would have days of working on multiple accounts and clocking in that I felt would be better served preaching, teaching, serving at the church, or other more direct forms of what I understood ministry to be. Once I began to understand the way my work connected to God’s work in the world, it reinvigorated my appreciation for the purpose of work.
The majority of people we focus on in our discipleship relationships will be in the same boat. They may be working at a job they find purposeless or mundane. We should aim to affirm their vocational calling and encourage everyone to make much of God in their 9-5.
[1] This chapter and idea is where the aforementioned public discipleship term is based off of.
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Kevin Garcia is married to a beautiful woman, Miriam Garcia, and is a senior at SAGU. He will be continuing his studies in seminary afterwards particularly to study in the areas of philosophy, theology, social issues, and apologetics. He is passionate about seeing God work in urban contexts and examining the worldviews that influence people. He serves in a variety of areas at his church including teaching and preaching at LifePoint Church in the OakCliff neighborhood of Dallas, TX. Follow him on Twitter at: @kevingarcia__
Introducing Our New Staff Writers
GCD had two two goals this year: consistent quality and diversity in perspectives. Our desire is to see a growing ministry that helps churches equip the saints for the work of ministry. We want the content to have a consistency in the quality of writing, theological thought, and robust application. GCD is also as committed as ever to helping new writers grow through opportunities and the editing process. To do this, we have created a solid core of writers who are able to demonstrate the quality we are looking for.
Along those same lines we want to become a diverse representation of theology and practice in discipleship. This means we want to have a regular writers who engage unique topics, approaches, and themes. This goes along with our goal to promote different voices. Too often sites become an echo chamber of theology, practice and, homogeneous contexts. That’s why we have created a staff writer team that has excellency in writing but also diversity of perspective.
We’ve already started to form this team and we’ve seen growth in these areas already. Our staff writers video chat monthly to engage and sharpen each others’ ideas then each contributes two articles a month. This collaboration has already produced a few great writing series—first our series on the Gospel of Matthew in August and our currently running Family History of Discipleship series.
Our current Staff Writer team consists of four fantastic writers:
Rev. Jason M. Garwood (M.Div., Th.D.) serves as Lead Pastor of Colwood Church in Caro, MI and author of Be Holy and The Fight for Joy. Jason and his wife Mary have three children, Elijah, Avery and Nathan. He blogs at www.jasongarwood.com. Connect with him on Twitter: @jasongarwood.
You can read all of Jason’s articles here.
Chelsea Vaughn has served a ministry she helped start in the DFW Metroplex since she graduated from college. She received her undergraduate degree at Dallas Baptist University in Communication Theory. She does freelance writing, editing, and speaking for various organizations and non-profits. She hopes to spend her life using her gift for communication to reach culture and communities with the love of Jesus.
You can read all of Chelsea’s article here.
Whitney Woollard has served in ministry alongside her husband Neal for over six years. She holds an undergraduate degree in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute and just finished her Master of Arts in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary. She is passionate about equipping disciples to read and study God’s Word well resulting in maturing affections for Jesus and his gospel message. Neal and Whitney currently live in Portland, OR where they love serving the local church. Follow her on Twitter @whitneywoollard.
You can read all of Whitney’s articles here.
Jeremy Writebol has been training leaders in the church for over fourteen years. He is the author of everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present (GCD Books, 2014) and writes at jwritebol.net. He is the pastor of Woodside Bible Church’s Plymouth, MI campus.
You can read all of Jeremy’s articles here.
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Brad Watson serves as a pastor of Bread&Wine Communities where he develops and teaches leaders how to form communities that love God and serve the city. Brad is the author of Raised? and Called Together: A Guide to Forming Missional Communities. He lives in southeast Portland with his wife and their two daughters. You can read more from Brad at www.bradawatson.com
2 Principles for Living Free from J. R. R. Tolkien
Editor: In our Family History Series we are seeking to understand how Christians of the past have pursued making disciples. We want to connect the church’s current efforts to make, mature, and multiply disciples to its historical roots as well as encourage the church to learn from her rich past. So far in our series:
- 4 Simple Ways Fred Elliot Discipled His Children
- 4 Lessons from St. Patrick for Making Disciples the Irish Way
- 3 Counter-Cultural Lessons from Elisabeth Elliot
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Like many during the early twentieth century, John Ronald Ruel Tolkien’s family moved around the globe. His father Arthur was a banker and took a job in South Africa, but tragedy struck the family. After only four years, Arthur Tolkien died. Mabel, his wife, Hillary, his sons, and young John moved back to England where they would stay. Less than ten years later Mabel would die leaving her two sons and daughter to be raised by family and their priest. Early on John showed a unique grasp on linguistics and he even started a literary club the “T. C. B. S.” (Tea Club, Barrovian Society) during his grammar school years.
He followed his passion for language to Exeter College, Oxford where he would go on to spend the majority of his professional career. The first World War interrupted his studies. Many believe his experience in the War forever altered his worldview and informed his later writings especially The Lord of the Rings. After the War was over, he worked in several positions in his field until finally returning to Oxford as a professor of language.
Before his arrival at Oxford, the world of Middle-earth had already started taking form as he had been in continuous work on The Lost Tales as well as an Elvish language. However, while at Oxford, the story goes, while grading papers, he stopped and jotted on one paper, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit”—one of the most memorable lines in literary history. This started Tolkien’s more conscious journey through Middle-earth.
His writing were also influenced by a second literary club he started while at Oxford called The Inklings which included C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Neville Coghill to name a few.
While The Hobbit sold well, it wasn’t until The Lord of the Rings that his reputation was launched in earnest. A loyal and passionate following gathered around Tolkien which continues to this day. After his rise to fame and following his death (due in part to his plodding writing pace), many of his more “historical” and often unfinished works were gathered and edited by his son Christopher and published.
It should also be noted that he was a loving husband until the end. One of his most passionate stories Beren and Luthien—a man Beren who loved and wed the elf Luthien—was inspired by his own affection for the love of his life Edith. Their shared tombstone carries the inscription “Luthien” under her name and “Beren” under his. His faith played no small role in the world that he built and so many things can be learned from Tolkien’s Middle-earth, although the lessons may take the skill of a Dwarf to unearth.
PROVIDENCE
The theme of sovereignty must not be underestimated in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (TLOR). Sovereignty and providence play major roles in the affairs that we uncover in Tolkien’s major works. Consider the tale of the One Ring. In the second age, the free peoples were laying siege to Mordor and Isildur, the King of Men, cut the One Ring from Sauron’s hand. Against the wishes of Elrond and Círdan, the fallen elf lord Gil-galad’s lieutenants, Isildur keeps the Ring as a family heirloom. Evil befalls Isildur on his journey home when a band of orcs waylay him and the One Ring is consider lost in the great river Anduin.
Long after these events, a hobbit-like creature Sméagol (you may know him as Gollum) possessed the Ring by treachery. He was cast out of his community for using the Ring for evil purposes. He kept it hidden and safe for many years until Bilbo encountered him by “chance” during the tale that began in The Hobbit and “found” the Ring. He carried it to the Lonely Mountain and then back home to Hobbiton where it stayed with him for many years. It was finally discovered that this ring was the One Ring and Gandalf the wizard encouraged Biblo to pass it along to his heir Frodo. That it was freely given is a crucial element to the tale because none had done so before Biblo—and one that didn’t happen by chance.
What’s so amazing in all of this (and we will return to this later) is that creatures so homely, unknown, and small are able to possess the Ring for so long without being destroyed. Even gollum as evil as he is has held up well by all accounts and in TLOR shows glimpses of good in the sometimes humorous dialogue when journeying with Frodo and Sam to Mount Doom. This kind of “luck” in the Ring’s lineage is nothing short of miraculous. Tolkien describes the Ring as having a will bent towards Sauron, but there seems to be something else at work ordering even the evil intent of the Ring.
[Gandalf says,] “Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.” The Fellowship of the Rings, Chapter 2 “The Shadow of the Past”
“‘I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?’ ‘Such questions cannot be answered,’ said Gandalf.” The Fellowship of the Rings, Chapter 2 “The Shadow of the Past”
This providence draws the Ring into the hands of hobbits who are unexpectedly hardy and good-hearted. They remind me of what man and woman were pre-Fall.
Also, TLOR reads much like Esther in the Old Testament. No explicit mention of God but his hand present in every thing. You have bread crumbs of providence, sovereignty, and governance through out TLOR. Here are a few examples drawn from The Fellowship of the Ring and its major chapter concerning the lore of the One Ring. Especially note how the twisted desires of Gollum are turned to good in the end:
[Gandalf says,] “And he [Gollum] is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many – yours not least.” The Fellowship of the Rings, Chapter 2 “The Shadow of the Past” (also, Gandalf emphasizes this later in chapter 11, “But he may play a part yet that neither he nor Sauron have forseen”)
Early on as the hobbits journey out of the Shire, Tom Bombadil rescues them from their first danger by chance:
“At last Frodo spoke: ‘Did you hear me calling, Master, or was it just chance that brought you at that moment?’ Tom stirred like a man shaken out of a pleasant dream. ‘Eh, what?’ said he. ‘Did I hear you calling? Nay, I did not hear: I was busy singing. Just chance brought me then, if chance you call it. It was no plan of mine, though I was waiting for you.” The Fellowship of the Rings, Chapter 7 “In the House of Tom Bombadil”
“‘That is the purpose for which you are called hither. Called, I say, though I have not called you to me, strangers from distant lands. You have come and are here met, in this very nick of time, by chance as it may seem. Yet it is not so. Believe rather that it is so ordered that we, who sit here, and none others, must now find counsel for the peril of the world.” The Fellowship of the Rings, Chapter 11 “The Council of Elrond”
Every step of the way as the Ring makes its way out of the Shire and into Rivendell something is guiding Frodo. Tolkien masterfully describes what God working all things together for good looks like. If you wish to live like free people in Middle-earth than you must realize everything is orchestrated by God for the good purpose of his will (if you want to see Tolkien flesh this out even more, read The Silmarillion’s opening chapters).
As we navigate this dark world and the “Shadow takes another shape,” we must acknowledge there’s much about the way God orchestrates our lives we don’t understand. We must humbly acknowledge just because we cannot in our finite understanding see any good purpose amidst the pain, suffering, and evil, we mustn’t assume God has none.
FRIENDSHIP, FELLOWSHIP, & FOOD
The Hobbit starts with the unlikely friendship of Biblo and Gandalf. This friendship binds this story together. Without it, you do not have Gandalf’s counsel of Frodo and the Ring may have fallen into the hands of Sauron. To the wise the friendship of the hobbits and Gandalf seems foolish. Saruman didn’t understand the value of hobbits and would not have sullied himself by being friends with those of a lesser station than him unless he was using them for his purposes.
The dwarves are unwelcomed friends at first but soon enjoy table fellowship—feasting, eating, and singing. They rehearse their shared history in Middle-earth. As the story proceeds, you have the lack of hospitality by the goblins in the mountains and the friendship of the eagles. They repeat the slow arrival technique practiced at Bilbo’s at Beorn the shape-shifter’s home as they escape the goblin’s lair. Beorn is dangerous but hospitable.
From there, the party enters Mirkwood and the hand of fellowship is not extended by the wood elves. They capture and imprison the dwarves and later lay siege to the Lonely Mountain asking for a split of the treasure. The dwarves and Biblo are welcomed by men but are not welcomed by Smaug.
After Bard the Bowman kills Smaug, the dwarves now reject friendship of men and elves (maybe justly in the case of the latter). This lack of hospitality brewing in the story comes to a head here and is only relieved by Gandalf and the common enemy of the goblins as they attack the companies of men and elves and the Lonely Mountain. In this battle, Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of the dwarves dies which brings us to a major passage in The Hobbit:
“Bilbo knelt on one knee filled with sorrow. “Farewell, King under the Mountain!” he said. “This is a bitter adventure, if it must end so; and not a mountain of gold can amend it. Yet I am glad that I have shared in your perils—that has been more than any Baggins deserves.”
“No!” said Thorin. “There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell!” The Hobbit, “The Return Journey”
This same theme is carried over to TLOR (I’ll be briefer here). The book starts with a farewell party for Biblo. He disappears leaving Frodo everything and lives with Elrond at the last homely house. From the start, Frodo’s journey is uncertain, but is unexpectedly bolstered by the friendship of Sam, Merry, Pippin, and Fatty. They have been spying on him and plan to accompany him from Hobbiton to Rivendell. In another twist, they are adamant about joining the fellowship of the Ring. As the name of first book in TLOR suggests fellowship is central to the ring-bearer’s quest. That quest is almost destroyed by the lust of Boromir, but is saved by his final act of friendship and sacrifice.
In the second book, The Two Towers, friendship is again central. The friendship of Glóin the dwarf and Legolas the elf and also the deep bond between Glóin and the lady of Galadriel (although in book one). Also, the friendship of Aragorn (and the kingdoms of men, in general) and the men of Rohan is essential. The unlikely friendship of Merry and Pippin and the ents. And most importantly the friendship of Frodo and Sam which is contrasted with the twisted relationship of Frodo and Gollom. However, the relationship of Sam and Frodo carries the theme of friendship through out the entire journey. It’s also the reunited friendship of the free peoples of Middle-earth which makes the defeat of Sauron possible.
This truth that friendship is absolutely necessary is one that is also through out Scripture. Not only that, the importance of fellowship around the table and the rehearsal of our common story of the gospel is central to Christian discipleship. That kind of rehearsal of common history is paramount in Tolkien’s Middle-earth. It’s the suspicion of friends which causes damage in Middle-earth and friendship’s restored and a remembered save the day.
Tolkien does something that few other writers I’ve encountered do—he makes me long to return to his created world Middle-earth. It’s hard to walk away from that place and not find yourself more concerned with the world around you, more joyful in your fellowship, and more willing to sacrifice for the good of others. Tolkien gives us a glimpse of the good life and does so in a way that’s not preachy or superficial.
Mathew B. Sims is the Editor-in-Chief at Exercise.com and has authored, edited, and contributed to several books including A Household Gospel, We Believe: Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms for Worship, A Guide for Advent, Make, Mature, Multiply, and A Guide for Holy Week. Mathew, LeAnn (his wife), and his daughters Claire, Maddy, and Adele live in Taylors, SC at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains with their Airdale Terrier. They attend Downtown Presbyterian Church (PCA). Visit MathewBryanSims.com!
Grace's Humbling Necessity
From the moment we came into the world as helpless babies, right up until this exact second, we are utterly and completely dependent on the grace of God for everything we have, including life itself. What is more, if we have any hope of life after death—eternal life—it is only because of God’s free and undeserved grace for us in Jesus Christ. Until we understand this, it is impossible for us to have the relationship with God that we truly need. But when we do understand this—when we understand our absolute need for Jesus—then his grace changes everything.
PAST EXPERIENCE, PRESENT NEED
Our need for grace may seem obvious at the beginning of the Christian life, when we first put our trust in Jesus. Then we know that if there is anything we contribute to our salvation, it is only the sin that necessitates a Savior. According to the good news of our salvation, Jesus died and rose again so that in him we would receive forgiveness for our sins and enter into everlasting fellowship with the true and living God. We are not saved by anything that we have done, therefore, but only by what Jesus has done. It is all by his grace, not by our works.
Yet grace is not something we leave behind once we decide to follow Jesus.Grace is our present need as well as our past experience. The gospel is not just the way into the Christian life; it is also the way on in the Christian life. We continually need to remember that God “saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 1:9).
In my first chapel address as president of Wheaton College I said something that took some people by surprise, maybe because it’s something that many Christians forget. I said that I don’t know of a college anywhere in the world that needs the gospel more than Wheaton does.
In saying this, I did not mean to imply that there aren’t a lot of Christians at Wheaton. In fact, every student, every professor, and every staff member on campus makes a personal profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Still, it wouldn’t be surprising to find unbelievers on campus: in most Christian communities there are at least some people who do not yet have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.
This is not what I meant, however, when I said that Wheaton College needs the gospel. I meant that the gospel is for Christians every bit as much as it is for non-Christians. We never outgrow our need for God’s life-changing grace— the gospel of the cross and the empty tomb.
A SELF-CENTERED PRAYER
The main reason we continue to need the gospel is that we continue to sin. To experience God’s life-changing grace for ourselves, therefore, we need to recognize the deep-seated sin that necessitates our salvation.
One of the best places to see our need for grace, and also the way that God answers that need, is in a story Jesus told “to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt” (Luke 18:9). In other words, this is a story for people who will not admit their need for grace. It is a story for us, if we are too proud to confess our sins. It goes like this:
Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. - Luke 18:10–14
The story opens with a surprise, because in those days everyone knew that tax collectors did not go to the temple and did not pray. Tax collectors were employed by the Roman government, and thus they were considered traitors to the Jewish people. Many practiced extortion. Thus one preacher compared them to “drug pushers and pimps, those who prey on society, and make a living of stealing from others.”1 Make no mistake about it: this tax collector was a crook!
The Pharisee, by contrast, stood for everything that was right and good. The Pharisees were widely regarded as spiritual overachievers. They were theologically orthodox and morally devout. Possibly our respect for this particular Pharisee increases when we overhear his prayer. He comes before God with thanksgiving. He testifies that he is not an extortioner or an adulterer. Rather than taking money for himself, he gives it away to others. He not only prays, but also fasts. In contemporary terms, this man would be a pastor or a theologian—or maybe the president of a Christian college.
Yet for all his devotion, the Pharisee was not righteous in the sight of God. Why not? His most obvious problem was pride. Although he began by addressing God, he spent the rest of his prayer talking about himself. In only two short verses he manages to mention himself five (!) times: I . . . I . . . I . . . I . . . I. It gets worse, because if we translate verse 11 more literally, it reads, “The Pharisee, standing, prayed about himself,” or even “with himself,” in which case he was not talking to God at all! He did not truly ask God for anything or offer God any praise but simply reveled in his own sense of moral superiority. In other words, the Pharisee was exactly like the people listening to Jesus tell this story: confident of his own righteousness. Here is a man, said London’s famous preacher Charles Spurgeon, who thought he was “too good to be saved.”
It is easy to see how self-righteous the Pharisee was, but what we really need to assess is the same attitude in ourselves. If we are living in Christian community, then either we will grow strong in the grace of God or else we will become bigger and bigger hypocrites. So we need to ask ourselves: When am I like the Pharisee in the story Jesus told?
Here are some possible answers: I am a Pharisee when I care more about my religious reputation than about real holiness. I am a Pharisee when I look down on people who are not as committed to the cause of mercy or justice that I am committed to. I am a Pharisee when I look around and say, “Thank God I am not like so-and-so” and then fill in the blank with whatever person in my neighborhood, or student on my campus, or colleague at my workplace, or family in my church, or group in my society that I happen to think is not as whatever it is as I am.
When else am I a Pharisee? I am a Pharisee when I am impressed with how much I am giving to God compared to others. I am a Pharisee when other people’s sins seem worse than my own. I am a Pharisee when I can go all day, or all week, or even all month without confessing any particular sin.
ANOTHER WAY TO PRAY
Thankfully, there is a totally different way to pray—a way that will save your sinful and maybe hypocritical soul. Unlike the Pharisee, the tax collector did not count on his own merits but begged for mercy instead: “The tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’” (Luke 18:13).
There are three parts to the tax collector’s prayer: God, the sinner, and the merciful grace that comes between them. The man’s prayer started with God, which is where all prayer ought to begin. The first act of prayer is to approach the majestic throne of the awesome and almighty God. When the tax collector made his approach, he refused even to look up to heaven, because he had a right and proper fear of God’s bright, burning holiness.
So the tax collector’s prayer began with God. It ended with himself, the sinner. I say “the” sinner, rather than “a” sinner because the Greek original of this verse uses the definite article. As far as the tax collector was concerned, he was the only sinner that mattered. Rather than comparing himself to others, he measured himself against the perfect holiness of God. And by that standard, he saw himself for what he was: nothing more and nothing less than a guilty sinner before a holy God.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wisely wrote, “If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all.” One good way to avoid this error and acknowledge the true extent of our sin is to identify ourselves as “the” sinner when we pray, as if we were the biggest, most obvious sinner in our congregation, corporation, family, or dormitory. “It’s me, Lord,” we should say when we begin our prayers. “You know: the sinner.”
AT THE MERCY SEAT
This brings us to the most striking feature of the tax collector’s prayer: in between God’s holiness and his own sinfulness he inserted a prayer for mercy. Like King David, he stood before God and said, “Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace” (Ps. 86:6).
When the tax collector prayed, “Have mercy,” he used a Greek verb that essentially means to atone for sin by means of a blood sacrifice. To understand this, we need to go back in the Old Testament to Leviticus 16. Once a year, the high priest would make atonement for the people’s sin. He would take a perfect male goat and sacrifice it as a sin offering. Then he would take its blood into the Most Holy Place of the temple and sprinkle it on the mercy seat.
What did this priestly act signify? The sacrificial goat represented God’s sinful people. In a symbolical way, their sins were transferred or imputed to the animal. Then, having been charged with sin, the animal was put to death. The goat thus served as a substitute, dying in the place of sinners.
Once a sacrifice had been offered, the animal’s blood was the proof that atonement had been made for sin. The sacrificial blood showed that God had already carried out his death penalty against transgression. So the priest took the blood and sprinkled it on the mercy seat, which was the golden lid on the ark of the covenant. This sacred ark was located in the innermost sanctum of the temple— the Most Holy Place. On top of the mercy seat there were golden cherubim, symbolizing the throne of God. Thus the ark served as the earthly location of God’s holy presence. Inside the ark, underneath the mercy seat, was the law of God as a covenant that the people had broken. Sprinkling blood on the mercy seat, therefore, was a way to show that an atoning sacrifice had come between the holy God and his sinful people. The sacrificial blood showed that their sins were covered, that they were protected from the holy wrath of God.
In effect, this is what the tax collector prayed for when he said, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.” He was asking God to make blood atonement for his sin. There the man was, praying in the very temple where the sacrificial blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat. When Jesus says that “two men went up to the temple to pray,” this is generally taken to mean that they were there around three o’clock in the afternoon, with the crowds that attended the daily sacrifice. Knowing that he was under God’s judgment because of his sin, the only thing the tax collector could do was ask for mercy to come between his guilt and God’s wrath. So he begged for God to be “mercy-seated” to him. He was asking God to atone for his sins, to cover his guilt, and to protect him from eternal judgment.
The order of the tax collector’s prayer echoes the Old Testament pattern for sacrifice: “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.” First comes God, who is perfect in his holiness. Last comes the sinner, who deserves to die for his sins. But in between comes the sacrificial blood that saves his sinful soul.
SAVED BY THE BLOOD
This is a good prayer for anyone to pray: “God, be mercy-seated to me, the sinner.” Not counting the Lord’s Prayer, or the words of thanks I give before eating a meal, it is probably the prayer I offer more than any other. It’s short and easy to remember. I pray it first thing in the morning or the last thing at night. I pray it before I preach, or any time I am feeling weighed down by guilt: “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.”
When I pray this way, I am really praying the gospel. By shedding his blood, Jesus Christ became the atoning sacrifice for my sins. His death is my substitute; his cross is my mercy seat; and the blood that he sprinkled on it is my salvation.
To say that Jesus died for sinners is to say that his sacrifice accomplished what the blood on the mercy seat accomplished. Like the sacrificial animals of the Old Testament, Jesus died in our place. Our sins were transferred or imputed to him: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24). As a result, our sins are covered; our guilt is taken away. The Scripture says Christ “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26).
Our mercy seat is the cross of Jesus Christ, where the atoning blood was sprinkled for our salvation. In fact, to explain what Jesus was doing on the cross, the New Testament sometimes uses the noun form of the same verb for mercy that we find in Luke 1. We see this terminology in Romans 3:25, which says that God presented Jesus “as a propitiation by his blood,” and again in Hebrews 2:17, where he is described as a “merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God,” who has made “propitiation for the sins of the people.”
This is mercy-seat vocabulary, which assures us that our plea for grace will always be answered. When we say, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner,” we are making an appeal to the cross. We are asking for the blood of Jesus to cover all our sins.
GOING HOME JUSTIFIED
Has God been mercy-seated to you? What compels me to ask this question is the conclusion to the story Jesus told. Two men went to the temple, where they offered two different prayers and, as a result, met two entirely different destinies.
In the end, the tax collector got what he asked for. His prayers were answered. God was mercy-seated to him. Thus Jesus closed his story by saying that this man (and not the other) was “justified.” In other words— and we will say more about this in a later chapter—the tax collector was counted righteous. He was justified by God’s mercy on the basis of the atoning blood of a perfect sacrifice, which he received by a prayer he asked in faith.
God did not justify the Pharisee, however. This would have come as a total shock to anyone who was listening to this story when it was first told, so Jesus was very specific about it. Although the Pharisee declared his own righteousness, he was never declared righteous by God, and therefore he went home unjustified. Sadly, his righteousness was part of the problem. He was too busy being self-righteous to receive God’s righteousness, which comes only as a gift.
The Pharisee’s prayer was all about what he could do for God: “I thank . . . I am . . . I fast . . . I give.” All his verbs were active, in the first person singular. What made the tax collector’s prayer different was that he was asking God to do something for him. Therefore, the only verb in his prayer is passive: “God, be mercy-seated to me, the sinner.”
Pray this way, and you too will be justified before God. What is more, you will be so humbled by your desperate need for God’s life-changing grace that you will not look down on anyone but live instead with the humility, joy, and gratitude that only grace compels.
Excerpted from Phil Ryken’s Grace Transforming, published by Crossway, and used with permission.
5 Ingredients for Spiritual Meal-Making
My mom is a great cook who would make three delicious meals a day for my brothers and me. I wish I could say I inherited my mom's love for cooking, but I never did. She tried and tried to teach me how to cook, but I never wanted to learn. Now my wife is away for a few weeks and I'm counting down the days until the lasagna she made and so lovingly stored in the freezer is gone. As this terrible deadline approaches, I have several options: 1) I can starve; 2) I can eat out; 3) I can ask for handouts; or 4) I can cook for myself. I don't want to give up food for the next three weeks even though I could potentially fast for some of that time. I don't have the money to eat out daily and although I do have several friends who are going to invite me over for meals, begging for food just doesn't seem like the grown-up option. The last option is the hardest one, but that one has the most benefits. If I learn to cook while my wife is away, imagine how I could surprise and bless her when she returns. I could make her a date-night meal and maybe cook one-night a week. I could even invite friends over and be the one to prepare the meal. The benefits of learning to cook for myself are pretty much endless.
Why Do It Yourself?
I don't know many pastors who are good at cooking, at least, in the literal sense. However, I do know many pastors and teachers who are great at cooking spiritually-filling meals. They can prepare a great Bible lesson or sermon that provides you something to meditate on for the week. They're so good in fact, and you get such great nutritional value from what they're teaching, that you're a bit wary of your own cooking. Why study the Bible for yourself when your pastor can do it so much better?As a pastor, I'm here to encourage you that nothing brings me more joy than seeing people learn to “cook spiritually” for themselves then nourish others. In other words, I love it when you learn to love and know God for yourself through the Bible and when you share that love with those around you.
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:12-14 ESV)
The book of Hebrews is written to early Christians who aren't maturing in their faith as they should. All they want is to be fed and not even with food that meets their spiritual need. The author of Hebrews has a double challenge for them: hunger for spiritual food and become cooks ("teachers" v. 12). Notice that those who are mature and feeding on solid Christian teaching are themselves responsible to duplicate the task. They should be "trained" so that they can understand what is "good."
Spiritually filling food is for those who have "powers of discernment" and are "trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil" (v. 14). Christians need to get involved in the cooking process. We are to take ownership for what we're learning. Other passages also encourage believers to prepare themselves to receive real food (1 Cor. 3:2) and to desire good food to grow strong (1 Pt. 2:1-3). So not only should we desire good teaching, we need it to mature, and we should desire to share what we are learning with others.
Ingredients for Spiritual Meal-Making
What are some practical ways we can learn to cook?
1. Study the Bible individually and in a small group; 2. Use outside resources to double check your recipe (i.e., use reference tools and commentaries like your pastor does); 3. Pray and meditate on what you're learning; 4. Take what you're learning to your pastor and teachers so they can help you; and 5. Finally, share what God has taught you with friends, family members, and fellow pilgrims.
This doesn't mean we should stop learning from pastors, teachers, and others, but we should become less dependent on them even though we value and honor their teachings. We come under their authority but not passively. A strong faith produces active discipleship. We don't desert the church for our own personal devotion, but we realize both personal and corporate learning together make the most nutritionally healthy Christians. Good shepherds should always feed their flock, but the goal is not to just eat another good meal, but to feed the starving and teach the full how to cook.
While my wife was away I went to the store, purchased chicken thighs, and spent around 45 minutes baking them when they probably should have only taken around 20-25 minutes. I couldn't get the chicken to cook like I wanted and when I did eat them, I was very much suspicious that I was poisoning myself. I don't enjoy cooking but I'm willing to try again. I want to help my wife and grow as a person. You're first time cooking “a spiritual meal” will probably go something like mine. Nobody ever learned to cook the first time they tried. Try again and see how you grow in Christ and mature as a follower of Jesus. The best cooks all started by making one meal.
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Jonathan Romig (M.Div., Gordon-Conwell, 2013) is the Associate Pastor of Immanuel Church in Chelmsford MA (CCCC) and the Church Planting Pastor of Cornerstone Congregational Church in the neighboring town of Westford MA. He has taught New City Catechism as a year-long adult Sunday school class and recently self-published his first e-book, How To Give A Christian Wedding Toast.
Buying Into Our Own Marginalization
Recently Q Ideas, the conference and TED-like Christian event, posted talks given by Rod Dreher, a conservative journalist for The American Conservative, and Russell Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. The two talks are titled, “The Benedict Option” and “The Prophetic Minority.” These two titles represent a wave of Evangelical rhetoric flooding social media timelines and trending topics. Moore and Dreher are proponents of framing the current American Evangelical experience as an “exile.” In an op-ed publishing by The Washington Post, Moore closes his piece by saying, “We see that we are strangers and exiles in American culture. We are on the wrong side of history, just like we started. We should have been all along.”
That same day, Dreher published a piece in Time and on his blog hosted by The American Conservative saying Christians “are going to have to learn how to live as exiles in our own country. Voting Republican is not going to save us, nor will falling back on exhausted, impotent culture war strategies. It is time for the Benedict Option: learning how to resist, in community, in a culture that sees us orthodox Christians as enemies.”
Language that hints at marginalization or exile from a white male is tough to stomach in the 21st century. I recently heard the novelist Nick Hornby say he stopped writing white male protagonists in his latest book, Funny Girl, because, “I can’t figure out what their problems are anymore.” With a history of privilege, we lack humility and self-awareness when we buy into our own marginalization.We actually have no idea what that even means.
What is an Exile?
But perhaps on a deeper level, there is something sadly untrue about the marginalization rhetoric surfacing amidst the evangelical church. Maybe even deeper lies a misunderstanding of what the “exile” and the “sojourner” meant Biblically. Yes, Scripture (particularly in 1 Peter) identifies Christians as “sojourners” and “not of this world” with “citizenship in heaven.” But are events like the Supreme Court decision and losing culture wars what the Biblical authors had in mind when they used these terms?
My guess would be that if Paul were reading our history, he would not chalk up these moments as our identity as “exiles.” He would probably tell us this is life as a Christian. Jesus, Peter, Paul, and the early church never had anything go their way, nor did they have any hope in the political system to begin with because their beliefs were not predicated and assisted by a political system. It was based on an eternal kingdom that you could not see.
The exile language is Jewish language, belonging to the people of Israel first as a key identity piece that actually reminded them of their sin and disobedience to God (2 Kgs 17:7-23, Jer. 29:4). The word is used, depending on your translation, nearly 100 times in the Old Testament; it is used six times in the New Testament—only four of those times are they referring to Christians, half of which are found in Peter’s first letter.
Where Peter calls the Christians, “exiles” and “sojourners,” it is important to remember he was writing to the church in the Diaspora, or “the Dispersion,” which “originally described Jews or Jewish communities scattered throughout the world (see Isa 49:6; Psa 147:2; 2 Macc 1:27; John 7:35 and note).” This term—again, only used four times in the NT for Christians—is vague but refers to all believers everywhere who await the New Jerusalem as their final home. This is simply a spiritual term used for the broader family of God, which are those who claim Jesus as Lord and fall under the New Covenant. They are, like Israel, exiles in the spiritual sense, not the political.
We Were Always Exiles and Sojourners
Politically and nationally, I do not see evidence of how the culture wars have had an affect on the lives of most Christians everywhere. Yes, we are exiles who await the New Jerusalem, a time where Jesus returns to “make all things new.” Until then, we do, yes, wander the earth as people who are not fully home.
But as Americans we are quite well-off. Furthermore, as a white male pastor, I do not understand how we can apply this heavy word during a time of fantastic freedom and religious liberty. Every day of my life is—despite common suffering and troubles of life as a human being on earth—remarkably good and easy.
For the Christian in America, it seems absurd to claim marginalization politically or culturally. These arenas are still dominated by white men and offer a lot of freedom for Christians to practice worship and preach the gospel. Even though the political and cultural landscape is changing little has changed that will affect our ultimate and eternal mission as we await our new home.
We were wanderers and exiles 10 years ago, and 25 years ago, and 1,500 years ago. That is our spiritual identity and it always has been. As we see the waves of culture and politics go back and forth, we continue to serve the unseen kingdom—serving the poor, widow, and orphan, preaching the gospel, and remaining unstained by the world. That is what we have always done and that is what Christians will always do. Nothing has changed.
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Chris Nye (@chrisnye) is a pastor and a writer living in Portland, Oregon with his wife, Ali. His first book will be published by Moody next year.
The Life of the Mind for Knowing God
I have some formal education but not as much as others. I don’t have a PhD. I’m not a professor. I’m entertained by mindless T.V. shows and video games on my iPhone. If asked to do a math problem I freeze, blackout, then vomit. However, I’ve recently become aware of how much the Bible actually pushes the importance of serious biblical study. “Yeah,” you may say, “I know we are all supposed to read the Bible as Christians.” However, I think I mean something stronger than that. I mean something closer to “almost all we should be doing is growing theologically because our devotion to the Bible shows how much we believe it really is God’s Word.” Yikes! That is a pretty strong statement. So let’s see if it is true. Let’s see what the Bible itself has to say about how much we should study.
High-level Bible Study
The Bible is not ambiguous about the fact that Christians are to be serious studiers.
We are told to love God with all of our “mind” (Mk. 12:29). We are commanded to “Destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). We are told to meditate on God’s law “day and night” (Ps. 1:2). We are told to discuss it with our children when we walk and when we rise and when we sit and at all times of the day (Deut. 11:9). We are told to question everything, especially teaching and “prophesies” (1 Thess. 5:21). We are called to supplement our faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge (2 Pt. 1:5).
And that’s not all . . .
The king of Israel was to copy God’s entire law by hand and read it every day of his life (Deut. 17:18). The sole academic requirement for elders is that they are “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2). God’s people perish due to their lack of theological knowledge (Hos. 4:6). We are commanded almost forty times in Proverbs to seek, not just “wisdom,” but “knowledge.” Paul rebukes those who have a zeal (i.e. passion) for God but not according to knowledge” (Rom. 10:2).
And this is just a tiny fraction of all the times we are told to know God’s word, to seek knowledge, and to study, study, study!
Church Leaders Yesterday
We also see a pattern regarding the importance of education in church history. All the major players in church history seem to be very highly educated either formally or informally:
- Jerome translated the entire Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin.
- Augustine was a Rhetoric professor in Milan before his conversion and had a broad education in the humanities.
- Gregory the Great said, regarding the education of ministers, “No one claims to be able to teach an art until first having learned it through careful study. With what incredible boldness then do the unlearned and unskillful stand ready to assume pastoral authority, forgetting that the care of souls is the art of arts! For it is clear that the ills of the mind are more hidden than the ills of the bowels. And yet quite often those who have no knowledge whatever of spiritual principles dare to declare themselves physicians of the heart, while those who do not know of the use of drugs would never dare to call themselves physicians of the flesh!”
- Martin Luther had a doctorate in Theology and translated the entire Bible into German by himself while locked up in a castle struggling with spiritual attack. Luther thought that the biblical languages were so important that he said he would be willing to go to school with the devil to learn them. He also encouraged people to study until they “had taught the devil to death and had become more learned than God himself and all his saints.”
- John Calvin studied at both the University of Paris and at Orleans and wrote one of the most popular Protestant Systematic Theology textbooks ever.
- Ulrich Zwingli, in addition to having a strong formal education, had all of Paul’s letters memorized in Greek.
- George Whitfield and John Wesley both studied theology at Oxford.
- Jonathan Edwards graduated from Yale at 17 and then became the president of Princeton. His dissertation was delivered, of course, in Latin. He sometimes studied 14 hours a day and is considered to be the greatest mind to ever come out of America.
- Even those like Charles Spurgeon, who didn’t have a lot of formal degrees, were highly educated . . . Spurgeon tutored Greek at Cambridge.
Evangelicalism Today
Great church leaders in the modern era are the same way. Some of the most influential, godly, Christian leaders are also the most knowledgeable:
- John Piper has a PhD from the University of Munich.
- Wayne Grudem has a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard, a Master’s degree from Westminster (which broke off of Princeton Seminary), and a PhD from Cambridge.
- N. T. Wright has 5 degrees from Oxford, including two doctorates.
- Alister McGrath has 5 degrees from Oxford, including two doctorates.
- D. A. Carson, in addition to having a PhD from Cambridge, reads 500 books a year. Think about that… there are only 365 days in a year!
But what about the Apostles? Weren’t they uneducated?
Despite the overwhelming pattern above, some will object and say, “The Apostles were a bunch of uneducated fisherman and God seemed to use them despite their lack of training.” However, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, some were highly educated (like Paul who wrote a lot of the New Testament). Second, these other men spent three years personally walking with Jesus! What better education is there to knowing God then living with the God-Man for 3 years?! Also, the Apostles knew Aramaic (and some knew Greek and possibly Hebrew) which are more biblical languages than most pastors know. They didn’t need to study the background or culture of the Bible because they lived in it. They had also seen the risen Jesus, been commissioned by him to be Apostles, and had been empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth. That is a far cry from anyone’s meager education today. In a sense we could say they had more theological training than anyone else, not less. Ministerial training is not about a lot of knowledge but about the right knowledge.
Discouraged Yet?
The above facts don’t make me want to be a Christian—they make me want to give up. If the above information is true then I feel like God will never use me. I’ll never attain the level of these guys. I don’t have a PhD. I don’t debate scholars in Latin. And I’ve never translated the entire Bible into a new language.
However, my purpose is not to tell you that you have to be a scholar but merely to correct a trend in our evangelical culture which seeks to make Christians a people of the heart without also being a people of the head. This shouldn’t make you feel as though you have to become an ivory tower monk. It should, however, encourage you just to take “baby steps” and to devote yourself to studying God’s word. Part of loving God more is to know more about him.
Jonathan Edwards described knowledge about God like firewood and passion for God like fire. A fire with no firewood just produces a big flash but no lasting heat. Firewood without fire doesn’t do much good either. But if there is a fire the more firewood you add to the pile the brighter and hotter it will burn. Theology is the ceiling to your worship – by knowing more about God your capacity to love him grows.
God uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. So the power is not in education in and of itself. But it is the education that allows one to better unlock the treasures of God’s Word. That is why these men are great and that is what the Bible itself tells us to seek.
Reconnecting Head and Heart
We have a tendency to vilify academics and act as though study is somehow unspiritual. We also have a tendency to feel as though serious Bible study is only for the “experts.” However, God wants all his people to be serious Bible students. So how can we take some “baby steps” and what are some practical things we can do to grow? Perhaps this means participating in some of these activities:
- Asking seminary professors or pastors what books they recommend so you don’t waste your time on poor books.
- Auditing a class at a local seminary.
- Listening to seminary lectures on iTunes U.
- Just devoting yourself to reading for fifteen minutes a day.
- Asking more questions from people who know a lot about theology.
It’s not about reading a lot of books. It’s about reading the right books and to know what books those are you have to ask the guys who know. The easiest thing you can do to start is just to read the Bible a little every day. You won’t understand everything at first, but the more familiar you become with the Bible the more it will make sense over time.
It is easy to accidentally separate “head” from “heart.” We do it all the time. We either try to merely know facts about God (and not love him) or we just try to love him and conjure up emotion (and don’t correctly think about whom we are loving). However, it doesn’t have to be this way. The Christian is called to love God with our whole heart and our whole mind. It is not so much a “scale” or “spectrum” (which would mean that loving God moved one away from knowledge and having knowledge moved one away from love). Rather, these are two separate categories in which one should seek to grow. If one finds that they love God but don’t know much about him they shouldn’t try to love him less as if that will make them know more. Conversely, if one finds that they know about God more than they love him they should not study less as if being dumber will somehow make them love God more. Rather they should just seek to grow where they are weak whether that be head or heart.
The goal is not degrees but knowing God. Or, as church historian Justo Gonzalez says, “The goal of theological studies is not a degree or diploma. Their final goal is the contemplation of the face of God in the final reign of peace and justice.”
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Zach Lee is Associate Home Groups Minister at The Village Church and is married to Katy. Follow him on Twitter: @zacharytlee.
Re-Narration Takes Practice
“Through worship God trains his people to take the right things for granted.” —Stanley Hauerwas and Samuel Wells
Let’s return to where we began: Christian worship and Christian education both have the same end. Both the church and the Christian university are institutions caught up in the missio Dei, recruiting the hearts and minds of the people of God into the very life of God so that we can once again take up our creational and re-creational calling—to bear God’s image for and to all of creation. The church and the Christian college (and Christian schools) are sites of formation that culminate in sending: to “go in peace to love and serve the Lord” by taking up our cross along with our commission to cultivate the earth. Christian worship and formation, as practices of divine action, culminate in Christian action—being sent as ambassadors of another “city,” as witnesses to kingdom come, to live and act communally as a people who embody a foretaste of God’s shalom. This is not to “instrumentalize” worship as merely a means to an end, nor is it to reduce worship to a strategy for moral formation; neither should it be confused with an activism that sees Christian action as some Pelagian expression of our abilities. Worship and the practices of Christian formation are first and foremost the way the Spirit invites us into union with the Triune God. Worship is the arena in which we encounter God and are formed by God in and through the practices in which the Spirit is present—centering rituals to which God makes a promise (the sacraments). As Boulton observes, while John Calvin persistently emphasized a “preferred suite of formative practices” as “disciplines of regeneration,” he also constantly emphasized that these were not routines of spiritual self-assertion or human accomplishment:
Disciples may and do perform these sanctifying practices, but their performances are themselves divine gifts, and they take place properly and fruitfully—that is, in ways that produce genuine humility and insight for them and others—only by way of divine accompaniment and power. . . . Thus following Calvin, we may reframe “spiritual practices” as in the first place works of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ, the sanctifying, regenerating, restorative labor of God with us and in us. . . . Each of the church’s key practices is still something human beings do, but they do it neither alone nor as the act’s primary agent. Rather, in and through the practice, they participate in divine work.
So in the practices of Christian worship, and in related spiritual disciplines, we encounter the Lover of our souls. We are drawn into the life of the One our hearts were made for, the Lord of heaven and earth.
And it is that creating and re-creating God who tells us to go even as he goes with us, “even to the end of the age.” Christian worship culminates with a sending (“Go!”) accompanied by a promise (“And as you go, you go with his blessing”)—the benediction that is both a blessing and a charge, a co-mission-ing accompanied by the promise of the Spirit’s presence. So while we are sent to act, to labor in love for God and neighbor, the Spirit of Christ goes with us so that even “our” Christian action, undertaken as we are recruited into the missio Dei, is never merely “ours”; we “act in communion with God.” Worship is not merely time with a deistic god who winds us up and then sends us out on our own; we don’t enter worship for “top up” refueling to then leave as self-sufficient, autonomous actors. “In the conception of Christian praxis,” Ward notes, “there is no room for such a modern notion of self-sufficiency.” Instead, the biblical vision is one of co-abiding presence and participation (“I in you and you in me”). In other words, our Christian action is bound up with the dynamics of incorporation. “By the act of receiving the Eucharist,” for example, “I place myself in Christ—rather than simply placing Christ within me. I consume but I do not absorb Christ without being absorbed into Christ. Only in this complex co-abiding are there life, nourishment, and nurture because of, through, or by means of this feeding; there is both participation of human life in God’s life and participation of God’s life in human life.” So our action is not merely motivated by worship of the Triune God; rather, it is in worship that we are caught up into the life of God, drawn into union with Christ, and thus recruited into this participation that generates Christian action as we “go.” “The Christian act,” Ward continues, “has to be understood in terms not just of the church but also of the church’s participation in Christ, the church as the body of Christ. That is, the Christian act is integral to the church’s participation in the operations of the Triune God within realms created in and through Christ as God’s Word. Discipleship is thus not simply following the example of Christ; it is formation within Christ, so that we become Christlike. And the context of this formation is the church in all its concrete locatedness and eschatological significance.”
To emphasize the s/ending of Christian worship is not to reduce worship to moral formation or to treat the presence of God as a tool for our self-improvement. Rather, the centrifugal end of Christian worship is integral to the Story we rehearse in Christian worship; sending is internal to the logic of the practice. To emphasize that Christian action is the end or telos of Christian worship is not to instrumentalize worship but is rather to “get” the Story that is enacted in the drama of worship—the “true story of the whole world” in which we are called to play our part as God’s image-bearers by cultivating creation. Integral to that Story, and to the practice of Christian worship, is the sense that we are now enabled and empowered to take up this mission precisely because of the gift of the Spirit (Rom. 8:1–17). At the same time, the Spirit meets us where we are as liturgical animals, as embodied agents, inviting us into that “suite” of disciplines and practices that are conduits of transformative, empowering grace. So even if there is a centrifugal telos to Christian worship and formation, there is also a regular centripetal invitation to recenter ourselves in the Story, to continually pursue and deepen our incorporation. It’s not a matter of choosing between worship or mission; nor are we faced with the false dichotomy of church or world, cathedral or city. To the contrary, we worship for mission; we gather for sending; we center ourselves in the practices of the body of Christ for the sake of the world; we are reformed in the cathedral to undertake our image-bearing commission to reform the city. So it is precisely an expansive sense of mission that requires formation. It is the missional telos of Christian action that requires us to be intentional about the formative power of Christian practices.
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James K. A. Smith (PhD, Villanova University) is professor of philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he also holds the Gary and Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology and Worldview. He is the editor of Comment magazine. Smith has authored or edited many books, including Imagining the Kingdom and the Christianity Today Book Award winners Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? and Desiring the Kingdom. He is also editor of the well-received The Church and Postmodern Culture series (www.churchandpomo.org).
James K. A. Smith, Imagining the Kingdom, Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, ©2009. Used by permission. http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
(Re)Introducing Our New Executive Director, Brad Watson
When I took the helm at GCD in 2013, I saw great potential in the ministry's ability to continue its already stellar reputation for resourcing churches to make, mature, and multiply disciples. Since then, our site traffic has continued to improve, GCD Books has grown exponentially, and our has staff expanded. Further, the Director role at GCD expanded to Executive Director, shifting from managing articles and social media to vision-casting, fundraising, and oversight of our incredibly talented staff. We also created a more official Board to advise the Executive Director. Needless to say, we are thankful for all God has done over the past two years.
I took over as Director for Brad Watson in 2013, and he's been a faithful member of the Board ever since. In Board meetings, he always seems to find a way to offer the most practical, gospel-driven solution to our biggest concerns about the ministry. After extensive prayer and considering several candidates, we believe that God kept Brad around for a reason. When looking at the qualifications for Executive Director, the Board decided that it was clear: Brad needs to retake the helm. He is one of the most God-honoring, visionary leaders that I know, and we are overjoyed to have him back in the day-to-day of GCD!
In case you don't know him, Brad serves as a pastor of Bread & Wine Communities in Portland, Oregon and is co-author with Jonathan Dodson of Raised? and Called Together. His greatest passion is to encourage and equip leaders for the mission of making disciples, and this is evident if you spend any time with him. His love for Jesus feeds into his love for the Church, which feeds into his love for making disciples, which feeds into his love for GCD.
Please pray for Brad and for GCD as he begins as Executive Director this week, and as I step into my new role as a Board member. Also, follow Brad on Twitter at @BradAWatson and congratulate him! Thank you for your love and support of GCD.
Culturally Literate Evangelism
Cultural shifts have resulted in the collapse of Christendom, an official or unofficial relationship people have with their country and its civil religion. In America, moral views typically associated with Christianity have been replaced by more progressive views associated with libertarianism on marriage, sexuality, and gender. In addition to loosening the American moral fabric, the collapse of Christendom has left behind a rubble of theological understanding. As the dust settles, we can no longer assume that people know what words like Christ, sin, faith, and God mean. For many, these words may no longer carry their original biblical meaning. We need to become culturally literate in order to be evangelistically fluent. If we don’t, the gospel gets lost in translation.
In secular culture people may actually hear us saying teacher for Christ, bad deeds for sin, wishful thinking for faith, or moldable deity for God. Today, it is a mistake to assume theological literacy. If we are to move forward, the Church must develop its ability to listen to new questions people are asking and learn how to translate the gospel into words and concepts that speak to the heart.
The Need for Cultural Literacy
Consider the need for cultural literacy in this story. A church planter in my city planted little wire signs in grassy medians around the city that read “RepentAustin.org.” I’ll admit it’s a pretty gutsy and confrontational tactic, but Jesus did call people to “repent and believe.” Yet, as I thought about this evangelistic approach, a major objection came to mind. These signs did not take into account contemporary understandings associated with the word “repent.” They conjure up images of judgmental people, filled with hatred toward “sinners,” who self-righteously speak words of condemnation. Instead of intriguing people, it probably elicited disinterest and, perhaps, unduly promoted a distorted view of the Gospel.
What makes this way of presenting the Gospel distorted? First, it does not call attention to Jesus — it focuses on a person’s need to change before they even get to hear about Jesus and what He has done. Second, there are strong cultural memories associated with the word, especially in the South, that are connected with a return to good, moral living — again, a response that has nothing to do with Jesus and what he has done. Many youths, when they hear the word “repent,” associate it with things like: stop listening to secular music, stop sleeping with your girlfriend, and start going to Church. This kind of repentance does not involve turning away from trusting in yourself to trust the Savior. It is simply a switch in lifestyles, secular to Christian. You can alter your behavior without altering your savior.
People adopt the trappings of faith—the religious habits, attempts at moral living, even a new Christianized culture that entails wearing a purity ring and listening to Christian music. But this cultural repentance is not a true turning to Christ; it is a turning to Christianity, to a religious subculture.
Slowing Down to Understand
To be effective in our new cultural landscape, we will have to slow down long enough to understand what people hear and how they speak in order to communicate the gospel in intelligible ways. This involves listening to what people think in order to communicate meaningfully what God thinks. This doesn’t require a PhD in Bible or theology. It requires love: sacrificing our time, tweaking our crammed schedules, putting away our canned responses, and actually conversing with people.
People don’t just need to hear a thirty-second gospel presentation. They need to understand why the Gospel is worth believing. To do this, we must learn their language and know their stories. We need to become “culturally literate in order to be gospel fluent, communicating the gospel in words and idioms that make sense to the people we talk to.
Why Do People Find the Gospel Unbelievable? from Jonathan Dodson on Vimeo.
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Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of City Life Church in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship, The Unbelievable Gospel, and Raised? He has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others. Twitter: @Jonathan_Dodson
Jonathan’s new book is The Unbelievable Gospel: Say Something Worth Believing (resource website here). You can also get his free ebook “Four Reasons Not to Share Your Faith.”
Guilt Isn’t Just a “Religious” Problem
I’m pretty sure everyone’s had one of those conversations where days or months afterwards you think to yourself, “Man, that’s what I should have said to So-n-so!” After analyzing the problem with the heat turned down, you end up spotting the fatal flaw, or key unquestioned assumption that was driving it in the direction it was going. Unfortunately, I have those all the time, both because I overthink things, and because I’m not always as quick on my feet as I’d like to be. One such conversation arose in one of my philosophy classes in my undergrad. We were talking about the ethics of belief, the sub-section of philosophy that deals with when it’s okay to believe something. Questions such as: Can you believe something just because you want to? Is evidence always necessary for every belief you hold? Is it ever okay to believe something you can’t prove? That kind of thing.
Well, we were discussing Pascal’s famous (and widely misunderstood) argument The Wager. Pascal was writing in Catholic France at a time when philosophical skepticism had made a comeback and the classic arguments for the existence of God were in doubt. As part of a broader apologetic, he proposed a little thought-experiment to show that even without evidence skepticism still wasn’t your best option.
The gist of it is this: you’ve got two things at stake when it comes to belief in God, the truth of the matter and your happiness in this life. What’s more, you’ve got two faculties you use to come to your belief, your reason and your will. He says, “Well, say the odds for and against the existence of God are 50/50—there are good arguments both ways, and so your reason can’t settle the issue and the truth is unverifiable. Then what? Well, you shouldn’t consider the issue settled. You still have your will and your happiness to think about.” In Pascal’s view, it makes sense that you should still go for belief in God because that’s the only way to achieve the joy of meaning, purpose, and so forth that comes with belief in God. For the purposes of the story we don’t need to go further. For a better explanation, consult Peter Kreeft’s excellent summary and retooling of the Wager.
Here’s the payout for the story. Pascal argued that believing in God had benefits and joys for this life like meaning, purpose, virtue, and so forth. As we discussed this, my professor—let’s call him Professor Jones—said something I’ll never forget. He asked, gently, but with a hint of sarcasm, “Oh, you mean the joy of going around feeling guilty all the time for your sins?” In Professor Jones’ mind, the corollary of belief in God is an overwhelming and unrelievable sense of guilt for violating his rules. This clearly didn’t seem like a step up to him.
Now, at the time, I didn’t have conversational space, or wherewithal to respond adequately, but if I had, I would have said, “Oh, but Professor Jones, you already walk around struggling with guilt over failing your god.”
Failing Your Gods
Now, what do I mean by that? Well, let me break it down in a few steps.
Everybody Has a God. The first step is understanding that everybody has a god of some sort. The world we live in tends to split people up between believers and non-believers. The Bible has a different dividing line—worshipers of the true God or worshipers of something else. See, everybody has something in their life that they treat as a functional god. Whatever you look to in order to give you a sense of self, meaning, worth, and value is a god. Martin Luther put it this way,
A god means that from which we are to expect all good and to which we are to take refuge in all distress, so that to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe Him from the [whole] heart; as I have often said that the confidence and faith of the heart alone make both God and an idol. –Large Catechism
So whether you believe intellectually, in a deity or not, you still worship something. This is because we were created by God for worship, so if we won’t worship him something else rushes in to plays that role in your life, be it money, career, status, relationships, and so forth. It’s either God, or an idol. There is no other option.
Everybody Follows and Fails that God’s Commands. Following this, every god has commands and demands worship. If you make money your god, then you are under command (compulsion) in order to do whatever it takes to acquire it. You will work as hard as you need to (become a workaholic) and sacrifice whatever you have to (relationships, kids, ethics) in order to get it. When you have it, you feel secure. You’ve achieved and obeyed so the god has blessed you. The flip-side is, if you fail it—make a bad investment, lose your cash in a housing crash—then you feel the loss of security, but also the crushing sense of guilt that comes with failing your god. Wrath descends.
With a few moment’s reflection you can see this everywhere: from the careerist who can’t forgive herself for blowing that promotion, to that bitter young scholar struggling to live up to his father’s expectations, to the mother who crushes herself because her child-god didn’t turn out picture perfect the way she needed her to. All of them struggle under the weight of the guilt brought on by their failure to please their functional gods. All of them suffer guilt and shame, even if we don’t call it that.
David Foster Wallace has a justly famous quote on the subject:
Because here’s something else that’s true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things—if they are where you tap real meaning in life—then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already—it’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power—you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart—you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.
Only the Biblical God Offers Forgiveness and Grace.
Here’s where it all clicked for me, though. I was reading Tim Keller’s The Reason for God and I ran across this brilliant passage at the end of his chapter breaking down this idolatry dynamic:
Remember this—if you don’t live for Jesus you will live for something else. If you live for career and you don’t do well it may punish you all of your life, and you will feel like a failure. If you live for your children and they don’t turn out all right you could be absolutely in torment because you feel worthless as a person. If Jesus is your center and Lord and you fail him, he will forgive you. Your career can’t die for your sins. You might say, “If I were a Christian I’d be going around pursued by guilt all the time!” But we all are being pursued by guilt because we must have an identity and there must be some standard to live up to by which we get that identity. Whatever you base your life on—you have to live up to that. Jesus is the one Lord you can live for who died for you—who breathed his last breath for you. Does that sound oppressive?
. . . Everybody has to live for something. Whatever that something is becomes “Lord of your life,” whether you think of it that way or not. Jesus is the only Lord who, if you receive him, will fulfill you completely, and, if you fail him, will forgive you eternally.
–The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (pp. 170-171)
So to sum up: Everybody has a god. Every god has rules and everybody fails their god. Everybody walks around with guilt and shame. But only the God we find in Jesus Christ will forgive those sins so that we don’t have to walk around feeling guilty all the time. Ironically enough, believing in God isn’t the road to more guilt, but the road out from underneath the guilt you already struggle with.
This is the answer I’d wish I’d given Professor Jones.
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Derek Rishmawy is the Director of College and Young Adult ministries at Trinity United Presbyterian Church in Orange County, CA. He got his B.A. in Philosophy at UCI and his M.A.T.S. (Biblical Studies) at APU. He also contributes at the Gospel Coalition, Mere Orthodoxy, and Leadership Journal, as well as his own Reformedish blog.
Original posted at DerekZRishmawy.com. Used with permission.
3 Ways to Battle Spiritual Depression
Many people today struggle with depression in varying degrees and for a variety of reasons. Some people take medication. Some participate in counseling. Regardless of the cause of depression, the gospel can provide comfort and relief for those who are hurting. I want to look at Psalm 42-43 with a view to understand who God is and how he is a help to those who struggle with depression and discouragement. This post will conclude with a look at three ways to battle spiritual depression with the gospel. Solomon rightly notes in Ecclesiastes 1:18 that with much knowledge and wisdom comes sorrow. This means that as we grow in Christ, we may experience seasons in our walk with God where everything in our lives seems to be down in the dumps. That last sentence in my opinion is a neglected truth in Christianity today. While we are rightly taught that we are to be happy in Christ and enjoy him, it is also important to note that the Christian life is not about living on the mountaintops without also living in the valleys of daily life.
Hope in God
The writer in Psalm 42 points out that the one whose soul is indwelt by the Spirit “pants” for God. This means that those who love God are exhorted to “hope in God” (Psalm 42:5; Romans 5:5). The Psalmist here is describing an intimate relationship with God that Christ came to fulfill in John 14:21. He more fully and deeply can empathize with our feelings since he experienced the full range of human emotions but did not sin as the God-man (Psalm 42:14; Mark 15:35).
The sons of Korah refer to God with three names rich in redemptive significance: God, salvation, and rock. Because this God is living, the psalmist hopes that his thirst for satisfaction in worship will be quenched (Psalm 42:4-5). Christ personally came to bring this ever-living God—and the fullness of his joy—to spiritually dead people (Matt. 22:32; John 15:11; 17:13). The particular aspect of “salvation” that the psalmist pines for—the very presence of God (Psalm 42:2-3)—is precisely what the Savior provided. The psalmist needs around-the-clock protection (v.8); Jesus promises it (Matthew 28:20). The Psalmist mourns for a “rock” to give stability to his life (Psalm 42:9); Christ became the cornerstone (Matthew 21:42; Eph. 2:13-22). If we suffer from spiritual depression, we can find relief in the Savior anticipated in this psalm. We must call our souls to build their confidence on the living Rock who stabilizes, protects, and provides the only basis for joy.
Vocabulary for Our Deepest Emotions
The Psalter in Psalm 43 provides all the vocabulary necessary to articulate our deepest emotions. This Psalm encourages God’s people to express without fear even our disappointments with God. Though God has not rejected him, the psalmist feels as though he has. But God uses even our mistaken beliefs about him to draw us to himself. In Christ, God will ultimately show us the relief from despair for which the psalmist longs (“salvation”). By committing his spirit into God’s hands, the suffering servant experienced vindication (v.1; Isa. 50:7-9; Luke 23:46). Because the Lord upheld him in his righteousness, his “light” could not be overwhelmed, and the “truth” he personified could not be discredited (Psalm 43:3; John 1:5; John 18:37). After Christ’s life provided justification, he was raised in holiness and later ascended to Gods “altar” (Psalm 43:3-4). And there he has received with “joy” the inheritance of the nations (v.4; Acts 4:25-26).
Those who are united to Christ by faith may anticipate the same trajectory of “hope in God” (Psalm 43:5). While many languages do not have an equivalent expression to “my God,” this Hebrew poet assures God’s people that he offers himself to be possessed by faith (John 20:17). Complete consignment to Jesus as our Redeemer will result in vindicating righteousness, guiding light, liberating truth, and emboldening access to Gods throne in prayer (Romans 3:21-26; Ephesians 4:20-24; John 8:32; Hebrews 4:16)
THREE WAYS TO BATTLE DEPRESSION
First, fight spiritual depression with the gospel. The gospel is the power of God and provides the fuel by which we go out and face our day with all of its challenges by the grace of God. Whenever I’m feeling discouraged or depressed I don’t run to my books. Conversely, I spend significant time being quiet in prayer with God preaching the truth about who he is, what he is like, and who Jesus is focusing on what he has accomplished for me in his death, burial, and resurrection. I have also found it helpful to note how he continues to move in my life to grow me to the image of Jesus. In a sense, battling discouragement and depression with the gospel is just another way of applying the reality of who I am in Christ given that fundamental truth alone helps me to get to the bottom of the issue. While I realize some people do seriously struggle with depression and discouragement (if that is you I encourage you to seek professional Christian counseling) what has helped me more than anything else is preaching the gospel to myself.
Second, realize you don’t fight spiritual depression alone. The Bible resoundingly teaches that in the abundance of counselors there is wisdom (Proverbs 11:4). Don’t fake your Christianity acting like everything is okay when it isn’t. Be real about where you are. For most of us that will mean being honest with our close Christian friends about what is going on in our hearts and allowing them to minister to us. On multiple occasions I’ve had to call on close friends to listen, pray, and encourage me. The more you realize that you are not in this Christian life alone and that we desperately need each other, the better. The Christian life is not meant to be lived in isolation but in community with God’s people. Living in community with God’s people and having godly friends to pray for and encourage me has been a huge blessing from God to help me do serious battle against discouragement and depression.
Finally, battling spiritual depression may be spiritual warfare. Some of you struggle with depression and discouragement because a battle is being waged requiring you to take up the full armor of God. Rather than succumbing to the lies of Satan, you need to stand firm in the grace of God and take hold of the “nowness” of the gospel that is your identity as adopted sons and daughters of God. Battling depression and discouragement is hard, but preaching the gospel, applying the truth of who you are in Christ, living in community, as well as knowing when and how you get discouraged are keys in the fight against discouragement and depression.
Whether you struggle with discouragement or depression a little bit or a lot, please don’t suffer in silence. There is hope and healing in Jesus, a Redeemer who is not far from you but near to you. Know that God loves you, sent his Son Jesus Christ to die, rise, ascend, and to serve as our High Priest and Intercessor. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit has called you to the community of saints to hear his Word, to call on his name, and to grow in his grace. Grow deep and wide in the gospel by standing firm in the gospel, not being afraid to be real and honest about your struggles. Moreover, always have a view to lean on your brother and sisters in Christ in time of need so that together we may show the world his unfailing and unchanging love that flows to God’s people from the throne of his grace.
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Dave Jenkins is a servant of Christ, husband to Sarah, writer, and Seattle sports fan. He serves as the Executive Director of Servant of Grace Ministries, the Executive Editor of Theology for Life magazine, the Book Promotions Specialist at Cross Focused Reviews and serves in a variety of capacities as a member of Ustick Baptist Church in Boise, Idaho.
Originally published at Servant of Grace. Used with Permission.
Redeeming Our Offices
Today, we’re re-releasing Jeremy Writebol’s everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present via Kindle on Amazon.com. You can buy your digital copy with one click $6.49.
A Bad Day at the Office
Why is it that we so deeply despise going to work? What is it about the office that causes us to prefer calling in sick, staying in bed, or hiding out for months on end rather than be doing the very thing that God called us to do with his good creation in the first place? Maybe going into the office really was the curse of our dislocation. It seems that work really was the result of our crimes.
Scripture makes it plain in Genesis 2 that work was given to humanity and work was right. But instead of work as we know it, work initially was not about providing for our essential needs like food and shelter. For our first parents, work was art. It was labor to design, cultivate, and express dominion over the established place of God. It was an effort to put decorations and details on the first place of God.
Occasionally, there are projects that I get to spend time working on that are sheer pleasure. They do not provide food for my table or pay off the mortgage. Instead they are labors of love. Tonight my daughter interrupted my writing and asked me to assemble her new LEGO stables. Some 2,000 pieces (and many of them very tiny) and two hours later, we were done. It wasn't anything I was paid to do, but it was still work. And I loved it. This is what going to the office was originally about: forming, cultivating, and managing creatively what God had made. It was art.
Then came the dislocating break of our rebellion. We didn't want to be artists painting on God's canvas. We wanted to make our own canvas. With it came the curse that now plagues our work. Instead of having everything we needed for life, we had to labor to stay alive. Where we were once amply supplied by God, now we were forced to have our cake and eat it, too. We wanted to work independently from God and he allowed it. We have to work to stay alive. This is the daily reality of our rebellion and the curse.
The office lost all of its delight. We found productivity flittered away by thorns and thistles. The soil we needed to survive was dry, hard, and unyielding. Making an existence from day-to-day, paycheck-to-paycheck became our work, and that was where work lost all its art.
Maybe this is why no one feels like going to work in the morning. Mondays are synonymous with the death of our freedom, independence, and life. Work is death and no one likes it. We spend our youth preparing to work, our best years working away, and then end up dying from our work. As the preacher of Ecclesiastes wonders, "What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?" (Ecc. 1:3). This is the blatant effect of our sin and the curse. The office is a den of death.
This is why my friends Bonnie and Brandon don't see the progress of patients recovering to complete health. It's the reason why the hours and hours Eric spends designing aircraft feel fruitless. It's why Andy works a job he doesn’t really desire so that he can put food on the table. It is why, although we seem to see developments in technology, science, politics, economics and the like, nothing seems to be getting better.
Work as Role or Identity?
Is there redemption for our offices? Although we believe in a gospel that saves our souls, could we imagine Christ redeeming our workplaces as well? Could there be salvation for the office too? Yes, but only if we look to the work of Christ. For so many, our work has transitioned itself from a role we were given to an identity we possess. Work became who we are instead of something we do.
The proof of this is found when you meet someone new. Introduce yourself to someone you don't know and the likelihood of you identifying yourself by what you do is very high. Usually we start with our name (“I'm Jeremy”) followed by what we do (“I'm a pastor”). We weigh the value of our lives by our work. The important people are the ones with the great jobs, the large incomes, the high-yield, high-capacity productions. Those who achieve their vocational dreams are the great ones. Those who fail at attaining those degrees are just "working for the man." We live and die by our jobs and their perceived successes and failures.
That's why we need a relocation. Our identity must be shifted away from what we do to who we are. We must be redeemed from perverting our role as workers into our identity as workers.
I find it wonderful that Jesus didn't come with an identity-issue about his work. He knew who he was, the Son of God. He knew what his job was, to give his life as a ransom for many (Mk. 10:45). He didn't have the two confused. And so he came, reminded of his identity by his Father (1:11) to do the work he was sent to do (1:15). He came to do the work we could not do. In substituting himself for us, he worked to fulfilled the Law at every point and win perfect righteousness for us. By standing in our place, he did the work of satisfying God's wrath and removing our sin by dying on the cross for us. In such, he glorified his father and accomplished the work he was sent to do (Jn. 17:5).
Jesus didn't take work away from us. He redeemed us from a life of finding our identity in our work. He didn't live, die, and rise to life again so that we could skip out on the office or marketplace. He lived, died, and arose to life again so that we would glorify him at our office, not worship our office. Instead of living to fulfill the identities we find in our work, Jesus gives us a new identity, his brothers and sisters, so that we can go to work, not to earn an identity but to rest from identity seeking. We go into the office as kingdom citizens to create, cultivate, develop, and design all that the King owns for the King's glory.
Who Are You Working For?
One of the most frustrating aspects of work, beyond the inefficiencies and futility of fruitless work, is the people we work for. Just as we struggle with deep authority issues in relationship with God, we continue to struggle with the authority issues we have with our employers and supervisors. Our bosses can be tyrants, ogres, and despots all in one eight-hour shift. For those of us who are fortunate enough to have a decent boss, we still buckle, from time to time, under the difficulty of not always seeing eye-to-eye. We all have bad days with our superiors.
For Kingdom citizens, the presence of the King in our workplaces deeply alters the way we see our bosses. Paul calls Kingdom citizens to see their work in this light by calling servants to be obedient and submissive to their superiors as if they were serving the King himself (Col. 3:22-24). The renovated heart goes beyond just obedience as a people-pleaser, or giving appearance as such, and calls the citizens of the Kingdom to obey with sincerity while fearing the Lord.
My fighter-jet-engineering friend Randy told me one day of a meeting with his superiors. In the meeting over the design of the jet, his boss became rather irate and excessively direct about a particular portion of the jet's design. Randy was given clear directions that the design of the jet should in every way be "from scratch." It was as if his company wanted to be the Wright brothers all over again and invent flight, this time on the scale of a fighter jet. As Randy debated for particular design similarities, his boss became more and more indignant about the uniqueness of the design. As Randy listened and considered, he knew that he had a responsibility to obey his boss and honor Christ. It didn't make sense, but it was right. It was only later that he discovered his boss’s reasons and Randy ended up benefiting his company and business by his obedience.
This is the kind of renovating work the King does. He transforms his people from rebellious people-pleasers to sincere Kingdom-servants. Work is transformed by the way we work for the ones set in authority over us (1 Pt. 2:13-25).
Working Hard, Working Well
While obedience to our superiors is a kingdom value, is this all that a renovation of our work places brings about? Are we to just be dutiful drones at the jobs in which we take no delight? Does the gospel speak to what we spend our working lives doing? Is there a Kingdom renovation to be done with regard to occupations and vocations? Can a kingdom citizen find the art in their work once again?
Like the false dichotomy of the material and spiritual, bad religion created another dichotomy with regard to our work; sacred and secular. Those that worked jobs in the sacred realms of the church were the ones who worked within a higher calling. They had the blessing of God, treasure in heaven, and a trophy of accomplishing something that lasts for eternity to put on their mantle. For the bankers, butchers, and builders (also known as secular workers), there was the glib promise that one day they could go to heaven and maybe be a worship leader and really please God. However, their vocations and their work were sub-eternal and a less than great calling. What does God need with someone who can carve meat anyway? To this day, it's not too hard to find churches and Christians who still practically affirm this position.
But the Scriptures never affirm a sacred/secular vocational divide. Rather, the word of the King is that "whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord" (Col 3:23). Those three words, "whatever you do," are a major blow to any scared/secular mentality. In those words, the King affirms the unique occupations of Kingdom citizens. Whether it's banking, broadcasting, auto sales, brewing coffee, serving tables, or working at homemaking, the King authorizes his citizens to work well in what they do. He affirms the value of every occupation that cultivates, develops, and advances his authority in his Kingdom. This includes building bridges, teaching children, accounting financial assets, diagnosing physical diseases, and baking pies.
How is this so? How does the bakery become a Kingdom place? First, by the way in which we work. Paul says "whatever you do, do it heartily." There is a way in which Kingdom citizens work for the King. They, by their presence at their work, demonstrate God's nature. They reveal the God who worked hard at the creating of all things; a God who put his full wisdom and glory and creativity into play as he made all things. By the way they work, they show an industrious, productive, intelligent God. They show a God who didn't take short-cuts, who didn't get lazy on the job, and who didn't "phone it in" in his work of creation and redemption.
Second, they also show a Kingdom value in the trajectory of their work. They work "as for the Lord." Their work is aimed at pleasing the King himself. How does an aerospace engineer design planes for the Lord? By making the best planes he can. By using the wisdom and understanding and knowledge the King has gifted him with to understand the laws of nature and develop means by which the creation can be advanced to serve people. How does a baker make pies for the Lord? By baking in such a way that the King himself would enjoy her pies. By baking with a mind to serve her fellow humanity as they delight in the excellent tastes of the pie. They both please the Lord by being creative, honest, diligent, and excellent in their various occupations.
There is a further implication of the resurrection of Jesus here for us in our work. The resurrection of Jesus was his coronation and enthronement as King over all kings. Everything is being brought under subjection to him as King (Ps. 8:6, 1 Cor. 15:27). Our work, done in the name of the King and for the King is participating with him in bringing all things under his authority. The way we develop technology, or manage resources, or develop business strategies, or cook meals, or build houses, or any innumerable sorts of occupations are bringing all things under subjection to Christ. The computer programmer who develops software to advance communication can see himself as utilizing technology for the sake of the King and the advancement of his Kingdom. The doctor who develops wise and resourceful medical practices is bringing the field of medicine under the realm of the King when she does so to keep, preserve and enhance life. The teacher who works with fourth graders is bringing a classroom of students under the dominion of Christ, but educating her class about the physical and moral laws that govern the world in which we live in. All things are brought to rest under the Lordship of Christ as the resurrected King.
As such, the renovating work of the King brings us to our offices (or classrooms or kitchens or laboratories, or whatever we call the space we work in) to work hard and to work for him. He calls us into every sphere of life and vocation to develop and deploy our gifts to show His authority and dominion over all things. He must have workers in every vocation to demonstrate all things are for his glory, even the offices that we spend our days working in. By our work we display an ever-present King in every place.
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Jeremy Writebol(@jwritebol) has been training leaders in the church for over thirteen years. He is the author of everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present (GCD Books, 2014) and writes at jwritebol.net. He lives and works in Plymouth, MI as the Campus Pastor of Woodside Bible Church.
Battling the Idolatry of Insecurity
What was your middle school experience like? To most people, that question will make them cringe. It conjures up all sorts of awkwardness and feelings of insecurity. As someone who consistently struggles with insecurity, many of my days are spent feeling like a frail middle schooler: perpetually in a state of crippling self-doubt and anxiety.
You may not struggle with insecurity as much as I do, but we all have it. I'm assuming most of us would not consider it a virtue. So, how should we fight it?
I was curious how our Westernized, self-help culture would combat this problem, so I investigated some pop psychology blogs to see what they said. What I found were all sorts of strategies to cope with insecurity, things like:
- "Remember your successes instead of your failures."
- "Visualize only good things happening to you."
- "Pursue something you're good at."
- "Surround yourself with only positive people."
There was even one blog that advocated creating a “self-esteem file.”
"It’s a collection of anything anyone has ever said, written, indicated that can be categorized as positive. Someone says something shallow like, ‘I like your shoes.’ Sure, put it in there, with a note ‘I have good taste in shoes.’ Another person mutters, ‘Dude, thanks for listening.’ That goes in there as well: ‘I am a good listener.’”
Ridiculous, right? Here's the thing: I've tried all of these before! So hear me when I say that I found them all lacking. They may bring short-term relief, but they are not solutions, only band-aids. Self-esteem only goes so far because we never live up to our own standards. If our record exclusively informs our view of worth, then we will never feel secure.
Veiled Schemes of Self-Righteousness
We usually think of pride and insecurity as antonyms but they are more like synonyms in this sense: both are veiled schemes of self-righteousness. Pride is thinking too high of oneself and insecurity is thinking too low of oneself, but both put an improper focus on the self. You see, the solution to insecurity is to not look inward but upward.
"The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (Psalm 18:2). Sound secure enough for you? Seriously, could there be any stronger anthem for the insecure to proclaim than that? In Christ, there is no need to be self-righteous because we have been given righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21). We are adopted sons and daughters (Eph. 1:5) and God lavishes his love upon us so much so that we can never be separated from him (Rom. 8:38-39). There is no condemnation in Christ (Rom. 8:1) and God effectually says to us what he said to Jesus, "You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased” (Mk. 1:11). That’s something we can lean into. That’s something that can bear the weight of our self-doubt. That’s where we should find our confidence, security, and significance.
Tim Keller in The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness describes what life would look like if we lived out this gospel-shaped vision of identity:
“Friends, wouldn’t you want to be a person who does not need honour — nor is afraid of it? Someone who does not lust for recognition — nor, on the other hand, is frightened to death of it? Don’t you want to be the kind of person who, when they see themselves in a mirror or reflected in a shop window, does not admire what they see but does not cringe either? Wouldn’t you like to be the type of person who, in their imaginary life, does not sit around fantasizing about hitting self-esteem home-runs, daydreaming about successes that gives them the edge over others?"
Yes, yes, and yes!
The Idolatry of Insecurity
Martyn Lloyd-Jones once wrote, "Most of the unhappiness in your life is because you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself." When your inner middle-schooler comes out, preach to yourself. Don’t battle the idolatry of insecurity with shallow tricks of bolstering your self-esteem. Instead, boldly declare the above-mentioned gospel cues and let the good news soak into your soul. Take confidence and lean into the Savior, knowing that only he can bear the weight. After all, combating insecurity is a discipleship issue. Jesus once told his followers that they must deny themselves to follow him (Matt. 16:24-25). For the insecure (and those discipling the insecure), the focus must be on death to find life—death to the doubts, fears and misplaced sources of significance and life in our grace-giving God.
If there is one redeeming quality to insecurity, it is this: it points us to our need. My prayer for you and myself is that every time it whispers its doubt we will be prompted to turn our eyes upon Jesus.
"Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Ps. 139:23-24).
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Tim Briggs, his wife Jenni, and their three sons Cooper, Graden and Cayson live in Charlotte, NC. Tim is the Creative Media Pastor at Church at Charlotte and is attending classes at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Twitter: @timbriggshere.
Self-Justifying Prayer
Constant and Considerate
After discussing the value of prayer in discipleship in Luke 18:1-8, you would think the subject would be closed. But I do not think it was for Jesus. The concept of the downtrodden and prayerful faithfulness permeates the rest of Luke 18 and it is right after teaching to “pray always” that Jesus presents one of his more famous parables,
“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’” (Lk. 18:10-13).
This is a familiar passage to many. And often prayer’s crucial role in the narrative is neglected. But in context it makes sense that the prayers of the parable are worth studying. The lessons learned are not that unlike the parable of the widow but before a new aspect of importance is added. For, Jesus spoke the parable against those “who trusted in themselves” (18:9). But more importantly they were also people who “treated others with contempt.” Ultimately this is always true. Those that trust their works, theology, and experience of God more than a godly humility mistreat the downtrodden. Christian prayer and discipleship must be constant and considerate, as we shall see from this parable. And with this in mind, Jesus proceeds to contrast sharp distinctions within prayer.
Both men went up to the temple (18:10). Let me put it in modern language: they were members of the same church. One was of good standing in the church and the other the type of person that people don’t usually like. But both were together in the same building.
This makes it interesting then that the Pharisee is said to have stood “by himself” (18:11). As his prayer affirms, when it comes to God this guy is in it for himself. He is willing to praise God (All thanks goes to God!). In fact he praises God for all the good that he does. And he does a lot. He abides by the law. He goes beyond the law (his fasting). And he does not keep anything back from God (his tithe).
Self-Justifying Prayer
What then was he guilty of? Jesus tells us at the start of the parable: he trusted himself and had contempt for others. He stands by himself. He is thankful for himself. And none of his works are focused on others. His prayer is both self-focused and degrading to those who are not on his level.
In contrast, the tax collector (who is also by himself) could not lift up his eyes to God. He too prays in a self-focused manner. There is no thankfulness in his voice. He does not trust in himself. He does not degrade others. He lacks any semblance of pride. But he is the one who went home “justified” (18:14). It would be inappropriate to presume that Jesus is here referring solely to the type of soteriological justification that systematic theology is concerned with. Though it is included—it can also indicate that the worship of the man was accepted before God.
And it is this element that I’d like to stress. For the second sin in Scripture was over denigrating a brother’s acceptance before God (Gen 4) and Christ taught the failure of any worship done while there is strife before brothers (Matt 5:24). Christian discipleship and prayer can never turn in trusting in “us” (whether our theology or works) and denigrating our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Prayer as Essential to Christian Discipleship
Since prayer is essential to Christian discipleship, we should learn from this how it gets abused. For in advancement of discipleship there begins anew the opportunity to say “God, I thank you that I am not like …”
- Those who don’t study and memorize the Scriptures.
- Those who miss church service.
- Those who don’t read as many theology books.
- Those who don’t pray often.
- Those who don’t catechize their children.
- Those who don’t attend Bible Studies.
For each Sunday the Christian disciple gets to determine if they will go home justified in their worship before God. And it will be the one who returns to the realization that they have only accomplished what they should have done (Lk 17:10) that will go home justified. But if we proceed in a spirit of demeaning contempt for our brothers then we must repent of our “discipleship.”
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Joshua Torrey is a New Mexico boy in an Austin, TX world. He is husband to Alaina and father to Kenzie & Judah and spends his free time studying for the edification of his household. These studies include the intricacies of hockey, football, curling, beer, and theology. You can follow him @benNuwn and read his theological musings and running commentary of the Scriptures at The Torrey Gazette.
Pinched by Generosity
Generosity and the Good Life
As Americans, we are born and bred on a version of the “good life.” Wal-Mart proclaims, “Save money, live better,” suggesting the more money we have, the better our lives will be. We pine to get that startup venture we’ve been financing off the ground, get paid the big bucks to do what we love, find that “perfect” home in which to raise a family, or save a huge nest egg so we feel safe and secure—financially, at least. We are told if we just seize the day (“carpe diem”), work hard, be smart with our finances, and clutch to the “land of opportunity,” we can be whoever and own whatever our hearts desire. Is this truly the good life?
Do we not more frequently hear the stories of feeling stressed out, over worked, in debt, or simply discontent? How often do we hear of material struggles due to finances? You may ask, “Is there something wrong with me wanting to invest in a small business? Should I not save for future purchases or retirement? Is it wrong of me to take ahold of the good opportunities that come my way?” Not necessarily. Perhaps you are not asking the right questions. It’s like the teenager asking about sex, “How far is too far?” Instead, you should ask, “What is the implication of being in Christ while living in a city of great comfort and wealth?” “What does it look like to be a disciple of Jesus in a city continually providing opportunities to consume?” Or maybe you should ask, “What does it mean to be generous in the midst of my piles of bills and debt, or limited income?”
In 2 Corinthians 9:6-15, Paul commends the church of Macedonia for its generous collection and calls the Corinthians to share in God’s grace through their generosity towards the Christians in Jerusalem. Much like we see in our great city of Austin (or any thriving, contemporary city), Corinth was an urban center of the region. It thrived off of a strong, flourishing economy and the peoples’ enjoyment of its pleasures. Corinth was modern, booming, and trendy. Opportunity and the hope for the good life filled the air and people inhaled the gratifications of this prosperous city. As such, Paul challenged the Corinthians’ default view of wealth, status, and their definition of the good life. In this passage, Paul plunges into the theological underpinnings of generosity.
Sowing Bountifully, Reaping Bountifully
Paul shares a familiar old farming principle “…whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (v. 6). Paul is not preaching a prosperity gospel to the Corinthians. Some use this passage as a proof text and, unfortunately, ignore Paul’s further words; they simply believe if I give, I will get. “Well, God I gave you 5% more last month. Where is my raise, the job you were supposed to provide . . . what about helping me pay this tax bill I just received from the IRS?” This belief demeans the core of Paul’s exhortation of the Corinthians. It appeals to a selfish, materialistic theology rather than to a theology of sacrificial, selfless generosity. When interacting with God in this manner, we move the focus from God to ourselves. We become more concerned with what we have received (or haven’t received) versus what we have been given. We miss the tremendous generosity and provisions that have already been graciously handed down to us. Paul does not provide the Corinthians a shrewd investment strategy for them to accumulate wealth nor is he teaching the key to negotiating and getting what you want from God. Rather, Paul reveals that through their willing generosity, they are participating in God’s generosity and provision, bringing glory to God—the source of all grace.
Farmers aren’t stingy with the seeds they sow because they know their harvest will continue to produce seed for further planting. For a farmer, sowing a lot of seed is not considered a loss, but rather gain. Paul says, “You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way, which through us will produce thanksgiving to God. For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God” (vv. 11-12). God could provide everyone’s needs without us, but he chooses to allow us to participate in his generosity. He provides for our needs, and then he “enriches” us for the sake of generosity. And if we remain generous, he will continue to enrich us so that there will be much fruit from our giving. This is what Paul means when he says, “Whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully!”
Generosity, It’s a Heart Issue
What the Corinthians are to do as believers is clear in Paul’s mind, but he does not explicitly command them. Paul says, “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart” (v. 7). Paul goes out of his way to avoid giving the impression that he is trying to force them to give. He knows that if they comply with his appeal, they will do so out of obedience and love towards Christ rather than obedience to him. The implication is that we give willingly, thoughtfully, and joyfully.
C.S. Lewis makes this keen observation,
“I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusement, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our giving does not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say it is too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot because our commitment to giving excludes them.”
When did you last say “no” to something because of your commitment to generosity? Do you sit down, pray, and discuss your giving and if you are being pinched by your generosity?
We should routinely seek the Holy Spirit in our giving. Families need to do this together. Parents, you should include your children. Let them see true generosity. Let them in on how your family is being pinched by its commitment to God to be generous. Ask God to pinch your idea of comfort and security, and pray for your church, your city, world missions, and church planters. Also, consider sharing this with your Fight Club or City Group. Ask them to challenge the heart motives behind your giving. Share your fears and complacencies about giving. Let the Holy Spirit break down the money barrier.
Often times we do not enjoy discussing money because we all lean towards spending more on ourselves rather than others and God. Let the gospel in to work on your heart. Generosity is not just a money matter, it’s a gospel matter! The gospel should transform your heart and its views of spending, saving, and giving. It’s not simply about the amount you give, but it is about the condition of your heart from which you give. Are you giving out of joy or pressure? Do you not give so that you remain comfortable/secure or are you willing to be pinched by your generosity? It’s a heart issue . . . one that only the gospel can restore.
God Loves a Cheerful Giving
Paul continues, “. . . not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” When you give with a begrudging heart or merely out of pressure or necessity, you sow sparingly, unwillingly, and cheerlessly. Your gifts no longer come from a cheerful, hopeful heart for God and his mission, but rather a self-centered, self-worshipping heart that looks to yourself and your rights. “I’m a hard worker. I’m ‘wise’ with money. I save. And I give what I’m supposed to give. Am I not owed a little to buy the things I want. After all, I did work for it!”
Paul says, “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness” (v. 10). “Now, wait a second, I went and bought the seed myself, and it was my hands that kneaded the dough.” We forget what we have is not owed to us, but rather was the righteous provision and generosity of God.
Miroslav Volf in Free of Charge gives the illustration of an interaction between a little boy and his father: “Daaad! Where’s my milk?” screams the little boy. He’s bothered that the glass of milk is not in his hand the moment he requested it. No need for “please” or “thank you” because that is why dads and moms exist, to serve him, at least in his little mind. The boy has yet to learn that much of what his mom and dad do for him is out of their generosity. They don’t owe it to him. I’m sure many parents can relate to this. Like the little boy, his dad too often makes the same mistake. He forgets that his money, job, every provision, even the demanding little boy are not somehow owed to him. They are God’s generosity and provision. Like the dad, we easily forget that all of it is God’s gift.
Perhaps you find yourself on the other side thinking, “Things are financially tight right now, so I can’t be generous. God, when you bless me with financial security I’ll start being generous.” In either scenario, you give your leftovers—assuming there are leftovers. Giving cheerfully of your first fruits acknowledges that God has bestowed his perfect generosity upon you and is your sole source of provision. David Garland, in his commentary on 2 Corinthians, says,
“Reluctance to sow generously, then, reflects a refusal to trust that God is all sufficient and all gracious. It also assumes that we can only give when we are prospering and have something extra that we will not need for ourselves. Paul says that at all times God provides us with all that we need so there is never any time when we cannot be generous.”
Paul’s point is “God loves a cheerful giver because he, himself, is the Cheerful Giver!”
God, the Cheerful Giver
How do we not give from our last fruits, but cheerfully, willingly, faithfully with hopeful anticipation? Paul says, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (v. 8). He says, “God loves cheerful givers, and God makes it possible for you to be a cheerful giver!” Why? Because God is the Cheerful Giver! Now, this doesn’t mean wait until you are ecstatic to give. It means we can repent of finding too much comfort in our financial security and materialism rather than the comfort of God’s perfect generosity. It means we can turn in cheerful repentance to God because he’s given us the greatest gift ever—Jesus Christ!
God did not have to redeem, restore, and bring us into his eternal generosity, “but he so loved the world, that he gave his only Son” because he is the Cheerful Giver! God the Father brings us into his perfect generosity through Jesus! Paul had just finished saying in 2 Corinthians 8:9, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” How often do you consider yourself rich? How often do you wake up to the reality of your wealth and provision in Christ? Or how often do you wake desiring more and feeling discontent? People who, in faith, are pinched by their generosity, it’s not because they are merely obligated, it’s because their faith is in Jesus who was pinched, squeezed, and crushed so that we would be lavished by his generous grace! What’s more when we are pinched by the generosity of God’s grace it shines the glory of God in Christ (2 Cor. 9:13)! “[By the evidence of this service], they will glorify God because of your submission that comes from your confession of the gospel of Christ.” A false prosperity gospel teaches, “You need to give in order to get,” but God, the Cheerful Giver, says, “I’ve already given you provision for your every need—spiritually, physically, financially, simply because it’s my nature and I love you! This may even include giving you less financially in order to give you more spiritually, to truly enrich you so that you may abound in good works!”
Paul says, “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (v. 15). Paul doesn’t offer thanks to the Corinthians for being supportive to Paul’s exhortation and opening their wallets to one another. Rather, he appropriately directs it to God in Christ, the giver of all perfect gifts, who was pinched, squeezed, and crushed so that we could enter, share, and participate in his generosity! You want to live as you are in Christ, and be a part of God’s work and mission, be generous! You want God to use you and multiple you in good works, cheerfully and freely give. You really want the good life? Let your comfort be pinched by God’s generosity. Saying “no” because of your commitment to generosity is Christ saying “no” so that that his generosity spreads to the world.
It is my prayer that the Holy Spirit will free you from the bondage of materialism and wealth accumulation into selfless giving, (not because of your ability but) because of God’s infinite selfless generosity . . . that you feel the pinch of God’s call to be a generous people. We give because God first gave! That’s living a good life.
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Austin Becton and his wife, Caitlin, live in Austin, Texas where he serves as treasurer of City Life Church and board member of GCDiscipleship.com. An accounting consultant by trade, he partners with churches, non-profits, and small to mid-size companies. He is currently pursuing an MA in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary. Twitter: @AustinBecton
Resisting Social Darwinism
There are few things that make me more proud to be the pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville than CPC’s special emphasis on children with special needs. Once a year, our children’s staff has an amazing “vacation Bible school” for kids with special needs and their siblings. There is also a monthly expression of this called “Special Saturdays” which does several things. First, it pulls a community together to participate in something that Jesus is pleased with. After all, Jesus, always gave special attention to the weak and disadvantaged. Second, it affirms that every person has dignity or, as Martin Luther King, Jr. said, ‘there are no gradations in the image of God.’ Third, it reminds us that, sometimes to our surprise, people with special needs have more to teach us about the kingdom of God than we have to teach them. King David understood this. After his best friend Jonathan died in battle, his first order to his staff was to tell him if there was anyone to whom he could show favor for Jonathan’s sake.
Enters Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s orphaned son who is crippled in both feet.
Rather than saying, “On second thought . . .” or assuming a retail approach to relationships (a retail approach runs from sacrifice and prioritizes being relationship with people who are more useful than they are costly), David assures Mephibosheth that his future will be bright. David promises to restore the entire fortune of his predecessor King Saul, also Mephibosheth’s grandfather, to the young man. Second, David adopts him as his own son, assuring him that he will always have a seat at the king’s table. You can read the full story in 2 Samuel 9.
In this instance, David demonstrates what a heart that’s been transformed by the gospel is capable of—an extreme other-orientation. His first order to his staff as king sends a message. “My kingliness will not be marked by domineering. It will be marked by love and sacrifice.” David starts his reign by actively looking for an opportunity to lay down his life for someone who needs him to do this. He is actively looking, in other words, to limit his own options, to shut his own freedoms down, in order to strengthen an orphan who is weak.
Eugene Peterson says that hesed love—the word used to describe the love that David has for Jonathan and Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan—sees behind or beneath whatever society designates a person to be (disabled, option limiting, costly, etc.) and instead acts to affirm a God-created identity in the person. In other words, Peterson is saying that to be human is to carry intrinsic value and dignity.
My friend Gabe Lyons wrote a beautiful essay about his son Cade, who has Down Syndrome. In the essay Gabe points out that over 92% of children in utero with Down Syndrome are aborted. Gabe offers a refreshing, counter-culture perspective from the parents of the other 8%. His essay is a celebration of Cade’s dignity, as well as the remarkable contribution Cade makes in the lives of people around him. He demonstrates an uncanny ability to live in the moment, a remarkable empathy for others, a refreshing boldness, and a commitment to complete honesty.
Gabe, along with the many parents who grace our church with the presence of their children who have special needs, are simply practicing good theology. Because the neighbor love part of the Kingdom of God is, at its core, a resistance movement against social Darwinism. Social Darwinism—‘survival of the fittest’ in the human community—tells us that it is those who are powerful, privileged, handsome, rich and wise who command our special attention, while those who are weak, physically or mentally challenged, and poor are ignorable at best, and disposable at worst.
But nobody is ignorable. And nobody is disposable. Every person, whether an expert or a child with special needs, is a carrier of an everlasting soul.
There are no gradations in the image of God.
In terms of gifting, resources, and opportunity, everyone is different. In terms of dignity and value, everyone is the same. As Francis Schaeffer once said, ‘There are no little people.”
How do we know this? Because of how Jesus chose to take on his humanity. He, the Creator of everything that is, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Alpha and the Omega, the Seed who crushed the serpent’s head, the Beginning and the End, became weak, disabled, and disposed of.
There was nothing about him that caused us to desire him . . . he was despised and rejected by men. He came to his own, but his own did not receive him.
He chose that.
Jesus became poor so we could become rich in God. He was orphaned so we could become daughters and sons of God. He was brutally executed so we could live abundantly in his Kingdom. He was made invisible so we could be seen. He became weak so we could become strong. He became crippled in both feet…and in both hands also…so we could walk and not grow weary, so we could run and not grow faint.
If this isn’t enough to convince you that every person matters . . .
. . . what will?
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Scott Sauls, a graduate of Furman University and Covenant Seminary, is foremost a son of God and the husband of one beautiful wife (Patti), the father of two fabulous daughters (Abby and Ellie), and the primary source of love and affection for a small dog (Lulu). Professionally, Scott serves as the Senior Pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Prior to Nashville, Scott was a Lead and Preaching Pastor, as well as the writer of small group studies, for Redeemer Presbyterian of New York City. Twitter: @scottsauls.
Originally posted at www.scottsauls.com. Used with permission.
20 Ways to Poison the Monsters: A Training Manual For Demons
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” —Ephesians 6:12
This is an excerpt from Monstra by Chemosh. This book is used to train mid-ranked demons in the Prince’s army.
In order to poison the monsters He loves, the ones He calls men and even “children,” here are 20 things you must lead our slaves–and His–to do. . .
1. Christianize popular ideas. In the United States, for example, tolerance equals love. Train them to quote 1 Corinthians 13 while ignoring other verses that are intolerant. Leaders must tell their hearers that love equals tolerance and equality, so that in the name of love leaders may encourage their hearers to love them by tolerating their heresy. No one wants to be labeled “intolerant” today because if one is labeled “intolerant” it’s the same as being labeled “unloving.” Use this reality to our advantage. Have the monsters care more about what other monsters think than what He thinks.
2. Put heresy in a Christian song with Christian lingo and a good beat. It will be sung in churches all over the world. Turn the music ministers to our side and rule the church. They are the new priests and popes in Evangelicalism.
3. Appeal to adolescence. Due to our influence and their depraved little hearts, every teenager and adult wants to break away from the ideas of their parents and grandparents. Train our slaves to cater to this adolescent mentality. Tell them to suggest that they’re teaching something relevant (new), as opposed to what their parents and grandparents previously taught. In other words, have them appeal to the pride of their hearers. Train their hearers to believe their spirituality is greater than the spirituality of those before them.
4. Put heresy in a song with some sentimentality. Monsters easily forget who gave them their families and friends—Him. Many monsters like to sing about how mommies, babies, daddies, etc. are the glory of Heaven. We don’t care who they think the glory of Heaven is, so long as it’s not Him. Train our servants to capitalize on this weakness.
5. Create an atmosphere that makes people feel good. Heresy should anger His children, but if you make them feel good with the music, singing, prayers, videos, entertainment, and sermons, then our servants can sneak heresy in. Monsters find it hard to recognize heresy when all of their senses are peaked. When the bottom-feeder likes what he sees, hears, and feels thinking and discernment are cast aside. Train our monsters to lull their hearers into a euphoric sleep, so they then can deliver their poison.
6. Appeal to the sinful nature. Monsters love to hear how good they are, for their hearts hate their guilty consciences. Hide the light with darkness by appealing to the darkness that is already within them. In other words, do not expose their evil deeds as defined by Him; rather redefine “evil.” Remember, you cannot call light darkness. They will rebel against you if you do. But you can call darkness light when speaking of their hearts. They want to believe us because their hearts are like ours. Give them what they want.
7. Tell amazing stories. His monsters and ours alike love to hear amazing stories where He recently moved in a “mighty” way. They’re constantly looking for a new sign that He is not dead. They’ve heard the stories in the Bible enough. They long for something fresh and new. Give it to them. But use some Scripture to hide the heresy, so that your stories are treated as authoritative. Remember, there is no need to prove their authority; one only needs to preach them as authoritative.
8. Appeal to the idolatry of your hearers. We do not care who they worship, so long as they do not worship Him. If your monsters live in an entertainment-centered society, make sure you train them to entertain while presenting their heresy. If they live in a postmodern society, make sure they say nothing absolute while appealing to the only truth they know: “I’m not sure.” Monsters love false-humility.
9. Speak in non-absolutes. Train our slaves to preface every sermon and lesson with, “I think, I believe,” while never saying, “I know.” Eventually their hearers will see their beliefs as their beliefs, and not necessarily the beliefs of the prophets, apostles, and Christ. The underlying assumption for such language is that there is no absolute truth. If there’s no absolute truth, then there’s no such thing as heresy. Their hearers will eventually redefine “orthodoxy” as “heterodoxy” while believing that neither exist. We’ve got them!
10. Dress it up in new clothes. Do not train our monsters to present heresy how previous heretics presented it. Instead, train them to dress it up in new clothes. They must present the heresy like the scheming politician we trained does. They should use catch-phrases that sound biblical. Most people will walk away thinking, saying, and believing their catch-phrases.
11. Major on specific Bible verses while intentionally ignoring those that contradict your interpretation. Biblical ignorance is our ally. Train our bottom-feeders to connect verses with other verses with other verses. Even if these verses have no contextual connection, if they use Scripture arbitrarily, they can teach heresy from the Bible. The goal is to give their hearers half-truths, but not the complete truth. Half-truths are the make-up of heresy, and some Scripture is your ally in this endeavor.
12. Change definitions. If you train our slaves to change the definitions of words, they can sign any confession or document, or agree with any orthodox doctrine. They know what they mean; just make sure no one else does. Have them please everyone a little bit. After all, when it comes to doctrine in evangelicalism, monsters don’t have to be orthodox, they just need to sound orthodox. Even our Prince sounds orthodox.
13. Accustom your hearers to statements you tout as facts that cannot be proven right or wrong. Train our slaves to make vague statements that hang midair such as, “God is going to do something amazing,” “I feel like revival is coming,” “God told me someone is going to give a large sum of money,” etc. These statements all lack sufficient proof. There’s no timetable for validation. As their hearers grow more accustomed to unfounded, indemonstrable prophecies, they’ll seek no validation from their prophets for unfounded, indemonstrable heretical statements either.
14. Appear cool, sweet, hip, or simply different from other pastors. Train our monsters to look like celebrities. They should say curse words from the pulpit occasionally and be edgy shock-jocks. Train each generation to rebel against or redefine the light of the previous generation.
15. Pray and preach like you’re the high priest in the pulpit. Train our monsters to act like they’re receiving a special anointing that exalts them above their hearers as they preach. This way, their hearers will come expecting to hear from Him through our monsters, thinking that they have the only word from Him, instead of believing that the Scriptures have a word from Him as well. See, our monsters can become His mouthpiece. Heresy is easy to indoctrinate when bottom-feeders think you alone speak for Him. The goal is for our hearers to view our monsters as a type of high priest, prophet, or apostle who have divine authority. Our monsters must attack the priesthood of His children by exalting themselves in the pulpit, if their heresy is to be accepted by Bible-readers.
16. Get everyone to like your personality. If everyone likes our slaves, then they can say almost anything. Train them to always be positive and encouraging. Monsters need to feel secure, regardless of reality. If our slaves can make them feel secure, they will be ours forever.
17. Train our slaves to exalt the words of His Son above the words of the apostles. Act as if Christ’s words are greater than the words of the Holy Spirit spoken through the Scripture writers. Then, they may reject the progressive revelation that further amplifies the words of Christ in the rest of the New Testament, and replace it with their own heretical interpretations. Teach them that their interpretation of Christ’s words in the Gospels is better than the interpretation of Christ’s words by Luke, Peter, Paul, John, Jude, and James (men who walked with Him) in the the New Testament. If you encourage monsters to trust themselves more than they trust those who wrote Scripture, heresy will be the natural outcome.
18. Grow the crowd numerically. If our slaves’ methods produce visible numbers, then they can say almost anything. Monsters love bare numbers, for numbers–not biblical obedience–equal success. We do not care what they trade their souls for, so long as they trade.
19. Speak of previous heretics as martyrs. Train our monsters to act like previous heretics were sweet little lambs who fell victim to evil oppressive idolaters. Their hearers probably won’t check the history of these monsters, but if they do, it’s necessary for our slaves to reinterpret church history prior to their research. You must give them an interpretive grid that helps them view church history through our eyes. If they view heresy in church history through the lens of tolerance, they’ll tolerate the heresy of our slaves as well. After all, all His children have a right to believe whatever they want, even if it goes against Scripture.
20. Increase giving and baptisms. If our slaves bring in money and decisions for baptisms, they can do or say almost anything. Make sure the world thinks they’re a big deal. If the world likes them, the monsters will like them as well.
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Jared Moore serves as the senior pastor at New Salem Baptist Church in Hustonville, KY. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Originally published at All Truth is God’s Truth. Used with permission.