6 Lessons from Everyday Discipleship

As lead pastor of Grace Covenant Church, I equip disciple-makers every week through preaching the gospel from the front (we call this our air-war). As a Christian, I make disciples in the every day through leading a gospel community from my home (we call this our ground war). Though known for being mildly thick in the head, if you give me enough clues I’ll eventually get it, with some help. One of the things I’m currently learning is the more involved I am in the ground-war work, the more affective I am in my air-war work. The ground war is hard, slow, messy, up-close, and personal. Daily being involved in the the ground war prevents my weekly air-war delivery from becoming cold, distant, impersonal, un-attached, and reckless. In other words, my involvement with both makes me more effective in both. Here are six lessons I’m learning as I lead my family to live in community with other people while making disciples of believers and unbelievers in the every day of life.

1. LEARN TO FACILITATE A SINGLE CONVERSATION

You're not there to teach them everything you know, you’re there to facilitate the Holy Spirit guiding them into self-discovery. Be intentional...don’t let 5 conversations go at once where everyone is talking over everyone else and no one’s listening to anyone. Instead, learn to facilitate a single discussion, where people are listened to, loved, shown interest in, and asked questions of. You’ll be blown away at what will happen.

2. MISSION IS MESSY, SO DON'T AVOID IT, MOVE INTO IT

If you’re not discouraged, overwhelmed, tired, hopeless, frustrated...you’re probably not making disciples. You’re just not. You might be attending a nice Bible study where people come, share polite observations and leave, but you’re not in anyone’s life. You’re not under the hood. You're not past the facade. So you’re simply not making disciples (although you may be disciplining people to hide their stuff and perform for other people’s approval?) Gospel discipleship is messy. Everything gets exposed. No on gets to hide. So remember, when the crap hits the fan, don’t dread it, embrace it. Thank Jesus for it. It’s prime opportunity for discipleship. Don’t see sin as defeat, see it as an act of grace through which the Spirit is exposing unbelief so we can all learn, grow, repent, and turn again to Jesus.

3. LEARN TO TRUST THE HOLY SPIRIT

Making disciples is an exercise in learning to trust the Holy Spirit, not be the Holy Spirit. You don’t have to trust the Holy Spirit listening to me preach a sermon. But when you’re out trying to make disciples, strap on. The water level rises quickly as your unbelief, lack of skill, and ungodly character get exposed for the world to see. Worse, you realize you can’t change anyone at the heart level. You just can’t. You might be able to strong-arm people to change a few external habits through the application of enough guilt and calls for more will power, but we all know how long that kind of change will last. So it’s discouraging and humbling all at the same time. And then it becomes freeing when you realize the pressure’s off. You can’t do it! Now you get to act like you believe that by trusting the only One who can to do the heavy lifting. Phew! What a relief. Unless Jesus shows up, this will be a waste of time. Guess what? Now you’re in a place of utter dependance upon the Spirit of God working through the power of the gospel. That is a good place to be when making disciples. It doesn’t remove any of the weight or urgency, it just removes the pressure. He is the one who can correct, teach, rebuke and encourage. You just have to listen to the Spirit and ask the right questions.

4. LEARN TO PERSEVERE

What I really mean when I say that is: show up. Just flat-out, every time, rain or shine, feel like it or not, show up. I say that because most people don't. Lots of leaders start strong with lots of enthusiasm, but in the long run bring little sticking power. And you just won't make disciples if you don't stay after it. Let me explain. Wednesday is the hardest day of the week for me. Every week. No exceptions. It’s also when our gospel community gathers for our “structured” time of learning (we share a meal and then dive in). Coincidence? I don't think so. There hasn’t been a Wednesday I haven’t been tempted to cancel. Long day, stuff at work, kids get sick, you name it. Wednesday is official crap-interface-fan day, because the enemy wants me to quite, to cancel, to make up excuses, to go home and veg. Maybe even hit the sack early for a change? Anything but open my home and invest in other people's lives.

My selfishness, neediness, idols and unbelief all come boiling to the surface about 4:30 every Wednesday afternoon. And it's what happens in that moment that determines whether or not I'm going to be a person who makes disciples for the long run. No wonder Paul said he beats his body (I Cor. 9:27). This is flat out work, and my flesh often rebels and just wants to take a break. So I have to repent of my dependance upon myself, of my desire to avoid discomfort, and push ahead.

By 10:00 that night I’m standing in my kitchen, amazed, saying “Dear Jesus, thank you for saving me from myself. Again.”

Because there just aren’t any “average” nights when Jesus is at work. Every night something significant changes for someone. A penny drops. A connection gets made for an unbeliever. A new believers shares a fresh insight into God’s grace that rocks all of us. An old believer get convicted in a new way. Questions get asked, wrestling takes place, sin gets confessed, grace gets applied, tears get shed, laughter c and my ripples through the house, and my heart is once again full. And I almost missed it to indulge my selfishness! And often times the best moments come from where I least expected, from those I don’t even think were listening or paying attention. So the simple lesson is this: don’t trust in how you “feel”, trust that the Holy Spirit that is working and just wants you to be obedient. So show up. And watch Him do his thing.

5. LEARN TO MAKE A PLAN, BE FLEXIBLE, EMBRACE THE UNEXPECTED

One night my entire GC canceled between 4 and 5:30. I came out of a meeting and had 5 texts, all with differing reasons why they couldn't make it (all legitimate by the way, no complaining here). Great, I thought to myself. A young gal who was a new believer in our group was bringing her unbelieving boyfriend over for the first time, and I was frustrated. This was supposed to be the night we would show him our "family" identity! We had talked about it, planned it, prepared for it. And now everyone had bailed and he’d show up and it’d just be me? Some family. Totally lame. When he showed up I did the only thing I could think of. I asked him if he wanted to help me do the dishes while Sharon put the kids to bed. We cleaned the kitchen for an hour, and in the process I got to hear his story. The night I had pegged for a total wash (no pun intended) turned into the ice-breaking relational-building event that motivated him to come back again the next week.

See what happened? I know, it seems small. But small is big in disciple making. We'd made a plan, it fell apart, we flexed, and I spent an evening hanging with just him getting to know his story. For him, that night I went from “the pastor” to a real person who cared enough to ask questions and listen to his stuff. And none of this could have happened had things gone the way I’d planned.  Jesus knew what was needed. Make a plan, be flexible, and embrace the unexpected. (Oh, and by the way, we’ll be baptizing that young man this summer!)

6. LEARN TO PLAY THE LONG GAME

When you’re in community, and building relationships, and inviting people into your life, and really caring for them, it gives you freedom. You can have hard conversations, you can dig into to the real issues, and you don’t feel the weight of having to address every issue in a single conversation because you’re going to see that person the next day. You don’t have to hit a home run every time. You’re looking for base hits. And the accumulative affect of that will blow your mind. In one sense there’s urgency in our disciple-making; in another sense there’s patience, because I’m wanting to make a life-time disciple out of the men in my group, and I’m willing to stick it out.

It also means I don’t have to point out every little thing I see wrong with them. I love them, I walk with them, I ask lots of questions, I talk about the gospel, and before I know it...they’re confessing the sin that I saw a long time ago! But it’s not because I pointed it out and now they want to change in order to please me, it’s the Holy Spirit convicting them of their sin or unbelief and working in their heart true change.

So hear this...you don’t have to return the kick-off for a touchdown. 2 yards over the right tackle is progress. 4 yards up the middle is progress. Stack a few first downs together and after a series of plays, guess what, you’re staring at the end-zone. Disciple-making is not a series of hail-mary’s for touchdowns. It’s a series of well-planned and executed first-downs that regularly put you in the Red Zone for striking distance.

LAST WORD

Making disciples isn’t a recipe. Neither is this article. These are ideas. These are components of a healthy group. These are disciple-making tools. Don't look for a recipe. If it doesn't work, change it. Make an adjustment. Make it your own. Just like a baseball swing...there are some mechanics that are a must. Every good hitter has them. But many of their swings look different. The fundamental mechanics are buried under their personal adaption of the basics. So make these your own, get on the field, try stuff out, scrap it when it doesn't work, tweak it when you get stuck, and make adjustments as you go. And above all, keep swinging!

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Josh McPherson serves as lead pastor of Grace Covenant Church in Wenatchee WA, a church he helped plant in 2008. He is a member of Acts 29 and graduated from the Resurgence Training Center in 2010. He also holds an undergraduate degree in biblical studies and is currently finishing his graduate degree from Western Seminary. He and his wife Sharon have four children: Ella Mae, Levi Gregory, Amelia Claire, and Gideon Joshua. Twitter: @JoshMcPherson79

Related Articles:

• Our Hunger for Community by Brad Watson
• Radical Individualism and the Church as Family by Joe Hellerman
• Meet Jill and Cliff (& The Holy Spirit) by Josh Cousineau

The Walls Are Screaming

Kyle Worley is a connections minister at The Village Church in Dallas, TX. He is the author of Pitfalls: Along the Path to Young and Reformed and blogs regularly at The Strife. He holds a double B.A. in Biblical Studies and Philosophy from Dallas Baptist University. He is currently completing a M.A. in Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and is pursuing a M.A. in Religion at Redeemer Seminary. You can find Kyle on Twitter: @kyleworley. ___

The house had never felt so empty. Don’t misunderstand me; when we had initially moved in there was no furniture, no coffee mugs, no books. But, standing in the middle of what was our house, with all of our possessions packed into a U-Haul in the driveway, it felt like the walls were screaming at us.

The home was a treasure chest of memories. The first home for my wife and I, the first house we had filled with pictures, the house where I wrote my first book, the house where I had spent Saturday nights praying before preaching the Word on Sunday mornings. It was the first thing that didn’t belong to her or to me, but to “us.”

It had also been a place for others to gather. During the three years that we lived there we hosted over a hundred missional community gatherings where we shared our lives with others. People came and went. Some got saved and some got sent. We shared meals and we shared tears. We celebrated and we prayed. There were cookouts, dinners, parties, hymn sings, bible studies, counseling appointments, fundraisers, and arguments in that house.

I had always heard people say, “Boy, if these walls could talk.” And standing in the middle of that empty house this is what they said:

“Live in the Light”

There were countless times where Lauren and I dreaded having our home be an open place. People would randomly stop by when we had been arguing, our missional community gathering would fall in the middle of an insanely busy week, or we would just be in a season where we weren’t fit to lead.

But the walls were preaching to me, “Live in the light…let people in.” It’s as if they knew that the times where we wanted to push people out, were precisely the moment where we needed to let people in. Let them see the good, the bad, and the ugly. Let them see that the pastor struggles with anxiety and anger. Let them see that a healthy marriage doesn’t sweep troubles under the rug, but exposes them to the light of the gospel.

What if the walls of your home could talk? What do you think they might say? Is your house stained with stories? If not, why?

As I listened closer, the walls continued to speak, saying:

“Come to the Table”

We shared our dinner table with the homeless, the broken, and the victorious. The faithful congregant and the committed unrepentant had a seat at our long black table. My wife is a marvelous host and her hands served crying high school girls, brash high school boys, children out of wedlock, and “holier-than-thous.”

Sometimes the food was burnt. Sometimes the coffee was cold. But even when the conversation was stale, the guest was awkward, or we were in a tiff, without fail the Lord used that dinner table as a sacred space. That dinner table never held the bread and wine, but it reminded me that the only qualification for coming to the table during worship is being a repentant sinner who is clinging to Christ.

Who is welcomed at your table? What social capital must one possess to be seated at your right hand? Jesus says, “Come to the table and feast with me. Feast on me.”

While I was walking out of the house, crossing the threshold of our front door, I turned around to lock the door and looked up at the door. There is nothing unique about our door, except that it is painted crimson red. It had become the way we identified our home to those first-time visitors, unexpected guests, and friends visiting from out of town. We would say, “Drive down the street till you see a home with a red door…that’s us.”

As I looked at that red door, I leaned in expecting to hear a whisper, but was surprised by a shout:

“Stay Under the Blood”

Our door welcomed the lost, the believer, the seeker, and the saint. Even when our missional community failed to show compassion to the wanderer, or Lauren and I turned a blind eye on a houseguest desperate for grace, the Lord was moving and working. Our home never saved a person, but we saw salvation. Our home never placed the missionary call on a person’s life, but many were sent out. Our home never put food on a plate that belonged to us, but many were fed.

I was the first person to enter that house and the last to leave, and there wasn’t one day during my three years there that I didn’t have to run to the fountain and plunge myself deep beneath the “cleansing blood.”

I fought demons in that house…under the blood. I preached the word in that house…under the blood. I wronged my wife in that house…under the blood. I laughed in that house…under the blood. I wept in that house…under the blood. I prayed in that house…under the blood. I loved my wife in that house…under the blood.

My good deeds were directed Godward by the blood and my sins were made white as snow by the blood.

What banner do you live under in your home? Is both good and bad received under the blood?

That U-Haul truck might have been packed with possessions, but as I walked through that empty house, I realized it was packed from wall-to-wall with memories.

When you leave your home, what will your walls be screaming? I pray that they are screaming out the glories of grace that have become permanent stains in your home.

The Implications of A Globally Exalted God

I want to suggest that you take your time in reading through this article. Pause with me for a while today, if you are able, and reflect. I want to invite you to read, pray, think and work your way through this mutual reflection one section at a time. This invitation isn't a mandate, however, I do believe that this sort of slowing down and pondering might give us a better idea of what action to take as we assess things. So slow down, think, pray, and let's reflect together. 

The Grace of My Location

Where are you? Where are you from? I happen to be in middle of Wichita, Kansas. I was born in Colorado, lived all over the United States growing up, and spent most of my life up to this point in California. In every place I've lived there has been a few constants like language, currency, driving on the right side of the street, the message of the gospel, a church building of some fashion or another. For my entire lifetime it has been relatively easy to have access to what I consider the most valuable thing in all of life: the gospel.

I've lived in small rural towns, super-sized cities, and suburban developments. The gospel has always been an accessible reality for me. As I reflect on the fact of my national wanderings and my access to the gospel, I have to give thanks. God, by his kindness, has birthed me into a land where gospel access and gospel fluency is accessible fairly easily. Even the development of the Internet, because of my native language of English, allows me greater proximity to the gospel message, and probably to local believers in the gospel. I thank and praise the Lord for his kindness to me in that regard. What about you? Where have you lived? Did you have, or do you now have consistent and strong access to the gospel?

The Global Realities

Now, let me move the lens back to a wider panoramic. This last year I've already spent time in the second largest nation in the world, India. I've walked some of the neighborhoods of the largest city in the world, Tokyo. In each of these places the proximity of the gospel, and gospel expressions of churches and gospel communities was almost too small to even record. Conservative estimates state that for every four people in the United States there is one Christian¹. In Japan the ratio is exponentially higher. For every five hundred (500) people there might be one Christian². The Dunbar Number suggests that the average human being can only have and maintain about 150 personal relationships at one time. If there is only one Christian for every 500 people in Japan the likelihood of someone coming into proximity to the gospel message is nearly impossible.

I am not sure where our reflection has you at this point, but let's refrain for just a moment longer from drawing conclusions. Let's assess what we now know. Those who live in the United States and Western world have a greater proximity to gospel resources and gospel proclamation. Those in other parts of the world have a much larger, even seemingly impossible, gulf to cross in order to be in proximity to the gospel message and people. Take a moment and feel the burden of that.

Beginning at the End

Again, before we pull out implications, conclusions, ideas, or actions steps I want to challenge us to reflect. Three passages in Scripture have been the source of contemplation and meditation for me lately. They frame for me a perspective on my proximity to the gospel in light of the lack of access that my friends in India or Japan might have. They call me to action, not because of an apparent local need but because of the glorious nature of the God represented in them.

I'm the kind of person that likes to know the destination before I start the journey, so Revelation 5:9-10 is a good place for us to reflect. The scene is the worship in heaven of God and Christ. There the Father is seated, ruling, from his throne. A scroll is presented which causes great consternation among the angelic beings. Who is worthy to open it? As the scene shifts from angels to throne a Lamb "as though it had been slain" appears before the throne. The Lamb that had been slain is worthy to open the scroll. At the recognition of the one who is worthy to open the scroll a great chorus of song breaks out in the heavenly courts.

Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, 

for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God

from every tribe and language and people and nation,

and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,

and they shall reign on the earth.

At the center of this song is a statement of purpose. Christ is worthy to open the scrolls because he shed his blood and bought back a people for God. And where are those people from? "From every tribe and language and people and nation." This says something about the great and ultimate purposes of God. The gospel will be received by some from every language and location on the earth. Indigenous peoples everywhere will worship Jesus as the one who purchased them back from their sins by his life, death and resurrection. To say it in a shorthand way, the gospel message and power will go global. Maybe we should reflect on that idea for a while. Nothing in heaven or earth or under the earth will be able to thwart or hinder or hold back God's purposes. The gospel will go global. Every tribe and language and people and nation will worship Jesus.

It's Too Light A Thing

But that isn't the only passage that has been stirring my heart lately. Isaiah 49:6 keeps me out of the myopic, small imagination that I have about the gospel's spread and advance.

And now the Lord says,

It is too light a thing that you should be my servant 

to raise up the tribes of Jacob 

and to bring back the preserved of Israel; 

I will make you as a light for the nations, 

that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."

In this passage, the Father speaks to the Servant-Son and declares that for him to be just the servant or savior of one small people would be too inadequate for his glory. The idea of something being too light is for it to be too little, too small, or not glorious enough. It would be akin to saying that it wouldn't fit the dignity of the Queen of England to only let her visit Auxvasse, MO (population 901). The glory of God is far greater and far more majestic for the Savior to only be the redeemer of Israel.

The Father promises the Son that his light (or glory) would be for the nations. His salvation would reach to the end of the earth. To put it in modern parlance, Jesus being the savior of American's isn't enough. It's not glorious enough. One specific location or people in the world is not enough. The glory of God must be global, his saving power and grace but be known the very ends of the earth. That would be awesome. That would be glorious.

From The Land of the Rising Sun

Just a few Saturdays ago, I was afforded unimpeded time to read and pray. I haven't reading a whole lot in the Old Testament Minor Prophets in recent days. So I gave myself some time to read Malachi. As I was, a particular passage jumped off the page and proverbially hit my square between the eyes. Malachi 1:11 leveled me in all the right ways,

For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.

From a global perspective the East will be a place that offers pure worship to Christ, just as the West will be. God resounds and tells us that his name, his great and glorious "name above all names" will be valued and treasured everywhere on the earth. The name of God, which encapsulates all that he is (see Exodus 34:6-7), will be worshipped, enjoyed, celebrated, praised, and declared throughout every nation on earth. There will be no place that does not worship the King of All Kings. As one author likes to say, "Put that in your theological pipe and smoke it."

The Implications of A Globally Exalted God

How do all these dots connect? First, we are graced to have free and frequent access to the gospel here in the United States. Second, God is a global God, his grace will be proclaimed and heralded and worshipped by every language, people and place. Jesus as the radiance of the glory of God will be exalted above all names everywhere. Third, there are still places on this planet that do not have gospel access and do not exalt and worship the name of Jesus. Which leads me to this conclusion: they will one day.

If God has promised that all the nations will worship him as Lord and Savior, and there are not places that are not doing that currently, it seems to me that the reasonable conclusion of this is there is a certainty that one day they will. The mission of global gospel-advance will be accomplished. God's will won't be thwarted and his will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

What does this say to us in the here and now? How does this lead us to action? I could point out all the mission agencies and opportunities that are available for you to go and work in all the places of the world. I could tell you of the need for financial support for global mission and the way in which we need to send and support those going for the sake of the mission. I could show you starving children, poverty-stricken nations and destitution that only the gospel can redeem and restore. I could give you more statistics on the needs of unreached people for translated Scriptures, linguistic workers, church-planters, teachers, pastors, missionaries, engineers, and so on and so forth.

However, instead I want to call you to reflect and then act. Each of us has a part to play in advancing the mission and engaging the globe with the gospel. Where has God been directing you to serve and work? Go do it. Who has God placed in front of you to support and encourage and send? Support, encourage and send them. How has God called you to make much of his name from East to West? Get after it.

If the gospel going global and reaching the nations is a guarantee, then mobilize yourself, your resources, your church, your passions for the one sure thing that God has declared: "My name will be great among the nations." Let's be part of that global, missional movement of God for the sake of his glory!

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¹ Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Report

² Mission Leader, Why So Few Christians in Japan

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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.

The Opportunity of Doubt

It is human, all too human, to doubt. When we share our faith with our non-Christian friends, we are often skirting the tension between finite understanding and infinite understanding—between the materially possible and the spiritually necessary. Doubt and faith have nothing to say to each other, and yet in this world, they often appear inseparable. For this reason (and by God’s grace), I have felt the Spirit prompting me at times to share my doubts with the folks I disciple. My prayer is that what follows is both a guide to the stormy waters of doubt as well as a clear pointer to the light of Christ shining above the troubled seas of our lives.

One Hundred and One Fun Things to do with Doubt

Last football season, I had an extra ticket to a game, and I invited my friend along. We stopped by the grocery store for some beers and sunscreen before heading to the tailgate party. Which is to say, I wasn’t really brooding about Existence right then, but my friend was. As we waited in the check-out line, he started talking about the end of the world: how humans have polluted the land, air, and water; how we’re continuing to do it; how we’re actually increasing our efforts.

Zoom out. We were waiting in line in a noisy, crowded store, and my friend was speaking to one of my most complex, unending despairs. Here’s how the doubt runs in my mind: both the Bible and science indicate that the future isn’t exactly rosy for the earth, and yet one of God’s initial commands was for humans to be stewards of His creation. I can’t help but feel deeply ashamed of the ways my actions contribute to the destruction of the environment.

This doubt stems from a cognitive dissonance: Take care of the Earth versus the Earth will be destroyed. This dissonance is partly responsible for the heated political rhetoric surrounding the environment and sustainability. At any rate, this is what I told my friend. I explained how deep my despair is about this subject, and I didn’t sugarcoat it with some platitude about my beliefs. I was honest. I told him that I have to pray about the Earth every morning. I have to give it back to God. On a cosmic-scale, it’s almost hilarious just how much global climate change is out of my hands, and yet I cannot help but feel responsible.

The beauty is that God doesn’t sugarcoat anything. He doesn’t have to. He knows this planet—He even knows me—far better than I do. By placing my faith in Christ, I align myself not with unthinking religiosity, but with the greatest thinker in the universe. As a result, I am free to act (and sometimes even fail) in pursuing environmental stewardship.

Zoom back in. My friend and I are standing in line to buy junk from the local mega-corporation. (There’s those cognitive dissonances playing out in real life.) But I don’t have to despair. Yes, I think the gospel calls us to help in renewing all creation, but do I always trust that knowledge? No. That’s what I told my friend. The gospel frees me from judgment and empowers me to act (Romans 6:1-2), but I am still compelled to get down on my knees and pray for strength to accept that freedom everyday.

We can open up to our friends about doubt, if we will see past our feelings of despair into our forgiveness in Christ. This frees our witness from both crippling defeatism and self-satisfied legalism. It can season our speech with the salt of critical thought (Colossians 4:6). In other words, the doubts aren’t the key. The key is the compassion found in Christ—that he understands our doubts and still loves us.

With this freedom, my friend and I climbed into my car and drove to our national distraction. Because I followed the Spirit’s promptings to be transparent about doubt, I gained an opportunity to talk about my faith. Honesty about doubt led to a deeper conversation about faith.

Doubts and the Doubting Doubters who Doubt Them

In Christ, there is no real reason for doubt. In Christ, we claim forgiveness, grace, and peace. Through faith in Christ, we possess the power to move mountains. The problem is one of unbelief. Our brokenness, our every sin stems from something we do not fully believe about God, but if we are to share our faith in a genuine way, we must share how God answers our unbelief, how our wayward minds are redeemed in Christ, how our troubled souls find rest and overflowing grace in the Holy Spirit.

When sharing a doubt with your friends, avoid the language of ownership (if possible). More importantly avoid self-pity about the despair attached to the doubt. Avoid smugness about your faith. The hope is that in disclosing a doubt we can open up a discussion of faith and offer loving words about how God answers our unbelief with grace and courage.

For example, many of my non-Christian friends feel the doubt voiced by logical positivist philosophers like A.J. Ayers. In so many words, they’ll explain that religious language is nonsense because it’s scientifically/empirically unverifiable. While this isn’t my particular brand of doubt, it is certainly one to which many non-Christians cling. But in speaking to them about this doubt, I have not found it helpful to rationally discourse about this philosophical stance. The conversation then caves in on the limits of its own reasonability, resulting at best in a series of metaphysical chess problems.

Rather, when I’m attentive to the Spirit, I’ve learned to take a step back and remember my own feelings of doubt—how they create such pointless sorrow and anxiety—and I speak to that. In other words, when we’re in tune with the Spirit, we speak from the heart to the heart (not necessarily from the mind to the mind).

The Division of the Individual

That’s all good and fine for sitting at the café chatting with our friends. What do we do when doubt gets personal? For example, what of the militant doubts that point out the uncounted atrocities that have been committed in the name of religious belief?

Again, take a step back and pray. Remember, this is the despair and anguish of unbelief talking. We are not equipped to answer these charges. Fortunately, Christ is. In this example, it may not be a good idea to air your own feelings of unbelief and doubt, but rather speak directly to the pain of the individual with the healing and love you have found in Christ Jesus.

Here’s the funny thing about faith. We all have it. It takes a certain amount of faith simply to be convinced that my “self” or anyone else exists. Interestingly, folks don’t typically assign this aspect of faith any religious meaning. It’s simply “who we are.” But, in the total absence of faith, who are we really? There are statistics that speak to those who lose this last hold-out of faith, and they aren’t pleasant. Without some small amount of faith, we would begin to doubt the very substance of our being.

This is the critical juncture of how broken we really are. Except for faith, our humanity is literally falling apart. In John’s Gospel, Christ says,  “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5). This is kinda scary stuff for a non-Christian to hear, but God is bigger than those fears. God is bigger than the horrifying things that have been done by ignorant and deceived and broken people in his name. How do I know this? Is it simply wishful thinking? Is God loving only because I say so? No. Christ says that’s all sorts of backwards and upside down.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. - John 15:9-12

In other words, when addressing—for example—despair over the atrocities committed in the name of religion, leave everything else and follow Christ. Remind your self and your friend that—according to scripture—nothing has been done in Christ’s true unutterable name that wasn’t also done in love. If an act of “religious belief” was done without love, it was done without Christ, and if it was done without Christ, then it was done without faith. In the absence of faith, all that remains is—not just doubt—but the void, the total dissolution of the God-breathed life inside us.

The critical distinction we must make as disciples of Christ is that our identity and agency do not arise from the formless void gnawing at the base of individual identity. By grace, we are learning to see that the very prospect of this construction of individual self is impossible from its foundation up, hence the terror and pain of those feelings of doubt. But when we take ownership of faith in Christ, then from him flows a new communal identity and a powerful fellowship of agency—the foundation of which is the very center, the unshakable core of all Creation.

Identity Restored

My true identity is in Christ not in myself. In Christ, we stand united with the true meaning of our lives, with our renewed humanity. But for a person hearing this truth for the first time, all this sounds pretty weird. The loss of individual identity? Being united with what? This is when—if I’m in tune with the Spirit—I often hear that still small voice saying, “Share those same doubts you once had… now share how Christ offers so much more.”

Christ is the hinge on which the entire universe turns. Christ is the door that opens to the infinite glory of God. Likewise, the gospel is the key that unlocks our restore identity. The good news is Christ understands our doubts. In Luke’s Gospel, Christ dispels the disciples’ doubts just before his ascension, offering questions that convict me even now: “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see.” (Luke 24:38-39)

My prayer today is to lay my doubts before Christ. To meditate on the wounds he suffered for my sake and find in his cuts and bruises the fullness of grace poured out for my sake. What doubt can withstand this flood of mercy? May the Holy Spirit guide the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts toward healing the sickness and pain of unbelief in ourselves and in those we disciple!—that we might sing of the peace and restoration found only in our redeemer Christ Jesus.

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Ben Roberts is follower of Christ & an Editor at both Gospel Centered Discipleship & the speculative literary journal, Unstuck. A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers, he lives in Austin with his wife, Jessica & son, Solomon. They fellowship and worship at City Life. Twitter: @BenStoleMyName.

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For more on sharing the gospel authentically, check out Jonathan Dodson's Unbelievable Gospel.

Helping Singles Feel at Home in Your Church

Several months ago, two articles caught my attention when I was reading online: Marvin Olasky’s “Early Maturity” and Karen Swallow Prior’s “The Case for Getting Married Young”. Essentially, both writers urge believers to tie the knot sooner rather than later. I find such articles singularly unhelpful. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate Prior and Olasky’s defense of marriage. I too believe that marriage is a gift from God. Yet this is not a gift God has given me. I and many other godly men and women have been given the gift of singleness – some of us for a short time, others for life. For us, the question is not how soon we can be married but how we can best, most wholly participate in the church as singles.

Paul writes that the church was designed to bear one another’s burdens, individual believers coming together to support each other in their walk with Christ. Thus, as God works in the lives of us singles, we naturally want to share the resulting joys and burdens with our married brethren, and we want to bear their burdens in return.

I want to offer a few suggestions for nurturing this kind of relationship in your church. The suggestions I give are born out of my own experience as a single woman in an evangelical church and the experiences of my friends. I hope they will be useful to you.

1. Integrate single people with married people.

When I show up at a new church, one of the things I look for when perusing the bulletin are the weekly Bible study and service opportunities. What I discover is that a lot of women’s Bible studies are scheduled for times like 10.00 AM on Tuesday. I work at 10.00 AM on Tuesdays. Not for years will I be able to take time off in the middle of the day to attend a women’s Bible study.

Yet this experience is hardly an aberration. Most churches today arrange activities and groups by demographic. And there are many good reasons to split groups up by demographic. Young mothers, for instance, need the support of other young mothers. Yet unless the church also has groups that are not split up by demographic, we singles may find it hard to fit in, let alone build the kind of deep relationships that foster mutual encouragement. It’s hard to build relationships with people and minister to them when they’re busy with a parenting group or a young married group and we’re not.

Establishing singles’ groups is not necessarily a solution; especially as we grow older, we age out of singles’ groups peopled mostly by college students. Instead, establishing groups that cross demographic lines will encourage single people and families to build friendships together and support each other in Christ. Nearly all my single friends tell me that it is these friendships, between single and married people, that have been some of the deepest and most fruitful in their church experience.

How can the church integrate married and single people? Schedule two or three Bible studies for the evenings as well as the mornings. Start Bible studies or Sunday school groups that mix married and single people. Invite the single men in the church to the men’s prayer breakfast. Ask single people to volunteer alongside married people at particular church ministries, such as working at the homeless shelter. Start the groups. Then it’s up to us to build relationships with other people in the church.

2. Give us the opportunity to serve in new ways in the church.

When I joined my current church, someone suggested that I assist with nursery duty.  I have not changed a diaper in 10 years – seriously. I am not what you would call good with children. I am sure that this is a personal deficiency. Yet the fact remains that before I can serve in the church, I have to bridge the gulf between what my church expects me to do and what I am actually gifted to do.

I am not the only single believer encouraged to take on roles in the church that don’t really fit who I am. Jenna, a friend of mine single into her late 20s, tells me that her church assumed that because she was single, she was immature and directed her towards areas of service reserved for high schoolers. At other times, the church makes a mistake that can be as easily made with married people: They suggest a particular ministry before they really know us well enough to know what our gifts and talents are. I don’t mean to cast blame. Everyone makes wrong assumptions about other people at some point. Yet when singles are, whatever the reason, directed towards avenues of ministry that they’re not really gifted for, they will be uncomfortable contributing to the church, and the church in turn will suffer.

As long as we singles are part of the body of Christ, we want to use our gifts to support our brethren. The church is strongest when members serve each other in keeping with their spiritual gifts. Thus, encouraging singles towards ministries suited to their gifting has a double benefit: We singles will feel at home contributing to the church, and the church will be blessed as the body of Christ works together in unity.

The best way to get singles involved in areas that we’re gifted for is simply to ask where we’d like to serve. For instance, if asked, I will tell you that I don’t feel qualified for nursery duty, but I’m happy to pass out bulletins. Another option is to make church members aware of what ministries need help and how they can get involved. If we know where the church needs help, we can pick an area that matches how God has gifted us to serve. As with the previous suggestion, it’s important for the church to make singles aware of the opportunities to serve. After that, it’s up to us singles to actually start serving.

3. Give us a voice in the church.

Several months back, two elders at my friend Faith’s^[1] church stepped down. The church held a men-only meeting to discuss the transition and review the future of the church. All the men attended the meeting; married women were represented by their husbands. Yet Faith had no husband and thus no representative at the meeting – no one to ask the questions that were on her mind or report back to her afterwards. The problem is this: Faith’s singleness prevented her from participating as fully in the church as married people. This should not be.

Listening to people is a universal sign of respect, and the church is no different. When a church fails to listen to the voice of its singles, even accidentally, we are likely to be hurt and discouraged. When, on the other hand, you listen to us, you assure us that we are welcomed at the church. You encourage us not only to speak up with concerns but also to invest in a church community that feels we are worth listening to.

Don’t misunderstand me: Giving singles a voice in the church does not have to mean installing women in leadership roles. All I am saying is that churches need to make sure that they do not apply their biblical principles in a way that, even accidentally, relegates single women to the peanut gallery.

There are ways for our voice to be heard without violating biblical leadership patterns. For instance, a church might designate an elder to take questions from single women prior to a men’s-only meeting. A church might explicitly invite single congregants to email the pastor with their concerns about church development. Single men ought to be encouraged to participate in church leadership – perhaps as a deacon or an elder. If singles are to truly be part of a church, they can’t just be doing stuff with the church; they also have to know that the church listens to their voice.

A Word to Singles

I want to close these posts with a word to singles: Encouraging the church to value our participation does not let us off the hook. We too have responsibilities towards the church.

First, be patient with your church. Don’t get offended easily. Almost no churches are deliberately uninviting to singles. Married people, especially those who married young, sometimes have a hard time understanding who we are and what challenges we face. Let your church get to know you. Let them know that you want to be involved. Over time, your patience will help them understand you – and hopefully other singles – better.

Second, be proactive. Don’t wait for your church to magically become the perfect welcoming church. It’s not going to. Start reaching out to its members anyway. Several of my single friends told me how important it was for them to take the initiative. Jenna set aside one night a week to invite people over for supper. Josh, who has served in four churches as a single man, invites married couples over to his tiny apartment for mac & cheese. You don’t have to offer the church something fancy, but you do have to deliberately, obviously offer your support and friendship. If you’ve found a good church, your effort should pay off in stronger, encouraging relationships within the church community.

In Closing

Can singles be a welcomed part of the church? Absolutely! God designed the church so that all kinds of believers could be united in Christ, mutually supporting each other in the faith. Is this vision an easy one to achieve? Absolutely not! It will require hard work on the part of married people and single people alike. But the end result – a community in which everyone, married or single, feels welcomed – is worth it.

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[1] Name changed by request

M. V. Bergen teaches college writing in the Midwest.  In her spare time, she reads the Church Fathers and science fiction, writes free verse poetry, and runs.

Our Hunger for Community

Broken families, broken relationships, and an epidemic of loneliness has created a ravenous hunger for community in this generation. But our flesh can seek our idea of community more than we seek Jesus. Our souls, it seems, are ready to settle for a sit-com style of friendship instead of striving for the spirit-led family of God purchased and created by his son’s death and resurrection.

Idealized Community

Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes, in his book  Life Together, the difference between spiritual community, true biblical unity, and emotional community.  He identifies the common sin of loving the idea of community that we have invented in our minds more than we really love the community.

Those who want more than what Christ has established between us do not want Christian community. They are looking for some extraordinary experiences of community that were denied them elsewhere...Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial…Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.

6 Misunderstandings about Community

Our desire and attempts at filling our need for community has clouded our understanding of community itself. As I help folks start and form gospel-centered communities in Portland I have come to notice a consistent stream of misconceptions and false expectations. Though we desire it, we have forgotten what it means to be the people of God in daily life. Here are the top six misconceptions I have encountered as we have started communities throughout inner Portland.

1. Community Is Not “Everyone is my best friend”

If you have one intimate friend (usually a spouse) you are blessed.  Many people come into a church or small group with the expectation that everyone will be their best friend.  Those unrealistic expectations are selfish and harmful to community.  Come into community with one goal – to serve.

2. Community is Not A spiritual/morality club 

You don’t pay membership dues to get into community. Jesus has already done that. It isn’t a group of generally moral people trying to do good for others. No, community is a made of people who were dead in their sin, but who God raised to new life with Christ. The good we do is with humility and an understanding of grace.

3. Community is Not A Book Club

The scriptures are vital to Christian community. We devour the words of God and look to understand the character and actions of God in the Bible. But Christian community cannot be reduced to simply a reading and understanding of the Bible. Christian community practices and obeys the scriptures. That happens in real life and in real time.

4. Community is Not A meeting or Event.

You might find community present in a meeting or an organization but those things can never create it. Vibrant community happens when people invest in one another outside of formal gatherings. It is not a time, building, or place, it is a people, family, and movement. Don’t settle for a two hour meeting in a living room as “community.” Allow that meeting to spill over into daily life. Share meals, call one another, bless each other, and try to make disciples.

5. Community is Not Easy

In Matthew 10, as Jesus sent his disciples out to do his works he didn’t say: “Now be nice to each other and you’ll see the sick healed and demons flee and hearts transformed.”  He said “Don’t go alone; be careful!  I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves, expect to be imprisoned, expect persecution, expect to stand before politicians and princes, expect to be rejected by brothers and fathers, expect strife, but stand firm to the end because my Father will give you everything you need!” (personal paraphrase).  Paul, Peter, and James all say we should expect it to be hard. Paul tells us that we will be tempted to blame each other but to remember, you’re fighting sin not each other (Eph 6).

If we want unity it won’t feel like unity most of the time. Often we will feel like we’re barely hanging on to each other. Real unity, real community comes at a great price. We surrender our ‘rights’ for the sake of Christ and one another. We come together on a journey of dying to ourselves and living to Christ, and that is hard. Furthermore real community requires forgiveness, and reconciliation in a society that prefers to quit and ditch relationships as soon as we begin to hurt each other. In gospel-centered community, we rely on God’s grace, mercy, and love for us to confront the hurts and sin in each others’ lives. We forgive because God forgives. We reconcile because he made us agents of reconciliation. We love those in our community, because we are adopted brothers and sisters in Christ.

6. Community is not “Everyone gets along”

If you ask most Christians what unity is their first response has to do with everyone getting along and just “loving each other.”  But Jesus doesn’t root our unity in some feel-good idea of everyone getting along and being sweet to each other. Jesus roots our unity in himself, his Spirit and what God has done in all us. Our unity comes from our common rescuer and Lord.

The Bible assumes we’ll have lots of conflict, so the Scriptures constantly remind us about the basis of our unity and gives us practical tools like repentance and forgiveness, for walking it out. Paul didn’t sit around and ask the Holy Spirit: “what esoteric thing do you want me to write about today?” Instead, Paul wrote to churches to respond to the things they were going through and frequently wrote about practical ways for these churches to keep pursuing unity. Almost every one of Paul’s letter addresses some very specific thing that is trying to divide them.  Every one of Jesus’ messages to the churches in Revelation deals with something that is trying to divide them.

You show me a family that doesn’t fight and I’ll show you a family that is just coexisting or is under the rule of a tyrant. Healthy relationships are hard and there’s always conflict. We’re sinful, selfish human beings living in a sin-filled world. Our only hope in these conflicts is the gospel of grace.

Gospel-Centered Community

Gospel-centered communities are groups of people that love to include Jesus in everything they do. It never feels forced, but a meal with friends often drifts towards conversation about the person and life of Jesus. If community can be characterized by anything it will be characterized by who Jesus is and what he has done for us. His life, work, and character is woven into the language and practice of every authentic expression of community. The good news of Jesus is what makes the community, builds it, and motivates it.

7 Components of Gospel-Centered Community

There are many signs that a community is built on the foundation of the gospel. As we labored to start multiple communities in Portland, the healthy and thriving ones always have these characteristics and qualities. These are not seven easy steps or a how-to. In fact, the "how to" is to make the gospel central and to pray in dependance for God to do his work. These are the consistent elements I see expressed when communities are established in the gospel. They are also the seven elements that war against our own selfish desires for independence.

1. Generous Hospitality.

In Matthew 25 Jesus describes his spirit of hospitality.  “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.”  Authentic community involves lots of food! It involves taking the time and space to incorporate others in your life. This is often found at the kitchen table and this is nothing new. In Luke's Gospel, Jesus was almost always on his way to a meal, coming from a meal, or at a meal. Authentic communities are regularly sharing meals with one another and those outside the community. Their generous hospitality is noticeable from the outside and others desire it.

2. A people where influence is earned by serving.

You know you have found gospel-centered community when you find selfless giving and constant blessing toward each other and those outside the church. Jesus told us the world will know us by our "love for one another." It’s true. When Jesus is the center, community is characterized by humble service to Jesus as Lord and King.

3. Accountable and Repentant

Community will bring everything into the light. By that I mean, we are honest with who we are, what we are doing, and where we are going. It means the community will not let us live a lie or false identity. The Scriptures, truth of the gospel, and the Holy Spirit will convict us of sin and unbelief in gracious and merciful ways. In repentance, communities return to the gospel and are reminded of their identity in Christ.

4. Led by qualified leaders.

Christian community has leadership. The leaders carry the tremendous weight of caring for the believers, and equipping the body for service and mission. You will know you are in the community when the leaders are the servants among the community who are training and releasing everyone else into the world. They will be characterized by humility, hospitality, faithfulness, self-control, prayer, and belief in the gospel.

5. On Mission

Any expression of gospel-centered community will be on mission seeking the good of their neighborhood, nation, and globe. Make no mistake about it, the mission is making disciples. Jesus-centered community proclaims the hope and truth of the gospel to the lost and broken. The presence of Jesus Christ is the most attractive thing to the human heart – and the presence of Jesus is found in its most potent form in a group of people that love him and love each other well. This is what Jesus said in John 13:35: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Community grows and multiplies. Gospel-centered communities send their best people out into new areas of mission and service. However, life is added to community not subtracted. It has been like this from the very beginning. The command was to spread and be witnesses of Jesus from “Jerusalem to Samaria to Judea to the ends of the earth.” And it did. In a world without twitter, youtube, satellites, or pamphlets churches sprung up in houses and temples in three continents in only a few years. Your Jesus-centered community has the same potential and calling.

6. Active in Culture

Christian community will be in the public square where goods and ideas are exchanged. Their activity will be defined by love, grace, and truth. They will have jobs, create art, and seek the good of their city through social justice. They will do these things not from a point of power and greed but from a point of service and empowerment by the Spirit.

7. Diverse

It will be made up of rich and poor, men and women, young and old, black and white, immigrant and native, married and single. You will welcome everyone and you won't be made up of "people like me" and "at my stage of life." Instead you embrace those who are different from you. There will be no way to describe you other than to say, “Christian Community.” Christianity is unlike any other religion, even in its inception it was completely diverse. Up to that point in history religion was connected to race, status, and origin. In fact, your outside differences will tell the story of God’s work to create you into a people.

Story of Community

I met Mark (name changed) at a poker game. It was a mishmash of people and he was obviously nervous to be around so many new folks. He was an introvert like me and we connected. He was going to law school and was the smartest guy in the room. The next time we hung out, he was eating dinner at my house. Our missional community was getting together for a meal and sharing stories of what God had done in our lives. He had just heard the gospel from the guy who hosted the poker game and he was beginning to make sense of the death and resurrection of Jesus. 

The next day we shoveled fertilizer together at the elementary school as part of a neighborhood wide clean-up project. He wanted to know how to pray to Jesus. Mark was part of our community and began spending lots of life with us. I got to baptize him a year ago. As we spend time together and grew in understanding of the gospel, he shared that he came to our city as a refugee, not as a student. He was running from home and the destructive life he had there.  As he read the parable of the prodigal son, he couldn’t help but identify with him. “I messed so much stuff up,” he would say. At the age of twelve, he gave his life to drugs. It truly stole his life. No friends, no community, and ultimately his family gave up on him. Yet, at 26, Mark was a new man in Jesus. His words to our church before he was baptized, “Before Christ I was headed no where, I didn’t have any friends and did a bunch of bad stuff. Now I have a community and a life to live.” Three months later, he took an internship at an Indian reservation in another state seven hours away. He took a stack of books and planned to finish reading the Bible (he read two thirds of it in his first months following Jesus). We prayed for him and talked as often as we could and were planning on having several of the guys in the community taking a weekend trip to hang out with him.

At 11:00 pm on the fourth of July, we got a phone call from Mark. He was in trouble and we left immediately. It was the longest seven hour drive of our lives as we tried to piece together the short and chaotic phone calls we had with Mark in the early hours of the morning. We couldn’t figure out if he was in real danger or hallucinating. There was a stretch of four hours when we heard nothing from him. As we pulled into the town we found him surrounded by three police cars in a diner parking lot. He had spent the night outside running from terrifying and accusative hallucinations. He was barefoot and his pajamas were torn to pieces. His hands and feet were scarred and bleeding. But he was alive and he recognized us. The police allowed us to take him into our care. We cleaned him up, packed his bags, cleaned up his apartment, and brought him home. The coming days and weeks were hard, but he had a community around him who gave him a place to stay, took him to the hospital, fed him, and spoke the truth of resurrection to him. We paid his debts for him and cared for his heart. Mark's words when he was baptized were true: “Before Christ I was headed no where, I didn’t have any friends and did a bunch of bad stuff. Now I have a community and a life to live.”

Love for the Church

If you are a leader, I pray you will be known for you love of the community of God and that you will excel at pointing to God's love for it. Don't allow cultural expectations and the idolatry of community to take your eyes of the gospel. Keep the gospel primary and never stray from it. Pursue community that is unashamedly centered on Jesus.

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Brad Watson serves as a pastor of Bread&Wine Communities in Portland, Oregon. He is serves as the director of GospelCenteredDiscipleship.com. Brad is the co-author of Raised? Doubting the Resurrection. His greatest passion is to encourage and equip leaders for the mission of making disciples. He is Mirela’s husband and Norah’s dad. Twitter: @BradsStories.

Other Articles by Brad:

• Be A Storyteller
• 5 Lies That Kill Obedience

Eight Keys to Personal Prayer

The following is an excerpt from Prayer Life by Winfield Bevins. Download the eBook here. --

We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; the Bible’s idea of prayer is that we may get to know God himself. - Oswald Chambers

Prayer is first and foremost a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Some people think of prayer like a business transaction or as something they have to do just like checking something off a to do list. But that isn’t really prayer at all. We should think of prayer in intimate terms like a conversation between close friends. What are some words that you think of when you think of an intimate friendship? You will probably think of words like loving, caring, warm, sincere, personal, and intimate. These are words that should be used to describe our prayer time with the Lord. Prayer should not be dry or stuffy; rather it should be warm and intimate. How can you develop a personal prayer life?

Before You Pray

Before praying, there are four things that we should take into consideration. First, schedule a regular prayer time. Find a time everyday to spend in prayer. The important thing is that we should be consistent. The psalmist said that he prayed seven times a day. Second, choose a private place to pray. A prayer closet could be anywhere as long as it is private. You can use your garage, pantry, front porch, or any other creative place where you can get alone with God. Some people pray while driving in their car and others pray while working-out or running. Third, try to limit distractions. Don’t pray in the same room that you may watch television or be tempted by other activities. Lastly, have a prayer list to guide your prayers that includes family, friends, church, etc. This will ensure that you don’t forget important things to pray for.

Keys to Personal Prayer

Every believer can have a dynamic personal prayer life. The Bible gives us the keys that we need to develop a powerful prayer life. The Scriptures are full of examples of men and women who walked with God and used prayer to impact their world and you can do the same thing through prayer. The following are Scriptural ways you can develop a deeper more fulfilling personal prayer life.

1. Pray In Jesus Name.

Real prayer is Christological and focuses on the person and work of Jesus Christ. There are numerous New Testament references that talk about the importance of praying in the name of Jesus. Jesus Himself said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you” (John 16:23). When we pray in the name of Jesus, God the Father hears us. He responds to the prayer that is offered in the name of His Son Jesus because our relationship with God is through the Son.

2. Pray According to God’s Will.

God is not a Santa Claus in the sky; He does not give us anything we ask for. But in 1 John 5:14 it says, “if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” This means that when we pray in accordance with His will we can expect an answer. This is why the Lord’s Prayer says, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

3. Scriptural Prayer.

One the best ways to pray is to pray according to the Scriptures. John 15:7 says, “If you abide in Me, and My word abides in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” If God’s word is in us then His desires become our desires and we can have the assurance that He will answer our prayers. Make sure that your prayers are in line with Scripture. The Lord always honors His Word. A great example is the Lord’s Prayer.

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4. Keep Commandments.

God honors those who honor His Commandments. Jesus said, “Whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.” (1 John 3:22). If you keep His Commandments and do what is pleasing, then you can be assured that He will hear your prayers.

5. Believe.

The Lord wants us to have faith that He will hear our prayers. Jesus said, “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.” (Matthew 21:22). In the great faith chapter of the Bible, we are told that, “without faith it is impossible to please im, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6). The Lord promises to respond to our prayer of faith.

6. Pray in the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of prayer. Paul tells us to pray at all times in the Spirit. Romans 8:26 reads, “Likewise the Spirit also helps us in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” We don’t always know how to pray and we don’t always feel like praying. Therefore we need the Spirit’s power to help us pray.

7. Be Persistent.

Don’t give up if you haven’t received an answer to your prayers. Throughout the Bible there are stories of men and women who persevered in prayer. In Luke 18:1-8 there was a little old widow who did not lose heart. James tells us that the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

8. Humble Yourself.

Lastly, we are to humble ourselves in prayer. James 4:10 tells us to humble ourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt us. One of my favorite parables about prayer is in Luke 18:9-14, where the Pharisee and tax collector come before God. The Pharisee was proud and boastful, while the tax collector was humble and asked for God’s mercy. We are told that God hears the prayer of the humble. If we humble ourselves in the sight of God he will lift us up.

Closing Prayer

Lord, teach us to pray. We ask that you would make us humble, help us be persistent, and give Your Holy Spirit to help us pray. We ask that you would cleanse our hearts, meet our needs, heal our hurts, and give us strength to call on Your name and to give You glory. In the name of Your Son Jesus we pray. Amen.

Continue reading Prayer Life by Winfield Bevins

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Dr. Winfield Bevins serves as lead pastor of Church of the Outer Banks, which he founded in 2005.  His life’s passion in ministry is discipleship and helping start new churches. He lives in the beautiful beach community of the Outer Banks with his wife Kay and two daughters where he loves to surf and spend time at the beach with his family and friends. Twitter: @winfieldbevins

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Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home

In Gospel Amnesia, I discuss one of my biggest idols: the desire to be a godly parent. I know it may sound paradoxical. After all, which Christian parent doesn’t want to be a “godly parent.” And besides, aren’t we commanded in the Scriptures to be godly parents? First, anything can be an idol. Second, we are not commanded to be godly parents. We are commanded to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, and strength and to teach this love of God to our children (Deut. 6:4–9). That is a huge philosophical shift from “be a godly parent.” These are two different religions! The first is Jesus’ direct command and has as its object God. We are to point our hearts to God and to teach our children how to point their hearts to God. The second has as its object ourselves and our children, seasoned with the adjective, “godly.” The object becomes how to rightly be a parent with the drive behind it as the welfare of our children, spiritual and otherwise. I spent years and years reading books and blog posts on how to be a more godly mom and parent. I can’t do it anymore. As a matter of fact, I had no intention of buying one more book on motherhood. The inspired Word of God which I open up every single day has been telling me for years what I need to do: Love Jesus and love my neighbor (hint: my family are my closest neighbors). The issue is: Will my heart obey these commands from the Lord himself?

Those were my thoughts until I read my friend Gloria Furman's book Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home. This book changed my mind; I have already given away many copies of it and continue recommending it to women I know. Because of my previous idolatries in this area, I would like to encourage pastors to recommend it to the women in their congregation. Pastors, if you want the women in your congregation to keep their focus on Christ while still caring about motherhood, I humbly ask you to look into this book. This book will help women see the value of being a wife and mother without shifting their identity to it. Glimpses of Grace presses in the truth of the gospel so that Jesus is firmly established at the center, and all parenting orbits him. Gloria

In The Loveliness of Christ, Samuel Rutherford writes:

Take no heavier lift of your children, than your Lord alloweth; give them room beside your heart, but not in the yolk of your heart, where Christ should be; for then they are your idols, not your bairns.

Gloria accomplishes this beautifully in Glimpses of Grace. She doesn't say, “forget all your responsibilities and calling, just go after Christ.” Nor does she encourage women to focus on a different center: children, career, ministry, etc. She succeeds in showing the tension in a woman's life—illustrating the wonder of a life lived in the grace of Christ now, with hope in his promise of future grace. She does all of this without denying the real and tangible realities and hardships of everyday life. Although I am recommending it for mothers in the hopes that I can prevent some from falling into the idolatries I had fallen into, it is actually a book that can be read by any woman, married or not. I see the applicability to all women in some of Gloria's insights by the types of questions she asks and answers:

The questions I ought to be asking are these: How does believing in Jesus change the way I face the monotonous daily grind? Or how does believing take an interrupted nap in stride? How does faith in God rescue me from a restless heart? How can I experience the peace of Christ when I am so prone to failure because of my sin? How does the gospel make me into a woman who rests in the peace of God in the midst of the chaos in my heart?

Gloria Furman is a cross–cultural worker in ministry with her husband, Dave Furman, church planter and pastor in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. I talked with Gloria about her new book:

Would you define Glimpses of Grace as a "how to be a better mom" book? If not, why not?

I'm so glad you asked this question! Glimpses of Grace is decidedly not a book focused on motherhood. It’s about treasuring the gospel in your home, a subject that is applicable to women regardless of whether they have children. I address this book to women who need to take refuge in the Lord and taste and see that he is good, which would include all of us! On the subject of motherhood and the gospel, I’ve written Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full: Gospel Meditations for Busy Moms (Crossway, 2014).

Glimpses of Grace is also decidedly not a “how to” book. I love how Lauren Chandler answers that question in the foreword:

We do well to seek advice. This is wisdom. But there something to being at your wit’s end that begs for more than instruction. Psalm 107 illustrates a season in the storm. Men in ships doing business on great waters are literally struck by a tempest. Scripture says, ‘They reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits’ end’ (v. 27). Their response to being completely helpless was to cry out to the Lord. No how-tos, no cute preservers, but just an honest and urgent plea to be delivered from a situation that was more than they could navigate. What did the Lord do on their behalf? He showed them his steadfast love. He calmed the waters, hushed the seas, and brought them to their desired haven. This is sustaining grace, this is the desired haven: to know his steadfast love that saves and keeps us. Glimpses of Grace is not a how-to. It is a true friend’s invitations to see and know the Lord’s steadfast love displayed in every wave, big and small.

Indeed, there is a need for how-to, time-tested wisdom regarding keeping a home. But Glimpses of Grace does not address the need for table setting skills (incidentally, a skill in which I am sorely deficient). Glimpses of Grace describes how God, in his word, lays out a spread for us that addresses our heart’s deepest, most comprehensive need—to learn to feast on Jesus, the Bread of Life.

What were the circumstances and the heart issues that drove you to write this book?

For far too long the mundane loomed larger than eternal life for me. I wrote this book because I wanted to remind myself (and others) that every mundane moment of the day contains the potential to plunge our hearts into worship of the Living God whose matchless kindness leads us to repentance. For far too long I’d bought the lie that “this, too, shall pass” was the hope that I needed to cling to. The hope that I need to cling to is that God’s faithfulness will never pass, and because of the person and work of Jesus Christ, I am constantly running headlong into his future grace. Learning to cherish the gospel became key for me in beginning to understand this, and living in my home is the primary place I need to work out these heart-anchoring truths.

Why should pastors encourage the women in their church to read your book?

Although how-to manuals for homemaking are vignettes of wisdom and experience worth sharing, Glimpses of Grace is about something else. It’s a reflection on the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. Pastors want the women in their church to be rooted and grounded in Christ’s love, which is the same prayer that I have for the women who read this book. My goal in writing this book is that it would serve as a creative and repetitive reminder of the good news, pointing women to worship our Savior in the midst of their lives in the home.

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I'm grateful for Gloria's friendship. Many times as I've discussed struggles with her she has helped me turn my gaze away from the situation to see Christ above it all and to grasp how the gospel applies to my heart issues in that moment. In my discipleship relationships right now, I say this to the women I have handed this book to: It's a book that shows you who Jesus is and how much he loves you. You don't need a book that tries to tell you how to be a better mother. If you want to be a better mother, or a better anything, look to Jesus and cling to him and refuse to let go.

Gloria has given me hope that God can use a book like Glimpses of Grace, to help other women treasure the gospel, no matter the circumstances:

Whatever the “this” that you desperately feel you can't do anymore is ultimately not about your circumstances. It's about peace with God. And God has provided a way for you to have that peace that dominates any and all circumstances, regardless of how difficult they are.

God is using this book to bring a peace between me and him about many things I have been saying “I can't do anymore.” Including reading this type of book.

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Luma Simms (@lumasimms) is a wife and mother of five delightful children between the ages of 1 and 18. She studied physics and law before Christ led her to become a writer, blogger, and Bible study teacher. She is the author of Gospel Amnesia: Forgetting the Goodness of the News. She blogs regularly at Gospel Grace.

The Dangers of Online Christianity

Chris Crane has formerly served as both a college intern at First Baptist Church in Irving, TX and in leadership of Dallas Baptist University’s Encounter Ministries. He holds a B.A. in Biblical Studies with a minor in Philosophy from DBU. Currently, he is a student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, pursuing his M.Div. in Biblical Spirituality. Follow Chris on Twitter: @cmcrane87. ___

Living in the 21^st century, we have become overwhelmed with the advances of technology and how literally every part of our lives now seems to be using some sort of technology that wasn’t available 10 or 20 years ago. Many of these things have been quite helpful and I’m thankful that God has given them to us. However, like any good gift, it can become a danger if we let it. This is especially true when it comes to the gospel and our lives as followers of Jesus. There are countless podcasts, books, videos and websites dedicated to our favorite pastor/theologian and that feature countless theological topics. While I celebrate the diverse availability of the gospel, I also find some dangers that I think we need to be mindful of and fight against.

Before I get into these issues, let me make a clarifying statement about what I am not saying. First, I am not calling for some boycott of the Internet. I am not a fan of boycotts and they usually do more harm than good. Neither am I calling for a legalistic, shame-centered guilt trip about it. Online resources can be helpful if used properly. Secondly, I realize that unexpected things happen and so sometimes we have to miss church on a Sunday and we watch the live-stream of the service online. I’m not telling you to stop that, as long as it doesn’t become a habit. What I am trying to accomplish here is to show that neither our lives nor our spiritual growth can simply be lived online. Third, and lastly, I am not claiming I do all of this perfectly. In fact, I struggle with some of these issues myself and daily pray for the grace to recognize when my use of social media is getting out of hand, asking the Holy Spirit to show me my heart and reveal any areas I need to repent of. I’m on this journey with you all. So, with that being said, let’s examine some of these issues that I think can be harmful if we’re not careful.

Podcast Commitment

We lose something when we live off of podcasts: community. Living vicariously through the Internet is emotionally unhealthy and neglects the reality of our need for community. In fact, being in community in a local church reflects the eternal fellowship and community the Trinity has as Father, Spirit and Son. Furthermore, the author of Hebrews speaks to the importance of community, exhorting us to, "consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day [of the Lord's return] drawing near.” If you are living off of the preaching of your favorite podcast, not only are you living the Christian life in the opposite way intended for Christ followers, but you’re doing yourself harm in the process.

This sort of lone wolf, individualistic Christianity is opposite of God’s desire for you to be in true, biblical community. We need to learn how to sit under the authority of God’s Word as it’s preached from the pulpit, to realize that the gospel frees us to be open and honest about our weaknesses with other believers so that they may help us flee sin and pursue righteousness, and for us to use our spiritual gifts to build up the body (see 1 Cor. 12:12-26). To speak frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me if a person living off of podcasts and not being faithful to a local church was also living in some sort of secret sin, since they are neglecting one of God’s means at growing us in our hatred for sin. Additionally, it can be really easy to judge all pastors – yours included – by the standard of the pastor you podcast. Your pastor is not [insert favorite pastor]. Don’t expect them to be. It’s not healthy for you or them.

Time Consumption

Social media is a time consuming endeavor. It can be a great resource in staying informed, but trying to keep up with the latest online skirmish can be exhausting work. If we find ourselves spending more and more time online, we can slowly run into some potentially serious problems. First, we can become consumed with who likes our Facebook posts and re-tweets/favorites our tweets. We chase our online popularity more than we chase after holiness. We take on personas that fuel our pride and harden our hearts. Secondly, the longer we spend online, the more opportunity there is to look at unrighteous material online, especially pornography. How easy it is for our minds to wander! At first, we can be reading an article on discipleship and in the next moment, spending the next hour looking at filth.

Remember, pornography is adultery (see Matt. 5:27-28). In 1 Corinthians, Paul entreats us to "flee from sexual immorality" (6:18). Commenting on this verse, Kevin DeYoung adds, "Don't reason with sexual sin, just run. Don't dabble. Don't peruse. Don't experiment. Don't "find yourself." Don't test your resolve. Don't mess around. Just flee."[1] It would be wise of us to heed that exhortation and guard against sin and temptation by not spending so much time online. There’s more to life than your news feed.

Real People Exist

This point is kind of an extension of the previous one. The problems we run into with social media and other forms of online interaction is the effect it can have on our real life relationships. We can appear to be one type of person online when, in reality, we are the exact opposite offline. We can simply click on a button and we have a new "friend", despite the fact we may never have interacted with them, or for some, may not even know them.

What happens, if we're not careful, is we damage our ability to have healthy relationships with people in real life. It's so easy to argue with people online that we lose our ability to resolve conflict in real life. It can be so easy to be a flirt online with no accountability that it becomes more and more difficult to have healthy, romantic relationships with the opposite sex. Men are clueless as to how to "treat their sisters with absolute purity" (1 Tim. 5:2) and woman become blind to the beauty of aspiring to be the woman of Proverbs 31 and Titus 2. Spend time getting to know and grow with real people. It will humble us and give us opportunities to be obedient in areas we haven’t been.

Plenty of Talking, Not Much Walking

This may be the area that young Christians are notoriously guilty of, especially if you happen to be a 20-something male studying theology. I know I am guilty of this. More often than not, it’s easier for us to get a group together and debate Calvinism or spiritual gifts than it is to “put our money where our mouth is” and help a single mother mow her lawn and take care of her kids or invest our time in a coffee shop so that we can share the gospel with the people there. Our communities need that more than your countless hours of Facebook debates. And we fool ourselves if we think we are glorifying God with our doctrinal precision without obedience to Christ’s commands. For starters, that’s not obedience. Additionally, a biblical view of knowledge is not one that only dwells in the head, but makes its way to the heart and, in turn, is lived out by keeping Jesus’ commands. In other words, we can spend a lot of time debating and studying Jesus, while neglecting to follow and believe what He says.

Concluding Thoughts

Social media can be a great way to glorify God. However, it can quickly become an addiction and feed our narcissism. It can choke out healthy relationships and can cause envy and jealousy to take root in our hearts. For some of us, we may need to get rid of our Facebook or Twitter if it has become a disruptive idol in our lives. Others may need to take a break for a certain amount of time. I’m sure all of us could benefit from that. Still some may not have a problem and have been able to retain that healthy balance with using social media. Whichever group we find ourselves in, let us use God’s good gifts to grow into healthy, mature disciples that love each other and love the local church. And in turn, encourage others to do the same.

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[1] Kevin DeYoung, The Hole In Our Holiness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 111

Good News for Single Men

Single men face many unique challenges and opportunities. They are regularly pressured to be married, constantly set up on blind dates, and are left feeling less than a man without a spouse. Recently, I had the pleasure of talking with a handful of single men from our Soma Tacoma family. As a shepherd and elder who cares deeply for the hearts of people, I’d like to speak directly to other single men about a few of the takeaways from our two hour chat.

1.  Jesus wants to “secure your undivided devotion”

After beginning by affirming my love for these men, we read from 1 Corinthians 7, where Paul makes some interesting statements about singleness and marriage. (By the way, a few years ago, Andy Johnson preached a great sermon in Tacoma on this difficult passage.) There is one section, however, that is extremely clear:

I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided…I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.  1 Corinthians 7:32-35

Paul’s call to all single people is clear:  as long as you are single, secure undivided devotion to Jesus!  When you marry, you add a layer of complexity to your life. Use the extra margin you have today to sharpen your focus on Jesus.

My chief concern for all of our single men is that they passionately pursue Jesus. Not a woman, but Jesus. Love Jesus, serve Jesus, pursue Jesus, know Jesus, walk with Jesus, be satisfied in Jesus, experience intimacy with Jesus, and find every bit of their significance and value in Jesus.  Be a faithful disciple of Jesus!  That is the Father’s chief concern for you, single men. And though many I talk to are  already doing that, the Spirit leads me to echo Paul again by saying, “excel still more!” (1 Thessalonians 4:9-10).

2.  Start with the right question

It shouldn’t be shocking that my conversation included a discussion of how to determine which woman one should pursue. As we talked, I heard the essence of a question that I often hear single men ask (and I clearly recall asking myself when I was a single man): "Who am I interested in?"

I believe when it comes to pursuit, if you start here, you are starting with the wrong question. Jesus said the two greatest commandments are to love the LORD your God with all of your heart, soul, strength, and mind; and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:36-40). Everything we do should be motivated by love for God in response to what he has done for us in and through Jesus. We love him because he first loved us (1 John 4:10-11), and love for him is what motivates us to lay down our lives for the sake of others (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). Therefore, starting with the right question means asking, “Who would the Father  have me pursue? Who would he have me serve and bless by initiating an intentional friendship?”

Finding a wife should not be your primary motive for pursuing a woman. A single man’s motivation for pursuing a woman must primarily be loving obedience to the Father, and secondarily to serve and bless his sister. Pursuing a woman in Spirit-led fashion, regardless of the outcome, honors God and blesses her.

Begin by asking the Spirit to make it clear to you who he wants you to pursue. He is your perfect Daddy, and he knows you (and all of your sisters) better than you know yourself. He is uniquely qualified to guide you. And ask others for help in determining the Spirit’s leading. Don't feel like it’s totally up to you to sit in the corner, listening to the Spirit, until some woman’s name pops into your head. Process this in community. This is nothing new, of course. I remember talking for hours with my friends about the different women we were interested in, trying to determine what we should do next. But we were starting with the wrong question. I wish we’d been armed with the thought that our Heavenly Father had an opinion on the matter. It would have significantly altered the discussion.

3.  Having a wife doesn't make you a man. Jesus makes you a man.

As an elder, I know that at times I have inadvertently sent the message that finding a wife makes you more of man. Nothing could be further from the truth. I often ask men, married and single, “how do you know you’re a man?” I believe there are three main ways for Jesus’ followers to answer this question.

First of all, I know I’m a man because I am a male who has been created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). Men and women both uniquely image God, and as a man, this uniqueness is reflected in my heart and life.

Secondly, I know I am a man because Jesus is the only perfect man who ever lived. Jesus was, in every sense, the ultimate man. He was the man that Adam failed to be (Romans 5:12-21). Jesus’ success as a man supersedes the failures of every man who ever lived. And now, I am in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30). His perfect record is given to me. His performance, his work, his accomplishments, his achievements are all all mine and define me as a man. In any way that I seek to prove my identity as a man, I fail; and in every way I need Jesus to prove my identity as a man, he succeeds.  Jesus, the only perfect man who ever lived, is the one who makes me a man.

Finally, as one who is in Christ, the Father affirms his love for me by his Spirit. He also affirms that I am his child.  And when he affirms this, he calls me “son.”  “The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:16). That is how I know I’m a man!

Single men, secure undivided devotion to the one who truly defines you. Love the only one who can deeply satisfy you. Obey the perfect Father who you can trust  with your today and your tomorrow. And rest in the fact that you are already a man,  made whole and complete by the lover of your soul.

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Abe Meysenburg serves as a pastor and elder with Soma Communities in Tacoma, WA. After living in the Midwest for most of their lives, he and his wife, Jennifer, moved to Tacoma in the summer of 1999. In 2001, after working as a Starbucks manager for a few years, Abe helped start The Sound Community Church, which then became a part of Soma Communities in May 2007. Twitter: @AbeMeysenburg.

Other articles by Abe Meysenburg: The Burden of Shepherding, Grief and the Gospel and The Gospel and the Great Commandment.

Legacy: Why Authority Matters

In the later years of Solomon’s reign, he made conditions for the Israelites extremely harsh. The people referred to his reign as a heavy yoke. In the period after Solomon’s death, the void in leadership resulted in a division between the people of Israel. In hopes of bettering their working condi- tions, the people wanted to have a man named Jeroboam made king instead of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. They were so fed up with Solomon’s rule, Rehoboam had to flee to the city of Shechem, afraid for his life.

Jeroboam came to Rehoboam in Shechem with a deal. “Your father made our yoke heavy. Now there- fore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke on us, and we will serve you” (1 Kings 12:4). In response, Rehoboam asked for three days to seek counsel.

Initially, Rehoboam went to the older advisers who served under his father. Their advice? “If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever” (1 Kings 12:7). They called Rehoboam to be a servant leader who ruled for the good of the people.

The Bible records, “But [Rehoboam] abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him” (1 Kings 12:9). When the third day came and the people of Israel came to hear Rehoboam’s answer to their request, he said, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions” (1 Kings 12:14). Rather than choose to be a servant leader, Rehoboam demanded to be served. The result? A kingdom divided and thrown into chaos for decades.

As king, Rehoboam had a responsibility to serve and lead his people well. Instead, he abused the authority given him and ruled selfishly. Rehoboam’s downfall was ultimately the result of a com- plete disregard for the true meaning of authority.

Authority equals responsibility. Those of us who are leaders have responsibility, which means we have the opportunity to respond faithfully and steward what we are given for God’s glory. We are entrusted with the blessing of authority in order to be a blessing to our people.

The most blessed man ever to walk the earth was Solomon. He appeared to have it all—wealth, wisdom, a strong military, food and drink, women, and more. But he lacked one thing: a legacy. At the end of his life, when it was time for his son Rehoboam to assume the mantle of responsibility, Rehoboam instead brought devastation to his people and his kingdom.

As leaders, we too have the power to drive an organization towards health or towards disaster.

For me, this rings strongly true when I think of my family. I want to lead my family well, and I want to leave a good legacy. At times, I am afraid I won’t be able to do this. The temptation to be like Rehoboam is strong; to place my career over my family, leading so that I am served rather than lead- ing to serve—choosing myself over my family.

Rehoboam’s life reveals a challenging truth: a single decision or indiscretion can determine your legacy. When I am tempted to sin (or do sin), it has the potential to destroy my legacy. But it also allows for the opportunity to further establish my legacy through repentance.

Thankfully, grace changes everything. My wife and kids are incredible blessings. God has trans- formed a life headed towards a terrible legacy into a life with hope for a legacy that honors Him. He’s teaching me to obey him, which is essential for impacting the future, because how we view and respond to authority will determine the legacy of our authority.

UNDERSTANDING AUTHORITY

Whether it’s a founder, a chairman, a president, a CEO, an executive director, or a senior pastor, most organizations give somebody the final say. However, the majority of people exist somewhere below the top of the org chart.

So two questions arise: What does it look like to be called to a role that supports the primary leader? And, if you’re the primary leader, what does it look like to faithfully lead those entrusted to your oversight? We must be able to see ourselves as both servant and leader. Some days we’re taking out trash; other days we’re in charge of the most critical project of the year. How can we lead and serve simultaneously? How can we be good stewards of authority, and also submit to authority in a way that honors God and others?

A successful organization builds a vision that allows everyone to participate. The struggle is that we all want the glory, praise, and attention that comes from being in charge. The human craving for recognition and power is deep and unquenchable. However, there is hope that we can learn to lead and serve without being controlled by this longing. And this hope is rooted in an understanding of the biblical foundations of authority.

AUTHORITY IS GOD’S DESIGN

Like it or not, authority is God’s design. It is modeled after his own nature.

We love authority if we’re the ones who have it; we despite it if we’re under it. Ever since the Garden of Eden, humanity as a whole has been on a hell-bent quest to eschew all authority—God-given or not (Genesis 3:1-6).

I struggle with authority like everyone else. I’m selfish and want to make my own decisions. I want to be my own sovereign god. This shows up in some amusing and revealing ways.

For instance, I hate potlucks. I don’t know who cooked the food. I don’t know how clean their kitch- en is, or if they have cats (is there hair in that chocolate cake?). I can’t control it, so I eat what my family brings. Or I go for the fried chicken because it was fried. I don’t want to relax and trust oth- ers—even in something so trivial.

A potluck is just a simple example. Behind my desire to architect the perfect meal is really a heart unwilling to submit to anything that strips me of control, to authority—even a meaningless potluck.

Authority is not the problem. Our stubborn hearts are the problem. Our response to authority is rebellion, made all the more devastating because authority is actually a beautiful gift. Both authority and its corollary—submission—emanate from the core of God’s identity. To exercise authority and submission is to image God. Theologian Bruce Ware goes so far as to say, “An authority-submission structure marks the very nature of the eternal Being of the one who is three.” (Ware, Bruce A. Father, Son, & Holy Spirit).

Within the Trinity, God exercises and submits to authority with perfect joy. He invites us to do the same, while also showing us how. This means that leaders need to be both in and under authority, willing to take the lead and willing to follow. How are you resisting authority in your life? Where is submission a challenge for you?

GOD’S CHAIN OF COMMAND

There is one God, who is three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Trinity is perhaps the greatest mystery in the universe—one we can only approach, describe, and understand by faith. The Bible does not use the word “Trinity” to describe the Godhead, but Scripture clearly teaches that all three members exist in eternity (none were created) and all partici- pate in creation (Gen. 1:2 cf. Gen. 1:26 cf. John 1:1–3). They have in common the divine nature, which theologian J. Scott Horrell describes: “the generic essence, universal property, or attributes of Godness manifest equally in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Each member is equally God while remaining a distinct person with a distinct station and roles:

• The Father is God (Matt. 6:9–10; 1 Cor. 15:28; Eph. 1:3). He occupies the “position and authority, supreme among the Persons of the Godhead,” 6 for he appointed Jesus as King (Ps. 2:5–9), and he sends the Son (John 17:8) and the Holy Spirit (John 14:26). As Dr. Ware points out, God the Father is also described as our provider, protector, savior, help- er, and guide. 7 Each of these attributes outlines a position of power.
• The Son is God (John 1:1–3; 15:5; Phil. 2:9–11; Col. 2:9; Heb. 1:1–2). Jesus reigns at the right hand of the Father (Heb. 12:2) as King of Kings and Lord of Lords (1 Tim. 6:15). His placement at “right hand of God” is significant because it implies that Jesus is both in and under authority. He is under the Father’s authority, but over Creation. The Bible also describes God the Son as High Priest (Heb. 8:1), Chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4), the head of the Church (Eph. 5:23), and Lamb of God (John 1:29). All of these imply authority, except for the last, which refers to the submissive role of Jesus.
• The Spirit is God (Acts 5:3–4; 1 Cor. 2:10–11; Heb. 9:14). Theologian J.I. Packer sum- marizes the Spirit’s role: “The distinctive, constant, basic ministry of the Holy Spirit . . . is to mediate Christ’s presence to believers.” (J.I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit). God the Holy Spirit enables regeneration of our hard hearts (John 3:3–8) and continually sanctifies us and empowers us to be- come more like Jesus (2 Cor. 4:6). He also inspired the writing of Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21). In these ways, the Spirit is under Christ’s (and therefore the Father’s) authority, but over us.

The hierarchy of God—with the Spirit submitting to the Son, the Son submitting to the Father (John 14:25–26), and the Spirit submitting to both—may seem primitive or out of place in the land of “We the people”. But the Trinity proves that perfect peace, love, equality, respect, joy, and freedom can exist within a culture of authority and submission. There is no complaining or jealousy among the Trinity, just joy-filled submission. If our Creator submits willingly within the Godhead, then I sug- gest our problem with authority is not the perceived injustice of submission, but instead our proud, unwilling hearts. In fact, submission should not be considered demeaning, but rather godly.

We all have warped conceptions of submission and authority. Mine grew out of an immature belief that things are always better when I’m in control—coupled with the lack of consequences for irresponsible behaviors. One night my siblings and I were driving drunk. We totaled our car and almost died by speeding into a river. My dad came and met us at the scene of the accident. I had disregarded the authority of my parents, the authority of the police, and certainly the authority of God.

The next night, they took us out to the fanciest restaurant in town. It didn’t feel like it was out of grace, but more out of a desire to buy our love and avoid painful disciplinary conversation. This is just one example of how I was allowed to go unchecked in my belief that I was my own best authority. Real authority was absent from my life—so I ruled myself, because I could. It wasn’t until years later, when I became a Christian, that I saw my ungodly view of authority and how my stubborn heart cringed at submission and craved control.

This sort of baggage isn’t easily offloaded. But regardless of our upbringing and biases, we are all created in the image of this God (Gen. 1:27), who has authority over himself and also submits to himself. This means our highest purpose is to submit to our Maker, trust his Word, enjoy the grace of his rule and reign, and learn from him rather than try to usurp him.

The roles and relationships found within the Trinity serve as our only perfect example of what hu- man relationships can and should be. We must embrace God’s Trinitarian Leadership in order to wield authority as a beneficial tool and not a dangerous weapon. We must also submit to it as a sanctifying means of grace, not an oppressive yolk to be brushed off or abandoned altogether, which is equally destructive (Judges 21:25; Prov. 19:18).

AUTHORITY WITHOUT BAGGAGE

Many of us carry emotional baggage that we received at a very young age from authority figures. Sadly, more kids are raised with and influenced by their parents’ absence than they are by their parents’ presence. Maybe they never knew their father, or their parents were divorced, or their parents were too busy spending their time on “more important” things, like work or hobbies. On the other side of the spectrum, many children grew up in families filled with anger and abuse. Few of us grew up with a family that demonstrated the blessing of godly leadership.

Influenced by our sin and the sin around us, it can be difficult to understand undistorted authority or willing submission. The only way we are able to do this is through observing the Trinity. We have to pick up the baggage from our bad experiences and lay it down in the presence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Instead of fixating on what we dislike or hate about authority, we examine their interactions and find what we can love about authority. Within the relationship of the Godhead, we can see authority marked by what it should be: humility, love, and generosity.

AUTHORITY FOR THE GLORY OF GOD

The humility, love, and generosity that flow through God’s authority are not arbitrary expressions of benevolence, or capricious acts of manipulation to win our allegiance. Instead, the authority of God magnifies the glory of God.

Self-glory is a problem in human authority, as with the leader who establishes himself as some sort of demigod. For a perfect being, however, who exists as the very definition of goodness, love, and truth, God’s glory represents the triumph of his perfect kingdom. John Piper writes, “The deepest longing of the human heart and the deepest meaning of heaven and earth are summed up in this: the glory of God. The universe was made to show it, and we were made to see it and savor it.”

Even in glorifying himself, however, the humility, love, and generosity of God are evident. The Spirit glorifies the Father and the Son, and the Son glorifies the Father. God the Father is the ultimate destination of all glory, and justifiably receives it all. Yet remarkably he shares it, by receiving the glory due him through the glory given to the Son.

All three Persons of the Trinity are filled with joy at the giving and receiving of glory from each other. Their mission is mutual glory for their own joy and the joy of mankind, not personal enrichment. They suffer no envy or jealousy. Each receives glory, and each shares it readily with the others. God is glorious.

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Jamie Munson is an author and business leader. This post was excerpted with permission from his book, Authority: The Leader's Call to Serve. Check out his books, or follow him on twitter @jamiemunson, or read his articles on JamieMunson.com.

The Practical Calvin: Holiness and the Christian Life

John Calvin. This name is has different meanings depending on one’s theological framework, denominational upbringing, or knowledge of church history. He is loved by many, hated by many, and surely unknown to many others. Regardless of one’s opinion of Calvin, he is often seen as the rigid theologian who wrote extremely lofty thoughts about the sovereignty and glory of God. In his greatest theological work, The Institutes of Christian Religion, Calvin expounds rather extensively upon nearly every major Christian doctrine. However, one particular theme that is woven throughout the treatise is the practical implications of his theology. Far from a crusty old man writing a stale textbook, Calvin understood that the breadth of his work was worthless if it did not apply itself to the life of a believer. He was intensely practical and pastoral in his writings, exhibiting great concern for holiness. When dealing with the day-to-day Christian life, he focused most closely on four major points: union with Christ through the Spirit, the inseparable link of faith and the Word, the essentiality of repentance, and the Christian’s need for self-denial.

Union with Christ

In Calvin’s mind, there was no such thing as a “Christian life” apart from union with Christ. He posited that “until we become one with him, everything he possesses is nothing to us.” So how does one become united with Christ? Calvin explains: “The Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectively binds us to himself. … By the grace and energy of the Spirit we become his members, so that he is in charge of us and we, in our turn, possess him.” In other words, the power of the Holy Spirit accomplishes this connection and applies salvation to the person. He also notes that in the gospel “we find the treasures of grace unfolded to us.” One becomes a believer by being united with Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit, and the gospel then discloses to them the fullness of Christ which is unknown without the Spirit.

The Connection of Faith and the Word

In the life of the Christian, Calvin saw faith and the Word of God as inseparable. He claimed that “they can no more be separated than rays of light from the sun.” He did not function as a wandering dreamer; he based faith itself on the objective truths of Scripture. To him, the authority held by Scripture is so transcendent, so otherworldly, that there is no way to have a markedly supernatural faith with a merely natural book.

Additionally, Calvin would make the case that “the Word is the base on which faith rests and is strengthened. … Take away the Word, and there will be no faith.” Faith was more than simple knowledge about God in the eyes of Calvin; he believed that faith was a knowledge of God’s revealed will in Scripture. The Word gives believers all that they need to grow in faith and to comprehend God’s will, and the denial of the truth of Scripture directly correlates to the weakening of faith. Through the power of the Spirit, holiness only came through direct relationship with knowing God's commands.

The Importance of Repentance

Calvin shifted to the primacy of repentance. Upon the believer’s union with Christ through the Spirit while their faith is being strengthened through the Word, the logical following result is repentance. He suggests that the gospel “is about repentance and forgiveness of sins. If these are omitted, any discussion about faith will be useless. … Repentance not only follows faith but is produced by it.” If the believer has been united with Christ and clothed in his righteousness, then he has been given a faith grounded in the authority of God’s Word. In turn, one must practice the ways of the new life by turning from the old life. If one truly understands God’s grace, then repentance is inevitable. As he put it, “a man cannot honestly say he knows about repentance unless he knows he belongs to God.”

Moreover, repentance is more plainly defined by Calvin as “a true conversion of our life to God, springing from real and solemn fear of God; it consists also in putting to death our flesh and the quickening of the Spirit.” First, people need a conversion of both the soul and their outward actions. Still walking in unrepentant sin, a person can hardly begin to seek righteousness through repentance in a meaningful way. Second, repentance springs from a sincere fear of God. The believer must truly come to grips with divine judgment and the reality of one day standing before God’s judgment seat. Lastly, repentance consists of mortification of the flesh and the Spirit’s imparting of holiness. Scripture is clear that believers must renounce the world and their own desires for the sake of Christ. The Holy Spirit, in turn, will “inspire our souls with new thoughts and affections.” The life of a Christian is entirely practical when weighed against Scripture. To Calvin, the Word is clear that God’s will is for his people to live a holy life and to use it in glorifying him.

In the end, no one who belongs to God will ever struggle so habitually that they do not still progress toward him daily. Salvation necessarily leads to holiness. Because of this, Calvin insists that Christians never give up on pursuing Christ.

The Act of Self-Denial

The definitive sum of the Christian life, according to Calvin, is self-denial. He concludes that “we must not follow our own way but the Lord’s will, and aim always to promote his glory. We are really succeeding when, almost forgetting ourselves and putting aside our own way of thinking, we genuinely try to obey God and his commandments.” The entirety of creation is God’s stage, and Christians are merely bit actors in his grand drama of redemption.

Not only so, but those united with Christ are members of his body, and thus they are members of one another. He is the head from which all of the functions of the body flows. As such, whatever one member of the body does, the rest of the body partakes of the action as well. All members exist for one another even as they all exist ultimately for Christ. All of this must be done selflessly as to avoid arrogance or moral blame. He expounds on this notion saying, “Really everyone should think that he owes himself to his neighbors, and that the only limit to his generosity is the end of his resources.”

Calvin’s emphasis on self-denial is rooted in Christ’s command to take up one’s cross and follow him. Just as the Father put his own Son through trials, he will certainly not spare the rest of his children. The more Christians share in Christ’s sufferings, the closer communion they experience with him, hence the further they progress in holiness.

A Theologian for Everyone

No person is perfect, and no one should agree with every single word a theologian says. But whether one resonates with Calvin’s theology as a whole or not, he is a theologian for everyone. He clearly loved Christ and wanted to point people to him. Ever the pursuer of God’s own heart, he has much to teach the world about lifting high the name of Jesus and living a life worthy of the calling (Eph. 4:1).

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In this post, I used the following version of Institutes: John Calvin, The Institutes of Christian Religion, ed. Tony Lane and Hilary Osborne (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1987).

The Tension of Marriage and Mission

A World of Hope for Marriage

In the beginning God created the world and all living things, and it was good. He created everything to depend on and worship him, and it was good. The only thing God said was not good was for man to be alone. So he remedied that by making a woman out of man, and it too was good! The world started with great peace, love, worship, and joy. There was a connection to God and a connection to one another. Mankind cared for the planet, and life on Earth was healthy and satisfying. Today, the world is not like that. So what happened?

In Genesis 3, humanity turns away from its utter dependence on God and toward a dependence on self. Humans chose to serve themselves by trying to be God rather than to worship, obey and walk with God. Immediate brokenness and separation ensued. The husband and wife blamed each other, lied, hid from God, and were filled with shame and loneliness. Today, we live in a broken and isolated world that is still living under the curse of this Genesis 3 moment. What has been the solution to this curse? We continue to look to human wisdom to save us from our own mess.  We have seen this from the humans building the tower of Babel back in Genesis.  We also see this today in our culture’s drive to exalt ourselves by improving self-esteem and self-worth. This is also seen through this generation’s tireless fight to build an online self-monument via Twitter, About Me, Facebook, and other social networks.  In our brokenness, we continue to look to ourselves to provide healing; all the while our addiction-to-self continues to grow. This is foolishness.

How is this self-centeredness proving itself today? According to the Center for Disease Control, 1 in 10 U.S. adults are clinically diagnosed with depression. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 43% of American children today are being raised without their Fathers—this percentage doesn’t reflect the level of involvement of these fathers as abusive, distant, or loving and highly engaged. In the U.S. there is one divorce every 13 seconds which equates to 6,646 divorces per day, and 46,523 divorces per week. In addition, every second, 28,258 internet users are viewing pornography. I could go on and on with these statistics. However, as disciple makers these are more than statistics because we know the people, we know the stories.

In the midst of all of this there is a Creator-God that embodies community. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are in perfect everlasting relationship with one another, existing in an eternal state of harmony, peace and love.  Stop and think about that.  They love each other perfectly. Serve each other perfectly. Submit to each other perfectly. Honor each other perfectly –forever. God is love.  And love is found in this relationship.

God the Son, Jesus Christ, came to this Earth to bring a people into this perfect relationship. In John 17, he prays to his Father that we would be one as they are one. This is one of the most scandalous, offensive prayers in history. Jesus asks the Father to make us—isolated, selfish, corrupt sinners—one with him and the Father. Blasphemy! But Jesus does not just pray; He sacrifices himself as the only way for this to happen. He takes the death that we deserve. Dying a humiliating, torturous, and lonely death on a filthy-Roman cross. He took the pain and separation of the curse, so that we might be one as he and the Father are one.

This is the gospel. This is good news—that sinful humans get to be family with God. Is this madness? Yes. Is this true? Yes. Does this change everything? Yes. Yes it does. We get to be with God and reflect this communal love. We also get to tell this broken world around us this true story of hope! Our loving God not only invites us into his loving family but into his loving mission. Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is a scandalous prayer to unite us with him in both family and in mission! This is the role of the church.

The reality of the gospel is the backdrop and foundation that should shape our marriages, families, and the church. I am writing this article address the tension of missional living and the health of our marriages and families. I want to urge us to not to seek balance between family and mission, but to lead our families out of balance via loving God, loving our families, and loving others! The goal is not balance, or finding the line between leading our church and leading our families; the goal is that leaders, families, the church, and the lost would be one with God the Father and God the Son, just as they are one. This is our goal. The question is how do we achieve this goal? The short answer is through the cross and by the power of the Holy Spirit. But how does that work?

The Mystery of Marriage

In the beginning, God created man and woman to be image bearers of the Trinity. This is a mystery. Humanity images God. Genesis gives us insight on how we are to image God. It was not good to try and image God alone. Why? As we have already established, our God is not alone, but a God in relationship –God is community. So God creates man and woman to image God together. He creates marriage to be a way to begin, reveal, and reflect the mystery of the Trinity. Wow, no pressure! Let me state this again. Human relationships, and specifically marriage, are meant to reveal and reflect the glorious submission, harmony, and love of the Trinity. This is a mystery, however, most of us have had the privilege of seeing a beautiful marriage and were drawn to it.  Unified, gospel-centered marriages should draw us to worship the Trinity! This is why I argue that our goal is not to balance marriage and mission, because displaying a healthy marriage, in and of it-self, is mission! A healthy marriage is a God-ordained, God-created, mysterious way to proclaim the mystery of the Trinity, and this proclamation is mission.

Understanding Genesis should be more than enough to overwhelm us with the importance of a God-exalting marriage, but God’s story does not end in Genesis. In Ephesians 5, we are told that a marriage between one man and one woman displays the mystery of Jesus Christ’s love for the church. The mystery of Jesus’ John 17 prayer is on display in marriage. The fact that God became a man and died on a cross for the sins of the world can be exemplified through a Christ-centered marriage. A marriage where a man loves, serves, and sacrifices for his wife, and the wife submits and respects her husband shows off some of the mystery of Jesus and his bride the church. Unbelievable! Once again we see that a Christ-centered marriage put on display is, in and of itself, mission. God uses marriage to preach the gospel to the world. Is it any wonder that Satan wants so badly to attack marriages? The battle for gay-marriage, increasing divorce rates, and sexual addictions all make sense as a plan of attack for our enemy. Let us not be ignorant of the devil’s schemes. He wants to attack and destroy marriages.

Finally, it is not just marriage but parenting and family life. Two of the three members of the trinity are revealed to us as Father and as Son. God is revealed to us as a family. We are adopted by God the Father into a family and the church is described with many metaphors in scripture but none are more prevalent than family. The world looks to the church to understand that God is a family and the church looks to the family to understand that church is a family. Family is important. Loving fathers reflect to the world that our God is a loving father. Parents loving their children in front of the lost are conducting an act of mission. A healthy, God-centered family is missional because the world only has negative views of a father, and so when they hear that God is a Father they are hearing bad news. Earthly fathers get to display that this is good news! This is a weighty call, but it is a privilege. How we love, protect, nurture, and lead our children has a mighty impact on our mission! 

What Does This All Mean?

What this means is that mission is good for our family and our family is good for mission.  As we obey the Spirit on mission it will strengthen our family, and as we strengthen our family it will strengthen mission. The two are not mutually exclusive, but mutually fuel each other.

What this means is that families are on the frontlines of mission where there is spiritual warfare whether we want to admit it or not. It is easy to react to this by isolating and protecting the family in an anti-mission bubble, but this is actually more harmful because it ignores the call and joy of radical mission. It can propel families to believe a lie from the enemy. The opposite end of the spectrum is to force our families into sacrifices they are not ready or willing to make. The key is listening to the Holy Spirit through God’s word and community and letting that lead you and your family into mission.

What this means is that the home is a hub for mission. Part of displaying the mysteries of the Trinity and the gospel, and the love of God the Father is allowing people to witness it in the daily life of our homes. I know the home will get messy and even ruined, but we must remember what it cost our God to allow broken and messy people into his home. The gospel motivates us. Again there is a tension here. The home is a hub for mission but it is also to be a sanctuary. Our God does give us rest and we must be attentive to not make sacrifices in order to please man but to make the sacrifices God is calling us to. Listening to our wives, children and community can help us know what and when to say “yes” or “no” to opening the home.

What this means is that our goal for our children is not to fuel their self-worth or self-esteem but to point them to the joy of knowing and following Christ. We make it our aim to please God. We make it our aim to partner with our bride and Christ’s bride—the church—to model for our children and the lost the joy of giving up everything to follow Jesus into a life of love and adventure.

Remember this is not a balancing act or a chore. We get to be united with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We get to join in God’s great rescue plan for the world. We get to do this with our family and we get to do this with his family the local church. Let us rejoice and be glad in this!

Getting Practical

Practically speaking we can see that there is a great weight with marriage and family life. We can see that we have a real enemy who is trying to attack the church, families, and marriages. Below are 11 practical things that I have learned from other men who are fighting to live a life of mission with their family. I pray that these serve as helpful and practical guides:

1. Model repentance: We are the chief sinners in our families and need to be leading in confessing and turning from sin. If we cease to confess sin we will lose their trust or become a false god. Our role is to lead in pointing to a true God and reveal our need of Jesus and his work on the cross.
2. Model dependence: We must model a dependence on Jesus and show that we are needy for Jesus—we need his forgiveness, his love, and his grace daily. We model a dependence on God’s word and prayer and prove that our desire to be a family on mission is from the Lord and not just our crazy idea. Living this life of mission with the local church goes a long way in building trust.
3. Preach the gospel: If we are not preaching, teaching, and pleading with our household to believe the gospel daily, than how can we do this outside of our household? Remember that our wife and kids need to hear the good news of the gospel on a daily basis.
4. Encourage and Protect: Encourage family to use and pursue their unique spiritual gifts and callings. Encourage and make sacrifices to allow wife to get time with the women who challenge and encourage her. Make sure family serves primarily in the role they would be serving even if you were not in leadership. Protect them from lies from the devil and wolves; protect them from what the world says they should pursue and instead point them to what God’s word says.
5. Pursue: Never stop pursuing your bride. Work to win her love daily and work to prove your love daily.
6. Pray: Pray with and for your wife daily. Ask her where she needs prayer and pray for her specific needs. We cannot make the mistake of praying for everyone in the church and not our wives. Do the same with your kids!
7. Family Day: Take a day off weekly to hang out with the family and not do counseling, sermon prep, vision planning, etc. but just party with the family. This gives us a much-needed Sabbath and reminds you and the family that Christ is head of the church and it will all go on without you for a day. Show you really believe this by turning your cell phone off and not checking e-mail on these days.
8. Date night: Date your bride weekly. Let your leaders, church, and friends know you are doing this and that date night is a priority. Give permission to your community to make sure you are doing date nights. This comforts her to know that everyone knows that date night with her is a priority and that men will be holding you accountable to making it a priority. Turn off cell phone on date night.
9. Foster her identity: Call your bride a bride.  Never use negative nicknames like ball and chain, old’ lady, etc. She will live out of the identity you help foster for her. Ensure that it is an identity of her being the bride of Christ and your bride too!
10. Listening: We must develop ears to hear from God and from our family. Listen to your bride, as she is your God-given helper to help you know what to say yes to and what to say no to. Listen to her hesitations and passions. Listen to your children too. Is your family getting burnt out? Are they excited for mission? Are they scared? Do they miss their daddy? Does your bride feel loved or forgotten? Do they love the church and are they thankful their Daddy or husband leads in the church? Listen to God’s people, to your leaders, and your local church family.  God has given us them to build us up, serve us, and to point out our blind spots. We must be dedicated listeners if we are to lead our family on mission.
11. Do mission together: Finally, fuel each other’s missional ideas. It is not just the family sacrificing to follow you on mission but sometimes you sacrifice to follow what the Spirit is putting on your bride’s heart or your kid’s heart. Rally behind their ideas and do so as a family. This will build tremendous unity and make every dangerous gospel idea an idea that involves the whole family and not just one member of the family. While you are at it, do this with your local church. Mutually encourage each other’s faith and rally around each other’s missional ideas and dreams!

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Jake Chambers (@JakeJayChambers) is a member of Jesus’ bride - the church. He is the husband to his beautiful bride Lindsey, and a daddy to his boy Ezra, Roseanna and baby Jaya is on the way. Jake is passionate about seeing the gospel both transform lives and create communities that love Jesus, the city, and the lost. He currently serves Red Door Church through leading, preaching, equipping, and pastoring. 

Other articles by Jake: Your Language Matters and Do Friends and Ministry Mix?

The Pornified Mind and the Glory of God

When I was 22 I heard Louie Giglio speak about the glory of God and I've never forgotten that sermon. He spoke about a road-trip he and a friend took in their late teens. Mount Rainier was the destination; they ate, drank, and breathed information about the mountain in preparation to summit it. But in the moment when they beheld the mount, it was not information that filled them, but awe. Louie told how he stood there looking at Rainier and wept. He was ashamed of his tears at the time—what self-respecting man weeps at a mountain? But as he shared the story in front of thousands of young people I guarantee there was no shortage of tears welling in our own eyes. Awe is contagious.

Rewiring Our Minds

A new film is set to release this year, the protagonist is a guy who values, "My body, my pad, my ride, my family, my church, my boys, my girls...and my porn." As best as I can tell from the trailer, when he finally encounters a girl who meets his porn-infused standards, he's surprised to find out she has some standards of her own. Her porn, though, is chick flicks—stories of tender, strong, fictional gentlemen who will meet her emotional and physical needs; needs which our principle guy finds he is hardly qualified to meet.

There's a good amount of gender stereotyping from what I can tell in just the trailer, however, as I don't see myself spending time, money, or soul watching the film, my observations here are based on the trailer alone. Now would be a good time to point out that porn is not just an issue for men: 66% of women today watch or have watched porn. But for the sake using the illustration of the film, we're going to stick to what it offers to us here. There are a few notable observations to be made from it, namely that even secular culture recognizes the similarity between men who watch porn and women who read books and films depicting romance. If watching porn rewires the minds of men, it's a safe bet to say there's some rewiring happening in the minds of women as well when they feast on emotional and sexual fantasies (of any kind).

One of the ways porn has affected men in greater numbers is their arousal by a real live woman is simply nonexistent. The more they feast on multiple women at the mere click of a button, the more they train their minds to need new, new, new. Though I have no scientific proof for my theory, I would argue the same is true for women who have allowed their minds to sit in the stench of imagined and unfulfilled futures. No man can compete with the specimen of modern lore.

A number of single, young men have told me they can't get a date because women have this strong, silent, tall, dark, and handsome fictional ideal. The same is true for women; men who have feasted on airbrushed women meeting their every sexual fantasy are not going to find much attractive in the girl next door unless she's wearing daisy dukes and midriff top. The more we feast on what is not real, the less we desire that which is.

In conversations with my single friends, the number one attribute of a woman the men want is someone they're physically attracted to, and the number one attribute the women want in a man is a partner and a friend. That's telling to me and it should be to all of us.

Splitting Intentions

Wendell Berry, in his essay Feminism, the Body, and the Machine, writes,

Marriage, in what is evidently its most popular version, is now on the one hand an intimate "relationship" involving (ideally) two successful careerist in the same bed, and on the other hand a sort of private political system in which rights and interests must be constantly asserted and defended. Marriage in other words, has now taken the form of divorce: a prolonged and impassioned negotiation as to how things shall be divided.

While Berry is speaking specifically about the modern idea that within marriage we "split" duties and work equally, his share and her share, and how this is only a divorce mindset within the confines of a lawful marriage, there's something to be said here for the way we go about seeking a spouse. For a man to place such high emphasis on the "hotness" of his wife is to overlook the sharedness of the image in Whom they were made. And for a woman to find her greatest satisfaction in a man who will be her gentle-friend and provider, she misses the opportunity to reflect back the Maker to her spouse.

We have been splitting duties since the garden of Eden (Eve: The serpent gave it to me! Adam: The woman you gave to me gave it to me!). In a culture that increasingly sees nothing wrong with porn, romance novels, or chick flicks, we only fracture that split further: the woman is meant to please men, the man is meant to please women. Meanwhile both have almost completely lost sight of original intention which is not to please one another at all.

God's Good Pleasure

"Come, let us make man in our image, after our likeness," are the first words we hear from God regarding man. In our image. In our likeness.

He formed man from dust and breathed life into his nostrils. He formed woman from bone and brought her to man.

Adam's response to woman has been caricatured by many to imply that woman was staggeringly beautiful and so should every woman henceforth be to her husband. But it falls flat because to what did Adam have to compare this creation? There were no standards of beauty but One. God alone. And in Adam's cry we hear the anguished cry of every man and woman to this day when they behold the nearest thing to God they can know, "At last!"

At last.

It was not the mere beauty of Eve's body that brought Adam such joy, but the image-bearer of his Creator standing in full glorious reality in front of him. It was not only a sexual reaction, but a spiritual one. Like Louie at the foot of Mount Rainier, nothing could have prepared Adam for the sight of something which so beautifully reflected his Maker.

Within the hearts of men and women, at the sight of what God has created to bring Him worship and glory, to fulfill our greatest good and every mandate, we stand and worship, we weep. Why? Because we have seen the real thing, and no amount of airbrushed images or happily ever afters could prepare us for what God created to best reflect His likeness. A real, live person. The real thing.

Fire from the Gods: Why Control Doesn't Solve Worry

Prometheus is a hero to many. He was a gigantic Titan god who challenged Zeus. Prometheus’ crime? Stealing fire from the gods. He thought Zeus’ rule over humanity was oppressive. Until Prometheus’ history splitting action, mankind lived a mundane existence, knowing the day of their death, ignorant of the Arts and Sciences. Zeus kept mortals in the dark. Prometheus thought this was unfair, so he sought to bring men and women out into the light. How? By stealing “fire from the gods” and giving it to humanity. This treasonous act was met with unflinching punishment. With Prometheus subdued, several gods escort him through a mountain gorge, carrying his massive stature to a mountain, where they fasten him to a rock. Hephaestus, the Vulcan blacksmith, reluctantly bolts the Prometheus to the mountain face.

Fire from the Gods

What did Prometheus accomplish in this seditious act? He gave humanity three things: a sense of immortality, ambition, and technology. As the story goes, the fire empowered the ambition of man to master many arts and ignite technological change. You might say Prometheus’ bondage freed humanity. What has been the benefit? Well, we’ve come a long way since hunting and gathering by moving into the progress of the Industrial Age, and now live in a globalized knowledge-based economy. We push the boundaries of science and technology century after century. Using the fire of the gods, we’ve healed diseases, extended life, sought to eradicate poverty, end human suffering, and even clone life.

Many would assert the fire of the gods is the way into a higher quality of life. Just look at human progress. When I come home, I kiss my wife, hug and greet each of my kids, talk to them about their day, and then check my phone. I may or may not put it away in my office. I feel the pull to check Twitter and email. The wireless signal draws me in, undetected, like a siren call. It makes me feel good, even in control. But am I in control? Is life better? While technology isn’t the devil, we must also remember that we aren’t the gods. In the words of Eugene Peterson, “we have the technology of the gods without the wisdom of the gods.”[1] Not knowing the day of our death (and knowing the Arts & Sciences) has given us, in the words of Prometheus, “blind hope.” We stumble forward and backward, fumbling our hope to change the world. Despite technological advance and educational leaps, we still haven’t eradicated poverty, stabilized the economy, or eliminated war. Is it possible the fire has blinded us?

Illusions of Sovereignty

Blinded by ambition, unaware of our mortality, we proceed under the illusion of control, under the spell of human progress, unaware that we are human because we can act like gods. Using Google maps we can pinpoint any location on earth. Using wireless technology we can contact anyone on earth. Using our laptop we can work from anywhere on earth! Many would argue this creates a better quality of life, we can do more for the world and more for the family, but that isn’t always true. Very often, we are controlled more than we control. We have an illusion of sovereignty. Possessing technological strength, we assume a sense of sovereignty that transmits the lie that we can minimize anxiety, insecurity, even suffering. We believe the more we control, the less we will worry.

My illusion of control protrudes into my family. After ten minutes of genuine niceties with my kids, disputes and complaints inevitably break out (They are 7, 6, and 2!). Summoning my sovereignty, I try to wield godlike control over the chaos. Commanding obedience and issuing reprimands, I try to secure the peace…but it doesn’t work. More control doesn’t lead to less worry. Why? Because my sovereignty is an illusion. We are not in control of our environment, circumstances, or children’s hearts. The only thing we can control is ourselves, and we are in desperate need for help with that.

Why doesn’t control work? Control doesn’t work because someone else is in control. There is a true sovereign who is willing something greater than temporary silence and false peace at home. There is a sovereign who has appointed the chaos of raising kids. God is willing weaker parents, gentler parents, more patient parents, parents who ask more questions than orders given. He could intervene at any moment, but he wants us to trust. Where is he exposing your illusion of control?

Worry Creep

The deceptive thing about the illusion of control, is that it works sometimes. Sometimes my kids quiet down when I threaten them. Sometimes employees do exactly what you want. Sometimes technology fixes things. But sometimes it doesn’t. What happens then? When kids act out, employees blow it, and computers go down, anxiety takes us by storm. We don’t expect it. We scramble, problem-solve, and worry begins to creep in. Our spell, now broken, brings our dreams crashing down around us. Plans, deadlines, and goals are thwarted. Anxiety begins to raise its ugly head.

What does Jesus have to say when worry hits? “I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? (Matt 11:25). Jesus says, “Don’t be anxious.” That doesn’t relieve much for me. It actually makes me anxious about not being anxious. Jesus offers some relief when he tells us to compare ourselves to the birds, well fed, and to the flowers, well clothed. If God feeds and clothes them, will he not take care of us? He tells us to consider the lilies. The word “consider” means to ponder and learn. What’s the relief Jesus is offering here? He says, in the moment of anxiety, rely on your head not your emotions. Remember what God does. He cares for the lesser. Will he not care for the greater? After all flowers and birds were not fashioned in his image. Honestly, this doesn’t help me much either. Why? Because reason isn’t the root of the problem. Faith is: “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (11:30).

How does faith help worry? How does faith secure peace? Sounds like a sham. Are we supposed to close our eyes, cross our fingers, and wish our worries away to God? That’s not faith. That’s wishful thinking. Jesus’ counsel isn’t a sham because we all have faith. Regardless of what we look to for help (technology, God, ambition, personality), we look to something. We are creatures of trust. You might trust a spouse, but then you get hurt or burned, so you trust yourself. You think to yourself: I can secure happiness by leaving this marriage. Even though you don’t trust others, you’re still trusting. You might trust a great business idea or career move, but what if we hit a recession again and the business goes under? The capital dries up? We all trust, every day. The question is: “Is what you’re trusting able to hold you up, no matter what?” Are you in control or is it in control? Jesus explains: “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Seeking First the Kingdom

Jesus said don’t worry by having faith, but now he tells us how: “seek first the kingdom of God.” Three critical elements have to come together to get us away from worry: seek, first, kingdom.

Desiring the Kingdom

Seek first the kingdom. Pursue. The word can actually be translated desire—desire the kingdom. Yearn the kingdom. Crave the kingdom. This is an emotive command, a strong, persistent way out of worry. Do you crave the kingdom? Do you pulse with desire for the things of God? If you don’t, you’ll be dominated by worry.

How do you know if you desire the kingdom of God? Anxiety will go down and prayer will go up. I’ve desired my kingdom at home, trying to enforce peace instead of entreat peace. Worry goes up, prayer goes down. So how do we desire the kingdom? First we have to know what it is. The kingdom of God is the reign of Christ over all things, in his way, and in his time. So to desire the kingdom is to long for Christ’s way over everything, especially the thing we worry about. The way out of worry is the way into the kingdom.

Desiring the kingdom is desiring God’s will more than our will. George Mueller said: “The will of God is to have no will of your own.” That will rub an American wrong. No will of my own? That’s mindless faith! Close your eyes and will it away? Do you really expect me to be indifferent about screaming kids, crashing economies, and vocational changes? No, remember, consider the lilies. Reason it out. Does God create? Does God provide? Does God care? If so, he’s the one that’s really in control, not you or them. He made it all—your kids, your spouses, your world. Trust who’s in charge. When something goes wrong with your Macbook, do you call Microsoft? No, you call the one who made it. You trust the one who has the power to fix it, who can control your technology. You trust the one in charge. Desiring the kingdom means calling upon the King. It means trusting his way and his timing, especially when things seem broken. The way out of worry is desiring the way into the kingdom.

Making the Kingdom First

Seek first the kingdom of God. By first Jesus means first, supreme, uppermost, on top of all things. If the kingdom of God is the reign of Christ over all things, in his way and in his time, then we would be foolish to not make it first. This is the kingdom of God, who dwells in unapproachable light, Lover-Beloved-Love, Restorer of shalom, the very Wind and Word of God, the Holy, holy, holy. His kingdom is first, not our kingdom. For the Christian, the kingdom of God is ultimate, supreme, of chief importance. We must long for it, for him, more than any other thing—more than family, security, technology, and even democracy. It must to be first because it is first.

The British preacher Martin Lloyd Jones remarked: “If [the kingdom] isn’t the first thing in your life, then you haven’t got it. Rather, it should have you.” How do you know the kingdom has you? You desire it. You pray for it: “Your kingdom come your will be done.” No caveats. The more we pray for it the more we will desire it. Pray it: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you.” I’ve been praying this prayer regarding my attitude towards my kids. It’s changing me, which is changing them. Their mother was gone all weekend. But instead of trying to get an iron grip on the weekend, I asked God for his kingdom to grip me. I asked that I would desire his control first, especially in the disputes, trusting his agenda to change me. I asked that I wouldn’t be seduced by the lie that: “The more I control, the less I will worry.” It’s actually quite the opposite. The less I try to control, and the more I trust his control, the less I worry. My control is an illusion and grabs at fleeting peace. His control is true, and leads me into true peace.

We’ve forgotten that Prometheus Bound is a tragedy, not a triumph. Bolted to the rock by the Vulcan, Prometheus was scorched by the sun and frozen by the moon. By day an eagle pecked out his innards. By night they grew back. Riddled with anxiety, his suffering repeated itself day after day. The Greeks want us to see that it is folly to trust in ambition and put faith our control. Instead, we need to desire first the kingdom of God, the kingdom where the king is bolted to the tree for our transgressions, for our worries, and liberated for our triumph and our peace. Seek first the kingdom of God and worry will be a far second.

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[1] This reflection on Prometheus is inspired by Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 28-31.

Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of City Life Church in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship andUnbelievable Gospel. 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.

Related articles by Jonathan: Questioning the Gospel and How to Avoid Brain Meltdown and Increase Theological Vision

Top 5 Articles in May

What is the Gospel? by Shawn Kennedy

When you think about words that are used, abused and highly misunderstood in our culture today, one word in particular rises to the top. It is the word love. We use the word love in our culture to describe our thoughts and feelings for just about anything and everything. what has happened in our culture when it comes to the word love has also happened in our local churches and in the larger landscape of Christianity when it comes to the word gospel. We use the word gospel, at times, freely and careless, rarely asking and answering the question, “what is the gospel?” Shawn Kennedy asks this question in this article.

The Burden of Shepherding by Abe Meysenburg

How to you handle the burden of shepherding people? How do you avoid making people’s problems your own? Where do you find the strength to continue caring for them, even when it’s extremely difficult? Abe Meysenburg explores the false beliefs and healthy patterns of caring for people.

Not Only Spirit Filled, But Spirit Controlled by Matt Brown

It is not our arguments or our tight-doctrine that make us persuasive to people, it is the graciousness, love, and joy that only comes from a Christ-filled and Spirit-controlled life. If we walk in step with the Spirit and exhibit these characteristics to a world thirsty for grace, who wouldn’t want to be around us? Matt Brown describes the spirit controlled life in regards to evangelism.

Be A Storyteller by Brad Watson

Stories are where we look for meaning, instruction, and community. All other stories are a mere shadow of the gospel. Brad Watson explains why we must become gospel storytellers.

Praying for Bad Things to Happen to Bad People by Jeremy Writebol

When was the last time you were mad at someone? I mean really mad? Mad enough to pray that God would do something terrible to them? Jeremy Writebol describes a gospel-centered view of praying the imprecatory psalms.

You Only Live Once?

A common phrase used among people my age is: YOLO or You Only Live Once. This is a term that encourages people to live life to the fullest and without limitations. It’s particularly popular among teens and young adults. YOLO captures the thinking and philosophy of the American young person. It focuses on oneself and offers an answer to Aristotle's ancient question: How ought a man live his life?

What is life all about?

Is this life all there is or is there more? I think it’s important for us to look at how the gospel defines life compared to how the world would define it. The world says: there is no certainty of afterlife. However, there is the certainty we are all going to die, and so we’d better enjoy life while we still can. This worldview sees life as merely natural. There is little or no spirituality involved and almost certainly nothing about eternity. The believer looks at life and its end differently. James, in his epistle, says: “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:14). James reminds us of just how small and insignificant we are. That our lives are an eye blink in the depths of eternity. Whereas the world sees the time we have here on earth as the highlight of our existence and should be focused on our own happiness. This worldview goes beyond pleasure seeking. W e have the right to make our choices and we have the right to fullfil ourselves. What we chose is best. Our culture is on a search for ultimate satisfaction. And this ongoing pursuit of pleasures is proof that we still haven't found what we are looking for. Augustine said it best: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in [God].” To the believer, life isn’t only something to be enjoyed here on the earth but is eternal. Jesus said it himself: "He came to give us life that we may have it abundantly" (John 10:10). Life is a gift for today and forever.

A Whole New Way of Living This Life

Jesus provides a completely different life here on earth than our culture expects. Jesus calls us to live completely selfless lives, lives that are committed to living a life of love. The two great commandments are loving God and loving people:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. - Matthew 22:37-39.

Jesus goes on to teach that living out these commandments is the ultimate fulfillment in life. By obeying these two commands we will be completely satisfied. It won’t always be easy, but it’s the ultimate way to enjoy this life. Jesus also gives us a hope for eternal life. "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die.” (John 11:25). Jesus is clearly stating that there is life after death, and by belief in him we will be resurrected from the dead. In the Christian worldview, we are called to enjoy this life through the loving of the Lord our God and his people. While this life is good, it's not the ultimate and it never can be. We are promised something much greater, and that’s eternal life with our savior.

The Search For Meaning

We live in a culture where anyone who possesses a phone has access to more information at their fingertips than anyone else in previous generations combined. The information we come across in one day is more than someone in the 5^th century would ever see in their lifetime. We also have networking like Facebook where 'friends' can be everyone we meet. There is no excuse to not stay connected with co-workers, 4^th grade park district community soccer teammates, your mailman, or that girl you talked to that one time at the movie theater. With thousands of movie channels from sports, to sitcoms, to reality television and home improvement we have an inconceivable medley of forms of entertainment at the quarter inch movement of the thumb. We are no longer limited like we were in the days of our parents. The world is at our fingertips. The world is our oyster, we have access to anything we want within minutes. In a simple Wikipedia article we can learn how to fly planes, what a black hole is and what a celebrity’s second favorite food is. All of this feeds the notion that we deserve pleasure and we are in control of it. There is a world to be enjoyed. Live it up. You only live once. We have more entertainment than ever, and yet we are bored out of our minds. We flip through channels and watch nothing.

This is the passion that drives our culture. We are no longer limited, therefore every human ought to find their passions and their dreams and fulfill them! Surely this will satisfy us found the answer, we’ve found meaning. The fact is, many of my friends walk around empty, depressed, with no hope and bored. Depression rates are going up, relationships are becoming weaker in families and marriages. This, “live for me, get a taste of everything and only live for pleasure” is not working. If YOLO shows us one thing it’s that hedonism and self-indulgence do not satisfy the human heart, we are more complicated than that, we are deeper than that.  There is something about the human heart that yearns for eternity, meaning, and truth. Everything else leaves us bored.

I recently read through the wonderful book of Ecclesiastes. I was deeply moved by this book not only because of what is said but particularly in who says it. The author of Ecclesiastes is King Solomon, the son of King David. Solomon does a complete one eighty with Israel from being this weak group of people to this grand nation for the Lord. Solomon was at the high point of Israel, he was the king of the greatest most prosperous nation of that time! Solomon was rich in wisdom, the wisest person on the planet. People traveled from all over the world to hear his words. He also had over 700 wives and 300 concubines. With his wives, he engaged in parties and rituals and festivals. This man was the epitome of YOLO. Surely this guy knows how to enjoy life and surely he is satisfied? In the second verse of Ecclesiastes he says: “Meaningless! Meaningless?’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless”. Here’s a man who has lived the YOLO life and in the end he basically says, “what a joke”. As Solomon says we “strive after the wind,” just caught up in our pleasures, constantly craving gratification, but none of it lasts. This gratification is temporary so we seek so many other sources for fulfillment, and when we find nothing that there’s nothing there we cry out “meaninglessness!” G.K Chesterton said: “Meaninglessness comes not from being weary of pain, but from being weary of pleasure.” One of the great losses a person feels comes when they have exhausted all life has to offer and are as hollow as they were in the beginning. This is a heartbreaking view our culture holds, but it makes this world ripe to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Meaningful Relationship

Dear friends the meaning of life is not a task, not an idea, not a trophy, it’s a person. Again, the gospel makes way for a relationship with a real person, Jesus Christ (John 17:3). It's this incredible relationship with the God who wont stop loving you to the extent that he has done whatever it takes to buy you back. He died on a cross to make you his again and recreates you into the perfect image you were meant to bear. Victor Hugo once said, “the greatest yearning in our hearts is to be convinced we are loved.” You need only to take a glance at the cross, and immediately you know that nobody has loved you like that. He invites you to know him, to grow in strength, wisdom, and love and to walk alongside him in the grand mission of redeeming the world.  God has bigger plans for you than you ever imagined. In Christ we are given a life with profound purpose, inexhaustible joy, unfailing love, and a never-ending relationship with a perfect God. We were made for nothing less. The disciple of Jesus Christ does not waist his time, he knows what will stand forever and what is the stuff of future garage sales, dumpsters, and attic space. If you’re going to only live once, it might as well be forever.

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Nick Dano is a chaplain candidate in the United States Army Reserve. He is currently resides in Dallas, Texas and attends Dallas Theological Seminary where he is pursuing his ThM with an emphasis in pastoral ministries.

Christ-Centered Reading, Preaching, and Teaching

Why Do We Need Jesus in Our Exegesis? Except for a period in my early twenties, I have been involved in the life of a local church for as long as I can remember. Because I was so involved in various ministries, I made it a priority to study the Bible in preparation so that I could be, in the words of Paul, a workman unashamed. Still, something wasn’t right. The spiritual growth and change I desired wasn’t happening on a notable or consistent basis. I remember doing my “quiet time” one afternoon in my teens and becoming exhaustingly discouraged. Sunday after Sunday I would walk out after the service on a spiritual high only to crash into the reality of my own brokenness within minutes of leaving the church building. I didn’t realize what was missing until later in life. While my salvation and early spiritual growth had come from the work of the Spirit in my heart and life, I began relying less on the Spirit and more on my flesh for my continued growth (Galatians 3:3). Like many believers have confessed to me over the years, I turned to Jesus for salvation, but trusted in myself for sanctification. Most of the teaching and material I was exposed to presented lists of Christian attitudes and actions, along with a call to do these things, and that’s it. I am not saying there is a problem with calling people to act in God honoring ways. Descriptive examples and prescriptive imperatives are all over the Bible.

However, problems arise when you approach examples and imperatives the wrong way. My exasperation found its roots in incomplete exegesis. I was approaching the Bible as if it was primarily about me; the stories just examples of morality that I should try to emulate. As I’ve sought a deeper relationship with my Savior, I’ve come to the conviction that the Bible is not primarily about you and I. It’s about Him. While this does not dissolve our responsibility concerning biblical imperatives, it does change how we approach and apply them to our lives. It fundamentally changes our hermeneutical framework and our method of Bible application. Until my mid-twenties, I approached the bible as a compilation of morally commendable stories. I completely missed THE Bible story. The story of Jesus. This is the aim of Christ-centered hermeneutics - to center everything on the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is the Link Between Every Part of the Bible and Us

The Bible is very clear that Jesus is the one and only mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5). In light of that, shouldn’t we approach interpreting God’s word as mediated to us through Jesus Christ? I have come to believe that this is the hermeneutical grid that Jesus and the Apostles advocated (John 5:39; Luke 24:27; Luke 24:44-45; 1 Corinthians 2:2; Colossians 2:2-3). Essentially, all of Scripture needs to be interpreted by the definitive person and work of Jesus Christ. I believe Graeme Goldsworthy said it well:

The Old Testament does not stand on its own, because it is incomplete without its conclusion and fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. No part can be rightly understood without him. In this sense it is about Christ. God’s revelation is progressive, moving in stages from the original promises given to Israel, until the fullest meaning of these promises is revealed in Christ…Thus Christ, interprets the New and Old Testaments.[1]

There are thoughtful Christians who are skeptical of Christ-centered hermeneutics because they think it advocates an unbalanced allegorical approach to interpreting the Bible. They would contend for a more strict expository method that doesn’t stray too far from the controls of the immediate context of the passage.

Advocates of the Christ-centered method push back and maintain that they are simply widening the contextual parameters to the entire canon and focusing in on Jesus as the key to understanding God’s word. Therefore, the trajectory of every passage and theme in the Bible points to Christ through type, antitype, promise, or symbol. Tony Merida contends, “the goal for Christ-centered expositors is not to ‘look for Jesus under every rock,’ but rather to find out how a particular text fits into the whole redemptive story that culminates in Christ.”[2] I do not think Christ-centered hermeneutics and grammatical historical driven hermeneutics are antithetical. Combined, these methods give us the proper exegetical approach to reading and applying God’s word focused on the person and work of Jesus Christ. So, if Jesus is the climax of God’s revelation (as we read in Hebrews 1:1-3), how does this change the way we read, preach, and teach the Bible? And why would it have mattered to me in my earlier spiritual development as I was being confronted with the law’s demands and my own inadequacies? Here is where Christ-centered hermeneutics unleashes an ocean of benefits for Christian sanctification.

The Gracious Benefits of Christ-Centered Hermeneutics

First, we need to have a proper understanding of our own struggles and find security in Christ. Too many honest Christians struggle with their own sin nature because they can’t make sense of its place in their Christian identity. If I am a Christian, why am I (still) so broken? I will always be thankful for Bryan Chapell’s book Christ-Centered Preaching on this point. Chapell introduces the concept of the “Fallen Condition Focus” in this work. Our fallen condition is the mutual human condition all believers share when confronted with the demands of God’s law, which in turn draws us towards the grace of God found only in Christ. When we look at the perfection of Jesus, the God-man, we are confronted with our own failures and the failures of people in the Bible. As Ed Clowney once wrote, “Jesus fulfilled the law not only by keeping it perfectly for us, but also by transforming our understanding of it. Christ not only obeyed the law, but also displayed its true meaning and depth.”[3] Therefore we don’t simply approach the Bible as a handbook of life for moral direction, but as God’s word revealing our hideous sin and the beauty Jesus’ perfection. Jesus is faithful when we are failures.

Second, the primary way to respond to our fallen condition as it is revealed in the Bible, and through the Spirit, is faith in the completed work of Christ. Moreover, the implication of Christ’s work on our behalf becomes the motivation and power for faithful Christian living. Graeme Goldsworthy argues that “The ethical example of Christ is secondary to and dependent upon the primary and unique work of Christ for us.”[4] It is from Jesus’ life and work, also his death and resurrection, that the motivation and power for Christian living flows. Relying on our own will power to live the Christian life will leave us devastated. This feeling of hopelessness can often be the result when we jump to an immediate application of a biblical text without first seeing the text through the lens of Jesus Christ. In other words, we don’t approach the Bible with the question: what does this mean for me? without asking prior questions like: How does this text relate to Christ? How do we relate to Christ? Only then can we ask, in light of Christ’s work on our behalf, how can we respond with our lives in worship as gratitude for his grace? Further, we then plead with the Holy Spirit to provide wisdom and motivation for living in a God honoring way.

Third, the good news of the gospel is Christ’s work for us and the fruit of the gospel is Christ’s work in us. Jesus produces fruit in us where our willpower fails us every time. The good news of Jesus is something we need to be reminded of throughout the Christian life. Tim Keller is well-known for saying, “The gospel is not just the A-B-C’s of Christianity but is the A to Z of Christianity. The gospel is not just the minimum required doctrine necessary to enter the kingdom, but the way we make all progress in the kingdom.”[5] The gospel needs to be applied to every area of one’s thinking, feeling, relating, working, and behaving consistently throughout life.  This is why Christ-centered hermeneutics is so important for properly understanding the Bible. When we read and apply the Bible without Christ as the center, we naturally swing towards either religion or irreligion. We either apply the text in ways that send us on a trajectory towards self-exultation because we become the hero of our faith, or self- exhaustion because we cannot consistently live up to the standards of our faith.

Conclusion

A Christ-centered hermeneutic teaches us that in every passage the canonical trajectory points us to Christ as the hero of our salvation and our sanctification. Moreover, we learn that we are to approach the Bible with the posture (As Keller has said on many occasions) that we are more sinful and flawed than we ever dared believe, while being more accepted and loved by Jesus than we ever dared hope. Christ-centered hermeneutics not only informs the mind, but also employs the truth to appeal to our emotions and challenge our will to respond appropriately and entirely to the good news of Jesus Christ. Certainly, to understand the Bible correctly requires faith in Christ along with the Spirit’s enlightenment. Jesus is revealed as central to the Bible so that no part can be rightly understood without him. Sadly, many Christians read, many preachers preach, and many teachers teach the Bible in a way that would be agreeable to someone outside the faith. The key question in biblical hermeneutics is: How does this text testify to Christ?

If the reader, preacher, or teacher hasn’t addressed and answered this question in their pursuits, they are not approaching the Bible in an explicitly Christian way.

Further Resources for Understanding Christ-Centered Hermeneutics

• Gospel-Centered Teaching (Forthcoming), Trevin Wax
• Proclaim Jesus, Tony Merida
• Preaching Christ in All of Scripture, Ed Clowney
• How to Read the Bible through the Jesus Lens, Michael Williams
• Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, Graeme Goldsworthy
• Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, Graeme Goldsworthy
• Him We Proclaim, Dennis Johnson

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Matt Capps currently serves as the Brand Manager for The Gospel Project at LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville, TN . Matt is a graduate of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div.) and is currently a student at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (D.Min.). Matt blogs here.

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[1] Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan, 52.

[2] Tony Merida, Preaching the Forest and the Trees, 2-3.

[3] Edmund Clowney, How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments, xiii.

[4] Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, 4.

[5] Tim Keller, The Centrality of the Gospel.

3 Ways to Respond to Opposing Views

How do you deal with doubts? When you are hit with a barrage of rational, popular, and culturally acceptable challenges of your faith, what do you do? Do you respond or do you react? How does the truth of the gospel impact the manor in which we answer questions of doubt? How does the gospel change the way we act towards those who challenge and disagree with us? We can either co-opt the gospel, react with prideful arrogance, or respond with the gospel. In college, my discipleship was mostly a 'Christian' reaction to modernism. I was well equipped with an ensemble of proofs, philosophical argumentation, historically verified facts to react to critiques of Christianity. I was well educated in the craft of Christian arguing. I witnessed it in class, and perfected it in my studies. You could say, I sought a altered version of Nehemiah, I had a brick in one hand and a copy of Aquinas in the other. With all the studies and arguments I tried to fend off all objections to my faith. "If I can defend my faith, I won't doubt it," I thought.

Overtime, the pursuit to 'cleanse' myself of modernistic doubts soon brought about stronger and deeper doubts. Similar to the use of antibacterial: you take care of a few germs, but ironically, stronger ones emerge. I shifted gears and tried something new. Instead of fighting against modernism, I found myself with a greater problem: meddling with the gospel. So high strung to make the gospel “work” for those whose claims I was hearing, I began to co-opt the gospel. If I got them to accept Jesus, there was a large chance Jesus was more like David Hume, than the incarnate resurrected Word of God.

Co-opting the Gospel

Instead of allowing the gospel to stand on its power to save, we mold it to fit the thinking of the day. Such was the case with the first Christian apologetics towards the Enlightenment. Christianity's central doctrines of the atonement and resurrection were deemed untenable, a consequence of the elevation of 'human reason' as the infallible standard. The apologist's opposition was performed by appealing to “human reason,” as set out by the thinkers of that time. Leslie Newbigin has pointed out how this was problematic. In reacting to an opposing worldview they domesticated the gospel.

...it is plain that we do not defend the Christian message by domesticating it within the reigning plausibility structure. That was surely the grand mistake of the eighteenth-century defenses of the reasonableness of Christianity. Leslie Newbigin

They sought to show the 'reasonableness' of the Christian gospel in the opposing arena. No one paid attention to the foundation though. Changing the gospel is not the answer to doubts and objections.

Reacting to an Ideology

What if we were to become attack dogs, quickly pouncing on any opposing view or thinking to Christianity? The focus discipleship cannot be offensive destruction of world-views. Disciples are not meant to be wrecking balls for Jesus. When we're solely reacting to rebellious persuasions, we lose sight of the joy, grace, and dependence we have in the gospel. We rely on our own brains, studies, and rational arguments to beat the other side. We don't believe the gospel can stand on its own. We don't believe the gospel we are defending. As Luther once quipped, “Human reason is like a drunken man on horseback; set it up on one side, and it tumbles over on the other.” Our reactions can often fail to have checks and balances in place to ward off the vulnerabilities of human pride and self-righteousness. We can quickly come under a false narrative of, “The righteous shall live by answers...” This leads to two common lies:

1. Questions and Doubt Are Sinful

There are two ways to ask a question: cynicism and doubt. Cynicism says, “I don't know and I don't care.” Doubt says, “I don't know, but I'd like to.” Wish the first one luck and grab coffee with the second (Prov 18:2). Cynicism is sin because pride is sin. Doubt isn't sin. Whether it's theism or the death of a saint, questions inevitably arise. Normally, it's when we bump up against our finite limitations. Questions are a fundamental aspect of our creatureliness. Our questions distinguish us from God. In Mark 9, we see Jesus interacting with a father who has more than bumped up against his finiteness. After Jesus makes the case that belief is necessary, the father responds, “I believe; help my unbelief.” (v24) Jesus doesn't recommend a doubt “detox.” Jesus gives grace to doubts and questions. Questions are not the enemy.

2. Discipleship is getting answers and having arguments.

When questions are sin, answers become righteousness. While I'm not advocating intellectual immaturity (1 Cor 14:20), we can be like Peter and relegate God's Kingdom for another. When that kingdom is attacked, we'll draw our human weapons and strike off ears. If the Kingdom is won by intellectual beat-downs, have at all the arguments you can get your hands on. The Kingdom isn't won that way. We come equipped with the sword of the Spirit and pierce hearts. The Kingdom isn't a matter of talk, but of power (1 Cor 4:20). A farmer doesn't see fruit spring up by continually striking the ground constantly. It's part of a greater process of planting and growing. We plant and water with our confidence in God who gives growth (1 Cor 3:7). It is his gospel that bears fruit (Col 1:6). See, at the root of our co-opting and reactionary attempts to win arguments, we are placing our own minds at the center. We think we are God and we want to be God.

Responding to the Gospel

The gospel is the word of truth (Col 1:5). Not just for the 1^st century or just the 21^th. It is the trans-generational, transnational and trans-cultural truth of God for all the world all the time. We don't react to the gospel, but receive it and respond to it. As our whole lives become oriented around the gospel, they progressively become a response to God (Rom 12:1-2). This being the case, it will inevitably confront the unrighteousness in any ideological flavor of the week. We will see problems in the unbelieving mind as it continues to detour around who God is and what he has done. However, Paul told the Colossians, “Therefore, just as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” (Col 2:6-7). After Paul reminds them what the Christian life is, he warns them to not submit to life and practice that isn't “according to Christ”(v8). As we respond to the gospel, we will have the courage to confront and correct, not from being a intellectual jock, but a humble servant. The gospel changes our posture towards objecting views in four significant ways as we recognize it isn't our work, but God's.

And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. - 2 Tim 2:24-25

1. It Makes Us Humble and Hopeful

When it's all up to you and your mind, you lust for the triumphs. People aren't stupid though. If you are in it simply to win it, they'll sniff that out a mile away. If your hope comes from winning arguments, you'll leave real people in your wake as rubble. As soon as you come up against someone who can spit game better and win, you'll be absolutely devastated. However, we can be hopeful even in conversations that come to a stalemate, because God gives the growth. I've learned from Douglas Wilson, “Win men, not arguments.” We can go into discussions humbled under the weight of knowing it is God who is mighty to save, not us. This gives us a humble and hopeful posture for our conversations with others.

2. It Makes us Patient and Kind

When it's all up to you, walking on eggshells is normative. You will be fear tripping over your words and lose sleep over proper sentence structure. Every poke and prod at your argument will feel like an attack against you. However, the gospel is God's power, not your eloquence (1 Cor 1:17). We can breathe deep, walk humbly and carry a big cup of coffee. The converting power they need is God's power. With this in view, kindness will be genuine since we aren't trying to spin the plates of arguing while standing on the wobbly stilts of self-righteousness. Kindness doesn't not mean being a door mat, but it does mean we are as welcoming as one. Enduring evil is a unique hallmark of the Christian. There will be times when you may need to simply endure. The gospel frees us to be patient with the banter, endure the ad hominem, and persevere with the strength of Christ who endured evil on our behalf. Do not repay evil for evil. Because God is at work and not us, we can be patient and kind.

3. We Can Correct While Being Gentle

When it's all up to you, you don't just correct wrong thinking, you win arguments. You say things like, "Whatever the cost, win the argument." Paul reminds us the truth ought to be vindicated against falsity. There is no reason to think the gospel makes you check your brain at the door. We can and should correct where correction is required. Jesus didn't leave bad thinking alone, but he also didn't go around breaking bruised reeds. Because the gospel is true and good news for everyone, we must speak it and defend it, but we will do it out of love.

4. We Will Trust in God

We know it's not all up to us and that God is gracious and sovereign. God would have been just in leaving us in our unrighteousness. Things could be way way worse than modernism and post-modernism. God upholds things by the word of his power. Paul exhorts Timothy to trust in God who is sovereign. He is the giver of repentance. It is his good pleasure to give. This means we pray. Pray like the father would have prayed for his prodigal; so they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the enemy. We don't rely on our mental metal but on God and his grace.

For more on this, Tim Keller on "How the Gospel Shapes our Apologetics”

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Ben Riggs resides in Dayton, Ohio with his incredible and lovely bride Emily. He is Gathering Assistant at Apex Community Church and a house church leader in that area. He is the proprietor of pageflipping.blogspot.com. Ben has a passion to see the power and depths of the God’s gospel be drawn out for all aspects of life for God and others in God’s world.

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Continue reading on doubt: Questioning the Gospel by Jonathan Dodson and Gospel Filibustering by Ben Riggs.

Should a Christian Smoke Pot?

Should a Christian smoke pot? To many in the church this question may sound too absurd to warrant serious consideration. If you live in Washington or Colorado it is a real discipleship question. Given the changing cultural landscape of North America, it is not difficult to imagine a day when marijuana will become just as ubiquitous as tobacco. Considering this trend toward social acceptance and de-criminalization, it will be an issue facing you, your community, and your family in the near future. Your not-yet believing neighbors will invite you over to smoke and you will have to answer this question. A new believer will wonder if they have to give it up. Your children will likely grow up in a world where it is legal. Whether you want to think about it or not, you will be faced with this question.

Many will say, "what's the big deal?" After all, heroes of the faith past and present smoke cigars and pipes recreationally. Charles Spurgeon's love of cigars is so well documented tobacco companies used his name and story to sell them! What's the difference between enjoying tobacco, which is an acceptable drug, and enjoying marijuana, which is on its way to being an acceptable drug? What about the other acceptable "drugs" consumed on a daily basis by faithful men and women across the globe: alcohol and caffeine. If you can consume wine and beer responsibly, can't you do the same with pot? Still others will say, the Bible doesn't say it is wrong or right, and is a decision for each individual to make on their own. Finally, others will respond to this by simply saying, "It's just wrong, you obviously shouldn't smoke pot!" These are honest responses to this question. They also fall short of examining closely the issue at hand and the breadth of scripture.

Before we get into an argument, it's important to clarify what we are pursuing. As believers and followers of Jesus, our goal is just that: to grow in trust and obedience to Jesus. Our actions should be the ones that help us know God more deeply and be conformed to his image. Our question should be, does smoking marijuana help us in our pursuit of holiness? Does marijuana grow our faith, our worship, or missional efforts? Does it hinder us? Or, is it simply neutral? I believe the Scriptures offer us four guiding principles that should influence our decision to "just say no" or smoke. While scripture does not explicitly mention marijuana, it certainly isn’t silent on this issue.

Christians are Called to Submission

The Christian life is synonymous with submission: to Christ as Lord, to one another, to church leadership, and to government authorities. One always wants to take great care to follow first and foremost the law of the Lord rather than manmade laws (cf. Col 2:20-21). However, it is clear from scripture that the Lord intends for man to live in a peaceful, ordered way. Governments and other structures of authority are a normative means through which order is achieved. Authority is not inherently evil. We even see evidence of this in the trinitarian nature of God himself (Mat 26:39). The first of our guiding principles is that the Christian is clearly called to obey the laws of the land in which he lives, the authority structure under which he find himself as a natural result of living in God’s world. When the law of the land explicitly proscribes use of marijuana, even if it is culturally acceptable, the only ethical choice for the follower of Jesus is to submit to the authorities. In this submission you are baring the image of Christ, who submitted fully to the Father and the authorities.

It is the Christian’s duty to obey those in authority over him (Westminster Larger Catechism, 124). In the church-state nexus of the ancient Israelite community, the connection was extremely easy to see between obedience to God and submission to state law. They were one and the same. However, we see similar commands also given in the New Testament, which was written during a time when the situation was quite different. Romans 13:1-7 calls Christians to “be subject to the governing authorities,” and that “those [that] exist have been instituted by God.” This is particularly remarkable considering Paul wrote this in a time when Nero, who was notoriously cruel to Christians, was in power. First Peter 2:13-14 similarly commands, “Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.” Peter goes on to explain that an important part of the life and ministry of the Christian has to do with the way they submit to authority, even in harsh situations involving suffering.

For a Christian who finds himself in the situation in which he is living in a state where use of marijuana is illegal, it would be disobedient to Christ to disobey the law. Disregarding the authority of the local government is disregarding our Lord, Jesus. Most believers would agree with this. But what about the places where it is legal, we can indulge? Is it "to each his own" in Washington and Colorado?

Drunkenness is Unambiguously Prohibited in Scripture

Scientific data in regard to the effects of marijuana on the user are notoriously varied. At times it seems like advocates for marijuana are discussing an altogether different drug than those who oppose it (see Alison Mack and Janet Joy's work for the Institute of Medicine, Marijuana as Medicine? the Science Beyond the Controversy). For the sake of this discussion, we will assume that using marijuana produces an intoxicating effect in the user that is comparable to drunkenness. I acknowledge in advance that this statement is an unfortunate oversimplification, but for the purposes of this article it serves us well. The short scope of this article does not permit an in-depth look into the nuances and effects of various types of marijuana consumption. However, a clear link can be made between the overconsumption of alcohol and drug use. One large difference between the two is that one can consume alcohol without becoming drunk. Recreational marijuana, on the other hand, is used for the explicit purpose of getting “high.” So, we are not comparing marijuana to alcohol, but rather we are comparing marijuana to drunkenness.

Both the Old Testament and New Testament strictly forbid drinking too much or intoxication. Wine is first mentioned in Genesis when Noah produces it after the great flood subsides. In Genesis 9:21 we see Noah’s abuse of alcohol leading to a shameful incident with his son, Ham. Noah then curses Ham, whose son is Canaan, leading to the Canaanite people whose existence is a perpetual burden to the people of God throughout the Old Testament. No explicit imperative against drunkenness is given here, but the arch of the story teaches the powerful lesson that drunkenness leads to profound disobedience and curses. Additionally, throughout the Old Testament, drunkenness is associated with men of ungodly character (Lev 10:1-11; Sam 25:36; 1Kgs 16:9; 20:16). Proverbs 20:1 clearly explains, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, and whoever is led astray by it is not wise.”

In the New Testament Paul repeatedly teaches against drunkenness (1Cor 11:21; Eph 5:18; 1Tim 3:8). In Revelation, drunkenness is typical of the nations that are far from God (Rev 17:2; 18:3). In Galatians 5:19-21, one of the “deeds of the flesh” listed by Paul is sorcery. The Greek word is φαρμακεία, the etymological root of our English word, “pharmacy.” Drugs were often used as part of the spells of those who practiced this kind of sorcery. This sorcery, and drug use, is presented in direct opposition to living according to the fruit of the Spirit.

Apart from merely forbidding drunkenness, the word of God lifts up a certain type of life that is hard to achieve if you are drunk or high. We are called to be “sober-minded” (2Tim 4:5) and able to take care of our families (1Tim 5:8). Marijuana has been shown to stunt brain development, hinder social ambition, and commonly leads to depression and schizophrenia. Living in a fallen world is hard enough. Submitting ourselves to the effects of marijuana make it extremely difficult to simply do good. To contrast this, the Christian is to, “not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it” (Prov 3:27). Submitting oneself to the effects of drunkenness and marijuana make this impossible.

Ultimately we see that, no matter what our situation, the Christian is to live life by walking in the Spirit, controlled by no other substance (Eph 5:18). This is how we are to become the kind of people God has called us to be and you can't do that while being drunk or high.

Physical Health is Connected to Proper Worship

God has called humanity to be stewards of his creation. This includes our bodies. The Christian’s world is not one that is strictly spiritual. Howard A. Snyder explains, “Spirit and matter are not two different worlds...They are interlaced dimensions of the one world God created in its entirely and intends to redeem, save, liberate and heal in its entirety.” Christ came in the flesh in part to rescue and redeem our bodies (Rom 8:23). The Lord is intimately concerned with not only our souls but also with our physical bodies. Therefore, the choices we make with our bodies either honor and worship the Lord, or they do not.

Smoking marijuana leads to thousands of hospitalizations in the US every year. It has been known to cause cancer, cognitive and behavioral impairment, and increased risk of psychosis, among other harmful effects. (You can read more about these studies here). It additionally leads to fatal “drunk” driving car accidents and countless deaths caused by the black market system that is often used to deliver the drugs to users. Thousands of deaths a year are caused globally due to the criminal market for narcotics. While marijuana may not be as addictive as other substances, it has still been shown that 9% of people who try it do in fact become addicted. It has been argued that addiction can divide the self of the Christian and increase the difficulty in the battle against sin in daily life (see Christopher C. H. Cook, Alcohol, Addiction and Christian Ethics). The addictive nature of the drug should raise a red flag for us, especially in light of Paul’s words, “I will not be enslaved by anything” (1 Cor 6:12). The Lord, lover and creator of all life, is grieved when any of his people would make decisions that may harm the physical life of himself or others.

In addition to introducing physical harm to the body, smoking marijuana can lead one to idolatry. Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 6:19: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own.” In the context of sexual immorality here, he explains that when one sins with his body he commits an act of false worship. He explains the same can be said of the misuse of food in Philippians 3:19 where for some enemies of Christ, “their god is their belly.” Here worship of what one eats is directly opposed to worship of Christ. It is clear that the Lord considers what we do with our bodies an act of worship. This truth, should give the Christian even further cause to abstain.

Is marijuana God’s best design for our bodies? At best, marijuana may harm one’s health, and at worst its use could lead to death and idolatry. We want our existence to be one that honors the Lord our God to the fullest extent. In regard to how we treat our physical bodies, it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which it would be normative to needlessly introduce harmful practices and habits like recreational marijuana smoking.

Our Relationships with Others

As worshipers of Jesus, we follow in his example to lay down our lives for the sake of others (John 15:13; Eph 5:25). So, it should not surprise us that scripture recommends we exercise great care and caution in regard to the consumption of all things controversial. This is especially true when relationships with other believers are in view. In such scenarios, the unity of the community and the health of relationships is stressed over and above the personal pleasure of the individual. In Paul’s discourse in Romans 14 we see that we should undoubtedly consider how our consumption of these controversial items might cause a fellow Christian to sin. While one person may be able to smoke in a non-sinful way, seeing him may cause a weaker brother to fall into using marijuana in a sinful way. Consideration of the effect on others must play a role in what a Christian decides to eat, drink, and smoke.

Christians are also called to consider the views and opinions of those who don't believe. We are to love everyone as a neighbor (Luke 10:25-37). As worshipers of the Lord, we are called to represent him to the world. Both the Old and New Testament refers to the people of God as a kingdom of priests (Ex 19; Rev 1:6). This is a high calling and demands a certain amount of examination of our public life. Christ tells us, “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mat 5:16). I make no attempt to argue the validity of these associations, but the fact that they exist in the perception of many North Americans is undeniable: marijuana is commonly associated with laziness, lack of ambition, and the shirking of responsibility. We are called to attract people to Christ, not repel them. As a people, we are to “always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks [us] for a reason for the hope that is in [us]” (1Pet 3:15). It is hard to believe that someone would be attracted to our hope while we are under the influence of marijuana. It is perhaps even harder to imagine that while under this influence a Christian would truly be able to make a winsome, compelling defense of this hope. The opinions of others is not the sole factor in our ethical decision-making process, but it is clear, from scripture, that one’s neighbor should be an important element in the equation. Does smoking marijuana, in any meaningful sense, advance the mission of making disciples?

Just Say No

Is anything in the life of the Christian to be lost by, “just saying no?” What does a Christian lose by abstaining from this recreational drug? After taking a genuine look at these four principles, it is hard to imagine a scenario where the Christian could ethically make recreational use of marijuana. If you are still not convinced, I would ask: why is it important to you? If you cannot answer

Using marijuana raises a complex variety of familial, legal, medical, religious, societal, and ethical issues, and this article is far from comprehensive. Certainly more work needs to be done to answer the flow of fresh questions that continues to rush in from those inside and outside the church. For the time being, marijuana is still illegal in most areas in the Unites States, and the Christian is called to fidelity to this governmental authority. The abuse of alcohol, and the ensuing effects, are treated as a great hindrance to the life of the believer throughout Scripture, and it is safe to place marijuana use in this same category. As stewards of our bodies and protectors of life, we should refrain from using any drug that clearly leads to bad health and addiction. And finally, we must remember to consider others greater than ourselves (Phil 2:3). In many cases smoking marijuana will cause the Christian to fall short in his calling to love his neighbors, both inside and outside the church.

The goal of the Christian life is to know, love, and worship our Lord and Savior. As an extension of his own good character, the Lord has graciously given us the Bible so that we would know how to love and worship him. The many questions surrounding marijuana use in the life of the Christian can be boiled down into one simpler issue: “Does doing this help me worship the Lord?” According to the principles listed here, it simply does not.

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Joe Congdon is part of a church planting being sent to Tokyo, Japan with Mission to the World.  He is finishing his MDiv at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, where he lives with his wife and two kids. When he is not thinking through issues of art, missiology, and theology, he loves spending time at home with his family. Follow their efforts at RestoreJapan.com and on Twitter @JoeToTheWorld