Is Hook-Up Culture Infiltrating the Church?

“There’s an app for that,” has become a cultural banner for a society that loves to “have it your way” and “have it now." Modern culture isn't a microwave society (that's about eight years behind). We’re now a culture shaped by the convenience of downloading an app for just about anything. If there’s not an app for that, there will be tomorrow. In fact, you could probably develop it on your iPhone. Many have commented on the dangers of this kind of culture. We are losing the ability to reflect. We’ve lost the patience for it. With this loss comes a decline in our understanding the sacred. The rise of selfies reflect a preoccupation with the iconic self. Our social skills are diminished in favor of pseudo social circles we “friend” or “follow.”

Technological engagement can be legitimate, but there are also dangers to be avoided. Many have drawn attention to the “hookup” culture, which has accelerated as a result from having the world at your fingertips. Apps like Down, Snapchat, and countless others feed right into our assumed right to have our lusts instantly satisfied.

Have hookups always been an issue? Absolutely. Has anonymity ever been this easy? Absolutely not. Driven by our sexual appetites, we have made it possible to hookup with someone on neutral ground without even exchanging real names. Moreover, we live in a culture in which there is a national conference for literally every field of study. Throw 1,000 widget manufacturers from up North together in a central Florida resort for three days, and all bets are off.

Has this hookup culture infiltrated Christianity? Perhaps that’s a question for someone with a greater vantage point, but from where I sit, I know we are all vulnerable. When we enter into environments where accountability is virtually non-existent, and anonymity is almost guaranteed, we have entered the danger zone. King David assumed a certain level of anonymity when everyone else was away at war and he slept with Bathsheba. He got what he wanted pretty quickly, and he didn’t have an iPhone. But most of us today don't possess that power...or do we? More than any other time in history, the common person possesses royal privilege. We can get what we want when we want it, with just a few clicks.

When a culture is given over to the god of sex, you can find worship of what it offers everywhere: billboards, chat rooms, magazines, blogs, ads, and much more. How are Christian men and women to avoid the pitfalls of sexual sin in such a culture?I propose three ways.

1. Recognize the war.

Anyone who denies there is a war going on is simply diluted. Paul reminds us:

The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. —Galatians 5:17

If you are united to Christ, your old man is dead (Gal. 2:20), but the indwelling flesh remains until he returns. If you fail to recognize your vulnerability to the flaming arrows of sexual temptation, your defenses will be down. How many well-meaning, God-fearing people have simply been fooled for lack of vigilance?

One way to remain vigilant is to build a pattern of daily prayer in which you ask God to keep you aware of your vulnerabilities . Paul reminds us that,

This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor. —1 Thessalonians 4:3-4

Why should we know how to control our own bodies? Because our vulnerabilities are not universal. What becomes temptation for your brother might not even phase you. On the other hand, things most would not even give a second glance might be your Achilles Heel. Know your weaknesses, recognize the battle, and ask God to strengthen you each day.

2. Build an Army

And let us 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 drawing near. —Hebrews 10:24-25

This passage is one among many that echo God’s heartbeat for biblical community. No man is an island, and when you pretend to be, you open yourself up to destruction. Each of us needs a multitude of people in our lives who know us well and know our vulnerabilities and outright weaknesses. We need to be exhorted to do good works and abstain from the lusts of the flesh. We need to be reminded of the big picture, looking forward to that Day when we will inherit bodies free of sin! When we try to be lone rangers, our sight becomes destructively narrow, allowing us only to see the immediate desire.

One note about an army—it needs weapons. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, as Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6. Therefore, we ought to arm ourselves with the full armor of God. But wisdom also tells us that there are so many practical weapons at our disposal. Men, if we do not have Covenant Eyes or some other software on our devices (and real Christian brothers monitoring these), we are almost begging for destruction. Women, if you do not have biblically wise, God-honoring ladies walking alongside you, asking hard questions about things you post on your social media accounts, you may be defenseless during a battle field much bigger than you realize.

3. Remember Grace has won.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. —Titus 2:11-14

Though we may recognize the battle, we often forget that it is won. The grace of God in Christ has appeared. We are not lost in darkness, without the beacon of God’s redemptive grace to carry us home to Christ’s appearing.

All humans share a common problem. We lack the strength to do what we know we must do. It’s not as if we don’t know the law. We do. Our problem is that we know it and we still can’t keep it. That’s where grace comes in. Ever since God called Israel to be a people for his own possession, he has been changing hearts (Deuteronomy 30:6). The fullest expression of this gracious heart-change is seen in the New Covenant. God has put his law on our hearts, indwelling us with his Holy Spirit, who empowers us to live the very way God has commanded.

Remember this, we are no longer slaves but sons and daughters. Grace has appeared, totally transforming our wayward state. And as we await the Day when we won’t need articles like this (Come, Lord Jesus), we are empowered by the Spirit of God who transforms us. Without the past grace of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, we are dead. Without this present grace of the indwelling Spirit, we are lost to our lusts. Without the promise of future grace at Christ’s return, we are hopeless. And yet, the grace of God has appeared. Look to Him. In every temptation, there is a way out. In every failure, well, there is a grace for that.

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Alex Dean (@AlexMartinDean) is a pastor in Lakeland, Florida. Holding an undergraduate degree from Dallas Baptist University, Alex is currently completing his graduate work at Reformed Theological Seminary. His book, Gospel Regeneration: A story of death, life, and sleeping in a van, is available on Amazon, iBooks, and other online retailers. Follow his blog at www.GospelRegeneration.com and follow him on Twitter.

Living in Our Skin

The day after a white supremacist marched into Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston SC to murder people because he disagreed with how God made them. I tweeted:

We must pray for a world in which God's children may live in peace, in the skin He gave them. Pray for it & build it. #CharlestonShooting

— E.M. Welcher (@EvanWelcher) June 18, 2015

Many people care about ending the sin of racism, or at least enough people who know they’re supposed to say they care about ending the sin of racism. What to do about it, now, that is the question. I don’t think many people really know what to do about it. Every day we hear more sordid tales of this rotten harvest. The sin of racism is the questioning of God the Artist’s taste in palette. The sin of racism is the racist’s vandalism of God’s work. The sin of racism is in the flagrant disregard of God’s sovereignty and love.

People should be able to live in the skin God put them in.

We must pray for it and build it.

We get the praying part, in theory; building is another thing. We understand that no mountain can stand against the will of our God. We know God can thaw out the icy heart of the racist, turning him from death to the cross of his beloved Son. We believe prayer is potent and sometimes we even use it.

But building such a world? That’s a medium sized mutt of a different color, altogether.

I’m not so sure many of us know what to do about it. There are those whom say they know what to do. But whether all the ideas and theories put forth over the years are ineffective or not effectively implemented, the pain remains.

Whatever Shall We Do?

I went to the recent ERLC conference on “The Gospel And Racial Reconciliation.” Many good thoughts were shared by women and men who know more about racial reconciliation than I (the sessions are online. I recommend you watch them http://erlc.com/videos/).  A main focus was on integrating churches and hiring staff of different ethnicities to represent in the here and now the final eschatological look and feel of the Bride of Christ. They’re right.

But my church isn’t located in a diverse town, and my church won’t be hiring new staff anytime soon.  The question circles around again in my addled little mind: Whatever shall I do?

I preached a sermon. I’m a preacher. It’s what I do.

The Sunday after the Charleston Church Massacre, I found myself in Romans chapter five (I preach through books of the Bible), and I had already decided to preach on the historicity of Adam before digging into the notion of imputation of original sin because in our a la carte world many Christians seem to think the first man’s very existence is optional to their faith and practice, but St. Paul’s argument in Romans 5 falls apart strikingly fast without Adam.

So it was that I proclaimed the following to a white congregation gathered in a small white church building: “Racism is at odds with our common ancestry.”

A trucker from Texas was visiting that day. He posted on Facebook that the sermon had got him thinking. His family died that day in Charleston, and although he had not considered himself racist. He did make racist jokes. He asked for prayer as he works to change.

Grace Welcomes

On Wednesday evening a white man went to Emanuel AME Church in Charleston South Carolina. He was welcomed to the Bible study being held there, because it was a church, and that’s what churches do. They welcome all people to the grace that is found in Jesus Christ our Lord. He sat with them for a while before opening fire on them. He killed nine of our brothers and sisters in Christ because they were black. He said as much. Their names are:

• Cynthia Hurd, 54
• Susie Jackson, 87
• Ethel Lance, 70
• DePayne Middleton-Doctor, 49
• Clementa Pinkney, 41
• Tywanza Sanders, 26
• Daniel Simmons Sr. 74
• Sharonda Singleton, 45
• Myra Thompson, 59

These are your brothers and sisters in Christ. This is your family. These are your kin of the cross. They were gunned down because of the color of their skin. This should affect you personally as a Christian. There is such a thing as righteous anger.

The doctrine of a historical Adam is important because the argument Paul is making in Romans 5 is that if one man’s sin could mar the image of God in every person so too can one God-man’s obedience restore that divine image.

But there is more.

It is very hard to be racist if you truly believe all of our family trees go back to Adam and Eve. Theologically and biblically, there are three reasons for the Christian to not be ambivalent toward the sin of racism:

• Adam: Our common father
• Triune God: Our common Creator (Imago Dei)
• Jesus Christ: Our common Savior (His blood shed for all mankind)

Having honest conversations about these issues is not political. This is a gospel issue. We musn’t abide our black family in Christ having these conversations alone in an echo chamber. Have our brothers and sisters not long saved a seat at the table for us? And have we not long refused to come and learn under their tutelage for fear or white guilt? What if we listened to what they’re saying and honored them by going back to our own spheres of influence and sharing what they’ve taught us?

White racism is a white sin and it begins and ends in white homes. There are so many evil things we would never allow in our homes. If our “good ‘ol boy” buddy tried to bring pornography into our home we would stop it. If our drunk or high, bitter uncle tried to bring drugs to Thanksgiving dinner we would say, “Not in this house.” But all too often when a relative or a buddy makes a racist comment or joke many white people just look uncomfortable, or even laugh nervously.

We must view it as a sin that is incompatible with the Christian faith and practice—not least because for many our children are watching. Racism among us is a plague upon our house and it flourishes in silence and shadow.

Our brothers and sisters were murdered Wednesday June 17th. God have mercy on us if we can’t be bothered to care.

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” — Revelation 7:9-12

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Evan Welcher (@EvanWelcher) is Senior Pastor of First Christian Church in Glenwood, Iowa. Evan was married to his Resplendent Bride for 3 years before the Lord took her home. Pastor Evan received his education in Bible & Theology from Emmaus Bible College. The Goal of EvanWelcher.com is to set the captives free by leaving a trail of words leading to the Crucified Carpenter King. Christ Crucified For Sinners is the Gospel.

Worship as the Goal of Mission: Multiplying Images of God

In worship, we represent God’s image more and more clearly, not only to subdue forces of evil but also to multiply these images of God to fill the earth:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living that moves on the earth. (Gen 1:28)

The command to “fill the earth” implies that the earth is not yet filled with images that reflect God’s glory. While the boundaries of the Garden are clearly delineated (Gen 2:10-14), the call to multiply images of God would expand the boundaries of that Garden sanctuary until it filled the whole earth. Our mission is to be used in God’s hand to bring about more worshipers in the image of God who might multiply and fill the earth with even more worshipers.

Outside of the Garden-sanctuary of Eden lay a chaotic inhospitable area. God calls Adam not only to “work and to keep” the Garden of Eden (see Gen 2:15) but also to expand that Garden and “fill the earth” (Gen 1:28). Bible scholar John Walton notes that “people were gradually supposed to extend the Garden as they went about subduing and ruling” in order to “extend the food supply as well as extend sacred space (since that is what the Garden represented).” God wanted to expand that sacred space and dwelling place from the limited confines of the Garden-temple of Eden to fill the entire earth. As Adam multiplied children in his image, then they would expand God’s dwelling place of his presence into the chaos outside of Eden until it filled the earth, and the whole earth reflected God’s order and his glorious presence.

We are created to fill the whole earth with God’s glory. God formed the earth and made it . . . [and] did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited! (Is 45:18, emphasis added; see Ps 115:16)

God’s ultimate goal in creation was to magnify his glory throughout the earth by means of his faithful image bearers. Psalm 8 begins and ends with the goal of glorifying God:

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Ps 8:1, 9)

This majesty of the Lord is his “glory” (Ps 8:1), a glory reflected in humanity who is “crowned . . . with glory and honor” and given “dominion over the works of your hands” (Ps 8:5-6). God’s glory is to be spread “in all the earth” through humanity crowned “with glory and honor” and properly expressing their dominion in creation. We are created to glorify God by filling the earth with image bearers crowned with that glory.

What does it mean to glorify God? The Westminster Catechism reminds us that “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” If we are created to glorify God, then we should know what that means. We glorify God by multiplying images of him who are crowned with his glory; we glorify God by multiplying disciples. Jesus himself glorified God in this way. Near the end of his life, he declared,

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. . . . I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. (Jn 17:4, 6)

Jesus glorified God by making disciples who kept God’s word. The mark of these disciples was obedience. Similarly, we glorify God by our mission in making disciples who keep God’s word.

How then do we multiply disciples? Disciples multiply only as the word of God bears fruit in and through our lives. In Acts, the Genesis 1:28 language of “be fruitful and multiply” marks the growth of the church:

And the word of God continued to be fruitful and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. (Acts 6:7; our translation)

But the word of God bore fruit and multiplied. (Acts 12:24; our translation)

So the word of the Lord continued to bear fruit and prevail mightily. (Acts 19:20; our literal translation)

Unlike Genesis 1:28, the word of God, not people, bears fruit and multiplies in Acts. Similarly, in Colossae the gospel “has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit (karpophoreō) and growing (auxanō)” (Col 1:6, our translation; see 1:10). Just as Adam and Eve were to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen 1:28), so now the gospel is “bearing fruit and growing” and filling the earth (Col 1:6, 10). Spiritual progeny are multiplying to fill the earth through the gospel.

However, why does the word of God increase and multiply in Acts and Colossians through spiritual progeny instead of physical progeny, as in Genesis 1:28? In fact, Genesis 1:28 likely does not have in mind only physical children, but children who also were to be spiritual image bearers of God. We must recall that even in Genesis 1:28, the word of God is essential, since Adam and Eve were to subdue the earth through obedience to God’s word (see Gen 2:16-17). Adam and Eve fail to subdue the serpent because they do not remember and obey God’s word properly (Gen 3:1-7). The genealogy of Genesis 5 traces the initial stage of the proper fulfillment of Genesis 1:28, and the “likeness of God” in Adam is passed down to Seth, who is in Adam’s “likeness, after his image” (Gen 5:1, 3). Here, the image of God in Adam is passed down through Seth, who keeps God’s word, unlike the murderer Cain. Images of God multiply as a vanguard movement, beginning to spread out over the earth with the goal of filling it with divine glory bearers. Acts and Colossians focus now on the spiritual children of Christ, the Last Adam (see Col 1:15-18), who are multiplied (e.g., see Acts 6:7, “And the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem,” emphasis added).

Therefore, gospel growth is the key to true church growth. Church leaders can often seek programs and marketing processes to accelerate church growth, and such programs and processes may have a place. However, lasting church growth is essentially gospel growth. If church growth is based on programs that do not root people in the “living word” (see Acts 7:38) of God, then they will “in time of testing fall away” (Lk 8:13). We must get people to come to church, but we must also get the word of God to come to people. The only way to integrate people into the body of Christ is by the word of God growing in them. Our mission is to multiply disciples, image bearers of God who know and use God’s word to subdue the deceptive work of our enemy in the world. If Jesus Christ himself rides out in victory against the evil one with a “sharp sword” of God’s word coming “from his mouth” (Rev 19:15), so we must equip God’s people with this sharp sword of God’s word to come from their mouths, since we are in union with Jesus, and what is true of him in this respect is true of us.

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G. K. Beale (PhD, University of Cambridge) holds the J. Gresham Machen Chair of New Testament and is professor of New Testament and biblical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary.

Mitchell Kim (PhD, Wheaton College) is lead pastor of Living Water Alliance Church in the Chicago suburbs. Building on extensive experience in the immigrant church, he has helped found and guide Joshua Generation to equip youth workers to reach their generation for Christ. He also teaches Bible in the graduate school at Wheaton College and participated in the Lausanne Congress for World Evangelization in Cape Town, South Africa in 2010. Of Korean descent, he was born in southern California, raised in Tokyo and lives in Naperville, IL with his wife Eunsil and their three children.

Taken from God Dwells Among Us by G. K. Beale and Mitchell Kim. Copyright (c) 2014 by G. K. Beale and Mitchell Kim. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426. www.ivpress.com

7 Ridiculously Simple Ways To Make Time for Beauty

Life spiraled increasingly into chaos the moment I set out to write this article. I helped with unplanned classes, struggled with migraines, sifted through significant opportunities for my husband, woke up to a neighbor’s house fire, witnessed the loss of life, caught a case of the flu, and went on a family trip. Needless to say, enjoying God’s beauty wasn’t on the top of my “to-do” list. I found myself thinking, “Who could justify devoting time to beauty when things are this chaotic?” Through the chaos I’ve discovered that Christians of all people can (and must!) devote time to beauty because our God is a beautiful God. We have been claimed by the loveliest Being ever to exist. Nothing in heaven or on earth or beneath the earth compares with the beauty of our God. Thus, it’s our delightful duty to regularly raise our vision above the chaos of this world to behold the beauty of our Lord.

Viewing Christ’s Beauty in the Midst of the Chaos

Here’s the bottom line—there’s never going to be a convenient time for beauty. If you wait for the ever-elusive “perfect moment” to meditate on Christ’s beauty it will never happen. The truth is that you will behold the beauty of Christ when, and only when, you believe it matters enough to do so.

Scripture reveals that those who take time to behold Christ’s beauty do so, not because their schedules allow for it, but because there’s a gnawing sense within them that it matters. They encounter chaos in a fallen world and inherently know it isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. This tension creates a longing to be in the presence of God, viewing his beauty, that they might experience relief from life’s pressures. As they bask in the beauty of the resplendent One, they are re-fueled for life and re-invigorated for mission

Consider David in Psalm 27. The specific evil that occasioned this psalm is up for debate, but it’s universally accepted that King David is in a tumultuous situation. He speaks of evildoers assailing him (27:2), an army encamping against him (27:3), war rising up (27:3), multitudes of enemies surrounding him (27:6), his own parents forsaking him (27:10), and false testimony being brought against him (27:12). David is experiencing intense pressure from every side.

What does a man in the throes of chaos do? He does the one thing he believes matters most to the well being of his soul—he cries out for a fresh vision of God’s beauty. His words in Psalm 27:4 (emphasis added) pierce my cluttered soul,

One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.

From the overflow of his God-entranced worldview David directs his focus towards beauty. He asks to gaze upon Yahweh’s beauty, knowing that in Yahweh’s glorious presence he would find something greater than the greatness of his circumstances. Out of everything Israel’s mighty king could do to procure peace for his soul, he sought out that which he believe would best refuel him for what lied ahead—gazing upon God’s beauty.

Shouldn’t Christ’s beauty matter more to me than this?

Chaos has an interesting way of exposing our truest beliefs. We may say we value something in life but when pressed hard enough we give ourselves to those things that we most value; those things we believe give us the greatest payoff. Even at our busiest, we manage to find (or make) time for what needs to be done on our “to do” lists: We grocery shop, feed the kids, do the laundry, go on dates, write sermons, meet deadlines at work, update twitter accounts, grab coffee with a congregation member, or fix up the house.

As a matter of fact, even during my recent chaotic season (when I allowed beauty to slip) I somehow “found the time” to finish out the season of a TV show I had been watching. I made time for it because I sought the relief it offered me in the midst of a busy stretch. Unfortunately, it exposed a distorted belief system. I believed thirty mind-numbing minutes of television could give me greater rest and refreshment than time in God’s beautiful presence.

It follows then that our commitment to God’s beauty is not primarily an issue of time; it’s an issue of belief and affection. You and I abandon devotion to God’s beauty because deep down we don’t believe it matters as much as everything else. Something inside of us believes unloading the dishwasher before the kids wake up or replying to emails before bedtime has a greater payoff than taking ten minutes to behold Christ.

What we don’t realize is that taking time to bask in God’s beauty will actually empower us to re-enter the chaos and approach these tasks with fresh vigor. A few moments gazing upon the LORD’s beauty will energize our affections for him and others, thus helping us better love and serve those God has entrusted to our care. It has a circular nature to it. The chaos drives us into the presence of God to rest in his beauty which in turn re-fuels us to enter back into the chaos and live missionally.

Considering the vital role God’s beauty plays in all of life and mission, many of you may be wondering why you don’t value beholding Christ’s beauty more greatly. It’s a legitimate question I’ve wrestled with during this season. Could it be that our affections follow our practices? If we never spend time gazing upon the beauty of God, we will never develop a taste for his beauty.

Many of our lifestyles (running chaotically from task to task) have stifled any appetite for beauty. We need to jumpstart these affections by choosing to practice godly habits that put us in a posture to savor Christ’s beauty. The good news is that affections are like a muscle; they grow and develop as we exercise them. Start regularly practicing small ways to behold Christ’s beauty and you will grow to crave a glorious vision of him more often.

7 Ridiculously Simple Ways to Incorporate Beauty Into Your Daily Routine:

1. Wake up earlier to read and meditate on God’s Word (Ps. 19:7-10) – Enjoy God’s beauty in his Word before the chaos begins. Directing your heart towards Jesus first thing in the morning enables you to control the chaos instead of the chaos controlling you.
2. Rehearse the gospel to yourself throughout the day (Eph. 2:1-10) – Periodically stop and reflect upon the gospel. Allow its beauty to put the smaller matters of life into perspective.
3. Go for a walk and admire God’s handiwork (Ps. 19:1-6) – Set aside fifteen minutes (alone or with your children) to take in the beauty of God’s world.
4. Discuss God’s beauty over a meal (Deut. 6:6-7) – Make it a point to talk to those around you about God. Ask them what they find most lovely about him.
5. Worship through song with your children (Col. 3:16) – Few things are quite as delightful as watching children sing about Jesus. Doing informal worship is an easy but rewarding way to incorporate beauty into the mundane.
6. Switch out one segment of “screen time” for gazing upon God’s beauty (Ps. 27:4) – Make a habit of enjoying God’s beauty before you check your email, twitter, pinterest, facebook, etc. Or, push back your nightly “unwinding” TV time until you’ve savored Christ’s beauty for a few moments.
7. Meditate upon the wonders of Christ as you go to sleep (Ps. 63:5-6) – Take time at night to think about Jesus. Meditate on his perfections, his character, and his redemptive work. Allow Christ to be the last thing on your mind at the end of the day.

This week consider incorporating one of the above suggestions into your daily routine. Don’t wait for the “perfect time” to pursue beauty—it doesn’t exist! Instead, create little pockets of calm in the midst of the chaos by lifting your vision above all the distractions and beholding the beauty of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. As you do you will experience a fresh sense of purpose for tasks and energy for mission that all the finished to-do lists in the world can’t offer you.

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Whitney Woollard has served in ministry alongside her husband Neal for over six years. She holds an undergraduate degree in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute and just finished her Master of Arts in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary. She is passionate about equipping disciples to read and study God’s Word well resulting in maturing affections for Jesus and his gospel message. Neal and Whitney currently live in Portland, OR where they love serving the local church. Follow her on Twitter @whitneywoollard.

The Life of the Mind for Knowing God

I have some formal education but not as much as others. I don’t have a PhD. I’m not a professor. I’m entertained by mindless T.V. shows and video games on my iPhone. If asked to do a math problem I freeze, blackout, then vomit. However, I’ve recently become aware of how much the Bible actually pushes the importance of serious biblical study. “Yeah,” you may say, “I know we are all supposed to read the Bible as Christians.” However, I think I mean something stronger than that. I mean something closer to “almost all we should be doing is growing theologically because our devotion to the Bible shows how much we believe it really is God’s Word.” Yikes! That is a pretty strong statement. So let’s see if it is true. Let’s see what the Bible itself has to say about how much we should study.

High-level Bible Study

The Bible is not ambiguous about the fact that Christians are to be serious studiers.

We are told to love God with all of our “mind” (Mk. 12:29). We are commanded to “Destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5). We are told to meditate on God’s law “day and night” (Ps. 1:2). We are told to discuss it with our children when we walk and when we rise and when we sit and at all times of the day (Deut. 11:9). We are told to question everything, especially teaching and “prophesies” (1 Thess. 5:21). We are called to supplement our faith with virtue and virtue with knowledge (2 Pt. 1:5).

And that’s not all . . .

The king of Israel was to copy God’s entire law by hand and read it every day of his life (Deut. 17:18). The sole academic requirement for elders is that they are “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2). God’s people perish due to their lack of theological knowledge (Hos. 4:6). We are commanded almost forty times in Proverbs to seek, not just “wisdom,” but “knowledge.” Paul rebukes those who have a zeal (i.e. passion) for God but not according to knowledge” (Rom. 10:2).

And this is just a tiny fraction of all the times we are told to know God’s word, to seek knowledge, and to study, study, study!

Church Leaders Yesterday

We also see a pattern regarding the importance of education in church history. All the major players in church history seem to be very highly educated either formally or informally:

• Jerome translated the entire Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin.
• Augustine was a Rhetoric professor in Milan before his conversion and had a broad education in the humanities.
• Gregory the Great said, regarding the education of ministers, “No one claims to be able to teach an art until first having learned it through careful study. With what incredible boldness then do the unlearned and unskillful stand ready to assume pastoral authority, forgetting that the care of souls is the art of arts! For it is clear that the ills of the mind are more hidden than the ills of the bowels. And yet quite often those who have no knowledge whatever of spiritual principles dare to declare themselves physicians of the heart, while those who do not know of the use of drugs would never dare to call themselves physicians of the flesh!”
• Martin Luther had a doctorate in Theology and translated the entire Bible into German by himself while locked up in a castle struggling with spiritual attack. Luther thought that the biblical languages were so important that he said he would be willing to go to school with the devil to learn them. He also encouraged people to study until they “had taught the devil to death and had become more learned than God himself and all his saints.”
• John Calvin studied at both the University of Paris and at Orleans and wrote one of the most popular Protestant Systematic Theology textbooks ever.
• Ulrich Zwingli, in addition to having a strong formal education, had all of Paul’s letters memorized in Greek.
• George Whitfield and John Wesley both studied theology at Oxford.
• Jonathan Edwards graduated from Yale at 17 and then became the president of Princeton. His dissertation was delivered, of course, in Latin. He sometimes studied 14 hours a day and is considered to be the greatest mind to ever come out of America.
• Even those like Charles Spurgeon, who didn’t have a lot of formal degrees, were highly educated . . . Spurgeon tutored Greek at Cambridge.

Evangelicalism Today

Great church leaders in the modern era are the same way. Some of the most influential, godly, Christian leaders are also the most knowledgeable:

• John Piper has a PhD from the University of Munich.
• Wayne Grudem has a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard, a Master’s degree from Westminster (which broke off of Princeton Seminary), and a PhD from Cambridge.
• N. T. Wright has 5 degrees from Oxford, including two doctorates.
• Alister McGrath has 5 degrees from Oxford, including two doctorates.
• D. A. Carson, in addition to having a PhD from Cambridge, reads 500 books a year. Think about that… there are only 365 days in a year!

But what about the Apostles? Weren’t they uneducated?

Despite the overwhelming pattern above, some will object and say, “The Apostles were a bunch of uneducated fisherman and God seemed to use them despite their lack of training.” However, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, some were highly educated (like Paul who wrote a lot of the New Testament). Second, these other men spent three years personally walking with Jesus! What better education is there to knowing God then living with the God-Man for 3 years?! Also, the Apostles knew Aramaic (and some knew Greek and possibly Hebrew) which are more biblical languages than most pastors know. They didn’t need to study the background or culture of the Bible because they lived in it. They had also seen the risen Jesus, been commissioned by him to be Apostles, and had been empowered by the Holy Spirit to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth. That is a far cry from anyone’s meager education today. In a sense we could say they had more theological training than anyone else, not less. Ministerial training is not about a lot of knowledge but about the right knowledge.

Discouraged Yet?

The above facts don’t make me want to be a Christian—they make me want to give up. If the above information is true then I feel like God will never use me. I’ll never attain the level of these guys. I don’t have a PhD. I don’t debate scholars in Latin. And I’ve never translated the entire Bible into a new language.

However, my purpose is not to tell you that you have to be a scholar but merely to correct a trend in our evangelical culture which seeks to make Christians a people of the heart without also being a people of the head. This shouldn’t make you feel as though you have to become an ivory tower monk. It should, however, encourage you just to take “baby steps” and to devote yourself to studying God’s word. Part of loving God more is to know more about him.

Jonathan Edwards described knowledge about God like firewood and passion for God like fire. A fire with no firewood just produces a big flash but no lasting heat. Firewood without fire doesn’t do much good either. But if there is a fire the more firewood you add to the pile the brighter and hotter it will burn. Theology is the ceiling to your worship – by knowing more about God your capacity to love him grows.

God uses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. So the power is not in education in and of itself. But it is the education that allows one to better unlock the treasures of God’s Word. That is why these men are great and that is what the Bible itself tells us to seek.

Reconnecting Head and Heart

We have a tendency to vilify academics and act as though study is somehow unspiritual. We also have a tendency to feel as though serious Bible study is only for the “experts.” However, God wants all his people to be serious Bible students. So how can we take some “baby steps” and what are some practical things we can do to grow? Perhaps this means participating in some of these activities:

• Asking seminary professors or pastors what books they recommend so you don’t waste your time on poor books.
• Auditing a class at a local seminary.
• Listening to seminary lectures on iTunes U.
• Just devoting yourself to reading for fifteen minutes a day.
• Asking more questions from people who know a lot about theology.

It’s not about reading a lot of books. It’s about reading the right books and to know what books those are you have to ask the guys who know. The easiest thing you can do to start is just to read the Bible a little every day. You won’t understand everything at first, but the more familiar you become with the Bible the more it will make sense over time.

It is easy to accidentally separate “head” from “heart.” We do it all the time. We either try to merely know facts about God (and not love him) or we just try to love him and conjure up emotion (and don’t correctly think about whom we are loving). However, it doesn’t have to be this way. The Christian is called to love God with our whole heart and our whole mind. It is not so much a “scale” or “spectrum” (which would mean that loving God moved one away from knowledge and having knowledge moved one away from love). Rather, these are two separate categories in which one should seek to grow. If one finds that they love God but don’t know much about him they shouldn’t try to love him less as if that will make them know more. Conversely, if one finds that they know about God more than they love him they should not study less as if being dumber will somehow make them love God more. Rather they should just seek to grow where they are weak whether that be head or heart.

The goal is not degrees but knowing God. Or, as church historian Justo Gonzalez says, “The goal of theological studies is not a degree or diploma. Their final goal is the contemplation of the face of God in the final reign of peace and justice.”

—

Zach Lee is Associate Home Groups Minister at The Village Church and is married to Katy.  Follow him on Twitter: @zacharytlee.

Pondering Past Hurts and Current Controversies

We have all been burned. We have all been subjected to situations where wish things had been different. Different words, different tones, different lines of reasoning, and different levels of respect. We have all been subjected to other people’s sin issues and weaknesses. This is just part of being human. Maybe it was a boss at work. Maybe it was a friend. Maybe it was a parent. This creates hurt in our lives. In addition to hurt from our past, we are constantly processing and assessing different situations, personalities, and controversies. He said, she said. That leader did what? Did you hear about so and so? We live with the front page news staring us in the face.

As I attempt to diagnose my own heart, these two scenarios form one of the great battlegrounds of pride. As I consider those who have hurt me in the past or situations today where someone “just doesn’t seem to get it,” my assessment can quickly default into the Pharisaical position of smug superiority. I have practically memorized the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, and yet I still find myself, over and over again, in the position of the Pharisee.

I default into a man who smugly stands afar with his arms crossed and internally says, “This idiot over here doesn’t have it together like me.” Usually this is in the name of “what I am learning” or “standing up for the truth,” but often I glean a keen sense of subtle superiority from gossipy conversations with others about others.

There is certainly a time to stand up for the truth, to dissect sin issues of others, to assault heresy, talk about a foolish public figure, and/or process a painful past. In a fallen world, it has to be this way and always will be until the coming day when Jesus makes all things right. But the greater question concerns our posture. What emotions do we carry? What conversations do we have with others? What is the tone and content of those conversations? Do we have a “I sure am glad I’m not like that idiot” attitude? Or, “How in the world could he screw that one up so badly?!?!?” As if people have never wondered those same questions about me.

Controversy is always going to swirl around us, especially in the information age. Jesus’ teaching about the plank and the speck remains timelessly simple yet painfully difficult to apply in daily living. Having a plank in your own eye doesn’t dismiss the speck, which must be dealt with. But having a gaping plank of sin in your own eye will probably alter the manner and measure with which you remove your brother/sister’s speck.

So as you process the mistakes people made in the past that have deeply affected you, or you look around today and assess different issues, controversies, or personalities, does your default setting lean towards smug superiority or repentance?

Sadly, I know that I am too often the Pharisee. Pharisees need Jesus. Pharisees can be forgiven, too.

God chooses to use us in spite of our weaknesses. It’s hard to read the Bible and not see that as a theme through almost every narrative. Moses was a murderer, Noah was a drunk, Abraham was a liar, David was a murderer and an adulterer, and Peter was a loud-mouthed racist. I am so thankful that God chose to use those men in spite of their glaring weaknesses. I pray he uses me too.

—

Zach Nielsen (@znielsen) is one of the pastors at The Vine Church in Madison, Wisconsin, where he serves in the areas of preaching, leadership development and music. He is a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa and Covenant Theological Seminary and blogs at Take Your Vitamin Z.

Originally post at TGC. Used with permission of the author.

We Are Not Called To Be Awesome

Earlier this year, the former Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, made a pretty stunning statement. It was in the middle of a speech in which he was reflecting on his own legacy at the age of 72. He spoke about initiatives he had spearheaded in to reduce obesity, eliminate second hand smoke from public spaces, and neuter gun violence on the streets. In each instance, Mayor Bloomberg had demonstrated a desire to promote human health, safety, and flourishing. The surprising part of his speech was the takeaway, in which he speculated about the afterlife. He said, and I quote, “I’m telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I’m heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

After first hearing the Mayor’s statement, a thought dawned on me: Whatever we might think about Christianity, it is by far the most utterly unique religion that the world has ever known. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that unlike every other religion ever known to humanity, Christianity has an entirely different view of the afterlife than Michael Bloomberg.

Because with Jesus, and only with Jesus, the door of heaven’s entry is presented to us at the beginning of our journey, not at the end. The door is Jesus himself. He lived the life we should have lived but didn’t, and he died the death we should have died but will never have to…because he lived and died in our place. And he rose from the dead to seal it.

Besides Christianity, other religions say what Mayor Bloomberg said on account of himself: If you want to make it to heaven, you have to accomplish something. You have to live up to something. You have to bring it.

For honest people, this is a terrifying thought. Even Karl Marx recognized this. In a rare moment of transparency, Marx disclosed an inner thought that no doubt had a lot to do with the destructive worldview he would come to espouse. Reflecting on his own struggle for “salvation” or “significance” or “identity” or whatever we want to call it, Marx said, “I am nothing and I should be everything. Man, the poor, denuded creature, must repress his smallness.”

Michael Bloomberg and Karl Marx are really saying the same thing, just from different angles — Bloomberg from a place of superiority and feeling big, and Marx from a place of inferiority and feeling small. Both are saying that the way to salvation is through work. Through exertion. Through human effort. Through fulfilled expectations. We start off small and we become whatever it is that we make of ourselves. In the end, that will be our salvation or our judgment, depending on how we have performed. In the end, that will be our ticket to being accepted by God (if we believe he exists), by others, and by ourselves.

Have you ever wondered where the insatiable ache comes from? You know, the one that longs to have our name remembered on a building, or in a history book, or on a donor list, or on a book or album cover, or by an industry, or by our descendants? Have you ever wondered where the drive to accomplish something comes from, or the desire to leave a legacy?

But what if your name has already been given to you, and your legacy has already been achieved? What if it is God who has already given you that name and that legacy?

He has.

Jesus Christ lived and died—he made himself nothing—so you would never have to feel like a nothing. He became small so you would never have to “repress your smallness” as a poor, denuded creature. And he rose from the dead so you could get to heaven and walk right in and not have to stop for an interview, because your trial has already occurred and your record of accomplishment has already been established by another.

The door of heaven’s entry is opened to you at the beginning of your journey, not at the end.

Another way to put this is that God has not called you to be awesome. Rather, he has called you to be humble, faithful, forgiven, and free.

We can all leave the awesome to Jesus. When we do, we will also become the best version of ourselves. But without the pressure.

—

Scott Sauls is senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee, and author of Jesus Outside the Lines: A Way Forward for Those Who are Tired of Taking Sides. You can connect with Scott at scottsauls.com or on Twitter at @scottsauls.

Originally published at scottsauls.com.

Evangelism in a Culture of Religious Nones

Islam isn’t the greatest threat to Christianity in America, and neither is secularism, but the rise in religious nones does tell us something important. According to the recent Pew study, religious “nones” now account for 22.8% of the country, essentially tripling in the past 15 years. Should we be alarmed? How should the rise of the “nones” impact our evangelism? First, a little clarity is in order. The survey notes that 15.8 % affiliate with “nothing in particular,” and 4% are agnostic, which leaves only 3.1% as committed atheists. This means there are a whole lot of people—upwards of 50 million—that are still trying to make up their minds about what they believe.

In fact, many of them are spiritually minded. Two-thirds of them say they believe in God (68%). More than half say they often feel a deep connection with nature and the earth (58%), and more than a third classify themselves as “spiritual” but not “religious” (37%).[1] As you can see, its probable that there are some competing spiritual beliefs among the nones, which reveals significant theological confusion but reflects a spiritual openness, despite the fact that they affiliate with nothing in particular.

Secular evangelist David Niose, author of Unbeliever Nation, has been on an active campaign to call the nones out of the closet. He’s asking them to identify with the secularist movement. This movement is churning out fresh literature to engage the public by making a case for secular living. Sociologist Phil Zuckerman’s Living the Secular Life tries to make a case for principled secular, ethical living with some semblance of community. The trouble however, is that secular-minded people tend to be quite independent and individualistic in their thinking, making it difficult to create communities of secularists. How should evangelicals respond?

While the gospel mustn’t change, how we share the gospel is overdue for change. The rise in nones does reflect a rise in unbelief in the gospel. Why?

One reason is that some people simply find our evangelism unbelievable.

While a person’s response to Christ is ultimately a matter that rests in God’s sovereign hands—something we have no control over—a person’s hearing of the gospel is a matter we do have control over and responsibility for.  St. Paul tells us:

• Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. – Col. 4:4-5

• So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 10:17

Evangelicals have long touted the importance of evangelism, but this often devolves into more mechanical and impersonal presentations. Many of the spiritually-mined nones want nothing to do with that. They see churches as too concerned with power, rules, and politics. Evangelism that acts coercively and not compassionately doesn’t ring true with them.

This means that we should take Paul’s words to heart by doing evangelism “in grace for each person.”

Evangelism isn’t just our responsibility; it’s an expression of personal compassion. When Jesus looked out on those who were harassed and helpless in his culture, he did not conclude they were all damnable and to be avoided. Instead, he felt compassion for them. Compassion motivated his evangelism. Does it motivate yours? If not, you won’t do it “in person.” Unfortunately, a lot of evangelism is an out of body experience, as if there aren’t two persons in a conversation. It’s excarnate, out of the flesh, not incarnate—in the flesh.

I’m reminded of the more passive Christian who looks to get Jesus off his chest at work and into a conversation. “Check!” Or the time in college when I pretended to share the gospel with a friend in Barnes & Noble so others would overhear it! Alternatively, an active evangelist might troll blogs and start conversations to defeat arguments, while losing people in the process. “Aha!” The comment section on a blog is the new street corner.

These approaches are foolish because they treat people like projects to be completed, not persons to be loved. Secularists can smell a bait and switch a mile away.

Paul says we should “know how you ought to answer each person.” This means that most of your gospel explanations will be different, not canned. It also implies a listening evangelism. How can we know how to respond to each person, if we don’t know each person?

When Francis Schaeffer was asked how he would an hour with a non-Christian, he said: “I would listen for fifty-five minutes, and then, in the last five minutes I would have something to say.”

That’s doing evangelism in grace for each person.

If we are to recover personal, believable evangelism, we will need wisdom.

Paul isn’t just telling us to be relational; he’s telling to tell the good news with wisdom. Wisdom possesses more than knowledge of the gospel; it expresses that knowledge with understanding. It considers a person’s life circumstances and applies the knowledge of grace with skill. Another word for this is love.

Love is inefficient. It slows down long enough to understand people and their objections to the gospel. Love recognizes people are complex, and meets them in their need: suffering, despair, confusion, indifference, cynicism, confusion. We should look to surface these objections in people’s lives.

A few months ago I was having lunch with an educated professional who had a lot of questions. After about thirty minutes he said, “Enough about me. You’re asking me questions. I should ask you questions.” I responded by saying, “I want to hear your questions, but I also want to know you so that I can respond to your questions with wisdom.” He told me some very personal things after that, and it shed a lot of light on his objections to Christianity. It made my comments much more informed, and he felt much more loved, declaring at the end, “I wish every lunch was like this. Let’s keep doing this. I have a lot more questions.” Months later, he’s following Jesus and gobbling up the gospel.

Rehearsing a memorized fact, “Jesus died on the cross for your sins”, isn’t walking in wisdom. Many people don’t know what we mean when we say “Jesus” “sin” or “cross.” While much of America still has cultural memory of these things, they are often misunderstood and confused with “moral teacher” “be good” and “irrelevant suffering.” We have to slow down long enough to explore what they mean, and why they have trouble with these words and concepts. Often they are tied to some kind of pain.

We need to explain these important truths (and more), not simply assert them. When we discerningly separate cultural misunderstanding from a true understanding of the gospel, we move forward in wisdom. But getting to that point typically doesn’t happen overnight.

We need to see evangelism as a long-term endeavor. Stop checking the list and defeating people. Be incarnate not excarnate in your evangelism. Slow down and practice listening and love. Most conversions are not the result of a single, point-in-time conversation, but the culmination of a personal process that includes doubt, reflection, gospel witness, love, and the work of the Holy Spirit.

And remember, don’t put pressure on yourself; conversion is in God’s hands. We just get to share the incomparable news of Jesus.

In sum, the rise of the religious nones is telling us how we communicate the gospel matters.

[1] http://www.pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones-on-the-rise/

—

Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of City Life Church in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship, Unbelievable Gospel, and Raised? He has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others. Twitter: @Jonathan_Dodson

Jonathan’s new book is The Unbelievable Gospel: Say Something Worth Believing (resource website here). You can also get his free ebook “Four Reasons Not to Share Your Faith.”

Catechizing Our Children in Wonder

Success by Religious Conformity

It was one of those moments when I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So I opted to just shrink lower into our second-row pew, stifle my giggles, and thank God for my seven-year-old son and all his glorious honesty.

My husband pastors a rural church in SW Virginia; and while we do our best to keep our kids out of the fishbowl, we do expect them to participate in the full-scope of congregational life. This includes our mid-week Bible study. This isn’t usually a problem, but like all of us, there are days when our children would rather stay home. Sometimes they’re tired, busy doing other things, or in the case of my seven-year-old son, simply finds his Legos more interesting than sitting still for an hour.

On this particular Wednesday night, my husband and I had dealt with the standard objections over dinner, and by 7:05, everyone was safely ensconced in our pew with our heads bowed. The head deacon was opening the service with prayer as only a head deacon from a rural Baptist church can when about half way through, he asked God to touch the hearts of “those who could have come tonight, but chose not to.” Not missing a beat, my son piped up, “Well, I didn’t want to come, but I HAD to.”

My son’s resistance to church is not the only discipleship hurdle we face as parents. It is easily matched by his older sister’s recent acknowledgment that she finds God’s eternality “weird” and by the fact that their five-year-old brother regularly asks to pray at meal time for the sole purpose of controlling the length of the prayer. (“Dear-God-Thank-you-for-this-food-help-us-to love-each-other-Amen.”) If parenting success is measured by religious conformity, we’re batting 0 for 3 here.

Discipleship Through Fear

These kinds of situations have the potential to worry Christian parents who desire to pass their faith on to their children. With reports of widespread Millennial angst and stories of apologists’ daughters rejecting Christianity, it easy to fear our children will not come to a personal relationship with Christ. It’s even easier to respond out of that fear by simply doubling our efforts to force faith into them through more catechism, more Bible memory, more “church.”

Part of the reason we do this is because we tend to believe discipleship happens through the accumulation of religious knowledge. A quick Google search for “children’s discipleship” brings back resource after resource—everything from catechisms to Bible memory systems to pint-sized devotional books–all promising to produce faith in the next generation of believers. What I rarely hear discussed is the necessity of discipling our children through “natural revelation.” When theologians use the term “natural revelation,” they are referring to what God has revealed about himself through the world around us. “Specific revelation,” on the other hand, is what God has revealed about himself through the Scripture.

And while I believe Scripture is essential to the process of belief, Scripture was never intended to be engaged in a vacuum. Instead, faith happens as the Holy Spirit impresses the truth of God’s Word (specific revelation) onto a heart that has been primed to accept it by experiencing the truth of God in the world around it (natural revelation). Like a pair of chopsticks, the two must work together.

The Apostle Paul understood this and it’s precisely why in Acts 17—that famous Mars Hill sermon—he begins by appealing to what the Athenians already knew through their experience of the world. They already believed in some “unknown God” because they could see his works both in them and around them. Most of us understand the importance of this approach in adult evangelism; we craft winsome arguments and appeal to the nature of the cosmos and the intrinsic code of right and wrong that seems to be written on every human heart. What fewer of us recognize is that we must evangelize and disciple our children in this exact same way. We must evangelize and disciple our children through wonder as much as through catechism.

Wonder as Much as Catechisms

In Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton, that great British philosopher of the last century, writes that he gained his understanding of the world as a child:

“My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery . . . a certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since been meekly ratified by mere facts.”

It is this “certain way of looking at life” that many Christian parents neglect—or perhaps have never even acquired for themselves. We are not merely stuffing our children’s heads with facts; we are shaping hearts to believe that certain realities are true so that when they do finally encounter the facts essential to faith, they will already have hearts that can recognize them. When they finally memorize “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” it will find lodging because they have already gazed up into this same heaven and marveled at its brilliant stars; and they have already let the sand from this same earth slip through their chubby fingers.

So that in the end, they don’t believe there is a Creator simply because Genesis 1 tells them so; they believe there is a Creator because they have seen his Creation. 


As you go about discipling your children, as you teach them their Bible verses and correct them when they disobey, do not neglect the sacred discipline of awe. Take them to the mountains to walk forest trails in search of the millipedes and butterflies that are the works of his hands. Take them to the seashore to be knocked over by the power of a wave so that one day they’ll know how to be knocked over by power of God. Take them to the art museum to thrill at colors and shapes and textures whose beauty can only be explained by the One who is Beauty himself. Take them to the cities to crane their necks to the see the tops of sky scrapers and shiver at God’s miracle of physics that keeps them from tumbling down.

And then take them to church.

Take them to church to bow their heads and receive the Word that gives them the ability to know the God behind all these wonders in a personal way. Take them to church to let the joy of their little hearts overflow in worship of the One through whom all these things consist. And take them to church, so that in the midst of other worshipers, in the midst of other image bearers, they too will be able to find their place in the great, wide world he has made.

—

Hannah Anderson lives in the hauntingly beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She spends her days working beside her husband in rural ministry, caring for their three young children, and scratching out odd moments to write. In those in-between moments, she contributes to a variety of Christian publications and is the author of Made for More: An Invitation to Live in God’s Image (Moody, 2014). You can connect with her at her blog Sometimes a Light and on Twitter @sometimesalight.

Take Up and Read Beautiful Words

The longest Psalm in the Bible is a literary masterpiece. Covering one hundred and seventy-six verses the song is an impressive feat of creativity and command of language. In sets of eight lines each, the writer of the Psalm uses each letter of the alphabet to commend and speak of the power of the Word of God—“Aleph” through “Taw” (A to Z). In some ways, the Psalm itself is a grade-school alphabet primer to teach not only a language, but the greatness of the Word of God. While it might have been used in an educational environment to teach Hebrew children their ABC’s, the Psalm itself shows a powerful aspect of God’s Word that is often overlooked—namely its beauty. Consider for a moment the creativity of a writer who took the painstaking time to consider and weigh every word so that each line began with the proper Hebrew letter as well as making sure that the lines themselves were coherent. Each point makes sense. For the writer, the language became an artistic tool, like a chisel in the hands of a master carpenter to create something solid and indelible. Language became the vehicle of beauty and that beauty created desire.

Beauty is the spring of desire. It makes perfect sense that what our hearts, minds, bodies, and even our tongues and ears perceive as beautiful becomes more and more desirable to us. The Bible itself becomes an artisan spring of refreshment calling us to desire God more and more. God uses words to display his beauty, and even the words themselves are beautiful, artistic, creative, and delightful. But we frequently overlook the beauty of the Book.

The Bible As Textbook

When I was a senior in high school I began to visit colleges to assess whether the school would be a good fit for me and to see if I would click with a program of study that I would pursue as a vocation. I remember spending time one evening with a group of guys in a Bible college dorm asking them about the school and what pitfalls and snares I might face there. The students didn’t talk about the pitfalls of the city or the allurements of the party scene. They talked about the danger of the Bible.

Specifically, my counselors warned me against the danger of the Bible becoming a mere textbook. Yet this is how so many of us treat the Bible today. Instead of God’s Word being a beautiful, artistic, life-giving stream the Bible is shaped to become to just a history text book. Most history textbooks I remember were pretty boring. This is the approach we often take to the Bible. “Now class, open your book to page 116 where we are going to study the exodus of Israel.” Pretty boring.

The Bible becomes a textbook when we allow it to just be a source of information. We just look for knowledge to help us identify what to do and when to do it. We use the Bible to know the facts, dates, and timelines of the history of God’s people so that when we reach the pearly gates we can answer the appropriate question about when Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and exiled the Israelites (hint: 586 B.C.). We become Bible fact-givers that could topple any foe in a rousing game of Bible Trivia with our knowledge and profound grasp of information.

But we stand in serious danger of losing out on the reality and heart of the Bible. The beauty that draws us to desire God more. The Pharisees’ of Jesus’ day were in perilous danger of the same thing themselves. Jesus confronted them and said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (Jn. 5:39–40). We use the Bible as a textbook for information but miss the beauty Scripture seeks to make us eagerly desire—Jesus Christ.

Beauty in the Book

How does God use words to cause us to thirst and hunger for him? How does the Bible become a spring that makes us thirsty for the water of life? One way the Bible itself develops thirst is by itself being a thirst-inducing piece of literature. Creativity, beauty, imagination, and a master-level command of language creates something distinctly unique and beautiful. As Harper Lee said, “The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.” Like Psalm 119 the creativity of the writers of Scripture is profound and deep. Scripture itself is a myriad of types of genre, style, and creative energy. If we really pay attention to these aspects of good literature within the Bible itself the beauty of the book shines forth in a new way that makes us thirsty for God.

The Bible is not just one style or genre. It’s abundantly creative in the types of writing it contains. God uses story to draw us into the drama of his work. He uses poetry to move our emotions and hearts. He uses genres like fantasy to spark and overwhelm our imaginations with things that we can not fully perceive. He draws us into life on the street through letting us read the personal letters of pastors to the churches they love so much. He shows us the power of sin through the legal documentation of the law so that we despair of our own righteousness and flee to Christ. He helps us walk well through life by giving us memorable, witty, yet dense sayings of wisdom. He provides language for our hearts through song so that we pray and answer God in all his glory.

The Bible is not a monochromatic history. The more we see the complexity and beauty of each genre, the more we will desire to know and delight in the God of the Bible.

Engage the Book

Psalm 119 powerfully invites us to love and engage the Bible because of its beauty. How do we sing and say with the writer of Psalm 119:24, “I find my delight in your commandments, which I love”? God doesn’t make it difficult for us, like taking down some awful tasting cough medicine. He attracts us with beautiful literature that leads us to a beautiful God.

To see the beauty of God’s word we should engage the Bible itself. Utilizing resources like Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart’s Reading the Bible For All It’s Worth will help us understand the genres and diversity of the Bible. Leland Ryken’s How to Read the Bible as Literature is another excellent source of help to see the beauty in the Bible’s diverse genres. Beyond helpful resources about the Bible we should open up and engage the Bible itself in its beauty.

Augustine was engaged by the beauty of the Bible as he heard little children singing “Tolle lege” (“take up and read”) so he took up the beautiful book and began to read the Bible. As God spoke Augustine saw the spring from which everlasting water flows—Christ himself. We would be wise to do the same. “Take up and read” to see the beauty of God’s word.

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Jeremy Writebol (@jwritebol) has been training leaders in the church for over fourteen years. He is the author of everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present (GCD Books, 2014) and writes at jwritebol.net. He is the pastor of Woodside Bible Church’s Plymouth, MI campus. 

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3 Tremendous Tasks for Dads (and Grace for When We Fail)

It’s that time of the year again. The time when multitudes flock to Hallmark aisles and stand awkwardly among strangers as they are confronted with one of the most powerful, delicate, and potentially painful relationships known to humanity. That’s right—Father’s Day. The day set apart to celebrate fatherhood and honor those who, for better or worse, have the greatest impact upon society in general and their children in particular. What is it about the relationship with our dads (or lack thereof) that contributes greatly to shaping who we are and what we become? Why can one father enable a young woman to flourish in her femininity, while another promotes her downward spiral? Why does the presence of a father nurture a son’s masculinity, while his absence fosters a sense of insecurity and confusion? Could it be that earthly fathers possess such influence because of the way in which they point towards the heavenly Father?

Earthly Fathers Mirror the Heavenly Father

God ordained fatherhood to reveal his own essential nature. This fundamental role was built into the family structure from the beginning to make visible the invisible God. God willed that earthly fathers would mirror him as the perfect heavenly Father and thus teach their children about his nature and attributes.

There is a powerful relationship between the knowledge of an earthly father and understanding of the heavenly Father. When a dad is merciful, patient, and loving towards his children they have a better chance of understanding the paternal nature of Yahweh when he reveals himself as “A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exod. 34:6). Conversely, if the only picture a child has of his father is an angry man who doesn’t like to be interrupted while watching golf (or who takes off altogether!), there’s a greater likelihood that child will struggle to see God as a loving, committed Father.

We see this correlation clearly in Jesus’ teaching on prayer in Matthew 7:9-11,

Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Jesus reveals that the provision of an earthly father teaches us to trust in the provision of our heavenly Father and openly present our needs to him. He reasons from the lesser to the greater: if earthly fathers (who are fallen) have an innate impulse within to provide for their children how much more does the heavenly Father (who is perfect) desire to meet the needs of his children!

This passage resonates with me. My dad is single-handedly the most generous man I’ve ever met. There is not a stingy bone in his body! Though he’s a fallen man, he always provided for my needs. It never crossed my mind that he wouldn’t provide for me—I simply knew he would. Consequently, during my thirteen years as a Christian I’ve never doubted that God the Father would meet all of my needs. I’ve always approached his throne to openly present my requests believing that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (Jas. 1:17).

It’s not a coincidence that an attribute my earthly father excelled in is an attribute I’ve always understood about my heavenly Father. His generosity mirrored the Father’s generosity and taught me about the lavish nature of God’s heart. My perception of the Father was shaped by my experience with my dad. I’m not alone in this.All fathers (again, for better or worse) daily disciple their children and teach them, perhaps unconsciously, about the character of God.

Dads As Disciple-Makers

Because of the divinely appointed influence the role of “father” has in teaching others about God the Father, all dads are disciple-makers. If you are a father or acting as a father figure in someone’s life, you have a tremendous task before you.

1. Recognize This Responsibility.

Every day you are creating little disciples! Your words, actions, and emotions teach those around you about the nature of God and his heart towards them. You have the opportunity to cultivate an atmosphere in which children are drawn towards the heavenly Father. In the way you shepherd their little hearts through conversation, discipline, laughter, you are creating fertile soil for the reception of the gospel. You’re constantly painting a picture of a Father they will one day desire to know (or not know) and training their adolescent affections to long for a relationship with him. Daily you are doing the preparatory work that makes way for the gospel to be received when the time is ripe.

2. Accept the Reality.

You will fail at this task! Despite your best intentions, you cannot perfectly image God the Father. You are a broken man who needs Jesus as much as your children do. This doesn’t mean you don’t take seriously your responsibility as a father, but it does mean you do so with an informed understanding of the gospel. The gospel tells us that we all fail to image God, but Jesus came as the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15) and perfectly revealed the nature of the Father (Heb. 1:3). He died in your place for all your failure, including your failure as a father, and rose to life for the forgiveness of your sins (1 Cor. 15:3-4). He ascended to heaven and poured out his Spirit so you could have his indwelling presence helping you walk in covenant faithfulness (Ezek. 36:27). As a believer, you have God’s own Spirit within you empowering you to lead your children towards the heavenly Father.

3. Walk in Repentance.

 Your children don’t need you to be perfect; they need you to repent! The danger of emphasizing your role as a father is that you could walk away thinking you need to be the capital “H” hero of your children’s lives. You can’t be the hero of their stories anymore than you can be the hero of your own story. This isn’t a legalistic pep rally urging you to be the “Superman/Superdad” figure in your household. What a false burden to bear! The exhortation is to cultivate an environment in your home that illuminates the true capital “H” Hero of the story—Jesus Christ. You do this by walking in continual repentance in front of your children. When you sin tell your children you messed up, ask for Jesus’ forgiveness in front of them, and point them towards the perfect Dad who will never fail them. As you repent openly and frequently you will create a safe place for your children to experience transparency and intimacy leading them towards the perfect Dad.

To All Fathers

Gospel-Centered Discipleship wants to wish all of the dads a very Happy Father’s Day! May you richly cherish the love of your heavenly Father even as you pour out that grace-infused love upon your children. Always remember, “Children are a heritage from the LORD” (Ps. 127:3) and “Blessed is the man who fills his quivers with them!” (Ps. 127:5). God has tasked you with a special role in your children’s lives only you can play. May you walk in this responsibility with much humility, joy, and reliance on the Spirit of God.

To my own dad, Lonnie Byers, Happy Father’s Day! I know our story wasn’t exactly “perfect” and it won’t ever end up on a Hallmark card, but that’s just as well. Ours is the story of repentance and redemption in a broken, fallen world that has provided ample opportunity to experience the grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, more deeply together. That’s something Hallmark doesn’t know how to market. I wouldn’t change a thing! Even during hard times you always met my needs, thus preparing my heart to understand the lavish generosity of my heavenly Father when I came to know him. I am eternally grateful to you for how you mirrored the image of God the Father in this.

Thank you for all you’ve done Dad. Love, Whit

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Whitney Woollard has served in ministry alongside her husband Neal for over six years. She holds an undergraduate degree in Biblical Studies from Moody Bible Institute and just finished her Master of Arts in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary. She is passionate about equipping disciples to read and study God’s Word well resulting in maturing affections for Jesus and his gospel message. Neal and Whitney currently live in Portland, OR where they love serving the local church. Follow her on Twitter @whitneywoollard.

4 Principles for Disciples Who Last

Following Jesus is hard work! If you’ve been on the road with Jesus for a while you know I’m telling the truth, and if you’re just starting out . . . don’t worry, it’s worth it. I have seen many friends and family too start out with Jesus and give up when the going got tough. Life’s pressures can crush our spiritual passion. Other commitments get in the way of commitment to Christ. The allure of new relationships can lead away from knowing Jesus more. All of us must hear the warning in this: Stay close to Jesus at all costs.  One of my aims with the Gospel Praxis Project is to encourage believers to live Christ’s core commands so that we walk closely with, and like, Jesus.

Jesus himself was acutely aware that following him and his commands was a hard thing. His parable of the sower illustrates this well. When Jesus was arrested, his closest followers fled for the hills, hiding in fear of their lives. One of the Gospels states that his best friend Peter followed from a distance (Luke 22:54). Following from a distance always leads to trouble—Peter denies Jesus three times that night! Jesus knew he would do this. Jesus knows us really well!!!

So how do we cope when faith is tough? How do we become disciples who last?

These four points show us how we can develop discipleship resilience to live a life of faith to the fullest and to the end.

1. Learn

Jesus passed his teachings on to his disciples. They in turn passed them on to another generation of Jesus-followers . . . and so on.  Followers of Jesus learn how to live by learning from him. We must live close to the Scriptures. We must learn God’s way of living from all of them. We have been given them to live according to God’s pattern for humanity.

Now some might disagree with me. They might argue that the Bible isn’t really the Word of God. “It was written in a time that we no longer understand,” they might say. “It is no longer relevant; it can mean whatever you want it to mean.” This line of thinking is subtly destructive for believers, the church, and the world we are seeking to love and lead back to God. God says the Jesus even claimed the Holy Spirit would teach us all that we need to know (Jn. 14:26). We see the Spirit’s work through out church history providentially guiding the church away from error and to truth. We need Scriptures’ teaching and the Spirit’s illumination to help us stay close to Jesus. And the two never disagree.

We need to LEARN from God’s word what God says as we submit to the Holy Spirit’s inspiration and leading.

2. Apply

Application of the Word of God is essential for spiritual resilience. Applying the teachings of Jesus through the whole of Scripture is to our spiritual well-being what exercise is to the body. It makes us stronger, sharper and provides us with the mettle we need to persevere in faith.

Learning is in itself not enough. Knowledge alone puffs us up. Application humbles us as we realise that learning needs to be integrated with all of life. It’s not enough to know that God values every person—we need to apply that truth in all our relationships and interactions. This will reveal our true character as we realise that applying learning is difficult. This is where the Holy Spirit prunes our lives to make us more fruitful for the kingdom of God.

In summary: We need to apply our Learning to real life in order for learning to develop into Spiritual fruitfulness.

3. Share

Jesus seemed to know a lot of stuff about the world, about God, and about what God meant in the holy Scriptures. He was immensely wise and perceptive about how the world functions and about how people (even religious people) use power for their own gain.

Jesus chose to be different. he set out to share everything God had given to him. Jesus lived what he taught. Jesus shared what he taught. Jesus shared his life and teaching with anyone who would come to him.

Some people in our lives will follow us because they see hope and life of the gospel within us. They will not know the reason for that life and hope unless we share it with them. The gospel is powerful because it leads to salvation. It is powerful because when we learn and apply it our lives are transformed from the inside out. We are not given the gospel of Jesus in order to have a great life. We are recipients of the gospel so that we can be in close loving relationship with God, and, secondly, so that we will share it with anyone who would come close enough to learn it. Living our faith develops our confidence in God as we lean on him to live and share Jesus with the world.

We share our knowledge of Jesus and the gospel through our words and actions. People will “read” us to see the true motives behind what we do. They will watch to see if our faith is real. They will observe how we conduct ourselves. They will listen for our faith to match our lifestyle. We are called by Jesus to take the gospel out into all the world. We are called to share Jesus.

In summary: We grow in spiritual confidence as we live and share Jesus and his great Gospel.

4. Trust

I started off by saying following Jesus was hard, and it can be. Peter sure knew about that—he always seemed to mess things up—yet he never gave up after he messed up. For example, there was one occasion when Peter and some of the disciples were in a boat on the lake, Jesus comes out to Peter, walking on the water like some ghostly figure. Jesus calls Peter out onto the water, and not being an intelligent man he jumps out of the water expecting to be able to walk on it because Jesus was. And he did! But the waves and wind come (as they do in the busyness of our lives) and his eyes are taken off Jesus (as ours often are) and he begins to stop trusting Jesus (aren’t we so prone to this?).

Jesus does call us to trust him and it is difficult. The writer of Hebrews said we endure by fixing your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith (Heb. 12:2). Wow! Fix your eyes in simple faith on Jesus. Keep looking to him. Keep trusting him. Don’t put your trust in your income alone. Don’t look to other props of life to sustain your faith—just keep looking to and trusting in Jesus. This may defy logic and reason at times (just like Peter walking on water) but don’t worry . . . Jesus is there to hold you up.

In summary: We grow stronger in our walk with Jesus as we look to him in simple trust and faith.

L.A.S.T.

If you want to mature as a disciple of Jesus Christ:

• Learn from Jesus and be led by the Holy Spirit as you surrender to God’s word.
• Apply your learning in real life.
• Share your faith to grow your faith.
• Trust Jesus and keep looking to Him.

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Stuart McCormack is husband to Jenna and father to Noah, Bella and Sophia. He loves reading & studying Theology and Leadership and in his spare time he tweets as @stu7p and blogs at www.gospelpraxis.wordpress.com. Stuart has served in his local church as youth minister and has experience of living and sharing the gospel in numerous multi-cultural contexts in Thailand and the UK over the past 20 years. He is passionate about helping others to learn, apply and pass on gospel and practices of Jesus.

How Rebellion Leads to Rest

Our hearts often flee to fear in seasons of waiting. We care more about the comfort of control than we do the uncertainty of steadfastness. Faith becomes doubt in the seasons where we feel like the rain is pouring too heavy and the ground beneath us may sink in. The natural reaction, as fallen human beings, is to then plant our own foundation that seems more stable than the soggy mess we stand in. So, we look down and become a little more confident after we see that we have built ourselves a little ground of our own. It’s like we prefer a false sense of security more than a genuine sense of dependence. Our hearts yearn for stability; only Truth helps them comprehend why.

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” –Romans 1:17

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” –Romans 1:20

Believe it or not, college students, pregnant mothers, and retirees aren’t the first to endure uncertainty. Scripture is an entire story of people waiting for a holy God to reveal himself. If we were truly created in his image, then we cannot flee him. Even in the garden, he saw Adam and Eve in their nakedness. Yet they still ran from him in shame.

Uncertainty is a reality, and the fear that comes with it is okay. It scares us to have no control, but sin creeps in by how we respond to that fear. Rebellion is sinfully choosing to take control and build that faulty foundation ourselves. Submitting our fear under the authority of God is sanctification. It is the humble response of remembering and resting in his unwavering character.

Rebellion

The Israelites responded similarly in the wilderness, as they doubted their call to God’s Promised Land. I follow this pattern when I flee from him in fear that he will forsake me. I feel my feet sinking in the soggy grounds, and I choose to look down to gain my footing. In this act of “gaining control,” I take my eyes off of Jesus and struggle with greater uncertainty. My rebellion is not reckless defiance, but rather a doubtful and disbelieving heart. My doubt defies the promise of God’s faithfulness.Even more, my fits of fear reject the Source of Life and beckon a hardened heart.

Remember

We will never fully understand God’s ways, and we can’t attain the map to his will for our lives. I choose rebellion when I strive for control, and all I gain is a hardened heart. I will never gain assurance from self-made stability. The Holy Spirit is our assurance, and our faith is an investment in God’s promises.

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. –Hebrew 11:1-3

Our uncertainty should lead towards a deeper dependence on the faithfulness of God. It should lead our hearts to cry out for his Holy Spirit to guide us. God’s word declares his eternal faithfulness and our eternal hope. I wouldn’t fear the pouring rain if I remembered this Truth. I would stand on the soggy grounds with a lifted face looking to the sky for the glimmer of sunshine that I know is coming. A person who can stand in the rain trusts God’s eternal power and divine nature.

Rest

The grounds need rain in order to grow, just like we need uncertainty to test our faith. It is said that (in time) joy replaces mourning, and I think that (in time) rest replaces uncertainty. God promises that he has gone before us. Jesus said that he has prepared a place for his bride in the Kingdom. This eternal security should certainly have a profound impact on our present faith.

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. –1 John 5:4

The beauty of dependence is that we can’t will ourselves to respond in faith. Confident faith is a consequence of eyes that are looking towards Jesus, and a heart calling out for his provision. Prayer connects our heart to the heart of God where we have access to rest and peace, even in uncertainty. We may not understand what God is doing, but we rest in his holy presence. Prayerful dependence has revealed God’s faithfulness more than any bible study ever has. Train your eyes to look to Jesus in the unstable times of life, and trust that he will steady the ground under your feet.

I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. – Psalm 34:4

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today, if you hear his voice, ⁸ do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, ⁹ where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. ¹⁰ Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ ¹¹ As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’”

¹² Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. ¹³ But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴ For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. ¹⁵ As it is said,

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” – Hebrews 3:8-15

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Chelsea Vaughn has served a ministry she helped start in the DFW Metroplex since she graduated from college. She received her undergraduate degree at Dallas Baptist University in Communication Theory. She does freelance writing, editing, and speaking for various organizations and non-profits. She hopes to spend her life using her gift for communication to reach culture and communities with the love of Jesus.

Beholding the Glory of Christ in Prayer

This is Part Two in our beauty series. —

I had to learn the hard way.

Isn’t that sometimes the best way though?

I remember as a child learning the importance of prayer. Bowing your head, folding your hands, and closing your eyes were all key elements. My friends and I made a game out of the process, sometimes accusing each other of not following protocol. “You had your eyes open,” someone would exclaim. “How would you know that if you had your eyes closed like you should have!” I would reply. It was fun at the time, but I didn’t quite grasp the importance of prayer until much later on in life. What started as a harmless game would later become a magnificent burden.

The Importance of Prayer

One of the challenges I have as a father is teaching my children to pray. In the Garwood home, we pray before we share a meal, before bedtime, and usually in the car when the occasion arises. My seven year old son enjoys thanking God for the great day he had, especially if it involved him getting to go outside for a while to play. My three year-old daughter likes to pray about things she wishes were true, like the family going to the water park or traveling to see the grandparents. My two year-old son prays in tongues (I’m kidding). Actually, the only thing I can understand with him is “Amen” at the end, as he moves on with his day.

All joking aside, when I pray with my children, I try to convey one of the most important reasons for prayer—the beholding of the glory of Christ. Why is this important? Take a look at what Jesus prays in John 17:24, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” God the Son prays to the Father and asks that those who belong to him would behold his glory.

The goal of our praying ought to be the beholding of Christ.

What It Means to Behold

What does it mean to “see” Christ’s glory, and why would this be something worth pursuing? Ultimately, the Bible teaches us that we will see Christ’s glory in two ways: by faith now (2 Cor. 5:7-8) and by sight in eternity (1 Cor. 13:12).¹ The end result of our running the race is a face-to-face meeting with Christ. The challenge, however, is the running of the race. We live by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7), which means that our pursuit of God through the means of grace we call “prayer” involves faith. We must believe the promises of God. We must cling to the truths we find in the Scriptures. The beholding we do now by faith in prayer leads to the beholding we will do in eternity. One is temporary. The other is everlasting.

John Owen is helpful,

No man shall ever behold the glory of Christ by sight in heaven who does not, in some measure, behold it by faith in this world. Grace is a necessary preparation for glory and faith for sight. The soul unprepared by grace and faith is not capable of seeing the glory of Christ in heaven. Many will say with confidence that they desire to be with Christ and to behold his glory. But when asked, they can give no reason for this desire, except that it would be better than going to hell. If a man claims to love and desire that which he never even saw, he is deceiving himself.²

What Owen is getting at is the connection between what we do by faith here and now, and what will eventually be in eternity. “You wish to see Christ in the fulness of heaven? Great; live by faith now.” The correlation could hardly be clearer. Beholding Christ forever begins by beholding him by faith in this life. And what does it mean to behold? To gaze upon, cling to, focus upon, draw near to, and rely by faith on Christ. We must take him as our own today. Beholding is about attentiveness to Christ in the present.

Problems with Beholding

The truth of the matter is that we are busy. And it’s killing us.

“How are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m doing well, thanks for asking; I’ve been really busy lately!”

“Yes, me too. Life just seems to constantly get in the way!”

Ever had this conversation? Busy is the go-to answer in assessing ourselves. We’ve moved from “I’m fine” to “I’ve been busy,” as if either of those answers suffice. In our culture of discontinuous change, we simply cannot keep up. The next iPhone is out with a new processor and upgraded camera, and suddenly ours from just last year might as well be a bag phone. The struggle with gazing upon true beauty in the face of Christ today is our lack of attentiveness. We don’t have time and even if we did, we don’t.

Is this where you’re at today? Are you struggling to behold Christ by faith in earnest prayer because you think you don’t have time?

Prayer as a Means of Beholding

The reason I chose the means of prayer is mostly because it’s the one thing we almost all wish we did more of, and it’s the one thing we can do right now. You can’t read the entirety of the Bible this very second, nor can you figure out your entire life right this very second. But you can pray. And you can pray in faith. When we stoop before the Throne we can be assured that our prayers are being handled with care (Heb. 4:16). The Mediator who is both Priest and King invites us in to gaze upon his beauty as we pray in faith for wisdom, direction, and guidance.

We’re not too busy to behold the glory of Christ in prayer; we’re too dependent upon ourselves. Prayer is for people who are needy, not those who are self-sufficient. The way to behold Christ in faith through prayer is repenting of our self-righteousness and fall before him with tears. You may feel overwhelmed, busy, anxious, and stressed to the max. You may feel like you cannot go on. But let me reassure you: God gives you more than you can handle because the idol of self-sufficiency destroys you.

Drop the facade—we are not impressive, but Christ most definitely is. Beholding Christ by faith in prayer is a means of grace to strengthen your weary heart. Repent of excuse-making. Repent of self-sufficiency. Repent of feeling the need for instant gratification. Turn away from the need to indulge yourself with the newest and greatest, and instead behold Christ with patience wrought by the Holy Spirit.

^{1. John Owen, The Glory of Christ, abridged and simplified by R.J.K. Law (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2009), 4.↩}

^{2. Ibid., 4-5.↩}

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Rev. Jason M. Garwood (M.Div., Th.D.) serves as Lead Pastor of Colwood Church in Caro, MI and author of Be Holy and The Fight for Joy. Jason and his wife Mary have three children, Elijah, Avery and Nathan. He blogs at www.jasongarwood.com. Connect with him on Twitter: @jasongarwood.

Curving My Affections Toward God

My mouth dropped and my eyes filled with tears as the surgeon lifted my daughter’s spine x-ray up to the light box. As a former chiropractic assistant, I had seen my share of spine films twisting and coiling from scoliosis; I had no idea one day the film I saw would be my own eleven year old daughter’s. Four months earlier, a checkup as part of a school transfer had revealed that Sarah’s thoracic spine was beginning to curve into her right shoulder blade. Now, the x-ray showed that instead of stabilizing, the curve had nearly doubled in size. At her age, with the trajectory of progress her condition seemed to be on, it was no longer a question of if my daughter needed surgery, but what kind she should have, and how quickly she should have it.

Scoliosis is rarely fatal in and of itself, but left uncontrolled, an excessively curving spine can make everyday activities painful, give women difficulty during pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause, and restrict heart and lung function—not to mention the psychological trauma of disfigurement so distinctive that in earlier centuries it was associated with demon possession (and still is today in some countries). The surgical “gold standard” for progressing scoliosis in adolescents is spinal fusion, a complex surgery which sandwiches the spine between rods, and screws threaded through them, into the vertebrae. Fusion is usually corrective, but it renders parts of the spine permanently immobile, inhibits growth, and can stress the non-fused portion of the spine, causing pain, arthritis and the need for more surgeries later in life. Sarah would need to spend the formative years of junior high and high school in a shoulder to hip brace, which would hopefully squeeze her spine into submission until she was nearly done growing. Then she would have the fusion surgery and spend months recovering. It was a daunting, discouraging prospect. There had to be a different approach.

Common Grace and Scoliosis

Through the common grace of the Internet, we discovered a brand new type of spine surgery that leverages rapid adolescent growth to correct scoliosis curves. Similar in approach to orthodontic braces with teeth, vertebral body tethering involves inserting screws on the outside of a spinal curve, and a heavy polyethylene cable threaded through the heads of the screws, which are then tightened to straighten the spine part way. As an adolescent child continues to grow, the tension on the cord causes the spine to continue to straighten, often completely. With no fusion to restrict movement or inhibit growth unnecessarily, kids who receive this type of surgery are able to enjoy sports and all kinds of physical activity with no restrictions. With freedom of motion and growth maintained, and little to no risk of complications associated with fusion, kids are able to grow, play any sport, and generally return to just being growing kids.

One month of insurance drama, round the clock emailing and phone calling, and an eventual plane flight across the country later, I again looked at an x-ray of my daughter’s spine with eyes filled with tears, this time from inexpressible thankfulness as she slept nearby in a hospital bed. In less than five hours, the chief of surgery at Shriners Hospital in Philadelphia had done the tethering procedure, and taken a post-operative film to make sure everything was just right, and it was, beautifully so. Sarah’s curve was less than half of what it had been mere hours before.

Today, six months after her surgery, Sarah has dived, literally, back into all the water sports she loves, with several small scars her only visible reminder of the procedure, as the invisible tether helps her grow stronger and straighter every day. The experience itself was sanctifying for our entire family. But through it, I have given a profound, and profoundly helpful, picture of how the “tether” of the gospel, rather than the crushing of the law, empowers our life as believers in Jesus.

homo incurvatus in se

Martin Luther summarized our battle with sin with the Latin phrase homo incurvatus in se—humanity curved in toward self. My natural “bent” is away from God. Left to myself, I see only myself—my needs, my desires, my idols—and I am powerless to change.I need spiritual surgery.

The gospel, Paul reminds us in Romans 1, is that power. United with Christ through repentance and faith and made alive through the Holy Spirit; the power of the gospel tethers our hearts towards our heavenly Father, reducing the curving inwardness of our sin and lifting our hearts. In our times of struggle with temptation and discouragement, it is the tether of the gospel that keeps us from coiling back in on ourselves.

When my children seem determined to make Titus 3:3 their collective life verse, it is the tether of the gospel that helps me respond to them with the same goodness and kindness God showed in saving me (Ti 3:4).

When the administrivia of junior high homework and house projects “get in the way” of my plans for writing and study, the tether of the gospel reminds me of the One who emptied himself of his glory to become a servant for me (Phil 2:7).

When my husband does not utter the precise arrangements of words and phrases that would make me feel loved at the precise moment I want him to, the tether of the gospel reminds me that God exults over me with singing (Zeph. 3:17).

And when the weight of my sin and weaknesses and failures begin to curve my heart inward toward my wretched self, it is the tether of the gospel that reminds me that before the very foundation of the world, God had chosen me in Christ before the very foundation of the world and that redemption and forgiveness are mine in him, forever (Eph 1).

The law can only crush me into rigid, outer conformity. But the tether of the gospel empowers me to move freely, as a beloved child of God and a growing disciples of Jesus Christ by curving my affections towards the Triune God.

—

Rachael Starke (@RachaelStarke) lives with her husband and three daughters in San Jose, California. A graduate of The Master's College, she is now pursuing a master's degree in Nutritional Science, and writes about the intersection of spiritual and physical nutrition at What Food Is For. She also writes for and co-edits Gospel-Centered Woman, a newly repository of resources for for pastoral staff and lay leaders to support women’s discipleship through the local church. She and her family are members of West Hills Community Church in Morgan Hill.

How to Guard Against Mission Drift

New pastors and/or church planters have extremely high aspirations for maintaining the purity of their church’s mission. All those churches they used to work for got too messy, complicated, and unfocused. “This church won’t be that way!” they vow to themselves and other leaders. This is easier said than done. For most, after a few years of ministry, the challenges of mission drift come fast and furious.

Jesus is clear that our job as Christians is to make disciples (Matt. 28:19-10). Any church that doesn’t have this aspiration as a focal point of their mission simply disobeys Jesus. But mission drift happens even in organizations with clear goals and objectives. Consider the following points to help guard against this tendency.

Be ruthlessly redundant. I recall a time when I was giving announcements during a church service concerning an upcoming marriage retreat. It was the third week in a row that I made this same announcement. After the service I saw my friend Laura and asked her if she and her husband would be attending the retreat. I know she was present in the service all three weeks I made this same announcement. Yet she said to me, “Marriage retreat? I didn’t know there was a marriage retreat!”

We have to over-communicate everything for anything to be heard. So dare to be ruthlessly redundant. We have to learn to creatively over-saturate people with various modes of communication so they truly know our values and what we are collectively doing in light of those values. The bigger your organization the harder you must work to keep everyone on the same page. It helps to keep your mission statement simple. Because if no one can remember your mission, you won’t have to worry about mission drift, because you won’t have any mission.

Put the right people in the right place. Is everyone on your team fully convinced of the mission? If not, you’re simply waiting for mission drift. I know that most leaders can’t simply remove people from their team without causing huge conflict. Nuanced and difficult situations demand wisdom, patience, and prayer as you handle the complexity of hiring and firing. If you can’t change the team, at least you must be careful about who gets added in the future.

Say no to some very good things. Make the mission of your church the filter by which you determine your yes and no. You will need to say no to some very good things that don’t hit the bullseye of what God is calling your church to do.

Prepare for people to get mad, leave your church, or write you angry e-mails. This is the cost of a focused mission, but make no mistake—the payoff is beautiful. “Don’t spread yourself too thin” is a cliché for a reason. Everyone has a tendency to do it. But if you are in the habit of saying no to some really good things it will most likely free up space for you to accomplish your church’s calling.

Remember that you are not accountable to people who leave your church or write you angry e-mails. You will answer to God alone on the day that he has fixed. That judgment should provide the needed motivation to stay focused on your vision and mission.

Drip mission in every sermon. Larry Osborne writes in his book Sticky Teams about how he used to think that the most important aspect of casting vision was his yearly “vision sermon.” Over time this sermon proved challenging because people didn’t show up and faithful members tended to tune out since they heard the same message, with the same point, the year before. Now he practices a new approach to guard against mission drift:

Rather than blasting it all at once, I drop vision and core values into every sermon I preach.

The result has been far greater congregational alignment. Dripping core values and vision into every sermon makes them unavoidable. Anyone who would have missed my vision series or who would have tuned out because they’d heard it before is now stuck. Each week I plant a seed or two and then move on, long before they have a chance to tune out or put up their guard. And if they missed this week’s sermon, I’ll get them next week.

Beware personal drift. Most organizations reflect the values and personality of their leader(s). How’s that for a scary thought? Is there mission drift in your life? Can anyone around you diagnose this drift? If there is any disconnect between the stated vision and mission of the church and the life of the main leader(s), is it any wonder the church drifts from it?

Leading any organization is hard work. Staying aligned to our core calling to make disciples takes continued focus. This can be exhausting at times. Remember, in the end, Jesus will build his church. When we fear that everything is falling apart, that is the time to fall apart in prayer to the Father. As we faithfully pursue him, he will provide what we need to make sure that his church (not ours) will be focused on the right things.

—

Zach Nielsen (@znielsen) is one of the pastors at The Vine Church in Madison, Wisconsin, where he serves in the areas of preaching, leadership development and music. He is a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa and Covenant Theological Seminary and blogs at Take Your Vitamin Z.

Originally post at TGC. Used with permission of the author.

The Story Wars

Enjoy this excerpt from Sean Post’s The Stories We Live. Order your paperback today! Or use 1-click to purchase your digital copy from Amazon! —

Lawyers sometimes have a saying they use when building their case behind closed doors: “The best story always wins.” When it’s time to render a verdict, the judge and the jury won’t be thinking about the information presented as much as they will be asking, “Which story is most compelling and coherent?”

The courtroom isn’t the only place where story wars unfold. In the unseen corners of the human heart, they rage daily. These stories vie for supremacy on the silent channel of our thoughts. This battle is between the story of God and alternative broken stories.

Temptation is a Story War

In Matthew 4, Jesus experiences three temptations that highlight how many times the most powerful temptation is not to do something bad, but to do something good in the wrong way. Satan offers Jesus the chance to live into a story with the same ending as God’s perfect plan but with a different plot.

Specifically, Jesus is tempted to indulge a legitimate desire (eat), to believe something that is true (he is the Messiah), and to pursue a kingdom-minded shortcut (establish the Kingdom of God). These are all good things, which is exactly why these temptations were strategically chosen by Satan. Satan offers Jesus the chance to live a story with the same ending as God’s perfect plan but with a different plot.

So what’s the problem with these temptations? They don’t seem so bad.

In the first temptation, Jesus was tempted to indulge a desire at the cost of a greater desire. There’s a sad story in the Bible of a man who sold his birthright for a bowl of stew because he was hungry. This is the epitome of short-sightedness. It’s easy to allow a legitimate desire to crowd out things that may be even more important.

In the second temptation, Jesus was tempted to believe a truth in isolation. That is, a truth isolated from the rest of the story of Scripture. It was only Jesus’ knowledge of God’s broader plans and purposes that allowed him to reject the sound byte truth that Satan fed him.

During the third temptation, Jesus was tempted to establish the Kingdom by temporarily worshipping the wrong thing. Satan was saying, “We can get to the last chapter of the story without any conflict. All you have to do is worship me.”

As far as I can tell, every temptation I’ve ever faced has fit one of those three molds. Temptation comes to us in the form of a story. And that story will always tweak the details of the biblical story in some way. At that point, we are caught in the middle of two stories that war for our heart.

Sin is Trusting a Broken Story

The essence of sin is false love. When we love the wrong things in the wrong order, we’ve put our stock in a broken story. Rather than desiring God above all things, some misplaced desires flood our vision.

If you have some perspective, it’s probably not too difficult to look back and see how these broken stories have manifested in your life. You have pursued (and still pursue) loves that were “ultimate” for you but were also false.

Tristan’s Story

From the moment Tristan first stepped into my car on the way to the coffee shop, he seemed burdened. We ordered drinks, sat down, and the whole situation came pouring out. He was confused about why he continued to look at pornography even though he didn’t want to. Together, we began to unpack the broken story he was trusting in.

During our conversation, it became clear Tristan’s deep longing was to be a husband and a father. The porn was a cheap substitute for the intimacy his soul craved. The porn promised to meet this desire, but it couldn’t. His spirit was left sloshing around in a wake of sewage.

For Tristan, grasping the distinction between the true story of Jesus and the broken story of pornography was a turning point in his internal civil war. He was able to see that his good desire for intimacy was being hijacked and driven down a road that leads to death. So we talked about the road to life and truth. We spent the end of our time exploring the question, “How is God inviting you to you feed your desire for intimacy with him and with others?”

All of us are seduced by broken stories. For a moment, they promise hope, but if we follow them long enough they lead to frustration, pain, and an overwhelming emptiness. So how can we gain perspective in the midst of these story war?

The way we refuse false love is by catching a captivating picture of Jesus as the true and better lover of our souls. And our weapon for fighting the story wars is not willpower; it’s worship. As we fixate on Jesus, we see that he is the real picture of human flourishing. Other stories of our good can’t deliver. So worship (i.e., affection and desire for God) —not willpower—is what kills sin in our lives.

Trusting the Best Story

Actor Jim Carrey has famously said, “I wish everyone could get rich and famous and have everything they ever wanted so that they can see it’s not the answer.” Jim is saying, “Hey, wake up world. What you are chasing won’t make you happy. That story is broken.”

What if we took that advice? What if we allowed the Holy Spirit to begin to expose the emptiness of the stories we regularly trust in? How much more joy would we find in Jesus as we aligned ourselves with the true story of God?We would be free from lying successes, free from false loves, and free from broken stories. We would know the true story, trust the true story, and we would be set free to actually live a better story.

I can tell you that these ideas work with two-year olds. Parents, the beauty of grasping that sin is “loving the wrong things” is your toddler can understand it. I’m able to say things like, “Son, right now you are loving that toy more than your brother.” That really drives at the heart. My encouragement to you is this: help your child see the story war in their own heart. What false loves can you help them identify? When they demand a toy forklift or a snow globe or a skateboard or an iPod or a candy bar you can ask them, “How long will these things make you happy for?”

In our lives, in our families, in our churches, in our culture, may the best story win. The good news is, it will.

—

Sean (@Sean_Post) lives in Maple Valley, WA with his wife and two sons and leads a one-year discipleship experience for young adults called “Adelphia”. He is completing his doctorate in Missional Leadership.

Adapted from Sean’s upcoming GCD Books title The Stories We Live: Discovering the True and Better Way of Jesus. Coming June 2015.

Reconciled At the Table

The way many churches exclude the Lord’s Supper from their regular worship service deeply concerns me. The Lord’s Supper forces the church to look itself in the mirror. When Jesus welcomes the congregation to the table of fellowship, we are confronted with the reality that he is far more welcoming and hospitable than we are. Christians can often be fickle people. On the one hand, this is understandable. Christians have an objective standard from which to judge right and wrong. This is a good thing because Christians have a moral and ethical compass with which we can navigate the swells of an increasingly relativistic society.

On the other hand, this can be a bad thing. Christians are often prone to use God’s objective standards to shun and exclude people when the God they worship is neither shunning nor excluding.

Look around the congregation.

How many people can you count that you would not invite to your table? There are great sinners in the congregation. There are people you don’t like. But all of these people are welcomed to the Lord’s table at the his invitation.

Jesus once told his disciples that he will draw all men to himself when he is lifted up (Jn. 12:32). What happened to Jesus when he was lifted up? He was broken. What happens to the bread when the minister lifts it up before the congregation? It is broken. The Lord’s Supper is much more than an act of remembrance for individual Christians. The Lord’s Supper is a participatory event where all men find themselves drawn to Christ’s broken body.

When Jesus’ body was broken the walls of separation between Jew and gentile, male and female, slave and free, black and white were broken as well (Gal. 3:28). This happens in the Lord’s Supper. People who would not dine together at their own tables are brought together at the Lord’s Table, they are brought together by the broken body of Jesus Christ. At the Lord’s Table, we participate in and show forth the great reconciliation of mankind.

Moreover, because the table is fenced, it is not up to us whether or not our neighbor will participate or not, it is up to use whether we will participate or not. At our own tables, we decide who we will invite and who we will exclude. At the Lord’s table, we are all invited, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28), but we are also told that we are to examine ourselves (1 Cor. 11:28).

When we are invited to the Lord’s Table each week, we are taught to look at our own hearts in regards to fellowship rather than to our neighbor’s faults. Sinful hearts look outward for excuses not to commune with others, sinful hearts turn in on themselves. In the Garden, Adam’s sin was a sin of consumption and blame shifting. When he was confronted, Adam shifted the blame on Eve, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate” (Gen. 3:12). In the Lord’s Supper, we are invited to eat rather than prohibited. Further, as we participate we are conditioned to remove the plank from our own eye before commenting on the speck in our neighbors (Matt. 7:5).

Look around the congregation.

How many people look just like you? Are they all white (let’s hope not)? Are they all black (let’s hope not)? Are they all republicans or democrats (let’s hope they’re libertarians)? No, there are people from all walks of life, all races, all socioeconomic classes, and all ideologies being drawn to the broken body of Christ.

In a world where selfishness has become a cultural virtue, the Lord’s table is hardly a place to perpetuate selfish interests. At the Lord’s Table, you dine with and commune with people you might never dream of inviting to your own table. But there you are, partaking of the same loaf and drinking from the same cup. In this act much is being proclaimed. Who you eat with says a lot about you and at the Lord’s Table we eat with Jesus, this cannot be overlooked. But while we eat with Jesus we are also eating with other people who are eating with Jesus.

The Lord’s table proclaims not only that we belong to Christ, but also that we belong to one another—all our differences and problems included. God’s people are not static in our relationships. Both vertically with God and horizontally with each other our relationships are dynamic. The Lord’s Supper images the dynamic nature to the life of Christ’s Body. We are growing, albeit with growing pains, further and further into the image of Christ, the head of the Body (Eph. 4: 15-16).

The church is a body of many members. Further, God’s word serves as a two edged sword cutting to the hearts of his people (Heb. 4:12) who have become living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1). Throughout each service God’s word has cut His church into pieces just as the levitical sacrifices are cut into pieces (the sermon). But the service does not end here. The church must learn that we are only broken by God’s Word because the Word of God was broken for us: “This is my body broken for you.” Moreover, as the body of many members (the church) partakes of the broken body of Christ we are made whole again by our participation in the one loaf (1 Cor. 10:17).

Perhaps the reason there is so much strife in the church nowadays is because we are not communing with one another as we ought. Our ultimate allegiances need to be formed not by who we would invite to our tables but by whom Jesus, weekly, invites to his.

Just food for thought.

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Michael and his wife Caroline live in Athens, GA. Michael blogs weekly at Torrey Gazette. You can follow Michael on Twitter @_Michael_Hansen.

The Forgotten Essential of the Kingdom

We are starting a series that will explore the intersection between beauty, discipleship, mission, and the Kingdom of God. We will answers questions like: Why is beauty important for Christian living? Can we get by without it? What does the gospel teach us about beauty? How does the beauty of God inform lesser beauties? What is beauty in the Kingdom of God? This is part one. —

We hiked through the tangled woods searching for something beautiful. The trees had changed. We started on an open path with towering trees and far reaching boughs. As the path made its way closer to the water, the trees changed becoming smaller and reaching over the path which narrowed. These branches were bent and gnarled like the hands of my grandmother.

As the path descended, the air become cooler. We also heard the gurgling of water which grew into a growl as we approached our destination—a magnificent waterfall with a devastating 420-foot drop. This natural wonder is not the kind you walk by without awe at its beauty and danger. It demands you stop. We found a rock at the edge of the river looking over the waterfall and sat. We admired the beauty and danger of this tour de force of water.

Christians above all should be the kind of people who stop in awe of beauty.“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). The earth below and heaven above teach us how to declare the glory of God. They are beautiful for him. Yet some Christians think very little of beauty. Or maybe it’s not that they think little of it, but they don’t see where beauty intersects with their ordinary life. Our world is full of beauty. We have just lost the eyes to see it all around us. We are like a man who can only see the world in muted colors. We cannot live without beauty. We shouldn’t live without it.

Experiencing Beauty

In a recent article “Why Do We Experience Awe?” in The New York Times, Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner get at just this,

Why do humans experience awe? Years ago, one of us, Professor Keltner, argued (along with the psychologist Jonathan Haidt) that awe is the ultimate “collective” emotion, for it motivates people to do things that enhance the greater good. Through many activities that give us goose bumps — collective rituals, celebration, music and dance, religious gatherings and worship — awe might help shift our focus from our narrow self-interest to the interests of the group to which we belong.

They go on to introduce new research that may backup this initial thesis. In the research, people who regularly experienced awe in their life were more willing to help others. And it didn’t have to be ridiculously hard to reach Mount Everest type beauty. One group in the study spent time “on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, which has a spectacular grove of Tasmanian blue gum eucalyptus trees, some with heights exceeding 200 feet — a potent source of everyday awe for anyone who walks by.” This research tells us what Christians have been teaching for millennia, but many have forgotten: Beauty empowers love of neighbor. Let’s smooth the wrinkles even more: Beauty energizes love of God and, therefore, love of neighbor—because God is beauty and all beauty ultimately has its origins in his divine perfections. In the third century, St. Basil wrote, “Let us recognize the One Who transcends in His beauty all things."[1] And in the sixth century, St. Maximus the Confessor states,

Nothing so much as love brings together those who have been sundered and produces in them an effective union of will and purpose. Love is distinguished by the beauty of recognizing the equal value of all men. Love is born in a man when his soul's powers—that is, his intelligence, incensive power and desire—are concentrated and unified around the divine. Those who by grace have come to recognized the equal value of all men in God's sight and who engrave His beauty on their memory, possess an ineradicable longing for divine love, for such love is always imprinting this beauty on their intellect. (Philokalia, II)

Seeing the beauty all around us opens our eyes to seeing the beauty of the imago dei in all humans. In The Weight of Glory, C. S. Lewis plucks this same string:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

Beauty Must Not be Ignored

Some Christians today might consider spending a day hiking through the woods a waste. Some might be too busy to stop to gaze at 200-foot-tall trees. They might finding reading great fiction boring or might say, “I just don’t have time.” They might scoff at spending money at a museum. Or laugh off traveling to the Grand Canyon to sit and wonder at its terrible beauty. Others may want to do these things, but not have the means. Others might not see the importance. Beauty, however, is all around us and must not be ignored. It is essential for making, maturing, and multiplying disciples of Jesus Christ.

The same New York Times article ends:

We believe that awe deprivation has had a hand in a broad societal shift that has been widely observed over the past 50 years: People have become more individualistic, more self-focused, more materialistic and less connected to others. To reverse this trend, we suggest that people insist on experiencing more everyday awe, to actively seek out what gives them goose bumps, be it in looking at trees, night skies, patterns of wind on water or the quotidian nobility of others — the teenage punk who gives up his seat on public transportation, the young child who explores the world in a state of wonder, the person who presses on against all odds.

Christians, we must insist on experiencing more beauty—even in the smallest ways like sharing acts of kindness or admiring that “mundane” summer lightening storm. Find beauty wherever you can and stand in awe.

Beauty and Sadness

But what do we do when the most beautiful things in our world are littered with sadness? What happens when a mother dies giving birth to a child? What happens when a terrorists group destroys an ancient and awe inspiring cultural artifact? What happens when war breaks out and priceless art is destroyed? What happens when a loved one dies and you cannot see the beauty in that thing you once shared with them? Because truth and beauty cannot be divorced for now, Christians must acknowledge this uneasy union between beauty and brokenness. Sometimes we need permission to experience beauty in the midst of our sadness and suffering. When sadness intersects with beauty, gaze at the cross of Christ for permission. It embodies beauty and brokenness. J. R. R. Tolkien called the cross the ultimate eucatastrophe (eu = good and catastrophe you know). There we have the brutal, de-humanizing Roman cross and the Savior of the world sacrificing himself for our sins. The truth is we live in that kind of world and our Savior came to show us how to find joy in its midst. The writer of Hebrews says,

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. –Hebrews 12:1-2 (italics mine)

This tension then between beauty and brokenness creates more longing for a true and lasting beauty, for the kingdom of Jesus Christ to come fully to this earth. Until that day, we cry out “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is heaven.” When the Kingdom is fully realized, all sadness will be undone and all things beautiful will be eternal. We will gaze at the beautiful unfiltered by sadness. We will truly see beauty because in the new heaven and new earth the King will return in all his beauty and majesty and his presence on earth will change everything forever.

Until that day we pursue the beauty we have. Not just for its own sake, but because God himself is beautiful, because beauty moves us with compassion for our neighbors, and because it creates longing for true and lasting beauty. Do not treat beauty as a luxury or something far off. Find beauty where you are and take the time to stand in awe of it. Consider how much more work we have to do in the world as we strive for the Kingdom coming.

It is meet and right to hymn Thee, to bless Thee, to praise Thee, to give thanks unto Thee, and to worship Thee in every place of Thy dominion: for Thou art God ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever existing and eternally the same, Thou and Thine Only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit. — St. John Chrysostom

[1] All quotations from the Church Fathers come from http://www.antiochian.org/node/23896

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Mathew B. Sims is the Editor-in-Chief at Exercise.com and has authored, edited, and contributed to several books including A Household Gospel, We Believe: Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms for Worship, A Guide for Advent, Make, Mature, Multiply, and A Guide for Holy Week. Mathew, LeAnn (his wife), and his daughters Claire, Maddy, and Adele live in Taylors, SC at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains with their Airdale Terrier. They attend Downtown Presbyterian Church (PCA). Visit MathewBryanSims.com!

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Can We Do All Things?

It’s easy to misinterpret and accidentally use verses out of context. We all do it. Peter even tells us that Paul is hard to understand (2 Pt. 3:16)! However, one passage I see gets misused more than others. Paul writes to the Corinthians:

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body… Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. –1 Corinthians 6: 12-20

Let’s talk about how many people interpret this passage. By “all things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable,” many people assume Paul is saying we have the freedom to do quite a lot, but that we just sometimes shouldn’t. We are not really bound by any rules, but sometimes it is unhelpful to follow our freedoms. We might have the right to drink, per se, but sometimes it is not profitable for us.

That sounds good on the surface, and may even have some truth to it in other places in the Bible (Romans 12, for example), but this interpretation has many problems. First, is it true? Can we do all things? Is the same Paul who says he is bound by the law of Christ (1 Cor. 9:21) and gives us multiple letters full of commands saying “all things are lawful for me?” Is he really saying I can do everything (murder? sexual immorality?), but that I just shouldn’t because it’s not profitable? That’s probably not the best interpretation of this passage.

Second, these people then interpret verse 18 to say that sexual immorality is somehow worse than all other sins. Paul does say, “Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.” In other words, all sins are bad, but sexual immorality is against one’s own body, so it’s especially devious. Is this the right interpretation? Are there no other sins that are against your body (suicide, gluttony, cutting, drunkenness, etc.)? Is sexual sin worse than, say, assaulting someone?

This passage brings up so many questions. What does Paul mean by “All things are lawful for me?” What does he mean by “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food?” What does he mean by saying, “Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body?” Does this make sexual sin some kind of “special” sin that is somehow worse than all the others? Why is this passage so difficult to interpret?!?!

Is Paul Stating His Own Position?

The problem with this passage (and the reason that it is so confusing) is because most people assume Paul is stating his own position. However, this text becomes clear once we realize he is quoting the position of the Corinthians then refuting it.

Before we delve into this further, three pieces of background information are needed:

• Slogans were as popular then as they are now. Our culture is rich with slogans. Nike has “Just Do It.” McDonald’s slogan used to be “Have you had your break today?” Now it’s “I’m lovin’ it.” Kay Jewelers has “Every kiss begins with Kay.” We are all familiar with slogans. In fact, we even have cultural slogans in the U.S. today. “To each his own,” “Don’t judge me,” “YOLO” (You only live once!) and many others. They had slogans in Corinth too. Some of which we will see in just a moment.
• The Corinthians separated their spiritual life from their physical life. Corinth was located in Greece and had been intellectually shaped by the philosophy of Plato who radically separated the concept of one’s soul from one’s body. Because of this dichotomy, those in the Corinthian church thought that they could commit sexual immorality with their body because it didn’t affect their spiritual life.
• The Greek New Testament was originally written with no punctuation marks, in all capital letters, with no spacing. Therefore, in English, the sentence: “Bob said, ‘I’ll go to the store tomorrow.’” Would look like this: BOBSAIDILLGOTOTHESTORETOMORROW

In fact, it looks much like a hashtag (#) on Twitter today. This means that we don’t have quotation marks to look for in Greek and have to discern who is speaking by context.

Using Their Arguments Against Them

With all that in mind, we are now ready to interpret this passage. The key to getting it right is to realize that Paul is quoting the Corinthians then refutes them and is not only giving his own thoughts. The ESV translation is helpful because it puts quotation marks around certain phrases (although it misses some other needed quotations). Here is what is going on, step by step.

The Corinthians say: “All things are lawful for me” (i.e. I can do whatever I want).

Paul refutes: “But not all things are profitable” (i.e. no you can’t).

The Corinthians say: “All things are lawful for me” (i.e. I can do whatever I want).

Paul refutes: “But I will not be mastered by anything” (i.e. you Corinthians are being enslaved by your sin and shouldn’t be).

The Corinthians say: “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them” (i.e. if you have sexual organs you are supposed to use them).

To summarize thus far, the Corinthians falsely believe they can commit sexual immorality because 1.) All things are lawful for them and 2.) They have been given sexual organs to use them. Paul refutes them at every turn.

That’s verses 12-14. What about verse 18? Now, this could be a quotation from Paul. If so, then he is showing how sexual sin uniquely unites you to another person because you become “one flesh” with them. No other sin unites your whole being to another person like sexual immorality. However, other people see this phrase as a Corinthian quote. If so, then Paul is refuting their position. If it is a Corinthian slogan, then there should probably be quotation marks around the phrase as well: “Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body.” In this reading this is not Paul’s position; it’s the Corinthian’s. Also, it is helpful to note the word “other” is not actually in the Greek. The translators added it to clarify what they thought the verse meant. But the addition makes sexual sin sound like a “special” kind of sin. You’ll see this if you look at the NASB quotation I used above because the word “other” is in italics. Verse 18 literally says “Every sin that a man commits is outside the body.” Did you catch that? Every sin! If this is a Corinthian slogan then the Corinthians are saying that sins committed with the body don’t affect the soul and, therefore, all sins are outside the body.

If this Paul’s position the problem is he contradicts himself later when he says “but the immoral man sins against his own body.” So, all together, when we understand that Paul is quoting Corinthian slogans this confusing passage in 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 looks like this:

Corinthians: I can do everything

Paul: No you can’t

Corinthians: I can do everything

Paul: No you can’t

Corinthians: If you have genitals, you are supposed to use them whenever you want.

Paul: No you shouldn’t

Corinthians: Every sin that a man commits is outside his body and doesn’t affect his spiritual life.

Paul: Sexual sin affects both your body and your spiritual life.

Paul is having a back and forth dialogue with the cultural and religious assumptions of the Corinthians. It is just hard to see because Greek didn’t use punctuation marks.

Doesn’t that make more sense? Isn’t that a better (and more probable) understanding of what Paul is saying?

Now, the idea of Corinthian slogans and quotations in this chapter is much debated. More research remains must be done. I personally still wrestle with verse 18 and whether or not Paul is separating the effects of becoming “one flesh” with another in sexual sin from other sins. However, knowing that Paul is quoting the Corinthians here helps us make more sense of God’s word to us in this difficult and multi-faceted letter. Though we are free from the Mosaic Law in every way we are still under the “Law of Christ” (1 Cor. 9:21) and all things are not actually lawful for us.

What About Discipleship?

Why write about this on a blog about discipleship? The answer: Holiness is a key aspect to growing in your faith.Not only will your spiritual growth be hindered by sin (sexual sin included), but you will also walk in less joy and freedom if you take up the Corinthian’s slogans. Now, the good news of the gospel is that Jesus’ lordship provides you with a loving God who forgives your sin no matter how much you mess up. We don’t “do better” by trying to do better. We “do better” by realizing that God loves us because of Jesus even if we don’t “do better.” We strive for holiness but it is a grace-motivated effort—not to make God love us but because he already does.

So make every effort to fight against sin. Get counseling, confess your dark secrets, get rid of your computer, cut off your right hand. Do whatever you must do to kill sin. All the while know that Christ has already and ultimately defeated sin and he loves you as you battle it. Whoever the Son sets free is free indeed—that includes freedom from minimizing sin like the Corinthians.

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Zach Lee is Associate Home Groups Minister at The Village Church and is married to Katy.  Follow him on Twitter: @zacharytlee.