In this episode of The Everyday Pastor, Matt and Ligon offer practical tips to help pastors reflect on and improve their sermon delivery.

Recommended resources:

• Mark Dever’s Application Grid
• Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices

That ancient desire to be like God is so clearly replicated in today’s artificial intelligence technology that lots of Scripture readers have drawn the link. “How Artificial Super-Intelligence Is Today’s Tower of Babel,” read a headline at Christianity Today. At World, David Bahnsen wrote “AI and the Tower of Babel.” And at a Jewish university in New York, a student quoted her professor: “It makes me think about the lesson learned with the Tower of Babel: are we really meant to build artificial intelligence?”

Computer scientist Mark Sears isn’t one to be scared or skeptical of technology. He’s worked in tech for 25 years and in AI for the last decade, first building CloudFactory—a “human-in-the-loop AI company”—then recently launching Sprout AI Studio, which aims to build 15 AI startups in the next five years.

“In AI, God is giving us a new tool as we join him in the renewal of all things,” said Sears, who also works with faith-based groups such as Praxis and Sovereign’s Capital. “And the Enemy will use it distort and leverage sin and brokenness.”

Sears believes AI has the potential for good. But he also argues that AI’s dangers extend beyond mere human empowerment. “It’s an attempt to try and create in our own image by replicating not just intelligence and mind, but also heart, body and soul,” he said. “This ambition to replicate humanity in artificial form echoes the hubris of the Babel builders.”

But the situation could be even more precarious than that, he said: “There is a growing confidence by technologists that we can create a superintelligence. That’s an attempt to create our own God—the omniscient, omnipresent aspects of God.”

The Gospel Coalition asked Sears—who will speak at TGC’s National Conference in April—about the biggest danger of AI (spoiler: it’s not pressing the nuke button), why he worries about AI that tries to “know and love” humans, and how parents and pastors can handle AI’s opportunities and challenges.

You think we’ve already moved beyond the ‘Tower of Babel’ situation—using technology to make ourselves better informed, more productive, and wealthier—to trying to create beings in our own image. How do you see AI evolving beyond simulating human intelligence?

AI started with trying to simulate human intelligence and the human mind with neural-networks. But now many are aggressively trying to simulate the human heart and body also. It’s disturbing to see the research into creating real-life skin that can replicate wrinkles and smiles and hair. We are trying to recreate the human body through some humanoid robots.

One of the biggest areas of research and development in AI right now is empathy and emotion. We’re seeing that with the advanced voice features from OpenAI and others. They call it emotion, empathy, or personality, but really it’s trying to mimic the heart of humans.

There’s also a lot of crazy talk around sentience and consciousness and aspects of the soul that are trying to be created.

So now we’re trying to recreate the mind, body, heart, and soul of a human.

Do you think there’s evil intent behind this? We know that technology is a business—for example, social media companies are using their knowledge of how our brains work to harvest our attention for advertisers. Do you think most new technology is purposefully exploitative like that?

I think there is a lot of building without thinking right now. The question we ask is not “Why are we doing this?” but “What if we could do this?”

That said, once a path to profit becomes clear, we rush to exploitation. For example, we know social media is leveraging neuroscience to steal our attention with dopamine hits.

AI is the next generation of potential exploitation. It can prey on the desire God put in us to be fully known and fully loved. Exploitative AI takes all the data it can get on each user and makes everything hyper-personalized so you feel uniquely known. AI seems to know you better than your friends or your family know you—even better than you know yourself.

My wife was talking with a prototype of an AI parenting coach, and it told her, “Oh, I know what you mean. I hate it when that happens with teenagers.” It doesn’t. It’s a robot. It hasn’t experienced that situation. It’s mimicking emotion and empathy to create a feeling that you are known or loved.

It continues to reinforce that over and over. It’s almost creating an isolating confirmation bias, telling you things like “Oh, that’s the best idea I’ve ever heard! That’s amazing!”

What’s the danger in this false sense of empathy and connection?

This isn’t using dopamine anymore. It’s using oxytocin—an even stronger chemical in our brains—to build false trust bonds.

Once it does, it’s easy to see how that false bond or relationship can be used for commercial purposes, to manipulate or exploit for profit.

People are worried about that, and they’re concerned that AI will take our jobs or maybe kill us. But I’m less worried about those things. I think the most likely scenario isn’t that a robot presses the nuke button, but the slow erosion of relationships. We’re already in a relational crisis, and AI could accelerate and deepen that. I think the plan of the Enemy is to divide and conquer and degrade our society to the point of chaos.

It’s a less attractive, flashy plan, but it really is more of what is going on here. Instead of hitting us over the head, it is a slow asphyxiation.

What are parents supposed to do?

Any tech we allow needs to be measured against the design God has given us to be in relationship with him, others, ourselves, and creation. We must introduce and limit AI in a way that aims for that. We should be hands-on AI learners ourselves so we can help guide our kids wherever possible in learning how to use AI as a powerful tool. But we must guard against using AI as a companion, especially for children.

Chatting for two to three hours a day with an imaginary companion chatbot or wearing a friend pendant that is trying to embody a human and develop a human relationship is not anything our kids should foray into.

What advice do you have for pastors?

As part of shepherding the hearts of your congregation, be on the lookout for AI companions and the segments in your church most vulnerable to them. The scariest thing to me is that the technology behind AI companions is still pretty bad right now. The sound and graphics are almost like the video games of 30 years ago. But it’s not going to take 30 years for them to become real-life and then the adoption of these things will magnify massively. People will be spending more with AI and less time with God and each other if something doesn’t change.

As the church, we have an advantage. God gave us his Word and his Holy Spirit, which can help us think through good principles for building and using AI. One principle is that since we are made in the image of God and AI is not, there needs to be a distinction between humans and machines. Therefore, AI should never impersonate humans by pretending it feels emotion or can empathize with us. We shouldn’t give our AI a human name. Our robots shouldn’t look like us.

Here’s another principle: we know death and sickness exist, and when those things come, it’s important to ask God for peace and to work toward healing. We see the same tension in this situation with AI—we know that the end times will continue to have deception. We should not be scared or surprised by it, but should hold firm to the hope and knowledge of who God is and what his plan is.

And then we can join him in working toward healing, renewal, and redemption and by fighting against the work of the Enemy here. And AI can help in that! We must not run away from it or blindly adopt it, but instead be intentional and thoughtful, using it as the intended tool and gift from God it can be.

Many of the books rolling out from publishers each month are helpful, encouraging, and thought-provoking. But there are so many new volumes that it can be hard to determine what deserves a special place on the shelf. How will we find new books that can become our “pleasant and regular companions”?

That’s where The Gospel Coalition’s annual book awards come in. We work hard to identify some of the best evangelical books published each year.

This announcement is the culmination of months of hard work by a big team of book lovers. We receive nominations from publishers in 11 categories. Then our editors work together to recommend finalists in each category. Finally, a panel of judges reads each one carefully before casting their votes.

The books are evaluated for the way they

• offer gospel-centered argument and application;
• include faithful and foundational use of Scripture, both Old Testament and New Testament;
• foster spiritual discernment of contemporary trials and trends; and
• encourage efforts to unite and renew the church.

The result is a list of 22 books we recommend as helpful resources for the church and for individual believers. We hope you enjoy and are edified by them.

Congratulations to the winners of the 2024 TGC Book Awards.

Andrew Spencer
Books Editor

Cultural Apologetics

Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age (Zondervan Reflective)

Priests of History is a powerful and timely apologetic for the Christian faith and for the rootedness many people seek today. Writing with the zeal of a convert and the insight of an academic, Irving-Stonebraker reveals how studying history should be seen as part and parcel of spiritual formation. Her “priests of history” framework is innovative. As Christians stand in the vertical gap between heaven and earth—representing the world’s cares to God (in prayer) and representing God’s will to the world (in preaching and evangelism)—Irving-Stonebraker calls the church to stand in something of a horizontal gap, reconnecting the present with the past.

Modern secularism has made us not only materialists but presentists, robbed of the enchantment that comes with both theology and history. This ahistoric age, she argues, has deprived our culture of meaning and perspective. Priests of History is a welcome contribution to an academic field that recent authors have weaponized against the church.

Award of Distinction

Stephen O. Presley, Cultural Sanctification: Engaging the World like the Early Church (Eerdmans)

Stephen Presley presents a vision of cultural engagement that looks forward by looking back at the early church’s rich history. Citing church fathers like Tertullian, Origen, and Polycarp, he reveals how believers in the first centuries bore witness to the kingdom to come while living and engaging in the kingdom of this world. As Christians are increasingly pushed to the margins of society, Cultural Sanctification gives us a hopeful model for Christian witness.

By looking to the pre-Christendom church that “worked from the margins,” the church today can similarly hope for profound influence and witness in our post-Christian surroundings. This book is a must-read for Christians who refuse to accept false binaries between making disciples and engaging culture. There’s nothing new under the sun; the church has faced similarly challenging times before.

Judges: Clark Fobes, Collin Hansen, Matt Lietzen, Dustin Messer, Hannah Nation

Christian Living

Ray and Jani Ortlund, To the Tenth Generation: God’s Heart for Your Family, Far into the Future (B&H)

In an anxious age of parenting, Ray and Jani Ortlund’s book is a breath of fresh air. Where parenting influencers hyperfocus on particular diets, discipline approaches, or optimized extracurricular schedules to raise successful kids, the Ortlunds zoom out and cast a beautiful, biblical vision for families that glorify God. Incorporating practical wisdom, testimonies from their children, and words of encouragement to parents and grandparents, the Ortlunds show readers that parents don’t need to do everything perfectly; they need to do a few things faithfully. They demonstrate the power of faithful marriages and prioritizing God’s Word, of teaching obedience and creating a culture of kindness.

Rather than walking away burdened by the daily work of parenting, readers feel cheered on to be part of God’s work for years to come. Our families’ ultimate hope isn’t how well we perform as parents or grandparents—it’s the God who promises to bless his people generation after generation.

Award of Distinction

Ruth Chou Simons, Now and Not Yet: Pressing in When You’re Waiting, Wanting, and Restless for More (Thomas Nelson)

Most of us will experience seasons where the life we have isn’t the life we want. Whether we face difficulty, loss, or disappointment, these seasons of restlessness can become obstacles in our faith. While many resources try to guide believers through struggles by processing the past or reimagining the future, Ruth Chou Simon’s book encourages readers to consider what God is doing in the present. With disarming transparency, she paints a beautiful vision of how God can use our “right now”—even when we’d rather be anywhere but where we are.

Framed by her experiences in motherhood and ministry, and grounded in “already, but not yet” theology, Simons’s book invites readers to “flip the script” of their hard season. Simons offers practical ways to apply the biblical truth she so beautifully conveys, like liturgies that end each chapter and exercises that show readers how to take their narratives of restlessness and disappointment and rewrite them in light of God’s Word. This book helps readers see that God’s purpose isn’t on the other side of their restlessness but in the midst of it.

Judges: Matt Boga, Winfree Brisley, Katie Faris, Elizabeth Woodson

Ministry

Murray Capill, The Elder-Led Church: How an Eldership Team Shepherds a Healthy Flock (P&R)

To have a healthy, thriving ministry, churches need healthy, thriving leaders. For that reason, Murray Capill’s The Elder-Led Church isn’t a gift only to elders but to all the church ministries that will benefit from a strong, biblically faithful, and organizationally effective elder team.

With 50 years of leadership experience as a pastor and seminary administrator, and now as a lay elder, Capill is aware of the risks and dangers of team leadership. His book is a realistic guide, grounded in biblical principles that inform, inspire, and challenge. It marries a robust ecclesiology with time-tested principles of organizational leadership, showing how elder teams can practically build on a shared theological vision by adopting a focused mission statement, values, cultural practices, and a strategy that serve their particular context.

Capill’s key theme is clarity: “Churches thrive on clarity: on clear Bible teaching, clear theological convictions, a clear gospel focus, a clear sense of purpose and mission, clear lines of communication, a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities, and, above all else, a clear love for Jesus Christ and his people.” While there are many excellent books on eldership unpacking who elders are and what they do, this book stands out in its emphasis on how clarity in all these areas helps elders work cleffectively as a team.

Award of Distinction

John Currie, The Pastor as Leader: Principles and Practices for Connecting Preaching and Leadership (Crossway)

Is a pastor a minister of the Word or a shepherd of the flock? Scripture’s answer is both (Acts 20:27–28). But it doesn’t take long in pastoral ministry to discover that preaching and leading both feel like full-time jobs. When this happens, pastors can be tempted to pick one at the expense of the other. John Currie’s The Pastor as Leader offers a compelling, biblical reminder that what God has joined together, no pastor should separate.

The church needs pastors who see the call to preach and the call to lead as one call—men committed to guiding God’s people where God’s Word directs while walking humbly before God themselves. With insightful exposition and practical examples, Currie’s highly pastoral and deeply theological book equips pastors to carry out their singular task with strength and joy.

Judges: Jared Kennedy, Bill Kynes, John Murchison, Brad Wetherell, Jeremy Writebol

History and Biography

Coleman M. Ford and Shawn J. Wilhite, Ancient Wisdom for the Care of Souls: Learning the Art of Pastoral Ministry from the Church Fathers (Crossway)

Ancient Wisdom for the Care of Souls explores the church fathers’ enduring relevance. Coleman Ford and Shawn Wilhite bring the voices of early Christian leaders—figures like Basil of Caesarea, Athanasius of Alexandria, Augustine of Hippo, and John Chrysostom—into conversation with today’s ministry needs. Their ministries demonstrate spiritual wisdom, theological depth, and pastoral care. Ford and Wilhite engage the fathers with a robustly evangelical commitment, acknowledging the distance between their world and our own yet showing how these early Christians wrestled with many of the same concerns that occupy pastors today.

The authors don’t pit the fathers against the reformers or modern evangelicals but rather see them as wise (though fallible) guides who can help us pursue greater faithfulness in our day. Though Ford and Wilhite are scholars of the patristic era, they write with pastoral sensitivity. They demonstrate how the “ancient wisdom” offered by the church fathers can be applied thoughtfully and practically to the spiritual life of pastors and the shepherding ministry of local churches.

Award of Distinction

Sean McGever, Ownership: The Evangelical Legacy of Slavery in Edwards, Wesley, and Whitefield (IVP)

We can learn a lot from our heroes’ successes and our villains’ failures. But sometimes we can learn even more from our heroes’ failures. In Ownership, Sean McGever takes three of evangelicalism’s greatest giants—Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and John Wesley—and considers their approaches to slavery, which were (to say the least) complicated. Rather than glossing over their sins (“They were men of their times!”) or condemning them outright (“They need to be canceled!”), McGever shows us why they each made the decisions they did, how their attitudes and practices evolved, and what we might learn from them today.

By examining the moral complexities these men faced, McGever helps us see ourselves more clearly, challenging us to confront lingering influences of historical sins within our lives and communities. McGever’s work is an invitation to reflect deeply on how we can live more faithfully, rooted in the hope and reconciliation the gospel offers. This book isn’t just a history lesson; it’s a heartfelt appeal for humility, accountability, and the courage to walk in the light of Christ, even when it reveals uncomfortable truths.

Judges: Simonetta Carr, Nathan Finn, Ivan Mesa, Andrew Wilson

Popular Theology

Kevin DeYoung, Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology (Crossway)

As statistics indicate—whether from Ligonier’s State of Theology report, LifeWay surveys, or other sources—evangelicals are suffering from anemic biblical and theological knowledge. This is why Kevin DeYoung’s Daily Doctrine is such a timely contribution. Consisting of 260 entries (5 days a week, 52 weeks a year), it offers digestible theology in a devotional format.

Though DeYoung is a prolific author, Daily Doctrine represents an intense effort over years. The result is a goldmine for discipleship and doxology. As he puts it, “We dig deeper into doctrine that we might soar higher in worship. There is no room for big heads when learning about such a big God.” Amen. May this work build up the church by fostering serious wonder and humble awe.

Award of Distinction

Sam Allberry, One with My Lord: The Life-Changing Reality of Being in Christ (Crossway)

Quick—what’s the most underrated doctrine among Christians today? That’s tough to answer, of course, but Sam Allberry contends it’s union with Christ. It’s not just a doctrine, after all; it’s the lens through which the Christian life can be “seen most sharply and beautifully.” It speaks to our position, identity, adoption, eternal destiny, and more. Indeed, it’s the New Testament’s default way of referring to Christians: persons “in Christ.” From beginning to end, Allberry’s book brims with vivid illustrations and practical takeaways. Believer, Jesus isn’t only your Savior and Lord. He’s also, in a sense, your home and your place—the location where every spiritual benefit is found.

Judges: Joshua Chatman, Juan Sánchez, Matt Smethurst, Laura Spaulding

Theological Studies

Matthew Barrett (ed.), On Classical Trinitarianism: Retrieving the Nicene Doctrine of the Triune God (IVP Academic)

Scholars from around the globe teamed up to expound, defend, and advance Nicene orthodoxy in our theologically confused world. On Classical Trinitarianism not only addresses the major modern challenges to the classical doctrine of the Trinity but also illustrates why properly articulating this central mystery of the faith is vital for the church’s worship, witness, and discipleship. This book demonstrates the power of Nicene orthodoxy to unite believers from a range of denominations to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

Though the chapters often have a sharp argumentative edge appropriate to the topic’s significance, the book is a model of charitable theological debate. On Classical Trinitarianism promises to be a one-stop shop for answers to common questions about the Trinity. It’ll be a standard resource for theologians for years to come.

Award of Distinction

David and Jonathan Gibson (eds.), Ruined Sinners to Reclaim: Sin and Depravity in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective (Crossway)

Ruined Sinners to Reclaim is a timely treatment of the much-maligned and often misunderstood doctrine of total depravity. The Bible uses diverse vocabulary and a multifaceted framework for understanding sin’s effects on creation. Christians across the ages have approached the doctrine with significant and sometimes confusing diversity.

To answer these challenges, this book traces the doctrine’s development leading up to and following the Synod of Dort. It also lays out evidence for the doctrine from a canonical perspective and considers its pastoral applications for tasks like preaching, counseling, and evangelizing. Like the earlier volume in the series, From Heaven He Came and Sought Her, this collection of essays from top-notch scholars in the Reformed tradition will be an authoritative reference for decades. Ruined Sinners to Reclaim is an essential resource for Bible scholars, students, and church leaders.

Judges: Rafael Bello, Robbie Griggs, Michael Niebauer, Andrew Spencer, Christy Thornton

Biblical Studies

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Mere Christian Hermeneutics: Transfiguring What It Means to Read the Bible Theologically (Zondervan Academic)

Kevin Vanhoozer’s latest, Mere Christian Hermeneutics, is one of his best—the culmination of years of study from one of evangelicalism’s best thinkers. Modeled after C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, this volume presents the fundamental interpretation principles every believer should hold dear.

The tired, false dichotomy between exegesis and theology has fallen on hard times. Students are often confronted with the “grammatico-historical” approach to interpretation or the “Christological” approach to reading Scripture, as if they were divergent paths at a hermeneutical fork in the road. Vanhoozer convincingly demonstrates the two aren’t enemies but the best of friends. Filled with incisive interaction with competing paradigms, this book joins exegesis and theology. Mere Christian Hermeneutics enjoins Christians to read Scripture with a biblical-theological lens for the glory of God.

Award of Distinction

Barry J. Beitzel (ed.), Lexham Geographic Commentary on the Pentateuch (Lexham)

The Lexham Geographic Commentary series continues to be one of the most unique and insightful projects of the last decade. The series fills a gap (a large one) between the biblical text and geography. The latest volume, Lexham Geographic Commentary on the Pentateuch, is a treasure trove of knowledge. Those studying or preaching on the Pentateuch should have this within arm’s reach.

The list contributing scholars is truly impressive, consisting of leading experts in archaeology, ancient Near Eastern history, Egyptology, and linguistics. Each essay addresses a particular place, event, story, cultural artifact, or theological theme found in the Pentateuch and is supplemented with beautifully illustrated maps, diagrams, pictures, and charts. Essay topics include the four rivers in Eden, Sodom and Gomorrah’s location, Philistia and the Philistines, the “Red Sea” (yam suf), manna, quail, the 10 plagues, and the Israelite calendar.

This volume brings together issues of geography, history, archaeology, and theology in a way that sheds light on the history—and historicity—of ancient Israel. Every pastor should have it on his shelf.

Judges: Seulgi Byun, Benjamin Gladd, Oren Martin, Tyler Milliken

Children’s

Jordan Raynor, illustrated by Jonathan D. Voss, The Royal in You (WaterBrook)

The Royal in You makes the hope of heaven come alive. In a note to parents, Jordan Raynor explains that when he was a child, he thought of heaven as “a place in the clouds without the things [he] loved most.” In contrast to that picture, this book’s luminous watercolor illustrations thoughtfully and vividly interpret scriptural passages on the life to come.

Heaven comes down to earth (according to Rev. 21) and is depicted as a place full of cities and sailing ships, forests and towering waterfalls, bakeries, dinosaurs, and a library that reaches to the sky. Children ride lions and spaceships, play sports and instruments, and feast with wild animals. One exceptionally beautiful picture shows a little girl hugging a grandmother as generations watch the glad reunion. The Royal in You includes many exciting and lovely surprises that may be found one day in heaven, “but the best part by far,” the author says, “is King Jesus will be there, making everything new.”

Award of Distinction

Christina Fox, illustrated by Daron Parton, Who Are You? A Little Book About Your Big Identity (Crossway)

Who Are You? is a fun rhyming book about what your identity is—and what it isn’t. We can easily believe that who we are is based on what we can do, what we like, what others think about us, what we feel, or how we look. Although these things are interesting and important, what truly defines us, what “shapes [our whole lives] each and every day,” is that we’re made in God’s image to reflect his love and saving grace to the world.

In a time when identity is seen as a prerogative somehow both fluid and defining, Who Are You? is a clear and welcome reminder that identity is ultimately found in our relationship to our Creator and Savior.

Judges: Ginger Blomberg, Cameron Cole, Betsy Childs Howard, Shar Walker

First-Time Author

Whitney K. Pipkin, We Shall All Be Changed: How Facing Death with Loved Ones Changes Us (Moody)

This book isn’t just for those walking with loved ones through end-of-life seasons. It’s for anyone who will one day be in that season—which is all of us. We Shall All Be Changed is a personal but universally helpful resource. It prepares readers for future losses, equips them to walk alongside those in seasons of sickness and grief, and sets their hearts on the brevity of this earthly life and the endless glory of the life to come.

Whitney Pipkin walks through the journey of her mom’s sickness (and her own processing of it) with the captivating candor of good storytelling and the reverent truthfulness of theological depth. She reminds us that in Christ, our suffering Savior who walked through death himself and bears all our griefs, there’s glory in our pain, comfort in our sorrow, and hope in our heartache. This book proves that, if we allow it, a sober-minded consideration of death will teach us how to live rightly, and that the Christian’s response to losing those we love should set us apart as we both lament and rejoice.

Award of Distinction

Ashley Lande, The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever: Transcendence, Psychedelics, and Jesus Christ (Lexham)

This memoir narrates the author’s journey “from acid enthusiast to soul-weary druggie to psychedelic refugee,” and ultimately to the gospel. It’s a well-written, powerful conversion narrative and a type of testimony we’ll probably see more of in the post-Christian West. But the book also serves as a sort of deconstruction of Goop-style wellness and the cottage industries of mystical pseudospirituality. Lande not only examines pantheistic notions of divinity in comparison to Christianity but also points out how today’s mystics are oppressively legalistic, commercialized, and bourgeois.

Many in today’s world are hungry for spirituality and supernatural experiences. They want to improve their lives; they just haven’t found an answer that ultimately satisfies. The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever is a powerful resource to help reach these people with the truly transforming gospel.

Judges: Kristie Anderson, Kaitlin Miller Febles, Brett McCracken, Caleb Wait

Devotional Literature

Edward T. Welch, Depression: Finding Christ in the Darkness (P&R)

Anyone who has walked through depression knows sufferers have little energy for flowery language or theoretical hope. Over and over again, Ed Welch names the hopelessness and heaviness of depression in such a way that the reader feels seen and met, as if someone has walked his or her lonely room, unafraid of being swallowed by the darkness. While in that room, Welch knows there’s no panacea to dispel the darkness quickly or with platitudes. Rather, he speaks bold words of hope and offers compassion and understanding to the suffering one.

This devotional encourages achievable movement toward healing as it points to the person, work, love, care, and nearness of Jesus. It takes the hope of the gospel and gently crawls into the pit with the sufferer, showing the way out.

Award of Distinction

Megan Hill, Sighing on Sunday: 40 Meditations for When Church Hurts (P&R)

Megan Hill has done her homework, spending years with angry and disappointed people who’ve been hurt by the church. Yet, while she’s willing to tell the truth about what makes church life so hard, she also avoids the extremes of dismissing or diminishing the church and of glossing over its weaknesses and failures.

As she draws on scriptural examples, Hill encourages thoughtful and faithful attention to the hurts, fears, pain, and disillusionment of those in our midst alongside faithful engagement in Word, sacrament, worship, and service. Any counsel she offers isn’t based on the church’s goodness but on the love of Christ for his church and for the hurting individuals inside it. What a helpful resource that will meet so many in their painful reality while encouraging them not to give up on Christ’s Bride.

Judges: Missie Branch, Kendra Dahl, Christine Gordon, Chuck Tedrick 

Missions & the Global Church

Brian A. DeVries, You Will Be My Witnesses: Theology for God’s Church Serving in God’s Mission (Crossway)

What’s the church’s mission? And how should we understand it in relation to God’s mission in the world? These are questions evangelicals have been asking for generations. In You Will Be My Witnesses, Brian DeVries provides a comprehensive yet constrained answer.

Drawing from his experience ministering in South Africa, DeVries writes with a sensitivity to and awareness of the global church. His theology is grounded in Scripture and informed by history yet clearly influenced by Christians in the majority world. DeVries also demonstrates awareness of contemporary issues and trends in missiology, both practical and scholarly. When necessary, he offers helpful corrections. But one of the book’s greatest strengths is its measured and encouraging tone. DeVries addresses some of today’s hot-button missions topics with an irenic spirit.

Pastors and professors, church leaders and missionary practitioners will all benefit from this detailed study of the theology, history, and practice of missions.

Award of Distinction

Justin A. Schell, The Mission of God and the Witness of the Church (Crossway)

Christian mission is, by definition, global. And the missio Dei doesn’t just span the globe; it encompasses all of history. Therefore, it’s not surprising when a book on the mission of God runs long. However, in this volume, Justin Schell gives us a concise treatment of God’s mission (and ours) with clarity, precision, and insight.

Following the storyline of biblical theology, Schell defines the missio Dei as “God’s revelatory work intended to establish a divine-human communion within creation.” Based on that understanding, it’s not hard to envision the purpose of the church’s witness. We’re called to make God known to others so they might be reconciled to him. This is revelation for the sake of communion. Such a vision is both beautiful and simple. Most importantly, it’s biblical. You can read this book in a couple of hours, but it’ll leave you contemplating God’s mission long afterward, motivating you to take his good news to all.

Judges: Elliot Clark, Jenny Manley, Conrad Mbewe, J. D. Payne

So, between my son’s preschool Christmas party and my daughter’s Christmas choir practices, I scheduled everything from attending The Sound of Music at the community theater to setting up the tree to making gingerbread houses (with festive music in the background). And of course, we planned to attend our church’s Christmas Eve service. It was going to be a wonderful Christmastide.

Except it wasn’t.

The Christmas season was miserable for us. Sickness plagued our family at every turn, and over the month, we missed every single event I’d marked in red and green on my calendar. I’d had such high expectations for the holiday season. Instead, I experienced disappointment—and the persistent feeling of being cheated out of the Christmas I’d dreamed about. But as I dove into the Word, I came to see that my ruined expectations afforded me a fresh opportunity to place my hope solely in the person of Jesus, not in what I hoped to get out of the holiday season.

Mary’s Uncomfortable Christmas

As I read the Christmas story that year, I saw I was in good company as a mom when my festive expectations were dashed. Mary was the first mother to experience Christmas, and I doubt it was what she expected when the angel Gabriel appeared to her and declared she’d bear God’s Son (Luke 1).

Her pregnancy as a virgin meant Joseph needed angelic intervention in order to believe its divine origins (Matt. 1:18–25). Caesar Augustus’s decree for a census of the entire Roman world meant long and arduous travel in the late, and most uncomfortable, stage of her pregnancy. The lack of an available guest room for her delivery (in a new town, nonetheless) meant she labored without the comforts of home and ended up placing her firstborn in an animal trough (Luke 2). Her Christmas was messy and uncomfortable.

And yet, while Mary’s first Christmas looked far from perfect—and far from what she might’ve hoped for—it was exactly what God had planned. His glory was on display through Jesus’s humble birth and declared to lowly shepherds with angelic fanfare as the good news was proclaimed: “A Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord” (v. 11, NIV).

While Mary’s first Christmas looked far from perfect—and far from what she might’ve hoped for—it was exactly what God had planned.

In response, “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (v. 19). While the difficulties of the journey and her labor might’ve been disappointing, the good news of the gospel—proclaimed about this tiny babe in a manger—was worth cherishing. For that first Christmas wasn’t ultimately about what Mary wanted or expected, it was about Jesus and the good news that he came to save his people.

Israel’s Misguided Expectations

But years later, as Jesus entered public ministry, he didn’t meet the expectations of many Israelites. Although Jesus was born in Bethlehem—the place where the prophet Micah foretold the Messiah would be born (Mic. 5:2)—he didn’t turn out to be the kind of leader they were looking for. The Israelites wanted a Messiah who’d become king (John 6:15) and rid them of Rome, and be a “shepherd” full of “strength” and “majesty” whose greatness would reach “to the ends of the earth” (Mic. 5:4).

Jesus didn’t come to Israel as a conquering hero. He didn’t check the boxes they wanted in a king. He didn’t try to overthrow their Roman oppressors; he taught about a kingdom that had no earthly armies. He wasn’t physically attractive, and he didn’t even put up a fight when it came to defending his own life (Isa. 53:2–3). He was hated and maligned, disparaged, and finally crucified.

And because of their misguided expectations, many Israelites missed the Messiah they’d been longing for. They rejected him: “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (John 1:11).

Because of their misguided expectations, many Israelites missed the Messiah they’d been longing for.

But for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, the kingdom that Jesus proclaims is far better than any earthly one. For Christ is full of “strength” and “majesty,” and his kingdom extends far beyond the “ends of the earth.” It’s an everlasting kingdom, and he’s its King, the ultimate defeater of his people’s enemies—those greatest enemies of sin, death, and separation from the Father. And his victory has won for us the immeasurable treasure of becoming God’s children.

Praise God for dashing our expectations with something greater than we could imagine: himself.

God’s Better Gift

Do I wish that December had gone differently? Do I wish we’d avoided a full month of sickness and tears over missed parties and choirs? Of course.

But Christmas Day still came, and the shattering of my expectations was a gift: it pointed me afresh to Christmas’s true purpose, far past the lovely songs and parties and activities. Christmas, I was reminded, is all about the good news that one miserable Christmas for Mary—and the misery and suffering of that Babe in the manger who eventually died on a cross—made it possible for every miserable sinner who comes to Christ in faith to become God’s child.

The letter of James can be a disorienting book. It sounds so different from other parts of the Bible, and we may not understand how it fits within our theological system. Yet if we know what to look for, we’ll find familiar biblical “faces” that help us get our bearings and navigate James’s five chapters.

James is closely related to other Scriptures—from both the Old and New Testaments. If we can identify how James echoes other portions of the Bible, we can gain our interpretive footing and see that this letter isn’t as strange as it seems. Here are four familiar faces.

1. James’s Name

The name “James” has rich connections to the Old Testament. In the Gospels, Jesus has two disciples named James, including one of his inner three. The James who wrote this letter is different; he’s Jesus’s half-brother. What may be lost in English translation is that the name is the same as “Jacob.” Jacob was one of the Old Testament patriarchs. He was also known as Israel, and he was the father of the 12 tribes of Israel.

In this light, notice that James (Jacob) wrote to the 12 tribes of the Dispersion (James 1:1). It’s the letter of a New Testament Jacob to the 12 tribes of Israel who follow Christ in the new covenant era.

James is the letter of a New Testament Jacob to the 12 tribes of Israel who follow Christ in the new covenant era.

2. Lord of Glory

One of the most important passages about Christ in James comes in 2:1, where Jesus is identified as the “Lord of glory.” This designation also has an Old Testament background—it likely echoes the language from Psalm 24:7–10 that speaks of the Lord as the King of glory. For instance,

Who is this King of glory?
The LORD of hosts,
he is the King of glory! Selah (v. 10)

James identifies the resurrected, glorified Jesus with the Lord of the Psalms, which is consistent with how other New Testament authors speak of Christ in exalted terms (e.g., 1 Cor. 8:5–6; Phil. 2:5–11; 2 Pet. 1:1).

3. Under Foot

Closely related to James’s view of Jesus as the Lord of glory is the possibility that he alludes to Psalm 110:1 in his critique of the covenant community showing favoritism to the rich. They shouldn’t say to the poor man, “Sit under my feet” (James 2:3; author’s translation), for that dishonors the poor man. This may also be an allusion to one of the Old Testament passages most often quoted and alluded to in the New Testament. Psalm 110:1 speaks of Christ’s exaltation and of his enemies being placed under his feet (see Acts 2:34–35; 1 Cor. 15:25; Eph. 1:22; Heb. 1:13).

Perhaps the favoritism James’s audience shows in the church is inconsistent with their commitment to Christ as the glorious Lord—the One who will have all things under his feet. If so, James may be using this passage in a surprising way: all things are subject to Christ, but by asking the poor to sit “under foot,” we’re treating them as second-class citizens in the church. Such behavior is inconsistent with Jesus’s present reign.

4. Royal Law

The Gospels are another familiar face for contextualizing James. Notice that James uses the phrase “royal law” and then cites Scripture in James 2:8. The quotation stems from Leviticus 19:18: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the second great commandment as designated by Jesus. It is the royal law because of its connection to Jesus’s teaching about the Kingdom of God (Mark 12:31).

By asking the poor to sit ‘under foot,’ we’re treating them as second-class citizens in the church.

Many of James’s statements reflect the teaching of Jesus. In addition to James 2:8, James’s mention of the poor who are rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom (Jas. 2:5) reflects Jesus’s teaching that the poor are honored in the Kingdom (Matt. 5:3; Luke 6:20). Similarly, James’s encouragement for the humble to boast in their exaltation, and the rich in their humiliation (Jas. 1:9–11) also speaks about life in the Kingdom of God.

Get Your Bearings

Don’t stop with these four faces. Look for others as you read through James. See if you can detect how it echoes other Scriptures, and don’t forget to use your Bible’s cross-references. These can point you to a whole host of recognizable faces.

James was intimately familiar with Scripture, and the more familiar we are, the better we’ll understand James.

Jesus calls all believers to abide in him like a branch remains in its vine, drawing everything we need from him. We don’t rely on our obedience to save or sanctify us; we rely on the finished work of Jesus, depending fully on him. Because apart from him, we can do nothing. He is the true vine.

Platt teaches the folllowing:

• Childlike boldness and the will of God
• The metaphor of the vine
• Jesus as the true vine
• Experiencing abundant life in Jesus
• The role of prayer and meditation
• The battle for belief and trust
• Bearing fruit for the world

A recent collection of sermons, translated into English for the first time, helps us answer that question. In the Power of the Spirit: Sermons on Matthew, Mark & Luke is replete with instruction and wisdom for modern readers. Roger White, who has translated several of Calvin’s works for the Banner of Truth, relied on the 1562 French text to produce this collection on the beginning of Christ’s earthly ministry. In these 18 sermons, Calvin ingeniously harmonizes the Synoptic Gospels as he preaches on their doctrine and practical application.

These sermons are new material for today’s readers, but they serve to remind us of ancient truths every generation needs. From the opening sermon, Calvin celebrates the beauty of the gospel message. He writes, “For what are we to think when, as our Lord Jesus Christ was being crucified, his side was laid open, as if to reveal his very heart? Should we be neither moved nor touched when our Lord invites us so winningly to himself and gives us such a pledge of his love?” (8–9). The sermons are worth reading simply to behold this affection for the gospel. Yet readers can also see how Calvin applied the gospel in his context, especially as he instructed about preaching the Word and explored spiritual applications for the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Preparing and Proclaiming

Calvin’s sermons show how important the Bible was for sapling churches maturing as Reformed orthodoxy took root in Protestant soil. Calvin emphasizes two distinctives in how the Bible is preached: how church members ought to receive the Word and how preachers ought to deliver it.

According to Calvin, church members should actively prepare to receive the Word: “Whenever we come to church, we must have these two things in view: first, we must cast aside all earthly worries and concerns, all empty desires and other such things which stop us drawing near to God; second, we must feel such deep reverence for what we know comes from God that we receive and accept it without dissent, and that we allow him to place his yoke upon our necks, being ready and willing to bend beneath its weight” (166).

In Geneva, the Sunday sermon and weekly lecture were meant to be high points of the week for believers, essential to their spiritual growth. So should it be for us. Sitting under preaching includes preparing to receive nourishment from Scripture and prayerfully considering its application.

Sitting under preaching includes preparing to receive nourishment from Scripture and prayerfully considering its application.

Yet the sermon was meant to be more than instruction. Calvin expects the preacher to place the gospel front and center before the congregation. He emphasizes the evangelistic purpose of preaching: “The gospel is not preached in order to terrify people, but to soothe their sorrow and to call them to Jesus Christ, so that they receive healing from him if they are sick and quickening for their souls, dead though they are” (244). Calvin not only declares these truths but demonstrates them in his preaching. By doing so, he calls preachers to consider their tone as much as their message—all for the sake of making Christ preeminent among God’s people.

Spiritual Signs

Calvin also addresses baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Most of our contemporary debates are about the mode of baptism and the exegesis of specific passages in support of a particular view. Yet in these sermons, Calvin is much more interested in the ordinance’s spiritual significance.

The baptismal water has no power but is a visible sign of God’s work, according to Calvin. However, he argues that “our Lord Jesus Christ is its true substance, its fulfillment and its end, so that the sign is neither empty nor unavailing” (71). As a Reformed Baptist pastor, I heartily agree.

Concerning the Supper’s spiritual significance, Calvin writes with a polemical edge: “All we see is the wine, yet Jesus Christ affirms that we receive, and share in, the blood he shed for our redemption. Of course, the bread and wine are not our Lord’s body and blood, as the papists foolishly imagine; but he did not bring us empty symbols in order to entertain us, as if some comedy were being acted on a stage” (189). The significance comes from Christ’s spiritual presence, not from a transformation of the elements.

Thus, the Supper is a call to rejoice because the elements are signs of our redemption. As Calvin declares, “When Jesus gives himself to us to be our food, and when by these symbols he shows that he both nurtures and brings us to maturity, he seeks to assure us that all his benefits are also bestowed on us. He does not come to us naked and empty-handed, nor does he come poor” (190). Calvin thus reminds us how beautiful the Supper is, calling us to come to the table with joyous zeal.

Contemporary Communication

Though they come from 16th-century Geneva, these sermons speak to the modern church. Each generation in the pew needs to hear again the spiritual power of the preached Word, of baptism, and of the Lord’s Supper. Today’s readers find reminders of our Lord’s nourishment despite spiritual famine. We find encouragement through Christ’s compassion to persevere by defying of Satan and dispelling of anxious thoughts. These evergreen truths compel us to a salvation that “did not reach us by accident” (76). Geneva needed to hear these truths, and so do our churches.

Each generation in the pew needs to hear again the spiritual power of the preached Word, of baptism, and of the Lord’s Supper.

Calvin scholars will appreciate In the Power of the Spirit because it presents new material for study in English. Pastors will benefit from this collection as they see Calvin take the Reformation’s inheritance and apply it to the local church. His challenge remains: “Supposing we have understood the whole of Scripture, what good will it be to us if we merely read it but cannot apply it for our use or instruction?” (126).

Much is still to be gleaned at the feet of this famous reformer as he draws our attention once again to the beauty of the gospel. This sermon collection will strengthen and stir the hearts of those who love church history and delight in the good news of Christ.

Materialism is soul-sucking, and Christians aren’t the only ones to notice. In recent years, American culture has offered a solution: “Instead of buying things, prioritize experiences.”

When Christians hear this advice, we suppose it sounds close enough to Matthew 6:19—“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal”—so we nod our heads and set to work drafting a list of “experiences” that will make our families’ holiday seasons special.

“Experience gifts” can be a great option—especially if your home already feels crowded or if you aren’t confident your recipient truly wants another toy or sweater or coffee mug. Giving experiences can also be an effective way to initiate quality time with your loved ones. However, prioritizing experiences over things isn’t always the cure for materialism we might think it is, and Christians should be wary of several problems inherent in this philosophy.

False Dichotomy

The terms “experience” and “thing” are simply two vantage points to view a singular reality: God designed his image-bearers as embodied creatures whose actions are intrinsically intertwined with the material world. When people speak about experiences as gifts, what they typically mean is riding in a vehicle to a physical location that’s lovely or novel, doing an activity that requires materials and equipment, and filling their stomachs with quality food and drink. And when we speak of things, we refer to books we read, clothes we wear, and instruments we play. Experiences depend on the use of things, and things are only enjoyed if they can be experienced.

False dichotomy aside, the more troubling issue with the trend toward pushing experiences over things is that we rarely deliver this claim as a neutral statement. More often, it has a subtle shade of self-righteousness.

We’re tempted to believe that by embracing the pursuit of experiences—since this seems to stand in contrast to the pursuit of possessions—we’ve combated materialism. But what is materialism if not the manipulation of the physical world to suit our pleasure? And what do we typically seek through experiences if not our pleasure?

Honest Evaluation

The apostle James, describing how covetousness breeds sin and malice, admonishes believers who “ask wrongly, to spend . . . on [their] passions” (James 4:3). The truth is, we’re tempted to chase our passions through pursuing possessions and pursuing experiences. If we aren’t careful, both can distract us from Christ’s sufficiency and the responsibilities of discipleship.

The truth is, we’re tempted to chase our passions through pursuing possessions and pursuing experiences.

It’s also not lost on me that every person I’ve heard declare his or her preference for “experiences over things” has been financially solvent and not lacking any “thing” necessary to support a safe, healthy, and comfortable life. If we have discretionary income that allows us to pursue experiences nonessential to our survival, we’d do well—rather than patting ourselves on the back for having overcome materialism—to recall that “everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required” (Luke 12:48).

As ends in themselves, neither things nor experiences can satisfy the human soul. While Matthew 6:19 rightly acknowledges the vulnerability of our possessions to moth, rust, and thieves, so too are our experiences vulnerable to lost passports, food poisoning, and the eventual deterioration of our memories. Thankfully, Jesus doesn’t leave us in our dissatisfaction. Instead, he encourages us to “lay up for [ourselves] treasures in heaven” (Matt. 6:20).

Better Pursuit

So what does this mean practically? Is everyone getting “thoughts and prayers” for Christmas this year? By no means.

Things and experiences can distract us from our relationship with Christ, but they certainly don’t have to. To the contrary, at Christmas we celebrate that God’s Son took on flesh so that through our faith in his incarnate life of perfect righteousness, his death, and his embodied resurrection, he might redeem our whole, embodied selves with his Spirit. Now, whether we “eat or drink” (or create art or plant a garden or play pickleball), we may “do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).

Rather than choosing gifts by prioritizing a pursuit of experiences, Christ invites us to give to one another by prioritizing a pursuit of love—and love is a virtue we can exercise through giving both things and experiences.

Love is a virtue we can exercise through the giving of both things and experiences.

There’s no need to overcomplicate or hyperspiritualize the prioritization of love. It looks like moderating our consumption so we’re able to give generously to the church and to the “least of these” (Matt. 25:40). It can also look like giving a thoughtful token of affection that demonstrates your honor of and admiration for your recipient. It can look like planning an experience that will foster quality time and build positive, mutually shared memories. It can look like offering a material gift that practically supports your recipient’s personal aspirations or that fills her life with beauty. It can even look like buying a baseball and a couple of gloves so you can regularly have fun by playing catch with your kids.

He who chases pleasure through the pursuit of things or experiences will “fade away in the midst of his pursuits” (James 1:11), but “love never ends” (1 Cor. 13:8). This gift-giving season, brothers and sisters, let us be known by our love.

But do we need the Bible to tell us that? It isn’t a groundbreaking idea. Scientific studies tell us a grateful person is a happier person. TED Talks and Oprah are full of this stuff. Is this really the primary message Luke gives us here?

When we look closer, this passage acknowledges the moral imperative to be grateful but it positively envelopes us with the person of Jesus Christ. It shows us that biblical thanksgiving goes beyond gratitude because it goes beyond the gift. It leads us to surrender ourselves to the Giver.

Gratitude vs. Thanksgiving

Gratitude, in its simplest form, is a feeling that only becomes thanksgiving when expressed. By itself, gratitude remains an internal experience. We find this distinction illustrated in Luke 17.

Biblical thanksgiving goes beyond gratitude because it goes beyond the gift. It leads us to surrender ourselves to the Giver.

As Jesus enters the village, the lepers cry out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” They call from a distance because, as lepers, they’re not allowed to mingle with society. Luke wants us to see their desperation.

What’s striking is that they call Jesus “Master.” The only other people in Luke’s Gospel who refer to Jesus this way are his disciples. This tells us the lepers believed in Jesus’s power. When they cried out, Jesus didn’t heal them on the spot—though he could have. Instead, he told them to show themselves to the priests. Then, as they went, they were healed.

For nine of the lepers, that’s where the story ends. They were healed physically, and they likely went to the priests to be declared clean so they could rejoin society. They probably felt grateful—who wouldn’t? But their gratitude didn’t translate into expressing thanks.

More than the Gift

The nine lepers didn’t lack gratitude. But they didn’t see the excellence of their Healer. They found richer satisfaction in the gift than in the One who gave it.

This isn’t just a nine-leper problem; it can be a Christian problem. Lifeway Research asked 1,200 Americans what they were most grateful for. The number one answer was family, followed by health and friends. The researchers didn’t even include God, or Jesus, among the options. When the same Americans were asked whom they typically give thanks to, family topped the list again, and God came a close second.

This survey highlights what should be a major concern for Christians: We can be more grateful to God for what we have in this world than for what he provides in himself. Could this mean we primarily define God by our comforts and securities, rather than worshiping him as he’s revealed through Scripture?

True Thanksgiving Is About the Giver

We see true thanksgiving when the leper returns to the One who healed him. He doesn’t merely feel grateful for his healing; he turns back to Jesus, falls at his feet, and gives thanks. The Greek word for “thanksgiving” in Luke 17 is eucharistéō, which means more than saying “thank you.” It describes active, grateful worship toward God.

Luke paints the scene vividly, describing the leper becoming less as he falls prostrate and Jesus becoming more as he stands above the man, looking over him with beautiful compassion. Jesus then says, “Your faith has made you well.” The other nine got their physical healing. But only this leper experienced the fullness of salvation, the deeper healing that comes from knowing Jesus by faith.

Thanksgiving in All Circumstances

The biblical narrative teaches us to build our thanksgiving on faith in God. This kind of thanksgiving goes beyond personal circumstances (Eph. 5:20; 1 Thess. 5:18). It gives thanks in all things.

But how do we give thanks when life is hard, when we feel God has abandoned us? In Till We Have Faces, Lewis wrote, “I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face, questions die away. What other answer would suffice?”

This is the one leper’s realization. He sees that Jesus doesn’t just heal his body or give him something else he wants. Jesus, our hope and salvation, gives us himself. When we recognize this truth and how its sufficiency works in our lives, thanksgiving is no longer about the gifts we receive but about the Giver himself.

Thanksgiving Means Surrender

Jesus ultimately brings the leper to himself. The leper’s thanksgiving shows that he’d submitted to Christ as his Lord. That’s how we must come to Christ too. Paul writes, “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Col. 2:6–7).

Thanksgiving is no longer about the gifts we receive but about the Giver himself.

When we surrender to Christ himself, the Spirit cultivates in us a deep love for the Savior. Even when we lack temporal gifts, he helps us submit to Christ’s lordship and to whatever he chooses to provide. Even amid trials and suffering, the Spirit reminds us how Christ suffered for us by submitting to the Father in obedience unto death (Phil. 2:6–9).

Let’s remember these truths and surrender to Christ’s person and lordship in every circumstance. Then we’ll find that our life is made beautiful by his faithfulness and loving embrace. We’ll be truly thankful because true thanksgiving is rooted in the gospel. It’s an expression of faith that God is good, that what he chooses is best, and that the truly good life is found only in him.

He teaches the following:

• How the departure of God’s glory is a mark of judgment
• God’s promise to gather the exiles and give them an undivided heart
• The new covenant’s removal of the need for mediating teachers
• How John’s vision in Revelation 5 reflects the fulfillment of God’s promises to Ezekiel
• God is always in control, and his way will triumph
• The final consummation of God’s promises is seen in the new heaven and earth

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

That was his view in 1851. I wonder how he’d respond 173 years later, when church attendance is more like 5 percent than 50.

We can frame the West’s secularization in many ways. One is to note that the percentage of “exvangelicals” in the United States is higher than the percentage of evangelicals in Britain. This has come about due to “the great dechurching,” where 40 million Americans have left the church this century. Just how far out is the tide now?

And what should we do about it? One response is to prayerfully await the tide’s turning. After all, tides don’t only go out; they also come in. Perhaps there are signs this is occurring. Justin Brierley’s book and podcast The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God expertly chart the terrain of our changing faith landscape. It also points to stories of recent adult converts like Paul Kingsnorth and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, or Christian-friendly intellectuals like Douglas Murray and Jordan Peterson.

But critics have pointed out that the “rebirth” Brierley sees may be a triumph of hope over experience. Historian Tom Holland, one of the key figures of The Surprising Rebirth, seemed less than optimistic recently when he pointed out to Brierley in an open conversation that we no longer have truly Christian public figures. In the 20th century, we had Martin Luther King Jr., C. S. Lewis, and Billy Graham. Nowadays, whom do we have?

Those who point to the popularity of Peterson, a Jungian psychologist famously resistant to church, only reveal we live in a vastly different age. Perhaps the successor ideology has unstoppably gained ground, and we must make do with Arnold’s pessimism: “neither joy, nor love, nor light.” What can we say as Christians?

Ultimately, the tide will turn—at some point. One day, the knowledge of God will flood the earth “as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). And we might well see revival in the West in our lifetime. For this we pray. But in the meantime, there’s something else we can do. Low tide isn’t only the portent of a return. Low tide reveals the terrain of the land that the sea has shaped. High tide covers the sea’s effects, but when the tide is low we see things that had before been obscured.

In the same way, secularization has revealed Christendom’s effects in a new way. Perhaps the influence of the Jesus Movement has never been more starkly apparent. Those with eyes to see it have a fresh opportunity to appreciate the power of Christ’s kingdom and the dangers of spurning it.

High-Tide Humanism

High tide can be a time of spiritual complacency. Think, for instance, of the humanistic Deism of Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin. As they wrote the Declaration of Independence, they were founding a nation on the powerful idea of inalienable human rights—rights they considered “self-evident” (although the first draft of the Declaration referred to those rights as “sacred and undeniable”). But the self-evident nature of human rights is the kind of belief you can only hold when it’s supported by Christian assumptions.

T. S. Eliot articulated the problem. In his 1929 essay “Second Thoughts About Humanism,” he wrote that when faith in our Creator recedes, these “self-evident” human rights also disappear: “If you remove from the word ‘human’ all that the belief in the supernatural has given to man, you can view him finally as no more than an extremely clever, adaptable, and mischievous little animal.”

This removal of “the supernatural” is exactly what low tide has revealed. Without the Creator’s endowment, the only thing self-evident about rights is that they aren’t self-evident. They are, and have always been, biblical.

As Tom Holland put it in Dominion,

That all men had been created equal, and endowed with an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, were not remotely self-evident truths. That most Americans believed they were owed less to philosophy than to the Bible: to the assurance given equally to Christians and Jews, to Protestants and Catholics, to Calvinists and Quakers, that every human being was created in God’s image. The truest and ultimate seedbed of the American republic—no matter what some of those who had composed its founding documents might have cared to think—was the book of Genesis.

This is the sort of truth only really felt at low tide. “Those who had composed” the Declaration—thinking of Jefferson and Franklin—were buoyed up by a Christianity they felt themselves to be rejecting, or at least transcending. In truth, Christianity was so all-pervasive it had become invisible to them. But it’s becoming more and more visible to us. A quarter of a millennium on, we’re starting to understand the “high-tide humanists” better than they understood themselves.

Between the two poets we’ve mentioned—Arnold and Eliot—we could place a third. Friedrich Nietzsche certainly wrote poetry alongside his philosophy, but perhaps most of all we should think of him as a prophet. At the end of the 19th century, the tide was still high as regards church attendance. But Nietzsche didn’t only prophesy the death of God; he also foretold the death of high-tide humanism. In Twilight of the Idols, he contends the two are profoundly linked:

When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one’s feet. This morality is by no means self-evident. . . . By breaking one main concept out of Christianity, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one’s hands.

High-tide Christianity and high-tide humanism rose together. And they would fall together. Nietzsche was sure of it, and he was right. But it takes a lot to convince some people. It takes low tide. But that’s one of the curious blessings of low tide—it reveals certain things. Let me name some of them.

Three Low-Tide Attractions

Come with me to three tourist attractions where low tide draws a crowd. Let’s see what they have to teach us about evangelism. First stop: New Zealand’s Curio Bay, near the southernmost tip of the South Island. At high tide you won’t see it, but when the waters recede an alien world is uncovered: the Petrified Forest. These tree fossils preserve a long-dead habitat, dating back to when New Zealand was part of Gondwana. Low tide reveals what’s ancient. As institutional Christianity recedes in the West, we’re repaganizing. Older, non-Christian ways of framing the world return and can be seen in all their stark difference to the way of Jesus. Though it’ll probably be a grudging admission, this aspect of low tide makes you realize, “Nietzsche was right!”

Next let’s go to Ko Nang Yuan, Thailand. Here low tide reveals a sandbar featured in 10,000 Instagram posts. This sugar-white beach is what you get—eventually—when the waters grind down the coral. Low tide reveals the sea’s power and shaping influence. With respect to Christianity, low tide reveals the church’s power and shaping influence over millennia. We no longer see our values as “self-evident.” They turn out to be the inheritance of our Christian history. In response, you might exclaim, “Tom Holland was right!”

Finally, let’s visit Mont-Saint-Michel, just off France’s Brittany coast. At high tide, the water cuts off this tiny village on a hill. At low tide, a bridge is exposed that takes you from the mainland to the island—and to the church at its summit. If you were bobbing along in a boat, or even on a surfboard, high tide might have you drifting toward the church with little effort or even intention. At low tide, that’s not possible. But what appears at low tide is an ancient pathway. It’s the way that pilgrims have walked in the past. You don’t have to build this bridge. The bridge is already there. But low tide shows you how things connect, and it creates the possibility of consciously making the journey.

In evangelistic terms, low tide means we cannot drift toward faith. Like it or not, when the tide is going out, simply to be a Christian means to go against the flow. And to embrace Christianity becomes a conscious journey. But it’s a journey that makes sense. The connection holds, and as you walk the path you’ll own it for yourself. At that point, you might just say, “Jesus is right!”—and mean it in ways that high-tide “drifters” never could.

Seven Steps Along the Low-Tide Path

I’ll conclude this essay by addressing the kind of people beginning to awaken to low tide. They’ve been alarmed at what’s beneath and cried, “Nietzsche was right.” They’ve been impressed by Christianity’s influence and cried, “Tom Holland was right.” And they’re now at least open to the possibility that Jesus is right.

Let’s briefly walk through seven steps along this path revealed by the low tide. They’re the sort of halting steps that bring a person at least into the orbit of the church.

1. I hold strong beliefs (in things like human rights) that orient my life in substantial and sometimes costly ways.

In the past, I might not have seen myself as a “believer,” but now “belief” seems a good description of my strength of feeling concerning these powerful, life-conditioning values.

2. I haven’t arrived at these beliefs via logical proof or scientific evidence—they’re plausible to me because of my particular culture.

I might’ve considered myself a rational individual, choosing my values. I might’ve considered my values natural, obvious, and universal, but now I realize I’d been tricked by high-tide humanism (buoyed up by Christian assumptions). Looking at other cultures around the world and down through history, I no longer believe in my rationalism and individualism. Low tide has revealed I’m far more intuitive and communal than I’d ever imagined. In particular, I now realize I’m part of a community of fellow believers (in the West), and I’ve intuitively absorbed a particular story (or collection of stories).

3. I believe Western culture has arrived at these beliefs because the dominant story for centuries has been the Christian story.

In the past, I basically thought of the church as “the bad guys.” I had a vague notion that Christendom equals the dark ages, but now I’m doubting that Enlightenment propaganda. (I might even own a copy of Dominion, and one day I’ll get around to reading it!) I’m now happy to concede the Jesus Movement’s extraordinary historical influence, and it seems most plausible that it’s Jesus (not self-evident reason or some United Nations declaration) that stands behind our belief in, say, a compassion ethic.

4. I’m beginning to recognize the societal dissonance between our Christian-ish values and our godlessness.

I see a society that mouths platitudes about compassion, service, and protection of the weak while hailing a life philosophy of “You do you.” Low-tide humanism is looking less and less plausible. There’s a Jesus-shaped hole in our culture.

5. I’m beginning to recognize the personal dissonance between my Christian-ish values and my godlessness.

I once believed that I’m a “mischievous little animal” and that I have inviolable human rights. I once believed that I’m a gene replicator and that I must be kind. I once believed that my destiny is compost and that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice. I now feel an existential dissonance between the good, true, and beautiful values I prize and the godless story I’ve believed. You could say there’s a Jesus-shaped hole in me too.

6. I’m starting to see that I believe in these Christian-ish values far more than I believe the secular story.

Show me the picture of a weak, dispossessed victim of injustice, and I’ll feel the rightness of his cause infinitely more than I feel that this is a godless world. I had believed this is a purposeless, uncaring universe (and often I still do), but I experience a vastly greater certainty regarding these I now recognize as Christian in origin. This has given me a much greater respect for, and interest in, the Christian story.

7. I’m now drawn to the Jesus story in profound ways.

I’m more drawn to this story than to any competing story. Increasingly, what strikes me as “self-evident” isn’t “humanistic values” but the goodness and truth of the Jesus story. If it’s not true, it’s at least the truest truth I can think of. I seem to be encountering in Jesus the original music, where before I was living off the memory of an echo of a tune. I want this to be true, and sometimes I believe it is.

And now . . . given these seven points, I’m starting to think I should lean into the Christian story—read the Bible, pray, go to church, the works.

These are the kinds of people who are showing up in churches in the UK––at least in my experience. They are ordering Bibles from Amazon, bingeing long-form podcasts and YouTube videos on spiritual matters, and showing up in church wanting something rich, deep, ancient, substantial, embodied, and challenging.

They still have doubts and concerns. The following seven are substantial:

• I worry that supernaturalism is impossible for me.
• I worry that it’s hypocritical to go to church.
• I worry that I can’t conjure up the requisite belief.
• I worry that I don’t believe 100 percent.
• I worry that this is instrumental (using Christianity to get what I want).
• I worry that this is wish fulfillment.
• I worry that my beliefs can only stretch to Christian morality but not to Christian metaphysics.

Perhaps I will address these concerns at another time, but one thing to note about such worries: they are not stopping people from engaging with faith. For those who are treading this path they are, in spite of themselves, surrendering to the Christian story—in Scripture, worship, community, prayer, and discipleship. Exploring Christianity has become the obvious way forward. For many they see it as the only way forward. They can’t go back. Low tide has revealed too much.

This is a real opportunity for the church. Secularization isn’t only a challenge (though it’s certainly that). With the sea of faith so far receded, possibilities emerge. As we pray for a “rebirth of faith,” we might find it comes not despite low tide but through it.

Most people feel anxious, depressed, and crippled by expectations of the ideal life. And when everything is designed to smoothen and perfect the human experience, you end up bearing the blame for life’s unending difficulties, assuming it’s on you to discover the right hack for every problem: the optimal morning routine; a new therapist; a new diet, or medication, or spouse, or church. Some of these might help. Others might make it worse. But ultimately, life just is hard.

We’re mortals. Yes, we’re made for immortality, but we aren’t there. We’re here. We’re in a temporary place with temporal goods, constantly tempted to transcend this mortal life before its time. This is the temptation of “technique”: to believe that with enough tweaking, life can be optimized to the point of perfection. One more life-size software update and you’ll be happy.

But this inevitably creates a culture of ingratitude, dooming us to discontentment in our families, jobs, hobbies, governments, and churches.

Old Gods, New Techniques

“Technique” draws on the principles of ancient paganism: sacrifice to the god of agriculture and your crops will multiply; offer to the goddess of fertility and you’ll bear children. Give. Chant. Perform. Worship. Sacrifice. Some may dismiss the parallel because ancient idolatry is “irrational” and “unscientific,” as opposed to technological advancement, which is based on scientific discovery and innovation. But the motives are the same: to maximize efficiency and expedite natural processes.

The Tower of Babel story is paradigmatic: the technological innovation of stone and mortar immediately prompted the people to “make a name” for themselves through “a city and a tower with its top in the heavens” (Gen. 11:3–5), a direct affront to God.

This city, the origin and spirit of Babylon, is thorough and sweeping in Scripture’s narrative. It’s the spirit of discontentment, the spirit of grasping, the spirit of more. It’s a rejection of the wisdom of divine providence for the promises of demons, a pattern established in the beginning: “You will be like God” (3:5).

False gods always promise a half-truth. Adam and Eve could know good and evil. The people of Babel could make a great name for themselves. You can have a more efficient life. Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and money [Aramaic, mammon],” but you can serve Mammon, and he’ll reward you for it. The “powers and principalities” are, in fact, powers and principalities. They get things done. Yet they’re opposed to the glory of God, the goodness of creation, and the flourishing of his people.

Andy Crouch has been saying this for decades: “Much of what we call idolatry in ‘primitive’ societies is simply an alternative form of technology.” In his recent book The Life We’re Looking For, he describes our desire for technological advancement as the dream of “mastery without relationship (what the premodern world called magic) and abundance without dependence (what Jesus called Mammon).”

This desire for magic submits us into a posture of worship. Mammon promises abundance—the goods of life—without the hard stuff. It’s efficient and effective. But it’s a shallow magic, a counterfeit for the “deeper magic from before the dawn of time”: God’s law.

Discontentment Is Idolatry

The Ten Commandments are bookended by two heart-level commands, one toward God (“You shall have no other gods before me”) and the other toward neighbor (“You shall not covet”).

Mammon promises abundance—the goods of life—without the hard stuff. It’s efficient and effective. But it’s a shallow magic.

God blessed Adam and Eve, offering them every tree for food (Gen. 1:29). The blessing is even reiterated in the prohibition: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. . .” (2:16–17). They had everything. They weren’t lacking. But this is the nature of covetousness: wanting the one thing you don’t have.

Eve desired the serpent’s offer more than God’s blessing, and covetousness is idolatry (Eph. 5:5; Col. 3:5). Although they knew God, they didn’t honor him as God or give thanks to him (Rom. 1:21). Instead, they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the image of the serpent (v. 23). They learned the hard way that “possessions” aren’t the way to human flourishing. Jesus preached a better, richer way of life: contentment.

Tear Down the High Places

“Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions,” Jesus said. Afterward, he told a parable about a rich man whose plentiful land outgrew the storehouses. The man said, “I will tear down my barns and build larger ones. . . . And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’” But God responded, “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:15–20).

Covetousness—being discontent with what God has given—is not only a man desiring his neighbor’s wife or house (Ex. 20:17) but a man storing up his own hard-earned grain, excited about enjoying early retirement. In 21st-century America, this would never even register as problematic. The man reaps what he sows, but God thinks he’s a fool. Why?

As Jesus says a few sentences later, “Life is more than food, and the body more than clothing” (Luke 12:23). All the nations of the world—citizens of Babylon—seek after earthly goods, and God knows we need them. But we—citizens of the new Jerusalem—are to seek first the heavenly goods (vv. 30–31). The rich fool stored up treasures for himself, but he wasn’t rich in relation to God (v. 21). That’s true poverty.

When the Israelites worshiped idols, they built “high places” for the pagan gods. In times of renewal—for example, under the kings Josiah and Hezekiah—these high places were all torn down. Likewise, this parabolic man was an idolater; his “larger barns” were higher places.

If we’re to learn contentment, we must tear down Mammon’s barns and throw away the blueprints.

‘You Mustn’t Wish for Another Life’

Americans adore an underdog who scales the social hierarchy through grit and perseverance. Never satisfied. Always striving for excellence. Proverbial wisdom bears witness to the same truth: You reap what you sow. But sometimes you work harder than everyone else, you get cancer or die in battle, and somebody else gets all your stuff. You reap and another sows.

Suffering is unavoidable. At best, life is optimal for a short period. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can live well with the time you have.

Thanksgiving begins with a recognition that the basic, fundamental realities of human existence aren’t things we earn or choose: birth, familial relations, geographical location, death. You don’t choose these things. God does. They’re givens to be received, not problems to be relieved.

Wendell Berry’s Hannah Coulter is instructive here (see Jake Meador’s article):

You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this: “Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks.” I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.

You must not wish for another family, or another body, or another life. You must receive life as a gift before you can cultivate it as a garden.

You must receive life as a gift before you can cultivate it as a garden.

In his book about living with mental illness, On Getting Out of Bed, Alan Noble quips, “You either choose to receive the beauty and wonder of this life in the midst of chaos and distress, or you never will.” The most important choice we’ll make today is whether we’ll receive the goodness God grants to us or waste our few remaining years searching for a better offer.

There’s no better offer. Don’t exchange actual goods for imagined ones. Don’t ignore the tangible blessings right in front of you while you’re clicking around in the playground of virtual possibilities. Don’t forsake time with your friends and family to build an internet empire of fame and “influence.” You already have an empire. It’s your household, and you’ve been given the responsibility to steward it with wisdom and justice.

Worship God at Thanksgiving Dinner

Every year, people talk about the difficulty of spending time with family during the holidays: overbearing parents, critical in-laws, the weird uncle, children running around everywhere. It may be hard—some have much worse situations than that—but they’re the family God has given you. You don’t choose them. God does. What you can do is choose to love them and be thankful for them. I’ve come to recognize that life’s chief pleasures are almost all annoying inefficiencies that defy the logic of “technique”: children, friendship, learning, and so forth.

The ancient allure of “technique” is as strong as ever. Modern life has become an algorithm: optimizable, customizable, subject to improvement. The digital age conditions us to avoid discomforts and inconveniences as easily as we delete spam emails, photoshop pictures, or unfollow irritating people on social media. But the greatest earthly goods are stubbornly resistant to that sort of controllability and optimization. They’re gifts that should prompt thankfulness, not technique; contentment, not control.

This Thanksgiving, you can honor God and give thanks to him, stewarding the temporal goods he’s given you and refusing to wish for another life. Heed Basil of Caesarea’s piercing exhortation: “Destroy the granaries from which no one has ever gone away satisfied. Demolish every storehouse of greed, pull down the roofs, tear away the walls, expose the moldering grain to the sunlight, lead forth from prison the fettered wealth, vanquish the gloomy vaults of Mammon.”

The battle isn’t against flesh and blood; it’s against the powers and principalities. They want your heart. Don’t give it to them.

They also discuss how fiction can cultivate empathy, deepen our understanding of others, and help us appreciate the complexities of human nature—all through the art of storytelling.

Collin Hansen’s fiction recommendations:

Historical Fiction

• Wolf Hall trilogy by Hilary Mantel
• A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Scandinavian Fiction

• A Fortunate Man by Henrik Pontoppidan
• The Emigrant series by Vilhelm Moberg (4 books)
• Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy by Sigrid Undset
• The Hammer of God by Bo Giertz
• Giants in the Earth by O. E. Rölvaag
• Babette’s Feast by Isak Dinesen and Karen Blixen
• The Good Hope by William Heinesen

Russian Fiction

• War and Peace / Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• The Brothers Karamazov / Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Life and Fate / Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman

Southern Fiction

• To Kill a Mockingbird / Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (see also Atticus Finch: The Biography by Joseph Crespino)
• Theo of Golden by Allen Levi
• Jayber Crow / Hannah Coulter / The Memory of Old Jack by Wendell Berry
• Authors: Flannery O’Connor / Robert Penn Warren / William Faulkner / Pat Conroy

Also Mentioned:

• The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (nonfiction)
• The Civil War trilogy (Shelby Foote wrote history as a novelist)
• Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri
• Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
• How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
• Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Collin’s Top Recommendations:

• Historical: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
• Scandinavian: A Fortunate Man by Henrik Pontoppidan; Babette’s Feast by Isak Dinesen and Karen Blixen
• Russian: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky; One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• Southern: Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

Who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. (Mal. 3:2)

Reflect

Not many Christmas carols reference soap and fire. Of course, plenty of seasonal tunes celebrate hearth and home, close friends and a fire’s glow, even chestnuts over an open flame. But mention of a smelting furnace and a scouring detergent seems out of place in a holiday hymn—maybe even in an Advent devotional. That’s because we associate Christmas with joy and peace, not judgment and purification.

Yet Malachi offers another perspective. When he predicts the Lord’s coming, he doesn’t give us images of an infant meek and mild. No. He’s like a refiner’s fire. He’s like fullers’ soap. Abrasive. Harsh. Extreme. Hot. And who can abide the day of his coming?

Malachi isn’t the only Old Testament author to ask this question (Nah. 1:6; Ps. 76:7). When the prophets foretell the Lord’s coming—often referred to as “the day of the Lord”—they speak of retribution. It’ll be a great and terrible day. A day of thick darkness. A day of reckoning. The final words of Malachi’s prophecy—the very last words of our Old Testament—predict the day of the Lord will come with “utter destruction” (Mal. 4:6).

This explains John the Baptist’s opening line in the Gospels. The New Testament begins with John preparing the way of the Lord in fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy. When John announces the arrival of the King, he warns of coming devastation. Fruitless branches will meet flames. Useless chaff will burn. The One coming will baptize with fire (Luke 3:1–17). Therefore, John calls the crowds to repent.

Repentance is the only appropriate response to news of the Lord’s coming. Otherwise, as Malachi’s rhetorical question implies, you won’t be able to endure. No one can stand before the refiner’s fire and the fuller’s soap. And when you know you can’t stand, it’s best to get on your knees.

Repentance is the only appropriate response to news of the Lord’s coming.

This may not be a message we typically hear at Christmastime. But it’s a necessary word. Without confession, who can abide the day of the Lord?

During the Advent season, we’re right to celebrate the angels’ message of goodwill toward men and peace on earth. We’re right to worship with songs of joy and mirth. Because, in the mystery of grace, Jesus’s first advent wasn’t marked by condemnation but compassion. He came in mercy rather than wrath.

Yet such mercy is only possible because the baby in the manger would one day bear God’s fiery judgment in our place. The spotless Lamb would willingly lay down his life, making purification for sins. In the words of an old hymn, we’re saved from wrath and made pure—a double cure.

This is the wonder of the gospel: Christ was cursed so we could be clean. We’re washed white in his precious blood. At the cross, soap and fire come together for our salvation.

Respond

Is confession of sin and repentance a regular part of your Advent traditions? Take a moment to acknowledge your guilt before God and thank him for his amazing grace to you in Christ.

These are the questions readers of Jordan Peterson’s We Who Wrestle with God: Perceptions of the Divine will grapple with. But after 505 pages of creative and occasionally insightful interpretation of biblical stories, readers will probably be no closer to understanding his answers. This is a book that purports to reveal God by illuminating Scripture. What it actually does is obscure and redefine both.

Storehouse of Wisdom

Since soaring to fame in 2016, Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson has interacted freely with traditional and religious ideas. Anyone who has read his best-selling self-help books (12 Rules for Life and Beyond Order), listened to him on podcasts, or watched his media appearances knows that when he’s not quoting Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung, he’s referencing Scripture. But he’s not exactly preaching.

For Peterson, the Bible functions like a treasury of social and psychological wisdom that, if unlocked, can organize people’s lives and revivify civilization. The power of stories is central to his approach to Scripture, as he believes they reveal aspects of humanity’s “collective unconscious”—the ideas, symbols, and “maps of meaning” all people supposedly share (xxix–xxxi).

Thus, Peterson punctuates each biblical tale by asking, “What does this mean?” (310). What does it mean when God creates Adam in his image? What does it mean when the first couple falls into sin? What does it mean when Cain kills Abel, when Noah weathers the flood, when Abraham offers Isaac, or when Moses encounters the burning bush? In Peterson’s telling, each of these stories exists primarily as “an attempt by the collective human imagination to distill, transmit, and remember the essentials of good and bad into a single narrative” (103).

He certainly admires the Bible, describing it as “both sophisticated and great,” “true literature” (256), and “the most compelling meta-story conceivable” (445). “It is a miracle,” he writes of the account of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4, “how much information can be compacted into so little space” (99). The information he means isn’t theological but psychological. He thinks the Bible is stuffed with “archetypal characters of the narrative world”—Jungian figures like “the Dragon of Chaos, the Great Mother, the Great Father and the divine Son” (20).

Peterson believes this trove of themes evolved over millennia through a process in which people told and retold stories, preserving only the bits that resonated with universal human experience. This is how such stories “became better and better and, simultaneously, deeper and deeper.” Rather than say no one wrote them, we ought to say everyone wrote them (104). According to Peterson, this is just a “bottom-up” description of what Christians mean when we speak of “divine inspiration” (445).

Inspiring Myths

What meaning does he mine from Scripture’s stories (specifically the Pentateuch)? In the creation account, he finds a suggestion that each of us, being made in God’s image, wakes every morning brooding over the figurative waters of chaos (infinite potential), which we must order in imitation of the Creator. Eden signifies a Mandala, an area of experimentation and potential anchored in the center by the rod of nonnegotiable tradition (which also corresponds with Moses’s staff): the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. To steal from that tree is to challenge the world’s moral foundations—to usurp God’s rule. And this is the essence of sin: a step away from balance and back into primordial chaos.

Peterson believes the Bible evolved over millennia through a process in which people told and retold stories, preserving only the bits that resonated with universal human experience.

The near-universal human practice of religious sacrifice begins, in Peterson’s telling, with the discovery that creation rewards deferred gratification. Like Abel, we must learn to bring forward our best, and unlike Cain, we must resist the envious temptation to murder the ideal that condemns our shoddy offerings.

In imitation of Abraham, we must heed the “call to adventure” that inevitably summons each of us, refusing comforting lies that keep us from shouldering responsibility to bless our world. We must, in turn, hold our blessings lightly, being willing to figuratively “sacrifice” even our children when the highest ideal demands it, having faith that we will, like Abraham, receive them back (312). And like Jacob, we must allow the adventure of life to transform us, to wound us, and to give us a new name, which is to say we must wrestle with what Peterson calls “God.”

These are a few of his dark sayings. Traversing the accounts of creation, fall, Cain and Abel, Noah, the Tower of Babel, Abraham, Moses, and Jonah, Peterson blends biblical plots and other ancient epics with modern literature and psychological and political reflection. The result is a heady (and often wordy) brew of soft-scientific mysticism reminiscent of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, drawing conclusions that often require interpretive leaps but that clearly hew to Peterson’s monomythical template.

Talking About God

Some of it is genuinely insightful, grasping themes and typology that do exist in Scripture and showing that the Bible is more than a gazette of God’s doings. It’s subtle literature that reads you as you read, addressing deep and ancient questions of the human spirit and imparting wisdom by osmosis. Even a nonbeliever can see this. Peterson is right to treat Scripture as pregnant with meaning—enough to fill a lifetime of attentive reading. After all, “the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple” (Ps. 19:7).

Yet amid this deluge of “meaning,” it’s easy to lose sight of the Bible as revelation that contains straightforward claims about divine intervention in history and about the God doing the intervening. For Peterson, Bible stories seem capable of any meaning except the most obvious, the one believers have always insisted on, and he becomes cagey when pressed on this issue.

It isn’t even clear that he believes in God in any traditional sense. When asked, he typically obfuscates the meaning of the words “believe” and “God” (or else retorts, “It’s none of your d*** business”). In this latest book, he carries on with these gymnastics, treating God as a concept useful to human survival and psychological health, rather than as a Being who could audibly demand Peterson take off his loafers before treading holy ground. And although he devotes space to critiquing atheistic materialism, his real problem with figures like Richard Dawkins isn’t that they reject the Apostle’s Creed but that they don’t buy into his alternative world of Jungian abstractions. A person who has truly wrestled with God shouldn’t be doing gymnastics. He should be limping.

Peterson variously defines God as “The spirit within us that is eternally confident in our victory” (137), “What is to be properly and necessarily put in the highest place” (137), and the ideal to which we commit and sacrifice (171). The closest he comes to affirming something Christians would recognize is in critiquing Dawkins’s reductive view of the universe. He calls scientific atheists “moral dwarfs” (485) and argues that their belief in an evolutionary process that shaped consciousness implies consciousness must be fundamental to reality:

Why would we presume that the spirit giving rise to being and becoming itself is something dead, unconscious, pointless, and lacking identity when adaptation to that reality has required consciousness, teleology and purpose, and personality? . . . If the concept of God as Personality works, so to speak, in the time-tested manner—in the pragmatic manner—why is that model not aptly regarded as most accurate? (366)

Myth Without Fact

Christian readers whose ears perk up at Peterson’s god-talk will be disappointed, though. He takes away with his left hand what he gives with his right, closing the book with an impersonal, utilitarian confession that has him wishing God into existence because believing is good for us:

Does that make the divine real? This is a matter of definition, in the final analysis—and, therefore, of faith. It is real insofar as its pursuit makes pain bearable, keeps anxiety at bay, and inspires the hope that springs eternal in the human breast. It is real insofar as it establishes the benevolent and intelligible cosmic order, that infinite place of sinful toil or faithful play. It is as real as the force that opposes pride and calls those who sacrifice improperly to their knees. It is as real as the further reaches of the human imagination, striving fully upward. (504)

In other words, God is real as an inspiring myth—humanity’s highest ideal. But beyond that, Peterson’s creed remains a mystery.

He doesn’t specifically cover Jesus or the New Testament in this book (that’s likely coming in a future volume), but he seemed to express a desire to believe in Christ during a 2021 interview with liturgical artist Jonathan Pageau. Since then, I’ve been among the Christian observers and Peterson appreciators hoping for a breakthrough. He’s certainly engaging with the Bible more vigorously than ever, but I regret to say We Who Wrestle with God isn’t his good confession.

Peterson blends biblical plots and other ancient epics with modern literature and psychological and political reflection.

In “Myth Became Fact,” C. S. Lewis defended the legitimacy of treating Christianity as a myth. “We must not be ashamed of the mythical radiance resting on our theology,” he wrote. But we mustn’t forget that it really happened, and that’s why the myth—and all myths that resemble it—truly matters: “The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the dying god, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history.”

Jordan Peterson is comfortable in the heaven of legend and imagination. And there is, without a doubt, much to wrestle with in his archetypal reading of Scripture. But it remains unclear whether he’s ready to embrace any of it as fact, to let theology disciple psychology, or to believe his Opponent when he insists, “I AM.” Peterson’s earlier books offered sound advice and even wisdom. This one also beckons readers to a form of godliness, but it’s a form of godliness that ultimately denies its power (2 Tim. 3:5).

While pastors struggle to stay afloat in this sea of pressures and demands, parachurch organizations can seem intimidating, like circling sharks waiting to devour more of your members’ time, energy, enthusiasm, and money. Not only do these ministries seem quick to kill the little momentum you manage to generate, but they constantly bombard you with promotional emails inviting you to their prayer breakfasts and vision dinners.

How can you manage this sometimes difficult relationship between the local church and parachurch ministries? You need to understand what parachurch ministries are, consider why and when they should be prioritized, and then skillfully navigate the relationship between your local church and a parachurch partner.

What Is the Parachurch?

By parachurch, I mean organized Christian activity distinct in some way from the institutional church. Many definitions are too narrow: they restrict the term to organizations independent of local churches, to nondenominational organizations, to formally constituted not-for-profits, or to ministries with a narrow purpose. Such definitions don’t help us recognize the full breadth of organized Christian activity outside the institutional church—Christian schools, pregnancy resource centers, homeless shelters, and campus outreach ministries, for example—and the many and various ways it may be associated with local churches and denominations.

Parachurches can be informal and independent. They can be interdenominational or nondenominational not-for-profit agencies. Or they can be a ministry governed by a local church, network of churches, or denomination. Yet all these are some form of organized Christian activity distinct from the institutional church.

As I argue in The Vine Movement, there’s a meaningful theological distinction between church and parachurch. Note, for instance, that in Matthew 18 when Jesus declares, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (v. 20), he still distinguishes between “two or three” and “the church” (vv. 16–17).

The local church is an identifiable group with leaders (Acts 20:17) and a recognizable membership (1 Cor. 5:4; 11:17–20; 14:26; 1 Tim. 5:9–16) that can expel unrepentant people from its midst (1 Cor. 5:13). Contrary to the claims of missiologists Ralph Winter and Sam Metcalf, parachurches aren’t simply another mode of the church. In the Scriptures, a local church is an identifiable group that must be formalized, particularized, covenanted, or planted. It must be declared a church.

For the sake of the kingdom, we need to learn to live with a vibrant and complicated interplay between churches and parachurches.

This doesn’t make other Christian relationships and activities worthless. A ministry doesn’t have to be church to be valuable. Likewise, there’s no strong theological case to insist all parachurches should be governed by a church or denomination. For the kingdom’s sake, we need to learn to live with a vibrant and complicated interplay between churches and parachurches.

Universal Church and the Parachurch

So how should we think about parachurches? We must begin with a conviction: God’s endgame isn’t the local congregation or a denominational institution. When the Lord Jesus tells Peter, “I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18), and Paul teaches that “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25), the universal church is in view. The universal church’s ultimacy should be a core conviction that informs our commitment to gospel ministry beyond our particular churches, unions, or presbyteries.

One simple way this conviction finds expression is in the way we strategize. When your local church wants to reach a new group in your area or engage in charitable work, is your first impulse to start a new ministry? Instead, you should first look for a preexisting church or parachurch you can partner with.

Paul beautifully models this in Philippians. He was consistently attentive to the larger work of Christ’s kingdom, and that led him to flexible both-and thinking rather than rigid either-or thinking:

Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. (Phil. 1:15–18)

Paul is both able to recognize the pathetic motives of these vexatious colleagues and able to rejoice that the gospel is preached. What a liberating mindset.

For these reasons, neither local church ministry nor parachurch ministry is a zero-sum game. Congregation members can financially support both their local church and religious not-for-profits of their choice. College students can serve both in the church’s children’s ministry and in the local campus outreach. We get the best results when Christian leaders can negotiate, collaborate, and adjust their expectations to facilitate both-and outcomes for greater gospel influence.

How Can Pastors Navigate Relationships with Parachurch Ministries?

1. Communicate openly and honestly.

“Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses” (Prov. 27:6, NIV). Ironically, being “nice” with colleagues in gospel ministry can breed distrust, passive-aggressive behavior, and crossed wires. Much better are conversations that are kind and considerate as well as honest.

If you perceive your confessional commitments are too different from a local evangelistic organization’s, tell their ministry director the next time they reach out to you. This frees them up to focus their networking efforts elsewhere. If you’re offended by a ministry colleague, work it through rather than avoiding him. If pastoral or practical concerns arise with a congregation member who’s in deep with an interdenominational program, initiate a conversation with the relevant team leader. Emotionally immature relationships can sabotage a local gospel ecosystem. Robust communication can help it to thrive.

2. Plan proactively.

Conflict often comes about through failure to communicate about ministry programming and recruitment. Churches and parachurches play tug-of-war in recruiting zealous and gifted Christians; they tread on one another’s toes when scheduling their conferences and events.

Emotionally immature relationships can sabotage a local gospel ecosystem; robust communication can cause it to thrive.

The solution is godly self-discipline in the area of forward planning. Don’t leave it until the start of the calendar year or college year. Start planning your programs and teams early. Communicate with key stakeholders and require the same early communication from those parachurch leaders with whom you’re in partnership.

If you identify that the events your church and a local parachurch have planned are causing scheduling conflicts for church members, reach out to the parachurch leaders to broker a both-and solution. If one of your members is stretched too thin, or you’re in dire need of her service in your church, share these concerns with the leadership of the parachurch she serves.

Ministry relationships can be happier and gospel work more effective if we can all, by God’s grace, grow in these areas of conviction, character, competence, and communication.

In this episode of The Everyday Pastor, Matt Smethurst and Ligon Duncan discuss the rigors and joys of sermon prep.

Recommended resources:

• The Practical Works of Richard Baxter, Vol. 1: A Christian Directory
• J. I. Packer, Truth and Power: The Place of Scripture in the Christian Life
• Jay Adams, Be Careful How You Listen: How to Get the Most Out of a Sermon
• Joel Beeke, Reformed Preaching: Proclaiming God’s Word from the Heart of the Preacher to the Heart of His People
• Ligon Duncan, “How to Listen to a Bad Sermon”

I was wrong.

You may have a similar outlook. You want your life to mean something. You crave significance. But you aren’t sure how those proper desires relate to the ordinary work you do every day. If you’re a serious believer, you may wonder, Are some jobs more Christian than others? Am I really changing the world as I change tires or diapers? The biblical doctrine of calling, or vocation, can answer those questions and put you on the right track of working for God no matter your occupation.

What Is Vocation?

The fourth-century church father Eusebius said those who “have minds for farming, for trade, and the other more secular interests” have “a kind of secondary grade of piety.” Only church workers had first-rate godliness. Medieval Christians who came later followed this reasoning. In their view, only church workers had a vocation; everyone else simply labored. This false distinction was challenged by the Protestant Reformation, which rescued devotion from the confines of the monastery and released it into the rest of God’s world.

In Scripture, “calling” almost always refers to God’s call of his people to faith, the Spirit’s working of that faith, or the active life of faith. So in one sense, what we call a vocation is just a part—though a large part—of our general calling to live honorably before God. Our master vocation is to love the Lord supremely and our neighbors as ourselves.

Our master vocation is to love the Lord supremely and our neighbors as ourselves.

But in at least one place, Scripture broadens the sense of Christian calling. Paul exhorts each believer to “lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him” (1 Cor. 7:17). Paul gives the example of a bondservant who becomes a Christian through the effectual call, the gift of regeneration. Even in a lowly station, a Christian is free to serve the Lord. John Calvin understood this passage to apply to the vocations of tailors and merchants, to give two examples.

Enlisted in God’s Service

After their conversions, tax collectors and soldiers don’t take up new work. They stay in their vocations but now have a different master and new motives (Luke 3:10–14). They’re owned by God and work for his glory. The Christian doctrine of vocation teaches us that even bondservants—and anyone else with a hard, undesirable job—can work “heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” Paul reminds lowly servants that they’re “serving the Lord Christ” (Col. 3:22–24).

There’s no reason for people doing valid work to change professions when they become Christians—they can serve God where they are when they’re called to faith. Paul’s wonderful point is that the gospel is equally well suited to people employed in any honorable work (1 Cor. 10:31). Vocation dignifies all legitimate efforts.

Three Vocation Ingredients

At least three things are necessary to enjoy a true calling from God.

1. Right Perspective

Dorothy Sayers said the outcome of our work “will be decided by our religious outlook: as we are so we make.” There’s a difference in how believers and unbelievers approach their varied responsibilities. Without trust in God, some might use work to chase wealth, make a name for themselves (Gen. 11:4), or attempt to secure satisfaction outside of Christ. Others may be tempted to shirk off because no one notices, or feel discontent because the work doesn’t seem very important. But faith in God and obedience to his Word can transform any valid work into worship.

Not all work is intrinsically satisfying. All work has challenges (Eccl. 1:13). But a vocational outlook can help you transcend the liabilities of working in a fallen world. The various arenas of our lives—work, church, family, recreation—must be governed by trust in God and an interest in his glory.

2. Valid Venture

You can glorify God in whatever labor you undertake, provided it’s noble work. God acknowledges as vocations only work that he approves and that can be done according to his law. You cannot glorify the Lord by bringing a godly attitude to an evil job. The builders of the Tower of Babel worked heartily but lacked a valid calling because the project displeased the Lord.

Faith in God and obedience to his Word can transform any valid work into worship.

A job is worthy of our efforts if it harmonizes with God’s original mandate that humans steward the earth in submission to him (Gen. 1:28). Legitimate work must serve God by serving people. So some occupations cannot possibly be callings—you can’t, for example, be a Christian loan shark, pornographer, or thief.

This doesn’t mean every qualified job will feel like a calling. But while a mundane job may not be your ideal career, it may be the place where you live out your faith for a time, or even for your lifetime.

3. Faithful Labor

Vocation defines not only the why and where of work but also the how. God’s people, made in his image, must do something worth doing, with the right perspective.

Kingdom work means doing quality work in a way that honors the second great commandment (Matt. 22:39). You must produce a quality product or render excellent service while using your calling to love your neighbor. For Christians, work isn’t how to get ahead by clambering over others’ backs; it’s how to value others’ interests (Phil. 2:4).

Vocation is the doctrine you need to elevate work to its rightful place as designed by God. In a fallen world, you can’t do whatever you want, no matter what your heart tells you. But anything you can do will please God if it’s noble work done for his glory, out of true faith, and with your best effort.

As his then 5-year-old brother, I (Noah) convinced myself I’d killed him because I ran into my mother’s pregnant belly one time in the hallway. I took months to confess my guilt, and then she assured me of my innocence. But I can’t forget holding his lifeless body in the hospital and later laying it in a grave. I can’t forget wondering why this happened and thinking the answer was “because of me.” It wasn’t, but it made me hate death and forced me to remember it.

As Asher’s mother, I (Megan) recall his funeral with agony. My memories begin with the tiny casket draped in roses and end with the bizarre, hurtful comments of family and friends. “At least you have your other children,” one said. Others, with the attitude of Job’s wife, thought we should rail in anger against “the kind of God who would do this.” I thought of the many women across the world who were in my position without any resurrection hope. What would they do with all this grief?

The answer, to some degree, is that as a culture we’ve exchanged the mourning of death at funerals for the “celebration of life”; we’ve separated graveyards from church property and relegated them to memorial parks, hidden from view; and we’ve overwhelmingly chosen cremation (61.9 percent) rather than burial (33.2 percent), so we don’t have to see dead bodies. Perhaps there’s a cultural illusion that if we don’t think about it, don’t talk about it, and don’t see it, it won’t happen to us or our children. But it will. We’re going to die.

The coddling of the American funeral is a tragedy worth grieving. As Christians, we should ponder death with more grief and more hope than our unbelieving neighbors.

Remember Your Death

Memento mori is an ancient maxim meaning “remember your death.” It has roots in Stoic philosophy, but remembering death is a deeply Christian notion: “You are dust,” says the Lord, “and to dust you shall return” (Gen. 3:19). Many Christians annually practice remembrance by having ashes smeared on their foreheads for Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. It’s an important reminder we will die and have died in Christ.

Most would rather ignore death altogether, but those who acknowledge its inevitability are torn in two directions: naivety or control.

Mortal Naivety

“Mortal naivety” is an acknowledgment of but inappropriate romanticizing of death. We see this in the New Age movement and Eastern religions, where one might imagine the deceased person as a perennial flower blooming somewhere in the multiverse. Or even among Christians who recite the Henry Scott Holland poem “Death Is Nothing At All,” content to believe our loved ones have merely “slipped away to the next room.” Those who choose to have “celebrations of life” betray their natural intuitions about reality. As Carl Trueman wrote,

To celebrate life at a funeral or memorial service is a nonsense. . . . It is also a ridiculous contradiction in terms: if life has meaning, then death is an outrage; if death is not an outrage, then life has no meaning. In either case, what is there to celebrate?

For Christians, life does have meaning and death is an outrage—it’s the wages of sin, the price Christ paid for our redemption. If death is nothing at all, or even an occasion for celebration, then the cross is as empty as the tomb, drained of all its power and significance. It’s a futile endeavor, a grand gesture at best but ultimately senseless.

If death is nothing at all, or even an occasion for celebration, then the cross is as empty as the tomb, drained of all its power and significance.

We should mourn death. Scripture says, “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart” (Eccl. 7:2, NIV). Death shouldn’t be glorified.

Our culture participates in celebrations of death reminiscent of the Roman amphitheaters. We laugh and cheer at graphic horror movies as if it were nothing for a human being to be dismembered, beheaded, or gutted. The brutality doesn’t stay in the realm of fiction, though. Social media feeds are filled with “moment of death” content: body cam footage from a police raid, security camera footage of an armed pedestrian stopping an attempted theft, or several angles from the most recent school shooting. It takes severe cultural desensitization—perhaps even traumatization—to exchange dust and ashes for popcorn and a soft drink.

Mortal naivety can also manifest as a hopeless nihilism that accepts death’s vileness while rejecting life’s goodness. Agnostic philosopher Bertrand Russell claimed mankind builds their lives on “the firm foundation of unyielding despair.” This is naivety expressed as morbidity, like gallows humor that minimizes death by chalking it up to the cold cruelties of a meaningless cosmos. This is the outlook that appropriates Isaiah 22:13 (“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”) as an excuse for hedonistic living. Death’s sting is subdued when we frame it as simply the “last call” to life’s frivolous party.

It takes severe cultural desensitization—perhaps even traumatization—to exchange dust and ashes for popcorn and a soft drink.

Our mortal naivety makes it possible for us to pretend that more than a million babies weren’t murdered in 2023. Killing unborn children is a “reproductive right,” a mere “medical procedure,” where the fetus is rarely seen through an ultrasound and never referenced as a human being. The baby doesn’t die; the pregnancy is simply terminated. According to Planned Parenthood, “Abortion is self care.” Death is celebrated alongside spa days, long walks, and morning journaling. We shouldn’t mistake such naivety for innocence. It’s a willful denial of the truth.

Mortal Control

“Mortal control” is a desire for jurisdiction over life and death. It motivates and justifies the murder of innocent lives through abortion and euthanasia, while mortal naivety allows us to act like nothing happened. However, only the One who died and is alive forevermore has authority over life and death. He alone declares, “I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Rev. 1:18).

Some remember they’ll die, but they don’t know the purpose of life, which isn’t control but surrender to the immortal God. This is common among the affluent, who have the resources to play pretend. For example, Yuval Harari argued in his best-selling book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow that death is merely a biological “glitch” to be overcome through technology. Or consider the centimillionaire Bryan Johnson, who founded Blueprint, a scientific algorithm aimed at preventing aging and ultimately death. When materialism undergirds your anthropological and biological beliefs, man exists as a machine with no higher purpose except leveraging autonomous control for a maximally long life (“Death is our only foe,” Johnson declares on Instagram).

A symptom of our desire for mortal control is that our culture isn’t just trying to overcome death; we’re also trying to overcome aging and decay. This is prevalent in biotechnology and in our obsession with cosmetics. Cosmetic surgery is a rapidly growing trend, and many surgeries are specifically marketed as anti-aging procedures: liposuction, eyelid surgery, facial fillers, breast lifts, face lifts, and so on. We have creams for our aging skin, steroids for our atrophied muscles, and a never-ending supply of experimental diets to make us young again. We develop these coping techniques because most of us will die slowly, not suddenly. We watch ourselves painfully become less and less whole as we experience bodily corruption. The problem of death isn’t merely about the end of life; it’s also about corruption, the rotting of the body.

The problem of death isn’t merely about the end of life; it’s also about corruption, the rotting of the body.

The Bible confesses that God is both immortal and incorruptible. He cannot die, but he also cannot decompose or rot as we do. As one commentator notes, the opposite of corruption isn’t only extended duration of life but “ethical, aesthetic, and psychological flourishing and abundance, even perhaps perfection, and certainly fullness of life.” This is important because at Pentecost the apostle Peter declares that Christ died yet “his flesh [did not] see corruption” (Acts 2:25–32; cf. Ps. 16:10). Christ was always whole. Fred Sanders explains, “The Son of God died our death for us, but did not rot for us. Instead, he made a way for our corruption to become invested with his incorruption.”

The gospel’s promise is the complete undoing of decay along with participation in the beauty, fullness, and flourishing of abundant life.

Remember Your Life

In their article “Death and Dying: A Catechism for Christians,” Ewan C. Goligher and Kyle Hackmann answer the question “When should we begin to prepare for death?”:

Faithful Christians will regard all of life as a preparation for death because we anticipate a day of judgment and accountability to God. It is therefore wise to live with our mortality and the [transience] of this life in view, even from our earliest days. Like the ten wise virgins whose lamps were ready, we should strive to grow daily in readiness to meet the Lord. Moses the man of God gives us a model prayer of preparation: “So teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

A wise man or woman lives well by preparing to die well. As with all hard things, dying well takes practice, so we must begin today. Our Lord prepared for his bodily death by denying himself every day and obeying his Father’s will. We’re called to the same deadly way of life as the crucified Savior.

A biblical understanding of death requires us to practice lament and self-denial, grieving with hope in the resurrection of the dead, without clinging to this mortal life. We don’t deny the goodness of life, yet we deny our lives for the sake of following Christ. Without him, we’re dead already; with him, we’re alive forevermore.

In their best-selling book The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt argue that ignoring hard truths and teaching our kids to do likewise won’t lead to a better life. They’re right. And one way to reject the coddling of the American mind is to oppose the coddling of the American funeral. Humanity’s greatest enemy—death—shouldn’t be romanticized, and it cannot be controlled.

Humanity’s greatest enemy—death—shouldn’t be romanticized, and it cannot be controlled.

So take your children to funerals, and teach them how to mourn. You might be surprised by what they teach you in return. Children often know something is wrong at a funeral, since they haven’t yet learned to forget. But we can explain why we cry and who receives our tears—a Lord who wept at death (John 11:35) yet trampled the grave in resurrection. As we mourn, we’re comforted (Matt. 5:4), and as we grieve, we’re called to hope (1 Thess. 4:13–14). What might feel like a cascade of loss can be a glimpse of the death Christ conquered and of why eternal life is good news.

If we grieve with hope, we offer a Christian apologetic to a world that views death as something to be avoided or controlled. When the shadow of death brings pain, loss, and more questions than answers, we lament sin’s wages (Rom. 6:23), considering it an invitation to pray—even to groan—along with all creation (8:19–23) as we await the day when all sad things become untrue. On that day, we’ll be face-to-face with Asher and with our Lord, the resurrection and the life.

But my pastors and future coteacher were persistent. So I got a teacher’s guide and began preparing to teach the wise women of Grace Baptist Church. It turns out, teaching that class was one of the best things I could’ve done as a young adult.

Five Lessons and Counting

We tend to gravitate toward people similar to us in age and life stage. We sense they’ll understand us and know what we’re going through. When we seek guidance from older people, we’re inclined to ask people just a little older—a life stage or two ahead of us—thinking they can give us practical advice. And that’s a worthwhile pursuit.

But I’ve also found immense value in friendships with women far removed from my current life season. They bring different perspectives I wouldn’t have considered otherwise. Their years have given them abundant wisdom. Through them, I’ve learned lessons my peers couldn’t give me—and I keep learning every Sunday. 

1. We never stop learning from God’s Word.

Some of the ladies in the class have been following Jesus for more than double my lifetime. They know the Bible back to front, yet they’re still curious and eager to learn more. The questions they pose and the insights they share both challenge me and cause me to love God and the Scriptures more. I pray that like my sisters, I’ll never stop craving a deeper knowledge of and love for the Lord. 

2. We can always serve, no matter our season or limitations.

Many of the ladies have expressed sadness over their inability to serve the church like they used to. The physical ailments that accompany aging have limited what they can do, yet they faithfully embrace how they can serve now.

I’ve learned lessons my peers couldn’t give me—and I keep learning every Sunday.

Many regularly drive others to doctor’s appointments. Some send cards to those struggling through difficult seasons. Others call shut-ins and talk with them for as long as they want to talk. Several are known for faithfully praying for our church members. One of my friends from the class often texts me to say she’s praying for my husband and me. It always encourages me and makes me want to be as faithful in prayer as she is (Rom. 12:12). 

3. We grow in hope as we persevere in suffering.

A lady in the class recently shared that after a health scare, she has become much more conscious that heaven could be as near as her next breath. Tears welled in her eyes as she told us how ready she is to be with Jesus. As she spoke, excitement to be with Jesus rose in us as well.

In their lifetimes, these women have witnessed the brutality of wars, the evil of racism, the devastation of illnesses, and the deaths of loved ones. They know something of grief and the catastrophic effects of the fall. But they’re not without hope. They press forward with certainty that one day, God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Rev. 21:4). These precious sisters who’ve endured so much encourage me to keep pressing on toward the better home waiting for us.

4. We have a family in the body of Christ.

When I joined the class, I’d recently moved from my home in Tennessee to North Carolina. Rebuilding the support network of loved ones I’d left behind was challenging, and I doubted I’d ever make connections like the ones I had in Tennessee. But these ladies took me in and treated me like an old friend. Their kindness was a healing balm to my homesick heart.

We belong to different generations. We haven’t lived through the same experiences. Our hobbies and interests vary, but Jesus unites us.

5. We can be effective in the kingdom to old age and gray hairs.

Earlier this week, I noticed a couple of gray hairs on my head, seemingly out of place for my season of life. But rather than distressing me, they reminded me of Psalm 71:17–18: “O God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.”

God has adorned my older sisters with beautiful crowns of silver hair that symbolize a lifetime of God’s faithfulness and the wisdom they’ve accumulated. As I accumulate silver hair myself, rather than lament the aging process, I pray it’ll remind me of God’s faithfulness throughout my life and motivate me to obediently proclaim his might to the next generation as these women have done to me.

Find an Older Friend

I share what I’m learning from these precious ladies not just to encourage you with their wisdom but to urge you to find older friends of your own. You could develop these relationships by attending a Sunday school class or small group where you can be around older Christians. You might consider volunteering in a senior adult ministry or caring for shut-in church members by making phone calls or visits.

Our hobbies and interests vary, but Jesus unites us.

As the Lord grows your relationships with older believers, consider asking if they’d be interested in reading the Bible together and talking through what the Lord is teaching you. Perhaps you could discuss your pastor’s recent sermon or read a Christian book together. Pray with and for one another and enjoy being in each other’s lives (1 Thess. 2:8). Society and culture may have changed through the decades, but the gospel hasn’t. It’s a powerful unifier that enables friendships across generations.

Ephesians 2:19–22 (CSB) explains this about all believers: “You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household . . . being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.” Christians are joined together for a holy purpose. We’re “one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Rom. 12:5).

The question, then, is how imperfect people of all walks of life are joined together in Christ. And what does that mean for our assurance and our destiny?

Gospel Doctrine: We’re Saved by Grace

The word “gospel” means “good news.” It’s the message of God’s grace shown to undeserving sinners through the work of Christ’s cross. We’re saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone apart from all our works. God, through Jesus’s perfect life, atoning death, and bodily resurrection, rescues all his people from his wrath and into peace with him. And he promises the full restoration of his created order forever—all to the praise of his glorious grace.

That grace is a gift (Eph. 2:8–9). We don’t earn salvation by having it all together, and we’re certainly not meant to relate to one another under the guise of that terrible assumption. So how should what we believe about the good news of God’s grace doctrinally extend to the way we relate to one another in this life and into eternity?

Gospel Culture: Grace Leads to Loving Unity

Consider Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. . . . For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. (1 Cor. 15:1–2, 9–11)

The Corinthians had heard and believed the gospel of God’s grace. They’d been unified in Christ. Yet they were at odds with one another and operating in disunity. They, like all believers then and now, needed a reminder that grace changes everything—including our relationships within the church.

Grace changes everything—including our relationships within the church.

Paul was convinced having gospel assurance would lead the church to gospel unity. But can we truly have assurance? Jesus came to earth with a radical grace foreign to all we’ve ever known. His mercy for the undeserving can be hard for us to believe and hold on to. In a world where we’ve experienced performative and conditional love, it’s hard to wrap our minds around a different kind of love. But as unsteady and unsure as we may be, God’s steadfast love for us endures forever (Ps. 136).

In our instability, we believe Jesus is disgusted by the reality of who we are. We’re well aware of our failures, so our accusing thoughts insist he despises us. But we must cling to the gospel that says he loves us. We must choose to believe he has forgiven us, justified us, and adopted us. We must believe he rejoices over us—and always will. Why? Because it’s only when we hold on to the gospel of grace that we grow in unity with fellow believers. It’s only then that the risen Jesus’s presence and the sure hope of eternal life become felt realities.

Gospel Future: Grace-Filled Communities Offer a Taste of Eternity

When we embrace the gospel and find assurance in Christ, we’re set free to love one another. And our love foreshadows the grace we’ll experience for all eternity. Jesus is coming again (John 14:3). History isn’t drifting along out of his control. He’ll return to conclude it with dramatic judgment, and he’ll establish his kingdom for eternity. Jesus said of when he comes, “I will . . . take you to myself” (v. 3, CSB).

The new heavens and new earth will involve more than being transformed as individuals. Heaven will have a new community, a gospel culture where we’ll forever experience nothing but God’s love and grace.

Heaven will have a new community, a gospel culture where we’ll forever experience nothing but God’s love and grace.

That great hope has direct relevance to us as a church today. Every gospel-centered church is a model home for the new neighborhood Jesus is building. Church is a place where people can come and see what human flourishing can look like so they’ll want to buy in now. We invite them to come to safety now, before the final judgment. For this reason, much is at stake in the quality of our life together as local churches. We pursue gospel cultures so that by God’s grace, our churches will feel a bit like heaven on earth.

God calls us to bring this taste of heaven on earth so people see how Jesus changes lives. How do we live up to that high calling? We believe the gospel. We trust God’s promises so assurance of his love overrules our selfish impulses each moment. We hold to his promises as real so we can relax and rejoice and love and serve until he comes again.

Christmas is filled with wonder as God takes on human flesh and works in mysterious ways to save us. As the holidays approach, I want to celebrate books that feature an aspect of wonder, an unexpected adventure or joy in surprising places or something astonishingly beautiful or brave or good we might look at every day but sometimes forget to see. Here are five wonderful new picture books to share with the children in your life.

1. Arlo and the Keep-Out Club by Betsy Childs Howard, illustrated by Samara Hardy (TGC/Crossway)

In the newest release from TGC Kids, Arlo is back, a little older now and stepping up to help others. He has an opportunity to join a group of older boys playing at a playground, but they’ll only let him hang out with them if he agrees to do something unkind to a younger girl playing nearby.

The story describes events that could happen in the normal life of elementary-aged children, but it’s told with an excitement that helps reveal its significance as a moral and spiritual battle, just one fought with pinecones, a stuffed owl, and a moderately distracted dad. There’s a scene where Arlo’s dad closes the book he was reading to focus on his son and says, “Following Jesus is a great adventure.” That reminded me of another Chesterton quote, from his essay “On Running After One’s Hat”: “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.” It made me appreciate, once again, the adventure of faith in action, even when it’s lived on playgrounds.

2. Fritz and the Midnight Meetup: A True Story About Kids Who Prayed by Megan Hill, illustrated by Chiara Fedele (B&H)

The first night, seven orphans sit by a fireplace to pray together after dark. By the third night, the group more than doubles, with 15 children bringing their blankets downstairs after bedtime to ask God to bring more people to love him. This picture book tells the true story of a revival in Germany in the 1800s sparked in part by orphans who prayed together after dark, overcoming tiredness and a bully who threatened to disrupt their gatherings.

My kids’ primary takeaway was that even children can honor Christ as King and point others to him right where they are. As the author says in a note at the end, “It may seem fantastical to imagine young children who seek revival, organize prayer meetings, pray for their enemies, and witness the conversion of their peers, but these things really happened. And, by God’s grace, they can happen again.”

3. The King of All Things by Shay and Catherine Gregorie, illustrated by Breezy Brookshire (Wolfbane)

The back cover of this enchanting little board book summarizes it as “A blessing over little ones to awaken worship and wonder.” It’s a rhyming prayer of praise to God for being the king of clouds and birds, mountains and plains, that ends with a petition for

Eyes to see how your wondrous works surround us,
Ears to hear creation’s joyful noise,
Words to spread your light to all around us,
And a heart to serve you with deep abiding joy.

The pictures are lovely, gentle watercolor illustrations of laughing dolphins, running horses, and dancing children. It’s an ideal bedtime read for little ones—both comforting and true—and a reminder to see the wonder of both God’s creation and his presence.

4. Joni Eareckson Tada by Kristyn Getty, illustrated by Hsulynn Pang (The Good Book Company)

I came into this book already familiar with Joni’s story, but I was amazed by and grateful to be reminded again of the details. Joni gave her life to Christ when she was 15, and two years later a swimming accident left her paralyzed. The book tackles some of her struggles, describing how she couldn’t walk or use her hands, and the hard questions she asked God in her anger and sadness. With physical and spiritual disciplines, help from others, and grace, Joni learns to walk with God not despite her disability but through it.

Getty describes some of Joni’s many acts of creating beauty (singing and painting), her service to others (charity work, legal advocacy, and teaching), and especially the ways Joni points those around her to the hope of heaven. Joni reminds readers to love others, including those with disabilities, and to love God amid the stories he is writing for them.

5. Strong by Sally Lloyd-Jones, illustrated by Jago (Zonderkidz)

Sally Lloyd-Jones’s Found, a retelling of Psalm 23, was possibly my daughter’s all-time favorite book when she was a toddler. She’s in upper elementary school now, but she still keeps her tattered copy close to her bed (just to look at the pictures on nights when she can’t sleep, she tells me).

Strong is a new book in the same series, and it’s a brief exploration of the tree metaphor in Psalm 1. The pictures beautifully depict trees around the world—baobabs and redwoods and aspens, trees hung with coconuts, fruit, and Christmas decorations. The text describes aspects of the tree in the psalm, planted by water, bearing fruit, never withering, and Strong concludes that simply being close to God is a good place to be, “like a little tree by a stream.”

When we believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, we find comfort and hope, knowing that nothing in the world can shake this truth. Jesus’s claim is exclusive, and many will find it offensive. But the truth that no one can come to the Father except through Jesus is the greatest comfort for troubled hearts. Christ, the perfect offering, is the only One who could make a way to God for us.

Simons teaches the following:

• Struggles with striving and seeking clear paths
• Jesus’s response to the disciples’ troubled hearts
• Believing in Jesus and his promises
• Hoping in Christ and our eternal home
• Looking to Jesus as the way, truth, and life
• Choosing Jesus and following his path

In Spurgeon: A Life, Alex DiPrima provides an updated and accessible biography of the Prince of Preachers. Few of Spurgeon’s many biographies accurately portray his life or reflect the scholarly precision his legacy warrants. This new portrayal serves the church because it “makes some improvements over previous accounts of his life and also takes into view many of the new studies and new data now available to historians and researchers” (15–16). Beyond increasing appreciation of Spurgeon, this book aims to help readers develop “a deeper love for the glorious Savior who captivated Spurgeon’s heart and life” (17).

Formed by the Saints

Raised in a deeply convictional Christian home, Spurgeon learned from his parents and grandparents the truth of the gospel. His father, John, served as a lay preacher among Congregationalists, and his mother, Eliza, intentionally taught her children the gospel. Yet his grandfather James, a Congregationalist preacher, proved one of the most influential individuals on the young man. Spurgeon lived with his grandparents for several years and had access to his grandfather’s library, which was filled with Puritan authors and their meditations on Christ. His early enthrallment with the Puritans continued throughout his life, and these saints of old formed his life, theologically and pastorally. As DiPrima explains, “Spurgeon’s childhood was deeply shaped by the gospel” (37). And yet he remained unconverted.

As Spurgeon matured, he faced growing anxiety about his future, his career, and his burden of sin. All this likely weighed on his mind as he walked into the Primitive Methodist Chapel in Colchester. On that snowy day in January 1850, Spurgeon heard the gospel from Isaiah 45:22, and God brought about new life. Spurgeon’s own account reveals this to be one of the most simplistic but effective sermons ever documented.

Spurgeon’s spiritual formation obviously didn’t stop there. As DiPrima shows, Spurgeon’s path to discipleship was marked by baptism and local church membership. Early on, people began to recognize talent in young Spurgeon, but it’s those like Mary King, a cook at the Newmarket school Spurgeon attended, who were keys to his spiritual maturity. Her piety and motherly guidance led him to write, “I do believe I learnt more from her than I should have learned from any six doctors of divinity of the sort we have nowadays” (52). In Spurgeon’s life, we see that ordinary people investing in young people through ordinary means can accomplish extraordinary purposes.

Committed to Doctrine

Spurgeon’s preaching ministry began shortly after his conversion. DiPrima writes that, unlike many beginner preachers, “Spurgeon’s first preaching experience was perhaps something like Bach’s first encounter with the organ or Michelangelo’s first efforts with a mallet and chisel, in the sense not only that in preaching Spurgeon discovered the work of his life but also that this was manifestly a matter of personal destiny” (59).

In Spurgeon’s life, we see that ordinary people investing in young people through ordinary means can accomplish extraordinary purposes.

Spurgeon went on to pastor Waterbeach Baptist Chapel north of Cambridge before being called to London to pastor the New Park Street Chapel, which became the Metropolitan Tabernacle. DiPrima’s chronological narrative relates important aspects of Spurgeon’s life and ministry, such as the challenges he faced in his early years as a pastor, and the joys of marriage and family. This exploration of his personal life benefits from recent interest in the life of his wife, Susie Spurgeon.

Much of this reflects the usual history of Spurgeon’s life. DiPrima’s unique contribution comes from his evaluative work as he helps us understand how Spurgeon’s ministry prefigures, in some ways, the best of modern evangelical ministry. For example, he argues that “Spurgeon’s preaching was Protestant, Puritan, Calvinist, Baptist, and evangelical” (153). “Undoubtedly,” DiPrima writes, “the depth of Spurgeon’s doctrine and the content contributed to the unusual power and appeal of his preaching” (159). Thus, it was the substance as much as his magnificent oratorical style that earned him the title “Prince of Preachers.”

Dedicated to Discipleship

Spurgeon was deeply invested in discipling others. Beyond his primary responsibilities as pastor at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, he committed himself to ministries like the Pastors’ College, about which he said, “This is my life’s work, to which I believe God has called me” (169). How many of us have benefited from reading Lectures to My Students, which distills wisdom from his ministry to those young men?

The man seemed indefatigable. His courage and visionary leadership shone through challenges like the baptismal regeneration controversy in the mid-1860s, the formation of the Sword and the Trowel magazine, church planting, and the Stockwell Orphanage. Spurgeon’s final years were marked by the Downgrade Controversy in his denomination, the Baptist Union. DiPrima’s updated account of this turmoil reaffirms Spurgeon’s “characteristic commitment to conviction over pragmatism” (265).

It was the substance as much as his oratorical style that earned Spurgeon the title ‘Prince of Preachers.’

Through all this, Spurgeon endured substantial health struggles, including kidney issues, rheumatic gout, and depression. As DiPrima says, “Although he suffered greatly, he suffered successfully as a child of God. Much of his piety as a Christian and as a minister was forged in the fires of distress and affliction” (218). Spurgeon’s persistence in overwork due to his dedication to discipleship likely contributed to his early death at age 57.

It’s hard to summarize Spurgeon’s ministry’s influence and reach, which stretches to our contemporary moment. He accomplished more in his four decades of ministry than most could dream of. God is still working through his legacy as his story is retold, especially in well-researched and accessible volumes like this one. DiPrima’s biography offers a vivid and edifying portrayal of the Prince of Preachers, one that will stir readers’ affections for Christ while moving them to engage others with the gospel.

Part of why Hollywood has gravitated toward this narrative is simply that it makes good (and financially lucrative) drama. Giving villains origin stories is intriguing. But I think this trend’s rise is also connected to the post-Christian culture’s confusion about sin and evil, morality and justice. In this world, the theological word “sin” has been replaced by the psychological word “brokenness,” and transcendent concepts of justice have been replaced by oppressor-oppressed power dynamics.

All this is on full display in Wicked (out today in theaters), the Jon M. Chu–directed movie about the Wicked Witch of the West’s origin story. The Wicked franchise (first a book, then a popular Stephen Schwartz Broadway musical, and now a two-part cinematic saga) is perhaps the clearest example yet that contemporary pop culture struggles with the category of evil. The title alone playfully probes the concept, redefining it as a word of empowerment (think “Wicked awesome!” as Bostonians might say).

Rather than being the iconically despicable, nightmare-inducing character immortalized by Margaret Hamilton in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West is reconsidered in Wicked as a good-natured, well-intentioned outcast named Elphaba who has been seriously misunderstood.

‘Why Does Wickedness Happen?’

Why does wickedness happen? This question opens the film, posed by a munchkin in Munchkinland to Glinda the Good Witch (Ariana Grande) following news that ends the original Oz film: the Wicked Witch of the West is dead. Glinda answers the question by narrating the life of her frenemy, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), from her birth in a broken home to a childhood marked by bullying to adult years when she and Glinda attended Shiz University—an institution reminiscent of Hogwarts for would-be witches to learn magic.

Much of Wicked (part 1, with part 2 set to release a year from now) follows the relational development between Glinda and Elphaba as roommate rivals-turned-friends at Shiz U. Their odd-couple dynamic is fun to watch; much of Wicked’s pleasures come from the way Elphaba and Glinda complement and learn from each other. There are genuinely moving scenes of them caring for one another against all odds (the Ozdust Ballroom scene stands out).

Wicked is perhaps the clearest example yet that contemporary pop culture struggles with the category of evil.

Grande is perfectly cast as Glinda, who reminds me a lot of Reese Witherspoon’s iconic character in Election, Tracy Flick: a popular, ambitious, but slightly annoying queen bee. “I’ve decided to make you my project,” Glinda informs Elphaba, exuding the sort of condescending liberal guilt of a privileged “do-gooder” whose altruism is largely about virtue signaling. She represents privilege, power, and Karen-esque entitlement; even her gestures of allyship and solidarity feel opportunistic.

Meanwhile, Elphaba is a marginalized icon of intersectionality: born with green skin, the daughter of an unknown father, ostracized in childhood, prone to quirky dance moves. It’s no doubt intentional that Elphaba is played in the film by a queer black woman (Erivo). Her character doesn’t neatly fit mainstream society’s binaries and norms. And as the story progresses, she becomes a freedom fighter for the oppressed, a “villain” only insofar as those in power mischaracterize her cause.

Wickedness in ‘Wicked’: Oppressive Power Structures

If Wicked finds wickedness anywhere, it’s not in Elphaba. Rather, it’s in Oz’s privileged power structures—namely the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum), Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), and others who gain power by using and abusing the less fortunate. It’s interesting that the Wizard is a God-proxy in the film’s world (characters exclaim things like “Thank Oz!” and “What in the name of Oz?”). This “deity” turns out to be a manipulative, self-serving, untrustworthy villain; religious mythology is exposed as a convenient means of perpetuating human power.

One subplot basically equates Oz’s elites with Nazi fascists. The talking animals—previously valued members of society—are now an oppressed group “othered” in ugly ways, blamed for everything (“scapegoat,” literally), silenced, and even locked up. “Animals should be seen and not heard” is the mantra of the fascist regime.

Elphaba emerges as the voice of resistance to this oppressive prejudice. “No one should be scorned or laughed at or looked down upon, or told to keep quiet,” she says, animated by her painful childhood trauma (we see a scene of her being bullied by a gang of white kids). But she’s also motivated by real compassion for others who are marginalized—chiefly her paraplegic sister (Marissa Bode) and the goat professor, Doctor Dillamond (Peter Dinklage).

If Elphaba has a flaw in Wicked, it’s that she cares too much. Unlike many in the film who live decadent, thoughtless lives (“dancing through life” rather than “studying strife”), Elphaba can’t turn a blind eye to injustice. Her “wickedness” emerges out of an earnest passion that begins to consume her. Her character is emblematic of the hyperserious, humorless stereotype of the “woke.” How can one smile and make jokes when the world is so cruel and unjust?

Indeed, vice in the world of Wicked isn’t just embodied by powerful people who actively oppress; it’s also evident in those who don’t care enough that this is happening—the privileged who can eat, drink, and merrily dance while nefarious forces ruin the world. Silence is violence. In Wicked’s view of sin and culpability, some individuals are actually heinous and Hitler-esque; but entire classes of people are culpable for their willful ignorance; guilty on account of their naive, comfort-prioritizing “complicity” in an evil system.

‘Defying Gravity’: Anthem of Moral Autonomy

Elphaba’s framing as Wicked’s heroic protagonist has a lot to do with her advocacy for others. But it also has to do with her resolute belief in herself and a bold rejection of imposed expectations and limits. This too reflects our post-Christian culture’s reframing of virtue and vice. To be radically autonomous, fiercely whoever you want to be: this is a high virtue. To conform to external norms and submit to authority outside yourself: this is the “vice” of weakness and uncritical complicity.

Wicked ends where act 1 of the musical ends, with Elphaba picking up her iconic broomstick, learning to fly, and fleeing Oz as an exiled villain. She and Glinda sing “Defying Gravity,” Wicked’s trademark empowerment anthem. It’s a thesis statement of sorts for the film’s remaking of Elphaba as a post-Christian messianic hero more than a depraved villain.

‘Defying Gravity’ is a thesis statement of sorts for the film’s remaking of Elphaba as a post-Christian messianic hero more than a depraved villain.

Elphaba defies gravity literally but also philosophically, rejecting higher authorities and moral norms: I’m through with playing by the rules of someone else’s game . . . / I’m through accepting limits / ’Cause someone says they’re so. She asserts her “woken up” virtue (Too late to go back to sleep), moral autonomy (It’s time to trust my instincts) and “born this way” self-acceptance (Some things I cannot change).

It’s not surprising “Defying Gravity” has become a favorite anthem of the LGBT+ community, often performed at Pride events. The song (and Wicked generally) has a campy ambiance of naughtiness and shameless transgression. But it also narrates the choice many LGBT+ people make to sever relationships and separate from “nonaffirming” communities (including families) so they can live in freedom, on their own terms: As someone told me lately / “Everyone deserves the chance to fly” / And if I’m flying solo / At least I’m flying free.

There’s a sadness to Elphaba’s choice to “fly solo” and embrace her exile, justified by her “no one can bring me down” freedom: To those who’d ground me / Take a message back from me / Tell them how I am defying gravity.

Glinda recognizes the sadness of it but doesn’t necessarily think Elphaba is making the wrong choice. She sings, I hope you’re happy / Now that you’re choosing this / I hope it brings you bliss. Glinda’s way of loving Elphaba is, in the end, to affirm her choice—however destructive it may be for her and others. Indeed, “I hope it makes you happy” has become the grid of moral evaluation in a post-Christian world. You do you. Be yourself. Follow your heart. As long as you’re happy.

Gravity Can’t Be Defied Without Consequences

But gravity is an inescapable law of the universe. It can’t be defied without consequences. Universal laws and limits exist, no matter how forcefully we sing, “Unlimited!” God’s creation has a “grain,” and going against the grain always leaves you with splinters.

‘I hope it makes you happy’ has become the grid of moral evaluation in a post-Christian world.

This is the real tragedy of Wicked. It’s a well-intentioned story driven by an earnest exploration of right and wrong. The residue of Christianity informs its moral intuitions (e.g., the inherent dignity of all people, advocacy for the weak), and we can celebrate that Wicked wants us to think and talk about morality rather than simply “dancing through life.”

But even if the story helpfully praises the costly pursuit of justice and fighting for the marginalized, in the end its rejection of moral absolutes leaves audiences without real hope or clarity. In a “trust my instincts” world where subjective authority reigns, questions of what’s just and unjust, good and evil, are ultimately unanswerable. Heroes and villains are constructs; “wicked” is merely an arbitrary label imposed by one group over another as propaganda to consolidate power.

We can praise elements of Wicked as a well-told story and creatively rendered world. The songs and costumes are fun. The vibes are pleasant. But the moral ideas—however well intentioned—are ultimately incoherent and unhelpful.

And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken. (Isa. 40:5)

Reflect

To say I’m bossy about Christmas is an understatement.

As a kid, I insisted my sisters and I sleep in the same bedroom on Christmas Eve so we could all enter the living room together in the morning and share the first sight of presents piled under the tree. I made sure they both had a water bottle and a book to read if they woke up early, so they wouldn’t need to venture out and ruin the wonder. (As an adult, I’ve tried to convince them to ditch their husbands for a night so we can keep the tradition going. No luck so far.)

Glory abounds at Christmas—in that sight of presents under the tree, in spectacular light displays, in the rousing harmonies of a congregation singing carols by candlelight. If we’re not careful, we become captivated by the wonder of all the secondary glories of Christmas and miss the main event.

If we’re not careful, we become captivated by the wonder of all the secondary glories of Christmas and miss the main event.

Isaiah knew what it meant to behold true glory. He was given a vision of God on his throne, and it almost killed him: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” (Isa. 6:5).

Yet Isaiah wasn’t the only one who’d get to see the Lord. Through the prophet’s words, God comforted his people exiled in Babylon with an astonishing promise: “The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together” (40:5).

At Christmastime, we celebrate the coming of this glory. Jesus took on humanity, and he entered our world in a grubby stable. Glory arrived. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

Most who saw Jesus during his lifetime missed his glory. But now in the Bible, we see it—the glory of his miracles; his teaching; his sinlessness; his death, resurrection, and ascension. Do you see it? Or are your eyes fixed on something else this Christmas?

Amid the festive spectacles, are you too distracted to look on and bask in your Savior’s glory? Do your eyes flit so quickly between your calendar, your to-do list, and your messy house that you don’t even notice Christ?

Through Scripture, we behold Jesus now. As we look, the Spirit transforms us more and more into Jesus’s image so we share his glory (2 Cor. 3:18). Yet this isn’t enough. Charles Spurgeon wrote, “How partially we see Christ here. The best believer only gets half a glimpse of Christ.”

Do your eyes flit so quickly between your calendar, your to-do list, and your messy house that you don’t even notice Christ?

These partial glimpses make us long for Christ’s return, when we’ll finally see him face to face. Only then will Isaiah’s prophecy be fulfilled as God keeps his promise: “The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

On that day, we’ll delight together at the greatest spectacle any of us has ever seen. In anticipation of that glory, we can rejoice in what Scripture reveals of Jesus today. Let’s look and look until we see.

Respond

Who or what has most of your attention this Christmas? What habits or practices can you start in the coming weeks to fix your eyes on Christ’s glory? How might you stir your longing for his return amid the season’s busyness?

Thankfully, he has never tested that boast. But in his second term, he’s attempting to do something nearly as incredible—nominating an abortion supporter to head the nation’s public health services.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a peculiar choice for numerous reasons. He’s a lifelong Democrat who supported pro-abortion candidates John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama before running as a pro-abortion candidate for the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries. After receiving almost no support, he dropped out and ran as an independent. In August, Kennedy suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump. At the time, he suggested Trump offered him a job if he was to return to the White House, but neither Kennedy nor Trump offered details. Now we know the job offer was to be the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), an agency that plays several important roles in regulating and overseeing abortion.

The nomination is a signal that the GOP has fully shifted from the pro-life party to one that’s unapologetically pro-choice. And Kennedy’s confirmation to the position would be a political inflection point for the pro-life movement. As former vice president Mike Pence said, “I believe the nomination of RFK Jr. to serve as Secretary of HHS is an abrupt departure from the pro-life record of our administration and should be deeply concerning to millions of Pro-Life Americans who have supported the Republican Party and our nominees for decades.”

Trump’s return to his long-standing pro-choice position was likely inevitable. Sometime during this year, he made the (apparently correct) assumption that he could be openly pro-abortion and yet many pro-life voters would cast their ballot for him anyway since the Democrats were even more extreme on abortion. What’s surprising, though, is the concerted lack of response by those committed to opposing abortion, especially from some of America’s most prominent pro-life organizations.

Deafening Silence

Back in May, Kennedy said in an interview that he opposes any government limits on abortion access. When asked if he supported keeping abortion legal for a full-term baby (i.e., near the delivery date), Kennedy affirmed that was the case. Later, he clarified his position: “Abortion should be legal up until a certain number of weeks.”

Trump’s return to his long-standing pro-choice position was likely inevitable. What’s surprising is the concerted lack of response by those committed to opposing abortion.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA) responded at the time by saying his comments made him “unacceptable to millions of pro-life voters nationwide.” Yet now that Kennedy is nominated to head the HHS, SBA has been silent (as of the time of publication, SBA hasn’t posted a comment on their website).

But SBA isn’t the only one. I reached out to SBA, Americans United for Life (AUL), Family Research Council (FRC), Live Action, National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), Students for Life, and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). Only one of those groups was willing to comment.

ERLC is the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. President Brent Leatherwood said, “Just under four years ago, 49 senators rejected Joe Biden’s nomination of Xavier Becerra because of his steadfast support for abortion. With the opportunity that exists in the post-Roe era to begin establishing a true culture of life, the Senate must weigh whether it wants to grant the powers that come with this position to someone with Kennedy’s pro-choice views.”*

The silence of these other pro-life groups is, as they say, deafening. Each had previously issued a denunciation when Biden nominated Becerra to HHS (see the statements from SBA, AUL, FRC, Live Action, NRLC, Students for Life, and ERLC.) Yet only one has gone on record as opposing Trump’s pro-abortion nominee. What’s changed?

(Update #1: Just prior to publication, I found Students for Life issued a statement to POLITICO in which they praise Kennedy. The group’s chief policy strategist, Kristi Hamrick, said that Kennedy’s shift back in May is a sign that “he is someone who will listen” to the pro-life movement going forward. “When faced with evidence, he changed his views,” she said. “How intelligent, refreshing and unlike so many in the health care space.” But that is completely wrong. Kennedy didn’t change his mind “when faced with evidence” (he made the original statement on Thursday and flip-flopped on Friday). His change of mind came from the pressure put on him by groups like SBA—pressure they are no longer willing to apply. And is it really so “intelligent” and “refreshing” for politician to claim abortion should only be restricted “in the final months of pregnancy”? While restrictions only in the last months of pregnancy is the current official position of the GOP, it is not a position that is moral or acceptable to true pro-lifers.)

For decades, the pro-life movement was accused of caring less about abortion than about ensuring Republican politicians were elected. Like many pro-life advocates, I considered it an absurd slander against these honorable nonpartisan organizations (full disclosure: I’ve done work for AUL, ERLC, FRC, and SBA). Yet it’s becoming harder to defend the actions of groups when they seem to oppose abortion only when it’s promoted by Democrats.

These national pro-life organizations are likely feeling the same pressure as other socially conservative organizations to not criticize Trump. It’s especially difficult for pro-life groups when it might be board members and donors putting pressure on them to remain silent. But if these organizations won’t consistently defend the unborn regardless of which party is in power, why should they even exist?

Call for Accountability and Faithful Witness

Unfortunately, the silence of national pro-life groups provides cover for Republican senators to support Kennedy’s confirmation. But those truly committed to the pro-life cause don’t have to remain silent.

We should encourage both Congress and national pro-life groups to stand for the unborn and insist on principled leadership that consistently opposes abortion, regardless of political expediency. Silence in the face of political pressures that conflict with foundational values only erodes the credibility of those claiming to defend life. The pro-life movement must prioritize its mission above party lines, demonstrating that its commitment to protecting life isn’t subject to the shifting sands of political allegiance.

Those truly committed to the pro-life cause don’t have to remain silent.

If pro-life advocates and organizations are willing to hold both parties accountable, they can help preserve the movement’s integrity and strengthen its long-term influence. A selective defense of life threatens to transform the pro-life cause into a mere political tool, diluted and manipulated by partisan interests. But by speaking out against any pro-choice nominations—regardless of who makes them—these organizations affirm their true commitment, not just to a platform but to the lives they profess to defend.

The call now is clear: If the pro-life movement is to remain a credible and effective voice, it must reject any temptation to trade moral clarity for political favor. Those who genuinely stand for life will echo the courageous voices of the past, calling leaders to account and reminding them that the sanctity of life isn’t up for negotiation. Let’s encourage all advocates to remain steadfast, ensuring the pro-life witness remains unblemished, unwavering, and unapologetically committed to the defense of the unborn—no matter who occupies the Oval Office.

Update #2: After publication, SBA sent me the following statement from their president, Marjorie Dannenfelser: “There’s no question that we need a pro-life HHS secretary, and of course, we have concerns about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I believe that no matter who is HHS secretary, baseline policies set by President Trump during his first term will be re-established.”

As a follow-up based on the new statement, I asked, “Why does Ms. Dannenfelser believe President Trump will resort to baseline pro-life policies in his second term when he’s since come out as pro-abortion, changed the GOP political platform to make the party officially ‘pro-choice,’ and nominated at least two pro-abortion nominees to the cabinet (one to the role of HHS)?” They responded,

Voters soundly rejected the Biden-Harris weaponization of the federal government to push abortion on demand throughout all of pregnancy and to target Americans who object to this regime. President Trump and his administration can make the government serve the people again by offering real and lasting support to pregnant and parenting moms.

The commonsense policies of Pres. Trump’s first term become the baseline for the second, along with reversing the Biden-Harris administration’s unprecedented violation of longstanding federal laws. Among the actions he can take, we trust that he will stop the illegal funding of abortion through the Veterans Administration and Department of Defense, start enforcing nondiscrimination laws again so Americans are never forced to participate in abortion, reinstate the Protect Life Rule at home and abroad to stop funneling tax dollars to the abortion industry, and free the patriots unjustly put in prison for peacefully protesting the killing of unborn children.

*Here is the full statement provided by ERLC’s Brent Leatherwood:

As we go through the nomination process, presidents are entitled to bring forth individuals they believe can competently and wisely fill roles across the executive branch. Alongside that, the Senate has a vital constitutional role to play in examining, advising, and confirming the individuals they feel can best carry out the duties of these respective positions. That is the standard that should be applied for every nominee, including Mr. Kennedy. He’s been selected to lead a department that is a central agency in the fight to protect preborn lives, a cause Kennedy has long opposed. Just under four years ago, 49 senators rejected Joe Biden’s nomination of Xavier Becerra because of his steadfast support for abortion. With the opportunity that exists in the post-Roe era to begin establishing a true culture of life, the Senate must weigh whether it wants to grant the powers that come with this position to someone with Kennedy’s pro-choice views.

At the same time, I am praying for Mr. Kennedy. I’m praying that for all his focus on healthy living, he actually sees that abortion is completely antithetical to health and living. That he comes to realize how it destroys the physical life of a child and does untold damage to the life of the mother. That he understands the federal government has an immense role to play in recognizing the inherent right to life that already exists for every American, born and preborn alike.

And finally, I pray that the Lord would help him to see the ways his rhetoric about freedom is actually limited and shallow; because the freedom to take an innocent life is no freedom at all, but instead an example of how our culture remains enslaved to an abortion regime that perpetuates a culture of death. Here at the ERLC, we will be a voice that continually appeals to the consciences of leaders and policymakers about the dignity of preborn lives and the need to protect them. Anyone seeking to lead HHS must recognize this is the urgent challenge of our time.

The biblical authors recognize this reality, so we shouldn’t be surprised when it happens. Wicked people love the darkness, so they scorn those who walk in the light.

But this scorn is temporary. The biblical authors see further down the road, and they tell what the future holds. Our mourning shall turn to dancing. Our sorrow shall turn to joy. Our lament shall turn to laughter. And I don’t mean frivolous, lighthearted, or occasional laughter. I mean the kind of laughter that’s deep, lasting, and gratifying.

Sober Warning of Judgment

According to Proverbs 29:2, “When the wicked rule, the people groan.” And that groaning is understandable. When the wicked are in power, life becomes difficult. God’s ways are ignored, sinful deeds are pursued, and God’s people are opposed. When the wicked rule, people get hurt, the vulnerable are oppressed, the poor are exploited, and the defenseless get overlooked. When the wicked rule, foolishness reigns. When the wicked rule, the situation doesn’t feel like blessing; it feels like misery.

When the wicked rule, the situation doesn’t feel like blessing; it feels like misery. But their rule is temporary.

But their rule is temporary. Despite how intractable and invincible the wicked seem, God will bring them down. Sometimes we live to see it happen. Other times we must remember that the final judgment will make all things right. The Bible’s warning to the wicked, nevertheless, is that their plans will fail and their judgment is certain.

In Psalm 52:5, David says to the wicked, “God will break you down forever; he will snatch and tear you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living.” The imagery is jarring, isn’t it? The words communicate suddenness and permanency.

If the people groan when the wicked rule, how do they respond when the wicked are removed? In particular, how will the righteous respond when the wicked face the final judgment?

Laughter of Relief and Joy

The righteous will praise God’s justice, and they’ll exult in his righteous judgment. David says, “The righteous shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him, saying, ‘See the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction!’” (Ps. 52:6–7).

We shouldn’t imagine some sick or twisted glee. We shouldn’t imagine some out-of-place delight that revels in violence or indulges in hatred. Laughter signals an explosion of relief, a delight in vindication. This laughter is like the positive twist in a film or book—the evil plots come undone while the opposed and afflicted person experiences a rush of felicity and strength.

Laughter signals an explosion of relief, a delight in vindication.

This laughter is holy and righteous. It isn’t out of place; it’s altogether fitting. Revelation 19 echoes that response: When the new Babylon (the world system) falls, the multitude in heaven cry out, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood his servants” (vv. 1–2). They cry out, “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever” (v. 3).

The laughter in Psalm 52:6 is a hallelujah—an exultation in God’s righteousness and a celebration of his avenging acts. It arises from the comfort that the wicked shall no more rise against God’s people, and it recognizes that the longed-for day of perfect justice has arrived.

Join God’s Laughter

Remember, too, that God himself laughs. In Psalm 2, the nations plot in vain against Yahweh and against the Messiah (vv. 1–3). What is God’s response to this earthly plotting and scheming? “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision” (v. 4). In Psalm 2, the Lord laughs at the futility of the wicked; in Psalm 52, the righteous laugh at the fall of the wicked.

A divine reversal is coming. Jesus himself says so:

Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets. (Luke 6:21–23)

Jesus’s promise will come true. We shall laugh and leap. Our joy will be full and lasting. Evil will fall, justice will reign, and God’s kingdom will be ours forever.

Because of the wicked’s words and ways, the righteous will face unwarranted hardships and suffering. But lift your eyes and tune your ears. Do you hear that sound? The Lord in heaven laughs at the foolish schemes of man. We may not be laughing yet, but we’ll join in soon.

He teaches the following:

• Ezekiel’s denunciation of corrupt worship that relativized God
• How corrupt worship dulls moral vision and invites divine judgment
• The Western world’s interest in worship and search for spirituality
• The idol of jealousy in Ezekiel’s vision as an example of syncretism
• God’s judgment of participants of corrupt worship and his mercy on those who grieve over their sin
• How Ezekiel’s vision shows the moral impetus behind the Great Awakening

Scripture has much to say about the joys that await those who love God. Contemporary books on eternity, like Randy Alcorn’s Heaven, often emphasize the physical nature of God’s future kingdom and seek to expand our imaginations about all that everlasting joy might include. This is good. Such treatments can be a welcome correction to an overly spiritualized, disembodied, and boring view of heaven.

But if we’re not careful, we can allow such longings to swallow up the most important one—the one that makes our hope distinctly Christian. After all, if you only long to be free from pain or hang out with friends, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the pagans do the same? Without denying the kingdom’s multifaceted glories, Samuel G. Parkison—associate professor of theological studies at Gulf Theological Seminary—wants to draw our attention back to the glory of all glories, the “one thing” David longed for above all else (Ps. 27:4). It’s found in the title of his new book: To Gaze upon God: The Beatific Vision in Doctrine, Tradition, and Practice. Seeing the face of God is “what makes heaven heaven” (1).

For anyone who loves God, the thought of seeing his face ought to stir excitement. For anyone who has read the Bible, it also ought to raise questions. Parkison’s book seeks to channel the excitement by exploring the questions raised by Scripture in light of the historical doctrine of the beatific vision.

Whom Shall We See, and How?

One of the central (and most interesting) theological questions Parkison wrestles with is how we’ll see God. Will our vision of him consist of a “spiritual sight of the divine essence” or “an ocular sight of Christ’s human nature” (155)?

For anyone who loves God, the thought of seeing his face ought to stir excitement.

This question arises from the seeming conflict between passages promising we’ll see God (Matt. 5:8; Rev. 22:4) and passages declaring no one has ever seen God—or even can see him (1 Tim. 6:16; John 1:18; Ex. 33:20). As Parkison rightly notes, any biblical solution to this dilemma must center on Christ, who is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15; see John 1:18). Of him, John could honestly say, “We [saw him] with our eyes,” for Jesus was (and is) God made flesh (1 John 1:1; John 1:14). Without a doubt, God’s people will one day see God the Son in our flesh and with our eyes (1 John 3:2; see Job 19:26).

But does that mean we won’t see the Father or Spirit? Is the beatific vision a vision of Christ only (and only of his human nature at that)? The classical Trinitarian doctrine of inseparable operations reminds us that while the persons of the Trinity can be differentiated, they can’t be divided. Although it terminates on Christ alone, the incarnation—like all divine works—is an act of all three persons and reveals all three persons. As Michael Allen put it, “[In Christ] we see God and not simply an instrument of or attachment to God” (156). Or as Christ himself put it, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). The beatific vision may not be of Christ alone, but it is through Christ alone and by the Holy Spirit.

So when asked whether our vision of God consists of a “spiritual sight of the divine essence” or of an “ocular sight of Christ’s human nature,” Parkison’s answer is both. In his words, “The beatific vision…is made possible by the inseparable operations of the Trinity, and is a truly trinitarian vision. We shall behold the glory of God in his essence, and we shall behold this glory in the face of Jesus Christ by the unveiling and illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit” (156).

When My Faith Shall Be Sight

Parkison also highlights the relationship between faith and sight: “The beatific vision entails a paradox of somehow ‘seeing’ the invisible” (55). The author of Hebrews uses similar words to refer to faith (Heb. 11:27). So both faith and the beatific vision are described as kinds of seeing.

Moreover, both types of seeing have the same object: “the glory of Christ, who is the image of God,” or “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4, 6). We “see” him by faith now, by sight later.

Finally, both types of seeing have the same transforming effect, though on a vastly different scale. In 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul describes the effect of beholding Christ by faith now: “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” In 1 John 3:2, John describes the effect of beholding Christ by sight later: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” As Parkison notes, “There are galaxies contained in that little word . . . because” (39).

The beatific vision may not be of Christ alone, but it is through Christ alone and by the Holy Spirit.

So while some degree of transformation is a prerequisite for seeing God (Matt. 5:8), complete transformation only happens as the result of seeing God. And this complete transformation includes the glorification of our bodies (including our eyes!) to be like Jesus’s glorious body. Indeed, as Parkison highlights with a Jonathan Edwards quote, the sight of Jesus in his glory “will be the most glorious sight that the saints will ever see with their bodily eyes. . . . Yea the eyes of the resurrection body will be given chiefly to behold this sight” (134–35).

If you want to practice seeing God now, meditate on the glories of Jesus Christ by faith. And if you want some encouragement in doing that, read Parkison’s book. At points, his engagement with historical theologians (like Aquinas, Anselm, and Owen) wades into deep theological waters that go over my head. But sometimes it’s good for pastors to read over their heads as they ponder the mysteries of God.

For the next seven decades, Graham was the most famous Christian in America and likely the best-known evangelical in the world.

Before Los Angeles

Graham’s star was on the rise before the L.A. Crusade. This was the era when the terms “fundamentalism” and “evangelicalism” were often synonymous but increasingly referred to two emerging trajectories within conservative Protestantism. Graham embodied the tension. Starting in 1945, Graham served as a vice president for Youth for Christ, an outreach ministry committed to converting teenagers through community evangelistic rallies. It was part of a constellation of evangelical parachurch ministries formed in the 1940s.

Graham was the most famous Christian in America and likely the best-known evangelical in the world.

Graham was also the youngest college president in America. In 1948, he was appointed president of Northwestern Theological Seminary and the Bible School (now University of Northwestern). Graham was selected for this role by William Bell Riley (1861–1947), the longtime pastor of First Baptist Church of Minneapolis and a leading fundamentalist. Riley envisioned Graham as his heir to his leadership of Midwestern fundamentalism. A condition of Graham’s presidency was that he could continue his role with Youth for Christ and preach for citywide evangelistic campaigns.

Under the Canvas Cathedral

The L.A. Crusade was organized by a group called Christ for Greater Los Angeles. The group prayed for revival for months in advance and advertised the event widely across Southern California. The crusade began on September 25 in a 6,000-seat circus tent. Graham preached against common vices, critiqued atheistic communism, and longed for national revival. But the heart of his preaching was the call for individual sinners to repent and trust in Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior.

Graham came to prominence during the Cold War, and he continued to advocate for conservative Christian patriotism until he was chastened following the Watergate scandal because of his close association with Richard Nixon. However, a simple evangelistic appeal would remain Graham’s central message throughout his long ministry.

A few celebrities attended the L.A. Crusade. The famous L.A. radio broadcaster Stuart Hamblen, known for his entertainment career in song and film and for his notorious drinking and gambling, announced on the air that he had become a Christian at Graham’s crusade. Olympian and former prisoner of war Louis Zamperini was another noteworthy convert. Zamperini later became the subject of the best-selling book Unbroken and the Hollywood film of the same name.

Both conversions made the national news. One newsman who took particular interest was William Randolph Hearst, who owned dozens of newspapers across the nation with a circulation in the millions. When he learned Hamblen had become a Christian, Hearst sent a two-word telegram to all his papers: “Puff Graham.” The crowds swelled from the increased publicity. Eventually, a 9,000-seat tent replaced the original, but even the massive “Canvas Cathedral” couldn’t fully contain the crowds coming to hear Graham each night. Though the crusade was scheduled to end on October 17, organizers decided to extend the meetings for several more weeks.

Divine and Human in Revival

Graham has been criticized by some Reformed observers for embracing “revivalism” and “decisionism.” Opinions will vary on those questions, but regardless of their soteriological preferences, most evangelicals still believe that God used Graham to contribute to the salvation of thousands of sinners over his ministry.

The L.A. Crusade lets us reflect on the mysterious relationship between God’s sovereignty and human instrumentation in Christian history.

The Lord laid it on the hearts of a group of ministers to plan an evangelistic crusade for L.A. They prayed for months in advance. During the crusade, a second, smaller tent was set aside for volunteers to pray for each night’s services. Graham’s message boiled down to a straightforward gospel presentation. Everyone was trusting God to do what only he could do.

The L.A. Crusade lets us reflect on the mysterious relationship between God’s sovereignty and human instrumentation in Christian history.

While the Lord was clearly at work, people had to make meaningful decisions every step of the way. The L.A. ministers had to decide to pray, decide to plan the event, and decide to invite Graham. The latter had to decide to accept the invitation. There were two different decisions about the tent size, as well as the important decision to extend the crusade past its original three weeks. Of course, those converted each night had to decide to follow Jesus. The Lord took the divine initiative in all these decisions, in ways both known and unknown to the people involved.

And then there was Hearst. The newsman wasn’t a Christian. His profligate lifestyle was widely known and had at times been scandalous. He had no interest in the gospel. But he knew a good story when he saw it, and Hamblen’s conversion was a good story. So Hearst decided the world needed to know about Graham’s L.A. Crusade, which resulted in an extended event, increased attendance, and many more conversions. The Lord was at work in all this too.

Graham and Evangelicalism

L.A. is where Billy Graham became Billy Graham. He emerged as the key figure in the New Evangelical movement, a postwar coalition of conservative Protestants committed to pursuing national renewal and global evangelical awakening through both intentional evangelism and strategic cultural engagement. From the 1950s onward, millions of born-again Christians found in evangelicalism (no longer “new”) an alternative to separatist fundamentalism on the right and mainline Protestantism on the left.

Graham wasn’t the only leading light in New Evangelicalism. Pastor and theological educator Harold John Ockenga (1905–85) was an organizational genius, and scholar-journalist Carl F. H. Henry (1913–2003) provided the movement with an intellectual agenda. All three men were friends and collaborated frequently. But in God’s providence, Graham’s L.A. Crusade put postwar evangelicalism on the map. The rest is history—and by God’s grace, the story is still being told.

This trend may appear new. But Michael Horton aims to unveil its ancient pedigree in his new book, Shaman and Sage: The Roots of ‘Spiritual but Not Religious’ in Antiquity (Eerdmans). Horton is the J. Gresham Machen professor of systematic theology and apologetics at Westminster Seminary California.

He wants us to see that what we call “New Age spirituality” wasn’t invented by the “flower power” generation of the 1960s but goes all the way back in Western civilization. Christian theism may be out, but it’s not being replaced so much by atheism and agnosticism but by the occult. Horton joined me on Gospelbound to explain.

After small talk, I jumped into my questions. “Who can I trust?” “How can I know what’s really going on?” “Is Hunter Biden’s laptop real?”

I explained to my friend that I’d spent the last few years consuming news from both sides of the aisle, hoping to figure out what was going on. I complained that it hadn’t worked. “Instead of just being confused,” I said, “I’m also exhausted and angry. Who can I trust to report the truth?”

I didn’t expect his response. “Mike, it’s worse than you think, and I’m more frustrated than you are.”

Through that conversation and my subsequent research, I’ve discovered four truths that won’t surprise you:

• We’re being chased by a never-ending stream of news.
• The quality and trustworthiness of much of this news is lower than it was 10 years ago. Some has been designed to reinforce our views and keep us online so we maximize the news site’s revenue stream.
• You and I are less able than we realize to see how bad-quality news misleads us.
• Even from trustworthy news sources, little of what constitutes breaking news deals with ultimate issues.

In his 2021 book, Breaking Bread with the Dead, Alan Jacobs notes that those who “traffic in high information societies” like ours often lack the “personal density”—a kind of mental maturity gained from knowing history—they need to live well. I think he’s right. I also think the kind of things he recommends to gain personal density—such as reading novels and biographies, studying history, and learning to lament—are invaluable. But I believe the primary way forward is to cultivate a more vibrant relationship with God the Father through Christ his Son.

If you’re going to become the thoughtful, wise, nonanxious person you want to be—and that your friends and family need you to be—you must move from seeing the gospel through the lens of the news to seeing the news through the lens of the gospel.

Neither the state of today’s news nor the state of a heart addicted to it is in good shape. Is there a way to make things better? I think we can take several steps right now to manage this broken news moment. Three stand out to me.

1. Consume less news.

After starting my morning with an hour of silence, devotional reading, and prayer, I skim the headlines of the The Wall Street Journal. I may dip into a story or two before turning to sports, but I’m in and out of “breaking news” in five minutes. I may glance at the Journal a few other times during the day, but that’s it. No social media. No TV news.

If you find this unthinkable—or irresponsible—consider the news habits of John Huey, the former editor in chief at Time magazine. In “All the News I Intend to Quit,” an opinion piece he wrote for the The Washington Post, Huey said,

Having spent more than 40 years reporting, writing and editing the news, I am surprised to conclude that overconsumption of the news, at least in the forms I’ve been gorging on it since 2016, is neither good for my emotional well-being nor essential to the health of the republic. . . . There isn’t really enough of it, good or bad, to fill the 24/7 maw opened up by cable news, talk radio and social media. . . . I don’t intend to stop fretting about my country. Nor will I give up reading the newspapers and magazines I deem essential to understanding the world around me. But I am planning a crash news diet.

Are you consuming too much news? Why not turn it off for a week and see how that goes? Better yet, why not replace news reading with more Bible reading?

In the last pages of my book How Do You Know, I share several ways I revamped my devotional practices during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. While what I’d been doing was enough for the normal-life chaos I’d been navigating, they weren’t adequate for the pandemic. Likewise, your devotional habits may not be sufficient for this politically polarized, culturally divisive, broken news moment.

After Mother Teresa told Malcolm Muggeridge that she didn’t listen to the news or read newspapers because “when she did she got confused,” the great British journalist said, “It occurred to me that this was why she knew so much more about what was going on in the world than those who tried to keep up with current events by studying newspapers, listening to the radio and watching television. She was in touch with what really matters.”

To put a sharper point on it: If you’re spending five minutes a day reading the Bible but two hours listening to Sean Hannity or Rachel Maddow, it’s no wonder you’re acting more like their disciple than Jesus Christ’s.

2. Find, follow, and support good journalism.

Limit who you trust. For a few years, I consumed both liberal and conservative perspectives to triangulate the truth. It didn’t work. All I got for my efforts was angry, confused, and exhausted.

I now believe that rather than triangulating the news, we’re better off identifying a couple of trustworthy media organizations and relying on them to do the triangulation. (My son works on one, The Pour Over.) Let them monitor what’s going on in the world, vet the sources, and tell you what’s worth knowing.

3. Strengthen yourself in the Lord.

Spend less time on the news and more intentional time with the Lord.

In 1 Samuel 30, David was navigating a particularly vexing crisis. Though the prophet Samuel had anointed David as king years earlier, Saul still occupied the throne. Worse yet, because Saul was threatened by David’s popularity and skill, he kept trying to have David killed. So the future king lived on the run.

By the end of 1 Samuel, David had gathered a group of outcasts around him and was paying his bills by hiring this group out as a mercenary force for foreign kings. But that isn’t the half of it. On the day in question, David and his men returned from a raid to discover their camp had been looted and their wives and children kidnapped. 1 Samuel 30:3–6 (NASB) says,

When David and his men came to the city, behold, it was burned with fire, and their wives and their sons and their daughters had been taken captive. Then David and the people who were with him lifted their voices and wept until there was no strength in them to weep. Now David’s two wives had been taken captive, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess and Abigail the widow of Nabal the Carmelite. Moreover, David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, for all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.

You don’t need much imagination to see how bad things were. David hadn’t only been chased out of Israel and reduced to working as a foreign vigilante—his family had also been kidnapped and his friends were threatening to kill him. I’ve had bad days, but nothing like this.

So what did David do? He strengthened himself in the Lord.

Of course, this isn’t all he did. He eventually rallied his men, rescued their families, and restored order. But all that came second. The first thing David did was manage his own heart by leaning more fully into God.

I’ve pondered this passage over the years, both because it places whatever challenge I’m facing in perspective and because I need to lead myself first. As a Christ follower, I must attend to my heart before I engage with other people or in other arenas.

The young man who said this was an American exchange student in the comparative religions class I teach at a university in Prague, Czech Republic. We were working through a unit on postmodern religious relativism. I’d spent the better part of 90 minutes laying out a series of arguments that showed how relativism makes no intellectual sense and is actually intolerant of religious belief unless that belief is relativistic (“All paths lead to God”).

None of that mattered to this young man. What mattered was that relativism made sense for him, and therefore, whatever its logically fatal flaws, it was still true—for him. He perceived freedom and the good life as intimately bound up with seeing the world in just that way. If you’ve had discussions about religion and spirituality with someone who sees life differently, you know what I’m talking about.

People seem harder to convince nowadays; they think with their passions. However, this isn’t to suggest evidence and arguments are useless—consider how closely people pay attention to research around the climate crisis and the pandemic and adjust their lifestyles accordingly. But when it comes to ultimate beliefs, they seem strangely buffered against rational argumentation. Their “basement level” of worldview responds differently, and so a different approach is needed.

Does this mean apologetics is useless? RIP apologetics? No, but it does mean we need to rethink the narrow bandwidth that apologetics generally employs. Most Christians define apologetics (if they even know what it means) as “rationally persuading someone of the truth of the Christian faith through arguments and evidence.” That approach is too blinkered, for it fails to account for the wider context where people are persuaded and beliefs are formed.

For instance, Psalm 34:8 doesn’t say, “String together a set of logical propositions and come to understand that the LORD’s existence is both logically coherent and backed by empirical evidences.” It says, “Taste and see [both sensory words] that the LORD is good [i.e., his character is trustworthy and beautiful].” It isn’t enough for the gospel to be seen as true; it must be seen and felt by our conversation partners as deeply good, a vision of reality that’s life-giving and beautiful and provides hope. Our apologetics, in other words, needs imagination.

Defining Imagination

What is the imagination, this linchpin of apologetics? In my book Oasis of Imagination, I describe the imagination as

a human power that orientates us—mind and body—in the world, through which we perceive and create. It orientates us both individually and collectively, so we can speak of a “collective imagin­ation” or “imaginary landscape.” The imagination inspires us to create, and it colours our experience of the world and our assumptions about reality. The imagination mediates: we shape our world through it, and through it our world shapes us.

The imagination is what Paul alludes to in his beautiful prayer in Ephesians 1 as “the eyes of [the heart]” (v. 18), the lens through which we see and feel the world and from which we create out into the world.

Some Christians view imagination with suspicion—or ignore it entirely. Many see imagination as a disposable accessory of life, something for children and artists that the rest of us can get along fine without. It’s like the appendix: an organ that’s there, but unnecessary. Theologian Trevor Hart wrote that the imagination is less like the appendix and more like the human circulatory system. It’s as deeply woven into our existence as our heart, arteries, and veins, and without it, we wither.

Why We Need Imaginative Apologetics

One symptom of an emaciated imagination is a lack of hope, which is in especially short supply these days. I scroll memes to see what people (at least the denizens of this particular corner of social media) think and feel about life. I notice trends, a “vibe” deeply infused with despair at the state of the world, whether it’s one’s own dysfunctional family, romantic failures, politics, climate, or the economy. The despair runs deep. There’s a genre of memes that jokingly glorifies death and suicide.

Doctor: “You have only two weeks to live.”

Me: “Promise?”

People, particularly young people, need hope. But it must be a credible hope that connects with our non-Christian friends not only as true but as answering their deepest desires. Sixteenth-century mathematician and apologist Blaise Pascal famously said, “Men despise religion; they hate it, and fear it is true. To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it; then we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we must prove it is true.”

We focus exclusively on the “true” part and neglect the “lovable” part. Our goal should be for our conversation partners to connect so strongly with what we share that they think deep down, Man, would I love to experience the world through this person’s eyes. I want to be able to love those around me with that kind of love. We mustn’t connect only with the mind, through intellectual arguments. We must connect to the heart, passions, and desires through the imagination. This is a taller order than we usually strive for in apologetics.

We must rethink our definition of apologetics to include more imaginative aspects such as art and poetry. Try this definition on for size: Apologetics is the art of presenting a vision of reality rooted in the God of the Bible that resonates with unbelievers as deeply true, beautiful, and good, while equipping Christians to respond to competing visions of reality with grace and conviction.

Note that the line between apologetics and imaginative, artistic, and poetic creativity is fuzzy—because it needs to be. Persuading someone in a post-Christian culture is deeply relational (we ourselves must be kind and good) and captures imaginations. It presents a vision of the world that resonates with the lost, a vision they can lean into as good and beautiful. To do this well takes imagination.

How to Engage the Imagination in Apologetics

The faith of a Christian or non-Christian flows from and is an expression of an imaginative grasp of how the world is and how it should be. Apologetics must appeal to the imagination.

How can we do this? How do we persuasively engage imaginations in a post-Christian culture?

First, we must abandon our obsession with the culture wars that so effectively create resentment among non-Christians (and ex-Christians). We may not always agree with mainstream culture’s moral tenor, but we must be aware of our cultural posture. Our non-Christian friends need Jesus first and foremost. An attitude and approach that seeks to conquer out of fear for the nation’s moral fiber too often only puts obstacles in the way of those who need Jesus most. We must be missionaries to, rather than warriors against, our culture. We need not and must not abandon a biblical moral stance, but our non-Christian friends must know intuitively that we love them and are for them, that our vision of the good life includes them.

Second, apologetics must recover the doctrine of common grace: the idea that there’s goodness, truth, and beauty to be found in culture created by non-Christians. Be willing to appreciate aspects of secular cultural works, for that’s our point of contact, the place where non-Christian hearts resonate. Of course, there will be elements you must critique. But before critiquing, find places where non-Christian and Christian hearts find common ground, and locate the deeper significance of those places from a Christian imaginative perspective.

Third, realize that engaging non-Christian culture isn’t enough. We must get better at contributing positively to the culture at large, particularly through the arts and entertainment. While cultures are built in a thousand different ways, churches must intentionally invest in the creatives in their pews. Decades of underinvestment have created a Christian subculture whose works are too often sentimental kitsch or manipulative propaganda. We’ve largely defaulted on our aesthetic witness before a watching world.

This underinvestment has also made creatives feel unwelcome in our churches. Creatives need churches who love and support them well while they do the difficult work of being the interface between the church and the world, addressing the collective imagination of a post-Christian culture and trying to “plant oases,” works that stir up the imaginations of Christians and non-Christians alike to refresh, challenge, comfort, and provoke—works that open a space for conversation about the things that matter most.

Practically, this might look like hosting movie discussion nights, talking with friends about what’s creating buzz in popular culture, or encouraging budding artists in the church. Whatever form it takes, let’s widen our view of what makes for effective Christian persuasion. Once more . . . with feeling.

In this episode of The Everyday Pastor, Bryan Chapell—a “Jedi master” on the topic of Christ-centered preaching—brings decades of experience to this conversation with Matt Smethurst and Ligon Duncan on why (and how) to make Jesus Christ the hero of every sermon.

Recommended resources:

• Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon
• Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Sermons: Models of Redemptive Preaching
• Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Worship: Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice

Throughout December, we look back at God’s Old Testament promises to send the Messiah to save his people. Then we see in the Gospel accounts how he did exactly what he said he’d do, down to the last detail. So as we read Jesus’s New Testament promise to come again, we eagerly await the final day when our rescue will be complete.

Distracted Longing

Or maybe we don’t. Perhaps we’re so distracted by the cares of daily life that we don’t give much thought to Christ’s return. Maybe we’re so used to relying on ourselves that we don’t feel our need for the Savior. Maybe our satisfaction with worldly treasures has dulled our longing for the better portion. How can we rekindle our longing for Christ this Advent season? How can we prepare for his return with expectant hope?

The reality that God is with us fuels our longing for his second advent.

John the Baptist prepared God’s people for the Messiah’s first coming and announced his arrival. Were that job assigned to us today, we’d likely design a marketing strategy, implement a social media campaign, or line up a string of podcast interviews. But John’s approach was simple: he bore witness. He proclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (John 1:36). John exhorted others to take a good look at Jesus, to see he was the Promised One, the Messiah they’d been waiting for.

Rekindled Longing

The results were astonishing: “The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus” (v. 37). Simply by beholding Jesus, they were compelled to follow him—and to invite others to follow him too. After spending time with Jesus, one of those disciples, Andrew, went and told his brother Simon Peter, “We have found the Messiah” (v. 41).

What drove these men to abandon all and follow? What compelled them to share the good news with others? Meeting Jesus—the Son born unto us to be our Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6).

Whether we’re entering this Advent season distracted or weary, anxious or doubting, hoping or hurting, we need to take a good look at Jesus. We need to remember he’s the Messiah who came and is coming again. In Christ, our longings are both satisfied and stirred.

Cultivated Longing

To help us look to Christ this Advent season, The Gospel Coalition’s editorial team has produced a new resource, Unto Us: 25 Advent Devotions About the Messiah. The devotions reflect on the Scripture texts in the Christmas section of Handel’s Messiah. You’ve likely heard the music of this well-known oratorio, particularly the famous “Hallelujah” chorus. But you may not realize all the lyrics are Scripture passages arranged to tell the story of Christ as the long-awaited Savior.

We’ve included 25 devotions so you can begin on December 1 and work through one reading per day until Christmas. Each devotion includes a brief Scripture reading, a devotional reflection, and questions for response. We encourage you to find a recording of Messiah and listen to the corresponding movement for each day.

In Christ, our longings are both satisfied and stirred.

You may choose to use this devotional individually, asking the Spirit to satisfy and stir your longing for Christ. But we also encourage you to consider, as the disciples did, who you can invite to behold Jesus along with you. These devotions can be used for family worship, with a group from your church, or with an unbelieving neighbor or friend.

However you use it, we pray this devotional will help you reflect on the wonder and glory not of a beautiful piece of music but of the Messiah it celebrates. May it stir in our hearts a longing to join our voices with that great multitude John describes in Revelation 19:6–7, which cries out,

Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory.

Surely he alone is worthy of all glory and honor and praise. Join us as we meditate on the Messiah this Christmas season. May we remember with fresh wonder that a Savior has been born unto us.

Heidelberg offers pastoral comfort and assurance while Westminster emphasizes doctrinal precision and the pursuit of God’s glory. Though different in style and focus, the two together provide a rich framework for spiritual growth.

Aims: For Comfort and for Glory

Heidelberg begins with a deeply personal question: “What is your only comfort in life and death?” Its answer assures us that believers belong to Christ and have his comfort in all circumstances. The catechism’s emphasis on comfort reflects its historical context: It was written to strengthen believers facing persecution.

Believers belong to Christ and have his comfort in all circumstances.

Westminster opens with a broader theological focus, asking about mankind’s chief and highest end. The answer—“to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever”—sets the tone for Westminster, which goes on to explain how believers can reflect God’s glory in their lives.

Structures: For Devotion and for Doctrine

Heidelberg is organized around three core themes: sin, salvation, and service—or guilt, grace, and gratitude. This structure allows the catechism to be both doctrinal and pastoral, but it’s primarily intended as a devotional reflection. It guides believers through a journey from recognizing their sinful condition to understanding their redemption through Christ and then living in gratitude for their salvation. Heidelberg is divided into 52 “Lord’s Days,” reflecting its intended use for weekly instruction and devotion throughout the year.

Westminster is structured to provide a comprehensive overview of Reformed theology. It covers doctrines such as God’s attributes and decrees, creation, providence, humanity’s fall, and redemption. It also includes detailed expositions of the Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer, offering believers an exhaustive resource for understanding Christian ethics and piety. Unlike Heidelberg, Westminster isn’t divided for weekly teaching but is designed to be a thorough theological manual that can be studied over time.

Styles: Pastoral and Intellectual

Heidelberg adopts a warm, pastoral tone, using personal language to engage believers directly. It frequently employs first-person pronouns like “I” and “we,” creating a sense of intimacy and connection with the reader. For example, the answer to question 1—“That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ”—speaks directly to the believer’s personal relationship with Christ, offering comfort and security. This approachable language makes Heidelberg particularly accessible to those seeking assurance in difficult times.

In contrast, Westminster employs a more formal, theological style. Its language is systematic and doctrinal, often using second- and third-person pronouns to define and explain theological truths. For instance, the answer to Westminster’s first question—“Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever”—emphasizes a theological truth about human purpose rather than personal experience. The catechism’s focus on clarity and precision reflects its purpose as a teaching tool for explaining complex theological concepts.

Content: Personal and Formal

Heidelberg’s content is Christ-centered. It focuses on the believer’s union with Christ and the comfort that comes from knowing him. Many of its questions center on the Apostles’ Creed, the sacraments, and the practical benefits of Christ’s work. Heidelberg frequently uses the word “profit” to emphasize the believer’s benefits from Christ’s death and resurrection, showing how these truths bring comfort and assurance.

Westminster, on the other hand, covers a broader range of doctrinal topics, particularly in its detailed exposition of the law and covenant theology. Its explanation of the Ten Commandments is exhaustive, detailing what each commandment requires and forbids and how believers are to obey God. Westminster also devotes significant attention to covenant theology, explaining the relationship between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace and how these covenants are fulfilled in Christ.

We Need Both

The distinct aims of these catechisms reflect believers’ diverse needs. Heidelberg’s emphasis on comfort makes it particularly valuable for personal devotion and pastoral care. By focusing on Christ’s work as the source of comfort, it provides believers with the assurance they need to face life’s trials with hope and trust in God.

Christ’s work provides believers with the assurance they need to face life’s trials with hope and trust in God.

In contrast, Westminster’s detailed theological content serves as an essential resource for believers seeking a deeper understanding of Reformed theology. Its emphasis on God’s law and covenant theology equips believers to glorify God in all areas of life. It offers doctrinally rich and practical guidance for Christian living.

The Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Larger Catechism stand as two pillars of Reformed instruction. They address believers’ spiritual needs from different but complementary perspectives. We need Heidelberg’s pastoral sensibility to become robustly theological. Similarly, we need Westminster’s thorough theology to  apply pastoral comfort to ourselves and to others’ souls.

So when a church member is grieving or seeking to grow in theological understanding, he or she may need both documents. Together, the two catechisms form a balanced approach to Christian discipleship—one that nurtures both heart and mind. They equip the church for faithful living in a complex world.

An abuse victim says, “It’s my fault.”

Someone who just hurt another says, “Nobody will accept me.”

Children whose parents are divorcing ask, “Is there something wrong with us?”

A person on the receiving end of a breakup exclaims, “Nobody would want to be with me.”

A person caught in sin says, “How could I bring this on my family?”

Someone who’s been addressed with hurtful words can start to believe them. I’m a failure. I’m a nobody. I’m unlovable.

In this world broken by sin, we’re covered in shame. Yet at the heart of Christ’s mission—and a key part of his atoning work on the cross—is removing our shame.

Shame in the Individualistic West

Many Christians in Western cultures have missed this important truth, though it’s deeply ingrained in Scripture. The term “guilt” and its various derivatives occur 155 times in the Bible, whereas “shame” and its derivatives occur 345 times. Despite this, we often give greater attention to guilt. We must recover the biblical emphasis on the truth that Christ bore our shame.

But what is shame? Jackson Wu says, “Shame is the fear, pain, or state of being regarded unworthy of acceptance in social relationships.” He contrasts shame with guilt:

Guilt focuses on a person’s actions or behavior. . . . Shame is more general and holistic. It focuses on a person’s worth. Whereas guilt says, “my actions were bad,” shame instead says, “I am bad.”

A significant aspect of Wu’s definition of shame is that it’s about social standing. Shame is inherently communal; it’s about your reputation with others. In Scripture, to shame someone means to publicly humiliate or disgrace her, whereas to honor means to publicly acknowledge her value. This explains why Western cultures often struggle to understand shame—it’s harder to grasp an inherently communal idea in a highly individualized society.

Shame in the Biblical Narrative

The biblical world didn’t have an individualistic Western framework. It was more like societies often referred to as honor/shame cultures. The themes of honor and shame appear throughout the Bible’s narrative account of sin and salvation. As Don Carson says, “The emphasis on shame in the Bible is not first and foremost with reference to peers and to family, but [in relation] to God.” Though Adam and Eve were originally naked, they “were not ashamed” (Gen. 2:25). But their sin led to shame. We see this when they realize their nakedness and attempt to hide from God.

Western cultures often struggle to understand shame—it’s harder to grasp an inherently communal idea in a highly individualized society.

One way sin is defined biblically is as dishonoring God (Rom. 1:18–21). This results in God’s judgment and an accompanying state of shame (Dan. 12:2). For example, the Lord responds to Israel’s sin by saying, “I will change their glory into shame” (Hos. 4:7). And yet, when the Lord brings salvation, this reverses sin’s shaming effects: “I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth” (Zeph. 3:19).

Shame at the Cross

Shame is at play in Jesus’s death. Crucifixion was a form of capital punishment invented not only to slowly torture someone but also to publicly shame him. Reserved for the scum of society like rebels, slaves, and outcasts, crucifixion stripped its victims of their clothes as well as their dignity. Criminals were hung naked—arms stretched out and alone—along busy Roman roads, to be taunted and mocked as they struggled for breath while vultures and vermin gnawed at their near-lifeless bodies.

In their accounts, the Gospel authors didn’t emphasize or sensationalize the gruesome details of Jesus’s death, but they did highlight the shame of the cross (spitting, mocking, gambling over clothes) in ways we in the West are prone to overlook or minimize.

When the Gospel writers tell the story in this way, they show us that on the cross, Jesus bore our shame. He was stripped naked (an indicator of bearing Adam’s shame from the garden of Eden) and mocked as a pretender king. The cross wasn’t just punishment he took for our guilty verdict—it was public humiliation meant to devalue Jesus’s personhood and smear his reputation. Yet as the Gospels make clear, he who was lifted up in mockery was truly being enthroned in honor and glory.

He Bore the Shame for You

Jesus “endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2), which means he didn’t enjoy the shame he bore but was willing to bear it because of the joy it’d produce. After bearing our shame, Jesus was “crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death” (2:9). Moreover, his death “[brought] many sons to glory” (v. 10).

Jesus was crucified to bear your shame and to adopt you into a family where you share in the King’s honor.

In a wondrous exchange, Jesus bore our shame so we could receive his honor. This is why the cross is good news. Jesus didn’t just die. He died for us. He laid down his life for you. He was crucified to bear your shame and to adopt you into a family where you share in the King’s honor.

So as you reflect on the cross, remember that when Jesus died, your shame died. He took it with him to the grave, and that’s where it stayed. Through faith, we can receive his grace, his peace, his love, his joy, and his honor in the place of our shame.

I’ve spent decades in missional movements, serving in an evangelistic college ministry and then in a church that sends church planters and missionaries around the globe. Those movements have cultivated in me a deep desire to see the gospel go near and far. I’ve learned a lot about doing for God but little about resting in him. The practice of Sabbath—a 24-hour day of rest devoted to the Lord—has rarely been talked about.

Like our culture, these church contexts have mistaken rest as a means to an end. We only stop our work long enough to recover, then get back to the real work of sharing the gospel, planting churches, and sending missionaries. This misses that God’s design for the Sabbath is inherently missional. It’s an act of witness, resistance, and justice. So when we rest for God, we join him on mission.

Act of Witness

In the Old Testament, God called his people to be a living testimony of his power and work. They testified through the habits, rhythms, and rites they embodied. A key practice at the heart of Israel’s covenant was the Sabbath. One day in every six, Israel was asked to do nothing but to rest, delight, and worship God. The Sabbath was an act of witness to the surrounding nations about the kind of God that Israel served. They no longer needed to wring productive value out of every day. They served a God who provided seven days’ provision for six days of work.

When we rest for God, we join him on mission.

The same is true for the church today. The Lord’s Day is a gift to the missional church because resting forms us into the kind of witnesses God desires—those who aren’t frazzled, hurried, and burned-out but the most well-rested and peace-filled folks in a frantic, overwhelmed, and overscheduled world. In a culture that rushes around at a breakneck pace, those who live with God’s governor on their lives stand out. Sabbath witnesses. It sweetly tells the tired and weary about a God who invites them to come and rest rather than go and achieve.

Act of Resistance

Years before I’d heard the Sabbath discussed as a practice for 21st-century Christians, singer-songwriter Josh Garrels planted a Sabbath seed in my mind with these lyrics:

My rest is a weapon against the oppression
Of man’s obsession to control things . . .
How do good men become a part of the regime?
They don’t believe in resistance

For the missional church, Sabbath is an opportunity to step into a divine “Nope.” As Walter Brueggemann describes, it’s a defiant resistance to this age’s principalities and powers, a courageous submission to the “One True King.”

In Exodus, God instructs his people to practice the Sabbath to mimic him (Ex. 20:8–11; see Gen. 2:2–3). But in Deuteronomy, God tells Israel to practice the Sabbath as a reminder of what he saved them from (Deut. 5:15). Practicing the Sabbath reminded Israel they were no longer under Pharoah’s rule but under Yahweh’s.

Later, in Nehemiah, we see “Sabbath as resistance” enacted socially: “If the peoples of the land bring in goods or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day” (Neh. 10:31). Israel practiced consumer boycotts before they were cool. Refusing to buy and sell on the Sabbath showed they weren’t beholden to a worldly economy of greed but to God’s Jubilee.

Still today, practicing Sabbath declares that the church won’t be captivated by the world’s narratives, assumptions, or destructive ways. We won’t overextend by picking up an extra time-and-a-half shift on Sundays. We won’t allow our Lord’s Day attention to be monopolized by TikTok or Meta. We won’t crush our kids’ souls by squeezing in SAT prep on Sunday afternoons. Instead, our Sabbath-keeping will weekly proclaim that we resist man’s kingdom and submit fully to God’s.

Act of Justice

Societies in the ancient Near East had no paid time off or overtime. In the context of Egypt’s oppression, God institutes the Sabbath as countercultural relief for all people, not just those at the top of the org chart. He commanded that everyone in the household experiences his rest (Deut. 5:14). Every person (and animal) was given the shalom of Sabbath restoration. To rob anyone of rest was an injustice.

Today, the least-of-these still experience rest-robbing, just at the hands of different pharaohs. In our 24-7 culture, no boundaries ensure all get the rest that they need and that God commands. Technologies have drastically improved, but paradoxically, they demand more of us than ever. The desktop worker is on the hook for emails at dinner; the DoorDasher cuts another bedtime short for a delivery; the stay-at-home parent feels crushed by unrealistic online portrayals of child-rearing.

God’s Sabbath may seem like a drag on the unhinged, always-on world. But God provides rest as justice for individuals and churches who obediently cease from work and worship him. Further, God provides rest as justice to these churches’ communities when church members cease activities that require work from others. A. J. Swoboda notes, “Sabbath for the poor, the underemployed, and the stay-at-home mom becomes a litmus test of the health and justice of a society.”

Do Nothing for God

The God of mission who rescued and redeemed you is also the God of rest.

The God of mission who rescued and redeemed you is also the God of rest.

You no longer have to anxiously toil but are free to taste his rest every week. So close your laptop, turn off your phone, and leave the dishes for tomorrow. Worship him by giving unhurried time to his Word and prayer. Rest your body by taking a nap. Delight in a good meal with those in your church family. Enter into God’s Sabbath rest, the fullness of which you can begin to taste now through these ordinary means. Paradoxically, it’s in our not-doing that God is at work in both us and the world.

So if you want to be missional, then once per week, remember to do nothing for God.

In John 11:17–44, Jesus offers eternal hope as he boldly confronts death. He gives us the hope of life in the future and access to resurrection life right now. We can rejoice knowing that if we trust in Jesus, we’re no longer spiritually dead but are now united with him in the newness of life.

Guthrie teaches on the following:

• Jesus’s love and Lazarus’s illness
• Jesus’s delay and the purpose of sickness
• Martha’s struggle with Jesus’s delay
• Jesus’s claim: “I am the resurrection and the life”
• Jesus’s question: “Do you believe this?”
• The sign of raising Lazarus
• Confidence in Jesus’s resurrection power
• Jesus’s role as weeping friend and divine warrior
• The final victory over death

I’ve organized the books by category and summarized their thoughts about why each resource is helpful. Here are their recommendations.

Leading, Teaching, and Training

Empowered and Equipped: Bible Exposition for Women Who Teach the Scriptures by Julia B. Higgins

This is one of the most well-organized, helpful books to encourage and support women as Bible teachers. It’s an excellent resource for training other women, as well as a book to reference time and again to improve your own teaching.

Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry by Ruth Haley Barton

Leadership is both beautiful and hard, and as we minister to others, our souls sometimes become spiritually malnourished. Barton helps leaders do the slow and deep work of regaining their vision for ministry and sustaining their life-giving connection with God.

Developing Female Leaders: Navigate the Minefields and Release the Potential of Women in Your Church by Kadi Cole

This book is written for male leaders, but women in ministry are served by Cole’s principles and insights into developing female leaders. Even if your church leadership hasn’t read it, you can use her principles in your ministry among women to deploy, equip, and train women to lead other women in the church.

A Short Guide to Women’s Ministry by Nora Allison

The day-to-day work of women’s ministry often leaves us longing for practical help. Allison gets into the details of women’s ministry, offering advice for everything from how to help women grow in their gifts to how to redirect a rabbit trail in Bible study.

Word-Filled Women’s Ministry: Loving and Serving the Church edited by Gloria Furman and Kathleen B. Nielson

If we’re not careful, women’s ministry can become all about women. But this book helps us see that while biblical women’s ministry is for women, it’s about God. This is a great resource for those looking to establish or refocus a women’s ministry around God’s Word.

While biblical women’s ministry is for women, it’s about God.

Discipleship and Care

Deep Discipleship: How the Church Can Make Whole Disciples of Jesus by J. T. English

We know we’re called to make disciples, but we’re not always sure what that looks like. English helps ministry leaders know both why discipleship is important and how to equip the saints for the work of discipleship ministry.

Growing Together: Taking Mentoring Beyond Small Talk and Prayer Requests by Melissa Kruger

While English’s book helps us understand the why and how of discipleship, Kruger’s equips women to do the work of discipleship. It’s written for women to work through together in a discipleship context.

One-to One-Bible Reading: A Simple Guide for Every Christian by David Helm

Reading the Bible one-on-one is a tried and true way to facilitate discipleship relationships. Women’s ministry leaders recommend Helm’s book as a guide for implementing this approach with your women.

The One Year Book of Hope: A 365-Day Devotional with Daily Scripture Readings and Uplifting Reflections That Encourage, Comfort, and Restore Joy by Nancy Guthrie

One women’s ministry director keeps a couple copies of this book on her shelf at all times (along with Guthrie’s Be Still, My Soul and O Love That Will Not Let Me Go) to hand out to women facing suffering. The devotional length is accessible for someone in the midst of grief, and wisdom, care, and kindness flow from Guthrie’s writing.

A Still and Quiet Mind: Twelve Strategies for Changing Unwanted Thoughts by Esther Smith

As struggles with anxiety become more common, this book is a valuable resource to equip leaders to help women in their congregations and to give to women who might benefit from Smith’s strategies.

Doctrine and Theology

50 Core Truths of the Christian Faith: A Guide to Understanding and Teaching Theology by Gregg R. Allison

An experienced Bible teacher said this is one of her most used resources for teaching the Bible and answering questions about theology. Allison covers many of our faith’s core doctrines with clarity and accessibility. Each chapter provides a short explanation of a doctrine, a list of key Scriptures, a teaching outline, descriptions of potential errors, and resources for additional learning.

By Design: God’s Distinctive Calling for Women by Susan Hunt

While this book is worth it for every chapter, one women’s ministry leader particularly recommends the chapter titled “Defenders of Women.” Hunt shows how necessary and vital women are in ministering to women in the church and serving alongside elders who shepherd the church.

You Are a Theologian: An Invitation to Know and Love God Well by Jen Wilkin and J. T. English

Wilkin and English’s book offers an approachable way to study theology and doctrine that leaders will appreciate for their own study and can also use to teach and equip women in their churches.

None Like Him: 10 Ways God Is Different from Us (and Why That’s a Good Thing) by Jen Wilkin

Focused on God’s incommunicable attributes, this book offers another approachable way for women to study theology. And it can be a great encouragement to leaders. The leader who recommended this book explained, “Every women’s ministry leader needs the reminder: You’re not God. I found this book to be a beautiful reminder that while I’m limited, finite, and unable to change situations, we serve a God who is infinite, all-powerful, and ever present.”

The Bible teaches that believers will dwell intimately with God in the new heavens and earth. Revelation 21–22 depicts a cosmic sanctuary, where all creation houses the glory of the triune God (21:1–4). As Revelation 21 unfolds, John narrows his focus to the church’s identity in this new cosmos. He depicts the church as a city-bride, two symbols that underscore the church’s identity as true Israel and the end-time temple (vv. 9–21). There’s no need for a physical structure that houses God’s glory on the new earth, for creation and redeemed humanity function as a massive sanctuary (v. 22).

High Priests of the New Sanctuary

While John emphasizes the church’s identity, he also drops two clues about its function. According to 22:4, believers “will see [God’s or the Lamb’s] face, and his name will be on their foreheads.” We can pick up on John’s incredible grasp of the Old Testament here as he recalls Exodus 28:36–38:

You are to make a pure gold medallion and engrave it, like the engraving of a seal: HOLY TO THE LORD. Fasten it to a cord of blue yarn so it can be placed on the turban; the medallion is to be on the front of the turban. It will be on Aaron’s forehead. (CSB)

On the Day of Atonement (the holiest day of Israel’s calendar), the high priest (the holiest person in Israel), twice entered the Holy of Holies (the holiest place on earth). When the high priest entered for the first time, he poured two handfuls of incense over the hot coals taken from the altar of incense to create a “cloud of incense” to “cover the mercy seat” (Lev. 16:12–13). The purpose of this cloud was to obscure the ark from the high priest, because “it is here, above the lid [of the mercy seat], that the LORD manifests his presence . . . and full exposure to such glory would be lethal.”

Consider the gravity of the situation: God only permits the high priest to enter into his presence once a year, and when the priest enters, he must still create a buffer of incense between himself and God’s glory. And the glory that resides behind the temple’s backroom isn’t even the full manifestation of God.

Applying what we’ve learned from Exodus 28 and Leviticus 16, we discover that every believer in the new heavens and earth is, strikingly, a high priest. The Spirit has so radically anointed and transformed believers’ bodies that they’re utterly holy. There’s no stain of sin, uncleanness, or defilement. Every individual in the eternal state, on account of Christ’s work and our union with him, has full access to God’s presence. No cloud of incense will obscure us from God’s face.

Kings of the New Sanctuary

Let’s examine our second clue. Revelation 22:5 says, “[Believers] will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” The last line brings to mind one of the Greek translations of Daniel 7:27: “[God] shall give the authority and the kingdom and the magnitude of all the kingdoms, which are under heaven, to the holy people of the Most High, to reign over an everlasting kingdom” (NETS).

The Spirit has so radically anointed and transformed believers’ bodies that they’re utterly holy.

Daniel 7 is one of the most difficult texts in the Old Testament, yet its difficulty is matched by its importance. Daniel 7 largely concerns an enigmatic “son of man” who possesses divine qualities. This messianic figure will defeat the fourth beast (the Roman Empire) and vindicate a righteous remnant who identifies with his eternal rule (7:11–14, 22–27). What’s true of the son of man is true of the righteous remnant. Daniel 7 is a prophecy about events that will transpire at the very end of history. All four Gospels insist Jesus is the enigmatic son of man and that his life, death, and resurrection inaugurated the long-awaited prophecy. The Gospels also insist that Jesus’s followers inherit his eternal reign. But there’s a twist: Satan and his demons—not the Roman Empire—are the fourth beast. And Christ’s followers extend God’s rule over the demonic realm.

Revelation 22:5, though, is the consummation of the Daniel 7 prophecy. Whereas believers primarily ruled over Satan and his devices on a spiritual level (sin, false teaching, temptation, etc.) between the two comings of Christ, in the new creation they’ll rule, to some degree, over the spiritual and physical realms. This may explain Paul’s statement in 1 Cor. 6:3: “Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” Of course, we won’t rule in the same way God rules and reigns over the created order, but it appears we’ll govern creation in the manner God intended Adam and Eve to rule from the beginning (Gen. 1:28).

Awe of Life in the New Sanctuary

Let’s now tease out the significance of the church’s priestly and kingly images we’ve discussed. We ought to remain cautious, as we’re working with trajectories, hints, and subtle biblical-theological connections. A great deal of priestly activity in the Old Testament is bound up with their service in the sanctuary. They were, for example, responsible for ensuring the sanctuary functioned the way God intended by burning incense (Ex. 30:7–9), tending the lamps, (27:20–21), and setting out 12 loaves of bread (Lev. 24:5–9). In short, they maintained the function of God’s house. If Israel’s tabernacle/temple is a shadow of the new earth, then the priests’ maintenance may correspond to the church’s maintenance of the new earth.

Perhaps this maintenance would include cultivating the earth for food production. Didn’t Jesus eat in his glorified body (Luke 24:43)? Scripture is rife with examples of his people dining together. Isaiah 25:6 even relates how God himself will prepare a rich banquet for the nations in the new creation. The passage is laden with metaphors, of course, but the metaphors appear to point to something tangible.

We’ll govern creation in the manner God intended Adam and Eve to rule from the beginning.

The church’s identity as kings is also worth considering. The idea of ruling, as found in Revelation 22:5, often entails exercising God’s sovereign authority over a realm. The church will function as kings who appropriate God’s rule throughout the new earth. The church will “exercise sovereignty over the new creation in a way similar to how Adam was to rule ‘over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

Consider Adam’s conduct in the garden when he inspected, cataloged, and named the animals (Gen. 2:20). Similarly, the church in the new creation will likely study the created order, learn how it operates, and manage it. One author states explains:

The purpose of this new body will be to rule wisely over God’s new world. Forget those images about lounging around playing harps. There will be work to do and we shall relish doing it. All the skills and talents we have put to God’s service in this present life . . . will be enhanced and ennobled and given back to us to be exercised to his glory.

When we grasp our identity as priest-kings in God’s sanctuary, our future becomes exciting, concrete, and filled with awe and wonder. We can be confident our priestly and royal activities will finally and fully be done “to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).

As Thomas Kuhn argues in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, scientific theories and paradigms change, often suddenly, with new evidence and revised models. What scientists “know” today may be swept into the dustbins of intellectual history tomorrow. This is true of theories about the origins of the universe and human life that seem to conflict with certain readings of Genesis.

Of making many books about reconciling Darwinism and Christianity there is no end. Many such works suggest we abandon long-held doctrines or revise them to fit contemporary scientific findings and paradigms. In Defending Sin: A Response to the Challenges of Evolution and the Natural Sciences, Hans Madueme—a trained medical doctor who’s now a professor of biblical and theological studies at Covenant College—attempts to regain some of the doctrinal ground lost in the discussion between Christian theology and the natural sciences. He especially focuses on hamartiology, the doctrine of sin.

This book is, fundamentally, an apologetic for traditional Christian teaching about creation’s original goodness and humanity’s fall.

Five Aspects of Biblical Realism

At the center of Madueme’s apologetic is a set of methodological assumptions he calls “biblical realism.” He identifies five key components of this approach that shape a Christian understanding of the relationship between faith and science.

First, biblical realism asserts that supernatural realities actively operate within God’s world. Even scientists who affirm the supernatural often pursue knowledge through methodological naturalism, which assumes “only natural explanations are permissible in scientific research” (45). But this approach can’t account for God’s supernatural intervention in history, whether we’re speaking of virginal conception, resurrection from the dead, or direct acts of creation. In contrast, Madueme upholds both the regularity of the natural world and the possibility of direct intervention by God without embracing fideism.

Second, biblical realism upholds the principle of dogmatic inerrancy, which states that biblical passages are authoritative even when they appear to conflict with current science. Madueme contrasts this view to what he calls “evidential inerrancy,” which avoids conflict between Scripture and science by “reassess[ing] the relevant biblical texts, perhaps by invoking some kind of accommodation, reinterpreting the text, or, more radically, downgrading biblical authority” (55). This can lead to dismantling inerrancy itself.

Third, biblical realism recognizes scientific fallibilism—the idea that the natural sciences, while valuable, are inherently limited due to human finitude and fallibility. Madueme argues that because science is subject to these limitations, we require the corrective influence of divine revelation to fully understand the world.

Fourth, biblical realism requires doctrinal confidence among Christians. According to Madueme, “Central doctrinal beliefs receive their epistemic warrant from Scripture and should therefore not be revised (or abandoned) in the face of conflicting scientific theories” (45). In a world where we often allow science to direct our theology, Madueme says we have the freedom to let Scripture correct our science.

Finally, biblical realism promotes an eclectic method that evaluates scientific theories on an individual basis. This careful approach is based on the goodness of natural sciences, the reliability of Scripture, the interconnectedness of theological beliefs, and the fallibility of scientific conclusions.

Faith and science are seen as complementary rather than contradictory, each playing a distinct role in the pursuit of truth.

While there may be conflicts, such as between Darwinian evolution and some views of the biblical account of creation, the Bible doesn’t contradict most scientific understandings relevant to everyday life. Biblical realism encourages a balanced view where faith and science are seen as complementary rather than contradictory, each playing a distinct role in the pursuit of truth.

Gracious Polemics

This approach to doctrine and exegesis must be wielded carefully. Therefore, Madueme distinguishes between essential and nonessential doctrines.

For example, Madueme leaves room for disagreement between Christians about the earth’s age. Yet he rightly observes that historic doctrines about Adam, original goodness, and the fall are essential to a proper understanding of Scripture’s grand narrative. Even if science supports theories that contradict the original goodness of creation, we can’t dismiss this doctrine without destabilizing the coherent core of Christian truth. He asserts such doctrines aren’t only scientifically justifiable but also integral to our understanding of the gospel.

Even if science supports theories that contradict the original goodness of creation, we cannot dismiss this doctrine without destabilizing the coherent core of Christian truth.

The doctrine of sin is the book’s central focus. Yet much of what Madueme says about the relationship between science and biblical authority applies to other apparent conflicts. He makes an intellectually robust case for reading the Genesis creation account as a literal six-day event. Yet he doesn’t resort to mean-spirited polemics or speculative exegesis. Even Christians who prefer alternative explanations of Genesis’s days should appreciate the grace and clarity of his positions. Defending Sin is an attempt to argue to reveal truth rather than to win at all costs.

By defending the biblical account of the fall, Madueme’s work serves a larger purpose. He makes the case that Christians can embrace science without capitulating on matters that Scripture and the Christian tradition have agreed on for millennia. Even those deeply invested in the natural sciences don’t have to be embarrassed by Genesis. This book is remarkable for the range and depth of Madueme’s theological argument as he argues against materialistic assumptions about the world, while still celebrating the true knowledge we gain from science. Not everyone will be convinced by his theological method, but he creates a clear path forward for those who want to take science seriously and stand firm on the tradition.

Trevin Wax recently noted that church-attending college students are pursuing spiritual formation with new interest. What stands out is their commitment to Christ’s lordship and their reworking of personal habits and spiritual disciplines. Authors like Justin Whitmel Earley and John Mark Comer now reach wide audiences, guiding their readers to renew traditional practices of Christian spirituality.

Kyle Strobel is also encouraged that a new generation is “awakening to the very questions that helped start this conversation 45 years ago.” Strobel serves as a professor in the Institute for Spiritual Formation at Talbot School of Theology. He argues, “What is needed today is not merely a discussion of practices, but a real spiritual theology fueled by a distinctively Protestant and evangelical vision of the Christian life.”

Enter J. I. Packer. I’d argue that theological institutions and their students can find the Protestant and evangelical vision they need by looking back to truths about Christian spirituality Packer emphasized in 1989.

Packer’s Spiritual Emphasis

That year, Packer was appointed Sangwoo Youtong Chee professor of theology at Regent College. In his introductory lecture, he argued any study of theology is, and indeed should be, educational work in spirituality. He explained that he felt at home in his new position because Regent emphasized spirituality and was committed to the idea that no theology should ever be taught to enrich the head while impoverishing the heart.

No theology should ever be taught to enrich the head while impoverishing the heart.

Packer rejected a merely scientific approach to theological study, arguing that cool and clinical detachment when studying doctrine was intolerable. He instead proposed a marriage in which systematic theology would be taught as an element of a student’s spirituality and spirituality taught as an expression of systematic theology. He believed systematic theology should be a devotional discipline, a means of relating to God. Packer aptly said, “Given the marriage, both our theologizing and our devotional explorations will become systematic spirituality, exercises in (allow me to say it) knowing God, and we shall all be the richer as a result.”

Packer’s view was long-held and deeply personal. While a student at Oxford in the 1940s, he encountered Keswick theology, an approach to Christianity often captured by the phrase “victorious living” or the slogan “let go and let God.” The central teaching of this theology was surrender to Christ, trusting entirely in his ability to defeat sin and produce spiritual fruit. Active obedience was seen as mere legalism and dangerous to spirituality. Should believers not experience life to its fullest, or should they struggle with sin, they were said to lack “total surrender” to Christ. Packer was acutely disturbed by this teaching. He couldn’t achieve “total surrender” and still battled sin.

Where did Packer turn? He discovered the English Puritans, chiefly John Owen, and found spiritual relief. As his biographer Alister McGrath summarized, “Here was a writer who spoke to Packer’s condition, and offered a realistic solution to his concerns. . . . The discovery of Owen must be regarded as a turning point in Packer’s Christian life.”

Packer’s Distinctive Approach

Because Packer’s concern for theological clarity on sanctification and spirituality began early in his education, he later aimed his own students toward the study of spirituality in their theological study as well.

1. He argued against a specialized separation of theology and spirituality.

In “An Introduction to Systematic Spirituality” (1990), he noted that the material of systematic theology couldn’t be detached from trusting, loving, and glorifying God:

As commonly practiced, [the theological method] separates the questions of truth from those of discipleship; it proceeds as if doctrinal study would only be muddied by introducing devotional concerns; it drives a wedge between theology and doxology, between orthodoxy and orthopraxy, between knowing true notions about God and knowing the true God himself, between one’s thinking and one’s worshipping. Done this way, theology induces spiritual pride and produces spiritual sleep (physical sleep, too, sometimes). Thus, the noblest study in the world gets cheapened. I cannot applaud this.

If God’s truth is to be embraced and believed by theology teachers and their students, Packer says it must first affect them—their worship, their obedience, and their service. Their Christian lives cannot be separated from their Christian thoughts.

2. He tasked Christian educators with ‘officiating’ the marriage of spirituality and theology.

Packer didn’t just propose a marriage between systematic theology and spirituality; he wanted an explicit exchange of vows and mutual commitments. And in his essay “Evangelical Foundations for Spirituality” (1991), Packer laid the responsibility for officiating this union at the feet of theological educators. He claimed, “In practice, it is only when individual instructors labor . . . to bring the three fields of concern [ethics, spirituality, and theology] together in their own teaching that the disjunction is ever nowadays overcome.”

Individual instructors, then, have a twofold responsibility. First, they should engage their material with their spiritual devotion and practice of piety in full view of their students. Second, educators should imagine their role in students’ lives as essentially pastoral. Packer encouraged them to instruct their students with disciple-making intentionality.

Packer’s Courageous Vision for Theological Education

Even if an administration and faculty can agree on spiritual formation’s necessity, building a structure that fosters that formation is still complex. How can Christian educational institutions put this mission into practice today?

First, there must be a foundational agreement on the integration of faith and learning. Simply put, Christian education must first be Christian. Second, theological learning in Christian institutions should foster the student body’s spirituality, not as a mere departmental add-on but as the aim of the entire educational enterprise.

Adopting Packer’s pastoral vision for theological education takes exceptional courage. He writes,

Academics who have got their feet on the ladder and want to climb professionally (and there is nothing wrong with such a purpose) must publish in approved journals and with approved publishers, be seen and if possible, heard at conferences of learned societies, and join in the ongoing debates among their peers. In such circumstances [it] is the easiest thing in the world to forget one’s churchly identity and responsibilities and simply think along with generally accepted opinion, concerning oneself only with keeping in the swim.

Though self-centered skepticism often invades Christian academics, the theologian-pastor, in Packer’s view, was called to a pastoral pedagogy, a devotional delivery of theological knowledge. For example, when one of my Bible college professors discussed Scripture’s authority and necessity, he quoted 1 Peter 2:2–3 and immediately questioned us on our appetite for the Scriptures. He pleaded with us, saying, “Newborns wake up hungry and must be fed. When you can’t sleep, what do you long for? If you don’t have an insatiable desire for the Scriptures, ask God to give you such a disposition.” Suddenly, our discussion of systematic theology became intensely focused on spirituality.

Is the Tide Turning?

It’s encouraging that spiritual formation is trending in Christian circles. I agree with Strobel that the conversation is essential because “while every Christian should believe in the work of the Spirit to form us increasingly into Jesus’s likeness, few have articulated that vision for the church, or even for themselves.” But I often wonder what Packer would say if he were alive today. This is a movement and an emphasis he’d surely applaud, though not unquestioningly.

He would, I believe, suggest definite doctrinal fences to guard modern students from the error of mysticism. I also think he’d urge new-spirituality proponents to read the English Puritans like he did.

Educators should imagine their role in students’ lives as essentially pastoral.

Finally, I’m convinced he’d encourage theological schools not to neglect character formation. Often, seminaries and Bible colleges engage convictions and competencies well. They’re good at educating students to be confessional and doctrinally committed to either a denominational or evangelical creed. Schools also excel at training their students in ministry skills. Preachers are taught to preach well, and linguists are taught to translate texts efficiently and effectively, as they should be. But the students’ character can be lost in these educational emphases.

I once asked a graduate-level preaching class about how Bible colleges and seminaries could invest in their character, and the near-universal response was something like this: “That’s the job of the local church, not the school.” Packer would disagree. He’d certainly affirm that Christocentric character formation is the job of the local church, but he’d further argue that theological institutions cannot neglect it in their curriculum and pedagogy. This doesn’t mean professors should plan to tack on a point of spirituality to every lecture. This means professors should see every lecture as spiritual, not because this is popular but because it’s best.

At the time, I said to myself, Well, that’s just Roman Catholics. That kind of thing doesn’t happen with evangelicals, with truly Bible-believing Christians.

In 2019, however, the Houston Chronicle brought to light the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) sexual abuse scandal. The SBC, a fellowship of 47,000 Baptist churches, might never have properly addressed that scandal without the Chronicle’s coverage and pressure. The world was again holding the church to account, instead of the other way around—only this time it wasn’t Catholics but evangelicals who were in the wrong.

Meanwhile, in Britain, where I come from, the same process was underway, beginning with a national TV news report in 2017. The scandal this report exposed is now widely recognized as the worst abuse case in the history of the Church of England. Further revelations have ultimately led to the resignation this week of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby—the most senior leader in the global Anglican Communion. The church might never have revealed this scandal if it had been left to its own devices by the world.

What Happened

Abuse Connected to Evangelical Camps

Warning: this section contains descriptions of physical and sexual abuse. 

On February 2, 2017, Channel 4 News revealed that in the 1970s and 80s, John Smyth, then a high profile trial lawyer, had savagely beaten boys and young men.

The world was again holding the church to account, instead of the other way around—only this time it wasn’t Catholics but evangelicals who were in the wrong.

Smyth gained influence over his victims through his involvement with an evangelical summer camp ministry: Varsity and Public School Camps, later renamed Iwerne Holidays for the camps’ location near Iwerne Minster (Iwerne is pronounced “U-ern”). Smyth also groomed victims at Winchester College, a prestigious boarding school near his home. The school’s Christian group was associated with the Iwerne camps, and Smyth regularly visited that group.

According to the most recent report, by 1982 Smyth had abused around 30 boys and young men, who were aged 16 and older. Eight of these victims were treated with special brutality, receiving a combined total of 14,000 lashings over a three-year period. One victim was struck with a cane 800 times in one day.

The report says: “The young men were left physically harmed and scarred by the beatings, bleeding badly, leaving blood on cushions and seats and having to wear adult nappies and bandages to prevent leaking of blood.”

Smyth beat his victims using a cane, usually in the garden shed of his Winchester home. A few years after the beatings began, a newly built, sound-proofed shed was placed further away from the house.

The abuse had a sexual nature: victims were partially or fully naked, and Smyth himself was either partially or fully naked while he administered the beatings. The recent report explains: “Smyth would drape himself over the victim, before and after the beating, sometimes kissing them on the neck or back.”

The following quotes from the survivors themselves are very graphic, and readers may wish to skip over them. They’re included to give full weight to the suffering of these young people:

I could feel the blood splattering on my legs.

I was struck 30–40 times with a cane across my bottom, sometimes the cane missed my bottom and connected with my thigh. The pain was so intense, my bottom was bleeding and despite it being red raw he would continue striking me. Each hit was very violent, and it was extraordinarily painful. Smyth was hitting me as hard as he could – he was sweating and exerting a lot of energy with each stroke.

When I was beaten 20 to 30 times, I could run my fingers up and down my bottom afterwards and I had a sense that each cane stroke had left its own mark on my body, however when I was beaten more than 30, or even as much as 100 times, there was no sense of any individual stroke marks on my buttocks, they were just a bloody mess.

John Smyth told me that my next [beating], which was going to mark my 21st birthday, was going to be special and more severe than those I’d suffered before. I thought this meant I was going to be getting two to three hundred strokes as I was aware by then that one of the other victims had been beaten with 400 strokes. I also knew that another victim had received an all-day beating of 800 strokes.

All of this abuse was carried out with an explicitly spiritual purpose. Smyth beat the boys to punish them for their supposed sins, based on a twisted misreading of Hebrews 12:4: “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

Cover-Up and Departure to Africa

When the leaders of Iwerne Holidays were informed of Smyth’s abuse in 1982, they compiled a detailed document that acknowledged the criminal nature of the beatings. They should have reported Smyth to the police. Instead, they allowed him to quietly leave the country.

Smyth and his family moved in 1984 to Zimbabwe, where he set up a new summer camp ministry and began abusing boys again. A 16-year-old named Guide Nyachuru died in 1992 in highly suspicious circumstances while attending one of Smyth’s camps. Smyth was charged with culpable homicide, but the case was discontinued due to the prosecutor having a conflict of interest. Smyth is suspected of abusing around 85 boys and young men in African countries while he was living in Zimbabwe.

Smyth moved again in 2001, this time to South Africa. He was still living in South Africa in 2017, when his past abuse in Britain was finally exposed by Channel 4 News. He died of a suspected heart attack 18 months later in August 2018, at the age of 75. A police investigation into his past crimes in Britain was by then underway, but in this world, Smyth was never held to account.

Justin Welby’s Involvement

Last Thursday, the Church of England published a report known as the Makin Review (named for its lead reviewer, Keith Makin). Initially, Archbishop Welby refused to resign, but five days later, in response to mounting public outrage at the contents of the report, he offered his resignation to King Charles.

Welby had attended the Iwerne camps as a young man and knew Smyth personally. According to Makin, Welby was warned about Smyth in 1981 (before Welby was ordained as a priest). Despite that warning, Welby continued exchanging Christmas cards with Smyth for several years. He also made financial donations to a trust set up by Smyth to fund the African camps.

Makin states that “Justin Welby became aware of the abuse alleged against John Smyth in around August 2013 in his capacity as Archbishop of Canterbury.” This was the result of attempts by a survivor of Smyth’s abuse, beginning in 2012, to bring the abuse to the Church of England’s attention. Church officials did then disclose the abuse, but their efforts were inadequate. Makin concludes that “from July 2013 … John Smyth should have been properly and effectively reported to the police in the UK and to relevant authorities in South Africa. This represented a further missed opportunity to bring him to justice and may have resulted in an ongoing and avoidable safeguarding threat.”

After Channel 4 publicly exposed Smyth’s abuse in 2017, Welby promised to meet with survivors. But it took four more years before Welby finally held that meeting. Between 2013 and 2024 not a single Church of England “Officer” (someone holding a formal Church-related post) was disciplined for failings related to the Smyth scandal.

In his resignation statement, Welby said, “It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024.”

Reputation vs. Righteousness

When I think back to my attitude to the Roman Catholic child abuse scandal, I see that I was incredibly naive. Even wholehearted, Bible-believing evangelicals such as those involved with Iwerne Holidays can take exactly the same approach as the negligent Roman Catholic bishops: covering up abuse in order to protect the reputation of their ministry.

It’s impossible for me to deny this, because of my personal knowledge of Iwerne Holidays, the summer camp ministry at the heart of the scandal. I attended Iwerne camps for eighteen consecutive summers from 1994–2011 and was employed by Iwerne for three years from 2000–03. The gospel proclaimed at Iwerne was the same as the message of The Gospel Coalition. The Iwerne camps were prayerful, loving, and joyful, with deep reverence for Jesus and God’s Word. And yet Iwerne held a rotting secret at its core.

By the 1990s, newcomers to Iwerne such as myself had no knowledge of Smyth’s abuse, and we weren’t informed about it. The closest I ever came to learning about the abuse was when I was told that “something bad” had happened “a long time ago” in connection with the Christian group at Winchester College. But some of the most senior and well-respected leaders of the summer camps, whom I knew, and who returned to Iwerne year after year, were living with the knowledge that they’d let a monstrous abuser escape justice.

Some of the most senior and well-respected leaders of the summer camps, whom I knew, and who returned to Iwerne year after year, were living with the knowledge that they’d let a monstrous abuser escape justice.

One of those leaders, David Fletcher, who died in 2022, was arguably more responsible than anyone else for keeping Smyth’s abuse from being exposed. His reasoning is on record: “I thought it would do the work of God immense damage if this were public.” With a slight change of wording (“church” instead of “work”), that statement could have been made by any of the Roman Catholic bishops who covered up sexual abuse by parish priests.

Let us all be luminously clear about the folly of David Fletcher’s thinking: (1) God is able to protect his own work—Christ has promised to build his church (Matt. 16:18); (2) covered-up misconduct does vastly more damage than swiftly-revealed misconduct; and most importantly of all, (3) we don’t glorify God by unrighteousness. For those reasons among others, criminal abuse by Christians should be reported to the police immediately.

One of the many consequences of the unrighteous cover-up of Smyth’s abuse was the death of 16-year-old Guide Nyachuru. Guide would never have attended a Smyth camp in Zimbabwe if Smyth had been truly held to account in Britain.

The loss of earthly reputation can be frightening to contemplate. But God calls his people to live for his glory, which we do by seeking first his kingdom (not our own organization’s fame) and his righteousness.

He teaches the following:

• Ezekiel’s prophetic actions convey the severity of God’s coming judgment
• God’s wrath is a necessary consequence of the people’s wickedness
• Why we must understand repentance
• How Ezekiel 4–5 fits into the context of the Bible’s metanarrative
• The problem of humanity’s sin requires a divine solution
• The cross is the ultimate expression of God’s justice and mercy

It was harder to tell how the pro-life movement did. Three states that voted for Kamala Harris also voted to amend their constitutions to protect abortion, as you might expect. Two states that voted for Donald Trump rejected measures to expand abortion. One state that voted for Trump—Nebraska—voted to keep the current 12-week ban and not to legalize through viability.

And four states that voted for Trump—Arizona, Missouri, Montana, and Nevada—also chose to expand or maintain access to abortion, though Nevada needs another vote in 2026 before it takes effect. Missouri had the smallest passing margin of the night—51.6 percent to 48.4 percent—and was the toughest pro-life loss, erasing all restrictions the state had put in place during the Roe years.

Those disappointing losses suggest a further decoupling of pro-life issues from Republican values. This summer, the GOP rewrote its platform. For the first time in 40 years, it didn’t affirm that “the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed.” Instead, Republicans wrote that “states are, therefore, free to pass laws protecting those Rights.”

“That’s the platform that just won,” said Care Net CEO Roland Warren. “Here’s the problem: it’s going to be incredibly difficult to get Republicans to go back to the old position.”

Other pro-life organizations, including Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Students for Life, and Americans United for Life (AUL), endorsed the platform. In a statement, AUL said it “worked closely with the [Republican National Committee] on developing platform language that preserves reference to the Fourteenth Amendment while updating the language to our post-Roe world.”

Overall, pro-life leaders seem cautiously optimistic about the election results. The state victories were the first legislative wins since Dobbs overturned Roe in 2022.

Not only that, but Harris’s loss “is a clear rejection of the extreme abortion agenda that she made the centerpiece of her campaign,” stated March for Life president Jeanne Mancini.

Running on Abortion

Before the Dobbs decision overturned the national right to an abortion, the Democrat and Republican parties each spent between 2 and 3 percent of their ad campaigns on addressing abortion.

After Dobbs, the Republican spending allocation didn’t change much. But the Democrat spending on abortion ads skyrocketed—in both 2022 and the first half of 2024, they spent between 28 and 38 percent of their national budget on abortion ads. In some states (Michigan and Arizona) more than half of Democratic ads were about abortion. In Georgia, it was more than 90 percent.

“Kamala Harris made abortion her No. 1 issue, the focus of the [Democratic National Committe], to the point where they were doing abortions in buses outside the DNC convention—and she lost,” said 40 Days for Life CEO Shawn Carney. In fact, Harris won a smaller margin of female votes than Joe Biden in 2020 or Hillary Clinton in 2016.

“That should give confidence to people worried about abortion—you can be pro-life and win,” Carney said. “Look at [pro-life Florida governor] DeSantis. He won big in 2022, five months after Dobbs. He owned and defended the Heartbeat Bill [which prohibits abortions in Florida after a heartbeat is detected], and he just won big with Amendment 4 [where voters rejected a pro-abortion constitutional amendment].”

DeSantis campaigned energetically against Amendment 4 and was firm in his stance even when Trump, a Florida resident, wavered in his support for it and wouldn’t say how he voted on it.

With a clear message and strong leadership, DeSantis is proving it’s possible to be a pro-life politician after Dobbs, Carney said.

He certainly is—in Florida, pro-life advocates spent $12 million to oppose the amendment. Pro-abortion advocates spent $118 million.

But DeSantis is an outlier. This year, most Republicans didn’t work as hard on their abortion messaging as the Democrats did.

Money and Messaging

In nearly every other state, the side that spent the most money to support or oppose a ballot initiative won.

In South Dakota, pro-life supporters outspent pro-abortion supporters, and their side won. In New York, Nevada, Montana, Missouri, Maryland, Colorado, and Arizona, pro-abortion proponents spent, on average, more than 23 times the amount of pro-life advocates. In each case, the pro-abortion vote won.

A lot of the ads were untrue, said Erik Baptist, director of the Center for Life with Alliance Defending Freedom. “Every state allows doctors to treat women experiencing life-threatening pregnancy complications, including miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies. Any statement to the contrary is flatly false. . . . The pro-life movement must respond to these lies and educate the public on how pro-life laws protect both women’s health and unborn life.”

“It’s a messaging problem,” Carney said.

It’s a little more than that. After Roe, pro-life Republicans have struggled to find the next clear goal to unite around. The backlash to Dobbs makes things even more slippery. Some, including Missouri senator Josh Hawley and former Nevada senator Sam Brown, affirmed their personal pro-life convictions but said they’d vote against a national abortion ban.

The American people also seem to be unclear on their position. Nearly a third of adults say they believe embryos are people with rights and that the decision to abort belongs solely to the pregnant woman.

Carney sees an opportunity here. As the message of the left becomes more extreme, such as opposing all restrictions and including gender transition in its fight for “bodily autonomy,” it creates more room for a reasonable pro-life voice.

“Over the last 20 years, the pro-life side has become the pro-science side, the common-sense side, the compassionate side,” Carney said.

At least some people are willing to hear it. The pro-life victories in Florida, South Dakota, and Nebraska were important. In 2022 and 2023—the two elections after Dobbs—the pro-abortion vote had dominated all seven state ballot initiatives.

“This election stopped the bleeding,” Carney said. “We finally had some victories. And the further we get from Dobbs, the easier this will get, because people are realizing the world didn’t end when Roe was overturned. Every day that passes, not having a universal right to abortion becomes more normal.”

A Republican president won’t hurt either.

Trump

Trump isn’t exactly a pro-life president. But he’s not exactly pro-abortion either.

On the campaign trail, he and JD Vance have said Trump would veto a national abortion ban, that he wouldn’t, and then that he would. Their stance on defunding Planned Parenthood has been confusing. And Trump has indicated he’s open to curbing access to the abortion pills—or not.

But pro-life leaders point out that he was the president who set up the overturn of Roe. And his administration won’t harass the pro-life movement.

“We had a big problem with the Department of Justice under Biden,” Carney said.

In July, a federal court sentenced a 33-year-old mom to three and a half years in prison for protesting outside a New York abortion clinic. In September 2022, two dozen FBI agents arrested Mark Houck, the president of a Catholic ministry and a 40 Days volunteer, and charged him with two felonies for pushing a foul-mouthed abortion escort away from Houck’s young son. In March 2021, the Justice Department charged six pro-life protesters who were singing and praying in a hallway leading to an abortion clinic; one was sentenced to 16 months in prison.

Meanwhile, when more than 100 churches and crisis pregnancy centers across the country were vandalized after the Dobbs decision, few arrests were made. The discrepancy was so clear that multiple members of Congress repeatedly asked US attorney general Merrick Garland for an explanation.

At the same time, the Biden administration tried to block pregnancy centers from receiving federal funds by deeming them ineligible recipients of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

“Clearly, this administration will be dramatically better from that perspective,” Warren said.

Gospel Issue

Whether disappointed or optimistic after the election, pro-life leaders aren’t planning to stop or even slow their work.

“CareNet and Heartbeat and 40 Days for Life are more needed than ever,” Carney said. “The demand for 40 Days has skyrocketed since the overturning of Roe.”

Without a federal law, the movement is “market driven,” he said. “It’s about hearts and minds. We need to have focus and clarity and put our foot on the gas.”

Multiple disciplines in the natural sciences put pressure today on the Christian doctrine of sin. For many, the early chapters of Genesis don’t seem to match what we know from evolutionary biology, human genetics, and neuroscience.

These challenges are the focus of Hans Madueme’s new book, Defending Sin: A Response to the Challenges of Evolution and the Natural Sciences (Baker Academic). Madueme is a professor of theological studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. He earned his MDiv and PhD from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. And he previously earned his MD from Howard University College of Medicine and did his internal medicine residency at Mayo Graduate School of Medicine.

In Defending Sin, Madueme describes his approach as “biblical faith seeking scientific understanding.” And he takes aim at the pretensions of modern science. He argues we can trust divine revelation. Indeed, we must. Madueme writes, “Doctrines are not atomistic entities like marbles in a jar that we can rearrange without consequence. Doctrines are more like threads in a tapestry: pulling on the fall unravels other doctrines and disrupts the biblical story’s inner coherence.”

Madueme joined me on Gospelbound to discuss whether the Presbyterian Church in America should close up shop, why he defends young-earth creationism, why we can trust what Scripture says about the future, and more.

Diane Langberg’s book When the Church Harms God’s People: Becoming Faith Communities That Resist Abuse, Pursue Truth, and Care for the Wounded promises to be a helpful resource for dealing with church hurt. Langberg is a practicing psychologist who spends her days ministering to those who’ve experienced trauma and abuse. She uses social media to bring awareness about the realities of helping people through trauma. Her books, specifically Suffering and the Heart of God and On the Threshold of Hope, have been useful as I counsel others and prepare the next generation of leaders within the church.

And yet a nagging question comes up in my mind: Why are books like this even necessary? The theologian in me immediately thinks of Genesis 3 and the realities of sin. But I still wonder, Are they really necessary? Langberg answers that question: they shouldn’t be. Yet books like this are necessary to help church leaders both prevent abuse and minister to the abused, because it helps us understand how inconsistent abuse is with God’s design for the church.

True Church of Christ

Let’s step into the theological discussion for a moment. What is the church to be? According to Langberg, “The body of Christ is to be like Christ as individuals and as a gathered body of those who are one with him.” She continues, “Anything that does not look like Christ is not the church” (16). The church is to mimic Jesus in both its individual and corporate dealings, pointing to him. Langberg writes, “A body that does not follow its head is a very sick body” (5). The church, under Christ’s headship, should follow its head as it seeks to represent him. Otherwise, we’ve got a real problem.

Churches follow Christ, in part, by working to prevent abuse before it happens and acknowledging its reality if it does. By doing this they “display [Christ’s] beauty, his compassion, his truth, his purity, and his great love” (16). Yet since the church is the body of Christ, abuse within the congregation is foreign to its nature. It can feel like a failure to admit there is abuse within the church, as if dealing with the problem publicly will bring shame to Christ.

This is why the questions I asked earlier keep nagging at me. Abuse within the church is so contrary to the person of Jesus that it causes irreconcilable tension in my mind. Langberg recognizes that same tension. The words “abuse” and “church” should never go together.

Langberg doesn’t argue that the church is past the point of redemption, though she recognizes that churches have failed to deal with abuse well. However, she shows that hope for redemption doesn’t allow us to gloss over failings. Instead, redemption requires churches to face the reality of sin and deal with it humbly both corporately and individually. The tension between what is and what should be must remain.

Nature of Deception

One of the most difficult elements to sift through in cases of abuse within the church is the intent of those who cause harm. To label a situation as abuse, would we require that the harm be intentional? Of course not. The outcome is more significant than the intent.

Abusers don’t just wake up one day and decide to be abusers. Self-deception often precedes the deception of others. The slippery slope of successive small decisions, justifications, and minimizing leads to someone becoming an abuser.

Within the church, self-deception can grow into systemic deception. Langberg says loudly what many would want to whisper: “Institutions, whether prestigious universities, respected health care facilities, or revered churches or Christian organizations, have a self-preserving ethic” (73). Anyone who has worked in one of these contexts knows that to be true. On the surface, this ethic isn’t entirely bad. But when preceded by self-deception that harms other believers, institutional self-preservation is a breeding ground for systemic deception.

When preceded by self-deception that is harmful to other believers, institutional self-preservation is a breeding ground for systemic deception.

This process is gradual. Within churches, in particular, we tend to believe the best about others, overlook offenses, or justify in our minds that so-and-so wouldn’t do such-and-such. We want to believe that those who lead us are good, so we filter their behavior through that lens. Unfortunately, that view has sometimes led to gross abuses of power that go unchecked for years.

Change the Question

Abuse within the church is an unfortunate reality. So how can we move forward? I can sit with counselee after counselee and ask why, but that does little to bring comfort. What would the Lord have us ask instead? What would he have us do? Three answers stood out to me in light of Langberg’s book.

First, we should grieve that our brothers and sisters are mistreated, many in the name of faith. Jesus wept over the judgment that was coming to Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), knowing destruction loomed because they rejected him and the leaders mistreated those in their care.

Ministers of the gospel should defend the least of these as mirrors of Christ, point them towards his own compassion for them.

Second, leaders in the church must humbly acknowledge both their calling and their limitations as shepherds. They mustn’t be wolves, seeking to devour. Instead, ministers of the gospel should defend the least of these by acting as mirrors of Christ who point toward his compassion for them.

Third, as Langberg notes when talking to abuse victims, the Bible speaks directly about the exaltation of the crushed, abused, and afflicted in passages like Isaiah 61. In his justice, God promises a “double portion” for those mistreated in this life (v. 7). They’ll build up the temple and shout for joy to the Lord. Our God cares for those who are abused, and he’ll redeem even those dark moments.

When the Church Harms God’s People is a sobering reminder that we still live under sin’s curse. Though sin is the answer to my why question above, that’s not enough. Until Christ returns and brings justice and judgment, we’re responsible to speak on behalf of the powerless, grieve the injustices that occur within our midst, and call to repentance those who malign Christ’s name by crushing those he loves. This book is a valuable resource for helping church leaders practically as they minister to the abused and build systems within their ministries to prevent abuse.

I share this story because one of the most seemingly persuasive arguments in favor of affirming same-sex marriage for believers suggests there’s a trajectory in Scripture from the Old Testament to the New that, if followed, finds its target in affirming same-sex marriage. Instead, I want to argue the trajectory of biblical sexual ethics is less like a stick whose target is away from its thrower and more like a boomerang that comes back to the one who threw it—only we discover the thrower is Jesus himself.

Trajectory Argument

Rather than trying to reinterpret the Bible’s prohibitions, many who affirm same-sex marriage acknowledge that the New Testament does prohibit same-sex sex. But, they argue, Christians can nonetheless embrace same-sex marriage because the trajectory from the Old Testament to the New is one that (if continued) ends in validating same-sex marriage.

Proponents of this view often point to the consensus among Christians that slavery is wrong, despite the multiple New Testament texts that seem to endorse slavery. If we can say the New Testament points us toward the abolition of slavery, even though it doesn’t quite get there, the argument goes, we can likewise argue it points us toward same-sex marriage, even though it doesn’t get there. This comparison packs a rhetorical punch because of the appalling history of race-based, chattel slavery in the United States, which many Christians on both sides of the Atlantic tried to justify from Scripture.

So is it true that the Bible’s movement is toward rejecting slavery and embracing same-sex marriage? Let’s begin at the beginning.

Beginning of Humanity

The Bible’s first chapter declares that human beings, male and female, are made in God’s image (Gen. 1:27). This is the first foundation for universal human equality and the first blow to the idea that some humans should be enslaved because they’re innately inferior. All humans are God’s image-bearers. The only differentiation in this text is between male and female, both of whom are called to rule over creation and to “be fruitful and multiply” (vv. 26–28).

The Bible’s first chapter declares that human beings, male and female, are made in God’s image. This is the first foundation for universal human equality.

In Genesis 2, we focus in on one man and one woman, brought together in a “one flesh” union, which is the prototype for future marriages: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (2:24). Marriage is defined as one man and one woman, permanently bonded.

We read that “the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (v. 25). But in Genesis 3, sin enters the world and undermines both the man and woman’s shame-free relationship with God and their shame-free relationship with one another. From then on, we see sin of all kinds—including sexual sin—portrayed in the Bible. We also see slavery, even at the beginning of the story of God’s people.

Beginning of God’s People

When God calls Abraham and promises to bless him and give him offspring similar in number to the stars, Abraham is married to one woman. But since Abraham and Sarah are old and infertile, Sarah suggests that Abraham take her Egyptian servant Hagar as a functional second wife (16:1–4).

This isn’t what God commanded. It shows a lack of trust in God. In the cultural terms of the day, however, it would’ve been a status upgrade for Hagar. This whole scenario is completely alien to us. We assume women should always choose their husbands and that polygamy is wrong. In ancient Near Eastern culture, by contrast, women almost never chose their husbands, and polygamy was normal for wealthy men.

We see Hagar’s sense that she’s received a status upgrade when she gets pregnant and starts to look down on Sarah. Sarah reacts so harshly that Hagar runs away. But the Lord finds Hagar in the wilderness, tells her he has listened to her affliction, and makes promises to her that echo his promises to Abraham (vv. 9–11). Remarkably, Hagar becomes the first person in the Bible to give God a name: “She called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, ‘You are a God of seeing,’ for she said, ‘Truly here I have seen him who looks after me’” (v. 13). So in the Bible’s first slave narrative, an Egyptian servant is personally seen and cared for by the Lord.

In an ironic reversal of Hagar’s story, the second slave narrative is that of Abraham and Sarah’s great-grandson, Joseph, who’s sold to slave traders by his brothers and then bought by an Egyptian commander, Potiphar (37:25–36).

Unlike in American history, slavery in the ancient world wasn’t associated with one racial group, and slaves could become quite high status, which we see when Potiphar puts Joseph in charge of all his affairs (Gen. 39). But when Joseph refuses to sleep with Potiphar’s wife, she claims he tried to rape her, and he gets thrown in prison. God nonetheless is with Joseph, and his story ends with him as Pharaoh’s right-hand man, rescuing his own family from starvation. Once again, God vindicates the enslaved.

Exodus begins with all the Israelites living as slaves to the Egyptians. But God listens to the Israelites’ affliction (Ex. 3:7), just as he listened to Hagar’s (Gen. 16:11), and he rescues them. From then on, the story of God’s people is a story of emancipated slaves.

Old Testament Law

When God gave his people laws, he kept reminding them they were once slaves and should therefore identify with the enslaved (e.g., Ex. 20:2; Deut. 5:6; 15:15). In the ancient world, people often sold themselves into slavery as an alternative to destitution. But God’s law made man-stealing and slave- trading a capital offense (Ex. 21:16). It also prescribed significant protections for all slaves, including a day of rest (e.g., 20:10; 21:1–32), and guaranteed freedom in the seventh year for Israelites who sold themselves into slavery (Deut. 15:12–15).

When it comes to the Old Testament laws regarding sex, we see explicit prohibitions on adultery (e.g., Ex. 20:14) and on men having sex with other males (Lev. 18:22). We also see restrictions on divorce and on using women sexually without marrying them (Deut. 21:10–14). But while polygamy is never commanded and often portrayed negatively, we don’t see polygamy prohibited.

So, what movement if any do we see between the Old and New Testaments when it comes to sex and slavery?

Slavery in the New Testament

As Kyle Harper and others have shown, during the time in which Jesus was born, at least 10 percent of people living in the Greco-Roman empire were slaves. Some sold themselves into slavery. Some made enough money to buy their freedom. Some were subjected to hard labor and physical abuse. Others were skilled professionals, like doctors or accountants, earning more money and living more comfortably than many free people. But it was generally assumed that slaves were there to serve their masters.

The story of God’s people is a story of emancipated slaves.

It was therefore shocking when Jesus declared to his disciples, “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:43–45). Jesus here upended the whole paradigm of slavery. Jesus claimed to be the rightful King of all the universe. But he deliberately embraced the role of slave and called his followers to serve one another.

In line with this great reversal, Jesus taught that he’s the master who serves (Luke 12:35–40) and stunned his disciples by dressing himself like a slave and washing their feet—a role typically taken on by slaves—before telling them to follow his example (John 13:1–20). Even in death, Jesus identified with slaves, since crucifixion was typically inflicted on slaves. So, in Jesus, we see the Lord of all creation taking on a slave’s role, dying a slave’s death, and telling us to follow his example.

The apostle Paul got the memo, calling himself a “slave of Christ Jesus” (Rom. 1:1; Phil. 1:1, HCSB). Paul is sometimes seen as supporting slavery because he instructed enslaved Christians to serve well (e.g., Eph. 6:5–8). But his basis for this teaching was not that slaves were inferior (as the paradigm of slavery assumed) but that they were really serving Jesus (Col. 3:22–25). Likewise, Paul commanded masters to treat their slaves “justly and fairly” because they have a “Master in heaven” (4:1; cf. Eph. 6:5–9). Indeed, Paul deliberately undermined the slave-free distinction by declaring Christian slaves were Jesus’s freedmen, while free Christians were Jesus’s slaves (1 Cor. 7:21–23).

Paul taught a radical equality rooted in the gospel: “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free,” Paul wrote to the Colossians, some of whom were slaves, “but Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11). Likewise, he explained to the Corinthians that they were all members of one body regardless of their status in the world: “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free” (1 Cor. 12:13). The gospel message that the Son of God died so sinners could be forgiven and united with him and with each other demolishes slavery’s foundations.

We see a practical example of Paul’s ethics in his letter to Philemon. Under Roman law, Philemon could have severely punished Onesimus, a slave who had run away from him. Instead, Paul calls Onesimus his “son” and “very heart” (Philem. 10, 12, NIV) and tells Philemon to welcome Onesimus back, “no longer as a bondservant” but as “a beloved brother” (v. 16). Indeed, he tells Philemon to receive Onesimus as he’d receive Paul himself (v. 17). This overturns the master-slave relationship and turns it into a brother-brother bond. Movingly, while Paul refers to other gospel partners as his “fellow slaves” (e.g., Col. 1:7; 4:12, HCSB) he simply calls Onesimus “[our] faithful and beloved brother” (4:9).

To summarize, when it comes to slavery, you could say we see a progression in the Bible from protections and provisions in the Old Testament to the radical reversal of the master-slave relationship that Jesus both embodied and commanded. But while the gospel torpedoes slavery’s foundations, it also reinforces the first foundation for equality: that all humans are made in God’s image. Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (1:15), and in him, our equality and unity is finally fulfilled.

No wonder Christianity was so popular with the enslaved that it was mocked in the second century as a religion of slaves, women, and children. No wonder the first known explicit argument against slavery was made in the fourth century by a Christian bishop on the basis of all humans being made in God’s image. No wonder slavery was progressively eradicated as Christianity spread through Europe in the 7th to 10th centuries. When the transatlantic slave trade started up, it represented a horrific and unjustifiable reversion to pre-Christian practices. And it was Christian arguments and activists who led abolition.

The famous seal of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery in England from the 1780s was a picture of an enslaved man kneeling in his chains and asking, “Am I not a man and a brother?” The Bible’s answer to both these questions is an emphatic yes. In 1837, this seal was printed in the United States along with the Old Testament law against man-stealing and a poem that exclaimed, “What! God’s own image bought and sold!” and warned of God’s coming judgment against those who enslaved their fellow image-bearers. In short, the history of race-based chattel slavery in America is utterly unjustifiable from Scripture.

Sex and Marriage in the New Testament

What about the biblical progression when it comes to sex and marriage? Do we see a trajectory from the Old to the New Testament that (if continued) opens space for same-sex marriage?

The history of race-based chattel slavery in America is utterly unjustifiable from Scripture.

Jesus’s radical welcoming of people known for sexual sin is sometimes seen as a relaxing of the Old Testament laws concerning sex. But Jesus actually tightened them.

Jesus took the commandment against adultery and extended it to include lustful thoughts (Matt. 5:27–28). Jesus condemned all forms of sexual immorality as sinful and observed that sexual sin comes straight out of our hearts (15:19; Mark 7:21). When asked about divorce, Jesus defined marriage as a lifelong, one-flesh union between one man and one woman—boomeranging back to God’s original design (Matt. 19:4–6). He underscored that marriage is male-female by quoting Genesis 1:27 and defined it as monogamous: “The two will become one flesh” (v. 5, NIV; Gen. 2:24).

When it comes to same-sex sexual relationships, the Old Testament prohibition on men sleeping with males is reasserted (e.g., 1 Cor. 6:9–11; 1 Tim. 1:9–11) and women sleeping with women is also portrayed as sinful (Rom. 1:26–28). What’s more (awkwardly for the trajectory argument), one of Paul’s prohibitions on male-male sex is right next to his explicit condemnation of enslaving. Using a word built on the Greek translation of the words for “male” and “bed” in the Old Testament prohibition on men sleeping with males, Paul calls both enslavers and men who sleep with males “lawless and disobedient” (1 Tim. 1:9).

But rather than excluding those (like me) who are drawn to same-sex sexual relationships, Paul notes that some of the first Christians came to Christ with a background of same-sex sexual sin and that they (like all who come to Jesus) were washed, sanctified, and justified in his name (1 Cor. 6:9–11).

The boundaries around sex in the New Testament are clear: any sex outside of male-female, lifelong marriage is sinful. But just as the gospel lies at the heart of the Bible’s demolition work on slavery, so it lies at the heart of its vision for male-female marriage.

Jesus the Bridegroom

In a curious move for someone who never married, Jesus called himself “the bridegroom” (Mark 2:19–20). To understand him, we need to look back to the Old Testament, where prophet after prophet pictured God as a faithful husband and Israel as his frequently unfaithful wife (e.g., Isa. 54:5; Jer. 3:20; Ezek. 16; Hos. 2). As God-made-flesh, Jesus declares he’s the Bridegroom, come to claim God’s people for himself.

Paul presses on this metaphor, presenting Christian marriage as a picture of Jesus’s love for his church (Eph. 5:22–33). Strikingly, Paul quotes from Genesis 2:24—“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh”—and then declares, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Eph. 5:32). According to Paul, God’s original design for marriage was modeled after the everlasting, one-flesh union between Jesus and his church.

Like a husband and wife, Jesus and his people aren’t two interchangeable parties. Their union is across deep difference. In marriage, it’s the difference of male and female that enables sex and the creation of new humans. Likewise, Jesus’s love for his church is intimate, life-giving, and fruitful.

This biblical metaphor helps us understand why marriage must be male-female. It also helps us understand why Christian marriage is monogamous. Jesus’s relationship with his church isn’t a love depicted by polygamy: one man with many spouses. It’s a love depicted by monogamy, because his people are “one body” (Rom. 12:5; see also 1 Cor. 10:17; 12:12, 20; Eph. 2:16; 4:4; Col. 3:15). But this same metaphor helps us to understand why deep love between believers isn’t limited to marriage.

One Body Together

Many people think that Christians who say no to same-sex sexual relationships have no vision for love between believers of the same sex. But nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus prayed that his followers would “be one” (John 17:11, 21–22) and commanded them to love each other like he loves us (13:34–35; 15:12).

The boundaries around sex in the New Testament are clear: any sex outside of male-female, lifelong marriage is sinful.

Rather than presenting marriage as by far the greatest love relationship, Jesus declares, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (15:13). Following Jesus’s lead, in the rest of the New Testament we find a relentless call to brotherly and sisterly love because Jesus died for us and we’re members of his body (e.g., Rom. 12:10; 13:8; Gal. 5:13; 1 Thess. 3:12; 4:9; 1 Pet. 1:22; 1 John 3:11, 23; 4:7–12). “By this we know love,” John writes, “that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (1 John 3:16).

Our union with brothers and with sisters in the Lord isn’t expressed in sexual or romantic ways outside male-female marriage. But if we’re followers of Jesus, it’s true love.

Boomerang Returns

In Revelation, we see the endpoint of all biblical trajectories. On the one hand, we see slave traders lamenting (Rev. 18:11–17), and we see sexual immorality outlawed one last time (22:15). On the other, we see a countless multitude from every racial and ethnic background worshiping Jesus together (7:9–11), and we see the wedding of the Lamb, as Jesus and his church are brought together for eternity (19:6–9; 21:1–4; 22:17).

In Jesus the Bridegroom, we unlock the meaning of male-female marriage. In Jesus the eternal King, who came “not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45), we find the wrecking ball for slavery and the best foundation for human equality. Scripture’s trajectory isn’t toward abolishing slavery and affirming same-sex marriage. It’s a boomerang trajectory that brings us back to the beginning when humanity lived in an unhindered love relationship with God and with each other—but makes it so much better.

When God’s people are finally united with Jesus as a bride with her groom, there will be no human marriage anymore (Matt. 22:30). But we’ll all experience the ultimate fulfillment of all our hopes and dreams of love (Rev. 21:1–4). “Surely I am coming soon,” Jesus declares. “Amen. Come Lord Jesus!” (22:20).

The years brought many up-front leadership opportunities at school and church, eventually culminating in a vocation in women’s ministry. Along the way, I realized I wasn’t leading anyone when I functioned as the go-to girl. When I tried to do it all, I wasn’t focusing on the primary goal of servant leadership—making disciples.

Eventually, my immature leadership made me a desperate leader. I ran to Jesus, praying, “Help me rest in you and place my confidence in your record of righteousness. Forgive me for relying on my own strength and abilities.” Thankfully, God’s power is made perfect in weak, needy, and dependent leaders (2 Cor. 12:9).

As I sought to grow as a servant leader, I had to confront my misguided notions of what leadership should look like, and I came to recognize common pitfalls we can stumble into as women’s ministry leaders.

Misconceptions and Motivations

When I tried to do it all, I wasn’t focusing on the primary goal of servant leadership—making disciples.

Most of us have taken our ideas about leadership from culture or the corporate world. But biblical leadership is radically different. It’s not synonymous with authority or decision-making. It has little to do with a title or a role. It’s upside down. It holds within it the potential to be life-giving or life-taking. Biblical leadership is servant leadership, and servant leadership isn’t a popular methodology—it’s a glorious invitation to become more like Jesus.

While there’s no formula for servant leadership, I offer four personal pitfalls I’ve had to repent of to the Lord and others over the years.

1. Position-Oriented

Position-oriented leadership is shaped by the leader’s title rather than by the group’s purposes. I was young when I started in women’s ministry, and I naively compensated for my lack of experience by finding power in my official position or title. I was rarely team-focused or collaborative in my approach because, in pride, I thought I knew better. Usually, when a hierarchical culture exists, structure trumps leadership development, and the leader lacks outside perspective and accountability.

2. Personality-Driven

Personality-driven leadership revolves around the leader’s strengths. I fancied myself an extrovert who loved the sound of my own voice. You don’t know you’ve fostered a territorial spirit about “your ministry” until someone tries to suggest a new person or plan. My insecurity and pride meant others had few opportunities to offer ideas or use their gifts. I didn’t know I’d fostered this type of leadership until I moved to a new church, and I got a phone call from a member of my former church saying, “We’re not sure how we’ll move forward without you; no one is stepping up to lead as you did.” That’s a big leadership red flag.

3. Consumer-Based

Consumer-based leadership is fueled by the demands of the people we serve. At first glance, taking a survey at the beginning of a ministry year seems like a good idea. Let’s listen and make plans to give the women what they want. A hard-earned leadership lesson is that you can’t please everyone. Fulfilling this consumeristic approach is exhausting and impossible. We’re tempted to make decisions based on felt needs or the latest, hottest trend, rather than providing the gospel classroom that’ll foster spiritual formation. Ultimately, God’s glory and purposes take a back seat to trying to meet the desires of individuals and special interest groups.

4. Productivity-Motivated

Productivity-motivated leadership prioritizes tasks before people. My clipboard and pen are never out of reach. I like to make a list and check every box. People might pat me on the back for getting things done, but efficiency should never trump community and discipleship. I’ve often fallen prey to the hamster-wheel idol of producing bigger and better results. Who has time to delegate when it seems quicker and more effective to do it myself? This leadership posture is fueled by perpetual forward motion, so we often overlook opportunities to witness God’s grace and the Spirit’s work.

Leadership That Lasts

Leadership has everything to do with where we fix our eyes. Are your eyes fixed on Christ and making disciples, or are other pressing matters and motivations distracting you? Fruitful women’s ministry leadership invests in the only two things in life that last forever: God’s Word and God’s people.

A servant leader lifts the eyes of those following her to Christ and sacrificially leads them in light of eternity. Life-giving servant leadership is the sacred, holy privilege of participating with the Spirit’s transformative work in those we get to serve as we walk them home.

The victim was Cleo Wright, who allegedly broke into a house where two white women were staying around 1:00 a.m. on Sunday. During the attack, one of them—Grace Sturgeon—was slashed deeply across the abdomen and three of her fingers were nearly taken off.

Soon after, police found Wright spattered with blood and carrying a bloody knife. He said he’d been in a fight with another man but, after a struggle, he was arrested and taken to jail. By late morning, an angry mob had gathered, some joining in when they saw the commotion on their way to church.

The mob shoved their way into the jailhouse, grabbed Wright, dragged him behind a car through the African American side of town, then doused him with gasoline and burned his body in front of two black churches.

One of those churches was Smith Chapel United Methodist. At first, pastor J. B. Ross thought the smoke was a burning car. He ignored it and kept on preaching until someone came in from the street with the news of what was happening.

Most of the lynchers who were later named didn’t attend church, though one had been baptized at the 1,000-member First Baptist Church several years earlier. Later, one of the police officers also joined the congregation.

About 20 years after Wright’s death, members of First Baptist started Trinity Baptist. Ten years later, the Trinity congregation called a pastor with a heart for racial reconciliation. Thirty years later, they called a pastor and his wife whose adopted African American sons sparked an even deeper desire for a gospel-preaching, multiethnic congregation.

Across town, at Smith Chapel, the congregation was also calling a pastor who longed for a biblically faithful, racially diverse church.

In 2017, the two pastors connected, and they eventually led their churches through a merger. Today, the congregation worships in the little chapel a few hundred feet from where Wright was killed. Together, they sing, serve, and have broken ground on an ambitious $4.5 million community center for their underresourced neighborhood.

“God sees the beginning and the end,” pastor Kenny King said. “This is what he does—more than we can ask or imagine.”

Kenny King

King was born in Sikeston and grew up going to Smith Chapel. But when he left for college in 1997, he didn’t plan to return to either one.

That’s not too hard to understand—with a population of 16,000, Sikeston doesn’t offer a lot of economic opportunities for an ambitious young black man. The poverty rate for black residents is nearly 37 percent, more than three times higher than the national number for all races. On top of that, Sikeston is unusually violent—the rate of murders, rapes, robberies, and assaults regularly soars above the national average.

Smith Chapel also wasn’t appealing to King.

“When I was in college, I became an anti-theist,” he said. “I hated the idea of God and of religion. It seemed odd to me that bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. I didn’t like that, so I rebelled against it.”

But King’s logical mind also knew that evolution couldn’t explain the complicated beauty of the natural world. And if there was a God, it followed that humans should work to be good enough to please him. So after college, he told God he’d go to church just as soon as he got his life together.

When a couple years passed and King was no closer to getting his life together, he submitted it to the Lord. He spent the next few years at an Evangelical Free church in the suburbs of St. Louis, reading Francis Chan, Tim Keller, and John Piper and learning how to lead small groups, be an elder, and plant a church.

“I didn’t want to go back to Sikeston at all,” King said. “But God, in his sense of humor, gave me a calling to Sikeston.”

This became especially clear after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, just 15 minutes from where King lived.

“Sikeston has a sordid history when it comes to race relations, and I felt like the town needed a diverse church,” King said. One of his favorite things about his St. Louis congregation, besides the solid theology, was the racial diversity.

“If the church can’t be together, then how is the world going to be together?” he reasoned. “If we believe Christ is the hope of the world, the church should lead the way in reconciliation.”

Got it, King thought. The Lord will use me to plant a diverse church that will give him glory and show people the beauty of Christian unity.

But that wasn’t what happened.

Smith Chapel UMC

King had barely gathered a core church planting team when the pastor at Smith Chapel retired. Never large, the church had shrunk to about 25 weekly attendees.

The congregation asked if he’d consider filling it. King, who didn’t want an all-black church and didn’t agree with Methodist theology, said he’d think about it.

“I went through the process basically trying to sabotage myself,” he said. “I was really honest and blunt about how I felt about the denomination and the church. I thought there was no way anybody would want me there, and I could go back to church planting.”

He told them he believed in the Bible’s inerrancy, in complementarianism, and in believer’s baptism. A few months later, Smith Chapel called him to be their pastor.

“At a certain point I realized this is something God wants to happen,” King said. “Maybe I’d have an Isaiah ministry of preaching judgment or something. Maybe I’d close the doors. I didn’t like that idea, but if that’s what God was doing, I’d do it.”

He was just as straightforward in the pulpit as he was in the candidate interviews.

“My first series was systematic theology—the basics of the faith, who God is, what the Bible is, how we’re supposed to feel about the Word of God,” King said. After that, he began preaching through Matthew.

“We got rid of the extra-curriculum that came from the denomination and studied the Word,” King said. “The people soaked it up.”

Next, King knew he was going to have to deal with the mainline United Methodist Church (UMC). The church of John and Charles Wesley was rapidly losing its theology and its members. Trying to figure out what exactly was going on, King joined some regional committees.

“I found the problem was more deeply rooted than I could’ve imagined,” he said. “I could preach the Word and uproot some of the falsities my congregation holds to. But while I can probably turn a fishing boat, I can’t turn an aircraft carrier.”

Smith Chapel, which had been planted by the UMC in 1923, was going to have to figure out a way out.

Trinity Baptist

Across town, pastor William Marshall came to Trinity Baptist Church fresh out of seminary. It wasn’t an easy transition—the previous pastor had served for 30 years. William and his wife, Glenna, were from out of town. And the couple was just beginning a struggle with infertility.

“I didn’t know what I was doing half the time,” Marshall said. Trinity, which had about 100 members when he arrived, began to shrink, especially when it became clear Marshall was preaching longer sermons than the previous pastor and wanted to have communion every week. About eight years later, when he attempted to slowly move the church toward a plurality of elders, some saw it as a power move. Attendance shrank even more.

“The first 10 years were really hard,” he said. “I couldn’t go to Walmart without running into ex–church members.”

But while his church was contracting, his family was expanding. In 2008, the Marshalls adopted an African American baby boy named Isaiah. Seven years later, they adopted Ian, who is biracial.

Marshall started to notice the lingering segregation in Sikeston—the white pastors’ group was separate from the black pastors’ gathering. At the local school, white fans and black fans sat on opposite ends of the bleachers during basketball games.

But his biggest worry as a new father wasn’t that his boy wouldn’t know where to sit in the bleachers, or even that he might be unfairly pulled over by the cops or discriminated against at work.

“I didn’t want Isaiah to think Christianity was a white man’s religion,” said Marshall, who felt this so deeply it still makes him cry a little. But what could he do? He was the white pastor of a predominately white church.

“I began to pray, Lord, I don’t even know how to address this or what to do.”

At the same time, Trinity was beginning to hold evangelistic meetings in the parks around Sikeston. On Sunday nights, members would light up a grill, walk around the neighborhood, and invite people for free hot dogs and a church service.

“We’d have some food, a brief gospel conversation, and some songs people love,” Marshall said. “When we went to the park on the west end of Sikeston—which is the African American community park—we had such a good response that we decided to go there all the time instead of rotating around.”

In fact, the response was so good that one summer Trinity hosted a VBS in that park. But the location wasn’t a natural fit—it was “about as far away from our church building as you could get and still be in Sikeston,” Marshall said. “I began praying for a church in the neighborhood that we could partner with.”

Fields of Faith

In 2017, the local Fellowship of Christian Athletes asked King if he’d speak at their Fields of Faith youth conference. He preached on Ephesians 2.

“I saw the speaker was a black man, and I was like, Oh, man, I’m interested,” said Marshall, who brought some of the Trinity youth group to the event. “He’s quoting Francis Chan, and I’m leaning in. I’m like, What does this guy believe about the gospel? And it was solid.”

Marshall wasn’t even in the parking lot before he pulled out his phone.

“On my way back to the car, I was looking him up on Facebook,” he said. “I sent him a message—‘Hey, I’m a pastor in town and heard you at Fields of Faith. Let’s get lunch together.’”

Kenny said sure.

Everything Happens at Lunch

At their first lunch, Marshall asked King which church he served.

“Smith Chapel United Methodist Church,” King said.

Well, that’s the end of that, thought Marshall, surprised and disappointed. Maybe King wouldn’t be the ministry friend he was hoping for.

Marshall tried again: “In order for your church to be healthy, what needs to happen?”

King didn’t even hesitate. “We need to leave the denomination.”

OK, this guy is who I thought he was, Marshall thought.

They started meeting monthly for lunch, talking about theology, ideas for ministry, and preaching. King talked about the process of buying his building from the UMC. Marshall talked about the revitalization process of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)—because Trinity was small, they’d offered to be guinea pigs for some new ideas.

One of the ideas was merging with another church. Immediately, Marshall had thought of King. When he ran the idea past a church member, expecting him to laugh, the man told him it would be “incredible.”

So a few weeks later, again at lunch, he threw the idea at King.

“What are you going to do after you leave the UMC?” Marshall asked him. And then, “What would you think about merging with us?”

He was nervous to say it. But if King said it was ridiculous, Marshall figured they’d just laugh and keep eating their barbecue.

King didn’t say no. Is this God’s way of giving me the diverse church I desired in Sikeston? he thought.

Probably not. He was already pushing his people out of their denomination. There was no way they were going to merge with a Southern Baptist congregation.

“Let me ask my church,” he said.

Tyrone White

Tyrone White was born into the Smith Chapel family, but that doesn’t mean he spent all his Sundays in church.

“I went to the Marine Corps in 1981, and when I came back I was a street guy,” he said. “I was all about the world.”

Though he was drinking a lot of alcohol, doing a lot of drugs, and sleeping with a lot of women, White felt he was a pretty good person. After all, he hadn’t killed anybody.

He was 51 when he seemed to hear a voice in his head: This is no longer fun for you.

“I’m thinking I’m tweaking,” he said. “But it happened again: This is no fun for you.”

White knew that wasn’t his idea—he’d always scorned the boring lives of husbands and wives who worked jobs, ate dinner together, and went to church. But the voice was right; his life was no longer fun.

“I told myself I’ve got to stop doing cocaine, but I can still drink,” White said. “But God took the taste out of my mouth. To this day I haven’t had a drink or a snort of cocaine.”

White began reading the Our Daily Bread devotional, then the Bible. He began sitting in the back—and then the front—of Smith Chapel listening to King preach.

“I wasn’t trying to change,” he said. “God changed me.”

One thing the new version of White did was walk the track in the YMCA in the mornings. He liked the white guy who checked him in, because he was always singing gospel songs. But at first, he was scared of the other white guy with a beard who walked the track at the same time he did.

“I see white men with a beard, and I think biker KKK,” he said. But, White continued, “He spoke kindly to me.” The man’s name was Barry Wallace, and the two struck up an early morning, walking-and-talking friendship.

So when King started talking about merging with a white church, White was game. And when the two congregations tried worshiping together, White was ecstatic.

“These people come to our church, and there is Barry Wallace,” he said. “And the white guy at reception was William the pastor. My mouth dropped open. I was dumbfounded. I was singing in my heart.”

White was probably the most enthusiastic about the merger. But the rest of the people weren’t far behind.

Enthusiasm for Change

“I was totally shocked by how open the people were,” King said. “I’m always wondering in the back of my mind if they’re saying things because I’m saying them, and they don’t want to come against the pastor. . . . But they were excited about it. We do a prayer meeting every Tuesday morning, and we had the most participation during that time.”

He explained to them the history of the SBC, which was formed in 1845 to support slavery but has since publicly repented. His congregation asked if they were bearing fruit in keeping with repentance. He said he thought they were.

“There was a church merge in Iowa a little before we merged,” King said. “I printed out that story and gave copies to everybody. It was very encouraging for them. And I’d been preaching from the Word of God about how the church should look, so their hearts were bent towards it.”

Meanwhile, in a meeting at Trinity, deacon Brandon Blankenship stood up and chronicled the ways God had been preparing them—from the previous pastor’s love of racial reconciliation to Isaiah and Ian to the outreach in the West End.

“It was almost like the whole room had our blinders taken off,” Marshall said. “There was almost an audible sigh, where we went, ‘Yes. That’s what the Lord’s been doing.’”

Neither congregation wasted time messing around. The first official conversation about merging was in June, and in mid-September, the two churches launched as Grace Bible Fellowship.

For the first six months, everything was great.

COVID-19

It made sense for Smith Chapel’s congregation to drive over to Trinity. The larger sanctuary could seat 300, and there was plenty of space for parking and rooms for children’s programming.

The merge was unusual enough to make the news, and people were curious.

“Community people were coming—people we’d never seen before,” said Grace Bible Fellowship member Christie Rodgers. “They wanted to see what this was all about. Then it was March of 2020, and all of that ended.”

For many churches, 2020 was was a hard year for church unity. You might expect the fights to be exponentially worse at a brand-new merger of a black church and a white church, coming from two different denominations, with different feelings about masks and risks and death rates, in a town with an ugly racial history.

Instead, “it felt like a congregation who trusted its leadership would work through things and communicate,” Blankenship said. “I don’t think there was really any question—we were going to do whatever our leadership thought was best.”

The leaders, for their part, kept preaching through the Bible.

“The pastors didn’t make it about social issues,” Rodgers said. “They said ‘Love each other’ and ‘How are we going to love each other?’”

Together, they socially distanced, checked on each other, and packed meals to hand out from the church building once a week.

“Our people understood the gravity of what we were doing, and we didn’t want to bring disrepute to Christ’s name,” King said.

Eerily Similar

If the COVID-19 unity was surprising, so was the ease of combining the worship services. In general, black churches and white churches have different preaching and singing styles. But Smith Chapel wasn’t typical.

“We didn’t get up and do clapping and stuff,” White said. “We were Methodist. Our music was from the hymnal. We didn’t have that rocking beat like most black Baptists have.”

When Marshall made a list of the top 25 favorite songs from each congregation, more than half were the same.

The pastors’ preaching habits were also oddly similar.

“It was really weird,” Marshall said. “We’d even use the same phrases. The very first time Kenny preached at Trinity, everybody’s looking at me like, Did you tell him to say that?”

Not only did the two pastors agree on major issues such as biblical inerrancy and the doctrine of God and salvation, but they also agreed on a plurality of elders, the gifts of the Spirit, and church membership.

“We had to work hard to find tertiary issues we disagreed on,” Marshall said.

So even though you’d never predict it, everything at Grace Bible Fellowship was going smoothly. The brand-new congregation had weathered a global pandemic and national racial unrest with barely a peep. They’d seamlessly joined their worship services. They had more paid-off property than they needed.

But something wasn’t quite right.

Grace Bible Fellowship

Both halves of Grace Bible Fellowship wanted to minister in the West End. But the merger hadn’t actually helped with that.

“The last thing I wanted to do was take a good, faithful, Bible-preaching church out of the West End,” Marshall said. “We began to say, ‘What do we do now?’”

It was easy to dream: the congregation wanted to build a place in the West End where they could not only worship on Sunday but also host after-school tutoring programs, run a food ministry, and let neighborhood kids play basketball during the week.

That was going to cost a lot of money, which Grace Bible Fellowship didn’t have. But they did have property. They had the Trinity building appraised. Then they hired a realtor, who told them it was hard to sell a church building and that it might take more than a year.

“Before we got Trinity even listed, another church offered us more than it appraised for,” King said.

With the money from the property—plus a sizable grant—Grace Bible Fellowship bought land and broke ground on a new church and community center in the West End. The project should be complete by September 2025.

Until then, the congregation meets in Smith Chapel, which is only three blocks away.

“On that first Sunday, we realized we can hear one another singing so much better in the confined space,” King said. “It was so glorious—everybody was blown away from the time that first song rang out. We all looked at one another, or went into full arms-up, looking to heaven.”

The singing is so loud that Rodgers wonders if people passing by outside can hear them. “You just feel close—a happy closeness,” she said.

She can’t wait to share that with the neighbors.

“We’re looking forward to being able to really invite the community in,” Rodgers said. “We’re constantly inviting them to worship with us now, but sometimes you need to be able to draw them in with other things too.”

“We want to sit down next to somebody watching their kid playing basketball and ask if they want to come back for church on Sunday—and bring the kids,” Marshall said.

The neighbors are already looking forward to the possibilities—a gym, laundry facilities, a daycare.

It’s a huge accomplishment for a church that has 70 weekly attendees, counting kids.

“You want to be where God is moving,” Blankenship said. “You don’t want to ever limit what God can do. You want to be open and receptive, because if you trust in him, he’ll take you places you never even dreamed of. That’s a good lesson for all of us.”

“It is all God,” White said. “God is doing a marvelous work in us and through us—and he will do it until the end.”

Parables aren’t just stories that entertain; they’re agents of change. Jesus’s parables define and direct us in a way that gives us ownership in the journey.

Parables as a Teaching Tool

Jesus’s parables are famous, but his reliance on them in teaching may be overlooked. Mark notes, “He did not speak to [the crowds] without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything” (Mark 4:34).

Parables aren’t just stories that entertain; they’re agents of change.

Why not explain things to the common people and save the symbolic stories for his disciples? The reason is that parables had certain effects on people.

1. The parables teach indirectly.

Craig Blomberg writes, “Whenever we face a hostile audience, the indirect rhetoric of compelling stories may help at least some people hear God’s word more favorably.” For example, I love to read, but I’m slow to apply what I’ve read. You could correct me directly: “You need to slow down and read more thoughtfully.” Or you could say,

There once was a man with a great library—full of all the books you could imagine, shelf upon shelf, many books only reachable by a tall ladder. Each time he read a book, he would race back to the shelf, place it there carefully, and pull down another. But he was troubled because the more he read, the heavier he felt, and the harder it became to walk. One day, he decided not to read another book but to page through the one he had just read. At the end of that day, he felt lighter. When he remarked on this to his servant, a wise old man, the servant replied, “Many books can weigh any soul down. We must wait for the words to grow wings.”

Telling me that story might open the door of communication. I may be drawn in to confess my trouble. Why? The answer to that question is related to the next effect.

2. Parables invite hearers into the story, almost without their awareness.

Blomberg notes, “The power of good fiction is that it grabs one’s attention, sucks one into the plot, and makes one think it is about other people until it is too late.” If you told me the story above, I would’ve identified with the master of the library early. By the end, I’d long to be the wise old servant. In this way, the story would teach me without my knowing it. This is how stories define and direct us. We understand ourselves better when we see ourselves in the plot. Then we emerge with a new perspective on where we should go.

3. Parables reveal what their hearers think of God.

Parables distinguish and separate us from those who identify with a different character. Commenting on the parable of the sower in Mark 4, Vern Poythress writes,

Understanding a parable was not a matter that could be approached in a safe, antiseptic, neutral objectivity. The addressees were already committed. They found themselves already in process, already belonging to some kind of soil, already being questioned about the quality of their hearing. They were already for Jesus or against him (Matt. 12:30).

We always carry assumptions about Jesus. Sometimes we’re ashamed and hide them. Sometimes we’re ignorant of them. Either way, we have them. Jesus knew this about his audience. He knows this about us.

He told his disciples, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven’” (Mark 4:11–12). Those who hear the parables—both in Jesus’s day and in our own—are given truth both concealed and revealed. This mirrors Christ’s actions in Mark, where he both reveals who he is and yet conceals it, telling demons, the destitute, and beneficiaries of his miracles not to spread the word about him (1:24–25, 34, 43; 3:12; 7:33–36; 8:22–26).

Recognizing Christ is a matter of the heart. Our heart determines what we see. Those with hearts captivated by Christ have in him “the secret of the kingdom of God.” And Paul says we see spiritual realities because Christ reveals them by his Spirit (1 Cor. 2:13–15). But for those without Christ, the parables conceal.

Prepare to Hear

These three effects of parables help us see how stories define and direct us. They pry open our stubborn, ever-wandering hearts and tell us who we are and where we’re headed. That means the key to being shaped by Jesus’s parables lies in preparing ourselves to hear them. We can do this by asking for the Spirit’s help and by asking good questions as we read, such as the following.

1. With whom do you identify in the parable?

Jesus’s hearers always found themselves in his parables. They saw in the stories either who they were or who they wanted to be. In the parable of the sower (Mark 4), which type of soil represents you? Are you the ground pecked clean by birds who steal away God’s Word before it has a chance to grow? Are you the rocky soil that lacks depth and gives up on God’s promises when hardship comes? Are you the soil choked by thorns and thistles of worldly cares? When you’re reading a parable, identify where you live in the story. And be candid.

2. What’s your perspective based on where you are in the story?

Once you identify where you live in the parable, ask this question: “What’s my new perspective?” Where you are determines what you see. If I’m convicted that my heart is like the thorny soil from Jesus’s parable, I’ll begin to examine what worldly worries or desires pull me away from trust in Christ. Maybe it’s finances. Maybe it’s a desire for praise from others. Maybe it’s materialism. This is part of how parables direct us. They reveal what lies in front of us so we can rely on the Spirit to help us walk the godly path.

3. How does this parable reveal what you think of God?

Stay with the example of the soil among thorns. What does that reveal about my assumptions concerning God? It may reveal my lack of trust in God to provide what I truly desire. Or it may reveal that my desires are distorted. Perhaps my heart is chasing after all the wrong things. It may reveal that my head accepts the gospel but my heart resists Christ’s lordship in some area of my life—perhaps in parenting or work situations.

Asking questions like these helps us hear, understand, and practice the kingdom life Christ revealed in his parables. With these questions at the ready, we can read the parables knowing that the Spirit of the living God will meet us there and direct us to Jesus’s footsteps. As we prepare our hearts to hear, the Spirit prepares our eyes to see.

Maybe you’ve felt like this in the workplace or at school. I just experienced it today. I’ve been speaking at a conference where all the other speakers are people I deeply admire, people who are unusually gifted and able, people you’d expect to be at these sorts of events. So what was I doing there? Surely there must have been some mistake. The moment I step up to the podium, it’ll be obvious to all—I don’t belong here.

At one time, I was involved with college ministry at the University of Oxford, and I recall a group appearing on Facebook at the start of the new academic year called “I Got into Oxford by Mistake: Can I Go Home Now Please?” It almost immediately numbered several hundred members. For some, it would’ve been a bit of a joke. But many of the students I was talking to were serious. They felt profoundly out of their depth.

But the existence of such a group was also a comfort. If so many others feel like imposters, then you realize you’re not on your own and slowly start to feel like less of an imposter. Part of how this syndrome works is that you assume everyone else is fitting in just fine and only you have a problem.

It’s easy for Christians to experience a form of imposter syndrome. As we look around at the other people at church, it can seem as though they all belong here. They have the Christian life figured out. They know what they’re doing. But it’s a different story for ourselves. We might have been Christians for years, but it still feels as though it hasn’t really taken yet. We want to be real Christians but wonder if we ever will be. It doesn’t seem to come naturally to us; we’re still far from figuring it all out.

Spiritual Imposters?

We can feel this most intently with holiness. We know it’s commanded of us. We certainly want to live in a way that’s worthy of the gospel. We want to change, to be more like Jesus. Yet it can feel so alien to us. Even the word “holy” sounds otherworldly. Our default settings seem to take us in the opposite direction. Whatever holiness is, it isn’t me.

It’s like trying to speak in an unfamiliar language or trying on clothes that don’t quite fit. We wonder if there’s any point in persisting. Why try to be someone you’re clearly not? And so when we’re around other believers who seem to be living the Christian life with an approximation of success, we feel like the odd one out. An imposter.

When we’re around other believers who seem to be living the Christian life with an approximation of success, we feel like the odd one out. An imposter.

It’s an understandable way to feel. But we need to remember two things: (1) way more people feel the same way, and (2) we’re comparing what’s happening on the inside of our lives with what’s happening on the outside of theirs, which is hardly a fair fight. It’s the difference between having a front-row seat at a movie theater versus trying to listen in from the outside with your head pressed up against the wall. Our own hearts are on view to us 24-7 in high definition. No one else’s is. So when we’re tempted to look at other believers, wondering how they seem to have cracked the Christian life so effortlessly, we need to bear in mind that others are probably looking at us in the same way.

Rethink Sin

Natural though it might seem to think like an imposter, it’s actually completely untrue. The Bible is, of course, deeply realistic about the continuing presence of sinful tendencies in our lives. We aren’t yet rid of our sinful nature. The apostle John shows us that to think otherwise is a serious mistake: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. . . . If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8, 10).

We can’t deny the reality of sin in our lives. To claim we haven’t sinned or that sin isn’t within our nature in any way is to lie to ourselves while calling God a liar. Foundational to healthy Christianity is coming to terms with our sin. Even the most mature and “advanced” disciples aren’t done with sin. In this life, our sin will never be fully in the rearview mirror. It’ll always be something we have to reckon with.

But that isn’t all there is to say on this matter. If one mistake is to claim that our faith in Christ means we’re effectively done with sin, another is to fail to grasp just how radically different things are now that Jesus is in our lives.

Who Am I?

It’s easy to think of the Christian life as being like that scene from the classic action movie Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indiana Jones manages to leap onto the side of the Nazis’ truck, proceeds to climb in through the side door and throw a startled passenger out onto the road, and then wrestles the driver in an attempt to get control of the truck. As they fight, the truck veers and lurches about.

In this life, our sin will never be fully in the rearview mirror. It’ll always be something we have to reckon with.

It’s a common trope in action movies—the hero and villain fighting each other for control of the vehicle/plane/spaceship at a key moment in the story. And it feels a lot like what’s going on inside us as Christians. Christ has come to us and is now fighting our sinful nature. On our worse days, we wonder if he’ll prevail.

But the wonderful news of the gospel is that my relationship to sin has now radically changed. Yes, sin is still kicking around in my heart, but I relate to it in a different way now. The reason? Who I am is fundamentally different: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

It’s true a battle is going on inside us—a battle between what Paul calls the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit (Gal. 5:17). But we mustn’t miss the larger point Paul has been making: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

This gets us to the heart of something central to the Bible’s teaching on what it means to be a Christian. Our union with Christ doesn’t just mean he identifies with us (wonderful though that is). It also means we identify with him—in a “this changes everything” kind of way. Our union means we identify with him in his death and rising. We died with him, and we have new life in him. Both are fundamental to understanding how and why knowing Jesus truly transforms us.

Recommended Resources:

• Unto Us: 25 Advent Devotions About the Messiah
• Jared Kennedy, “Why Advent Is a Time to Build on Family Traditions”
• Melissa Kruger, “Celebrating Advent: Looking Back and Looking Forward”
• Jared Kennedy, “Countdown to Christmas with These 6 Resources for Advent”
• Jared Kennedy, “The Good News That Jesus Came for You”
• GoodKind Advent Blocks

You may be thinking, Another book about raising godly families? So what? And that’s understandable. In my quick survey from Goodreads alone, I counted 128 of them. Many are helpful and contain wise counsel. So hasn’t everything been said that needs to be said?

No. This book shows us why with surprising and garden-fresh takes on God’s big picture. The Ortlunds call it “generational devotion to Christ” (ix).

It’s the idea that if we raise faithful generations of godly families “unto the 10th generation,” we can see worldwide effects for the cause of Jesus. Hence the book’s title. This thought springs from Jani’s devotional reading of Deuteronomy (no less). She and Ray argue that God desires to bless individual families well beyond the typical myopic focus of two generations—parents and their children.

Biblical Vision

Jani, an author and conference speaker, points out after some quick, unscientific math that 10 generations would be approximately 200 years. In that time frame, taking the natural growth of their own family as an example, they’ll have 55,000 descendants—equivalent to “a city the size of Sarasota, Florida” (12).

Ray, president of Renewal Ministries and a canon theologian in the Anglican Church in North America, joins his wife to pray an audacious prayer: that “the whole world will hear about Jesus through [their] family.” They go on to say, “We’re not asking God for an ideal family. . . . We’re just asking him for a saved family” (13, emphasis original).

What a refreshing take on family and missions. It’s nothing new; family and missions have long been rooted in God’s plan to bless the peoples of the world throughout biblical history. Yet it’s a countercultural perspective.

And it’s a selfless perspective. I’ve never thought much past five generations: grandparents, parents, my generation, children, and grandchildren. But the expansive view of 10 generations is a call to serve those you’ll never meet: for example, your great-great-grandchildren. This big vision is captivating. Yet the authors make few promises about what will happen.

I approached this book with some trepidation. Books on child-rearing remind me of diet books: promises of success, strict regimens, and dramatic anecdotes, but in the end? Mixed results. In contrast, the Ortlunds’ recommendations for child-rearing are the ordinary means of grace and godly wisdom, bounded by Scripture.

Consistent Vision

A few things set this book apart and put it at the top of my child-rearing book list.

The Ortlunds’ recommendations for child-rearing are the ordinary means of grace and godly wisdom, bounded by Scripture.

The book is an easy read. It’s peppered with pithy quotes from others (beyond the obligatory quotes from C. S. Lewis). But some of the most memorable lines come from the authors. For example, they write, “Nominal Christianity would be a curse to our children. But a real, rugged faith in Christ is a blessing to our children” (150). Amen to that.

Much of what’s good in this book is expected, but it’s presented with captivating sparkle. They include a chapter on the importance of a strong marriage, for example. Yet such calls bear repeating in our day. And though the book advocates a big-picture view of family, it’s also chock-full of down-to-earth, practical ideas for raising a godly family. Comments from their grown children give credibility to their advice—the Ortlunds practiced what they preach.

Unique Vision

Unlike many Christian books on parenting that focus only on the nuclear family, the Ortlunds include wisdom about making church central to child-rearing. It’s beyond a mere “go to church.” They provide clear help on what kind of church you should attend: a humble, gospel-centered, healthy church that feels like family.

They offer advice about creating a gospel culture in the home: “A truly Christian family is one in which the gospel culture they share makes it almost feel like Jesus lives there too” (50). That requires treasuring God’s Word and treasuring one another.

I often feel alone in making my way with my seven grandchildren without much published wisdom from others. Thankfully, the Ortlunds have a chapter for grandparents, and the prayers they write for a grandparent’s family are priceless. Those made it into my prayer journal.

The Ortlunds offer grace and encouragement to those who feel their families are failures. This section is so good, and they write with such tenderness. I wondered why it was tucked away in the book’s second-to-last chapter, but perhaps the lesson here is to read the whole book.

The book concludes with 10 biblical insights that form an expanded summary of the book. My English teacher was a stickler that “conclusions must conclude”—the Ortlunds didn’t have my English teacher. These insights contain new material, so don’t skip the conclusion because you think it’s only a summary.

Renewing Vision

As I read the book, I couldn’t help feeling it wasn’t for everyone. It won’t be relevant for some: The single mom struggling to get by while holding down a job and trying to raise her kids. A family with a member struggling with addiction. Or, in a more extreme example, the refugee family living in a tent who attended the church I pastored in Iraq.

They offer grace and encouragement to those who feel their families are failures.

Yet two things came to mind as I read. First, the Ortlunds never claim this is a book for everyone; they regularly say, in effect, “You don’t have to do it our way.” Their focus is on intact Christian families with humble parents who have an abiding faith in our risen Lord. And good for them—the world sometimes derides those who aspire to raise godly families with traditional structures. Second, throughout the book, the Ortlunds maintain a biblical vision rooted in Scripture that’s applicable, in principle, even to refugees living in tents. Does it take some contextualization? Sure, but the wisdom is relevant.

To the Tenth Generation is a book for those who long to strengthen Christian families, including their own. It’s worthy of being front and center in your family library. Will their vision win the world for Jesus? Maybe. But we should never forget Psalm 110. One day, God the Father will give to his beloved Son, Jesus, the world for his footstool.

Lewis and Tolkien’s decades-long friendship unfolded in college rooms, pubs, and garden paths in Oxford—but its ripple effects have been felt around the world, for over a half century.

The Lewis-Tolkien relationship has been told in many books before, but never like it is in The Mythmakers, a just-released graphic novel by the acclaimed illustrator John Hendrix (who’s a believer). Geared toward young-adult audiences but rewarding for older readers too, The Mythmakers combines artistic whimsy, theological reflection, and flourishes of Sehnsucht in a way that feels totally appropriate for a book on the Lewis-Tolkien story. In a real sense, the medium is the message of this book. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the Inklings or a general desire to think more Christianly about art and the creative community.

I recently chatted with Hendrix about his inspiration and process for The Mythmakers, what most surprised him in the research, and what the church can learn about Christian art-making from Lewis and Tolkien.

Where did you first get inspired to tell Lewis and Tolkien’s friendship story?

What most people need to know about this book is that it’s basically fan art. At the core, I just owe so much to these two men and their works, and the permission it gave me as a young person to not just take my imagination seriously, but also my faith really seriously too. The book is about an exploration of their dual biography, but it’s using their friendship story as a lens to ask some larger questions about storytelling and fairy and the history of myth in general.

Do you remember how old you were when you first encountered Lewis and Tolkien?

For both of them, I have very vivid young memories. Someone gave me an illustrated copy of The Hobbit. It had a very vivid drawing of Smaug on the cover, and I carried it around, even after I had finished the book, like it was a Bible. I would travel with it, and it was very important to me, the illustrations particularly.

Then I read Narnia. I think I had even read them out of order initially. I did not really clock the allegory, at least in terms of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They were just great stories—portal fantasy to me. Then later, I’m like, “OK, I see what he’s doing there.”

What did the research look like? Was it hard to get to a point where you felt comfortable telling the story with accuracy and fidelity to what actually transpired?

It is such an act of humility to try this at all. David French said this thing recently, and I’ve been thinking about it: humility should be indexed to complexity. The more complex something gets, the more humble your mindset should be. And this is what happens anytime I learn about anything. I think I know the most at the beginning, and then the more I read—somehow—the less I feel like I know.

I read a lot of books. I went to Oxford. I drew all night at The Kilns, and I tried to just load my brain up with as much as possible. But, for me, the real act is stepping away and asking, “What is the metatext? What is the metanarrative?” And then finding ways to cite that idea throughout the book in a form that a Young Adult (YA) audience can really understand and maybe internalize. That’s the goal for me.

Do you illustrate simultaneously with the research, or do you research on the front end before you even illustrate? How does that process work for you?

I start the book with images that I really want to make, and then I write a little bit. And then writing is honestly so abstract for me that it is really hard for me to write without the imagery alongside it. The framing device in this book of a lion and wizard came along because I’m making a graphic novel about the Inklings, and most of what they do is sit around and talk. You can’t have 300 pages of that. I needed a narrative frame that allowed us to go on some of the adventures, and that allowed young readers to latch on to these ideas. The lion and wizard framing developed very early on out of a drawing, and that gave me a place to write from.

I’m making a graphic novel about the Inklings, and most of what they do is sit around and talk. You can’t have 300 pages of that.

For Tolkien, I considered maybe king or elf, but wizard seemed to fit his personality too. And lion fits Lewis so well, because he was such a boisterous, big personality. I have to test everything out, and in this case, when I started writing with that framing, it worked. It was one of those things where I’m like, “Oh, this is happening.” And then it was a matter of convincing my editor this was the right choice.

Was there anything in the research about Lewis and Tolkien that came as a surprise to you?

I had known the basic beats of their story together. But I think the depth of their estrangement and the pain they felt from that was really heavy. I really remember thinking, What does this do to this story? And ultimately, I realized it was so necessary to tell the tale. In some ways, it made it more poignant, and it pointed toward the ending of the story, where I give them a chance to recapitulate the losses we all feel on this earth before we enter the new creation.

I’ve heard from several readers who had to put the book down when they got to that because it was such a bummer, but I do think it offers us lessons about friendship and fellowship and creative community. Consider any friendship you’ve had in the last 30 years. We all change. How do you support one another as you change? How do you not grow bitter or jealous—or the thing that happens in old age where your ideas start to calcify and you’re less flexible?

The book is about how important relationships are for forming our creative imagination and process. So I’m curious about you as a creator: What does this look like for you? Do you have any long-term relationships with fellow creatives who really spur you on?

I tell my students that our work always gets better in community. And for some reason the world tends to tell artists the opposite, right? The book is dedicated to two of my friends at Washington University: Abram Van Engen and John Inazu—both professors and people that I trust—that have now been in my life for over 10 years, and I hope are here long after that time. To have a collaborative community—especially people who share your faith and share your aims for what your work can do in the world—is so valuable.

All three of us had books come out this year, and I was able to illustrate both Abram’s and Inazu’s books. It was a really sweet celebration of collaborative and shared mission. I don’t think everyone has that, and maybe not everyone has it for every season of their life, because I certainly couldn’t have said that 15 years ago. But when we come into these moments of creative community and collaboration, it’s really wonderful.

A half century later, we’re still pointing to Lewis and Tolkien as some of the best examples of Christian art-making. What can Christian institutions, churches, and communities do to create fertile soil for the next Lewis or Tolkien to emerge? What can we do better as the church to inspire creative excellence?

It’s such a good question. First, you have to have the desire for artists to participate in that storytelling. If you had told me when I was 18 that I would be making a literal picture book about Jesus, that would have struck me as “Surely that cannot be good.” Because what I saw in Christian bookstores was uninteresting kitsch. It’s not that it was bad. It was boring.

The church should try to support things that are weird. We should try to relax our reflex for fear. Maybe churches could regularly give out studio spaces for artists and not police what goes on there—maybe just invite in people from the community. This could be a way for the church to become a vessel where people see the church as wanting interesting things to be made, as opposed to “Let’s have you sign this faith statement before we let you make some canvases in our basement.” There needs to be discernment, sure. But in general, fear has tended to run the show.

Do you think there’s anything in Tolkien’s idea of sub-creation that Protestants can learn from?

Protestants threw out all the art in the cathedrals. I get why we did that, but we are honestly still dealing with the repercussions. Lewis and Tolkien are these perfect little avatars for their little Protestant-Catholic differences. Tolkien’s world is adorned with baroque things. There are things everywhere, and he made them for the goodness of making. But I think you could actually argue that The Lord of the Rings’ Middle-earth is almost more infused with gospel ideas than Narnia, if you had to truly count them up. Protestants should be OK with the idea of myth being something that points to the deepest, truest things. We are telling certain stories over and over again for a reason, and there is a certain mystery there.

For a young person who’s a Christian and cares about the arts, and maybe has artistic ambition, what do you hope he or she takes away from The Mythmakers, especially regarding creativity and faith?

My favorite thing inside of this research was reading some of Tolkien’s letters. It’s the thing I tell people to read if they want to really digest something of his they haven’t encountered yet. One thing that’s clear from the letters is that great art is made on a Tuesday afternoon. We look back at them as these geniuses, but they did not know they were the C. S. Lewis and the J. R. R. Tolkien. They were two guys who were meeting in between curriculum committees.

There’s this one passage I cited in the author’s note where Tolkien talks about how in the morning, he took Frodo and Sam to the gates of Mordor. In the afternoon, he cleaned the chicken coops and worked on the plumbing. He was Tolkien, but he was plumbing his own toilet. The thing he wants to do is write The Lord of the Rings, but he’s got life happening around him. Lewis and Tolkien were just extremely normal people who were not corrupted by fame or the sort of genius-tag that happens in our world today.

So for young people reading this: Make your art. Be faithful to it. Find friends who can share the journey with you, and enjoy the act of creating. Tolkien’s whole idea was sub-creating. We honor God when we create like him, and that’s such a beautiful idea.

The move toward quicker and more casual songwriting means new music hits our Spotify—and CCLI—lists more quickly. But it also means Christians are sometimes singing repetitive choruses, nonsensical lyrics, or wrong theology.

That matters, because we sing those songs so often that we memorize them. We hum them in the car. We play them while we’re making dinner. We lean on them when hard times hit.

About 10 years ago, a church in Australia noticed these problems. They tried a different songwriting process. It was slow and clunky and never should have worked—and yet it did.

Odds are, you’ve sung their good theology in your church, in your car, or in your kitchen.

I’m a career law enforcement official who has been working exclusively on child exploitation cases for the past six years. I’m also a parent and serve as an elder in my local church. So I’ve had the opportunity to study the issue of online exploitation from multiple perspectives.

The number of minors targeted through social media has risen at an alarming rate within the last few years. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, reports of online enticement increased 300 percent from 2021 to 2023. In 2023 alone, that organization’s tipline received more than 36 million reports.

The law enforcement community is working hard to identify and arrest child predators and to rescue victims. But with these numbers, we can’t do it alone. Every investigator could exclusively work on child exploitation cases and we’d barely scratch the surface.

Your child’s safety begins at home. Parents and caretakers are the first line of defense. Too often, by the time law enforcement gets involved, much of the damage is done. Additionally, online predators often use sophisticated techniques to hide their identity, or they reside outside our jurisdiction in countries that don’t recognize or cooperate with our legal process. It’s imperative that parents and caretakers establish boundaries with their children’s social media use to protect them online.

Consider three problems kids’ routinely encounter online.

Problem #1: Peer Pressure

Social media has radically changed the way kids are learning and adapting to culture. Traditionally, children learned by observing and conforming to common behaviors in their community. Psychologists refer to this as conformity bias: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

At the same time, our children learn to identify and copy the most prestigious behavior. This is one reason many Christian parents put their kids in Christian schools. The hope is that children would observe Christlike behavior, which is exulted and venerated, and develop healthy role models and discipling relationships.

But that process takes time and personal interaction to properly develop. Jonathan Haidt, the author of the New York Times number-one bestseller The Anxious Generation, said this about social media and conformity bias:

On a social media platform, a child can scroll through a thousand data points in one hour (at three seconds per post), each one accompanied by numerical evidence (likes) and comments that show whether the post was a success or a failure. Social media platforms are therefore the most efficient conformity engines ever invented. They can shape an adolescent’s mental models of acceptable behavior in a matter of hours, whereas parents can struggle unsuccessfully for years to get their children to sit up straight or stop whining. Parents don’t get to use the power of conformity bias, so they are often no match for the socializing power of social media.

Children face a spiritual battle online. While Christian parents labor to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, many greatly underestimate how easily the Enemy can use social media to undermine this important work. Who are the social media “influencers” your children follow on Instagram, TikTok, or Snapchat? Are they pointing your children to Christ or to worldly pleasures that ultimately leave them feeling empty and isolated? I’d argue these strangers have a much greater influence on our youth than we realize.

Problem #2: Mental Health

In December 2021, the U.S. surgeon general released an advisory declaring a “youth mental health crisis.” Over the last decade, the Centers for Disease Control statistics show a 40 percent increase in the number of high school students reporting persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness.

Moreover, suicide rates among teens and young adults have gone up 57 percent since 2007, the same year the first iPhone was introduced to the world. In their first year on the market, upward of 1.4 million smartphones were sold. By 2008, that number was 11.6 million. By 2023, the number of global smartphone users is estimated at 6.9 billion and is expected to rise to 7.7 billion by 2027. (There are 8.2 billion people in the world.)

It’s difficult to quantify the effects of this rise in new technology on our youth, but the data indicates a strong correlation between the use of smartphones and social media and the rising rates of depression and suicide among teenagers.

Problem #3: Porn

Smartphones in the hands of children and teenagers greatly increase the access and sharing of pornography, which generally goes undetected by parents. Many parental controls block access to websites with adult content, but teens are increasingly viewing and sharing pornography through direct messaging on social media platforms.

A 2022 study by Common Sense Media found that teens who identify as “very religious” were more likely to report viewing pornography through social media or nonpornography websites. These devices also allow children to make their own pornographic content, which they’re often manipulated into sharing with online predators who extort or coerce them into producing more explicit content or engaging in face-to-face sexual encounters.

Parents need to understand the implications of how children are viewing pornography. Twenty years ago, there was little to no chance of ever meeting the people whose content you were viewing. But now with social media, within minutes kids can meet face-to-face with these people. We see this occurring at an alarming rate, particularly with young teenage girls who show signs of sexual promiscuity and boys struggling with same-sex attraction.

Not only has the way children access and view pornography changed, but the content has changed as well. As our culture has increasingly rejected the boundaries God has placed around sex, the pornography industry has produced more taboo and violent content to feed the flesh of those given over to a depraved mind (Rom. 1).

The content kids are exposed to online isn’t like what was in Playboy magazines a few decades ago (not to excuse that content). Today’s increasing depravity, combined with addictive algorithms, is creating a generation of young people with an extremely warped understanding of human sexuality. That same Common Sense Media study found that 52 percent of teenagers have viewed violent forms of pornography, including depictions of rape, choking, or someone in pain. Twenty-eight percent of teenagers who view violent pornography believe most people like to be hit during sex.

I believe this is why we’re seeing younger and younger offenders possessing child sexual abuse material.

Protect Your Kids

Parental controls are a helpful tool that to an extent can mitigate some threats adolescents are facing from online predators, but no software or firewall is 100 percent effective. Children, particularly teenagers, have become increasingly savvy at finding ways around firewalls and hiding their online activity from parents and school administrators.

I talk to a lot of parents. I know many are uncomfortable with their children using smartphones and social media but allow it because they’re worried their children will be socially isolated without them. I’d argue the risk of depression, addiction, sexual exploitation, and isolation that results from the use of these devices far outweighs any social isolation that might result from taking them away.

When parents ask me what they can do to keep their kids safe online, I tell them to keep their kids off social media and away from unsupervised use of smartphones and tablets. The law enforcement community is committed to pursuing child predators and bringing them to justice, but parents are the front line of defense for their kids.

Talk to your children about their online activity and create boundaries to keep them safe from online exploitation. I understand this will probably not be popular with your children, but you can remind them that in Scripture, God’s discipline for his children is an expression of his love. The author of Hebrews wrote, “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb. 12:11).

I grew up attending a small Christian Reformed Church in the cornfields of Iowa. Our worship was formal: I wore a dress and sat with my family on a hard wooden pew. When it was time to sing, we opened our hymnals to songs like “How Great Thou Art,” “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” Nearly every song had a “thee” or “thou” in it and the hymns in our repertoire were, on average, about 150 years old.

Today, my church doesn’t have a piano, much less an organ. The worship team uses a keyboard, guitars, and drums to accompany our singing. We don’t have songbooks either—the lyrics pop up onto the wall. We still sing hymns, but the average age of our worship songs is about seven years old.

I know I’m not the only one to experience this shift. Surveys tell us that in the 20 years from 1998 to 2018, more congregations have set up projectors, hauled in drum sets, and begun to raise their hands in worship.

The study authors speculate one reason might be our culture’s growing informality. We don’t address our neighbors or even our bosses as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” anymore. We don’t often wear suits or dresses to work, or even to church. Moving from hymnals to screens, then, might say less about our theology and more about our larger culture.

That’s interesting. But here’s what’s even more fascinating: the songwriting process has changed. It’s a lot faster—both the pace at which songs are written and the pace at which they are released and grab attention. The language is more casual. And sometimes the theology isn’t as careful as it could or should be.

At least one church noticed these problems and tried a different songwriting process. It was slow and clunky and never should have worked—and yet it did.

I can’t wait to share their story, and what they learned, with you.

Not a Real Band

CityAlight is relatively new to the Christian music scene—they first hit Spotify with the song “Jerusalem” in 2015 and grabbed attention with “Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me” in 2018. With a boost from internet searches and at-home worship during the pandemic, CityAlight has grown to more than 1.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

In September 2023, more than 6,000 people worshiped with CityAlight at The Gospel Coalition’s national conference. I was one of them, and I was thrilled because some of my favorite worship songs are CityAlight’s—“Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me,” “This Is the Day,” and “Saved My Soul.”

I was also excited because I knew CityAlight was popular, and I loved that they made time for TGC in their busy touring and songwriting schedule.

On the conference’s second day, I said as much to Ann Westrate, our events director. She confirmed CityAlight was hard to schedule, but not because they had to fit us in around other performances.

“They had to ask for time off of work because they have day jobs,” she said. “They’re teachers and graphic designers and stuff like that. They just all go to the same church and play in the worship team.”

It took me a minute to catch on. The people who wrote and sang “Only a Holy God” weren’t professional musicians? The group with more than a million monthly listeners on Spotify isn’t a real band?

“We only have one person on staff who looks after CityAlight,” said singer Tiarne Tranter. “Everyone else still has a day job. Everyone else is a volunteer. So we struggle to find time to rehearse because everyone’s life is so busy, and we’re actually not paid to do this. And so other than the intensity of it, the mission hasn’t changed. The day-to-day hasn’t changed. We still meet in the church building. We’re still serving in our Bible studies. We’re still serving on teams on Sunday. I think people would be surprised by the amateur nature of what we’re doing over here—if you could see the day-to-day stuff, I think that people would be shocked.”

Most of the time, Tiarne is a high school PE teacher and a mom. She plans lessons, does laundry, and goes to Bible study. She just happens to be part of a church that takes worship songs really seriously and is doing things really differently.

Church Plant in Criminal Barracks

CityAlight’s story begins nearly 200 years ago, when a church was planted in Castle Hill, Australia. The church’s first building was more ominous than a theater or a school gym—it was originally built as barracks for convicted criminals shipped over from England, then spent 15 years as a institution for the mentally ill before becoming the home for St. Simon’s Anglican Church. About 30 years later, St. Simon’s was closed and its members directed two miles down the road to the brand-new St. Paul’s Anglican Church. From the beginning, the congregation loved music.

“They began with a choir, and that choir has been singing together since the beginning,” Tiarne said. “Maybe three or four years ago we had an event celebrating the history of St. Paul’s and they showed a video of the original building. And even in those pictures, you could see the choir singing and people were leading music and it was just really cool.”

The people of St. Paul’s passed that love down to their children and their children’s children.

“Over time, it just becomes part of our culture, which is naturally growing young people who see others serving and want to do the same,” Tiarne said. “We’re reaping the fruits of that now—of years and years and years of investment from leadership and from the older people in our church.”

Australian CCM

St. Paul’s was also influenced by the church down the street. Less than five miles away, Brian and Bobbie Houston planted Hillsong Church in 1983. Brian encouraged his worship team to write their own music, and 10 years later, Hillsong’s worship director wrote “Shout to the Lord.” The song was an instant success, sung over and over at churches, youth groups, and Christian camps around the globe.

Hillsong played an outsize role in the Christian music industry’s rapid growth. Between 1993 and 1997, the market share for sales of Christian albums in the United States more than doubled, making it the market’s fastest-growing segment. A few other Australian musicians helped boost Christian music in that era—anybody remember the first album from the Newsboys? Or Rebecca St. James?

“That created this music culture and it was like, ‘Hey, let’s rethink the way we sing congregationally and worship,’” said CityAlight songwriter Rich Thompson. “And I think that’s in the water a little bit here.”

Thompson loved music so much he joined yet another Australian band—this one called Revive—and spent four years opening for Third Day. But I’m getting ahead of myself—we’ll come back to Rich later.

Back at St. Paul’s in the ’90s, the worship team was also starting to write and sing its own music. Keith Baker remembers coming on board as a pastoral intern in 1998.

“They had just released an album—the first album—way back when,” Keith said. “It had a big horn section on it. It was a real mixture of all sorts of songs.”

“That went fairly well in Sydney,” said Rich Vassallo, an audio engineer who began attending St. Paul’s around that time. “A lot of churches picked up the songs. And then in the mid-2000s, they did a studio recording, which didn’t do very well for a number of reasons. But in 2011, I was asked to oversee another recording project, but this one was going to take a different shape.”

This time, St. Paul’s didn’t rent a studio. Instead, they recorded live, and they asked their congregation to join them.

“It was very ad hoc,” Rich said. “The church didn’t have the budget to do it, so we had to work out how to fund it. We pulled equipment from everybody’s houses and tried to make it work.”

It did work.

“The end outcome was fine,” he said. “It’s nothing like what we do today, but it was a really important project for us, because we learned a lot from it. It informed a lot of the work we’ve done with team culture, preparing for a project, and helping us really be very clear on what our end goal is.”

What was the end goal? The church leaders were clear—it wasn’t to sell albums, to go on tour, or even to create musical masterpieces. The whole point was to provide “new songs to sing at church which are biblically sound, contemporary, and singable.”

Because St. Paul’s wanted to be a “city on a hill,” drawing others to “the light of the world,” they called the album City Alight.

Starting to Write Songs

St. Paul’s music director felt so strongly about songwriting that he asked the church to pay somebody to lead it part-time. He suggested Rich Thompson, who was back in Australia after 10 years in America with Revive.

St. Paul’s asked if he’d write songs for them two days a week. Rich, who was working full-time and raising a family, said he could give them one.

Meanwhile, St. Paul’s had begun offering music lessons for children in the community. They asked member Jonny Robinson to run the program. Jonny was bright—so bright he was studying for his PhD in philosophy. But he wasn’t gifted at administration. Gamely, he bumbled his way through the logistics of the lessons.

“One night, as I was waiting for some of the other lessons to finish, I was playing around on the piano,” Jonny said. “And I wrote a Christian song—it was a church song. Someone heard it and said to me, ‘Hey, can you play that song that you wrote—‘Praise the Savior’—on Sunday?’”

He did.

“The accountant at church said to me while I was in the office one day, ‘Hey, you wrote that song the other day. I didn’t really know you wrote that kind of music,’” Jonny said. “I think because I was so bad at running the music school—it was all administration and I had no idea what I was doing—I think he was he was shocked that I did something that wasn’t terrible.”

The church accountant was so impressed he offered Jonny the other songwriting day—the one Rich couldn’t do. Rich and Jonny met for the first time when sitting down with the music director.

“The music minister said, ‘Listen, I gotta go to another meeting. Do you guys want to keep hanging out? You can. That’s fine,’” Jonny said. “So Rich said, ‘Do you want to keep hanging out?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, there’s a piano in one of the other rooms if you want to go chill and hang out and talk.’ And so we sat down, and I talked to him about this idea for a song. I had written a melody for it, kind of a folk melody. And we wrote ‘Jerusalem’ together.”

The song was beautiful. But not everyone at St. Paul’s was convinced.

What Are We Paying For?

“There were people in church that weren’t convinced it was a good use of money,” Jonny said. “They thought maybe we shouldn’t be paid for it, and maybe we shouldn’t be doing it.”

It’s easy to sympathize with them. After all, aren’t there hungry people who need to be fed? Homeless who need to be cared for? Widows and orphans to be looked after? Is this really the best use of the resources God has given?

Here’s what the church leadership argued: We have a unique gift—a congregation full of people who love and excel at music. Using these gifts to produce original songs is a ministry, a way to serve our congregation and something we can give to other congregations around us.

What St. Paul’s didn’t realize is they were also paying for something else. Rich and Jonny knew the industry standards and loved to ask why things were the way they were. Together, they’d develop a musical philosophy that would spark a countercultural approach to songwriting.

But to understand what they did, you first have to understand how things are.

How Things Are

When contemporary Christian music took over the radio and CD market in the 1990s, it also affected church worship. Between 1998 and 2012, studies show that congregations began dropping choirs, bulletins, and organs. Instead, they installed projection equipment and set up guitar amplifiers. The song lyrics changed too, reported the authors of the rigorous, multiyear National Congregations Study. Worship moved “away from an emphasis on belief and doctrine and toward an emphasis on experience, emotion, and the search for a least-common-denominator kind of worship.”

Not everybody liked the change, and feelings ran so high for so long in so many churches that the arguments began to be labeled the “worship wars.” In the end, many churches handled the conflict by offering two services—one traditional and one contemporary.

Over the years, that battle’s ferocity has faded. Lots of churches now sing both hymns and worship songs on Sunday mornings. Many services are now likely to play songs you might hear on Christian radio or a Spotify playlist.

“So you’ve got Christian music that goes on radio, and then you’ve got Christian music that goes into churches, and in my mind, they’re two different categories,” Rich Thompson said. “Back in the 2000s, they were quite distinct. In fact, if you were looking at the charts of both of those, they were really distinct in terms of the most played or most sung songs. Today, you’ve got a lot of worship songs being played on radio and a lot of radio songs being sung in churches.”

Why the change?

“It’s hard to know exactly why this is happening,” he said. “One of the reasons, if you talk to some of the people in the industry, is because there’s something that happens on a Sunday when people sing a song in church and they become familiar with a song.”

Radio station staff have realized that “to be able to play those songs during the week is something that their listeners are going to enjoy because of what they’ve experienced at church,” Rich said. “And so now you have a shift, where the worship songs are being produced in a way that are radio friendly. It didn’t used to be like that.”

That makes sense. If we sing a song we like at church, it’s nice to hear it on the radio or a music streaming platform. And if we hear a song we like on the radio, it’s nice to get to sing it in church.

In theory, then, all is well. But of course, real life is rarely as neat and clean as theory.

Here’s one problem: when we only play worship music on the radio, we’re cutting out a lot of other songs that don’t fit into that box. In the ’90s, most churches didn’t sing Michael W. Smith’s “Go West Young Man,” DC Talk’s “Jesus Freak,” or Steven Curtis Chapman’s “Great Adventure.” But those songs were formative for a lot of Christians.

Those songs—maybe we’ll call them noncorporate songs, or private worship songs—can be more artistic. They can take some risks, with both the music and the lyrics. They can be a little more emotionally raw, more personal. They serve a different purpose. When we only play worship music on the radio, we miss out on these songs.

On the flip side, when we only sing radio music in church, we cut out a lot of options for congregational singing. Church history is full of beautiful songs, from “Blessed Assurance” to “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” Most of them don’t get played on the radio.

Further constricting our choices is, ironically, our global connectivity. Church music directors used to look through a hymnal or songbook and choose songs that best fit their context, one study author said. Now, it seems worship leaders draw from the relatively small number of hits made popular online, at megachurches, or at conferences.

If you want your worship song to join that list of hits, it helps to write lyrics that aren’t too theologically limiting or demanding.

Here’s an example: A few years ago, the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) wanted to change a line in Keith Getty and Stuart Townend’s “In Christ Alone.” They objected to the line “And on that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied” and wanted to change it to a gentler “the love of God was magnified.” Getty and Townend refused to allow the change, arguing the atonement is critical to the gospel story. In response, the mainline Presbyterians voted to drop “In Christ Alone” from their hymnal.

Another way to help your song become a hit is to work for a really large church. A recent study found that 36 of the 38 of the most popular worship songs between 2010 and 2020 were introduced by just four sources—Hillsong in Sydney, Bethel in Redding, Elevation in Charlotte, and Passion City Church in Atlanta.

Those are all megachurches. But that’s not all they have in common. All four are theologically charismatic, predominately white, and Western. And for better or worse, they’re shaping worship for nearly everyone else, even though most churches across the globe don’t share their theology, size, location, or demographics.

But none of those things is Rich’s biggest objection to modern songwriting.

Too Fast

“The time it takes to write a song is something that we think about and talk about quite a lot,” Rich Thompson said. “We talk a lot about why we’re writing—what is our motive here, what are we trying to do? And obviously our primary motive is to give glory to God, and we want to do that by equipping the church with songs that are biblically rich and that are easy to sing and play.”

It’s critical to remember that in a music industry that has grown large and profitable.

“Often you see when art becomes commercialized, there’s a danger of the process or the administration actually trumping the art itself,” Rich said. “As you start selling more, there’s demand, and then you need to start meeting the demand. We’ve seen that happen time and again, and we’ve tried to guard against that. We want to make sure the songs are written for the express purpose of equipping the church, not for meeting a quota or for meeting a deadline or for meeting a bottom line. So if our songs aren’t finished in time, we simply don’t record in that season, and that’s happened many times before. It can be a little concerning that the writers in bigger organizations don’t share that same luxury.”

It’s not that those songwriters aren’t Christians or don’t have good things to say. It’s that the pressure to go fast makes worship songs look more like hotel paintings than like da Vincis.

“It’s really common that songwriters have annual quotas that they have to meet,” Rich Thompson said. “This is just part of the industry. They’re given an advance, which is like an investment from the organization that they’re writing for. And the organization needs to make their money back on them. This is really common across all genres.”

The trouble is, writing quickly under pressure lends itself to the temptation of writing without enough thought or care.

“If equipping the church is our primary motivation, if [the songs are] going to be sung in church, then crafting the theology into these songs needs to be done with the utmost care,” Rich said. “And, in our opinion, that has to take time. You’re talking about the Bride of Christ. It’s both an incredible opportunity for building up and beautifying the Bride, but it’s also very dangerous. There is a lot of danger in potentially misleading or teaching potentially slightly wrong things through your songs. And the ramification of that over a long period of time is very significant.”

That’s because songs lend themselves to memorization. You almost can’t help but memorize the music and lyrics you hear over and over again.

“The impact of those old hymns in our generation has been incredibly profound,” Rich Thompson said. “Take a song like ‘In Christ Alone’—it’s this robust creedal song you carry with you. ‘No guilt in life, no fear in death.’ How many times do we recall those words? That means those songs have to be so deeply, deeply rooted in Scripture, if you’re going to be recalling them like that. And if they’re even a little bit off, when you recall them, and continue to recall them, it has the potential to lead people astray or confuse people. The stakes are very high.”

Jonny compares it to sermons. Words written for the church to hear are important, and pastors take time and care to get them right. But not many people are going to listen to a sermon over and over until they have it memorized. Therefore, if it takes a pastor a few weeks to write a sermon, Rich and Jonny figured it should take them at least a few months—sometimes closer to a year—to write a song.

But a song isn’t nearly as many words as a sermon. So what do they do with all that time?

How to Write Lyrics Differently

The first step is to decide on a topic. Rich keeps a list of them on his phone—ideas that occur to him as he goes about his week. Jonny keeps his ideas in notebooks. Many times, their songs have grown out of sermon series at their church—“Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me” came from a series on Philippians, “Ancient of Days” from one on Daniel.

The next step is not to write.

“If you’re going to write a song about the resurrection, it’s not good enough just to rattle off the first three thoughts that you have about the resurrection or the latest thing that you’ve heard about the resurrection,” Jonny said. “You don’t know enough about it. I don’t know enough about it. Nobody knows enough about it, just to give the top three thoughts off their head and write a song about it. So Rich and I actually spend probably the first sometimes three, four, six months, trying to fill up the well.”

Rich and Jonny listen to sermons, read books, and text each other articles about the topic. A good songwriting session is sometimes the two of them talking for a few hours about different things they’ve read or are thinking about. Their goal is to understand a difficult theological truth so well that they could simply and easily explain it to anyone.

“We need to understand: What is God trying to say to us through his Word?” Rich said. “How does it apply to our church? How do we practically live it out throughout the week? We generally fill a whole whiteboard full of things before we start putting pen to paper.”

This “filling up the well” is why no CityAlight songwriter—Rich, Jonny, or the other writers at St. Paul’s—is on staff.

“Every songwriter in CityAlight needs to have some sort of day job, so that you’ve got something else going on in your life,” Rich said. “It means you’re able to be in the world, be at work, feel what other people in the congregation are feeling on a day-to-day basis. So we’re able to take the theological truths that we’re working on and apply them into moments that we’ve felt throughout the week.”

It also takes the economic pressure off. If your employer is expecting you to produce a steady stream of popular songs, you might be tempted to rush something out.

After a while, Rich and Jonny didn’t even like being paid for one day a week of songwriting. They both quit taking money from St. Paul’s and kept writing on a volunteer basis.

Even after CityAlight songwriters fill up their wells, it still takes months to get a song onto paper. The topics they’re tackling are complex. And then there’s Jonny.

After a while, Jonny finished his PhD and started teaching philosophy at a university. While he was doing that, he noticed that even a single word, if defined poorly, can knock a whole train of thought off the rails.

“We had rules at the beginning,” Jonny said. “We said things like, ‘If you’re going to have more than one abstract noun per verse, you have to explain why you think you can sneak another concept in without people getting confused.’”

Jonny’s grammar rules were stricter than most doctoral dissertation guidelines. Writers had to show him how the conjunctions were working—words like “and,” “but,” “or,” “since,” or “because.” They had to be clear on the subject and object of each line. If they changed pronouns—words like “he,” “she,” “it,” and “us”—between lines, they had to be clear about which subject the pronoun was referring to.

And he didn’t stop there.

How to Write Melodies Differently

“The lyrics have got to be clear on the one hand, but the melody has to be clear on the other,” Jonny said.

Hang on a second.

I can understand why lyrics have to be clear. But why the melody? The notes aren’t trying to explain God’s Word. Why does it matter what they sound like?

Here’s what Jonny told me: In theater performances, the term “fourth wall” refers to the imaginary wall between the actors and the audience. When broken—perhaps by the sound system going out or a performer laughing at something that has accidentally gone wrong—that disruption pushes the audience out of the imaginative space they were in. They’re no longer in the story; they’re back in the theater, wondering how much longer before intermission.

The same thing can happen during worship, Jonny said. It’s not that congregations suspend disbelief the way you do in a theater. But singing helps us to focus on God, to enter a different headspace as we stop worrying about what’s going on around us.

All kinds of issues—an unexpected bridge, confusing lyrics, an unreachable note—can break that “fourth wall,” pushing us out of emotional worship and back into the pew, where we might start wondering about the outfit of the person in front of us or how much longer ’til lunch.

“You’ve got everybody kind of locked in spiritually—they’re thinking about the lyrics; they’re singing to God,” Jonny said. “And then suddenly the melody takes a turn that nobody’s expecting, and everybody is shaken out of their concentration, out of their reverie. And they lose the mood there.”

Jonny figured he could make the melody clear by writing music that sounded familiar.

“So I said, ‘Let’s try and write basically folk songs,’” he said. “So when people are singing, they can guess where the melody’s going to go and they’re not tripped up by it.”

The other advantage to musical simplicity is that the song can be played just as easily in a small church with a guy and his guitar as in a large church with a full band. This is important because half of Australian churches have fewer than 50 weekly attendees. Half of American churches see fewer than 65 a week.

“I was pretty passionate about making sure that whatever we wrote would work in that room too,” Jonny said. “It couldn’t have octave leaps. It couldn’t be dependent on a certain synth sound. It couldn’t be dependent on a certain drum groove. It couldn’t be so demanding emotionally that it was impossible to sing it if you weren’t feeling anything remotely like what the song was talking about.”

Initially, that disappointed some St. Paul’s members. CityAlight’s tunes seemed too tame, almost boring.

“There was some skepticism about the style of songs coming out,” Jonny said. “And people said, ‘This is really simple. Could you make that a little bit more interesting?’”

They could.

“On the Only a Holy God album, we were in the studio writing the instrumentation for the guitarist—we had hired Nigel [Hendroff] to come and play guitar for us in the studio,” Rich Vassallo said. “And he played this incredible guitar solo as part of it, and it sounded unreal, like the kind of thing you’d hear on your favorite album. And we’re at one point going, ‘This is so great. But can you play it simpler?’

“It really is that tension of wanting and enjoying the creativity of it, and how good it sounds, and then going, ‘No, but that could mean that someone listens to the song and decides, ‘I’ll never achieve this’ or ‘I won’t attempt the song.’ And so even in our early days, we got a fair bit of criticism for melodies that were too boring or musicianship that was too simplified or not very creative. But we keep telling ourselves that’s a badge of honor. . . . Because regardless of that creative opinion, people are singing the songs—and we want people to sing the songs.”

Perfecting the Songs

A few times a year, a six-person panel—which includes the lead minister at St. Paul’s—sits down to hear song submissions. They listen for singability, check for theological accuracy, and ask about pronoun usage. They divide the song candidates into three categories: those that are rejected, those that are greenlit with just a little editing, and those that need to go back to the drawing board for more serious work.

That panel is why “Only a Holy God” has four verses. Originally, it had just three, expressing how holy and separate God is from us.

“The senior minister was saying, ‘You’re just missing—you’re missing part of the beauty. Yes, he’s holy, but he’s also intimate,’” Rich Thompson said. “We were a bit annoyed by that. We were thinking, Look, we’ve just finished this song. But then once you get over that, you start thinking, Actually, you know what, he’s right, and we need to rethink this.’”

So Rich, Jonny, Michael Farren, and Dustin Smith added another verse.

“Now I think that’s the peak moment in the song, when you’ve come to this point of saying, ‘Oh, this is my father,’” Rich said. “So as frustrating as it can be, I do think it’s a very good thing.”

Sound of the Church

When CityAlight gathers enough songs for a project, they’re ready to record. But they don’t book a studio. And they don’t usually hire musicians.

Instead, they call their church.

“All of our recordings have our congregation singing on them,” Rich Vassallo said. “The crowd that you hear in our songs is the people that attend our services. It’s the sound of the church. It’s the most beautiful sound.”

By the time a song is ready to record, the congregation has been singing it on Sundays and is familiar with it. The people come in the evening to a church decorated with the album’s theme. The band is set on a low stage that extends out into the room so the congregation wraps around it.

The evening includes prayer, Bible reading, and preaching. Except for the recording equipment, it’s like a normal church service with a few extra songs.

“We just love to get everyone there,” Keith said. “And people love to come to those recordings, because people think, Hey, that’s my voice on those albums, I’m a recording artist too.”

Including a congregation’s voice is so unusual that when Rich Vassallo gets the songs from the mixing engineers, he always has to send them back, often multiple times.

“When it gets into the mix-down stage, the mix engineer will send it back to us, and you get this great-sounding track,” Rich said. “And we’re like, ‘Turn the crowd up. Turn the crowd up. Turn the crowd up.’ We go back and forth four, five, six times. . . . It is such an important part our recording. The voice of the church is key to CityAlight’s sound.”

Cooling Down and Heating Up

Since 2015, Hillsong has released more than 100 songs. Bethel has done nearly 200. CityAlight has 37.

They started with the 10-song album Yours Alone in 2015. A few people listened, especially to “Jerusalem” and “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus.” Eighteen months later, CityAlight dropped another 10 songs on the Only a Holy God album. A few more people listened, especially to “Only a Holy God” and “Christ Is Mine Forevermore.”

Instead of speeding up, CityAlight slowed down. They began releasing a single or two—or maybe a six-song EP—each year.

In November 2018, it was “Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me.” In 2019, it was “Jesus, Strong and Kind.” In 2020, it was “Your Will Be Done.”

Steadily, the number of listeners began to rise. Rich Vassallo started to hear from churches overseas who were translating CityAlight songs. Tiarne’s coffee barista thanked her one day because her music was putting his kids to sleep at night. And refugees from Ukraine who landed in Stockholm could recognize and sing “Jesus, Strong and Kind” with the church in their new country.

“Every time I hear that somebody knows a song, or you step off a plane somewhere and you walk into a random place that you’ve never been before—you don’t know anyone—and then you play the first chord, and everyone knows all the words,” Tiarne said. “We played at a conference recently, and the screen stopped working for ‘Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me,’ which is always nerve-racking. And the congregation sang louder than any other song we’d ever sung, without the words on the screen. And so that does surprise me. I always get surprised by that.”

By 2019, Keith was starting to meet a few people after church services who had come specifically to worship at St. Paul’s because of CityAlight.

“We had a lady visit us from Shanghai just a few weeks ago,” he said. “She was saying, ‘You know, we sing your songs in our underground church so I just had to come and see the church that made these songs.’ Oh, my goodness, right? So I took her straight up the back to our store. I gave her all the CDs that I could find. I said, ‘Take these, use them however you want.’ It was crazy. It’s crazy to think how God’s using these songs. But it was so great to have her at church.”

Another man, on vacation from work, flew from Singapore to Sydney to worship at St. Paul’s. Keith told him to make sure to see the Harbour Bridge while he was in town. He’s not fazed by the visitors—in fact, he’s done the same thing, stopping by Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City a few years ago to worship with Tim Keller’s congregation.

Influence

A lot of people tell CityAlight they hang on to their songs in times of grief or illness. “Christ Is Mine Forevermore” has been played at dozens of funerals. “Day After Day, Jesus Reigns” has called those struggling through marriage troubles or illness back to worship. “My God Is All I Need” helped one listener move past addiction and another worship in the middle of hurt and loss.

But perhaps the most dramatic example of this comes from Jamie Trussell, a former teaching pastor at Harvest Church in Germantown, Tennessee. Here he is, talking to the congregation in early 2023:

I woke up on Tuesday morning singing the refrain of a group named CityAlight. They did a rendition of “This Is the Day the Lord Has Made.” The first verse of that song says, “This is the day that the Lord has made / We will rejoice as we lift his name.” Now I couldn’t tell you at that point why that song was stuck in my head. My wife would probably tell you, if she were being honest, I don’t wake up every morning singing worship songs. So we wake up, and I’m singing this song and don’t know why. But soon the reality of those lyrics would certainly come home.

A few hours later, Jamie got the worst phone call of his life: his lead pastor, his executive pastor, an elder, and two church members had been in a plane crash. Four of the five men were killed on impact. Only his lead pastor had survived and was in critical condition.

At Harvest’s church service five days later, the wife of the deceased elder helped lead the church in singing CityAlight’s “Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me.”

“We just keep shaking our heads,” Keith said. “We’re like, ‘This has to be a God thing.’ We’re just so, so encouraged by how God is using our humble little efforts in this little church in the northwest of Sydney.”

What’s Next

Rich Vassallo is CityAlight’s only employee, but he’s going to need more help soon. From translations to performance invitations to recording, CityAlight’s growth is a lot to handle. Especially since the band members are regular people, writing songs and practicing guitar chords on their lunch breaks or after the kids are in bed at night.

“It has been quite overwhelming—all the requests,” Rich Vassallo said. “Because we have a heart for small churches and ministries, and we get those requests frequently: ‘Please come to our church, encourage our team.’ And we’d love to be able to be doing that, being in their own space, encouraging them—that’s where you get the most traction. It’s just impossible to be able to do it for everyone.”

One obvious option is to press in—to hire their musicians full-time, fill up a touring schedule, and lead worship all over the globe. I asked Rich about it.

“This year, we’re planning to reduce our international travel to hopefully zero,” he told me.

Hmm. That sounds like leaning out, doesn’t it?

It depends on whom you ask.

“We see ourselves primarily as a songwriting and resourcing ministry,” Jonny said. “What I’d like to concentrate on this year, is to make sure that we have our mission and our vision really clear. . . . We want to make sure that people know why they’re doing the things they’re doing, to make sure their hearts are in the right place, to keep doing the devotions and the teaching and the reading and the praying.”

Nearly everybody I talked to said the same thing: “We know CityAlight is at a tipping point, where we need to make decisions about the future. But we don’t see yet exactly where God is leading us.”

And then every one of them mentioned Asia.

“We’ve all felt God sort of pointing us to Asia—you know, it’s our area of the world,” said Rich Vassallo.

“We are really excited by the prospect of working with Asia,” Jonny said.

“What does it look like for us to be serving Asian churches more?” Rich Thompson said. “You know, breaking the mold a little bit on what’s been done in the past?”

The weekend after The Gospel Coalition’s conference, CityAlight flew to Singapore and did a concert for another 5,000 people. That night, they recorded “Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me” in Mandarin.

“It was amazing,” Jonny said. “People in the room were crying. People were on their knees, hearing these songs in their mother tongue, in Mandarin. So it was a really special night.”

It wasn’t CityAlight’s first project in Asia—earlier last year, they recorded a music video of “Jesus, Strong and Kind” in the Philippines with young people who’d been rescued from sex trafficking.

“We’d like to go back to both those countries and see if we can start working with songwriters there, to encourage them,” Jonny said.

“We would like to see raised up more congregational writers from Asia, from Southeast Asia particularly,” Rich Thompson said. “Because I think we are missing a voice in our global church. A lot of it is West pushing over to East, and the Eastern churches are singing the songs that are curated and written over there in the West. But wouldn’t it be wonderful to see both happen—that songs written in the East would be sung in the West? I think the church would be a much richer place as a result of that.”

CityAlight doesn’t know exactly what their next steps look like. But that doesn’t worry them. Ten years ago, they had no idea what was ahead.

“We knew we needed to walk the path, but we didn’t quite know why or where it was going—just that this was a good thing to do,” Rich Thompson said. “Since day one, the prayer has been that God would bless and establish the ministry, insofar as it gives him glory and equips his church. And if it should become anything other than this, anything unhelpful, then our prayer is that he would shut it down quickly—mercifully and quickly.”

The Background: In nine of the 10 states, voters were asked to adopt the incoherent and arbitrary standard of “viability” as the line for when restrictions on abortion could be allowed. In the United States viability is considered to be at approximately 24 weeks of gestational age, late in the second trimester of pregnancy. (New York was the outlier, voting to prevent the state legislature from enacting any new laws to protect ​​the unborn at any stage of pregnancy.)

The initiative to expand abortion rights failed in only three states—Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota. Here are the initiatives each state adopted or rejected.

Arizona

• Overturns the current ban on abortion after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy.
• Makes abortion legal any time prior to fetal viability.
• Prevents the state legislature from enacting any new laws to protect ​​the unborn prior to viability.
• Allows late-term abortion if keeping the child would affect the mother’s “mental health.”
• Overturns current regulations on abortion: a parental consent requirement for minors, requirement that abortions be conducted by a licensed physician, requirement that the pregnant mother must undergo an ultrasound, and requirement for in-person notification of possible risks of abortion.

Colorado

• Establishes a constitutional right for “reproductive freedom,” defined as “the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion care, miscarriage care, and respectful birthing conditions.”
• Prevents the state legislature from enacting any new laws to protect ​​the unborn prior to viability.
• Allows late-term abortion if keeping the child would affect the mother’s “mental health.”
• Overturns current regulations on abortion: a parental consent requirement for minors, a waiting period to schedule an abortion, and restrictions on late-term abortions.

Florida

• An attempt to overturn the current ban on abortion after the first six weeks of pregnancy failed. That amendment needed 60 percent of the vote, and only achieved 57 percent.

Maryland

• Overturns the current ban on all abortion.
• Establishes a fundamental right to abortion at any stage of pregnancy.
• Prevents the state legislature from being able to “directly or indirectly, deny, burden, or abridge the right unless justified by a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means.”
• This change will likely lead to the overturning of the parental consent requirement for minors to obtain an abortion.

Missouri

• Makes abortion legal any time prior to fetal viability.
• Prevents the state legislature from enacting any new laws to protect ​​the unborn prior to fetal viability.
• Overturns current regulations on abortion: a parental consent requirement for minors, a waiting period to schedule an abortion, and restrictions on late-term abortions.

Montana

• Prevents the state legislature from enacting any new laws to protect ​​the unborn prior to fetal viability. (Abortion before viability was already the standard before the amendment.)

Nebraska

• Nebraska had dueling initiatives. The one that passed amends the state constitution to not allow abortion in the second or third trimester, except in cases of medical emergency or for pregnancies resulting from incest or sexual assault.
• The initiative that was rejected would have overturned the current ban on abortion after the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and added a new section to the Nebraska constitution establishing a right to abortion until “fetal viability.”

Nevada

• Prevents the state legislature from enacting any new laws to protect ​​the unborn prior to fetal viability. (Abortion before viability was already the standard before the amendment.)
• Nevada requires constitutional amendments to pass in two consecutive general elections, so this amendment will have to pass again in 2026 in order to take effect.

New York 

• Prevents the state legislature from enacting any new laws to protect ​​the unborn at any stage of pregnancy.
• Changes the state’s civil rights protections to prevent discrimination based on “pregnancy outcomes and reproductive healthcare and autonomy” by considering it a protected class.

South Dakota

• An attempt to overturn the current ban on all abortion failed.
• If the initiative had passed, the state would have resorted to a trimester framework for regulation: During the first trimester, the state would be prohibited from regulating abortion; during the second trimester, the state could regulate abortion, but “only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman;” and during the third trimester, the state could not regulate or prohibit abortion, except “when abortion is necessary, in the medical judgment of the woman’s physician, to preserve the life and health of the pregnant woman.”
• The rejected initiative would have allowed late-term abortions if a physician claims it is necessary to protect the mother’s health, including “mental health.”

What It Means: Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Americans have voted 17 times on ballot initiatives to protect abortion rights. During those two years, the pro-abortion cause has won 14 times and lost three. The outcomes of these votes point to two crucial realities that both the church and the pro-life movement must confront.

While millions of Christians consistently voted to protect life in each of these 17 states—including where abortion initiatives ultimately passed—the sobering reality is that pro-life Christians do not constitute a majority of American voters. This highlights our need to build broader coalitions and find allies both within the church and beyond. The creeping secularization of our culture, affecting both the political left and right, has eroded the moral foundations that once made Christian pro-life advocacy more effective.

The national pro-life movement and the Republican Party also focused intensely on overturning Roe v. Wade but failed to sufficiently prepare for what came next. This oversight was both predictable and predicted by many within the movement. When nine judges gave the issue back to the states, ballot initiatives quickly showed there was not yet a pro-life majority willing to support restrictions on legal abortion.

The path forward requires a dual strategy. First, we must continue strengthening pro-life education and formation within our churches. While many Christians already stand firm for life, we can always do more to articulate the profound moral and theological foundations for protecting the unborn. Yet we must also recognize that church-based advocacy alone will not be enough.

As ballot initiatives continue across the country, protecting unborn life will require both strengthening our existing pro-life movement and expanding our outreach to new allies.

The pro-life movement needs to broaden its approach beyond relying primarily on national organizations, which have begun to compromise their values by endorsing pro-choice candidates. We need to develop new strategies for engaging with Americans who might be open to protecting life even if they don’t fully embrace our religious convictions. This could involve emphasizing scientific evidence about fetal development, promoting discussions about human rights and dignity, and building coalitions around specific policies that protect both mothers and children.

The future success of the pro-life cause will depend on our ability to build these broader coalitions while maintaining our core principles. We need to engage sympathetically with Americans who harbor reservations about stronger restrictions, understanding their concerns while making a compelling case for protecting life. This requires developing more nuanced and persuasive arguments that can reach beyond our existing base of support.

As ballot initiatives continue across the country, protecting unborn life will require both strengthening our existing pro-life movement and expanding our outreach to new allies. While the challenges are significant, we are not without hope. The same God who turned the hearts of slave owners against slavery and moved Christians to lead the civil rights movement can transform hearts today. The question is whether we will have the courage to speak truth in a way that lovingly challenges our fellow citizens to align their votes with their professed beliefs, and to rebuild a culture of life within America before it’s too late. The lives of countless unborn children depend on our answer.

Carson teaches the following:

• Ezekiel’s visions that reflect God’s majesty and power
• Ezekiel’s command to speak to Israel
• Ezekiel’s call to speak to both the wicked and the righteous
• Ezekiel’s equipping to deliver God’s words fearlessly
• How to speak God’s truth boldly in a biblically illiterate culture

Since he wasn’t familiar with the author, he called me. I shared my assessment and offered alternative studies I thought might better serve this woman and others in his church. I hung up the phone encouraged.

I love that this church member wanted to exercise discernment about the resources she uses and that she went to her pastor for help. I love that he found a way to help her even though he didn’t have personal knowledge of the writer or study.

But as I reflected on the situation, I realized many pastors don’t have a friend to call or a women’s ministry director on staff who can help field these questions from church members. And I’m sure no pastor has the capacity to keep tabs on all the new women’s resources published each year. So how can pastors help vet women’s resources?

At a Glance

Let’s say a woman in your church walks up to you, book in hand, asking if it’s a good resource for her to use. Or perhaps you’re meeting with a women’s ministry leader who wants your input on a new study she’s considering teaching. As a pastor, you’ll likely be able to make helpful inferences from the standard information included on a book cover that might not be meaningful to the average reader.

Start with the author’s bio. Share with the woman what you know about the seminary, denomination, or local church listed there, and explain how these influences might shape the book’s content.

As a pastor, you’ll likely be able to make helpful inferences from the standard information included on a book cover that might not be meaningful to the average reader.

Next, point the woman to the publisher and endorsements. Perhaps you recognize the publisher and can offer the woman your general assessment of their resources. If you don’t recognize the publisher, a quick scroll of its website to see other books they’ve published might give you a sense of the sorts of authors and content they tend to engage. And you might recognize some names in the book’s endorsements to offer additional clues.

Of course, you won’t be able to make a definitive assessment of the book from these bits of information, but you might glean enough to generally categorize the book as either likely to be a sound resource or likely not to be the best option.

Over Time

You might also consider increasing your familiarity with women’s resources. From time to time, ask godly women of different ages and stages what Christian books and teachers they’ve found helpful. Also ask them if there are popular books and teachers they’d advise women to avoid. You’ll likely find common threads in their answers. Doing this will communicate that you care about women’s resources and want to hear from women about them.

Reading The Gospel Coalition’s reviews of women’s resources will also help. A few minutes spent here and there to read a review from TGC or other trusted sources can help you build a base of knowledge about who’s writing and what they’re saying in the women’s space.

I’d encourage you to occasionally read books written by and for women in the church. Even reading one book each year that you find helpful and sound could lead to a fruitful conversation with a church member. If asked about an author and book you’re unfamiliar with, you still have something to recommend—“I’m not familiar with that book or author, but I recently read a great book by Nancy Guthrie. Maybe you’d like to try one of her books.”

Why It Matters

Perhaps you’ve rarely, or never, been asked to help vet women’s resources, and you’re wondering if it’s worth your time to be prepared. Though it may seem like a minor aspect of your call to shepherd women, there are several reasons it can be helpful to be familiar with women’s resources.

Women are increasingly looking to social media influencers to tell them what to read, what to believe, and how to live. When women go looking for answers and recommendations online, they’ll find them. But too often, the advice is unbiblical. Though it may be rare for a woman to seek a pastor’s advice on resources, if she does and he’s prepared to help her—or at least to seek help for her as my friend did—it’ll encourage her to seek wise counsel again. And it’ll likely have ripple effects in the congregation.

Even reading one book each year that you find helpful and sound could lead to a fruitful conversation with a church member.

Consider the church member who approached my friend. She now knows that the Bible study author she asked her pastor about isn’t aligned with their church’s doctrine. As she interacts with other women in the church and someone mentions this author, she might say something like this: “I was interested in that study too because I saw a lot of Instagram posts about it, but I asked the pastor what he thought, and he pointed out that the author teaches some things that aren’t biblically sound. He recommended a study by another author and I’m really enjoying it—I’ll send you a link.”

In that brief exchange, a few important things have happened. First, the pastor helping one woman equipped her to help another woman, so now two women are using a better resource than they might have without the pastor’s help. Second, the church has been established as a place to find resource recommendations. The second woman might never have considered asking the pastor about a Bible study, but now she knows he’s both willing and prepared to help. Hopefully this interaction will encourage her to do some digging before she orders the next book or Bible study that’s all over social media. And third, both women have seen that their pastor values and supports women and their pursuit of biblical understanding.

A pastor growing in knowledge and awareness of women’s resources isn’t just being prepared to answer direct questions. As you learn more about what women are reading and who they’re following, you’ll also be better prepared to shepherd them. You’ll have insight to inform your sermon application and conversations with women after church, and you’ll be better equipped to pray for the women in your congregation.

Helping vet women’s resources probably involves less work than you thought. But it also has the potential to bear much more fruit than you might imagine.

Timothy Carney is right: Something is wrong. In his new book, Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be (Harper), he writes, “Somehow Mom and Dad have become full-time chauffeurs, Secret Service agents, and playmates—while both parents work full-time jobs.”

He wants us to know that today’s maximum-effort, high-anxiety, low-trust parenting hasn’t produced high-quality parenting. He writes, “Our culture expects a person more and more to handle life on his own, stripped of the support, guidance, expectations, and meaning traditionally provided by religion, community, and extended family. This supposedly ‘liberating’ modernity makes life a lot harder.”

Carney is a father of six children, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and columnist at the Washington Examiner. He wants to show us a “way of life that makes family easier, makes parents less anxious, and makes kids happier.” Who doesn’t want that?

But first, we need to see why American civil society has collapsed in the past two generations. We did just that in this episode of Gospelbound.

In The Return of the Kingdom: A Biblical Theology of God’s Reign, Stephen G. Dempster, professor emeritus of religious studies at Crandall University, invites us to explore the grand narrative of God’s sovereign rule over a kingdom that has been unfolding since the beginning of time and that will continue long after the political landscapes of our age have faded. Dempster offers a biblical-theological antidote to a culture that oscillates between alarmism and cold-hearted indifference. That antidote requires focusing on the biblical narrative, which tells how “the world awaits the return of the kingdom of God, and its rightful heirs—human beings crowned with glory and honor” (4).

God’s Kingdom and God’s Story

For Dempster, the “return of the kingdom” is the central theme of the Bible that helps believers to comprehend “the entire biblical message” (2). In this “one succinct phrase,” we can behold the grand “storyline of the Bible” (4).

Biblical theology insists that God documented in his Word the way he works in the world. The biblical canon isn’t a wax model of God’s intended plan for his creation that can be shaped and molded by each new generation of readers. As we encounter its comprehensive narrative framework and its multifaceted textual world, we must allow the Bible’s contours to mold and shape us.

Yet first we have to understand what God is doing in Scripture. “One way to make sense of a book is to study its beginning and its end,” Dempster argues. “In the Bible the first few chapters provide an introduction not only to the book but to the world, and the last two chapters provide a conclusion for both.” In the Scriptures, “the world and the story are intimately woven together” (5).

God’s kingdom and God’s story aren’t simply parallel tracks heading to a similar destination—they’re intertwined like the strands of a DNA double helix. If we gain a better understanding of the nature of the kingdom, it’ll deepen our perception of God’s purpose for his people. As Bible readers, the theme of God’s kingdom gives us a place to stand as we navigate the unity and diversity of the whole Bible.

Anticipate the Kingdom

Our understanding of the Bible comes alive when the intertwining of kingdom and story is central. In the beginning, God created a good world in which human image-bearers worshiped and obeyed as representatives of God’s ruling authority. They were to rule on God’s behalf. Sin’s entrance into the world marked the beginning of a rival kingdom. The dark lord of this counterfeit kingdom warred against the Lord and his anointed King by tempting each new generation of image-bearers to reject the lordship of God’s kingdom.

Our understanding of the Bible comes alive when the intertwining of kingdom and story is central.

In his providence, though, God provided spaces in which his people could worship. He allows them to catch glimpses of the ultimate restoration of God’s rule over all the earth. The tabernacle, the temple, and the covenant community each enabled people to serve the Lord in their time. These spaces prefigure the joy of a coming consummation. At the end of days, God will not merely return to a previous time; he’ll establish a new heavens and a new earth with a redeemed people who gladly participate. They’ll rule with God forever.

As Dempster tells this story, he explores a host of biblical texts and related theological themes. But he doesn’t get bogged down in technical details. God’s kingdom is a central theme that helps us see “the pathway from tragedy to glorious destiny” (10). Yet Dempster reminds us that this “pathway marked through the Bible is not straight ahead but more like a long winding road that goes forward, curving off to the side, tracking backward, zigzagging in another direction before advancing again” (10). We shouldn’t expect the kingdom to arrive with a smooth curve trending toward perfection.

Sing to the King

Dempster’s study of the kingdom throws the spotlight on King Jesus himself. As he notes, the “fourfold narrative repetition of the life of Christ is unparalleled in the Scriptures” (156). The Gospels demonstrate Jesus’s royal lineage, display Jesus’s royal works, and communicate Jesus’s royal words. The book of Acts then shows the expansion of God’s kingdom by the proclamation of the gospel about this King and his present yet coming kingdom. Christ’s dynamic story points toward the final realization of our kingdom hopes when King Jesus returns.

John’s Revelation looks forward to the day when “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15). Until that moment, believers are called to persevere each day in light of this ultimate reality. Yet in a world dominated by doomscrolling, Jesus gives us access to “the newsfeed of the kingdom” (200).

Christ’s dynamic story points toward the final realization of our kingdom hopes when King Jesus returns.

The kingdom newsfeed is full of “upside-down headlines” (200). There are everyday reminders that God’s kingdom is coming. People are oppressed, but someone is feeding the poor. Leaders are corrupt, but someone is ministering gospel truth to the lost. Fake news is everywhere, but someone is speaking truth to power and wisdom to the saints. Because Christ is King, the church is a royal priesthood of believers who aren’t beholden to the lies of counterfeit kingdoms.

Dempster shows how biblical theology ignites and sustains the fire of biblical worship. If this story of God’s kingdom is true, we can live in peace even as we navigate the weariness of this world. The Return of the Kingdom celebrates the greatness of God, the bigness of the Bible’s story, and the life-giving hope that comes from focusing our gaze on the King of glory and his comprehensive kingdom.

One common argument against a historical exodus is that there’s supposedly little or no evidence for such an event. However, archaeological and historical evidence points to the reliability of the biblical account of the exodus and the settlement in Canaan.

Hebrews in Egypt

The first component of this momentous story is the claim that Hebrews moved to and resided in Egypt for many generations. In a broad sense, it’s obvious from archaeological discoveries that Semites from Canaan had migrated to Egypt and settled in the northeastern Nile Delta region (Goshen), as demonstrated by specific forms of pottery, burial customs, tools and weapons, inscriptions, historical records, a Levantine breed of sheep, wall paintings, and even imported deities.

Moreover, there’s evidence of people who can be specifically identified as Hebrews residing in Egypt prior to the exodus. An Egyptian list of household slaves on Papyrus Brooklyn 35.1446, probably originating in Thebes from approximately the 17th century BC, contains the names of more than 30 Semites, who like Joseph were given new Egyptian names (Gen. 41:45).¹

These are some of the Hebrew names on this papyrus:

Other names associated with Hebrews—Jacob-El (Yaqub) on scarabs from various locations and perhaps Jesse (Yushay) on an ostracon from Deir el-Bahri—have been found in Egypt from contexts before the exodus.

There was also a policy of widespread enslavement of Semites or Asiatics implemented in Egypt. This began with Ahmose I and the founding of the 18th Dynasty, around the time when “there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph” (Ex. 1:8–14; 5:4–19). This enslavement included mudbrick production, construction projects, and agriculture.²

These accounts of Hebrew slavery appear to coincide with large storage facilities built from mudbrick during the early 18th Dynasty, found during excavations at Rameses (Tell el-Daba) and Pithom (Tell Retabeh), along with an Egyptian royal palace on the river banks that dates from around this time (1:11; 2:5–10, NIV; Acts 7:20–22).³

Date of the Exodus and the Pharaoh

A thorough investigation of a historical exodus, however, requires knowing precisely when the exodus happened. Scripture includes clues both obvious and subtle.

First and foremost, the book of Kings records that the 480th year after the exodus was the year when Solomon began the process of building the Jerusalem temple, around 967 BC (1 Kings 6:1). This aligns with Jephthah’s claim that the Israelites had been in the promised land for 300 years, approximately five decades before Saul, around 1100 BC (Judg. 11:26). We also see that 19 generations had elapsed from the exodus to the construction of the temple, which at an average of 25 years for each generation comes to about 475 years (1 Chron. 6:33–37).

Further, because information from several temple dedication inscriptions in the ancient Near East demonstrates that people counted actual solar years in this type of context, we can therefore demonstrate that the Israelites were recording real timelines.⁴ This helps us count back from the temple’s construction to reasonably date the exodus to roughly 1446 BC. Thus, we can look in a specific time frame for external evidence that might corroborate the Exodus account.

At that point in Egyptian history, Amenhotep II had recently become pharaoh. His predecessor, Thutmose III, had ruled for more than 40 years (see Ex. 2:23; 4:19; 7:7; Acts 7:30). This, along with other events that fit the Exodus narrative, indicates a historical exodus would’ve occurred during his reign.

Ancient Egyptian documents, inscriptions, and archaeological findings also indicate the mysterious death of the pharaoh’s firstborn son, the military’s decline, the abandonment of his palace in the Nile Delta, the attempted erasure of Hatshepsut, and a slave raid into Canaan.⁵ Additionally, in the third century BC, Manetho, an Egyptian priest and historian, named an Amenhotep (Amenophis) as the pharaoh of a Hebrew exodus. Furthermore, an intriguing Egyptian poem known as “The Admonitions of Ipuwer” might preserve memories about the time of the Exodus plagues.⁶

These connections with the exodus are subject to debate. However, there’s additional archaeological evidence of Israelites outside Egypt around this time—first as nomads and then as conquerors and settlers in Canaan.

Hebrew Wandering and Appearance in Canaan

Finding archaeological evidence for nomads in ancient history is difficult because of their transience and the fragility of their material culture. Nevertheless, two Egyptian inscriptions mentioning the “nomads of Yahweh” from the Soleb temple of Amenhotep III appear to describe the wandering Israelites around 1400 BC, between the exodus and the conquest of Canaan.⁷

These inscriptions indicate the Egyptians were familiar with the personal name of God (Yahweh) and with the Israelites, the only people in ancient times known to have worshiped Yahweh. The timing of around 40 years after the exodus, the location of these people between Egypt and Canaan, and their status as nomads support the wandering of the Israelites after leaving Egypt (Ex. 5:1; Num. 14:14).

Soon after, the Israelites appeared in Canaan, conquering many cities and settling in the region. Evidence related to the historicity and date of Canaan’s conquest may be communicated in some of the correspondence of various Canaanite kings with the pharaoh. These cuneiform tablets, called the Amarna Letters, mention the Habiru, a group of outsiders, who are waging war and taking cities by both force and guile.⁸

Additionally, archaeological evidence of the destruction linked to the Israelite conquest has been cited at key cities named in the Joshua narrative, including Jericho, which shows massive fire destruction, fallen walls, no looting, and long abandonment around 1400 BC.⁹ Subsequently, settlement evidence from many towns demonstrates a new group of people had appeared in Canaan who had unique architecture, pottery, diets, and religious traditions. The Merneptah Stele of the late 13th century BC calls this people “Israel,” and it’s the only group of people in Canaan mentioned by the pharaoh.¹⁰

These archaeological discoveries and many others support the historical reliability of the biblical narrative about the exodus and eventual settlement in Canaan. These findings can give us greater confidence in God’s word, as we appreciate his provision for his people.

Recommended resources: Greg Beale, We Become What We Worship: A Biblical Theology of Idolatry

If we’re to accept the doomsaying we hear everywhere, we’d be inclined to live in fear, run for the hills, or conclude that everyone has only bad intentions. But the Bible presents a more nuanced picture. While every candidate, presidential or otherwise, is flawed and sinful, we can be confident that God will bring good out of this election. His common grace will ensure it.

Scripture’s Realistic Outlook

Christians who embrace the Reformed doctrine of total depravity don’t believe that every person is as bad as he could possibly be or that any has reached his full potential of evil. But we believe that, as a result of our first parents’ sin, all people’s thoughts and actions contain traces of sinful self-interest. Even our best efforts are stained by selfish motives. This is why the prophet Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure” (Jer. 17:9, NIV).

While every candidate, presidential or otherwise, is flawed and sinful, we can be confident that God will bring good out of this election.

As a pastor, this conviction informs my preaching. I prepare each sermon with the recognition that every person in the congregation, including the preacher, has sinned against God countless times throughout the week and is in desperate need of the forgiveness Jesus offers. I’m convinced that apart from the Spirit’s regenerating work, no one will choose God or savingly trust in Christ.

This belief also guides my prayer life and outlook on humanity this election day. I’m not surprised when I witness or hear about displays of anger, unfaithfulness, or corruption. On election day, my low view of human nature tempers my expectations of how much a political candidate will accomplish, and it downgrades my shock when things don’t go well.

God’s Restraining Grace

But if people are bent on evil, if apart from the Spirit they’re God’s defiant enemies, why shouldn’t we expect only bad policies and evil power plays from the candidates on both sides of the aisle? Why not simply brace for the worst? The answer is God’s common grace. God restrains evil, enables good, accentuates and advances beauty, and even brings restoration in our world. Herman Bavinck contends,

[God] fills the hearts of men with nourishment and joy and does not leave himself without a witness among them. He pours out upon them numberless gifts and benefits. Families, races, and peoples he binds together with natural love and affection. . . . Wealth and well-being he grants them that the arts and sciences can prosper. And by his revelation in nature and history he ties their hearts and consciences to the invisible, supra-sensible world and awakens in them a sense of worship and virtue.

Everything good we see humanity create or do, and every way we see evil restrained—all this is evidence of God’s common grace. Though the universe has been subjected to the curse of Adam’s sin, it “nevertheless remains the work of the Father” and under Christ’s lordship. As Bavinck says, “Common grace maintains the goodness of creation in spite of humanity’s radical depravity.”

People who haven’t trusted in Jesus sometimes commit wonderful acts. They make sacrifices and serve their fellow man. Those deeds are never fully perfect or without self-interest, nor could they ever be enough to earn God’s forgiveness. But they’re still benevolent, helpful, and to be commended. Even as we pray for God to pour out his saving grace on unbelievers and bring about the obedience of faith in their lives, we can also give thanks for how he “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45).

Reason for Hope

How will this election day end? Only the Lord knows. But we can be certain that God will shower down his grace regardless of who holds our country’s highest office. This isn’t a promise our lives will be comfortable. Or that the next four years will go smoothly. The election’s outcome may directly lead to grievous evil, and we should mourn and lament even as we recommit to fighting against sin and injustice.

How will this election day end? Only the Lord knows. But we can be certain that God will shower down his grace regardless of who holds our country’s highest office.

But if the Lord tarries, the sun will still rise on November 6. By God’s grace, we’ll still have plenty to laugh about, look forward to, and enjoy together. Even if suffering comes, God will surprise all people with kindnesses we don’t deserve. And in his sovereignty, God will use the victorious candidate to accomplish his divine purposes.

No matter what happens tomorrow, focus on the good you see around you. And praise God for it. And before you blast the other side on social media, or condemn the motives of other voters, examine your heart and recognize that the good in you is also a gift of God’s grace.

Recent years, however, have brought a greater understanding that both men and women struggle in this area. Resources, support groups, and conferences for women now exist. Many churches are wrestling with the implications of estimates that one in six Christian women is watching pornography at least once a month.

But while we’re beginning to grasp the reality of pornography use, many of us still struggle to understand why it’s popular among women. What drives so many women who love Jesus to engage in pornography?

Three Reasons Women Turn to Pornography

We often assume that women watching pornography is the sin of lust manifesting itself, and sometimes it is. But with Psalm 139 echoing in our ears, we’re wise to ask God to search us—to go beyond the obvious and apparent—and show us where the human heart is going astray.

As I’ve spoken to women about their pornography use over the past 10 years as a friend, small group leader, and biblical counselor, lust hasn’t been the dominant theme. A more complex picture has come into view.

1. Comfort

The biggest driver of pornography use among the women I’ve met with is anxiety. Life feels overwhelming at times; pornography brings some relief. Most of the strategies we use in times of stress take a while to bring us a sense of peace. As we turn to the Lord in prayer, he gradually changes us. As we exercise or rest, such practices begin to bring respite but have greater effect over time.

The biggest driver of pornography use among the women I’ve met with is anxiety.

But pornography has an intensity and immediacy to it, and in times of extreme pressure, it seems to bring relief quicker than other options. That relief comes at a devastating cost, but in the middle of pain, it appeals to many women.

2. Curiosity

Maybe unsurprisingly, another big driver among the women I’ve walked alongside (particularly younger women) is a desire to know what sex is like. We live in a culture where we have a search engine with us at all times, and if we want to know something, we go online. Want a recipe? Search. Want an idea for an evening out? Search. Want to find a good sermon or podcast? Search.

So when the normal and natural desire to understand more about God’s good gift of sex crosses a woman’s mind, the first instinct is often to search. It’s not wise, but for some, it feels less embarrassing than speaking to another human being.

3. Control

The driver we probably miss most often in the church is that of managing pain. From sexual abuse in childhood and sexual assault as an adult to the horrors of domestic abuse, sex can be used as a weapon, and many women worldwide have endured such pain. For some, the idea of sex with a man may fill them with terror. For others, their experiences may have left them wrestling with anger.

When sexual encounters in the past have been a deeply out-of-control experience, they can in some small ways be brought under control by going online and exercising choice over what to watch and what to feel. It’s a hollow control—there’s no true healing or hope in pornography—but for a few fleeting moments, hurting women taste a sense that sexual activity isn’t something done to them but something they can choose, and that has a draw.

Different Support for Different Women

Why is it important to consider these potential drivers and the many other underlying factors that may lead women to pornography? Not simply to pursue introspection but because, if we’re to help women lift their eyes to Christ’s glory, we need to acknowledge the human heart’s complexities.

Everyone using pornography may benefit from strategies like accountability software, grace-filled relationships, prayer, liturgies for repentance, reminders of God’s call to a countercultural life, and a community that models purity and wholeheartedness toward Christ. But we need various approaches for walking alongside women with different stories and experiences.

The woman who uses pornography for stress relief may need support to persevere through her anxiety—pointing her to God’s character and promises to help her know God as her rock and refuge, to come to trust her good shepherd more. She may also find help in God-given relaxation techniques that have an effect over time.

If we’re to help women lift their eyes to Christ’s glory, we need to acknowledge the human heart’s complexities.

The woman who uses pornography for curiosity may be helped by a series of calm and appropriate conversations about sex and continued encouragement about the joy of waiting in trust.

The woman who uses pornography to engender a sense of control after abuse may be helped by support to seek justice, space to express her pain in a safe environment, and opportunities to process her experiences through skilled conversation with others.

As we all understand our precious sisters rightly, as we apply God’s Word to heart struggles (not just outward behavior), as we walk alongside them in true wisdom, lives begin to change. Hope begins to build. Women come to see afresh the wonder of Jesus and, by his power, grow in holiness day by day.

Wait. What?

Should missions be optional for a new church, or is it essential? If it’s essential—and I’d suggest it is—how can you build missions into your church when it’s just getting off the ground? Let me suggest six ways.

1. Educate globally.

As a church planter, you’re going to teach the Bible. And from cover to cover, you’ll find missions themes. God intends to fill the earth with reflections of his glory in human flesh. Though we’ve failed to fulfill that mission, God cannot fail. In Christ, he consummates his plan to restore and spread his perfect image. Missions is joining in that unfinished work, declaring God’s plan and inviting image-bearers into Christ’s kingdom.

You can’t faithfully preach too many books of the Bible without drawing attention to that theme!

As you teach about missions, you can show your church what God has already done in the world. Tell the story of global Christianity. Tell them what he’s doing now in places like China, Iran, and India. You can explain terms like UPGs (unreached people group) and UUPGs (unengaged unreached people group) so your church learns where laborers are urgently needed and how to pray for them.

2. Partner narrowly.

As you educate your people on global missions, maintain a narrow focus for your church’s labors. You don’t have the resources or time to engage globally. So consider where you have a natural way to engage deeply. Do your members already have relationships with overseas gospel workers? Does your planting church? Are any of your members from a part of the world with UPGs? Are there UUPGs in your community? If so, by learning to evangelize that group you can maximize efficiency and develop skills for international ministry.

Your narrow focus should look like a relationship. Subscribe to your overseas partner’s newsletter. Reply with encouragement. Tell your congregation about requests, then pray for them publicly and regularly. Give your congregation pop quizzes during prayer meetings to test how well you’re communicating. Set goals to visit the work in some way that serves their ministry. And while a relationship involves more than writing a check, it shouldn’t be less.

3. Give prematurely.

Our planting church hired its first church-planting resident when it couldn’t afford to plant. It couldn’t even afford that resident! I suspect churches that wait to plant until they have enough people and money don’t plant many churches. The same goes for international missions. If you wait to support missions financially until your church has enough people and money, I bet you won’t do much for missions.

If you wait to support missions financially until your church has enough people and money, I suspect you won’t do much for missions.

So build international missions into your budget from the beginning. If the initial percentage is less than you wish, discipline yourself to increase incrementally from year to year. When you do, don’t add a second partnership immediately. Give more generously to the narrow focus you already have. If that partner doesn’t need the money today, they will eventually. If you have an end-of-year surplus, consider giving away some or all to your overseas partner.

4. Love liberally.

While you can’t financially or even relationally support everyone you’d like, love as many overseas workers as you can, as well as you can. Show interest in and enthusiasm for their work, and be honest up-front about your inability to offer financial support. This approach has worked well for our church.

In our first few years after planting, we invited several missionaries to share their work with our church even though they were fully funded. One told me that the church where he was baptized had no interest in his work. Missionaries need encouragement just like the rest of us. What seems to you like a simple meal around a table may be to them a heartening gesture.

5. Pray ambitiously.

Building prayer for missions into your services and small groups should be a lay-up. Missionaries send you lists of requests. It costs nothing and requires relatively little time to pray. In fact, you can pray for even more than they have the audacity to ask for.

But praying ambitiously for missions may eventually bear a steep cost. When you pray for the Lord to send laborers into the harvest, God might answer that request by calling your most faithful members.

6. Send painfully.

You knew church planting would be hard. But you believed it’d be worth it. Why? Not because you dreamed of building a personal empire. No, you saw people who needed Jesus in a place that needed a church. You perceived the cost of the work was less than the calamity of Jesus not receiving the worship he deserves. The church you left lost a faithful, gifted worker before they were ready—likely many of them. They felt it. It hurt.

When you pray for the Lord to send laborers into the harvest, God might answer that request by calling your most faithful members.

Sooner or later, God will answer your prayers and send laborers from your work crew—laborers you weren’t ready to lose. Now you get to hurt a little. Now you need to recruit volunteers and train workers, again. But if pain for you means progress for the mission, can you still rejoice? Do you think you’ll look back a millennium from now and feel like you got the raw end of the deal?

Taking Flight

Yes, brand-new churches can do international missions. They must. “The ends of the earth” isn’t just one way to do missions. It’s the ultimate objective.

No, you can’t go everywhere and do it all. You shouldn’t. But you can put these principles into practice, even while your church is barely airborne. They may even accelerate your climb. God does things that way.

I’ve thought about this tension a lot recently, especially after reading Jonathan Haidt’s great book The Anxious Generation, where he helpfully describes the difference between “discover mode” and “defend mode.” Haidt argues that many kids today are spending more time in “defend mode” in part because of overanxious parents who prize safety above all. But these kids miss out on the developmental richness that comes in “discovery mode,” where they can navigate the world’s wonders (and dangers!) without constant parental supervision.

I was reminded of Haidt’s common-grace parenting wisdom as I watched a few excellent movies this fall, now in theaters: Blitz, Lost on a Mountain in Maine, and The Wild Robot. In its own way, each of these films offers helpful wisdom about raising resilient kids in a harsh world.

1. Blitz

Set in 1940 London, at the height of the terrifying aerial bombardment by the German Luftwaffe in WWII, Steve McQueen’s Blitz (rated PG-13) is more than just an intense, often haunting story of wartime survival. At its heart, Blitz is about human resilience: enduring horrific traumas and tragedies and still finding joy and purpose in life, making music even as the bombs fall (singing plays a prominent role throughout the film). Specifically, the film captures the hope-filled resilience of children, who sometimes surprise us adults with the fortitude, innocent wonder, and solidarity they can muster even under great duress.

Blitz captures the hope-filled resilience of children, who sometimes surprise us adults with the fortitude, innocent wonder, and solidarity they can muster even under great duress.

Blitz follows Rita (the great Saoirse Ronan), and her son George (newcomer Elliott Heffernan), who is sent away from London for safety in the British countryside. It’s the same program that famously sent children to stay with C. S. Lewis in Oxford, partially inspiring the Narnia stories.

Young George jumps off the train, however, and tries to find his way back to his mom. His journey (think Dickens meets The Boxcar Children) is marked by beautiful moments of connection with strangers he helps or who help him, as well as frightful encounters with bad people and hellish warscapes. At every turn, George is confronted with death on the streets of London—a sometimes shocking depiction of a beloved Western city that less than a century ago, we easily forget, was a warzone where nearly 20,000 civilians were killed.

George’s journey is also marked by a painful awareness of racial prejudice. As a mixed-race boy of a white mom and a Grenadian immigrant father, he often feels alien in his own city—even in moments of heightened national solidarity. Still, George doesn’t see himself as a victim and presses on despite the pain, whether physical or emotional. Aptly described by one character as a “scrapper,” George is determinedly hopeful even in the grimmest moments. And his hope—to be reunited with his mother and to build back a life from the rubble—is what keeps him alive.

Compared with some of McQueen’s previous boundary-pushing films like Hunger (2008) or Shame (2011), Blitz might feel “old-fashioned” or “classic” in its storytelling. But while some critics see this as a fault (Variety called the film “almost shockingly conventional”), I see it as an asset. Blitz is an elegantly made, gripping narrative that celebrates familial love, the kindness of strangers, and the way loving community can fuel collective resilience.

Against the backdrop of constant artistic transgression, “traditional” dramas like this are subversive in their own way. In a Western culture where technology has accelerated atomization and “song of myself” autonomy, Blitz argues we’re most alive when we’re living as God created us to live: within a web of loving relationships driven by serving one another rather than by solitary survival.

2. Lost on a Mountain in Maine

Like Blitz, the just-released Lost on a Mountain in Maine (rated PG) is a harrowing story in which a young boy is separated from a parent and must survive a long, perilous journey on his own.

The film dramatizes the true story of 12-year-old Donn Fendler (played by Luke David Blumm), who in the summer of 1939 survived nine days in the remote wilderness of northern Maine after getting separated from his brother and father on a hike. The film’s title comes from Fendler’s autobiographical novel about the ordeal, originally published in 1939, which became something of a young-adult adventure classic.

Against the backdrop of constant artistic transgression, ‘traditional’ dramas like this are subversive in their own way.

Produced by Sylvester Stallone and directed by Andrew Boodhoo Kightlinger, the film adaptation captures well the “outdoor survival/adventure” aspects of the story. But I most appreciate how the film captures the bond between fathers and sons, and the particular challenge a dad faces when it comes to balancing risk, protection, freedom, and responsibility. Paul Sparks plays Fendler’s father and does a great job expressing a range of fatherly emotions as he desperately searches for his lost son, bears immense guilt for losing him, and yet hopes the boy learned enough from his dad to survive in the wild world by himself.

You could watch a harrowing story like this (or Blitz) as a parent and respond with a newfound commitment to “defense mode” with your child. But I left both films with a new commitment to preparing my kids to be gritty and courageous in a world whose scariness won’t be kept at bay forever. Sooner or later—and often in unsought ways—they’ll need to find safe passage through a storm of some sort. Sooner or later, they’ll encounter the world’s darkness in its many expressions, even if they don’t go looking for it.

All I can do now is give them wisdom and bearings that—combined with their God-given instincts—will serve them well when those times come, helping them to be a light in the darkness and to follow the light home.

3. The Wild Robot

Any parent who saw The Wild Robot (rated PG) this fall probably had a few moments of misty-eyed recognition. The gorgeously animated film, based on a best-selling youth novel—uses a sci-fi fantasy world to tell what’s essentially a parent-child saga. A robot named Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) becomes an adopted mother to an orphaned goose, Brightbill (Kit Connor). But if Brightbill is to survive in the wild, he must learn skills like swimming and (especially) flying. So Roz does whatever she can to set Brightbill up for success, including recruiting mentors and role models like Thunderbolt (Ving Rhames), Longneck (Bill Nighy), and Fink (Pedro Pascal) who can teach Brightbill essential survival skills.

In Roz, we see that familiar parental tension between protecting a vulnerable child enough but not coddling them to the point that they grow up weak. She recognizes early how harsh the world is and how crucial it’ll be for Brightbill to be able to survive on his own and protect himself. Roz, after all, won’t always be there. She wisely recognizes she doesn’t have enough within herself to sufficiently train and strengthen Brightbill. Her “letting go” of solo authority by entrusting the young goose to other mentors and teachers is a key move that serves Brightbill well.

Another bit of parenting wisdom evident in The Wild Robot (echoing a theme also present in Blitz) is the way Roz goes beyond mere survival in how she teaches Brightbill—suggesting to him that kindness and grace are also “survival skills.” As a robot programmed for mere utility and efficiency, Roz is inclined to focus on the survival component of her task to prepare Brightbill. But she starts to recognize that mere survival is no way to prepare a creature to live.

Her realization is a good reminder to modern parents—perhaps especially Christian parents—that our task isn’t just to create successful survivors who do whatever’s necessary to evade threats and achieve greatness in the world. We also want to raise kids who are gracious and generous, who seek to serve others rather than just preserve themselves.

How to Parent in a Perilous World

If you’re a parent looking for a relatively wholesome film to watch in this month of Thanksgiving, these three are solid options. Thrilling and riveting in different ways, they’re full of wisdom about parenthood and childhood in a hostile world.

At a time when many couples are having fewer kids—a choice sometimes justified by how “messed up” and scary the world is—these movies remind us that parenting has always played out in a wild world where perils are plentiful. But in generation after generation, by the grace of a God who wired us for family, parents tend to rise to the occasion and navigate the challenges. And when given the chance, so do their kids.

I’ve loved Vincent van Gogh since I was a kid. In those early years, I couldn’t have told you what drew me to his work, but now three decades later I know; it’s the mix of splendor and sorrow. His paintings aren’t mere pictures of rivers, sunflowers, or night skies; they’re his attempt to capture the wonder and struggle of being alive. Everything Van Gogh saw was full of beauty and sadness—an increasingly familiar tension for him. They were present even in the way he talked about the ordinary scenes he wanted to paint, like this description of a bridge in Arles, France:

I have a view of the Rhône—the iron bridge at Trinquetaille, where the sky and the river are the colour of absinthe—the quays a lilac tone, the people leaning on the parapet almost black, the iron bridge an intense blue—with a bright orange note in the blue background and an intense Veronese green note. One more effort that’s far from finished—but I am trying to get at something utterly heartbroken and therefore utterly heartbreaking.

Much of the world’s great art comes from places of sadness, and I believe that’s often why we connect with it. It isn’t that the works themselves are of a sorrowful subject matter; it’s that the artists bring their personal experience to their work to say something meaningful about the world to the viewer.

Art Tells a Story

We want what we say to matter. We want it to connect. We want it to help people.

Much of the world’s great art comes from places of sadness.

So artists create, not just to show us a picture of a bridge but to show us something of this world where bridges are needed and used by people to get from one bank to the other without going under. Some cross alone, while others walk hand in hand as the sun dances on the water and casts those leaning on the rail as silhouettes.

But there we are, each living out our unfolding story filled with all kinds of joy and difficulty.

Sad Stories’ Appeal

Why are we so drawn to sad stories? Sorrow, grief, anger, futility, frustration, and distress are complicated yet universal realities, and to talk about them in any substantive manner is to do so by way of story. These emotions aren’t data points; they’re tales of heartache and woe, and they come for all of us. So we lean in when sad stories are told because they prepare us for what’s coming.

Sad stories teach us about pain and suffering when we’re not personally going through those trials. They allow us to feel the feelings of grief and loss without the personal anxiety that accompanies them when that sorrow is uniquely our own. It’s a sign of emotional maturity to be able to feel competing emotions—like hope and sorrow—at the same time, and sad stories give us practice. They help us develop empathy and compassion. They tell us that these sorrows we experience, which can leave us feeling so isolated, are, in fact, well-traveled roads.

Sad stories also teach us how to deal with the problem of evil in the world. G. K. Chesterton said of fairy tales,

[They] do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of the bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of the bogey.

The same is true of sad stories. They remind us not just that this world can wound us but that wounds can heal. They remind us to hope.

Sad stories remind us to hope.

Sad stories also remind us to lament. Lament is sorrow joined to prayer; it’s directed pain about which we ask, “How long, O Lord?” We often tell our saddest stories as a form of protest, as a way of saying, “Look at what beauty came from this wreck of a life, what faith was born from this spiral of despair, what hope rose up in this darkest night, what rescue crested the hill just when it seemed all was lost.” So much beauty is born out of suffering. We make some sense of brokenness and pain by looking at the beauty they produce.

Art Connects Us

This is where much of the world’s art is born—from struggle and sorrow. An artist looks for a story to tell, a message to convey, a point of connection between him and some unknown viewer. What do we as people have in common?

Art doesn’t necessarily start a new conversation, but it picks up one already underway—the wonder and struggle of being alive in this world as we experience it. What makes these stories of wonder and struggle beautiful is how they remind us we’re not alone.

Throughout Scripture, we’re compared to the sheep who go astray or get lost. We need continual care and vigilant protection, and Christ offers us that and so much more. He’s a shepherd who seeks out the one lost sheep and rejoices at its discovery. He leads us, guides us, and restores our souls.

Doctor teaches the following:

• The role of shepherds in the biblical narrative
• Jesus as the Good Shepherd
• Surprise 1: seeking unexpected sheep
• Surprise 2: leading on unexpected paths
• Surprise 3: dying an unexpected death
• The Lamb is worshiped as the shepherd in Revelation 7
• Know the Good Shepherd and follow him forever

One day on campus, a stranger presented Kevin with an evangelistic tract. Using words such as “laws” and “sin,” Kevin was told he was rebelling against God and living outside God’s rule, and that he needed to submit to God.

These words cut to Kevin’s heart. He remembered the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32). Kevin knew he needed to repent, return to his Christian upbringing, and receive Jesus as his Lord and Savior.

Now compare Kevin’s story with that of his coworker, Kylee. She was born in the 2000s, immersed in a world connected by smartphones and the global supply chain. Kylee regularly hears stories about climate change, police violence, and sexual abuse. She’s passionate about social causes—racism, poverty, and the environment.

Kylee finds little in common with Kevin’s Christianity. She stopped going to church when she turned 12. To Kylee, the whole Christian story is a privileged white man’s social construct, and any talk of “laws,” “God’s rule,” or “submission” is a thinly veiled attempt to oppress her with outdated views of morality.

Besides, none of it makes sense to Kylee. If she’s championing for justice, what “sin” is she committing? What “law” is she breaking? If anyone’s a “rebel,” it’s the Christians, trying to go against the flow. One day, history will judge Christians to be on the wrong side.

Kevin wishes that Kylee would adopt his Christian faith. But when he tries to explain the gospel to Kylee using words familiar to him, it turns Kylee away. Worse, it confirms to Kylee her worst fears about Christianity.

Words that once cut to Kevin’s heart didn’t cut to Kylee’s heart. Instead, they seem to have the opposite effect, hardening her heart. 

The Problem: What You Say Isn’t What They Hear

Have you ever talked with a Mormon? We use the same word—“God”—but with a different set of meanings. When Christians say “God,” they refer to the one true God. But when Mormons say “God,” they refer to an exalted human being.

Same word, two meanings. This is the problem of equivocation, or “What you say is not what they hear.”

This is the problem of explaining sin to those in the post-Christendom age. In the same way that a Christian and a Mormon hear different meanings for the word “God,” a Christian and a non-Christian hear two meanings for the word “sin.”

What do I mean by a post-Christendom age? In the post-Christendom age, Christianity is no longer the dominant story. Christianity is viewed as one option among many—and not often the most desirable one. Whereas those who grew up in a Christendom age (Kevin) typically had a set of background beliefs around moral absolutes, sin, and judgment and a positive view of the Christian church, a person brought up in a post-Christendom age (Kylee) doesn’t have the same set of background beliefs or a positive outlook on the church.

In a Christendom context, a “normal” gospel presentation (think the Four Spiritual Laws) helps people “connect the dots” of their background beliefs and show how they could have their sins forgiven and receive eternal life. But in a post-Christendom context, people’s “dots” are different (or even nonexistent), which means that while a typical gospel explanation is just as true as it was in a Christendom age, it doesn’t connect in the same way.

Where do we go from here? Do we need to abandon the old ways of talking about sin and salvation? Not at all. Rather, I suggest we need to be more biblical when we talk about sin, not less. Henri Blocher has observed that the Bible uses more than 50 Hebrew words in the Old Testament to describe “sin.” The New Testament adds several more, and the Bible’s evangelists—think John the Baptist and the apostles—invoke terms and use metaphors present in a culture as a way to connect the dots between the people’s sin and their need for grace and a Savior who can rescue and forgive them.

The Bible has a number of ways of describing sin and salvation, and four images in particular can help people like Kylee see Jesus’s truth, goodness, and beauty.

1. Shame and Honor

In a post-Christendom age, we’re moving away from a guilt-innocence culture into a shame-honor culture. We’ve become tribal. Unquestioned tribal loyalty is demanded. We virtue signal. Offenders are called out, canceled, and shamed.

We need to be more biblical when we talk about sin, not less.

In looking for ways to engage this different culture, we can learn from the apostles in Acts. When they preach to Jewish audiences, they appeal to a guilt-innocence model: “You’ve killed the Messiah, and now you need to repent” (see Acts 2:14–36). But when they preach to pagan audiences, they appeal to shame and honor: “There’s a good God who gives you good things, but you don’t worship him” (see 17:22–31).

I do something similar when I communicate the gospel in high school settings. If I begin, “You’ve broken the Ten Commandments . . . you’re a sinner . . . you need to repent,” I can feel the eye rolls. They think I’m imposing an oppressive tool of power on them.

Instead, I say there’s a good God who loves them, but we fail to honor this God. We enjoy the gifts without regard for the Giver. We instead need to worship this God. In return, God will take away our shame, lift us up, and honor us.

My audience may not agree that there’s a good God who loves them. But they can see why, if there’s such a God, they need to honor him. This is entirely consistent with their values.

They can also see how they have the problem of shame in their life. I can further articulate this by saying,

We’re not the people we say we are. We’re not the people we want to be. We’re not the people we need to be. We let ourselves down. We let others down. And deep down, we’ve let down God.

Within this framework, I can explain salvation as God washing away our shame. God restores us. God lifts us up and honors us. In this culture, I believe that the priestly blessing of Numbers 6:24–26—with its promise of “face” and “peace”—is highly attractive.

2. Brokenness

The term “broken” is contentious in Christian circles because it can soften the vertical component of sin. But at the same time, it has traction with our culture. It identifies sin’s horizontal and internal manifestations, where creation groans under our sin. It also describes our “iniquity”—our bent, twisted, sinful nature. The term “brokenness” can give us an entry point into our culture’s storyline.

If we’re still worried that “brokenness” doesn’t adequately cover the full breadth of sinfulness, we can throw the term into a cluster of other descriptors. For example, we can say, “We have guilt, shame, pain, brokenness, hurt, and regret.”

Kylee will agree her world is broken. There’s violence, poverty, and injustice. Kylee might also see herself as broken. There’s a high level of stress, anxiety, and depression in our Western world, despite our abundant material resources. Chances are that Kylee herself suffers internally from these.

So how best to explain this brokenness? I love to quote Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts.”

It’s one thing to diagnose the world as “broken.” But how can we solve this problem? We can solve it only when we realize we’re the problem. A society is only the sum of its parts. And we’re the parts that make up society. Evil begins inside each and every one of us. Society is broken because we’re broken.

The solution is to humble ourselves and confess we’re the problem. But we cannot fix this brokenness ourselves. We need a new heart. This is something only God can do. Here, we can appeal to Isaiah 61, where God’s Servant brings justice and restoration. We can appeal to Jesus, who comes as the “doctor” to the “sick” (Mark 2:17, NIV). But we have to see that the “sickness” begins in our hearts.

3. Self-Righteousness and Falling Short

In his parables, Jesus has a way of helping the Kevins and Kylees of the world feel seen. For instance, if Kevin identifies with the younger son (Luke 15) and the tax collector (Luke 18) in Jesus’s parables, then Kylee is the older son and the Pharisee in these same parables.

These parables can be disarming for someone like Kylee. For example, when I speak to college students, I say, “Do you know what ‘sin’ is for Jesus? According to Jesus, sin is that attitude you have when you turn off your lights for Earth Hour but you see that your neighbor doesn’t. Or sin is that feeling of self-righteousness when you have an eco–shopping bag, but the person next to you uses a plastic bag.”

The very things of which Kylee is proud expose her as sinful to Jesus. How? According to Jesus, Kylee’s sin isn’t that she has broken a law but that she “lifts herself up” (in self-righteousness). In the same way that the older son weaponizes his good acts against his father (Luke 15:29) and the Pharisee parades his good acts before God (18:11–12), Kylee lifts up her good actions.

The very things of which Kylee is proud expose her as sinful to Jesus.

But the problem is that Kylee also “falls short” of where she needs to be. She’ll never be good enough for her tribe. She’s only one badly worded social media post away from being canceled. Deep down, she also knows she’ll never be good enough for herself. What about that time she forgot her eco–shopping bag and used a plastic bag? She can never do enough. Why does she only turn off her lights for Earth Hour and not every day?

The solution is that Kylee must humble herself, stop lifting herself up, and let God lift her up (v. 14). She needs to stop weaponizing her good acts against those who don’t live up to her standards. Instead, she needs to “come home,” surrender her heart to God, and be loved by God—like the younger prodigal son does. She needs to let her good actions come out of being loved and recognized by the Father, rather than serving as a cry for love and recognition.

4. Dying and Being Out-of-Jesus

The New Testament describes salvation as both “Christ for us” and “Christ in us.” For example, Christ dies for us in our place as our federal representative (2 Cor. 5:14–15). This is the forensic nature of salvation. But at the same time, we’re also saved in Christ. We died and rose in Christ to a new life (v. 17). This is the realist nature of our salvation.

Correspondingly, there’s also a double aspect to our sin. We’re guilty of transgression. That’s why Christ dies for us in our place. But we’re also corrupted. Bent. Twisted. Falling short. That’s why we need to be in Christ and receive a new nature. This double aspect gives us a fuller picture of our sin and salvation.

The “Christ for us” aspect of sin and salvation makes sense to Kevin. But we can also explore the “in Christ” aspect with Kylee.

When I speak to non-Christians in secular settings, the “in Jesus” language is disarming to my audience. They’re not used to this category for explaining sin and salvation. But intuitively, it makes sense to them.

For example, I can explain that it’s dangerous to not be joined to Jesus. Jesus says that if we don’t remain in him, we eventually die (John 15:1–8). This sounds harsh, but it’s the way the natural world works. If a branch is cut off from a vine, it naturally dies. So it makes sense that if we’re cut off from our Creator, we also will die.

But it’s more than this. If we choose identity, success, and security apart from Jesus, we’ll wither away and die. There are so many real-life examples that our audience knows it to be true. Instead, we should join Team Jesus. Be in Jesus. Find our identity in Jesus. Ask Jesus to fill us with his Spirit. Then, rather than wither and die, we’ll receive “eternal life.” A full, fulfilled life in Jesus.

Wider Range

In the age of Christendom, we chiefly explained sin and salvation in terms of guilt and innocence, transgression and forgiveness, judgment and Christ dying for us. All this makes sense to someone like Kevin.

If we choose identity, success, and security apart from Jesus, we’ll wither away and die.

But in post-Christendom, while these same ideas are just as true, they seem less persuasive. Instead of abandoning these ways of talking about salvation, we should be free to explore the wider range of biblical metaphors and weave them into our conversations. We can explore metaphors such as shame and honor, brokenness and restoration, lifting ourselves up and humbling ourselves, falling short and being lifted up, and dying and being in Christ. If we do this, we follow in the footsteps of the Bible’s evangelists—and Jesus himself—in communicating sin to various audiences.

Established preachers often tell younger preachers beginning their ministries, “The best way to learn how to preach is to preach. Take every opportunity you can.” This is true—if you’re taking good reps. The danger is that young preachers and teachers sometimes don’t know how to take good practice swings, so every preaching opportunity can reinforce bad habits.

In Proclaiming the Word: Principles and Practices for Expository Preaching, David J. Jackman, former president of the Proclamation Trust and founding director of the Cornhill Training Course, distills three decades of experience training preachers into a book that provides the tools for preachers and teachers to take better reps. This book is designed to “identify and illustrate biblically the principles and methodology of exposition” to help preachers honor the text of Scripture (xiv).

Justifying Expository Preaching

Unlike textbooks such as Christ-Centered Preaching, Power in the Pulpit, or Biblical Preaching, Proclaiming the Word doesn’t provide detailed instructions on how to craft different parts of a sermon. Instead, it offers examples of developing and applying good preparation techniques so each preaching opportunity leads to growth. Jackman coaches readers to adjust their preparation and preaching methods to grow as a teacher or preacher of God’s Word.

Young preachers sometimes don’t know how to take good practice swings, so every preaching opportunity can reinforce bad habits.

John Stott once wrote that “the essential secret [to preaching well] is not mastering certain techniques but being mastered by certain convictions.” Following this model, Jackman begins his book by outlining the fundamental convictions and character traits a preacher needs to keep going with exposition.

“To many people,” Jackman writes, “preaching seems strangely out of place in the modern world” (1). And so the preacher has to believe in both the expository preaching method and the Bible’s contents to show the importance of proclamation to the world. Instead of adopting modern communication techniques in a quest for relevance, Jackman argues that “expository preaching does not have to create relevance because nothing could be more relevant than the living and enduring word of the one true and living God” (17). Expository preaching is the natural outflow of believing God has inspired the Word.

What makes expository preaching hard, however, is that attempts to shape the message according to the passage can sometimes turn the sermon into a running commentary. Jackman teaches readers to avoid this by knowing and applying the passage to their congregation and by reading well.

Good Preaching Starts with Good Reading

“Expository” sermons that are biblical but not textual begin with a failure of reading. As T. David Gordon points out in Why Johnny Can’t Preach, the same sermon on salvation by grace through faith could be preached from John 3:16 or Ephesians 2:1–10 or Romans 5:6–11 if the preacher doesn’t allow the specific details of each text to expose its unique message. The resultant sermon may be biblical, but it won’t be textual. Jackman shows that good preaching starts with good reading, listening to the text to hear what it’s actually saying so you can proclaim it from the pulpit.

Jackman uses the narrative of Jesus’s temptations in the wilderness as an example. Matthew 4 is often preached as a stand-alone encouragement to resist temptation by memorizing Scripture like Jesus did. There’s some truth to this interpretation. Jesus serves as a model for us, but to only make this application misses Matthew’s larger point.

As Jackman highlights, the passage begins with “then.” That shows the temptation narrative is connected to Jesus’s baptism. Matthew is tying Jesus’s baptism and temptation together to show he’s stepping into the story of Israel. Jackman writes,

The voice from heaven has just declared Jesus to be God’s beloved Son. Now, like Israel before, he faces temptation in the wilderness. But whereas Israel repeatedly sinned and failed the test, this Son triumphed. (117)

Thus Jesus can and will save us by his faithful life and obedient death on the cross. Carefully reading the text of Matthew 4 helps the preacher to make a textual connection to the larger gospel story even as he preaches on Jesus’s temptations.

Bringing It All Together

Proclaiming the Word is an excellent sourcebook for preachers. Jackman provides numerous examples of contextual readings from the Old and New Testament to help the preacher grow in his ability to accurately expose what God’s Word says. Jackman closes the volume with an effort to develop the readers’ “skills and confidence in understanding the Bible’s metanarrative” (195). The goal is to help readers see Scripture as a whole.

Expository preaching is the natural outflow of believing God has inspired the Word.

It’s no surprise a book on preaching method begins with a theological justification for preaching God’s Word and ends by outlining the big-picture theology of God’s Word. Expositional preaching always involves exegeting the sermon passage in the context of Scripture’s larger picture.

By covering the convictions, practical skills, and whole-Bible understanding needed to preach faithfully, Jackman provides “a hands-on training manual” for expositors (x). The best way to use this book is to read it fully and then return to individual chapters as needed.

Paul encouraged Timothy to immerse himself in the task of preaching so all would see his progress (1 Tim. 4:13–15). Reading this book doesn’t substitute for experience, but Proclaiming the Word can help both new and experienced church leaders make the most of every preaching and teaching opportunity.

They discuss the following:

• Their gratitude for You’re Not Crazy listeners
• The challenges and achievements of the podcast
• How to build gospel culture in established churches
• Changing preaching styles
• Gospel culture in business meetings and staff gatherings
• How to navigate ministry challenges and imposter syndrome
• Future plans and their final encouragement for listeners

Recommended resource: Daily Liturgy Devotional: 40 Days of Worship and Prayer by Douglas Sean O’Donnell

My children interrupted my doomscrolling with a stack of books and pleading looks in their eyes. We’d just checked out books from the library about Reformation Day and the reformers.

I put away my phone, and my children curled up on the couch next to me. Cracking open the first picture book, I read about Martin Luther. In a world of political and religious tension, Christ helped him stand up for truth and endure persecution. I read about the young Queen Jeanne of Navarre, who courageously used her reign to spread the gospel despite her family’s opposition. I read about William Tyndale, who gave his life to make the Bible available in English to all people.

The more I read, the more hope and courage replaced my fear and anxiety. I’ve long loved learning about church history and reading biographies of faith heroes. Stories of past faithful Christians can buoy our present faithfulness and strengthen our hope for the future.

Present Encouragement from Past Christians

Our generation may face unique struggles, but believers in every age and culture have had to fight sin, defend the truth, and endure persecution. Even in these tense and tumultuous days, we can hold fast to the security, confidence, and hope we have in Christ by remembering his faithfulness to uphold his people throughout church history.

Church History Demonstrates God’s Sovereign Reign

Watching news anchors expound on global politics and crises, it’s tempting to believe that world leaders ultimately determine the future of our country and even of the church. However, Proverbs 21:1 reminds us, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.”

We see God’s sovereignty over kings demonstrated throughout biblical and church history, especially in how God uses secular leaders to bring forth his blessing and his judgment. God allowed German nobility (even those with self-serving motives) to protect Luther and spread his teachings. God used King Henry VIII’s sinful desire for divorce to separate England from Roman Catholicism, which opened the door for the Reformation to spread. When political leaders—often Christian ones—persecuted Anabaptists, God worked through their martyrdom and preserved their pursuit for religious freedom that influenced many modern churches.

Our generation may face unique struggles, but believers in every age and culture have had to fight sin, defend the truth, and endure persecution.

Even ungodly leaders who did evil couldn’t overthrow God’s providential plan to grow his church. We can take heart when evil powers reign, because God is still enthroned in heaven, enacting his will for our good and his glory.

Church History Reminds Us of Our True Citizenship

The reformers didn’t get everything right. After escaping persecution, Lutherans persecuted the Anabaptists for their stance on religious freedom. When Tyndale’s Bible translation was finally accepted, only merchants and aristocrats were allowed to read it. Reformers often used their newfound power to enact violence against Roman Catholics.

We can learn from both the faithfulness and the mistakes of past Christians. What if Lutherans had appreciated the Anabaptists’ emphasis on discipleship? What if Anabaptists had learned from Lutherans’ boldness in the secular world? How much more would they have been characterized by Christ’s love if they’d worked together?

Paul appealed to the Corinthian church to prioritize their identity in Christ over their adherence to a certain leader so that there would “be no divisions among [them]” and they’d “be united in the same mind and the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10).

We can find strength in our current culture by joining with believers who are united with us in Christ, even while they disagree with or differ from us.

Church History Instills Hope for Future Generations

Parents often echo the fear, “What kind of world will our children live in?” Christian parents can see the culture’s current trajectory and fret that future generations will experience hardship and persecution they won’t be able to endure.

While recent research shows church attendance and religious affiliation is decreasing in America, a broader view of church history encourages believers that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against” Christ’s church (Matt. 16:18). Our current age and culture may bring unique difficulties that past generations didn’t face. But Christ has always worked in his people to help them endure persecution, remain holy, and rectify heresies.

God raised up Luther to correct the false teaching of indulgences. God called John Calvin to remind his people about his sovereignty amid mighty world leaders. God empowered the Anabaptists to demonstrate the importance of personal commitment to Christ. The same God who sustained these reformers as they fought against the culture’s grain will uphold his people today until he brings us home to glory.

Our Western world may be more hostile toward Christianity in the future, but we don’t have to fear because “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8).

Look to Christ in All of History

The Reformation was a turning point not only in the church’s history but also in the world’s. Five hundred years from now, believers may look back at the past few decades as a similar turning point for the Western world and the church. But in doing so, they’ll see God’s hand protecting and purifying his people as he reigned sovereignly over leaders and culture.

The same God who sustained the reformers as they fought against the culture’s grain will uphold his people today until he brings us home to glory.

By looking back on our rich church history, we can have confidence, security, and hope today and in the future. “We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses” (12:1)—from every generation and culture—reminding us of God’s sovereignty, our eternal citizenship, and our unshakable future.

When fear and anxiety tempt us to forget our Christian identity, God’s power, and the hope of heaven, let’s turn off the news and open the pages of church history. Then we can “run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (vv. 1–2).

This is the backdrop of Katharina von Bora’s life, and it’s what makes her rejection of a suitor when she didn’t have a penny to her name so fascinating. Her life shows us that Christian faithfulness isn’t about being married or single but about holding fast to the grace and freedom we’ve been given in Christ.

Life in the Convent

Katharina “Katie” von Bora was born to a lower-level noble family. When she was 5, she was sent to a convent school for girls. It was a fine place to live, and she was treated well. But when she was 10, her father lost all his money, and it was decided she’d become a nun. Most convents required a dowry from the family—a “donation” to take care of the woman for the rest of her life. Since her father had no money, he sent her to a charitable convent that had no minimum dowry.

Christian faithfulness isn’t about being married or single but about holding fast to the grace and freedom we’ve been given in Christ.

When she turned 16, she was old enough to take her vows. What other choice did she have? She couldn’t get married; she couldn’t get a job. This was her life decided for her by her father; there was no other legal option. Moreover, running away from a convent in the Holy Roman Empire was punishable by death.

The convent was silent. Talking and friendships were forbidden. Contact with the outside world, even family, was forbidden. Voices were to be used only for prayer or worship. This was the era when making yourself weak was a sign of spiritual strength. So the women in the convent lived on about 1,000 calories a day, with no meat besides the occasional fish. They were allowed to sleep here and there. It was a situation ripe for additional abuses.

Escape to True Freedom

In 1520, the reformer Martin Luther wrote, “A Christian is the perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is the most dutiful servant of all, subject to everyone.” This paradox was the crux of his vision of Christian freedom. You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, because your salvation is by grace alone. You must be a dutiful servant to your neighbor, because you wear the identity of Christ.

In 1521, Luther was working out the implications of his doctrine of Christian freedom. He taught that if the Christian identity is received freely, it’s not tolerable to spiritually manipulate Christians to get what you want out of them. In his treatise “On Monastic Vows,” Luther proclaimed that anyone in a monastic order forced to take vows against his or her will was free in Christ to leave the order. Soon, monks left their monasteries and returned to their families, or sought jobs and started families of their own. It was years before any nuns attempted the same feat. Even if they could safely escape to a region loyal to the Protestant cause, they still needed guardians.

Katie’s story is the famous one: she was one of a dozen escaped nuns who showed up at Luther’s doorstep penniless, without guardians, and with only the clothes on their backs. He wrote all their families, but most wouldn’t (or couldn’t) take the women back. Luther had a situation on his hands. So this awkward university professor, this champion of grace alone, started matchmaking.

Leftover Nun with Lofty Expectations

Luther matched Katie up with a man named Jerome Baumgartner. They quickly fell in love and started making plans for marriage. But after going home to his parents to get their permission, Baumgartner ghosted Katie for about a year. Luther wrote him on behalf of Katie multiple times, and eventually it was found out that Baumgartner’s parents had married him off to a wealthy 14-year-old from a powerful family. They called Katie a “spinster” and wouldn’t approve of the penniless, 24-year-old runaway.

Meanwhile, all the other nuns who’d escaped found suitable husbands and got married. So when Katie’s engagement fell through, Luther went about finding another match for this “leftover nun.” Katie didn’t make it easy on him. By that time, she was known for her strong opinions and strong will. Finally able to talk, she spoke her mind. The home where she stayed was that of the wealthy Cranach family, who treated her as a daughter. There, she rubbed shoulders with houseguests like King Christian of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, who was in Wittenberg studying the Reformation doctrines.

The only man Luther could find to court Katie was a reverend, Kaspar Glatz. He was stingy with his money and his compliments. He was a grouchy man, and after meeting him, Katie immediately rejected him. While talking with Luther’s friend and colleague Nikolaus von Amsdorf, who was trying to explain to her that beggars can’t be choosers, Katie said she was content to stay single. After all, she’d left the prison of the convent; she wasn’t about the enter the prison of being married to a man she couldn’t respect. When Amsdorf asked who on earth could meet her high expectations, Katie said she’d be willing to marry either him or Luther.

Loving Your Neighbor and Spiting the Devil

Katie knew Christian freedom means we’re free to serve and love our neighbors; it doesn’t mean we must fear man and do whatever our neighbors want. Katie staked her life on that paradox.

Christian freedom means we’re free to serve and love our neighbors.

Amsdorf went to Luther and said Katie was only willing to marry Luther himself—conveniently leaving his own name off her list in the retelling. Luther considered Amsdorf’s proposition. He said if he’d intended to marry, he would’ve married Eva, one of the other nuns he’d married off. She was pretty and sweet. Katie was . . . well, Katie spoke her mind. She wasn’t his first choice; she was the one who was left. But  Luther prayed, and then he decided to marry Katie. Getting married would heal some grievances his father had with him, and it’d make a political and theological statement to the world: that monks and nuns were free to marry. Most important of all, Luther said getting married would “spite the devil,” who was against all Christian freedom.

Luther and Katie weren’t in love when they married. They weren’t even well suited, as they were the two most stubborn people in the Holy Roman Empire. But their stubbornness was pointed in the same direction, and within a matter of weeks, confessions of love and affection for his wife started to seep into Luther’s letters to his friends. Instead of being a drag on his ministry, as his friends worried she’d be, Katie enabled Luther to teach and preach more than ever before. She unburdened him. Their marriage was built on respect and the freedom to serve one’s neighbor—which included each other.

The Word Sets Us Free

What can we learn from Katie? She clearly believed that Christian freedom applied to her too. In Christ, she was “a perfectly free lord of all.” No one could tell her who she had to marry. No one would tell her she needed to marry at all. Later, as the wife of the famous Luther, she repeatedly saw how people told him what “needed” to be done so the church would survive. Luther’s answer: “I did nothing; the Word did everything.” Having a proper handle on who holds the church and the world together frees us from spiritually manipulative compulsion.

But when this word of freedom is grasped by faith, we can truly love the neighbor God has put in front of us. By marrying Luther, Katie chose a position that enabled her to use her home as a hospital during the Black Plague, take in orphans, host dignitaries and scholars from around the world, and be the deepest encouragement to her husband. Her life was a life of service, in true freedom.

He teaches the following:

• New hermeneutics must be balanced by Scripture’s transcendent relevance
• Scripture is clear and accessible for all believers to understand and obey
• God’s revelation is complete under the new covenant
• Understanding Scripture requires both intellectual effort and the Holy Spirit’s guidance
• How to evaluate command, sharing, and servant models of leadership
• Humility and a teachable spirit are essential when interpreting God’s Word

In their new book, Invisible Jesus: A Book about Leaving the Church and Looking for Christ, New Testament scholar Scot McKnight and pastor Tommy Preson Phillips choose their side. They write, “We believe deconstruction is a prophetic movement resisting a distorted gospel. It is not a problem; it is a voice. And we need to listen to what it is saying to the church” (1). McKnight and Phillips are right to be concerned with the ways some churches distort the gospel, but Invisible Jesus doesn’t bring the clarity necessary to strengthen the faith of deconstructors and the church’s witness.

Basis for Deconstruction

McKnight and Phillips, who share their own deconstruction experiences, argue that while many are leaving the church, they aren’t necessarily leaving Jesus. Often, they don’t abandon the church altogether but rather “find another form of the Christian faith that fits them better” (13). The authors provide little reflection on the various conclusions deconstruction can lead to. While many (including me) do remain Christian, it’s undeniable that many don’t. This reality is largely overlooked in Invisible Jesus.

Deconstructors, seeing Christians acting hatefully in how they fight the culture war or hypocritically in their fundamentalist attitudes, leave the church. According to the authors, they leave to find Jesus: “It is for Christ’s sake that people today are walking away from churches” (2).

McKnight and Phillips accurately capture the deconstruction experience, describing it as a dark night of the soul, a crisis that doesn’t always mean leaving the faith. They recognize the pain of those ostracized or silenced in their churches and rightly point out that many churches have lost the plot, centering the church on themselves or their leaders rather than on Jesus. Compromised churches, they argue, are a major catalyst for deconstruction, and a prophetic witness is needed to call them back to Christ. McKnight and Phillips are correct about some cases. But is this the only cause of deconstruction?

Incomplete Picture

If you only read Invisible Jesus, you’d think the answer is yes. McKnight and Phillips recognize how churches can distort the gospel, yet they give only a passing glance at how deconstructors might distort the gospel themselves. This tendency to adjust beliefs to be a better personal fit, rather than seeking what’s true, deserves scrutiny—yet it’s hardly mentioned.

Compromised churches, they argue, are a major catalyst for deconstruction.

The book presents deconstructors in two seemingly conflicting ways: as those who want a “Jesus-first religion” (49) and as those who put “everything . . . up for reexamination” (46). While deconstruction does involve being willing to question everything, these are contradictory portrayals. One is a prophetic call to return to Jesus, while the other is a willingness to challenge the core of the faith, including Christ’s divinity and resurrection. It’s unclear how someone can do both simultaneously. McKnight and Phillips appear to conflate these, labeling them both as “deconstruction” without attempting to reconcile them.

Undefined Doctrine

Confusion like this permeates the book. In the same breath, McKnight and Phillips advocate for a centered-set Christianity focused on Jesus, suggesting that doctrinal and ecclesial boundaries should be removed to avoid hindering faith, while also attempting to maintain the importance of these boundaries.

They write, “A centered-set approach to faith does not mean the only article of faith is Jesus, and Jesus alone. Beliefs about God, the Spirit, redemption, the cross, resurrection, justification by faith, and other beliefs are all still important. . . . But rather than defining the faith with clear boundary markers, we have something more akin to what C. S. Lewis called mere Christianity” (41). While a centered-set faith is good as far as it goes, even a “mere” Christianity has boundaries.

This confusion is exemplified when they discuss the voices deconstructors are listening to. They list figures like N. T. Wright, Dallas Willard, Rachel Held Evans, Brian McLaren, Anthea Butler, Rob Bell, and Richard Rohr. While these names are influential among deconstructors, presenting them without distinguishing their varying degrees of orthodoxy (or heresy) is baffling. These authors span a wide spectrum. The gap between people like Dallas Willard, an evangelical proponent of spiritual formation, and Richard Rohr, who has tried to redefine the Trinity, is vast. Treating them as if they’re all alike is misleading, if not irresponsible.

The authors acknowledge the need for doctrinal boundaries but fail to clearly define where they should be drawn. Their proposal of a centered-set faith with doctrinal limits seems more like a bait and switch than a genuine effort to remove stumbling blocks. A clearer framework, such as theological triage, would be more practical than a vague “centered-set” approach that pretends to have fewer boundaries than it does.

Narrow Ecclesiology

McKnight and Phillips criticize rigid ecclesial and denominational structures but don’t hesitate to prescribe their own. They write, “The church must find ways to become flatter, less hierarchical, and less institutional . . . more intimate, social, equal, participatory, relational, and transparent. It is time to stand face-to-face or in a circle and proclaim what we know is true about our King through laments, protests, choirs, and corporate prayers” (107). This call to stand “face-to-face or in a circle” critiques the traditional setup of rows facing a stage. The only model they explicitly endorse is the house church. There’s no acknowledgment that traditional church structures serve a purpose. Chesterton’s fence would serve us well here: It’s best to know why something exists in the first place before you tear it down.

McKnight and Phillips correctly diagnose part of the problem that influences people’s deconstruction, but their analysis is incomplete.

McKnight and Phillips correctly diagnose part of the problem that influences people’s deconstruction, but their analysis is incomplete.

They rightly call the church to listen to deconstructing people instead of writing them off, but they don’t invite deconstructors to reflect on other reasons they’re deconstructing besides the hurt they experienced in a church. They rightly want the church to be centered around Jesus but struggle to define what that means. While attempting to speak prophetically to the church, Invisible Jesus undermines the church itself. That is tragic, because good churches are the best place for deconstructors to rebuild their faith.

Many of its diagnoses and some of its prescriptions hit the mark. However, this book is more likely to entrench the divide between the church and those who’ve been hurt by it than it is to heal relationships, strengthen the faith of deconstructors, and solve the problems they encounter in the church. In those ways, it greatly misses the mark.

Of all the “Thank you for the sermon today, Pastor” comments I’ve received over the years, that one was particularly memorable—and particularly encouraging. It came from a man I knew well—a thoughtful, humble, family-focused, Jesus-loving owner of an auto repair business. He wasn’t an elder or a deacon, but he prayed for me every day. I cherished his friendship, and though I never would’ve intentionally hurt him, this man’s words were a helpful reminder that biblical preaching can often cause deep but good and necessary pain.

We teach to present our people complete in Christ. We direct their lives to God revealed in Jesus. So when they say, “Good message,” I’m glad. But I’ve also learned that when the truth hurts, when it’s hard and raises questions rather than words of encouragement, that’s a good sign too.

‘I Know, Because of the Pain’

The same year that my friend told me my sermon hurt, I read the French classic Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos. On the subject of the ministry of God’s Word, the priest says,

Deeply biblical preaching can often cause deep but good and necessary pain.

Teaching is no joke, sonny! . . . Comforting truths, they call it! Truth is meant to save you first, and the comfort comes afterward. . . . The Word of God is a red-hot iron. And you who preach it best go picking it up with a pair of tongs, for fear of burning yourself, you daren’t get hold of it with both hands. . . . Why, the priest who descends from the pulpit of Truth, with a mouth like a hen’s vent, a little hot but pleased with himself, he’s not been preaching: at best he’s been purring like a tabby-cat. Mind you that can happen to us all, we’re all half asleep, it’s the devil to wake us up, sometimes—the apostles slept all right at Gethsemane. . . . And mind you many a fellow who waves his arms and sweats like a furniture-remover isn’t necessarily any more awakened than the rest. On the contrary. I simply mean that when the Lord has drawn from me some word for the good of souls, I know, because of the pain of it. (emphasis mine)

Why must the truth sometimes hurt? Because “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). God’s Word proclaimed will lay things open, right down to the bone, and that’s going to hurt in order to heal. It’s OK to admit that too.

Not Designed to Entertain

Truth be told, sermons aren’t designed for enjoyment and certainly not for entertainment. Sermons are designed to inform, liberate, convict, inspire, confront, comfort, challenge, build, disturb, subvert, and demolish. They’re search-and-destroy missions launched by the Holy Spirit against the strongholds of falsehood erected in our minds by hell. They’re a dead-raising summons to people who prefer graves to grace. Sermons drive out darkness—and sometimes that’s accompanied by agony. “That sermon angered me” or “That message was painful” might be far better responses to a Sunday message than any other words one could or should say. “My chains fell off” is also acceptable.

Sermons drive out darkness—and sometimes that’s accompanied by agony.

That’s why Annie Dillard was wise to observe that Christian worship services are hard-hat areas where people are under construction—and sometimes, the dust is going to fly. It’s a shared pain. Pastors’ tears when preparing and preaching are real. We repent of our sins as we seek to offer the red-hot iron of the gospel to all. We know it’ll be painful but not harmful.

Call to Repentance and Renewal

Not unlike Eustace Scrubb in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, we experience the painful plunging of Aslan’s sharp claw into our souls, ripping away the scales of our dragonish thralldom, restoring our humanity:

Then the lion said—but I don’t know if it spoke—“You will have to let me undress you.” I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.

My old friend knew that pain. He knew that truth. He knew the word he’d heard that day, the word that “hurt like hell,” was actually heaven-sent, calling him to repentance and renewed faith, calling him to take painful steps outside his comfort zone and to make some crooked paths straight. And he did. Friends, that’s a good message. That’s what a sermon is for.

I didn’t know the answer. But I knew who to ask. My friend Bob Doll is president, CEO, and CIO of Crossmark Global Investments, a faith-based investment firm offering values-based strategies. Bob is a highly regarded investment professional who has held leadership roles at several global asset management firms. Prior to joining Crossmark, he was chief equity strategist and senior portfolio manager at Nuveen Asset Management. His previous positions included serving as chief equity strategist at BlackRock, president and chief investment officer of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, and chief investment officer of Oppenheimer Funds.

But I mostly know Bob as a seriously dedicated Christian who has long encouraged me and many others in our ministry. Chances are he’s served on the board of a Christian organization that has blessed you.

I invited him to join me on Gospelbound to discuss several topics, such as sharing faith in an increasingly hostile-to-faith world, moving the work of the church out of its four walls, and stewarding everything God has given us, including our wealth.

Others express encouragement and excitement that I get to defend “innocent” people. These cheerleaders recognize that my clients are poor and often mentally ill or drug-addicted. They’re frequently racial minorities who are victims of circumstances beyond their control that set them up for failure and all but guarantee their entry into the criminal justice system. To some, the disadvantaged deserve mercy.

Neither response fully characterizes the nature of defending the accused.

Gospel as the Starting Point

True, my clients—those people—undoubtedly are wrongdoers who are often guilty, at least of something. None of my clients is naturally righteous; they’ve all turned away, and not one of them does good (Ps. 14:3). They’re sinners. Yet at the same time, they’re fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s image (Ps. 139:14). Their God-given value survives their wrongdoing, just as a crime victim’s dignity withstands the harm she’s suffered. My clients are my neighbors, and they’re entitled to my love.

So how can I defend them? The gospel helps. More than a mere example, Jesus gives the power and strength to love and serve like he does. Jesus calls everyone to seek justice the way God does. And we read in the Bible that Jesus didn’t come to advocate and counsel a bunch of nice, good people who have no need for his perfect service. He came to save sinners who cannot lift a finger to save themselves (Matt. 9:12–13). He did so at infinite cost despite the recipients not deserving it. Borrowing from Clint Eastwood, “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.” God’s grace does all the work.

So the fact that some, and maybe most, of my clients have committed some wrong isn’t a barrier to them receiving my help; it’s the starting point for why they need it.

5 Biblical Principles for Criminal Justice

What does justice look like practically for the defense attorney? In his recent book Reforming Criminal Justice, Matthew Martens explains that Christians are obligated “to be neighbors to those in need with whom we cross paths when it is within our means.” He identifies several biblical principles—accuracy, due process, accountability, impartiality, and proportionality—that guide love within a criminal justice context.

Since my job requires that I be a neighbor to my clients, these principles apply to my work.

1. Accuracy

God is a perfect Judge; he takes accuracy seriously (Prov. 17:15). He never overcharges, wrongfully accuses, falsely convicts, or acquits the guilty. He’s neither too harsh nor too lenient.

People, on the other hand, aren’t as impeccable in judgment. Much of defending the accused is truth-seeking. The government only has God-given authority to bear the sword against true moral wrongdoers, so before the sword is unsheathed, we must ask, Is the accusation true?

The government only has God-given authority to bear the sword against true moral wrongdoers, so before the sword is unsheathed, we must ask, Is the accusation true?

A concern for accuracy is near the heart of a criminal defense attorney’s job. It’s unjust to acquit the guilty, and it’s unjust to punish the innocent. To seek accurate judgments, attorneys must diligently probe for weaknesses or blind spots in an accusation while being honest with the accused about the evidence against him (the vast majority of people in U.S. prisons are men).

Prominent examples of demonstrably false convictions abound in the United States, even in the highest-stakes cases where the accused faces the death penalty. The defense lawyer—usually a public defender, since most criminal defendants cannot afford a lawyer—is the main line of defense against inaccurate judgments.

2. Due Process

It takes a process to get from an accusation to an accurate judgment. Defense lawyers must ensure the processes in place for securing accurate judgments are followed. A pernicious temptation often present in prosecutions or investigations is to dispense with “mere formalities” like constitutional rights, trials, and evidence. After all, the sentiment goes, the person must have done something wrong or he wouldn’t have been accused.

It’s true many of my cases look bad from their inception: sometimes it seems the accused has been caught red-handed. But processes are aimed at ensuring that even wrongdoers are judged rightly—that they’re only held accountable for what they did and that their God-given dignity is respected in the process. Even in history’s first trial, God heard Adam and Eve’s cases before imposing judgment (Gen. 3:8–13).

Process can be unpopular, but it’s good and necessary, especially given the extreme caseloads that public defenders typically carry. Process produces greater justice, not less.

3. Accountability

In nearly all my cases, my clients have fallen on hard times. Many defendants have suffered miserable childhoods, most are poor, some have been abused, and scores are gripped by addiction or wracked by mental illness. These realities make many transgressions understandable, though at times it seems some judges, prosecutors, police, and even defense lawyers are unmoved.

Still, some advocates for the accused can oscillate too far away from condemning and toward condoning. In their eyes, difficult circumstances predestine transgression and eliminate agency and culpability for criminal defendants. They claim the guilty defendant is the real victim.

But God holds truths in tension. And by his grace, so too can his people. Christopher Watkin’s concept of “diagonalization” is helpful here. Watkin says “the Bible disrupts the oppositions” that tend to structure cultural approaches to all sorts of things, including justice.

The defense attorney must avoid the potential blinders of advocacy that tempt one to call evil good. The guilty can warrant just judgment on the one hand and be owed fair and dignified treatment on the other.

My job isn’t to help my clients avoid any consequences for true wrongdoing (nor is it to prosecute them myself). It’s to make sure they’re treated justly; that they receive their due, which is love in the form of justice, even if love sometimes involves consequences for wrongdoing (see Heb. 12:6).

4. Impartiality

God calls people to judge rightly and not tilt the scales of justice based on outward appearances (e.g., John 7:24). Unfortunately, fallen humanity tends to elevate appearance over truth and prejudge disputes based on the parties involved. This temptation runs in many directions (e.g., Lev. 19:15).

God doesn’t judge that way. He looks at the heart (1 Sam. 16:7). The judgments made within the criminal justice system typically don’t run that deep, but the defense attorney seeks to prevent those making judgments from looking only at the surface—appearance, poverty, or the mere fact of an accusation.

As Martens rightly identifies, race can play a role in whether an accused or guilty person receives his due. Partiality appears deep-rooted in our criminal justice system. I have no neat answers for how to combat this persistent problem, but surely the solution must start with prayer, action, and the heart changes that necessarily flow from the Holy Spirit moving among communities over time.

5. Proportionality

“Tough on crime!” “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime!” These sentiments are common, but are they just?

Process produces greater justice, not less.

Venting the retributive urge doesn’t reflect God’s justice (James 1:20; Rom. 12:19). Miroslav Volf reminds us that sin can twist today’s victim into tomorrow’s perpetrator: “If victims do not repent today they will become perpetrators tomorrow who, in their self-deceit, will seek to exculpate their misdeeds on account of their own victimization.” The degrading possibilities of utilitarianism fall short too (stoning for jaywalking would surely deter!).

Justice is about more than convictions. Martens notes, “A punishment is just, in the biblical view, because it is deserved, and what makes a punishment deserved is its correspondence to the severity of the wrong committed.” In wielding the sword, a government isn’t entitled to punish without boundaries. God doesn’t allow us to do whatever we want to wrongdoers, and as a defense lawyer I fight to protect against the temptation to do so. Even a true wrongdoer can experience injustice if he receives disproportionate punishment.

Toward Reconciliation

When God “sentenced” Adam and Eve, in real and profound ways they received the sentence he warned of—death. But with the punishment came God’s gracious offer of hope for future reconciliation and restoration. This proto-evangelium (Gen. 3:15) was an expression of God’s heart for humanity (Ezek. 33:11). He fervently seeks to win sinners to himself (Luke 19:10).

God charges his people with being ambassadors of this good news. The criminal defense lawyer, and everyone else, should seek to keep God’s goals at the forefront of our efforts to do justice. Eventually, cases end and the defendants, victims, lawyers, judges, and communities involved remain. A Christian approach to practicing criminal justice, in the courtroom or the community, seeks to ensure our neighbors can hear the good news more clearly than when the case began.

We’ve been caught up in this binary debate for so long that we may have missed how Halloween has changed and taken on new cultural significance.

Halloween today reflects various cultural forces that have influenced its meaning and practice over time. For some, it remains a fun celebration of creativity and community; for others, it’s a more complicated symbol, one that reflects our culture’s ongoing fascination with death, darkness, and the supernatural. These shifting meanings highlight both the fluidity of cultural practices and the persistent human desire for what Halloween represents—connection, identity, and transcendence.

Halloween: A Cultural Evolution

Historical accounts indicate Halloween was originally rooted in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. That holiday marked the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter—a time when it was believed that the boundary between the living and the dead grew thin. Over time, though, Christians adapted and transformed many of these pagan customs. By the Middle Ages, the celebration had evolved into a precursor to All Saints’ Day (All Hallows’ Eve), which honored those who had gone before in faith. Around 1745, All Hallows’ Eve began to be called Halloween.

When Halloween came to the United States, it continued to change. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans in the mid-1800s began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a precursor to today’s trick-or-treating. This blending of European folk traditions, colonial harvest celebrations, and American commercialization eventually turned Halloween into the event many of us remember from our childhoods.

Yet over the past decade or so, Halloween has transformed. No longer is it primarily a neighborhood-focused event where children dress up to collect candy. Instead, the holiday has seen unprecedented growth in economic and cultural significance. The National Retail Federation reports that Halloween spending hit a record $12.2 billion in 2023. A survey showed that 72 percent of Americans are planning to celebrate Halloween this year, and they’re planning to spend an average of $103.63 per person (with a collective $700 million predicted to be spent on pet costumes).

The rise in spending on the holiday is mostly due to its embrace by adults. Elaborate costumes and parties have been around for a century, of course. But they’ve become the new norm. Similarly, haunted houses have expanded into full-fledged “immersive horror” experiences, where people pay to engross themselves in elaborate scenes of terror. Even our front yards have transformed, decked out with skeletons, cobwebs, and life-size animatronics.

Why is Halloween becoming bigger, scarier, sexier, and more extravagant? And what might this tell us about our culture and where it’s headed?

We’re Obsessed with Fear and Fantasy

Just as we may not all agree on what Halloween is, we may disagree about what the current Halloween surge reveals about our culture. But there are several possible interpretations worth considering.

First, the fascination with death and darkness may reflect a longing for something transcendent. In a secular age that downplays spirituality, people still feel drawn to the mysterious and even the macabre because it suggests there’s more to this life than the material world. Halloween, for many, provides a chance to dabble in the supernatural without any genuine risk or commitment. It’s a way to explore our curiosity with the spiritual and yet be shielded from its reality.

The fascination with death and darkness may reflect a longing for something transcendent.

Second, the cultural embrace of fear may serve as a release valve for deeper anxieties. In a society plagued by division, uncertainty, and anxiety about the future, Halloween offers an opportunity to face fear on manageable terms. Horror movies and haunted houses provide a controlled environment that lets us laugh and scream at the same time. We can face horror knowing we’re completely safe. This ritualizing of fear—turning our nightmares into entertainment—provides a strange sense of empowerment, though one that’s ultimately fleeting and superficial.

Another significant shift in Halloween’s cultural evolution is the increasing sexualization of the holiday. What was once an innocent occasion for children to dress up has become an opportunity for adults to wear racy and provocative costumes. This trend first began in the mid-1970s, as Juliet Lapidos notes, when “gay communities in the United States adopted Halloween as an occasion for revealing, over-the-top attire.” Today, it has become ubiquitous and is particularly evident in the women’s costume market, where many outfits are designed to be revealing or emphasize sexual appeal. Such sexualization reveals deeper cultural issues, such as the commodification of the body and how we can confuse our sense of identity with sexual desirability.

Additionally, our culture’s investment in fantasy and playacting on Halloween speaks to a deeper hunger for identity and the appeal, especially for adults, of transgressiveness. Costumes allow both children and adults to explore personas different from their daily reality. They can choose characters that represent humor, power, or even moral darkness. This drive might reveal a deeper restlessness—a dissatisfaction with the ordinary and a search for meaning rooted in expressive individualism.

How Should Christians Respond?

For believers, this holiday presents both challenges and opportunities. How do we disciple our children amid Halloween’s booming cultural allure? How do we relate meaningfully to our neighbors whose front lawns are adorned with the ghoulish rather than the glorious? As you navigate Halloween’s new realities, here are a few suggestions to consider.

Protect Your Conscience—and Your Neighbor’s

Some Christians may feel convicted to avoid Halloween entirely, while others may see it as an opportunity for community outreach. Both positions can honor Christ if approached thoughtfully and in good conscience. For those who choose to participate, consider how your actions might honor God and reflect his love to your neighbors. Don’t mock or shame those who disagree with your view. Engage with grace and be mindful of how you can build bridges rather than barriers, recognizing that faithful Christians can come to different conclusions.

And for those who think Halloween is a pagan practice to be shunned, avoid rushing to judgment about those who disagree. Recognize that many aspects of Halloween are about adiaphora, “indifferent things.” As the apostle Paul might say, Halloween candy doesn’t bring us near to God; we’re no worse if we don’t eat and no better if we do (see 1 Cor. 8:8).

Identify the Most Realistic Dangers

For most children, the danger of Halloween isn’t that they’ll become enamored with pagan spirituality but rather that they’ll succumb to a more subtle idol—materialism. A focus on acquiring more treats or having the best costume may seem tame. But it feeds into the increasing materialism that extends throughout the holiday season. Parents can guide children by emphasizing generosity, homespun creativity, and communal activities rather than sheer accumulation or competition.

For adults, a primary danger lies in the idol of escapism. Halloween offers an opportunity for many to indulge in fantasy, anonymity, and excess. Many are seeking a reprieve from the pressures of daily life and consider October 31 a time when moral rules become more flexible. This escape, even when seemingly harmless, can lead to a deeper disengagement from the responsibilities and realities of the world God has called us to steward. Adults should be mindful of how their participation in Halloween activities reflects their values and consider how they can use this cultural moment to demonstrate self-control, hospitality, and genuine joy, rather than an ephemeral thrill.

Seek Out Gospel-Oriented Opportunities

Halloween can provide opportunities to point our neighbors to deeper truths. Conversations about fear, death, and even costume choices can become entry points to discuss the reality of sin, the surprise of the gospel, and other matters of faith. For instance, if your coworker’s desk is strung with (cotton) cobwebs, or your neighbor’s yard is littered with (plastic) corpses, you have an opportunity to ask why Halloween is a favorite holiday and to follow up with a discussion of spiritual realities.

Conversations about fear, death, and even costume choices can become entry points to discuss the reality of sin, the surprise of the gospel, and other matters of faith.

In a similar way, the extravagance of Halloween decorations can offer a unique entry point for connection. Rather than withdrawing or condemning, try engaging. Compliment people’s creativity, join in the neighborhood activities, or host an event of your own. Showing Christ’s love often begins with merely being present—sharing life, even in moments where the culture seems far from him. Just as Paul in Athens pointed to an altar dedicated to an “unknown god” to bridge his message to a pagan audience (Acts 17:23), we too can use this cultural moment to point to deeper truths.

Shine Light in the Darkness

Halloween may be growing scarier and more elaborate, but the message of Christ’s triumph over fear and death remains steadfast.

While the world decorates for fright, we have an occasion to embody hope. We have an opportunity to disciple our children and engage our neighbors, showing them there’s a Light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5).

As believers, we can approach Halloween not with fear or judgment but with discernment and grace. By engaging thoughtfully with our culture’s evolving traditions, we can demonstrate that our hope is anchored in something far greater than seasonal thrills or fleeting escapes. In doing so, we invite others to consider the eternal truths that give meaning to our celebrations and transform our fears into faith.

This episode of The Everyday Pastor focuses on practical tips for cultivating humility in the service of Jesus Christ.

A voice interrupted, “But isn’t it nice to know that we’re not alone, that others mess up too? I find more solidarity when Jonah runs from God than when he gets things right.”

This cultural proverb isn’t new. Almost 300 years ago, Puritan Thomas Brooks warned that Satan prowls like a lion roaring, eager to “make all others eternally miserable with himself” through deceitful devices that encourage God’s people to sin (see 1 Pet. 5:8). One device is that we’ll glorify the misdeeds of Old Testament heroes, allowing them to lull us into spiritual complacency.

Brooks explained we must study closely the full timeline of the saints’ sin and repentance if we want to resist sin. Scripture declares not just the moral failing but also the seriousness of sin, the weight of sin’s suffering, the humility of repentance, and the beauty of forgiveness.

Four Remedies

Brooks provided four remedies for when we miss Scripture’s truer story of sin and repentance.

Remedy 1: Declare the Whole Story

We remember King David’s murder and adultery, but do we remember his cries for cleansing (Ps. 51:2)? We identify with Job’s impatience, but do we identify with his repentance in dust and ashes (Job 42:6)? We joke about Peter’s impulsive speech, but have we forgotten the bitter tears that followed (Luke 22:62)?

Brooks notes that the Holy Spirit has carefully displayed the saints’ fall into sin and their rise out of sin through repentance. These men grieved their sins and threw themselves at God’s mercy.

Too often, we turn our eyes on the sinner and his sin and forget the God who lifts the sinner out of sin. Where are your eyes when you read the stories of biblical saints? Lift them higher, to the God who leads his people to repentance.

Too often, we turn our eyes on the sinner and his sin and forget the God who lifts the sinner out of sin.

Remedy 2: Declare the Story’s End

David seemed immune to sin’s poison for a season, but God mercifully made him sick of it through Nathan’s speech (2 Sam. 12:1–13). Paul declared he did what he didn’t want to do, but he cried out in thanksgiving that God was delivering him from the flesh through Christ (Rom. 7:15, 24–25).

Because we trust in Christ, sin no longer rules our identities or hearts. Paul commands us to consider ourselves “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (6:11). While we still sin, we don’t make a trade of sin—we don’t make it a happy, willful, regular occurrence. Because of Christ’s resurrected life, we have new life, which means new identities (v. 4).

Like Scripture’s saints, we may fall. But we rise by repentance, that we might, in Brooks’s words, “keep the closer to Christ for ever.”

Remedy 3: Declare the Weight of Sin’s Discipline

Not all suffering is because of our sin. But we can be sure that if God loves us and delights in us, he’ll discipline us (Prov. 3:11–12). Scripture shows us that discipline is equally painful and fruitful (Heb. 12:11).

When God thrust Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden, he protected them from taking of the Tree of Life and living in their damned sin state forever (Gen. 3:22–23). When David’s son fell ill, he petitioned God’s graciousness until his son died, then he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped, restored (2 Sam. 12:20). When Jesus looked at Peter after his denial, conviction overwhelmed Peter and he wept (Luke 22:61–62).

We’re like these saints. It’s easy for us, before godly discipline, to consider our sin innocuous and unimportant. We disregard Scripture and hope God will see the “heart” behind it, as if this somehow excuses us from doing what’s right. We forget that sin is lawlessness, unrighteousness, the work of the Devil (1 John 3:4, 8; 5:17). We forget that because of our transgressions and iniquities, Christ was pierced and crushed, dying a criminal’s death on a cross (Isa. 53:5; Phil. 2:8).

Godly discipline reminds us of our sin’s offensiveness and our Savior’s goodness. Still, we must never sever the weight of God’s discipline and the sins of past saints. As Brooks reminded us: If you sin with David, you must suffer with David!

Remedy 4: Declare the ‘Why’

Why has God bothered to share about the fall of his saints? We can open our Bibles and read faithfully recorded accounts of shortcomings and missteps. Brooks suggests there are two reasons.

First, to keep us from sinking under the weight of our sins—as a reminder we’re not alone. Don’t I also need to know that God chose imperfect people who needed him? Don’t I find it comforting that the giants lining faith’s hallway in Hebrews 11 failed along the way? This remedy takes the cultural proverb that invites complacency about sin and alters it; the invitation is now to humility and repentance.

Second, as a warning. Brooks reminds us that God didn’t record his children’s failings so we might be encouraged to sin. Rather, he did it that we might seriously search our hearts, see the ungodliness of sin, and cling to the skirts of Christ.

Are we reminded of others’ failures so our own sins are normalized then trivialized? Of course not. When we hear of the saints’ sin, we’re meant to be sobered. We’re to grieve their sin and watch carefully how they respond. We witness their tears, discipline, and prayers. Then we watch as God exchanges his beauty for their ashes, all for his glory (Isa. 61:3). We remember that he can do this for us too.

Truer Story

Too often, we leave the stories of Scripture’s saints incomplete—we need to finish them. Their stories include sin and repentance, failure and suffering, neediness and dependence on God for forgiveness.

When we hear of the saints’ sin, we’re meant to be sobered.

Friends, we don’t fight Satan’s devices alone or in our own power. We fight with the whole story in our head and in our hearts: the story that declares Jesus victorious over every sin we commit; the story that declares the risen Christ as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30); the story that calls us not to boast in imperfect saints or our sinfulness but in the Lord (v. 31). The hope is that we’d suffer like these saints, repent with them, find forgiveness with them—not sin like them.

By “complementarianism,” we mean the broad approach that says men and women are created equal in value and in God’s image and yet different physically and spiritually, in such a way to complement one another and to reflect the relationship between Christ and the church (Gen. 1:27; Eph. 5:32). Practically speaking, this limits the role of elders (including pastors) in the church to men and encourages men to take initiative as the head in the home. This contrasts with the egalitarian position, which holds that men and women share the same function and purpose in the church and home.

This isn’t just an issue for progressive northern Europe. As complementarianism is increasingly cast aside throughout the world, churches and organizations everywhere will have to wrestle to maintain biblical fidelity when it comes to gender. We hope our approach will provide a useful template for others in the coming years.

Raised Egalitarian: Hanna

As a woman with a strong sense of calling to ministry, I (Hanna) shouldn’t have found it so hard to choose a side in the theological discussion of a woman’s role in the church. It was easy to buy the arguments of the egalitarian position given by my leaders and teachers. The way forward seemed clear for my life: study theology for a couple of years, work as a youth or children’s pastor, and then take the step forward to senior pastor. I had all the right conditions in place—a strong sense of calling, a passion for the gospel and church, and a gifting for leadership and teaching.

So I naturally followed all the steps and did what I believed was God’s calling for my life. I earned my bachelor’s in theology and became a pastor for a local church. But although everything seemed right on the outside, I had a secret stone in my shoe that wouldn’t stop chafing my conscience. Deep in my heart and mind, there was one thing missing: biblical conviction.

Surrounded by Egalitarianism: Christian

The Bible doesn’t shy away from the hot topics of today’s society, such as gender and sexuality. But what the Bible actually says about these issues can be hard to swallow for those raised within the progressive ideologies of the feminist movement. As a boy, raised within both Swedish and American cultures, I (Christian) was taught equality was the most important goal in relationships between men and women.

However, when my Swedish single mother became a Christian in my preteens, she began realizing the Bible called her to something even higher than equality: counting others more significant than herself (Phil. 2:3). As her understanding of the gospel deepened, my home life was transformed, even as my mom wrestled with the implications of God’s design.

Many of us have been taught it’s a matter of serious injustice if a woman doesn’t have full access to every position a man can have. But when the Bible sets limits for men and women in the church, it also teaches that limits aren’t a matter of injustice but of order (1 Cor. 14:40). We’ve been taught that leadership is power and that masculine power is almost always destructive, but the Bible says leadership is service and that a man who follows Christ must self-sacrificially lay down his life, using his strength to protect and serve (Matt. 20:25–28; Eph. 5:25).

Trust the Bible

As Christians, we live by faith in things we cannot see and don’t fully understand. Trust in God, rather than ourselves, is a most foundational element of our faith. We trust God’s love, his power, and his plan. We trust him for our eternal destiny as well as for his provision for our daily bread. We trust that Christ’s blood covers our sins and that through him we’re completely free and forgiven. We trust the Bible is God’s Word, desiring to follow what it says even when it’s hard or we don’t fully understand the reason behind some of its commandments. We obey God’s Word not by fear but because we trust that Jesus is Lord and that he knows what’s best far better than we do.

When I (Hanna) started to read specific Bible texts about men and women (e.g., Gen. 1–3; 1 Cor. 11:1–16; 1 Tim. 2:11–15; Eph. 5:22–33; 1 Pet. 3:1–7) with trust instead of suspicion as my foundation, everything changed. I stopped trying to find interpretations that could justify going around what the text clearly seemed to say and started to trust that God had a good reason to say what he said.

Almost immediately, the confusing parts of the puzzle found their proper places, and the whole picture started to make more sense to me. I could see the beauty in God’s creation of two genders: equal in value, yet differing in design and purpose. I could see that God’s plan isn’t oppressive but compassionate, designed for our best and for his glory.

Trust the Bible in an Egalitarian Culture

As we approach living out these convictions in the church life in the Nordic countries, perhaps it’s worth asking if the battle over God’s design for gender is even worth fighting. In societies where gender is widely accepted as a construct, and any differentiation in treatment between men and women is strongly condemned, is this a value vital to stand on?

We believe we must. We shouldn’t come ready to fight, because the battle for the culture is, in many ways, already lost. However, the greater battle for men and women’s souls isn’t lost. As Christ’s followers, we must live with a disarming honesty about our positions that will inevitably seem culturally backward to people. We must live as those who trust God and are free from pleasing man.

Rather than trying to posture ourselves as cool and modern, we can be up-front about how backward we’ll seem, then get on with the hard work of “prov[ing] that our love is real, over and over again,” as my favorite Swedish metal band, Blindside, says.

Trust the Bible After the Abuse of Women

What about the abuse and neglect of women throughout history and into today? How does that inform the discussion on men and women in the church?

Tragically, we must admit that much abuse has been done against women in God’s name. But every time the Bible is used to oppress, exploit, or silence women, it’s an abusive handling not only of the women but of God’s Word. The Bible is clear that God cares for women and wants to use them in powerful ways for his kingdom. Many women in the Bible had indispensable parts to play in salvation history. Jesus valued women, and Paul praised the women who served alongside him on his mission trips.

Therefore, it’s important to state that complementarianism doesn’t at all mean only a few select men have a call from God to serve in the church. We all have that calling. Every part in Christ’s body is needed—men and women complement and depend on each other. If the women in a church aren’t thriving, the men cannot flourish, and vice versa.

Live Out Healthy Complementarianism

Complementarianism means the heavy responsibilities of the elder/pastor are carried out by qualified men, to serve and care for the congregation, never to rule over them. Women and laymen can then be even more free to do everything God has called and gifted them for, with the help and support of their leaders.

For me (Hanna), this means that although I’m no longer a pastor, my calling hasn’t changed. I’m fully convinced I serve God even better now as I follow the biblical guidelines for men and women in the church than when I took on the service of elder.

We believe it’s vital that we men and church leaders actively seek out and encourage women’s proper participation in church ministry. Because God has designed men and women to complement one another, no church service will be complete without the perspective of that church community’s women.

Partnering Across Disagreement

Perhaps an even more practical question for ministry in the Nordics is this: How can complementarian churches relate to those who firmly stand by the Bible, yet hold an egalitarian position on women in ministry? The complementarian position is again a minority position, even among evangelical believers in the Nordics.

We want to emphasize that though we believe the theological debate between egalitarian and complementarian perspectives is important, it doesn’t strike at the gospel and doesn’t prevent us from Christian friendship with those who disagree. Therefore, it’s important to maintain a tone of respect and open dialogue with churches who differ with us on this matter, continuing to seek opportunities to partner together for mission and service.

Please God, Not Man

In conclusion, is it possible to build complementarian churches in the Nordics? Yes, we absolutely believe it’s both possible and necessary. We can trust that God’s plan is the best, and therefore we can confidently follow the biblical guidelines. Many people will not agree with or fully understand our perspective, but we’re free from needing to please man.

We’re not here to preach complementarianism first, but rather the gospel of redemption through Jesus Christ who died for our sins and rose to give us life. We live in an age of fragile secular consensus that leads people to a desperate overdesire for identity often found in causes that are good but not big enough to hold the weight of their souls. If we come to these people ready to admit we hold views that may be offensive, and then go on with the hard work of loving and serving them nonetheless, we may be much more effective at earning their audience than when we engage in endless culture wars and debates.

This has a great deal to do with the gospel. We can and should agree with the culture that access to jobs in society should be strictly based on qualifications and not on gender. But in the Christian church and home, we confess that our acceptance by God isn’t based on our qualifications but rather on God’s grace alone. Likewise, God has called men to lead the church as pastors and elders based not on their own merits but on Christ’s grace alone. We don’t need to prove or battle for our identities. Our lives are hidden with Christ on high (Col. 3:3), so we can come into the gender conversation with an openness and security that we pray will be attractive and compelling to others around Europe.

“It’s 8:00 p.m. and we’re walking by Tremont Temple,” said pastor Curtis Cook. “The lights are off. The doors are closed. And Mark’s like, ‘Can we go in?’”

“Mark” is Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church (CHBC). He and a friend were having dinner with Cook when the conversation turned to Tremont Temple Baptist Church.

Tremont Temple is massive, in both size and history. The 186-year-old church seats nearly 2,600 in a gorgeous, ornate building. One of the first churches in America to be racially integrated with free black members, it has hosted speakers such as Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. By 1929, its diverse congregation of nearly 4,000 members had a vibrant Sunday school, choir, Bible class, baseball team, and bowling league.

But nearly a century later, attendance at Tremont Temple had shrunk to around 70 on a good week. The preaching wasn’t expositional. Financially, it was failing.

“It costs about $20,000 a month to keep the building going,” said longtime member Phyllis DaRocha, who was on the finance committee. “Utility bills alone are in the thousands. Nothing is cheap, and that’s not counting insurance or salaries.”

Area pastors worried about its slide. Across New England—the least religious area of the country—church buildings are being turned into restaurants, bars, and condos.

“We were afraid the gospel would no longer be preached there,” Cook said. He and Dever tried a few doors until they found one unlocked.

“We go walking in the church,” Cook said. “We found our way into the sanctuary, and we prayed for God to provide a way forward.”

It’s been about a decade. These days, a former CHBC intern named Jaime Owens is the lead pastor of Tremont Temple. He preaches expositionally to about 100 to 120 weekly attendees. They have small groups, a plurality of elders, and 15 men learning to preach.

And they’re financially solvent.

“It has to be God’s miracle,” said DaRocha. “Our church is flourishing.”

“It’s exciting, because you can see God’s hand working in how he makes these things happen,” said Norman Crump, who has been a member since 1995. “We are blessed that God has given us a good building to be in. But the richness of the teaching surpasses the richness of the building.”

Tremont Theatre

Back in 1838, an ardent abolitionist and deacon named Timothy Gilbert grew irritated that his church, Charles Street Baptist in Boston, barred black people from sitting in the main sanctuary. So one Sunday, Gilbert brought a black friend to his pew. When that inevitably sparked a fight with church leaders, Gilbert left and started a congregation pointedly called the Free Baptist Church.

Within three years, the Free Church had 325 members. The next year, they baptized 138 more, perhaps in part because revivalist Jacob Knapp was in town. He preached passionately against sin, including slavery, rum, and theaters, and was so effective that for a while nearly every theater in Boston was forced to close.

For the financially struggling theater on Tremont Street, that was the end. The bankrupt theater was forced to sell its building—to the Free Church Baptists.

The Baptists, who renamed themselves after Tremont Street, spent the next 60 years in one adrenaline rush after another: Since their building was one of the biggest in town, it was where Abraham Lincoln gave a speech in 1848. In 1850, it was where an Egyptian mummy went on display. Over the years, a string of famous speakers stood on Tremont Temple’s stage—Frederick Douglass, Daniel Webster, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and D. L. Moody. In 1867, Charles Dickens read from The Christmas Carol at Tremont Temple.

The whole time, the congregation—and the city—was thriving. From 1850 to 1900, Boston’s population boomed from 200,000 to over a million. Tremont Temple’s membership—still racially diverse—grew to more than 2,000.

But it wasn’t all easy sailing.

Fire!

In 1852, Tremont Temple caught on fire and had to be rebuilt. In 1879, the church caught fire again. And then again in 1893.

“This last calamity led to many very serious questions,” wrote George Lorimer, who was then the pastor. “The new fire laws demanded a great increase in the outlay for reconstruction. We could not build cheaply, if we would, and it was at first thought probable it might be best to abandon the location.”

The congregation could get enough money from selling the land to buy something in the suburbs, Lorimer said. “But the members could not tolerate the idea of abandoning a position so strategic, surrendering the hold that Protestantism has through this organization upon the heart of the city.”

So instead of leaning out, the people leaned in, building a seven-story church “commensurate with the value of the ground and one that would afford increased facilities to the work of the church,” Lorimer said.

He wasn’t kidding. The last rebuilding, in 1896, was probably the most ornate ever constructed by a Baptist congregation. From the steel frame to the mechanical works to the paint on the woodwork, the materials were fireproof. Double-paned glass windows kept the sanctuary quiet from noise on the street. Two thousand light bulbs were powered by an electrical generator. The outside facade included 10,000 bricks placed in a carefully considered pattern—“like a huge mosaic,” Tremont Temple’s famed architect said.

The cost was substantial—$523,000 back then, which would be around $20 million today. Lorimer did some fundraising, but overall, he wasn’t too worried about it. He planned to rent an entire floor to the Missionary Union at a low cost, which would benefit both the missionaries and the church. Add a few more floors of offices and some ground-level storefronts, and the building could bring in enough rent money to easily take care of the debt.

He was right. In fact, by showing “wholesome” movies—think David Copperfield and the Wizard of Oz—from 1908 to 1926, Tremont Temple not only paid off the building but bought a new organ.

By 1929, things were going like gangbusters. The country was prosperous, Boston was booming, and Tremont Temple had close to 4,000 members. Their pastors were theologically orthodox. Their outreach was drawing in new converts. And the congregation was caring for their new building by setting up endowments for things like altar flowers, the pastor’s carriage, and radio programming.

What could go wrong?

What Went Wrong

First, the stock market crashed the economy. Then manufacturing declined or moved away. Unemployment and poverty rose. Families moved to the suburbs for better education and less crime.

Between 1950 and 1980, Boston lost almost 30 percent of its population.

Tremont Temple’s population dropped right along with Boston’s. By the late 1940s, her membership was down to 2,000. By the 1950s, the storefronts on her ground floors had been abandoned. By the 1980s, the leaders were asking the city for permission to build a 37-story tower for offices and hotel rooms, along with a multilevel garage, so they could gain enough funds to repair their building. But this project, and another later proposal, fell through. By 2007, Tremont Temple’s attendance slid under 200.

Tremont Temple’s denomination—the American Baptist Churches USA—was also struggling. Egalitarian since the 1800s, the denomination affirmed that homosexuality was incompatible with Christian teaching in 1992, but the next year said there are “a variety of understandings throughout our denomination on issues of human sexuality.” Both sexuality and abortion issues were left to the discretion of the local churches, where membership fell from around 1.6 million in 1982 to 1.1 million today.

That’s the church Owens stepped into in 2015 when he took a call to Tremont Temple. The church had a female associate pastor, a firm stand on biblical sexuality, and about 70 aging weekly worshipers in a crumbling building with more and more deferred maintenance.

The pastor before Owens, Denton Lotz, had an assessment done. Longtime member Jane Crump remembers what it said: “We were almost dead.”

Almost Dead

Initially, Owens was hired as an associate pastor. When Lotz retired, 31-year-old Owens was a natural candidate.

“People were skeptical because he was a kid,” Jane Crump said. “But he was such a good preacher, and a good man who loved the Lord.”

Tremont Temple promoted him, and Owens got to work. He had coffee with everybody, preached expository messages, and hired an associate pastor, Dave Comeau. Together they worked on introducing a plurality of elders, tweaking the church’s bylaws, ending some programs, and restructuring adult Sunday school classes. They explained the concept of congregationalism, started dreaming about evangelism, and hung banners proclaiming “Christ Is All” on Tremont Street.

In 2019, they went through the finances.

“We do have a trust—actually, several trusts,” DaRocha said. “But they are supposed to be there for emergencies.”

Not only that, but some of those funds are restricted—they can only legally be used for their intended purpose, such as funding an orchestra for the Christmas concert.

Over the years, shrinking membership meant money for regular operating expenses had to be taken from the trusts—sometimes from the wrong accounts. Slowly, Tremont Temple’s normal expenses were draining its emergency reserves.

Meanwhile, the church needed a $600,000 sprinkler system, the elevators were broken, and the balcony outside was about to collapse onto passersby.

Immediately, Tremont Temple’s leaders tightened things up. The Christmas concert was canceled. Owens took a pay cut. Comeau moved to another area church to become a church-planting resident. Two janitors and the secretary were laid off.

“We were having to decide which staff to let go,” DaRocha said. “It was terrible. It was a really hard time for the church. . . . We realized that if we couldn’t turn this around, we might end up losing the building. People were shocked and heartbroken.”

One was Sara Colum, who’d been attending for about 15 years.

“I always thought of the building as just beautiful,” she said. “It’s something we treasure, something that feels like home. I was really torn up about the idea that we might have to sell and be a church somewhere else.”

Part of it was the history—for more than 180 years, Christians had gathered there to hear God’s Word, sing, and evangelize.

And part of it was location—Tremont Temple sits in the heart of downtown Boston.

“What that means is, if we had to sell the building, it’s a gut-job, if not a total teardown,” Colum said. She’d seen other churches in the area turned into condos, restaurants, and a Dollar Tree store.

Thinking of Tremont Temple as upscale apartments or a nightclub made the congregants feel a little sick.

“It’s spiritually, morally, and aesthetically horrible,” Colum said.

Short on options, Owens started teaching about how the church wasn’t the building but the body. His people tried to stiffen their upper lips.

“We were trying to be like, ‘Well, if this has to happen then we have to accept it,’” Colum said.

“And then here comes a miracle,” DaRocha said.

Relief

In 2019, Owens got connected with the Southern Baptist Convention’s compassion ministry, Send Relief.

“They talked to Jaime about possibly coming into our building to do a work in Massachusetts,” DaRocha said. “They were scouting out locations and felt Boston was the perfect place to start a new extension for their organization. We happened to be a church right in the inner city of Boston. It was a miracle.”

Send Relief’s 16 domestic ministry centers focus on caring for refugees, protecting children and families, and fighting human trafficking. In Boston, they rented out Tremont Temple’s entire fifth floor and began eating lunch with the homeless, working with the victims of sex trafficking, and helping churches reach out to the growing immigrant population around them.

“They’re doing really good work,” DaRocha said. “I see their vans all over the city.”

Send Relief also partnered with the Boston Center for Biblical Counseling, which joined them in Tremont Temple’s office space. Downstairs, a Hispanic congregation had been renting space for their weekly church services; now a Korean church began doing the same thing. A Christian coffee shop is building out one of the storefronts on the ground floor.

In 2023, the city declared Tremont Temple a historic landmark, protecting it from certain kinds of development in the future.

“In the last two years, we’ve applied for three major grants for the facade project, totaling approximately $1.35 million,” Owens said. “All three were granted, nearly covering the entire project, which is soon to begin. Crazy provision!”

“God was opening these doors for us,” DaRocha said. “One thing after another started coming through.”

One Thing After Another

Things aren’t perfect at Tremont Temple. The weekly attendance is growing—and there are eight babies in the nursery—but it hovers around 100 adults, which still feels tiny in the massive sanctuary. Some of the polity is still tangled up. And the sixth and seventh floors still need renters.

But Tremont Temple will stay in the middle of Boston.

Every second Sunday, some of the congregation walks a block and a half to the oldest park in America—the 50-acre Boston Common.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” they ask anyone they find there. Then they strike up a conversation—What are you selling? What game are you playing? What do you think is the craziest thing going on in the world right now?

Sometimes people are hostile to any talk of Jesus. Sometimes they’re impatient or ambivalent. And sometimes they’re curious or enthusiastic.

Each time they go out, the Tremont Temple folks are bolder, elder Ellison Domkap said. “Almost everyone was sharing, ‘I didn’t know I could do this! I can see myself having more courage!’”

But that’s not the best part, Domkap said: “To the glory of God, we have seen some people make decisions in accepting Christ as their Savior.”

To Jane Crump, the rescued Tremont Temple has the new energy of a church plant.

“God is working,” she said. “It’s very exciting. I am old, but I hope the Lord keeps me around long enough so I can see some more seats filled. But the number of people isn’t as important as redeeming the lost and having the saints discipled.”

The financial hardship “was the worst and the best,” DaRocha said. “It turned sorrow to joy in a way only God could do. . . . If it weren’t for the Lord intervening, I don’t know where we would have been. It’s so tragic to have a church with such history close. It goes to show you that hope is real. Prayer is real. Miracles are real.”

While we asked each other questions about how God’s Word applied to first foods, naptime routines, and work, we didn’t realize we were asking something even deeper. Ten years into our motherhood journeys, our deepest questions started to crystallize—we didn’t want to know only what to do in motherhood but who to be.

Fill-in-the-Blank Mom

We’ve seen moms try to answer this question in a myriad of ways. (And of course, we’ve done it too.) It’s like we imagine a blank line before the word “mom,” and then we fill in that blank with something that feels like a fit. The thought process, though often subconscious and complex, might cycle through subcultures and stereotypes: homesteading mom, urban mom, overseas-missionary mom, crunchy mom, gentle-parenting mom, homeschool mom, empowered mom, trendy mom, influencer mom, stay-at-home mom, career mom, chill mom, clean-living mom, I-do-what-I-want mom, you-can’t-put-me-in-a-box mom, and so on.

We didn’t want to know only what to do in motherhood but who to be.

Deep down, it seems like if we can find the right word to fill in the blank, it’ll shore up our wavering hearts and give us the assurance we need that we’re doing motherhood “right.” We think if we get the right picture, we’ll have a model. And if we have a model, there can be a handbook. And a handbook means we can finally have a formula for motherhood, erasing (or at least easing) our role’s questions, fears, and ambiguities. A tangible model for motherhood means we can be a little more sure we’re doing it “right” and have a measuring stick to check our progress.

But here’s the catch—no matter how much we try to model ourselves after a certain type of mom, we’ll never execute it perfectly. We’ll fall short and won’t keep up in certain areas. Or life will hand us trials, sorrows, and circumstances we never expected and that don’t fit the mold we were trying to fit ourselves into. For a time, we might hold it all together according to our cultural model, but even that can lead to a smug and judgmental attitude as we puff ourselves up for finding “the one right way.” Eventually, we find we’re still not happy with the mom we are, and we’re left longing and questioning.

Our bent to fill in the space before “mom” is a good one. There’s a word that can fill in the blank, and it’s probably not the word you’ve been searching for—gospel.

Gospel Mom

The purpose of our motherhood is ultimately rooted in God and his good design. It’s not about us; it’s about him. As women created in God’s image, we exist to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.” We do that first and foremost by acknowledging the “bad news” that we’re sinners who fall short of God’s glory and have no ability to accomplish this purpose by ourselves. Then, by believing and confessing the gospel or “good news” that Jesus Christ came to save sinners through his life, death, and resurrection, we’re made new.

Knowing Christ changes everything about who we are and how we live, including our motherhood. It isn’t just about one moment in history where Jesus hung on a cross; it encapsulates a story we’re invited to be part of, and it gives us answers to our deepest longings and questions.

Knowing Christ changes everything about who we are and how we live, including our motherhood.

As the gospel compels us to look to Christ, we learn who we are, who we need, and who we should be. We start to understand our past and look forward to our future. We discover where we can get life, hope, help, joy, peace, rest, love, comfort, strength, and so much more. Our identities are secured so that no matter what happens to us or how we stumble, we’re safely bound to Christ, all the way through, until we reach home.

Mom, God does have a person he wants you to model your life after, and that person is his Son, Jesus Christ. God doesn’t give you a formula or a precise point-by-point, product-by-product guide for every minor decision in motherhood, but he does give you his Word, with the instructions you need to walk wisely through your unique motherhood journey. God doesn’t leave you to figure it all out on your own. He gives you his Spirit (and the church) to empower, help, and guide you along the way.

There are times when we rely more on what Jesus gives us access to rather than resting in the truth that he himself is our access. Jesus isn’t merely our passage to eternal life with God—he’s always more and better than we can imagine. As we turn to Jesus and learn from him, we’ll more clearly recognize his voice. As we read, study, and obey God’s Word, his voice will become easier and easier to follow.

Hawkins teaches the following:

• The positive influence of a father’s relationship
• Adam and Eve’s relationship with God and separation as a result of sin
• The promise of a Savior and the closing of a door
• Those who don’t enter the sheepfold by the door are thieves and robbers
• A real threat: the Enemy’s attempts to steal, kill, and destroy
• What are the spiritual thieves and robbers in our lives?
• Jesus’s promise of abundant life and what it truly means for us
• Walking in obedience and embracing the invitation from Jesus
• The power of death defeated and the hope of resurrection
• Enter through the Door and walk into the Father’s presence with bold access

In The Spirit of the Game: American Christianity and Big-Time Sports, Paul Emory Putz fills this gap. His groundbreaking survey shows how sports, religion, and politics converge to influence American life and culture. No part of American life is untouched by religion—especially Protestant Christianity—and sports. “Sportianity” is the wedding of sports and Christianity. It has had both positive and negative influences on many sociopolitical movements of the past century. Putz sets out to show how the Christian athlete movement “shaped the development of American institutions and ideologies” (3).

More than Sports

The Spirit of the Game shows how important sports has been within American culture, especially for issues like racial reconciliation. Putz highlights the work of John M. Perkins, whose three R’s of community development––relocation, reconciliation, and redistribution––have inspired Christians to fight poverty and pursue racial justice.

I first encountered Perkins’s work more than 20 years ago as an intern for the Athletes in Action’s Los Angeles Urban Project. His With Justice for All was required reading. As Putz notes, the Urban Project “became arguably the most substantial racial justice initiative developed by a sports ministry organization” (201). That experience changed the way I understood my vocation and became the foundation for my doctoral research. There was always more than just competition at play in sports.

There was always more than just competition at play in sports.

Still, some people argue the periodic political discussions by ESPN pundits shouldn’t be included in athletics. The larger culture demands a clear demarcation between sports and politics. For many people, athlete protests like Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem are part of a novel trend. Yet Putz shows that within the Christian athlete movement, there has been and continues to be a belief “that Christian coaches and athletes can and should use their platform within sports to influence and shape the direction of American life” (207).

Social Constraints

Christian coaches, athletes, and administrators have missed opportunities to lead the nation on issues of racial unity. And yet, some Christians did lead on such issues. Branch Rickey, for example, was the Dodgers general manager who signed Jackie Robinson as the first black player in Major League Baseball. In 1931, Rickey told an interviewer, “I want to live the ideals of Christ every day, in business and on the athletic field” (206). Tragically, however, most Christians within sport were content to maintain a racialized hierarchy, the culture’s accepted status quo.

As black athletes took prominent positions on the field throughout the 20th century, it created tension that led to faithful activism. Some Christian athletes felt compelled to speak to the societal ills that affected them and their community. Yet speaking out about hotly debated issues always carries risk.

For example, in 2020, when racial tensions rose, the donor-dependent nature of campus sports ministries made it difficult for leaders to offer much beyond vague assertions that the gospel affects all areas of life. It’s hard to be clear amid controversy when your livelihood is at stake. The structures of the Christian athlete movement often reward staying in the middle of the road.

Theological Ambiguity

Similarly, applying the gospel to all areas of life requires theological clarity that many sports ministries lack. They typically espouse “an optimistic, big-tent Protestantism” rather than “emphasiz[ing] deep commitments to particular points of doctrine” (4). The attractional nature of sports ministries encourages an emphasis on success rather than doctrinal precision.

As a result, many sports ministries treat Christianity as a performance enhancer to maximize athletic and coaching potential. Success on the playing field is often a litmus test for spiritual maturity. Evangelistic platforms are offered to those who perform well. Simply put, no one wants to hear the gospel proclaimed by athletes and coaches who aren’t winners. But losing can be a sanctifying gift from God. A sports ministry culture that doesn’t provide a robust theology of suffering cannot help athletes understand God’s redemptive work in all aspects of life.

Nevertheless, a minority of leaders in the Christian athlete movement see sports primarily as a means to worship Christ. If all of life is worship, then how we train, compete, and live as coaches and athletes should point to God’s glory in all our endeavors. This approach is much healthier, but it remains less popular, largely because of the cultural cachet that comes from success.

Challenging Future

At their best, Christians have attempted to introduce the gospel into our sports institutions for evangelism and to encourage societal improvement. And yet, as Putz argues, “The challenge for the [Christian athletic] movement and its organizations, when faced with growing divides and diversity, is this: Whose Christianity? And whose America?” (206). Navigating Christianity with diverse theological, ethnic, cultural, and political identities is challenging for “Sportianity.”

If all of life is worship, then how we train, compete, and live as coaches and athletes should point to God’s glory.

Yet Christians involved in sports should have the courage to defy the cultural moment. For athletes and coaches who make their living in the public eye, sometimes those decisions come at a high cost. But sometimes making the right decision comes with substantial benefits that extend beyond the individual athlete. This is how we can show that the gospel does, indeed, touch every area of life.

Some people mentioned in The Spirit of the Game are friends who influenced my life and spiritual formation. Many of the ministries mentioned inform how I think about life and ministry to this day. From my perspective, Putz tells this important story well. Coaches, athletes, and pastors who hope to understand the relationship between Protestant Christianity and sports in the United States will find this an important book for years to come.

Directed by Edward Berger and adapted from the 2016 novel by Robert Harris, Conclave seems to suggest the contemporary Roman Catholic Church is just as corrupt and broken as American democracy, and just as driven by the egos of overconfident men and their appetites for power. While it makes some fair points, in the end Conclave’s potency is compromised by its inability to conceal clear bias in a certain direction.

Electoral Parallels

I enjoyed Berger’s last film, 2022’s Oscar-winning All Quiet on the Western Front. But that film was heavy-handed in forcing its point in unsubtle ways. Unfortunately, the same tendency bogs down Conclave.

The fictional film follows a papal conclave that happens in the wake of a beloved pope’s death. Most of the drama takes place within the Vatican’s walls as the College of Cardinals gathers to elect a new bishop of Rome. The cardinals spend several days going through multiple secret ballot votes until a candidate wins at least a two-thirds majority of votes. All of it is totally hidden from the public and the press, save the black or white smoke that emanates from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney, indicating a failed vote or successful election of a new pope.

Sure, Conclave isn’t about selecting a new president; it’s about selecting a new pope. But the parallels are obvious and intentional.

Much of this is interesting to watch, even as a Protestant believer who finds the papacy and the Roman Catholic idea of apostolic succession unbiblical. The film’s inside look at such a secretive but long-held tradition is Conclave’s greatest strength.

A troupe of excellent actors enhances the drama’s prestige: The excellent Ralph Fiennes plays Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, who presides over the conclave and allies with liberal cardinals like Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci). Both are contenders to be the next pope, as are Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow) and Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati). The film is at its best when it subtly observes these men’s characters and allows the audience to discern their integrity (or lack thereof), particularly whether they’re more defined by humility or ambition.

Many times, though, the film oversells its political parallels. One character says, “I feel like I’m at some American political convention.” Another makes a comment obviously directed straight at the American viewer in 2024: “Is this what we’re reduced to, voting for the least-worst option?”

The conclave’s primary factions fall roughly along a progressive/conservative split that mirrors American politics. To be sure, there is a divide in the Catholic Church between those who prioritize conserving tradition and those who seek an updated, more inclusive church. But in Conclave, this split doesn’t concern theology as much as it does the issues driving American politics.

One giveaway is the character Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), the Trump-esque conservative candidate campaigning on a platform of traditionalism and nationalism (essentially “Make the papacy Italian again!”). He has an ostentatious swagger about him and doesn’t mince words as he critiques the previous pope and decries encroaching liberalism. When incidents of Islamist terror happen outside the Vatican walls over the course of the conclave, Tedesco uses the opportunity to ratchet up the us-versus-them rhetoric his liberal opponents despise.

The liberal cardinals respond to Tedesco in the way American progressives respond to Trump. They say things like “We liberals have to unite against him!” and “It’s a war!” They argue a Tedesco victory would undo decades of progress and send Rome back to the dark ages.

Watching Conclave, it’s hard to imagine actual cardinals talking about one another in these ways, demonizing “the other side” with brazen partisan rhetoric. But this film doesn’t attempt to accurately reflect the Catholic Church’s reality as much as to land points about the type of Christianity it doesn’t like (traditional/conservative) and the type it hopes will prevail (progressive).

Post-Christian Desire for a Doubting Church

Conclave is a cultural product of the post-Christian West. On one hand, it appreciates the church’s aesthetics. The film’s cinematography (often lingering on the Sistine Chapel’s beauty) and elegant black-white-red color palette suggest some fondness for the church’s contribution to culture. On the other hand, the drama’s shadowy vibes and menacing music underscore a posture of skepticism toward institutional Christianity.

Berger goes out of his way to observe the marginalization (and silence) of women in contrast to the consolidation of power among men—a move intended to associate the church with predatory patriarchy. He comedically lingers in one scene on a deferential curtsy by a nun (played brilliantly by the great Isabella Rossellini) that speaks volumes.

This conflicted approach perfectly captures the post-Christian mood. The pomp and circumstance of it all is endearing, and some of the Christian characters’ virtues are laudable; but the church’s institutional authority and beliefs (particularly its gender dynamics) are disdained.

Conclave is a cultural product of the post-Christian West.

It’s not that the filmmakers want the church to go away entirely. They just want a church that matches their progressive views. This becomes clearer and clearer as the movie goes on. A theme starts to emerge around the goodness of doubt and the virtue of uncertainty. “Let us pray for a pope who doubts,” one cardinal says in a pivotal sermon. “Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.”

“Certainty” is framed in Conclave (as it often is by progressive Christians) as the most egregious sin. Traditions must be questioned and long-held beliefs challenged. The church isn’t the past, one liberal cardinal asserts; the church “is what we do next.” He might as well have been advocating for a church defined by “what can be, unburdened by what has been.”

Of course, reform is valuable in the church. We Protestants know this well (Happy early Reformation Day!). But elevating uncertainty to the highest value isn’t a recipe for healthy reform and an enduring church. Conclave is correct to assert the fallibility of the church’s human leadership. But too often a healthy skepticism about human authority sets the stage for a doubt of all authority and eventually a deconstruction of faith.

Uncertainty can be weaponized as a destroyer of whatever tradition we don’t like. Appealing to examples of corrupt church leaders becomes an excuse to throw all church leadership—and their interpretation of Scripture—into question. Sober realism about church leadership is one thing, but a “doubting church” free-for-all is more progressive wish-fulfillment than a realistic course. It’s impossible to build on a foundation that’s ambiguous, shifting, and basically up for grabs. That’s precisely the sort of future Conclave wants to build for the church.

Between Certainties

Major spoiler follows. In the end, Conclave underscores its position by who it has “winning” the papal election. The victor is a dark-horse, mysterious candidate who wasn’t even on the original invite list: Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz), who has led Catholics in some of the hardest places in the Middle East (Baghdad, Kabul). He wins because he appears to be the most humble, Jesus-like servant leader—decidedly not seeking power.

Elevating uncertainty to the highest value isn’t a recipe for healthy reform and an enduring church.

But here’s the twist: Benitez isn’t a he at all. “He” has a uterus and ovaries. He’s intersexual, having been “assigned” male at birth and living as a man, even though he later discovered he had female reproductive organs.

When Lawrence discovers the secret and confronts Benitez, the new pope (who tellingly chooses the name Pope Innocent XIV) says, “I am what God made me,” a familiar line in the LGBT+ movement. “I know what it is to exist between the world’s certainties,” he adds, in a binary-defying statement intended to be the film’s mic-drop line.

Lawrence is deeply shaken, but it’s too late. Benitez is the new pope: history’s first female—or at least gender ambiguous—head of the Catholic Church. It’s a zinger of an ending, not only because the joke is on 2,000 years of “patriarchy” but because the wishes for a church built on uncertainty come true in the most vivid, potentially catastrophic of ways. The new pope embodies uncertainty and doubt, his very biology apparent evidence that God isn’t interested in clear binaries and easy certainties.

Again, however, this is just a progressive fantasy with no grounding in the realities of biblical theology on topics like gender and sexuality and humanity as male and female. Still, it’s telling that a major Hollywood film casts a vision like this. I’m not sure mainstream audiences will buy it. But if they do, it’ll be further evidence of how much work Christians have to do—on the topic of gender and sexuality but also on the issues of ecclesial authority and doctrinal certainty.

There are legitimate questions to ask about power and leadership abuse in the church, of course, and about how these things leave a trail of dechurching casualties and declining trust in theological traditions. When one character says of the late pope that he never doubted God but doubted the church, he’s describing a widespread sentiment among many Christians clinging to God in spite of the church. These are good questions to ask, important conversations to have. But hopefully, we can come to better answers than what Conclave offers.

I knew what my counselor meant by the question, but in the silence that followed, the Holy Spirit reminded me of David’s words in Psalm 32:5: “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,’ and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.’”

So I uttered one surprising word in response: “No.” Aware of my counselor’s quizzical gaze, I added, “But I do think it’s time for me to accept God’s forgiveness.”

Test Cultural Refrains

The more I reflect on our conversation, the more I question the use of reflexive pronouns in spiritual vocabulary. Remember reflexive pronouns from elementary school? They signal that the sentence’s object is the same as its subject.

“Forgive yourself.” “Love yourself.” “Give yourself grace.”

These are common cultural refrains, but they’re not gospel anthems. While they may derive from the truth that we should recognize our God-given dignity and value as image-bearers, both in how we honor others and how we view ourselves, taken too far, these refrains wrongly encourage us to provide for ourselves things we ultimately need from God. As we test them against the gold standard of Scripture, we find them to be the fool’s gold of a culture infatuated with self.

‘Forgive Yourself’

In Psalm 32:1, David declares that blessing belongs to those whose “sin is covered.” We’re blessed when Christ’s blood covers our sins, but woe to us when we try to cover them on our own! When God covers our sin, it’s atonement; when we cover our sin, it’s deceit that leads to despair (vv. 2–4).

Even the Pharisees knew that God alone forgives sin (Luke 5:21). When we attempt to make forgiveness reflexive, we deny our dependence on Christ. We unwittingly believe the lie that we can atone for the sins we committed. Worse yet, we seek to enthrone ourselves in God’s place. The gospel teaches that we receive forgiveness by believing in Christ’s finished work (Acts 10:43). Either we receive forgiveness from God or we stand condemned.

Either we receive forgiveness from God or we stand condemned.

‘Love Yourself’

Scripture teaches us in no uncertain terms that self-love is a sign of the times (2 Tim. 3:2). And yet, calls for self-love abound even within Christian spaces. God is love. To know him is to be enveloped by the Trinity’s deep and personal delight. When we pursue reflexive self-love, we rob ourselves of relationship with Love himself.

Like forgiveness, love is a gift from God that we receive. Romans 5:5 says that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” The point isn’t that we’d love ourselves; the point is that we’d love one another (John 15:12). As the Father has loved the Son, as the Son has loved us, and as the Spirit has filled us with the capacity to yield the fruit of this love, so we’re to love one another (v. 9; Gal. 5:22).

‘Give Yourself Grace’

What about the common quip that we all need to give ourselves a little more grace? When we hold this seemingly innocuous idea up to the piercing light of Scripture, we find it an impossible proposition. Sinful human beings have access to grace through Christ alone (Rom. 5:2). We can no more give ourselves grace than we can give ourselves CPR. We’re dead on arrival unless God breathes new life into us by his Spirit. If we need more grace, we need more of God. When we receive more grace, we receive it from the indwelling life of his Spirit, not from the “broken cisterns” of our own hearts (Jer. 2:13).

The “reflexive gospel” is the mistaken belief that we can unilaterally confer any of God’s benefits and blessings on ourselves. The reflexive gospel isn’t the gospel at all. It’s just another lie born out of human hearts curved inward—Augustine and Luther’s notion of homo incurvatus in se—a modern-day rendition of an age-old problem.

We can no more give ourselves grace than we can give ourselves CPR.

These refrains are the siren song of a serpent who “masquerades as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14, NIV). Listen again, and see if you hear the hiss of his deception: “Forgive yourself. Love yourself. Give yourself grace. You do it. Did God really say you need him for that?”

Reflective, Not Reflexive

The true gospel teaches us that God became human to do what no human being could do for herself. The true gospel teaches us that “his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness,” and we receive this sacred endowment “through the knowledge of him” alone (2 Pet. 1:3, emphasis added).

True Christianity is meant to be reflective, not reflexive.

With “unveiled face[s]”—uncovered faces, you might say—we stare into the depths of God’s glory, and he transforms us into his image “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18). Only when we bare our sin before him, when we ditch the mirrors and the selfie sticks and we stare instead into the face of Glory himself, will his reflection begin to change us from the inside out.

Over time, as he transforms us, we begin to bear the fruit of his Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23). We begin to reflect his glory to the world around us. As reflections of him, mindful of the benefits we’ve received, we forgive one another, we love one another, and we point one another to the grace that “we have all received” in Christ (John 1:16). And, lest we forget, “it is no longer [we] who live, but Christ who lives in [us]” (Gal. 2:20).

One pervasive misconception is that we’ll spend eternity in heaven, gathered around God’s throne with the angels. Of course, this is a present reality—deceased saints are indeed worshiping God in heaven. Scripture is clear on this point (e.g., 2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23; Rev. 6:9–10). But the church is often ignorant about what will transpire in the future after Christ’s second coming.

For the last hundred years or so, evangelicals have expended more energy on what precedes the eternal state—the nature of the tribulation, the millennial kingdom, and so on—than on the eternal state itself. Let’s examine what Scripture says about the new heavens and earth and consider a few points of encouragement.

New Cosmos

We find the most detailed account of the nature of the eternal state in Revelation 21–22. The challenge, though, is that John reveals his climactic vision using Old Testament symbolism drawn from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, 1 Kings, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. To understand Revelation 21–22, one must understand the Old Testament.

John envisions “a new heaven and a new earth” (21:1; see Isa. 65:17; 66:22), but then he immediately sees a “holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven” (Rev. 21:2; see Isa. 52:1; 62:1–2). While these two images may strike us as odd, the progression from cosmos to city is natural. John isn’t describing two different realities but one. Notice the interpretation of these images in Rev. 21:3: “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man’” (see Lev. 26:11–12; Ezek. 37:27).

John equates the “new heaven” and “new earth” with the “new Jerusalem.” But that isn’t all. John later drills down into some specifics of the new cosmos: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life . . . also, on either side of the river, the tree of life” (Rev. 22:1–2; see Gen. 2:8–9; 3:22, 24; Ezek. 47:12). This cosmic city contains Edenic features. It’s a city-cosmos-garden! The readers of Revelation would’ve immediately connected the dots, as each image recalls the Old Testament, especially Genesis 1–2.

Creation of the Cosmos as God’s Sanctuary

The creation account in Genesis 1–2, one of the richest and most influential texts in all of Scripture, reveals that God intended the cosmos to function as his habitation, his sanctuary. Psalm 78:69 explicitly states, “He [the Lord] built his sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which he has founded forever” (see also 1 Chron. 28:2; Isa. 66:1–2). Michael Morales rightly concludes, “The cosmos was understood as a large temple and the temple as a small cosmos.”

We mustn’t miss this point: God created the world to function as his sanctuary—for heaven and earth to be one location—but this intention never came to pass. It’s like building a dream house and never moving in; God’s desire to dwell fully with humanity and creation never transpired in the way Genesis anticipated. On account of sin and disobedience, a great gulf separated heaven from earth. Yet God promised he would, at the end of history, bridge this gulf (see Isa. 40:1–5; 65:17; 66:22).

God created the world to function as his sanctuary—for heaven and earth to be one location—but this intention never came to pass.

Christ and the Beginning of the New Cosmos

John’s Gospel devotes considerable attention to Christ’s relationship to the temple and the new creation. For example, according to John 1:14, Jesus “became flesh and dwelt [eskēnōsen] among us.” The verb “dwelt” (skēnoō) should be rendered “to tabernacle.” The wording recalls texts such as Exodus 25:8–9, 33:7, and 40:34–35 that describe the construction of Israel’s “tabernacle” (skēnē). The idea is that God is now dwelling with his creation in the person of Christ. God’s presence in the backroom of Israel’s tabernacle and the later Solomonic temple foreshadowed Christ’s presence among his people. Heaven has come down.

Jesus claims in John 1:51 that Nathanael “will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” Invoking the narrative of Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28:10–19, Jesus claims to be the portal between heaven and earth. Christ has begun to unite heaven and earth.

Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus encourages his disciples by reminding them that his “Father’s house” has “many rooms” and that he must “go to prepare a place” for them (14:2). While it’s tempting to interpret Jesus’s words as a general reference to heaven, the language narrowly refers to the ingathering of redeemed humanity into the temple at the end of history (Ex. 15:17; Isa. 2:2; see also 2 Macc. 2:17–18; 1 En. 39:4; 71:16). Steve Bryan persuasively argues that “Jesus’ words . . . are not so much concerned with the removal of his followers from earth to heaven as they are about the dissolution of the divide between heaven and earth. . . . Jesus displaces the earthly dwelling place of God and also goes to the Father to prepare the heavenly dwelling of God to be the dwelling place of his people.”

Let’s synthesize John’s material: After Jesus’s death and resurrection, he ventures into the heavenly realm to construct the new cosmic temple; this new cosmic temple began with Jesus’s life—and especially, his resurrection—and extends to all those who believe in him. John’s Gospel underscores the new creation and Jesus’s departure. Whereas Matthew, Mark, and Luke accentuate Jesus’s ascension to the Father’s throne as the Son of Man to rule over creation, John underscores Jesus’s present and future role in creating the cosmic sanctuary. Christ promises to “come again” and “take” his disciples so they “may be” where he is in the eternal state (14:3).

Be Encouraged

The implications of Scripture’s teaching on this subject are immense. We will not spend eternity floating on clouds. We’ll enjoy something far better: life in the new earth ensconced in God’s glory. We’ll finally see him face to face.

Rather than saying we’ll “spend eternity in heaven,” it’s far more biblical to state we’ll “spend eternity on the new earth.” When I talk about death and the afterlife with my kids, I find they understand the concrete expression “new earth,” as the phrase communicates continuity and discontinuity.

It’s far more biblical to state we will ‘spend eternity on the new earth.’

My dad will remain in heaven, his soul only, until the resurrection. Then, when Christ comes a second time, at the end of history, he’ll give my dad a new body and my dad will be everything God created him to be. He and I, together with the saints, will inherit the new earth. My dad and I will once again enjoy each other’s company, play sports, laugh, and build all sorts of things. I miss him, of course, but I can’t wait to join him.

He teaches the following:

• Textual variants don’t undermine inerrancy or key doctrines
• God’s sovereignty is shown through Scripture’s preservation
• How Genesis 1–3 combines history and symbolism
• Common grace shouldn’t be twisted to oppose God’s truth
• Parables like the Good Samaritan should be modernized carefully
• Pluralism rejects objective truth, complicating evangelism
• Biblical interpretation must account for cultural relevance

As I read Rod Dreher’s Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age, Billie Eilish’s hauntingly beautiful song “What Was I Made For?” reverberated in my mind. The song, written for the film Barbie, taps into the existential ache over the seeming emptiness and cruelty of existence so common in our culture. Humans have an innate desire for meaning and mystery.

Dreher, a visiting fellow at the Danube Institute, argues there’s “a loss of a meaningful sense of God’s presence and of the existence of meaning and purpose in the world” (71). His basic explanation for this is the rise of materialistic modernism, which displaced Christianity from the cultural imagination in the West. Dreher’s proposal is to pursue “Christian re-enchantment” (153), mainly through “an infusion of authentic, time-tested mysticism . . . from the Eastern churches” (16).

Dark Enchantment

Unfortunately, the search for re-enchantment has led many into the arms of the occult and other forms of “dark enchantment” (128). Materialism is giving way to a return of neo-paganism as a dominant worldview, often taking the form of practices like crystals, manifesting, witchcraft, and astrology. Predictably, the result isn’t flourishing and freedom but ruin and spiritual slavery. Not all encounters with the spiritual realm are created equal.

In journalistic fashion, Dreher relays several compelling stories illustrating the dangers of spiritual darkness and oppression. The demonic is real. Yet the real solution to disenchantment is Christ. This is good, as far as it goes.

The demonic is real. Yet the real solution to disenchantment is Christ.

However, Dreher’s analysis of the occult is, at times, conspiratorial and bizarre. He favorably quotes an exorcist who believes that “we are in the middle of a concerted and well-orchestrated war” in which the occult is “supported by the media, big corporations, politicians, and our government” (105). In expressing his concern about the spiritualization of technology, Dreher shares the Google whistleblower’s account that their AI program “had achieved consciousness” and that the engineers had participated in “a ritual committing it to the ancient Egyptian deity Thoth” (125). These accounts are intriguing but anecdotal.

Though Dreher doesn’t think there’s a demon under every rock, he thinks there’s probably a demon behind every UFO. By his account, demons appear as aliens because they “are the kind of godlike beings that a secular society—one in which science and technology hold supreme authority—can believe in when they have discarded the God of the Bible” (114). Such ideas—mixed with accounts of generational curses, psychedelic trips, and demon possessions—are his primary supports for the need for Christian re-enchantment.

Christian Re-Enchantment

According to Dreher, Christian prayer is the primary way to recover a sense of God’s presence and experience enchantment in a secular age. He writes, “It turns out that attention—what we pay attention to, and how we attend—is the most important part of the mindset needed for re-enchantment. And prayer is the most important part of the most important part” (142). However, this solution isn’t as easy as it sounds. Anyone who prays regularly knows that the difficulty isn’t so much knowing what to do as putting down our phones and doing it.

To Dreher’s credit, I must say that after reading his book, I’m praying more. Unfortunately, Dreher’s advice relies on caricatures of other Christians. For example, he repeatedly states that Protestant spiritual practices are deficient in providing worshipers with an enchanting encounter with the true and living God. And yet no one can read about Martin Luther’s prayer life and find it devoid of enchantment, for instance. Dreher ignores the incredibly rich resources Protestants have on prayer. The works of John Calvin, John Knox, John Owen, and, more recently, Tim Keller and Paul Miller come to mind.

Prayer is certainly a means by which God communicates and through which we experience his grace (149). However, it’s incomplete without the grace that flows to us from God’s Word. Dreher nods toward doctrine “based on Scripture” (263), but he does a poor job of grounding his understanding of the means of grace in Scripture. In fact, Scripture is largely absent from Dreher’s lengthy discussion of spiritual practices—an unfortunate gap in his proposed solution, as one can’t experience the fullness of re-enchantment apart from God’s “living and active” Word (Heb. 4:12).

Another Reformation Needed

Dreher’s criticisms of other Christians don’t stop at the practice of prayer. He makes it clear that, in his mind, Protestantism simply isn’t enchanting enough. Dreher argues that the Reformation contributed to disenchantment by undermining a sacramental vision of the universe. Nature doesn’t have to be a sacrament to be enchanting. Notably, his account of the supposed disenchantment of Protestantism largely ignores the supernatural claims of charismatics and Pentecostals, not to mention the less extravagant experiences of spiritual reality of many Reformed Christians.

Scripture is largely absent from Dreher’s lengthy discussion of spiritual practices—an unfortunate gap in his proposed solution.

Instead, his preferred solution is to adopt a version of panentheism in which “all created things bear divine power and participate in the life of God” (24). Thus, despite Dreher’s periodic denials, it’s apparent his argument is for conversion to Byzantine Christianity rather than for a broader focus on Christian re-enchantment.

However, as Patrick Collinson argues, the Reformation was “an episode of re-Christianization” that disrupted “a process of secularization with much deeper roots.” It was primarily a movement of Christian re-enchantment, the very thing this book prescribes. Contra Dreher, the West may actually need another Reformation to escape the disenchantment of our age.

Reading Dreher is always interesting, though this book is somewhat disjointed compared to his earlier works. Still, it points readers to Christ to find meaning and mystery in an age of darkness, disenchantment, and technological tyranny. Yet as we watch Dreher’s spiritual evolution in real time with each book and new adventure, we should take his latest prescriptions for the faith with a healthy grain of salt.

Crowds flocked to the Jordan to drown their old lives of sin and to commit themselves to a new start. Then Jesus came with them, and he got in line. On its face, Jesus’s baptism makes no sense. Frederick Dale Bruner described it this way: “It’s as if one were to announce the coming of a great preacher at a series of evangelistic meetings, and one night the preacher arrives—not at the platform but at the altar, not at the podium but at the penitents’ bench, not to preach but to kneel.”

Jesus isn’t unworthy or a sinner. He’s the One whose sandals John isn’t worthy to untie. Jesus doesn’t need to be baptized. He’s the One who will baptize his people with the Spirit and fire (Matt. 3:11). Knowing this, John reacts viscerally: “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (v. 14).

Jesus answered, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (v. 15). What could Jesus mean by this statement? How does his baptism fulfill all righteousness? Here the Savior says his baptism was essential not for his sake but for ours. Jesus’s baptism was part of the perfect obedience necessary to accomplish our salvation.

‘Fulfillment’ in Matthew’s Gospel

Matthew is fond of the verb “fulfill” (plēroō). Already in the first two chapters of his Gospel, he’s used the term repeatedly to show how Jesus’s life is the deeper, prophetic goal to which the Old Testament Scriptures point.

Jesus is the virgin-born Immanuel whom Isaiah predicted (Matt. 1:22). Jesus survived Herod’s Pharaoh-like slaughter of innocents, then, just like Israel, he was brought up out of Egypt (2:15). Already in Matthew 3, we see that John fulfills the first prophetic announcement of the nation’s restoration (v. 3; Isa. 40:3). Just as Israel went through the sea and then was tested in the wilderness, Jesus will now pass through the waters of judgment (Matt. 3:13–17) then be tempted in the desert by the Devil (4:1–11). Jesus embodies in his life everything Israel was called to be.

Jesus’s baptism was part of the perfect obedience necessary to accomplish our salvation.

Matthew also uses the word “fulfill” in another way—to describe obedience to all that God’s law required. Charles L. Quarles reads Matthew 3:15 as saying it was necessary for Jesus to fulfill “each and every act of justice.” When we look ahead two chapters to the Sermon on the Mount, we see that’s exactly what Jesus says about his ministry: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (5:17). Jesus didn’t come to discard God’s law and commands. He came to obey them.

As G. K. Beale observes, “He came to set right what Israel and Adam had done wrong; he was coming successfully to obey, in contrast to Israel’s former disobedience.” Where Israel and all humanity had failed to live up to God’s standards, Jesus prevailed.

Christ’s Active and Passive Obedience

What makes Jesus’s fulfillment of “each and every act of justice” so important? Moses’s law contained both blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience (Deut. 28). It punished every criminal who transgressed its sanctions (21:23), and it promised life and flourishing to those who faithfully kept its commands (Lev. 18:5). In his passive sin-bearing and his active life of love, Christ both bore the law’s full penalty and merited all its rewards.

As John Murray explains, “Christ as the vicar of his people came under the curse and condemnation due to sin and he also fulfilled the law of God in all its positive requirements. In other words, he took care of the guilt of sin and perfectly fulfilled the demands of righteousness.”

These active and passive aspects of Christ’s obedience work together to accomplish our full redemption. Reformed theologians call this the doctrine of double imputation. Our sins were named to Christ’s account, and his righteous merits are now credited to us (2 Cor. 5:21).

Jesus Christ, Baptized for You

What does this have to do with Jesus’s baptism? Just think: Crowds hear John’s message of repentance. They come to the Jordan and are washed. It’s as if their sin, shame, and guilt are left there in the river. Then the Savior comes. He’s the perfect Lamb of God without blemish, but he steps into those judgment waters. Jesus identifies with the people’s sin so he might save them. He obediently carries their burdens all the way to the cross.

In this way, Jesus’s baptism at the Jordan points forward to the baptism of his death (Mark 10:38; Luke 12:50). But it also points to the glorious blessings merited by his righteous life.

In his passive sin-bearing and his active life of love, Christ both bore the law’s full penalty and merited all its rewards.

After Jesus was baptized, the heavens opened. God’s Spirit came down like a dove, and a voice from heaven declared, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:16–17). These verses tell of Jesus’s identity as the anointed Servant (Isa. 11; 42; 61) and Davidic Son (2 Sam. 7; Ps. 2); they also reveal what’s true of all those united to him by faith (Rom. 8). Jesus’s baptism reveals the beauty of his person and the fullness of his saving work. His baptism was part and parcel with the work he did to merit our redemption.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not suggesting we trade in our hymns about the blood to sing only of Jordan’s waters. But when we remember Jesus’s baptism, it should remind us of all he did to save. His incarnation, life, death, and resurrection; his obedience, both active and passive; the fullness of his person and his work—they all add up to our redemption (Gal. 4:4–5).

That’s not my line. It comes from Michael Reeves, president and professor of theology at Union School of Theology. But I think I’ve said just about the same thing dozens of times to explain what we do at The Gospel Coalition: “We fight the collective sin of allowing anything but the gospel to be the cause of our unity.”

Michael has published a couple recent books with Crossway that grabbed my attention: Gospel People: A Call for Evangelical Integrity in 2022 and then Evangelical Pharisees: The Gospel as Cure for the Church’s Hypocrisy in 2023. I love his perspective on why we must define evangelicalism theologically as people who rally together around the gospel alone. 

Michael joined me on Gospelbound to explain orthocardia and the cure for evangelicalism. We also discussed his 2004 book Preaching: A God-Centered Vision.

Over my years serving as a pastor to college students, I’ve received more confused responses, pushback, and dismissiveness when it comes to the church’s necessity than any other point of theology. Many Christian students will acknowledge the need for Christian friendships or some type of Christian community, but as for the fullness of the church—church as both gathered and scattered, organism and organization—there’s often ambivalence. They aren’t denying the need for community but are skeptical that the church is necessary in fulfilling this need.

This is the case for a wide array of people on the spiritual spectrum, from new Christians all the way to those who’ve passionately proclaimed allegiance to Jesus for their whole lives.

I don’t think this ambivalence usually has at its root a dramatic change in religious beliefs or commitments. As I’m honored to hear students’ stories over a meal or coffee, I often hear, “We went to church for a period of time when I was little, but after ______ we stopped going. We still believe in Jesus though.”

The event that fills in the blank can be something as traumatic as the prominent Christian in the family, such as a grandmother, passing away. Or it could be something as subtle as a busy athletics schedule that eroded the habit of church involvement over time. As a result of these events, I often hear, “I didn’t really grow up in church, but I grew up in a Christian home, if that makes sense.” Do these stories have a common thread running through them?

Authentic Spiritual Journey

It’s impossible to reduce so many different people’s stories down to one common cause, but I suspect what’s often hidden under these stories is a belief absorbed unconsciously from our culture: the more individual, inward, and disconnected from institutions a spiritual journey is, the purer it is and the closer that person is to God. It feels less spiritual and authentic to move outward to be shaped by a structured community and to have your faith tethered to the church. The church can be nice but not essential to a thriving Christian walk.

Indeed, the church can be seen as dangerous in this framework, a slippery slope into having “religion but not relationship.” Given such beliefs, when involvement in the church becomes inconvenient or too uncomfortable, it’s cast aside.

Relatedly, we’ve often believed that an inward decision alone makes one a Christian, while ignoring the church’s key role. In this framework, baptism and church membership lose their pivotal roles in the conversion process. But as we read the Bible, Christians as independent individuals don’t definitively declare themselves as Christians. Jesus has given that responsibility to the church (Matt. 18:15–20; 1 Cor. 5:1–6:8).

We’ve often believed that an inward decision alone makes one a Christian, while ignoring the church’s key role.

As we consider the next generation’s posture toward the church, we must seriously ask, “What place does the church have in an increasingly post-Christian society?” A Christian faith that has hitched itself to the church is doomed to failure, it’d seem.

We’re in an age where people are leaving the church like never before. As Jim Davis and Michael Graham have pointed out in their book The Great Dechurching, “We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in the history of our country. . . . More people have left the church in the last twenty-five years than all the new people who became Christians from the First Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening, and Billy Graham crusades combined.”

Despite our cultural trends, for the Christian faith to have a meaningful, long-term influence in the lives of the next generation, we must not only embrace the church but also labor to strengthen it and make it an essential part of our evangelistic methods. As our Lord has done, we must love the church and place our confidence in its future. For us to help the next generation see the beauty of Christ and his church, there must be three marriages.

1. The Church and Embodiment

We must marry our theological anthropology to a rich ecclesiology. People often don’t know it, but they need the church. Every one of us has a deep and enduring problem—we crave rich community. However, the cultural air we breathe teaches us to distrust God’s answer to our craving.

Like a waiter who serves diners, faithful Christian evangelism persuades people to eat the best dish on the menu, even one that might look unappetizing at first glance. We befriend lonely neighbors and invite them into the communion of the saints. We counsel emerging adults hungry for wisdom and connect them to mothers and fathers in the faith. We embrace friends who feel spiritually dirty and pour the waters of baptism on them. We walk with isolated people looking for an embodied faith and bring them to the Lord’s table in the context of the local church. We challenge unanchored souls looking for purpose and sweep them up into the mission of God’s people.

Out of all the options on the menu, we point them to the church.

2. The Church and Mission

In an age of spiritual decline, we must marry our missiology to our ecclesiology. I believe there are essential tenets of the church to which Christians must commit themselves to see the gospel compel people to faith. These tenets flow out of the scriptural pattern and confessional belief that outside the church “there is no ordinary possibility of salvation” (Westminster Confession of Faith 25.2). The primary place where God works in the world is in and through his church, through which Christ “preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near” (Eph. 2:17).

In our desire to reach the next generation, Christians mustn’t reinvent the church or replace the church; we must cling to the church’s blueprint given to us by God in Scripture. If we’re honest, plenty of us are embarrassed by the church’s failures. However, when a kitchen knife is dull, we don’t abandon knives altogether. We sharpen it.

While distrust of authority and power is at an all-time high, let’s educate, rigorously train, and solemnly ordain our elders and deacons. While many claim that truth changes with the times, let’s devote ourselves to the apostles’ teachings as our unmoving foundation. In an age when celebrity pastors have illegitimately become quasi bishops through the worldly accumulation of power, let’s submit to the church’s accountability structures and decision-making processes. In a time when Christian influencers determine orthodoxy in blogosphere councils, let’s compassionately embrace the church’s creeds and confessions. The church still can, and must, be the church.

Christians mustn’t see the church as tangential to the spiritual growth of the next generation but as central to it. This holds true not only scripturally but also empirically. According to Barna’s report on Gen Z, a deep involvement in the church is an essential ingredient in the lives of resilient Gen Z disciples. While Barna’s data showed there wasn’t a drastic difference between a habitual churchgoing Christian and a resilient disciple at the level of his or her “cognitive understandings of the Christian faith,” the most significant difference between those two groups was a deep, personal connection with their church communities. Spiritual depths are found in the depths of the church.

3. The Church and Christ

Most importantly, we must behold Jesus’s marriage to the church. Jesus loves the church and delights to use it. The plan to center the church in the future of the Christian faith might sound absurd, but we plan to point the next generation to the church because this is Jesus’s plan.

Christians mustn’t see the church as tangential to the spiritual growth of the next generation but as central to it.

In a culture that sees the church as a stronghold of hypocrisy, 1 Timothy tells us it’s a “pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). While it feels like the church is falling apart, Jesus says, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). Though many see no future for the church, Ephesians tells us that God’s plan for the church is eternal (Eph. 3:10–11). When the world claims to love Jesus but hate the church, God tells us, “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (5:25). Though the church needs a makeover, Jesus will “present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (v. 27).

In this day and age, we’re invested in the church because God has already invested in his church, “not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:18–19). God has made the church his home (Eph. 2:22) and is working all things to its benefit (1:22). The church is a central part of God’s future plan, and so it must be a part of ours, no matter how post-Christian our culture might become.