Jon Bloom's Blog, page 17

The Devil Is Not in the Details: Fighting Temptation with Specific Truth

The power of temptation lies in the impression it makes on us.

This statement is true in two senses. One, the power of temptation resides in the impression it makes on us. And two, the power of temptation deceives in the impression it makes on us.

In saying that temptation’s power lies in the impression it makes on us, I’m referring to the very moment of temptation, when we recognize and feel its luring appeal. But deceitful impressions only have a luring appeal to the degree that we already have a vulnerable disposition to a sinful desire:

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (James 1:14–15)

The devil can’t make us sin; he can only appeal to our propensity to desire sinful things. So in a moment of temptation we are fighting on two fronts: we need to “resist the devil” (James 4:7), and we need to resist our desires. This is why the way of escape from temptation to sin often is to employ a healthy dose of realism and truth-in-advertising to it — not accepting the tempting impression at face value. In our fight, then, truthful clarity is premium.

Diabolical Impressionist

The devil is not an artist but a vandal. He doesn’t create; he distorts, disfigures, and defaces what God makes. But if satanic temptation were to be an artform, we might call it some twisted sort of Impressionism.

In painting, Impressionism is an approach where an artist’s goal isn’t to portray his objects as realistically as possible, but rather to use color, lighting, and typically less defined lines in order to evoke certain visual and emotional sensations — impressions — in a viewer. Think Claude Monet’s Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies or Woman with a Parasol. It can be a powerful and beautiful style.

But when applied to temptation, diabolical “Impressionism” becomes powerful and terrible. The devil doesn’t employ realism when painting a temptation “because there is no truth in him” (John 8:44). His goal is to use the spiritual equivalents of color, lighting, and less defined lines to evoke certain sinful emotional sensations. The power is in the momentary emotional impression it makes on the “viewer.” The devil doesn’t want us to see the real thing; he just wants us to experience a rather vague impression that yielding to the temptation will bring happiness.

Diabolical Marketer

But since the devil is not an artist, we could make another analogy that might be more accurate and think of him as an evil marketer.

Marketing itself, of course, is not evil. At its most basic meaning, marketing is simply bringing a product to market. Think of an open-air market where merchants are competing for customers and are trying to make their booths and products and prices attractive. There’s nothing wrong with this, provided that merchants are truthful about their products.

However, we live in an age of very sophisticated marketing, a fair amount of which is manipulative and misleading. Such marketers make diligent study of human psychology in order to understand the subtleties of human motivation and behavior. Then they use this knowledge in order to create advertising communications designed to entice people to purchase their products by appealing to powerful human appetites and desires and aspirations and fantasies, which often have no necessary connection to the products themselves. They use temptation tactics: create deceptive impressions on people in order to manipulate their behavior in ways that benefit the marketers.

This is precisely what the devil does. And no one is a more effective manipulative marketer. In this sense, the power is in the deceptive impression the temptation has on us. The devil does not want us to ask too many questions about the actual sin-product and whether it can (or ever has) delivered the happiness it promises. He just wants the impression that it will deliver, in order to tap into our influential sinful desires and to encourage us to be “impulse buyers.”

Way of Escape

Tapping into sinful cravings we already are vulnerable to, the power of temptation lies in the impression it makes on us. It lies in its immediate, compelling sensory nature, and it lies in its potently deceptive nature. In certain colors, in certain light, and in kind of an undefined way it gives us the impression it has the power to make us happy. And in vague yet strongly asserted ways it impresses us with promises to make us happy.

And here is God’s promise to us regarding every temptation:

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Sometimes flight is the best escape from temptation. We usually know which temptations we ought not to sit and reason with in the tempting moment.

But many times, flight is not an option, or it’s not the best strategy or long-term solution to repeated temptations. In many cases, the escape God provides us is to treat Satan and our indwelling sin the same way we are to treat any other distorters of the gospel: to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). In a tempting moment, this typically looks like pressing the enticing impression into the clarity of truth. What precisely is being promised to us? What does God have to say? And who do we wish to trust, and why? This is essentially how Jesus resisted the tempting mirage moments Satan placed before him in the wilderness (Luke 4:1–13).

Here’s the point: the devil doesn’t want us to think clearly in the moment of temptation. He wants to deceive us with appealing vague pictures and compelling vague promises and obscure the destructive consequences of sin behind a pleasurable impression of happiness. We must not believe this impression; we must not buy on impulse.

Kill temptation with honest questions as much as you can. And flee if you must.

How Satan Gets a Hold on You

We don’t know much about demons. The Bible speaks matter-of-factly of them, but provides little detail about them or their history. And God has good reasons for this, at least for now.

We do know a few truths about demons. We know demons oppose the kingdom of God (Luke 11:14–23), that they seek to deceitfully ensnare humans and manipulate them to do their will rather than God’s (2 Timothy 2:26), and that it’s possible for them to gain such an influence over a person that they essentially “possess” them (Luke 8:26–39). And we know that, unless people are born again and live in the authority of the risen Christ, demons have “the power of death” over them and therefore use people’s “fear of death” to maximum advantage (Hebrews 2:14–15).

We also know there is a hierarchy of demonic power (Ephesians 6:12), and that there is a ruling evil being known since antiquity as “the devil and Satan” (Revelation 12:9) who was manifested as a serpent in Eden (Genesis 3:1–5; Revelation 12:9), was present in the divine council in Job (Job 1:6–12), and tempted Jesus in the wilderness (Luke 4:1–13).

Why We Know So Little

Beyond these, we don’t know much about the demonic world, because God doesn’t tell us. Why doesn’t he tell us more? Demons seem rather dangerous and influential. Wouldn’t we benefit from knowing more about our insidious enemies?

No. Because when it comes to good and evil, God wants us “to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil” (Romans 16:19). Our best protection against demons is less preoccupation with them and more preoccupation with God — less understanding of deception and more understanding of truth.

Let me illustrate the danger I’m talking about with a reference from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. The story is about the evil lord Sauron’s attempt to gain world domination, and the effort of men, elves, and dwarves to resist him. Two characters, Saruman, a wizard lord, and Denethor, a man governing the city of Gondor, obtained powerful “seeing stones” called palantírs. These stones allowed them to mentally communicate with Sauron, the owner of a third palantír, and glimpse goings-on in Sauron’s kingdom of Mordor.

Both Saruman and Denethor, renowned for their wisdom, thought this would increase their advantage in the struggle against Sauron. But they underestimated Sauron’s power to deceive them and overestimated their ability to resist it. Both were corrupted and manipulated by Sauron to their destruction. When another wizard, Gandalf, found himself in possession of a palantír, he refused to look into it, proving his superior wisdom.

None of us is a match for Satan and his demonic underlings. Increasing our wisdom in evil would be the path Saruman and Denethor chose, and we would likely share a similar end. Remember, desiring knowledge of both good and evil is what got us in trouble in the first place (Genesis 3:4–7). We are far better off to “be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.”

Our Spiritual Armor

When the apostle Paul described our spiritual war against our supernatural foes, note how he described our armor and weapons in Ephesians 6:14–18:

The belt of truth: what holds our “uniform” together and keeps our “limbs” free is knowing God’s truth.
The breastplate of righteousness: understanding how we are clothed with Christ’s righteousness (Philippians 3:9) is what guards our vitals.
The shoes of the gospel: what enables us to traverse difficult ground during battle is knowledge of the gospel of peace.
The shield of faith: trusting God’s promises is what extinguishes darts of deception, not detailed knowledge of the darts or their shooters.
The helmet of salvation: our head (our brain) is protected by clearly knowing who saved us and how.
The sword of the Spirit: the word of God is our most powerful, effective offensive weapon against a powerful spiritual enemy.
Pray at all times in the Spirit: speaking to demons is not something the Bible commends. The only speaking to demons we see is rebuking them in Jesus’s name. Praying to God is what we are mainly commanded to do when confronting demonic powers.

Every aspect of the armor and weapons of our spiritual warfare has to do with being wise as to what is good (and innocent as to what is evil). God is our best protection from the ravages of our evil enemy — God’s truth, his righteousness, his gospel, his promises, his salvation, his word, and our prayerful orientation to him.

What Makes the Devil Flee

When the Bible instructs us how to send devils scurrying away in fear, it says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). This is powerful spiritual warfare.

Here’s the key: we grant authority to whomever we trust. The devil has no authority over any Christian, except the authority we grant him by believing him. The more we believe him, the more influence and control over us we give to him — the more he gets a hold on us. This is not some mysterious spiritual secret. This is the way influence or control works in any relationship we have.

When it comes to demons, we do not need to claim any authority over them. Words don’t act like spells with demons (Acts 19:15). Demons only recognize God’s authority and they tremble before it (James 2:19). When we submit ourselves to God — come under his authority by trusting, obeying, and enjoying him — demons get the hell away from us. This act of faith releases great spiritual power, and demons cannot withstand it.

Demons are real — powerfully real. They wreak more havoc in our lives and society than most post-Enlightenment Western Christians are aware of. We must take God’s words more seriously than our culture’s ridicule. But we do not need to know more details about demons or their strategies than God has told us. We do not need to be wiser in evil things.

We need to know God. The more we know God and his word, the more we trust him and live in obedience to him, the wiser we become as to what is good, the more dangerous we become to demons. Because our submission to God brings his kingdom to bear in the world and is how “the God of peace . . . crush[es] Satan under [our] feet” (Romans 16:20).

You Must Disappoint Someone: How to Say No to Good Things

Why do you spend your time doing what you do? Why do you say yes to doing some things and no to doing other things? Are you saying yes and no to the right things? These are unnerving, exposing questions to ask.

Most of us would like to believe we say yes and no to our time commitments based on objective, logical assessments of what appears most important. But that is very often not the case. Very often we make these decisions based on subjective assessments of what we believe others will think of us if we do or don’t do them.

How other people perceive us — or how we think they’ll perceive us — has an extraordinary influence on how we choose to use our time. Coming to terms with ways we seek people’s approval or fear their disapproval will force us to face humbling truths about ourselves and may require repentance and uncomfortable change.

But given how brief our lives are, and how limited our energy and other resources are, we need to heed what God says to each one of us through the apostle Paul:

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (Ephesians 5:15–17)

And one way to carefully examine our use of time and energy is to invite the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and see if and where we are inordinately influenced to say yes or no out of a fear of man.

A Surprisingly Clarifying Question

I attended a conference recently where ministry leaders on a panel were asked to describe how they remain focused on their core calling while deluged with demands. One of the speakers posed this question to us: “Who are you willing to disappoint?”

At first this might seem like a negative and perhaps unloving way to decide what we should or shouldn’t do. But it really isn’t. It’s actually a clarifying question. It isn’t asking us who are the people we will choose not to love. It’s asking us what we are really pursuing in our time commitments. Whose approval are we seeking? God’s? Other people’s? Of those, whose?

I think this is what Jesus was getting at with Martha in Luke 10:38–42. Martha was “distracted with much serving” (Luke 10:40). I imagine nearly everyone in her home that day thought she was doing a good thing. Martha herself thought this, which is why she requested Jesus’s support in exhorting Mary to get busy helping. She didn’t seem to be aware of her own motivations. But Jesus was. He saw the deeper motivations in both Martha and Mary.

Martha was “anxious and troubled about many things” (Luke 10:41). Martha’s time commitment was being motivated by anxiety, not love. Given the context, it’s reasonable to assume her anxiety stemmed from what all her houseguests would think of her if she stopped waiting on them and did what Mary was doing.

Mary had “chosen the good portion” (Luke 10:42). Superficial observers of the situation might have concluded Martha chose the good portion and Mary was being inconsiderate. I would guess Mary felt this irony. She knew Martha very well. I imagine she knew she was disappointing Martha by listening to Jesus instead of helping serve the guests. But in that moment, Mary was more willing to disappoint Martha than to disappoint Jesus. And Jesus commended her.

The exposing question for Martha was, who was she willing to disappoint?

We Serve Those We’re Unwilling to Disappoint

And that’s the question for us too: who are we willing to disappoint? Or, who are we unwilling to disappoint?

We all choose to serve those we’re unwilling to disappoint. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, though it certainly can be a bad thing. God actually designed us to function this way. He made us to be motivated by what we love, and we always fear to disappoint the one(s) we love.

Now, I know the apostle John said, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). But he was addressing a different kind of fear, the fear of “punishment” or condemnation. John meant that God’s children no longer need to live in terror of God’s wrath.

But perfect love does indeed produce a certain kind of fear:

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deuteronomy 10:12)

This kind of fear is not merely the terror of wrath, but the fear we have when we don’t want to disappoint the one(s) we really love. The kind of fear that “serve(s) the Lord with gladness” (Psalm 100:2) is the fear that comes from the thought of disappointing the one we treasure most. We fear to lose the treasure.

Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve

But serving those we’re unwilling to disappoint can be a very bad thing, even a tyrannical thing, if our loves are idolatrous. If, whether out of anxiety, selfish ambition, narcissism, or some other sinful love, we are motivated by someone else’s approval over God’s approval, our service can become our destruction.

And the thing is, like Martha, we might not be fully cognizant of our own motives. We might think we’re doing good things when we’re not. One indicator to look at is how often we feel “anxious and troubled.” Notice I didn’t say “weary.” It’s clear from the New Testament that a heavy workload, and even suffering and persecution, can be given to us by God. But an anxious, troubled spirit might mean what’s motivating our busyness are efforts to please the wrong persons.

If that’s true, we’re likely due for a reevaluation of our time commitments. We should ask the Holy Spirit to search our hearts and try our thoughts (Psalm 139:23). We should ask ourselves the hard question: who are we willing to disappoint? Or who are we unwilling to disappoint? Are we unwilling to disappoint God? Are we unwilling to disappoint others? Are we unwilling to disappoint our own selfish preferences? These questions can help us untangle motivational knots.

And if we’re tempted to avoid facing the answers, let’s remember that life is too short and God is too precious to give our years and our strength to the fear of man. Joshua exhorts us from the ancient past: “Choose this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15). Let’s respond with him, “We will serve the Lord” with all our heart and soul in the gladness of love-inspired fear (Deuteronomy 10:12; Psalm 100:2).

How to Pray About What You Say

God expects us to tremble at his words, and to tremble over ours.

We Christians ought to be the most careful speakers in the world. We are to heed God’s words ourselves and communicate them to others with care, and we are to speak our words carefully since we will “give an account [to God] for every careless word [we] speak” (Matthew 12:36).

This whole talking business is a very serious business. It’s life-and-death serious: “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). I would think that anything this serious would naturally be a focus of my regular prayer. But as I’ve examined my prayer habits as it relates to my talking habits, I’ve noticed that I tend to only pray about what I say when I’m aware that a lot is at stake in what I say. But Jesus says a lot is at stake when I’m not aware and speaking carelessly: “for by [my] words [I] will be justified, and by [my] words [I] will be condemned” (Matthew 12:37).

What does that mean — that we’ll be justified or condemned by our words? It means our words will witness for or against us when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10). Because “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34). What comes out of our mouths (or through our fingers when we type) reveals what fills our hearts. Our words reveal whether or not we truly have a “fear of the Lord” that “keep[s] [our] tongue from evil” (Psalm 34:11–13).

I must pray far more about what I say. And if you’re like me, I welcome you to join me. The following are ways I’ve turned biblical texts regarding speech into specific prayers that life, not death, will come from our tongues.

1. Teach me to tremble.

Lord, I fear I do not fear words enough. Forgive me for trembling too little over your holy words and too little over my unholy words. Teach me the wisdom of trembling, for “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10).

Lord, teach me to be quicker to hear and slower to speak, especially when I’m tempted to speak in anger (James 1:19). For if I do not bridle my tongue, my “religion is worthless” (James 1:26).

Lord, teach me to use more restraint in all aspects of my speech, for “when words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent” (Proverbs 10:19). And, “whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble” (Proverbs 21:23).

2. Guard my mouth from speaking death.

Lord, I believe “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21), and I do not want to speak death of any kind to anyone. So “set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips!” (Psalm 141:3).

Lord, help me put away “all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander [and] malice” so they will not pour out of me in words. Rather, help me be and speak what is “kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving” of others, just as you in Christ forgave me (Ephesians 4:31–32).

Lord, help me immediately discern when I am being tempted to be “puffed up with conceit” or have “an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions.” Prevent me from marring your glory or harming any of your saints with sinful speech (1 Timothy 6:4).

“Deliver me, O Lord, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue” — especially my own! (Psalm 120:2) For “a lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin” (Proverbs 26:28).

Lord, deliver me from my evil propensity to slander others, for “whoever utters slander is a fool” (Proverbs 10:18). You hate slander (Psalm 50:19–21), for it comes from selfish evil in our hearts (Matthew 15:19). So help me “keep [my] tongue from evil and [my] lips from speaking deceit” about anyone else (Psalm 34:13).

Lord, I know that my tongue has the potential to light a forest fire of sin (James 3:5–6), for I’ve ignited such fires in the past. And I also believe that “no human being can tame the tongue” (James 3:8). I need your Holy Spirit’s help to tame my tongue, so I may reap “a harvest of righteousness. . . sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:18).

3. Release my mouth to speak life.

Lord, I believe that “a gentle tongue is a tree of life” (Proverbs 15:4) and that “the mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life” (Proverbs 10:11). Whatever it takes, “let the words of my mouth . . . be acceptable in your sight” (Psalm 19:14) and a source of nourishment and refreshment to your people.

Lord, help me “let no corrupting talk come out of [my mouth], but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29).

Lord, show me how to “let [my] speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that [I] may know how [I] ought to answer each person” (Colossians 4:6).

Lord, help me to use my words to encourage others and build them up far more than critiquing or criticizing them (1 Thessalonians 5:11).

Lord, open my eyes that I may see more clearly the injustice around me. Then help me “open [my] mouth, judge righteously, [and] defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:9).

Lord, help me “not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, [to] bless” those who mistreat me (1 Peter 3:9), remembering how you have blessed me incomprehensibly beyond what I deserve. Help me to trust you with all judgment, for you have said, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” (Romans 12:19).

Lord, when situations arise requiring me to reprove or rebuke another, help me to speak “the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) and with “complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2).

And when occasions require that I contend for the faith (Jude 3), help me refrain from engaging in “ignorant controversies,” to never be “quarrelsome but kind to everyone,” and to correct my opponents with gentleness,” praying all the while that you may “grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:23–25).

4. Give me wisdom and humility.

Lord, when I don’t know what I should say, help me be humble enough to admit it, to listen carefully (James 1:19) and to wisely “ponder how to answer” (Proverbs 15:28) so that I do not foolishly “pour out folly” (Proverbs 15:2).

Lord, when others bring a rebuke to me, deliver me from my defensive pride and help me listen carefully and humbly, since often “it is a kindness” and “oil for my head” (Psalm 141:5). “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy” (Proverbs 27:6).

Love Disturbs the Peace: Why Christians Must Be Contentious

Christians are, in many respects, both-and people. We live much of life in this age in a God-designed tension. We must learn how to both encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 5:11) and rebuke one another (Titus 1:13). We must both rejoice and weep with one another — sometimes within minutes (Romans 12:15). We must live simultaneously as both sorrowful and rejoicing (2 Corinthians 6:10). We must live contentedly in both abundance and need (Philippians 4:12).

And we must learn how to be both peaceable (Romans 12:18) and contentious (Jude 3).

Whoa, contentious? Isn’t that bad? Well, at certain times and in certain ways, yes, contentiousness is very bad. But at certain times and in certain ways, it is very good. It depends on what kind of contentiousness we’re talking about. And the Bible speaks to the good and the bad.

UnChristian Contention

Paul addresses one kind of contentiousness when he says, “If anyone is inclined to be contentious, we have no such practice, nor do the churches of God” (1 Corinthians 11:16). The Greek word he uses here is philoneikos, and it means what most of us associate with a contentious person: a carnal disposition to be quarrelsome or argumentative.

An Old Testament example of a similar kind is seen here: “It is better to live in a corner of the roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman” (Proverbs 25:24, NASB). The Hebrew word is mādônîm, and it means quarrelsome, nagging, or dissentious. It can even have violent connotations, which is why the King James translators called her a “brawling woman.”

These are bad ways to be contentious. They are not to characterize a Christian, because “the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome (machesthai, another Greek word in this vein) but kind to everyone” (2 Timothy 2:24).

Christian Contention

So, what is kind and commendable Christian contention? We find it in Jude’s epistle:

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 3)

The Greek word Jude uses here is a version of epagōnizomai. And all the most credible English translations choose the word contend, because there isn’t really a better English word. It means a kind of striving in debate in order to persuade and protect, or a kind of fighting for the sake of someone else’s benefit.

If you look, you can spot in epagōnizomai the same root that produced our English word agony. This is not an argumentative, sarcastic, pugilistic, social-media smackdown kind of contending. This contending has elements of agony, distress, and anguish — things we can experience when we are engaged in a struggle that is motivated by a deep love and true kindness. And we all know that true, humble, loving kindness is not always “nice” because sometimes kindness means speaking a hard truth people don’t want to accept, or boldly refuting a false teaching that threatens to destroy others’ faith.

This is Christian contention.

When Christians Must Contend

It is true that we Christians must fight hard for peace, “striv[ing] for peace with everyone” (Hebrews 12:14). But it is also true that there are times we must contend for truth, for the love of God and vulnerable souls. And those moments of contention almost always look like we are disturbing the peace, not making it.

When are such times? In the next verse, Jude gives an example from the churches he was writing to:

For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Jude 4)

There are a lot of things we are called to bear with (Romans 12:14; 1 Corinthians 13:7). But we are not called to bear with those who pervert the gospel and distort the biblical revelation of the person of Jesus Christ. Such things will bring souls to damnable ruin. We must do everything we can to live at peace with all (Romans 12:18), but we cannot live at peace with those among us who “depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1).

And such people are frequently, and in lesser and greater degrees, among us. Which means as much as we strive for peace with everyone, there will nearly always be something calling us to “contend for the faith” (Jude 3). Which also means the right kind of contentious Christians are a great mercy to the church of God.

Thank God for Contentiousness

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: . . . a time for war, and a time for peace” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 8). God “has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). And when Christians are contentious at the right times in the right ways, it is a beautiful thing. J. Gresham Machen writes, “Every true revival is born in controversy, and leads to more controversy. That has been true ever since our Lord said that he came not to bring peace upon the earth but a sword” (Contending for Our All, 30).

Yes, this has been true. All the clarity we have on who Jesus is, what the gospel is, what the church is, and what it means to live the Christian life we owe to our courageous forebears in the faith who contended against those who were perverting the grace of God and denying the biblically revealed Jesus Christ.

Not only that, but we have the New Testament itself because of such courageous saints. As John Piper says, “If you remove the documents from the New Testament that were not addressing controversy you will, at most, have a tiny handful from the twenty-seven books” (Contending for Our All, 33).

If you had been on the ground, in the middle of such historic contending, you would have seen messy moments. The Christian contending would not have been perfect. You probably would have witnessed philoneikos and perhaps even mādônîm moments mixed in with the epagōnizomai moments. But thank God for the imperfect saints who have loved God and the church enough to be Christianly contentious when necessary.

We Christians must be both peaceable and contentious. God has made everything beautiful in its time. But before we contend, let us examine the occasion to make sure contention is called for, and examine our contentiousness to make sure it is of the godly, loving kind.

Have You Buried Your Gifts?

You have been given talents. Do you know what they are? Do you know how valuable they are? God has given them to you to invest. And someday he will hold you accountable for how you stewarded them.

It’s a sobering thought — and necessarily so. It’s meant to be. But it is also meant to be very liberating.

“Talents” come from Jesus — both the English word and what the English word means. The word is in our lexicon because of Jesus’s parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–30). In this parable, a master entrusts each of his servants with a certain number of talents to invest while the master is gone on a journey.

To Jesus’s original hearers, a talent meant a very large unit of monetary value. People whose net worth equaled a talent were very well off. People whose net worth equaled numerous talents were rich. But this parable is not really about stewarding money. It is about stewarding the gifts and abilities God entrusts to us. This is why the English word “talents” doesn’t mean money, but gifts and abilities. When we say someone is talented, we don’t mean they’re rich; we mean they’re gifted.

Talents Are Grace-Gifts

The first thing to notice about the servants in Jesus’s parable is that they are given their talents: “to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability” (Matthew 25:15). The master wasn’t obligated to give the servants anything. Each servant received his talents by the grace of the master.

The implication of this is clear: none of us has any ground for boasting in our “talents.” What is true about receiving the gospel is true about receiving talents: “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

But Jesus includes an important phrase in Matthew 25:15: “he gave . . . talents . . . to each according to his ability.” In English this can be a bit confusing, since “talents” and “abilities” can be synonyms. It can sound as if Jesus is saying God gives us abilities according to our abilities. But in Greek the meaning is clearer. The word translated “abilities” in this sentence is dunamis, which most commonly means power or capabilities.

What Jesus is getting at here is that God graciously entrusts to his servants certain skills and a certain amount of power to employ them. God gives us certain abilities and certain capabilities.

Talents Are Valuable

The second thing to notice is that in choosing talents as the metaphor for the abilities God entrusts to us, Jesus makes clear to us that God values highly the gifts he gives us.

It’s nearly impossible to convert the value of a first century talent into modern currency. But in trying to give us some sense of its actual buying power, some scholars estimate a talent could have been worth as much as $600,000.

Assuming this value for the sake of illustration, one servant in Jesus’s parable received $3,000,000 (five talents), another received $1,200,000 (two talents), and another received $600,000 (one talent). It’s feasible the “less talented” servants might have envied “more talented” ones. But in reality, no servant’s stewardship was insignificant. Each received something of great value.

This also has a clear implication: we must not undervalue what we have been given. Some are given more, some are given less, but all are given much. And Jesus tells us “everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more” (Luke 12:48).

This is why the master was so angry at the servant who did nothing with the talent he was given (Matthew 25:26–27). The servant blamed the master’s character for his lack of diligence (Matthew 25:24–25). But the master saw through this smoke screen and called the servant what he was: “wicked and slothful” (Matthew 25:26).

These are words we never want to hear from our Master. This parable is meant to strike the appropriate fear of God in us and force us to ask what we are doing with the grace that has been given to us.

The Grace Given to You

Paul loved that phrase: “the grace given.” He used it in referring to himself:

“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you . . . ” (Romans 12:3). Here Paul recognized God had entrusted to him unique authority as an apostle.
“According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation” (1 Corinthians 3:10). God had entrusted to him unique abilities (talents) to plant churches among the unreached and lay the theological foundation for the Christian church.
“I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). God had entrusted to him unique capabilities (dunamis) to exercise his unique authority and employ his unique abilities.

He also used this phrase about us:

“Having [spiritual] gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them . . . in proportion to our faith” (Romans 12:6).
“But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift” (Ephesians 4:7).

All these texts regarding “the grace given to us” reinforce Jesus’s point in the parable of the talents: 1) God gives us certain grace-gifts (talents), 2) God gives us a certain amount of power to invest them, and 3) God expects us to employ all the strength he supplies (1 Peter 4:11) to invest what he entrusts to us.

Sobering and Liberating

So we must each ask: what are we doing with our talents — with the grace God has given to us? It’s a sobering and liberating question.

It’s sobering because we know our own selfishness, that we are prone by our sin nature to act like the worthless servant who neglected his stewardship. But even such sobering reflection is a grace, because it can shake us out of our self-centered stupor and motivate us to greater diligence.

But the question is also wonderfully liberating, for at least two reasons: 1) God himself supplies us with everything we need, both our talents and our strength to manage them — both our abilities and our capabilities. 2) Realizing this frees us from comparing ourselves with others. We can be free from envying servants who are more talented and/or have greater capacities than we do. And we can be free from judging servants who are less talented and/or have lesser capacities than we do. God is the talent and power-giver, and he holds each of us accountable only for the “grace given to us.”

You have been given talents. They are valued very highly by the Lord. What are you doing with them? Let this question sober you and liberate you. For to every servant who is faithful with the talents entrusted to him, the Master will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:23). This is what we want to hear.

Invest your talents well, for the joy.

Why You Have That Thorn

I have a “thorn in the flesh.” I don’t like it. I often wish I didn’t have it. At times I am exasperated by it. It makes almost everything harder, daily dogging me as I carry out my family, vocation, and ministry responsibilities — nearly everything I do. It weakens me. I often feel that I would be more effective and fruitful without it. I have pleaded with God, sometimes in tears, for it to be removed or for more power to overcome it. But it remains.

No, I’m not going to explain what it is. The details aren’t germane to the point I want to make, and I think they would actually make this article less helpful. Because you have your own thorn in the flesh, or if you live long enough you’ll be given one (or more). Yours will be different from mine, but its purpose will be similar. For we are given thorns that significantly weaken us in order to make us stronger.

The Most Famous Thorn

We get the term “thorn in the flesh” from the apostle Paul:

To keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. (2 Corinthians 12:7)

Paul’s thorn is among the most famous afflictions in history, and we don’t even know what it was. There’s been a lot of speculation over the years. Paul’s thorn could have been a physical affliction. This is plausible given all the physical violence and deprivation he endured (2 Corinthians 11:23–27), and some think he may have suffered from an eye disease (Galatians 4:15).

Or since he referred to his thorn as a harassing “messenger of Satan,” he could have been vulnerable to significant spiritual-psychological struggles. This is plausible given the cumulative trauma of violently persecuting Christians, then suffering violent persecution, living in constant danger as a Christian, and then living with daily “anxiety for all the churches” (2 Corinthians 11:28).

Or given the context of 2 Corinthians 11–12, his thorn could plausibly have been the “super-apostles” and false brothers constantly dogging him and wreaking havoc in the churches he planted (2 Corinthians 11:5, 26). Or it might have been something else altogether.

The fact that we really don’t know what Paul’s thorn was turns out to be both merciful and instructive to us. It’s merciful because, given the various possibilities, we all can identify with Paul to some degree in our afflictions. It’s instructive because what Paul’s thorn was isn’t the point. The point is what God’s purpose was for the thorn.

Sent from God’s Hand

Paul makes two amazing, and somewhat initially disturbing, statements about his painful thorn — in the same sentence:

To keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me. (2 Corinthians 12:7)

The first amazing claim Paul makes is that God gave him his thorn. It’s clear from the context that Paul identified God as his thorn-giver, not Satan. And he understood that God’s purpose was to keep Paul humble and dependent on Christ’s power (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Now, most of us can’t identify with the sorts of revelations Paul was given, and when we read the kinds of suffering Paul experienced (2 Corinthians 11:23–27), it’s probably safe to assume our thorns don’t pierce as deeply as his did. But God’s purpose in our thorns is similar.

Pride, in all its manifestations, is our most pervasive sin and the most dangerous to us spiritually. Anything God gives us to keep us humble and prayerfully dependent on him is a great gift — even when that gift causes us pain. And here we see clearly that God disciplines his children with affliction in order to protect them from having their joy destroyed by the sin of pride. Ponder that: pain can protect us from pain; redemptive pain can protect us from destructive pain.

Satanic Harassment

But the second amazing claim Paul makes is more shocking: the redemptive pain God gave Paul to protect him from the destructive pain of his pride was delivered to him by “a messenger of Satan.” Suddenly, we find ourselves in an even deeper part of the theological pool. And given the ease with which Paul says this, he clearly expects Christians to be able to swim here.

Satan pierces us with a thorn from God? Yes. Does this trouble us? Does it trouble us that it didn’t trouble Paul? Paul feels no need to qualify or explain how God can give his child a redemptive gift of pain through an evil means. Why? Because this phenomenon occurs throughout the Bible. Paul knows his Old Testament like the back of his hand, and it has truths like this woven throughout it: “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). And he knows that the most redemptive gift of pain in history, the death of Christ the Lord, was given to us through the evilest means.

Our redemptive thorns also may be delivered by a satanic messenger. But we can know this: it will only be one more way that God “disarms the rulers and authorities and puts them to open shame” (Colossians 2:15). Our God is so powerful and so wise that he can work all things — including our satanically delivered thorns — for our good (Romans 8:28). Trust in this kind of sovereignty is what fuels our joyful, confident contentedness while experiencing the weakness and weariness of our affliction.

Pierced for a Purpose

Just like Paul’s, our thorns weaken us. Sometimes they are visible to others, but often they are hidden from public view, known only to those who know us best. And they are never romantic, never heroic. Rather, they almost always humble us in embarrassing rather than noble ways. They not only seem to impede our effectiveness and fruitfulness, but they also are more likely to detract from rather than enhance our reputations. Which is why we, like Paul, plead with God to remove them (2 Corinthians 12:8).

But this is the way our thorns have to be. Because if they were noble and heroic, if they enhanced our reputations, they would be of no help at all in guarding us from our pervasive pride. Which is why, as with Paul, God often answers our pleas for deliverance with a “no.” Because without the thorn, we would never experience that “[God’s] grace is sufficient for [us],” that his “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

This is the reason we have our thorns. They are weakeners that strengthen us. Without them, we would choose a weaker strength and miss experiencing the glory of God’s powerful grace and realize lesser joys as a result. It’s just one more wonderful kingdom paradox: our agonizing thorns end up producing greater joy in us and ultimately make us more effective and fruitful. The more we press into this paradox, the more we will say with Paul,

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)

Unanswered Prayers Are Invitations from God

Of the three most important spiritual disciplines of the Christian life — Bible reading, prayer, and Christian fellowship — prayer is the least exercised. Why do we struggle so much to pray?

That question has many answers, and we’ve probably heard most of them. We’re distractible, we’re lazy, we’re busy, we’ve had poor models, we lack a clear plan for how and when to pray, we’re overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people and things to pray for, our Adversary opposes our praying, and the list goes on.

But I think a significant reason for many of us is that we find prayer mysterious. We don’t understand how it works — or more accurately, we don’t understand how it doesn’t work. For example, we read promises in Scripture like this one:

“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:24)

Then we pray and we don’t see answers to our prayers. We’re left asking, what’s the problem? And we conclude that either our faith is so pitifully small faith that God essentially ignores them, or that there must be so many inscrutable, complicating factors inhibiting his answers that we end up as prayer agnostics. Either way, the net effect is we’re discouraged from praying much, unless we feel very desperate. Mark 11:24 must be for Christians with heroic faith.

But this is not the way God wants us to respond to unanswered prayer. He wants us to seriously press into the question, “What’s the problem?” Because in the audacious promise above — “whatever [we] ask in prayer” — is an invitation to an intimate relationship with him.

Further Up and Further In

“Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” I know this is a difficult promise for us. I know it exposes the littleness of our faith. I know it raises thorny, even grievous questions regarding prayers that have seemed to go unanswered. I know, I know. We’re tempted to respond sardonically, “Yeah, whatever . . . ”

And Jesus knows it’s hard for us too. He knows this promise presses us beyond our limits. He means it to. That’s why he made it. He is drawing us beyond what we’ve yet seen and experienced, and he’s calling out a trust in us that we don’t think we have — and are scared to really exercise. Jesus’s purpose is not to shame us for our little faith. He’s inviting us to come further up and further in.

What did Jesus mean by “whatever”? He made this promise to the disciples when they marveled that the fig tree Jesus cursed had shriveled up. One of the men who heard Jesus’s promise firsthand helps us understand what “whatever” means:

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. (1 John 5:14–15)

“Whatever” is “anything according to [God’s] will.” But this is no divine bait-and-switch. This is not a radically sounding promise that isn’t actually radical. The fig tree really withered. Jesus really means for us to move mountains (Mark 11:23). But we are meant to move the mountains God wants moved.

All the Idiosyncrasies of a Relationship

This is what we must keep in mind: prayer is a relational interaction, not merely a service transaction. Faith is not divine currency that we pay God in order to receive whatever we ask in prayer. Faith is a relational response of trust in what God promises us. Faith says to God, “I trust what you say so much that I will live by what you say.” And those who are audacious enough to really live by what God says will see mountains move that God wants moved. That’s why Jesus said,

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (John 15:7)

“Abide in me, and . . . ask whatever you wish.” This sounds so simple, just like “love one another” (John 13:34) sounds so simple. But abiding, like loving, is not simple at all, because it is profoundly relational.

Think about this. Which of our other close relationships are simple? How hard do we have to work, especially because of our own selfish sin, to understand and communicate clearly with those we love? Isn’t relational communication among the most difficult things we deal with daily? And these are relationships we encounter face-to-face. Should we expect knowing and relating to God will be less difficult?

Prayer has all the idiosyncrasies of a relationship because it is the way we relate to God.

In every other human relationship we have, effective communication is something we must learn. It’s not unusual to feel very perplexed at first. It can feel mysterious and frustrating. We find out that good communication requires more intentionality and pursuit and careful listening and humility and persistence and perseverance and real love than we originally expected or probably wanted to give. But if we really press into it, we tend to discover far more about that person than we knew before and experience new levels of intimacy and friendship with them. If we don’t, we won’t.

The same is true of God.

Whatever You Wish

This is why Jesus tells us that we “ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). He knows that we are tempted to lose heart by what seems like unanswered prayer. We do have small faith. Jesus knows this and he wants to grow our faith. God tells us there are complicating factors that delay answers to prayer, but he doesn’t mean for those factors and delays to make us prayer agnostics and give up. He wants us to press into his promise because there is no mountain he cannot move.

Those who abide in Christ, and have Christ’s words abiding in them, may ask whatever they wish, and it will be done for them. What does such a life look like? It looks like the Old Testament saints listed in Hebrews 11 who really pressed in to know God. It looks like the faithful men and women of the New Testament. And it looks like the lives of audacious saints throughout church history who have taken God most seriously at his word — the David Brainerds, the Adoniram Judsons, the George Muellers, the Hudson Taylors, the Charles Spurgeons, the Robert Chapmans, and a host of other men and women.

If “whatever you ask in prayer” has not happened yet, do not assume it can’t or won’t. Don’t give up. This promise is an invitation to come further up and further in to knowing God. And those who have taken God up on this invitation testify that the audacious promises of God are for those audacious enough to believe them.

The Single Most Important Day in History: Relive the Surprise of Easter Sunday

It is Sunday, April 5, AD 33. This day will change the entire course of world history, more than any other day before or after, though only a handful of people will know this by day’s end.

In an ancient, arid, Near Eastern city, one singular event will occur this day, unleashing a movement so compelling, so enduring, so influential, so unstoppable that two thousand years and billions of adherents later, it will still be growing, faster than ever, while the mighty empire that witnesses its birth will long lay in ancient ruins. This movement will shape nations, span oceans, birth universities, launch hospitals, transform tribal peoples in the world’s remotest places, and be spoken, read, and sung about in more languages than any other religious movement by far.

That singular event? The body of Jesus of Nazareth will exit his tomb.

The Women

The not-yet-risen sun is coloring the sky with purples and blues, the high clouds with reds and oranges, as a handful of women wind their way through the dark, quiet streets of Jerusalem. They are headed toward a burial garden. Few words are shared. This isn’t merely to keep a low profile. No one has the heart to speak. The reality and horror and grief and disorientation of Jesus’s death is re-dawning on them the closer they get to his grave.

These faithful women had kept vigil all through Jesus’s brutal execution on Friday and stayed as close to him as possible till the stone had sealed his tomb. But Joseph and Nicodemus barely had the Lord buried before the Sabbath began at sundown. There simply hadn’t been time to properly anoint the corpse. These devoted and courageous followers of Jesus intend to finish this precious, horrible job this morning. And best to do it before the city is up and going, so as to avoid undesired attention.

One of the women raises the massive problem of the tombstone. Another prays that the Roman guards will show some mercy and help them.

The Guards

Unbeknownst to them, the guards are in no position to help. They are at the chief priest’s residence frantically describing their terrifying experience to Caiaphas, Annas, and a number of Sanhedrin members. The earth shook! A bright being seemed to descend from the very heavens! He rolled away the stone like it was nothing and sat on it! They had all collapsed in terror.

Caiaphas the Sadducee listens, eyes closed, rubbing his forehead with his left hand. These hardened men can’t seriously believe such superstitious lunacy. He suspects a failure to execute their job is behind this supernatural thriller. He knows what they’re really terrified of: Pilate’s execution orders when he discovers what happened. The guards plead for protection. Caiaphas thinks this might actually be useful.

Council members confer. They clearly had underestimated the scope of this elaborate Messiah hoax. They must get ahead of the story, control the narrative. Tales of a resurrected Messiah will fill the streets with an ignorant mob demanding revolution. The zealots will take every advantage. Jewish blood will flow from Roman swords. And Rome will be done with the Council’s ineffective leadership. The word must be spread immediately: Jesus’s body was stolen by his disciples. It’s the only reasonable explanation. And the guards must not be harmed. They’ll be needed as eyewitness advocates for the reasonable explanation. Pilate will understand this necessity, in view of the potential explosiveness of the moment.

Council members demythologize the morning’s events for the soldiers, and explain the urgency of the situation. Their cooperation is required for the good of everyone. Financial compensation is provided for their “trouble,” along with a promise that if they help avoid further trouble, no harm will come to them from the governor. If the guards are not convinced by the Council’s explanations, they are most definitely grateful for the Council’s protection.

The Tomb

Once in the garden, the women realize things aren’t right. First, there are no guards. Next, they see that the tombstone poses a far different problem than they feared. It’s been roughly shoved to the side. The grave’s mouth is gaping open. So now are the women’s. They stand for a moment in frozen confusion and fear.

Then Mary Magdalene walks up to the opening and takes a step in, the others tentatively following. She stifles a gasping sob. Jesus’s body is gone, she reports. Hurriedly laying down her spices, she says she must tell Peter, and runs off.

The others look at one another and then back at the tomb. The other Mary leads them inside. Perhaps they’ll find clues to what’s happened. Suddenly two men appear out of nowhere, startling the women to the ground. The men are clothed in blinding white. The women would have shielded their eyes if they hadn’t already done so out of terror. The men speak to them in powerful and strangely comforting unison,

“Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” (Luke 24:5–7)

Just as suddenly, the men are gone. The women hesitantly lift their eyes. Did that just happen? They share stunned looks of what would be disbelief if they hadn’t just experienced this together. They said Jesus is risen? Alive? Now they must tell Peter.

The Disciples

When Mary Magdalene reaches the disciples’ hideout, she makes sure no one is watching, then knocks. John lets her in. She asks for Peter. There’s shock in her eyes and panic in her voice. Peter steps close and she speaks low. She’s been to the tomb. It’s open. Jesus’s body is gone! So are the guards! The blood drains from Peter’s face. He runs out and John takes off after him. Mary begins to follow and can’t contain the tears. They killed him, for goodness’ sake! Could they not leave him alone, even now?

The other women, meanwhile, take an indirect way to the disciples’ place, trying to appear inconspicuous. They knock and are let in. They too ask for Peter. He’s gone. So is John. What’s wrong? They share their remarkable story with the nine. But the men don’t remark. They just look back with incredulous and uncomfortable expressions. This story is a fairytale.

John beats Peter to the tomb. He stops outside and peers into this sacred place of profane death. Peter arrives seconds later and bursts right in. John, emboldened, follows. What they find doesn’t make sense. This clearly isn’t the work of grave robbers or vandals. Why would someone take the body? Perhaps they moved him to another grave. Then why leave the burial cloths? And why take the care to fold the face cloth? And where are the guards? They exit puzzled and troubled, and walk past Mary who’s leaning against the stone, weeping quietly.

The Lord

After a few minutes, Mary moves over and peers into the tomb. She gasps again. Two men in bright white are sitting on the deathbed. They speak to her in powerful and strangely comforting unison, “Why are you weeping?” Stunned and confused, all Mary stutters, “They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.”

A noise startles her from behind. She turns. A man is standing a few yards off. A strange sensation flashes over her. The man speaks. “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” There’s something about his voice. Who is this? The gardener? “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” He’s looking at her with familiar intensity. “Mary.” Her eyes and mouth grow wide. She places the strange sensation: recognition! It is the Lord! “Rabboni.”

So begin the appearances. A short time later he appears to Peter (Luke 24:34; 1 Corinthians 15:5). In the afternoon, he spends three hours with two other disciples walking to Emmaus and giving them a lesson in redemptive history, only revealing his identity to them at dinner (Luke 24:13–35). In the evening, he appears to all the disciples but one (Luke 24:36–43; John 20:19–23).

The Most Reasonable Explanation

So ended the single most important day in history. And so began the single most influential movement in history. Love it or hate it, the world has not seen anything like it.

The singular event that crowned the greatness of this day, that launched the irrepressible movement, was Jesus of Nazareth’s exit from the tomb.

We might ask, was there ever an exit in the first place? Or is the whole story as legendary as the Easter Bunny? Few credible historians deny Jesus’s existence or his execution. The historical evidence is too compelling. So is the historical evidence that his tomb was found empty.

Or we might ask, did Jesus exit the tomb as a stolen corpse? This idea is less credible than it all being a legend. The Jewish and Roman authorities had all the power, resources, and motivation to track down a body or convincing evidence and witnesses, but they never could. It never went beyond an assertion. Nor could they silence convincing witnesses of his resurrection. And it’s extremely unlikely these witnesses were lying, considering that nearly all who claimed to witness Jesus’s appearance on that most remarkable Sunday suffered horrible deaths because of their claims.

So, did Jesus exit the tomb as the resurrected Lord of life? Considering the weaknesses of the other possible options, the more we look at it, this surprisingly becomes the most reasonable explanation, making this question a haunting one. Something simply astonishing happened that day. The strangest, least likely claim if it didn’t really happen — that Jesus exited the tomb alive, as witnesses testified — has survived and overcome every attempt (often brutal) to refute or squash it. And the church Jesus established has, against all odds, spread all over the world, just as he said it would. Whatever this is, it is not the stuff of legends nor lies.

That empty tomb, after all these years, is more influential than ever. It refuses to leave the stage of world attention. Look seriously at the vacant grave and ponder the angels’ words: “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen” (Luke 24:5–6).

And then ponder Jesus’s words: “Do not disbelieve, but believe” (John 20:27).

Children Need a Crisis of Faith: Seven Lessons from Parenting Through Doubt

My wife and I have five children. Our oldest two have exited childhood and are adventuring into the uncharted territory of young adulthood. Our younger three are navigating the tricky waters of adolescence. As parents, we have the sacred, marvelous, daunting, and sometimes painful privilege of sharing in all these unique life-journeys.

As a rule, I am slow to offer parenting advice. We are still too much in the thick of it to be qualified experts. Most of the time we’re looking to receive, not dispense, counsel.

And one wonderful new source of counsel we’ve discovered is our (now) adult children. Their experiences of childhood and adolescence, and the good and not-so-good ways we parented them, are still fresh. But there’s sufficient distance for them to maturely reflect on their experiences and enough trust between us (thank you, God!) for them to share with us honestly. It’s precious and humbling when your child matures into your counselor.

Where It All Begins for Children

Recently, my wife was sharing with one of our adult children some of the spiritual wrestlings and questions of their younger siblings. Our adult child replied, “That’s where it all begins.”

This was the wise reply of one whose wisdom was hard won. They spoke from experience, having endured difficult and sometimes dark seasons of profound spiritual struggles during their own adolescence. And they discovered in these seasons what nearly all saints discover sooner or later: the Light of the world shines brightest in the darkness — in our own darkness (John 1:5). Coming to really see, savor, treasure, and trust Jesus Christ almost always begins in a crisis.

And this has unnerving implications for Christian parents: if our children are going to see the Light, they very likely must endure darkness. Which means we will endure it with them, and experience a powerlessness over the outcome we find hard to bear.

As parents, we spend a lot of time and energy trying to protect our children from the forces of evil and sin in the world, which we should. And we try hard to point them to the gospel so they escape the horrible slavery of their own sin, which we should. We comfort, reassure, and counsel; we admonish, reprove, and rebuke, which we should.

But all the efforts we pour into protecting and teaching our children can make us susceptible to the deception, even if we know better, that if we do our job right, our children will sail from young childhood into adulthood on untroubled seas, arriving with a robust faith in Christ. We forget that this wasn’t even Christ’s own experience in “parenting” his disciples. It was on the troubled sea, not on tranquil waters, where the disciples began to grasp what faith really means (Luke 8:22–25).

Our children may have to ride on a violent sea, one we fear will swallow them, before they really learn to fear and trust Christ. As parents, then, we must prayerfully prepare for when those sea billows roll, because it will be a scary ride for us too.

Faithfully Parenting

While I’m reluctant to give parenting advice, my wife and I have ridden enough waves with our children to share some lessons, not as an expert on parenting through a child’s faith crisis, but as a fellow sojourner sharing from my experience — my own faith crises, as well as my children’s.

1. Expect your child to experience a faith crisis.

Actually, do more than expect it; pray for it. By “faith crisis,” I don’t mean the loss of faith — a period of apostasy — though for some that may be what a crisis looks like. What I mean is whatever event(s) God knows is needed to call forth real faith in our child — a season or set of circumstances when they are faced with a crisis that forces them to exercise their own faith and experience for themselves that God exists and is the rewarder of those who seek him (Hebrews 11:6). Praying for our child’s faith crisis sounds strange, I know. But if we want our child’s deepest joy, we will pray for the testing of their faith (James 1:2–4).

2. Expect your child’s crisis will be different from yours.

God has taught you to walk by faith, and not by sight, in particular ways. But it’s likely that he will deal differently with your child. They may struggle in ways and over issues and questions you haven’t. The unfamiliar may seem frightening. But it’s not unfamiliar to God.

3. Expect to feel somewhat helpless.

There comes a point when God decides to use means quite apart from us to teach our children to trust him. He doesn’t typically inform us in advance when he begins. We just rather suddenly find ourselves on the periphery of our child’s struggles, not allowed the same access or influence we used to have (or thought we had). We’re unsure where this car is going, and it’s not in our power to steer it. We must resist panicking or the urge to try to seize the wheel, both of which only tend to make things worse. Such a moment often becomes a faith crisis for us too, where we must learn to trust God with our children in whole new ways.

4. Seek to be a safe place in a crisis.

During one point of crisis, one of my children confided that they didn’t feel safe discussing with me certain theological questions they were wrestling through. Their dad was a ministry co-founder and bi-vocational pastor at our church. It felt like there was only one acceptable place to land.

Since then, I have tried to share with all my children more of my own faith journey, crises and all, that brought me to where I now am. And I’m seeking to be more explicit with my children that, while I hold my theological convictions sincerely, I do not expect them to uncritically adopt them from me, or necessarily arrive quickly in adolescence where it’s taken me years, and plenty of testing, to reach.

We can’t always control whether we are perceived as a safe place to our children, but as much as possible, we must seek to be a safe place for them to discuss hard questions and to be in process without judgment. It’s not easy for an invested parent. But we must strive to be (especially) quick to hear and slow to speak.

5. Do not mistake a chapter for the story.

We must try to keep our child’s faith crisis in perspective — no matter how long. We are not God. We do not have foreknowledge. We must not assume we know how the story will end. Most biblical characters had life chapters that looked like their train was going off the rails at some point.

6. Aim for faithfulness.

We are not the authors of our children’s story. Neither are they. God is the Author. God does not call us to determine the outcome of our children’s faith. He calls us to “dwell in the land [of parenting] and befriend faithfulness” (Psalm 37:3). Our aim is to follow Jesus faithfully, speak what he gives us to say faithfully, and to love the children God gives us as well as we can, come what may.

7. Pray without ceasing.

Part of faithfulness is not to cease praying for our children to be “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3) and filled with the knowledge of God’s will with all spiritual wisdom and insight (Colossians 1:9).

8. Trust God.

This is the beginning and the end of parenting our children, whether on stormy waves or still waters. We want our children to reach maturity in Christ. “For this [we] toil, struggling with all [God’s] energy that he powerfully works within [us]” (Colossians 1:29). But we do not trust ultimately in our toil; we trust ultimately in God’s power. And when our children endure various crises of faith, we “wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:14).

Where It All Begins

So much more can and should be said. I’m very aware that our children’s faith crises, and what has precipitated them, and how long they last, are as varied as people and experiences vary. I know as parents these can be frightening moments because, for some, a crisis results in the rejection rather than the realization of faith. But even then, it’s not the end of the story.

Parenting is not for the faint of heart. It’s for the heart of faith, the one for whom God is the strength of their heart (Psalm 73:26). He is the author and perfecter of our faith — and our children’s faith (Hebrews 12:2). As the great cloud of biblical and historical witnesses remind us (Hebrews 12:1), often, when a crisis hits, that’s where it all begins.