Jon Bloom's Blog, page 32

Enjoy a Good Laugh, Like God

Feel no ambivalence whatsoever about enjoying some good clean fun on April Fools’ Day. God loves a good laugh. And the devil gets way too much credit when it comes to humor, like he does with sex. But humor comes from God, not Satan. So April Fools’ Day can give us an opportunity to taste heaven, and play Satan for the fool that he is.

Humor (like sex) is not a result of the fall. Only perverted humor is. Humor springs from God and, being supreme in all things good, he’s the most humorous person in existence. He is the happy God (1 Timothy 1:11), the source of all that is healthy and wholesome and purely hilarious. Anyone who would come up with the ideas to create dogs, llamas, parrots, and proboscis monkeys has a riotous sense of humor.

Preeminent in all things (Colossians 1:18), nobody laughs like God does. He laughs for joy and he laughs in derision at fools who think they can overthrow him (Psalm 2:4). The only reason we have the capacity to laugh ourselves to tears is because we’re like him. God is holy. But if we think holiness and humor are incompatible, it’s only because we’ve been sold a diabolical lie.

The Pervert of Humor

Satan is a rip-off artist. He’s a pervert. He’s no humorist. He’s funny like a serial killer. He’s deft at deception and has been effective at casting himself as the king of swing and his kingdom as party central, where you go if you really want a good time.

The devil doesn’t enjoy fun. As C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape wrote to his demonic protégé, “Fun is closely related to Joy . . . it promotes charity, courage, contentment and many other evils” (The Screwtape Letters, 53). The devil does not want us to have fun that leads to joy. He seeks to twist fun into something that has imperceptible evil tentacles — tentacles that wrap around us with which he can pull us toward destruction.

Satan is smart and savvy; we can give him that. There is diabolical genius in his perversions. He knows how to effectively sell us “enjoyments” that will destroy our joy, and he can get us laughing at things that will destroy our laughter.

But let us not for a moment think that Satan is funny. He takes himself way to seriously for that. For Satan, humor is something to employ, not enjoy. To him, humor is only a means he can corrupt in order to blind, manipulate, control, condemn, divide, isolate, degrade, and enslave people. And in doing so, thumb his nose at God. Satan uses humor to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10).

God Loves a Good Laugh

But God loves a good laugh! It’s God who says to us, “a joyful heart is good medicine” (Proverbs 17:22). We would all be healthier and happier and, very likely, holier if we had more good laughs. For laughter is more characteristic of God than weeping.

One of my favorite Puritan prayers begins like this:

Thou art the blessed God,

Happy in thyself,

Source of happiness in thy creatures. (The Valley of Vision, 212)

And one of my favorite modern Puritans has written:

The eternal happiness of the triune God spilled over in the work of creation and redemption. And since this original happiness was God’s delight in His own glory, therefore the happiness that He has in all His works of creation and redemption is nothing other than a delight in His own glory. (John Piper, Desiring God, 44–45)

God is not the sad God, but the blessed (happy) God! And God’s happiness is eternal and rooted in his unchangeable, unshakable, glorious nature. That means our Source of exuberant happiness is never-ending! I believe that in the age to come we are going to be surprised at how much and how hard God makes us laugh!

“You Shall Laugh”

One of the great tragedies of the fall is that we lost so much of our capacity to laugh with God. This sin-sick, evil-infected world became a place of serious sorrow and our sin-diseased fallen natures became seriously distorted and pathologically prideful.

But Jesus came to change all that. The eternally happy God became the “man of sorrows” (Isaiah 53:3) for us. But this was only for a short time. And like him, our sad tears are only for a short time — a short lifespan. We may weep for the brief night, but Joy is coming in the eternal morning (Psalm 30:5).

And the “man of sorrows” himself said, “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh” (Luke 6:21). Hear that: You shall laugh! That is a promise of a happy God (1 Timothy 1:11). Crying is going to go the way of death and someday will be no more (Revelation 21:4). But joy full to overflowing and pleasure pure and rich will never end (Psalm 16:11).

Weeping will end, but not laughter. We will laugh for joy millions of times more than we have ever wept for sorrow.

Laugh on April Fools’ Day!

April Fools’ Day is not about celebrating what the Bible defines as a fool. It’s about good-natured, lighthearted, innocent shenanigans and some heart-healthy laughter. Enjoy it! Pull some pranks! God loves a good laugh and you are like God when you laugh good and hard.

And since good laughter is a taste of heaven, it’s completely unpalatable to Satan. He is the Greatest Fool of All Time. So a good, healthy joke, a moment of side-splitting wholesome humor, and actually laughing at Satan when he tempts you with some perverted joy-substitute is a great way to play him for the Fool that he is. And when you do that, you are also like God:

The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming (Psalm 37:12–13).

More from Desiring God

Pity the Fool | An April Fools’ Day meditation on what the Book of Proverbs has to say about wisdom and folly.

How to Recognize a Foolish Leader | The right kind of leader, under the wise governing checks and balances constructed in the American constitution, will help guide our nation through the very precarious days that lie ahead of us.

The Fall of Satan and the Victory of Christ | From Genesis 3:1–15, John Piper, in a single sermon, explains Satan’s origin, the role he plays under God’s sovereignty, his ultimate defeat, and how we should respond to him.

Come to the Light and Really Live

We men love to think of ourselves as light-seekers, brave souls on the noble quest for the naked truth. But in Jesus, the Truth (John 14:6) gives us a hard dose of the naked truth to wake us from our fantasies: “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19).

Our noble quest is put to the test when the Truth seeks us out. It turns out that we do not seek true light. What we seek is glory, pleasure, and worship for ourselves (John 5:44; 2 Timothy 3:4). Created as moons we seek to be suns and our foolish minds are darkened (Romans 1:21). And if the light that is in us is darkness, how great is our darkness (Matthew 6:23)! As the real Light shines, the naked truth about us is exposed and we flee to the darkness to conceal our evil.

But here is the astounding, wonderful news for us dark-dwellers: The Light is love (1 John 4:8)! The Light is shining to save us, not condemn us (John 3:17)! Jesus, the Light of the world, does not want us to remain in darkness but to have the light of life (John 8:12). He came to deliver us from the domain of darkness and transfer us to his kingdom of undying light (Colossians 1:13). He came to become the darkness of our sin for us so that in him we might become the light of God’s perfect righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21). He came that we might live unashamed in the light.

Are there things you are concealing in the darkness, afraid to expose to the light? Do you fear God’s condemnation? Do you fear the collapse of the reputation you have crafted?

Do not be afraid. Let Jesus’s perfect love for you cast out your fear (1 John 4:18). His word to you is this: “I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness” (John 12:46). Jesus offers you complete forgiveness and cleansing (1 John 1:9) and eternal life (John 3:16). All darkness offers you is destruction.

Come to the Light and really live.

Jon Bloom is a contributor to the new ESV Men’s Devotional Bible. This meditation was written to accompany John 3:16–21.

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God Rested on the Seventh Day

Saturday, April 4, A.D. 33 began for the Jews at what we now consider six o’clock in the evening. It was the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, which God commanded in the law of Moses to be kept as a holy day of rest in memory of the day God rested from his creative cosmic work (Exodus 20:8).

And it was a high Sabbath, because it was the Passover, the high feast which God commanded in the law of Moses to be kept in memory of the night when the blood of an innocent lamb shielded God’s people from his angel of lethal judgment on Egypt (Exodus 12).

But no one yet understood that this Sabbath was far higher than any that had been kept since God’s ancient day of holy rest. And no one yet understood that this Passover was far holier than even the first Passover — that the Egyptian Passover was, in fact, foreshadowing this ultimate Passover.

God Finished His Work

By six o’clock, the Passover Lamb of God had been dead three hours, having been slaughtered on a cross-altar outside the city. Fresh traces of his sacrificial blood still marked moments of agony and horror in the governor’s palace, along the road, and on the ignominious hill called “The Skull.”

Late afternoon on Friday, the Lamb’s body had been courageously secured from Pilate by a member of the Sanhedrin, the very council that had secured from Pilate the Lamb’s execution. And in order to keep this highest of Sabbaths holy, the sympathetic Sanhedrin member, with the covert help of another member, had hastily placed the Lamb that was slain in criminal dishonor in a grave of aristocratic honor (Matthew 27:57–60; John 19:38–42). It was one more twist of providential irony. One more fulfillment of divine prophecy (Isaiah 53:9).

And now, on this highest of holy Sabbaths, beneath a linen shroud, on a cold stone slab behind a large cold stone, lay the body of the Lord of the Sabbath (Matthew 12:8). He had done the holy, horrible work that his Father had asked him to accomplish (John 5:17; 12:27). The Holy One had become unholy so that in him the unholy ones could be made holy (2 Corinthians 5:21). And just as in ancient ages past, so again on the sixth day he had pronounced this part of his genesis work of new creation “finished” (John 19:30). And now, once again, “he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done” (Genesis 2:2).

A Rest Like None Other

That the mortal flesh of the immortal Word was undergoing the rest of rigor mortis on this Sabbath following his work of supreme sacrifice was no coincidence. Yet this was a rest like none other. His was the inscrutable rest that only the only wise God could have conceived (Romans 16:27): the holy, disgraceful rest of the sin-cursed death of the blessed, eternally sinless, immortal Son of God.

Who would have dreamed such a thing? “Who has known the mind of the Lord” (Romans 11:34)? The Son, at the direction of the Father, indeed always does all things well (John 5:19; Mark 7:37).

Lord of the Sabbath

And even at this moment of perceived supreme weakness, of bodily death, the Life (John 14:6) remained the Lord of this Sabbath. Even in death, he provided refreshment to his followers and exposed his enemies.

During this holy Sabbath, he refreshed the faithful women who had followed him (Luke 23:55–56). They had kept vigil with him during the dark, tortuous hours of Calvary and had been the only ones brave enough to accompany Joseph and Nicodemus to the tomb (Matthew 27:61). They were planning to return at first light Sunday. They had borne profound grief. They would be the first to know Easter joy.

He also provided Sabbath convalescence for his sad, beleaguered disciples, locked away in fear and confusion (John 20:19). Back in the garden, Jesus had told them, “Sleep and take your rest later on” (Matthew 26:45). And now Jesus graciously gave them a “later on” day to rest before once again throttling them with the shock of resuscitated hope and joy and launching them into a life’s work that would forever change the world.

Ironically, but not surprisingly, this high and holy Sabbath did not find the chief priests and Pharisees resting. After determining that the Sabbath-healing Son of God must be killed (John 5:18), and having achieved their goal, these leaders were gathered at Pilate’s headquarters busily working on this Sabbath to secure a military guard at Jesus’s tomb (Matthew 27:62–66). The work of healing on the Sabbath was anathema, but apparently not the work of collaborating with pagans to keep the Lord of the Sabbath in his grave.

Would their homicidal anger only rage higher at Jesus if they knew that, even as he rested beneath the Roman seal they secured, he was working the greatest healing ever conceived? How despondent did they become when they discovered the next day that all their Sabbath work had not prolonged his death-rest?

For as this holy Sabbath ended, and the soldiers stood guard, and disciples sat in anxious uncertainty, and the women lovingly readied their spices for the dawn, the body of the slain Lamb stirred. The Lord of the Sabbath was about to be revealed as the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25). And not all the Roman legions in the world could have kept that tomb sealed.

For Holy Week 2016, we are publishing a series of fresh meditations, one each for Palm Sunday and Easter and two each on the other six days. Also, our new devotional book, Your Sorrow Will Turn to Joy, provides morning and evening readings for Holy Week and is available for download, free of charge.

The Secret to Peace and Contentment

The secret to Christian peace and contentment is not a gnostic secret. It is not concealed knowledge only revealed to those who achieve higher degrees of holy enlightenment. This secret is hidden in plain sight throughout the Scripture and is available to anyone who is willing to believe it.

The Secret

God has not only gone public with this secret, but he invites us and longs for us to know it. He does not want us to merely know about this secret — not to merely preach it, explain it, enjoy the idea of it, or wish for it — but to know it by experience.

Jesus described the kind of experience he wants us to know:

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. . . . [For] your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.” (Luke 12:22, 30–31)

Paul, from prison, shared his experience of the secret with all who would listen:

“I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11–13)

The secret to contentment is very simple. And it does not require heroic acts of piety. No, in fact it requires a childlike response from us. The secret is beautifully summed up in this phrase: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart” (Proverbs 3:5).

Could It Really Be So Simple?

Is it really that simple? Just trust God? Yes. So simple, but its reality is revolutionary.

God designed us to operate on trust. We are reasoning creatures made in God’s image. But God did not make us gods; he made us in small measure like God. He did not give us his capacities to contain all knowledge and all wisdom. We only contain very small amounts of each. Nor did he give us his power to bring into being whatever we wish. Our power is very limited. God designed us to trust him in whatever knowledge, wisdom, and strength he provides us and to trust his knowledge, wisdom, and strength when ours reach their limits.

What happened with Adam and Eve in the garden is that they broke trust with God by eating the forbidden fruit. When they did this, they unhinged their reason from Reality (Genesis 3:6) and besides living in a world subjected to futility (Romans 8:20), they had to deal with the overwhelming complexities of the knowledge of good and evil without the capacities of wisdom and knowledge and strength to adequately process them.

The story of redemptive history, culminating in Jesus’s incarnation, death, and resurrection, is God undoing the catastrophe of the garden and restoring sinful humans to holiness and once again trusting in him with all their heart.

No matter who we are, no matter what our gifts and abilities, no matter what our background, it all really does come down to trusting God with all our heart. If we trust him, our hearts will not be sinfully troubled (John 14:1). And trusting is simple. But it is by no means easy.

Why Trusting (and Obeying) Is Hard

The devil’s treachery and Adam and Eve’s fall from grace is why God chooses to save us by grace through faith, and not through works (Ephesians 2:8–9). God is looking for trust. Our works are important, in fact they’re crucial, but only in that they demonstrate that we trust God.

God knows that our living in simple trust in him will be hard for us in this age. Jesus promised that it would be (Matthew 7:14). It’s hard because we’re called to trust Jesus, demonstrated by our obeying Jesus, in a world under the power of the evil one that rejects and hates Jesus (1 John 5:19; John 14:15; 15:18), while living in a body of death that has faithless impulses (Romans 7:23–24).

But what we need to remember is that every time we are called to trust Jesus’s promises over our perceptions and the devil’s deceptions, we reenact what happened in Eden. And every time we exercise trust Jesus by obeying what he says, it’s a smack in the devil’s lying mouth.

We do not need to understand the “why” to every command of God or be able to answer every objection or shadow of doubt cast upon God’s word. But we do need to trust God and therefore obey him. In fact, God is particularly glorified when, in the face of disorienting temptation, we do not fully understand God’s reasons and we trust and obey him anyway — we rest our reason on the Reason of God.

Experience the Secret

Trusting God is not easy, but it’s not complex. The knowledge of good and evil is complex. It produces Gordian knots we cannot untie. But we were never meant to. We were meant to trust God with them. And when we do, it is a great relief.

Trusting God is the secret:

To forgiving those who have sinned against us (Ephesians 4:32).
To turning away from sexual temptation (1 Thessalonians 4:3).
To giving generously to kingdom needs, even beyond your means (2 Corinthians 8:3).
To not allowing material abundance to choke the word in us (Matthew 13:22).
To rejoicing even when sorrowful (2 Corinthians 6:10).
To contentment even when experiencing deprivation (Philippians 4:12).
To boldness even in the face of fearful threats (Acts 4:29).
To peace even when facing pressured trials (Philippians 4:6–7).
To joy even when enduring withering affliction and illness (2 Corinthians 1:3–5).
To hope when all around our soul gives way (Psalm 42:11).
To gracious patience under pressured labors (Colossians 1:11).
To blessing those who persecute us (Romans 12:14).
To courage in leaving family and property for Jesus’s sake (Matthew 19:29).
To overcoming discouragement due to adversity and weakness (2 Corinthians 12:10).
To not allowing indwelling sin to reign over or condemn us (Romans 6:12, 8:1).
To loving saints who sin and sinful unbelievers (John 15:12; Romans 12:10; Romans 9:1–3).
To facing every other fear and anxiety-producing temptation.

God promises to give us peace and contentment if we trust him (Philippians 4:6–7). He really wants us to experience them in increasing measure, even here in this troubled world (John 16:33). So he has given us the simple, hard secret: Trust me. It is the only way.

More from Desiring God

Help Me Trust in God’s Sovereign Goodness Over My Wearisome Life | John Piper responds to a listener’s plea for help to “see the supreme sovereign hand of Christ in the monotony of life, specifically when the kids are crying and bills are stacked up to the ceiling.”

The Insanity of ‘Self-Care’ | Only Someone stronger than your greatest weaknesses, bigger than your worst failures, and brighter than your deepest darknesses could address the things you fear or regret.

Anxieties: To Be Cast, Not Carried | John Piper preaches on 1 Peter 5:1–11 and addresses how God makes provision for us to get rid of our fears and anxieties.

It’s Not a Talent Show

God does not apportion talents equally to his servants. He gives more to some and less to others. Each apportionment has its unique temptations. But at one point, Jesus delivered a warning to less talented servants.

How Britain Got Talent

Our English word talent refers to a person’s innate ability or aptitude to accomplish something, typically an above average to extraordinary ability. But the only reason this word is in our lexicon is because of Jesus’s “Parable of the Talents” in Matthew 25:14–30.

In Biblical Greek, the word talanton, the etymological ancestor of talent, meant a measuring unit of weight, often of money, such as a talent of gold or silver. In the New Testament, a talent was the largest unit of monetary value and some estimate its contemporary value in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But in Jesus’s parable, he was clearly using this monetary word talent metaphorically to imply any God-given stewardship we are entrusted with, including our abilities. This became so commonly taught in Christianized Britain that by the 14th century talent had been adopted into English to mean our abilities and aptitudes.

A Tale of Talented Servants

In the parable, a wealthy man, preparing to leave on a journey, entrusts three of his servants with talents (i.e. a lot) of money with the expectation that they will steward those talents well and provide him a good return on investment (ROI) when he returns. To one he gives five talents, to one he gives two talents, and to one he gives one talent. All we are told is that the master apportioned the amounts “to each according to his ability” (Matthew 25:15).

While the master is gone, the five-talent and two-talent servants invest diligently and wisely and receive 100% ROI, but the one-talent servant does nothing but bury his. So when the master returns, he commends and rewards the five and two-talent servants, but the one-talent servant is rebuked and punished.

A Temptation for Less Talented Servants

In this parable, Jesus clearly wants us to ponder the less talented servant. He doesn’t give us many specifics, but let’s consider one possible reason why the one-talent servant was distrustful and resentful toward his master and so didn’t invest his talent.

When the master questioned this servant, he was given this excuse:

“Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.” (Matthew 25:24–25)

The servant considered the master unjust, so he distrusted his master. Why did he think this way? Nothing else in the parable points to the master’s unfairness. It appears that something in the servant was fueling this perception of the master. What was it?

We’re not told, but I don’t have to look very far to see one very possible cause: Being given less talents when others have been given more talents can appear unfair to a proud heart.

The reason I don’t have to look far is because I see how my own pride responds to more talented servants. I am surrounded by people who have received from the Master more talents than he’s given to me. They read faster, write faster, write better, have brighter intellects, have better memories, get more done, are more efficient administrators, more creative, more effective preachers, and on and on. I am regularly tempted to covet the talents others have and wonder why my Master didn’t give me more talents.

I don’t always recognize this as coveting, though. The way it typically manifests in me is discouragement and self-pity. Emotionally, I feel like a loser. And, to be honest, there are times I fantasize about moving to a quiet cabin in northern Minnesota to escape the pressures that expose my lesser talents and just read books. You know what that is? It’s a sinful, talent-burying fantasy. I think it’s a common-to-man temptation for less talented servants (1 Corinthians 10:13).

And it’s all fueled by pride. All that feeling bad about myself, it’s all about me. It’s a form of self-worship. Gone is love for my Master. Gone is love for anyone else. Gone is the wonder over the grace that I received anything from the Master at all. Gone is the realization that even one talent is a huge amount and way more than I deserve to steward and only looks small compared to multiple talents that others have.

I think that’s at least one reason why the master in the parable called the less talented servant “wicked and slothful” (Matthew 25:26). The master gave the servant fewer talents and that meant fewer opportunities and less capacity for the servant to distinguish himself and therefore he saw the master as a hard, unjust man. So he buried his talent and indulged his own wicked, slothful interests and pursuits.

The Church Is Not a Talent Show

Pride infects all of us sinful servants, no matter how many talents we have. More talented servants have their own temptations and Jesus addresses those elsewhere. But in this parable he warns less talented servants to beware of the way pride can dangerously warp our perspective. And when we see this in ourselves, there are a few ways we can respond:

Repent of pride. This parable shows us less talented servants the spiritual danger of pride. When we see it, we must repent. And we are wise if we stay alert to the ways self-pity and discouragement can be Trojan horses for sinful pride. It might feel like we need comfort, when what we really need is to repent.

Trust the Master. Our Master is not unfair in his apportionment of talents. He has wise purposes, and if we know our Bibles well, we know that God’s purposes are often far different than our perceptions of them. Let us trust him (Proverbs 3:5–6) and cultivate contentment with what we are given (Hebrews 13:5).

Be faithful with your talent. We must remember that the five-talent and two-talent servants received the same commendation from the master. No matter how many talents we receive, our Master is looking for faithfulness. He will commend faithfulness with little and reward it with much in the kingdom (Matthew 25:21).

The church is not a talent show. It is Christ’s body, with each part functioning for the health of the whole. Our Master does not want us to focus on the amount of our talents compared to others. That’s his to apportion, as he deems best. He wants us to focus on being faithful with what he’s given us. If we do, we will hear from him, “Well done.”

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Is God More Happy with Other Christians Than Me? | John Piper answers the question, “Can’t a person with greater gifts please God more than one with lesser gifts?”

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Your Sorrow Will Turn to Joy

A team of eleven pastors and scholars walk us through Holy Week with short meditations for each morning and evening from Palm Sunday to the triumph of Easter.

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How to Recognize a Foolish Leader

No matter who is elected President of the United States in November, he or she will be a sinner. He or she will be fallible and will, like all presidents, make some serious mistakes. We will not elect a messiah-in-chief.

But nonetheless, the right kind of leader, under the wise governing checks and balances constructed in the American constitution, will help guide our nation through the very precarious days that lie ahead of us.

We Face Precarious Days

And the days will be precarious. The economic, social, and military policy decisions that must be made, in both the domestic and foreign arenas, are enormous, delicate, and urgent.

The U.S. national debt as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product has risen to unprecedented and increasingly alarming levels. The trend is unsustainable and the potential outcome could be disastrous. The recent shifts in our national moral landscape have been seismic, resulting in a tenuous cultural atmosphere of uncertainty and fear. And the global balance of power is in flux as economic and therefore military capacities transform. Meanwhile, very volatile regions are glowing dangerously hot with complex political and religious turmoil. Even misspoken words can detonate an explosively bloody response.

These immense challenges require an American executive with a cool head, an educated mind, a justly principled backbone, a discerning eye, a listening ear, a steady hand, and a controlled tongue. The futures of millions of people will hang in the balance in policies that our next president will advocate or obstruct. And when that President speaks, quite literally death and life will at times be in the power of his or her tongue (Proverbs 18:21).

We Urgently Need a Wise Leader

Therefore, as a nation it is urgent that we seek to elect as wise, honest, humble, experienced, capable, decisive, and resolute a leader as is available to us. And we would be wise to elect a leader, if possible, who truly fears God, since he or she must have an internal moral resistance to the powerful temptations to evil that will come with wielding great power.

If we do not, if we elect a foolish leader, the costs will be very high — higher than most of us yet understand. “We the people” will groan (Proverbs 29:2).

And we won’t groan alone. The peoples of other nations, and likely the most vulnerable in those nations, will groan under the effects of foolish American leadership. And the next generations of Americans will groan. Our children and grandchildren will live with the fallout of words spoken and actions taken in the next few years.

Marks of a Foolish Leader

We know that no matter whom we elect, he or she will not be the ideal leader. However, it is of urgent importance that we avoid electing a foolish leader like the plague. We as a people have the historically recent and remarkable privilege of electing our head of state. If we as a people choose unwisely, it will be on our own heads.

How do we know if a potential leader is foolish? The principle is in this statement that Jesus made: “Every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit” (Matthew 7:17). We must examine the fruit. And the Bible is quite clear on what the diseased fruit of foolishness looks like:

The foolish look with haughty eyes (Proverbs 6:17).
The foolish engage in slander (Proverbs 10:18).
The foolish joke about their wrongdoing (Proverbs 10:23).
The foolish make great boasts (Psalm 12:3).
The foolish are stubbornly right in their own eyes (Proverbs 12:15).
The foolish are quickly annoyed by insults (Proverbs 12:16).
The foolish lash out in rash words like sword thrusts (Proverbs 12:18).
The foolish express no shame over their folly (Proverbs 13:16).
The foolish speak and act with recklessness and carelessness (Proverbs 14:16).
The foolish spew folly from their mouths (Proverbs 15:2).
The foolish despise instruction and reproofs from those who are wiser (Proverbs 15:5).
When the foolish try and speak in a dignified manner it feels artificial (Proverbs 17:7).
Rebukes just bounce off of the foolish (Proverbs 17:10).
The foolish love to boldly pronounce their opinions (Proverbs 18:2).
The foolish have repeatedly been ensnared by their words in their past (Proverbs 18:7).
The foolish are often characterized by quarreling (Proverbs 20:3).
The foolish frequently disregard wisdom (Proverbs 23:9).
When others stoop to engage the foolish according to their folly, they end up looking foolish themselves (Proverbs 26:4).
The foolish have a history of repeating their folly (Proverbs 26:11).
Those known to be wise are concerned and burdened by the words and actions of the foolish (Proverbs 27:3).
The foolish rage or mock when arguing with others (Proverbs 29:9).
The foolish love to give full vent to their spirit (Proverbs 29:11).
The foolish are quick to speak (Proverbs 29:20).
The foolish are often characterized by shouting (Ecclesiastes 9:17).
The foolish may consider themselves religious, but their unbridled tongues show that religion to be worthless (James 1:26).

This is not an exhaustive list of foolishness, nor (obviously) is it the only list to consider when electing a leader. This is simply level one. If a potential leader does not pass the assessment of this list, we must consider them disqualified.

Examine the Fruit

What is true of false prophets is also true of foolish leaders: “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:20). So examine the fruit. It is true that all leaders, being sinners, will act foolishly on occasion. What we are looking for is consistent, characteristic fruit, not anomalies. If you find characteristic fruit of foolishness, do not be deceived by words or fear or any form of pressure. Do not elect a fool to a ruling position.

For what is true of false prophets is also true of foolish leaders: They will act wickedly. And “when the wicked rule, the people groan” (Proverbs 29:2).

Related Resources

Hillary, Bernie, Donald, and Me | John Piper explains why, at 70, he is energized to dream great things for the kingdom and encourages others not to play away their elder years. And he points to Hillary Clinton (turning 69), Bernie Sanders (turning 75), and Donald Trump (turning 70) who are all aspiring to the hardest job in the world despite entering their 8th decade.

Change You Can Believe In | As we engage in political discourse and public policy, we must remember that political activism can only accomplish so much. Our hope is not in government to change our nation, but in the proclamation of the good news through churches and Christian families.

Let Christians Vote as Though They Were Not Voting | Voting is like marrying and crying and laughing and buying. We should do it, but only as if we were not doing it. That’s because “the present form of this world is passing away” and, in God’s eyes, “the time has grown very short.”

Why We Must Earnestly Desire Spiritual Gifts

The clear teaching of the New Testament is that God gives spiritual gifts to the church for the common good of the saints (1 Corinthians 12:7) and to empower her mission to evangelize the world (Luke 24:48–49; Acts 4:29–31; 1 Corinthians 14:24–25).

The most familiar lists of these gifts are in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4. But the Corinthians list includes the most controversial gifts of the Spirit: healing, miracles, prophecy, tongues and their interpretation (1 Corinthians 12:9–10).

And it’s in the context of teaching on these gifts — particularly the two most controversial gifts, prophecy and tongues — that Paul twice tells us to “earnestly desire” them, adding, “especially that [we] may prophesy” (1 Corinthians 12:31; 14:1). He leaves us no room to wiggle out of pursuing uncomfortable gifts.

I know that some wonderful, sincere Christians believe that these most controversial gifts did not extend beyond the closing of the New Testament canon. I am not here going to argue for the gifts’ continuation. Some of the resources listed at the end address that. I assume what the Holy Spirit-inspired New Testament authors assumed: The spiritual gifts would function in healthy, Holy Spirit-empowered churches until Jesus returns (1 Corinthians 13:9–12).

The questions I want to address are why should we desire these gifts and how should we pursue them?

Because the Bible Commands Us To

The most fundamental reason we should desire these gifts is that the Bible commands us to: “earnestly desire the spiritual gifts.” Paul says this in the same sentence he says, “pursue love” (1 Corinthians 14:1). Both are Holy Spirit-inspired imperatives.

No one disputes that we should continue to love one another. There is no command that is clearer in the New Testament (John 15:12). But neither would anyone dispute that loving one another is very hard. Love may not be controversial in the church, but its demands are very intimidating and it is often manipulated and abused.

Likewise the spiritual gifts are intimidating, some even strange, and all of them can too be manipulated and abused. All spiritual gifts are potentially dangerous, even the less controversial ones (think of the damage done by false teachers and deceptive administrators).

In a sense, handling spiritual gifts is like handling dynamite — dynamis is the Greek word for “power” often used when referring to the Holy Spirit. When used rightly the gifts are explosively loving. When used wrongly they are explosively destructive. It’s tempting not to use them at all.

The early Christians also felt this way after damaging experiences. That’s why Paul had to say things like, “do not forbid speaking in tongues,” “do not quench the Spirit,” and “do not despise prophecies” (1 Corinthians 14:39; 1 Thessalonians 5:19–20). It was tempting to not use these messy gifts.

But in commanding us to pursue love and to earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, the Bible commands us to handle dangerous things. And they are commands. Neither were options in Paul’s mind and they should not be in ours either. God has purposes for these gifts that make them more than worth the danger.

Because Spiritual Gifts Are Given to Help Us Love One Another

Pursuing love and desiring spiritual gifts are not disconnected. These gifts are given to the church to help us love one another. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul explains that each Christian is a unique member of Christ’s body and therefore each has a unique function and receives unique gifts that benefits the “common good” of the body (1 Corinthians 12:7, 12, 29–30).

The Spirit doesn’t give us gifts in order that each of us gets our self-important moment in the spotlight. He gives us gifts so that for the greater glory of Christ we are able to pursue love through serving one another. This way no one is to think that he is not needed or that he doesn’t need anyone else (1 Corinthians 12:15, 21). The more honorable members have no place to boast and the less honorable members have no place for shame (1 Corinthians 12:22–26).

Love is the aim of the spiritual gifts. It is possible to possess and exercise impressive spiritual gifts without love. If we do, we are “nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2).

But it’s also true that if we neglect any particular spiritual gift, if we don’t earnestly desire and pursue them, we will neglect some aspect of love and so fail to glorify Christ. Some kind of edification will not happen. We need the Spirit’s empowerment to strengthen the saints and see unsaved people “delivered . . . from the domain of darkness and transferred . . . to the kingdom of [God’s] beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13).

We are to earnestly desire the spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 as a means to pursue the love Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13.

What Does Earnestly Desiring Spiritual Gifts Look Like?

Earnestly desiring the spiritual gifts looks like desiring them.

For the most part, the Bible is not a how-to manual. It holds out treasure to us and bids us to seek it out (Proverbs 2:4–5). Desire is the test, for desire fuels the quest. That is a key to understanding much in the Bible.

What do you do when you really want something? You don’t wait around for someone to deliver it nicely packaged, fully assembled, and ready-to-use. You go looking for it. You start asking questions of knowledgeable people. You read and watch and listen to a lot of information. You ask, seek, and knock (Matthew 7:7). If you really, really want it, you consider it worth the hard work of figuring things out and working till you get it.

That’s what earnestly desiring spiritual gifts looks like. But here are a few things for starters:

Begin with the Bible. Soak in 1 Corinthians 12–14, Romans 12, and Ephesians 4. Read the book of Acts over and over until it ruins you for your worldly comfort and pursuits and fuels your desire to experience the reality of the kingdom you read there.

Pray. If you’re ruined for anything less than knowing the fullness of the Spirit and seeing the kingdom of God advance, your discontent and desperation will drive you to pray the kind of prayers the Lord loves to answer.

Consume Sound Teaching and Testimonies. These will fuel your desire as well as increase your knowledge. Below I’ve listed some helpful resources, but type “Spiritual Gifts” into our search box and you’ll discover a lot more. And read and listen to men like Sam Storms, Wayne Grudem, D.A. Carson, Tope Koleoso, and Terry Virgo who skillfully handle the Word and are personally experienced in the spiritual gifts.

Meet a Need. The spiritual gifts are not fireworks for our oohs and aahs. They are mainly given as means to extend love and the grace of God to others. Taking steps for the sake of Christ to love others whose needs extend beyond our capacities puts us (and them) squarely in the path of God’s grace. When we’ve asked God to help us walk on water, we must then get out of the boat.

Related Resources

Signs and Wonders: Then and Now | John Piper explains at length why, along with Martyn Lloyd-Jones, he believes that “signs and wonders” and all the spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12:8–10 are valid for today and should be “earnestly desired” (1 Corinthians 14:1) for the edification of the church and the spread of the gospel.

John Piper Addresses Strange Fire and Charismatic Chaos | This article gives an overview of John Piper’s understanding of the continuation of all the New Testament spiritual gifts in the church until Jesus returns and interacts with some common objections.

The Authority and Nature of the Gift of Prophecy | John Piper describes the New Testament gift of prophecy and how it is to be exercised.

Piper on Prophecy and Tongues | Two brief video interviews where John Piper explains the nature of these two controversial spiritual gifts.

Sovereign Grace, Spiritual Gifts, and the Pastor: How Should a Reformed Pastor Be Charismatic? | London pastor, Tope Koleoso, answers this question in his excellent message delivered at our 2013 pastors’ conference.

The Beginner’s Guide to Spiritual Gifts by Sam Storms | This book by Desiring God board member, Sam Storms, is an excellent explanation of the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 and a defense of their continuation throughout the church age.

Your Sorrow Will Turn to Joy

A team of eleven pastors and scholars walk us through Holy Week with short meditations for each morning and evening from Palm Sunday to the triumph of Easter.

Read Now

God’s Rehab for Weak, Weary Faith

I’m not sure how God feels about our having favorite books of the Bible.

It’s not like any of his words are throw-aways. Perhaps such preferences betray certain kinds of immaturity in us, not being able to see more glory in books we consider somewhat boring or confusing. But I must confess, I do have my favorites. And the epistle to the Hebrews is one of them.

I love Hebrews for many reasons. I love how it radiates with the transcendent glory of God the Son. I love its magisterial grasp of how the old covenant is fulfilled and surpassed by the new covenant. And I love the beautiful, compelling portrait of the cloud of witnesses, who by their remarkable examples call us to live by faith in the unfailing promises of our faithful God.

I also love Hebrews because it is a letter to weary Christians, some of whom are standing right on the cliff’s edge, tempted to “throw away [their] confidence, which has a great reward” (Hebrews 10:35).

I’ve been there: weary, disillusioned, full of doubts about the reality of it all, seriously wondering if being a Christian was worth the fight. I too have wondered if it’s all just a house of cards, if life on earth really is just an anomalous, absurd blip of desperate turmoil in a purposeless universe destined to burn out.

And gazing at the cliff’s edge, God used this precious book to keep me from tossing over my confidence in him, the Great Reward. I trust he will pardon my partiality for Hebrews.

Faith Rehab

The unnamed author of this letter is an eloquent straight-talker. He pulls no punches. And among the most gracious, helpful kicks-in-the-pants he gives to us weary, grumbly, prone-to-wander readers is this:

Lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. (Hebrews 12:12–13)

Lift? Strengthen? Make? Those don’t sound like relief words; they sound like work words. If our faith is already lame, won’t these increase our weariness and pain rather than heal us?

No, they won’t. Or at least, if they make us weary and wince, it will be for healing purposes. Under the Great Physician’s inspired direction, the author of Hebrews is instructing us on faith-rehabilitation.

Ask anyone who has experienced successful post-operation or post-injury rehabilitation on a knee, and they will tell you that rehab was both hard and necessary for the knee’s healing and restored strength and function.

It is similar with injured faith. Some rest and recuperation may be needed. But soon, usually sooner than we wish, our divine Doctor wants us in rehab, where we begin working to restore damaged faith through various kinds of faith lifting and strengthening. Typically this experience is hard and uncomfortable and can push us to our limits.

God’s Faith-Rehab Program

Every patient in a knee-rehab program has to develop and follow a recovery plan so that the knee will continue to strengthen and avoid re-injury. The faith-recovery equivalent is, “Make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed” (Hebrews 12:13).

We need to remember that the verses leading up to Hebrews 12:12–13 are all about the discipline of the Lord. That’s what a faith-rehab plan is — a disciplined approach to restoring and strengthening faith. And this is a helpful way to understand the purpose for what we call the Christian (or spiritual) disciplines.

A number of things probably come to your mind when you read “spiritual disciplines.” But David Mathis, in his excellent book Habits of Grace, wonderfully summarizes the disciplines in three simple phrases: 1) hear God’s voice (soak in his words), 2) have God’s ear (learn to really pray), and 3) belong to God’s body (enjoy the full benefits of biblical fellowship).

These three overarching disciplines, or types of exercises, comprise God’s primary faith-rehab program, the way his weak and often weary people work on lifting their drooping hands, strengthening their weak knees, and making straight paths for their feet.

None of these exercises is easy; all of them produce discomfort. But under the skilled supervision of our Great Physician, they work together for the progress and joy of our faith (Philippians 1:25). Or as the author of Hebrews puts it,

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. (Hebrews 12:11)

Your Pain Now Is About Your Peace Later

Yes, God’s plan to rehabilitate our faith can seem painful rather than pleasant. That’s the nature of rehab. It’s hard, and it can hurt. But it’s healing hardness and healing hurt. All your hard efforts to learn to hear God’s voice, have God’s ear, and belong to God’s body will later bear glorious and happy results.

So take heart weary, and perhaps wavering, soul. “It is for discipline that you endure” (Hebrews 12:7). Don’t resist. Embrace the good, hard grace. Learn, and learn to love, the habits of grace. God will use them to produce the peaceful fruit of the righteousness of strong, God-glorifying faith to those who have been trained by them.

And from experience, I can tell you that they will help keep you from throwing your confidence in Christ off the cliff’s edge of unbelief and losing your Great Reward.

David Mathis’s book Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus Through the Spiritual Disciplines releases today. The book is available in hardback, for Kindle, and in audio book; a full PDF is available free of charge at Desiring God. Mathis also has written a study guide workbook to facilitate individual and group study of the book.

Related Resources

What Are the Spiritual Disciplines? | In this episode of Ask Pastor John, guest Dr. Don Whitney provides a very helpful overview of the Christian spiritual disciplines.

Putting Yourself in the Path of God’s Grace | We can flip a switch, but we don’t provide the electricity. We can turn on a faucet, but we can’t make the water flow. This article explains the role our efforts (such as spiritual disciplines) play in our receiving God’s free grace.

Consistent Spiritual Discipline Is Not Legalism | In this episode of Ask Pastor John, we are called to consider whether some of our weakness is owing to the fact that we have forsaken biblical discipline.