Jon Bloom's Blog, page 44

Advent: The Dawning of Indestructible Joy

In Minneapolis today it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas. What we mean is that the first snow of the season is falling (in a big way — they tell us to expect nearly a foot!), turning our landscape into a Christmas romance, something you might see in a Currier and Ives lithograph.

There’s nothing wrong with a little aesthetic, nostalgic Christmas romance. God made us sentimental beings to increase our enjoyment of and gratitude for his many past graces. But if the romance and nostalgia become the substance, the pursuit of our Christmas celebrations, then they become deceptive — mirages of joy that disappear as soon as we reach for their illusive promise.

And that is what Christmas has become for so many: a joy mirage, or perhaps a joy fantasy. This can be true even for Christians. When we look for joy in our traditions rather than through our traditions, joy short-circuits. Looking for joy in the Christmas trappings and traditions is like opening a beautifully wrapped package with a tag that reads “Joy Inside,” only to find the box empty. That’s because our Christmas traditions don’t so much house joy as much as they point to joy. If we want our joy voids filled, we must look less at Christmas and more through Christmas to where indestructible, unspeakable joy really is.

For in “the fullness of time . . . God sent forth his Son” (Galatians 4:4), in whom “the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:19), in order that we who are full of condemning sin might be fully emptied of our sin and “filled up with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18–-19) and experience the “fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11; John 15:11).

Christmas is for you to know Christ, to know the love of Christ, and be filled up with the fullness of the joyful God.

And to help you look through Christmas in order to be satisfied with true, everlasting joy is why we’ve created a new Advent devotional titled, The Dawning of Indestructible Joy. It has daily devotional meditations written by John Piper for each day from December 1 through 25, with an extra Christmas sermon thrown in. The daily readings are short (most 1.5–2 pages), making them wonderful to use for private or family worship. And they are powerful, packed full with the gospel glory of the precious and very great promises that are yours in Christ — all of which are designed to fuel your joy. This devotional (like last year’s Good News of Great Joy) is available free by PDF, or you may purchase the paperback, Kindle, or audio versions.

Things looking a lot like Christmas, if they don’t help us see and savor Jesus Christ, will really do very little for us and will leave us empty. We want to be full of joy and for our joy to be indestructible. So receive this word from Pastor John, which expresses how he hopes you will benefit from this devotional:

Give yourself time and quietness in this Advent season and seek this experience. Pray for yourself the prayer of Paul in Ephesians 3:14–19 — “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” — that you may have power “to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christi that surpasses knowledge.”

That is my prayer for you this Christmas — that you would experience the fullness of Christ; that you would know in your heart the outpouring of grace upon grace; that the glory of the only Son from the Father would shine into your heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ; that you would be amazed that Christ can be so real to you.

Related Resources

Good News of Great Joy: Daily Readings for Advent (book)

How We See Christmas Symbols (article)

Christmas as the End of History (sermon)

God Is Merciful Not to Tell Us Everything

When God chooses not to tell us everything, he shows us more mercy than we realize.

On the Mount of Olives with Jesus, just before his ascension to the Father, one of the disciples asked a question that must have been on everyone’s mind: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).

It had been a long wait. Two thousand years had passed since God promised to give Abraham a seed that would bless all the families of the earth; 1,500 years had passed since God told Moses that a great prophet would arise to lead the people, and a thousand years had passed since God promised to place an eternal heir of David upon the throne.

Now, after Jesus’s triumphal resurrection, they finally understood why the King had to suffer and die before the kingdom could really come. Jesus was the sacrificial Lamb of God whose death would atone for all the sins of all his people for all time.

It all made glorious sense.

So the stage looked set. Having conquered death, this King was invincible. What threat was the Sanhedrin or Herod or Pilate or Caesar? Surely the time had come for the long-awaited King to assume his earthly reign, right?

“It Is Not For You to Know”

Jesus’s answer: “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:7–8).

In other words, “Now is not the time. And you don’t need to know when it will be. But for now, I have work for you to do.”

Can you imagine how the disciples might have felt if at that point the Lord had explained to them that he would not assume his earthly reign for another two-thousand-plus years, during which the Church would face delay and struggle and sacrifice as it spread around the world? Two thousand years?

God is merciful not to tell us everything. He tells us enough to sustain us if we trust him, but often that does not feel like enough. We really think we would like to know more.

Some Knowledge Is Too Heavy for You

In her book, The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom recalled a time when, as a young girl, she was returning home on the train with her father after accompanying him to purchase parts for his watch-making business. Having heard the term “sexsin” in a poem at school, she asked her father what it meant. After thinking for a bit, her father stood up and took down his suitcase from the rack. And this is how Corrie remembers their conversation:

“Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?” he said.

I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning. “It’s too heavy,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “And it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It’s the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you.”

God is also a wise Father who knows when knowledge is too heavy for us. He is not being deceptive when he does not give us the full explanation. He is carrying our burdens (1 Peter 5:7). If we think our burdens are heavy, we should see the ones he’s carrying. The burdens he gives to us to carry are light (Matthew 11:30). 

God is very patient and merciful with us. Someday, when we are older and stronger, he will let us carry more of the weight of knowledge. But until then let us trust him and thank him to carry our burdens.

Related Articles

When God Seems Silent

When God Says Wait

When God Does the Miracle We Didn’t Ask For

Food for Thought

“Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.”

―Edmund Burke

Here are a few November book recommendations (or maybe some Christmas gift ideas) to feed your brain. None are new, but all are important and nourishing.

Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves

If you’ve thought that the doctrine of the Trinity, however crucial to Christian orthodoxy, is a strange, abstract doctrine for theologians and apologists to bat around, but has little practical value for your day-to-day life, you are in for a sweet surprise! Michael Reeves’s short book (only 130 pages) helpfully addresses issues most people stumble over and he dialogues with other religions’ objections, most notably Islam’s. But I found the most worship-fueling thing to be Reeves’s wonderful explanation of how the uniquely Christian concept of God’s Trinitarian nature must be true for God to be truly loving at his core. If God is not a Trinity, the Bible could not say and we could not believe that “God is love” (1 John 4:7). So God’s Trinitarian nature is the foundation of our deepest joy and really does affect us at every level every day. And you will find that Reeves’s own delight in the Trinity is contagious in his writing. It’s contagious in his speaking too. Listen to him giving two wonderful addresses on the Trinity (scroll down to the speakers).

Wrestling with an Angel by Greg Lucas

God indeed gives his children more than they can handle — certainly more than they think they can handle. Wrestling with an Angel is Greg Lucas’s memoir of raising his multiply-disabled son, Jake, and through it wrestling with God over the nature of God’s sovereignty, love, and grace in the face of suffering that defies tidy categories. Lucas comes away limping with a humbled, broken, grace-shaped, faith-filled joy in Jesus, which helps fuel ours. This book would make a precious gift to anyone you know who has a loved one disabled by genetics, accident, or disease. It’s rich fare for a two-hour read. Thank you, Greg Lucas.

The Last Lion: Winston Spenser Churchill, 1873–1965 (3 volumes) by William Manchester

Why read secular history and biography? First, all history is God’s and all humans are God’s. Not all history is told by Christian historians. But if the historian is credible, we will likely gain valuable insights. Second, all of us humans tend to have a default mindset that we’re different from our forebears, that we’re wiser and won’t repeat their mistakes. That’s a foolish mindset and reading history helps correct it. I embarked the time commitment for this long biography based on Tim Challies’s sound recommendation. I am very glad I did.

William Manchester brilliantly combines biography and history to provide us both a complex, multi-dimensional, respectful but not hagiographic portrait of Winston Churchill, and a deeper understanding of the moral, cultural, political, and economic climates of late nineteenth to mid-twentieth Century Europe and America. Perhaps the greatest value of reading this work is gaining a more profound understanding of our own times. Observing the devastating effects of sin-diseased morality in a culture (like Victorian aristocratic debauchery) as well as the devastating effects of weak, undiscerning political leadership is crucial for us.

These were sown winds that reaped the whirlwinds of two unspeakably horrible world wars. Winston Churchill was among the few strong, discerning leaders of his time who saw the harvest coming and prophesied. And though no God-fearer himself, and significantly flawed, God used Churchill to both restrain and overcome incomprehensible evil. We do well to listen and observe him. For winds are being sown in our day. What whirlwinds shall we reap?

Audiobook Feature: The Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards

I don’t know that anyone since the Apostles has reflected as extensively and insightfully on the natures of true and counterfeit Christian affections (passions, emotions, feelings springing from true and false faith) than Jonathan Edwards. His book, The Religious Affections, is certainly foundational to us here at Desiring God. But many, who once avoided the book assuming it must be difficult, end up surprised by how readable it is. In fact, I recently discovered that the audiobook version is a wonderful way to experience this book. The link above will direct you to that edition read by Simon Vance (who is excellent). So if you don’t have time to read the print version or would like a refresher having read it years ago, consider maximizing your commute or chore time for soul nourishment by listening to it.

Related Resources

Tony Reinke’s Top 12 Books of 2012

John Piper’s Book Recommendations for Pastors

How Do You Decide Which Books to Read?

The Light Shines on All Hallows’ Eve

There is a fair bit of ambivalence over Halloween in the Christian church. Some Christians see it as a harmless bit of costume and candy fun. Others believe it trivializes — or worse, celebrates — a satanic holiday. You might be interested to know that some of the more fundamentalist modern pagans (Wiccans) also refuse to observe Halloween because it trivializes their beliefs.

But All Hallows’ Eve, which later also became Reformation Day, is a moment to celebrate and point to the Light that shines in the darkness of the world (John 1:4).

A Brief History of Halloween

The origin of Halloween is a bit murky. But it likely has its oldest roots in the ancient pagan Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced “sah-win” or “sow-in”), when the Celts of Ireland, Britain, and northern France celebrated the end of harvest and the beginning of their new year on November 1. They believed that on the last night of the year (October 31), the spirits of the dead would haunt the living, so they would leave food and wine on their doorsteps to appease and ward off spirits. If they had to leave the house, they would wear masks to fool the ghouls.

In the ninth century, Pope Gregory IV moved the “All Saints Day” feast from May 13 to November 1. If his purpose was to subsume the Celts’ Samhain festival, he certainly succeeded. In the Middle Ages, vigils were commonly held the night before high church feast days, so it was natural that one be held on the eve of All Saints Day. It came to be known as All Hallows’ Eve (hallows is Old English for saints), or as the Scots pronounced it, Hallowe’en.

Young people dressing up in costumes for fun on Halloween emerged in sixteenth-century Britain. It was called “guising.” These fun-lovers would go house-to-house singing, reciting poems, or telling jokes in exchange for “treats.” The tradition of “trick or treating” as we know it began essentially as a revival of guising among Irish and Scottish immigrants in late nineteenth-century North America and was fully embraced by American pop culture by the end of the 1940s.

Spiritual Darkness and the Fear of Death

If there remains a connection between our trick-or-treating traditions and the old pagan Samhain superstitions, it is very weak. But what is not weak is the human fear of death. That is as strong as ever. The ancient Celts sought to hide from death on October 31 using masks, and modern, enlightened Americans hide from it using entertainment — all the time.

People have always been terrified of death, and for good reason, since it is the wages of our unholy sin paid out by a holy God (Romans 3:23). And though due to our own sinful foolishness (Romans 1:21) and satanic blinding (2 Corinthians 4:4) we fail to perceive and honor God, we fallen humans still have a hardwired awareness and fear of the numinous. We know instinctually that there are spiritual realities, and we are deathly afraid of the dark, evil ones.

This actually makes Halloween a wonderful missional moment for Christians to seize. All of the historical roots of Halloween, pagan and religious, are reminders that sinners need the salvation from condemnation and the eternal life that Christ offers. He is the light that shines in this darkness in which we live, and the darkness has not overcome him (John 1:4–5)! And what effort to escape death and spiritual evil can compare to the gospel that declares that Christ came to “destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 2:14–15)?

After Darkness, Light

In fact, I think transforming All Hallows’ Eve from a reminder of death’s darkness to a celebration of the gospel’s light is exactly why God chose October 31 (in the year 1517) as the day for Martin Luther’s hammer to set off the chain reaction of gospel renewal and global proclamation that came to be known as the Reformation.

Over the previous few centuries, Satan had been slowly choking the gospel, and therefore the church, with the toxic smoke of false teaching. But with the swing of Luther’s hammer a mighty wind of the Holy Spirit was launched that began to clear the spiritual air. And the church not only deeply breathed gospel oxygen again, but also multiplied and spread through the world, which it continues to do at an unprecedented rate.

All Hallows’ Eve is now all the more holy for also being Reformation Day. It is a day of profound thanksgiving for Christians, a day to “remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God” and to “consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7). October 31 is not just a day for nighttime candy-collecting guising fun for children. It is a day for us to tell them the sweet gospel of the Light of the world and to help them remember our gospel forebears whose courageous stand on biblical truth is why we now know the gospel.

The Reformers adopted as their slogan the Latin phrase “Post Tenebras Lux” (“After Darkness, Light”). And it is the perfect Halloween-Reformation Day slogan. For “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:2), the “light of the world” (John 9:5), and those who follow him “will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). Those who hide in the refuge that is Jesus no longer need to fear death or demons.

There is no sweeter thing for us to give out to our children and our neighbors on October 31 than this news.

Related Resources

Martin Luther: Lessons from His Life and Labor (ebook)

The Reformation: Trick or Treat? (article)

Open the Door to Halloween (video)

What Is It About C.S. Lewis?

I met C.S. Lewis when I was twelve years old. He had been dead for fourteen years.

My father introduced me. I was in the porch watching T.V. I’m almost certain I was watching “Charlie’s Angels,” and my dad called to me from the living room. He asked me to come (the sort of “asking” dads do when “no” isn’t an option) because he had a book to read to me. My dad didn’t read to me often, so I remember it vividly. I was irritated about having to turn off Farah Fawcett and Jacqueline Smith so my dad could read me some dumb book. I can still see the burnt orange carpet (à la mid-70’s) of our kitchen floor as I sulked through it to the living room where I probably threw myself on the gold-sheen couch with floral patterns. Dad crushed out his cigarette and opened the little paperback he was holding.

And my world changed.

The book was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. And as Dad read, the expulsive power of a new affection for a magical land and a marvelous Lion shoved Farah Fawcett right out of the picture.

My dad read me the entire Narnian chronicles that fall, and I was hooked. I don’t know how many times I read those books in my early teens. Many times. And those led to the space trilogy, and then to Lewis’s apologetic works and autobiographies and essays, and then numerous Lewis biographies and more.

I’m still reading Lewis 37 years later and not tiring of him. His impact on me is such that one of my sons has Lewis for a middle name, and (you might think it morbid — Lewis, no doubt, would) every November 22 (the day Lewis died in 1963) is “C.S. Lewis Day” in the Bloom house, when we eat Narnian food and watch a documentary about Lewis’s life and talk about his faith.

What is it about C.S. Lewis that makes such a huge impact on so many of us? It’s not merely his brilliance or his ability to craft such lucid, poetic prose. There are many brilliant, wonderful writers. No, there was something uniquely powerful about this frumpy, balding, boisterous, chain-smoking professor of mediaeval and Renaissance literature.

Exploring what made Lewis uniquely powerful is why Desiring God hosted a conference in the fall of 2013 (marking the 50th anniversary of Lewis’s death) titled, “The Romantic Rationalist: God, Life, and Imagination in the Work of C.S. Lewis.” Besides the six plenary messages, there are 18 additional shorter messages on all things Lewis. If you go there, you will find audio steak as well as audio snacks for the soul.

But if you prefer reading, Crossway now has released a book under the same banner, The Romantic Rationalist: God, Life, and Imagination in the Work of C.S. Lewis, containing chapter manifestations of the conference’s plenary messages delivered by Randy Alcorn, John Piper, Philip Ryken, Kevin Vanhoozer, and Douglas Wilson. It is rich fare, and if purchasing the book is not an option for you, you can download a free PDF and enjoy the food.

It was the relentless (and biblical!) pursuit of the Joy of joys that every human soul longs for (romantic) combined with a relentless (and biblical!) belief that “true rationality . . . is rooted in absolute Reason” (page 28 of the book) that made Lewis unique. Looking through both lenses, Lewis saw more deeply and more clearly than most of us see on our own. And through his writing, he helped us to see too.

Lewis was not perfect. Not everything he wrote was right. But when he was right, he was uniquely powerful in helping us see and savor the glorious right. It is worth your time to read or listen and cultivate your romantic rationalism.

My life has never been the same since that evening in the living room in 1977. Thank you, Dad, for calling me away from the mud puddle of “Charlie’s Angels” and introducing me to a man who knew where the Sea was. And when you see him, say hi to Jack for me.

Related Resources

C.S. Lewis, Romantic Rationalist: How His Paths to Christ Shaped His Life and Ministry (message)

Longing in Lewis’s Life and Writing (small talk)

Alive to Wonder: Celebrating the Influence of C. S. Lewis (ebook)

Be Generous with Your Master’s Money

Jesus once told his disciples an odd parable where he used a dishonest manager as an example of how we should be shrewd with our money. What did he mean? Imagine his disciples Simon (the Zealot) and Matthew (the tax collector) discussing this parable.

“Matthew, you know more about these things than I do. Why did the Master commend the dishonest manager’s shrewdness?”

Simon’s question stung a little, and Matthew’s look said so.

“Oh. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” said an embarrassed Simon.

Simon and Matthew were unlikely friends. And they hadn’t liked each other much in the beginning.

Simon had been a zealot with a lethal hatred of the Romans. He had once sworn himself to the sacred cause of driving them out of Israel. But even more than the Romans, Simon loathed Jews who helped the Emperor subjugate and pillage God’s people. Jews like Matthew.

Matthew had collected taxes for Rome — and himself. He had simply seen it as a shrewd and lucrative career move. Prior to Jesus calling him from his booth, Matthew had had zero time for the idealism of foolish zealots like Simon. Theirs was a utopic delusion — a handful of angry Jews taking on Caesar’s legions. It was a death wish, an appointment with a Roman cross.

Now the former zealot and former tax collector were fast friends. Only Jesus could have made that happen.

“What did you mean?” Matthew asked.

“I just meant . . . you used to be . . .”

“A shrewd dishonest manager?”

“I’m not saying you were just like . . .”

“Stop tripping over yourself, Simon,” said Matthew, laying aside the vestiges of his pride. “I was every bit as shrewdly dishonest and worse. I know it. It’s just painful to remember what I used to be. So which master are you saying commended the manager?”

“Well, that’s where I’m confused,” replied Simon. “It almost sounded like Jesus commended the self-protective actions of the manager. But I know that’s not right. How is this corrupt scoundrel supposed to be an example for ‘the sons of light’?”

Matthew smiled and said, “Generosity.”

“Generosity?” said Simon incredulously. “The only thing he was generous with was his master’s money!”

“Exactly. Simon, that’s our Master’s point. The manager used his master’s money to win favor with those who could provide him a place to live when he lost his job.”

“And that’s supposed to be a good thing?” said Simon, confused.

“No, Jesus isn’t saying the man’s dishonesty was good. He’s saying that, as a ‘son of this world,’ the man knew how this world works. He used worldly shrewdness so he wouldn’t be homeless, and even his worldly master appreciated his cunning. Jesus is saying that the ‘sons of light’ need to be at least as shrewd about how the kingdom works.”

“Which is completely different,” said Simon.

“Completely,” agreed Matthew. “But what we do is similar to what the dishonest manager did.”

“You mean we’re generous with our Master’s money.”

“Right.”

Simon thought for a moment. “So, in a sense it’s another way of saying, ‘sell your possessions, and give to the needy’ so that we will have ‘a treasure in the heavens that does not fail’ (Luke 12:33). Shrewd ‘sons of light’ give away ‘unrighteous wealth’ and make friends of God, who is our eternal dwelling (Deuteronomy 33:27).”

“Exactly. That’s the financial shrewdness our Master commends.”

Our heavenly Master has made us all managers of “unrighteous wealth” (Luke 16:9). As John Piper says,

The possession of money in this world is a test run for eternity. Can you pass the test of faithfulness with your money? Do you use it as a means of proving the worth of God and the joy you have in supporting his cause? Or does the way you use it prove that what you really enjoy is things, not God? (“Preparing to Receive Christ”)

These are questions we all must ask ourselves, because Jesus wants us to be shrewd with our money (Luke 16:8–9). Kingdom shrewdness looks like this:

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Luke 12:32–34)

Related resources

Money: Currency for Christian Hedonism

Money and the Disciple

Magnifying God with Money

Be Ready to Answer Your Kids’ Questions About the Bible

Kids are thinkers. They ask good and sometimes hard questions. My kids have asked me some of the hardest theological questions between ages 5 and 8. They’ve queried me on comparative religion, death, eternity, heaven, hell, Jesus and the cross, and what about all those people who have never had a chance to hear the gospel? Interestingly, these questions tend to come at bedtime. But frankly, I don’t care if they are at times bedtime-stalling techniques; such questions are always worth staying awake to talk about.

One of my children repeatedly pressed me with questions like, “How do you know that Christianity is the right belief?” That naturally led us to talking about the Bible. Who wrote it? How is it God’s word if men wrote it? What makes it different from other religions’ holy books? How do we know it doesn’t have mistakes in it? What does it not tell us?

Christianity stands or falls on the reliability, inspiration, and authority of the Bible. Children pick up on that early. We tell them that they should trust the Bible. At some point they will (and should) ask why (if they feel it’s okay to ask). So here are a few answers (in language I would speak to my 9 year old twins) that might be helpful for some mealtime (or bedtime!) discussions.

How Do We Know the Bible is Reliable?

We know that our Bible says the same things as the Bibles people read thousands of years ago because so many ancient Bible manuscripts have survived. There are over 5,000 full or partial Bible manuscripts and they allow us to compare them with each other and our current versions for accuracy. No other book from the ancient world even comes close to as many surviving manuscripts. Most other ancient classical works have 20 or less.

But far more important than having lots of old manuscripts is the fact that when we read the Bible ourselves, it begins to win our trust. It is no ordinary book! It has an authority all on its own. It contains 66 books that were written by 40 different authors in three different languages (Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic) over a period of about 1,500 years and yet it is consistent — it all fits together — and doesn’t contradict itself! You don’t have to be a scholar to see this. The Bible shows itself to be the word of God to those who read it! Here’s how a children’s catechism (or teaching lesson) from over 360 years ago says it:

Question: How doth it appear that the Scriptures are the word of God?

Answer: The Scriptures manifest themselves to be the word of God, by their majesty and purity; by the consent of all the parts, and the scope of the whole, which is to give all glory to God; by their light and power to convince and convert sinners, to comfort and build up believers unto salvation: but the Spirit of God bearing witness by and with the Scriptures in the heart of man, is alone able fully to persuade it that they are the very Word of God. (Westminster Larger Catechism, question 4)

Who Decided What Should Be in the Bible (Authority)?

Actually, God did. No individual or group of people or institution decided which writings would be in the Bible. Each book of the Bible has its own story about how it came to be included in the Scriptures, but in each case God caused his people over time to recognize these writings as manifesting the power and authority of the Holy Spirit. That’s why the Apostle Paul wrote, “All Scripture is breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16) and why the Apostle Peter wrote, “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). God has used men, councils, and the church to weed out the writings that were not inspired by God (a lot of wrong and even strange teachings have been written!), but God himself determined the Scriptures. And this means that every individual, group of people, church, and denomination are under the authority of Holy Scripture as God’s revealed written word and must submit to Scripture as their final authority.

How Do We Know the Bible Has No Errors in It (Inerrancy)?

Since the Scriptures are “breathed out by God” (2 Timothy 3:16) and not produced by the will of man but the Holy Spirit, the original copies written by the biblical authors were without error — we call this “inerrancy.” This means that when the Scriptures were originally written, they were without mistakes, whether speaking about how God created the world or history or God’s plan to save lost people. Believers have always understood the Scriptures to be inerrant, from the time of Moses (Deuteronomy 4:2) to the writers of the Psalms (Psalm 19:7) to (most importantly!) Jesus, God the Son (John 10:35). This fact doesn’t mean that the men who wrote the Scriptures were inerrant. They were sinners like us. When they wrote inerrant books it was a miracle of God, like Jesus’s miracles.

Do we have any of the original copies written by the biblical authors? No. So how do we know that our versions don’t have errors? That’s where having thousands of ancient manuscripts is important. We can see by comparing these manuscripts to each other and to our current Bibles that we have a very accurate record of what the originals said. God is so wise in preventing us from having the originals, because we humans have a great tendency to make idols out of such things. We likely would have believed that the original copies had mysterious, magical powers in the paper and ink rather than in the words God actually said.

Who Can Understand the Bible (Clarity)?

Anyone can understand the Bible! That’s a wonderful thing about this book! The Scriptures speak plainly and clearly communicate what we need to know for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). Adults and children can read or listen to it and understand the most important things — how to be saved. This doesn’t mean that pastors and teachers aren’t needed or that everything in the Bible is equally clear. Some portions of Scripture are harder to understand than others (2 Peter 3:16), and God gives us pastors and teachers as gifts to help deepen our understanding of the Bible and how to apply it (Ephesians 4:11). But anyone who can read it can understand it.

Why Do We Need the Bible to Know God (Necessity)?

We can learn a lot about God by observing the natural world (Romans 1:20), but the Bible is necessary for us to read or hear because God has chosen to reveal the most important things about himself and his glorious gospel to human beings through his Word (1 Samuel 3:21). God has not chosen to give each person direct verbal inerrant revelation. Instead, he has provided us a written record. This again shows us God’s wonderful wisdom. Can you imagine how confusing things would get if each person claimed to personally hear the word of God perfectly! How could we test what was God’s word and what wasn’t? But the written Bible provides a consistent and durable (long-lasting) record of God’s revelation so that all saints throughout all ages of the church can understand, believe, and contend for the faith “once delivered” to them (Jude 1:3).

Does the Bible Tell Us Everything We Need to Know (Sufficiency)?

The Scriptures tell us everything we need to know in order to live godly lives in Christ Jesus (2 Peter 1:3). They provide us sufficient (enough) information about what God is like, how God created the world, what human beings are like and how we fell into sin, God’s plan of salvation, what the future holds, and what the age to come will be like so we can trust God and live by faith (Galatians 2:20; 2 Corinthians 5:7). There is a lot that the Bible doesn’t tell us. These are things God wants us to discover through the process of exploration, observation, study, and experience. But when it comes to understanding things like how to be saved from God’s wrath against sin through trusting in Jesus’s death and resurrection and how to have eternal life, the Bible tells us everything we need to know (Romans 5:9; John 5:24). And God is not adding more revelation to the Bible (Revelation 22:18–19), like some false religions want us to believe (e.g. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses).

A Lot More Where That Came From!

I hope this is helpful to you, particularly with younger kids. But there’s so much more to say, and so much more kids may ask. So let me point you to a gold mine of the doctrine of Scripture on our website (and a couple beyond) where you can strengthen your understanding of and stoke your awe over the miracle that is the Bible.

“Why We Believe the Bible” is a five-part seminar John Piper did a few years ago. It’s wonderful and time well spent. If you have older kids, this would be an excellent resource to watch or listen to with them.

“Why I Trust the Scriptures” is a single 90-minute message on the reliability of the Bible. John addresses some recent challenges to the Bible’s trustworthiness.

Believing the Bible Book List is a list of excellent books that will provide a very good education on the doctrine of Scripture.

“Is the Bible Without Error?” is a three-minute audio clip of Pastor John answering this question. A great refresher if you’re child asks.

“What Is Inerrancy?” is a nine-minute audio clip of Pastor John answering this question.

“How Are the Synoptics ‘Without Error’?” is an article John wrote back in his pre-Bethlehem professor days addressing apparent inconsistencies in the Synoptic Gospels.

The ESV Study Bible contains many wonderful, brief summary articles on just about everything you want to know about the Bible.

Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, as always, provides an excellent overview of the Doctrine of Scripture.

When God Feels Cruel

Let’s say you’re praying with a suffering friend who blurts out to God,

“I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me. You have turned cruel to me.”

Would you wince? He just accused God of being cruel! Yikes. Would you want to quickly pray a correction? “Lord, we’re just so thankful that you are sovereign over everything and for the reality of Romans 8:28!”

Well, your prayer might be biblical, but so would be your friend’s prayer. In fact, your hypothetical friend’s prayer is actually in the Bible (Job 30:20–21) and came out of the mouth of the man God considered the most blameless and upright on earth in his lifetime (Job 1:8).

Thank God the Bible Is So Honest

Let’s read Job’s frank prayer again:

“I cry to you for help and you do not answer me; I stand, and you only look at me. You have turned cruel to me.”

Doesn’t reading that anguished prayer of a godly man make you thankful? I love how honest the Bible is. The Bible just says it like it is, and sometimes just what it feels like. I love the fact that almost all of the Bible’s heroes are unvarnished, clay-footed sinners with warts we can all see. I love that sometimes they even wonder if God is just plain being cruel. Because that’s what we shortsighted, weak, doubting, clay-footed, sinning stumblers wonder at times when we’re suffering. It means there’s hope for us when we feel overwhelmed and disappointed and confused and disillusioned. The frankness of the Bible is a great mercy to us.

Our Feelings Are Unreliable Reporters

Can you identify with Job? You cry out to God in your affliction and nothing seems to change. It’s like God is just standing there watching you writhe. It feels cruel.

But this is not, in fact, what’s really happening. That wasn’t really the case for Job and it’s not really the case for us. What’s true is that God is doing far more in our affliction than we know at the time.

For Job, he didn’t know that he was putting Satan to shame by trusting in God despite his desolate confusion. He didn’t know that his experience would encourage millions for millennia. He just knew that his pain felt unbearable at times and it didn’t seem like God was doing anything to help. And like Job, we don’t know what mind-blowing designs God has in store for what may feel unbearable and appear cruel today.

But we do know this: God was answering Job when it seemed he wasn’t. And God was remembering David when David cried, “Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1). And when Jesus cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), God had turned his face away from our sin, only to raise his Son from the dead to undying, unsurpassed, and eternal glory.

These texts and Job’s prayer and many others in the Bible help us remember that sometimes it feels like God’s being cruel when he’s really not. They remind us that we can’t trust what it feels like God is doing. We can only trust what God says he is doing. We all know from a thousand experiences that our feelings are unreliable reporters.

Be Quick to Listen, Slow to Correct, and Take Heart

But these texts also remind us that godly people sometimes feel and express these intense emotions. And often what they need from us in that moment is not an immediate remedial theological course. What they need is a fellow groaner who will sit in silence with them and, when it’s helpful, point them to the empathetic saints of Scripture who felt similar things and found God faithful after all.

Your or your loved one’s suffering may be inscrutable today. But in reality it is preparing for you or them “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Take heart and hold on. If God feels cruel today, you will discover someday that it was a pain-induced mirage and that he had graces planned for your joy beyond anything you ever dreamed possible.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. (1 Peter 5:10)

Related resources:

When You Don’t Feel Like Worshiping

Worship in the Dark

When God Says Wait

Wonder Why You’re Here

You are.

You are tempted to fill in a blank at the end of that sentence. You are ___. Most of what you might place in that blank are not worthy to be compared to the revealed glory that you are.

How is it that you are?

That is a wonderful question. A glorious question. It is among the greatest questions you can ever ask. For it directs you toward a Glory far greater than you.

Why You Are Here

Oh, you are glorious. You are a glory of such magnitude that if I was not so dulled by my depravity, so blinded by the cataracts of my selfishness, I could be tempted to worship you (Revelation 19:10). You only find that nearly impossible to believe because you have the same sin infected heart-eye disease that I have. What glory you do see at your very best you see through dark lenses (1 Corinthians 13:12). And they filter out so much glory, it’s grievous and makes us groan. And yet, in our fallen state, this is, in part, a mercy. It keeps us from sinfully worshiping the glory we emanate as if it were our own — any more than we already do. That is a great evil. For your glory is like a glorious ray of a more glorious Sun. You are a glory that has its origin in the Glory of glories. You are a spoken glory. You are a word of God. I AM has said, “You are.”

I AM is why you are. Why are you here? I AM has spoken you here. You are not the product of millions of years of meaningless mutations and mistakes. You are a word that God is speaking — even now — infused with more meaning than you have hardly begun to comprehend.

The Vociferous God

God said. God said! Who can comprehend such a marvel? Abandon all flannel board and Sistine Chapel conceptions of the Glorious One who “calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Romans 4:17), who created and is still creating the universe by his word (Hebrews 11:3). That you are and all that exists is, is the greatest apology for the existence of the I AM that exists:

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

God is not silent! All that exists he is speaking into being (Hebrews 1:3) and his voice thunders with majestic power (Psalm 29:3–4). It is humans who are hearing impaired. But even so, science is beginning to hear — at least some sounds if not the Speaker. After centuries of scientific exploration, when many dreamed that matter was all there is, we are now beginning to peer deep enough to find that there are words beneath the matter!

Ponder that for a moment: there are words beneath the matter!

Yes, and there are words not only beneath the matter, but beneath all of the seen and unseen worlds, holding them all together (Colossians 1:16–17). “In the beginning, God created” and the Triune God said, “Let there be” and there was (Genesis 1:1–3). The Word spoke all things into being (John 1:3) for the Father (1 Corinthians 8:6) and the Almighty Spirit breathed life (Job 33:4) when God said, “Let there be life.”

This one God, the I AM, is so glorious, so effusive, so vociferous that from all eternity he must be comprised of three persons so that before there was a created universe there was an uncreated Trinitarian universe of omnipotent and supremely humble love from which all of creation overflowed (Genesis 1:1–2, John 1:3) and in which all of creation exists (Acts 17:28).

What God Says About you

And God said, let there be you and there was you and you became a living creature (Genesis 2:7). It matters not what horrors of history or corrupt choices combined to result in your being. The Fall of Man ensured that since our eviction from Eden no human being ever comes from anything but sinful stock. Our human pedigree is superfluous. We are wretched, God-blind, glory-stealing sinners, all of us.

But God (Ephesians 2:4). But “the God who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness’ (Genesis 1:3), has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). The Word, the living, incarnate Word who is God (John 1:1) became flesh (John 1:14). He became Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23). The Glory of glories, the glorious Sun whose rays of glory we have become, became flesh and dwelt among us.

How did the eternal, uncreated Word also become a created Word? We, as created words, have no adequate words for such a glorious mystery. “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see! Hail th’Incarnate Deity!”

And then . . . oh, and then a greater mystery still. The Word become flesh for us, the sinless, righteous Son became sin for us “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

How did the One who never knew sin bear our sin and destroy it (1 Peter 2:24; Romans 8:3)? We created words are left with joy unspeakable and full of glory (1 Peter 1:8). “Hail the Sun of righteousness!” The Sun has made the corrupt rays of his glory righteous!

Ponder the Wonder

Christian, you are.

Christian, you are glorious.

Christian, you are glorious with the glory of your Sun, the eternally righteous Son.

Christian, you are Christ’s (1 Corinthians 3:23).

O Christian, ponder the wonder.

Related resources:

Lay Aside the Weight of Irritability

10 Resolutions for Mental Health

Ten Big, Daily Reminders

Where Satan Will Attack You Today

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You wonder why it’s so hard to find some peace of mind? Well, peace is hard to come by when you live in a warzone. And like it or not you are in a war — a very serious one. This war is cosmic in its proportions. It involves God, humans, angels, demons, principalities, powers, nations, and antichrists.

And do you know where the front of the battle is? It’s in your head.

We Destroy Arguments

Here is how Paul describes it in 2 Corinthians 10:3–5 (emphasis added):

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

What are the satanic strongholds that spiritually imprison people, the strongholds that we seek to destroy? Arguments and opinions. Where is the battle raging? Where our thoughts are.

And arguments are not merely strongholds, they are weapons of mass destruction. Adam and Eve (and all of us with them) fell because of an argument. They believed the serpent’s argument and stopped believing God.

That is the deadly essence of sin: not believing God. To not believe God is to ally with Satan, whom Jesus said is “a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth… for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

You don’t want Satan as an ally. He’s treacherous. He’s out to murder you with lies.

Watch Your Emotions

Watch your emotions. They are signals of arguments. Your emotions, which can land on you like vague impressions or moods, are usually responses to an argument. Moods don’t come out of nowhere. When we are angry, discouraged, depressed, anxious, self-pitying, fearful, or irritable, it is likely because we are believing something very specific.

To battle sin is to battle unbelief — or destroy arguments. And in order to battle unbelief effectively, we must press doubts and temptations into specific arguments. What specifically is being asserted or promised to us? Only then can we destroy the enemy’s false arguments with true ones.

The Victory That Overcomes the World

The victory that overcomes the world is our faith (1 John 5:4). This is precisely why the devil does not want us to think clearly about sin. He wants to keep things vague so he can imprison or disarm us. But Jesus wants us to think clearly. He wants us to know the truth because the truth brings freedom:

If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. (John 8:31–32)

So as freedom fighters let’s fight against “unbelieving hearts” by exhorting one another every day (Hebrews 3:12–13) to live in the freedom — and peace (John 16:33) — of the truth.

Because our most important battles are won and lost with arguments.

Related resources:

Spiritual Warfare

Ambushing Satan with Song

The Antichrist Is Here, and Not Yet Here