Jared C. Wilson's Blog, page 11

Bring the Books! — In Defense of More ‘Gospely’ Writing

When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments.” — 2 Timothy 4:13

One thing we see looking back at great movements of God (revivals and reformations) prompted by gospel preaching is that the preachers weren’t usually themselves “wakened” by preaching but by reading. For some it was rich, gospel-drenched books:

— For George Whitefield, the greatest preacher in American history, it was Henry Scougal’s The Life of God in the Soul of Man. “Though I had fasted, watched, and prayed, and received the Sacrament long,” he wrote, “yet I never knew what true religion was, till God sent me that excellent treatise by the hands of my never-to-be-forgotten friend.”

— For George Thomson, influential 18th-century Anglican rector, it was William Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.

— For Howell Harris, one of the great leaders of the Welsh Methodist Revival, it was Richard Allestree’s devotional work The Whole Duty of Man.

— For Charles Wesley, it was Martin Luther’s Commentary on Galatians.

— For John Wesley, it was Martin Luther’s Preface to Romans.

For some, it was in beholding Christ’s glory in the biblical text itself—not just the books, but the parchments:

— For Jonathan Edwards, it was 1 Timothy 1:17 that awakened his soul to the beauty of God’s sovereignty and caused him such delight that he wished he could be “rapt up to God and be, as it were, swallowed up in him forever.”

— For Martin Luther, (partly) it was the way Romans 1:17 and Habakkuk 2:4 fit together.

—For Augustine, it was Romans 13:13-14 that flooded his heart with light, ended his carousing, answered his mother’s long-suffering prayers, and began the most influential post-biblical theological ministry in church history.

Back when I was getting ready to publish my book Gospel Wakefulness, my friend Ray Ortlund, who wrote the foreword to it, told me this: “Jared, one day 50 years from now, some tired pastor is going to find this book on a shelf in a used bookstore and it will change his life.”

That meant the world to me. Ray didn’t say, “This book is going to be a bestseller.” He knew it wouldn’t be. But he also knew that wasn’t the best Gospel Wakefulness could be, anyway. Lots of books hit the bestseller list. Not many of those are still read 10 years later, much less 50. Many aren’t even read a year later. But the idea that the book could affect a soul, that it could awaken something fresh in a weary spirit, give a reader a new sense of Christ’s grace that changes everything—that’s worth writing for.

For Ray, by the way, it was Romans 9:18 (in the Greek, naturally) that, in his words, “turned his universe upside down.”

So when people criticize all the gospel-centered this and grace-focused that coming out of the few Christian publishing houses committed to producing them, I get a little concerned. First, because gospel fatigue is a real thing, and it is spiritually dangerous. Second, because while I share a concern about The Gospel becoming just a fad, I think there are a lot worse fads (to be honest), and also, until the CBA charts are dominated by “gospely” books, I’m not gonna be overly concerned about it. But most importantly, I am happy for gospel books because gospel books change lives—they historically and remarkably awaken souls and influence the church for the good of the world and the glory of Christ.

So for those tired of all the “gospely” books, I say keep ’em coming! They can feed the next generation of great preaching, which fosters the next great revival.

Paul had a few books which were left, perhaps wrapped up in the cloak, and Timothy was to be careful to bring them. Even an apostle must read . . . He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a men to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books!

— Charles Spurgeon, “Paul—His Cloak and His Books”

Tolle lege.

Bring the Books! – In Defense of More ‘Gospely’ Writing

“When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments.” – 2 Timothy 4:13

One thing we see looking back at great movements of God (revivals and reformations) prompted by gospel preaching is that the preachers weren’t usually themselves “wakened” by preaching but by reading. For some it was rich, gospel-drenched books:

– For George Whitefield, the greatest preacher in American history, it was Henry Scougal’s The Life of God in the Soul of Man. “Though I had fasted, watched and prayed, and received the Sacrament long,” he wrote, “yet I never knew what true religion was, till God sent me that excellent treatise by the hands of my never-to-be-forgotten friend.”

– For George Thomson, influential 18th century Anglican rector, it was William Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.

– For Howell Harris, one of the great leaders of the Welsh Methodist Revival, it was Richard Allestree’s devotional work The Whole Duty of Man.

– For Charles Wesley, it was Martin Luther’s Commentary on Galatians.

– For John Wesley, it was Martin Luther’s Preface to Romans.

For some, it was in beholding Christ’s glory in the biblical text itself — not just the books, but the parchments:

– For Jonathan Edwards, it was 1 Timothy 1:17 that awakened his soul to the beauty of God’s sovereignty and caused him such delight that he wished he could be “rapt up to God and be, as it were, swallowed up in him forever.”

– For Martin Luther, (partly) it was the way Romans 1:17 and Habakkuk 2:4 fit together.

– For Augustine, it was Romans 13:13-14 which flooded his heart with light, ended his carousing, answered his mother’s longsuffering prayers, and began the most influential post-biblical theological ministry in Church history.

Back when I was getting ready to publish my book Gospel Wakefulness, my friend Ray Ortlund, who wrote the Foreword to it, told me this: “Jared, one day 50 years from now, some tired pastor is going to find this book on a shelf in a used bookstore and it will change his life.”

That meant the world to me. Ray didn’t say, “This book is going to be a bestseller.” He knew it wouldn’t be. But he also knew that wasn’t the best Gospel Wakefulness could be, anyway. Lots of books hit the bestseller list. Not many of those are still read ten years later, much less fifty. Many aren’t even read a year later. But the idea that the book could impact a soul, that it could awaken something fresh in a weary spirit, give a reader a new sense of Christ’s grace that changes everything — that’s worth writing for.

For Ray, by the way, it was Romans 9:18 (in the Greek, naturally) that, in his words, “turned his universe upside down.”

So when people criticize all the gospel-centered this and grace-focused that coming out of the few Christian publishing houses committed to producing them, I get a little concerned. First, because gospel fatigue is a real thing, and it is spiritually dangerous. Secondly, because while I share a concern about The Gospel becoming just a fad, I think there are a lot worse fads (to be honest), and also, until the CBA charts are dominated by “gospely” books, I’m not gonna be overly concerned about it. But most importantly, I am happy for gospel books because gospel books change lives — they historically and remarkably awaken souls and influence the Church for the good of the world and the glory of Christ.

So for those tired of all the “gospely” books, I say keep ’em coming! They can feed the next generation of great preaching which fosters the next great revival.

“Paul had a few books which were left, perhaps wrapped up in the cloak, and Timothy was to be careful to bring them. Even an apostle must read . . . He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a men to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books!”

— Charles Spurgeon, “Paul—His Cloak and His Books”

Tolle lege.

The Father’s Not Tsk-Tsk’ing

I will bear the indignation of the Lord

because I have sinned against him,

until he pleads my cause

and executes judgment for me.

He will bring me out to the light;

I shall look upon his vindication.

– Micah 7:9

How long does the Lord’s indignation land on us for our sin? Until our cause has been pleaded and judgment is executed on it.

Enter Christ the righteous, Christ our Advocate. He takes our judgment upon himself, and consequently the Lord’s indignation. God says so through Micah.

So, because we are clothed in Christ’s righteousness, having had our iniquities cast into the sea to be remembered no more (Micah 7:19), when we drag our sorry selves before the Father, he isn’t standing there, arms crossed, eyebrow cocked, tsk-tsking at us. He’s not sighing or sulking. He is more eager to forgive than we are to sin or repent of sin!

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

– Hebrews 4:16

When We’re Shocked—Shocked!—To Find Sinners at Church

I have made no secret of how impactful—yes I know that’s not a word—Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together has been in my life. I have read it a few times over the last several years, but the first time I read it was in the context of a men’s small group in my church where I was still hiding my sin, my pain, my shame, my brokenness and trying my best to maintain the illusion that I had it all together. I fooled everybody in that group. Which means I was a bigger failure than I had even feared.

Life Together painfully but helpfully served to dislodge my self-sufficiency and challenge my fear of being really, truly known. Below is one part that especially did me in:

He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is that we are sinners!

But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. He wants you as you are; He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. “My son, give me thine heart” (Prov. 23.26). God has come to you to save the sinner. Be glad! This message is liberation through truth. You can hide nothing from God. The mask you wear before men will do you no good before Him. He wants to see you as you are, He wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to go on lying to yourself and your brothers, as if you were without sin; you can dare to be a sinner. Thank God for that; He loves the sinner but He hates sin . . .

I know the reasons we don’t live transparently with each other. We’re afraid. We’re embarrassed. We don’t want to be a burden. We don’t want to be judged!

And I know the reasons others don’t live transparently with us. They’re afraid. They’re embarrassed. We treat them like burdens. We judge them.

And what all of this amounts to is a distrust in God himself. I know people are mean, I know people are judgmental, I know people act weird and get messy and cause problems and are really inefficient for the ways we normally like to do church—but if we believe in the gospel, we don’t have a choice any longer to live in the dark.

How about we stop being shocked to find sinners among the “pious” and start shocking the fearful with grace?

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

— 1 John 1:7

Preaching Your People Toward Mission

How do we preach toward good evangelistic engagement? If, as many younger evangelicals of the gospel-centered persuasion believe, we aren’t to turn our Sunday service into a seeker-targeted evangelistic event, in what sense might the sermon time fuel the missional impulse in our churches to reach and serve the lost? Here are some practical ways to serve this end:

1. Put the text in the context of God’s mission.

There is a mega-narrative to the Bible, a grand story of God’s redeeming purposes and spiritual mission in the earth, and many times we miss this in our preaching and teaching. Helping your hearers make the connection between the narrative you are preaching and the big story of God’s mission can help them begin to see their own story in the context of the big story of God’s mission. Making regular, explicit application of biblical texts to their missional contexts or missional implications helps influence hearers, over time, to see and think in missional ways.

2. Make application mission-oriented.

Rather than turning the application time in your preaching into only (or even mostly) individualistic steps to address personal “felt needs,” make the practical admonitions others-directed. Help people see that applying the Scriptures to their everyday life is not mostly about living their best life now but about loving and serving others, especially those they encounter at work, school, and neighborhood “third places.”

3. Confront idols.

One of the most important things a local church can do is exegete its immediate community and then the wider culture of its city in order to identify what idols dominate there. Then, your preaching can address these idols head-on. For one thing, the people of your church will need this, as these idols will be their greatest temptations away from full-hearted worship of God too. But explicating how the gospel subverts and conquers specific idolatries in your context can (a) help lost people present in the room see the beauty and lordship of the one true God, (b) help Christians in the room repent of their propensities toward syncretism, and/or (c) train the Christians in the room to identify and address the idolatry they seen around them while on the mission of their everyday lives. Similarly:

4. Anticipate the right evangelistic challenges and apologetic questions.

Just as missional preaching can confront the idols of the church’s mission field, it can also anticipate the spiritual, theological, ethical, biblical, or personal questions lost people may bring into the gathering with them. At the risk of redundancy: this doesn’t mean the Sunday sermon should be primarily aimed at the lost, but it does mean the sermon should be appropriately “seeker-sensitive”—meaning, it should be mindful of lost people in the room (including people who think they are Christians!) and think ahead of time about addressing objections, questions, and obstacles they may have between them and gospel understanding.

Pastors Tim Keller and Andy Stanley are two figures who anticipate these questions well. I personally think Keller executes this practice in a much better way, but both should be admired for having the presence of preaching mind to not take the understanding of theological truths among their audience for granted, even though Stanley’s audience in particular is in an historically Christian culture. Trevin Wax writes:

These two pastors come from different contexts (Atlanta vs. New York) and different theological streams (Baptistic non-denominational vs. confessional Presbyterian). What’s more, they approach ministry from different starting points, then employ different methods to achieve their purposes.

Despite all these differences, there is one thing Stanley and Keller agree on: preachers ought to be mindful of the unbelievers in their congregation.

. . . Stanley and Keller may be worlds apart in terms of their theological vision for ministry, but they both maintain that a preacher should consider the unsaved, unchurched people in attendance.

This doesn’t mean we can’t find differences even in this area. For example, Stanley uses the terminology of “churched” and “unchurched” (which makes sense in the South), whereas Keller’s context leads him to terms like “believers” and “non-believers.”

Likewise, Stanley and Keller engage in similar practices from different vantage points. Stanley’s purpose for the weekend service is to create an atmosphere unchurched people love to attend. Keller believes evangelism and edification go together because believers and unbelievers alike need the gospel. He writes:

“Don’t just preach to your congregation for spiritual growth, assuming that everyone in attendance is a Christian; and don’t just preach the gospel evangelistically, thinking that Christians cannot grow from it. Evangelize as you edify, and edify as you evangelize.”

Whether you are closer to Stanley’s paradigm for ministry or Keller’s, you can benefit from [their example of] how to engage the lost people listening to you preach.

Anticipating the right questions, like confronting idols, also helps train your believing audience, over time, to know how to answer these questions they are encountering on a daily basis in their homes, workplaces, schools, and online. You’re equipping them for mission on the primary front even as you engage on the congregational front during your preaching.

5. Give the motivation of grace.

The gospel is the power of salvation. This necessarily means that the gospel is the power for missional engagement. The quickest way to shut down your church’s missional response to the gospel is to leverage guilt in motivating them to reach their lost friends. Turning it into a competition, shaming people who fall short, playing on their fears or insecurities, and the like all do wonders at de-motivating people to share the gospel.

Remember that the gospel will empower its own implications. So remind your church that they have all the wind of the Spirit at their backs, that God has always been roaming the earth seeking whom he may revive, that the kingdom is not contingent upon them but upon him, and that they are not responsible for evangelistic success, but evangelistic faithfulness.

The motivation of grace better triggers a church’s impulse for gospel mission.

Not every sermon can encompass all of these elements, of course, and probably more than a few individual sermons might not do any of them. But if you want to change the movement of your church, you have to change the message. Therefore, a regular practice of preaching from the gospel-centered paradigm with a missional mindset can help shape a church more toward being on mission.

The Right Kind of Mysticism

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.

— John 4:24

One of the problems with “mysticism” as it pertains to Christian life and ministry is just how hard-to-define the concept actually is. In one breath, a person may refer to the classical understanding of “mystical union with Christ” and in another, without a trace of irony, complain about the “mysticism” of some Christian thinkers or the quoting of those considered “mystics” by respected evangelical writers. Clearly there is a good kind of mysticism and a bad kind of mysticism. But how do you know which is the right kind?

Justin Taylor has helpfully provided a primer on the concept of mysticism and a good overview of the kind of mysticism that corresponds to Christian orthodoxy. (The goofballs over at Doctrine & Devotion also dedicated a podcast episode to the subject of mysticism.) In Taylor’s piece, he cites D. D. Martin’s definition of Christian mysticism as found in The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology:

Christian mysticism seeks to describe an experienced, direct, nonabstract, unmediated, loving knowledge of God, a knowing or seeing so direct as to be called union with God.

I thought I might offer a few further thoughts myself, especially in providing some guardrails for our understanding (and practice) of the right kind of mysticism.

Properly understood, Christian mysticism is:

1. Contemplative but biblical.

Many warn repeatedly about the dangers of “contemplative prayer.” Heresy hunters cast a wide net in these warnings, indicting all kinds of evangelicals, including some who are not really dangerous at all. What is being conflated here is the kind of contemplation that has more in common with Eastern meditation than Psalm 1:2. Certainly there is a kind of contemplative prayer that is more contemplative than prayer. And yet, Christians are not called merely to regurgitate facts but to ponder them, reflect on them, marinate in them. Let the reader understand, of course.

This does not mean that Christians must contemplate the allegedly endless possibilities of the human consciousness (for our hearts are deceitful above all things) nor the ambiguous qualities of a vague numinous (for the Lord our God, the Lord is One—and he has a name). When we meditate and contemplate, then, let us meditate on God’s sufficient Word and contemplate his holiness. We have content to contemplate, in other words. We have a definitive word from the Divine, and it is inspired and inerrant. Therefore, whether in prayer or in study, we are not called to contemplate with an empty mind but upon the substance of Scripture.

2. Spiritual but Christocentric.

The theological category so-called Christian mysticism seems to emphasize most is pneumatology. Mystics are seeking an experience of God’s immanent Spirit. This is a good desire. And yet this desire, if we are not careful, can take us drifting into a focus on the Spirit that puts us in the same ditch of heterodoxy as many charismatics. You don’t have to be a cessationist to avoid this drift, but you do have to make sure your understanding of the Holy Spirit is rigorously biblical. If it is, you will realize that the Holy Spirit’s mission in the world is to reveal the glory of the Son and to make those captivated by Christ’s glory more and more like Christ. This is the kind of pneumatology that sanctifies, because it does not neglect or diminish the third Person of the Trinity but nevertheless functionally centers on the second person of the Trinity.

The Spirit has been sent by the Father and Son to lead us into the truth of the Son, to testify to him (John 15:26). Some theologians for this reason refer to the Holy Spirit as the “shy” member of the Trinity—because he is occupied with shining the spotlight not on himself but on Christ. If your mysticism is preoccupied with Christian spirituality, don’t forget the centrality of the Christ in Christian. (This is something I explore more thoroughly in my new book on experiencing the Holy Spirit, Supernatural Power for Everyday People.)

3. Theologically exploratory but not innovative.

The things of the gospel are the deep things of God. This news is simple enough a child can understand and believe and be saved. And yet this news is so deep, so complex, so eternally rich that even angels long to gaze into it (1 Peter 1:12). Paul writes:

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways!

Because of this depth, because of these riches, because of this unsearchability, we will be exploring the wonders of God and his ways for endless days. And while we may discover things new to us, we will never discover things new. In other words, we are free to dive deep into the things of God—for the things of God are deep—but we are not free to invent them. We get to partake of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-4), for example, but, as Edwards says, we do not become “Godded with God.”

When we begin to discover truths, we must take care that our discoveries are not at odds with revealed Scripture and with the great tradition of orthodox creeds and confessions. The right kind of mystical Christian experience exercises the liberty of theological exploration without the heresies of theological entrepreneurialism. Behold the complexities of old ideas. Beware the conspiracy of new ones. (One of the best and oldest historic examples I can think of for this kind of Christian mysticism is the latter chapters of Augustine’s Confessions.)

4. Experiential but not emotionalistic.

What Christian mysticism is really concerned with is that our Christianity be experiential, not merely “notional.” It is in effect making Christian practical, applicational, lived-in. Only heretics (of a different kind) would deny that faith without works is dead (James 2:17). Therefore, the practice of the core Christian disciplines of Bible study, prayer, fasting, and service are indispensable to the normal Christian life. But the alarms that go off for many when they encounter the word “mysticism” in relation to Christianity are not entirely false. For one thing, so many who emphasize “works” in relation to “faith” often seem to position works over faith. Similarly, many emphasize the experience in such a way that it really amounts to the kind of sensuality the Bible forbids.

The sensuality forbidden us is not always in respect to sexuality; it is a larger category that mainly relates to an elevation of what is felt. In this way, many worship gatherings in evangelical churches every Sunday morning could be categorized as unbiblically sensual, even if there is ample God-talk in the songs. The Holy Spirit and the Christian doctrine he reveals are meant to fuel an experiential Christianity, yes, but they do not fuel a Christianity based on or beholden to what we feel. The way the psalmists exhibit the full range of human emotion and always come back in faith to propositional truth is ample demonstration enough.

To get personal for a moment, this is why I struggle so much to profit from the more modern authors most identified as mystics. They seem to explore without boundaries, contemplate without content, and emphasize experience over the evangel. I appreciate the artistry of many of these writers and thinkers. But much good we find in them is not original, and much original we find in them is not good. I much prefer the mysticism of many of the Puritans, for example, over the mysticism found among the Roman Catholics, Eastern Christians, and modern progressives.

The truth is, the true Christian life is rightly understood as a mystical experience. But we must take care that our mystical experience is ordered intentionally by true Christianity.

Pastor, Be What You Want to See

God forbids pastoral domineering but commands instead “being examples to the flock” (1 Pet. 5:3). Therefore, pastor, whatever you are, your church will eventually become. If you are a loudmouth boaster, your church will gradually become known for loudmouth boasting. If you are a graceless idiot, your church will gradually become known for graceless idiocy. The leadership will set the tone of the community’s discipleship culture, setting the example of the church body’s “personality.” So whatever you want to see, that is what you must be.

This is another reason why plurality of eldership is so important. The most important reason to have multiple elders leading a church is because that is the biblical model. A plurality of eldership also provides unity in leadership on the nonnegotiable qualifications but works against uniformity in leadership by establishing a collaboration of wisdom, diversity of gifts, and collection of experiences.

Elders must be qualified, so in several key areas they will be quite similar. But through having a plurality of elders, a church receives the example of unity in diversity, which is to be played out among the body as well. Every elder ought to “be able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2), but not every elder must be an intellectual sort (if you follow my meaning). Every elder must be “self-controlled,” but some may be extroverts and some introverts, some may be analytical types and others creative. Every elder must be “respectable” and “a husband of one wife,” but some may be older and some may be younger. The more diversity one can manage on an elder board while still maintaining a unity on the biblical qualifications, the fellowship’s doctrinal affirmations, and the church’s mission, the better.

A plurality of elders can be an example to the congregation of unity of mind and heart despite differences. Pastors are not appointed to a church primarily to lead in the instruction of skills and the dissemination of information; they are appointed to a church primarily to lead in Christ-following.

A different set of traits is needed for pastors than for the business world’s management culture. Paul writes, “But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” (1 Thess. 2:7). This is not exactly the pastoral image that is most popular today. In an age when machismo and “catalytic, visionary” life-coaching dominate the evangelical leadership ranks, the ministerial model of a breastfeeding mom is alien. There is a patience, a parental affection, a tender giving of one’s self that Scripture envisions for the pastor’s role in leadership. In 2 Corinthians 12:15, Paul announces, “I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls.” That is the pastor’s heart.

Leading the Way

If we want our churches to be of one mind, to be of one heart, to assassinate their idols and feast on Christ, to be wise and winsome with the world they have forsaken, to be gentle of spirit but full of confidence and boldness, to be blossoming with the fruit of the Spirit, we must lead the way.

A pastor goes first. In groups where transparency is expected, a pastor goes first. In the humility of service, a pastor goes first. In the sharing of the gospel with the lost, a pastor goes first. In the discipleship of new believers, a pastor goes first. In the singing of spiritual songs with joy and exuberance, a pastor goes first. In living generously, a pastor goes first. In the following of Christ by the taking up of one’s cross, a pastor goes first. All I am saying is that one who talks the talk ought to walk the walk. Don’t lead your flock through domineering; lead by example.

The pastor ought to be able to say with integrity to others, as Paul says to Timothy, “Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 1:13). It is not arrogant to instruct others to follow you, so long as you are following Christ and showing them Christ and giving them Christ. “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ,” Paul says again (1 Cor. 11:1).

Younger pastors especially are as eager to find role models as they are eager to be role models. But we are not about trying to create fan clubs and clone armies. We are about seeding Christlikeness through the Spirit’s power. “Let no one despise you for your youth,” Paul instructs his young protégé (1 Tim. 4:12), but he provides the way to do this: “set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” The way you prevent others from looking down on your youth is by growing up.

Growing up. That is what God wants for his church.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ . . . (Eph. 4:11-13)

He is making us fit for the habitation he has already promised us and given us in our mystical union with Christ. He is making us holy as he is holy.

The Gospel’s Compelling Uniqueness

It is impossible to be ambivalent about Jesus. He said so himself (Matt. 12:30). It should come as no surprise, then, to see that as Jesus traveled around preaching, teaching, and doing ministry, he had an immensely polarizing effect on those he encountered. Some responded in loving awe and others in seething hatred. And this would not have been true if Jesus had simply been what many modern thinkers assume he was—a good moral teacher. No, Jesus is not quite so safe as all that. Jesus Christ is a spiritual disruption of the space-time continuum.

Just as in the days of his earthly ministry, the truth claims of Christ and his church continue to both resonate and repel. Of course, it’s the repulsion that many evangelicals today are concerned about. Some of them are concerned enough about it that they seek to soften some of the harder edges of the Christian faith to make it more appealing. And what we discover in adulterating the message of Jesus is that we may soften people’s objections to him, but we also temper their enthusiasm. The safe Jesus of modern evangelicalism is not offensive, but neither is he compelling.

No, we must embrace the real Jesus—Jesus as he was and is, with all his cross-taking demands and soul-baring truths. And when we do so, we will discover that for all the animosity the real Jesus stirs up, there are also a good many affections for him stirred up, as well. This is how Jesus himself described this phenomenon:

So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:24–30)

There is something fascinating here, something that plays out on the spiritual plane. Jesus is basically saying that the Jews’ lack of devotion to him is not due to a lack of data. He’s told them the truth. But some have “the ears to hear” and others do not. There is no middle ground. You either belong to him or you don’t.

This is the first way in which the message of Christ’s gospel is so compelling: you have to respond to it. And you will notice if you read a little further into the passage that after Jesus says, “I and the Father are one,” they take up stones to kill him.

When you draw a line in the sand, you’re going to get a reaction, and not always a positive one. Some people are going to reject it, sometimes with hostility. But others will lean in. The thing people can’t do with an exclusive Christianity is truly be ambivalent about it. The gospel forces the issue.

I think this may be what is contributing to the quiet revival in New England, which is now the least-churched region of the nation and is chock-full of people who claim to love inclusion and tolerance. Since 1970, the population of Boston has declined, but the number of churches in the city has almost doubled, and the number of people attending church has more than tripled in that same period.

Across New England, conservative churches are on a slow increase, while all others are in a continuing decline. You would think this should not be the case, given that the “safe Jesus” is found in the more liberal mainline and heterodox congregationalist churches. But the compelling Jesus, it turns out, is found in the evangelical communities.

How are evangelical churches with conservative theology preaching this old story bringing people to the faith in the hard soil of the Northeast? Well, it seems counterintuitive, but when you draw a line in the sand, you tend to move people.

But the gospel of Jesus is singularly compelling for another reason: it provides security. Unlike other religions or philosophies, Christianity doesn’t offer certainty of human will or human intellect. It offers instead certainty of divine will and atonement. The security that Christianity’s exclusive gospel offers is different from the security offered by other religions, which say, “If you can jump through these hoops, you can be saved.”

That sort of religion sounds secure on the surface, but there are too many variables involved. Every other religion is a treadmill of hoop-jumping. You can never be sure you’ll go far enough or get good enough at it to “make it.” Christianity, however, because of what Christ has done, offers the security that says, “There’s nothing you could do to make God love you less.”

I remember sharing the gospel with a Muslim cab driver in Washington, D.C., and one thing the driver said really stuck with me. He was a nominal Muslim by his own admission; he was Islam’s version of “spiritual, but not religious.” I asked him what he believed about forgiveness, and he said there were things you could do that would be so bad that God couldn’t forgive you. He said that was one of the problems with Islamic terrorism—Allah won’t forgive that. It’s too terrible. I appreciated that he got the gravity of sin. Murder is indeed a terrible, wrath-deserving sin—mass murder even more so. But I wanted him to also somehow grasp the great gravity of grace.

He could not imagine a God who would turn a blind eye to murder. But we don’t have a God who turns a blind eye to murder. He punishes every murder; he punishes every sin. It’s just that, for those who repent and believe in Jesus Christ, the punishment is borne by Christ on the cross.

This kind of exclusivity—saving grace is exclusive to Christianity and exclusive to those who trust in Christ—provides the best kind of security because it posits that refuge from God’s wrath is only found in God himself. And there is no place more secure than God himself.

This article originally appeared in Tabletalk.

Free Study Guide for ‘Supernatural Power for Everyday People’

My publisher Thomas Nelson has made available a FREE study guide for readers of my new book Supernatural Power for Everyday People: Experiencing God’s Extraordinary Spirit in Your Ordinary Life. You can download the guide (pdf) at the book’s page on my author website here.

And thanks for reading!

You’re Rich—Now What?

So we urged Titus that just as he had begun, so he should also complete among you this act of grace.

— 2 Corinthians 8:6

Paul uses a curious phrase here, saying that Titus could “complete the grace” given to him by passing on what he’d been given. It sounds on the surface like there is something lacking in the grace, if it must be “completed.” But this is not exactly what Paul means. The phrasing is similar to his thinking in Colossians 1:24 when he writes, “I am completing in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for his body.” There is of course nothing inherently lacking in Christ’s afflictions; his atoning work on the cross was perfect. It lacks for nothing, least of all our own efforts. The gospel of Christ’s cross is un-improvable!

What Paul means, however, is that the implications of that work are still going forth. The application of Christ’s substitutionary atonement continued in Paul’s mission to proclaim the gospel, and it continues today in the modern church’s mission to do the same. So it is not that Christ’s cross is lacking but that the fullness of the number being affected by it that is not yet complete. In this sense, that is what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.

And it’s in this sense that the grace given to Titus is “lacking.” For the grace given to Titus to simply stop at Titus would be evidence that he hadn’t really received the grace in the first place! It becomes complete (or “perfected”) when it radiates out in gracious generosity to others who need it too. God does not give us the wealth of his grace that it might be greedily monopolized by us. The same grace that imparts our salvation impacts our witness. This is why Paul writes next about “finishing the task”:

Now I am giving an opinion on this because it is profitable for you, who a year ago began not only to do something but also to desire it. 11 But now finish the task as well, that just as there was eagerness to desire it, so there may also be a completion from what you have. 12 For if the eagerness is there, it is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have. 13 It is not that there may be relief for others and hardship for you, but it is a question of equality— 14 at the present time your surplus is available for their need, so their abundance may also become available for our need, so there may be equality. 15 As it has been written:

The person who gathered much

did not have too much,

and the person who gathered little

did not have too little.

(2 Corinthians 8:10-15)

Paul’s invoking of the word “equality” is curious here, as well. He is not saying that all persons should or even could have the same amount of money. Jesus himself in fact said, “The poor you will always have with you” (Matt. 26:11) There are lots of Scripture passages about wealth and poverty, and not all of them make wealth out to be bad or poverty out to be good. Christians are unequivocally called to care for the poor; this is not optional for the church, and it is a hallmark of the Church’s witness in a broken and unjust world. But the kind of equality Paul is speaking to has everything to do with our intrinsic dignity as persons, as well as our universal intrinsic spiritual poverty apart from God.

Why should people with surplus share with those who lack in order that all may have some? Because we are all people made in God’s image, standing equally needy of glory before the only holy God. Put in this spiritual context, Paul makes monetary and material generosity a reflection of the gospel. We can financially and materially raise others up in a way that reflects our equality as persons—within the church, of course, to reflect our equal status as brothers and sisters in Christ, united by his blood and forged together in one Spirit to receive equal access to God’s Spirit and grace. Thinking of it this way makes “leveling the playing field” seem like a no-brainer. Captured by the grace of God in Christ, in which we receive the treasure of eternal life, we now worry much less about who hasn’t “earned their keep” or worked as hard as we have for what we’ve achieved.

All notions of earning and achieving go out the window when we realize we’ve been given an inheritance in heaven that moth and rust cannot destroy.