Gary L. Thomas's Blog, page 30

What is the Unpardonable Sin? And Have I Committed It?

One of the most common questions I get as a pastor, particularly from younger believers, is, “Have I committed the unpardonable sin?” When Jesus mentions this sin (Mark 3:22-30; Matthew 12:22-32) it’s a terrifying thought to a true believer, so the spiritually sensitive understandably tremble. In the end, my beloved mentor Dr. J.I. Packer would say that the one unpardonable sin is impenitence, but people want more and deserve more of an answer than that. So I’m excerpting two small discussions in Packer’s book Concise Theology which together comprise a fuller but still succinct answer. The second excerpt directly addresses the question of the unpardonable sin, but I’m including the excerpt before it on perseverance, as it sets up Dr. Packer’s answer about the unpardonable sin.

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Unlearning Independence: Learning the Value of Neediness

If God decided to create a perfect day for people to run the Munich Marathon, he outdid himself on October 11, 2016. The weather was in the low 50s with a marvelously gentle sun, accompanied by low humidity and no wind, a dream day to enjoy 26.2 miles on foot.

It felt so perfect I thought I could drink a good bit less than I needed to (I was on a fool’s errand to—for the first of 13 previous tries—not have to stop at a porta potty over the course of an entire marathon), which made me dehydrate so badly near mile 24 that I would have committed a crime to simply wet my throat.

As my thirst became ever more desperate, I scanned spectators and wondered what would happen if I begged (in English) for a sip of water from their open bottles. Would that be too gross? But finally, about a mile before the finish line, I saw the sign “Wasser” and stumbled toward the table. I don’t know how long I spent at that table, but it still wasn’t enough. My head was screaming, “Why are you stopping so close to the finish line?” while my throat was saying, “Emergency! Emergency! Nothing matters more than water!”

That day was one of a million reminders in my life of how desperately, embarrassingly needy I can be. Water is mostly free. It’s a part of this earth. But going a few hours without enough and I was reduced to a begging, desperate, potentially amoral being.

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More Than a Feeling: What Keeps You Growing Closer Together When Feelings Naturally Fade

We all know infatuated feelings will fade in time, but there is something much more powerful than infatuation that holds a marriage together, and on the flip side, it creates more feeling! It’s not like infatuation, but it lasts much longer and is more suitable for a fulfilling life. Infatuation is delicious, but brings with it a lot of insecurity, sometimes desperation, and a lack of focus on anything else, which makes it problematic for other relationships and life aims.

That’s why I think we should value and build our relationships on something else: purpose. Christians shouldn’t worry about falling out of love. We should be more concerned about falling out of purpose.

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The Husband Abusers

This week we’re taking a short break from running excerpts from my book in progress to look at a frequently ignored but painful issue in the church: abused husbands. I’ve written frequently about domestic violence as it impacts wives, including adding an appendix in my book A Lifelong Love, and subsequently mentioning it in the main portion of many other books, as well as writing about a dozen blogposts pleading with the church to take marital abuse more seriously and to protect women and even help them escape. Until recently, I had completely forgotten that I had also written something about abused husbands.

After New Man Magazine published a cover story on domestic abuse against women in 1998, the editors were shocked to find themselves inundated with letters from anonymous husbands begging the magazine to tell the other side of the story. A survey of these men’s letters suggests that abused men are pleading with the church to take their plight seriously. One anonymous man said, “Our society must realize that some women can be just as cruel and violent in family relationships as some men.” Accordingly, New Man assigned the article to me in 1999.

While going through back issues of magazines I had contributed to over the years, my assistant found this article and suggested we should post it for readers today, as she hasn’t seen anything else like it out there. The statistics are dated, but the testimonies are timeless. I want to also add that since this article was written over two decades ago, it has nothing to do with the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial, which I haven’t seen and haven’t paid attention to. I literally have no opinion on what went down or any judgment rendered as I don’t know anything about it other than some sensationalized headlines that no one could ignore. This is instead about an often unaddressed but extremely hurtful issue that we in the church need to pay a bit more attention to.

The Husband Abusers

It was late at night and “Alex” (not his real name) just wanted to get out the door. He and his wife “Cindy” had been fighting constantly, but this fight had taken a particularly nasty turn. There had been no physical violence but plenty of hurtful words. Alex was afraid that if he didn’t leave, something terrible would happen, so he opened the door and turned his back.

That was a painful mistake. SLAM! Alex felt the heavy, exterior door bite into his shoulder blades, pinning him against the door frame. It was like somebody had nailed him with a seven-foot-long sledgehammer. He lost his breath, regained it, and looked at his wife.

She insisted it was an “accident.” Alex felt all the frustration of being in a no-win situation. When he just took this abuse, he felt weak, like a coward whose wife could pummel him with impunity. If he fought back and the police showed up, there was no doubt as to who they would arrest-him. Feeling furious but knowing he was without any options, Alex trudged toward his car in a blind rage and drove off.

Inside the house, Cindy was shaken. Though she denied that the door slamming had been intentional, she knew privately that she had thrown it shut on purpose and with all her might. And though she was initially shocked when she realized the blow’s violence, she was now grateful that the same heavy door pounded her husband’s back was a barrier between them. He was gone, and at this moment, that was what she cared about most.

“It hadn’t really mattered to me what the method of achieving that relief was,” Cindy says today, ten years after the incident. “The feelings of frustration and anger overwhelmed me to the point of irrationality.”

When spousal abuse is mentioned, it is almost universally assumed that wives are the objects, not the subjects, of that abuse. But such incidents in which the men are on the receiving end-occur more often than you might think. While many men are tempted to snicker and laugh when anyone mentions the words “husband abuse”-the phrase itself sounds like an oxymoron-the men trapped inside its claws endure a unique brand of misery.

Just how common is it?

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Loving a Difficult Wife

While I am regularly amazed by how well so many Christian women love their husbands and families, some husbands are married to women who are spiritually immature or addicted. It’s a rock-solid biblical truth that even the best of us, on our best days, still “stumble in many ways” (James 3:2). In the course of my travels and correspondence, I’ve been approached by a few husbands who want to honor God and their marriage vows even though they are struggling with wives who are contentious or sometimes even mentally ill. Some wives can be outright selfish or lazy. And it is almost automatic that the worse a wife is in her character, the less she will appreciate the excellence of her husband’s faith and devotion.

Few pastors/writers/speakers will talk about this. It’s easier and safer and we will get far less blowback if we simply join in the chorus that berates men and asks husbands to step up, so we routinely make men “the bad guys” when it comes to marital situations and stories. This is somewhat fair. As a pastor, it’s far more common for me to see women carry heavier burdens than most men when it comes to a spouse’s sin—but it’s not absolute. And you men who do suffer often do so in isolation and without support or acknowledgment, so this one blog is for you. God has increased my pastoral heart and I don’t want you to feel neglected and alone. If you haven’t read my other posts or books—ones that routinely challenge men more than women, please don’t judge where I’m coming from by this one blog post. I’ve written about a dozen blog posts and included several chapters in many books to encourage women married to particularly troublesome men.

This post was inspired when a husband spoke to me about his wife at a recent conference. She has a mental illness, and when she takes her medications, things are tolerable. When she doesn’t—he does his best to hold on, often heroically. His sweet spirit and determination to honor God amidst an extremely difficult marriage inspired me. Of course, sometimes, it’s not about mental illness—a wife’s spiritual weakness or lack of character can be just as taxing. These husbands also deserve some consideration. Finally, every husband faces the challenge of loving a less-than-perfect wife, just as every wife faces the challenge of loving a sinful husband. Nobody today is married in the perfect Garden of Eden.

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Call No Man Father

If there’s one thing the church doesn’t do well, it’s humility. At various times in church history, Christian leadership defined “pomp and circumstance.” The awe-inspiring cathedrals, ostentatious costumes, and elaborate rituals with utensils that sometimes cost more than many people’s houses screamed hubris.

But humility isn’t just about display; it’s also about posture and position. I was invited to attend an ordination meeting at a large church, and one of the prospective pastors had been assigned to do a paper on church government. He kept saying, “the Bible’s view of leadership is this,” or “the Bible presents government like that,” until I raised my hand and asked, “Where in the Bible do you see a senior pastor?”

Many of the young men went “ooooohhhhhh….” and the presenter was stumped.  My question irritated one of the leaders in the room who said, “Give him the right answer Gary”—which was fair. You can’t just throw out a bomb like that and leave it. Let me stress that I think some form of a senior pastor is still probably the best model for a local church. I can’t think of a better one, but I also can’t, in good conscience, call it the “biblical” model because there really isn’t a senior pastor mentioned in the New Testament, and in fact Jesus seems to warn against a senior pastor’s worst tendencies when he says, “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah” (Matthew 23:8-10).

Paul passionately warns the Corinthians away from putting too much emphasis on any one human leader: “So then, no more boasting about human leaders! All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God” (1 Corinthians 3:21-23).

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The Key to a Spiritually Prosperous and Abundant Life

What do you value most in life?

I mean, at the very top–even above your own life and family?

Seventeenth-century writer Thomas Brooks suggests that genuine, earnest believers will find unparalleled happiness and comfort in the favor and presence of God—and they will protect this favor and presence above all else. This is, I believe, one of the keys to a prosperous and abundant spiritual life.

Doubling down on living in the presence and affirmation of God has been a refreshing, life-changing journey for me in this current season of life. Please let me share with you the words from Brooks that inspired me to focus on it.

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Unlearn Pomp and Circumstance: Learn Being Rich Toward God

Chapter 4, Part 1 of the Art of Unlearning

This week’s post is the current first half of chapter four of The Art of Unlearning. Subscribers are invited to offer all comments, and I’d be eager to get your feedback as this is very much a work in progress. Later this month we’ll also have our zoom call where your verbal comments and feedback would be welcome as well.

Some dear friends of ours took Lisa and me on a canal cruise through the Burgundy area of France. Our friends are “foodies” in the restaurant business, so they were particularly excited about visiting a vineyard where the grapes for the most expensive wine in the world, Romanee-Conti, are grown.

For context, I know as much about wine as I do quantum physics, which is to say, nothing. So the romance of the moment might have been lost by the skepticism of my mind.

We drove up to the rows where Romanee-Conti grapes are cultivated. There was a dirt road, maybe eight feet wide at most, dividing the rows where grapes for Richebourg wines are grown.

Romanee-Conti is such an exclusive wine that in order to purchase some you often to have to first buy a case (twelve bottles) of Richebourg wine. Romanee-Conti can set you back eight thousand euros a bottle, though some have been sold at auction for over $20,000 a bottle. Richebourg seems like a bargain in comparison, typically going for around one to two thousand euros a bottle. In that case, you have to spend around fifteen to twenty thousand dollars in order to “get” to spend another ten thousand dollars for that one precious bottle of Romanee-Conti wine.

While our guide was talking, Doug (our restaurant owning friend) wandered off and came back to me with a nudge. “Here,” he whispered. “It’s a Romanee- Conti grape.” I don’t think you’re supposed to pick them, but it was already picked, and Doug, a math whiz, had calculated that that grape alone was worth about twenty dollars (when you factor in how many grapes it takes to produce a bottle of wine that expensive). I’m not the kind of person who throws that kind of money on the ground.

It was a very good grape. I don’t think I’d pay twenty dollars for it, but it was certainly tasty.

However, the taste didn’t overcome my skepticism as I looked at how close the Richebourg fields are to the Romanee-Conti fields. “You mean to tell me,” I asked the guide, “that the grapes right here” pointing to Romanee-Conti “are eight to ten times better than the grapes that are there?” (pointing eight feet away to the next row).

“Well,” he admitted, “the grapes on that end vine may not be all that different from the grapes on the first Richebourg vine, but remember, they’re cultivated from the entire field and mixed together, and there really is a difference between the middle of the fields.”

I’ve driven through vast swaths of Texas and Montana and have seen fields of corn that could have accommodated a hundred fields of Romanee-Conti grapes. The vineyard we were standing in wasn’t that big, making me think the difference couldn’t have been that huge. Not eight times better, anyway.

But those distinctions are defended with zeal. We met a woman whose family owned two rows of the Musigny vineyard (also in Burgundy). Vineyard ownerships are mostly divided by rows, or even partial rows. Musigny produces a highly coveted grand cru wine, so this woman’s family was offered four million euros for two rows of the vineyard. Two rows will cultivate enough grapes to produce about two barrels of wine a year. There is no way that amount of wine could generate more than four million euros during their entire lifetime but owning part of a prestigious vineyard isn’t always or even mostly about the dollars and cents.

“It’s a family thing,” she said, explaining why the offer was refused.

This kind of phenomenon fascinates me, which is why when we returned from our trip I did some research and found a psychological study explaining why our brains think expensive wine is better than cheap wine (even if it’s the same wine). Knowledge of the price literally impacts our brain’s processing of the experience. In this study everyone judged the most expensive wine to be the best wine, which makes sense to me. If I had convinced myself to pay eight thousand euros for a single bottle of wine, I’d want it to be the best wine I’ve ever tasted, too, lest I think of myself as a foolish schmuck.

If you’re a true wine aficionado, you may have already lost all respect for me at this point, but that experience led me to ask the question, are the “finer things” in life actually “finer?”

Or do we just think they are?

I have no doubt that to a trained palate a glass of Romanee-Conti wine is a significantly different experience than sipping from boxed wine purchased at Costco, but remember that one study: if you took a bunch of normal people who aren’t wine aficionados and told them the boxed wine was more expensive than the Romanee-Conti, they might even prefer the boxed wine over the world’s most expensive wine.

So it’s a fair question: are all the “finer” things in life really that much finer? Or do we just think they are?

In the same way, are we living life seeking things that, in the light of eternity, aren’t only not superior, but perhaps, even in some ways, inferior to other things we might pursue?

How do we unlearn a false definition of the “finer life,” and how do we learn life at its best, particularly when it comes to appearances? We need to unlearn the immediate allure of pomp and circumstance, and learn instead the wealth of a life that is rich toward God.

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The Path to Peace

If you would experience rest, personal peace and that blessed settled conviction that all will be well even if all aspects of your life seem to be spinning out of control, I invite you to review nineteenth-century writer Henry Drummond’s magisterial essay Pax Vobiscum (“peace be with you”). Drummond lays out Christ’s “recipe” for rest and personal peace in a practical and insightful step-by-step journey.

In Drummond’s mind, gaining peace is like baking a cake: there are certain ingredients that need to be mixed together and put through a certain process. When you do that, a cake (peace) results.

1. The first thing to understand if you want to gain rest is that “restlessness has a cause.”[i] Makes sense, right? To have rest and peace, we must first remove restlessness. There’s a spiritual condition that results in restlessness, and a spiritual condition that results in restfulness. We have to attack the cause of restlessness if we want to enjoy true and lasting rest.

What makes us restless? The desperate pursuit of everything mentioned in the early part of this chapter. We have to unlearn restlessness if we want to learn restfulness. You won’t find restfulness and peace while pursuing things that naturally breed anxiety.

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What It’s Like to Hate Someone

As we age, temptations can change. As old ones fall off, or at least lose some of their intensity, new ones may emerge. Our battle against sin changes fronts but our war against sin doesn’t cease. We may end up fighting different enemies, but we’re still fighting. At least, that’s been my experience.

One of the newer battles for me as I age is one I don’t think I’ve had to take seriously before: hatred. It sounds so ugly to even say the word. I’m embarrassed and ashamed as a follower of Christ that, having been loved so well and so mercifully by such a gracious and forgiving God, that I could ever bear actual hatred toward anyone. It’s no excuse to say I was pushed so far that hatred was inevitable. There are very few mitigating circumstances for such a recipient of love and mercy to feel such loathsome hatred.

But there it was. I finally had to admit it. It was frightening but weirdly liberating to say out loud: “Lord, I hate this person. I don’t want to. I hate that I hate. But I’m not sure how to stop.”

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