Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 7

The Potential of Young Men

Acts 23:12-24
[The audio/video for this sermon is available here.]

Prayer: Father, we live in a land that has hated young men, despising their strength and energy and refusing to train it, and so we are reaping a great whirlwind of despair and anger and destruction. Please use this text to teach us to love the glory of young men like You do, and grant us a great Reformation through the conversion of many young men to Jesus Christ, in His name, Amen. 

Introduction
This episode contrasts two kinds of young men. You have a mob of angry young men and you have the wise courage of Paul’s nephew.

We live in a world inundated with manipulations and lies, and the inevitable result of this is bitterness and wrath, particularly among young men. This is what has come to be called “red-pilling” and “black-pilling.” Red-pilling is the realization you’ve been lied to, and black-pilling is the anger and despair that often follows. 

The glory of young men is their strength (Prov. 20:29). Think physical strength, but also energy, courage, boldness – the ability to concentrate on a particular goal or mission and do whatever it takes to get there. 

God created men to lead and build, using their strength sacrificially for the good of those around them. But when they despair and give up hope in that potential, their strength is often twisted to destruction and evil (e.g. this Jewish mob’s vow). This is why young men must know Christ and place their hope in the power of His resurrection. God rules all the plots of men and turns them to His will. Young men who know Christ and God’s sovereignty are learning to use their strength like God does, imitating Him.

Summary of the Text
Certain Jews took a vow to kill Paul – promising not to eat or drink until he was dead, and the chief priests and elders apparently agreed to the plot (Acts 23:12-15). However, Paul’s nephew got wind of the conspiracy and told Paul, who instructed him to tell the chief captain (Acts 23:16-19). After the young man told the chief captain about the plot, the captain ordered two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and two hundred spear men to escort Paul on horseback through the night to Governor Felix in Caesarea (Acts 23:20-24). 

King Jesus Overrules 
Just imagine how many Christians thought Paul had really blown it by going to Jerusalem and maybe even made it worse by his sermons to the Jews and Jewish leaders. But St. Chrysostom (347-407) says, “Like some king whom his bodyguards escort, so did these escort Paul.” Another commentator suggests Paul is like a Mordecai who was plotted against by these Hamans but he ends up honored publicly (Esth. 6:7-11). Despite what it might look like to some, Jesus is saying to Paul, “well done.”

God repeatedly uses the pagan empire to protect his people. The pagan politicians have their own motivations, but they are all being used by the risen Jesus to direct events to His ends. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will” (Prov. 21:1). “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps” (Prov. 16:9). God’s sovereignty overrules: “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good…” (Gen. 50:20) 

Just as Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Gentiles, and Jews intended to put an end to Jesus, they only did what God’s counsel had determined beforehand would be done (Acts 4:27-28). This is the wisdom and power of God which ordained before the world for our glory, which if the princes of this world had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Cor. 2:7-8). And this is the key to young men using their strength for good. It is strength trained for battle. It is strength governed by wisdom.

It is common to identify the “regime” in our day as the Deep State, One World Gov’t schemes, Big Pharma, Mass Media, and there is truth to all of it, but God laughs at the schemes of men (Ps. 2). He will break them with a rod of iron, but He isn’t worried. He uses their evil schemes to accomplish His good goals or else destroys their schemes. We have to hold both of those realities together. No apathy; by no despair. Clear-eyed courage taught Paul to tell the captain of the guard about the plot. 

A Powder Keg
Like the first century, we are living in a powder keg of a culture, with the primary flammable material being angry young men. Statistics of suicide, crime, drug and alcohol abuse are all led by young men. God made the world for the blessing of young men, a world where ambitious young men might explore, hunt, discover, build, invent, and use their energy and strength for the good of the world (Gen. 1-2). Men were made to sacrifice their strength for the good of others (Eph. 5, 1 Pet. 3:7, 1 Tim. 2:13). But many of our leaders in the public square and the church have rejected the goodness of masculine strength. Many have lied and manipulated young men, whether with demands of effeminacy, or lies about history, politics, or religion. (How often has Christianity been blamed for the evils of the West? And how often Christian men?) And even many Christian leaders have insisted that “sacrificial strength” simply means becoming a limp rug for everyone to walk over. As in this text, many Christian leaders have compromised with the world and evil. 

But Jesus came into this world to start the great counter-insurgency. He is the Light of the World come to break the back of all darkness. He came down into our darkness, into the darkness of death itself, and He broke the power of darkness: Satan’s power of death over guilty sinners. Christian men cannot duplicate that heroic act, but all Christian men are required to imitate it. Husbands imitate it in their love for their wives. Soldiers imitate it in their selfless defense of their country. Judges imitate it by ruling fairly and in accord with God’s law. Scientists and doctors imitate it by loving the truth and doing good. Politicians do this by hating covetousness and fearing God. 

Conclusion 
In addition to the courage of Paul, here we have a young man (Paul’s nephew) who used his strength for good, to undermine the machinations of evil men.

The center of this strength is Christ Himself, who used His strength to undermine the machinations of evil men. God generally gives men more physical strength, but Christ is the strength of Christian men. And by His strength they lead in obedience in every circumstance: “for I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phil. 4:11-13). 

Parents, think of your sons like guns. You want them to be lethal. You want them to be dangerous. Think of their strength, their sense of justice, their energy, their concentration as good things that need to be honed, trained, disciplined, but don’t despise them, don’t mock them, don’t crush them. Praise the good; respect strength. Wives, the same goes for your husbands.

The temptation for men is often to choose the wrong sacrifice, but our duty is to embrace the one Christ assigns to us. Most men want to be heroes, but they often resent the Cross they are assigned. But since they still want to be heroes, they try to die on different crosses – which is just elaborate excuse making, and soccer flopping. It was the woman you gave me, I was tired, I was sick, I had to work on my car, and work was really hard. 

But Jesus was obedient to His death, and all who follow Him must embrace the Cross He assigns. And in the face of the doubts and fears, look to the One who raised Him from the dead, the one who thwarts the plots of men and uses even pagans to exalt His saints.

Prayer: Father, teach us to be strong like you: strong in body, mind, and spirit. Teach us to train and govern our strength in your wisdom so that we might be used by You to do great good in this dark world. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Photo by Fortune Vieyra on Unsplash

Sean & MaryBeth

How do you know the will of God? Many people refer to the will of God sort of flippantly. They imagine that the will of God is whatever they really want to do, whatever they were already planning to do. But that seems strange since lots of things people really want to do aren’t very good or even contradictory. As many have pointed out, most of the soldiers on both sides of the Civil War and World War 1 claimed to be Christians and claimed that God was on their side. 

And in reaction to that, many others have decided that the will of God is inscrutable, unknowable, and so what’s the use? And if the will of God is unknowable, maybe God is unknowable too, maybe there is no God after all. 

But a wedding is a moment that presses those questions. In a sense, Sean and MaryBeth are saying that they believe it is the will of God for them to get married, and their families and all the rest of us here witnessing their vows are agreeing with that. But how do we know this is the will of God? Are we just guessing? Are we just hoping for the best? More and more people are delaying marriage, if they ever get married at all. Marriage rates have plummeted. And in part, I believe it’s because people are honestly not sure it’s worth it. What if it doesn’t work out? What if you choose wrong? 

The central failure of many moderns on these questions is our failure to read the Bible and submit to it. What many people ask for is a Word from God, and it turns out that God has spoken. He has given us a book that is His perfect Word sufficient for everything we need. In 2 Timothy 3:16 it says that Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching us righteousness – that means teaching us what is right, and it thoroughly equips people for every good work. In 2 Peter, it says that Scripture isn’t cleverly devised fables, but it is eye-witness testimony of God’s Words. Men were led by the Holy Spirit to write exactly what God knew we needed, like a bright light in a dark place. As the Psalm says, God’s Word is a lamp to our feet, and a light to our path. God has spoken in Scripture so that we might know His Will for our lives. The Ten Commandments are the central things: worship God alone in the way He instructs us, honor the Sabbath, honor your parents, protect human life, honor the marriage bed, and hate all lies, stealing, and envy. 

Of course this doesn’t mean that everybody who reads the Bible gets everything right. If you read the Bible, you’ll find that is even the case in the Bible. There are false prophets, and people who twist Scripture. That’s actually one of the greatest proofs for the authenticity of Scripture: it doesn’t shy away from all the ways that people screw things up. Not only that, the people who wrote Scripture even recount the ways that they screwed things up. People who make up religions and cults don’t do that – they white-wash their own lives, making themselves out to be perfect saints and heroes. But Moses records his own failures, and the gospels tell us how the disciples argued about who was the greatest, how Peter denied Jesus three times, and how Paul had persecuted Christians. 

There’s only one man in the whole Bible who is perfect, sinless, and has no faults, Jesus of Nazareth. And the Bible says that He isn’t a normal human being. He is God in human flesh. This is why the Bible emphasizes that Mary became pregnant as a virgin. She conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has no biological human father. But this is central to our knowledge of God’s Will. Not only has God spoken in the Bible, but He has revealed Himself in His own Son, Jesus Christ. He was not only born of the virgin Mary, but He lived a perfect, sinless life, and He was betrayed by one of His friends, Judas, and the religious leaders handed him over to the Romans to be executed by hanging on a cross. But three days later, He came back to life in a way that He could never die again. 

Jesus said that He needed to die in order to give His life as a ransom for sinners. He said that His blood was shed for the remission of sins, in order to give everyone who believes in Him eternal life. Eternal life is not merely forever life; it is an abundant life, fullness of life, life full of light and blessing, walking with God, knowing and doing the will of God. And Jesus says that we have that life as we deny ourselves and follow Him. He says that if we are willing to lose ourselves and everything for Him, we will find our true selves in Him. Christians are those who have surrendered their lives to Christ.

So this is how we know the will of God: through reading and obeying Scripture, through knowing and following Jesus Christ, and finally what both of these things teach us is that we can know the will of God by reading our stories in faith. The story of Scripture is the story of God’s kindness and providence, and for those who humble themselves, repent of their sins, and trust in God, He turns even the evil and folly in their lives to good. Joseph was hated by his brothers, sold into slavery, lied about and imprisoned, but God raised him up to be second in command over Egypt, and when he met his brothers many years later, he said, “What you intended for evil, God intended for good.” And the same thing has happened in Jesus Christ: What the Jews and the Romans intended for evil, God has turned into the greatest good. That’s why we call it Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified. 

So this is how we can arrive at a beautiful moment like this: Sean and MaryBeth have repented of their sins, and have sought to humbly trust and obey Christ and His Word. From Scripture, we learn that marriage is good, and it is not good for men to be alone. God created us to live in community, and one of the centers of the community we were made for is called family: marriage and children. When we obey God’s clear Words, we can trust that He is not tricking us. His fingers are not crossed behind His back. His purposes are good. We can trust Him.

So Sean, my charge to you is to continue in the Word of God. The Word is your Light. Today you are becoming MaryBeth’s husband and head, and that means you are taking responsibility for her physical and spiritual well-being. You are promising to lead her by loving her like Christ loved the Church. This requires you to study the Word in order to know how to lead your family to follow Christ faithfully. Wherever you fail, admit it, and repent. Get back into the light as quickly as possible. The only thing worse than a man who is lost is a man who won’t admit that he’s lost. And remember that loving your wife is not doing whatever she wants; rather, it is doing whatever is needed for her true good.  

MaryBeth, my charge to you is to likewise continue in the Word of God. The Word is your light. Today you are becoming Sean’s wife, and that means you are becoming his body. Just as the church is the body of Christ and submits to Christ in everything, you are promising to do the same with Sean, respecting him, following his lead. This also requires you to study the Word in order to know how to respect Sean, how to follow Him, and how to glorify his home and calling. Likewise, wherever you fail, admit it, and repent. Get back into the light as quickly as possible. The Bible teaches that a woman has great power: a wise woman builds her house into a great dynasty of faithfulness, but a foolish woman can tear it down with her own hands.

So may our faithful God who has brought you safe this far, and redeemed you from every evil, establish you both (and Oliver), in His grace, to a thousand generations. 

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen. 

Parenting as Coaching

In Ephesians 6, it says that fathers are to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The word for nurture is the word “paideia,” which means “culture.” Christian parents are commanded by God to bring up our children in the culture of Christ. 

But think about what culture is: it includes teaching, but it’s tons of doing with love and joy and decorations and treats. How do you bring your children up in the culture of Christmas? You talk about, you make it fun, you enjoy it together. Or what about the culture of your favorite sport or hobbies? You talk about it a lot with enthusiasm. You practice. You make time. 

So Christian faith is to be like that. Parents are the coaches or team captains. And your kids are the team. This means lots of practicing all the plays. Are you practicing for church during the week? Do you practice sitting still for short periods? Do you practice singing? Do you practice saying the Creed and the doxology and lifting hands? 

Prepare your kids to succeed. Talk to them about what temptations they will face ahead of time. How should they respond if someone takes their favorite toy? What if you have people over for dinner? How do you want them to respond? Do you want them to say thank you when they are given something? Practice those plays.  

Is their first response to instructions whining or cheerful obedience? Practice giving instructions and require immediate, cheerful obedience. Show them how. Act it out. Run the plays before you’re at the park or grocery store or church. Practice, practice, practice – before the game. And lots of cheers for obedience, high fives, and talking about it later, maybe even some prizes or treats for really good plays. 

Of course, God requires that parents use the rod of correction when children are being defiantly disobedient. God requires parents to require obedience of our children. And obedience is right away, all the way, and cheerful. But make sure you are preparing your kids to obey. Make sure you’re giving them regular opportunities to practice that obedience, so that you know that they know how to do it and what is required. God is good, and His ways are good. And this is the culture of Christ. 

Educating Daughters

The Bible teaches that men are responsible for their households. Just as Christ took responsibility for us, even though our sins were not his fault, so too husbands take responsibility for their wives, even though the particular sins of your wife are not always your fault. At the same time, unlike Christ, husbands are sinners and so husbands are always contributing their own failing to the mix. 

This is all true, but it does not diminish the power and responsibility of women and wives in the slightest. Proverbs 14:1 says, “Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.” Egalitarians and feminists teach that women need to be empowered, but the Bible teaches that women are already very powerful. Equipped with biblical wisdom, they are mighty homemakers and home builders, but when they reject biblical wisdom, they can be mighty homewreckers. 

Therefore, the task of women learning and growing in biblical wisdom and knowledge and skill is significant. Our enemies have successfully duped many generations of women into thinking that they must compete with men, rejecting the glorious calling of wife and mother, but many Christians in reaction to all of those feminist lies have failed to build the schools and colleges and teaching and training opportunities for daughters to find true wisdom and be equipped to run homes and estates and businesses with their husbands and for their families. 

The Proverbs 31 woman was no doubt a queen over a great nation, but her diligence and industry and competence is still a glorious model for our wives and daughters and every woman: she participates in international trade, has an army of maids, buys real estate, runs vineyards, cares for the poor, makes clothing for her household and runs a clothing store. She works all day long. She opens her mouth in wisdom, and is a very competent teacher and instructor in her areas of expertise. Her husband is in the city gate and among the elders, but she has better things to do than that. Strength and honor are her clothing, and her children rise up and call her blessed, her husband also praises her.  

Red-Pilling & Christ

Red-pilling is the realization that you’ve been lied to, the world isn’t the way you were told. A bunch of what you thought was real was actually a sham, a scam, a facade. Satan is the father of lies, and satanic cultures and kingdoms thrive on lies. This is why conversion to Christ is the ultimate red pill. Christ is the truth incarnate. His truth sets men free. And therefore, His Word in Scripture must be our touchstone for everything. Christ is King, not Satan, not his useful idiots in places of power.

Covid was a major red-pilling moment in our culture. The media and cultural elites tried to convince us that millions would die if we didn’t shut down our “non-essential” businesses and churches and schools, stay home, wear masks, stand 6 feet apart, and then when we noticed that abortion clinics and casinos were still open and they were still having private dinner parties, while our grandparents died alone in nursing homes, while they were arresting lone guys on beaches, we saw through the charade. When BLM riots ripped through our cities and protests and marches gathered like churches and they were praised and justified by our politicians and pastors, we realized we had been lied to… by almost everyone.

The tranny jihad has been another radicalizing red pill moment. Demanding that sick men have access to our daughters’ and mothers’ bathrooms and locker rooms and athletics, drag queens in libraries, and performing stripteases in front of young children, and the sudden rush to chemically castrate or permanently, surgically maim any teenager with a moment’s worth of sexual confusion, not to mention the millions of dollars behind it all — revealed to many that this is not about love and equality but about perversion, grooming, pedophila, and a corrupt counseling and medical industry.

And don’t forget the schools. The public/government schools have been complicit in all of this. From sexualizing kids from young ages to DEI indoctrination from preschool to universities, white Christian guilt and shame has metastasized, not to mention plummeting scores and standards on basic math and literature and history, all filled with Cultural Marxist religious talking points, in the name of neutrality and secularism and freedom. Heh. Loads and loads of fabrications, lies, and deception.

But all of this is a setup for any thinking man to wonder if he’s been lied to about everything. The same people who told me to mask up, take a jab, put money in some dude’s junk, and to feel bad for being a white Christian, also told me that the civil rights movement was good, that the confederacy was pure evil, the Salem witch trials and the Spanish inquisition were some of the worst examples of religious persecution, and the crusades and the wars of religion are what happen when people take Christianity too seriously.

It’s no wonder people start asking if the moon landing really happened or if the earth is actually flat and maybe there really are aliens and UFOs. And what about mermaids and unicorns and giants? Could a man really walk on water? Can water be turned into wine? Could the dead rise? Some of these things are true, some are partially true, and some are not.

So what do we do in a moment like this? To the Word and to the Testimony. The false teachers and educational wizards and media gurus have always muttered and chirped with their delusions and lies, scraping for power, trying to manipulate the masses with fear. But God’s Word stands true forever. Men will falter. Men will lie. Men will forget. But God’s Word is sure. And in His Light we see light. In His truth, we can distinguish truth from lies.

And the truth is that we did not get here in a moment or even in just a few years. We got here by slowly neglecting God’s Word. When you cover the lamp, it gets dark in the room. When you stop celebrating God creating the world in six days, when you stop loving God’s good law, when you stop singing all of God’s favorite songs, the Psalms, when you stop telling the story of God’s covenant faithfulness from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses to David to Christ, when you stop loving children, welcoming children into your family, into worship, and doing everything you can to raise them as Christians, when you stop preaching the substitutionary atonement for sin, God’s absolute sovereignty over the universe, and the certainty of the victory of the Great Commission, well, that’s how lies get feet. That’s how it gets dark. That’s how you become susceptible to charades.

The black pill despairs of knowing any truth. Maybe it’s all lies. Maybe there is no point. Maybe it’s all a charade. But you know that isn’t true because you care. Because you’ve seen truth in action, because you know Christ died and rose again, and you know that because when you called on the Lord, He took away your sins and gave you a peace that cannot be taken away. Baptism is real. The Lord’s Supper is real. His church is real, and the gates of Hades cannot prevail against it. And His Kingdom is forever.

We have been here before. Pharaoh tried to keep Israel in Egypt with lies, but God brought them out. The Canaanites and their Baals hampered Israel for many centuries, but God brought them out. Conquered by Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, and God brought His people out. The Reformation red-pilled Europe with the gospel of grace. And it is a Bible-drenched wisdom that will be ready for whatever comes next. The lies and charades must fall because Christ is King. And that is the truest thing.

Happy Is That People

Grace Agenda 2024

“Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD” (Ps. 144:15).

Introduction
The theme of this year’s conference is “Jolly Warrior,” and my topic is “Happy is that People.” In the midst of the Great War that commenced immediately after our first parents fell into sin and which went into full conquering mode after the resurrection – in the midst of this Great Conflict – we, the people of the High King of the Universe, are to be marked, notoriously, for being happy. 

So this is a talk about why we’re so happy, and hopefully, as you are reminded of some of the chief reasons, it will make you even happier as you go back out into the fray. There are of course many more reasons than we will cover tonight, but here are four reasons why the people of the living God are a happy people. And as it happens, I’m taking most of this from the Psalms. My title is taken from Psalm 144, and most of what I want to unpack will be taken from this and other psalms. And that should be remembered in all of this. A happy people are a singing people. We sing because we are glad. And we sing in order to multiply that gladness.

Four Reasons for Why We Are a Happy People

1. We are a happy people because we are a forgiven people. 

The word in Hebrew for “happy” is the word “ahshray,” and it is often also translated as “blessed.” Ps. 32:1-2 says, “Happy is the man whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy is the man unto whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, in whose spirit there is no guile.” All of this goes together. Literally, the word for “forgiven” is “lifted up” or “carried.” Happy is the one who has had his sins lifted off of him, carried away, whose sin is covered. 

The next word we need to define is “impute,” which basically means “charged with.” Happy is the man who is not charged with his iniquity. To be forgiven is to know that you could have been charged with numerous particular sins, you should have been charged with them, and you should have been convicted. But instead, the crime was taken away, lifted off of you, and blotted over on your record, and all the charges were dropped. Happy is the man unto whom the Lord does not charge any iniquity.

Finally, Psalm 32 says we are happy because in our spirits there is no guile. Guile is an old word for lies or deceit. We are happy because we are completely forgiven, and we have nothing to hide: no lies, no backlog of sin, no hypocrisy at all. Everything that needs to be confessed, has been confessed. You can go through our internet history, old love letters and yearbooks, and nothing is a festering lie. Everyone who needs to know, has been told, and it’s been made right. 

But then in Psalm 32 David records what it was like before he confessed his sins. When he kept silent, his bones ached like a burning arthritis, and he groaned all day long with agony. He says it was God’s hand heavy upon him. So this is the case for God’s people who are trying to hide sin or refusing to confess or forgive. You cannot be God’s people and be happy while sin festers in your life. You will either have God’s hand on you heavy with conviction or else you will have God’s hand heavy upon you for blessing and happiness. You can have one or the other, but you cannot have both. 

We are a happy people because we have confessed our sins, and the blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed us, and we are forgiven. 

2. We are a happy people because we have God’s clear Word and by that Word much fruit. 

“Happy is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water, that brings forth his fruit in his season, his leaf also does not wither, and whatsoever he does will prosper” (Ps. 1:1-3).

Christians who choose not to walk in the ways of the ungodly, who turn away from notorious sinners, and do not fellowship with the rebellious scornful, are to be marked by happiness. This would be people who have taken their kids out of government schools, who do no let Netflix or PBS babysit their little ones, and make it a point to fellowship with God’s people regularly. These people, Psalm 1 says, are happy. 

They are not fearful, not in constant angst, not full of anxiety, not stressed out. We are happy. We are happy because we have the counsel of God, the way of God, and we are seated with Christ and His people. The way of transgressors is hard (Prov. 13:15), but the law of God is like finding gold, and it is sweeter than honey. So this is no prideful happiness, no arrogant boasting. This is simply the happiness of goodness. 

The world, the flesh, and the devil offer dinner from the garbage dump. And God in Christ, offers us a feast in His wisdom. Happy are those who turn away from the garbage dump and feast on Christ and His Word. 

Psalm 1 also says that we are happy because we have the law of God and it delights us, as we meditate on it day and night. Unfortunately, we haven’t quite recovered that reputation yet. Theonomy is the doctrine, broadly speaking, that all human laws ought to be based on God’s law. There is plenty of room for debating exactly which laws and how they ought to be applied, but if we agree that God’s law is supreme over all human law, then we’re all theonomists of some stripe. If God’s law is not supreme, then you will have some other law supreme, and wherever that law came from is your god. 

But the point we must underline here is that Psalm 1 says that theonomists ought to be the happiest people in the world. If you are really into God’s law. If you’re constantly chewing on how various verses in Deuteronomy might apply to your life, your family, your church, your city, and all civil governments, it ought to make you really happy. It is our delight. It’s like ice cream with chocolate syrup on top. God’s Words are sweet. Meditating on God’s law should not make you angsty, bitter, or an insufferable troll on social media.  If you think you’re really into God’s law, but you’re only getting more angsty, you aren’t really. 

This happiness of applying God’s Word was actually our Protestant reputation at one point. When the Word of God was being translated and printed and preached openly in the language of the common people, it created a distinctly happy people. And this was one of the chief complaints against our Protestant and Puritan fathers. The center of this happiness was the word of grace, the gospel itself that converted sinners to God. C.S. Lewis says this, “The man who has passed through it feels like one who has waked from nightmare into ecstasy. Like an accepted lover, he feels that he has done nothing, and never could have done anything, to deserve such astonishing happiness… All the initiative has been on God’s side; all has been free, unbounded grace. And all will continue to be free, unbounded grace. His own puny and ridiculous efforts would be as helpless to retain the joy as they would have been to achieve it in the first place. Fortunately, they need not. Bliss is not for sale, cannot be earned… He is not saved because he does works of love: he does works of love because he is saved. It is faith alone that has saved him: faith bestowed by sheer gift. From this buoyant humility, this farewell to the self with all its good resolutions, anxiety, scruples, and motive-scratchings, all the Protestant doctrines originally sprang.” 

When the Word was found, and when the Word was read and proclaimed, this is what it said: Grace. Pure grace. Free grace. Boundless grace. And be done with all your good resolutions, anxiety, scruples, and motive-scratchings. All Protestant doctrine springs from this happy font.   

And thus the early Protestants and Puritans were not known for being sour, gloomy, or severe. Rather, their enemies accused them of being too light, too easy, and too happy. Lewis again: “Protestantism was not too grim, but too glad, to be true.” Calvin and his followers celebrated the goodness of creation, man’s senses, food and drink, colorful clothing, and the delights of the marriage bed.

We are happy because we have God’s clear gospel Word in Christ, and in Him, the whole world has been given back to us as gifts of grace. Happy is that people.

3. We are a happy people because our families are a blast. 

“Happy is everyone who fears the Lord and walks in His ways… your wife will be as a fruitful vine by the sides of your house; your children will be like olive plants around your table… you shall see your children’s children and peace upon Israel” (Ps. 128).

The homes of Christian people should be the happiest places. They are happy because their sins are forgiven, and they are constantly confessing sin and forgiving one another as quickly as sin happens. No backlog of sins. No hidden sins. No grievances. No grudges. They are happy because they have the Word of Christ proclaiming grace in salvation and grace in every good gift. 

But this Psalm 128 specifically underlines the happiness of a fruitful wife, children, grandchildren, and all around a dinner table. 

Children are multipliers. They multiply what you have personally, and what you have with your wife. So, if you want your home to be a happy place, your heart must be a happy place and your marriage must be a happy place. Your heart is a happy place if it is clean and full of light. You can have that if all your sins are forgiven. 

The basic assignments given in Scripture to husbands are to love your wife and to wives to respect your husband. These are not just rules or generic instructions. These are the steps for the dance. This is how to be happy in your marriage. These are the central ingredients to all the best times, beginning with the fact that these instructions tend to go against our natural inclinations. 

Men tend function primarily on respect, and so respect is what we naturally give. But God says that we must love our wife. And women tend to function primarily on love, and so love is what women most naturally give. But God says that you must respect your husband. And God instructs us to give these particular things because they are what your spouse most needs. Which means incidentally that the thing that your spouse most needs to give you, he isn’t very good at (and she isn’t very good at). 

Many marriage bumps and squabbles are a result of these natural differences between men and women. And God thought it would be hilarious. I suspect he motioned to some of the angels when He made the woman and brought her to the man and said something like, “watch this.” So, there should happiness on both sides of this beginning in the hilarious and glorious differences between male and female. And on top of that, there’s happiness in trying to figure out how to love, how to respect, and there’s happiness in the love and the respect. And all of this should underline the necessity of learning what those specific instructions actually mean. Think of like a treasure hunt, the way to happiness. 

There are many ways and places to delight in your kids and grandkids, but this psalm specifically centers on a table. And this fits with the fact that Christ invites His family to celebrate every Lord’s Day at His table. We rejoice in Christ at His table with His people. And so it makes good sense that Christian people rejoice around tables in their own homes. We are happy people because we have a blast at our tables. 

This means many things, and let me just list a few quickly. First, make a point to actually eat together. Have regular meals as a family. And don’t just thank God for the food; thank God for the opportunity to eat together, to be together at a table. Man doesn’t live by bread alone, and when we eat together, we’re not just ingesting nutrition, we’re sharing life. 

Second, eat good food that you all enjoy. Part of the happiness of a family meal is the fact that we’re all together as a family, but part of the happiness is the gift of good food. This need not mean very expensive food all the time. And there’s a real balancing act here because young children need to be taught to learn to eat good food, and parents need to make sure that the food is actually accessible to the young kids. Always remember that is far better to eat hot dogs with joy than filet mignon with bitterness, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be aiming for joy and filet mignon occasionally.  

Third, fill dinner time with fun stories and laughter and singing. Some of you do this without trying, and so good work. But some of you just aren’t good at it. So, check out a joke book from the library. Find a collection of fun short stories. Give the kids an assignment to come to the dinner table with one funny thing they saw or heard that day. Of course when the kids are little, it’s a bit of mosh pit, and sometimes discipline is needed, but really try to focus on the mission, on the goal, and try not to let everything be about what you’re not allowed to do at the dinner table. Herding cats is best done when you have general direction in mind. Play games, sing songs, tell stories, act things out. And dad lead the way. 

Finally, if our happiness is to be a Christian happiness, aim to bring in some Scripture or hymn or psalm. But when the kids are little keep it short and sweet. 

4. We are a happy people because the Lord is our God. 

“Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD” (Ps. 144:15).

We are happy because we serve the Lord, Jehovah. Who is the Lord? He is our Maker and our Redeemer. He is sovereign over every square inch of creation, and He has planned the salvation of this world. He rules the wind and the waves. He rules cancer and dementia. He rules the nations, and He turns the hearts of Kings like rivers of water. He is the Lord of life and of death. 

When John sees Jesus at the beginning of Revelation, Jesus says, I have the keys of Death and Hades. The Devil is not the Lord of Death anymore. Jesus went down into Death itself and bound it and plundered it. And now He alone rules death. Death is still an enemy, but it is a defanged and thoroughly tamed enemy. We are a happy people because the Lord our God rules heaven and earth and even death itself, and now even death itself serves our Lord. This is why in the New Testament death is so often described as sleep. For believers, death is like falling asleep and waking up to the best day ever.  

No eye has seen, no ear has heard what God has prepared for those who love Him. We are happy because heaven is real, because Jesus is risen from the dead, and we have been given His Holy Spirit, which is His solemn pledge, His personal promise that He will raise us from the dead, and we will reign with Him forever, that every tear will be wiped from every eye, that all will be made right, and all will be made new. We are happy because we are convinced that the best is yet to come. To live is Christ and to die is gain. The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us (Rom. 8:18). This life is a light affliction, which is but for a moment, and is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Jesus refers to our heavenly reward as entering into the joy of the Lord. We are a happy people because have this joy that can never be taken away.

I knew an old man a number of years ago named Jim. Jim had never married, never had any kids of his own, and had very few relatives. Someone in our community visited his nursing home at some point, and invited him to church and so he started coming. Jim had suffered a stroke at some point, and so he always used a walker and he spoke with a fairly significant speech impediment and slur. But with some effort, you could make out what he was saying. And as I got to know him, one of the things he began to say to me was that he used to be very angry and very bitter, but now that he was coming to church regularly and fellowshipping with God’s people, he was happy. He would light up and with a big grin look at me and say, “Toby, I’m so happy.” 

At some point Jim had another stroke and he was bedridden, and within a few days, it became clear that Jim was dying. I would go by his nursing home and talk with him and read Scripture. On the day before Jim died, he was awake and alert, but he couldn’t talk any more. I read some Scripture and talked to him for a bit, and just before I left I looked into Jim’s eyes and asked him, Jim, are you still happy? And without missing a beat, his eyes lit up with crystal clarity and he nodded at me vigorously as he squeezed my hand. And the next day, Jim entered into the joy of His Lord. 

We are a happy people because we belong body and soul, in life and death to our faithful savior Jesus Christ. We are the King’s people. We are His nobility. We are His armies. We are His hosts. We are forgiven; we have His Word; He has put us in families; and He is Lord of all and the best is yet to come. 

He sends us into the fray with many different assignments: family assignments, work assignments, church assignments, political assignments, some to suffer more, some to greater achievements, but all for our crucified and risen King. What a privilege. What a joy. Happy is that people.

Aristotle, Eric, and James

Introduction
I missed all the fun my friends Eric Conn and James White had yesterday on the X, debating the implications of a screen shot summarizing Aristotle’s conception of “philia” – the Greek word for “friendship,” defined as “ethno-cultural consensus between members of the same city.” The summary went on to say that for Aristotle, democracy is only possible in homogenous ethnic groups, and tyrants and despots always exploit ethnic rivalries. “Ethnic chaos prevents all philia from developing.”

Eric kicked off the excitement by saying, “Aristotle was right,” and Dr. White wondered whether Eric was taking into account Aristotle’s lack of a Christian anthropology, soteriology, let alone a very different political situation. Dr. White also asked if the gospel indicates that common commitment in Christian society ought to be Christ and His law, rather than tribe and family.

What I Would Say
Not that anyone asked, but I would like to offer the following contribution to the conversation:

Aristotle was right, except for Cain and Abel, Israel in Egypt, and the entire history of Greece (and the world). 

In other words, I would say that Aristotle was mostly right, but wholly insufficient. 

It doesn’t get much more mono-ethnic than Cain and Abel, and envy turned murderous and destroyed that unity, and tyrants haunted Cain’s mono-ethnic family tree. And here we’re using “mono-ethnic” in Aristotle’s cultural sense, not merely a racial, genetic sense. 

Israel was a very homogenous culture going down into Egypt and remained a very homogenous culture in Egypt, and yet a despot and tyrant who did not know Joseph exploited them anyways and enslaved them. A homogenous culture was helpful for their future deliverance, but it was not sufficient to prevent enslavement. 

Likewise, the history of Greece was notoriously unstable, and the best of the Greek philosophers themselves recognized that more was needed than mere shared culture. Amazingly, at least some of the Greeks recognized that there was something disordered in the soul of man and this disorder spilled out into society. While a relatively well-balanced society might lean against that disorder, and it does, it is insufficient for creating widespread, long term order, as the whole history of our sorry planet manifestly demonstrates.

Restoring & Glorifying Nature
Eric and James exchanged verses, particularly Col.3:10-11 and Gal. 3:28, James pointing out that the gospel is doing something surprising to natural relations and differences, and Eric pointing out that it cannot be erasing them since that would also have to include male and female, as the egalitarians try to do. 

And both are right, but instead of saying that true Christian unity (and therefore social harmony) is “outside” of the categories of tribe and family, I believe it would be more accurate to say that Christ came to heal, restore, and glorify the categories of tribe and family. He came, as Malachi says, to “turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of children to their fathers.” He came to remove the enmity between male and female, husbands and wives. And this is the point of the New Testament “household codes,” the central plan for social, political, and cultural reformation: the restoration and healing of households – where even Christian slaves and masters are exhorted to pursue this unity with one another, even the evil ones. 

But this is where Dr. White has a good point: the exhortations to slaves and masters tells you that this restoration of natural ties and differences in families and tribes is something more radical than mere restoration of nature. Slaves and masters would have often been of different ethnic-cultural backgrounds, often the result of wars and intense resentments, and yet, providentially, made part of the same household, and therefore called to unity. The same has to be said of the New Testament insistence on the unity of Jew and Gentile in Christ and in the church, in the household of God — where so much distrust and enmity had existed for centuries. 

This is the glorification of nature. This does not erase nature. This does not displace nature. But where sin has abounded, where animosity and enmity have abounded, grace abounds still more. And frequently, new, fledgling Christian churches found themselves in far flung places, thrust together from many different tribes because of their love for Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. For Paul, the church testified to the gospel not merely through the restoration natural affections (though certainly that) but also through the surprising friendship and unity of very diverse people.

Conclusion
Frequently the, “What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?” discussions (going back to Tertullian) get bogged down in theory, but I actually think it’s more helpful to just use concrete examples and ask whether they are correct or helpful and to what extent. 

In this case, I do think Aristotle is noticing something generally true about the world: without shared language, culture, values, beliefs, and practices, it is virtually impossible for people to work together, communicate, and build a society together. Witness the Tower of Babel. Culture is arguably an extension of language, common practices and values that are intelligible to others. The core of this societal unity is ordinarily extended through natural families.

But that natural unity is not sufficient to build and preserve a society. It is a natural, good, and necessary starting point, such that mass immigration, without healthy systems of assimilation, is an attack on social cohesion, but cultural homogeneity is not sufficient for unity. While Aristotle is right that cultural animosity is easier to exploit by tyrants, natural man has a knack for even screwing up cultural homogeneity. Sin is the root problem for unity, not ethnic difference, any more than sexual difference is what causes marital or familial strife. Those differences exacerbate strife and make unity harder, but sin is the root problem, the disorder in our souls that disorders families and nations.

Nature is the starting point. And grace heals nature. Grace restores nature. Grace does not displace or destroy nature. But having healed and restored nature, grace also does more than we expect. This is not some kind of sentimental multicultural blank check, for guilt-tripping or coercing people into superficial “unity” that will only erupt in violence and strife like it’s doing in the UK right now. But as Pastor Doug likes to say, God meets us where we are and not where we should have been. We should work for a shared cultural unity in our context – our country cannot survive without it, but that means for many of us finding our assignment to love and build unity with people who are very different from us. 

And this love can certainly include mass deportations of illegal immigrants; it can and should include strict enforcement of just laws and just penalties for criminals, regardless of nationality or ethnicity. You cannot have any kind of societal unity based on selective DEI justice. But sometimes we will find ourselves thrust together in the same household, church, city, and nation, and while the gospel does not promise that unity will appear out of nowhere, the gospel does suggest that you may have more to work with in and through your households than you first thought possible. 

Photo by Kumpan Electric on Unsplash

Gavin Ortlund, Megan Basham, and Evangelical Climategate

Introduction
So my friend Megan Basham’s book Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda has just dropped and the interwebs have gone up in a sheet of flame. When I started writing this, the book was sitting at number 17 on the Amazon sales list. And hopefully this article convinces another handful of folks to go out and buy their own copy. 

This isn’t a full review. This is just a brief excursion into the initial fray caused by the book, and as it happens, tied to Basham’s work in Chapter 1. Chapter 1 is on Climate Change, and the ways evangelical leaders have been suckered into that particular Leftist Agenda piece. One of the characters that figures in the chapter is Pastor Gavin Ortlund who dropped a video earlier this week arguing that Basham had misrepresented him in Chapter 1 of her book when she critiqued a video he published a couple of years ago about “climate change.”

The Sitch
So Basham summarizes Ortlund’s video, beginning with his concern that many Christians, tending to be politically conservative, have simply dismissed climate change based on socio-political associations – specifically political liberalism — without studying the issues carefully. And Ortlund says he thinks that’s why most Christians aren’t active in leading the charge on something like climate change. But Ortlund cautions strongly against that since human-caused climate change, he argues, is the consensus of most scientists. While Ortlund says he just wants to have a conversation and later in the video insists he doesn’t mean to be depressing or cause panic, he also says that climate change is a really big deal. And he outlines the potential consequences as being very severe: extreme local weather events, not enough water, all your crops dying, drought, famine, flooding, wildfires, people dying, political problems, and war. So it’s a REALLY big deal, and could be catastrophic.

It’s in this context that Basham summarizes his basic stance: “He goes on to say that every ‘scientific body of national or international standing agrees that human-caused global warming is a serious problem.’ To not accept that consensus, he says, is to buy into ‘conspiracy and hoax;’ it is a failure to ‘take a responsible posture’ as a Christian” (P. 27). This is the central bit that Ortlund takes issue with and claims misrepresents his view. He says that what Basham says about him is “not true.” 

But first, Ortlund takes issue with Basham’s summary at the end of Chapter 1 that it isn’t wrong for pastors to weigh in on these complex issues, but it is wrong to make climate change a test for biblical faithfulness. Ortlund says he almost fell out of his chair when he read this. He says that he in no way has done this, and in particular, made a point of not advocating for any particular political policy. But at the very least, Ortlund is forgetting that in his climate change video he did say that “If you are pro-life you should care about climate change” and argued clearly that he believes caring about climate change should go hand in hand with a Christian view of the dominion mandate and care of creation. Rather than actually presenting any other perspectives, Ortlund asserted scientific consensus, warned against rejecting that consensus, and then urged Christians to think of it like being “prolife.” Maybe Ortlund didn’t think about what he was saying when he made that claim, but it would be easy for someone to come away from that video believing that the “scientific consensus” around climate change is just as clear as whether or not it is morally acceptable to murder a baby in its mother’s womb. 

Ortlund points out that at the end of his video he says that if someone has a different opinion about this “that’s fine,” but “that’s fine” in what sense? At best, Ortlund is simply unclear. “That’s fine” like it’s fine to be an atheist and we can have a dialogue about the existence of God (but you’re catastrophically wrong)? He just said that being pro-life means caring about climate change, and therefore it’s hard not to conclude then that caring about climate change is a moral matter and therefore some kind of test of biblical faithfulness, even if Ortlund is willing to have a dialogue about the topic. “That’s fine” and “let’s have a conversation” isn’t clear enough. It’s actually a pretty radical failure of theological and ethical “triage,” one of the key concerns Ortlund says he has about Megan’s work.

But Ortlund doubles down, triples down that all he’s interested in is having that conversation, that dialogue, and making sure Christians actually study the issues. But again, that’s extremely confusing since his only description of an opposing view is with words like “fundamentalist,” “shooting from the hip,” “dismissed for socio-political reasons,” and “political liberalism.” For wanting a “dialogue” and a “conversation” he straw-manned and insulted anyone who might have been willing to sit down with him. I can’t remember a single respectful description of Christians who think that the whole climate change movement is a massive hoax. 

He insists that the whole point of his video was to have a dialogue without attacking each other. But that is exactly what Ortlund did in his video. He did not even allude to the substantial body of evidence, respected theologians or scientists, or millions of reasonable people who do not take “scientific consensus” seriously anymore because the same institutions have been telling us that we evolved from apes, that boys can turn into girls, forecasted millions of deaths from COVID, shut down our churches and businesses, and demanded that we all take an experimental vaccine. I have no doubt that Ortlund intended to have a respectful dialogue, and I assume he and I could sit down with a beer and have a great conversation. But he actually insulted and attacked millions of thoughtful, intelligent Christians, and the fact that he doesn’t know that he did so means he is doing exactly what Basham was pointing out. He is treating conservative Christians the way elite liberals often do, as intellectual rubes, ripe for liberal indoctrination (and I know Ortlund is not a liberal). 

Ortlund tries to claim that Megan has gotten things exactly backwards: that he just wants to have a conversation, and that it is Megan who has made climate change a test of biblical faithfulness. But Megan is the one who actually acknowledges both sides and doesn’t take a side, except where she’s exposing all the funding for the liberal agenda. Ortlund did not present both sides, insulted one side very clearly, likened his position to being pro-life, and then claimed he only wants to have a conversation. 

Who’s Being Irresponsible?
Ortlund’s central objection seems to be Megan’s summary statement: “To not accept that consensus, he says, is to buy into ‘conspiracy and hoax;’ it is a failure to ‘take a responsible posture’ as a Christian” (P. 27). Ortlund insists he did not say this, since in context, the latter quote is from a moment in his video where he says “shooting from the hip” and not “hitting the books” is irresponsible. He says he was only talking about the method of arriving at a conclusion and not the conclusion itself. Fine, but nowhere in the video does Ortlund give even a hint that the conclusion would be responsible either; and all the intimations are that anyone who actually “hit the books” and studied the issues for themselves will come to similar concerns as he has. It is a very reasonable conclusion to make that someone who doesn’t see climate change as on the same level as abortion hasn’t hit the books, is probably shooting from the hip, is probably a reactionary, conservative fundamentalist, and is probably being irresponsible. 

Likewise, he minces words, trying to distinguish all the scientific bodies actually being in cahoots together being a “conspiracy and hoax” from those who have concluded that they actually are in cahoots together. But I’m honestly not sure what the difference is. If they are all colluding, there would be a conspiracy and hoax, and Ortlund admits that would be true enough, but he insists that he didn’t mean that about people who think there is one. But generally speaking, either there is a conspiracy or there is not, and if there is not a conspiracy, but a body of people believe there is, they are the ones now perpetrating a conspiracy. Maybe Ortlund did not intend to imply that, but it seems like a very clear Venn diagram with a bunch of overlap. Megan’s summary interpretation is therefore completely reasonable. 

Ortlund says that Megan’s summary of him is bearing false testimony, but that is simply not true. He has made these claims without any substantial defense of alternative views, leaving viewers to reasonably conclude that being concerned about the extreme possible repercussions of climate change is a really big deal, as big a deal as abortion, and certainly given the impression that conservative Christians who do not view this like him have probably not hit the books, are probably being irresponsible, and they probably think the scientific community is in cahoots on these issues, which is probably a fundamentalist hoax.

Conclusion
Yes, Ortlund does say he doesn’t intend to shame people or create despair in people, but this is simply incoherent given the alarming descriptions he gives of what might happen if we don’t do anything about climate change. Ortlund laments that Megan didn’t present her view of climate change and his view and actually begin a true dialogue, but ironically, that’s exactly what Ortlund failed to do. He says it would have been more productive if Megan had presented both sides and see exactly where they agree or disagree. He says that would have been more productive. Heh. Something about pots and kettles and calling them black.

He also wonders why Megan didn’t call him before the book went to press to discuss where they differ or to clarify his views. Again, the same thing could be said back to Ortlund: why didn’t you interview climate change skeptics? I mean you could have at least quoted from some of the scientists and scholars that have raised serious concerns about climate change claims. I mean, when you “hit the books” and really studied the issues, you read a bunch of the opposing views, correct? You didn’t just watch a bunch of liberal propaganda and assume the conservative critics were irresponsible, conspiracy theorists, did you? So why didn’t you present both views, Mr. Ortlund? 

Yes, the truth matters, but Ortlund’s protests are silly. Megan’s claims are fair and reasonable. This is why I tweeted: “At best, Gavin, doesn’t understand the war we are in. If he did, he would completely understand why @megbasham used him as the example she did. But his bambi-in-the-headlights refusal to understand, while warning against the danger of ‘fundamentalism,’ suggests it’s far worse.”

Ortlund spends the last half of his response video claiming that Megan’s work is a failure of “theological triage,” a failure to delineate clearly the levels of disagreement or agreement, and he cites a bunch of evangelical heroes (Lewis, Machen, Spurgeon, Shaefer) as examples of people who he thinks do a better job at triage and says they would disagree with Megan’s approach. But quite apart from what those men would have thought about the actual scientific questions, I believe those men would not have nearly the same difficulty in seeing what Megan is pointing out. Machen got kicked out of the presbyterian church for throwing down about a missions committee. The fact that Ortlund shakes his head with confusion and says, “Chapter 1 on climate change in a book about shepherds for sale is just really odd,” suggests that he would have the same confusion over Machen’s insistence on an independent missions board.   

Of course the truth matters, and of course we must tell the truth, as Megan did. But for some reason Ortlund cannot see the massive threat of climate change propaganda Megan lays out in the rest of the chapter. Even if he thought she had drawn some wrong conclusions about his particular views, a faithful pastor would appreciate why and how she could have done so. The fact that he doesn’t understand how what he said in that video is just fodder for leftist activists demonstrates that he is for sale. I take him at his word that he has not yet been bought. But he is certainly flirting with it. He cites one chart in his original climate change video alluding to “50 million years” ago and a quick scroll through his other videos suggests he denies a world wide flood and it seems doubtful that he believes in six day creation. I certainly don’t believe Ortlund intends to be for sale, but no one ever does. The sign often goes up on our backs at first, and the enemy feeds us crumbs of respect, bitterness, intellectualism, resentment, disappointment, and fame. And only little by little do good men sell out. But meanwhile, shepherds are not guarding the flock. If Ortlund cares about guarding the flock, which I assume that he honestly does, he would do a new video granting the reasonableness of Megan’s concerns, and explain all the dangers of climate change alarmism and how the “scientific consensus” has often led Christians down dark paths of political and spiritual oppression and destruction. 

At the very least, if Ortlund really is interested in a conversation about climate change, he should invite Cal Beisner onto his channel and actually have that conversation he says he wants to have. But until then, his video is an attack on faithful pastors and scholars like Cal Beisner, his colleagues at the Cornwall Alliance, and millions of faithful Christians who have been talking about these issues intelligently for decades. But a refusal to do that calls into question Ortlund’s sincerity, and only underlines the need for Megan’s book.

Defining Love & Respect

“Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband” (Eph. 5:31).

When the Bible gives husbands and wives instructions, it consistently returns to this theme: husbands love, wives respect. But it is sometimes tempting to think we know better than God, and we can hear these Bible words and then think something like: “yes, husbands and wives should be nice.” But that isn’t what it says. It gives particular instructions to husbands and it gives a different instruction to the wives. And even then, if you don’t stop and think about what the different instructions are, you can still redefine the assignment. I could give you a pop quiz and say, what are husbands commanded to do? And most of you could get it right and say, “love their wives.” But what if I followed that up with another question: what does that mean? How many of you would say, “be nice”? And of course the same thing can go for the women. You might know and give the right answer that the Bible commands wives to respect their husbands, but then if I asked you what that means, you might not know. 

So the specific instruction is for husbands to love their wives, and for wives to respect their husbands. We do not mind acknowledging that of course husbands should respect their wives, and wives should love their husbands. But we also believe that when God gives specific instructions there are good reasons for obeying them. At least two of those reasons are that men and women tend to need different things, and therefore, we tend to instinctively give different things. Women tend to be more oriented to love: love is what they need and so love is what they tend to instinctively give. But here the instruction is to respect your husband. Likewise, men tend to be more oriented to respect: respect is what they need and so respect is what they tend to instinctively give. But here the instruction to a husband is to love your wife. So what does it mean to love and what does it mean to respect?

Love initiates, draws near, sympathizes with challenges and difficulty, takes trouble for care and provision, and shows thoughtfulness in little things. Our model for this kind of love is Christ, who loved the Church and gave Himself for her. How did He love His bride? He initiated salvation, drew near in the incarnation, sympathizing with us in our weakness, without any sin, and took responsibility for our trouble, taking our sin upon Himself, dying to set us free, and He rules and reigns for us now, listening to us and answering our prayers and blessing us in so many little things day by day. A husband is to imitate that kind of efficacious love. This means drawing near, dwelling with your wife in an understanding way, sympathizing with her challenges, taking trouble to care for her needs, listening to her, and regularly showing your care and affection in word and deed. 

Respect looks up to, thinks highly of, seeks advice and counsel, and listens to that advice and counsel, gives thanks and praise for accomplishments, and seeks to cheerfully honor preferences. The Christian Church is the model for this kind of respect. The Church seeks to be obedient to Christ in everything, praising Him, thanking Him, seeking advice and counsel, and studying His Word for wisdom, and arranging our lives to please Him. So a wife is to imitate that kind of submissive respect. This means looking up to your husband, thinking highly of him, seeking his counsel and wisdom, and listening to that counsel and wisdom, thanking him and praising him for his hard work and accomplishments, while doing whatever you know to do to please him. 

In both of these instructions, a husband is called to die to himself in obedience to Christ, and a wife is called to die to herself in obedience to Christ. When there is any challenge or trouble, a husband is often tempted to really lean into the respect, and a wife is often tempted to really lean into the love because we tend to give what we want. We tend to give what we think we need. But the Bible says that we need different things, and this is why a man can be perfectly respectful and nothing seems to be improving or a woman can pour on the love, and it doesn’t seem to work. This is because sometimes you are redefining the instructions. You know the word is respect, but what you’re doing is loving. Or you know that you’re supposed to love, but what you’re doing is respecting. 

At the same time, a good marriage is one where you are both striving to know one another, and this includes knowing this about one another. A good marriage is built on a good sense of humor. God created us male and female, and He thought that would be a load of fun. So we should too. Many marriage bumps are simply male and female ways of thinking and acting bumping into one another, and when that happens, we should smile and enjoy the moment. Isn’t it great that she’s a woman? Isn’t it great he’s a man? When you can’t do that, and you resent the differences, in a strange way, you’re sort of wishing your wife was a man or your husband was a woman. Which is apparently what some people have decided to actually do, but quite apart from the immorality of it all, what an utterly boring thing, to be married to someone who thinks just like you. 

But being made a man or a woman in God’s image is glorious. And that means that the distinctive instructions are part of that glory in marriage. When a man, full of testosterone and masculinity, loves a woman, in obedience to God it is glorious. And when a woman, full of grace and wisdom, respects her man, in obedience to God, is altogether lovely. 

So this is the charge, Sami, love your wife like Christ loved the church. And in particular, study what love is in the Bible. Love is not what Hallmark says or Hollywood says or even what Ali says. Love is obedience to God for Ali’s good. Study God’s Word and study Ali, and so love your wife. The more you love her, the more lovely she will be, just as Christ’s love makes His bride more and more glorious. 

Ali, my charge to you is to respect your husband just as the Church honors and submits to Christ in everything. And in particular, study what respect is in the Bible. Respect may not be what first comes into your mind or what the world says it is or even exactly what Sami thinks it is. Respect must be defined by God’s Word and applied to your husband in particular. And the more you respect your husband, the more respectable he will become. 

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.  

Photo by Jeremy Wong Weddings on Unsplash

10 Thoughts on the Olympic Opening Blasphemy

1. There is no neutrality – secularism is a lie. You will either serve the Living God or some other false god. You will either love God the Father and His only Son Jesus Christ or else you will hate Him and His people. And the same is true for nations and cultures. Nations will serve Christ or demons. And if they refuse to serve Christ, if they insist on neutrality and secularism, they are insisting on demons and destruction in the long run.

2. Proverbs says that all who hate wisdom love death. That death will be pictured in celebrating obesity, sexual suicide through perverse fruitlessness, venereal diseases and STDs, and behind it all, the corpses of millions of babies mutilated and tossed away in the trash. You cannot reject the wisdom of the Creator and remain sane for very long. The madness of Darwinism is coming to fruition. If we evolved from pond scum, life is meaningless and why can’t we evolve into whatever gender or species we want? And why can’t truth, beauty, and justice evolve into whatever we want?

3. When people hate God they deface His image. God’s image is revealed in the glorious duality and binary of male and female. The neutering and “transing” of the image of God is an attack on God Himself. Marriage for life between one man and one woman is the central picture of this harmony. Every attack on marriage and the marriage bed is therefore an attack on the living God and His image in man.

4. There will always be blasphemy laws. And inversely, this means that there will always be some gods it is permissible to mock. But if the opening ceremony had featured a mockumentary moment of Mohammed and Islam, the Parisian streets would be full of violence right now. All false religions ultimately turn violent because their gods are deaf, dumb, blind, and powerless. The adherents of false religions must use force and violence to accomplish their ends (and then credit their false god, sometimes named “justice” or “equality”). Christians are not rioting in the streets because we serve the Living God, but because He is the true God, we want His name honored in the public square. And if His name is not honored, it will ultimately be mocked.

5. Of course pagans will pagan, but this blasphemy should still grieve us since France was once a Christian nation and because many will be crushed by this worldview. “Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked who forsake your law” (Ps. 119:53). There was at least one child in that table orgy, and that was no accident. Think pedophilia. Think chemical castrations and mastectomies, and remember: if children can consent to sex change operations, they can consent to sexual relationships. That is the play. But also think adultery, divorce, abortion, and the destruction of families feeding more addictions and crime. The open mockery of Christianity is also a warmup for persecution of Christians. While we must be willing to be persecuted, we must not willingly allow our world to prepare to do that to us or our children or grandchildren. Loving our enemies means trying to stop them from greater acts of evil.

6. Some are asking: do we need Christian revival or do we need to regain power and crush this? And the answer is “yes.” And true revival would crush this because repentance means putting the old man to death, it means private and public repentance of sin. Unfortunately, “revival-ism” has come to mean vague, private, spiritual feelings in a tent instead of wholesale reformation. But seizing political power apart from the Holy Spirit can only provide a momentary check to this kind of evil before joining the evil. As I always say, don’t join the French Revolution.

7. Speaking of evil, there is clearly something demonic about this. The fact that this deep confusion was presented as a mockery of the Last Supper indicates that they have a particular target of hate: Christ and His disciples. The demons came out screaming and taunting when Jesus came in the gospels. And to some extent, the fact that the mockery is becoming more and more explicit, may indicate a growing fear on the part of the demons. There is a growing Christian consensus that secularism is a dead end (literally). But to the previous point: You cannot defeat evil with evil. We must overcome evil with good, which includes good blasphemy laws, good cops and magistrates, and good criminal penalties for breaking the law, all grounded in God’s good law.

8. We should not miss the fact that despite the evil, God is using this to turn some people to Himself. More than one person has pointed out that the visceral hatred of Christ and Christianity led them to faith in Christ or back to the faith. Remember, it was while the prodigal son was starving for pig pods having wasted his father’s inheritance that he remembered the goodness of his Father’s house. The Christian West has blown our inheritance on all manner of hookers and booze, and therefore this is a moment for Christians to preach the gospel clearly. This is why we’re hosting http://prodigalamerica.com

9. This spectacle is also incredibly ugly and silly. Remember the old adage that it ain’t over till the fat lady sings? Well, this is pretty near the end and the bottom of the barrel. And when the nations rage and plot vain things, like the builders of Babel constructing a tower to Heaven, God sits in heaven and laughs (Ps. 2). So should we. In the long run stupidity doesn’t work. And it’s just weird and gaudy.

10. In addition to registering your thorough disdain and vowing to do everything you can to see nothing like this replicated, especially in your neighborhood, redouble your efforts to love your wife and kids and be faithful in your church and callings. Obedient love is at war with all disobedient love. Obedient love drives out the disordered loves of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Obedient love does justice, loves mercy, and walks humbly with God. Obedient love is altogether lovely.