Toby J. Sumpter's Blog, page 9

Biblical Patriarchy

“Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything” (Eph. 5:24). 

The Bible teaches that husbands have true authority over their wives, just as Christ is the Lord of the Church. Some Christians want to downplay this, saying things like: headship means that if there’s a disagreement, the husband has the tie-breaking vote. But if the model is Christ and the Church, this immediately becomes absurd. The authority of Christ is not merely a tie-breaking vote; it is true authority in everything. In 1 Peter 3, Sarah is identified as an ideal wife, calling her husband “lord.” This pushes back against what we might call squishy-complementarianism. 

At the same time, what Christ does with His authority is simply astonishing. He uses His authority to love His Bride, the Church, laying His life down for her, making her pure and holy and without any blemish. Christ does this and so lifts up the Church to sit with Him in heavenly places, to reign with Him. Christ invites the Church to speak, and through our prayers in particular, Christ has determined to listen and answer and so grant us true authority in the world. This pushes back against what we might call bluster-patriarchy. 

Husbands have been given true authority, and reflecting the authority of Christ, it extends to everything in the home and in his wife’s life. There is no area of marriage where a wife may say to her husband, that’s none of your business. He is responsible before God for all of it. And yet, a wise man uses that authority not to micromanage or belittle, but to love, to lead, to honor, and to lift up. We call this biblical patriarchy. 

God made the world to reflect His glory, and so it is that glory, in creation, is always reflected glory. As we glorify God, He glorifies His people. The Bible says that man is the glory of God, and woman is the glory of man. This means that one of the best ways to make sure that women are cherished and honored the most in a society is by honoring the fathers, husbands, and brothers in their lives.

River & Elaine

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this” (Is. 9:6-7).

I realize that it might seem kind of strange to read these verses at a June wedding, but hey, we’re almost half-way to Christmas. And my kids, with River leading the way, have insisted on singing and playing Christmas carols year round in my house for many years. There’s almost a sort of Sicilian-mafia loyalty to Christmas in my home, in which my kids sometimes even snitch on the kids and teachers in their classes at school that refuse to sing or listen to Christmas carols at other times of the year. I don’t know what my kids think I can do about it. I’m just a pastor. 

While this is one of the great prophecies of the coming Messiah in the Old Testament, I assume it’s Handel’s Messiah that has drilled these verses into our culture: “unto us a child is born; unto us a Son is given…” But the Prophet is speaking in the midst of significant cultural and political turmoil. And He’s talking about a Virgin giving birth, and a Child being born and then lions laying down with lambs, and a child playing with vipers, and then for many chapters God’s government of the world is pictured in stars and trees and mountains and wind and rivers. Here Isaiah’s Child King is specifically said to have a “government” on his shoulders and a government that continually increases. And if you’re a good conservative, you might be a bit concerned: don’t we want less government? And why is Jesus carrying Washington D.C. around on His shoulders?

I stopped by the CrossPolitic Studio before I left Moscow, and as I was leaving, I said goodbye to my good friend David Shannon (AKA “Chocolate Knox”), and he said, “so you’re going to form a new government.” And after a brief pause, I said yes. So, yes, I’ve come to the Commonwealth of Virginia to form a new government. I sort of hope the FBI is listening.

Gary Demar has pointed out that in early America, the dictionary listed as the first definition of the word “government” as simply self-government. Other definitions listed referred to family or church (or businesses or schools). But when referring to the state, it was almost always designated as “civil government” to distinguish it from the other, more ordinary forms of government (self-government, family. or church). It is almost entirely inverted today. If I say government, you think Washington D.C. or maybe state or local, but almost without question, you think of the civil sphere. You think of modern politics. Which tells you something about what most orients our modern society. In early America it was individuals ruling themselves virtuously, and then forming families and gathering together as churches that formed the most essential governments for human flourishing. 

This was based on a far more biblical understanding of the world. In the beginning, God created Adam and Eve, and He blessed them and told them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and have dominion over all the animals. And ever since, well-rounded human beings spend their time working and eating and laughing and singing and dancing and creating and inventing. And right away this suggests other people, communities, and this is why the early Americans thought of family and church as the centers of that fruitful community life. You eat with the people you live with, and you tell stories and you laugh and you work and you sing and you rest. And that is multiplied as families gather for worship at church and gather as extended families and neighbors to celebrate holidays. Families have shops and businesses, gardens and pets, hobbies and traditions. And in the older biblical view, this was the center of government. This was the primary politics: human dominion. People governed their time and money and property and animals in order to care for their families and neighbors. And then if some large threat loomed on the horizon, we agreed to band together to defend that way of life. 

But that is a very different vision from one in which government and politics is primarily something that happens on C-SPAN (which is about as exciting as watching paint dry, and then you find out you owe thousands of more dollars in taxes). Even when civil government tries to do good, it’s like asking the DMV to run a soup kitchen. It’s inefficient, ugly, and impersonal. A Christian vision for government begins with individuals and marriage and families, and gathering for worship every Sunday. But if your idea of government is ugly office buildings and cubicles, and bills that are thousands of pages long that nobody has actually read, well, that kind of government will be radically dehumanizing and tyrannical. But the government and Dominion of Jesus Christ is a truly humane government: Isaiah describes that government as centered on marriages and children, animals and trees, mountains and music, and a little bit of law enforcement and keeping us safe on the side.

But how is that kind of world even possible? We have crime and terrorism in our world. The answer the Bible gives is that this kind of life is only possible through faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, orienting your entire life to the Child born at Christmas. Human flourishing is not possible apart from the forgiveness of our sins and being born again, being made into a new kind of human being. The more our nation has turned away from Christ, the more bureaucratic and inhumane it has become. And of course, ironically, always in the name of being “humane.” But God made us. We are made in His image, and He knows what we are for. He knows what is wrong with us, and most importantly: He knows the solution. He sent His only Son to become the solution: to save us from our sins so that we might be made new. Apart from orienting everything to Christ, all government tends toward coercion and force and becomes obsessed with markets and militaries. But in Christ and by His Holy Spirit, we come to love what is true and good and beautiful, so that we might form better governments, more humane governments, beginning with marriage and family. Which is why we are here today. 

River, my son, in whom I am well pleased: My charge to you is to never lose your commitment to celebrating Christmas all year long. You are becoming the head of a new government today, a new family, and in our world, this is a gloriously counter-cultural event. My charge to you is to run your government like Christmas is true. Run your government in imitation of the One who was announced by angels singing, born in a manger, turned water into wine at a wedding feast, walked on water, healed the sick, and died and rose again to make all things new. That sort of government seems inefficient to bureaucrats and petty tyrants, but it is far more beautiful, far more humane, and ultimately far more powerful. You are a man, and you are made to be strong, to lead, to protect, to provide. You have been made to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and take dominion. Elaine is your Eve, your queen. Honor her highly, receive her wisdom gladly, and love her and lead her like Christ loves and leads His Bride, the Church. 

Elaine, my new daughter, you are altogether lovely. We live in a world that has lied to women for many decades. And you are the kind of wise woman who is well aware of those lies. The world has said that unless you compete with men or take up some public or corporate role, you are not living up to your full potential. But you know that your glory and power is found in building a home with your husband full of well-loved people. Your power is in making people who will live forever: people full of laughter and creativity, stories and inventions, music and art and feasting. And as it turns out, this is all very political and governmental, but it’s a lot more interesting than CSPAN and lot more lovely than the DMV. You are a woman made in the image of the Triune God, and your glory is your beauty. So fill your home with that beauty, and do it like you’re going to war with every form of tyranny. Because you are. You are being charged today to respect your husband, look up to him, and obey him in the Lord, and so be his crown of glory, in imitation of the Church, the Bride of Christ. 

And, River, just in case you’re wondering, it’s exactly 200 days until Christmas. 

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

We’re All Incrementalists

Introduction
We here in the Moscow Mood have been celebrating and implementing a particular tactic for ending legal abortion in our land that we like to call “Smashmouth Incrementalism.” This is a full-throated recognition of the humanity of preborn babies from the moment of conception and the insistence that God’s law provides equal protection for those human lives and so human laws should do the same, along with a deep commitment to embracing all of God’s Word for the wisdom, tactics, and principles necessary to do so in full obedience to Christ. I recently had the opportunity to have a discussion about this here, although I had written most of this article prior to recording that, so this is not a direct response to that conversation. 

We stand on the shoulders of our faithful pro-life fathers and mothers with deep gratitude for the way that they stood in the gap for decades, some of them sacrificing significantly, ultimately leading to the overturn of that bloody monstrosity of Roe v. Wade. At the same time, we do not mind calling out some of the rot that has developed in the Pro-Life Industry, the suits and haircuts that show up at any relatively successful ministry in order to shrink wrap and sell it, creating various perverse incentives along the way. It’s one thing for a pro-life ministry to decline to be at the tip of the spear for some particular bill (different parts of the body of Christ with different strengths and tactics); it’s another thing entirely to actively campaign against lawful attempts to end legal abortion. Pro-life organizations that have actively teamed up with abortion-supporters to kill bills of abolition should be ashamed of themselves. 

Smashmouth Incrementalism
Smashmouth incrementalism is happy to cheer on all lawful attempts to end legal abortion as quickly as possible in our land. We support heartbeat bills and bills of complete abolition because a left jab to the gut is just as much part of the battle as a right hook to the jaw. And wherever possible, we should run one or the other bill and not both at the same time. Politicians will tend to take the less courageous route, but if you live in New York or California, I doubt very much that they would conflict. Every opportunity to proclaim the full humanity of the unborn is to be celebrated. We are incremental in that we believe it is biblically permissible to advance the cause of equal protection by passing laws that stop short of full justice for the unborn, not because we’re OK with injustice but because God’s Word allows for some regulation of immoral practices as steps towards discouraging and limiting immoral practices. Several biblical examples of that in a minute. 

We are “smashmouth” in the sense that we are committed to not resting until the laws of our states and nation provide equal protection for the unborn. While we will celebrate minor victories along the way, we are committed to working for the eradication of all laws that protect the murder of any unborn person for any reason. 

In the midst of this conversation, other brothers have responded by calling themselves “immediatists.” I’m not identifying anyone in particular; I’ve just seen the term bandied about. And so what I want to do here is explain why basically everyone is an incrementalist of some sort, and true or consistent “immediatism” is either impossible or immoral and possibly both. 

So the very purist form of “immediatism” – the immediate end of all abortion – is not humanly possible because that would seem to require a Thanos-like snap of the fingers, ending all human abortion in the world. We are not God, and we do not have that power. Speaking of which, clearly, God is an incrementalist. We are two thousand years out from the resurrection, and God is making slow but steady progress on putting all of His enemies beneath His feet. Death will be the last enemy, and then will come the end (1 Cor. 15). But God is the only One who has the power to end all suffering and injustice immediately, and in His infinite wisdom, He has chosen not to. This is no excuse for apathy or laziness on our part, but it does form the context in which we labor night and day for justice to be established. We labor at His pleasure. We labor as His servants.  

The next most pure form of immediatism would seem to require some kind of armed and violent uprising. If abortion is murder, why don’t immediatists take that seriously and go to war? Incidentally, this is why I do not care for the name “abolitionist,” though I do not mind its technical meaning. Of course we want to “abolish” abortion, but “abolitionism” has a sordid and violent past at least in America. It connotes the abolitionist movement to end slavery, and despite the laudable desire to see race-based chattel slavery ended, that movement was radically infected by deeply anti-biblical sentiments and ultimately violence. The Bible addresses the evils of slavery, and it outlines a distinctly Christian means for ending it, violence and war not being one of the biblically sanctioned means. Lincoln’s invasion of the South and the subsequent 600,000 lives lost was not biblical or constitutional, despite true evils that needed reforming.

There are several good answers to the question of why armed confrontation is not a biblical solution to abortion, the most basic being that wide-spread commitment to murdering your own babies is not the kind of soul cancer that can be solved that way. When faithful kings in Israel sought to end child sacrifice, they destroyed the pagan altars on which the children were offered. We have a radical spiritual problem, an idol problem. The worship being offered in many of the Christian churches in our land is corrupt and diseased. The desire, fear, or in some demented cases, delight, that drives the killing of our own offspring is a demonic, psychopathic judgment that God has given us over to and therefore requires something far deeper than a military solution: repentance. As we have already begun to see, if you outlaw abortion in one place, we have the kind of madness that drives these people to other states where abortion is legal or at least more easily assessable. 

The Bible also generally requires lesser magistrates to lead and conduct defensive wars, and it generally prohibits guerilla style vigilante justice – not to mention the massive tactical blunders involved. Nothing like mafia or militia-style assassinations of abortion doctors to set back the prolife movement for another five decades. Magistrates bear the sword of God’s justice; it is their God-given responsibility to protect all human life within their jurisdictions. They must be called upon to use their authority to protect the most vulnerable and to punish those who brazenly take it. 

But I suspect that most “immediatists” would agree with me on all of this, to which I reply, “and welcome to incrementalism.” Obedience to God’s law means we are required by God to take incremental steps in ending the atrocity of legal abortion in our land. God requires incrementalism. But of course the immediatist comes back and says, ‘sure, I have no problem with “lawful” incremental steps, what I object to is the regulation of evil.’ It’s one thing to standby waiting for God to give us the clear shot; it’s another thing to pass a law that says you can kill your baby so long as it’s before 6 weeks or 12 weeks or after an ultrasound or something. The immediatist says he will not participate in that kind of “compromise.” Now, let me be clear that I certainly appreciate the skepticism and the scrutiny of prolife motivations and measures. I’m truly grateful for the pressure of the immediatists. A great deal of prolife reluctance to ending abortion is a failure of nerve. At the same time, I don’t think the immediatist has solved the purity problem. 

So you have your equal protection bill – fully biblical as far as you can tell. Now what? You get a sponsor for the bill, and the sponsor agrees to introduce it in some legislative committee. But look here: you are playing by immoral rules. The murder of babies should end immediately, and there are a million bureaucratic boobytraps designed to bog your bill down in committees. Now, don’t misunderstand me: I do not object at all. I believe this is the way to end abortion. But you are playing by the rules of their immoral game. They are saying that you must submit your bill in this way, run the gauntlet of these bureaucratic shenanigans, and maybe, just maybe, it will see the light of day on the floor of the full legislature. But we are talking about the murder of babies, and you are participating in ducking, spinning, weaving, and all manner of twister moves to get your bill to the floor of the legislature. Now, I think there are very good reasons to do so, and if I were to bring all of this to your attention, double-checking to make sure you didn’t actually agree with all of that bureaucratic red-tape (e.g. “you’re not saying that it’s ok to protect the murder of babies by these bureaucratic machinations, are you?”), you would simply say, “no, of course not.” But you’re playing the legislative game? And, I assume you would say, “Yes, that’s what you have to do to get a bill passed.” Great. And I would say the same thing about a heartbeat bill or 12 week ban in certain states. 

While you may have a tidy category for the purity of your “bill,” you are working in an entirely impure system, built on the blood and bodies of babies. I deny that a heartbeat bill is necessarily any kind of compromise, any more than working within the corrupt system designed to defend the bloodshed is approving of the corrupt system. None of us are saying, “and then you can kill the baby.”

A Brief Review 
We have used these examples before, but it’s worth mentioning them again. In Biblical law, we find that some regulation of immorality and injustice is designed to communicate disapproval and works to dismantle and discourage those practices. It is simply not biblically accurate to assume that if there are regulations of a sinful or unjust practice that is somehow an implicit approval or participation in the iniquity. 

For example, slavery was regulated in Scripture. God permitted the purchasing of chattel slaves under certain conditions and for those same slaves to be part of the inheritance passed down to descendants (Lev. 25:44-46). Some folks might be tempted to conclude that this is therefore a good thing since it is regulated, others are tempted to explain it away since it is part of the Israelite law code, but I want to argue that this was a regulation (among others) that was actually designed to slowly eradicate man-stealing and chattel slavery. The New Testament repeatedly gives instructions to slaves and masters for their mutual respect and care (Eph. 6, Col. 3, 1 Tim. 6). The fact that Paul returned Onesimus to Philemon is pretty striking. The regulation itself does not mean that if you meet the law’s requirements, God necessarily approves of what you are doing. Civil permission is not the same thing as being morally upright. 

Another example of regulation of sinful practices in the Old Testament would be polygamy and divorce (Ex. 21, Dt. 24). Is polygamy or divorce sinful? The biblical answer in both cases is usually. 

In the case of divorce, we can say that God “hates” it, and that it covers those who participate in it in “violence” (Mal. 2:16). Not only that, God hates divorce because it destroys our “godly seed” (Mal. 2:15). Jesus also clearly taught that most divorce causes adultery (Mt. 19:9). And adultery was the kind of civil crime that could require the death penalty in certain circumstances (Dt. 22:22). So in the case of civil law regulating divorce, we have the authoritative teaching of Jesus that Moses permitted divorce more broadly because of the hardness of Israelite hearts (Mt. 19:8). But that law was part of the Torah, the holy law of God, the most perfect law for a human society ever devised, a light for the nations, and the foundation of our Christian common law tradition. And that law included in it some regulation of practices that God hated, that crushed little ones, and often led to adultery. That regulation did not approve of the practice of divorce, it was a God-inspired regulation aimed at limiting and discouraging divorce.

Likewise, God regulated lynching through the introduction of cities of refuge. The blood-avenger had some right to seek justice for the wrongful death of a close relative. God was also in the process of establishing normal courts of law and a primitive justice system. But in the meantime, God regulated some measure of vigilante justice in order to slowly end it. 

God sometimes regulated sinful practices in order to discourage, reduce, and limit them, with the goal of ultimately ending their legal protections. 

Conclusion
So we are all incrementalists. The faithful abolitionist who preaches at the abortion mill and sees one baby saved and goes home for the day is not saying, “it’s OK for the rest of you to keep killing babies.” He has done what he can do for today, and he will be back soon to save more. The faithful smashmouth incrementalist who works to get a heartbeat bill through a hard-hearted, mostly pagan state legislature (like New York or California), is not saying that it’s OK to murder babies if you do it before a heartbeat can be detected. 

Obedience means you cannot do all good things at once or immediately. This is not a utilitarian argument. This is not pragmatism. This is looking at the law of God and submitting our tactics and strategy to His Word. Good and faithful kings in Israel and Judah were sometimes described as doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord except that they did not remove the high places. You can have laws and magistrates that are good in the sight of the Lord that do not fully establish justice, that do not do everything that might have been done. 

In broadly conservative and predominantly Christian states I would advocate for bills that simply outlaw abortion. Full stop. Period. Prior to Roe being struck down you had *some* additional challenges with convincing Christians to defy Roe (which I previously argued that we should do). But now that Roe is struck down, conservative states should simply exercise their authority to protect all human life under their jurisdictions. Idaho is an interesting case because we are actually heavily Mormon. We have a near ban, but we still need to chip away at the exceptions, etc. 

But in states like California and New York, you don’t have a Christian majority to appeal to. Obviously preach the gospel, but if you can get a fetal pain bill onto the floor of the New York legislature, I think that would likely be a marvelous opportunity to explain the full humanity of all unborn babies to a room full of pagans who might not otherwise ever hear it. Likewise, a heartbeat bill may be all you are likely to get a hearing on for many years, and I think it tactically wise to try to get that passed as a means to arguing for the full human rights of preborn babies, while we preach the gospel, testify against the bloodshed, and wait upon the Lord for the Reformation and Revival that will change the hearts of our nation. 

Photo by Christian Bowen on Unsplash

Will the Real Nietzscheans Please Stand Up?

Introduction
Carl Trueman is not wrong that there is always a temptation in the flesh of man to grasp for power like the Devil. And to the extent that Nietzsche’s “will to power” is making any kind of comeback on the conservative right (e.g. Andrew Tate? Nick Fuentes?), consider me a fellow and enthusiastic objector. The early Reformers had the Anabaptist anarchists and peasants’ revolts, and the founding fathers were very concerned about the French revolution bleeding onto American soil.

But imagine writing in praise of what Trueman calls “The Calvary Option” in 1760s colonial America and not clearly identifying Rousseau and Robespierre as his targets (even if Robespierre was still in short pants in the 1760s). As a fellow Reformed minister, I agree that ordinary gospel ministry remains essential, but something about Trueman’s apercu of ministerial life reminds me of the Anglican bishop who said, “Everywhere Paul went riots broke out; wherever I go, they serve tea.” 

No doubt, many modern evangelical Christians need to be reminded of the potency of ordinary gospel ministry, but when the Persian regime declared lawfare on the Jews, Mordecai wasn’t warning Esther against the temptations to worldly power. Haman was the real Nietzschean in that story. 

A Biblical Social Ethic
The New Testament ethic unashamedly leads with kindness, generosity, willingness to be wronged, and costly forgiveness. Christians are commanded to love their enemies, do good to those that persecute them, and practice radical hospitality to strangers, widows, and orphans. This much is clear. But what has often been missed, forgotten, or obfuscated is the rest of the New Testament’s witness. There are other instructions and examples. The same Christ who taught us to turn the other cheek, called the religious leaders of His day “snakes” and “hypocrites.” The same apostle who insisted that we return blessing for cursing, cursed those who preached another gospel and suggested that the Judaizers castrate themselves. Clearly the fruit of the Spirit is a bit more complex and earthy than Trueman lets on. 

Certainly, Trueman cites Nathan the prophet’s courageous confrontation of David’s sin, but it is a bit unclear what this “prophetic voice” amounts to. He says, “calling anyone and everyone to faith and repentance, no matter the social and political exigencies of the day,” which is true enough. But then he explicitly objects to “engaging in an apocalyptic culture war” and “crudity, verbal thuggery, and… the destruction of any given opponent’s character.” Is Trueman talking about when Jesus destroyed Herod’s character by calling him “that fox?” Obviously, not all tactics are morally acceptable for Christians, but if we are going to talk about a “prophetic voice” we cannot then ignore the actual biblical prophets who engaged in the original “apocalyptic culture wars” and resorted to vehement denunciations and obscenities more often than your average seminary professor. While prophetic ministry must not be belligerent; it is militant and often apocalyptic and sometimes crude. 

We certainly have rules of engagement from our Lord, but the point that many on the new Christian right are making is that certain extra-biblical standards of etiquette and propriety have been used to muzzle Christians from faithfully confronting evil in our culture. Lopsided descriptions of Christian ethics have played their part in feeding the alien “social imaginary” that Trueman has so helpfully exposed elsewhere. Even “ordinary ministry” bromides are being weaponized against modern Ezekiels and Jeremiahs, Hezekiahs and Josiahs seeking to destroy contemporary idols. No doubt there were some pietistic Israelites reminding Elijah on Mt. Carmel that real ministry is “unglamorous,” while denouncing his crude mockery and trying to fight Baal with “worldly forms of power.” 

For example, Keith Markley, a public school bus driver from a small town in Idaho was fired last year for putting up a sign in his yard objecting to obscene materials in the school library. Turns out several of the leaders of the public school were evangelical Christians who accused him of being divisive and stirring up trouble. Who are the Nietzscheans in that story? It was not Nietzschean for Josiah to tear down the houses of the sodomites, any more than it would be Nietzschean for a current Christian magistrate to enforce obscenity laws against Drag Queen story hour in a public library. 

Paleo-Kuyperianism
Part of what often seems to be missing is an appreciation for different roles in society by God-fearing Christians. As Ben Crenshaw noted in his reply to Trueman, Augustine grappled with this reality in City of God, and the Magisterial Reformers extended his work with their “Two Kingdoms.” The Dutch Reformed statesman and pastor Abraham Kuyper called the notion “sphere sovereignty.” The point is that all authority is derived from the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore, family government, civil government, and church government are all under Christ and have particular assignments and responsibilities from Him. While later Kuyperians sometimes seemed to seal these spheres off from one another, a paleo-Kuyperianism recognizes overlapping responsibilities with Christ and Scripture speaking authoritatively to all of them. True Christian liberty is the freedom to perform our duties under Christ.

While Trueman refers primarily to “pastors” and “the Church,” he does not seem to admit different roles and responsibilities, and therefore the possibility of somewhat different tactics depending on the role and sphere and moment. For example, it could be fully appropriate for a minister of the gospel to accept martyrdom under certain circumstances, but a husband or father ordinarily has a responsibility and duty to defend his family. If a man fails to provide for and protect the physical well-being of his family, Scripture says he is worse than an unbeliever. Likewise, a Christian magistrate sometimes has a duty to execute murderers and wage defensive wars. And these duties are his “ordinary” ministry of Christian justice. The sun also rises on a Christian sheriff refusing to enforce COVID lockdown tyranny.

Conclusion: The Presbyterian Revolt
As Gary Steward has argued in his book Justifying Revolution, the American War for Independence was not a moral lapse into Enlightenment rationalism or revolutionary radicalism but rather in a large part, the fruit of faithful pastors preaching the limits of civil power and the biblical grounds for Christian liberty, resistance to tyranny, and just war principles. Recognizing the age-old specter of “negative world” looming over their colonies in the 1760s, American ministers like Gilbert Tennent and John Witherspoon looked back to the Magna Carta and Protestant Reformers like Junius Brutus, John Knox, and Samuel Rutherford, to preach religious and political liberty grounded in Scripture and the Reformation tradition. 

Given the pervasive Scotch-Irish Presbyterianism of the colonies, it is understandable that King George referred to the American Declaration of Independence as a “presbyterian revolt” and denounced the clergy as the “black-robed regiment” (alluding to the widespread practice of Presbyterian pastors preaching in black robes). The prime minister of England, Horace Walpole said in Parliament that “Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson,” apparently referring to Witherspoon, also a Presbyterian minister, signer of the Declaration of Independence and president of the Presbyterian college Princeton. And when the British General Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown all but one of the American Colonels were Presbyterian elders. 

The first generations of American preachers would beg to differ with Trueman’s limited vision for their ordinary role. Yes, it was a prophetic voice. Yes, it was embedded in the ordinary ministry of Word and Sacrament, but it was a clear prophetic voice that extended far beyond isolated ethical violations or what might have been considered appropriate etiquette. An ordinary prophetic ministry discerns the times and calls all men everywhere not only to repent of their sins and trust in Christ, but also to resist tyranny and embrace true Christian liberty in every sphere using every lawful tactic. This isn’t Nietzschean Revolution; this is Magisterial Reformation.

Photo by Alex Moliski on Unsplash

Nobility and Envy

Acts 17:1-15

Introduction

After the Fall, there are really only two kinds of community in the world: the fellowship of nobility and the fellowship of envy. Cain envied his brother, murdered him, and was exiled and built a city; Seth was the father of noble generations who found grace in the eyes of the Lord. 

The word “noble” literally means “good generation” (high-born). In a fallen world, the truly “high born” are the “reborn,” those born from above. Envy is the gangrene of bitter zeal. It is murderously destructive, while claiming to be concerned about truth and justice. Paul and Silas found examples of both nobility and envy in Thessalonica and Berea.

The Text: “Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews: And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures…” (Acts 17:1-15)

Summary of the Text

Departing Philippi, Paul and Silas went west and came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue, and Paul preached for three weeks, explaining from the Old Testament that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead, and that Jesus was therefore the Messiah (Acts 17:1-3). Some believed and joined Paul and Silas, but the Jews that did not believe became envious and stirred up a mob against their apparent host, a man named Jason, accusing them of creating disorder through their allegiance to another king (Acts 17:4-9). 

Paul and Silas slipped out of town that night and came to Berea, where there was another synagogue, and the Bereans were more noble and willing to study the Scriptures, many believing (Acts 17:10-12). But when the Jews of Thessalonica heard that Paul and Silas were preaching in Berea, they came and stirred up trouble there also, so that Paul left for Athens (Acts 17:13-15). 

The Messiah of the Old Testament

Paul’s primary tactic in preaching the gospel is by reading and explaining the Old Testament Scriptures and demonstrating that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah (Acts 17:2-3, 11). Christianity, like Judaism, is a religion of the book: the written word. This is a glorious testimony to the kind of God we serve: He is a God who has revealed Himself plainly and He does not change. He has spoken and His Word is true. And He is glorified in demonstrating His faithfulness (and consistency) over time (history and study). “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). Jesus repeatedly appealed to the Scriptures for His authority (e.g. Lk. 4:21, 24:27), and the apostles did also (Acts 8:35, Rom. 1:2, 1 Cor. 15:3-4, 2 Tim. 3:15-16).

What Scriptures would Paul have appealed to? Notice that the particular argument was over whether the Messiah needed to suffer and rise from the dead (Acts 17:3). Favorite texts of the apostles were: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22, cf. Ps. 110). “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Is. 53:4-12). 

Envy & True Nobility

It is the preaching of Christ from those Scriptures that contrasts the Thessalonians and the Bereans. In one place, as some people believe, envy takes over and turns into a mob (Acts 17:5) and in the other place, we have true nobility that searches the Scriptures hungry for the truth (Acts 17:11). There’s nothing quite so galling to envious people but to point out how some people are better than them, but Luke will not be bullied: the Bereans were more noble than the Thessalonian mob (Acts 17:11). But people are easily bullied and manipulated by the envious: what God has given (or not given) “hurts” the envious. The envious are often “concerned” about the “trouble” being caused by the more noble. The tenth commandment requires complete contentment and joy in our condition and estate, as well as our neighbors’. 

There were some noble-minded who believed and “joined” Paul and Silas and formed the first Christian church in Thessalonica (triggering the envy) (Acts 17:4), whom Paul wrote shortly after (1 Thessalonians). Paul was still concerned to address that toxic atmosphere when he described their conversion as becoming “followers of us, and of the Lord” (1 Thess. 1:6). And not stopping there, Paul underlined the genuine ties (mother/father) that were formed between them (1 Thess. 2:7, 11) and noted that they had become followers of the churches in Judea, suffering similar things as them (1 Thess. 2:14). The envious hate the fellowship of nobility and try to spoil it by dividing us or making us feel bad. But the fellowship of nobility is based on the apostolic commitment of pleasing God and not man (1 Thess. 2:4), and the Thessalonian believers demonstrated that they understood this by the fact that they received the gospel as the Word of God and not man (1 Thess. 2:13).

Applications

True nobility is content with all truth. Envy is selective and hates truth that gets in the way of its plans or narrative. Truth includes differences in gifts, abilities, wealth, happiness, hardships, and success. Nobility studies the truth in search of true wisdom; envy sorts the truth in search of its own demands. Nobility is patient and gracious, but envy seethes with bitterness, “zealously” resenting what seems to be injustice in the world, what seems “unfair.” James says this is where our fights and quarrels come from: our bitter envy (Js. 4:1:1-2).

All human cultures and communities function on the basis of imitation and similarity: the question is only whether it is noble imitation or envious imitation. Noble imitation joins others seeking to please God and not man, seeking the truth grounded in the Scriptures, content in the generosity of God. Envious imitation idolizes others and self: obsessing over others (even their faults) and obsessing over how you feel or what you have, which will ultimately become murderous because these idols are finite and cannot deliver (and if there is a god, he is apparently a tightfisted miser). In envious cultures, this idolatrous rage builds like an electrical charge until individuals blowup at their spouse/families or whole communities can erupt in mob violence. 

This is why Christ had to suffer. Envy says, if I can’t have it my way, then nobody should. Envy resents others having what seems better. So God sent the very best thing He had into the world knowing exactly what the envious would do to Him, determining to save them by it. “He was wounded for our transgressions… by His stripes we are healed.”

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Real Roman Trouble

Acts 16:16-40

Introduction

In 42 B.C. in the fields of Philippi in Macedonia, Greece, the armies of Brutus and Cassius collided with the armies of Mark Anthony and Octavian, and the latter soundly defeated the former. Octavian would become the emperor of the Roman Empire, taking the name Caesar Augustus and eventually lavish a great deal of prominence on the colony of Philippi as the site of that historic battle – many of the generals from the war would retire here. And the city became a “little Rome.”

Around 80 years later, in that same city, Paul and Silas began proclaiming the reign of another King, the Lord Jesus Christ, and a new way of being Roman. And as is the case wherever this gospel goes, it caused trouble – trouble that sets prisoners free (slaves of sin, slaves of demons, slaves of tyranny/injustice). 

The Text: “And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brough her masters much gain by soothsaying…” (Acts 16:16-40

Summary of the Text

After a possessed slave girl followed Paul around in Philippi for many days, crying out that they were servants of the Most High God, Paul commanded the demon to leave her, and when it did, this ruined her soothsaying abilities, and Paul and Silas were brought up on charges to the magistrates (Acts 16:16-21). With some mob pressure in the background, the magistrates stripped and beat Paul and Silas and imprisoned them (Acts 16:22-24). For all its pretended prestige, Rome clearly has a justice problem (mob pressure, no due process). At midnight, while Paul and Silas were singing praises to God, a great earthquake broke open the prison, but the prisoners remained and Paul saved the jailer’s life, preached the gospel to him, and he and his whole family were baptized immediately (Acts 16:25-34). The next day, the magistrates asked Paul and Silas to leave town quietly, but appealing to their Roman citizenship, they requested an official release and visited Lydia and the fledgling church before leaving (Acts 16:35-40). 

Principalities & Powers

Literally, it says that the girl had the “spirit of a python,” which refers to the Greek god Apollo and his shrine at Delphi. This may be a general description of the kind of soothsaying she was doing, or it may mean that she was from that shrine or received her power from there. Regardless, she made her masters money and after Paul commanded the demon to leave her, she no longer could (Acts 16:19). What do we make of this? 

In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul says that idols are nothing and there is only one God, but then he goes on to say that pagan sacrifices are offered to devils and we must not have any fellowship with them (1 Cor. 10:20-21). Likewise, the phrase “principalities and powers” sometimes refers to human authorities (Tit. 3:1) and clearly at other times refers to spiritual beings (Eph. 6:12). And Daniel referred to spiritual beings ruling Persia and Greece (Dan. 10:13, 20). Putting this together, we should say that there are more material explanations for some things than we realize, but there are also sometimes spiritual forces at work. Superstition, illusions, science, and fear can do a lot, and sometimes the spirit of Samuel gets called up from the dead (1 Sam. 28, cf. Dt. 18:11). C.S. Lewis pictures this well in the Last Battle. But in the resurrection and ascension, Christ has triumphed over all principalities and powers in heaven and on earth (Eph. 1:20-21, Col. 2:15). 

Earthquakes & Baptisms

While Luke seems to describe the earthquake as a simple providence, worship is described in the Bible as an earth-shaking reality (e.g. Ps. 29). Regardless, Paul and Silas singing followed by an earthquake is a fitting picture of what the gospel is doing in Philippi: ‘exceedingly troubling the city’ – but it’s troubling the real trouble, like Elijah with Ahab (Acts 16:20). This is what the gospel does: it shakes heaven and earth, so that “those things which cannot be shaken may remain” (Heb. 12:27). It is shaking Philippi so that only the true Philippi may remain. The gospel addresses the spiritual realities at the core of human life and society, and in so doing, transforms all of human life (business and commerce, entertainment and arts, politics and law, education and recreation) into what it was created to be. We see a microcosm of this principle in the salvation offer Paul gives the jailer in the middle of the night: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:31). This covenantal mindset presses outward: We might add: and thy business, thy neighborhood, thy hobbies, thy city, and thy nation. 

Citizens of Rome & Heaven

This episode contrasts rival visions of what it means to be “Roman.” The masters of the slave girl protest Paul’s disruption of their customary way of “being Romans” (Acts 16:21), but Paul is actually embodying a new way of “being Roman” in Jesus Christ and requires the Philippian magistrates to at least partially acknowledge that (Acts 16:37-39). Later, when Paul writes the Philippians, he exhorts them to reckon their citizenship according to the gospel of Christ (Phil. 1:27) and as primarily rooted in heaven (Phil. 3:20). Being an imperial colony, they would have understood that this didn’t mean they were not loyal or patriotic citizens of Rome, but rather the true form of that citizenship was being impressed upon them from Heaven. By preaching and casting out demons and baptizing, Paul was teaching the citizens of Philippi how to be true Romans. 

I believe this is fundamentally why we have faced more trouble in Moscow than many places do. We are in a struggle over what the true Moscow is. Pagans do not mind religions that merely want to exist in the corners. We are here to see Moscow become what Jesus died and rose again for it to become: which means some things must go entirely and some things will be transformed – not by force but by grace. 

Applications

In the Ascension, we celebrate Christ seated at the right hand of the Father, far above all principalities and powers, and we set our affections on Him there so that we will be truly affective here in this world, in our city and nation (Col. 3:1-4). This is how we learn to be true Americans, true men, true women, true husbands and wives, businessmen and members of our various tribes. Christ restores our humanity.

We ought to fight the temptation to see demons behind every tree, and this includes the need for governing our thoughts to think about those things that are good, true, noble, and lovely: fight anxiety with joy (Phil. 4:8). But we should also pay close attention to the warnings in Scripture about where the Devil likes to creep in: do not let the sun go down on your wrath (Eph. 4:26-27); spouses, do not deprive one another sexually (1 Cor. 7:5); women, watch out for idle chatter (1 Tim. 5:13-15), and men, watch out for pride (1 Tim. 3:6). 

In a world gone mad, sanity is trouble. We are gospel-trouble makers, not out of spite or a desire for chaos. We are here to establish the worship of the Triune God, set prisoners free, teach true justice, and establish the customs of Christ in the marketplace, home, and governments for human flourishing. 

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In Defense of White People

Introduction
Well, apparently it has come to this. My mentions are R.I.P. as they say. Here I am writing a defense of white people. I guess I thought this went without saying, but white people are simply amazing. They can sunburn like the dickens. And that doesn’t stop them from going right back outside and getting sunburned again. I speak from personal experience. 

We also used to paint our faces blue and dance around trees and rocks and rape and pillage villages, until Christ saved us. We’ve done a lot of great things and a lot of terrible things. Alfred the Great and John Knox, George Washington and Stonewall Jackson were some of the high points, but Adolph Hitler and Margaret Sanger were definitely some of our low points. Also, I would like to apologize on behalf of white people everywhere for Vanilla Ice. He was White Boy Summer before it was even a thing, but definitely when it was still lame. But Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty and Johnny Cash have almost made up for it. 

I’m also thankful for my white privilege. I’m told this includes things like not being pulled over by cops as often in major metropolitan areas, and fewer fourth amendment frisks by the TSA. Although, the way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if I start getting pulled over and frisked more, but enough about the FBI, which incidentally, is apparently run by a bunch of leprous white guys. The greatest privileges I enjoy I got from my parents and grandparents, who turns out, were all white. My dad has been faithful to my mom for 46 years and counting. My grandpa, armed with an eighth-grade education, enlisted in the Marines as a 15 year old (lying about his age), and after a stint in the South Pacific in World War II and a knee injury that may have saved his life, stayed married to my grandma for 70-some years, while working on oil rigs in Louisiana, Texas, and Alaska. Both sets of grandparents handed down the same enormous blessing, including a work ethic, emotional stability, and moderate middle class wealth that comes with it. But none of this was due to the amount of pigment in their skin, it was all God’s grace. What do I have that I did not receive? The same thing goes for our Western civilization and America in particular, all predominantly white, and pervasively impacted by the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

And because sinners sin, there have been people who hate this for a long time, most recently targeting this pervasively white Christian civilization with their DEI totalitolerance and affirmative oppression. And this is evil, unjust, and should be resisted by every lawful means available to us. Did you catch that? I’m saying that’s bad, they should stop, and we should do whatever we can to stop it. I’m told that Martin Luther didn’t really say this, but like everyone says Martin Luther said, “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him.” And that includes the current war on white Christian heterosexual men. 

Crazyland
Going back to Adam, that father of every skin hue, we have plunged into sin, and that means hating one another and being hated for virtually any excuse imaginable. Sin is a temporary insanity such that all attempts to explain it ultimately fail. Sin is crazy. And the proliferation of sin is crazyland. It doesn’t make sense. It imagines there is no God, pretends to be God, and then does abominations like adultery, slave trading, murdering babies, and anti-white discrimination. And sometimes we defend it by prostrating obsequiously in front of a giant painted rock or piece of carved wood. Sometimes we write fat books attempting to lecture the Almighty and our fellow man with the deep thoughts that occurred to us while we were loading our diapers with the same.  

But this doesn’t mean we don’t notice patterns. Our Adamic crazy tends to fall into very predictable ruts. There’s the caveman tyrannical-god motif. This was the plan of the builders of Babel: “Me Grub build big city be god,” and it has emerged many more times in the history of the world. But this barbaric machismo has lost its charm ever since Christ came into the world. There are still some pathetic attempts at it, but Christ’s resurrection has left the grasping for naked power seeming a little gauche except for five year-old boys on the playground and a few based bros on X. 

Ever since Jesus rose from the dead, the heroic story arc now consists in overcoming weakness and suffering before enjoying victory. Those who trust in Jesus join Him in this heroic narrative arc, both cosmically, as they hope in resurrected life after their own literal death, but also in miniature ways, as they embrace the suffering of obedience to Christ (taking up His cross) and experiencing miniature resurrections in this life, beginning with conversion itself but also the blessings that often follow simple obedience: the struggle to find, keep, and accomplish good work and the blessing of paychecks; the struggle to find and woo a good woman and the blessing of her companionship, respect, children, and home. 

And this is something that has changed about the nature of the world. When Christ rose from the dead, something fundamentally changed. The head of the serpent was mortally wounded, and his direct imperial and tyrannical power to deceive and destroy was weakened (although certainly not obliterated). But this means that the more effective means of grasping for power now imitates true power, which is at the right hand of the Father. And He walks with a limp. He rules with scars in His hands and feet and side. 

So there’s still that old Adamic nature, full of hate and animosity and malice, but the trend, ever since the resurrection, is toward what we may call “messianic appropriation.” While the occasional Nietzsche has attempted to defy this gravity, everyone feels it. Christ is at the right hand of the Father, and He got there by humbling Himself and taking on the form of a servant, obedient even to the most shameful and excruciating death of the Cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him. Christ conquered by getting low. 

This is where we get the idea of “playing the victim” and various attempts to weaponize weakness and victimhood. These are faux-messianic moves, pretending to get low: occupying buildings and requesting gluten-free handouts; going on hunger strikes and then announcing to the world that you’re feeling a little woozy. It’s Christo-Larping, play acting like Christ, soccer-flopping for control, throwing fits in the toy aisle until you get what you demand. 

These motifs have particular power in more or less Christian civilizations. Karl Marx popularized perhaps the most systematic and virulent form of this theory in his adaptation of Hegelian dialectic, refined and revised in various critical theories of the last century, claiming that human history is nothing but oppressors and oppressed, driven by a primordial envy and angst. The goal is a judo move of manipulation, trying to trick resurrection power out of an emotional fit. And they can succeed by two possible outcomes: one way is for you to give in and give them what they demand (but beware: they’ll be back for more tomorrow) or the other way they succeed is by getting you to react like them with your own emotional outburst, throwing your own right wing tantrum, which amounts to joining the mob. And if you get so sick and tired of their fits that you punch one of them (or worse), all the better since now they have a real shiner to complain about instead of the fake one they’ve been donning with makeup. You’ve handed them a real victim status, which is one of the main currencies in crazyland.   

The point here is not to try to explain what is going on in the heads of mobs. Many mobs form like the one in Ephesus with people chanting mantras for hours, about which they know not: some people shouting one thing, others shouting another, because hey, who doesn’t like a good mob catharsis?

Which is what we’re witnessing. We live in God’s world where envy and hatred are like an electrical charge that build and collect in societies searching for a scapegoat. Beginning with Cain, envy and hatred have always required blood. As Rene Girard has described in exquisite detail, Christ is the only perfect victim and therefore He is the only sacrifice where that electrical charge goes to actually die. 

So why do Leftists hate white people? Because white people are the majority race in the West (the oppressors), because they are the majority recipients of Christian blessings (authority, wealth, influence), and because angry people are always looking for an excuse to punch something. But neo-Marxist impulses aiming to destroy Christianity are driving the whole thing. It may be many layers up, but there are people watching this whole thing from the shadows waiting for the right pitch of cacophony (weakness) in which a totalitarian statist solution (salvation) will be widely welcomed in order to restore the “peace.” 

Conclusion: In Defense of Christian Nationalism 
Apparently, some folks on the right think that by identifying the central target of this hatred as Christ and Christian Civilization we are in some way lessening the need to fight or resist. That may be a temptation of others, but I’m a Christian Nationalist and I love my heritage and I’m determined to fight for it. But what made the Christian West and Christian America particularly glorious and worth fighting for was Christ Himself with us. He gave us a good land flowing with milk and honey, thousands of miles of navigable waterways, seaports, arable land, timber, oil fields, and prolific fish and game. He gave us laws of true justice, common law, due process, representative and limited government. He gave us creativity and industry and generous and adventurous hearts. He gave us fathers and mothers who loved and sacrificed in particular places, laboring to build chapels and cathedrals, composing motets and hymns, raising children, overcoming odds, resisting tyranny, defending their homelands, kneeling in prayer at bedsides. He gave us apple pies and mashed potatoes and barbecue and cold beer. And yes, God gave Rock and Roll to you.  

Yes, we are being targeted by many for our skin color, but we must not get distracted. They should stop that, and we should use every lawful means to make them stop. But while we can and must be deeply grateful for our particular families, cultures, traditions, and nations, our gratitude needs to be ordered rightly, and not by the prejudice of our enemies. One wit on Twitter said that you can’t “cure white guilt by pathologizing white pride,” but a whole lot depends on what we mean by “white pride.” God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. There’s a kind of white pride that’s a drunk tick, swollen on the blood of 65 million babies. And that kind of pride absolutely needs to be pathologized.

Susannah Roberts pointed out on X, “it’s not happening>it’s happening & it’s good” can be a right wing path too, & it’s currently happening with white Christian nationalism among ppl who 18 months ago wd have been appalled “how dare you call us white nationalists”>”we must develop white ethnic consciousness.” And she’s not wrong. 

Our enemies have been accusing us of being “white nationalists” and a bunch of us have been denying that vehemently because “white” is not what binds us together. White skin is not the point of integration. A bunch of us have been white, and we aren’t sorry about that at all. We’re thankful, and we love that gift of God. But it would be a massive blunder to think that our enemies are trying to help us find our point of unity. It isn’t skin pigmentation, but they would love for us to think so. This doesn’t mean their hatred doesn’t matter. It just means we shouldn’t take our marching orders from our enemies. They hate our white skin, our white heritage, our white culture. Got it. But if most of us convert to Islam or become liberal sops tomorrow, this culture war will burn out in about five minutes. The culture war is a clash of, well, cultures. And cultures are built on a “cult” – on a way of worship and ordering lives over generations in particular places according to that worship. Henry Van Til said that culture is religion externalized, and as it happened, the Christian religion got externalized in a bunch of white folks in the West, for which we are very grateful and unashamed. But that means that the center of our culture is not the whiteness; the center is Christ. We’re grateful for families; we’re grateful for all the gifts and the fact that the gifts have come down to us in a particular hue and pigmentation. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow. 

But if we start talking and acting like there’s something intrinsic in us that warrants those gifts, we know what God will do. And He will have every right to do it. I would very much like my white kids to be able to continue enjoying God’s blessings, and that means recognizing that they are all gifts of grace, completely undeserved, and therefore fundamentally have nothing do with anything that I am or have, and certainly therefore, nothing to do with the color of my skin, and I say all of this in defense of white people. 

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Justice and Joy

The world is constantly trying to press us into its mold through those who openly hate Christ but also through those who love Christ but are still heavily influenced by the world. One of the central goals is to stir up strife, hatred, and bitterness. 

James says that the center of our fighting is bitter envy. We lust and do not have and hate others who seem to have what we think we deserve or least what we think they don’t deserve. This happens with particular people: friends, siblings, coworkers, neighbors, and it is intentionally stirred up by emphasizing material differences in unbiblical ways: enmity between the sexes, different nationalities and political conflicts (Ukraine and Russia, Palestinians and Jews), ethnicities and skin color, envy over possessions or income levels. 

The problem is not with the differences themselves, the problem is with the malice and envy. The problem is bitterness and resentment. James says that if we want something we should just ask our Father. Some of the things we want, our Father would give us if we just ask. But there are other things, that we would not get because our intentions are evil. Our Heavenly Father gives life and health and many extravagant gifts to everyone in this world; He causes the rain to fall and the sun to shine for the good and the evil. He gives wicked men million dollar yachts. He gives evil women beauty and wealth. But He withholds no good thing from His own beloved children.

We are required to judge all things with biblical justice, and we are required to do it with peace and joy in our hearts. Not only that, we are to be filled with thanksgiving and compassion. God is slow to anger, abounding in mercy, not desiring that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. 

And you know this because You are here. You are here at the table of the Father, and you know that you don’t deserve it. None of us deserve to be here. We are only here because Christ was crucified for sinners like us. That is what this bread and wine mean: Christ crucified for sinners like us.

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The Wisdom of God

Acts 16:1-15

Introduction
The wisdom of God is foolishness to man – the center of this is the Cross — and we must understand deep in our bones that one of the central missions of God in the history of the world is to destroy the wisdom of man (1 Cor. 1:19). This doesn’t mean that we cannot truly grow in God’s wisdom, but it means that we must be incredibly skeptical of human wisdom. The goal of the history of the world is that no flesh would glory in His presence but all would glory in Him (1 Cor. 1:29-31). 

This wisdom is on display in Paul’s circumcision of Timothy, and in his obedience to the Holy Spirit leading him to the Philippian riverside to preach to a few Jewish women. You are practicing this heavenly wisdom when you sacrifice to provide a Christian education for your children, when you confess sin that nobody knows about, when you address sin instead of sweeping it under the carpet, tithing, joyful family worship, your commitment to do/believe whatever the Bible says. 

The Text: “Then came he to Derbe and Lystra: and behold, a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, and believed; but his father was a Greek…” (Acts 16:1-5)

Summary of the Text
After parting ways with Barnabas, Paul and Silas began visiting the cities from the first missionary journey, coming first to Derbe, where Paul and Barnabas had ended that first trip, where Paul recovered after being stoned in Lystra (Acts 16:1, 14:20-21). This time in Derbe, Paul recruited Timothy to join them, whose mother was a believing Jew but whose father was a Gentile, and so Paul had Timothy circumcised to prevent giving offence (Acts 16:2-3). 

Together, they visited and encouraged the churches in Phrygia, delivering the decision of the Jerusalem council, before heading north and then west to the coast by the leading of the Spirit (Acts 16:4-7). There in Troas, Paul saw a vision of a man from Macedonia calling for help, and Luke apparently joined them, as they sailed to northern Greece and came to the chief imperial city Philippi (Acts 16:8-12). On the Sabbath, since there were apparently not enough Jewish men to form a synagogue, they went down to the river side where Jewish women gathered for prayers, and God opened the heart of a woman named Lydia to believe the gospel, she and her household were baptized, and she invited the missionaries to lodge with her (Acts 16:13-15).

Circumcising Timothy
At first, this might seem confusing for Paul to circumcise Timothy, but this is a glorious illustration of gospel wisdom. Remember, prior to this, Paul had worked closely with Titus, a Greek, and had specifically resisted the implication that he needed to be circumcised (Gal. 2:3). And now, the Jerusalem Council has just explicitly ruled that circumcision is not necessary for Christians (Acts 15), and he’s reporting that to the churches and then the first thing Paul does is circumcise Timothy (Acts 16:3). A reasonable person might ask: What is up with that? The answer is in Galatians: “For brethren, ye have been called to liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13). Paul was willing to sacrifice his freedom to avoid giving offense in order to help build up new Christians into maturity (cf. Rom. 15:2, 1 Cor. 8:1). But when people began demanding circumcision, Paul drew a fierce line, and called that a “yoke of bondage,” and being in one of his more winsome moods, wrote that he wished those who made that kind of trouble would castrate themselves (Gal. 5:1-3, 12). 

But this decision with Timothy really is remarkable. This goes against everything in our flesh. And no doubt, a bunch of the “based bros” would have snickered amongst themselves and said things like “Ok, boomer,” as though Paul was losing his edge. But far from it: this was Paul demonstrating that he understood the wisdom of the gospel: Christ crucified. And underline this point: he didn’t have to do it. Circumcision was no little, painless thing but Paul was willing, happy even, to lay down freedom/comfort for the sake of the gospel (avoiding offense). But at the point where a preference/wisdom turned into a mandate, that confused the gospel, and Paul absolutely refused. This wisdom applies to drinking alcohol, dietary preferences, educational methods, health care decisions, and liturgical details, but don’t confuse matters of freedom/wisdom with the Spirit’s clear Word in the Bible. One way to check this is by asking: who gets the glory? 

The God Who Closes Doors and Opens Hearts
The Holy Spirit is cited several times in this passage: not allowing them to go further into Asia or Bithynia (Acts 16:6-7) and He is implied in the vision of the man from Macedonia (Acts 16:9). John Calvin points out that it might have felt like a significant let down to have ended up in Philippi after such a fruitful ministry in Asia Minor and for there to be no synagogue to preach in, only a group of Jewish women gathering for prayer at a river side. But undaunted, they preach the gospel, and the Lord opened Lydia’s heart (Acts 16:14). We are not apostles and we are not ordinarily led with the same kind of direct instructions or visions, but we do have the Spirit’s authoritative word in the Bible and we have witnessed the same powerful miracle every time someone comes to faith in Christ. Unless God opens hearts, all our attempts are futile. It really is incredible that the Lord of Universe is so dedicated to using human means: the Spirit directs Paul and Paul preaches, and God opens hearts. But the reason is so that we will understand more profoundly His wisdom and His glory, and our foolishness and weakness.  

Applications
So much here is about wisdom: when to defer, when to change course, when to stand firm, and following the Spirit. We need wisdom, and James says that we should ask since God gives wisdom generously to those who ask in faith (Js. 1:5-6). Later, James contrasts the meekness of wisdom from above with the carnal wisdom that is full of bitter envying (Js. 3:13-17). So this is the fruit of the kind of wisdom you actually have versus what you might think you have. 

Wisdom is not esoteric mysticism. It is not irrational or pure luck. Wisdom is the skill or art of living well in obedience to God for the edification of His people (cf. Ex. 35:30-36:2). Obedience to God is obedience to His Word/the Bible: the wise man hears and obeys and builds his house on the rock for the glory in God. The fool hears and disobeyed and builds his house on the sand. Edification means “building up.” God gave His Spirit of wisdom to Bezalel for the construction of the tabernacle, and the Spirit has now been poured out for the construction of the Church (1 Cor. 3). Edification is not doing whatever seems best to us or even what anyone prefers. Edification is assisting others to grow in holiness. If we can give up some of our freedom to help others become more like Christ, we should be glad to. However, if deferring would be disobedient to Christ or assisting others in moving further away from Christ, we must do all in our power to refuse.

We are artisans working on God’s house, for the salvation of the world, which seems kind of silly if you think about it, but this is God’s way, His wisdom. And the principle means that God is using is the preaching of Christ crucified for sinners.

Photo by Tim Umphreys on Unsplash

Worship is Surrender

The central thing we do is worship, but it’s important to underline what we mean. Worship is not in the first instance praise; worship is surrender. The word often translated “worship” literally means to bow down or kneel, and it is often coupled with other words that mean the same thing: “Oh come, let us worship [bow down] and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker” (Ps. 95:6). Worship acknowledges the holiness of God and trembles before Him: “Exalt the Lord our God, and worship [bow down] at His holy mountain; for the Lord our God is holy” (Ps. 99:9). 

Worship means coming into the presence of the King of the Universe at His summons and laying everything that we are before Him: “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service/worship. And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:1-2). In Christian worship, the King of the Universe summons His servants to appear before Him. We are beloved servants, but we are servants nevertheless. He has purchased us with His blood. All that we are, body and soul, belongs to Him. Our money is His, our time is His, our house is His, our children are His, our marriage is His, our work is His. This is what it means to call Him “Lord/Master.” We gather to hear His authoritative Word with reverence and godly fear, and we are sent out to obey. 

This is why worship is central. We are servants of the Lord Jesus. We are under orders. He rescued us from sin and death and Hell, and He is worthy. We are here this morning to acknowledge that. We are here to bow down before Him. We are here to say that we are completely at His service. So this is the Call to Worship. We’re about to kneel down in just a moment to confess our sins: do not just go through that motion. Kneel before Your Maker. Surrender everything to Him in true humility and say, like Isaiah, “here I am, send me.” 

Worship is central because Christ is the center of the universe. And either we truly bow before Him and seek to obey Him, or else we are traitors, hypocrites, or rebels, and that affects everything.

Photo by Ismael Paramo on Unsplash