Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 117

Ministry to Christian Athletes and the Struggles of Fame and Fortune: An Interview with Sports Spectrum

Over the years, I’ve spoken at a number of NFL chapels with the great benefit of having Nanci, my football-loving wife, sometimes attending the chapel, and always coming with me to the games. In recent years, God has given me the opportunity to give input to and mentor a number of professional athletes, especially football players.

There are many Christ-followers in the NFL, more than most people realize. For several years, through the ministry of Pro Athletes Outreach (PAO), an organization I’ve come to love, I’ve been able to speak to and meet hundreds of them, and develop personal relationships with several dozen. I often send verses to various guys and responses to Bible questions, as well as co-lead a private online forum with 27 current and former players (who I won’t name to protect their privacy).

My heart is to encourage these young men to love and serve Jesus passionately, and to use the platform He’s given them well. I love investing in them, and seeing up close how PAO is having an impact on their lives. (Nanci has met a number of player’s wives and has recently been asked to give input on the writing of Bible studies, and she enjoys that too.)

When speaking at a Major League Baseball conference several months ago, I recorded a podcast with Sports Spectrum. Host Jason Romano (formerly with ESPN) and I talked about ministering to professional athletes, the struggles that fame and fortune can bring, the challenges of athletes adjusting to retirement, and why it’s important to find our identity in Christ and not our professions. While few of us are pro athletes, many of the principles still apply. 

Listen to the full podcast here.

After you do, take the time to explore more resources on Sports Spectrum, a national publication that has been featuring Christian athletes for 15 years, and has recently become part of Professional Athletes Outreach. I love the resources available on Sports Spectrum!

In a time where people seem increasingly skeptical of young people in general and athletes in particular, I’d encourage you to better understand and appreciate the many who are genuine followers of Jesus. Since your kids and grandkids, especially your boys, are likely to admire and listen to famous athletes, why not introduce them to those who know Jesus, giving them good role models instead of bad ones?

Finally, if you’re a sports fan, or just want to see God at work in people’s lives, check out this article by Eagles player Chris Maragos, a brother I love, followed by several links to quality faith videos featuring pro athletes. 

Photo by Stephen Baker on Unsplash

Goodness in a World of Evil: Philip Hallie and the Story of Le Chambon

Philip Hallie’s marvelous book Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed tells the true story of Le Chambon, a French town where Pastor André Trocmé’s church, under the Nazi occupation, provided Jews with food, shelter, protection, and means of escape. Despite the disapproval of many, Trocmé and his church persevered in doing what they believed was right. As a result, “Le Chambon became the safest place for Jews in Europe.” [1] Over a period of about four years, the church rescued nearly twenty-five hundred Jews.

The Holocaust’s cruelty obsessed Hallie. He said he’d become “bitterly angry” and “over the years [of studying the Holocaust] I had dug myself into Hell.” Hallie speaks of a life-changing day when he discovered the stories of Christians in Le Chambon rescuing Jews, at peril of their own imprisonment and death. As he read, it surprised him to break into tears in what he called “an expression of moral praise.” Hallie later described the love of the church at Le Chambon:

It was this strenuous, this extraordinary obligation that... Trocmé expressed to the people in the big gray church. The love they preached was not simply adoration; nor was it simply a love of moral purity, of keeping one’s hands clean of evil. It was not a love of private ecstasy or a private retreat from evil. It was an active, dangerous love that brought help to those who needed it most. [2]

The day Hallie read of those flawed but loving Christians, he caught a view of God in the goodness they had done. He went home and spent a busy evening with family, then found himself in bed, weeping again over what happened in Le Chambon. Hallie wrote,

When I lay on my back in bed with my eyes closed, I saw more clearly than ever the images that had made me weep. I saw the two clumsy khaki-colored buses of the Vichy French police pull into the village square. I saw the police captain facing the pastor of the village and warning him that if he did not give up the names of the Jews they had been sheltering in the village, he and his fellow pastor, as well as the families who had been caring for the Jews, would be arrested. I saw the pastor refuse to give up these people who had been strangers in his village, even at the risk of his own destruction.

Then I saw the only Jew the police could find, sitting in an otherwise empty bus. I saw a thirteen-year-old boy, the son of the pastor, pass a piece of his precious chocolate through the window to the prisoner, while twenty gendarmes who were guarding the lone prisoner watched. And then I saw the villagers passing their little gifts through the window until there were gifts all around him—most of them food in those hungry days during the German occupation of France.

Lying there in bed, I began to weep again. I thought, Why run away from what is excellent simply because it goes through you like a spear? Lying there, I knew... a certain region of my mind contained an awareness of men and women in bloody white coats [committing unspeakable atrocities to] six- or seven- or eight-year-old Jewish children.... All of this I knew. But why not know joy?... Why must life be for me that vision of... children [hideously brutalized]? Something had happened, had happened for years in that mountain village. Why should I be afraid of it?

To the dismay of my wife, I left the bed unable to say a word, dressed, crossed the dark campus on a starless night, and read again those few pages on the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. And to my surprise, again the spear, again the tears, again the frantic, painful pleasure that spills into the mind when a deep, deep need is being satisfied, or when a deep wound is starting to heal. [3]

Philosophy professor Eleonore Stump tells of coming to know Jesus through studying the problem of evil and suffering. Reflecting on her own experience (and Hallie’s), Stump writes,

So, in an odd sort of way, the mirror of evil can also lead us to God. A loathing focus on the evils of our world and ourselves prepares us to be the more startled by the taste of true goodness when we find it and the more determined to follow that taste until we see where it leads. And where it leads is to the truest goodness...to the sort of goodness of which the Chambonnais’s goodness is only a tepid aftertaste. The mirror of evil becomes translucent, and we can see through it to the goodness of God.... So you can come to Christ contemplating evil in a world of goodness, or contemplating goodness in a world of evil. [4]

One mother—her three children saved by the people of Le Chambon—said, “The Holocaust was storm, lightning, thunder, wind, rain, yes. And Le Chambon was the rainbow.” [5]

The history of the human race cannot be reduced to the Holocaust. There was and is considerable goodness in the world outside the Holocaust. Yet even inside it, in places like Le Chambon, a costly and beautiful goodness lives.

Excerpted from If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil.

Read more about Le Chambon from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Photo by Mika on Unsplash

[1] Philip Paul Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 4.

[2] Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, 129.

[3] Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, 110–11.

[4] Eleonore Stump, “The Mirror of Evil,” in God and the Philosophers, ed. Thomas V. Morris (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 235

[5] Os Guinness, Unspeakable (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2005), 227.

Dismissive and Disrespectful Attitudes toward Women Should Have No Place among Evangelicals

Recently teacher and author Beth Moore wrote an article about the prevalence of misogyny in the evangelical world.

misogyny: h atred, dislike, or mistrust of women, or prejudice against women. — Dictionary.com

Though I don’t know Beth well—I only met her briefly maybe a decade ago—my heart was broken when I read her post. While I don’t see much outright hatred of women, I do see a great deal of mistrust and prejudice. I also see disrespect and condescension toward women, especially those with leadership and speaking gifts and strong personalities (which seem to be respected in a man, but not a woman).

I really appreciate Beth’s honest thoughts, which I believe should trouble all of us. I am sad to say I believe she is right in her concerns. As I’ve told many evangelical leaders, having raised two daughters I deeply respect, having a wife I deeply respect, and working with women whom I deeply respect, I bristle at the dismissive tone toward women I hear from many male evangelical leaders. I regularly hear words of wisdom and compassion from my wife, daughters, and female co-workers that I don’t hear as frequently from many of the male leaders I know. (Thankfully, there a lot of exceptions to this, and I certainly don’t want to throw most evangelical leaders under the bus!)

I believe it is that disrespect for women that leads men in power positions to view women as objects rather than subjects. This results in using women through flirtation, seduction, and sexual abuse, which some, for now, get away with. But none of us will get away with such things, since God is watching and will judge not only our actions but also our attitudes, even those that don’t result in immoral actions. “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13; see also Ecclesiastes 12:14 and 1 Corinthians 4:5).

I pray God will use Beth’s courageous letter to continue to touch hearts, and convict and change attitudes. (By the way, you are free to disagree with me, Beth or anyone else, but this is not the time to make comments about your criticisms of her teaching or mine or anybody’s. This is not about whether you like what anyone says; it’s about how women have been treated.)

So thanks, Beth, for speaking up. I am also grateful for my brother Thabiti Anyabwile’s honest confession and apology to Beth and other sisters in Christ. After you read Beth’s letter, I encourage you to read Thabiti’s response. I also recommend Melissa Kruger’s excellent article 4 Ways Brothers Can Encourage Sisters in Ministry.

But first, prayerfully listen to Beth, who got this conversation going.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

What About Authors Using Pen Names?

Over the years I’ve been asked my opinion about authors using pen names. My concern would be in two areas: intent and effect. If the intent is to deceive, to disguise the fact that the writer is producing three books a year (making some people leery of their quality), or to disguise the fact this is a non-fiction author venturing into fiction, or whatever, then I have problems with it. (Even if that’s not the intent, it could be an effect.)

Here’s why I’m concerned: doesn’t a reader have the right to be wary of a book’s quality if the normally non-fiction author is now writing fiction or if the writer is producing books at a rapid rate? Even if they’re wrong, why should the writer be able to take away others’ freedom to make a value judgment? As those purchasing the book, they have a right to do as they wish, based on accurate information. If a criminal, let’s say a convicted child molester, writes a book and I, as a reader, wouldn’t want to support this person, don’t I have the right to know who the person really is, and then to make my choice accordingly? When a pen name is being used, am I being deceived into buying a book, which, if I knew the author’s real name, I wouldn’t purchase?

Now, if the author’s real name is Dudley Swineburp and he wants to write historical romances, I can understand him using the pen name Anthony Romano. Even though the name change is geared to make it more likely someone will buy his books, why not use a name that won’t lose an audience you deserve to have a fair shot at, since Swineburp isn’t any more likely to write a bad book than Romano?

That’s exactly what female authors once did, when women weren’t respected in certain fields. Since they were overcoming an unfair bias against them, using men’s names was likely fine—although I suppose it could be argued that people have the right to act on the basis of their biases. Also, if good women writers don’t use their names, won’t that just perpetrate the myths and biases? That’s easy to say if you don’t need to put bread on the table—I can certainly understand why these women did what they did. Some women in Muslim countries do this today for the same reason. Likewise, a Chinese Christian writing a book may use a pen name to protect his family and his freedom. That seems perfectly reasonable.

I think the Internet culture has probably made people more immune to pen names. People can have four different names used in various circles on the internet. Still, when you use a name to convey an impression or enhance an image, rather than simply to have fun or protect your privacy, isn’t this deception or manipulation?

Motives are critical. If a female novelist writes a book in the first person involving a husband who’s an adulterous porn addict or child abuser, and fears some readers will think she is writing out of experience with her husband (whether or not that’s true), that seems a good enough reason to use a pen name. Likewise, if she shows intimate acquaintance with drug-using teenagers, she may want to protect her kids (whether or not they’ve had drug problems) from being viewed unfavorably. I have a friend who was raped and got pregnant from it, then gave up the child for adoption. I would have no problem with her telling her story using a pen name—in fact, I would advise her to. Interestingly, in her case the pen name would result in fewer sales, since she’s well known. This raises a good test for any of us—would we be willing to use a pen name if it would mean fewer books sold?

I’ve seen pen names that are designed to cash in on known authors. I suppose someone could write techno-dramas under the name Tom Clency or courtroom novels under the name John Gresham, but even if he could get away with it legally, that wouldn’t make it right.

So to me—and this is only my opinion—it really does come down to the reason, and whether that reason involves deception for the sake of personal gain, as well as whether it takes advantage of the reader/consumer. Now, if a reader discovers that the writer is actually a convicted serial killer, or a popular author who the reader has read before and didn’t like, or an author known to be guilty of plagiarism, they may have cause to feel cheated. But if they find out Romano’s real name is Swineburp, or that a woman used a different name to protect herself or her family, they won’t feel betrayed. They’d likely think, good move on adopting the pen name. So here’s another test—if you had to explain your reasons for using a pen name to those who bought your book, would they agree your reasons were valid?

So to myself and other authors I would ask these questions:

Is your conscience clear before God?
Are you doing it without the intent of misleading or deceiving readers?
If readers knew your real name, would they feel cheated?
Are you doing it to protect a loved one or friend?

These questions may be relevant. In some cases, the intent may not be to deceive, but an inadvertent effect may be deception nonetheless. So are pen names a good move? To me, in some cases, yes; in other cases no, depending on motives and results.

Photo by MILKOVÍ on Unsplash

Will We Have Desires in Heaven?

We’ll have many desires in Heaven, but they won’t be unholy desires. Everything we want will be good. Our desires will please God. All will be right with the world, nothing forbidden. When a father cooks steaks on the barbecue grill, he wants his family to listen to them sizzle and eagerly desire to eat them. God created our desires and every object we desire. He loves it when our mouths water for what He’s prepared for us. When we enjoy it, we’ll be enjoying him.

One of the greatest things about Heaven is that we’ll no longer have to battle our desires. They’ll always be pure, attending to their proper objects. We’ll enjoy food without gluttony and eating disorders. We’ll express admiration and affection without lust, fornication, or betrayal. Those simply won’t exist.

I tried to express that in my novel Safely Home. When one of the characters reaches Heaven, he has a conversation with the King: “I feel like I’m drinking from the Source of the Stream. Does this mean I’ll feel no more longing?” The King—the Source—replies, “You will have the sweet longing of desire that can be fulfilled and shall be, again and again and again. [Heaven] is not the absence of longing but its fulfillment. Heaven is not the absence of itches; it is the satisfying scratch for every itch.” [1]

Not long after we finish one meal, we start looking forward to the next. When a fun ride is over, we want to go on it again. Anticipation, desire, is a big part of joy. Since we’ll be resurrected people in a resurrected universe, why would that change?

Christianity is unique in its perspective of our desires, teaching that they will be sanctified and fulfilled on the New Earth. Conversely, the Buddhist concept of deliverance teaches that one day people’s desires will be eliminated. That’s radically different. Christianity teaches that Jesus takes our sins away while redeeming our desires. Desire is an essential part of humanity, a part that God built into people before sin cast its dark shadow on earth. I’m looking forward to having my desires redeemed. (Even now, as redeemed children of God, we get tastes of that, don’t we?)

Won’t it be wonderful to be free from uncertainty about our desires? We often wonder, Is it good or bad for me to want this thing or that award or his approval or her appreciation? Sometimes I don’t know which desires are right and which aren’t. I long to be released from the uncertainty and the doubt. I long to be capable of always wanting what’s good and right.

In C. S. Lewis’s The Last Battle, his characters arrive in New Narnia. Lucy says, “I’ve a feeling we’ve got to the country where everything is allowed.” [2]Augustine expressed a similar thought: “Love God and do as you please.” [3] We will love God wholeheartedly—and therefore will want to do only what pleases Him.

God placed just one restriction on Adam and Eve in Eden, and when they disregarded it, the universe unraveled. On the New Earth, that test will no longer be before us. God’s law, the expression of His attributes, will be written on our hearts (Hebrews 8:10). No rules will be needed, for our hearts will be given over to God. David said, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). Why? Because when we delight in God and abide in Him, whatever we want will be exactly what he wants for us.

What we should do will at last be identical with what we want to do. There will be no difference between duty and joy.

Excerpted from Randy’s book Heaven.

Photo by Prudence Earl on Unsplash

[1] Randy Alcorn, Safely Home (Wheaton,Ill.: Tyndale, 2001), 377.

[2] C. S. Lewis, The Last Battle (New York: Collier Books, 1956), 137.

[3] Augustine, quoted in Michael Horton, The Agony of Deceit (Chicago: Moody, 1990), 144.

Tony Reinke on Irony, Sarcasm, Snark, and How the Simpsons Shaped a Generation

My friend Tony Reinke has written a terrific article that I think is right on target concerning sarcasm and snark and its profound effect on us, both outside and inside the church. —Randy Alcorn

My generation was raised on The Simpsons.

The popular cartoon is postmodern TV at its finest: liberated from prolonged storylines, a series of jests sprinkled in every fifteen seconds (to capture anyone who just tuned in), often self-referencial sneers, a show loaded with subtle and overt cultural references, thick with irony, sarcasm, and inside jokes — a decades-long art form good at pointing out cultural anxieties, but challenged to celebrate community, truth, or beauty.

“I think The Simpsons is important art,” novelist David Foster Wallace said in an interview. But “on the other hand, it’s also — in my opinion — relentlessly corrosive to the soul, and everything is parodied, and everything’s ridiculous. Maybe I’m old, but for my part I can be steeped in about an hour of it, and then I have to walk away and look at a flower or something.”

It wasn’t just The Simpsons, but a whole generation of entertainment given to parody and irony and sarcasm, and it leaves us with a sense of something less human, less likely to encourage us to do what Wallace did — to turn it off in favor of natural beauty.

Letterman

This postmodern sarcasm seeped into the pop sitcoms and into late-night TV, as in the case of The Late Show with David Letterman.

Wallace explored this trend in his collection of short stories (Girl with Curious Hair), in a short story to imagine an actress getting groomed by her publicist and husband before appearing on The Late Show, a cultural staple of nighttime TV between 1993 and 2015.

The key for the actress’s successful interview was bound up with her poker face. It’s best if she was a little jaded. A little distant. Bored. Not insincere, just “not-sincere.” The key: “Appear the way Letterman appears on Letterman. . . . Laugh in a way that’s somehow deadpan. Act as if you knew from birth that everything is clichéd and hyped and empty and absurd. That’s just where the fun is.” Reflect his sardonic outlook on all of life.

This observation resonates with what I know of Letterman, as well as with what I know of the postmodern American entertainment culture of my youth. The age of sarcasm is the age of the lazy-eyed, smart-aleck comedian who wants you to know he’s playing a character dumber than himself (Bill Murray and Saturday Night Live). Mockery thrived in the derisive contra-family dramas (Simpsons), in the snark-at-every-life-situation form of faux-friendships (Seinfeld), in the cynical contra-talk shows (Letterman), and then later in the mistrust-everything-I-say, contra-news programs (Colbert).

Said Wallace, the 1990s were a time of “postmodern irony, hip cynicism, a hatred that winks and nudges you and pretends it’s just kidding.”

Cynical of Cynicism

Does satire work? Does it change anything? On one side of the argument, journalist Malcolm Gladwell recently attempted to argue that the more we laugh at something, the less persuasive that thing is for changing minds (“The Satire Paradox”). Satire makes for laughs but cannot change minds, at least not for unified social change. But this conclusion seems defective.

“Letterman’s ‘irony’ was in fact a passionate response against phoniness,” writes James Poniewozik of Time Magazine. Yes — and it worked. Sarcasm was the chosen tool of a generation of entertainers to poke holes in what they perceived to be a phony, over-idealized picture of life that dominated American entertainment in the 1950s. The polished formality of the tightly scripted news, the straight-collared conversations, the seriousness, the sincerity, the wholesome TV family got capsized by a generation of sarcastic entertainment — the Lettermans, Simpsons, and SNLs.

Satire’s most potent work is in exposing phony facades. But it cannot accomplish anything more important, and there’s the problem, as Wallace explained in a 1997 radio interview: “Irony and sarcasm are fantastic for exploding hypocrisy and exposing what’s wrong in extant values. They are notably less good in erecting replacement values or coming close to the truth.”

Sarcasm is a free-swinging wrecking ball. It cannot construct.

So what happens when mocking sarcasm lives past its use and becomes the tone of a generation? Wallace explains. “What’s been passed down from the postmodern heyday is sarcasm, cynicism, a manic ennui, suspicion of all authority, suspicion of all constraints on conduct, and a terrible penchant for ironic diagnosis of unpleasantness, instead of an ambition not just to diagnose and ridicule but to redeem. You’ve got to understand that this stuff has permeated the culture. It’s become our language; we’re so in it we don’t even see that it’s one perspective, one among many possible ways of seeing. Postmodern irony’s become our environment.”

The Ghost of Sarcasm

Sarcasm is still in the groundwater of our entertainment, in every drink, and we can no longer smell its pungent stench. This is one reason why TV inherently favors political newcomers, and resists incumbents. Satire takes down authority structures and establishments. And the acerbic wit and irony that may have exposed hypocrisy in a previous generation continues living, with an undiminishing life of its own. We’re trapped in it. Sarcasm becomes a tyranny we cannot escape.

Sarcasm is ghostly. It defies all resistance. You try to push against irony and your arms flail in the mirage. Even our popular ads become satire. And as satire, they evade criticism by absorbing all criticism. So for example, LeBron James will never tell you to drink Sprite, because he knows we’re all guarded against propaganda. Satirically he makes fun of his own commercials, and by doing this, he and Sprite evade critical thought. If I message LeBron to say that Squirt is clearly superior to Sprite, he could respond and say he never said it was, and never said I should drink one or the other. And he’d be right.

There’s the irony. Any ad you cannot criticize is an ad to be received. To this end, self-satirizing ads multiply like spring rabbits. “Do you see we’re making an ad inside this ad? Get it? Get it!?”

As nauseatingly as the “inside joke” ads have become, the tactic is a brilliant invention of our admen and adwomen to disarm buyers. Advertisers say to us, “We see you seeing us try to sell you things, and let’s laugh at the whole thing together!” Sharing an inside joke is the best way to capture a defensive ad audience.

But even beyond ads, the spirit of the sarcasm age thrives in the memes of social media, in anti-institutional hashtagism that can tear away smokescreens and hypocrisy, take down authorities and demonize institutions. Witty sarcasm on social media defies criticism. Nor is it able to draw consensus and construct newer, and more stable, social structures.

Ruined for Beauty

The sarcasm culture, deadpanned in the eyes, doesn’t stop corroding society. It’s like dry rot eating away a culture’s weight bearing timber.

Unchecked, the sarcastic man’s affections become so corroded, his eyes so deadpan, so I-know-more-than-you, that those same eyes cannot weep at created beauty, let alone see it. He cannot submit himself to truth. He becomes cynical for all that is redemptive. He falls prey to the tyranny of sarcasm. He cannot criticize the tyranny of the jaded sarcasm itself.

It is true, irony is a good way to poke fun at yourself. Perhaps Christians can take some cues from Ned Flanders, the most famously satirized evangelical. Like the satirical voice from a whirlwind aimed at Job, irony has a useful place in pushing back cultural idols and evangelical presumptions. But sarcasm aimed to subvert others should be taken in small doses.

Sarcasm Culture and Redemptive Hope

In a sarcasm culture, we must renew the call for redemptive Christian sincerity. Yes, it’s easier to post wit and sarcasm and biting criticism online. The hard thing is to post sincere truth and to put yourself in a vulnerable place before the eyes of a ridicule culture.

In his longest novel, one of Wallaces’s fictional characters seeks to evade loneliness — “the great transcendent horror” — by becoming so hip and cool and cynical about life to be included among his peers. But the end result of the Simpsons and Letterman was not to foster a place of belonging or for true friendship, but isolation — a world where “hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human,” and in evading what is human, we become disingenuous, incapable of the self-disclosure required of community. We’re left with random Seinfeld-like connections with others, with zero depth and with nothing of significance to offer one another but another punchline jeer to distract each other from our troubles.

Our media shape us in one profound way that’s hard to shake. As Wallace once said, “All U.S. irony is based on an implicit ‘I don’t really mean what I’m saying.’”

And there’s the problem.

More Powerful Than Sarcasm

Nothing is more countercultural to snark-culture than sincerity. And nothing is more human than sincerity, for only with sincerity can you weep at truth and beauty. For Christians, deadpanned in the eyes is not an option. For “those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!” (Psalm 126:5).

Deep sincerity — tear-filled sincerity — is an essential marker of spiritual health and the aliveness of our affections, and critical to our gospel mission. The apostle Paul’s ministry is substantiated by its sincere love: “As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by . . . genuine love” (2 Corinthians 6:4–6). He calls us to an earnest trust in God as he celebrates Timothy’s “sincere faith” (2 Timothy 1:5). It is in this sincere faith that we all must express sincere love for others: “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5; see also Romans 12:9; 1 Peter 1:22).

And even if ridiculers turn out to hate knowledge, we live under the authority of divine truth in sincerity, as James 3:17 says, “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.”

Questions to Ask

So who are we, and who will we be in this culture? Sarcastic or sincere? Scoffers or builders? Known by our ridiculing barbs or by our redemptive hopes? Are we offering one another a deadpanned face, or do our expressions express love, interest, and self-giving sincerity?

These may seem like theoretical questions, but they are real questions, ones probably already answered in the archive of our social media feeds and in our most liked and retweeted memes.

Christians in the age of snark have beauties to relish far beyond the beauties of a single rose. We have the beautiful Rose of Sharon, the beauty of a stunning Savior who died so that we could be sincere with the world, sincere with ourselves, and sincere with one another — that is, to be fully human.

We are free in Christ to enjoy beauty, to tweet truth, and to be vulnerable, because we have died to the base things of this world and the dominant sarcasm culture of America’s media, and have been made alive with him to truth, beauty, and sincerity again.

This article originally appeared on Desiring God and is used by permission of the author.

Photo by Sven Scheuermeier on Unsplash

God’s Greatest Miracles Happen in and Around Us All the Time

Recently I listened to John Piper answer the question, “Why Do We See So Few Miracles Today?” on his Ask Pastor John podcast.

His answer is great. It also got me thinking about something else I would add to what John says: that visible miracles are reminders of the reality of greater invisible miracles, which in fact are happening all the time as God regenerates hard human hearts. Hence, God is doing far more miracles than we realize. That’s what this blog is about.

The Costly Miracle of a New Heart

Our Lord transforming human hearts, through stunning acts done daily around the globe, is every bit as miraculous as Jesus transforming water into wine. In fact, these redemptive acts make the dividing of the Red Sea, the falling walls of Jericho, and the raising of Lazarus from the dead actually pale in comparison. Is that an overstatement? No, because the greatest physical miracles cost our all-powerful God nothing, but the miracles of salvation, sanctification, and glorification cost the very life of God’s Son.

God gives us a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26), makes us new in Christ (Ephesians 4:24), and changes our destiny from death to life, from Hell to Heaven (John 5:24). He takes drug-addicts, sex-addicts, pride-addicts, gossip-addicts, and every variety of sin-addict and works a transforming miracle in us.

As we yield our wills to Him daily, He provides yet another series of sanctifying miracles for us, so that cumulatively, if we have eyes to see, we’ll realize there have been thousands of intervening miracles of grace in just our own lives, and countless millions more in the lives of others. (For more on this, see The Wonderful Miracle of Conversion.)

When God drew me to faith in Christ, as a 15 year old, my life changed radically. One of the hundreds of verses I memorized was this one: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). And the only explanation of this was nothing less than miraculous. As the next verse says, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself…” (v. 18). Miracles are things which God does that cannot be explained by natural processes or human actions. Hence every true conversion—which is not the same as every outward profession—is by definition a miracle.

God’s Miraculous, Empowering Grace

Often when someone dies it’s said, “We prayed for a miracle, but for some reason God chose not to answer.” I understand this, and indeed it’s true that God sometimes doesn’t perform the miracle we asked for.

When that’s the case, I think we would do well to realize this: “While he didn’t perform the miracle we asked for, He performed many other miracles of grace and encouragement, inspiration and comfort, personal transformation and increased dependence on Jesus, worship and deepened relationships, faithfulness and perseverance, empowerment, and open doors of evangelism…and almost certainly many other miracles we don’t yet know of but one day will. And some—perhaps many—of those miracles happened because the miracle we prayed for didn’t.” (See “If I Have Enough Faith, Will God Heal Me?”)

I am witnessing miracles in Nanci’s life and mine even as we pray for the miracle of God directly intervening to cure her colon cancer. To clarify, this sort of cancer is tricky, multiple doctors tell us, as it “hides.” So even as we repeatedly ask God for a total-cure miracle, it’s hard to know what’s going on in the microscopic cells surrounding where the cancer was first detected, and partially removed, and in other parts of her body. (It’s not like a foot that needs to be amputated, but God heals it and it’s objectively obvious.) We know sometimes God chooses to heal, and sometimes He doesn’t. So knowing He could heal directly (and maybe has already), or He could heal indirectly through medical means, we move forward with treatments that will fight the cancer if God has not chosen to directly kill it.

However, to the point I’m focusing on, I can vouch first hand for the miracle of God’s empowering grace in our lives. As Nanci daily meditates on Scripture and reads Tozer’s Knowledge of the Holy and The Pursuit of God, and Packer’s Knowing God, and as we discuss what we’re learning and pray together, I see in her and in me a profound “peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” that “will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

Likewise we see transforming grace in our dear sister Karen Coleman who served with us for years at EPM, as she is in stage-four breast cancer and experiencing great fatigue but also the peace of Jesus. Karen has had to retire from EPM, but continues to inspire us. I just read her CaringBridge update where she lists a number of blessings and says, “We all have purpose and work to do for the Kingdom until He takes us home!”

My point is that we don’t lack miracles in our lives! What we lack is the vision, the eternal perspective that allows us to see and experience and marvel at these miracles. For while we may say redemptive transformation is an invisible miracle, that’s not entirely true since its effects are visible. Jesus said, “Every tree is known by its own fruit” (Luke 6:44).

Consider 2 Corinthians 3:18: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” Isn’t this “invisible miracle,” which is really an ongoing daily series of miracles, ultimately visible? Doesn’t it result in a life once characterized by the sordid works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) becoming a new life that bears the fruit—and fruit is visible—of the indwelling Holy Spirit? “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

Can you think of a greater miracle, or ongoing series of thousands of miracles, in each redeemed life? So, thank God daily for His miracles of grace in your life and those you know, and a world full of people you don’t know but one day will live with in the presence of Jesus. And ask Him to open your eyes to His miracles, not limiting them to physical or medical miracles.

Forgiveness Is the Greatest Miracle

Every time Jesus forgives sin, He performs the greatest of miracles. In Mark 2:1-12 Jesus performed an amazing miracle, the healing of the paralytic. But there’s much to be learned from this passage, because the first thing Jesus did was to say to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (v. 5).

Then the teachers were offended because they thought, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (v. 7).

Jesus then asked them, “Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?” (v. 9).

The answer is obvious. It is easier to SAY sins are forgiven, because there’s no way to prove that has actually happened. But if you say “Get up” to someone who’s paralyzed, a miracle won’t have occurred unless he actually gets up! So everyone will either see the miracle or know that it hasn’t happened.

Then Jesus said, “But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So He said to the man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home” (v. 10-11). Then the man got up and “walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’” (v. 12).

Though the people were amazed at the physical healing, many may have missed the point that the greater miracle was Jesus forgiving the man’s sins! It was to authenticate the GREATER miracle of forgiveness that Jesus performed the LESSER miracle of physical healing.

Why do I call it a lesser miracle? For several reasons, but it takes me back to the fact that the omnipotent God can heal physical problems with no effort or cost. But He could not heal spiritual problems nor forgive sins without going to the cross to die for us, which was neither easy nor costless even for the omnipotent Creator. (How Jesus can say “Your sins are forgiven” to someone before the cross? This article provides a helpful answer.)

As for some other answers to the question of why God doesn’t seem to do as many physical miracles today, do listen to this excellent 10-minute answer from John Piper.

Photo by Mike Wilson on Unsplash

I Couldn’t Call God “Father”: An Iranian Woman’s Journey of Faith

Today’s guest blog is by Nadia (not her real name), one of many Iranian women who’ve been touched by the liberating and restoring love of Christ. Today she is a key leader serving with Elam Ministries to reach and disciple other Persian-speaking women through their women’s ministry programs.

EPM has had the privilege of supporting Elam Ministries. If you’re looking for an eternity-impacting ministry to invest in that is reaching Islamic people with the Gospel, we highly recommend them. —Randy Alcorn

My Painful, Broken Past

In Islam there are 99 names for Allah. Not one of them is “Father.” To Muslims, God is not a father. He is a judge.

I am from a family of six children. My father never showed us love. Whenever I heard of people speaking about the love and support of their fathers, I had no idea what they meant.

My father was an angry man. He abused us emotionally and physically, especially my mother. 

She was beaten several times to within an inch of her life. She put up with this in order to protect us children.

I also remember the day when my father tried to kill my brother, forcing my brother to run away barefooted into the street.

When I was old enough, l left Iran so that I could be free of my father and have a better life. I ended up in the UK.

I always had a negative view of men. I questioned why God had given men such power. I tried to be a strong woman. I was also depressed and tired of life.

One day, alone in my room, I spoke for the first time to the God of creation. I had given up on my religion, which had always made me second class and weak.

I prayed to the God who I did not know, yet whose presence I sensed in a real way. I wanted to die, but I didn’t want to commit suicide, as I thought that it would bring shame on my mother. So I asked God to kill me. But God didn’t kill me.

God gave me life. Let me tell you how.

Finding Joy in a Church

A week later, I met with an Iranian lady. When I started to share my heart with her, she told me that she had no belief in any religion—but her daughter had become a Christian and had changed. She asked me if I wanted to go to her daughter’s church. The work of God is amazing: He used a non-believer to witness to me.

I went to the church for the first time and it was very strange for me. The people had names like Mohammad and Zahra, which are Muslim names. I didn’t know that Muslims could become Christians.

The men there were different. I felt they did not have unclean eyes.

They were worshipping with joy, in my mother tongue, Persian. I had always wondered why I should have to speak to God in Arabic, a language I didn’t know. Why he didn’t accept my mother tongue?

At the end of the sermon that day, during the altar call, the preacher called everyone to trust Jesus and proclaimed that Jesus was a healer.

From that day onward, I had a new joy.

Learning to See God as Father

But there was a great challenge for me. I had to accept God as my Father. In my mind, this word was not a word of honor toward the God that I had come to know. To me, “mother” would have been a much better word.

But God wanted to reveal Himself to me. He did this with total patience and gentleness.

As I studied the Bible, I saw the grace and love of the Father. As I prayed I felt the attention of the Father. As I worshiped I felt the embrace of the Father.

He healed my past, my present, and my future, and has transformed me. He even enabled me to truly forgive my earthly father.

I used to hate the word “Father.” Today, I worship God the Father with great love and passion. I worship Jesus Christ as Lord, the One who has saved my soul. I love to walk in the Spirit who is always with me.

My Family Restored

I was the first in my family to become a Christian. I shared the Gospel with my mother. She said at her age of 60 she could not change.

But over time the love of Christ won her heart and today she worships Jesus.

I shared Jesus with my nephew. Today he worships Jesus. When my sister-in-law had a problem, I prayed for her and shared a Bible verse. Today she worships Jesus. My sister saw the change in my life. Today she worships Jesus. One of my brothers was an atheist. But today he worships Jesus.

I saw 11 people come to Christ. But my father did not.

He had left my mother for a woman who was my age. It caused a lot of pain for the family and for a long time nobody spoke with him.

But God put it on my heart to call and talk with him.

One day on a call, my father told me he had cancer. The young wife left him. My mother, who had grown in faith, bravely decided to go and care for him on his death bed.

Three days before he died, I called and spoke to him one last time. It was difficult, but the Lord put it in my heart to share the Gospel with him again. I told him about the thief next to Jesus on the cross. I told him, “Like the thief, you can still be forgiven.”

My mother was there, and held his hand while he smiled and asked Jesus to forgive him.

Helping Other Women Call on Their Father

In Islam people do not know God as father. But praise God, He has been working in Iran. And many, many people like me are finding their Heavenly Father.

Today I have the privilege of being part of Elam’s women’s ministry team. I have had the chance to teach many women just like me about their Father in heaven.

I never knew that my story would impact so many other lives. I have had the chance to tell many hundreds of Iranian women what the Father has done in my life. I speak of the Father’s faithfulness, the Father’s love, the Father’s attention, the Father’s generosity, and the Father’s authority.

Recently, after I shared my story at a conference for women from Iran, a lady name Haleh came to me. She was in tears. Her father was like mine.

It was not surprising that Haleh couldn’t see God as Father. But after much prayer and ministry, she was finally able to call on God as her Father. It was so moving to see. The following day Haleh sang a new song to God about His fatherhood, and like a little girl she danced before her daddy. 

Photo by Majid Sadr on Unsplash

Self-Control and the Battle for Our Minds

While Scripture does not say as much as we’d like about circumstance-control, it says a great deal more than we like about self-control. Scripture warns, “A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls” (Proverbs 25:28). Such a city, and such a person, will be left unhappy.

Without self-control on the inside, our lives are made vulnerable to innumerable assaults. That’s why God commands us, “Make every effort to supplement your . . . knowledge with self-control” (2 Peter 1:5-6). The Spirit-controlled believer is a self-controlled believer: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23).

Immediately after telling his readers they should cast their anxieties on God, Peter tells them “Be self-controlled and alert” (1 Peter 5:8). Throughout the New Testament we are called upon to exercise self-control. But we cannot exercise self-control unless and until we believe we can control ourselves.

The key to controlling yourself is controlling your mind. This is why Solomon said: “Above all else, guard your heart [inner being, mind], for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23).

Paul says to the Romans: “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires” (Romans 8:5).

What is your mindset? Do you dwell on selfish, envious, jealous, bitter thoughts? Or do you dwell on what pleases God? Do you focus on God, His Word, and His mighty works on our behalf, or do you focus on woes and misfortunes and abuses suffered at the hands of others? According to Scripture, the choice is yours.

Time and time again we are told to rid ourselves of wrong thinking and the wrong behavior it leads to, and replace it with right thinking and right behavior.

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor…. (Ephesians 4:22–23)

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry…. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these…since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. ….Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. …put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Colossians 3:5–14)

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1–2)

These passages speak of putting on the new nature in Christ and putting off the old sinful nature. Would God tell us to control our minds and our actions if we are incapable of doing so? Is God so unrealistic or cruel that He would command us to do the impossible?

Peter says, “Prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled...” (1 Peter 1:13). The phrase translated “prepare your mind for action” literally means “gird up the loins of your mind.” In the first century, both men and women wore long robes. Confronted with a stressful situation, they would fight or flee. But first they would bend over, grab the back hem of their robe and pull it up between their legs, tucking it in at the belt. They were now prepared to do battle or run without fear of tripping over their robes.

This is what we are to do with our minds—take charge of them, get them in battle condition so we won’t trip. Going into battle takes preparation, determination and perspective. We need to set our minds on Christ, and draw on His strength: “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:1–2).

Photo by Steven Spassov on Unsplash

Not Just Vermin or Garbage: Our Calling to Reach Street Children in Jesus’ Name

My friend Doug Nichols is the founder of ACTION International, one of my favorite ministries in the world. If you’re wondering about a worthy missions work to support, I highly recommend ACTION. (Doug currently serves as global missions advocate and mobilizer for Commission to Every Nation.)

One of ACTION’s primary outreaches is to children in crisis around the world, which is something close to the heart of God. Jesus, who told His disciples, “Let the little children come to me,” proved His love for children by becoming one, eventually dying for each and every child.

Jesus also said, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me. . . . Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me” (Matthew 25:40, 45). Every Christian must ask, “What am I doing to uphold the cause of needy children?” Mere sentiment is not enough. I encourage you to read what Doug has to say about the great needs worldwide, then ask God how you can help make a difference in these children’s lives. —Randy Alcorn

We Must Care for Our Future—Our Children

by Doug Nichols

If only 20 spotted owls were dying every day, there would be an outrage. But 25,000 children die daily from starvation and disease, and it’s hardly noticed. Many of these are abandoned street children.

One hundred million extremely underprivileged and street children struggle for existence in today’s cities. One hundred million! Are these children trash? Local businessmen in Brazil call them “Vermin, garbage. If we let them grow up, they will be criminals, a blight on our society.”

Some of these children are young and cute. They can still smile. But most are older, have rotten teeth, are scar-faced, disease-ridden, flea- and lice-infested, shifty-eyed, suspicious, and fearful. They are the poor, the outcast, the abandoned, the exploited—the children of the streets.                              

How do they exist on the streets? They survive by begging, stealing, selling their bodies, and eating out of garbage cans.

The government of the Philippines estimates there are up to 100,000 children living on the streets of Manila. Fifteen thousand of these are child prostitutes between the ages of 9 and 12. In Thailand there are 800,000 prostitutes from 12 to 16 years of age.

In Sao Paulo, Brazil, another 800,000 children are living on the streets.

Estimates in Mexico City are over one million underprivileged children, with 240,000 living on the streets.

Children don’t ask for much.

A veteran children’s worker, with more than 30 years’ experience, asked Latin American street children what was the biggest wish of their entire lives:                           

Ramon drooled over a vivid description of a sumptuous dinner.
Ten-year-old Leila pleaded for the chance to go to school. She longed to read and write.
Ricardo looked up from his shoe-shine box to whisper wearily that what he always wanted in his 12 years was a father.
Maria’s aggressive retort was to be left alone from abuse and violence, and Nelson said that more than anything he wanted to play.

Their biggest wish? Not new cars, fancy houses, property, exotic vacations, the desire to be prosperous and famous. No, the biggest wishes of street children are for things many take for granted—home, good food, family, school, the chance to play and work, the freedom from fear and violence.

Really, they’re not asking much, are they?

As Christians, why is working with children, the smaller half of the world, so important?

First, God said of the Ten Commandments, “Impress them on your children” (Deut. 6:7); therefore, working with children is central to obedience to God.
Second, it is important because of the bulk of the world’s population is children.
Third, children play important roles in society, positively as well as negatively.

There are an estimated 40 million children on the streets of Latin America. The majority of them are becoming a plague to society; but by working with these children with compassionate care, and especially the Gospel, we can help society as a whole.

What can you do?

There is a need for hundreds of evangelical missionaries to work with needy street children worldwide. 200 could serve effectively just in Manila, Philippines, with street children and thousands more children in crisis!
You as an individual can have a large impact on one, two, or more street children throughout the world. For example, if you set aside just 25 cents per day to assist street children, this would total $30 in four months, which is all it costs to send a child to a 1-2 day camp in in Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines, or Africa.
Why not call an evangelical Christian organization today and volunteer to help the children on the streets of the world?

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash