Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 31

Nations on the New Earth, and the Importance of God’s Word for People of Every Nation and Tongue

Most of us are unaccustomed to thinking of nations, rulers, civilizations, and culture in Heaven, but Isaiah 60 is one of many passages that demonstrate that the New Earth will in fact be earthly and full of the Earth’s nations. God’s people will have a glorious future in which the nations and their leaders will participate in and benefit from a renewed and glorious Jerusalem. It won’t be only some nations but all of them: “All assemble and come to you” (verse 4, NIV).

This will be a time of unprecedented rejoicing: “Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy” (verse 5, NIV). On the renewed Earth, the nations will bring their greatest treasures into this glorified city: “The wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come” (verse 5, NIV).

Will we have ethnic and national identities? Yes. Is the risen Jesus Jewish? Certainly. Will we know He’s Jewish? Of course. Our resurrected DNA will be unflawed, but it will preserve our God-designed uniqueness, racial and otherwise. The elders sing to the Lamb: “You are worthy. . . . Your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have caused them to become a Kingdom of priests for our God. And they will reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:9-10, NLT). Who will serve as the New Earth’s kings and priests? Not people who were formerly of every tribe, language, people, and nation. Their distinctions aren’t obliterated—they continue into the present Heaven and then into the eternal Heaven.

Tribe refers to a person’s clan and family lineage. People refers to race. Nation refers to those who share a national identity and culture. Some scholars argue that the image of God has a corporate dimension. Richard Mouw writes in When the Kings Come Marching In: “There is no one human individual or group who can fully bear or manifest all that is involved in the image of God, so that there is a sense in which that image is collectively possessed. The image of God is, as it were, parceled out among the peoples of the Earth. By looking at different individuals and groups we get glimpses of different aspects of the full image of God.”

If this is true, and I believe it may be, then racism is not only an injustice toward people but also a rejection of God’s very nature. On the New Earth we’ll never celebrate sin, but we’ll celebrate diversity in the biblical sense. We’ll never try to keep people out. We’ll welcome them in, exercising hospitality to every traveler. Peace on Earth will be rooted in our common ruler, Christ the King, who alone is the source of peace: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased” (Luke 2:14, NASB).

On the New Earth, “the nations will walk by [Christ’s] light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into [the New Jerusalem]. On no day will its gates ever be shut. . . . The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it” (Revelation 21:24-26, NIV).

Tribes, peoples, and nations will all make their own particular contribution to the enrichment of life in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 5:9; 7:9; 21:24-26). Daniel prophesied that the Messiah would be “given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him” (Daniel 7:14).

Consider what it will be like to worship with Masai, Dinka, Hmong, Athabascan, Tibetan, Waodani, Icelandic, Macedonian, Moldovan, Moroccan, and Peruvian believers. In the sweeping breadth of his redemptive work, I believe that God may resurrect not only modern nations but also ancient ones, including, for instance, Babylon and Rome. Are ancient Assyrians, Sumerians, Phoenicians, Babylonians, and Greeks among God’s redeemed? We know they are, for no nation, past or present, is excluded from “every nation, tribe, people and language” (Revelation 7:9, NIV).

Hundreds of nations, thousands of people groups, untold millions of redeemed individuals will gather to worship Christ. And many national and cultural distinctions, untouched by sin, will continue to the glory of God.

As we anticipate that coming New Earth, could there be anything more important than getting God’s Word to people around the world, so that they may know Jesus and enjoy life with Him forever? Earlier this year I spoke to a gathering of illumiNations partners (Bible translation and resource partners working together to eradicate Bible poverty in this generation). I shared about the gift of generous giving, as well as Revelation 5:9 and the hope of God’s Word reaching people of every tribe and language and nation:

I encourage you to check out the illumiNations site, where you can learn more and donate towards translation efforts.

Photo: Unsplash

God Calls Us to Find Happiness in Him

In my novel Safely Home, I tell the story of two Harvard roommates reunited in China twenty years after graduation. One is American businessman Ben Fielding, an entrepreneur in international high-tech corporate partnerships. The other is Li Quan, a brilliant academic who, when Ben last saw him, was headed home to be a professor at a Chinese university.

When Ben reconnects with Li Quan on a business trip to China, he’s shocked to find his old friend living in poverty, working as a locksmith’s assistant, and involved with a house church often raided by the police. Shortly after the two become reacquainted, Quan is imprisoned. Yet even in prison, to Ben’s astonishment, Quan remains cheerful, trusting God and rejoicing in His goodness despite enduring cruel treatment.

The longer Ben stays in China and the more time he spends with Li Quan and his wife and son, the more he envies his old friend. Even with everything he has going for him and everything working against Quan, Ben realizes he wishes he could trade places with his former roommate. Why? Because Quan has what Ben doesn’t: love and happiness. Li Quan drew his happiness from God, who was with him even in prison. Ben Fielding attempted to find happiness in everything the world had to offer . . . and failed miserably.

Happiness is God’s command—and a pleasant calling— for His people.

C. S. Lewis said, “It is a Christian duty . . . for everyone to be as happy as he can.” Happiness is a privilege. However, since God repeatedly calls upon us to rejoice, delight, and be glad in Him, we have an obligation to actually do so.

This makes sense only if the God we love is happy, if the gospel message we embrace and proclaim is happy, and if Heaven is a happy place. It makes sense if we understand that people long to be happy and won’t turn to Jesus if they believe there’s no happiness in Him. Others will judge whether there’s happiness in Jesus by whether they see happiness in His followers. Hence, our happiness is, indeed, a Christian duty.

But what an incredibly wonderful responsibility it is . . . like being required to eat Mom’s apple pie! We’re accustomed to thinking of duty as drudgery, not happiness. But a person’s duty to love his or her spouse or to care for a son or daughter, and a soldier’s duty to defend his country—when done with the right heart and perspective—all bring satisfaction, contentment, and happiness.

Paul’s words in Philippians 4:4 are often translated “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.” They could also be translated, “Be happy in the Lord always, and again I say be happy.” Commenting on this verse, Spurgeon said, “It is intended that we should be happy. That is the meaning . . . that we should be cheerful.”

This passage commands us twice to be glad in God. A command carries with it the duty to obey, and when it’s repeated, that expectation is intensified. Fortunately, when God commands us to rejoice, His Holy Spirit empowers us to obey.

The fact that “rejoice” is followed by “always” and is repeated (“again I say rejoice”) makes it one of the most emphatic directives in Scripture. If our lives are not characterized by rejoicing, or if we’ve given up on happiness, we’re missing out on what God intends for us. We must go to Him and ask for His help and empowerment to find joy in Him.

Only if we truly want to experience the happiness-driven desires of our hearts will we be drawn to God by verses such as this: “Seek your happiness in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desire” (Psalm 37:4, GNT).

Judging by what we hear, we might expect Scripture to say, “Obey God, and say no to your heart’s desire.” Not so!

Jesus says, “Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24).

The Contemporary English Version and God’s Word Translation both render the final clause in John 16:24 this way: so that we will be “completely happy.”

Can our joy be full if we’re not happy? No.

The CEV, a translation from the original biblical languages (not a paraphrase), says:

Be happy and shout to God who makes us strong! (Psalm 81:1)

Be happy and excited! You will have a great reward in heaven. (Matthew 5:12)

The Bible clearly commands us to be happy.

You may not be accustomed to thinking that God commands us to be happy. But it’s a fact. And I’m betting it’s a command most of us would like to obey!

Some have an intuitive resistance to the notion that happiness is unbiblical, and so we should. A blogger says, “Happiness isn’t in the Bible? But what about all the commands to rejoice? What about laughter? Please tell me I’m not supposed to always be heavy-hearted, trudging along and begrudging obedience. I want to be a happy Christian!”

Scripture confirms that God wants us happy.

I’ve studied more than 2,700 Scripture passages where words such as joy, happiness, gladness, merriment, pleasure, celebration, cheer, laughter, delight, jubilation, feasting, exultation, and celebration are used. Throw in the words blessed and blessing, which often connote happiness, and the number increases.

God is clear that seeking happiness—or joy, gladness, delight, or pleasure—through sin is wrong and fruitless. But seeking happiness in Him is good and right.

Even Jeremiah, who’s called “the weeping prophet” since he was brokenhearted over the tragic suffering of God’s people, spoke prophecies of happiness. He saw the future—some of it in this world’s Jerusalem and much of it in the New Jerusalem to come—and in it he was given glimpses of God’s promised happiness:

Hear the word of the Lord. . . . [My people] will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; they will rejoice in the bounty of the Lord. . . . They will be like a well-watered garden, and they will sorrow no more. Then young women will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.  Jeremiah 31:10, 12-13, NIV

That’s a lot of joy for a weeping prophet!

Consider the Psalms, which reflect both great sorrow and great happiness:

I will be happy and rejoice in you! I will sing praises to you, O sovereign One! (Psalm 9:2, NET)

You will fill me with joy when I am with you. You will make me happy forever at your right hand. (Psalm 16:11, NIRV)

God, your love is so precious! . . . [People] eat the rich food in your house, and you let them drink from your river of pleasure. (Psalm 36:7-8, NCV)

I will go to your altar, O God; you are the source of my happiness. I will play my harp and sing praise to you, O God, my God. (Psalm 43:4, GNT)

As Jeremiah and Jesus wept, we, too, will sometimes weep—and so we should. But if we’re not experiencing happiness in God, then we’re not obeying God’s commands and we’re missing out on the abundant life Jesus came to give us (see John 10:10).

For more, see Randy's blogs on happiness, as well as his book Happiness.

Photo: Unsplash

God Takes Our Stinginess or Generosity Personally

To give lavishly is to be rich toward God; to hoard or spend on ourselves without regard for others is to be impoverished toward God. He accepts our gifts to the needy as if they were given directly to Him: “Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed” (Proverbs 19:17).

Any lifestyle that doesn’t align with God’s priorities and won’t hold up after death is not a good one—no matter how glamorous or appealing or sensible it seems at the time.

What Makes Someone a Fool?

In Christ’s story of the rich fool a man decides to hoard his fortune then “take life easy; eat, drink and be merry” (see Luke 12:13-21). The word translated “fool” literally means “unthinking one.” Mindless. Senseless. The rich fool was out of touch with eternal realities. Despite death’s inevitability, he failed to prepare for it—and failed to remember that he would give an account to God (Romans 14:12).

The rich fool stored up treasures for himself on Earth as if he were the center of the universe and as if this world was where he’d live forever. The man was a fool to imagine his silver, gold, crops, land, and barns were actually his. He was a fool to ignore God’s claims on him and his possessions:

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. (Psalm 24:1, NIV)

“The silver is mine and the gold is mine,” declares the Lord Almighty. (Haggai 2:8, NIV)

A wise person will regularly ask, “Lord, what do you want me to do with all you have put in my hands?” God’s Word tells us exactly how to prepare now for the afterlife. Though our culture and even some of our Christian friends may encourage us to do so, we don’t have to live like fools!

In the world’s eyes, the rich fool was a great success. Today he would be admired, and he might even be placed on a church or ministry board. But in the end, all his success counted for nothing.

Had the rich fool acknowledged God as his Creator and Redeemer, and as the ultimate owner of everything he possessed, he would have been rich toward God and stored up treasures in Heaven. Instead, he stored up for himself treasures on Earth and  was suddenly and eternally parted from them at death.

The most troubling aspect of this parable is that if we met this man, most of us would commend him for his foresight.

Notice he isn’t called the rich sinner, but the rich fool.

Materialists Are Self-Destructive Keepers

Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson observed this about those who fail to live generous lives:

By holding onto what we possess, we diminish its long-term value to us. In protecting only ourselves against future uncertainties and misfortunes, we become more anxious about uncertainties and vulnerable to future misfortunes. In short, by failing to care well for others, we actually do not properly take care of ourselves.

Christ-followers are self-enriching givers. Why? Because giving inevitably enlarges our hearts, lives, and capacity for joy.

Don’t misunderstand. The true good life doesn’t say no to wealth or pleasures. Rather, it says yes to greater and lasting wealth and pleasures that are found when we cheerfully part with God’s money and possessions for others’ good and God’s glory.

God graciously gives us money and possessions to meet real needs, both our own needs and the needs of others. He wants us to enjoy life, but He doesn’t entrust excess to us so we can indulge excessive wants. Money and possessions are not life-giving. They are utterly incapable of imparting to us the identity, purpose, significance, and security we crave.

I recently heard someone talk about the rampant unhappiness, disease, and disillusionment he and his friends experienced while, he said, they were “living the good life.” Though I put that phrase in quotation marks, this person didn’t use air quotes or note the irony that what he called the “good life” was in fact devastatingly bad. In his case, the “good life” included drugs and sexual immorality, led to the loss of his wife and children, and ultimately left him utterly empty.

Even when this so-called good life brought times of enjoyment, it was only “the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25). Such pleasures don’t even last in this world, and they certainly won’t outlive this life. The rich man in Christ’s story learned the hard way that his prosperity was short lived. It came to a dramatic and eternal end at his death, when God proclaimed, “You fool!”

Our Source of Life

To understand what constitutes the good life, we need to understand what life really is, where it comes from, and where it’s going.

God is the eternal source of life. He gave human beings “the breath of life” (Genesis 2:7), and He designed the first people to experience communion with Himself, the living God. In the presence of Eden’s tree of life (Genesis 2:9), He walked with Adam and Eve as they enjoyed a life-giving and delightful relationship (Genesis 3:8). God warned them, though, that if they ate of the fruit of one particular tree, this beautiful life would tragically end in death (Genesis 2:17).

They disobeyed, and as promised, sin brought death. While Adam and Eve’s physical death came gradually, the end of their life-giving spiritual relationship with God was immediate.

Ever since, people have lived in a state of spiritual death, with dying bodies, decaying relationships, and failed dreams. Death is the new normal. But that’s not the end of the story. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus’ sacrifice conquers sin and death on our behalf.

John’s Gospel tells us that God created the world through Jesus, bringing life and light to His creation (John 1:1-5). He raised Lazarus from the dead to display His power to make dead people alive again (John 11:42-44). Then He, too, rose from the grave, ensuring the ultimate death of sin and the defeat of death itself. His resurrection gives us life (Romans 4:25). His coming back to life is the basis of God’s moving us from death to life (1 Corinthians 15:17).

Jesus calls Himself life in these four passages:

the bread of life (John 6:48)

the light of life (John 8:12)

the resurrection and the life (John 11:25)

the way, and the truth, and the life (John 14:6)

There’s no way to overestimate the importance of life in John’s Gospel. John tells readers his Gospel was written “that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31, NIV).

Jesus is not just a signpost or a compass to life; He is life. He’s not merely a map leading to water or an X that marks the spot where treasure is buried. Rather, He is the wellspring. He is the treasure.

The living God says, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). He offers us true life and, with it, blessing. But He warns us against sin and the curse that always comes with it. Just as He did in the Garden, God offers us the quality of life that comes from obeying Him. God says, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live” (Proverbs 4:4).

The Good Life Is Available to Everyone Who Knows Jesus

After establishing a restaurant chain, two banks, a ranch, a farm, and real estate ventures, Jerry Caven says the real fun started when his career was coming to an end:

At age 59 I was headed into retirement, looking for a nice lake home. Then God changed our plans and led Muriel and me to put our money and time overseas. It’s been exciting. Before, we gave token amounts, now we put substantial money into missions. Our hearts are in another country now. We visit and minister there often.

The Cavens say, “After seeing the way poor Christians in other countries trust him, we’ve asked God if he wants us to give away all of ‘our’ money. He hasn’t led us to do that yet. But we’ve meant it when we asked.”

When we live the good life, people quickly notice. The Cavens added this story: “A non-Christian couple saw us giving, and saw how much it excited and changed us. Then they started giving too, even before knowing Christ. They saw the joy and they wanted in on it!”

The simplest statement made in Scripture about the life that Jesus brings His people is perhaps also the most profound: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

The giving life is not about obligation or guilt or drudgery or merely surviving. It’s about life in abundance.

Adapted from Randy’s book Giving Is the Good Life .

Photo: Pexels

All Glory to Our King: EPM Staff and Board Members Share Favorite Quotes

Note from Randy: For the last issue of our Eternal Perspectives magazine, we asked several of our staff and board members to share a Christian quote that they've found meaningful, and also why that quote has helped them in their walk with Christ. (Sign up to receive our magazine in the mail for free, or to receive a notification when the latest issue is posted online.)

Doreen Button, editor:

“‘Safe?’ said Mr. Beaver; ‘don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.’” —C. S. Lewis, writing about Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

God terrifies me sometimes. He’s just SO big, and SO powerful. And yet, when I rest between His two velveted paws, lean back into His comforting warmth, and feel His sweet breath on me, I know that even though He’s not safe in the sense of controllable—or even predictable—He is infinitely good. And there is no place I’d rather be.

Brenda Abelein, (now retired) ministry assistant:

My sweet friend Myrna Alexander is an author and was a missionary for many years in Russia. She shared this at a seminar on prayer she was teaching at Good Shepherd many years ago, and it has been so impactful for me. I have this written on a chalk sign that sits out where I see it every day:

“Pray. Never give up in the process, regardless of what you see or feel. God is always at work!”

When I’m worried or anxious about a situation, my first instinct is usually to try to DO something to fix it. But Myrna’s words remind me that PRAYER is always the best first step, and God is the only one who can fix broken things. He sees far beyond what I can see or feel in the moment and always knows what’s best.

Kathy Norquist, board member:

Do it immediately; do it with prayer;

Do it reliantly, casting all care;

Do it with reverence, tracing Christ’s hand

Who placed it before you with earnest command,

Stayed on His omnipotence, safe ‘neath His wing,

Leave all resultings. DO THE NEXT THING.

The quote “Do the next thing” (originally from an old English poem) was shared by Elisabeth Elliot and has served me well over the years. At times I’ve felt a bit rattled and out of sync with my day, wondering how to move forward. Then I remember this quote and simply take the next step! It has also helped me to discipline myself in keeping a daily routine and doing the important things first.

“Life is a process, not an event.”

I first heard this quote from Jackie Viss, who was such a blessing in my life as a spiritual mentor for many years, and it also was attributed to Elisabeth Elliot. It has helped me to have patience and trust in the Lord’s timing and wisdom in dealing with me through the various trials and issues in my life.

Christy Amadio, shipping room manager/ministry assistant:

“To rest is to acknowledge that we humans are limited by design. We are created for rest just as surely as we are created for labor. An inability or unwillingness to cease from our labors is a confession of unbelief, an admission that we view ourselves as creator and sustainer of our own universes… This wrong thinking renders us not free, but enslaved to our ambition and enslaving of those we employ to achieve it.” —Jen Wilkin, Ten Words to Live By

Recently I have been thinking about what it really means to keep the Sabbath. And I realize at the heart of it is acknowledging that the work God calls us to is HIS work. In Exodus, God gives Moses and the Israelites the work of building the tabernacle and all the accessories for worship. But the section ends in chapters 29 and 30 with Him explaining that the men He called to do the work He equipped with the skill and knowledge, by His Spirit, to do it. He had provided the material needed when they plundered Egypt in the exile. Then He calls them to not forsake the Sabbath—a reminder that in the midst of the work, its completion doesn’t rely on them! It is His work, and He provides all that is needed to complete it. “They sought God eagerly, and He was found by them. So Yahweh gave them rest on every side” (2 Chronicles 15:15b).

Amy Woodard, Randy’s personal assistant:

“Faith is…believing that in the midst of suffering and need that God will be enough, that He will enable me to make it through.” —Pamela Reeve, Faith Is…

I purchased this book in my early 20s and identified with so many of the encouraging thoughts and lessons on each page. I read this one at a particularly difficult time and felt like the Lord was telling me right then, “I’m with you, I’m enough for you, and I will help you get through this.” I memorized that sweet promise, and it has encouraged me so many times in the last 20+ years to trust God in the difficult moments and believe that by trusting and leaning into Him, He will be the One to enable me to make it through hard things in life.

Heidi McLaughlin, ministry assistant:

Think through me, thoughts of God,

And let my own thoughts be

Lost like the sand-pools on the shore

Of the eternal sea.

—Amy Carmichael

After growing up as an anxious child, I remember coming across this quote as a young fledgling adult recently out of the nest of my parents. Anxious thoughts ruled my mind. “Think through me, thoughts of God” resonated and settled in and gave me a phrase to add to my prayers. Think through me Jesus. Whatever is pure and lovely, honorable and true, think these thoughts through me. On my own, my thoughts are just anxiety after anxiety. This translated to my prayers later as I realized more and more that apart from Christ, I could do very little in my own strength. Love people through me, parent my children through me. Jesus, I can’t do it; do it through me. It helped me recognize myself as the vessel that Christ does His work through and that it was not by my own efforts but by the work of His Holy Spirit in me that I could obey and overcome a deeply rooted and habitually anxious thought life.

Robin Green, board member:

“Remember Whose you are and Whom you serve. Provoke yourself by recollection, and your affection for God will increase tenfold; your imagination will not be starved any longer, but will be quick and enthusiastic, and your hope will be inexpressibly bright.” —Oswald Chambers

I appreciate this quote because it reminds me of my identity. I belong to God, and I serve God. Jesus came as a servant, and He served! He went about doing good, helping people, meeting needs as the Father showed Him. Recollecting that I belong to Him and that I’m here to serve Him does increase my affection for Him. It ignites my imagination, and brightens my hope. What joy that brings!

Stephanie Anderson, communications and graphics specialist:

“God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.” —Charles Spurgeon

One of the greatest blessings of being part of this ministry has been the wonderful, godly people I have worked with over the years. Kathy Norquist, then Randy’s assistant and now one of our board members, shared a variation of this quote with me years ago, when I was facing challenging circumstances: “When you can’t trace His hand, trust His heart.” How delightful to realize this saying originated with the wise wordsmith and preacher Charles Spurgeon.

There have been many times in my life when I have not understood what God is doing. Some reasons for some circumstances have become clear over time, but others remain a complete mystery, and likely will until I’m face to face with Jesus. It’s not always easy, but there is great peace in knowing that even when understanding is elusive, I can trust my good and faithful Savior to do what is best for me and brings Him glory. This reminds me of another favorite quote:

“Occasionally, weep deeply over the life you hoped would be. Grieve the losses. Then wash your face. Trust God. And embrace the life you have.” —John Piper

Kress Drew, board member:

“…were I asked to focus the New Testament message in three words, my proposal would be adoption through propitiation, and I do not expect ever to meet a richer or more pregnant summary of the gospel than that.” —J. I. Packer, Knowing God

Packer’s three-word summary of the New Testament rightly instructs my thinking each time I repeat it in thought and in prayer, lifting my gaze from self and performance, to grace and the Godhead. For I am His adopted son only through the wrath-bearing sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. It is finished. He is risen. I am forgiven. All glory to our King!

For more quotes, see Randy's book  It's All About Jesus: A Treasury of Insights on Our Savior, Lord, and Friend .

Photo: Unsplash

The Joy of Imagining Heaven

When Marco Polo returned to Italy from the court of Kublai Khan, he described a world his audience had never seen—one that could not be understood without the eyes of imagination. Not that China was an imaginary realm, but it was very different from Italy. Yet as two locations on planet Earth inhabited by human beings, they had much in common. The reference points of Italy allowed a basis for understanding China, and the differences could be spelled out from there.

The writers of Scripture present Heaven in many ways, including as a garden, a city, and a kingdom. Because gardens, cities, and kingdoms are familiar to us, they afford us a bridge to understanding Heaven. Scripture makes it clear that Jesus is preparing a place for us, and God’s Kingdom will come to Earth, and a physical resurrection awaits us; there is no reason to spiritualize or allegorize all earthly descriptions of Heaven. Indeed, some of them may be simple, factual statements. Too often we’ve been taught that Heaven is a non-physical realm, so we fail to take seriously what Scripture tells us about Heaven as a familiar, physical, tangible place.

The Importance of Using Our Imagination

We cannot anticipate or desire what we cannot imagine. That’s why, I believe, God has given us glimpses of Heaven in the Bible—to fire up our imagination and kindle a desire for Heaven in our hearts. And that’s why Satan will always discourage our imagination—or misdirect it to ethereal notions that violate Scripture. As long as the resurrected universe remains either undesirable or unimaginable, he succeeds in sabotaging our love for Heaven.

If God didn’t want us to imagine what Heaven will be like, He wouldn’t have told us as much about it as He has.

Alister McGrath writes, “To speak of ‘imagining heaven’ does not imply or entail that heaven is a fictional notion, constructed by deliberately disregarding the harsher realities of the everyday world....We are able to inhabit the mental images we create, and thence anticipate the delight of finally entering the greater reality to which they correspond.”

I believe we should fuel our imagination with Scripture, allowing it to step through the doors that Scripture opens. As a young Christian, and even as a young pastor, I viewed Heaven in the same stereotypical ways I now reject. It was only through years of study, meditation, and research that I came to the view of Heaven I now embrace.

Picturing Heaven

You don’t need to look up at the clouds; you simply need to look around you and imagine what this world would be like without sin and death and suffering and corruption.

So look out a window. Take a walk. Talk with your friend. Use your God-given skills to paint or draw or build a shed or write a book. But imagine it—all of it—in its original condition. The happy dog with the wagging tail, not the snarling beast, beaten and starved. The flowers unwilted, the grass undying, the blue sky without pollution. People smiling and joyful, not angry, depressed, and empty. If you’re not in a particularly beautiful place, close your eyes and envision the most beautiful place you’ve ever been—complete with palm trees, raging rivers, jagged mountains, waterfalls, or snow drifts.

Think of friends or family members who loved Jesus and are with Him now. Picture them with you, walking together in this place. All of you have powerful bodies, stronger than those of an Olympic decathlete. You are laughing, playing, talking, and reminiscing. You reach up to a tree to pick an apple or orange. You take a bite. It’s so sweet that it’s startling. You’ve never tasted anything so good. Now you see someone coming toward you. It’s Jesus, with a big smile on His face. You fall to your knees in worship. He pulls you up and embraces you.

I have a biblical basis for all of these scenarios, and many more. After examining what Scripture says, I hope that next time you hear someone say, “We can’t begin to imagine what Heaven will be like,” you’ll be able to tell them, “I can.”

If “No Eye Has Seen,” How Can We Know?

After reading a few dozen books about Heaven, I came to instinctively cringe whenever I saw 1 Corinthians 2:9-10:

However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” —the things God has prepared for those who love him— these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

It’s a wonderful verse; it’s just that it’s nearly always misused. 1 Corinthians 2:9 isn’t talking about Heaven. In its context, it refers to the salvation-related hidden wisdom of God. Some would argue that God’s hidden wisdom broadly includes wisdom about Heaven, but even if the verse did refer to Heaven, it says the opposite of what it is typically cited to prove, because verse 10 indicates that God has revealed these hidden truths through His Spirit. This means that God has explained to us what Heaven is like. Not exhaustively, but accurately.

Other verses are likewise pulled out to derail discussions about Heaven. For example, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God” (Deuteronomy 29:29). Heaven is regarded as a “secret thing.” But the rest of the verse—again, rarely quoted—completes the thought: “But the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever.” And it’s critically important that we study and understand them. That is precisely why God revealed them to us!

Another “silencer” is 2 Corinthians 12:2-4. Paul says that fourteen years earlier he was “caught up to paradise,” where he “heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.” Some people use this verse to say we should not discuss what Heaven will be like. But all it says is that God didn’t permit Paul to talk about his visit to Heaven. In contrast, God commanded the apostle John to talk about his prolonged visit to Heaven, which he did in detail in the book of Revelation. Likewise, Isaiah and Ezekiel wrote about what they saw in Heaven.

If God didn’t intend for us to understand what He’s shared about Heaven, why would He bother telling us about it? (When was the last time you wrote someone a letter using words you didn’t expect them to comprehend?)

We’re Commanded to Think about Heaven

“Set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1). This is a direct command! And to make sure we don’t miss the importance of a Heaven-centered life, the next verse says, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

To long for Christ is to long for Heaven, for that is where we will be with Him. The Greek word translated “set your hearts on” is zeteo, which the Gospel writer used to describe how “the Son of Man came to seek . . . what was lost” (Luke 19:10, emphasis added). It’s also used for how a shepherd looks for his lost sheep (Matthew 18:12), a woman searches for a lost coin (Luke 15:8), and a merchant searches for a fine pearl (Matthew 13:45). It is a diligent, active, single-minded investigation. So we can understand Paul’s admonition in Colossians 3:1 as follows: “Diligently, actively, single-mindedly pursue the things above”—in a word, Heaven.

The verb zeteo is in the present tense, suggesting an ongoing process. “Keep seeking Heaven.” Don’t just have a conversation, read a book, or listen to a sermon and feel as if you’ve fulfilled the command. Since you’ll spend the next lifetime living in Heaven, why not spend this lifetime seeking Heaven, so you can eagerly anticipate and prepare for it?

Fueling Our Imagination

We must begin by reasoning from God’s revealed truth. But that reasoning will call upon us to use our Scripture-enhanced imagination. As a nonfiction writer and Bible teacher, I begin by seeing what Scripture actually says. As a novelist, I take that revelation and add to it the vital ingredient of imagination.

If you’re a Christian suffering with great pains and losses, Jesus says, “Be of good cheer” (John 16:33, NKJV). The new house is nearly ready for you. Moving day is coming. The dark winter is about to be magically transformed into spring. One day soon you will be home—for the first time. Until then, I encourage you to meditate on the Bible’s truths about Heaven. May your imagination soar and your heart rejoice.

Picturing Heaven , 40 Hope-filled devotions and coloring pages, and  The Promise of the New Earth  are both excellent resources for engaging your imagination about Heaven. This article is adapted from Randy’s book Heaven.

Photo: Unsplash

How Should the Church Respond to Gender Confusion?

Note from Randy: This is the seventh and final guest blog in our series on gender and sexuality. Though this article is written for pastors, it has practical applications for all believers. Author Jesse Johnson, who leads The Master’s Seminary Washington DC location, lays out a compelling case for why he believes the LGBQT movement is another religion, and explains how the church can respond with grace and truth.

Early in the summer, a friend sent me this photo of the word PRIDE prominently displayed outside a church. Wow, this is scary. Pride is the root of all sins, but historically most people have been ashamed of their sins, not proud of them. And that gives the hope of repentance and turning to Christ for forgiveness. But to commit or endorse sin (including greed, gossip, gluttony, and self-righteousness, as well as sexual sins) and then publicly declare pride in it, is not only sad, but frightening, in light of the prospect of God’s judgment. It is picking a fight with Almighty God, who has never lost a fight, and never will. We don’t need a pride month. We need a humility month in which we align ourselves as with God, not against Him. "…be clothed with humility, for 'God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.' Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time" (1 Peter 5:5-6).

Every false worldview is a death-giving alternative to the life-giving gospel of God’s kingdom. God’s charge to the Apostle Paul was to go to the Gentiles, “to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me’” (Acts 26:18). May we pray for God to do the same in the lives of so many today who desperately need to turn from darkness to light, from hopelessness to the eternal hope Jesus offers.

Pastoral Response to Gender Confusion: Caring for Those Caught in the LGBTQ Religion

By Jesse Johnson

As US embassies around the world wave the Pride flag, there is no denying that LGBTQ has become the American culture’s center of gravity. Twenty years ago, the main American religion was prosperity. Now it is the LGBTQ movement. 

How do pastors respond to the LGBTQ worldview? Or, more particularly, how do pastors shepherd their people to think rightly about the issues this movement raises? Here are five practical ways pastors can help their congregations navigate the LGBTQ culture:

1. Treat It Like Another Religion

Twenty years ago, the LGBTQ movement was about individual autonomy. They trumpeted individual rights (such as visiting a partner in the hospital, sharing insurance plans, etc.). I fear that too many Christians—especially those who have been in ministry for a few decades—still perceive the LGBTQ world as being concerned with those issues. It isn’t. 

Today the LGBTQ movement has grown from concerns over individual rights to a full-on attack on Christianity. It is a rival religion. It has its own god (self-identity), its own language (that of critical theory and intersectionality), and its own priests (schoolteachers and university professors). There is a conversion rite (coming out), confirmation, and the taking on of a new identity. There is even penance for previous sins. The only thing missing is forgiveness. 

Pastor, ask yourself: How do I preach about other religions? Whatever your answer is, apply it to this issue.

Look, we make doctrinal distinctions in our preaching all the time. We often separate Catholicism from Christianity by highlighting justification by faith. We challenge the Mormons’ and Jehovah’s Witnesses' views of Christ. We contrast the Trinity with Islam. These are likely normal practices in our preaching. 

The truth is, LGBTQ is more prominent in our culture and worldview than those other religions. It occupies more cultural space.  But the LGBTQ religion is less about justification. Thus, contrasting faith and works doesn’t adequately address this movement.

I encourage pastors in their preaching to draw attention to texts that highlight the nature of mankind and describe who we are and why we are here. Then contrast today’s identity culture with what the Bible says about identity. 

Of course, part of this new religion is sexual ethics. Pastors should be very clear about what the Bible says about sexual ethics, homosexuality, and gender. But the heart issue the LGBTQ worldview presents is that of identity—the question it raises is who makes man? Draw attention to that. 

2. Be Familiar with the Worldview This Religion Presents

Pastors can sometimes shy away from understanding the LGBTQ world because of how dark and sinful it is. Distance from its practices is a good and holy desire. 

But ignorance of the dominant worldview in our culture is not sustainable. A good place to go is Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. Trueman’s book sheds light on the worldview behind the LGBTQ movement, helpfully showing its history and tracing how it came to occupy center stage in our world.

And here a point of contrast is in order. I watched a recent Christian evangelistic video from a ministry I love and saw how it critiqued the LGBTQ worldview. It treated it like it was a form of relativism or post-modernism. It went after it for its claim that “what is true for you is true for you, and what is true for me is true for me.” In fairness, that was the dominant approach in non-Christian culture… 20 years ago! The transgender movement used to say, “I’m a boy to me, so you have to respect my reality.” Of course, that is logically absurd, and relativism is not sustainable as a worldview. 

Which is why it is no longer the dominant worldview in the LGBTQ movement. They’ve moved beyond claiming, “2+2=5 for me” and are now in a place where they declare, “Math is evil, but not as evil as Christianity.” They assert their worldview as morally superior and our worldview as morally evil. That is the opposite of relativism. 

3. Understand That They Are after the Students

The target audience of the LGBTQ movement is the kids in our congregation. The proponents of this religion are not operating in a “live and let live” environment but are seeking to expand their territory into every square inch of culture, particularly the schools. 

It is the norm for public elementary schools to celebrate Pride Month. Students are taught in elementary schools to question gender in general, and their gender in particular. In high school, the reach of the LGBTQ movement is dominant. Five years ago, it would have been unusual for a girls’ sports team to encounter a boy presenting himself as a girl. Now that is typical.  And by the time they get to college, students are often LGBTQ themselves, “LGBTQ allies,” or evil. 

Now, for pastors, many parents in your congregation are unaware of this. They are operating like it’s still 2012. They just don’t understand the pressure their kids are under at home, at the pool, or at soccer. But if the kids are in church, it helps to have clear age-appropriate teaching on this from the pulpit and from youth pastors. Lay down the markers for your students. Help them understand that they are pawns in somebody else’s war. Give them a grid for good and evil because they are not going to get it at school. 

4. Defend Genesis 5:1–2

Every false religion is an attack on God and His word. The LGBTQ religion is no different. Some religions are hostile to Jesus (Judaism), some to the cross (Islam), and some to justification by faith (Catholicism). Other worldviews reject creation (evolution) or revelation (liberalism).

At the heart of the LGBTQ religion is a rejection of Genesis 5:1–2. That text declares at least two truths that are anathema to their worldview: that God created mankind, and that he made them male and female. Each of those is radically incompatible with the LGBTQ vision for the world. 

In fact, I’d argue that these are the main truths that are behind specifically the transgender movement. That movement attacks the idea that God determines gender.

Obviously, the transgender movement is logically defunct. They reject gender as binary, but then a person claims they feel like they have the wrong body to match their gender. But logical integrity is not their goal: their goal is to erase the fingerprints of God on their life. 

Pastors need to defend the truths of Genesis 5:1–2. Return to them, preach them, and teach them. I’m not saying every sermon needs gender distinctions in it. If a pastor has a hobby horse they ride all the time, the horse gets tired and people get bored. I’ve encountered pastors who say things like, “Now, I never talk about politics from the pulpit, but…” and proceed to talk about politics every week. I’m not suggesting that with gender. But I do think strategic sermons, key illustrations, and practical applications on the LGTBQ worldview will help equip your congregation to understand what’s at stake. It’s no longer about whether or not gay people can have their partner visit them in the hospital. It is about defending God’s word. 

5. Be Clear, Bold, and Persuasive

There is a tendency on this issue to choose our words so carefully that we end up being confusing. We can make so many caveats to simple pastoral questions that people are left honestly confused by what we mean. “Should I call a transgender person by their preferred pronouns?” can’t be answered with a mealy-mouthed answer. This issue demands clarity. 

But it also needs persuasion. It is true that no matter how small your congregation is, if you have college or high school students you are going to have someone questioning their beliefs on this issue. Meet them where they are at. Invite them to compare the two religions. The God of the Bible loves them, but the god of gender identity hates them. The God of the Bible made their body, while the god of gender wants to cut up their body. The God of the Bible sacrificed himself for their sins, but the god of gender wants them to sacrifice themselves for “gender.” The God of the Bible offers a path to happiness and flourishing, while the god of gender offers them a life of self-loathing and pain. Most importantly, the God of the Bible wants to forgive them, whereas the god of gender wants to harm them. 

That’s the kind of truth that can save a person from the clutches of false religion. 

This article originally appeared on The Master’s Seminary blog and is used with permission.

Photo: Unsplash

How to Talk with Our Children and Grandchildren About Transgender Ideology

Note from Randy: I appreciate this guest article, sixth in our series on gender confusion, written by Josh Glaser (executive director of Regeneration, a ministry that helps men, women, and families learn and live God’s design for sexuality) and Paula Rinehart (a therapist in Raleigh, North Carolina) for The Gospel Coalition. They provide some excellent suggestions about how parents (and grandparents) can talk to the children in their lives about transgender and identity issues.

These are tough issues, and they’re not going away. God’s people need all the help we can get. The more we speak to these issues with grace and truth, not just one or the other, the better we represent Jesus and the gospel. We should never heap guilt on someone experiencing gender confusion; instead, we should listen and care lovingly and genuinely for them, and recognize we too are confused about aspects of our life and identity. All of us need to look to the God who created us as He did for a glorious reason.

Our kids need to see that the truth is not in what the world serves up to us about sex and gender. Rather, the truth is in Jesus, as revealed in God’s Word.

(For further reading for parents, I also recommend Mama Bear Apologetics Guide to Sexuality: Empowering Your Kids to Understand and Live Out God’s Design by Hillary Morgan Ferrer and Amy Davison, both strong believers and good writers.)

How to Talk with Your Kids About Transgender Ideology

By Josh Glaser and Paula Rinehart

Last spring,  of de-transitioning made waves. Helena detailed what lured her into gender transition—and how she got out. She had felt insecure about her body and was struggling with an eating disorder. She became estranged from friends and family. A few clicks on Google opened her up to an online community ready to welcome and accept her. Eventually, she recognized that questioning her gender identity elevated her online social status even more. She changed how she dressed and started binding her chest, and when she turned 18, she began taking high doses of testosterone.

Through all this, the refrain she heard from social workers, psychologists, and friends was that gender transition would eventually make her depression disappear. Helena , however, that the real result was “an even wider disconnect from understanding the conditions that led me to feel such sadness, fear, and grief.”

As parents, how many of our kids could voice the same insecurities and struggles Helena had? Now imagine that when your child felt these things, someone promised her that gender transition would let her trade awkward loneliness for belonging? Can you feel the pull? Our kids are particularly vulnerable at this stage in life, at this time in history. What can we do?

Questions of gender and sexuality are ubiquitous in the social universe of today’s teens. Whether through social media, classroom instruction, or friends’ stories, it’s a firehose of the same fallacy: The core of your identity is your gender identity. You create you.

The question for Christian parents is not whether but how to talk about transgender ideology with our kids. We want to suggest three specific ways parents can counter bad ideas that might be shaping their children’s understanding of gender.

1. Normalize growing-up struggles.

Current gender ideology worms its way into our children’s psyches by amplifying and exploiting the struggles most kids experience growing up (and mercifully, tend to forget).

As parents, we can help our kids by taking seriously any signs of anxiety, depression, loneliness, or self-harm. This generation is experiencing mental health issues at alarming rates, and they need our attention, time, and intervention—but not the false promise that all their pain will disappear if they can just pass as the other sex.

Our kids also need reassurance that their experiences of insecurity, body discomfort, and social awkwardness during adolescence are normal for most kids everywhere. Parents should often say, “You’re not the only one. I remember feeling similarly. This is how life looks at 15. It will get better, I promise.”

Share vulnerable stories with your kids about when your friends laughed at you, or your parents argued incessantly, or the boy you kind of liked preferred your best friend, or how you looked in the mirror and wished you saw someone different.

We tend to lose hope if we think a problem will never change. Children and adolescents have notoriously short horizons. Kids need help to see that God makes a new path out of what seems like a dead end.

Finally, our kids need to know that if they’re feeling at odds with their gender (gender dysphoria), this resolves by itself over time for the vast majority of people. The discomfort fades. We grow into a bodily reality of feeling at home as the woman or man we are. Resorting to puberty blockers is like shooting your foot off because it’s hard to train for a race.

2. Celebrate gender.

Gender ideology (remaking the human body to comply with what one feels) is empty of real substance. It’s built on stilts. The detachment of “gender” from biology has led to a place where anyone can “be” a man or a woman simply by asserting they are. Is that a desirable world?

As Christian parents, we have a much more satisfying story on gender. Our faith brings body and soul together in an integrated life. Where “gender identity” splits a “person” from his or her body, Christianity insists your body has meaning and purpose as an integral part of how you bear God’s image (Gen. 1:27). Humanity’s sexed (male or female) biology is intentionally designed to reveal the goodness of God. We should underline this reality over and over with our kids.

There’s much more to be said here, but these are breadcrumbs on the trail leading us to a glorious mystery: Jesus is our Bridegroom and we are the Bride he loves. God designed our bodies to mean something not only biologically but also theologically. Rightly understood, our maleness and femaleness whisper to us of the gospel.

From this backdrop, in age-appropriate ways, we can weave God’s design of gender into ordinary conversation. We might ask questions like the following:

How do your mom and dad look and sound different to you? How do they feel different to you?
What do you love about being a boy or being a girl?
What unique things do you tend to notice about females and males, and how do their differences complement one another?
What’s one thing males and females can do together that a group of males or a group of females cannot do without the other sex?

These simple conversations can open doors to celebrate gender differences, with no implication of greater or lesser value. Other times, they provide the chance to refute the stereotypes gender-change activists use to suggest a child is in the wrong body. If a girl loves to climb trees and a boy loves to dance, it doesn’t mean the girl should become a boy or vice versa. It simply means you’re a girl who climbs trees, and you’re a boy who loves to dance. As Nancy Pearcey suggests, reject the stereotypes, not your body.

As your children approach adolescence, talk to them about romantic desire, marriage and sex, and procreation as a natural telos of sex. If you don’t, Google, TikTok, teachers, and friends will take the leading roles in shaping your child’s perceptions. Here are a few among many possibilities for conversation starters:

What kinds of things does a girl appreciate in a guy because he’s different from her? What draws a guy to a girl because she brings something unlike him?
When a man and woman marry, they pledge their lives to each other. What does this say to you about God’s covenant love for us? (See Isa. 62:5; Hos. 2:19, 20; Rev. 19:7.) How is this different from the way many approach love relationships today?
Birth control and other contraceptive technologies have created a modern culture where sex is distanced from—or even set in opposition to—a beautiful outcome for which God designed sex: having babies. Today’s culture often sees pregnancy after sex as an unwanted surprise or “problem.” Isn’t this odd? How does the biblical call to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28) illuminate the meaning of why God created “male and female” (Gen. 1:27)?

Getting our kids (and perhaps ourselves) to think deeply about these things is important because today’s gender ideology offers an alternative gospel. Our kids feel the longing felt by everyone since the fall—the longing for resurrection and connection. Believe and receive a new name, a new identity, a new body, a new and loving community. Transgender ideology offers this “good news” to our kids, but it cannot deliver.

3. Connect kindness and truth.

Proverbs 3:3 pairs kindness with truth in this way: “Do not let kindness and truth leave you” (NASB). It’s a relevant pairing today, in part because Gen Z doesn’t hear truth well unless the truth is framed in kindness. In their conversations with friends, compassion generally means unconditional affirmation: “You do you.” Empathy is the prevailing virtue. As the popular yard sign declares, “Kindness is everything.”

As a father of teenagers, I (Josh) missed this for a long time. In conversations with my kids, I tried to frame truth first and then season it with compassion. But a youth pastor friend helped me see that for this generation, truth doesn’t ring true if it doesn’t sound kind. Now, I’m learning to start with kindness, followed by how God’s truth leads to greater kindness. Some examples include the following:

Studies show most kids with gender dysphoria outgrow it, but today’s culture pushes kids to treat being trans as permanent. Isn’t it cruel to force kids into a box they aren’t allowed to escape?
I’m sorry to hear about your classmate’s depression. That’s so hard. He needs people who will take time to uncover the deeper roots of his struggles because gender transition usually doesn’t improve those symptoms.
How can we help people who are dissatisfied with their gender in ways that will provide lasting benefits and won’t permanently damage their bodies?
How do you think it feels for a female swimmer who has trained her whole life and risen to the highest levels of competition to have to compete against a biological male who identifies as a woman yet has a male physique?

I try to share one clear thought and then quietly step back (teenagers need time to mull things over). Then later I look for another opening to pick up the conversation or ask more questions.

Know Who Else Has Their Ear

While we Christian parents should seek opportunities to initiate conversations about gender with our kids, we also need to know who else has their ear. Helena Kirschner is just one of a growing number who have exposed how enticing and aggressive pro-trans influencers are online, especially for teenagers.

In an earlier interview with Rod Dreher, Kirschner makes the point that parents ask lots of questions when a child wants to go to a sleepover. Where is it? Who will be there? But a child can be sitting in the same room with a parent, chatting online with a stranger suggesting puberty blockers and cross sex hormones, and the parent is completely unaware. Helena begs the question, do you know where your children are?

Perhaps that’s the real point of stepping into regular conversation around gender with your children. It’s vital to know where their minds are, what cracks in their armor make them vulnerable to gender ideology. But more positively, you want to give your kids a vision for becoming someone whose deepest identity is rooted in the strong and beautiful reality of being created in the image of God, male or female.

The article originally appeared on the Gospel Coalition , and is used with permission.

Photo: Unsplash

The Social Contagion Targeting Girls, and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Children

Note from Randy: This fifth article in our series on gender confusion is an important and sobering book review written by Al Stewart (National Director of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches in Australia). He does a good job of summarizing the key points from Irreversible Damage: Teenage Girls and the Transgender Craze by Abigail Shrier. Although her book isn’t presented from a Christian worldview, it helps us understand the social contagion of transgenderism that is hurting many young people around the world.

These statistics and facts are hard to read. But unless we understand the magnitude of the issues our children and grandchildren face, we can’t respond with wisdom and counteract the lies with God’s truth. Paul says, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). As I’ve often said about abortion—and I believe is also true of transgenderism—we are not dealing here with “one more social issue,” but a unique and focused evil in which Satan has deeply vested interests. This is another example of how the evil one has a special hatred of children, and in this case, targets them with gender confusion. He wants to kill them, and he lies to facilitate and cover his attempts to destroy them.

Consider watching these stories, produced by Independent Women’s Forum, of women who have detransitioned. All of them are heartbreaking in their own way, and some are hard to watch as they do show the results of life-altering surgeries. Watch them at your own discretion, but I share them because it is better that someone should be repulsed by evil than indifferent to or drawn to it.

Here is Daisy Strongin’s story:

Only the light of God’s truth can set us free (John 8:32). May we speak the truth in love to a lost and increasingly confused, disoriented, and deceived generation. (Remember, to shine with His light, we must first allow Him daily to shine His light upon us.)

Review: Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier

By Al Stewart

A decade ago, the number of people in the USA identifying as transgender was approx. 1 in 10,000, now 2% of high school students, identify as transgender. (See page 32)

This is a troubling book about an epidemic damaging the lives of many, many teenage girls. While the book is particularly focused on the United States, this contagion, spread by the internet, is beginning to affect many westernized societies.

Abigail Shrier is a journalist who writes for the Wall Street Journal. She paints a grim picture: 

of depressed and anxious adolescent girls at vulnerable stages in their life; 


of influencers who use the internet to spread what is effectively a cult; 
of damaging responses to mental health problems; 
of weak and woke counsellors who are not the gatekeepers they should be; 
of educators who have allowed activists ongoing access to school children; 
of morally weak or incompetent, or simply greedy surgeons making money from this epidemic regardless of the human cost; and 
of desperate parents looking for help to try and work out how to rescue their adolescent girls from this self-destructive behaviour.

It’s a book so thoroughly researched and so carefully explaining the problem and the damage done, that it’s hard to believe the book has been opposed, cancelled, or made unavailable through various retailers even before it was published. Even the suggestion of publishing this book was met with howls of transphobia and warnings that it would promote suicide among trans people. It is interesting to notice that Shrier is not at all anti-trans for those who are of age and make their adult decisions. Her point is that this is a contagion among adolescent girls and the long-term and “irreversible damage” is significant.

I’ll walk you through some of the material, but it’s well worth reading this book yourself—particularly if you’re involved in any kind of pastoral work or have a family with teenage girls.

The New Social Contagion 

Shrier names it “rapid onset gender dysphoria,”—the phenomenon where girls begin to identify as “trans” in friendship groups or clusters, even though there was no sign of gender dysphoria earlier in their lives.

Shrier explains how “gender dysphoria,” formerly known as “gender identity disorder,” is characterised by severe persistent discomfort in one’s biological sex. It typically begins in early childhood—ages two to four—though it may become more severe in adolescence. But in most cases—nearly 70%—childhood gender dysphoria resolves, i.e. the person grows out of it.

Historically, gender dysphoria afflicted a tiny sliver of the population (roughly 0.01%) and almost exclusively boys. Before 2012, in fact, there was no scientific literature on girls aged 11 to 21 ever having developed gender dysphoria at all. This means that prior to 2012, the gender dysphoria rates were approximately 1 in 10,000 people. And almost never in girls (page xxvii).

And yet …

Between 2016 and 2017, a number of gender surgeries for natal females in the U.S. quadrupled with biological women suddenly accounting for, as we have seen, 70% of all gender surgeries. In 2018, the UK reported 4400% rise over the previous decade in teenage girls seeking gender treatment. In Canada, Sweden, Finland, and the UK, clinicians and gender therapists began reporting a sudden and dramatic shift in the demographics of those presenting with gender dysphoria from predominantly school-aged boys to predominantly adolescent girls. (Page 26)

Groups of friends together are now presenting as trans and wanting to transition to live as trans men. Shrier interviews Dr Lisa Littman, whose research has found that the contagion spreads more like anorexia nervosa:

Like the new crop of transgender teens, anorexic girls suffered from an obsessive focus on the perceived flaws of their bodies and valorized the willingness to self-harm. (Page 33)

Under the Influence

Shrier then explains how female-to-male influencers with huge followings (especially on YouTube) have been presenting gender transition as a liberating answer to whatever mental problems or anxieties a particular adolescent female has. If you’re feeling depressed, anxious, sad, unhappy with your body, then you must be trans. Shrier lists some of the working hypotheses that are drip-fed into the heads of adolescent females by these influencers:

If you think you might be trans, you are.
You should try it out—a binder for the breasts is the way to start.
Testosterone is amazing. It will solve all your problems.
If your parents loved you, they would support your trans identity.
If you’re not supported in your trans identity, you’ll probably kill yourself (a threat that is also used as a “gun to the head” to pull parents into line).
Deceiving parents and doctors is justified if it helps in transition.
You don’t have to identify as the opposite sex to be trans.

Much of this messaging has happened with the support of schools and teachers. One of the most troubling chapters describes how the gatekeepers of education have allowed gender activists access to schools—and even kindergartens—to promote radical gender ideology under the pretext of resisting bullying.

Meanwhile, many mental health experts have abdicated their responsibilities. They simply affirm their patients’ self-diagnoses; rarely attempt to talk them out of it or encourage them to wait. Shrier reports that puberty blockers and male hormones can be obtained even after the first visit to a counsellor with “informed consent.” Without any solid evidence (as Shrier shows), counsellors operate on the assumption that:

Adolescents know who they are.
Social transition and affirmation is a no-lose proposition.
If you don’t affirm, your child may kill herself.
Gender identity is immutable. You can’t convert a child out of trans identity.

Dissident Voices

Nevertheless, there are some psychologists, psychiatrists, and medical practitioners who are speaking out against this contagion and pointing out that it is actually a mental disorder. Shrier quotes Dr Michael Bailey, who has arrived at the conclusion that gender dysphoria is a hysteria much like multiple personalities disorder, another historical example of disturbed young women convincing themselves they possess an ailment and then manifesting the symptoms. (Page 133-134)

But in this case, as Shrier explains, there are serious physical consequences for those on the transitioning pathway. Puberty blockers, which are promoted as not having a long-term effect, prevent those taking them from experiencing the effects of puberty experienced by their peers—potentially exacerbating the feeling of alienation from their female bodies.

Testosterone, which almost invariably follows blockers, brings short-term euphoria. But the long-term effects on girls’ bodies, hair growth, mood, voice, vaginal atrophy, etc., are irreversible.

Top surgery, the removal of breasts, apart from the obvious consequences, can lead to scarring and other complications.

Phalloplasty—the surgical construction of something that approximates a penis—involves complex grafting and can leave the patient with terrible long-term complications. Only 3% of “trans-men” go to this stage, and after getting the horrific details of the operation, one understands why.

Regret

Shrier interviews a number of “detransitioners” who wish to “undo” the change. Theirs is not a happy story. Aside from the irreversible physical effects, those who detransition have trouble being heard—it’s not politically correct to give detransitioners a voice.

But Shrier does give encouragement to those who wish to come back or detransition that there is life beyond that.

The Way Back

Chapter 11, the most valuable chapter in Shrier’s book, gives some very clear advice to parents on how to take strong action and not to be undermined or bullied by others when your adolescent girl starts down this pathway. Her seven principles for parents are worth looking at:

Don’t get your kid a smartphone. She lists the damage that smartphones do. If we really had our eyes open to it, we would not put this tool in the hands of our children or teenagers.
Don’t relinquish your authority as a parent. Ride out the emotional rollercoaster etc., with your adolescent girl.
Don’t support gender ideology in your child’s education. One of the ironies is that mental illness support groups can help actually spread the contagion, as per anorexia or bulimia. The same can be with the trans-contagion.
Reintroduce privacy into your home. Don’t put all of family life on social media. Be thoughtful about allowing privacy within your home.
Consider big steps to separate your daughter from harm. Shrier gives the example of the family who actually moved their daughter to a horse farm for a year where there was no internet. This was very successful. Other families travelled with their daughter or moved house, or moved to another neighbourhood to escape peer groups that were toxic. So, there may need to be big decisions made to protect your daughter.
Stop pathologizing girlhood. You need to actually speak positively and understand the positive differences between girls and boys.
Don’t be afraid to admit that it’s wonderful to be a girl. This is a great chapter about the wonders of being female. She finishes with an encouragement for parents, and particularly for those who may be in the process of transitioning and alienated from their parents, to reach out to their parents and be in touch.

This book is very carefully researched and written essentially as a support to parents who are struggling with their girls caught up in this contagion. It lists the terrible damage done to those who proceed down this path but also encourages parents to stay strong and take definite action.

As she is not seeking to present a Christian worldview perspective, Schrier doesn’t offer a consistent understanding of gender as rooted in our creation as male and female in the image of God. However, the book does supply useful statistics and useful responses from psychologists, psychiatrists, and doctors who have had the courage to refuse this progressive contagion.

The article originally appeared on The Gospel Coalition Australian Edition , and is used with permission of the author.

Photo: Unsplash

Embracing Oneself by Rejecting One’s Body Isn’t Possible

Today’s blog is the fourth article in our series on gender and sexuality. The collection of quotations I’m sharing today is from The Genesis of Gender by Dr. Abigail Favale, which makes some very significant observations. Some of these quotes are quite deep, but well worth thinking about, so I encourage you to stick with this whole blog. As you read each of them, consider the truths stated as well as the implications of those truths. (Thanks to my son-in-law Dan Stump for putting these together.)

Genesis 2 emphasizes another vital principle: the body reveals the person. Our bodies are the visible reality through which we manifest our hidden, inner life. Each person’s existence is entirely unrepeatable, and our unique personhood can only be made known to others through the frame of our embodiment. This sacramentality is displayed in the man’s immediate recognition of the woman. They have not yet spoken; she has not verbally introduced herself. Her body speaks the truth of her identity, and this truth is immediately recognized by the man, who is struck with joy and wonder at the revelation of a person with whom he can—at last!—have true communion. (p. 40)

In the parade of animals, the man’s act of naming does not impose meaning but recognizes meaning that objectively exists. God creates the animal and presents it to the man, who discerns its distinct nature and bestows a name that proclaims that nature…Reality, then, exists prior to our naming it, and our language is true and meaningful when it corresponds to what exists. (p. 42-43)

Now, unmoored from the body altogether, gender is defined by the very cultural stereotypes that feminism sought to undo. In other words, when a girl recognizes that she does not fit the stereotypes of girlhood, she is now invited to question her sex rather than the stereotype. (p. 158)

Shedding the visible markers of femaleness may feel as empowering for the transgender teen as it does for the anorexic, but these forms of protest are ultimately violent and self-destructive. The better rebellion, and the more difficult one, is learning to see one's beauty and dignity as a woman amidst a culture that denies it. (p. 174)

Children who are given puberty blockers and then placed on cross-sex hormones never go through puberty. That natural process is completely halted. Not only does this lead to permanent sterility, it also arrests critical brain and bone development that occurs during puberty. The long-term ramifications of this artificial arrest are not yet known. (p. 186)

Moreover, contrary to activist rhetoric, halting puberty does not just push pause, creating more time for discernment about transition. Nearly 100% of children put on puberty blockers proceed to take cross-sex hormones, with irreversible side effects. (p. 187)

According to Laura Reynolds, a former trans-identified woman, the gender paradigm has “rebranded self-harm as self-care.” (p. 193-194)

The affirmation model, while often motivated by good will, is ultimately unethical…The Goodness, wholeness, and givenness of the body is discarded…This approach inverts the very definition of health, by pursuing a “treatment” that makes a healthy body ill…In this model, the body is the scapegoat, blamed as the sole source of one’s pain and sacrificed on the altar of self-will. (p. 197-198)

The affirmation model cannot offer true self-acceptance, unless the body is no longer considered part of the self. Choosing a lifetime of medicalization in order to maintain an illusion of cross-sex identity is not “being who you really are.” The affirmation model is self-denial masquerading as self-acceptance. Because our bodies are ourselves, what is being “affirmed”, ultimately, is the patient’s self-hatred. (p. 200)

Using sex-based pronouns, rather than gender-based pronouns, is undoubtedly disruptive and likely offensive to most trans-identified people. Such a move could close the door to a relationship with that person from the outset. Yet, if I use pronouns that conflict with sex, I am assenting to an untruth. More than assenting, in fact; through my own words I am actively participating in a lie. (p. 206)

It is not possible to embrace oneself by rejecting one’s body. (p. 231)

The gender paradigm is diabolic, in the literal sense. I realize this is a provocative statement, but I also believe that it is true. It is a framework that deceives people, whispers the enthralling lie that we can be our own gods, our own makers, that the body has no intrinsic meaning or dignity, that we can escape our facticity and find refuge in a tailor-made self. In this framework, sex, a reality that encompasses the whole person, is fragmented into disparate features. Woman is cut off from femaleness, a disembodied category that anyone can appropriate. This paradigm takes the human desire for conversion, rebirth, resurrection and bends that desire toward a cheap counterfeit. Interior agony and emptiness are projected onto a healthy body, which then becomes an easy scapegoat, a concrete “problem” that can be “solved.” The problem is not the body. The problem is the very real and painful experience of disintegration, a problem that can have any variety of sources, depending on each person’s circumstances. This problem of disintegration can’t be solved by a philosophy that is ultimately nihilistic, that denies the possibility of meaning beyond the self, and in this way denies the possibility of wholeness. (p. 235)

(For more on Dr. Favale’s book, see this review: Male and Female He Made Them.)

Dr. Favale mentions the issue of preferred pronouns, which some believers are being pressured to use in their jobs and ministries.

Author and preacher Shane Pruitt offers these points:

Often, I’m asked by Christian leaders about the use of “preferred pronouns.” Here are 4 reasons why I don’t use or ask for “preferred pronouns.”

1) It’s tied to an obvious cultural agenda. This was never a thing, until very recently. We don’t typically use third person pronouns when talking to someone.

2) As a Christian leader, how am I going to be a steward of the truth, while at the exact same time affirming a lie?

3) When will the shift take place? Some people will say we do it for the “spiritually lost.” However, what if they do become a believer? At what point in the discipleship process will you have to tell someone that you actually never believed in their “preferred pronoun” to begin with? Isn’t it better to lovingly stick to the truth from the beginning, so it doesn’t seem like a “bait and switch” down the road?

4) Others in the ministry are watching. If I compromise there, then I have to also ask, “Am I discipling people to believe the whole movement is okay?”

Be kind. Be loving. Don’t look to argue. We can be welcoming without being affirming. Look to win people with Spirit and Truth, because we can’t win them with confusion and compromise.

And in this video, Alisa Childers and Dr. Jeff Myers discuss how Christians can appeal to conscience when asked to participate in using preferred pronouns.

Also see the article “Why I no longer use Transgender Pronouns—and Why You shouldn’t, either” from Rosaria Butterfield,  a sister in Christ, who is a former, in her words, “queer activist.”

It can be very hard to communicate on issues like these with both grace and truth. We are concerned for another person’s soul, not wanting to be harsh, and trying to be gracious and kind, but it is also critical not to undercut the truth. (For more thoughts related to communicating with grace and truth, see my book The Grace and Truth Paradox.)

May God give His people wisdom and grace to communicate in a way that honors Him and truly loves others.

Photo: Pexels

Navigating a Strange New World: Insights from Carl Trueman on Gender Confusion and the Modern Self

Today’s blog is the third guest article in our series on gender and sexuality, featuring insights from author and professor Carl Trueman. Earlier this year I read both of his books (I listened to them both on audio; Carl was the reader, and he did a great job). The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self is very academic and gets beneath the surface of modern gender confusion and its consequences. Strange New World is certainly not shallow, but it’s more readable and much shorter, and of the two books, it’s the one I will most recommend to others.

Here are some quotes:

“Every age has had its darkness and its dangers. The task of the Christian is not to whine about the moment in which he or she lives but to understand its problems and respond appropriately to them.”

“The intuitive moral structure of our modern social imaginary prioritizes victimhood, sees selfhood in psychological terms, regards traditional sexual codes as oppressive and life denying, and places a premium on the individual’s right to define his or her own existence. All these things play into legitimizing and strengthening those groups that can define themselves in such terms. They capture, one might say, the spirit of the age.”

“While earlier generations might have seen damage to body or property as the most serious categories of crime, a highly psychologized era will accord increasing importance to words as means of oppression. And this represents a serious challenge to one of the foundations of liberal democracy: freedom of speech. Once harm and oppression are regarded as being primarily psychological categories, freedom of speech then becomes part of the problem, not the solution, because words become potential weapons.”

I want to share two resources from Carl that I think help round out our discussion of gender and sexuality. First, he recorded a video for Awana children’s ministry on “The Self, Identity and Children.” It’s very well done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va5eRoy9s_I

Second, Carl was a guest on the Crossway podcast to talk about Making Sense of Transgenderism and the Sexual Revolution. The whole podcast is excellent. Here are a few highlights, though I definitely recommend you read/listen to the whole thing:

I think what we're seeing today is really the latest iteration, or the culturally logical outworking, of trends and ideas that have been in place for hundreds of years. It's important, I think on two fronts, that we recognize that. One, so that we are less shocked and disoriented by what's happening. Two, so that we actually know the precise significance of what's happening. So many Christians, for example, when confronted with LGBTQ+ issues, tend to think that we're debating behavior—what sexual behavior is appropriate or isn't appropriate. In actual fact, as far as the LGBTQ+ movement is concerned, we’re debating identity. Knowing how these movements have emerged, knowing the kind of cultural pathologies (as I call them) that lie behind them will enable us not to be surprised—we should be horrified, but not surprised—by these things; and too, enable us to understand how a) to train our own people to think about these things, and b) how to respond to those individuals we meet who are perhaps caught up and positively disposed towards these movements.

…Human beings have always had that intuitive sense of what we might call “individuality.” What I mean by the self is how we understand ourselves as individuals to relate to the world, to relate to life as a whole. What is it that makes us happy? What is it that we see life as being about? What is the purpose of our existence? Does it have a transcendent aspect? Is it purely to do with this world? What is my purpose here? What are my obligations and duties here? How do I think of my self within the world at large? That's what I'm trying to get at. When it comes to the sexual revolution, I think a lot of us tend to think of the sexual revolution as an expanding of sexual behavior. It wasn't legitimate to have a baby outside of marriage, to live with somebody before marriage, to sleep around. It wasn't considered legitimate to do that pre-1900. Even though it all went on, there was an amount of social shame involved in that. But now we just broadened the boundaries and all of that kind of behavior is okay. And most significantly, of course, homosexuality in Britain—I don't know about America—was illegal until the late 60s. You could go to prison for being a practicing homosexual. We got rid of those laws, we've expanded that. 

The tendency in Christian circles is to think the sexual revolution is all about just expanding the boundaries. I don’t think it is. I think the sexual revolution actually rests upon a deeper transformation of what it means to be a self, of how we think of ourselves in relation to others and the word, what makes us tick, what gives me my identity.

… What we need is to train Christians to think holistically. Don't teach a course on how to interact with transgender people. Teach people to really understand Genesis 1–3 so they have the basic, theological skills that when they're confronted in the workplace or in the public sphere with serious questions and challenges of how to I vote on this and how do I think about this, they have the multi-tool already in their head that they're able to bring to bear upon the specific problem. So I would say in engaging in the political sphere, we need to stand for the faith; but we need to understand what the faith is first. That, I think, involves a lot more than just teaching people to memorize Bible verses. One of the things I encounter while teaching undergraduates at Grove City College is it's not enough for me to say, Well, the Bible says it's wrong. They will respond, Well yes, but the Bible says a lot of things that we don't follow now, Dr. Trueman. So why do we still hold to this? I think that requires us to explain why the Bible says that is wrong. And that's a much more holistic and complicated task than simply shouting Bible verses.

Photo: Pexels