Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 35

Social Media Is Hurting Our Children: What Can Concerned Parents and Grandparents Do?

Note from Randy: This is a sobering and important article from The Gospel Coalition’s Joe Carter, explaining how social media is causing our children to suffer, and encouraging parents to be proactive in protecting their children. (And it’s not just children who are negatively impacted by social media; many of us adults are too.)

If your child has a smartphone or has access to a phone, a tablet, online gaming console, or a computer, they are vulnerable. As a parent you might wonder, “Do I have the right to interfere? Isn’t that being nosey?” Your job is to interfere, and to know what is going on in your children’s lives, as well as what happens when they’re at friends’ houses and at school. You need to protect them, just as if you were standing next to a freeway and would feel an obligation to put your arms around them and say, “Stay off that freeway.”

This is a battle for our children, with their lives and futures at stake. May Christian parents answer the Lord’s call to protect their children.

Social Media Is Causing Our Children to Suffer

By Joe Carter

The Story: The U.S. surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, has issued a warning about the potential risks of social media on children’s mental health. Here’s why Christian parents should be concerned—and what we can do to protect our kids.

The Background: The surgeon general’s warning comes in response to growing scrutiny over the harmful effects of inappropriate content on and excessive use of social media. These platforms have been linked to a range of harmful consequences, from disrupted sleep patterns to promoting suicidal thoughts among young people.

Murthy has called for policymakers, platforms, and parents to establish safe limits, and he believes children shouldn’t join social media before the age of 13. The Biden administration is simultaneously releasing plans to improve online safety for children that include establishing an interagency task force, promoting digital literacy and habits, and supporting efforts to prevent online harassment and child abuse.

An estimated 95 percent of teenagers and 40 percent of children aged 8–12 are on social media, often exposed to extreme and harmful content. Those spending more than three hours a day on these platforms are twice as likely to experience depression and anxiety. Additionally, one-third or more of girls aged 11–15 have reported feeling “addicted” to certain platforms.

As family researchers Jenet Erickson and W. Bradford Wilcox point out,

Newer research indicates that yes, social media is a factor, with some adolescents and young adults especially affected by platforms like TikTok and Instagram. The largest study to date found that girls between the ages of 11–13 appeared to be especially vulnerable. And Facebook’s own research, leaked by a whistleblower last year, revealed a link for teen girls between Instagram use and increased suicidal thoughts (13.5%), eating disorders (17%) and feeling worse about their bodies (32%). [links in original]

What It Means: Human inventions are part of God’s common grace to mankind, and most have the potential to be used for our flourishing. However, in our focus on the potential benefits of technology, we often downplay or dismiss the obvious harm and suffering they can cause. This has been especially true of communication technologies like social media. While Christians, in particular, have been slow to respond to the threat of social media, we can no longer ignore the effects on our children and teens.

We should become more aware of how communication technologies shape our thinking and interactions. Harold Innis, a 20th-century communication theorist, posited that media technologies have three profound effects on us: they shape (1) the structure of our interests, (2) the character of symbols, and (3) the nature of community. Applying this model to social media reveals significant areas of concern.

The structure of interests refers to the subjects that hold our attention. In this age of algorithms, social media can greatly influence what our children and teens think about. It’s unsurprising there’s been a skyrocketing number of teens exploring and engaging in bisexuality, eating disorders, and transgenderism when social media sites have been promoting those topics to teens.

It’s easy for teens to start with a worthy interest and be led down a path to suffering. A teenager interested in fitness might receive an onslaught of posts promoting unrealistic body ideals, leading to body dissatisfaction and unhealthy behaviors. Social media algorithms may then point them to proanorexia (“pro-ana”) and probulimia sites and to online communities where they can interact with others who promote “thinspiration” (i.e., “inspirational” pictures of extremely thin bodies).

The character of symbols, or the ways we interpret and communicate information, has also been revolutionized by social media. Platforms tend to favor brevity and instant gratification, reducing complex ideas to emojis, hashtags, and viral challenges. This shift can undermine critical thinking skills and encourage a superficial understanding of issues, such as the Bible and faith. Rather than turning to parents, pastors, or mature adults who can help them navigate their questions and doubts, teens are encouraged to learn from their frivolous and ill-informed peers.

The nature of community is greatly affected by social media. While these platforms offer a way to connect with others, they promote shallow, fleeting interactions over meaningful, deep relationships. This can impair the development of critical social skills such as empathy and conflict resolution.

Teens tend to confuse social media with “real life.” On platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, users are regularly exposed to idealized and often unrealistic portrayals of the lives of others. Seeing peers and celebrities flaunting their “perfect” (often photoshopped) bodies, luxurious lifestyles, and flawless appearances can lead to unhealthy comparisons and a distorted self-image. Many teens and preteens feel pressured to meet these unattainable standards, which can lead to body dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, and eating disorders.

Cyberbullying is another significant issue. Before the internet, bullying was mostly confined to school grounds. Now, it has infiltrated homes through screens. Online platforms have become a breeding ground for harassment, trolling, and abuse, where anonymity often emboldens bullies (as any adult who has been on Twitter can attest). The effects of cyberbullying can be devastating, leading to anxiety, depression, and, in extreme cases, suicidal ideation. According to a survey by Pew Research taken in 2022, nearly half of U.S. teens aged 13 to 17 (46 percent) report ever experiencing at least one of six cyberbullying behaviors.

What can we do to protect our children? While the Bible doesn’t say anything directly about social media, it has a lot to say about considering the company we keep and avoiding negative influences:

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. (Prov. 13:20)

My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. (Prov. 1:10)

Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” (1 Cor. 15:33)

We can’t completely control who children and teens are exposed to online. But we can pray earnestly to the one who cares for the souls of children and welcomes them into his kingdom. We can ask him to work in their hearts and the hearts of those around them, keeping their feet from evil ways and causing them to delight in him above all.

Parents also can and should take greater precautions to protect their children. The most effective way is to limit or take away their access to smartphones. As Leonard Sax says,

As a family doctor, I pay attention to these nuts and bolts. I advise parents to install parental monitoring software on any device with Internet access, to enforce limits on social media use. Common Sense Media recommends Net Nanny and Qustodio, as well as Bark or Circle, among other parental monitoring apps.

Explain to your teen that the use of a smartphone is a privilege, not a right. Inappropriate use of the smartphone will result in forfeiture of that privilege. What constitutes inappropriate use? Downloading or sharing obscene photos is inappropriate use. Cyberbullying is inappropriate use. Posting nasty comments anonymously is inappropriate use. A parental monitoring app will let you know whether any of this is happening, and it’s the job of parents to know. [link in original]

“My advice to parents: don’t wait for state or federal legislation,” adds Sax. “You could be waiting a long time. Parents need to act now.”

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

Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash

Do We Understand Stewardship 101?

Grasping God’s ownership of everything is the foundation of a biblical theology of money. Faithful money-managing stewards act in the owner’s interests, regularly consulting Him to understand and implement His investment priorities. That’s why when I was asked “What are the most basic principles of stewardship?” my answer begins with God’s ownership.

Here’s what God’s Word says about who owns everything:

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.
    The world and all its people belong to him.” (Psalm 24:1).

“Look, the highest heavens and the earth and everything in it all belong to the Lord your God.” (Deuteronomy 10:14).

“The land must never be sold on a permanent basis, for the land belongs to me [God]. You are only foreigners and tenant farmers working for me.” (Leviticus 25:23).

“Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty. Everything in the heavens and on earth is yours, O Lord, and this is your kingdom. We adore you as the one who is over all things. Wealth and honor come from you alone, for you rule over everything. Power and might are in your hand, and at your discretion people are made great and given strength.” (1 Chronicles 29:11‑12).

“Who has given me anything that I need to pay back?
    Everything under heaven is mine.” (Job 41:11).

“For all the animals of the forest are mine,
    and I own the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know every bird on the mountains,
    and all the animals of the field are mine.
 If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
    for all the world is mine and everything in it.” (Psalm 50:10‑12).

Jesus asked, “If you are untrustworthy with worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven?” (Luke 16:11). He taught more about how we should handle money and possessions than anything because our spiritual condition and service qualifications are inseparable from our attitude and actions concerning material wealth.

Jesus gave the best investment advice: “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:20). We can’t take our treasures with us, but we can send them on ahead!

Happiness, not mere duty, permeates a God-honoring theology of money. Jesus said: “There is more happiness in giving than in receiving” (Acts 20:35, GNT). When grace-saturated, kingdom-minded, eternity-oriented disciples lovingly utilize God’s money and possessions, we fulfill the first and second greatest commandments. We thereby store up treasures in Heaven and cheerfully “take hold of what is truly life” (see 1 Timothy 6:19, CSB).

So search Scripture, seek God’s wisdom, then give, save, and spend His money well, and thereby love Him, your family, neighbors, and a needy world.

See more resources on money and giving, as well as Randy's related books, including  Managing God's Money  and  Giving Is the Good Life .

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Don’t Let Grief and Pain Become Your Idol—Let Them Point You to Jesus

Note from Randy: Lee Warren is not a rocket scientist, but he is a brain surgeon. He is also a brother who understands both suffering and God’s grace and kindness in the deepest trials. I got to know Lee while my beloved wife Nanci was dying of cancer. We developed a quick friendship, partly because when we talked I never doubted whether he got it. I love Lee’s tender heart and warm wisdom, and both are everywhere evident in his new book Hope Is the First Dose.

Dr. Warren also has a great podcast, and I’ve had the privilege of being on it twice. The first time was to talk about happiness, and how to find delight even in the midst of difficult circumstances. The second time was to talk about the hope of Heaven, and how that hope sustains us through grief.

I hope you find this excerpt from Hope Is the First Dose helpful. In our pain and grief, may we turn to Jesus, our true source of comfort, hope, and peace. “This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life” (Psalm 119:50).

I‘ve performed thousands of surgeries in my neurosurgery career. But probably the most difficult one was to save the life of a little boy named Mason who’d hit his head in a playground accident, just a few weeks after my own son died. The surgery went well, but I was almost overwhelmed with the guilt of saving someone else’s child, when I had been powerless to save my own. As I often do, I retreated to the hospital chapel to sort myself out after the procedure.

Ever since I was a medical student, I have found my­self in hospital chapels when I’m struggling with difficult situations. Something about the quiet and the stained glass seems to center me when the hospital is too much to bear. And at East Alabama Medical Center, Pastor Jon had an uncanny ability to show up when I needed someone to talk to.

But I hadn’t been in this chapel since before Mitch died.

Over the years, whenever I was stressed, hurting, or preparing my mind for a tough case, I’d come to the cha­pel. Once, I’d run into a crisis of faith when I struggled to under­stand how to doctor someone when I couldn’t save them from their brain tumor. Pastor Jon had helped reframe my think­ing, particularly about prayer. He was my sounding board as I worked through the stitching together of faith and science that led me to begin writing I’ve Seen the End of You, back when I thought I had learned about pain by studying people going through it.

But that was before I lost my boy; now I was in the depths of it myself.

It was also in this room that Pastor Jon had told me he’d lost not just one child—a little girl born with congenital heart disease—but his son as well, who had died in a car accident as a young adult.

I’d learned so much from him, had my faith strengthened and so many questions worked out during our talks. But now I felt restless and angry.

“This is the first operation you’ve performed since Mitch died, right?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yes. I wasn’t planning on coming back for a couple more weeks.”

“What a blessing you were here, though, for Mason and his family. You gave them back their son.”

I started to cry, and he put his hand on my shoulder. I said, “Yes. I’m glad about that. I just . . .”

I felt pressure rising in my chest, climbing its way up my throat, and I wanted with everything inside me to run away.

I stood and walked to the little table in the corner of the chapel where a box of Kleenex sat next to a foot-tall statue of Jesus on the cross. I wiped my eyes and my nose and noticed the ceramic nails in the ceramic Jesus’s hands and feet, the ceramic thorns in his crown. My right shoulder was on fire, my jaw ached, and my heart felt as though it was going to shatter into a million ceramic shards.

Pastor Jon shattered the silence. “You wish someone could give you your son back, too, right?”

I heard him but at the same time didn’t. I turned, walked back to the pew, and sat. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

Pastor Jon put his hand on my shoulder. “You wish someone could give you your son back, too, right? That’s why you walked away a while ago,” he said.

I shook my head. “’Walked away’? What do you mean?”

He lowered his voice a little. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen you not stay to pray with a family.”

I looked away for a moment. “I didn’t even realize I did that. Prayer feels, I don’t know, just impossible. I’ve been involved in saving lives and rescuing people from pain and suffering so many times, but this feels like there’s no rescue, nothing that can ever make it better. Of all the things I’ve been through—war, divorce, tough cases—this is extraordinary.”

Pastor Jon looked at me for a second and his eyes narrowed. “I know. I’ve been there, remember? But I need you to know that you’re in a lot of danger right now, Lee.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Danger?”

“Yes. This is the point where it’s so easy to make an idol out of your pain.”

I straightened. “What are you talking about?”

“Grief can be all-consuming. You’ve seen it before, right? Remember the lady who dragged her poor husband all over the country trying to save him from the brain tumor long after he’d lost all useful brain function? Because she couldn’t let him go? What was her name?”

I nodded. “Mrs. Andrews. Her husband couldn’t speak or move the last six months of his life, but she put him through surgeries for feeding and breathing tubes, took him to some quack in Houston who sold her a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of snake oil before he finally died.”

“That’s right,” he said. “She made keeping her husband alive the most important thing in her life. She couldn’t even see what was best for him or her family, couldn’t make room for God to comfort her because she made her circumstances determine how she felt. You told me that, remember? One of the things you discovered in your research was that people who think their circumstances determine their peace of mind, their faith, their happiness—they’re the ones who do the worst when hard times come, right?”

I waved a hand. “Yes, but what does that have to do with idolatry?”

“Everything,” he said. “Remember the Ten Commandments?”

“Of course,” I said.

“What are they?”

“You’re really giving me a test right now?”

He smiled sadly. “I just need you to remember the first two.”

“You shall have no other gods before me, and you shall not make an idol for yourself.”

“Very good! That’s it. So you and Lisa have a choice to make here. You’re on a mountain of pain and grief, reeling from losing Mitch and wondering how you can ever get over this, right?”

I looked down at my feet and then back at Pastor Jon. “Pretty much.”

“Okay, then here’s your choice: Are you going to let God help you, or are you going to walk away from him? You can let God be with you on this mountain, like he was with Moses. It’s scary. There are thunderclouds and lightning and darkness, and it’s terrifying. But he’ll be there with you, and he’ll give you the tools to make it through. And it hurts like he’s carving them on the stone tablet of your heart.

“It plays out in finding his promises in Scripture and holding on to them for dear life, in friends coming alongside you, in figuring out your marriage and your other kids in the context of one of you being permanently gone. Books will show up at just the right time, you’ll hear a pastor with just the right message, see a sunrise that seems particularly hopeful. Somehow, you will climb off that mountain carrying what you need to find your way again.”

His words were exactly true, and I knew it. It was already happening. Every day, someone called or emailed something that was exactly what we needed that day. The verse of the day on Bible Gateway would speak right to us, or one of the kids would text something that helped so much. And we were doing it for each other and the kids too. God was ministering to us, even when I felt so very far away from him. Every day, there was manna right in front of us, just enough.

Pastor Jon leaned closer and looked directly into my eyes. “But remember what Aaron was doing while Moses was on the mountain?” I thought for a moment. “He was in the valley, making the golden calf.”

He sighed. “Right. While Moses was doing the scary close-to-God stuff and getting the help he needed, Aaron and the rest of the people stayed away from the cloud and the fire and the darkness where God was, and they made themselves a god they could touch and feel.

“A lot of people do that with grief and pain. They fix their eyes and their hearts on a casket or a divorce or a diagnosis, they drink or do something else to numb the pain, and they spend their lives holding on to the hurt so tightly that it becomes the only thing they have. That’s basically idolatry. It’s making a god out of your circumstances instead of letting God help you process them. That’s a dangerous place to live, Lee.”

I’d never thought of it like that. I’d seen so many patients over the years who had never gotten over something that had happened to them, even if they had survived it. A cancer scare that turned someone’s world upside down and left them emotionally wrecked even though they were cured. A loss that embittered and enraged someone so much that their whole life was ruined.

“But there’s one more thing you need to know if you want to survive this and find your peace, your happiness, again,” he said.

I waved a hand. “What?”

“Losing a child is extraordinary. But, my friend, it’s also really ordinary.”

I started crying again. “How can you say that? I mean, you’ve lost two kids, which I can’t even imagine, so you know it’s not something you’re supposed to feel, and it’s certainly not an ordinary part of life.”

“Not what I meant,” he said. “Take a few deep breaths and just think about what you know from working in this building. I guarantee you that even today, someone is dying or has died. Someone is having a heart attack or holding their wife’s hand as she slips away. Zoom out to the cities around us and the amount of suffering happening in this very moment is staggering.”

“You’re not making me feel any better. I hope this isn’t your Sunday
sermon,” I said.

He huffed. “No. I’m making the point that extreme, extraordinary suffering and pain is an ordinary, normal, constant part of life. And that’s why you can find a way to make it through.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said quietly.

He put his hand on my knee. “If it really were happening only to you, then it would be extraordinary, and it would be reasonable for you to feel hopeless or singled out by God or abandoned. But the extraordinarily ordinary pain of life is mixed in with all the extraordinarily ordinary amazing things too—while we’re speaking, people are being born, falling in love, achieving a long-held goal, or being baptized. Someone is holding hands or seeing a rainbow for the first time. Yes, life is really hard, but it’s also really good. All at the same time. And when you’re submerged in pain, it can be so deep and so dark that you can forget all that light is out there. But it still is.”

Adapted from Hope Is the First Dose by W. Lee Warren, M.D. Copyright © 2023 by W. Lee Warren, M.D. Published by WaterBrook, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Used with permission.

Photo by RDNE Stock project

Is Joy Possible Apart from Feelings of Happiness and Delight?

It’s common to hear writers claim that joy is unemotional. A Bible study says, “Spiritual joy is not an emotion. It’s a response to a Spirit-filled life.” But if this response doesn’t involve emotions of happiness or gladness or delight or good cheer, in what sense is it “spiritual joy”?

Many Christians spiritualize the word joy, contrasting it with happiness and portraying it as independent of emotion or pleasure. Some claim that joy is a fruit of the Spirit and therefore not an emotion. But in Galatians 5:22, love and peace sandwich the word joy. If you love someone, don’t you feel something for them? And what is peace if it doesn’t involve feelings of contentment and satisfaction?

Our Happiness Reflects His

Understanding that God Himself is happy is foundational. “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). As love and holiness are found in God’s presence because God is loving and holy, so joy and happiness are found in God’s presence because God is joyful and happy. How could it be otherwise? 

The Father said twice, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17; 17:5). To be well pleased means to feel pleasure. Whether you call those feelings joy, happiness, gladness, or delight—and I think any and all are appropriate—the Father certainly felt them toward Jesus, and so should we.

When the Father said of His Son the Messiah, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights” (Isaiah 42:1), did He have feelings toward His Son? Have you ever delighted in someone without having strong feelings about that person? Weren’t the Father’s feelings toward His Son joyful?

In The Treasury of David, Spurgeon said it well: “There is enough in our holy faith to create and to justify the utmost degree of rapturous delight. If men are dull in the worship of the Lord our God they are not acting consistently with the character of their religion.”

He Desires Our Joy

Yes, it’s possible to obey and serve God without feeling joy. We should do what’s right and honors Christ, even when we don’t feel like it. But God rebukes those who serve Him joylessly (see Deuteronomy 28:47-48). In other words, He emphatically says He wants us to feel joy! Just as parents of children want them to not only obey, but to obey with happy hearts, God also wants our joyful obedience and trust. He knows that’s ultimately in our best interest.

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). When God calls us to rejoice in Him, does He care only about what we think and do, not how we feel about Him? No. He commands us to love Him not just with all our minds but all our hearts (see Matthew 22:37). Feelings are not the entirety of joy, but since God’s joy involves His emotions, shouldn’t our joy involve ours?

The psalmist said, “I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy, and I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God” (Psalm 43:4). Can you imagine saying to someone, “You are my exceeding joy,” without feeling strong emotion?

Yahweh created both our minds and our hearts. Sure, emotions can be manipulated, but so can intellects. God designed us with emotions, and He doesn’t want us to shun or disregard them. We’re ill-advised to redefine joy and happiness and pit them against each other rather than embracing the emotional satisfaction of knowing, loving, and following Jesus.

Mike Mason writes in Champagne for the Soul: Celebrating God’s Gift of Joy,

When I’m joyful, I’m happy, and when I’m happy, I’m joyful. What could be plainer? Why should I want anything to do with a joy that isn’t coupled with happiness, or with a kind of happiness that is without joy? Happiness without joy is shallow and transient because it’s based on outward circumstances rather than an attitude of the heart. As for joy without happiness, it’s a spiritualized lie. The Bible does not separate joy and happiness, and neither should we.

Christ Is the Source and Supply of Our Happiness

Consider J.C. Ryle’s reference to “happy feelings”—something often dismissed today as unspiritual. He spoke of these feelings as utterly compatible with joy: “Above all, Christ can give us peace of conscience, inward joy, bright hopes, and happy feelings.” 

Surely knowing the Creator of the universe—our Savior, Friend, and Redeemer, who has rescued us from the grip of sin—evokes feelings of happiness!

The Holy Spirit’s permanent indwelling in our lives allows us to continually access a supernatural happiness, so we can “confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace whenever we need help” (Hebrews 4:16, NET). Our God of happiness has made the way for us to come before Him freely and draw deeply from His mercy, grace, and help at any and all times, including when we’re feeling drained of joy.

May we always remember that following God’s ways and seeking Him first brings great heart-felt happiness.

Browse more resources on the topic of happiness, and see his other related books, including  Does God Want Us to Be Happy?

Photo by Olya Harytovich

 

12 Questions for Those Considering Universalism

Note from Randy: I so appreciate this article by Michael McClymond (professor of modern Christianity at Saint Louis University and author of The Devil’s Redemption: A New History and Interpretation of Christian Universalism). It’s theological and serious, but has great practical implications, because “Christian universalism” is spreading. I’ve addressed it in various critiques of Paul Young’s books The Shack and Lies We Believe about God. But Michael’s article is much more ambitious, covers more ground, and puts things in a succinct way.

This is an excellent resource, not only for those who are personally struggling with questions about the doctrine of hell, but also for readers who are interacting with friends, family members, and members at their church who are tempted to move toward universalism.

There are many good points in Michael’s article, but this paragraph may be the best:

“Perhaps one underlying reason why professing Christians today are examining or embracing universalism is that they don’t want to be placed on the hot seat in a world that’s increasingly hostile toward Christianity. They’d like to avoid ever being in a position in which they must tell a non-Christian that there are dire consequences for rejecting Christ. Hell is a disturbing doctrine, an ultimate turnoff, an egregious insult. The so-called 11th commandment—'You shall not offend’—has become paramount for some. Universalism offers a semblance of Christianity with the unseemly parts edited out.”

12 Questions for the Would-Be Universalist

By Michael McClymond

No compassionate person delights in seeing other people suffer. How much less should a Christian believer rejoice in anyone’s everlasting suffering? Christian belief is not compatible with schadenfreude—taking pleasure in another’s misfortune.

It’s not surprising that some thoughtful Christian believers today are being drawn toward universalism—the belief that all humans will finally be saved into God’s blissful presence. His love makes universalism an obligatory belief, some contemporary voices contend. Any Christian who isn’t a universalist is, in effect, a moral imbecile.

If we compare universalism to a house for sale, we should admit the house has curb appeal. But would any of us decide to buy a house we’d only seen from the outside? Wouldn’t we want to check out the inside too? And wouldn’t we insist on getting down into the crawl space so we might inspect the plumbing, the wiring, and the HVAC system? Whether the house was habitable would be decisive in our decision to buy—or not.

What follows is especially intended for those who are convinced of or inclining toward universalism. These are honest points for discussion, not trick questions. Still, I’m convinced the universalist “house” is ultimately not worth buying—and not permanently habitable for someone committed to biblical teaching and Christian living.

1. How should we interpret Jesus’s words regarding ‘hell’ or ‘Gehenna,’ ‘the outer darkness,’ ‘the fire that is not quenched,’ ‘the worm that does not die,’ and the like?

Christian belief in the reality of hell and the possibility of separation from God rests on Jesus’s own words in the Gospels. “Hell” or “Gehenna” and other related terms point toward a state of punishment and suffering after death. Yet if everyone without exception is headed toward the same final destination with God—as universalists claim—then why do we find Jesus saying the “sheep” will be separated from the “goats” (Matt. 25:31–46)? That the “wheat” will be separated from the “weeds” (Matt. 13:30)? That the “wheat” will be separated from the “chaff” (Matt. 3:12)? That the “good fish” will be separated from the “bad fish” (Matt. 13:48)? That the “wise virgins” will enter the wedding feast but the “foolish virgins” will be stuck outside (Matt. 25:1–13)? Separation is occurring in all these passages.

But if universalism is true, there can be no truly lasting separation. And in that case, isn’t Jesus’s teaching highly misleading? Are we to imagine that our Savior frightened his hearers by describing a fixed separation of sinners that will never occur, or a future state of punishment that will not exist?

2. If hell is a temporary state but heaven is a forever state, then why are both denoted by the same word as ‘eternal’?

In the ancient church, Severus of Antioch and Augustine made a similar observation: in Matthew 25:41 and 25:46, the same Greek word (aionios) is used to describe both the duration of heaven and the duration of punishment after death. Universalists often argue that aionios as applied to hell or punishment doesn’t mean “eternal” in the strict sense, but merely “age-long.” In other words, hell exists but it’s temporary. In that case, though, we’d need to conclude heaven too is temporary—that heaven comes to an end. Otherwise, how can the same Greek word have two different meanings in the very same verse—“age-long” when applied to punishment or hell, but “forever” when applied to heaven? This makes little sense.

3. What about the ‘two ways’ theme in the Old and New Testaments?

The New Testament’s teaching on heaven and hell doesn’t materialize out of nowhere. The theme of “two ways” leading to differing outcomes is woven throughout the Bible. In just the second chapter (Gen. 2), Adam is given a choice between life with God (if he doesn’t eat from the forbidden tree) or death in defiance of God (if he does eat). In Psalm 1 there are different outcomes for the righteous and the wicked, and so also in Isaiah 1: “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword” (Isa. 1:19–20). The universalist idea of only one outcome for everyone—regardless of choices made—doesn’t merely contradict one verse here or there. It runs against the whole thrust of Old and New Testament teachings.

4. Why did Jesus need to die such a horrible, agonizing death on the cross for our sins?

It’s a poignant moment in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus asks his heavenly Father to “remove this cup” of suffering from him (Mark 14:36). What is the outcome? His petition is denied. The sinless Son of God prayed to the Father—yet his request wasn’t granted. It’s hard to imagine how the necessity of his death on the cross could be demonstrated more emphatically than this. But why? If God simply wanted to demonstrate his love for humanity, there were innumerable ways he might have done so. Yet as John Stott argued in The Cross of Christ, the love revealed in Jesus’s death was a holy love. The cross satisfied justice and demonstrated love—thus it can’t be viewed as an act of divine love in isolation from divine justice.

Universalism struggles to explain the necessity of Jesus’s horrifying death. For if a universalist admits that God’s righteous opposition to sin required something that awful (i.e., the death of God’s incarnate Son), then it also makes sense to say that sinners not justified by Jesus’s death deserve hell or something like it. God’s justice requires one or the other—either the hell of Jesus’s agony, in which the sinner’s guilt is vicariously atoned for, or the hell of individual suffering for the one who rejects Jesus and his atoning work. The logic of atonement and the logic of hell are intertwined.

5. How should we interpret the end-times teaching of Revelation?

Universalists generally understand God as a loving being who doesn’t exercise judgment toward sin or sinners. Yet Revelation offers a picture of God’s righteous judgment against a sinful world, in overt rebellion against himself, as the bowls of his wrath are poured out (Rev. 16). The Beast, the False Prophet, and the Devil are later seized by the Lord and thrown into “the lake of fire” (Rev. 19)—an outcome set over and against the New Jerusalem, where the Lord dwells with Christ and the saints (Rev. 21).

In his book The Evangelical Universalist, Robin Parry tries to interpret Revelation in a universalist fashion, and does so by equating God with “the lake of fire.” Sinners fall into “the lake of fire,” get purified in God’s fiery presence, and then enter the New Jerusalem. But since Revelation identifies “the lake of fire” with “the second death” (Rev. 20:14), if “the lake of fire” is God, then God is “the second death.” Such exegesis twists the meaning of Scripture and distorts the character of God.

6. Doesn’t the New Testament show that salvation is connected to faith?

No less than seven times in the Gospels, Jesus says, “Your faith has made you well” or “Your faith has saved you” (Matt. 9:22; Mark 5:34; 10:52; Luke 7:50; 8:48; 17:19; 18:42). A concordance will show the words “faith” and “believe,” with their cognates, appear over 500 times in the New Testament. The texts are too numerous to cite. Hebrews 11 is a whole chapter linking salvation to faith. But how is this tight connection between salvation and faith consistent with universalism?

The universalist is bound to say either that (1) people in the present life who don’t seem to be believers really are believers in some hidden or cryptic fashion, (2) people who depart this life in unbelief get a further opportunity to become believers after death (see #11), or (3) salvation isn’t tied to faith, despite the biblical witness to the contrary. None of these three options is congruent with Scripture. Some universalists believe God saves people who don’t believe and don’t want to be saved. This sounds a lot like coerced salvation.

7. What’s the historic teaching on final salvation in the major branches of Christendom?

If universalist teaching is correct, then it’s remarkable it never found its way into any of the official documents, confessions, or creeds of the major Christian communities—Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant. With the exception of the Universalist Church in the States, beginning in the 1800s and continuing to the early 1900s, one simply doesn’t find universalism officially taught by any Christian community. (Many Unitarian Universalists today don’t believe in life after death at all.) Read through Philip Schaff’s or Jaroslav Pelikan’s multivolume works on the creeds and confessions—you won’t find universal salvation as a historic Christian teaching.

In Orthodoxy and Eastern Christianity generally, certain individuals were self-conscious universalists (e.g., Gregory of Nyssa, Isaac of Nineveh), but they represented a minority group, and their universalist views were merely a tolerated, private opinion. Universalism was never admitted as official public teaching nor allowed to be preached from the pulpits of Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant congregations.

Moreover, the best-known early teacher of universalism—Origen—was condemned by name at the Second Council of Constantinople in AD 553. Throughout history, this condemnation was taken as a rejection of Origen’s teaching on universal salvation. In the ancient church, the number of nonuniversalist writers far outnumbers the universalists, by a factor of about 10 or 12 to 1 (see my tabulation in The Devil’s Redemption, 1097–99). This was true not only of Latin-language authors but also of those who wrote in Greek, Coptic, and Syriac.

If the universalists are correct, then many of the greatest Christian teachers—including Augustine, Chrysostom, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Bellarmine, Pascal, Owen, Edwards, Newman, and so on—were all mistaken on an essential theological question. Do we really think 21st-century Christianity is so much more enlightened than preceding centuries that we alone have discovered the truth of universal salvation? Is it not more plausible to imagine we inhabit an age of spiritual and moral laxity and that universalism is growing because of a widespread desire to find a more permissive set of beliefs?

8. What would happen if Christian congregations or denominations embraced universalism?

Some universalists say that if only Christian churches would abandon their teaching on hell, an ecclesial golden age would commence and multitudes of new members would enter in, no longer hindered by the offensive “stumbling block” of hell. History, though, suggests an opposite conclusion: universalism is a church-destroying doctrine. In the mid-1800s, the Universalist Church—which few today remember—was briefly the fifth-largest denomination in the States. What happened? Having officially declared themselves for universal salvation, a theological self-demolition promptly took place.

Already in the early 1800s, universalist thinkers denied that Jesus was our sin-bearer on the cross. God punishes no one, they argued, and so Jesus wasn’t punished. Soon enough the universalists began to question, and then to deny, the divinity of Christ. Jesus was now simply a moral teacher. Eventually, the universalists merged with unitarians to become the Unitarian-Universalists—still with us today, though in ever-shrinking numbers. The greatest irony was that some people in the Universalist Church stopped believing in the afterlife and ended up as secular humanists. Heaven, once it was made all-inclusive, became unreal and irrelevant even to the universalists themselves. Why should we imagine a 21st-century universalist church would fare any better than the 19th-century version?

9. What’s the final destiny of Satan and demons?

Universalists often begin from the presumption that God does not, would not, or could not create intelligent, moral beings (i.e., who are capable of making moral choices) without ensuring all such beings are finally saved. So argues David Bentley Hart, among others. But if this is so, it means Satan and the demons must all be saved—just like all human beings. In Scripture, however, there isn’t the slightest hint that Satan or the demons will ever be saved. Jesus speaks of the “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41). There’s never a call or summons or invitation for demons to repent.

Throughout history, believers have prayed in hope for the salvation of mass murderers and other egregious sinners. But there are no traditional Christian prayers for the salvation of Satan. Scripture and church practice give us no reason to assume Satan or demons will ever be saved. The universalist assumption—that God would never create an intelligent creature who sins and is eternally separated from him—thus appears to be a false starting point. And if Satan and the demons are lost forever, then one must consider some humans might also be lost forever, as implied in the wording of the verse just cited: “Then [Christ] will also say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matt. 25:41).

10. Can sinful people make atonement or satisfaction for their own sins through their own sufferings?

Essential Protestant teaching—based on Scripture—holds that Christ’s death made full payment for the guilt of sinners. Nobody can add or subtract anything from his atoning work. Scripture is clear: sinners must simply receive in faith what Christ has done to make salvation possible. But many universalists contradict this. Those not ready at death to be with God, they say, will make satisfaction for their own sins in a fiery state of suffering and punishment (akin to Roman Catholic purgatory). This idea of paying for one’s own sins through postmortem suffering is utterly incompatible with salvation by grace alone. But what is the alternative for the universalist? The only alternative is to say everyone proceeds immediately at death into the blissful presence of God. In the 1800s this became known as “ultra-universalism”—heaven for everyone as soon as death occurs.

But this “ultra” position means it’s not only saintly people who go immediately into God’s presence but even the mass murderer who’s shooting his victims and is suddenly struck down by a policeman’s bullet. And if everyone immediately enters heaven, then our moral and spiritual choices in this life appear not to matter at all. The universalists feuded among themselves as to whether or not there’s postmortem purification from sins, yet they never resolved the issue. (For more on American universalists’ lack of cohesion in their 19th-century heyday, see chapter 6 of The Devil’s Redemption.) They could not agree, for it appears to be an insoluble dilemma. If universalists affirm people can self-atone through postmortem suffering, they’re denying Christ’s full atonement on the cross. But if they affirm a full atonement on the cross, they must admit everyone goes immediately to be with God at death—regardless of how they lived or the choices they made.

These are the only two options for the universalist, and neither makes much sense theologically.

11. Is it plausible to believe there will be a ‘second chance’ for salvation after death?

If there is such a “second chance” for salvation after death, then it’s never clearly presented or described in Scripture. Instead, Jesus’s teachings seem to point in the other direction. The parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Matt. 25:1–13) emphasizes the limited time and opportunity that humans have to respond to God—and it implies a time will come when the door to the “wedding feast” will shut and it’ll be too late to enter in. One key text appears in the Gospel of Luke: “Someone said to [Jesus], ‘Lord, will those who are saved be few?’ And he said to them, ‘Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able’” (Luke 13:23–24).

Jesus’s message is explicit. Some people—or rather “many”—will wish to enter God’s kingdom but will “not be able.” How is this passage consistent with the idea—common among universalists today—that the Lord will give endless opportunities, both prior to and after death, for individuals to turn to Christ and find salvation? He explicitly says that “many . . . will seek to enter and will not be able.” Take heed.

12. Is universalism compatible with the Christian mandate to preach the gospel, practice self-denial, and suffer for Christ and the gospel?

Some universalists assert that belief in universalism would not interfere with the call or motive toward Christian evangelism. But there’s no evidence this is so. An consistent universalist evangelist wouldn’t call people to decide for Christ but would tell them God had decided for them. He or she wouldn’t tell people to be saved but would say they’re saved already. It’s hard to imagine a theological view more likely to engender complacency or indifference.

Christian missionaries—like Isaac Jogues in French Canada or Jim Elliot among the Huaorani people of Ecuador—went into dangerous situations to preach the gospel to those who’d never heard it, and in the process, they gave up their lives as martyrs. Father Damien, for another example, went to serve and evangelize the lepers of Molokai—knowing in advance that he’d eventually contract the disease and die. Can anyone imagine a Christian universalist doing this? Is there a single case of such a universalist missionary-martyr? Christian believers have undertaken the most arduous labors in evangelism, in self-denial, and in self-giving service precisely because they were aware of the eternal realities of heaven and hell and believed that “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). Christian martyrs bear witness to a practical fruit of holiness among those who believe in a final state of heaven and hell.

Final Thoughts

Perhaps one underlying reason why professing Christians today are examining or embracing universalism is that they don’t want to be placed on the hot seat in a world that’s increasingly hostile toward Christianity. They’d like to avoid ever being in a position in which they must tell a non-Christian that there are dire consequences for rejecting Christ. Hell is a disturbing doctrine, an ultimate turnoff, an egregious insult. The so-called 11th commandment—“You shall not offend”—has become paramount for some. Universalism offers a semblance of Christianity with the unseemly parts edited out.

Richard Niebuhr (1894–1962) spoke of liberalized Christianity in this way: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment by the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” Here we have four essential doctrines—God, humanity, kingdom, and Christ—minus their hard and scandalous aspects: wrath, sin, judgment, and the cross. These words, though written by Niebuhr in the 1920s, are a fitting description of Christian universalism a century later. No wrath of God, no sin that damns, no fearful judgment before the throne, no cross of suffering to satisfy God’s justice.

Yet these are precisely the doctrines that, perhaps counterintuitively, express God’s moral goodness. These are the doctrines needed to reawaken and reenergize the church as we reach out, in humble love, to an increasingly confused and broken world that is perishing without the Savior.

Friend, don’t be fooled by universalism’s “curb appeal.” Step out of the car and examine the integrity of the house. Just be careful—it’s fragile within.

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

Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash

John Stott on How the Church Preserves Our Humanness in a Dehumanized Society

In his 1982 book I Believe in Preaching, John Stott wrote these prophetic words:

It is difficult to imagine the world in the year 2000, by which time versatile microprocessors are likely to be as common as simple calculators are today.

[This will lead to] the probable reduction of human contact, as the new electronic network renders personal relationships ever less necessary.

In such a dehumanized society, the fellowship of the local church will become increasingly important—whose members meet one another, and listen and talk to one another in person rather than on screen. In this human context of mutual love, the speaking and hearing of the Word of God is also likely to become more necessary for the preservation of our humanness, not less.

(My thanks to Matt Smethurst for sharing this quote on Twitter.)

After reading this quote, I did some research, and it wasn’t until 1993 that electronic mail was first dubbed email. I literally had the first home computer of anyone I knew in 1985, to facilitate my writing books. Our church got our first one the following year in 1986, and I was the go-to person to explain it to everyone on staff, because I was the only one who had ever used a computer!

Yet Stott wrote this in 1982? Stott was on the shortlist of people who deeply influenced me. A godly brother, with profound insights into God’s Word, who encouraged a generation of us and beyond in believing, teaching, and preaching God’s word, and living a life honoring to Jesus that would make our preaching of the Word credible and eternal in impact.

If John Stott had never written anything besides The Cross of Christ, his entire life would’ve been more than worth it. His first books that powerfully influenced me as a young Christian, and then as a young pastor, were Basic Christianity, Your Mind Matters, and Between Two Worlds. I would say that after C. S. Lewis, A. W. Tozer., Francis Schaeffer, Charles Spurgeon, John Piper, Eugene Peterson, and a few others, he certainly is in my top 10 of all time writers and Christian leaders. 

I can’t put into words my degree of nostalgia in seeing the name John Stott, much less reflecting on his words. Here are some quotes from a list of 160 John Stott quotes:

“Our love grows soft if it is not strengthened by truth, and our truth grows hard if it is not softened by love.”

“Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us.”

“We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior.”

“Christianity is in its very essence a resurrection religion. The concept of resurrection lies at its heart. If you remove it, Christianity is destroyed.”

“The church lies at the very center of the eternal purpose of God. It is not a divine afterthought.”

“If we truly worship God, acknowledging and adoring his infinite worth, we find ourselves impelled to make him known to others, in order that they may worship him too. Thus worship leads to witness, and witness in its turn to worship, in a perpetual circle.”

Photo: Pexels

 

As You Age, Feed Your Mind with an Eternal Perspective

This wonderful message our ministry received from an 83-year-old reader made my day. I listened to it twice. What a sweet and vibrant voice, and I love her transparency. She may not remember book titles well, but she remembers the books and the message of the books! (She references We Shall See God, Heaven, and Safely Home.)

I was struck by the fact that as this woman ages, and honestly faces the reality of death, she is choosing to read books that will prepare her for eternity with Jesus. She is not feeding herself primarily on the news (which is usually bad news!), but on the good news of gospel truth, particularly as it relates to our eternal destiny. 

Her realism and faith and eternal perspective and cheerfulness really touched me. Some people get more sour and dreary with age, but this woman has a sweetness that is so clear and moving. What an example to us all. (And my thanks to her for allowing us to share her message.)

David said, “Show me, O Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath” (Psalm 39:4-5). Picture a single breath escaping your mouth on a cold day and dissipating into the air. Such is the brevity of life here. “We can fly away at any time,” this woman said in her message. The wise will consider what awaits us on the other side of this life that so quickly ends. (And if we have a biblical view of Heaven, this won’t depress us, but excite us!)

Since life’s greatest certainty is death, it only makes sense to prepare for what lies beyond this life, as this dear woman has done. Any life that leaves us unprepared for death is a foolish life. Matthew Henry put it this way: “It ought to be the business of every day to prepare for our last day.”

In school, did you cram for tests? I did. Death involves the greatest examination in our lives, with by far the greatest consequences. It merits careful and thorough preparation. Whether we are 80, 50, 30, or 12, our time on this present earth is limited. So no matter our age, may we spend our lives joyfully preparing for Heaven!

Photo by Javier Esteban on Unsplash

Your Invitation to the Good Life—the Only Life Worth Living

Chances are, you want “the good life.” And even if you’re not quite sure how to define the good life, you know you’d like to experience it. After all, who wants to live “the bad life”?

Google “the good life.” There we’re told, “Make lots of money, spend it on yourself, and you’ll be happy. Then you’ll be living the good life!”

That’s a lie. Yes, we all need food, clothes, and shelter. But once our basic needs are met, money often stops helping us and starts hurting us.

Throughout His ministry, Jesus told us that parting with money to help others actually brings us more joy than holding on to it for ourselves.

In other words, generosity is the good life.

Deep down, we all know we can spend every last cent on ourselves and still end up miserable. What Jesus calls us to do is far more radical and satisfying: love others by giving away our money and time. That sounds like loss, not gain, right? Yet in God’s economy, that’s exactly how we expand and enhance our own lives.

The Bible shows that anything we put in God’s hands is an investment in eternity. That doesn’t just mean that our giving will bring us good someday in Heaven. It will also bring us good here and now—while it does good for others. That’s why the good life is inseparable from generosity.

Living the good life is far better than you could ever imagine. And because of Jesus, it’s absolutely possible for you—regardless of your income—to experience it.

Where Does the Good Life Begin?

To understand what constitutes the good life, we need to grasp where life 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. He walked with Adam and Eve as they enjoyed a life-giving and delightful relationship. Then they sinned, disobeying God’s one simple rule (Genesis 3:8). While Adam and Eve’s physical death came gradually, the end of their life-giving spiritual relationship with God was immediate.

Jesus died, then rose from the grave, ensuring the ultimate death of sin and the defeat of death itself. His resurrection gives us life (Romans 4:25). In fact, His resurrection is the basis for God 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)

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 first step to finding life is clear: we need to place our lives in Jesus’ hands. That’s where eternal life—the ultimate good life—begins.

Once We Become Jesus‑Followers, How Do We Experience Abundant Life?

Attempting to experience the abundant life Jesus spoke of while burying ourselves in material abundance isn’t just difficult; it’s impossible. While possessions may be neutral or even fun, it’s too easy to end up trusting our stuff instead of our Savior and suffocating under the accumulation.

If abundant stuff equaled the abundant life, wealthy unbelievers wouldn’t need Jesus. Materialism puts makeup on the corpse, but it’s still dead. Jesus redirects us from death disguised as life to true abundant life. He says He came into the world to give us “a rich and satisfying life” (John 10:10, nlt) or “life to the full, till it overflows” (amp).

“Give, and it will be given to you,” Jesus said. “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap” (Luke 6:38, niv). The more we give in Christ’s name, the more His life flows into us. And the more life flows into us, the more that life flows out to others.

When will we take hold of that abundant life? Not after we die, but after we give! In fact, after each gift. While the treasures Jesus and Paul spoke of (Matthew 6:19-21, Philippians 3:7-11, Colossians 3:1-2) await us in Heaven, attaining the true life happens here and now.

Our investments that result in treasures in Heaven have an expressly stated purpose: “so that” we can take hold of Jesus’ gift of abundant life. Of course, that’s not the only purpose. We give because we love God and people. But 1 Timothy 6:19 also tells us to grab hold of the good life here and now. We don’t need to wonder how to do this. God directly tells us it’s by generous giving.

By giving generously of our money and possessions, we’re able to open our hands to receive the abundant life God has for us.

How Can Giving Become an Adventure?

While it’s wise to do most of our giving in a thoughtful, planned way, there’s certainly a place for spontaneous giving. But even unanticipated giving is not ultimately random if you believe in a sovereign God.

One afternoon, I left my credit card with the cashier while I ate pizza and told her to use it for whoever came in next. As I saw the stranger smile, this thought came to me: God has me here today, not for a random act of kindness, but to fulfill His ancient plan and purpose. He prepared in advance for me to buy lunch for this man at this place and time.

Okay, you might be thinking, I understand that giving to others can bring happiness and even a wonderful sense of adventure to my life. But is there really any benefit beyond that initial good feeling I get when I help someone?

Your role in God’s Kingdom is not only as a son or daughter of the King but also as an investor, an asset manager, and an eternal beneficiary. Your reward may include the privilege of being a ruler in that Kingdom—a king or queen serving under the King of kings (Daniel 7:18, 27; Luke 19:17).

Who would dare to think such a thing possible—that we creatures of dust can make choices in this life that result in eternal gain? Jesus said it: when we give to eternal causes the treasures we would otherwise lose, the heavenly treasures we gain will remain ours forever!

What Are You Waiting For?

“Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

We simply cannot say yes to God’s promises of overflowing abundant life without simultaneously and consciously saying no to the false claims of the one whom Jesus called “a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44). Giving helps us do exactly that.

Since Satan is a chronic liar and is bent on robbing us of the good life in Jesus, it’s likely that the moment you leave this page, you’ll be tempted to forget how God might have prompted you to respond. Jesus tells us to be generous and eager to share right now, in the present. If you wait until you have no doubts or worries, you’ll probably never take that next step. But if you do take that step by faith, you will find it exhilarating. Ultimately, giving is the healthiest and most joy-saturated addiction you’ll ever experience.

Don’t let the devil whisper rationalizations to keep you from a transformed life. Don’t let him convince you that it’s better to hold tight to what you have. And don’t let him tempt you to think, Sure, someday when I make a lot more money, then I’ll start giving. If you buy into that, it will simply never happen.

While our adversary argues that giving will rob us of the good life, Jesus tells us the truth: giving generates the good life. Now the only question is, whom will we believe?

Jesus makes it clear that the abundant life consists not in material abundance but in the life-giving spiritual abundance found only in Him. Eternal and abundant life begins in this world when we come to Jesus, the ultimate giver, and continues as we become more like Him.

I assure you that once you experience the good life, the abundant life, the generous life, you will never want to settle for less. Life will never be the same—nor will you want it to be!

Adapted from Randy’s booklet Are You Living the Good Life? Also see Giving Is the Good Life .

Photo by Amr Taha™ on Unsplash

Women Are God-Called and God-Gifted, Essential to the Body of Christ

Note from Randy: I love this article on womanhood from Paul David Tripp, answering a very important question: “Is your view of women aligned with your theology?” It’s adapted from his new book Do You Believe?: 12 Historic Doctrines to Change Your Everyday Life.

While due to 1 Timothy 2:12, taken in its surrounding context, I don’t believe women should be the pastors or regular teachers of men in the church, I do believe that in the pushback against that idea of women pastors, often the case gets overstated, and there is an anti-women feel to it, which disturbs me. As I’ve told many evangelical leaders, having raised two daughters I deeply respect, having been married for 47 years to a wife I deeply respect, and working with women whom I deeply respect, I bristle at the dismissive, biased tone toward women I sometimes hear from male evangelical leaders.

We shouldn’t ever violate what Scripture commands in an attempt to be relevant, but we should exercise the freedom to do whatever Scripture allows, to grant women the widest and deepest and most meaningful roles in Christ’s body. For further study, I recommend a panel discussion between Kevin DeYoung, Ligon Duncan, Melissa Kruger, and Nancy Guthrie on How to Understand Biblical Complementarianism, as well as Rebecca McLaughlin’s marvelous book Jesus Through the Eyes of Women. I also share more thoughts in my article Let’s Show Women They Are a Vital Part of Christ’s Body, Not Just Tell Them to “Go Home.”

Is Your View of Women Aligned with Your Theology?

By Paul David Tripp

Women as Image Bearers

You can barely open your computer, watch Netflix, go to a movie, or follow popular music without encountering our culture’s objectification, negation, and sexual exploitation of women. Our society attaches a woman’s worth to her beauty or views them only as objects for sexual pleasure; the degrading of female image bearers is all around us. Why are female pop stars pressured to dress provocatively? Why are fashions designed not to cover the woman’s body but to expose it? Why do countless women find the workplace to be sexually threatening? Why are a woman’s breasts often more esteemed than her brain?

Popular media oppresses women with norms of beauty that literally take surgery to obtain. How far away have we fallen from the dignity of women as image bearers of God himself? When it comes to the value, dignity, significance, and uniqueness of the imprint of the image of God, men and women are equals. Hear these words again: “So God created man in his own image, / in the image of God he created him, / male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). To reduce a woman down to the shape of her body, to dishonor, denigrate, or objectify her, or to negate the value of her gifts and her God-given contribution as one of his image-bearing resident managers, dishonors not only her but God himself.

I wish I could say that the issue of devaluing the image-bearing giftedness of women is an issue only outside the church, but I cannot. Now, I do believe that God has designed different roles for men and women in his church. I think Scripture is quite clear that the role of pastor/ elder is, by God’s design, for men. But I also am convinced that we have undervalued and underutilized the God-given and essential gifts of women. The Bible does not teach that the primary role for women is in the home. The Bible does not teach that a woman’s spirituality comes through her husband. The Bible does not teach that a woman’s life will only be complete if she is married. The Bible does not forbid a woman from being highly educated and having a successful career. The Bible does not prohibit women from leading men in political, education, and business situations.

Valuing Women’s Gifts

Let me give you two examples of how these truths connect to the life and health of the body of Christ. One woman in the church where we are members is a professor of black history at a local college. She is not only a historian, but she is a theologian whom God has used to help our church think through and navigate issues of race. Because her gifts are valued, she has been an essential contributor to the health of our church in tumultuous times. Her combination of historical expertise and gospel literacy is a gift of God to our church, but it is important to note that giftedness had to be recognized by leadership and given a voice in order for our congregation to be helped and blessed by it.

Years ago I was one of the pastor/elders of a church in the Philadelphia suburbs. Once a year we would go away for an elders’ retreat with our wives. We would eat together and do activities together. But when it came time to discuss the church, the men would go into one room for those talks while the women went to another room to share parenting stories and recipes. Luella, my dear wife, found it both strange and uncomfortable. She reminded me that each of these wise and godly ladies had a different experience of the church than the elders did, and it might be helpful to hear from them. She wasn’t asking for women elders but for the gifts and experiences of women to be valued and given expression.

So one Saturday morning after breakfast the women joined the men in a discussion about church. It was one of the most important and eye-opening conversations the elders had ever had. We learned things about ourselves and the life, culture, and ministry of our church that we would have never known any other way. As the women lovingly shared with us, some of our weaknesses and failures were exposed. We began to see these women as not only wives and mothers but also as God’s gifted image bearers, built by him to be essential contributors to the life and health of his church. We scheduled a time for our wives to be part of the conversation at every retreat after that.

A woman who comes to her pastor with a concern about issues in the church, questions about a sermon, or concerns about leadership attitudes or decisions should not be brushed off, wrongly criticized, dismissed, or silenced. A woman who has not gotten married or who has pursued a career should not be judged. Married women should not be viewed as attachments to their husbands but rather as God-called and God-gifted contributing members of the body of Christ who happen to be married. Women do not experience the body of Christ as men do. Women see things that men don’t see. Women communicate truth differently than men. A body of Christ is healthiest when women are esteemed and their gifts highly valued, not just in the home but also in the church. The church needs highly trained women theologians. The church needs to give voices to gifted gospel-communicating women. We need to encourage gospel-wise women to write. To do anything less fails to treat women with the honor that was stamped on them at creation.

One of the ways to build a culture that values the essentiality of the gifts of women in the body of Christ is to highlight the robust role that women had in God’s unfolding plan of redemption in Scripture. As you walk your way through biblical history, it becomes clear that the work of God is not solely a man’s domain; it is the ambassadorial calling of men and women alike. Sarah, Rebekah, Miriam, Rahab, Deborah, Ruth, Hannah, Esther, Anna, Mary, Elizabeth, Mary Magdalene, and Phoebe are just a few of the women God used to move along his plan of redemption. Men and women are called to be Christ’s disciples, his instruments, his representatives, and his messengers. We should teach this history to our boys and girls.

We want boys to grow into men who value the presence and gifts of women in the body of Christ, and we want girls to be clear about their calling and the need to hone the gifts God has given them.

The theology of the image of God in all people should radically influence the way we view and respond to women, co-image bearers by God’s design. This theology calls us away from denigrating and objectifying women and calls us to honor them as those who bear the very likeness of God himself. It calls us to honor their gifts, to give their unique experience a voice, and to train them for work as God’s agents in the world and as essential members of his church. Hear Spurgeon:

We cannot say to the women, “Go home, there is nothing for you to do in the service of the Lord.” Far from it, we entreat Martha and Mary, Lydia and Dorcas and all the elect sisterhood, young and old, rich and poor, to instruct others as God instructs them. Young men and maidens, old men and matrons, yes—and boys and girls who love the Lord—should speak well of Jesus and make known His salvation from day to day.

Taken from Is Your View of Women Aligned with Your Theology? by Paul David Tripp, Copyright © 2023. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.org.

Photo by Allen Taylor on Unsplash

Pray for Pregnancy Resource Centers as They Face Increased Challenges and Sometimes Even Attacks

I’ll never forget when I was a young pastor, and we invited Portland’s first and then only crisis pregnancy center to do a presentation at Good Shepherd Community Church. At the time, there were Catholic birthright centers, but only a dozen or so of these evangelical clinics in the country, most of them on the East Coast. The clinic director shared her testimony of having an abortion that devastated her. Nanci and I were among the many people in our church who bought into the vision of this great ministry. I gladly said yes to serving on the clinic board, and we took an offering to substantially support that center and help them eventually open a second one on the Portland east side.

Pregnancy resource centers are a ministry that meets the needs of the poor, the vulnerable, and the powerless. They display the heart of God for the child (fatherless) and the widow (abandoned, husbandless). These centers have the tremendous opportunity to both meet practical needs and share the Gospel. It is the kind of ministry I believe God is calling many to get involved in.

Most of these centers have dozens of volunteers, some of them hundreds, donating not only time spent with clients, but also everything from clothing to maintenance to service to office supplies and computer support. I have served on the board of one such center, on the steering committee to get another started, and have visited dozens of them across the country. Though their services cost them a great deal of money—as opposed to making them a lot of money— there are more abortion alternative centers in the United States than there are abortion clinics. When Portland’s pregnancy resource center started over 30 years ago, there were only 12-15 PRCs in the whole country. Now there are over 2,000! It is amazing how far the movement has come.

However, since the leak of the Dobbs opinion last year, and the subsequent overturning of Roe v. Wade, these centers across the U.S. have faced increased hostility. Care Net explains,

…with the overturning of Roe has also come a surge in anti-pregnancy center rhetoric. Failing to see the reality of how pregnancy centers provide vital services to families in need, many pro-choice activists have instead focused on one element of pregnancy center work—the fact that pregnancy centers do not offer or refer for abortion. Because of negative attitudes toward this, as well as the faith-based origin of most pregnancy centers, many activists have taken up attacks against pregnancy centers as a misguided outlet for their fear and anger post-Roe.

Sometimes this hostility has taken the form of fake negative reviews, spammed online appointments, or troll commenters. Other times, physical violence and attacks have occurred. Since May 2022, there have been at least 87 attacks on pregnancy resource centers and pro-life groups, Catholic Vote reports.

One of the pregnancy resource centers damaged by an attack is in my hometown of Gresham, Oregon. Last June, it was set on fire, apparently by an incendiary device thrown through a window. 

A few weeks before that, the SE Portland Pregnancy Resource Center had been vandalized. In the wake of the attack, First Image said:

This moment in our culture is volatile, and the spillover into violence is deeply destructive to the fabric of our communities. We reject and refuse to have any part in the culture of hate. Jesus has modeled a different way. It’s the way of love. That narrow way includes, as a challenge to us all, the love of those who hate us. 

Though the Gresham center was forced to temporarily close for the extensive repairs, First Image sees God at work. Luke Cirillo, their CEO, recently wrote, “There are more new people supporting this work than we’ve ever experienced. More clients are coming into our clinics to receive critical support. Years’ worth of security and facility upgrades happened in less than twelve months. In short, we are encouraged.”

Kathy Roberts, the Executive Director of Life Choices in Colorado, shared the following with Care Net about the attack on their PRC:

I am sending a picture of our soot-covered Bible that someone picked up when we got back into the building. It was opened to Psalms 68: “Let God arise and his enemies be scattered; let those who hate Him flee before him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; As wax melts before the fire, So let the wicked and guilty perish before (the presence of) God. But let the righteous be glad; let them sing to God, sing praises to His name; Lift up a song for Him who rides through the desert - His name is the Lord - be in good spirits before Him. A father of the fatherless and a judge and protector of the widows…”

I sent this because I felt there was a message in the words on the page that “just happened” to be opened. We cried and grieved the loss, and rejoice in seeing what the Lord is doing in the midst of the battle we faced…God is faithful and true; therefore, I march forward in this crazy battle. He has called all PRC’s to fight...can’t say it’s been a party—but I can say we serve a Mighty God. Serving Him is an awesome privilege.

I encourage you to download (without cost) my short book Pro-Choice or Pro-Life: Examining 15 Pro-Choice Claims—What Do Facts & Common Sense Tell Us? It will equip you in your conversations and also is a great book to share with those who are pro-choice or are on the fence. The book is now also available in Spanish.

Top photo by Bethany Beck on Unsplash