Daniel Darling's Blog, page 31
March 8, 2018
The Way Home: D.H. Dilbeck on the legacy of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass used the power of gospel preaching to challenge the slave-holding religion of the white Christian church. Douglass used the biblical language of God’s judgment and hope to shape the consciences of his generation. D.H. Dilbeck, author of a great new book Frederick Douglass: America’s Prophet[image error], joins the podcast to discuss the legacy of this heroic abolitionist.
Show Notes
Book: Frederick Douglass: America’s Prophet [image error]
March 1, 2018
The Way Home: Jenny Yang on being an advocate for refugees and immigrants
Why should Christians advocate for refugees and immigrants? Jenny Yang, daughter of an immigrant and advocate, says it is her pro-life convictions that compel her to speak up. Jenny is the vice-president of advocacy for World Relief. She joins the podcast to talk immigration, refugees, and Christian leadership.
Show Notes
Twitter: @JennyYangWR
Website: worldrelief.org
Book: Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion & Truth in the Immigration Debate [image error]
February 27, 2018
The Tension of Influence and Humility
In his book Playing God, Andy Crouch writes of an incident with a well-known megachurch pastor. In the pastor’s study, Andy quizzed the leader about how he managed his power. “We are all servant leaders here!” he said. “We don’t care about power.” Then the two left and walked into an office space where church staff members were busy working. When the pastor entered the room, the staff immediately sat up straighter and acted busy—a visible sign that the pastor had power he didn’t want to admit he possessed.
This a fitting anecdote for the age in which we live, the era of the #humblebrag—the golden age of servant leadership, where leaders at all levels of society want to be known for their humility. This is a tension that doesn’t exist only for people in public vocations, but for influencers across the spectrum.
Social media has democratized authority in numerous ways, deregulating influence in a manner that enables not just power brokers but people in many kinds of positions. We’re all public figures now. All possessors of influence. This is why it is important for Christians to pause and think deeply about how we’re presenting ourselves to the world.
LOOK AT ME
The evangelical world has lately been wrestling with controversies over celebrity, power, and influence. Many people are asking good questions about the impact of megastars on the church. But what many of these discussions miss is the inevitability of influence.
For some called to public vocations, such as writing, speaking, or performing, this conversation is especially prescient. Inherent in the creative arts, there is an assumption of an audience. We want to be discovered, to have the world read our work, hear our speech, or consume our art. As I’m writing this article today in a downtown Nashville coffee shop, I’m writing with the hope that more eyeballs than my own will see it. I’m writing because I think I have something worth reading. The moment any of us press send or publish, we are saying, “What I have just created is worth someone’s time.”
You might be tempted to think it’s only creative or public vocations that must wrestle with such things, but this isn’t true. Because work is a gift of God that impacts humanity, every Christian has a sphere of influence. Consider your family, your immediate circle of friends, work colleagues, or your church. And in this inter-connected age, anyone with a smartphone and a social media profile has a platform.
Influence is unavoidable.
OUR SOURCE OF POWER
We’re rightly suspect of power, especially in a fallen world. In recent years, many of our major institutions have failed us. Armed with a growing sense of cynicism about leadership and the tools of our media age, we’re wary of acknowledging our own influence or accepting others’. But we must be wary of adopting an impoverished view of power.
The Christian story reminds us that we have the responsibility to leverage power for the flourishing of our fellow humans and the stewardship of creation. Genesis 1:28 and 2:15 present a world breathed into existence by a Creator—and a human race sculpted by His hands, made in His image. We most resemble God when we assume power over creation to cultivate His raw materials and share them to help the human race thrive. This whole arrangement, God declares, is very good.
The cultural mandate here assumes power, a kind not given to the plant life, the animal kingdom, or even the angelic realm. A power reassigned from God to humans. Crouch writes, “Why is power a gift? Because power is for flourishing. When power is used well, people and the whole cosmos come more alive to what they were meant to be.”
Of course, it can be corrupted. Adam and Eve’s sin was a failed attempt at assuming more power than the Creator intended. And since then, man has often used his God-given endowment to kill, exploit, and hoard instead of create, cultivate, and multiply. It took only one generation for a man to use his power against his brother through violence. But the right application of power is not to abdicate it altogether or to pretend that influence doesn’t exist, but (through redemption in Christ) to use our gifts for the good of our neighbor and to the glory of God.
A properly exercised position of influence can lead many toward their Creator. Consider the reluctant influence of Moses, who had to be coaxed into a position of authority. Think about Jeremiah, the hiding and weeping prophet who was used by God, not to amass a large following but to be His voice to a disobedient nation. Then there is the apostle Paul, who urged his followers to “be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1).
EMBRACING THE TENSION
So Christians must embrace the tension of humility and influence. We’re heralds of a message that must be heard and stewards of gifts that must be exercised. Yet we are servants of Christ. We live not for our own indulgence but for the glory of God. To hoard glory, seek after fame, and make our work about ourselves violates why we were created in the first place. It’s also not the path to true joy.
We’ve all seen the corrosive effects of corrupted power, a grasping at god-like status that began with one serpent’s seductive whisper. This occurs when power is our object of worship instead of the means by which we worship our Creator. Says Tony Reinke:
The aim to become famous is a pitifully pathetic god. Fame will never satisfy your heart. It may give you a buzz for a while, but those who try to feed on the buzz of fame are in for the harsh reality that fame only feeds unquenchable desires for more fame, eventually filling the heart with dread and anxiety of the coming day when the fame has passed.
C. S. Lewis, in his book The Allegory of Love, says, “The descent to hell is easy, and those who begin by worshipping power soon worship evil.” So how do we know when influence has become all-consuming instead of being properly used for glorifying God and loving our neighbors?
We can use simple diagnostic questions. Those in more public callings might ask: Has fame or platform become my all-consuming idol, or am I willing to allow the Spirit to empower my gifts for the benefit of others? Those in less visible vocations might ask different questions: Do I work to earn the praise of those around me? Am I in this only to earn a paycheck and advance my career, or do I seek to genuinely serve those around me?
This honest dialogue with ourselves begins with a commitment of love and humility. Love, Paul reminds us, is the motivation for all spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 13). Bereft of love, we have nothing. It frightens me sometimes to think that I could gain the entire evangelical world and lose my own soul—that all my accomplishments could be refuse because of a lack of love. So when power tempts us, the solution is not to become sheepish about the work of our hands and hide the gifts God has given. Neither is it to pursue fame and fortune. Instead, it is to steward our gifts, opportunities, and resources, and to hold loosely the life we have. We do this by realizing fame and fortune are lesser pleasures than that of knowing Christ.
Power can be a lethal weapon that, used improperly, can crush those it was meant to serve. Used well, it can lead to human flourishing. Wherever we are, our first question shouldn’t be “How can I accumulate more power?” but “What would I do with more power if I had it?” Few Christians are prepared for the sudden gift of new influence. Michael Hyatt, former CEO of Thomas Nelson and popular author and blogger, says this:
For more than 30 years, I have worked in the publishing field with Christian leaders, authors, and other creatives. During this time, I have witnessed the corrosive effects of fame. Very few have been able to handle the temptations that come with increased influence. I have seen leaders get prideful, greedy, and demanding. Sadly, it has increasingly become the norm in a world that values charisma above character.
We should embrace influence as a good gift from God and steward it wisely. Love and humility, flowing from our identity in Christ, will help us redeem that influence and leverage it for the service of others and the glory of God. Few of us will be truly famous, and few will have a kind of platform that attracts thousands. But all of us, regardless of where we stand, have someone looking at and learning from our life.
Originally appeared in In Touch Magazine
February 22, 2018
Ann Voskamp, Russell Moore, Jim Daly, and Jenny Yang on what it means to be pro-life
Show Notes
Twitter:
@AnnVoskamp
@drmoore
@dalyfocus
@jennyyangtv
February 20, 2018
So you want to make disciples
What does it mean to be on mission for God? Evangelicals are asking this question more often in a culture that seems increasingly inhospitable to Christian witness. So words like missional and incarnational are all the rage, driving people to think holistically (another buzz word) about their presence in a particular local community.
These discussions are good because they help equip God’s people to fulfill the Great Commission in our time. And yet I wonder if we often complicate the task of making disciples. Sometimes our evangelism language is so stilted and academic that it paralyzes everyday Chris-tians from utilizing what may be their most important asset: their own God-given personalities. This is because we’ve often reduced evangelism to a single transaction: communicating some gospel-themed material to another person and asking for a decision. So we try something ungraceful, like shoving a tract into the hand of an unsuspecting train rider, abruptly injecting an invitation to trust Christ into a casual chat with a neighbor, or firing off a misguided email, with-out context, to a long-lost relative.
At times these methods work. I know folks who became Christians from this kind of fly-by evangelism. But conversions usually result from deliberate, genuine friendship building. This involves intentionally inserting ourselves in environments where unbelievers are present. It includes leveraging our natural human talents to find common ground and build friendships. It requires patience, not trying to “close the deal” but coming along-side, seeking a person’s good, and learning to grow in relationship.
I’ve seen this work well in my own neighborhood. Even though we live in the Bible Belt, our community is religiously diverse. We’ve recently struck up a good friendship with our Muslim neighbors. Our kids play together. We have invited them to our parties. And we’ve had deep, long, meaningful chats about Christianity and Islam. This happened not because I confronted them with a tract, but because we took time to build a relationship.
Proverbs 18:24 (KJV) reminds us that friendships are built because people are … friendly. Normal. Human. Earthy. Relationships aren’t built by a one-plus-one-equals-two formula.
The best ones are organic, with a sharing of interests and kindnesses, and a willingness to grow and learn from each other in mutually beneficial ways. This means we share meals, cry over losses, discuss hurts and pains. We walk through life side by side.
Evangelicals tend to overcomplicate this, as if “spiritual conversations” are on a different and mystical level. But when we present ourselves to others, we don’t simply bring the churchy part of who we are; we bring our whole selves, body and spirit. We bring our unique God-given personalities and emotions. We bring our experiences, backgrounds, and heritages as well as our biases, weaknesses, and preferences. Our mission is not simply to transmit a pre- scripted set of propositions but to live and share the grand story, contextualized for our own time and place.
To be a Christian on mission means we are distinct from the world; we represent a different kingdom, with its own counter-cultural values. But that doesn’t mean we’re somehow less than human. In reality, Christ-followers should be more fully so. We are new creations, who have experienced restoration and are showing the world what it really is to be human.
The church, then, isn’t made up of people who all look, sound, and act like each other. If it is, we’re doing something wrong. God is interested not in homogeneity but in creating a church that’s an outpost of His kingdom—a diverse hodgepodge of abilities, backgrounds, races, and tribes. To be conformed to Christ’s image is not to be conformists. God’s recreated image in us looks different from soul to soul.
When we intentionally build relationships with our neighbors and coworkers, we should worry less about acting out some kind of cookie-cutter Christian existence and more about being our imperfect, in-process selves. It’s incarnational, it’s missional—yes. But at the most basic level, disciple making is simply being human.
February 16, 2018
The Way Home: Ben Watson on caring about pro-life issues and justice issues
Show Notes
Twitter: @BenjaminSWatson
Website: thebenjaminwatson.com
Book: Under Our Skin: Getting Real about Race. Getting Free from the Fears and Frustrations that Divide Us.
February 1, 2018
The Way Home: Sen. James Lankford on maintaining spiritual disciplines
He was trained for the ministry, but he serves in another kind of public role: United States Senator. What prompted Senator James Lankford to pursue a life of government service and how does he maintain his spiritual disciplines in a demanding, public life? Sen. Lankford discusses his unique calling, what issues drives him, and why he’s so concerned with civility in our politics?
Show Notes
Twitter: @SenatorLankford
Website: lankford.senate.gov
http://www.bpnews.net/49768
January 31, 2018
Called to the cubicle: Regardless of where we work, we’re all in full-time ministry.
“Brother John gave up a lucrative career in the business world to enter full-time Christian service,” the pastor announced. “He’s working for Jesus now.” The church erupted in applause, but my heart sank because I felt sorry for the man sitting next to me. My father, a skilled tradesman, wasn’t leaving his business to enter “full-time Christian service.” Was he somehow less of a believer or less spiritual than those who received a paycheck from a Christian 501(c)(3)?
These are questions that rattled around in my teenage brain. Fortunately, I later acquired a more robust theology of faith and work and came not only to appreciate so-called “laymen” like my father, but also to see all work, not just church work, as Christian service. But I suspect most believers, who labor every day in secular factories and offices, soldier on with a theologically deficient view of their calling. Mondays continue to be the most difficult day of the week for many because they can’t see God at work in their work.
We typically think of the utility of our jobs in three categories:
First, our jobs are opportunities to make money. This may sound rather crass, but working to make money is a biblical concept. Paul reminded the Thessalonians, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (2 Thess. 3:10 esv). Later in a letter to Timothy, Paul said a man who doesn’t provide for his family is “worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8). Chris-tians shouldn’t love money, but they shouldn’t disregard its use-fulness, either. It’s necessary to live and function in the world.
Second, our jobs are opportunities to share. Most Christians would acknowledge that their presence in a mostly secular work environment is an opportunity, given by God, to be a gospel witness. Romans 10:14 reminds us that we are the preachers God sends into a lost world. Over time, a believer can be a faithful presence when work relationships provide the opportunity for gospel conversations. What’s more, the quality of our work can, in and of itself, be a silent witness to the gospel.
Third, our jobs allow us to support the church. Most Christians would acknowledge that a steady income gives more opportunity to help fund kingdom work. Giving is an act of joyful worship (2 Cor. 9:7); it is also how we demonstrate our spiritual priorities. A regular commitment to give to the local church is an ongoing witness to ourselves and to the world that we value Christ and the gathering of His people.
Most Christians might list one or all three of the above reasons as motivations for their work. But are provision, evangelism, and giving the only reasons for clocking in on Monday? Or could it be that the cubicle, the truck stop, or the hospital might also be full-time service in the way that Christian ministry is?
We tend to see work as a product of the fall, as an unnecessary yet now integral part of living in a cursed world. But work is not punishment—it’s a gift. Work is cursed only insomuch as it is harder because of sin. The ground now fights back with thorns and thistles. Sin infects our business dealings and motivations. And the cursedness of humanity often creates difficult working conditions.
But work, in and of itself, is not a curse. It is one way in which we reflect the image of God. Unlike the rest of creation, humans were given a mandate—to sub-due the earth and to leverage our creative gifts to glorify Him. When we labor with our hands and take pride in what we pro-duce, we are performing godlike functions. This is why the Bible urges, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Eccl. 9:10). So if good work produced by skillful hands glorifies God, His people should be motivated to give it their best.
Creator, we’ll never run short on inspiration. Even when we have enough money. Even when we’ve ascended the heights of corporate success. Even if everyone in our office is a believer.
By viewing our work as God’s gift, we no longer have to dread Mondays or view our cubicles, kitchens, classrooms, or construction sites as less than sacred. The workplace becomes a canvas on which to display God’s creative glory. This is why Abraham Kuyper famously said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, ‘Mine!’” There is no division between secular and sacred, because all the earth is the Lord’s, even the humble and seemingly inconsequential spaces where many Christians ply their trade.
Our work is not just a means to an end, an ATM to fund church work, or a place to grudgingly evangelize. No matter what we do for a living, we’re engaged in full-time Christian ministry from nine to five each day. The cubicle is not a prison but an altar, and knowing that should radically change how we think about the place where we spend a large part of our adult lives.
This was originally published by In Touch Magazine.
January 18, 2018
The Way Home: Erik Stanley on defending religious freedom
What compels a Christian to study law and defend religious liberty? Does working for religious liberty go against Jesus’ command for his disciples to down their lives? Erik Stanley, from Alliance Defending Freedom, joins the podcast to discuss his life’s calling and the importance of religious liberty.
Show Notes
Twitter: @ADFErik
Website: adflegal.org and adflegal.org/church-alliance
January 16, 2018
No, you can’t have it all now: How we preach a prosperity gospel without even knowing it
If you were to ask most Christians, you’d find many consider the prosperity gospel to be an unbiblical teaching offered by religious hucksters. But there’s a subtle way in which a similar message creeps into our theologically sound churches—a back-door heresy perhaps more damaging than the promise of a bigger house or fatter bank account.
It is the prosperity gospel of instant life change. I often heard a version of this during testimony time in the otherwise fundamentalist church where I grew up. Some former alcoholic would stand up and say something like, “I was hungover on Saturday, and by Monday I had taken my last drink.”
I have to admit testimonies like this still move me emotionally. I’m stirred because I really do believe in the power of the gospel to regenerate a person’s life. Christ is in the business of changing us, but we too often communicate a message that sanctification happens instantaneously for everyone who truly believes.
The problem is, this is not only untrue for most of the people in our churches, but it’s also not a promise Jesus made. Instead, Jesus said we’d have to take up our cross of suffering and yield to the Spirit’s work of sanctification on a daily basis. Paul, who was certainly no hedonist, admitted his own death struggle with sin (Rom. 7:7-25). And what about the writer of Hebrews, who compares the Christian life to a marathon, a daily putting off of the “sin which so easily entangles us” ( 12:1)?
The gospel is the power to radically alter lives. Some of this change may be apparent immediately after conversion. But more often, it occurs over time. The greatest life change is the result of a hard, slow slog of sanctification—the work of the Spirit through the Word and other means of grace, such as the church, sacraments, and prayer. We should celebrate change, but we should also prepare ourselves—and those we disciple—for a lifetime of struggle against sin. What’s more, we must embed in hearts the theology of an already-but-not-yet eschatological view. What this means is, even as we experience Christ’s renewing and sanctifying power in the present, we understand that most things won’t be made new until He returns to consummate His kingdom. John expressed the idea this way: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be . . . when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2). Even our “best life now” as a Christian in a fallen world is light-years away from the perfected self we’ll see in glory.
At first glance, this seems hopeless because, in this life, we’ll never fully experience the change we want to see. And yet this expectation of future glory is powerfully hopeful because it releases us from an impossible standard and keeps us from offering the false promise of a flawless life. Instead, we can fix our gaze on Jesus, who is working to craft us into the people we will eventually be by His grace.
Imagine how this perspective might revolutionize discipleship. No longer would people be “projects” for us to reshape if only they’d follow our Bible-based growth plan. Instead, we’d see people as they are—entangled in the knotty effects of the fall, even as they cooperate with the Holy Spirit to grow into Christ’s likeness. Knowing that in due time this all will be reversed, we’d have greater patience for the process. We might encourage one another with this hope: Christ is renewing us daily, and a time is coming when the process will be complete. That is our ultimate deliverance.
So, for instance, the alcoholic won’t be offered a temptation-free life but, rather, a “way of escape” each day from the sin that so easily besets. The pornography-addicted teen won’t be told just to “get saved and your troubles will go away,” but will instead hear it’s possible to “repent and rest on Jesus, and you’ll find in Him the strength to fight for sanctification.” And rather than trying to have a new kid by Friday, parents will begin praying regularly for the Spirit to renew and regenerate their child.
We must reject the quick-fix gospel that makes promises in our fallen world which are possible only in a perfected one. What the Bible offers is not a five-step method or a plan for life change, but the good news of God’s salvation. For that reason, we can live in the present, trusting that God is forming us—slowly, methodically, permanently—into His new kingdom people.
This was originally published by In Touch Magazine.
