John Piper opens up Paul’s immense warning to those who would help to build God’s church. How can church leaders leave behind work that lasts?

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ABSTRACT: Just as the serpent led Adam and Eve into idolatry by reinterpreting God’s good word, so prosperity and word-of-faith preachers are today proclaiming a false and idolatrous gospel. But unlike Adam, African preachers are refusing to stay mute. Recognizing the need for faithful interpretation of Scripture, they have drawn up a statement to help pastors stand against the idolatrous assumptions and teachings of the prosperity gospel and word-of-faith theology.

Christian leadership is war. When God calls a man to shepherd his flock, he calls him to war against wolves. Satan, the father of lies, and his minions hate the spiritual health of God’s people, wanting nothing more than to lead the people of God from truth to idolatry. The spiritual leaders of God’s flock are called to fight against Satan’s counterfeit gospels by proclaiming the word of God (Ephesians 6:17). When those leaders fall silent, when they fail to preach the sufficiency of Christ alone, they make space for Satan to lead the people of God into idolatry. As John Calvin rightly said, “Those in authority in the church turned over to idols the office of teaching for no other reason than that they themselves were mute.”¹ The muteness of faithful leaders gives voices to idols.

Since Genesis 3, the devil has been in the business of poisoning the minds of God’s people with lies. In God’s good garden, the enemy came preaching lies: If God truly loves you, he will give you the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden. Eve paid close attention while Adam idly stood by, mute. Thus he, his wife, and all his descendants died of the poison of Satan. The world is under the curse of sin because of a failure of leadership.²

One of Satan’s most deceptive counterfeits plaguing both American and African churches is the prosperity gospel, a false teaching that elevates the idols of health, wealth, and power. David Oyedepo, a strong proponent of the prosperity gospel and word-of-faith theology, says, “Healing is the covenant right of every child of God . . . sickness has no right to feast on your life.” He goes on to proclaim healing over his congregation: “In the name of Jesus, I decree an end to every toil with sickness and disease.” He assures them that faith in Jesus means the end of sickness.³

As I’ve written elsewhere, this “idolatrous perversion of the gospel” turns Jesus into “a means to God’s full blessings, primarily of health, wealth, and might” in the present life.⁴ Its widespread success indicates a failure on the part of so-called shepherds to engage in spiritual warfare by speaking the whole testimony of God’s word.

Today, many church leaders in Africa are boldly refusing to remain mute while the “new serpent,” the prosperity gospel and word-of-faith theology, reinterpret God’s goodness as mere material blessings. These bold leaders are now advancing the centrality of the true gospel by the recent publication of the Africa Statement on the Prosperity Gospel and Word of Faith Theology. The present essay introduces the statement, first explaining why it is necessary, then summarizing its main points, and concluding with a warning against the syncretism of prosperity teaching.

Hermeneutical Battlefield

Our hermeneutics determine whom we hallow, and whom we hallow reinforces our hermeneutics. As it was in the garden, the fight for the people of God is the battle for faithful interpretation of God’s word. Biblical interpretation can either create idols or cultivate love and worship for the one true God. If our interpretation skills create idols, those idols will engrave the faulty interpretation skills in our minds and shape how we read. As Calvin rightly said, “Man’s nature [particularly his mind] is a perpetual factory of idols.”⁵ As he thinks, so he worships; as he worships, so he thinks. Failure to read rightly and think appropriately about what God has revealed concerning himself and his work leads to the mental creation of idols. We never leave our Bibles without either accepting God as he reveals himself or creating our own god. Faulty hermeneutics leads to false gods; and when we have settled for false gods, the gods inevitably intensify faulty hermeneutics.

‘Another Jesus’

We see this clearly in the church of Corinth, where false teachers created a new Jesus by their hermeneutics. Paul warns the Corinthian believers against the deceptive teaching of the “super-apostles” who proclaimed “another Jesus,” “a different spirit,” and, therefore, “a different gospel” (2 Corinthians 11:4).⁶ Their teaching differed from the apostolic gospel. They were agents of Satan disguising themselves as apostles of Christ (2 Corinthians 11:13–15).

Underneath their proclamation of “another Jesus” was a hermeneutical problem. Paul calls the false apostles “peddlers of God’s word” (2 Corinthians 2:17).⁷ They used God’s word for personal gain, shaping their message to impress their listeners and make a profit for themselves. Refusing to receive the Bible on its own terms, they twisted it to generate messages that would sell. Thus they produced a different Jesus, a different spirit, and a different gospel.

Since they made themselves the measure of the text, they saw only a reflection of themselves. As Calvin warns, the “flesh is always uneasy until it has obtained some figment like itself in which it may fondly find solace as in an image of God.”⁸ For the super-apostles in Corinth, Scripture was not a window to God’s glory but a mirror reflecting their own greatness. This led to competition and comparisons among themselves. Instead of commending God, they commended themselves and thus were without understanding (2 Corinthians 10:12; cf. Psalm 49:20). With minds veiled from the glory of Christ, their hermeneutic led them to idolatry.

Prosperity preachers and followers of a word-of-faith theology do the same. By their hermeneutic, they hew for themselves, and their followers, a new god whom they claim gives them their best life now. Because they lack a biblical understanding of “already but not yet,” the “new serpent” forces the “not yet” of the new heaven and new earth into the “already” of the sin-accursed world and uses the cross as the justification for such a forced overlap of the ages.⁹ Like the so-called super-apostles, prosperity preachers today turn the good news of the gospel into a matter of idolatrous self-aggrandizement.

War for the Sheep

Every leader of God’s people since Adam stands before two choices: either passively give in to idolatry or actively protect God’s people so that they faithfully worship the one true covenant God of the Scriptures.

Paul grounds the call for faithful leadership in the church on the intrusion of false teachers who lead people astray with false teaching. Church leaders must be morally qualified (Titus 1:5–8) and theologically sound, holding to and protecting the flock with sound doctrine, while also protecting them from those who contradict the truth. “For there are many who are insubordinate. . . . They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works” (Titus 1:10, 16). Claiming to know God, they have turned many from the truth to lies (Titus 1:14). In such a context, leaders must rise to the task of spiritual warfare to protect and provide for the sheep (see Titus 2:1).

In similar fashion, Paul warns the Ephesian elders,

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. (Acts 20:28–32)

Paul’s urgent call for the elders to protect and provide concerns both the elders’ lives and those of the flock. Made overseers by God the Holy Spirit, they are called to protect and care for God the Father’s church, which he obtained with the blood of Christ, his only Son. The burden of leadership is to protect and provide for the blood-bought people of God with blood earnestness as they wage war against wolves who speak lies to draw men into idolatry.

It is this same burden that drove several African Christian leaders to issue the Africa Statement on the Prosperity Gospel and Word of Faith Theology. Our desire is to wage war for the worship of the one true God, rather than remain mute as false teachers proclaim the new deity of the prosperity gospel.

Drawing Battle Lines: The Africa Statement

The Africa Statement is a tactical response in the war against the serpent that spans from Adam to Africa, the war against the idols created through wrong readings of God’s word. African leaders are reclaiming true theology for Africa (and the world), combatting idolatry with the sword of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 6:17). The leaders believe that they “are not waging war according to the flesh”; they employ the weapons with divine power to destroy the false teaching that produces idolatry — “arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God” — and seek to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3–5).

Without attempting to exhaustively address all the distortions of the prosperity theology, the African statement is structured as fourteen articles, each affirming what Scripture teaches and denying what is taught in the prosperity gospel and word-of-faith theology. This structure draws a clear boundary between falsehood and truth, exposing possible counterfeit views and plausible alternatives that might sound Christian but are not of the faith, thus helping pastors fulfill the dual tasks Paul describes in Titus 1:9: “He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.”¹⁰

While the Africa Statement, with its Scripture proofs, is worth reading in full, the following presents a brief summary of all fourteen articles.

Article 1: Affirms that God is a good Father who gives good gifts but denies that God has guaranteed material blessings, health, and wealth in the present age.

Article 2: Affirms that Christ’s atonement is for the forgiveness of sins and denies that the cross guarantees health and wealth in the present age.

Article 3: Affirms sound hermeneutics (context, grammar, and so on) and denies subjective impressions and “hidden revelations” as legitimate methods of hearing God’s voice.

Article 4: Affirms the promises to Israel in the old covenant but denies that Christians stand in the same covenantal position or can claim those material promises directly.

Article 5: Affirms that sin and foolish living can bring serious consequences but denies that believers are necessarily bound by “generational curses.”

Article 6: Affirms that in the Old Testament God met people in places (such as the tabernacle and temple) but denies that today certain places or objects (“points of contact”) have special access to heaven or blessings.

Article 7: Affirms that suffering is a normal part of the Christian life but denies that suffering necessarily results from weak faith.

Article 8: Affirms generous giving but denies that tithes and offerings are the mechanism to unlock guaranteed material blessings.

Article 9: Affirms the blessing of wise, truthful, and edifying speech but denies that humans have the power to “speak things into existence.”

Article 10: Affirms that humans are made in God’s image but denies that Christians are “little gods.”

Article 11: Affirms that faith is God’s gift by which we trust Christ for salvation but denies that faith is a creative force or power that obligates God to work.

Article 12: Affirms clear biblical thinking but denies that conjuring mental images and making positive declarations can result in those things materializing in the life of a believer.

Article 13: Affirms that God has appointed leaders for the church and denies the “man-of-God” culture that demands unquestioned loyalty to a particular pastor.

Article 14: Affirms that God created us to glorify and enjoy him forever and denies that God can be used for other ends.

In many ways, the prosperity gospel and the word-of-faith theology pose an even greater danger to the church than worldviews that directly oppose Christianity, because they maintain a Christian appearance while distorting the gospel of Christ and its benefits.

A Warning: Syncretism and the Golden Calf

The false teaching that prompted leaders to craft the Africa Statement leads to idolatry. Prosperity and word-of-faith teachers promote idolatry and lead worshipers astray who consider themselves to be worshiping the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. But their god is a god of their making. It is idolatry. It is demonic. It is destructive. Calvin rightly said,

Man’s mind, full as it is of pride and boldness, dares to imagine a god according to its own capacity; as it sluggishly plods, indeed is overwhelmed with the crassest ignorance, it conceives an unreality and an empty appearance as God. To these evils a new wickedness joins itself, that man tries to express in his work the sort of God he has inwardly conceived. Therefore the mind begets an idol; the hand gives it birth. The example of the Israelites shows the origin of idolatry to be that men do not believe God is with them unless he shows himself physically present.¹¹

False teaching is idolatry because it introduces a different God, a different Christ, and a different way of worshiping him. Thus, what is at stake in the false teaching of the prosperity gospel and the word-of-faith teaching is that men and women are being led to worship idols while they think they are worshiping the God of the Bible.

In the wilderness, Israel once bowed before a golden calf in worship of Yahweh. After Aaron formed the image with the gold collected from the people, the people proclaimed, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (Exodus 32:4, 8). Aaron built an altar and proclaimed, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the LORD” (Exodus 32:5), and the next day Israel rose and offered sacrifices to the golden calf; then they ate, drank, and played, falsely thinking they were worshiping Yahweh. Commenting on these verses, Allan Harman notes,

The people were purportedly worshipping the LORD, but in reality they were worshipping an idol. Instead of exclusive worship of their Saviour, Israel under Aaron’s leadership was engaging in religious syncretism. They sat down to eat and drink and “got up to indulge in revelry.” Their actions in this regard were more typical of Near Eastern idol worship than true worship of their God.¹²

Aaron erroneously led Israel to identify God with Baal and claim to worship Yahweh while bowing before Baal. And so do prosperity preachers today.

The god of these movements speaks through “men of God,” not through the Scriptures. Although prosperity and word-of-faith preachers carry the Bible, they worship a god of their own imagination, either the god of the “man of God” or the “man of God” himself. The tragedy of the prosperity gospel and word-of-faith theology is not just that it ignores the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but that it rebrands him. This movement calls the god who feeds their worldliness “Jesus” and defines greed as “faith.”

‘Keep Yourselves from Idols’

The hope of the leaders who crafted and signed the Africa Statement is that, with the sword of the Spirit, we might bleed and drain the lifeblood of the idols of false teaching and guard the truth for coming generations.

Our hope is that the statement will help teach and preserve the truth about God the Father, Christ and his sufficient sacrifice for sins, the Holy Spirit, and the sufficiency of God’s word for the coming generations. We want to preserve the gospel for the coming generations so that when our children ask, “What do these statements mean?” we might let them know, “Your fathers passed over from death to life. For the Lord satisfied his anger on Jesus, drying up the waters of his judgment until we passed over to life and safety in Christ, as the Lord once did at the Red Sea and the Jordan, which he dried up for Israel until they passed over. He himself is the gospel, not any earthly prosperity, and him alone should you serve as your greatest delight” (cf. Joshua 4:21–23).

Without clearly drawing the lines between truth and falsehood, we easily slip into the factory of idol manufacturing. We must depend on the Holy Spirit, develop good and faithful reading skills, seek to see in all of Scripture our crucified and risen Lord, and make him known to the glory of God. Let us read to find God, not to fashion gods.

“Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21).

What has God’s wisdom planned for his people? John Piper opens 1 Corinthians 2:6–13 to show that God ordained their glory before the ages.

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A well-cooked meal and a newborn baby fill our hearts with different delights. Pastor John explains how God’s gifts offer us a multicolored experience of joy.

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We live in a chronically noncommittal society. No wonder, then, that this has been dubbed the age of anxiety. Surely, covenant relationships aren’t the only cure, but it might surprise us how much stability of soul comes from deep, reliable, unflighty fellowship.

Today, most of the mainstream societal influences in your life implicitly or explicitly cater to your personal sense of freedom. Change your mind, opt out, you do you. No need to cut ties if you don’t have them.

Many of the freedoms we enjoy in late modern life are truly precious gifts — some even generally conducive to true Christianity. But others subtly promote a false vision of self and all reality; they pretend (and we’re often happy to pretend along with them) that our autonomous selves are the end-all-be-all. I am the given; others should cater to me. My immediate desires are fixed; the world around me should adjust accordingly.

Covenant-Making God

Into this pit of quicksand enters the covenant-making God. That you are a creature, who did not make yourself, but was made (and is upheld) by the Creator, is bracing enough. Add to that, he’s not just God but a God who makes covenants.

God made a covenant with the first man in the garden before sin entered the world and dwelled in the human soul. God made a covenant with a moon-worshiper named Abraham and promised to make a nation out of him. God made a covenant with that nation of chosen people once he had delivered them safely from slavery. And this covenant was not simply with him vertically but included thick horizontal commitments to fellow humans for life together under God.

Today, we orient in and under Christ through the new covenant. From it follow horizontal commitments to each other, promises worked out, inevitably, among real people in our own locale, that is, in local churches.

The wisdom and power of local church “membership” (or whatever you call it) rests not on a single proof text or two. Rather, the nature of human relationships in the world God made, the arc of redemptive history toward a new-covenant people not of ethnic birth but delivered from sin and death by new birth, the good limits of creaturely finitude particularized in various places around the world — all these lead inexorably to “membership,” specific people committed to one another in a specific place. No matter what you call it, what’s vital is the concept of real belonging and mutual allegiance.

My Sheep?

In a recent essay, Massachusetts pastor Stephen Witmer defines “church membership” as

a clear and continuing mutual commitment between an individual Christian and a local church, in which the church endorses the member’s profession and shepherds the member’s soul, and the member submits to the church’s authority and shares in the church’s life.

The implicit commitment between churches and their duly appointed leaders in the New Testament provides a compelling line of evidence for “membership.”

Hebrews refers to Christians having their own local leaders, who keep watch over their souls (Hebrews 13:17). The benefits here are mutual and manifold. Humble Christians want leaders who know them in their local setting and watch over their souls. And good leaders, to do their work, need to know whom they will give account for — who’s in and who’s out.

The apostle Paul addresses the local leaders in Ephesus, saying, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers” (Acts 20:28). To give the flock their careful attention and watch out for their souls, shepherds need to know who’s in the flock and who’s not.

In the same way, the apostle Peter tells leaders in Rome to “shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight . . . not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock” (1 Peter 5:2–3). Again, shepherds need to know which sheep are “in their charge” and belong to their flock, not another.

Moreover, the New Testament abounds with commands we cannot fulfill without some real sense of belonging to a particular local church and its pastors. Can you appropriately esteem your leaders (1 Thessalonians 5:12–13), honor them (1 Timothy 5:17), and have a healthy disposition that yields to their leading (Hebrews 13:17) without identifying yourself with them and submitting to the structure of belonging that allows them to know and care well for those in their charge?

For Your Good and Joy

Witmer’s definition above appeals to two leading benefits for every Christian: “the church endorses the member’s profession and shepherds the member’s soul.” It is naive, at best, to think these two benefits are anything less than dear beyond words. Amid the unruly waves of sin and sickness, disease and death, spiritual growth and puzzling backslides, the tangible, embodied endorsement of your profession of faith in Jesus by Bible-believing, trustworthy pastors, along with the whole congregation, can be an anchor for the soul. Commitment can be a means of precious assurance.

If you keep attending a church without covenanting, what do you lose? For one, you forfeit the deep and enduring joys of being the church to others and having others be the church to you. In church membership, we pledge to “be the church” to each other. This has always been vital, but it is becoming especially so in our mobile and transitory society.

Without a local-church covenant, you lose the assurance that someone will have your back when life gets tough, when you’re weary, hurting, doubting. In church membership, we do not covenant “till death do us part,” like marriage, but we do pledge to be there for each other in thick and thin.

It’s easy to be the church when life is easy — but much harder when life gets hard. And so we make promises to each other, covenant commitments, to be the church to each other not just when it’s convenient and comfortable, but when we face friction and challenges — for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish one local bride of Christ. And so we imitate Christ not in theory but in real local church practice.

Safety in the Ship

From the early days, Christians have often seen the church as a boat, afloat on the waves of the present age, an ark to save us from drowning in the swirling seas and storms that come at us. In this world, winds suddenly shift. Unexpected tempests arise with stunning fierceness. The boat rocks and creaks. We might not see the sun for days on end.

In such times, we have our unseen Lord above and our visible, tangible fellow sailors alongside. Christ has appointed our fellows as his hands for holding us fast, his mouth for telling us truth, his feet for springing to our aid as the ship tilts. In church membership, we covenant to be the church to each other on the best days and worst ones. Ironically, the kind of commitment an anxious generation scoffs at provides precisely the safety it so desperately longs for.

God changed the heart of a young “prince of preachers” all with a single, simple verse: Look to Jesus and live.

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How did Paul see his role as the first preacher a church might hear? He laid the groundwork for generations of faithful preaching.

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As we were finishing a counseling session, Jill looked at me with concern, her eyebrows furrowed. “You got distracted,” she bluntly stated.

Unfortunately, Jill was right. Just outside my workspace, several pastors gathered in the church office lobby, talking and laughing. I’d gotten sidetracked by the commotion. About 70 percent of me was attending to Jill, but 30 percent of my headspace had shifted to the lobby: What are they doing? What’s so funny?

We live in a distractible culture. Between YouTube shorts and checking our email inboxes every hour, our minds wander quickly. Staying focused is a skill few truly master. But it’s essential if we’re going to care well for God’s people.

Whether formally or informally, counseling another soul is a distinct privilege. Yet, too often, mistakes plague our conversations. Fortunately, getting distracted is one of several common mistakes that are correctable. After Jill’s jarring comment, I closed the window blinds (simple fix), talked to the staff about keeping the commotion down (another simple fix), recommitted to staying focused (possible, though it would be work), and prayed the Lord would renew my love for his sheep.

What counseling mistakes are you prone to make? Take a quick check.

Mistake 1: Fear of Man

Charlotte shares about her struggles with her job. She dislikes her boss, and she’s weary of her work. Unfortunately, she often responds to her difficulties with sinful choices. This time, she lied to her boss to get out of an assignment.

You sympathize with her frustrations but feel convinced you’ve got to speak up about her lying. Charlotte’s a Christian, and Scripture makes clear that because God never lies, Christ’s followers shouldn’t either (Colossians 3:9–10; Titus 1:2).

Yet you hesitate. You know Charlotte will get angry, and your fears kick in. Why bother bringing it up? Lying is between her and God. Right now, she needs a friend. But you know if you don’t say something, Charlotte will eventually lie to her boss again. What should you do?

Repent of your fear that causes you to avoid a difficult word. Confess your worry about speaking up to the Lord (Psalm 34:4).

If you struggle with people-pleasing, then saying a difficult word will feel painful. Reframe your situation by putting the fear of God at the center of your thinking (Proverbs 29:25; Luke 12:4–5). If we fear God more than Charlotte, we won’t let Charlotte’s potential anger get in the way.

My friend Jonathan Leeman calls the helper in this situation a “sin-absorber.” A true friend willingly absorbs the cost of another person’s sin for the sake of honoring Christ. Would you be willing to absorb Charlotte’s anger if it helps her address her lie?

Mistake 2: Assumed Insight

Angela and John have been married for 31 years. Sometimes John gets frustrated with Angela because she assumes what he’s thinking. “I know I’m not supposed to assume,” Angela would think, “but we’ve been together for a long time.” The more familiar you are with someone, the more you’re likely to get in trouble. Familiarity breeds assumptions. Think about your last conflict. How many assumptions did you make? Probably a few.

Assumptions can create problems. Sometimes our assumptions are true, but often they’re not.

If you’re prone to making assumptions, here’s how to stay away from trouble: Don’t overestimate your ability to size up a situation. Pride makes you think, “I know what’s going on.” Humility tells you, “Ask God for wisdom.” The humble recognize they’re not as smart as they think and must depend on the Lord for insight (James 1:5).

After you’ve asked the Lord for help, test your assumptions. Don’t tolerate any of them. Check the validity of your assumptions by asking thoughtful, careful, and loving questions. Genuine curiosity will lead you to ask rather than assume. At the encouragement of a friend, Angela asked more questions during marital conflict, and that built more understanding between her and John. The apostle Paul tells us that abounding love is marked by “knowledge and all discernment” (Philippians 1:9).

Mistake 3: A Misplaced Harsh Tone

Tony and Patricia are talking through a difficult topic, and Tony starts getting agitated. You can hear his tone getting louder. His anger boils below the surface, and it’s showing itself in his frustrated tone.

When we communicate, how we say things matters, not just what we say. Did you know that Scripture speaks to our tone? “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1). And “a gentle tongue is a tree of life” (Proverbs 15:4). God commends a soft and gentle word rather than a harsh or belittling tone. Patricia’s gentle tone and words helped to defuse Tony’s anger.

Granted, there are times for a serious, stern demeanor, as when you’re warning a believer who lives in sexual sin or a Christian husband who abandons his marriage. Soft words are not a good fit for such moments (Proverbs 25:11). But most of life doesn’t require a stern tone. Usually, a gentle and softer approach will be more effective in getting your message across.

Mistake 4: Hasty Speech

If we look at our typical daily conversations, it’s probably embarrassing to admit how often we speak up before we’ve truly listened. Sometimes, we half listen — like in a conflict when we’re thinking of a response even before the other person’s done speaking. Or, in our impatience, we just cut our friend off and jump in while he or she is in the middle of a sentence. Solomon says fools don’t listen or take any pleasure in understanding but only in expressing their opinion (Proverbs 18:2, 13). A fool will act impulsively and be hasty with his words (Proverbs 29:20).

What can we do? We can grow in discipline to shut our mouths and listen more, but fleshly restraint only lasts so long before we’re back to our old habits.

The Spirit can grow our patience to wait and not speak. Do you ever ask the Lord to grow your humility? Christlike humility increases your willingness to put others’ interests ahead of your own (Philippians 2:3–4). It reorients your heart away from what you think is so important to say, and it grows in you a deeper concern for others. It changes your outlook on conversations.

Mistake 5: Poor Personal Boundaries

My friend Carol was discipling a troubled young lady named Karen. Carol left for a marriage retreat with her husband, Ron, but Karen texted her throughout the retreat. After Karen’s seventh text, Ron advised Carol, “Ignore the texts, turn off the phone, and don’t look at it again until our retreat is done.” But after the tenth text, Carol still responded.

Often, weaker believers have a hard time respecting boundaries. And because Christians (and counselors especially) have merciful dispositions and bleeding hearts, we can establish poor boundaries. Technology makes things worse: We’re accessible anywhere in the world at any time.

If you’re a professional counselor, it’s likely difficult to contain your counseling to work hours. Troubled people will reach out after you’ve left the office. Even if you don’t counsel professionally, you may find others taking advantage of your graciousness. But it’s not just their fault, is it? Far too many of us are like Carol: We don’t maintain healthy boundaries. Our bleeding hearts win out over the discipline of ignoring our phones and focusing on our families. Do you check your phone or do ministry work when your kids or spouse need your attention?

Ask your spouse and a mentor for their input on a healthy boundary between your counseling and your family life. Carefully select a boundary (like “No ministry calls after 6:00pm unless it’s a true emergency”). Then tell a friend or two about your boundary and ask them to hold you accountable. If we try to do this on our own, we often fail. Pray that the Spirit might work in you. We need help to maintain healthy boundaries.

God’s Grace for Our Mistakes

As people fallen in sin, we will make mistakes, even in our efforts to help others. But by God’s grace and through the Spirit’s daily work, we’re conformed more and more into the image of Jesus, reflecting a more loving, hopeful, kind, patient, and thoughtful disposition to our friends and fellow church members (Romans 8:29). Jesus is the Wonderful Counselor (Isaiah 9:6). Our goal is to look more like him.

Wise counselors — both formal and informal — are a gift to God’s church. We want to be good stewards of this privilege of counseling souls. May our good Lord help us to make fewer mistakes, trust in Christ, and honor him in everything we do.

What blinds us to God’s wisdom in Christ? John Piper opens 1 Corinthians 2:6–13 to show how craving power and acclaim keeps us from seeing Jesus as the Lord of glory.

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What marks Christians attuned to cross-cultural missions? They may not serve as full-time missionaries, but they embrace Great Commission responsibilities. The history of missions reveals little-known senders who used their vocations for strategic gospel advance around the world. Captain Benjamin Wickes (1746–1830) was one such man.

‘Old Captain Wickes’

We meet this early American captain of a merchant vessel unexpectedly at a prayer meeting in 1806. The missionaries in Serampore, India, had gathered to send Henry Martyn to a station on the Ganges River where he would begin his work of translation and evangelism. Martyn recorded that they “met at my pagoda this evening for the purpose of commending me to the grace of God before my departure. My soul never before had such divine enjoyment” (The Letters of Henry Martyn, 194).

I would love to have been there. The meeting included both Baptist missionaries — William Carey, Joshua Marshman, and William Ward — as well as evangelical Anglicans David Brown, Daniel Corrie, and Henry Martyn. It represented a substantial collaboration between these earliest English missionaries for the advance of the gospel in India. Since much of India was controlled by the British East India Company, only Anglican missionaries received official recognition and freedom to travel. Even they, however, could pursue missionary work only when not employed in chaplaincy duties to English people residing in India. Amid such challenges, this prayer meeting of gathered co-laborers was a high point for Martyn and a moment he remembered fondly.

To the list of those present, Martyn added “old Captain Wickes.” He mentioned him again in another letter as “the good old Captain Wickes, who has brought out so many missionaries to India” (Letters, 178).

But who was this old American captain so well loved by the English missionaries in India?

Missionaries as Risky Passengers

Captain Wickes was born to a seafaring family in Maryland in 1746. His older brother, Captain Lambert Wickes, fought and died at sea during the American War for Independence. Benjamin first entered the missionary record in 1799, when the Baptist missionaries Joshua Marshman and William Ward sought passage to India from London. The situation was sensitive. The East India Company had forbidden full-time missionaries from entering, so no English ship would give Marshman and Ward passage. Carey had established his home in the Danish port of Serampore, not far from Calcutta, but no Danish ships were available.

Wickes’s American ship, however, could take the risk of transporting missionaries. When he heard about the situation, Wickes wrote to Baptist leader Andrew Fuller, saying that “he had long cherished the hope of being privileged to convey the messengers of the Gospel to the heathen, and that his fondest wish was about to be gratified” (The Life and Times of Carey, Marshman, and Ward, 110).

The privilege came with difficulties. Although American ships were regularly received in East India Company ports, the presence of missionaries complicated their arrival. When Wickes arrived in Calcutta with Marshman and Ward, East India Company officials refused him permission to sail home unless he took the missionaries with him. By God’s grace, Wickes convinced the authorities of the missionaries’ good intentions. When similar circumstances occurred in 1806, he persuaded officials that detaining his American ship might cause an international incident. Each voyage involved protracted negotiations that certainly distracted from his primary trading business.

Yet Wickes’s service proved invaluable. Every time the missionaries mentioned him, they affirmed their unbridled thanks for his efforts. William Carey wrote about him in 1805, “I, in common with my dear brethren and sisters here, feel much pleasure in hearing of the safe return to you of our much beloved brother in Christ, Capt. Wickes” (Evangelical Intelligencer, 1:201). Marshman and Ward called him “the beloved commander of the [ship] Criterion” (The Life and Times, 214). And Martyn fondly referred to him as “good old Captain Wickes.”

Captain Benjamin Wickes used his position as a ship captain to bring missionaries to India at great potential cost to himself and his business. He serves as a model for us of a committed missionary sender.

Joining in the Journey

I doubt anyone outside their little circle took much interest in that prayer meeting in Serampore in 1806. But it affected and energized Henry Martyn for years to come. It signaled ministry partnership and progress for gospel witness in India. And at age sixty, Captain Wickes made a point of being there.

No doubt he spent the majority of his life working as a sailor and captain. The four-to-six-month voyages from the United States to Asia occupied his time and energy. And yet, from the few instances we know, he lived for more than the safe passage of people and cargo from one side of the world to another. His “fondest wish was about to be gratified” when he took the chance of carrying missionaries to India. Captain Wickes understood participation in the Great Commission as his ultimate task. He took risks and made personal sacrifices to help determined missionaries find a place for ministry.

Missiologist Andrew Walls proposed that, historically, missionary movements needed to meet three conditions for sustainability: (1) an available and eager group of people to go, (2) an organization to send them, and (3) long-term access to a place for ministry. In his own small way, Captain Wickes helped open the door for long-term access. He was ready and willing when Marshman and Ward needed a ship in 1799. He returned to Calcutta several times despite the restrictions on carrying missionaries. He, a Presbyterian, took the risk of delivering more Baptist missionaries in 1806. He then spent four months in Calcutta for his troubles, advocating to free his ship from the British East India Company and helping to see the missionaries safely settled.

When we speak about missionary senders, we mean those advocates, partners, supporters, and friends who remain in their own culture while their heart extends out toward the work of cross-cultural witness. A sender aches and desires to participate concretely in gospel ministry and looks for ways to “send [missionaries] on their journey in a manner worthy of God” (3 John 6). In Captain Wickes, we see how sending work takes more than just “thoughts and prayers.” For him, it meant facilitating their journey by giving them physical passage on his ship.

Missionary Senders Today

What might this type of sending look like today? What project or task of Great Commission significance are you waiting for, eager for, and hoping to take part in? Financial generosity often provides clear opportunities. Generous donors hear about a need they’d love to meet and respond in kind. For example, when I asked a friend to help a Vietnamese church complete their project to install air conditioners, he responded with eagerness. The sender says, “I’ve waited my whole life to help local Christians in another culture!”

But there may be ways to participate in cross-cultural ministry that more closely imitate Captain Wickes. He used his primary vocation to serve the gospel. Today, those with business experience might offer their expertise as consultants. One group invites Christian businesspeople to share insights to a study group of business owners in another country. The meetings provide consulting but also introduce local leaders to intentional Christian professionals.

Many vocations today include international travel. Such trips present opportunities to fellowship with churches in other cultures, perhaps with an English-speaking international church in a global city or, through contact with cross-cultural workers, with a group of local believers. Regular visits of mature Christians who want to see and experience Christian fellowship in another culture both encourage the local church and provide a new look on God’s work around the world.

A passion to be among God’s people as they worship in a place with little to no Christian witness may also provide the chance to participate in crucial kingdom moments. Captain Wickes was present at that prayer meeting because he took a chance carrying missionaries on his ship and sought out the fellowship of believers in another country.

Missionary senders recognize gospel opportunities. Like Captain Wickes, we can respond to missionary needs as the fulfillment of a “long cherished hope” to be used by God for strategic cross-cultural gospel advance. And, holding onto that hope, we can seek out opportunities to gratify our “fondest wish.”