“You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” (James 2:19)

What is profess-ianity? Profess-ianity is an often well-intentioned but profoundly different view of salvation than what is described in the Bible as saving faith.

Profess-ianity says, “I know they are a Christian because I remember that at a particular day or time, they were saved by professing faith in Jesus as Savior.”

or

“I am going to heaven because I remember when I prayed a prayer to receive Jesus as my Savior, and as you know, once saved, always saved.”

There is a severe deficiency in this description of faith. The Epistle of James warns that simply professing belief is a demonic faith. If the profession goes no further than an acknowledgment, a verbal commitment (whether sincere or not), or a declaration, it is a flawed faith. Satan and his demons profess their belief in God and are not living atheists or skeptics. Their belief is so personal and serious that they “shudder” or “tremble.” When they think of God, in all his power and glory, they go into fight or flight mode; it is such an emotional experience that their hair stands on end.

Profess-ianity or Possession of Faith

Scripture does not describe Profess-ianity as a valid, saving faith. Instead, this is a simple profession of faith. James continues his argument in the following verses by explaining that the Christian faith is a gift that transforms one’s life with good works. As Calvin said, “It is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone: just as it is the heat alone of the sun which warms the earth, and yet in the sun it is not alone, because it is constantly conjoined with light." *

James next uses the example of Abraham (James 2:21–24), who was regenerated by faith in Genesis 15:6, and later in chapter 22 of Genesis demonstrated his possession of faith by taking Isaac to the Altar. His works displayed that his faith was not demonic but a true saving faith. Paul states in harmony with this that the Gospel is possessed by the one who not only “confesses with their mouth” but also “believes in their heart” (Romans 10:9).

James is saying something very similar to what Jesus expounded in the Sermon on the Mount to his readers.  Remember one of the closing arguments of Jesus’ great message:

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:21–23)

We see in this passage how Jesus warns of the danger of only trusting in the profession of Jesus as Lord. Many highly religious people believe they are on the road to heaven and are so confident that they don’t just say, “Lord,” but repeat the title emphatically. Yet Jesus says precisely the opposite of what we’d expect him to say about a professor. “Not everyone . . . will enter” who says, “Lord” to Jesus. The profession does not equal possession of salvation.

There is not a more stark reminder of this than the Gospel ending with Judas Iscariot and his betrayal of Jesus (Matthew 26:14–16). Judas not only had a very outwardly secure profession of faith in Jesus, but he also heard all of Jesus’s sermons and probably preached some messages himself while working signs in our Lord’s name!  Yet he ended up betraying Christ.

 We could say this another way. Why do some start as seeming followers of Jesus, boldly professing him, but end up like the ones in John 6:66?

 “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.”

 The answer is in Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:23: “I never knew you.”  Matthew Henry writes, “Let us take heed of resting in outward privileges and doings, lest we deceive ourselves, and perish eternally, as multitudes.”  There was a leak in their profession of faith; there was rot in their religious experience. They did not possess salvation in their heart—only with words in their profession.

True Christianity is a heart religion one possesses, not simply a head faith one professes. When we tell people they are Christians simply because of a quick profession with no call to repentance and speak in place of Jesus declaring people saved who never show evidence of it; we have become followers of Profess-ianity instead of Christianity.

Just having the name of Jesus on our tongues without possessing him in our hearts by faith, even having his name in Christian baptism without having him give a new heart (Ezek. 36:25–27), will profit a person nothing on the day of judgment when they face God. There is no more substantial proof that one of God’s people can never lose their salvation and fall from his grace than this declaration, “I never knew you.” They only professed but never possessed.

St. Augustine once said, “For Christ to say, "I never knew you," is only another way of saying, "You never knew me."

“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” (I John 2:19)

* John Calvin, "Acts of the Council of Trent with the Antidote," accessed 9/22/22 at https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/calvin_trentantidote.html

Originally published December 22, 2016

When we tell the Christmas story, we often begin like this: “Once, there was a girl named Mary.” Or “Once upon a time in a manger.” Even the gospels open with things that happened here on earth—the birth of John, the words of Isaiah, or the genealogy of Jesus’ family. Only the gospel of John backs all the way up and starts the Christmas story right at the very beginning: 

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) 

Once upon a time, God made all things. He spoke, and the waters woke and crashed upon the shores. He spoke and shoots uncurled, sending stalks up and roots down before bursting into bloom. 

He spoke, and light came into the world. 

During Advent, we celebrate the good news that the God who brought the earth into being with his words—who gave each child their particular grin, who invented the smell of bread rising—knit himself into creation. This is the God we call Emmanuel, “God With Us.” He “emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:7). He felt hunger and physical limitation; he felt cold on his skin for the first time. He wept. In every respect, he was tempted as we are (Heb. 4:15), but he did not sin. 

In Jesus, we behold “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). God is the Author, dwelling outside the pages of his story, in a world far wilder than ours where we cannot set foot without protection, lest we be consumed. But the one we could not approach, could not find a path to, has brought himself near to us. 

What we know as the Christmas story is a startling moment in Scripture when our shadowed world was pierced by a light from without. And though we can tell the story of Jesus' arrival in a picture book or a Christmas reading, let us know that story for what it is: a handful of chapters within a greater story, one that spans the whole history of our world from birth to rebirth. 

Our lives fit into the unwritten chapters between Jude and Revelation, long after the infant Emmanuel grew up, died, rose again, and returned to his home in heaven, but before his return to a remade earth. We were born not into a world that harbors the infant Lord himself, but into a world that reverberates with the echoes of his life and death. Ours is a world that is “groaning together in the pains of childbirth” (Rom. 8:22), looking forward to a time when our Lord will fulfill the words he spoke (again, to John) in Revelation: “Behold, I am making all things new” (21:5). 

We sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” with joy, for he has come. He has ransomed captive Israel. Rejoice! And we sing it with longing, for we look forward to the day when the God who lived among us once will return, and this time, he will come to stay:  

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). 

This week, we feast. We break bread over a grandmother’s banquet table; we clink glasses at a countertop bar in a friend’s apartment. We spoon-feed babies, savor that first bite of roast, and linger over a dripping slice of store-bought cherry pie. And as we feast, let us look forward to that final feast, when the Lord himself, the Resurrected King, will dine with us. May we, with the great multitude, cry out: 

“Hallelujah! 

For the Lord our God 

the Almighty reigns. 

Let us rejoice and exult 

and give him the glory, 

for the marriage of the Lamb has come.” 

(Revelation 19:6–7) 

That is where the Christmas story ends, and a brand new story begins. 

As we enter this season of Advent, we will walk through different genres of the Psalms to encounter the hope of Emmanuel—God with us. The Psalms are Hebrew poems and songs that articulate a wide range of human emotion and serve different purposes in Scripture: praising God in his faithfulness, expressing deep fear and desperation, and remembering and reciting the Lord’s salvation and his provision throughout Israel’s history. Just as Jewish people meditated on and learned from the Psalms, the collection of songs is instructive for us, as modern readers.  

We chose to jumpstart the series this week, before Advent even begins, to meditate on a psalm of thanksgiving. Throughout the series, we seek to study faithfully, pray expectantly, and love God deeply through his Word.  

“And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:31–33)

*** 

Psalm 138 is the first in a series of eight songs attributed to David—a king of Israel, ancestor of Jesus, and man after God’s own heart (1 Sam. 13:14). In this psalm, David gives thanks to God for his “steadfast love and faithfulness” that he will demonstrate to the whole earth (vs. 2, 4). The psalm sets up an authority structure: God is all-powerful, and David bows down. But it also reveals a beautiful relationship: despite the Lord’s authority and distinct “otherness,” God moves toward David in David’s time of desperate need. As we study Psalm 138, we get a glimpse of Jesus. And, like David, we are moved to give thanks.

"I will give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise; I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word. On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased." (v. 1–3)

David opens this song of thanksgiving professing full devotion, acknowledging God’s sole authority within a culture that consistently sought after pagan gods and man-made idols. He bows down in an act of submission, which Derek Kidner calls “a fine blend of boldness and humility from the outset: boldness to confess the Lord before the gods, humility to bow down before him.” 

“All the kings of the earth shall give you thanks, O LORD, for they have heard the words of your mouth, and they shall sing of the ways of the LORD, for great is the glory of the LORD. For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar.” (vs. 4–6) 

“Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand delivers me. The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.” (vs. 7–8) 

David was no stranger to walking “through the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4). Sin and shame, relational discord, and death threats perpetually followed him. Surrounded by hardship, David writes: “you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand delivers me” (vs. 7). 

God, the exalted. David, the lowly. Outstretched hands defeating enemies and bringing deliverance.  

Does this sound familiar? 

Psalm 138 ushers us to the cross. The Lord is mighty above all things and worthy of our praise. But just as God heard David, intervened, and preserved his life, we testify that Jesus Christ did the same for us. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). 

It is God’s steadfast love that prompted him to leave heaven and take on our likeness (Phil. 2:7). It is God’s steadfast love that permitted himself to be “pierced for our transgressions” (Isa. 53:5). It is God’s steadfast love that makes us “bold in the soul with strength” when trouble threatens to overcome. It is God’s steadfast love that moves us to give thanks and declare our salvation sufficient in this season where we can write our blessings on construction paper turkeys while the culture surrounding us insists we do not have enough. 

The all-powerful God came for us, and he cares for us. Let’s respond to these incredible truths with gratitude. Let’s meditate on his steadfast love and faithfulness, his Word, and the things he has done as we set our tables and tune our radios to 24-hour Christmas music. Let’s give him thanks for our salvation in Christ, for his love that endures forever. 

Stories are powerful. They draw us in, captivating the human imagination. Stories have the ability to communicate beauty, truth, and morality in a way that cuts to the heart and evokes emotions. Stories make us feel deeply because they’re relatable. We understand the trajectory of our own lives in terms of a story, and it’s the stories we believe to be most true that take center stage in our hearts and have the greatest effect on our lives.

Typically the story that holds the greatest prominence for each person is his or her own. We are all quite consumed by the tale of our own lives, and it’s often a challenge to set our minds on anything beyond today’s pressing personal narrative—the spilled coffee and chaotic morning, the long commute and backed up traffic, the never-ending to-do list. Our consuming captivation with the plot of our own lives can become a somewhat depressing form of tunnel vision, though, particularly when life gets tough.

Is there hope for us when our own stories feel small, mundane, and full of troubles? Is there a story that gives greater meaning and purpose to the temporary pleasures and pains of this life? My seminary hermeneutics professor James Hamilton once wrote: “What we think and how we live is largely determined by the larger story in which we interpret our lives. Does your story enable you to look death in the face? Does your story give you a hope that goes beyond the grave? . . . The world does have a true story. The Bible tells it.”

There is only one true story that can bring meaning, purpose, and hope both to our lives and the lives of our children. It’s this story that we must seek to keep central in our hearts and our homes when the smaller narratives of our daily lives vie for center stage. So, what is this grand story, and how do we give it first place?

Tell the Story

The world’s true story is really God’s story, found in the pages of Scripture and told through many smaller tales that all connect to form one grand narrative. This narrative begins with the creation of the world in the book of Genesis and ends with the consummation of all things in the book of Revelation. Between these bookends, the story climaxes in the life, death, and resurrection of the story’s hero, Jesus the Christ—the only one with the power to change everything about our lives.

As we start to truly grasp God’s big story, it draws us in and enables us to make sense of our lives. It tells us why we’re here, what has gone wrong in our own hearts and in our world, and what (or, rather, who) is the solution to our problem. Jesus Christ is the hero of a story that’s epic, true, and life-changing for every human who believes it and finds themselves in it. If we’re going to keep this story central, we must not only know it but also tell it over and over in our homes.

I wrote Tracing Glory: The Christmas Story Through the Bible to help families tell the truest and best story to each other in a season that is dominated by many other flashy tales. This book is a daily Advent reading for the month of December that seeks to help individuals and families see and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ within its proper context of the Bible’s overarching narrative. Written with children, teenagers, and adults in mind, it begins looking back at the creation of the world and ends looking forward to the new creation, tracing the glory of Jesus Christ from start to finish. In each day’s reading, there is a key scripture to look up, a devotional commentary to read, a helpful summary highlighting the key point and showing how that particular Bible passage points to Jesus, and questions to prompt discussion with your families.

Make the Story Visible

Let’s be honest. The events, traditions, and gifts of the Christmas season tend to enthrall our hearts and consume our minds more than the reality of the long-awaited Messiah and King, who came and is coming back for us again. Our children are more easily enamored by tales of Santa Claus, with his bag of shiny new toys, than by the story of the Christ child in the manger. Santa brings kids stuff they can see, touch, feel, and enjoy right now! What does this baby of old have to do with their lives (and their parents’ lives) today? The answer is everything, but we need eyes to see it!

In addition to telling the Bible’s big story, another way to help keep it central in our hearts and homes is to make it visible. This is especially important for children. After I wrote “Tracing Glory,” I made a set of twenty-four three-dimensional ornaments to go along with the book. Year after year, I wrap these ornaments up and let my children open one each day of December as we read that day’s Advent reading. As they see and touch ornaments depicting creation, the fall, the flood, the tower of Babel, the Passover, the temple, and more it makes the story of the Bible that we are reading visible and tangible. The new Tracing Glory Ornament Activity Book has images of each of these ornaments, instructions for making them with your family, plus other fun activities such as a word search, maze, crack the code, and more that relate to different parts of the biblical story. This resource was created to help you make the truest and best story visible in your home. 

Pray

Although we can (and must) tell the story and make it visible to our children, we do not have the power to awaken their hearts to truly see and be captivated by its hero Jesus Christ. Only the Holy Spirit can do that for us and for them. So, let us pray! Let’s ask the Lord to help us know and love his story, understanding and interpreting our own stories in light of it. Let’s ask the Father to shine his light in our hearts through the story of the Bible, giving us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 4:6). He alone infuses our own stories with meaning, purpose, and hope for eternity.

Sarah Rice is a pastor's wife and mother of four. She holds a Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Tracing Glory: The Christmas Story Through the Bible, an advent reading for families published by 10Publishing. She writes regularly on Instagram (@gospelshapedwomanhood) and is currently writing a forthcoming book on gospel identity for women. She counsels, teaches and disciples women.

Is faith simply a lunge into the unknowable depths of the universe? Is belief in God simply an antidote for the masses to help make a miserable existence slightly more bearable? Is it even reasonable to believe in God? Aren’t the objections to his existence simply too much to override? And assuming he does exist, is he to be trusted; is he good?

Neil Shenvi tackles these questions head-on in his book Why Believe? A Reasoned Approach to Christianity. Shenvi writes from the perspective of someone who came to faith in Christ while in college. To draw Shenvi to himself, God used the works of C.S. Lewis, in particular The Screwtape Letters, and Shenvi’s future wife, who invited him to a church where the pastor used a reasonable and logical approach to the scriptures. He was converted and has since made great advancements in quantum physics. He writes this book out of the overflow of his faith journey, saying: “Christianity was not dry, archaic, boring, and irrelevant; it offered a compelling assessment of my own most pressing problems.”[1]

Neil Shenvi makes a reasoned approach to the Christian faith, writing with clarity, honesty, and compassion. This book does away with the notion that belief in the God of the Bible is only possible if one were to ignore reason. Rather, Shenvi makes the case that to look carefully and reasonably at our lives, the universe around us, and our conscience, the only logical response is to believe in an ultimate God. This book answers three primary categories of concern: what are the logical reasons for belief in God, what are common objections against the existence of God, and what—assuming God exists—is unique about the Christian faith?

Logical Reasoning for God

In the first third of the book, the author examines the reasoning for belief in the existence of God. Shenvi first points out there is no middle ground regarding belief in God and truth in general. He makes the case that truth, by definition, must be subjective. He wisely remarks, “the difficulty with the view that all religions are subjectively true is that some religions really do make objective truth claims.”[2] The author is driving the reader to recognize that it is insincere to simply be on the fence when it comes to belief in God and specifically the way that one religion depicts God compared to another. He furthermore points out that the entire life and teachings of Jesus make the reader choose who Jesus is—he is either the Lord as he claimed to be, or he was a liar or a lunatic. He refers to this truth as the Trilemna. Throughout the rest of the first section of the book, Shenvi argues for the existence of God based on the resurrection of Christ and two different arguments based on God and revelation. He takes a chapter each to explain how God is both revealed in nature and the moral law. For someone who may be new to these arguments, these chapters are rich with reason that supports the Christian faith.

Common Objections to the Existence of God

Chapter 6 of Why Believe? tackles some common objections to the existence of God.
Shenvi does this by tackling three of the most common and difficult objections to the existence and goodness of God. These are the problem of evil, evolution, and the hiddenness of God. Particularly helpful was his careful and compassionate handling of the problem of evil. He handles each of these well in their own right, yet his explanations seem almost rushed. While he dealt with each objection helpfully—I would not be surprised if many skeptics who would pick up this book are left with some more questions. He does not have time to answer every objection, but in a book titled Why Believe? It would have been helpful to tackle some of these objections more head-on.

The Uniqueness of the Christian Faith

Perhaps the best part of this book was the last third. The author handles the question, “assuming God exists, what makes the God of Christianity unique?” Shenvi funnels this question through the lens of the gospel, giving a careful, multi-chapter examination of the gospel of Jesus Christ in comparison with many other world religions. Shenvi admirably makes clear that the truth that holds Christianity apart and distinct from all other faith systems are not just some evidential piece or a moral code—rather, it is the good news of the Gospel of Christ by which man is made right with God and united to relationship with him. This was, in my opinion, the strongest part of the book and the section that I would be most excited for a skeptic or unbeliever to engage with.

What This Book is Not

This is a helpful and carefully crafted book that examines the reasonableness of the Christian faith. I can recommend it to those who would like to have more sure footing and clarity of why they believe what they believe or to ensure that they can better engage with skeptics of the Christian faith. It is admittedly not the most exhaustive treatment of this topic,[3] but it is faithful to the text of scripture and written in a tone that is compassionate and humble. For anyone looking to examine a reasoned approach to Christianity, Why Believe? by Neil Shenvi is an excellent place to start.

Why Believe? A Reasoned Approach to Christianity is published by Crossway and is available wherever books are sold.

[1] Neil Shenvi, Why Believe?: A Reasoned Approach to Christianity (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022), 17.

[2] Neil Shenvi, Why Believe?: A Reasoned Approach to Christianity (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022), 21.

[3] Neil Shenvi, Why Believe?: A Reasoned Approach to Christianity (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2022), 169-170.

“May the glory of your name be the passion of our church; let the righteousness of God be a holy flame that burns….”[1] I sang these words recently during the closing song of our Sunday worship service, and as I did, I could not get out of my mind how beautiful they were, and how much I wanted them to be true of my life. But I was not singing them with my hands raised, surrounded by fellow churchgoers. I was not sitting in the sanctuary, looking up at one of our church’s beautiful, 100-year-old stained glass windows; nor was I holding my husband’s hand as we savored the chance to worship our big God together. Instead, I sang along to these words from inside our church’s sensory room, listening to the service from a computer with my four-year-old son, whose significant special needs keep him from attending Sunday School on his own right now.

It has been almost three years since I sat in a church service together with my husband, hearing the Word of God preached to us at the same time, in the same place. Since our son’s developmental disabilities made it too difficult for a volunteer to safely teach a class of neurotypical children and him, either my husband or I have been one-on-one with our little guy—sometimes in a class of his peers and sometimes in the quiet, low-lit sensory room. More than 150 Sundays later, I cannot tell you the number of times I have woken up to get ready for church, knowing the stress and unpredictability of the hours ahead, and had this very thought run rampant through my heart and mind: This is not worth it.

For much of my life, I understood church from a me-centered perspective: it was, as I saw it, a place to sing songs and hear an inspiring sermon—something that challenged me enough to be a better disciple but not push too hard, lest I leave feeling discredited and promptly begin the search for another church. I would then gather my three children up from their classrooms and head to brunch, not forgetting to leave a generous tip for the waitress as a good gospel witness, because we have all heard that Christians are terrible tippers. That was, after all, what a middle-class American Christian should do on a Sunday; that was how church was supposed to work for us.

Or so I thought.

But it wasn’t working. Church was, by far, the hardest place for my young family to go. And if it was so hard and so stressful, and if I could not even attend the actual service with my husband, would God really expect us to still be there? We could stay comfortably at home in our casual clothes and watch a sermon online; did God really care whether or not we were in attendance when we were leaving each week dripping in anxiety, often embarrassment, and sometimes tears, over the struggle to make it through 90 minutes with a little boy whose world was so confusing?

As it turns out, God cares deeply. It is his Bride and his Body, and one he went great lengths to rescue so that we might gather at all.

Every week, thousands of women wake up on a Sunday and think about church, and they wonder, Is it worth it? Perhaps she is single, walking into a building bustling with couples and families, and just being among them reminds her of what she doesn’t have, tempting her to despair. Maybe she is dressing her children alone, knowing that despite her prayers to the Lord and weekly, humble requests of her husband, he is not coming with them—again. Or perhaps it is her history of sin, her past record of things she is not proud of, and the overwhelming shame keeps her from walking into a place she believes is filled with people who, if they really knew her, would not even want her there.

For so many people, and for so many different reasons, church is the hardest place to go. And so, they don’t. But if there is anything these three hard years have taught me about church, it is simply this: it is worth it. Because God’s plan to bring the good news of the gospel to the world is the local church. Because we need the encouragement of the Body of Christ in our weakness far more than in our strengths. Because simply being seen by others exactly where we are may be the very way God encourages someone else to do the same. And because when he looked at the cross on Calvary, the absolute hardest place for him to go, our Savior went.

This season of my life has redefined this beautiful extension of the Body of Christ, the local church, that I—and my precious son—are a part of. Where I once saw it as a place to serve me, I began to see it as a place to serve God in the company of brothers and sisters doing the same. And where I once believed that in order to serve and worship God I had to show up as my best self, I began to see that serving God in the painful moments, when I don’t even have a “best self” to show up as, was an act of worship in itself, one of crying out for his power to become perfect in my weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).

“Let the glory of your name be the passion of our church….” As I let those beautiful words fall onto my heart, in a room where I would never have chosen to spend my Sundays, I was reminded of just how much all things work together for good in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:28). Even—especially—the things about our lives we may not have chosen. I’ve come to truly understand how much glory God gets not just from people who look like they have it all together, but from people falling apart and showing up anyway.

[1] “All to Us” by Chris Tomlin. © 2010 sixstepsrecords/Sparrow Records

Within the past year, I have noticed a significant growth in Trinitarian theology, as scholars, theologians, pastors, and laypeople are engaging in this paradoxical doctrine of Christianity. Accepting Trinitarian theology is vital in Christians' lives as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work throughout Scripture and are inseparable in how they operate. Simply put, the Trinity is one God (essence) in three distinct persons. Essence is not the same as person, and person is distinct from essence. However, the Trinity works together in perfect harmony as the Godhead. The Trinity is one God eternally existing in three persons; there is never a time when one of the Trinity was not. The Bible describes the Godhead as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Bible uses the term Father because the Father (who is unbegotten) has begotten (produced) the Son by the Father. The Holy Spirit is spirated (breathed out) by the Father and the Son from all eternity.

The Godhead works in perfect harmony and unity and does not consist of parts or materials (divine simplicity) and is self-existent (aseity), meaning He came from nothing, was produced by nothing, and has simply existed without beginning or end. They are eternally generated and are derived from the same essence, unable to be broken apart or separated according to John 5:26: “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so, He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.” This describes eternal generation affirming the eternality of both the Father and the Son. Additionally, since the Father eternally generates the Son, they are unable to separate (inseparable operations) and do not act outside of complete unity and harmony.

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries and the same Lord. And there are varieties of workings, but the same God who works everything in everyone. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for what is profitable. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to someone else faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, and to another the workings of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to someone else various kinds of tongues, and to another the translation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.” (1 Corinthians 12:4–11)

This passage beautifully describes the inseparable operations of the Trinity and the distinct persons working together—not apart—and sharing in the same essence. The knowledge of both the Father and the Son is known to us by the Holy Spirit. Understanding the Trinity and its inseparable operations is imperative in understanding the immeasurable grace and gift of salvation that the Father offers to us from the Son and confirmed by the Spirit (Eph.2:1-22). Each is distinct, yet each works together in perfect union, not contradicting and not limited. We must understand the Trinity through the lens of Divine simplicity; since God is not a created being, and does not consist of parts that could be broken down, so too is the Trinity. The Trinity is eternally self-existent (aseity), coequal, coeternal, sharing in the same essence, and cannot be broken apart, viewed in isolation, or assumed to be different.

However, individuals take excessive liberties in separating the actions of the Father from the Son and suggesting the Spirit is not present. If the Trinity is three-in-one, and are inseparable, then logically, it follows where One is described, all three are present. However, a rising problem in the current theological battlespace is that some reject Divine simplicity for Theistic personalism. Theistic personalism directly opposes classical theism in which Divine simplicity is denied as God is viewed as a person like you and I are a person. Yet, they maintain He does not consist of parts. Theistic personalism is also identified under the name of Monopolytheism. Mono means one; poly means many, and theism implies belief in God or gods. Not only is the term contradictory, but the theistic personalist also creates God in the image of the creature rather than the creature in the image of God. You are perhaps unfamiliar with these theological terms; however, you are familiar with many popular modern worship songs and phrases like, “when Jesus suffered on the cross, God suffered.”

Jurgen Moltmann popularized this view in his development of the theology of hope. He was a German soldier and later, as a POW, was shown pictures of the atrocities of the concentration camps leading Moltmann to deny the impassability of God, attempting to reconcile the pain and suffering of those from WW2. Leading Moltmann to write, “With Christ in faith, a wholly new life,” he begins an attempt to reconcile the problem of evil. As he explains, Jesus and God experience pain and suffering the same as His creatures. Moltmann quotes Elie Wiesel's story of a Jewish boy hung by the Nazis as Wiesel writes, “Where is God? God is there suffering with you. He too suffers in the concentration camp, and he too suffers in the gas chamber, he suffers in the gallows.”[1] Pairing this with Elie Wiesel’s book Night, Elie writes, “‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows.’”[2]

Weisel’s segment of this book describes the problem with theistic personalism as God is equated with and given human attributes, human emotions and is made in the likeness and image of creation. However, classical theism demonstrates we reflect aspects and portions of God’s attributes, but by no means are we to describe God in humanistic terminology. Paul states in Romans 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” However, many adopt this form of thinking regarding God in reading human characteristics into the God of the universe. Understanding this is to understand the impassability of God, “in which God does not experience emotional changes either from within or effected by his relationship to creation.” [3]  And the Westminster Confession of Faith states in Chapter Two, “There is but one only, living, and true God who is infinite in Being and Perfection, a most pure Spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most absolute.”[4]

Christians, be cautious about what teacher, pastor, or book you are reading concerning the Trinity, the understanding of God, and his attributes. Assess the worship songs you are singing. Do they emotionalize God and project human characteristics on God? We must continually humble ourselves and recognize how low we are, how insignificant we are, and how Holy God is. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35-107) said in his interpretation of 1 Tim. 1:3, “You must not be panic-stricken by those who have an air of credibility, but who teach heresy. Stand your ground like an anvil under a hammer.” The Trinity is inseparable, working in perfect union and harmony. Be cautious in allowing outside influences to distort the holiness of God, the understanding of the Trinity, and the relationship of Creator-creature distinctions.

[1] Elie Wiesel, Night, trans. Marion Wiesel (Union. Square, NY: Hill and Wang, 2006), 65.

[2] Ibid., 65.

[3] Samuel D. Renihan, God Without Passions: A Primer (Palmdale: RBAP, 2015) 19.

[4] “The Westminster Confession of Faith,” accessed March 28, 2022, http://files1.wts.edu/uploads/pdf/about/WCF_30.pdf, 5.

When I first started attending my church several years ago, my singleness often felt like a label that ostracized me from belonging. In a congregation made up of married couples, families, and seniors, only a handful of singles (whether never married, widowed, or divorced) were part of our church. I pondered: how can I serve and honor the Lord in my church body? How do I belong here? What’s my purpose as a single woman in the church?

I knew I needed to serve in the church but struggled to see how to get involved as a new believer. I didn’t know what my gifts were and was still grasping how to live out my faith. I longed to belong, yet I felt unneeded in the church. So, I picked up my Bible and realized the truths of Scripture answered my lingering questions.

All believers are called to: love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, and souls, and to love others as ourselves (Matt. 22:37–39). We are called to make disciples (Matt. 28:18­–20) and honor the Lord with our lives. Single men and women are in a unique season where they can devote themselves to the Lord with an undivided heart, unlike those who are married (1 Cor. 7:32–35). Singles can contribute to the church body with their spiritual gifts and find belonging in the church through serving.

The church can walk alongside singles by encouraging them to use their gifts to build up the church and reach those around them. The spiritual gifts in Scripture include prophecy, serving, teaching, exhortation, giving, leadership, and mercy (Rom. 12:6–8) as well as wisdom, knowledge, discernment, and faith, among others (1 Cor. 12:8–10). Many singles need help discovering and identifying their spiritual gifts to serve in their churches. Most recognize the Lord has given them natural abilities and talents such as art, music, creativity, organization/planning, etc., but they struggle to identify their specific gifting and how it can benefit their church body.

Through connecting in community and mentoring/discipleship relationships, the church can guide singles in their pursuit of learning what their gifts are and cultivating them for ministry. Singles contribute to the church body with their gifts for the purpose of equipping and building up the church. As Ephesians 4:15–16 states: “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

Once singles know their gifts, the church can equip them in ministry by providing serving opportunities. Is she a teacher? Let her teach a Bible study or class. Does he have the gift of mercy? Allow him to serve in a care and crisis ministry. Does she love children and lead them well? Let her serve in children’s ministry. Is he a hospitable person? Let him open his home to host gatherings and bless others. Does she have a heart for giving? Provide her with opportunities to give generously and steward her resources for the Kingdom. Equipping singles to serve in the local church means presenting them with opportunities to use their God-given gifts for his glory and purposes. Peter reminds us: “as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace.” (1 Pet. 4:10)

Living out the truth that Paul proclaimed to the church in Corinth establishes a sense of belonging for the single person in his or her church:

“For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’” (1 Cor. 12:14–21)

The body of Christ has many members, and each plays a fundamental role in the body, including singles. Every member has a unique function in the body and differing gifts according to his varied grace (Rom. 12:4–6). Singles are necessary for the health of every church body.

Single men and women are vital contributors to every part of the body of Christ, just like those who are married. Marital status doesn’t hinder God’s people from accomplishing his purposes through his work in and through them. Singles are empowered by the Spirit to participate in Kingdom work. This is how they belong. Singles belong because they’ve been adopted into the family of God (Eph. 1:5) as co-heirs and beloved children (Rom. 8:16–17, Eph. 5:1).

As the Lord taught me these truths, I began to feel like I belonged in my church after all. He helped me find belonging by bringing mentors into my life who discipled me and encouraged me to serve in different ministries as I discovered my gifts. By accepting his invitation to participate in the body through serving, I realized my contribution mattered.

As singles discover and cultivate their gifts in their churches, purpose and belonging flow from connection to the body of Christ. Let’s empower singles to walk with the Lord and encourage them to serve with their gifts.

Jesus responded to Peter’s great confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” by stating, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:16, 18). Unfortunately, it seems the very people inside the doors of the church are the ones attempting to prevail over this institution even more than the gates of hell. Or could it be the direct attack of Satan from within?

This is similar to God’s institution of marriage as introduced by “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). A young lady looks in the eyes of her knight in shining armor with complete adoration and anticipation as he poses the question, “Will you marry me?” The young lady believes that the emotional experience of this moment will yield a lifetime of marital bliss. But, something changes within the marriage, after the vows are exchanged and the children are born. All of a sudden, the husband and wife become too distracted with life to pay attention to each other like they once did. Soon, without realizing it, the emotional experience of bliss begins to turn into the emotional experience of stress and dissatisfaction. Was there a problem with God’s institution, or with the character of the couple?

The proverb “familiarity breeds contempt” can be applied to many other facets of life. Unfortunately, this often holds true in regard to the church. There is a growing contempt for the church as outsiders view it as too predictable, hypocritical, institutional, restrictive, and just too un-American. The characters representing the church are no longer believable to the world. Is there a problem with God’s institution, or with the character of those within the church?

DEFINITION

Ecclesiology is the theological term for the church. This term originates from two key words, “out of” (ek) and “called” (kaleō).  Therefore, the church is characterized as “called-out ones.” In his 2012 release Sojourners and Strangers, professor and author Gregg R. Allison defined the church as “the people of God who have been saved through the repentance and faith in Jesus Christ and have been incorporated into his body through baptism of the Holy Spirit.”

The church is described in Matthew and in the epistles by two elements: the universal (invisible) church and the local (visible) church. The universal church consists of all who have believed the gospel of Jesus Christ through all ages and geographies. The local church consists of both believers and non-believers living within a specific location at a specific time. Jesus’ revelation that he will build his church speaks of the universal church, and Paul’s letters speak customarily of the local church; however, both are an integral part of reflecting the body of Christ.

The diminishing popularity of the church emerges at the local level more than the universal church. This is why it is vitally important to draw renewed attention to the actual purpose God intended for his church, whose members he called out of the world. God’s purpose and means for transforming the character of those inside the church and growing his people has never changed.

APPROACH

Peter, the first to bring the gospel to the Gentiles, was the Apostle who wrote a letter to the people of God spread throughout modern-day Turkey. Peter seeks to encourage these believers in the hope they have in Christ, no matter the circumstances. This hope set these believers apart from their culture and even provides joy in the midst of trials.

Peter then exhorts believers to pursue holiness, because God is holy. This is the result of the grace of Jesus Christ who purchased their redemption by his own blood. Because of this truth, each believer experiences the privilege of the new birth that transforms them to look more like the holy character of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, sometimes the believer’s happiness becomes more important than his holiness.

What Peter begins to describe in chapter 2 validates the effectiveness of Christ’s work in his church, as he is able to transform lives. God will continue to work through his church and call a people unto himself—united together with Christ.

CHARACTERISTICS

In 1 Peter 2:9–12, the people of God are given eight characteristics and four consequences.

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul."

Significantly, these characteristics stand in contrast to the ones who stumbled in disobedience to the Word (v. 8). The popularity of the church is not the issue—the rejection of the stone and its power is the issue. The individuals comprising the church, after all, are those united with Christ, the living stone (vv. 4–5). The characteristics are: elect; royal priesthood; holy; possessed by God; proclaimers of God’s excellence; called out of darkness into marvelous light (9); recipients of God’s mercy (10); and sojourners (11). This is what makes up the “flock of God” (5:2) and the means of God’s continued work until he returns. 

Now notice Peter’s four-fold consequence: abstains from fleshly lusts (11); fights against the fleshly desires (11); conduct honorable among outsiders (12); and visible conduct that glorifies God (12). Each consequence is dependent on the believer “working out,” or living, what God has provided. 

The church is not comprised of self-made people doomed to failure, but rather Christ-ordained, elect people, destined to reflect the glory of Christ in a dark and wicked world. The church’s intention is to be the constant reflection of the transforming work of Jesus Christ, “a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious” (1 Pet. 2:4).

CONCLUSION

Paul summarized it well when he revealed God’s revelation regarding the mystery “that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph. 3:6). The display of the universal work God is doing in the hearts of his elect (through Christ) will continue to reveal the character of its Lord and glorify God. This is why God’s people see themselves as sojourners and not titleholders in this world. It’s no wonder Jesus called his people “the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14).  

I’ve never considered myself much of a theologian. Theologians are the type who attend seminary, are employed by churches, and, generally speaking, have beards. No, I’m far from a theologian. I’m a twenty-something woman with a college degree that I don’t use. A theologian’s day is devoted to study and debate and casually sprinkling words like “eschatology” or “hermeneutics” into conversations. My days consist of wiping bottoms, folding laundry, and chatting with my girlfriends via Voxer. Theologians are supposed to spend hours in meditative study of God’s Word, while “quiet times” for me are anything but quiet. My most referenced text is not Matthew Henry’s commentary, but instead The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd Jones. By my working definition of what a theologian is supposed to look like, I hardly fit the bill. However, a careful study of the word “theology” suggests otherwise:

Theo: Relating to God

Ology: A subject of study; a branch of knowledge

Simply put, theology is the study of God. In order to study God, we have to discover him through the means he’s given us. Scripture tells us that we can see God through all of creation (Rom. 1:19–20), and that faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of Christ (Rom. 10:17). The study of God’s Word is key to knowing him. Yet in my self-centeredness I read it to see what it says about me, instead of reading it to see what it says about God. But when you study with the end in mind, you will retain the entirety of the matter, as opposed to objectively ingesting a series of facts, which are fragmented and stand alone. This is what leads to Scripture being misinterpreted, taken out of context, and isolated—but it sure looks good on a coffee mug!

For example, “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent” (Ex. 14:14).

Have you heard people use this verse to justify their actions (or lack thereof)? Remember with me, in Exodus 14 Moses led God’s people out of slavery in Egypt, but again Pharaoh changed his mind and chased after them. The Israelites trembled in their sandals, saying they shouldn’t have left! Moses basically said (my paraphrase), “Hush it! God will fight for you! Just watch!” He wasn’t offering a blanket “how-to” for Christians dealing with opponents (though this is a common misinterpretation). In fact, directly after Moses says this, God responds, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward” (Ex. 14:15). Furthermore, in the New Testament we’re taught to actually give an account instead of remaining silent in the face of opposition (Matt. 10:19–20, Acts 18:8, Eph. 6:19–20, Col. 4:3–4, etc.). And yet, why do believers frequently use this verse and many others like it for their own agenda?

It happens when we fail to study Scripture:

1. Contextually
2. Humbly
3. Prayerfully and Patiently

Contextually

When you pick up a novel at the library, what’s the first thing you do? You might read the back cover, the book jacket, or the foreword nestled within the first few pages. Bolder readers may jump directly into the text, but even then one wouldn’t leap to the end of the book and be able to grasp the storyline. Instead, while reading the first few pages we’re asking questions like: who, what, where, when, why, and how is the story taking place? The same is true for our study of Scripture. Establishing the message intended for the original hearers sets the framework for our own personal application of the text. In order to really understand the context we must consider the history of the book, take note of repeated words and phrases, consider the time and location in which it was written, and try our best to orient ourselves to what the original message would have meant for the original recipients. We could easily spend most of our time in Bible study doing this, which isn’t a bad thing, because observation lays the foundation for good interpretation.

The goal of reading contextually is to slow us down as we read, so we don't miss important elements of the message we're seeking to uncover. This is where using the whole story of the Bible—the metanarrative, or overarching storyline of Scripture—comes in. We can use other parts of the Bible to better understand what we're reading. The fancy term for this is cross-referencing. If you have a study Bible, cross-references are usually found in the margins next to the verse. You can also compare translations to get a better feel for what's being communicated. Only after cross-referencing and comparing translations should we seek answers from footnotes and commentaries from reliable sources. Again, the question we're seeking to answer is, "What is the message of the text?”

Humbly

Narcissism. This is my biggest struggle in Bible study. I almost always want to uncover what the text means for me before understanding what it says about God and humanity. Just as reading with the context in mind sets the foundation for understanding the message of the passage, approaching the Word with humility helps us make wise application. Once we seek to understand the original message intended for its original audience, we can begin asking the question that hits at the heart of Bible study: "What should I do in response to what I've read?" This involves acting in light of the truths we’ve uncovered in our study.

As a thinker, I can easily allow my study to be motivated by loving the Lord my God with all of my mind, while entirely neglecting my heart. It's important to remember that our goal isn't just to gain information, but to experience true heart transformation. Whatever method of Bible study we use, we must seek to know God both personally and intimately through his Word. Our minds are renewed by the knowledge of God, and our reverence of him increases in proportion to our knowledge of him. For some, this might be frightening, as we will become even more aware of our insufficiency and our need for Christ. But reading with the context in mind we know that “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Rom. 5:6–11).

Prayerfully and Patiently

In our quest to know God, interruptions and frustration will inevitably ensue. In fact, I think the enemy will do his very best to throw them your way. When you feel like you’re doing everything you can to protect the time you need to study, and yet you’re interrupted, ask him for time. When you feel distracted, pray and ask for focus. When you don't understand what you're reading, ask him for eyes to see. When you do understand, bless him for revelation! Ask for help to act in light of the truths he's revealing through his Word. If you’re feeling overwhelmed even as you read this I encourage you to confess, repent, and ask for God’s help right now. Through patient study and prayer, the Spirit will lead you to see and adore our God—this is worship! Knowing more of who God is helps us understand who we are in light of him, and our need for his son Jesus. This beautifully and organically leads us to worship God and to bend our hearts in submission to his will for our lives. Good theology leads us into good doxology, or praise to God. “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” especially the gift of his Word.

Questions for personal reflection:

1. Do you find yourself jumping to personal application before understanding the context of a verse?
2. Do you allow your study to be motivated by loving the Lord your God with all of your mind, yet neglect your heart (or vice versa)?
3. Do you muscle your way through Bible study instead of asking the Spirit for his help?
4. Do you consider yourself a theologian? If not, why? What obstacles are holding you back?

I come from a tight-knit family. My sisters and I are all grown, and my parents have been empty-nesters for quite some time. But we still enjoy each other’s company deeply and find ways to spend time together as often as we can. Recently, my older sister asked me why I thought our family remained so close, and why our memories of growing up together were so happy.

Now, I want to make it clear that my family isn’t perfect. We are a group of sinners who sin against each other. We have real conflict and have to ask for forgiveness often. Yes, our love of Christ unites us, but I think my parents did something specific that helped shape our relationships with them and with one another: they enjoyed us. And we knew it.

We knew they loved us no matter what because they were our parents. But we also knew that they loved having us around, they loved spending time with us, they loved talking with us, and they loved celebrating life’s big and little moments with us. My parents are not perfect, but by God’s grace, their words and actions helped us experience an important aspect of God’s character: God delights in his children.

In Luke 15, tax collectors and sinners draw near to hear Jesus teach, and the Pharisees and scribes respond by grumbling saying, “this man receives sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:1–2). Jesus responds by telling the scribes and Pharisees three parables that illustrate God’s response to sinners who repent and turn to him. As sinners draw physically nearer to Jesus, he reveals how God rejoices when his children draw near to him spiritually.

The God Who Pursues

The Parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:1–7), the Parable of the Lost Coin (Luke 15:8–10), and the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32) give us three images of the way God pursues his children. The man who loses a sheep leaves 99 others to search for the one that is lost. The woman who loses one coin, though she has nine others, turns on the lights and looks all over her house until she finds it. And the father—whose son dishonors him by demanding his inheritance before his time and squanders it on a sinful lifestyle—when he sees his son from a long way off, feels compassion for him, runs to him, embraces him, and kisses him!

The sheep, the coin, and the son don’t deserve the level of pursuit they’re given. Yet, they are actively and rigorously pursued. The same is true for all of God’s children. Like the sheep, we were actively running away from the shepherd, and like the prodigal son, we wanted worldly benefits, not realizing the Benefactor himself is the greatest gift of our inheritance. We were enemies of God, running toward hell until he plucked us up. We do nothing to deserve God’s pursuit, and there is nothing we do to initiate it. It’s God’s active grace toward his children.

The God Who Rejoices

The man who finds the sheep, the woman who finds the coin, and the father who embraces his prodigal son all respond in the same way: they rejoice! They are overcome with joy that what was lost has been found. But they don’t stop there—they invite their friends and neighbors to rejoice with them. The prodigal son’s father says, “Let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:23–24).
God is not like us. When we come to him in repentance and faith, he does not respond with a frown and lecture. He embraces us with pure joy. “As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.” (Ps. 103:12) He forgives us. He accepts us. He adopts us. He makes us righteous, giving us his best robe, covered in the blood of Jesus Christ. And with all the rights of his child, we receive a beautiful inheritance that we don’t deserve—eternal life with him.

But he doesn’t stop there. As God has rejoiced in our salvation, he calls us to rejoice in the salvation of our brothers and sisters in Christ. He calls us to marvel anew at the miracle of salvation and to rejoice together as the family of God grows for His Kingdom and His glory.

The God Who Loves Sinners

The first two parables have a similar conclusion: There is rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents. One sinner repenting is a big deal, and it’s worth celebrating! As the prodigal son’s father mentions twice in the final parable, his son was “dead and is now alive; he was lost and is found” (Luke. 15:24, 32). One sinner repenting is God miraculously bringing one dead soul to life.

The final parable concludes by focusing on the older brother’s response to his younger brother being celebrated. He is outraged. After all, he did follow all of the rules; yet, his father never threw a party for him. So his father patiently reminds him why it was fitting to celebrate his brother: his return was a matter of life and death. He repented of his sin and came home.

The God Who Delights

In my own sin, I wrongly assume God’s response to me is often like my response to my own children: frustrated, impatient, or tired. But God is not like me. He is perfectly patient, loving, and kind. He never operates on empty, and he never needs time to refresh or refuel. God the Father is abounding in joy, always delighting in his children, as he has always delighted in his Son Jesus Christ. He doesn’t just listen when I call on him. He doesn’t just respond out of obligation. He delights to listen and respond to sinners who repent and turn to him. Because these sinners are his very own; they are his children.

Christian, remember today that God enjoys you. Not because of anything that you have done, but because of everything he has done for you.

“Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.” (Phil. 1:27)

I sat around a table with several women from my church—some of whom I knew only their name—who had all committed to meeting for a handful of early Saturday mornings to study the book of Philippians. In the few years prior, I had spent little time in the Word alongside others for the purpose of in-depth study, and I was hungry to learn from their insights and questions. In the book’s first chapter, the Holy Spirit gently confronted me with what I already knew but struggled to practice: discipleship is a side-by-side-with-other-believers kind of endeavor.

In our highly individualized culture, it’s easy to privatize my relationship with the Lord and sit next to brothers and sisters in the faith while believing the falsehood that I don’t really need them—and they don’t really need me. Paul has much to say about that in 1 Corinthians 12:12–31. But a central theme of the letter to the Philippians is the believers’ unity, their integration, their oneness of heart and mind. He affectionately calls them partners in the Gospel and says he holds them in his heart, as they are all partakers of God’s grace (Phil. 1:5, 7).

Considering the numerous divisions that exist in the Church today—from denominational lines and worship preferences to the boundaries of neighborhoods and overfilled schedules—how do we begin to cultivate intimacy with one another?

Paul models one unifying tool that is always available to us: the work of the Spirit through prayer.

He opens his letter with, “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy” (Phil 1:3–4). As he acknowledges both the fruit and the limitations of his time in prison, he credits two factors as the source of his hope: “Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance.” (Phil. 1:18b–19)

Paul prays with thanksgiving for fellow believers because they are co-laborers in the most important mission of their lives. He believes in the efficacy of prayer, both contending for those believers and receiving their intercession on his behalf.

Comparing Paul’s experience of intercession to my own, I recognized that praying intentionally for others was a weaker faith muscle that needed exercised. As we scribbled prayer requests on scrap paper and shuffled them in the center of the table at the end of those Saturday morning study sessions, I anticipated feeling the responsibility carrying one person’s needs for the coming week. But I did not expect to grow so deeply in my affection for these women or experience the blessings of their wisdom and grace through their prayers for me.

We prayed for our husbands, unbelieving coworkers, and the discipleship of our kids. We prayed for increased joy in the Lord, the ability to resist temptation, and opportunities to share the Gospel. We prayed in silence and through texts and knowing looks in the church lobby. With each passing week, our conversations grew in ease, honesty, and unity.

“So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” (Phil. 2:1–2)

Praying with and for our family in Christ reminds us that we are one body—his. When we acknowledge our limits and aches before others, we submit that we need God’s grace; we are not sufficient in ourselves to bring redemption. When we help carry the vulnerabilities of our spiritual family to the feet of Jesus, we serve as mediators who, in our weakness, believe that God is mighty to save (Zeph. 3:17). And as we suffer and hope alongside each other, we embody Jesus’ own prayer just hours before his death: that we would all be one (John 17:21).

Although Paul’s exhortation to pursue unity has loads of theological and practical implications, I wonder if intercession was a helpful starting point for those believers in the early Church. Perhaps contending for one another in prayer prompted them to remember their shared identity as partakers of grace and partners in the Gospel.

Still today, maybe our unity begins with a prayer request.

Are you familiar with the word, "doldrums?" I first learned this word when I taught an open water survival course for the U.S. Air Force. My students learned how to use the current and wind to travel in a life raft should an in-flight emergency cause them to abandon their aircraft and parachute into water as a means of escape. I taught about how the winds and currents move differently depending on their latitude and longitude, but they should also know that there is a section five degrees north and south of the equator that is known as the “doldrums.” This is an area where the trade winds usually do not reach, so there is almost no wind in this section, making traveling by wind nearly impossible. As I reflected on a passage of Scripture, this illustration of the doldrums came to mind: many of us experience seasons when we might feel like we are in the doldrums of our Christian walk. It may seem that there is no spiritual wind blowing us one way or another. We may not desire to go to church, read the Bible, engage in Christian fellowship, or even pray. We might feel hopeless and wonder how we can get out of the doldrums to move back into the trade winds of spiritual growth and energy.

Maybe you can relate to the following statements:

“I want to spend more time in the Bible, but I just don’t know how.”

“I start reading, but then I get distracted or am just not getting anything out of it.”

“I don’t feel as though I am spending enough in devotional time, or don’t know how much time is enough.”

These are just a few concerns I hear from young adults today, but consider your own personal experience as it relates to your time in God’s Word, prayer, church, fellowship, or discipleship. The fact of the matter is this: we all come to a time every now and then when we feel as though we are in the spiritual doldrums. Both our mindset and our response toward these feelings are critical. How many of us have opened our Bibles with great intention, only to find ourselves staring blankly and recognizing our efforts haven’t gone much further than simply reading words? One could say it is no different than reading the advertisement signs on the shuttle trains, at airports, or on billboards. We might see and read the words, but the words don’t change us or affect us.

We understand the problem, but how do we fix it? Whenever I feel as though I am in the spiritual doldrums, I look to the Bible for answers. My go-to is the Apostle Peter. Why? His life was one of rapid transformation and he had numerous ups and downs as the lead disciple who spent three years with Christ. In John 1:40-42, Peter is first identified as Simon the son of John. In this instance Jesus changes his name from Simon to Peter, and he is one of the first Apostles called into the ministry with Jesus. The Gospels share many different interactions between Peter and Jesus, but I want to identify a consistent theme throughout. In Mark 8:33, Jesus openly and publicly rebuked Peter in front of the disciples and even said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!” This immediately followed Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah. In the next section Peter was openly rebuked and embarrassed because he allowed his feelings and emotions to control what he thought about Christ and his mission. Here is the point: Peter’s emotions dictated his thoughts.

We cannot allow our emotions to control our perception of our relationship with Christ. Our emotional state is not an accurate portrayal of how Christ views us.

If we have given our lives to him, we are now his children, his people. If you find yourself being controlled by your emotions, recognize that the negative feelings you feel are from the flesh. The source of these negative feelings is not of God, but your emotional state. Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Christ does not condemn you when you feel as though you are not doing it the “right way.”

Let’s examine another situation in which Peter finds himself. Matthew 14:22-33 is one of my favorite miracles. The disciples were out on the water after Jesus taught and fed the five thousand, and a storm was brewing over the Mediterranean. In the middle of the storm, they looked out and saw a figure walking on the water, which was Jesus. In verse 28, Peter stepped out onto the water and walked on the water toward Jesus; however, in verse 30, Peter began to sink and needed rescue from Jesus. What occurred from the time he stepped out of the boat and walked on water toward Christ? Verse 30 reveals that Peter was distracted by his current fear of the wind and the waves, so he took his eyes off Christ.

Peter saw his immediate situation and did what we all do— we try to fix it ourselves and stop looking to the One who can fix it.

Peter was distracted by what seems like insurmountable problems that he had to address because it directly affected him despite Jesus (who empowered him in the first place) being right there. Here is the second principle for us: we assume that there is a specific means or method necessary for our spiritual walk with Christ. We start out on the walk with the best intentions, and then after a few days or weeks, or maybe even minutes, we get distracted with something in our lives that takes our focus away from our time with Christ. One simple way we can help ourselves with distraction is to turn our phone off and go somewhere where there is no distraction.

We can also waste time or become distracted by mimicking other Christians on social media. Please do not think that fruitful devotion time equates to waking up at 5:00 a.m. with your Bible, a cup of coffee, and candle for two hours. If that is what your time alone with the Lord is like, that is fantastic, but that is by no means the standard that Christians everywhere must adopt as their own. Let us consider the global church, where many brothers and sisters may not have certain luxuries. Is Scripture still effective in those settings? Finding a distraction free place will be unique to each person. For example, I love to surf and be out on the water. I drive to the beach, open my Bible, and read a passage of Scripture. I am currently reading through the book of John. I read a few lines or a section then go out on my surfboard. Even if the waves are flat, I enjoy my time in creation and reflect on what I just read. I think about the passage, meditate on what God is doing in my life, and pray. I then wrap up my session to head back to my truck, shower, and head into work. Psalm 37:3-4 says, “Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

What is something that you like to do alone? For me it is surfing, fishing, or sitting on the beach. For you it may be painting, hiking, or simply sitting under the stars after you’ve put your kids to bed. That practice is something that God placed inside you and allows you to do because when we seek after him, our will lines up with his, and he gives us the desire of our heart. The next time you do that activity, incorporate Scripture and alone time with God into that passion you already have. You most likely already practice that activity regularly, and you can add Christ and personal time with Him into it. This allows the habit to form easier and provides a distraction-free method to focus and meditate on God’s Word as you are doing the activity. Peter got distracted from doing what he loved to do the most, which was being physically close to Jesus. We must learn from his example and remove the hindrances that distract us.

There are many other principles we can learn from Peter, but I want to conclude this article with 1 Peter 2:2-3 which says, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.” We must be needy for Christ like newborns. We must desire and crave the pure spiritual milk so that we may grow spiritually because the Lord is good.

If you desire to escape the spiritual doldrums, now is the time. Do not wait for something to change or for someone else to come alongside you and force you to do it. Start right now knowing that you are not alone and without help. Scripture is always there, and the spiritual treasure is waiting for you to mine it.

As 1 Peter 4:2 says, “so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions, but for the will of God.” God’s will is for you to spend time in his Word and to abide in him. Time at church is critical, but so is your personal time with him. Don’t compare your time in God’s Word to others. Do not quit because someone else appears to be doing more or better than you. Romans 8:37-39 tells us that we are more than conquers, and that nothing can separate us from the love of God. So, incorporate your alone time with God into your everyday life, and reject the unwritten standard about what devotional time looks like. If you only have five minutes, perfect! If you can carve out 2 hours, even better. Better to start moving somewhere rather than staying nowhere. When we remove distractions and incorporate our own unique, intentional alone time with the Lord, we will see the winds move us from spiritual doldrums pushing us into a deeper, more intimate relationship with Christ.

Several years ago, when our family was struggling with deep pain and sorrow after my husband was fired from his ministry job, I didn’t know how to emotionally move out of the deep pit that I was in. But the life of Mary Magdalene in the Scripture gives us a glimpse of how we can begin to move from pain to peace.

Mary Magdalene is often known as the woman from whom seven demons had been cast out (Luke 8:1-2). But she was also a faithful disciple of Christ’s, one who had ministered to Jesus and followed him as he taught and healed in his years of ministry. And she stayed faithful to Jesus all the way to his death: although others had left, she was at the cross “looking on from a distance” (see Matthew 27:55-56). She remained faithful to the end.

But Mary Magdalene’s life had become very small and narrow in a matter of hours: her entire life as she knew it—as a follower of Jesus—was over. He was dead, and her grief must have been immense. But with her future in limbo and her purpose unclear, Mary Magdalene focused on the next thing in front of her: doing what she could to serve Jesus.

He was gone, and she didn’t yet know that he would be coming back in defeat of death. But what she did know was that he deserved a burial worthy of a man of honor—and she was determined to give that to him.

The Model of Mary Magdalene

Even in her grief and pain, Mary Magdalene decided that she would serve Jesus in any way that she could. She took her friend with her and they set about doing what they were able to tangibly love him in the middle of their own sorrow: preparing burial spices for his body. “When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him” (Mark 16:1).

This model that Mary offers us, here in the small moment in the Scriptures, is something both beautiful and profound: serving Jesus, even in our pain, offers us peace.

I have experienced this truth in the midst of my sorrow multiple times—and sadly, because it was a truth I didn’t at first live out. In previous seasons of hardship, instead of finding ways to envelop myself in church community and with friends, I pulled away from them. I wasn’t sure how to handle my sadness around others, and I didn’t want to feel vulnerable around them. What I didn’t know then was that my choice to isolate myself in my pain brought about even more pain and sorrow—much of it that could have been avoided if I had reached out rather than pulling away.

Reaching Out Rather Than Spiraling In

Mary Magdalene shows us that grief and community—and that grief and service—are not mutually exclusive. Instead, Mary served the Lord in her grief, alongside of others. I can imagine that as she and the other woman with her prepared more burial spices, they wept together. The ointments that they fashioned would have been sprinkled with their own tears. Perhaps they talked about Jesus and his words even as they mixed and crushed and stirred. But those very actions—talking about him, remembering him, crying together—these very things were the gateway to healing and peace.

And so, after my husband was fired from his pastoral position, I realized that I needed to serve, even in my own sorrow. I did nothing huge—there were no grand gestures of service that I had to offer in that tender time. But I did choose small ways to serve: I coordinated teacher appreciation events at our daughter’s Christian school, forcing myself to remember and appreciate others who were working hard to love our children. I organized an easy fundraiser for a friend who was adopting. And I refused to isolate myself. We started attending a small group at the new church we started attending, choosing to engage with Christ’s people and refusing to isolate ourselves. These were not huge, ongoing acts of service or community—I did not have the emotional energy to start a new ministry or make a bunch of new friends. But I did what I could, and I reached out, rather than spiraling in.

Experiencing Christ’s Peace through Serving

It made a world of difference in my heart and spirit. For as I served Christ by serving others, even in small ways, my sorrow was met with peace. My soul began to rest as I was able to see, with fresh eyes, that there were many others around us who loved us and were upholding us in our own struggles—and that I could help others in theirs.

The Bible highlights this truth for us:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

As we serve others, even in the midst of our own trials, we will find ourselves enveloped in the comfort of God and upheld by the peace of God. This does not mean that we have to serve in order to experience his comfort and peace—not at all. There are some seasons where we must acknowledge that we cannot serve and should not; we need to allow the Body of Christ to serve us.

But when we are able to do so, the beautiful reality of the Kingdom of God is that serving others out of our own pain actually helps to heal that pain. Ministering to others in our own struggle actually helps bring peace to that struggle, for when we serve Christ’s people, we are serving Christ. As our Lord comforts us, we can then comfort others, and they, in turn, can help to comfort us again. It is the Body of Christ healing itself through the presence of Jesus; it is his peace at work in and through people. 

Adapted from The Path to Peace by Ann Swindell, provided by Bethany House Publishers, a division of Baker Publishing Group. Copyright 2022. Used by permission.

Ann Swindell is the author of the new book The Path to Peace: Experiencing God's Comfort When You're Overwhelmed. She writes for The Gospel Coalition, Risen Motherhood, Deeply Rooted, and other publications. Ann is the owner of Writing with Grace and holds an MFA in creative nonfiction writing. She lives in Michigan with her pastor-husband and their two kids, and you can connect with her online at AnnSwindell.com.

Spiritual motherhood.
Mentorship.
Discipleship.

No matter what you choose to call it, Christians are all called to be disciples and make disciples (Matt. 28:19-20). Unfortunately, a recent Barna study reveals that only 28% of Christians are both being discipled and discipling others. I’ve conversed with women of all ages and backgrounds who admit that discipleship has not been a part of their Christian journey. Some blame it on a disconnect between the varying generations. Others never saw it emphasized in their church and simply don’t know how to go about it. Regardless of one’s experience with discipleship, Scripture is clear about the necessity of raising spiritual sons and daughters in the faith. The book of Titus offers clear direction for what Biblical discipleship looks like: the older women must not be hypocritical, younger women must be teachable, and the result of this kind of discipleship is that the local church flourishes.

Older Women: Practice What You Teach

In Titus 2:1, Paul commands Titus to “teach what accords with sound doctrine.” He is encouraging the teacher to communicate the behavior that goes with sound doctrine. He follows this statement with a list for older men and women.

“Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine.” (Titus 2:2-3)

Since we are looking specifically at women, we may be tempted to skip down to verse three, but verses 2 and 3 are connected. Older men are called to model the marks of spiritual maturity by being sober–minded, dignified, self-controlled, and sound in faith, love, and steadfastness. The key word in verse 3 is likewise. In a similar manner, women are not only to pattern the men in these virtues, but Paul gives three additional commands: older women are to be reverent in behavior (or to have good character), not be slanderers or gossips, and cannot be slaves to wine (be controlled by external substances, specifically excessive drinking). In other words, the qualification for the older generation to teach begins with themselves, lest they be hypocritical and offer up empty words that don’t align with their own lifestyles. The older generation must not simply be hearers of the word of God, but doers also (James 1:22). This gives potency to the counter-cultural message they are to communicate.

So, what is it that older women are to teach?

“They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” (Titus 2:3b-5)

This is not a popular list. Sadly, many Christian women write this entire chapter off as antiquated and unfit for our current context, allowing modern-day ideologies to be the hermeneutic with which they interpret Scripture. Even so, verse 3 commands the older women to “teach what is good.” Paul then qualifies what is good in God’s eyes:

1. Women who love their families.
2. Women who have discipline and self-control.
3. Women who value purity.
4. Women who keep their homes.
5. Women who are kind.
6. Women who allow their husband to be the spiritual authority and covering of their household.

These are convictions that the world rejects. We need strong, older women who live this out well and are willing to instruct and champion younger women to do the same.

Younger Women: Be Teachable

The younger women play a role in discipleship too. The underlying assumption is that younger women are willing to learn from the older. They must be humble and teachable, willing to be instructed and corrected. Proverbs 19:20 says, “Listen to advice and accept instruction that you may gain wisdom in the future.” In contrast, Proverbs 18:2 says, “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his own opinion.” We will either choose to be wise or foolish women.

Listening to advice and instruction isn’t easy, nor is it our default setting. The Gospel message reminds us that we were once slaves to sin, unable to do or think anything right (Rom. 6:20). Ephesians 4:18 says of us in our old nature: “they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.” It follows logically, then, that our thinking must be corrected, first and foremost by the word of God, but also by the counsel of godly mentors and friends.

God uses many tools for sanctification and one of those includes the older, more mature people in a younger person’s life. It’s not that the older person is any better or has more favor with God, it’s simply that she is a bit further down the sanctification path than we are. She’s lived long enough to see that there is truly nothing new under the sun! So much of history repeats itself and continues to reject God and what His Word demands. We acknowledge all of this knowing that He who began a good work in us will complete it so we aren’t far behind (Phil. 1:6).

Discover the Fruit that Comes with Discipleship

We are given the reason for why this set-apart lifestyle matters right after the list of good and godly living that the older women are to teach to the younger women. Verse 5 tells us the reason is that the word of God may not be reviled. Sadly, one of the most common reasons we hear that people do not attend church is because of the hypocrites they’ve encountered. If Christians would live what they profess, then God’s Word wouldn’t be reviled. Verse 7 affirms this and encourages Christians “to be a model of good works…so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.”

Verse 9 talks about adorning the doctrine of God our Savior. We’ve put off the old self to put on the new, and we are dressing ourselves with good works that support the call to holy living. This is not about us living self-righteously, parading around with pharisaical motivations. This isn’t a social club or a clique with certain requirements to receive membership. This is about pursuing holiness for the glory of God and the building up of His church.

When the older and younger generation come together in active and intentional discipleship relationships, there is a massive, immeasurable ripple effect. The direct impact of an older woman encouraging and instructing a younger woman impacts the younger woman’s husband, her children, and the future generations of that family. Not only is that young woman’s family impacted, but the woman doing the instructing is impacted, for this is one of the good works God has given her to do as His workmanship created in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:10).

Additionally, the surrounding community has the opportunity to witness an authentic, intentional church community. In a cultural climate where there is so much divisiveness and isolation, biblical discipleship will stand out. People will begin to ask for the reason for the hope within (1 Pet. 3:15) as they witness the young and old coming together under one banner. Through God’s perfect design, the spiritual maturity and fruit that comes from discipleship will result in disciples making more disciples.

In Conclusion

Whether you’ve been discipled before or not, Christians have an opportunity to be a light in their various communities. Despite what current statistics say, it is never too late to be discipled and disciple another. There is always someone who is older than us, and there is always someone who is younger than us. Study the book of Titus and discover that spiritual mothering isn’t just commanded, but it’s needed for the Body to flourish. In order to do this, we'll have to play our part. Older women must model the good works that accord with sound doctrine. Younger women must be willing to listen and learn from the older women. When we become an intergenerational community with God’s Word as our authority, God is honored and we display true biblical community to an onlooking world.

Do you pray for your local church? Do you pray for the Christian Church around the world— fellow brothers and sisters in Christ suffering persecution, struggling to stay faithful to Scripture during major culture shifts, or walking through the nightmare of war? Recently, the Lord brought to mind a hymn that has given me specific ways to pray for the local church I’m a part of and for the Church abroad, especially when it can feel like the only light left of the Christian Church is a flickering flame in a world of paralyzing darkness.

Thomas Benson Pollock wrote the hymn “Jesus, With Thy Church Abide” in 1871, and it stands as a powerful prayer prompt for believers. There are 18 original verses of Pollock's hymn, but each hymnal contains only a selection of those verses. He ends each verse with, “we beseech thee, hear us,” fervently asking the Lord to fulfill these requests. These selected verses can provide a foundation for prayer as we earnestly ask the Lord to continue building his Church and plead alongside other believers that the gates of hell would not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18).

“Jesus, with thy church abide; be her Savior, Lord, and Guide, while on earth her faith is tried: we beseech thee, hear us.”

Pollock begins with supplication for God to be near his Church and to lead her through this dark and trying world. Unfortunately, many churches don’t keep the Lord as their guide—we often let distractions in this world (including ourselves) be our comforts and guides. Pray for the Church to remember that we are not alone in our battle against sin and death; Jesus leads and abides with his people, and his Spirit dwells in us.

“Keep her life and doctrine pure; grant her patience to endure, trusting in thy promise sure: we beseech thee, hear us. / May she one in doctrine be, one in truth and charity, winning all to faith in thee: we beseech thee, hear us.”

Here Pollock includes prayer to preserve the Church’s doctrine, purity, and unity. There’s a reason Pollock spends two verses focused on the doctrine of the Church. Doctrine is not something believers can choose to ignore—what we believe matters, and it matters why we believe it. In order to trust the Lord’s promises, we need to know what those promises are. Pray that the Church would continue to seek the Lord as he has revealed himself in his holy Word.

“May she guide the poor and blind, seek the lost until she find, and the broken-hearted bind: we beseech thee, hear us.”

This is a simple but profound prayer that the Church would tangibly love and help others. The Church should be a place of respite and hospitality to those who are hurting and lost. Pray that the Church would be a place for people to find physical, emotional, and spiritual refuge.

“Judge her not for work undone, judge her not for fields unwon, bless her work in thee begun: we beseech thee, hear us.”

This is a prayer that I know resonates with many who work in ministry. It reminds me of God’s promise in Isaiah 55:10-11: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” Pray for pastors, missionaries, and anyone involved in ministry (parents, neighbors—all of us!) to be strengthened in the knowledge that we are working in the Lord’s fields, and the harvest is not reliant on our feeble human capacities.

“Save her love from growing cold, make her watchmen strong and bold, fence her round, thy peaceful fold: we beseech thee, hear us.”

In this verse, Pollock asks the Lord for perseverance in love, bolstered strength, and continued protection for the Church. We shouldn’t be apathetic in our love, letting it dwindle. Pray that the Good Shepherd’s flock would be protected and that he would raise up godly men to protect the Church from the bitter cold of the world.

“May her lamp of truth be bright, bid her bear aloft its light through the realms of heathen night: we beseech thee, hear us. / Arm her soldiers with the cross, brave to suffer toil or loss, counting earthly gain but dross: we beseech thee, hear us. / May she holy triumphs win, overthrow the hosts of sin, gather all the nations in: we beseech thee, hear us.”

In these last missions-oriented verses, Pollock makes supplication for the Church to be a bright light in the darkness. One day all the hosts of sin will be overthrown and the nations will be won to Christ. Pray for believers to always keep before us the notion that to live is Christ and to die is gain (Phil. 1:21). Pray that we would all be willing to take up our crosses daily for the sake of Christ (Luke 9:23). Pray for the gospel to go forth and shine God’s unassailable light into the darkness.

Notice the anchor of each of these urgent requests: to whom they are being made. Only Jesus can answer these prayers for his Church. We cannot keep the soft glow of the Christian Church aflame relying on our own efforts; the Church is the Lord’s. It is the Lord who built it, and he will sustain this Church that he deeply loves.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, be in prayer for the Church. Pray that she would be protected, love the scriptures, grow in charity, withstand the evils of the world, and that the gospel would prevail over the powers of hell. Take heart in remembering this promise from the prophet Isaiah: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.” (Is. 42:3). 

We beseech thee, hear us, Lord. 

Even as a small child, I cared about the details. I used to always ask numerous questions before relenting and doing what my parents or teachers asked of me. And while my information seeking has tempered as an adult, the need to know remains. I want time frames and expectations laid out before committing to a project. My friends tease me about my love for completed to-do lists and bullet-pointed notes for communication. While these traits have served me well professionally, there’s a deeper reason why organization and details are important to me: the unanswered is scary.

The days before Christ’s crucifixion were filled with uncertainty. I have often imagined what anxiety the disciples must have felt as the realization of Jesus’ death was hours away. John 13 revealed heavy news of a coming betrayal and their abandonment of Christ, which would have been head-spinning news for them. The life the disciples had lived for three years was going to come to a screeching halt, and Jesus assured them with words pointing to a future beyond this world:

“Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” (John 14:1-3)

The disciple Thomas asked a question that revealed he focused on one thing: Jesus was going to leave, and Thomas felt like he needed answers.

“Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” (John 14:4)

I get Thomas asking the question. In my tendency toward self-reliance, I trust the knowledge of the proven rather than faith unseen. And I miss the point of Jesus’ response to his searching disciple: “I AM the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

I have a thirst to know how the story will end before the chapters are lived, and that plagues those chapters with worry. Jesus, in His death for my sins, has through His immeasurable selfless love, embodied all the answers I need.

In her book None Like Him, Jen Wilkin wrote, “The antidote for anxiety is to remember and confess that we can trust the future to God.” Thomas could have kept his question to himself, allowing worry to consume his thoughts. He spoke his need directly to Jesus, modeling the response I desire to have in times of doubt. Thomas wanted to know the way in earthly terms of process and steps. Jesus revealed the better way: follow Him alone.

Following the Way reveals truth. Jesus prays in John 17:17, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” We can keep question-fueled anxiety at bay when we seek clarity from the source of all truth rather than opinions from the world. God’s Word never fails to deliver peace. Every doubt, worry, and fear has been answered through scripture.

And life? One of my favorite scriptures is 1 John 4:9 with its beautiful assurance to the believer: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”

To live through Jesus Christ is a promised deliverance. The worries of this world are momentary—a blink in the light of eternity. Yes, they are important and have meaning in this space of time, but we can live rescued from the bondage of sin and death.

It’s perfectly fine to ask the questions and want the details, but we need to remember that the answers lie not in the ways or viewpoints of this world. The answers to our questions in times of uncertainty lie in the truths of God’s Word. We can rest in Christ’s way and live the life God has given us to worship and glorify Him.

• Confusing a promise with a principle

Promises from God are fulfilled 100% of the time. Principles state general truths. The book of Proverbs is often mistaken for a book of promises, when in fact it is a book of principles. The principle of “train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6, NKJV) is generally true and is wise to heed. But it is not a guarantee that every child who is raised with godly instruction will become a believer.

• Ignoring the context

We often apply a promise to ourselves before considering its original audience or its historical, cultural, or textual context. In some cases, a promise was made to a specific person for a specific reason and has no further application beyond its immediate context. In other cases, the application can only be properly made after the promise is understood in its original context. God’s promise to Abram of land and offspring cannot be taken to mean God will give me a house or children. It can, however, be applied to mean he will give me a spiritual inheritance through Christ (Gen. 12:1–3).

• Overlooking the “if”

Promises that contain an “if” require some form of obedience before we can expect them to come to pass in our lives. They are conditional. If we want to claim them, we had better be ready to act in obedience to what they require. God grants us wisdom if we ask (James 1:4). But we have to ask. Often, “if” promises of blessing are accompanied by corresponding “if” warnings about disobedience. We tend to celebrate God’s promises of blessing and sideline his promises of chastisement, though both point to a faithful God. It’s tough to find a coffee mug that sports Hebrews 12:6. This leads us to . . . 

• Choosing a promise selectively

We tend to favor those promises that appeal to our own best-case scenario. We quote Exodus 14:14 in a crisis: “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still” (NIV). But we neglect to note that three chapters later in Exodus, Israel was commanded not to stand still, but to fight her enemies. In spiritual battles, sometimes we should stand still and sometimes we should fight. Better to ask God for wisdom as to which response is called for than to claim a promise that is not universally applicable.

• Using a promise manipulatively

Sometimes we employ a verse as a promise because we want God to act a certain way. Probably one of the most abused passages in this category is “where two or three are gathered in my name” (Matt. 18:19–20). Not only do we use it out of context, we use it to try to coerce God into doing what we ask simply because we have gathered the requisite number of people to ask it. God’s promises to us should help us submit to his will, not bend him to ours.

• Limiting a promise to your own understanding

Even when we rightly recognize a promise as intended for us, we often impose our own understanding of exactly how it will be fulfilled. Or we are tempted to impose our own timeline on its fulfillment. Yes, God does have a plan to prosper you and not to harm you (Jer. 29:11), but as in the case of the people to whom those words were originally written, that “you” is more likely a collective reference to the body of believers, and that plan may play out across centuries in ways we can’t possibly predict. To recognize this does not diminish the beauty of the promise at all. It actually enhances it.

How can we avoid these promise-claiming pitfalls? Our long-term strategy must be to move from spot knowledge of the Bible to comprehensive knowledge. In the short term, try these helps:

• Do your homework

Before you write it on a note card for your fridge, before you post it on Instagram or shop for it on a coffee mug or declare it your life verse, make a thorough study of where your promise lives in Scripture and in biblical history. Make sure it’s a general promise, not a specific promise to someone else or a general principle to observe. Check for any “ifs” that might change its application.

• Check your motive

If a promise in Scripture appeals to you, ask yourself why. What fear or need underlies your desire to claim that promise for yourself? What security are you looking for beyond the soul security you are guaranteed in Christ? Does claiming that promise help you submit to God’s rule? Are you defining its fulfillment in terms of your own limited understanding? Would its fulfillment help you grow in godliness and humility?

And remember, the Bible is full of unambiguous promises from our triune God that we can celebrate with certainty. Here is a smattering of my favorites:

He promises to give us wisdom if we ask (James 1:5).

He promises to provide a way out of temptation (1 Cor. 10:13).

He promises that our salvation is secure, no matter what (John 10:28–29).

He promises to never leave us nor forsake us (Heb. 13:5).

He promises to finish the good work he has begun in us (Phil. 1:6).

He promises to come back (Luke 12:40).

These promises are sure and steadfast. Do you notice that they have much more to say about who God is or how he is sanctifying us than about a specific circumstance or outcome? We are not promised certainty in our circumstances, but we are promised certainty in the God of our circumstances. And that, brothers and sisters, is an anchor for the soul.

Is free speech important?    

Free speech laws in Western nations have supported Christians in spreading the gospel throughout the world. Free speech is a special gift that is underappreciated by all of us. But historically, for most of 2,000 years, the church has had to survive without freedom of speech. Opposition to free speech began early in the history of the church. Shortly after the church was birthed, to preach in the name of Jesus was considered forbidden speech; it was hate speech that carried the penalty of imprisonment and sometimes even death.

Take time to reread Acts 4. Peter and John performed a miracle in the name of Jesus. But the authorities were not pleased. For this the two were arrested. When asked to defend themselves, Peter boldly proclaimed that the miracle was performed in the name of “Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified…for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:10, 12). 

No political correctness here. “By your agreement, you let Jesus be crucified, and if you don’t believe in Him, you have no salvation!” 

When Peter and John were threatened and warned to no longer speak in the name of Jesus, they answered, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (verses 19–20). Take it or leave it—your threats will not keep us from preaching the gospel!

The martyrs before us have shown that it is not necessary to have free speech in order to be faithful. Richard Wurmbrand, in Tortured for Christ, wrote about parents who taught their children the Christian faith. “If it was discovered that they taught their children about Christ, their children were taken away from them for life—with no visitation rights.”*

Of course, our speech must be with grace seasoned with salt. Free speech does not mean that we speak judgmentally to our nation as if we are free from our own weaknesses and sins. We give reason for the hope within us with respect, meekness, and fear (see 1 Peter 3:15).

One of my heroes is the sixteenth-century Reformer Hugh Latimer. When asked to preach in front of King Henry VIII, he struggled with exactly what to say. You’ll recall that Henry had the reputation of chopping off the heads of his enemies, including two of his wives.

As it turned out, Latimer boldly declared God’s Word, and although Henry spared his life, Henry’s daughter, Queen Mary (Bloody Mary), had him burned at the stake in Oxford. As he was dying amid the flames, he called out to Bishop Ridley, who was also consigned to the flames with him, and is quoted as saying, “Master Ridley, play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”**

The secret of boldness? Fear God more than the flames. Fear Him more than your reputation. Let us be done with fainthearted, tepid leadership. Ours is the day to “play the man” with bold, uncompromising truth and love, risking it all for God.

We can expect views that differ from those of the thought police will be boycotted, shamed, and outed. But we will not be silenced. We will endure the shame, the ridicule, and the penalties.

We will be heard, and we pray that the church will speak with one voice. 

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Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer is pastor emeritus of The Moody Church, where he served as the senior pastor for 36 years. He is an award-winning author well as the featured speaker on three radio programs heard on more than 750 national and international outlets.

Excerpted with permission from We Will Not Be Silenced by Erwin W. Lutzer, published by Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR, 97408.  Copyright 2020, Erwin W. Lutzer. www.harvesthousepublishers.com

* Richard Wurmbrand, Tortured for Christ: The 50th Anniversary Edition (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2017), 151-152.

** As cited in Charles Bridges, An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs (London: Seeley, Burnside, and Seeley, 1847), 126.

In a fallen world, man often feels helpless and dependent. Technology is his response, “a collective revolt against the limitations of the human condition,” a revolt against the unruliness of nature and a revolt “against the reality of our dependence on forces external to ourselves.” We are porous to forces outside of us; therefore we reach for technology as a protective buffer. We misuse technology when we wield it in the hopes of self-sufficiency and autonomous protection from nature. We should never be more cautious than with technologies that seal us off from the natural world, that noise-cancel nature from our electrified lives. 

Over the past sixty years, Christians have called out worldliness in categories of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But in the tech age, worldliness sneaks in the back door, hooded in pragmatism and the desire for control. Lusting for sovereignty over life, through tech, is a prevailing manifestation of worldliness in our age. Tech “progress” is often driven forward by human lust for power. Man seeks “absolutized scientific-technological control.” Said another way, “Technicism is the pretension of humans, as self-declared lords and masters using the scientific- technical method of control, to bend all of reality to their will in order to solve all problems, old and new, and to guarantee increasing material prosperities and progress.” When we wield technology in unbelief, we display a Babel-like expression of the human desire for sovereignty. 

In stark contrast, to be human is to be a human being, a creature ordered toward God himself. We find our bearings in orientation to him and to his will. Creaturely autonomy is a fantasy. God’s providence over the world, his church, and our lives is reality. In the words of John Webster, God’s providence is “that work of divine love for temporal creatures whereby God ordains and executes their fulfilment in fellowship with himself.” Out of his love, God orders our lives toward his glorious presence to enjoy forever. But this precious promise is lost very quickly in the age of innovation. “We don’t think that way today,” warns Webster, “because we generally take a technological image of ourselves. We are essentially what we manipulate, what we make of ourselves through the things we make and the choices we make and the patterns we make around ourselves.” As Christians we want more for our lives and our children’s lives than techno-manipulation. The Spirit must orient us toward God as our highest good, so that we not only believe it, but live from a conviction that he really is our supreme treasure, now and forever. 

But another low-hanging fruit beckons us, a perpetual temptation to gain control over our bodies. No doubt the future of health will include more wearables as we attempt to quantify and data-fy everything from our heart rates, glucose levels, step counts, mood fluctuations, sleep patterns, and any manner of analytical readings for personal productivity. Anything we quantify into data we will try to optimize. Much of this will be good. And we will see new medical advances promising to end aging. But perhaps Western culture will become so infatuated with health that we will make ourselves ill. That’s the suggestion of Packer. “Dazzled by the marvels of modern medicine, the Western world dreams of abolishing ill health entirely, here and now,” he said. “We have grown health conscious in a way that is itself rather sick, and certainly has no precedent—not even in ancient Sparta. Why do we diet and jog and do all the other health-raising and health-sustaining things so passionately? Why are we so absorbed in pursuing bodily health? We are chasing a dream, the dream of never having to be ill. We are coming to regard a pain-free, disability-free existence as one of man’s natural rights.” This “natural right” is the bruised fruit of technological control culture. 

J. I. Packer warns that in our attempts to stop aging and optimize health through all sorts of quantified tracking and body hacks, we may miss out on God’s bigger purpose and plan for our lives. “God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other sorts of affliction, as his chisel for sculpting our souls,” he wrote. “Felt weakness deepens dependence on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away.” 

Obviously, we can escape from God’s providence like a fish can escape water for a life in outer space. But we resist God by thoughtlessly grabbing for more life control. This is idolatry. We’d rather have a god we can readily understand, easily appease, and instantly command. Idolatry is all about control. And tech, like in the age of handheld idols, puts in our hands tools and gadgets that give us the appearance of control. It’s a mirage. Any confidence we have about what we are going to do later today, tonight, or tomorrow is an idolatrous arrogance if we think that we ultimately decide. We don’t. Our lives are a spritz-mist in the desert that evaporates before hitting the ground. We are vapors.

We don’t control our lives because we don’t control the living God. He’s entirely other-than-us. We are creatures of clay. Our techno-control over the variables of this world is an idolatrous illusion. Instead, we affirm with the psalmist that God has governed my destiny until now, he is the source of all I need today, and he holds my future secure. 

None of these tensions are new to the Amish people. Contrary to this age of technological control that governs so much of urban life, the Amish have retreated to the country with an intentional, self-limited “rightness of scale,” a manageability that restrains the size of their farms and their proximity to community, “an economy dependent upon limits strictly understood and observed.” They limit their dependence on “machine-developed energy,” and by it, says Wendell Berry, “have become the only true masters of technology.” Tech mastery requires self-limitation. 

The Amish separate from the world into small communities, largely technologically isolated, adopting only a sparse number of tools that benefit (and do not harm) the local community. Kevin Kelly spent a lot of time with the Amish, studying their habits and convictions. He calls them “ingenious hackers and tinkerers, the ultimate makers and do-it-yourselfers.” The Amish are aware of iPhones and computers. But they are tech-adoption minimalists by clear convictions, particularly these four, in the words of Kelly: 

• They are selective. They know how to say no and are not afraid to refuse new things. They ignore more than they adopt. 
• They evaluate new things by experience instead of by theory. They let the early adopters get their jollies by pioneering new stuff under watchful eyes. 
• They have criteria by which to make choices. Technologies must enhance family and community and distance themselves from the outside world. 
• The choices are not individual but communal. The community shapes and enforces technological direction. 

We can learn something from these four lessons, but something even more foundational is at work in this community. The Amish approach to life and technology includes intentional inaction— gelassenheit—a yieldedness, a serenity, a letting be, a relaxing from promises of techno-control over all of life, in order to submit to God’s will over whatever is to come. They seek to preserve one of the fundamental facts of humanness: we are creatures under the providence of God. 

Likewise, Christians will help restrain the adoption of certain technologies based on dangers to creation, nature, and physical health (perceived from general revelation), and, most importantly, Christians will resist the adoption of technologies based on spiritual factors (learned from special revelation). Prudence will allow us to benefit from the best advances while limiting the misuse that often comes along with the false promises of tech control. 

Here’s the challenge. The dilemma of the tech age is how to live minimally without innovating minimally. “To maximize our own contentment, we seek the minimum amount of technology in our lives,” writes Kelly, who learned this lesson while living inside an Amish community. “Yet,” he says, “to maximize the contentment of others, we must maximize the amount of technology in the world. Indeed, we can only find our own minimal tools if others have created a sufficient maximum pool of options we can choose from. The dilemma remains in how we can personally minimize stuff close to us while trying to expand it globally.” This is what the Amish have figured out: how to remain aware of the proliferation of innovations happening around them while adopting tech minimally and based on the health of the community. 

The Amish have pulled off coordinated tech minimalism. We won’t. My minimalism will not look like your minimalism. This means we have warrant to innovate more broadly than any one of our personal adoption decisions. We are not called to stifle all new tech but to live with enough trust in God’s providential control to celebrate the tech wealth offered to us while also demonstrating God-centered contentment required for a life of tech minimalism. 

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Content generously provided from God, Technology, and the Christian Life by Tony Reinke, ©2022. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

We all have countless opportunities for distraction: phones, TV, the internet, work, over-committing to activities at church or with friends, and the list goes on. There is so much fighting for our time, attention, and energy, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

Too often, the one who needs and deserves your attention most is the one who loses the fight: your spouse. Please allow me to get a little blunt with you: that needs to stop. If we want a God-honoring, thriving marriage we must make building emotional intimacy in our marriages a priority. Scripture reminds us that our lives are like a mist or a vapor (James 4:14) and that the “thief” wants nothing more than to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10) us—our marriage included. 

So how do we combat emotional isolation and emptiness in our marriage? How do we guard and defend our marriage covenant against the temptation to engage and find emotional satisfaction online with someone other than our spouse? Do you hide sin from your husband in hopes that your husband doesn’t find out? When the lines feel blurred and the war between your flesh and spirit wage—how do you respond? Who or or what governs your response? Take a moment to stop and think about the last time you and your husband had a fight or you felt distance from one another. Did you resolve it by allowing your emotions, or how you felt, to dictate your response?

The trouble with emotions is that although they are God-given, powerful, and feel real to us, they can cause hurt, breakdown, and emotional isolation in our marriage if left out-of-control and ungoverned (James 1:20). We need the Lord’s help to filter through, guard, and keep them.

Be Deeply Rooted In Scripture

In order to guard our hearts and combat the raging emotions we face in the heated battles of marriage we must first be deeply rooted in scripture. Charles Spurgeon said, “Visit many good books, but live in the bible.” By being deeply rooted, I don’t mean simply reading a verse every few days; I mean live in the Word, lest we forget that God’s Word is alive and battle-worthy! (Hebrews 4:12). 

Scripture paints a continual picture of the beauty of obedience to God’s authority and the fruit or blessings that come from submission to His words rather than how I feel in that moment. Rather than allowing my emotions to rage out of control, I can look to the bible for the truth about God and myself. 

In it I read about how God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). Galatians 5:22-23 teaches me that the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, self-control (to name a few) and that life in the Spirit is where this fruit is produced. 

Friends, daily scripture study is not a check off box on our to-do list—it is, and should be, the well-spring of life and one that we cannot go a day without. And practicing this spiritual discipline with your spouse is one way to experience new levels of emotional intimacy.

Begin with the end in mind.

If reading scripture together feels like a scary request because lately your marriage has felt cold and isolated, or maybe you haven’t ever read scripture aloud together— start with building your friendship while keeping scripture reading as something to work towards as a couple.

After being married for seventeen years, I can confidently say that whenever my husband  and I have taken the time to laugh together, or try a new activity we always feel closer afterwards. It’s not easy because it requires us to be intentional. 

We must make time to be friends and to become better ones. If we don't, we risk losing closeness as we go from task to task, or from one distraction to another. We don't naturally drift toward health in this area, we drift toward dysfunction. So we must be intentional.

When is the last time you and your husband spent quality time together? Do you recall the last time you and him laughed together so hard that your insides hurt? Or do you remember the last time you made each other feel valued and loved (not just on your anniversary)? 

Again, our tendency is to drift into apathy and dysfunction, so how can you make sure you’re spending quality time with your husband? 

I’d like to leave you with a few practical steps to get you started:

1) Make dates happen.

Try to schedule standing appointments with each other on your calendar to intentionally block out time and block out distractions. It doesn't have to be elaborate or expensive to be edifying. I would also encourage you to find a time that works for you both. Lunch dates or date days have been some of our favorite times to spend together because we aren’t too tired or worn out mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. Give each other your best!

2) Have meaningful conversations.

When you are together, put phones away and talk about important things. Talk about Jesus. What has God put on your heart? What are you reading and learning from the Bible? What are you dreaming about? So many times we forget to articulate the most important things on our minds. Ask probing questions and go further in your conversations.

3) Get out of the house.

This might be easier said than done at this moment of history. However, sometimes a short coffee or ice cream date is just the trick. Turn off the TV and get out of the house spontaneously. Go for a walk or a drive. Some of your best moments will happen when you're spontaneous and have no agenda other than being together.

Don’t waste another moment. Make the time. Talk to your husband, get a date on the calendar and make quality time a priority in your marriage. One final thought for the wife who doesn’t know the last time she spent any real time with her husband—pray for soft hearts, and quality conversation. Go into the first date knowing that it might feel a bit awkward at first, you may even have a few disagreements, but stay committed to work through it. Emotional intimacy takes time but it is an investment worth making.

The winter months often prove to be a season of many gatherings, Christmas parties or gift exchanges with friends and families. This sweet and simple recipe easily complements a dessert spread for a party, can be a lovely stocking stuffer when bundled together, or just a snack to nibble on when cuddled on the couch, coffee in hand! Mix it up and customize it by substituting the coffee grounds with whichever toppings and add-ins you prefer. 

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 23 oz bag Semi-sweet, milk, or dark chocolate chips 
• ¼ cup Whole coffee beans 
• 1 cup White chocolate chips for drizzling 

Serves 8–10 | Prep time: 5 minutes | Total time: 30 minutes  

DIRECTIONS:

1. Line a 10x15-inch baking pan with parchment paper. 
2. Grind coffee beans semi-course, setting aside two tablespoons for topping. 
3. Using a saucepan or double broiler system, melt the base chocolate of your choice, stirring continually. 
4. Once melted, mix in coffee grounds.
5. Pour chocolate onto lined baking pan and spread evenly. Set pan aside to cool, or set in refrigerator.
6. Meanwhile, melt white chocolate in microwave for drizzling. When the first pan has cooled slightly, remove from refrigerator and drizzle with white chocolate.
7. Sprinkle with remaining coffee grounds. Set pan aside again to fully cool.
8. Once chocolate has hardened, peel off parchment paper and break the chocolate apart into bark-sized pieces.

For variety, try substituting coffee grounds with chopped nuts or dried fruit, or adding a touch of sea salt on top for a sweet and salty effect. 

I leaned over to pull on my brown fringed boots for the first time this fall and a thought occurred to me: so much has happened since the last time I wore these boots. So much has changed worldwide outside our home, but this summer, something radical shifted in my own family. One of my children was diagnosed with a chronic neurologic condition, and our world as we knew it was turned upside down.

Thankfully, some women from church who are a generation ahead of me have helped to steady my family in every way imaginable. They brought home-cooked meals to nourish our bodies and encouraging words to nourish our souls. They have said things that lift me up— things like, “You are going to be amazed at how God will use this in the life of every member of your family. Just wait.” Another woman shared, “You can do hard things. Maybe you’ve never had to before, but God will give you what you need. I know because that’s what he’s done for me.”

The testimonies of these older sisters buoyed me like a life raft. Their eyes—eyes that had been gentled by the passing of time—evidenced dark nights of the soul, but in the same moment, some of them almost seemed excited for me. They knew God had good things in store, despite the pain I was facing—or maybe because of it. Age and experience had taught them about his nearness to the brokenhearted, and I was the beneficiary of their life experience. Psalm 92:12-15 says, “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the Lord is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.”

These older sisters sustained me with stories of God’s goodness in the hardest parts of their own lives. In a season of bitterness, hearing their testimonies of God’s faithfulness in their lives tasted like fruit to me.

To my fellow Generation X’ers, Millennials, and Gen Z sisters, I’m four months into this new norm and I am already catching glimpses of the light that these women have told me about. But something more profound dawned on me as I laid my daughter’s health journey alongside the novel challenges of parenting today like issues related to gender, technology, pandemic, and race. Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

The ways parenting challenges were fleshed out in the past may look different than they do now, but the human heart is the same. There is a unique blessing that comes from listening to testimonies of God’s wisdom from believers walking ahead of us in this life. This is one of the many beauties of the Body of Christ.

Women a generation or two older than me undoubtedly know someone close who has walked a similar path to mine, even if they haven’t had the same challenges themselves. Many older women are well-acquainted with nearly every season of marriage or even divorce. They know the pain of losing a parent or a spouse. Many have felt cancer in their bodies, and others have been to the funeral of a friend’s child. They’ve watched pastors come and go and have seen church splits and restorations. Some of them are prayerfully awaiting the return of a prodigal child. Some live with daily physical pain, and almost all have supported those they love through health difficulties.

Our seasoned sisters have earned their stripes when it comes to walking life’s hardest paths as children of God on this earth, and we do ourselves a tremendous disservice when we do not access their discernment with regularity. Proverbs 19:20 prods us: “Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.” Younger women, the onus is on us to move toward our older sisters with humble respect, seeking to plumb the depths of their wisdom. Reaching out with curious interest will most often be met with appreciation and delight that someone sees their life experience for exactly what it is—invaluable.

If you don’t know where to start, start small. Introduce yourself to an older woman you don’t know at church and begin a conversation. Ask a grandmother or older family friend if you can take her out for lunch—and ask more questions than you answer. It will be better than a book on Audible or the latest podcast. It will be someone’s live testimony to the faithfulness of the God of all creation.

To the Boomers, Silents, and those dear members of the Greatest Generation, I am speaking on behalf of the women who are younger than you and I am going to be bold: please don’t be shy about sharing your stories of God’s steadfast love with us. They are gritty and beautiful and we need them more desperately than you realize. Some of you have walked faithfully with God longer than we have been alive, and you have seen him redeem things we can’t fathom. Right now, our world feels as if it’s getting darker everyday—but Christ-followers are fed by stories of his faithfulness in the dark. Jesus tells us in John 16:33 that in this world, we will have trouble. You couldn’t have made it all these years without seeing difficulty. You’ve seen him do miracles that have enabled you to stay the course of faithfulness. Share how God has met you in a tough season or on a long, hard road because these testimonies showcase the glory and beauty of Christ.

All women can look around and think about who God might have naturally put in our path. Who do you already know? Who is walking a similar path you have walked? Reach out by sending a text or a note in the mail. It might feel awkward at first, but there is treasure to be found in these relationships. The reward of a powerfully interconnected Body of Christ is most certainly worth the risk.

Last summer, when my daughter’s neurologic symptoms began, an acquaintance who works in the nursery at church sought me out. She said this to me: “I’ve been exactly where you are. As a matter of fact, two of my grown children have the same disorder as your child, and I can tell you, there will come a day when this will all be a faint memory. You won’t believe how God’s going to use this, Candace. It’s hard to imagine now, but someday, you might find you are thankful for it.” She’s living in that someday, and her journey isn’t over. She has taught me that every story can be used by God to draw us to himself, even the hard ones. I’ve grown much closer to her over the last four months and I now realize why she goes out of her way to encourage me. It’s the same reason she works in the nursery, and it’s summed up in Psalm 78:5-7. “He established a testimony… that the next generation might know… so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.”

I am standing in a Minnesota parking lot in zero-degree temperatures, digging through a disordered purse to find my keys (again). I find old receipts, empty candy wrappers, and last week's church bulletin, but no keys. The longer I look, the colder I get and the more my frustration builds. When I finally find my keys among the crumbs at the bottom of what my husband calls “the deep pit,” I resolve to clean my purse as soon as we reach our next destination. 

After reading about an episode like this, few people would ask why I should clean my purse. The answer seems obvious: families, churches, and purses function better when they are uncluttered. But chaos, clutter, and mess characterize many of our lives, and yet so many women ask why organizing our homes or managing them well matters.  

Does it really matter if the laundry isn’t done? (And I do understand that it really is never done.) Does it matter if the dishes are finished, because the mess will grow quickly again? Does it matter if the beds are made or the toilets wiped down? It may be true that these tasks seem menial and monotonous, but there is a great need for women to know that they are to manage their homes well. Our knowledge of God’s character, his calling, and our motives for serving will transform the way we work for our families. Being a keeper of the home is not checking off a “to do” list that wears us out or makes us look better to others. This is Kingdom work in which God gives me the privilege to participate (Titus 2:3–5).  

If we are to manage our homes well, we need wisdom. The book of Proverbs addresses this: “The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down” (Prov. 14:1). “By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches” (Prov. 24:3). In the book's final chapter, Proverbs 31, we meet a woman who fears God and works diligently in her home for the Lord, her husband, her children, and for others in her community. She is a woman who asks God for the wisdom to manage her home well and who creates an ordered and peaceful environment. 

Whether a woman works outside her home as well as inside, her home is to be her first priority. This means that she is a counter-cultural woman who knows what’s going on in her home and she is prepared to take care of those needs first. The counter-cultural woman is not afraid to study the Proverbs 31 woman. Did you know that Proverbs 31 was written by a woman for her son? This description of a virtuous woman did not come from a demanding man who wanted a perfect woman. No. This mother writes to her boy about a woman who is characterized by wisdom, fears God, and is virtuous because of her relationship to him. Her work does not make her virtuous. Virtue is hers because of her walk with God. This dependence affects the way she works inside and outside her home. Proverbs 31:27–31 says:

“She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 'Many women have done excellently but you surpass them all.' Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.” 

Her love for God and awareness of his presence drives her work.

I am fully aware that all of us have different personalities, homes, families, and responsibilities, but many women excuse their call to manage their homes well with the pressure to excel at other things outside their homes. These women may look put-together, but their homes are falling apart. Other women love a clean and clutter-free home and are genuinely wired to think in neat and fine lines, unable to function with anything out of place. But our goal in managing the home well is not that our homes look like a set for a magazine cover. We must obey God and order our homes in a way that creates an environment for our families to function well. All women must ask God to give them an awe of him, which enables them to serve effectively.  

Chaos, clutter, and mess have definite effects on our families. When we decide that the dishes can wait a few days or that putting clothes away doesn’t matter, that decision affects our environment. More strife and fights occur when we are surrounded by chaos and clutter. The frustration of not having a place for our piles of “stuff” or for the kids’ shoes or toys results in cluttered minds and an inability to function well with each other.  A 2011 study by the Princeton University Neuroscience institute found that people function better in an environment where there is order. First Corinthians 12–14 mentions order and its effect of “building each other up.” These chapters describe chaos in the church when people do not use their gifts for building others up. Paul concludes, “But all things should be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). If this instruction was given for well-ordered churches, perhaps we should apply these principles to our homes and families as well. 

If God thinks that it is important for our homes to be managed well, then this is a significant call! This call includes training our children to help, asking God for wisdom so that we can teach and prepare our children to work well.

I’ve told all our children that they are serving God and our family when they pick up after themselves. Managing the home is training my boys and girls to think about God’s eyes on them when the jobs seem hard and boring. God has provided Gospel opportunities for us to minister for Kingdom purposes.

This calling is so rich, so important, and eternal. A renewed focus on serving Christ energizes us for the menial tasks of daily chores. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). God chose these works for me to serve my family. This is a high calling. 

I recently read two examples of people who served out of a heart that feared God. Nancy Leigh DeMoss of Revive Our Hearts writes about a 17th century monk named Brother Lawrence whose job in the religious order was to work in the kitchen. He learned to do it with a cheerful heart and a love for God. His classic work, The Practice of the Presence of God, encourages us as women as we do our work. He said, “My job, my work, does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clutter of my kitchen, while several persons at the same time are calling for different things, I possessed God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees in prayer.” His example of being aware of God is a great challenge to me. Nancy Leigh DeMoss says, “Most menial and manual labor becomes holy. It becomes sanctified, consecrated, when I give it up to God as an offering.”  

DeMoss goes on to quote a description of Sarah Edwards written in the preface to the collected works of her husband, Jonathan Edwards. “In the midst of these complicated labors [during the Great Awakening, when life was very, very busy for Jonathan Edwards], as well as at all times, he found at home one who was in every sense a helpmeet for him. One who made their dwelling an abode of order and neatness, of peace and comfort, of harmony and love to all who lived there, and of kindness and hospitality to the friend, the visitor, and the stranger. She rendered everything in the family agreeable and pleasant, considering it her greatest glory, and that wherein she could best serve God and her generation, to be the means in this way of promoting her husband’s usefulness and happiness.” DeMoss states that Sarah considered it her best means of bringing glory to God and fulfilling God’s purpose for her life in her generation by promoting her husband’s spiritual usefulness and happiness. She knew that if she could create a climate in the home where her husband was encouraged to become spiritually mature and fruitful and to be used by God, then she would be the helper suitable to him. 

Our lives and homes can be characterized by clutter, chaos, and mess, or they can be characterized by peace and order. This is our ministry.

This is the gospel life lived out to those within our four walls—keeping the laundry loads going, choosing meals, grocery shopping, wiping down toilets (yes, I have a young son), or planning ahead to eliminate stressful mornings. We are doing it “for the Lord” (Col. 3:23). 

The Proverbs 31 woman works willingly with her hands. She is not lazy. When we are the last ones to go to bed or the first ones up each day, may we be driven by an awareness of God’s presence and gratitude to serve the families that he has placed within our care. May God give us grace and wisdom to manage our homes well for his glory! 

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Content originally published in Deeply Rooted Magazine Issue 05: Life

My family spends a lot of time playing outdoors. My kids explore every inch of our yard daily, and and when my son Lincoln was younger he was never without a stick in his hands. Every good explorer needs a sturdy stick for prodding bugs, overturning rocks, and bossing sisters.  

One day at the park, though, Lincoln and his stick found an irresistible mound of dirt with a curious hole at its peak. It only took a moment of consideration before the point of his stick jammed down deep into that sandy volcano, and I will never forget the eruption that followed. Tiny red fire ants were suddenly everywhere, covering everything. Miraculously, Lincoln escaped the angry ants with only a few stings and a lesson learned.  

That erupting ant pile is the picture that comes to mind when the topic of modesty comes up—a swarm of red-hot stinging opinions and accusations. Even among followers of Christ, the modesty debate is volcanic, re-igniting every time someone mentions bikinis or yoga pants.  

It finally drove me to study what God’s Word says (and doesn’t say) about modest dress. In an ultra sexualized, consumerist culture, amidst a flood of “what not to wear” opinions from all sides, how is a God-fearing woman to approach her appearance? Does the Gospel have anything to say about our clothing? 

In his “Ask Pastor John” series, John Piper said this about where we are to begin in our pursuit of modesty:

“Until God has become your treasure, until your own sin has become the thing you hate most, until the Word of God is your supreme authority that you feel to be more precious than gold—sweeter than honey, until the Gospel of Christ’s death in your place is the most precious news to you, until you have learned to deny yourself short-term pleasures for the sake of long-term joy and holiness, until you have grown to love the Holy Spirit and long for his fruit more than man’s praise, until you count everything as loss compared to the supreme value of knowing Christ, your attitude toward your clothing and your appearance will be controlled by forces that don’t honor Christ” (#342).  

This is where we must begin, with the Gospel. The Gospel must be applied to every area of our life—even clothing—or we end up either bound by a list of rules and self-righteous pursuits, or selfishly indulging our flesh.  

Two New Testament passages that address modesty are in 1 Peter and 1 Timothy. In 1 Peter 3:3–4 Peter writes, “Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” The “holy women” Peter describes in these verses and in the surrounding text were called so because they were different from the world; they stood out in hope and in heart, marked by submission, gentleness, and meekness. We, likewise, are to find our hope, our satisfaction, and our confidence not from our outward appearance, but from inwardly reflecting the grace of God, which is imperishable (1 Cor. 15:53, Isa. 32:17).  

In 1 Timothy 2, Paul is giving instructions for worship gatherings, to promote unity and to eliminate distraction, since both men and women were doing things to hinder peace and order. In verses 9–10 Paul says, “Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.” While sexy, revealing clothing was not the issue of Paul’s day, he was speaking to a culture of excess—a flaunting of status and possessions while people around them lived in poverty. Their clothing and adornment choices identified them with the world rather than setting them apart. The theme of this passage echoes the previous one: the elaborate hair and glittering jewelry weren’t the real problem, but mere symptoms of an ugly heart issue. A believer’s testimony and Spirit-borne fruit should speak louder than her clothing.  

We see plainly in Scripture that we are called to modesty. It is irrefutable. So what causes the volcanic eruptions of debate and disunity? Why can’t followers of Jesus just agree on this issue and others like it?  

I believe that it boils down to this: while the call to modesty is clear in Scripture, the specifics of what modesty looks like are gray areas. You won’t find hemlines and necklines in the pages of Scripture. And those are the things we argue about.  

It has helped me immensely to look at issues like this through a hierarchy of truth, conviction, and opinion:  

Truth: includes the non-negotiables of God’s Word—the building blocks of our faith and theology, and clear commands we must obey. The Trinity, the doctrine of Salvation, and the commands to “do all things without grumbling or disputing” (Phil. 2:14) or “be subject to the governing authorities” (Rom. 13:1) are just a few of many. The Body of Christ is to be unified around these truths found in God’s Word (Eph. 4).  

Conviction: includes those tricky gray areas and the “minors” in Scripture that foster so much debate in interpretation. Our convictions are important, and the Holy Spirit works powerfully in the lives of believers by shaping our convictions, but what so often leads the Body of Christ into disunity is when we raise our personal convictions to the level of truth and try to impose them on others. Convictions include the specifics of modest dress and other sensitive issues like alcohol consumption, the types of TV and movies we watch, or methods of disciplining our children, among many others.  

Opinion: the bottom of the hierarchy, where personal taste and preference live. Our opinions hold no spiritual weight, yet sometimes we try to throw them around like they bear the weight of truth. When churches divide over music styles or carpet color, our opinions are carrying far more weight than they ought.  

One of the places in Scripture where we see this hierarchy in application is the book of Galatians. Paul penned this powerful letter to the church of Galatia to chastise them for straying from the truth of the Gospel. At first glance it doesn’t seem like a book that talks so much about false teaching and circumcision could have much to do with modesty, but it does.  

The false doctrine Paul addresses in Galatians is coming from Judaizers—Jews who had converted to Christianity but were now trying to add Jewish law to the Gospel. The Judaizers were convincing Gentile converts that they needed to be circumcised and follow the Jewish customs in addition to the Gospel of Jesus (Gal. 5:1–12). But throughout his letter, Paul reminds the Galatians that the Gospel plus anything is not the Gospel. Christ’s atoning work is sufficient! To add works to it is to nullify it completely.  

So if we say that to be a Christian—to be godly—means you have to dress a certain way, we are falling into the same trap as the Galatians. Paul says, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1). But this grates at the self-righteous legalist in all of us, doesn’t it? We love standards by which to measure our righteousness, and a list of rules to follow to assuage our guilt. We want the comfort of thinking, “If I only wear one-piece swimsuits, shorts that are longer than my fingertips, and don’t show my cleavage, then I am godly.” We might not think that exactly, but if we are honest with ourselves, we’ve all gone there. And we have probably imposed those same regulations on others, at least through mental comparison. But what we don’t see is that when we add qualifications to righteousness, we are enslaving ourselves all over again to the very law Christ freed us from. We’re strapping the chains back on ourselves. 

Paul continues later in chapter 5, however, with these weighty words: “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (5:13–14).  

Yes, we are free in Christ. But, as Martin Luther wisely said, “Freedom is not the right to do what you want, but rather the power to do what you ought.” If we think freedom in Christ is a license to do whatever we want (or dress however we want), we are mistaken and we will only find ourselves enslaved again to our sinful desires, not truly free (Rom. 6:1–2).  

This is where the powerful work of the Holy Spirit comes into play. The Spirit indwells each of us at the moment of salvation (Eph. 1:13–14), and the fruit of the Holy Spirit is evidenced in the life of a maturing believer. Paul contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit in the last portion of Galatians 5: “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for they are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (5:16–18).  

Followers of Christ are no longer ruled by our sin nature, but we still battle fleshly desires daily by the power of the Holy Spirit within us. It requires effort, but we don’t do it on our own. Colossians 3 contains a powerful picture of this, instructing us in what we are to “put off” and what we are to “put on”—like clothing. Verse 5 says, “Put to death what is earthly in you…” We are to peel off the things of this world, shed the desires of our flesh like dirty clothes. Instead we are to clothe ourselves with “compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (v. 12). And above all, we are to “put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (v. 13). We are to clothe ourselves in love.  

I understand, however, that there can be a chasm of confusion between hearing the biblical admonition to “put on love” and standing in front of our closet or in a dressing room wondering what to wear. Or, for moms, teaching our daughters to make appropriate clothing choices. This is the reason so many of us turn to legalism in our approach to modesty, or go to the other extreme and say, “It’s my body, my decision, and my life. I’ll wear what I want.” Neither is correct, and both bring bondage.   

There are three important questions to begin with as you consider your approach to modest dress: 

1. Am I being honest with myself?
   
   I don’t know about you, but I am an expert at justifying my thoughts and actions. I can put a gloss on the ugliness in my heart to make it appear presentable. I’ve tried on plenty of dresses and shorts, knowing they were too skimpy by my convictions (which happens a lot because I’m tall) and tried to justify buying them anyway. We can tell ourselves all kinds of pretty things to convince ourselves that what we’re considering is okay even when we know it’s not. Let’s be honest with ourselves in front of the mirror. What is my true heart motive for wearing what I’m wearing? 

2. Am I maturing in my walk with God?
   
   As I grow in my relationship with the Lord through studying his Word, communicating with him through prayer, and fellowshipping with other believers, my desires will align more and more with his. The fruit of the Spirit will be more and more evident in my life and he will shape my convictions to honor him. My appetite for the things of the world will dull.  
   
   This question is important to consider in others’ lives as well. Though we can’t truly know where a person stands with God, we can recognize believers by their fruit (Matt. 7:16) and our expectations should be appropriate. We should not expect an unbeliever to dress modestly; the Word of God is not her standard! We should have reasonable expectations for new believers and extend grace as they grow in their convictions. And as for our fellow maturing believers, our role is not to police and judge, but to pray and encourage as we all walk by the Spirit and grow in our convictions. 

3. Am I promoting unity within the Body of Christ?
   
   At one point in Paul’s argument against adding law to the Gospel in Galatians 5, he warns the Church, “But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another” (v. 15). Differing views cause rampant disunity among believers if we allow it. The Gospel should be held higher than any of our views on one- or two-piece bathing suits. The name of Christ is to be proclaimed louder than our opinion on leggings as pants. Our enemy Satan rejoices when we allow disunity to creep in and turn bondservants of the cross into an anthill of biting-and-devouring chaos. Let us choose instead to put on love, lay down our rights, and serve one another in the freedom Christ has won for us. 

At the end of the book of Job, Job said, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” (42:5)  

That experience is what many of us need to step into in order to get growing again in our Christian lives. If you are stalled out, if your discipleship is not merely marked by occasional stumbling but defined by it, you need what Job experienced. You have heard of divine love. But now you need to see it. And spend a lifetime seeing it ever more deeply, ever more expansively. Your vision of the love of God needs to be not just heard but seen; not just known but tasted.  

What is the love of God? To ask that question is the same as to ask, what is God? The Bible says not simply that “God loves” but also that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). Love, for the God of the Bible, is not one activity among others. Love defines who he is most deeply. Ultimate reality is not cold, blank, endless space. Ultimate reality is an eternal fountain of endless, unquenchable love. A love so great and so free that it could not be contained within the uproarious joy of Father, Son, and Spirit but spilled out to create and embrace finite and fallen humans into it. Divine love is inherently spreading, engulfing, embracing, overflowing. If you are a Christian, God made you so that he could love you. His embrace of you is the point of your life. I know you don’t feel it. Even that is taken care of. He wants you to know a love that is yours even when you feel undeserving or numb.  

The love of God is not something to see once and believe and then move beyond to other truths or strategies for growing in Christ. The love of God is what we feed on our whole lives long, wading ever more deeply into this endless ocean. And that feeding, that wading, is itself what fosters growth. We grow in Christ no further than we enjoy his embrace of us. His tender, mighty, irreversible embrace into his own divine heart.  

Perhaps no passage takes us into the endless love of God for messy sinners as deeply as the end of Ephesians 3. Let Ephesians 3 be a strong and gentle friend who leads you by the hand into the most stable reality at the heart of the universe: the love of God and of Christ.  

The Unknowable Love of Christ  

Paul didn’t pray the tepid prayers we often pray. He prayed God-sized prayers. In one of the most spiritually nuclear passages in all the Bible he prays to the Father “that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:16–19)  

If we were to pray that reality into our lives and into our churches, what story would we be telling from heaven?  

What exactly is Paul praying for? Not for greater obedience among the Ephesians, or that they would be more fruitful, or that false teaching would be stamped out, or that they would grow in doctrinal depth, or even for the spread of the gospel. All good things, things we should and must pray for. But here Paul prays that the Ephesians would be given supernatural power—not power to perform miracles or walk on water or convert their neighbors, but power, such power, the kind that only God himself can give, power to know how much Jesus loves them. Not just to have the love of Christ. To know the love of Christ.  

What’s the state of your soul today, as you read this? Consider your own inner life. Ponder Christ. Do you know the love of Christ? Remember, Paul wrote Ephesians to a church. He was writing to believers, to people who had already come to terms, once and for all at the point of conversion, with the love of Jesus for them.

Yet Paul prays that they would know the love of Christ.

Apparently, there’s knowing the love of Christ, and there’s knowing the love of Christ. Verse 19 literally reads “to know the surpassing-knowledge love of Christ.” Paul is praying that they would know what cannot be known. Remember, “knowing” in the Bible is not merely cognitive.  

It is profoundly relational. Even sexual intimacy is described as a man “knowing” his wife. As Jonathan Edwards famously put it, you can “know” honey in two distinct ways: you can know the exact chemical makeup of honey; or you can taste it. Both are ways we can “know” honey. But only the latter is the knowledge by which honey is experienced.1  

And here in Ephesians 3, Paul is praying that believers would taste the love of Christ. Drink it down. Like Job’s vision of God, what Paul prays for is that our apprehension of the love of Christ would go from audio to video. It’s the difference between looking at a postcard of the Hawaii beach and sitting on that beach, blinking, squinting, absorbing the sun’s warmth.  

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Content taken from Deeper by Dane Ortlund, ©2021. Used by permission of Crossway. 

The blow of the horn pierced the air and adrenaline coursed through my veins like a lightning bolt. Can I do this? Am I cut out for this? The months of grueling training prior to the race were about to be tested. Runners flew by me and it took every ounce of energy within my body to keep up. One step at a time, I reminded myself as the first and second mile passed quickly. Breathe in, breathe out. Repeat. Thirteen seems like such a small number, but each mile is made up of thousands of steps. I’d never run a race before, and my thoughts cried out that I am not a runner. In the midst of the battle, there was a yearning to rise above the challenge and finish the race. However, at miles six and seven, my body let up. All the training slipped through my fingers as my body grew weary; my feet became calloused with each pounding step, and my spirit faint. And I was only halfway there. 

The race of life proves unpredictable with the dawn of each day. We run in circles chasing dreams and accolades that leave us breathless and craving more. The rewards of this world were never meant to satisfy our souls and aren’t sufficient to keep us in the race. In the end, they are dead weight that keeps us from running the ultimate race that was marked out for us by Jesus Christ. I once had a wall of trophies in my room that represented my academic and sports achievements. These plastic trophies, once a part of my identity, now sit in a box collecting dust in the closet of my childhood bedroom. Plastic trophies are not satisfactory end goals in the race we are running. The Apostle Paul knew this all too well.  

In a dark jail cell, around 62 A.D., Paul penned the letter of Philippians to the church in Philippi. Though his hands were chained, his message was not confined to the walls of the prison. The good news of Jesus Christ cannot be bound by walls, chains, or persecution. A deep urgency in Paul’s bones compelled him to share this Gospel, even from a prison cell. Prior to being a follower of Jesus, Paul took pride in the “plastic trophies” he had to his name. In Philippians 3:5–6, Paul provides a long list of reasons why he could boast in his flesh; “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” That’s quite a record. Paul was highly revered in society and worthy of respect. Now this same man had been radically saved by the grace of God and loved the church he had once vehemently persecuted.  

Jesus saved Paul from running the wrong race. His response to his “trophies” that summed up his worldly successes is proof. 

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ” (Phil. 3:7–8).

Paul considered it all worthless. Every accomplishment and title was rubbish compared to knowing Christ. In Greek, the word for rubbish refers to dung, filth, or trash. Isaiah 64:6 tells us that “we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. . . .” No achievement, birthright, or success on this earth will ever earn favor with God. Trying to earn our salvation is like wearing a filthy garment or holding up trash to the Lord to show him our earnings. They mean nothing. The trophies that have your name on them, the accomplishments that make up your resume, add up to nothing when compared to the incomparable Christ. Christ is the greatest gain in this world. He is the prize that we are to run after, not plastic trophies that will collect dust. We need to take a step back and test which race we are running in this life. 

In life’s daily race, we either chase after unattainable perfection and fleeting happiness, or we run hard to grab hold of what lasts forever in eternity—joyful fellowship with Jesus Christ.

As in any race, our bodies grow weary and our vision dim as the race progresses and challenges increase. In 1 Timothy, Paul wrote another letter while awaiting execution for following Christ. Knowing what he was about to face, he said with confidence, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (4:7). Paul fought with his life. He ran with a purpose. And he finished well. An eternal prize compelled Paul to say such words as he awaited his impending death. Jesus is the prize Paul ran after. Running the Christian race is like swimming upstream against the current. You will look different, you will encounter suffering, and you will need help, but you will reach the goal by the grace of God. As believers, the way we live and the race we run is contrary to this world. 

In Philippians 3:9–11, Paul explains that he counts everything as loss in order that he may “be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” In order to know Christ intimately, we must suffer with him. In a race made up of thousands of steps, some steps will be easier and others will be grueling and uphill. As Christians, we are not exempt from suffering. Rather, we have a reason to suffer. When the sturdy walls of safety and comfort crumble around us and suffering prevails, we inch closer to the cross. When we share in the sufferings of Christ, becoming like him in death, our fellowship with him deepens. Suffering can be the lens through which we see the glories of Christ more clearly.  

Jesus is the prize when the pregnancy test is negative month after month. Jesus is the prize when you receive the devastating news from the doctor. Jesus is the prize when you lose your stability and your savings. Jesus is the prize when you welcome your newborn into the world. Jesus is the prize when you bury your loved one in the grave. Jesus is the prize when your plans fail, your to-do’s are left undone, and your day goes haywire. Jesus is the prize when you marry the one you've waited years for. Jesus is the prize when you cry buckets of tears after years of singleness and waiting. Jesus is the prize in the midst of suffering in this race of life. 

I can imagine Paul’s hand shaking with joy and deep urgency as he wrote these words, with shackles on his wrists, knowing full well that Jesus is the prize in every season of life. At that very moment, he was fellowshipping with his Savior, and he longed for the church to know the joy of Christ as well! Paul learned that the secret to contentment is Christ, even in the midst of suffering (Phil. 4:13). He went even further to say, “not only that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12–14). In order to press on, we must first let go. Many of us run the Christian race with a backpack on that is full of comparison, worry, sin, shame, pride, and fear. Our backpacks hinder us from running well. We must let go of our backpacks that weigh us down and run with laser-focused vision on Christ, who has gone before us. In order to run with lightness, we must trade our burdens for the cross that Christ first carried for us. 

Jesus is the prize. Not plastic trophies. Not gold medals. Not worldly accolades, followers, or fame. All is loss, including your past and future, when compared to knowing Jesus. When the moments get tough and the race is uphill, set your eyes on Christ who has already run before you. He is the Author and the Finisher of your race. He is running with you and is waiting for you at the end.  

At miles ten and eleven, I was done. The race seemed too difficult. My legs were burning and my strength was waning with each step I took. There wasn’t much further to go, but my heart and my head convinced me I couldn’t make it. Feeling defeated, I looked up and heard a fellow runner come alongside of me and challenge me to finish the race strong. In that moment, there was hope. This was the game-changer. I wasn’t running alone. With every last bit of strength I had left, I ran hard and finished the race. Crossing the finish line, I let out a sigh of relief as they placed a medal around my neck. However, the prize was more than a medal. The only way to finish the race is to know the prize you run after. When the prize is priceless, the race is worth it. Jesus is the goal of this race, and he is with you every step, cheering you on. 

Jesus is the prize. And he is worth it all. 

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Content originally published in Deeply Rooted Magazine Issue 7: Legacy.

Words by Cara Dillon Runyan

As I lay in bed, I roll over and see my husband’s bulletproof vest hanging from the dresser knob. I say a small prayer over it as he sleeps beside me, asking the Lord to make wearing it unnecessary and for it to work well if it needs to. He’ll get ready for the day in just a few hours by donning this layer and driving into the city he serves.   

My husband, Nicholas, isn’t a police officer, though. He’s a mental health counselor. He studied feelings, not firearms. He’s been preparing to be a counselor for as long as I’ve known him, but I didn’t realize, in all those years, that I had my own vision for his future career.  

I pictured him sitting in a leather armchair across from clients in a serene office, Kleenex on a table between them. He’d wear cardigan sweaters like Mr. Rogers and speak softly as clients reached for those tissues. This vision fit my tender husband, who we joke is “the nice one” between the two of us.  

He has a photo of Mr. Rogers on his wall, so this career shift even surprised him. He’d tell you that throughout his childhood, risk was either minimized or sanitized. He wasn’t permitted to play football—too dangerous. He wasn’t allowed to play with play dough—too messy. He went through six years of swim lessons—just to be safe. He was taught the world was a place to fear. Stay safe and keep clean; those were the guidelines. Until they disappeared, I didn’t realize that those were my ruling hopes for our life, as well.  

Instead, he wanted this new role—well outside of that calm office I pictured—accompanying police officers and responding to emergency mental health calls. He wanted to walk directly into others’ darkest moments, not wait for them to come to him. In an instant, the daily risk to his life went from nearly null to exponentially more as he traded that sweater vest for his bulletproof one. 

Friends will ask him and I both what I think about his job. I think it’s vitally important, commendable even. There have been too many troubling situations between officers and citizens, especially those struggling with mental illness, on the news. Reasoning leads me to understand how important—how life-saving—his work can be. Less often, friends will  ask how I feel about this work. Uneasy and nervous, mostly. His work scares me because I’ve seen widows of officers on the news, too.  

Just a few years ago, a police officer in our community was killed on a mental health call. His funeral was held at our church, and it became national news, in part because of his wife’s testimony. Holding one of her young daughters on her hip, she read part of Job 1:21 through tears: “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”  I shudder thinking about how intimately she understands this declaration and whether I’d ever be required to share that knowledge. Most of all, I fear I will not be as faithful as she was—as faithful as I would want to be. No wonder Scripture constantly tells its characters and hearers to take heart. We cannot let fear have the last word in this world, making us shrink back—or worse, hold others back, as well.  

It's not only wives who experience this temptation to steer others back to safety. Your son or daughter might decide to join the military tomorrow, and maybe that wasn’t your safe plan for them. Or a friend may share with you a risk they want to take in their career, and your own fear may sway your advice or encouragement. God might even ask you, as he has for so many before you, to risk your own safety, comfort, and image in obedience to him. 

I've found some encouragement in a short parable that reminds me that God did not give us gifts—privileges, education, and more—to play it safe. Matthew 25 retells a story of three servants who were entrusted with their master’s riches. Immediately, two of the servants get to work, but the third digs a hole in the ground and hides the money. Later, he recounts how his fear guided his decision. The message is clear: fear leads us to shun risk and bury our Master’s gifts. We’ll be safe, clean, and ineffectual to him and the world around us. The Master commends the servants who risk. So, who am I to let my fear stand between my husband and his desire to hear “Well done, good and faithful servant” from the Master? (Matt. 25:23)  

Nicholas and I walk together to receive communion each Sunday at our church. But as we wait in line together, we receive the elements separately.

He walks ahead of me alone as our pastor reminds him of the blood that has been shed for him. I do the same as Nicholas walks away and our pastor addresses me alone. In the same way, we walk together in this life and we’ll each step before the Lord on our own. Just as I must fight fear and risk to obey God’s plan, I will not let my fear dictate his obedience, either. I have more to trust in than a bulletproof vest. He gives, and he may take away. As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Chronicles of Narnia, he’s not a God who is safe. But he is good. 

by Heather Longshore

Proverbs 14:1 states, “The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.” I find this verse to be a sobering one. God lays out two very clear paths in this proverb. Women can wisely build up their homes, or they can foolishly destroy them. Consider three truths as you labor to be a wise woman, building her house.

First, build on a good foundation. In the Gospel of Matthew, the Parable of the Wise and the Foolish Builders appears at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew writes,

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it (Matthew 7:24-27).

This parable illustrates the importance of building your life on the teachings of Jesus, His example, and His Word. His Word and divine power have all we need for a godly marriage. When we are faced with marriage trials, disagreements, and bitterness, we can take comfort. His Word supplies us with grace and truth to navigate those struggles. Such trials are various: a lack of affection for our husbands, discontentment, being on different pages with raising up your children, not delighting in homemaking, wishing your marriage was as great as the ones you see on social media appear to be. Yet, although the trials are many, God supplies us with what we need in the Scriptures.

So, in order to build your home on the Rock, read the word, pray the Word, sing the Word, come to church every time the doors are open and hear the Word, encourage your husbands to daily give your family the Word. Hear the Word and do the Word. Doing so is not easy. It may not be glamorous. But it is the way to build your house on a solid foundation so you can endure the storm.

Second, fix problems when they are little. If anyone has ever owned a home, you know that most homes don’t break down overnight. It starts as a leaky faucet, or a small hole in the roof, or just a few termites in the wood. If you don’t ever check for those termites, or you continue to push off the leaky faucet, those small problems (that could’ve been resolved much earlier with far less intervention,) will turn into massive problems. I recently heard a man speak of his coming divorce after 11 years of marriage. We have heard of couples divorcing after all the kids are grown and out of the house. But the trouble in those marriages did not appear over night. There were lots of leaky faucets that got duct tape wrapped around the pipe instead of taking the time to get the tools and fix it properly.

Marriage is the coming together of two sinners. That means there’s going to be a lot of sin. We must go into marriage resolved to do a lot of repenting and a lot of forgiving, daily—your first year sometimes hourly. A healthy marriage requires lovingly and humbly pointing out sin in your husband’s life. It requires quick forgiveness and reconciliation. If you put your marriage on coast, you will likely coast it right off a cliff. It might not be the first year, or the 5th year, but unkept gardens eventually get snuffed out from the weeds.

Those weeds are a lot harder to pull out the longer you let them grow. So fix problems when they are small.

Third, don’t set your house on fire. I’m not talking about a literal fire. I am talking about our tongues. God’s Word says we can burn things down with our tongues. James 3:5 says, “So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!” Listen to a few more verses that speak about our tongues:

• “Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble.” (Proverbs 21:23)
• “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” (Ephesians 4:29)
• “Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.” (Proverbs 16:24)
• “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” (Proverbs 12:18)

And then even more specifically about a wife’s tongue:

• “A foolish son is ruin to his father, and a wife’s quarreling is a continual dripping of rain.” (Proverbs 19:13)
• “It is better to live in a desert land than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman.” (Proverbs 21:19)
• “It is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.” (Proverbs 25:24)

God knows how important a woman’s tongue is—especially with our husbands and children. So take His warnings and don’t use words to set your home on fire, strike your husband as with a sword, or be an annoying leaky faucet. Instead use your words to build your house, bring grace and sweetness to the soul. Use your speech to heal the body and give life. A woman who wants to help build her house will learn, by God’s Grace to control her tongue and use it to give life.

As you go about all of this building, remember the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the One who lived, died, and rose again for us. We have forgiveness in Him for all of our failures. And we have grace and power in Him to get on building our homes in wisdom, as we trust and obey His Word, repent of our sin at first sight, and use our tongues for building up and not burning down.

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This post was originally published on Founders.org. 

The church became their spiritual family, the network of love, honor, and accountability that they needed for spiritual, emotional, and even physical support. Familial language pervades the New Testament Epistles. The Epistles address their hearers as brothers and sisters. Paul instructs Timothy to relate to younger members of his church as siblings. We will need a deep appreciation for spiritual siblinghood to navigate the remaining five commands. But for the fifth command, we must pay attention to the parent language of the New Testament. Paul instructs Timothy to relate honorably to older members as spiritual mothers and fathers (1 Tim. 5:1–2). He says to the church at Corinth, “For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (1 Cor. 4:15). He even honors a spiritual mother of his own when he sends greetings to the mother of Rufus “who has been a mother to me as well” (Rom. 16:13).1  

This expansive application of honoring parents was not lost on earlier generations of the church. Who are we to honor in the fifth commandment? The Westminster Larger Catechism, written in 1647, responds:  

By father and mother, in the fifth commandment, are meant, not only natural parents, but all superiors in age and gifts; and especially such as, by God’s ordinance, are over us in place of authority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth.2  

Put another way, respect your elders in the broadest sense. 
 
Note that, in alignment with the language of the Epistles and the fifth command itself, the catechism places equal emphasis on the honoring of both fathers and mothers. A healthy family is one in which both father and mother are valued for their wisdom and contributions. The family of God, like any healthy family, should strive to show such value to both fathers and mothers in the church. If one parenting presence is minimized or neglected, the family risks all manner of dysfunction. How beautiful is the household of God when both mothers and fathers receive the honor they are due! 
 
Note that the catechism includes those “superior in age” under the parent umbrella. Leviticus 19:32 says, “Stand up in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the Lord” (NIV). It is not just aging biological parents we honor, but the elderly in general. Here is a clear way to live honorably among unbelievers. In a culture that is obsessed with worshiping youth, the fifth command offers Christians a simple means to be light in the darkness.  

Rather than adopt the common mantra that the elderly are adorable, irrelevant, burdensome, or expendable, we instead show them honor as full image bearers, filled with a kind of wisdom that only the passage of time can impart. By seeking out and valuing this wisdom, we honor the giver and we gain from the gift. Psalm 90:12 asks the Lord to “teach us to number our days / that we may get a heart of wisdom.” How very likely that God answers this prayer through the wisdom of a saint who has numbered more days than we.  

Note that the catechism further includes governing authorities under the parent umbrella, echoing Paul’s admonition to give “honor to whom honor is due” (Rom. 13:7 NET). The fifth commandment reminds us that the one who holds all authority has delegated some of that authority to human rulers. By honoring those in authority over us, we fulfill the fifth command.  

An Expansive Obedience  

The broad application of the command grows clear: honor elders, wherever you encounter them, as far as it is possible with you. But we do so with discernment. Ephesians 6:1 helps us remember that we are to obey parents “in the Lord,” or, insofar as their authority is exercised according to his will. We are not called to honor or obey elders bent on injustice or harm.  

Injustice. Harm. Abuse. Abandonment. Too often, these are the practices of our elders. We rightly see them as challenges related to practical application of the fifth command, to be sure. But we must guard against seeing them as excuses. We must ask God for grace to show honor as far as it is possible with us.3  

Maybe your mother didn’t do everything right. If you’re a parent yourself, you have probably learned already to extend the gracious proposition that she did the best she could. If she is living, show honor by telling her a favorite memory of her from your childhood. If you have children of your own, repeat the story to them as well. And think hard about which other stories they need to hear. Giving your children the gift of relationship with a grandparent unweighted by the baggage of your own childhood can be a way to show honor. Sometimes we honor our parents by demonstrating forgiveness in what we leave unsaid.  

Maybe the father who raised you was a father in name only. Maybe he caused or allowed harm to you. Look to show honor where you can. Who acted as a father toward you? A teacher or coach? A grandfather? A pastor? A stepfather? Express your gratitude to the person or people in your life who looked beyond the boundaries of biology to demonstrate fatherly love in tangible ways. Make a donation to a cause that helps fatherless children to thrive.   

Maybe your parent was the kind for whom the entire greeting card aisle was written. By all means, take your time finding the perfect card and writing the perfect sentiment on their day of honor. But also feel the weight of your privilege. To be raised by a mother or father who consistently places the needs of others above their own is no common thing. Show honor by being that kind of parent to your own children. But don’t stop there. Turn your eyes to those you know who are physically, emotionally, or spiritually orphaned and be a parent to them according to their need.  

Because the church is the family of God, we need be at no loss for fathers and mothers to honor. Nor need we be at a loss for spiritual orphans to parent. If your family of origin was a painful one, the family of God can be a haven and a recompense. If your family of origin was a happy one, how much more so the family of God?  

In the record of the life of Jesus, we see honor given to earthly parents, the elderly, and those in authority. In the hour of his death, we see Jesus tenderly entrusting his earthly mother, Mary, into the care of his spiritual brother John. Certainly he did so out of love. But he also did so because he, of all people, understood that to honor our parents is to honor God. Because he understood his true sonship, honoring his earthly parent was a reflexive act.  

The birth narrative of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke holds many memorable witnesses to his nativity. But it pointedly honors elders, as well. When Jesus is presented on the eighth day in Jerusalem, an elderly pair greets his arrival with joy. Simeon and Anna, whose days have been long upon the land, crowned with the wisdom of their white hairs, rejoice to see the Savior at last in the temple of the Lord. Their aged presence whispers a redemptive parallel to a youthful Adam and Eve cast out from the garden temple, longing for the serpent crusher to be born.  

Simeon and Anna are honored fathers and mothers in the house of the Lord. And so should be all who wait expectantly on the faithfulness of God to keep his promises, even into the twilight of their years.  

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Content taken from Ten Words to Live By by Jen Wilkin, ©2021. Used by permission of Crossway.