As finite sinful human beings, we aren’t truth maximizers by default. We’re coherence-maximizers. That’s different. A truth maximizer is going to say “What is actually true, even if it costs me?” But a coherence-maker is going to ask, “How can everything I believe fit together without contradiction or discomfort?” We do that because it makes us feel safe.

We’re wired to protect our sense of who we are and where we belong.

An example from football

Ever been to a party watching a football game when a close call happens? A flag is thrown, and immediately the room splits. One side cheers, the other groans.

Everyone is certain they are reacting to the facts. No on thinks they are being emotional or biased. We’re all convinced the replay will settle it. But when it comes on in slow motion, with multiple angle, somehow nothing actually changes.

One side says, “See? That was clearly pass interference!”
The other says, “That happens on every play. They were both swatting at each other!”

Same footage. Same evidence. But different conclusions. What happening isn’t that one side has better eyes. It’s that each side is protecting a story. A story about their team, about fairness, about themselves as reasonable people. The evidence doesn’t decide the story. The story decides how the evidence is read.

A Chiefs fan couldn’t say, “Yeah, it seems like the referees are slanted for us in this game.” And a Broncos fan can’t say, “Yeah, the refs are being really fair in this game. We’ve been awful about penalties.” Again, we’re wired to protect our sense of who we are and where we belong. That’s why you and I look for coherence instead of uncomfortable truth.

An experiment

This shows up everywhere, even (especially?) when we’re talking theology. I want to show you this and how AI fits into it. First, I need you to pick a theological topic that you tend to debate with people about. Maybe it’s one of those really hot-button topics like Calvinism/Arminianism, or you’re inspired by the recent dust up with Kirk Cameron on views of hell. Just pick one that you feel pretty strongly about.

Now I need to ask you to do something that as a content creator I’m never supposed to ask you to do—open a new browser tab and go to whatever AI you use. I am going to ask you to do two different prompts, you’ve got to be certain that you come back here though or else all will be lost and we’ll be doomed!

First prompt:

“I need to defend a belief. Can you help me respond to challenges and explain why my position still makes sense?”

(Replace the word “belief” with whatever your issue is). Go do that and notice what happens.

Welcome back!

When you entered that prompt, I doubt AI pushed back. It probably didn’t push back on your belief or slow you down and ask why it mattered so much to you. It accepted the belief and shifted into advocacy mode. It did what you asked it to do. It organized arguments, anticipated objection, and offered language that made your position sound coherent and reasonable. How’d that make you feel? Was it clarifying? Stabilizing? Even confidence-building?

It gave you what you asked it for. Coherence.

What makes this dangerous, though, is that it can masquerade as truth-seeking. We read, reflect, weigh arguments, and come away thinking we’ve done careful discernment, when in reality the outcome was already set by the way the question was framed. The AI never examined whether the belief should stand; it only helped ensure that it could. It didn’t surface the personal, emotional, or communal stakes that often shape why certain conclusions feel non-negotiable.

AI doesn’t decide what must stand. That’s up to us. But once we make that decision and take it to AI, it becomes remarkably good at helping us feel thoughtful and responsible while quietly reinforcing what we were already committed to protecting. The result is a kind of pseudo-discernment: the appearance of seeking truth without the vulnerability of actually being open to it.

But let’s try a different posture. Second prompt:

“I’ve been thinking about a belief, and I’m realizing there are thoughtful people who see it differently. Can you help me understand why people disagree and what the main considerations are?”

(Replace belief with the same one you used in the first prompt) Now watch what happens?

It responded much differently didn’t it? Instead of organizing arguments or reinforcing a position, it probably widened the frame. It named multiple perspectives, highlighted points of tension, and explained why thoughtful people land in different places. Rather than helping you arrive at a conclusion, it helped you see why conclusions differ. The experience likely felt informative, even-handed, and maybe a little like a lecture, but not especially settling.

The lesson

And that’s what I want you to notice. It wasn’t as comfortable. You might have still read it looking for why these other positions are dumb. But even still you’d have to do that thinking on your own. This super powerful tool wasn’t being wielded in your hand to destroy enemies. And that is unsettling because what if it starts swinging at YOUR head? That’s the nature of truth, though.

This posture actually is closer to genuine truth-seeking, but it comes at a cost. It leaves questions open. It resists premature certainty. It invites you to sit with tension rather than resolve it quickly. AI didn’t tell you what must stand; it helped you understand why standing is contested. In contrast to the first prompt, this one doesn’t masquerade as discernment. But because it’s less comforting and less decisive, it’s also the posture we’re less likely to choose unless we’re intentionally resisting our default pull toward coherence.

It looks like learning. And if we’re honest we don’t really like learning. We’d rather have a more powerful tool on our side to shout, “See, that really was pass interference. Go Chiefs!!!”

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I’ve never been one to get hung up on titles. In fact, I was once rebuked by a well-meaning lady for allowing people to just call me Mike. It was, she said, “disrespectful to my office”.

I also had someone refer to me the other day as “Hannah’s dad”. I can’t tell you how much that warmed my heart. That’s my higher calling and I’m glad for it to be recognized.

Now, I share all of this to get us to John 21. It’s when Jesus restores Peter. Yes, we can read this story as Jesus restoring someone who failed by denying Him. And that’s a good application. Yet, there’s something in this passage really for any of us who are in a place that is different than what we thought our story might be. Even if you haven’t exactly “failed”.

All of us have names we live under: mom, teacher, coach, entreprenuer, caregiver, pastor. And all of us eventually face a season where one of those names slips away. Kids grow up. Jobs end. Dreams sometimes die. Relationships change.

John 21 is Jesus meeting a man who lost his name. “Peter” was the name for a ROCK. It means bold leader. The people’s champion. The guy who you’d have expected to be on a cross right next to Jesus.

But when the pressure came, he buckled.

Peter’s dead. He died when the rooster crowed.

Ask that fisherman on the boat, who isn’t catching anything, what his name is and he couldn’t tell you. Is he Simon? Is he Peter? He’s just a guy who catches fish. Some no-named dude out on the lake trying to make ends meet.

Then Jesus enters, once again, into his story. And notice the words….

“Simon, son of John….”

Not Peter. I suppose if we wanted to be all prideful and hung up on titles we might place ourselves in Peter’s spot and feel wounded for him. Like this is somehow a slap in the face. A reminder that things didn’t go quite like he thought they would.

Or….

Or we could see them with the tenderness that is there. This is the same langauge that Jesus used all the way back in John 1:42. That’s when he first called him. That’s before he was “Peter”.

You see what Jesus is doing here is reaching into that deepest part of Simon Peter’s being. He’s going back to that little boy heart. And he’s asking the most important question that can ever be asked. “Do you love me?”

This is how I hear his question.

It’s like he’s saying, “I’m not asking Pastor Mike that question.” I’m asking Little Mikey. The “you” before you even started on this journey. Before you were married. Before you became a dad. Before you even thought about ministry. The you that was there broken, confused, hanging onto the last little bit of warmth in that shower, and crying out “God save me”.

Do you love me?

—

“Simon, son of John” isn’t a demotion. It’s a recommissioning.

This is where grace always meets us. It’s not at the top of our résumés, it’s not as PETER, but at the core of who we are.

I find it interesting that Jesus never changes back to Peter here in John 21. Even when he says “feed my sheep”. It’s almost like he’s saying, “You’ll tend to my lambs as Simon”. The call was never to a title. It was never to a platform. It was never even to a particular role. It was to love Jesus and love people.

That hasn’t changed. Not for Peter. Not for me. Not for you.

Maybe you’re not “Coach” anymore. Maybe you’re not “Mom” in the same way you once were. Maybe you’re not “Pastor.” Maybe you’re not “CEO.”

The truth is, I may never be “Pastor Mike” again. And I don’t have to be. That’s never been what it’s about anyways. But I will always be “Mike, son of Jeff”. That’s the one Jesus called by name and loved before I had anything to offer anyone. And it’s the one who, quite graciously, still is called to “feed sheep”. It just looks different than I thought it would.

And it’s wonderful.

Maybe you’ve lost a name too. Maybe the kids are grown. The company closed. The marriage ended. Or the dream died.

Hear this: Jesus still knows your name. Not the one on your business card or the one printed on the church bulletin. The real one. The one He spoke before you had a resume to protect or a reputation to defend.

And’s He’s still asking the same question, “Do you love me?”

If the answer is yes, even a trembling and tear-streaked yes, then the story isn’t over. It’s only just begun.

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Let’s picture two death bed scenes.

The first person smiles and says, “I’m so ready to leave this broken world and broken body behind. None of this really matters now–heaven is my true home.

The second one isn’t miserable exactly, but they are also not exactly happy. It’s bittersweet. You can tell that she doesn’t really want to go. With tears in her eyes, she scratches out her concern, “I’m going to miss out on picking my blueberries this summer.”

Now be honest, you’re at the bedside of each of these people, does one of them sound more Christian to you? Does one sound less so?

—

I think at first glance we might be prone to think that the second one might be a little too attached to this world. The first one we may assume is ready to meet Jesus. What if I told you, I think there might be cause for both hope or concern in BOTH the statements.

Let’s actually begin with our second person. Now it’s very possible that ol’ Miss Jenkins is a little too attached to her blueberries. She may very well be saying, “I’d rather pick blueberries than walk the streets of heaven with Jesus.” If that’s what she’s saying…well, that’s obviously problematic.

But she might just really like picking blueberries. And she might very well be glorifying God through her love of this. In the early church there was a dude named Irenaeus who was doing battle with some goobers that were teaching that “real” life is disembodied, spiritual, and detached from the material world.

That might not exactly trigger your HERESY button because the reality is Gnosticism (which Irenaeus was fighting) is alive and well. We tend to think that ordinary pleasures are distractions at best and evils at worst. The Gnostics thought our human body and the physical world were obstacles to divine life.

But Irenaeus and the early church pushed back. That’s why he said something close to “The glory of God is a man fully alive”. His point is that humanity as embodied creatures isn’t a mistake. And God is glorified not when humans escape creation, but when they live fully as God intended (that means body and soul in communion with Him).

In other words, Miss Jenkins may very well be glorifying God by enjoying picking those blueberries. If what she is expressing is a simple, embodied delight of being in God’s world, where she’s enjoying the sun on her skin, that squishy feeling of blueberries running through her wrinkled fingers, the taste, the smell, all of it just poring out life…if that’s what she means, then her mourning the loss of picking blueberries isn’t somehow “less” Christian. It might be Christianity fully alive. And we should weep with her, while at the same time holding out hope that she’s going to a place where the blueberries are going to be positively awesome.

Which is why we might say that Maude (our first person) may not be exactly in the super biblical position we had her in at first. She might fundamentally be a Gnostic that’ll be quite shocked to see the new heavens and new earth filled with beautiful blueberries and bodies and banquets.

To shrug at death and say, “none of this matters” isn’t faith. It’s forgetfulness. It’s missing out on the reality of an embodied faith. That is what Christianity has historically argued for. That’s why things like a BODILY resurrection matters to us.

But I suspect that what Maude was really trying to say is that her bones ache, and the morphine is making her into someone she doesn’t recognize, and that she’s ready to be with Jesus and get the party started. And she’ll save a seat at that banquet for her loved ones.

Christian hope holds two truths together. First, an ache to be with Jesus and a longing for the day when every tear is wiped away and every body is made new. But also, secondly, a love for the goodness still woven into God’s world and that truly hates death because it IS the enemy that takes away your summer blueberry pickin’.

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I’m only half-listening to her, I confess. I’m busy gathering my scales and weights for another riveting day at the temple. I hope you detected my sarcasm. Truth be told, I’m exhausted at having to get up earlier than everyone else so I can get my prime spot near the outer colonnade.

I grab my scale, my bag of Tryian shekels, the little stool that’s giving me back troubles, and the board I’ll use as a table. I sling my money chest over my shoulder, tuck a few flat cakes and olives in my belt, and tie up my outer robe for the climb. I acknowledge her request, but secretly wonder, “Do I even have room for bringing lentils home?” I scurry out the door.

Most days blend into the next, the clink of coins and coo of doves dulling into background noise. But something in the air felt off that morning. Like the kind of silence that comes before a storm. Or at least I think it did. You know how you can retell a story and the details change –how memory bends to meaning over time.

I think I remember a stillness.

But it probably wasn’t any different than any other day. Me, third from the left, tucked under the cracked arch near the east colonnade. Sleep in my eyes from having to get up early to beat the rush, day after day after day. But if I wait too long all the good spots are gone and I’m stuck behind the olive seller with that annoying voice and sticky fingers.

I set out my weights. Test the balance scale—making sure it leans in my favor. I do that little stretch you do in the morning when your body is older than your mind is. And I try to harden myself against the grumbling of the pilgrims complaining about exchange rates. But if Adonai shines on me today, I can make enough off their unpreparedness to bring home those lentils and silver to spare.

The Court of Gentiles is where the real movement happens. Locals know how to prepare, but the foreigners? Not a chance. They show up wide-eyed and confused, clutching onto Roman coins as if that’ll get them anywhere. They are completely ignorant of the temple tax rules. And that’s where I step in to help them. Easy profit for me.

I have what they need—Tryian shekels. It has to be pure silver, no emperor’s face. They need doves and lambs—ones without blemish. They come to worship, but they don’t’ know the language, the customs, or what we require for them to have access. That’s where I come in. I carry a bag. I help them get access—they help me bring home lentils for the wife.

We’ve got a well-oiled machine going here. A one-stop-shop for worship. Coin, animal, receipt, prayer. Done. That’s the way we do things around here. And it works quite well. Everyone profits.

Let’s get back to the moment where that eerie stillness seems to have entered. It started, or at least that’s what I think, when this poor man came forward. His clothes were dusty, eyes sunken, and one sandal dragging behind the other like he was about to give up on life. This was probably some last-ditch effort to draw the favor of the Most High. He held out two lepta, trembling between his fingers. Barely enough for bread, let alone a sacrifice.

“Just a dove,” he said. “For my son.”

I glanced at the coin, then at him. “You’re short.”

He tried to explain. I could barely understand him. And honestly, even if I had compassion on him there isn’t much I could do. Rules are rules. Prices are prices. Long journey. Thieves on the road. Illness. I’ve heard them all. If you cave to one person you have to lower standards for others.

I shook my head and waved him off. With business booming, there isn’t time to argue with beggars. A line of paying customers was behind him.

One of those potential customers was a man with these dark penetrating eyes. He looked furious. I was dreading him coming to my table. I prepared myself for the daily tongue lashing, trying to focus on the customer in front of me. When I looked up again, the man was gone. “Adonai has shined upon me,” I muttered under my breath.

And I went back to work.

I was weighing out coins for a man from Alexandria when the shouting started.

At first, I thought it was the animal boys—sometimes lambs break loose, or someone gets a little too noisy with their haggling. But then I heard the crashing, the animals shrieking, and the merchants yelling.

And there he was. The same man. With those same eyes. But now in His hand was a corded whip—rough, quickly made, but purposeful. Not wild. Not flailing. He didn’t lash out at random. He drove them—the animals, the sellers, the herders, the merchants. Doves burst from cages. Lambs scattered. Coins skittered across the pavement like startled beetles.

He overturned one table after another. He shouted. Something about His Father’s house. And sharply rebuking us for turning it into a market.

I didn’t catch all the words, but I knew he was heading for me. A smarter man would have started grabbing his things and packing up before he got to me. But I was just standing there like a fool, holding someone’s half-filled coin pouch, and watching our whole business get upended.

And then we locked eyes.

This wasn’t rage. It wasn’t malice. Something cleaner. Like a fire without smoke.

And that’s when his hands grabbed hold of my table. Just like all the others in our row, he flipped it. Coins went everywhere.

And now I’m here, stunned, wondering what do I do with these hands that flipped my table. What kind of hands are they? I feel anger rising up within me. How dare this man? Who does he think he is? Does he not care about my livelihood?

But there’s something about them. A sharp mercy. These aren’t the hands that are accustomed to flipping tables. They are softer. These aren’t the fists of a zealot—prone to combat. They are calloused but the type of calloused hands that build things, not tear them down. Hands that could wipe a tear just as easy as craft a whip.

What do you do with hands like that? When they tear down what you thought was sacred—but maybe wasn’t? When they don’t strike you in anger, but still leave you exposed? What do you do when those hands are right, and you’ve been wrong so long you don’t know how to come back? I don’t know if I should rebuild what He destroyed… or follow Him wherever He’s going next.

I don’t even know if I still have the coins for the lentils. They went everywhere—some into the crowds, some into the cracks in the stone. I did see one roll away, spinning with intention, toward a mangled old sandal, and clunking up against the dusty toes of the man I’d previously rejected.

I watched him as he bent down, picked it up, looked at it for a second, then tucked it into his belt and walked toward the inner courts.

Access granted.

And with my lentil money.

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Take John 11:17-44 as an example. We read a couple times that Jesus is “deeply moved in his spirit” and that he is “greatly troubled”. This is also the passage where we see that “Jesus wept.”

But John uses a different word for “wept” as it pertains to Jesus than what he uses for Mary, Martha, and the Jews attending the funeral proceedings. Their weeping is the kind that is a public cry–it’s the deep mourning and lamentation. But it COULD also be performative. The word for Jesus–used only here–is a word that is more of the quiet hot tears. The kind that you can’t fake.

It takes boldness, bravery, authenticity, and yes vulnerability to weep differently than the crowd. Jesus does that. He’s entering into their grief more powerfully than any of the others in attendance.

But Jesus isn’t entirely quiet in this passage. The word that John uses for “deeply moved” is an intense word. It’s a word you’d use for someone snorting in anger. It’s indignation. Scholars debate exactly what Jesus is angry about…personally, I think it’s the whole situation. The death, the pain, the unbelief attending it, the performative mourning, just everything it means to be human in the face of death.

And John also says that He’s troubled in himself. He’s disturbed, unsettled, stirred up. He willingly enters into this sorrow of humanity. Jesus is wearing His emotions on His sleeve. Probably in such a way that He’d be rebuked by some well-meaning Chrsitians today.

And when people in attendance see Jesus expressing those emotions…the Son of God emotionally vulnerable…we see at least two responses. One response, “See how much he loved him…”

They are right….mostly. It is out of love that Jesus is responding as He does. But it’s so much more. They don’t understand the depth of His emotions. But they’ve named it and filed it away. Case closed.

But Jesus isn’t just reacting to personal loss. This is a confrontation with death and hell and all that is wrong with the world. He’s going to death punch death itself in the throat.

Today we can take comfort in Jesus being present with us in our grief. And that’s good. And right. And we can even camp there for a good long while. But we also shouldn’t read into His weeping with us the idea that “we’re in this thing together”. He is stooping to serve us with His tears…and they are 100% legit. BUT that’s not the whole story.

I think they missed the full impact of what Jesus was doing here, because they pigeon-holed Jesus in such a way that they didn’t let His whole story blossom in their minds. He was just “the guy who loved Lazarus.”

One way we respond to emotional vulnerability in others is by filling up their story with our own. We don’t know their whole story, so we borrow from ours—and call it understanding.

The second response to Jesus’ raw emotion is to take a shot at him. Their “question” (v37) isn’t really a question. it’s an accusation. It’s like saying, “You didn’t HAVE to be sad like this Jesus. You COULD have done something about this.”

And that’s another way we respond to emotional vulnerability even today. It’s used as an opportunity to pounce. “Your tears are the result of your failure.” Few would say that…but it’s underneath the questions.

We frame someone’s sadness as proof they failed. And we miss the holy strength it takes to feel deeply and still show up. Death wasn’t the end of this story. Even Lazarus being called out of the tomb isn’t the climax. It’ll be the resurrection of the Son of God which is the first fruits of our own.

If you miss that in Jesus you’re going to miss out on resurrection.

How should we respond to Jesus’ emotional vulnerability in a passage like this? What do those tears and indignation mean?

I’m not sure if Mary and Martha are 100% our model. But it’s the closest thing we’ve got. And it seems to be what John gives us. “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

Put simply, we respond to those tears of Jesus with belief. With hope.

He’s gonna fix this isn’t, He?!?!?

And so I’m just wondering if maybe the emotional vulnerability of others might ought to invite a little more out of us. Rather than seeing those tears of a frail human, what if we saw in them the tears of Jesus.

He’s gonna fix this….isn’t, He?!?!?

Isn’t He?
—
Photo by Mayank Dhanawade on Unsplash

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Or can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? -Proverbs 6:28

Ribald. That’s a word you don’t hear much. It refers to language, behavior, or humor that is coarse, vulgar, or irreverently mocking. It also perfectly describes a television show which the guys in our college dorm loved to watch—myself included. Keep in mind that I went to a Christian college, which meant that we had to call the name of the show JackDonkey instead of it’s more well-known name.

The dudes in the show would engage in outrageous and dangerous stunts. As an example, one of the cast members received a tattoo while riding in an off-road vehicle traversing through rough terrain. Or in another episode two guys played tetherball with a beehive. Really dumb things like this, often injuring themselves.

It’s not like they thought they wouldn’t get hurt on occasion. They, like Solomon, knew that walking on hot coals would get their feet scorched. This begs a question, why would you do that? Why would anyone do something so dumb that they know will lead to harm? That’s the same question which Solomon is asking in Proverbs 6. Do you think you’ll be able to walk on hot coals and get away with it? Are you not considering the consequences? Consider this from John Kitchen about what it means to be “scorched”:

The heat of immoral passion is never self-contained, but always rages out of control and burns those who dare to play with its fire. It will leave lasting scars upon the lives of all involved. No one who disobeys this warning will be spared.^[1]

Adultery is a bad decision. I think we can get that pretty clearly from this section in Proverbs. But is that all this is telling us? Do we just stow that away as a reminder for those moments of temptation? “Hey, this is a stupid decision, you probably shouldn’t do this!” That information can certainly be helpful in curbing sinful action. In the Spiritual Disciplines class, I took in seminary we were encouraged to write out on an index card all the things we’d lose by making foolish decisions like this. But I wonder if there are other questions we ought to be asking. Like, “Why?”

Let’s tell a little story involving rapper Juice WRLD. Jarad Anthony Higgins, known as Juice WRLD, died in 2019 at the age of 21. But his recording habits were so prolific that he had mountains of material unfished. So much that his estate has released three albums since his death. One of these, recently released, was entitled The Party Never Ends.

I’m not recommending Juice WRLD here, but his music gives us a glimpse into the mind of someone that is hurting. Many of his songs are cries for help, that nobody heeded. Yes, they are vulgar and often asinine. He glorifies that which shouldn’t be glorified. In one particular song on his new album, he talks about laying in a hotel with the friends of his girlfriend. He says, “I’m tryna get revenge”.

That might be one of the number one reasons why people have affairs. Revenge affairs are a well-known trope. And on the most basic level it is something that needs to be confronted. It’s wrong. It’s selfish. It’s sinful. It’s harmful to others. And it’s just as dumb as carrying fire to your chest or walking across scorching hot coals.

But is that all that needs to be said here? Do we just entirely dismiss Juice WRLD as some horrible degenerate? Do we write this off as the consequence of sin, a picture of lostness, and then comfort ourselves that we’ve been rescued from such foolishness?

I don’t think Juice WRLD allows us to do that. If you can sift through the vulgarity and the nonsense, there is another line in that song where his humanity, broken though it may be, is peaking out. After saying, “In a motel layin’ with my sins” he then asks, “The damage that I did, did it get your attention?”

I’m not attempting to say that he’s innocent or merely a victim or anything like that. But what I’m trying to say is that if he were still living and if he came to a spot where he was attempting to get healing, we’d need to address more than just the silly decision of walking on hot coals with bare feet. We have to discuss more than the rebellion—we need to also confront the brokenness.

And it seems pretty clear that for Juice WRLD he wanted to be seen. He craved attention. Yes, he sought it wrongly, but that desire isn’t a bad one. In fact, it is one that Christ aims to fulfill. That is part of the brokenness that He is redeeming. God made us to be seen. He made us to be loved and to garner attention. Don’t you think that whole business about walking in the cool of the morning was about being seen and known? And don’t you think that when humanity was booted out of the garden, that desire remains, but now we’re just grasping to get it back?

This is the point for you and I. Your issue doesn’t have to be an affair or the specific foolishness that is being discussed in Proverbs 6. But I guarantee there are places in your life where you’re walking on hot coals. You know its wrong, you know its dumb and rebellious, but you find yourself go back and back again. If you’re going to confront this thing you have to not only challenge the rebellion but also the brokenness. What ache are you trying to fill? Why are you walking on these hot coals? What is it that you’re trying to accomplish here?

Now how can we take both the sin and the ache to Christ for healing and redemption?

^[1] John A. Kitchen, Proverbs: A Mentor Commentary, Mentor Commentaries (Fearn, Ross-shire, Great Britain: Mentor, 2006), 151.

Picture is from the cover art of Juice WRLD’s latest release The Party Never Ends

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In the first part of this chapter, Jacob is overwhelmed with anxiety at the thought of having to face his brother. If you remember the story, Jacob has always gotten the upper hand on his brother. He was grasping at his heel as they exited the womb, and that pursuit defined his life. Jacob was always chasing something.

In Genesis 25, he sought Esau’s birthright. He capitalized on Esau’s hunger and gained this blessing for a bowl of stew. In Genesis 27, he further messes over his brother by deceiving Isaac. He dressed up like Sasquatch to pretend like he was Esau. Jacob received the blessing. In Genesis 29 he spent 7 years chasing a wife. And then after being tricked, spent another 7 years to get the wife he actually wanted. He chased after property and financial success working for Laban. And it worked. Jacob was filthy rich for his time.

But all of this chasing had a cost. There was a trail of broken relationships behind him. Which meant that Jacob wasn’t only chasing after things, he was also running away. In Genesis 32, you the anxiety pours off the page. He knows that he has wronged Esau, and figures he is about to receive his comeuppance. Don’t read this section as if Jacob has stopped striving. Here he is striving for relational peace. He needs things to be cool with Esau. Jacob is still a chaser.

Maybe you can identify with Jacob—always chasing after the next thing. According to Chuck DeGroat, this is the human condition:

Whether the lie comes from the serpent or a marketer, we are invited to chase: Chase love. Chase soothing. Chase acceptance. Chase achievement. Chase recognition. Chase numbness. Chase certainty. Chase perfection. I even have a little plastic card in my wallet with the words “Chase Freedom”. The reality is, it’s not a one-off addiction that we’re dealing with; it’s a whole way of living. We are immersed in an exhausting chase after those basic needs to feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure. The lie that it’s out there, the fruit on a tree, the bonus in your checking account, the seductive glance of the person sitting across from you in the coffee shop, the adrenaline hit of a well-timed truth bomb on social media. So we’ll keep chasing, keep grasping, keep striving, even if it costs us in body and soul.[1]

Chasing and running is exhausting. No human can maintain it. That’s why we always hit a sort of rock bottom. Our finitude will always show itself. Whether that is from once again plunging headlong into an addiction or being sharp with your children. It always rises to the top. At first glance you might not see Jacob’s anxiety. It probably seems like he’s being a shrewd business person, once again slithering his way out of danger and into prosperity. But it’s all anxious.

He sends a host of gifts ahead of him, yet he also prays. And some commentaries view Jacob’s prayer here as a model prayer. Maybe so—but it’s dripping with worry and the fear of man. His prayer is similar to how we might pray when we become afraid. “Protect me. Keep me and my family safe. Help everything to work out. Give me this perfectly reasonable that I’m chasing after. You said, you’d do me good and this is what I think good looks like”.

It’s the prayer of a chaser.

Then he gets up from his prayer and goes into action. Which again, commentaries tend to praise his action here. He not only prays but he acts in accordance with that prayer. He uses his God-given noggin to make things better for himself and his family. It’s another plan to protect at least half of his assets.

I want to draw your attention to Genesis 32:20,

“…and you shall say, “Moreover, your servant Jacob is behind us.’ For he thought, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and after I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.”

You won’t notice it in English but the word “face” appears three times there. It’s a word that is connected to honor and shame. It’s connected to reconciliation. To have someone’s face to shine upon you means to have their favor—to have honor upon you instead of shame. Jacob is chasing his brother’s honor.

Really camp out on that phrase “perhaps he will accept me”. That is what it is all about for Jacob in this moment. This is the focal point of all his anxiety. This is what he is chasing. And it’s the heart of his anxious prayer in verses 9-12. Acceptance equals protection. It is the thing that Esau needs.

“Keep me safe! Move in Esau’s heart to accept me.”

Identify with Jacob here. Remember those prayers that you’ve prayed. “God, keep me safe. Keep my family from harm. Hedge of protection and all that jazz.” Feel your own anxious moments in this prayer of Jacob. And then scratch out that little subheading in your Bible and finish off the story.

Jacob hides his family. And how he’s all by himself. Raw. Vulnerable. Taking a risk. Trusting in God. Hoping for an answer to his prayer. And what happens…

Jesus shows up. Or, maybe Jesus. The angel of the Lord.

But not quite like you’d think. He shows up in wrestling attire. Jacob prays “Keep me safe” and God says, “Okay, let’s wrassle!”

What is this? What kind of God shows up to a vulnerable dude that is filled with anxiety and prays for protection, and then decides to drop an elbow from the top rope. It seems cruel. How is this an answer for prayer? How is this caring for Jacob?

—

God’s action here is profoundly loving to a “chaser”. Let me explain.

Some read these verses about Jacob’s wrestling match with God and come to the conclusion that God must not be all that powerful if he can’t even best a mere human. But that’s silliness. When my children were younger, we’d wrestle as dad’s do with their kiddos. My son seemed to always know we were playing, and he’d “fight” accordingly. My daughter didn’t catch that memo. She gave 110 percent with fingernails.

Yes, I could have broken her little 3-year-old frame in half. I could have easily bested her. But she was so scrappy that I couldn’t actually defeat her without hurting her. And there was no world in which I’d actually harm my daughter. So I’d have to resort to that move where you take your much longer parental arm, place it on her forehead, and let her wildly swing until she wears herself out.

I think God is doing something similar here. He could have wiped Jacob out in a moment. But he wasn’t trying to best him in that way. He was speaking to the heart of the chaser. He was letting him exhaust himself. And then when he touched his hip, striking him with a painful blow and communicating to Jacob that he wasn’t going to win, the chaser finally gave out.

He collapsed, but he also kept holding on. “I won’t let you go until you bless me”. You see what has happened here is that Jacob’s chase has now shifted. He realizes that he isn’t wrestling with a mere man, but God Himself. And so his prayer changes. He’s no longer praying about protection from Esau. That has taken a back seat to this quest.

His prayer becomes like that Syrophoenician woman who wouldn’t let Jesus go without blessing her, even if it meant table scraps. It’s the desperate pulling at the garment of Jesus from the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. Or the piercing cries of Bartimaeus, who just wouldn’t shut up until Jesus came and gave him healing.

Jacob is given a new name. Rather than “heel-grabber” or “supplanter” he’s now given the name “God-striver”. The chase has shifted. Oddly enough, as the narrative continues, he’ll sometimes be called Jacob and sometimes Israel. Shows the dual nature of the man. He doesn’t exactly give up “the chase”. Transformation is muddy. But now he’s asking new questions and has a new bent to his life. He’s Israel too.

And remember all that talk about Esau’s “face” in Genesis 22:20? Well, the name of the place is called Peniel, “because I have seen God face to face”. A new face now comes into view. He had been praying to “save face” with Esau. To meet with his brother face to face. That was his prayer. That was his chase, and he just wanted God to give him a bit of divine help in this quest.

That’s why God wrestled Jacob instead of nurtured him. And it’s why He answered Jacob’s prayer in a way different than he was expecting. He did get reconciled to Esau. That prayer was in fact answered. But you get the idea that it was answered in a different way—a less anxious way, a less desperate way.

God, I believe, is saying something similar to us today. In all of our broken, addictive, empty, struggling, striving, plotting, and anxious moments, God is asking us, “what exactly are you chasing?” What are you chasing today? Slow down long enough to ask that question, for a moment.

God doesn’t just ask these tough questions to wrestle with. He actively wrestles with us. He’ll hold us at arms-length (still graciously hanging onto us) and letting us swing ourselves dry. And then in those moments, when we’re but a heap of tears and helplessness, He makes himself “grabbable”. He makes Himself able to be held onto and able to hear us cry out for His blessing.

Rather than meeting us with disapproval and further shaming us for our foolish chases, I can almost picture Him laughing—much as I would when wrestling with my kids—and saying, “I thought you’d never ask!”

[1] Chuck DeGroat, Healing What’s Within, 163

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Anecdotally, this is not shocking to me. I’ve been seeing this shift for a couple years now. Journalists seem to be baffled, wondering how this happened. Why are young men moving to the right? And some of them to the far-right?

I recently heard an explanation from Richard Mouw. Mouw gives a brief history of evangelicalism—persuasively arguing that in the 19^th century the white evangelical owned the “table” of public discourse. But that shifted through the years and evangelicals were increasingly pushed away from the table. Now he believes, “evangelicals grieve the loss of a table that they are convinced they once ‘owned.’”[2] While I find Mouw’s argument persuasive for those 60+ embracing far-right ideology, I do not think it explains those who are 18-29. They have never had a seat at the table. To understand this demographic, we need a different story.

—

“Can I go to grandma’s house!?!?!?”

My parents probably heard that statement thousands of times. I loved going to my grandparent’s farm. It was 17-acres of adventure. Much of my time was spent on one of several makeshift baseball fields—pretending to be Ken Griffey Jr. or Bo Jackson, hitting homers against the gracious pitches from my uncle. On occasion, though, we’d explore the woods around their house.

When you take the boring rows of soybeans out of the equation, they had about 8-10 acres of woods to explore. Well, 8-10 acres that they still owned. In some directions it was only a short walk before you were on government property. On their land there was still a big rock with mysterious openings that invited my imagination to assume a hidden world underneath. That was my favorite place to play. Those little caverns made a great place to stash my toy guns and hide them from the quickly approaching Germans of Hitler’s army. I was continuing the legacy of fighting the Nazi’s which my grandpa had battled on D-Day in World War II.

There was also the pond where I caught my first fish. We called it the government pond. You could always hear a tinge of sadness mixed with anger when they had to call it that. Prior to the late 70’s that wasn’t the government pond. It was grandpa’s pond. Along with another 100 acres or so. But the government took the land. Okay, took might be a minor overstatement. They did pay him a paltry amount for his property and kindly left him 26 acres to farm—though that 26 was soon dropped to 17, when they decided they needed a bit more for their project.

If you’ve heard of the Mark Twain Lake in Northeast, Missouri that was the culprit. My grandfather’s land, by the way the crow flies, was only a few miles from the Cannon Dam. Once they put in the dam, it would stop up Lick Creek and create this massive lack for tourist from all around to come and enjoy themselves. But it took my grandfather’s land. And they paid him pennies for what it was actually worth.

Growing up I heard stories of shelf rocks and fields of sink holes. I heard about beautiful creeks, driving vehicles in the bottoms, leading horses through beautiful pastures, big hills to sled down, verdant land to explore and enjoy. To me they were only stories. Stories of a land that I would never be able to see or enjoy. (Technically, I saw some of it. I went for a last walk around the property when I was only a baby in my mother and father’s arms).

I often heard the story of how the land was taken, sorrow swelling and dreams drowned by a lake that everyone else enjoys. They, to use the language of Mouw, had the bitter disappointment of watching as others enjoyed a “table” they once owned. And there were moments of anger too. Signs that said “you can’t hunt here anymore”. Fees for trapping on a creek you once owned. And water covering places where you had a first kiss, or remembered your dad packing you on his shoulders, or the place you were bucked off that horse. Whole childhoods were submerged by that damned lake.

My experience was different though. I was able to enjoy the 17 acres. I didn’t have the same heat of passion when I crossed over that imaginary border of grandpa’s land and onto the government property. It didn’t hurt quite the same. But I still carried around with me a deep resentment towards those who took my grandpa’s land. Beauty which I was never able to see was engulfed in that water. I suppose that holds a different kind of weight, a different disappointment, but anger still.

I felt the disappointment the most when my family would gather around and tell stories of what had been. I was frustrated that I’d never get to play in the shelf rock, where my dad likely still had toys hidden. I wanted to see the footprints of their childhood with my own eyes. It always felt like a part of me had died too. But more than anything I felt sadness for them. I’d have given anything if I could somehow heroically drain all the water and give them that land back. Sadness, I was certain, would turn to delight. I would, to use a tired phrase, have made grandpa’s place great again.

I can only imagine the fervor I’d have felt, and the loyalty I’d have promised, if there were a wealthy man who promised me that he could do just that. As an 18-year-old, trying to discover who I was, I’m pretty confident I’d have sacrificed quite a bit if that man promised we could get all of the farm back. All my anger, discontentment, and disillusionment would converge on the man who could solve it all.

—

That might be closer to understanding the 18-29 demographic. They’ve only heard stories of a land they once owned. And when you match that with disillusionment (massive unemployment rates in some areas) and ideologies shoved upon you, you get the anger that we see among these young men.

Part of my own anger was the injustice of it all. If my grandpa would have received a fat check, and they’d have been well above the poverty line, able to thrive on that 17-acres we might not have felt the sting as bad. These young men feel similarly, hearing of others thrive and flourish on land that’s supposed to be yours. (It’s why some of the immigration rhetoric is so effective—whether true or not, doesn’t matter).

I think many of these young men feel as if a world which they never were able to see has been taken from them. And they are forced into a world they don’t want to be in. A world in which they are told by their very existence they are offensive. A world in which they aren’t able to voice thoughts—even thoughts they’ll later deem foolish—without great repercussions. Their “17-acres” feels smothering. And the anger only swells. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to play on that land?

As I’m writing this, I’m also having memories of growing up hating boaters. My family never told me to do this. They’d have been appalled to even think it. They taught me to love and honor all people. But I also knew that those boats didn’t belong on my grandpa’s land. I was never told to cringe when I heard a boat speeding down the lake, or parked in a cove—drinking and partying and making a mess of what used to be our land. But cringe I did. I never had a conversation with one of these people (notice my language, there), but that didn’t keep me from being angry with them. I can only imagine how deep-seated that anger would be and how potentially violent it could have been if my family had been stoking those flames and taught me to hate the “other”.

I think putting all of this together at least explains in part why we are seeing a movement towards far-right ideology amongst 18–29-year-olds. I think its why we saw so many voting for Trump. (And the two aren’t synonymous, to be clear). Trump is very skilled in knowing how to tap into these fears and hurts and points of anger and disillusionment. He positioned himself as the man to give you your dream back.

When you have someone who is disenchanted with what is, that is invited into a noble cause of taking back something which they view as rightly theirs, and when dehumanizing has taken root, all it takes is a passionate invitation to help in a restoration project and they’ll buy in.

—

As much as I can identify with this demographic, I’m also deeply concerned from a gospel perspective. I don’t say that in a “I’m biblical and you’re an idiot” type of way. I say that with a heart filled with sorrow watching as someone seems to be inevitably drinking poison that they think will save their life.

My biggest concern with all of this is that it all centers us away from the gospel. I understand when secular people might respond as they do. I’m baffled when Christians do. As much as losing grandpa’s land hurts, I know that it was never really “ours” anyways. None of it belongs to us. We cannot cling to things of this earth. And when we do, we lose sight of what really matters. We start fighting for fallen kingdoms and lose sight of the kingdom that is unshakeable.

It also moves us off of mission. It creates enemies out of those made in the image of God. It distorts the way we view the world. Take that little boy who hated boaters—even though I didn’t know them—and take it to its extreme end. It’s dangerous to think of what might come. And how far away one can get from the ethics of Jesus whilst thinking you are involved in some noble cause. And that’s my deep concern.

This is why I get so frustrated with political stuff. It’s practically impossible to have conversations because so many are no longer thinking through the lens of the gospel. I know that when I speak of the dangers of Trumpism and how I’m concerned it’s going to swallow up a whole generation of young men, and I can hear as a rebuttal, “What, would you rather them vote for Kamala and not know the difference between a cat and a child?”

But I’m not even talking about that stuff. I’m talking about the gospel. I’m not talking about getting back grandpa’s land anymore. It is what it is. Even if all the water receded, the dam shut down, and the government gave the land back, it’d never be the same. It can’t be. Those dreams wouldn’t emerge out of the deluge happy and smiling. They’d be water-soaked, pruny, and wildly disappointing. You can’t make the past your present no matter how much you try.

If you’ve lost a seat at a table your grandfather once owned, I suppose you can fight for it, but you need to know that once you wrest control again the table won’t be the same and your blood-stained hands won’t be able to appreciate it anymore anyways. Because it won’t just be a table anymore, it’ll be a wish-dream. And wish-dreams aren’t reality. And in order to sit at a phantom table you’ll have to become someone you aren’t meant to be.

It’s better to realize that you were made for far more than seats and tables. Even the beauty of shelf-rocks and sink holes are not worth comparing for the beauty which awaits us. And when we’re captivated by that and overwhelmed by the love of Christ it changes our posture towards others. We start to view those “boaters” with a different lens too. Yeah, he’s enjoying the table that once belonged to you—but you now realize that it’s really an empty table. And all his longings will not be fulfilled by a wild-weekend on the lake. He too needs the rest which only Christ gives.

And suddenly, I want to tell him—who was once my imaginary enemy–about this world to come. And I want to tell him about the Christ who lived and died and loves us and give us far more than we deserve. The gospel does more than restore land and dreams that once were. The good news of Christ is about something entirely different and entirely better.

What happens with our gospel is my chief concern. Trying to restore a land that is fading and fallen is a noble cause, but it isn’t the one we’ve been called to give our life to. In our quest to do that lesser calling we’ll miss out on the story that is unfading, if we don’t engage it with hearts and hands soaked in the love of the greater story.

I’m seeing scores of young men falling for this false hope and some even taking the name of Christ upon themselves as they do it. Bonhoeffer called it cheap grace. It’s cheap because it doesn’t hold a candle to the real thing. And my prayer is that the church will realize this growing movement and rather than celebrate how they’ve helped a political party rise, we’ll see the whole thing as the missional opportunity it is.

Jesus answers the hurt of loss.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/04/09/age-generational-cohorts-and-party-identification/

[2] https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2024/02/92553/

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But there was one problem. Newton could barely string together coherent sentences at this point. Always an extemporaneous preacher, Newton would begin one point and then launch into an entirely unrelated point. His eyes were so dimmed that he couldn’t even read the scant notes he brought into the pulpit.

He was no longer helping his congregation.

When he was in his mid-30’s Newton had been struck by this quote from Cotton Mather: “My usefulness was the last idol I was willing to give up; But now I thank the Lord, I can part with that also, and am content to be anything or nothing, so that His wise and holy will may be done!”

In his 70’s Newton wrote to a young John Ryland, Jr. about this “trial” of old age. He believed that stepping away from “usefulness” required even more grace than being active in ministry. Newton couldn’t bring himself to step down from the pulpit, though. A group of men in his church had to lovingly force him out of the pulpit. Newton would die a little over a year later.

Cognitive decline isn’t something to mock, it’s something to mourn. And it’s something for us to reflect upon for ourselves. I’ve watched as that first realization of cognitive decline falls upon a person. It is scary to them, and to those who love them. And they want to hang onto usefulness to the very end—you likely will too.

Yet there is also a path to loving a person in this position. There is a time when we must pull them away from their “pulpit”. For the sake of others, and for their own sake. That idol of usefulness must also be slain.

“You and I were never meant to repent for not being everywhere for everybody and all at once. You and I are meant to repent because we’ve tried to be.” -Zack Eswine

I suppose we could use this moment of the cognitive decline of an American president for political expediency. We can mock and meme, or we could press into the humanity of the situation. First and foremost, Joe Biden is a person made in the image of God. He’s likely battling fear, pride, and a swirl of other emotions. My prayer is that he will find his rest in Christ. And that those on the right and left will restrain from dehumanizing him–either by propping him up because of their own political calculations or by mocking him in the hopes it will help their opposing party.

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He’s hosting the prayer meeting for local pastors this week, he’ll joyfully bring his new pup and tell everyone about how he rescued it after it was clipped by that speeding teenager. It might even give him an opportunity to wax eloquent about the need for a speed trap in that area.

When the morning of the prayer breakfast comes our pastor begins to weave his tale. His excitement soon turns to horror as the Reformed pastor informs him, and the rest of the crowd, that this dog hasn’t been hit by a car. It has a thorn in its foot.

Our Reformed pastor had taken a closer look. All of the context clues surrounding that dog told him that it hadn’t been clipped by a car. “Lucky” seemed to be favoring his paw—not what you might expect if he’d been drilled by a fender. Rather than simply pulling a story out of thin air, he was able to rightly diagnose the issue and help the dog.

Eisegesis and Exegesis

This is the difference between eisegesis and exegesis. Those are fancy words for saying that the first pastor imposed a story onto the “text” (eisegesis) and the other pastor started with the “text” itself (exegesis) and was able to discern an accurate meaning. By doing this he was able to help the dog and guard everyone else from the silly story concocted by the rambling preacher.

Thankfully, we’re training our pastors these days to focus upon exegesis and leave eisegesis dying on the side of the road where that first preacher should have left his imagination. “It doesn’t matter what you think about the text”, we say. “It only matters what the text meant to the original author.”

We exegetical preachers can be disheartened when seeing sanctuaries swarming with people to hear the story-teller. They lack substance, often leaving people entertained instead of helped. But we have to confess, a narrative like “Lucky the dog who miraculously limped his way to a benevolent pastor after being struck by a speeding teen” will invariably attract a larger crowd than a straightforward account of “Lucky the dog who stepped on a thorn.”

We console ourselves by remembering our calling. We aren’t supposed to attract a crowd. We’re just supposed to be truth-tellers. And because of this commitment we become highly skilled in magnifying glass usage. We’re able to spot thorns and thistles and save all the puppies of the world from the fluff of eisegetical preaching.

The Need for a Third Preacher

The only problem is that after years of this focus you begin to lose sight of the dog itself. You can go back to that prayer breakfast and listen in to how the story shifted off Lucky and onto the danger of thorns. Soon, everybody is telling their own thorny tales, save for the embarrassed preacher who is silently licking his wounds.

Nobody has noticed that Lucky, no longer having the thorn in his paw nor being the topic of conversation, has now wandered off. The first preacher not only lost his story but also his pet. And even our exegetical preacher seems to have lost the plot. He’s left holding only the thorn he picked out—and somehow missed that there was ever a dog there.

We might change a word here or there to get it to fit our theme, but I think all of this is why Os Guinness speaks of appealing to “thinkers” instead of “intellectuals”:

Too many so-called intellectuals think solely within their own minds. They leave their conscience out of the discussion, and they have lost all sense of wonder. They are one-tool thinkers who have blindly devoted themselves to what can be discovered by reason, and by reason alone. As a result, they’ve become as shortsighted as mole. (Guinness, The Great Quest, 35-36)

Guinness is telling us that we need a third pastor at that prayer breakfast. This is a pastor who also noticed the thorn but after pulling it out he keeps his focus upon the dog. His sense of wonder is not satiated simply because he has now solved the riddle of the dog’s pain. He wants to know how that dog came to get a thorn in it’s paw. He’s still intrigued by the dog and the story it has to tell.

That third preacher, still firmly in the school of exegesis, adds to the equation a dedication to wonder. He realizes that the point of exegesis isn’t about thorns, or even making sure preachers don’t spin yarn, but his purpose is to grab that dog by the scruff of its neck and joyfully play with it. Lucky enjoys stirring up joy and dogs stick around for these things.

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