One of the interesting aspects of Jesus ministry is that he made it a habit of practicing solitude. The most mature human to ever live modeled for us the need for retreat. Jesus, God incarnate, showed us that solitude isn’t alone time but rather time alone with God. It isn’t just space from others, it as Henri Nouwen refers to as a portable cell that you bring with you everywhere you go. Jesus taught us how to commune with God through retreat and silence, through prayer and ministry. There are few things we fear more than solitude. Sheri Terkel in her book Alone Together says this powerful statement “If we never teach our kids to be alone we will only train them to be lonely.” In the noisy world, we live in today the practices of solitude and silence are not high on the list of spiritual practices. We love to network, innovate and create (all of which are important and have their place) we fear solitude and we fill silence.

We see the start of Jesus Ministry as miraculous, as marked by obedience but we don’t see it as solitude. If you are going to last in ministry you will need to learn to embrace the transforming furnace of solitude. Henri Nouwen in his book The Way of the Heart says:

Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude, we remain victims of society and we are continued to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.

Jesus came to be our substitute but He also came to reveal his Kingdom to us. He came to show us how to live and how to serve. Jesus began his ministry in solitude facing the three temptations every leader has to face.

1. To Be Relevant. – “To turn stones into bread.” – The first pull you feel as a young leader is the pull of relevance. The right desire to help people that ends in giving them what they want rather than what they need. The pull to find pragmatic solutions that are not based in way of our savior is perhaps one of the most difficult battles you have to face early in ministry. We are not Chik-fil-a we are the church. In business, the bottom line is profit in the church the bottom line is submission to God, obedience rather than self-reliance. In the economy of God, the way up is down and the last is first. Jesus fought the pragmatic good of feeding himself and instead submitted his desires to his Father. In a world that tells you church planting is all about turning stone into bread. Young pastor submit your desire to be loved and to care for yourself to the only one who truly can care for you.
2. To Be Spectacular – “Throw yourself from the roof of the temple.” – To be known is the second temptation a leader faces, I want to be seen, followed and loved. This may even be an altruistic desire in that you want others to see or know or to teach others the dangers of the desire for relevance. How did they do that? Is a question that every leader secretly wishes he is asked. Solitude teaches you that the temptation to be spectacular is only conquered through hidden faithfulness. Christ modeled for us in the desert what Adam failed to do in the garden. Silence teaches us that our words are not the most profound and solitude teaches us to wait for God’s word.
3. To Be Powerful – “I will give you all the kingdoms of the world.” The last and probably most difficult is the temptation to be powerful. I have learned over the years and continue to learn, that if the leader you are following doesn’t walk with a limp they more than likely overestimating what they feel they can accomplish on their own. The longer you walk with God the more you understand that weakness is the strength of the Christian life. Every election cycle my feed gets filled with friends who are Republican and friends who are Democrats both of which think that the more power the church has the more it can accomplish the agenda they feel is most fitting for the church to pursue. Being powerful, being political was never what God’s Kingdom was about. When you practice solitude you are confronted with your own weakness your own finality with your own need for God. You realize that way of the kingdom is in weakness, not strength. You understand that your identity isn’t from your success but in Christ accomplishment on your behalf. Your only job is cling to Christ. That is the essence of faith. Cling to Christ alone. Jesus’ answer to this temptation was to ground his identity in God. That is God’s word for you and me. Ground your identity in God.

I’ll be honest I was difficult sending my kids to school today. The events in South Florida are heartbreaking. There are no words to convey the pain so many parents feel today losing what is most precious in such horrific fashion. There are not words that make sense of what took place. There are no words that can be said that would help bring comfort. Our nation is overcome with a collective sense of grief. Any time a child dies it is hard to understand, digest or explain. When multiple children die it’s horrific.

The question I hear most parents saying and I find myself thinking. “How do I send my kids to school tomorrow?” My wife asked me this very question here is how I responded perhaps it will help another parent out there.

Here is why I am sent my kids to school today.

1. We as parents must create an environment where our kids can thrive and can become all that God has designed them to be. We can not, however, protect and shield our kids from everything. We have to demonstrate to our kids in any way that we can that ultimately we trust God more than anything. Christ is our cornerstone he is the reference point of our life. When life is good He is that reference point when life is painful He is our source He is our life. Our hope as a parent can never lie wholly in our ability to keep our kids from harm, our hope has to be ultimately in Jesus alone.

2. See Christ as more valuable than anything else. – Paul says in Philippians “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” He understood something we so often forget. If Jesus is truly most valuable to us if we lose everything in life we are ok because we have Jesus. If we die we win in death because we get Jesus.

3. Sin produces death. I believe more than any political stance that the event yesterday is more about us seeing the results of us trying to live our lives apart from Christ. What gives me hope is that Jesus came to bring us hope and He is coming again to make all the sad things untrue.

The last thing I believe we should do as parents are to boil this horrible event down to a Republican/Democrat thing. Our role as a Christ follower is to point people to Jesus, to pray for those affected and to not pull away from the world or shield our children from the world  as it grows darker but to do as exiled Jews were commanded in Jeremiah “seek the welfare of the city, build houses, plant gardens….take wives and have sons and daughters.” In times like these, we need to demonstrate to our kids what it means to draw near to God and point those around us looking for hope to the place where ultimate hope resides.

 Jeremiah 29:4-14
4 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 8 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, 9 for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the LORD.

10 “For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare^b and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

Here are two great posts from John Piper who is exactly one million times more eloquent than I.

How does Jesus come to Newton?
A Lesson for all from Newton.

I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.
Charles Spurgeon

I have always thought of myself as an innovative person. Twenty years in kids ministry with many of those years having a very small budget to no budget at all, I had to learn to be innovative. The problem came for me when innovation became part of my identity. I identified as an innovative person. I liked finding new solutions to problems. I would find out new tricks and shortcuts that made my life easier and the lives of those around me easier. I was praised as an innovator. I thought innovation was always the answer. New ideas to new problems.

A Darwinian Dilemma

The problem was that I started to measure success in terms of progress. I saw all change as good. I thought in terms of trying to come up with solutions to new problems. This is what I call Darwins Dilemma. We don’t even fully realize how much Darwin’s theory of evolution and his idea of the survival of the fittest has infiltrated our thinking. The Greeks measured their thought in terms of geometry it was a mental puzzle to be solved (this isn’t perfect either).  After the release of The Origin of Species that rational geometric thought was exchanged for a more biological framework. We no longer look at problems in terms of logic but in terms of progress. Darwin has sewn into the fabric of the west this pernicious idea that all change is good that all progress is right. Innovation at all costs. We may not even believe in evolution but we have collectively bought into the faulty framework of ideas that new is better that progress is good.

This was the way I thought for years. What changed my viewpoint was reading old books. Books written before Darwin’s theory became the new gospel of our culture and a  functional reality in our churches. So many of the church planting ideas and strategies are Darwinian. Church growth is hard work coupled with deep trust with an attitude of gospel humility. The gospel of pragmatism, if it works do it and is based on Darwinian thinking.

Submission Over Innovation

Through many painful personal success and failures, I have come to realize that the greatest good of any leader is not being innovative it’s being submissive. When I say that do I mean bring back wooden pews, hymns, and cut the power to the building. No way. I mean let’s find the core of our identity not in how brilliant we are but how dependent we are. Not in solving new problems but in our attitude of submission. When I say submission you bristle. I get it. So do I. When I say submission I don’t mean mindless obedience to an insecure tyrannical leader who orders you around like like you are some Hollywood assistant in charge of a constant supply of lattes and cronuts. Submission of a leader looks like total submission to Christ. It looks like total submission to God’s word. When we lead with innovation as our highest good we read scriptures with innovative lens. We see what isn’t there rather than submit to what is. Submission is Christ becoming flesh and proclaiming not my will but yours. He though equal with God submitted himself to God for us. To redeem us and model to us our greatest goal. Not self-sufficiency, not new ideas but old ones. Ideas like surrender, and submission.

How Should We Think?

Paul tells us in regards to how we treat others and how we love God we should

“have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: ⁶ Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. (Philippians 2:5,6)

We should live lives of humble submission. Submission to God and his word that manifests itself in humility toward others. There are new problems that we face in life and ministry. I would argue that the solutions are not new but old. We suffer as victims of our own age. We are stuck in the greenhouse of our own making. What breaks us free is to understand that God in Christ has set us free and reading old books and old creeds we realize that every heresy that the church is facing today she has already faced. Every problem we have is not new cyberporn is a new problem, a brothel on every corner of London is an old problem. Kids being distracted by digital things and having their brains rewired is a new problem, kids working at age five in awful conditions is an old problem.

The Danger

The danger in innovation is that tweak everything and change nothing. We spend our lives on trivialities that absorb the best years of our lives that we have to sew into something that is substantial. Neil Postman in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death said this about Aldous Huxley’s vision of the future versus Orwell’s vision.

“Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with [with our feelings] some equivalent of the feelies”

Postman, Neil.

The danger of innovation is the potential to waste our lives on trivialities, to mistake progress with faithfulness, and success with blessing. May we be more committed to living lives of submission than lives of innovation.

The Bible is not a story about heroes we should emulate, but about a Savior we are to adore. JD Greer

Is the Gospel clearly articulated? – The big mistake we make here in our teaching, and our curriculum is we limit the gospel to an event. We very easily limit the gospel both actively and passively shrink the gospel to something that is a box to be checked rather than as sustaining truth that continues to shape, empower and sustain or lives.

Love how John Piper puts it.
Parents teach your kids the gospel is not just something that begins the Christian life but empowers it, shapes it and sustains it. Pray, love, correct and demonstrate the love of God to your kids until he draws them they respond and He becomes their treasure and their great reward. John Piper

For a curriculum to be life transforming it has be centered around the gospel. I remember In 1989 Rick Moranis entered into the vernacular of our culture the words “honey I shrunk the kids” Moranis portrays a wacky inventor who accidentally shrinks his kids and the neighbor kids with his shrink ray he invented. Moranis’ character is unaware that his kids were shrunk by the very invention he destroys because he thinks it doesn’t work. There were multiple spin-offs of the movie and “honey I shrunk the (fill in the blank with something witty)” became a staple of sitcoms and watercolors alike for most of the 90’s.

Growing up in the 80’s has created a passion in me for all things 80’s. I love 80’s music, and 80’s movies and like it or not 80’s fashion is coming back full force. Being a fan of the 80’s it’s only natural that the analogy I will use for how we at times treat the gospel was born out of a movie from the 1980’s.

One of the problems that are very real and very dangerous in the church today is the fact that we have simplified, truncated and have made the gospel powerless in our churches and in our homes. Honey we have shrunk the gospel.

What is the gospel? Terms matter and many people refer to the gospel, but I’m not sure that we are always talking about the same thing. The gospel is the good news. It’s the good news that we have been longing to hear since God created a perfect world that we messed up when we introduced sin to this perfect world. Because we have sinned and have broken God’s perfect world, He had to send His sinless son to live the life we could not live die a death we should have died. Jesus came back to life, ascended into heaven, and will come back to us to make right all the things that are wrong about our world. That is the good news in a nutshell. We don’t have to be good enough because Jesus is, was and continues to be our spotless sacrifice.

So how have we shrunk the gospel?

We have oversimplified the gospel – 
We make the gospel small when we oversimplify the gospel to our kids. In our desire to make the gospel simple we inadvertently rob the gospel of its power. We tell our kids what Christians do rather than who Christ is. We talk about how God loves us but fail to tell them how He demonstrated that to us in Christ.

It is very easy to simplify the gospel to our kids through pat answers. When our kids ask meaningful questions, we must wade into the complex. If we simplify truth to our kids, the danger is that we can satisfy God-given wonder with a simple, practical truth. We give our kids enough of Jesus that we inoculate them from the whole of the gospel. They come to believe that this watered-down version of the gospel is all that there is and because it has been simplified and watered down, it has no application in our daily lives.

It’s equally easy to teach our kids moral truth because the lines are clear and the outcome is desirable. We want our kids to demonstrate the moral attributes of God. But if we oversimplify the gospel into a simple moral truth we fail to accomplish what God desires from us. He doesn’t want good citizens who do good things. God wants us to be joyful. He wants us to get the joy so He can get the glory.

When we oversimplify the gospel, we shrink its influence on every aspect of our lives.

We have made the gospel simply about salvation alone –
We have so condensed the gospel that we have made it about what Jesus did on Easter. What Jesus did in dying for us is essential, and kids need to hear that part of the message loud and clear. But what gives that message so much power is understanding the context of the broader story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration. When we teach our kids to believe the gospel is the moment we raise our hands at VBS. They check the salvation box and then move on from the gospel to the “more important truths.” We must teach our kids that they are part of a story that God has been writing since the beginning. They have a part and must engage the story God is writing in and through them with the broader story of the salvation and redemption of mankind.

We shrink the gospel when we focus on a part and fail to tell the whole beautiful story of the gospel.

We buy into Gospel = lemonade –

We fall victim in kids ministry so easily to a gospel that is socially active. We encourage kids to sell lemonade and give the money to the poor. Again this is something that is important for our kids to learn but deadly for them to trust in for ultimate joy and hope. We must make sure that our social action is coming from a deep conviction and personal gratitude for what Jesus did for you, not as a way to score brownie points with the Trinity. I do good things for him I, therefore, expect good things from him.

Matthew 5:16
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Love this verse. The purpose of our service is His glory. Jesus continues on in the next couple of chapters explaining how we are powerless to fulfill the law but how the law
was to humble us. To help us see the need we have to be rescued. When we have been rescued by so great of a savior the natural response of our hearts is gratitude. We can love Him and love others because He first loved us.

We shrink the gospel when we believe Social justice is the goal of the Christian life rather than a by-product of a gospel-centered Christian life.

Jesus and Me –

I am not sure I have ever met someone who grew up in a church that didn’t learn the simple song “Jesus loves me this I know.” Understanding that Jesus loves you is massively important and foundational to your faith. Where this powerful truth can shrink our faith is at the moment we over-personalize our faith.

In the United States, we tend to value rugged individualism highly. We have personal entrainment devices; we have all the modern trappings that allow us to have all the things that make life more comfortable. For this comfort, we pay a high price. We lose the relationships that God has placed in our lives to help mold us into the image of His Son.

The individualism of the Western church has done much damage. We have a personal savior, personal prayer time, personal devotions, personal, personal, personal. The problem with Jesus being our personal Lord and savior is we tend to isolate ourselves from the community aspect in which our faith was meant to thrive in. I do not believe that you can fully understand forgiveness, repentance, and redemption outside of the context of community. If you want to grow in your faith, you have to do that in community.

C.S. Lewis describes the value of knowing others and being known by others in his book The Four Loves. Lewis was part of a group of three men who had a very strong friendship one of the members of the group Charles suddenly died, and Lewis found himself sad yet somewhat happy because He would have more of the time and attention of his other friend Ronald Tolkien. In the paragraph below Lewis tell us of how misguided his thoughts were.

“In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s [Tolkien’s] reaction to a specifically Charles joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him “to myself” now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald…In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious “nearness by resemblance” to heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each of us has of God. For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest. That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah’s vision are crying “Holy, Holy, Holy” to one another (Isaiah 6:3). The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall have.”

It takes a whole community to know fully know an individual if this is true of us how much more true is it of Christ. There are many aspects of the reality of Christ and the depths of the gospel that will never be fully realized alone. We must be in a community of faith walk out the gospel together. 


When we shrink the gospel down to “me and Jesus” we minimize the impact of the gospel on our lives and the lives of countless others who need to hear the gospel preached and see the gospel lived.

All we can say, therefore is: the community of Christians spring solely from the biblical and Reformation message of the justification of man through grace alone; this alone is the basis for the longing of Christians for one another.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We must act, we must love, we must do all that we can for Jesus, but all of that must come from an understanding of what God has done for us in Christ and in a community of believers, or it will simply be our goodness minus the gospel. The good news for us is found in 1 Timothy 1:15-17
15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.[d] Amen

If we view our lives in light of our accomplishments rather than what Jesus has done for us, we will shrink the gospel and its power in our lives.

When we shrink the gospel in our curriculum, we end up with good ideas, moral truth, and cute stories. Our kids need much more than that. We need to make sure that in our effort to distill truth we don’t minimize or shrink the gospel and rob it of its power.

Most parents have a built-in instinct be protective of their kids. This is God-given and important. But like all good things, it can be excessively adhered to, in modern American life, I believe this is true. There are more products than ever protecting kids from putting things in electric sockets from bumping their heads on coffee tables, to the locking the cabinet doors the contain unsafe itemes.  In our right desire for protection, we have become obsessed with physical wellbeing to the neglect of the inward life of our children. The reality is that most formative thing that impacts our kids is not the physical dangers from without but the formation within them of the things they love most.

Recently I read Neil Postman’s prophetic work on how America is Amusing Ourselves to Death. The whole book was worth your time and is a must-read for every parent. I however found the forward to be the most impacting portion of the whole book. In the forward Postman contrasts two dystopian views of the world. The first was Orwell’s 1984 where big brother would control us by an external force with the aid of technology. The second was Huxley’s Brave New World which painted a much different view of the world to come. Huxley didn’t believe an external force would control us but rather we would become a slave to our own desires and would use pleasure and technology to place ourselves in a state of self-imposed exile. Post argues that Orwell was wrong and Huxley was right. I agree with Postman. Huxley looked 80 years into the future and forsaw the Brave New World we presently live in. Postman said this about difference between Orwell and Huxley

“In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.”

Neil Postman

The tendency for many of us is to believe that what we fear will control us without thinking of the things we love that are forming us.  The central idea of Dante’s Commedia was that we fall short of who God created us to be not because of a lack of love but because of misdirected love and excessive love. If we are not proactively helping to form our kids loves their loves will be misdirected from God toward self or excessively invested in things that are not ultimate. The Bible over and over explains that our hearts are wicked (Jeremiah 17:9) and prone to wander. Our actions are an outworking of our thoughts and desires. That we are to protect our hearts above all else for out of our heart flow the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23). The most important work you do as a parent is heart work. What you kids love will determine who they become and who they will serve.

How do you help form your child’s loves?

1. Family Worship – Worship is how we calibrate our heart, preach the gospel to ourselves and focus on the eternal.
2. Church Worship – It is so important to teach our kids that our faith is not individual but communal.
3. Scripture – The greatest heart transformation tool available to us is the words of God spoken to the hearts of man.
4. Catechism – Kids need to have a systematic basis for retaining and building truth into their lives. Protestant Catechisms do just that.
5. Rites of passage – Events that highlight a value are indispensable in reinforcing truths you are building into your kids daily.
6. Music – Music is more than entertainment it is formational. What you listen to long enough you will start to believe what you begin to believe is who you become. This is why for me lyrics are so crucial in worship music.
7. Poetry – Read poetry to your kids. Few things bypass your head and go right for your heart like poetry. Kids don’t read poetry in school like we used to. Read them poems.

“what I am claiming here is not that television is entertaining but that it has made entertainment itself the natural format for the representation of all experience….The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining, which is another issue altogether.”

What kind of questions should we ask?

This year I wasn’t sure how many books I would be able to read other than the books I had to read for Seminary. So to maximize my time I tried to remove time killers like I Netflix and the increasingly painful to watch cable news. I went with my strategy of having a physical book, an audiobook and a kindle book I am always reading at the same time. This year I read more old books than I have ever before. Some of that was for school part of that was because I believe that the crazier things get in the evangelical world the more we are going to need the voices of those who have been there and done that already. What orthodox believers need to comfort themselves with is not politics but the reality there is no new heresy, there is no new theologically liberal idea that someone hasn’t thought of already. You don’t know this unless you read old books. Like every year I encourage you to pick up an old book.

So here are my 10 favorite books for 2017

Parenting by Paul David Tripp

I haven’t read a parenting book in a while so when this one came out I jumped on it. Sandra and I actually have been using this for a small group we are doing with some friends. Tripp’s opening salvo states that parenting is primarily about confession. The whole book is framed around the idea that we need God’s help as much as our kids. Such a crucial read for every parent. We are going to be using it again this spring for our next small group.

A Practical Guide to Culture by Kunkle and Stonestreet 

Raising kids in today’s world doesn’t happen by parents hoping for the best, it happens because of relentless effort and relentless trust. We trust God but we also have to put in the effort to help our kids not just know the Bible but to allow the Bible to frame their thinking. Lewis says it brilliantly this way “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” This is one of those books it helps you see everything through the lens of the gospel over the lens of your gut instinct which is always wrong. If you have children anywhere near middle school buy this book.

Biblical Authority After Babel: Retrieving the Solas in the Spirit of Mere Protestant Christianity by Kevin Vanhoozer 

This year was the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation. Our church did a sermon series on the Solas of the Reformation so to keep our youth and young adults team tracking with our lead pastor we read this book together. It was not a super easy read but the way Dr. Vanhoozer approached the five Sola’s of the reformation was not how I was expecting yet found myself grateful for the recovery of so many truths that had gone dormant in the Church.

The Insanity of God by Nik Ripkin 

I have intentionally been trying to read more books about missions for my own heart and because we are going to be teaching the kids at our churches about a different missionary the first weekend of each month. The Insanity of God moved me to pray for missionaries serving in the worlds most dangerous places. Dr. Ripkin travels around the world and interviews leaders in the persecuted church to see why they are different from Christians in the west. His answers to this question are profound, penetrating and life transforming. Thank you, Jenny Smith, for the recommendation.

The Divine Comedy: Inferno 

Dante’s vision of hell is both captivating and convicting. To read the Inferno and not see your own sin is to not read the Inferno. As Dante walks us through the underworld in every circle of hell you see Date wrestle with his own sin and speak out against the sins of the church and the factionalism that has torn him from the home he loves so much. The Divine Comedy is written by a pilgrim in exile and serves as a great way for us to read scriptures and as a guide for evangelicals who are no longer the moral majority but a marginalized minority.

The Divine Comedy: Purgatory 

This was my favorite of the three volumes of the Commedia. As Protestants we like hell but not so much purgatory. I don’t believe in purgatory but reading this book in the context of sanctification here on earth helps put it in a Protestant context. Purgatory is the center of the Commedia and therefore the most important to Dante. What was so profound for me in this volume was how Dante describes everything in terms of love. That most of the sins we commit are not due to a lack of love but due to either misdirected love or excessive love. I literally cannot wait until I have the time to re-read the Commedia again in Dorothy Sayers’ translation.

How Dante Can Save Your Life by Rod Dreher

I stumbled upon this great book by Rod Dreher as I was reading Dante myself. I thought it might be fun to read at the same time as I was reading the Commedia for myself. It was fascinating to hear Rod juxtapose his life with Dante’s life. Dreher is a talented writer to be sure, he has received much more press for his other books but this one was my favorite because, in the same way, Dante saved Dreher’s life Rod might have saved mine. My main takeaway from this unexpected gem was “You have to love people for who they are not who you want them to be.”

Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

Everything Postman says about the TV is five thousand percent more applicable to the internet which didn’t exist when he wrote this book. Postman looks into the future and describes the ills of America like he read the New York Times this morning. This book is a must-read for every parent, educator, pastor or leader. So profound and deadly true. My favorite part of the whole book was the introduction. The introduction alone makes buying the whole book worth buying.

Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton 

This is one of those books that you have to read at least once. Chesterton’s massive influence on Lewis alone necessitates a reading even if it’s only out of courtesy for his influence on the literary world. This book was excellent. I didn’t agree with everything he said but overall he’s brilliant and I will have to read this book at least a few more times to fully grasp everything he was saying. My professor says that most often when you finish a great book for the first time is when you are then ready to truly read it for the first time.

Silence by Shusaku Endo

This book was incredible so much more powerful than the movie could ever portray. The way in which the Japanese attacked and destroyed Christianity is like the playbook for relativistic moderns. How the Japanese leadership breakdown the Priest they capture is like a play-by-play replay of how most English and humanities teachers in college attack the faith of their students (this is not true of every professor but is true of many of them.) For kids heading off to college, this book is a must-read.

Here are all the books I read this year.

1. Symposium – Plato
2. On Loving God – Bernard Clairvaux
3. The Last Battle (Chronicles of Narnia, #7), CS Lewis
4. King Lear – Shakespeare
5. From Weakness to Strength: 8 Vulnerabilities That Can Bring Out the Best in Your Leadership Scott Sauls
6. Don’t Waste Your Life – John Piper
7. The Tempest – Shakespeare
8. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
9. Paradise Lost – John Milton
10. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business – Neil Postman
11. Hope Has Its Reasons: A Christian Spirituality of Friendship with God – Rebecca Manley Pippert
12. Artemis – Andy Weir
13. The Divine Comedy, Vol. 3: Paradise – Dante Alighieri
14. The Divine Comedy, Vol. 2: Purgatory – Dante Alighieri
15. The Divine Comedy, Vol. 1: Inferno – Dante Alighieri
16. The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation – Rod Dreher
17. Mandragola – Niccolò Machiavelli
18. Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines – David Mathis
19. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
20. An Introduction to the New Testament – DA Carson
21. The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected – Nik Ripkin
22. Dante’s Divine Comedy – Great Courses – William R. Cook
23. This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence – John Piper
24. The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God – Dallas Willard
25. Don’t Waste Your Cancer – John Piper
26. Don’t Waste Your Life – John Piper
27. A Practical Guide to Culture: Helping the Next Generation Navigate Today’s World – John Stonestreet & Brett Kunkle
28. How Dante Can Save Your Life: The Life-Changing Wisdom of History’s Greatest Poem – Rod Dreher
29. Silence – Shūsaku Endō
30. The Abolition of Man – CS Lewis
31. Live Like A Narnian: Christian Discipleship in Lewis’s Chronicles – Joe Rigney
32. Thoughts for Young Men – JC Ryle
33. Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family – Paul David Tripp
34. Gilead (Gilead, #1) – Marilynne Robinson
35. The Complete Plays – Aristophanes
36. Biblical Authority after Babel: Retrieving the Solas in the Spirit of Mere Protestant Christianity – Kevin J. Vanhoozer
37. The Tech-Wise Family: Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place – Andy Crouch
38. True Spirituality – Francis A. Schaeffer
39. The Pastor’s Justification: Applying the Work of Christ in Your Life and Ministry – Jared C. Wilson
40. Strong and Weak: Embracing a Life of Love, Risk and True Flourishing – Andy Crouch
41. Leviathan – Thomas Hobbes
42. Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible – E. Randolph Richards
43. The Prince – Niccolò Machiavelli
44. The Silver Chair (Chronicles of Narnia, #4) – CS Lewis
45. Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity – Tim Challies
46. The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever – Michael Bungay Stanier
47. Orthodoxy – G.K. Chesterton
48. The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams – Philip Zaleski
49. The Passionate Preaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones (A Long Line of Godly Men Profile) – Steven J. Lawson
50. Leadership Mosaic by Kennedy and Montgomery
51. Judges for You by Tim Keller
52. On Politics and Ethics by Thomas Aquinas
53. Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthore
54. This is our Time by Trevin Wax
55. A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent by Walter Brueggemann
56. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
57. The Faith of Christopher Hitchens: The Restless Soul of the Wold’s Most Notorious Atheist by Larry Tauton

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“Death used to be an executioner, but because of the gospel, Jesus has made death just a gardener. All death can do is plant me in his love and make me come up in ways I’ve never been before.” George Herbert

Because Bonhoeffer wasn’t afraid of death, he wasn’t afraid of anything. Because Bonhoeffer was afraid of death, he didn’t care about comfort. He didn’t care about affluence. He didn’t care about power or pleasure or sex or money. He didn’t care. That’s why his people said, “You have it made. You can be a successful professor out here away from Germany. You don’t have to go back in there.”

He didn’t want to not go back. Why not? The shadow of death did not fall on him. He lived in a dark world, but because he believed in Jesus, a light dawned. Because Jesus was born in a manger, that means this world is not all there is.

If you let the knowledge of what Jesus Christ is and has done dawn in your life like Bonhoeffer, you can walk around in any part of the world, any century, any situation without fear.

Bonhoeffer is the exact opposite of the kind of person western Civilization according to Ernest Becker is producing. He wasn’t obsessed with romance and love. He wasn’t obsessed with money. He wasn’t being driven to be successful. There was nothing frantic about him. Because he wasn’t afraid of death, he wasn’t afraid of anything. Christmas means fear no darkness. Christmas means fear not. The angels are always showing up in all the Christmas stories saying, “Fear not, Mary. Fear not, Zechariah. Fear not. Fear no darkness.”

Spurgeon said it this way.

The coming of Jesus to us, when he does really come into our hearts, takes away the darkness of ignorance, sorrow, carelessness, fear, and despair. Our night is ended once for all when we behold God visiting us in Christ Jesus. Our day may cloud over, but night will not return. O, you that are in the blackest midnight, if you can but get a view of Christ, morning will have come to you! There is no light for you elsewhere, believe us in this; but if Jesus be seen by faith, you shall need no candles of human confidence, nor sparks of feelings and impressions: the beholding of Christ shall be the ending of all night for you.

C. H. Spurgeon

“The beholding of Christ shall be the ending of all night for you!” Powerful profound truths to ponder this Christmas season. Thank you, Tim Keller. Thank you,  Charles Spurgeon. May the light of Christmas dispel the shadow of death in your life. May the hope and joy of Advent fill your heart as you seek him!

In my last blog post, I talked about protecting girls in a #metoo world. My hope was to give practical suggestions that will help empower girls and women to be kind yet proactive, respectful of all yet cautious with trust. I think teaching girls appropriate boundaries as well as teaching them how to respond to unwanted advances by any man in their life is always appropriate. That being said #metoo is predominantly a male problem that is a reflection of a culture that values sex above personhood. To abuse, women is to revert to the pagan view of women being a commodity or property. Christ changed the value of women and Christianity should be the greatest champion of women because of whose image they bear and because of the value Christ placed on them in his earthly ministry. To be clear the sexual abuse problem in our country is not the fault of women at all.  Should women dress modestly? Absolutely. Is the modestly or immodestly of how a woman dresses justification for harassment or assault? Never.

What we teach our boys in the sex-crazed world we live in matters and matters greatly. The problem is we live in a world that says there are no boundaries that sex is free that anything that makes you happy is ok until somehow it’s not. This message is the exact opposite of what our boys need to hear if they ever want to become men. I teach my boys that God has made them strong to protect the hurting, the poor the weak and those who are treated unjustly. The measure of a man is not how strong he is but how he uses his strength. In a world that is constantly reinforcing to our boys through social restructuring, porn, and power that you can take what you want. We must remind them that the call to Godly manhood calls them to lay down their life for their wife. To love and protect. To be a voice for those who are without a voice.

I tell my boys some very specific things but I thought it might help to structure them in more universal terms provided by Rev. J.C. Ryle in his excellent short book Thoughts for Young Men.

(1) One danger to young men is PRIDE.

Young men, I beseech you earnestly, beware of pride. Two things are said to be very rare sights in the world–one is a young man that is humble, and the other is an old man that is content….The older you grow, and the more you see, the less reason you will find for being proud. Ignorance and inexperience are the pedestal of pride; once the pedestal is removed–pride will soon come down.

(2) Another danger to young men is the LOVE OF PLEASURE.

Imagination is the hotbed where this sin is too often hatched. Guard your thoughts, and there will be little fear about your actions. (I would add this was written before the internet. Mans struggle with the objectification of women was only a cold then, with the onset of online pornography, it is not reached bubonic plague proportions. Parents do all you can to protect your young men from porn as well as prepare them as to how to react when they see porn. Porn has turned women into objects for pleasure rather than partners in pleasure as God intended sex to be.)

(3) Another danger to young men is THOUGHTLESSNESS.

Oh, young men, learn to be thoughtful! Learn to consider what you are doing, and where you are going. Make time for calm reflection. Commune with your own heart, and be still. Remember my caution–Do not be lost merely for the lack of thought.

(4) Another danger to young men is CONTEMPT OF CHRISTIANITY.

Be very sure of this–people never reject the Bible because they cannot understand it. They understand it too well; they understand that it condemns their own behavior; they understand that it witnesses against their own sins, and summons them to judgment. They try to believe it is false and useless, because they don’t like to believe it is true. An evil lifestyle must always raise an objection to this book. Men question the truth of Christianity because they hate the practice of it.

(5) Another danger to young men is the FEAR OF MAN’S OPINION.

Try only to please God, and He will soon make others pleased with you. “When a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even his enemies live at peace with him” (Proverbs 16:7). Young men, be of good courage. Don’t worry what the world says or thinks: you will not always be with the world.

Lastly, six things to give yourself to as a young man.

(1) TRY TO GET A CLEAR VIEW OF THE EVIL OF SIN.

(2) SEEK TO BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

(3) NEVER FORGET THAT NOTHING IS SO IMPORTANT AS YOUR SOUL.

(4) REMEMBER IT IS POSSIBLE TO BE A YOUNG MAN AND YET TO SERVE GOD.

(5) DETERMINE AS LONG AS YOU LIVE TO MAKE THE BIBLE YOUR GUIDE AND ADVISER.

(6) NEVER MAKE AN INTIMATE FRIEND OF ANYONE WHO IS NOT A FRIEND OF GOD.