Dr. Kruger points out that because Jesus predicted his own resurrection, it validates his claims to be the Son of God and the Messiah. Dr. Kruger highlights the resurrection’s transformative effects on early Christians, including their willingness to be martyred for their faith.

Related Resources:

• Did the Resurrection Really Happen? (TGC Hard Questions) by Timothy Paul Jones
• 3 Reasons to Believe in the Resurrection
• Why Is the Resurrection Good News?

Discussion Questions:

I sympathized with him; young people are inundated with confusing messages pertaining to sexuality. I explained to him that he’s a man created in God’s image. As one raised to new life in Christ, he should let that direct his sexual desires and conduct. Thus, his sexual desire for men neither defines nor governs him. As he listened, his distress and anxiety diminished. The burdens our society had imposed on him, unwittingly affirmed by his church, were lifted, and he left our time grateful and hopeful, with a path forward in Christ.

Dramatic shifts in our culture’s understanding of sexuality and identity have been promoted, despite their harms, as an unmitigated good. So it’s intriguing when a champion of the LGBTQ+ movement recognizes the damage the ideology has caused. That’s what makes Ronan McCrea’s book The End of the Gay Rights Revolution: How Hubris and Overreach Threaten Gay Freedom important.

According to McCrea, professor of constitutional and European law at University College London, “the Gay Rights Revolution” achieved a “comprehensive and decisive” triumph (5). While he celebrates that triumph, McCrea worries it’s imperiled. He’s especially concerned that the movement’s excesses will lead to its self-destruction. Yet he fails to recognize that what he sees as internal threats are the inescapable consequences of the sexual revolution.

Illiberalism and Intolerance

It’s no surprise McCrea sees anything that might encroach on sexual autonomy as a threat to the gay rights revolution. Thus, he argues, “Gay freedom will be particularly vulnerable to any broader cultural changes that move society in a more conservative direction” (37).

The sexual revolution’s steep costs—especially to young women—are leading to the loss of “fulfillment of people’s plans in terms of family and children” (76). While expressing some sympathy, McCrea explains away much of this dissatisfaction, claiming that “some people just prefer order and conformity to freedom and experimentation” (77).

While suspicion of conservatives is to be expected, one of McCrea’s concerns is intolerance coming from the LGBTQ+ movement. For example, he warns against the “increasing tendency to require active validation of homosexuality” (83). He notes that such demands “run counter to some of the liberal principles that gay-rights advocates relied on to get their movement off the ground” (84).

There’s internal conflict within McCrea’s perspective. For example, he considers any opposition to imposing sexual and gender ideology through curriculum in schools a “worrying sign” (64). The gay rights revolution claimed “the classical liberal claim of a right to be left alone” (83), yet the movement that had same-sex marriage as its ultimate goal could never accept a “live and let live” approach. McCrea advocates for space for peaceful coexistence, yet the terms of that coexistence seem tenuous.

Demolition of Sex Reality

McCrea also worries about the denial of male-female sex differences. Yet he fails to recognize that arguments for same-sex marriage result in the conclusion that sex differences don’t matter.

The demand for the recognition of same-sex marriage, which was at the heart of the gay rights movement, was empowered by the insistence that defining marriage as only a male-female union is morally defective. The majority opinion in the Obergefell v. Hodges case declares that defining marriage as the joining of a man and a woman is “demeaning” and “hurtful,” imposes “stigma and injury,” deprives gay and lesbian people of dignity, diminishes their personhood, and “works a grave and continuing harm” to them. Inherent to the arguments for same-sex marriage is eliminating from public acceptance those who don’t affirm it.

As activist and journalist Jonathan Rauch acknowledges, same-sex marriage is the ultimate assault on “the unity of sex, marriage, and procreation . . . the blow that completes the most destructive demolition work of the sexual revolution” (35). With same-sex marriage’s demolition of sexual difference, the malice attributed to the recognition of the male-female bond is extended to the categories of “male” and “female” themselves. The sex binary is considered an oppressive social construct to be liberated from, beginning at the youngest age.

Yet rejecting the reality of sex is a bridge too far for McCrea, who is troubled by the “transformation of the LGB movement to the LGBTQ+ movement” (91). He goes so far as to reject LGBTQ+ (let alone LGBTQIA+) as a meaningful category. McCrea warns his allies against demanding “fundamental changes to categories as basic as male and female” because accepting those demands “involves radical change to basic social structures” (96).

Though commendable, McCrea’s desire to uphold the reality of sex evades the substance and the logic of his own convictions. By decreeing the “equality” of same-sex marriage, Obergefell required male-female and same-sex relationships to be considered the same in every way. There’s no room for a sex binary within that worldview.

From its inception, same-sex marriage rejected our sexed bodies, with their definition and limitations. The goodness and beauty of male and female in God’s image, coming together in life-giving, one-flesh union, imaging the relationship between Christ and his church, had to be diminished and finally effaced.

Unconstrained Excess

At the heart of the gay rights revolution is the idea that “people should be able to do whatever they [want] with their bodies” (114). Yet McCrea is concerned about the effects of the excesses of male homosexuality and its attendant harms, including higher levels of STDs, loneliness, mental health struggles, and addictions. McCrea describes “sex among gay men” as “free-wheeling, anything goes,” with “venues such as saunas or ‘dark rooms’ in which men . . . engage in sex with large numbers of partners” (113, 115).

From its inception, same-sex marriage rejected our sexed bodies, with their definition and limitations.

It’s at this point of the argument that the internal conflicts of McCrea’s worldview are most apparent.

Despite such awfulness, McCrea insists there’s “nothing morally wrong with consenting adults engaging in whatever and however many sexual acts they want” (130). Nevertheless, he acknowledges that the ability to resist and order desires is “fundamental to a flourishing human life” (131). Furthermore, he realizes that “every society in the world has needed rules and guardrails to help us manage our chaotic sexual desires” (158).

Though he recognizes the need for change, the change he offers is merely the willingness to endure “at least some sexual frustration” since “sex is too powerful to be cost-free” (160). He proposes social disapproval of sexual overindulgence “not necessarily [as] immoral but low prestige behavior that is [not] good for you” (168). As it turns out, the social structures and boundaries that the sexual revolution tore down were needed for human flourishing.

Nevertheless, McCrea is unwilling to go where his insights regarding true freedom lead. He doesn’t seem to recognize that it is impossible to unravel the sexual revolution’s effects without beginning a new revolution that affirms God’s design for human sexuality.

Toward a New Beginning

The End of the Gay Rights Revolution is a heartfelt attempt by an insider to honestly assess the movement. Yet as he points toward sexual autonomy as an essential good, McCrea demonstrates why unfettered freedom can never be the lodestar for personal and societal well-being. He worries about external backlash, but the evidence shows that the problems come from within the movement itself.

Restraining desire is necessary for an ordered life. McCrea’s willingness to consider such restraint opens up possibilities for him and all. While he regards sexual desire for men as inviolable and definitive of identity and personhood, it’s not. It directly conflicts with personhood as a male image-bearer of God. Such is the nature of all sin in its degradation of our image-bearing humanity.

As it turns out, the social structures and boundaries that the sexual revolution tore down were needed for human flourishing.

That’s why sin cannot be tamed but instead must be renounced, regardless of duration or intensity. The young man whose experience opens this review embodies the hope and invitation extended to all: to be washed, sanctified, and “justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).

When God spoke the world into existence, he wove a moral order into the created order. Thus, sex is good because it’s God’s gift to humanity, to be received and enjoyed within the covenantal marital union of man and woman. As McCrea unwittingly shows us, pursuing sexual satisfaction outside those boundaries leads to uncontainable chaos and destruction. The “end” of which McCrea writes is a dead one. The only way out is through the One who raises the dead.

In his death on the cross, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, bore our chaotic, self-indulgent, and destructive desires to raise us with him into the freedom of God’s children. And in obeying him, we know the truth, and the truth sets us free (John 8:31–32).

His wife, in his words, is controlling, demanding, and constantly critical of him. “I’m extremely angry,” he shares. “To be honest, I go back and forth between angry outbursts and withdrawing to daydream about what life would be like if I never married her. She drives me crazy.”

Here’s a different scenario. You’re a women’s ministry leader in your church, and a young woman tells you she’s been hurt by another member—a friend of hers and yours. But when she opens up about the offense, you struggle to track with her. The accusations are vague, and it becomes evident she’s reading offenses into what seem to you benign comments.

One more hypothetical. A few single thirtysomethings in your church request to meet with the elders to discuss “problematic” developments. During the meeting, they share that they’re offended by how the pastor has, in three consecutive sermons, applied the text to marriage and parenting but never once to singleness. Additionally, the church is planning a marriage-focused Sunday school class in the fall, without offering a corresponding class on singleness. They demand a “listening session” where the elders hear them share what it’s like to be a single in the church.

To Validate or Not to Validate?

Each of these cases is unique. But each raises questions: How should you respond to the feelings (angry, hurt, offended) being expressed? Should you validate or challenge them?

If you’re a pastor, you face these questions all the time. On the one hand, in an effort to show grace, you want to validate the feelings of those who confide in you. On the other hand, in an effort to pursue truth, you want to redirect or steer them away from misleading emotions—and the potential sins and idols they reveal.

How should you respond in delicate situations like this?

Contemporary Leaning: Validate!

The solution in contemporary culture is simple: We should always validate feelings.

This is an important tenet in modern therapy:

• “Validation helps (people) feel heard and understood, reducing feelings of isolation and promoting emotional healing.”
• “Validating someone shows you understand their feelings and point of view, even when you disagree.”
• “Validation helps a person feel cared for and supported. Yet, too often a person can feel that their inner experiences are judged and denied. This can lead to low self-worth or feelings of shame.”

Validation isn’t without biblical support. One could argue, for example, that the psalms—with the language they give to anger, grief, betrayal, and doubt—are a divine validation of our emotions.

Or consider Job’s story. He lost everything, and in response, a torrent of anger, outrage, pain, confusion, and depression poured out of his mouth. His friends, at first, sat silently, mourning with him, letting him grieve and “process”: “They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great” (Job 2:13). But the moment they began to correct his response, they fell into sin.

Better Response

Does the spirit of the age, then, align with biblical wisdom, or should we be wary of the rush to validate? What’s a biblically wise approach to responding to emotions and knowing when—and when not—to validate them?

Here are three recommendations that might help as you assess the right response.

1. Differentiate between acknowledgment and validation.

It’s unhelpful to validate some emotional responses. James said, as one example, that “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). But it’s also unhelpful to pretend people aren’t feeling something they’re feeling.

We should learn to recognize what those around us are feeling first, before rushing to affirm or correct. We can be emotionally perceptive without being enslaved to emotions. Acknowledging the reality of emotions is different from evaluating their health or helpfulness. We can help people feel heard and loved without affirming them in their sin or idolatry.

Acknowledging the reality of emotions is different from evaluating their health or helpfulness.

For example, to the young woman in scenario 2, you might say, “It sounds like you’re feeling hurt. I’m sorry about that. Can I ask you why her words were so hurtful to you?” This lets her know you’re there for her while opening the door to further discussion that may shed light on the illegitimacy of those feelings—or may reveal that your initial suspicions were off and the friend’s comments were indeed unkind.

2. See feelings as a thermometer rather than a thermostat.

A thermometer tells you what the temperature is; a thermostat directs the temperature. As a counselor friend of mine said, “Emotions are helpful information.”

In the case of the husband in scenario 1, his anger is an important revelation. It’s good to know he feels angry. But the fact of his anger is one thing. What actions will he take in response? If he puts that anger in the driver’s seat, he’s going to make bad decisions that worsen, not improve, his marital problems. He needs to learn to submit his anger to the Lord. You should consider asking him what God asks Jonah: “Do you do well to be angry?” (Jonah 4:9).

More helpful than validating others’ emotions is helping them respond to those emotions and—if necessary—redirect them.

3. Practice situational wisdom.

Proverbs 26:4–5 (CSB) gives apparently contradictory advice: “Don’t answer a fool according to his foolishness or you’ll be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his foolishness or he’ll become wise in his own eyes.” But it’s not a contradiction when we grasp the underlying assumption: Wisdom is situational. We’ll answer a fool differently depending on the situation.

As a counselor friend of mine said, ‘Emotions are helpful information.’

In scenario 3 above, your wisest move might be to give the frustrated single members the hearing they desire—if you know them to be mature, humble people who have been committed to your church and demonstrated submission to Scripture over time.

On the other hand, your wisest move might be to correct them clearly and directly, even at the risk of their departure from the church, if you know this is just another round of immature antics from chronically angry folks known to regularly stir up trouble and division.

Tread Lightly

These steps won’t make everything easy or every decision straightforward. It’s possible to handle a situation with the utmost love, care, and wisdom and still get accused of spiritual abuse and gaslighting. Sadly, in our cultural moment—when helping others “feel cared for and supported” is seen as the highest good—anything short of full validation of feelings can be interpreted as being cruel or abusive.

You might also try to act wisely but misstep. Sanctification and soul care are messy work. But we’re instruments in the hands of the Redeemer, who uses us to extend grace and peace to one another. Let’s seek him in prayer, and lean on his wisdom, as we traverse the sometimes difficult terrain of emotional life.

I asked Kelly M. Kapic—professor of theological studies at Covenant College and author of several books, including Christian Life in the New Studies in Dogmatics series—about what’s on his bedside table, his favorite fiction, the books he regularly revisits, and more.

What’s on your nightstand right now?

This is a hard question in some ways because I’m always going through several books for different purposes.

For example, I just finished John Gavin’s Growing into God: The Fathers of the Church on Christian Maturity, since Pro Ecclesia asked Gavin and me to read and respond to one another’s books (he is reviewing my Christian Life volume). I think that this kind of dialogue between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic can be useful and constructive. Similarly, I recently reread Fred Sanders’s wonderful little book Union with Christ because I was asked to respond to it at a conference.

For “fun” reading, I just recently finished each of the following three volumes: Paul Kingsnorth, Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity; Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being; and Karol Wojtyla (John Paul II), God Is Beauty: A Retreat on the Gospel and Art.

At one point, Kingsnorth claims that “modernity is a machine for destroying limits,” which resonates with my concern about our negative relationship to finitude (see my You’re Only Human). While I disagreed with Kingsnorth plenty of times, he did a surprisingly good job of making us readers question our relationship to phones, cars, and other modern devices.

But his deepest concern is AI, which he suggests may have an unnervingly dark side. He sees (rightly in my opinion) below the surface of the left-right divide, drawing our attention to larger forces of “the machine” that are negatively shaping us in countless ways.

Rubin’s slender volume is filled with reflections on the act of creating. Funnily enough, only in the last 10 years did I finally begin to appreciate that as a theologian who writes, I qualify as a “creative.” Who knew? This shift in self-understanding (partly spurred on by reading Stephen King’s entertaining volume On Writing) helped me begin to approach my craft in fresh ways; similarly, Rubin’s volume offers many nuggets of wisdom on navigating the ups and downs of creating.

Finally, Wojtyla’s volume is brilliant in many subtle ways, but mostly in his effort to connect our bodies and our experience with beauty to the triune God most clearly seen in Christ. There is real potential here, especially in terms of evangelism.

While there is plenty I disagree with in these authors, there is also much to be gained from their experience and insights.

I’ve also been slowly working through Nick Needham’s multivolume 2,000 Years of Christ’s Power, which provides a fresh treatment of church history, often bringing up topics others don’t discuss; I’ve appreciated times when his attempt to be fair-minded allows him to give a truer and more honest review of the breadth and depth of the church.

I love books on church history or historical theology because they help me resist the temptation to allow the current moment to dominate my imagination. Along similar lines, I’m finding Grace Hamman’s volume Jesus Through Medieval Eyes to be stimulating and helpful. And if readers haven’t yet read Carlos M. N. Eire’s Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450–1650, please immediately rectify that!

What are your favorite fiction books?

Some of my favorites are Michael Shaara’s Killer Angels (I love good historical fiction), the Chronicles of Narnia series (I still benefit from regularly rereading the set even though my own children are adults), and Chaim Potok’s The Chosen.

And, for reasons that relate to my teenage years, I love the existentialist fiction of Camus (e.g., The Stranger and The Fall) and Sartre (e.g., No Exit). For similar reasons, I still love Candide, not so much because I agree with Voltaire but because of how cleverly he attacks, thus forcing Christians to wrestle with what we believe and how we might more thoughtfully express it.

What biographies or autobiographies have most influenced you and why?

One of the absolute best biographies I have recently read is How to Stay Married by Harrison Scott Key. Rarely do I laugh out loud while reading a book, but equally rarely do I weep because of that same book’s powerful honesty.

Even though I know there are parts in it that will offend some, I wish I could make every pastor and leadership team who deal with struggling marriages read this book, because its wisdom would help us more faithfully love those in our congregations going through deep marital challenges. We must move past clichés or cheap answers and grow more comfortable with the painful complexity of each story and person we encounter going through these things.

The biographies or autobiographies that have most influenced me include Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (because of his brutal honesty and how he shows us the grave dangers of false Christianity and inappropriate hermeneutics) and Augustine’s Confessions (because he helped show me that theology and biography can be held together—knowing God and self are tightly interconnected in ways we don’t easily recognize).

I also regularly read biographies of C. S. Lewis (my favorite is by Alan Jacobs) and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (my favorite is by Charles Marsh). These two authors are huge voices in my head, but honest biographies about them remind me of some of the weirdness of these men, which I find super helpful and grounding.

Similarly, Kate Bowler’s memoir, Everything Happens for a Reason, is a stirring reflection of her stage 4 cancer diagnosis and her coming to realize how much we really do live a version of the prosperity gospel, even when we deny it.

I’m also a sucker for Chesterton’s Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Francis of Assisi: He didn’t do any original research on either of them but wrote more by impression and memory, so it isn’t always great scholarship, but it is great fun!

What are some books you regularly reread and why?

It is not uncommon for me to reread John Owen. Some of my favorites remain his volumes Communion with God, Pneumatologia, On the Mortification of Sin, and The Person of Christ, and his multiple volumes on Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ.

Classics are what I reread most often because they help me remember how to locate the foundations of the house. They also keep me more clear-minded when distinguishing theological trends from ideas of lasting value.

The Popular Patristics volumes are especially good—small, manageable, but also inviting you into a whole new world. I regularly reread works like these with my students. In particular, I never really tire of Melito of Sardis, On Pascha; Athanasius, On the Incarnation; and Gregory of Nazianzus, On God and Christ.

But beyond the Popular Patristics, I go back to significant volumes even if I don’t reread the whole book. This often happens as I wrestle with topics in my current research. So, for example, as I was writing Christian Life or You’re Only Human, I spent considerable time going back through the work of Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, John Owen, B. B. Warfield, Susan Grove Eastman, and many others.

While I think there are dangers for us in our therapeutic age, I also think there are loads of important insights we can gain from good psychologists. For example, as part of my January, I started rereading behavioral scientist Wendy Wood’s Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick. Wood, who is provost professor emerita of psychology and business at USC, has loads of interesting observations based on data that I think are well worth considering.

For example, her treatment of what she calls the “introspection delusion” looks at tendencies to put too much weight on our internal will and downplay the power of context in our attempts to break bad habits. There is some theological and pastoral importance in that idea as well.

What books have most profoundly shaped how you serve and lead others for the sake of the gospel?

Each of these volumes significantly shaped how I understand God, his people, and how ministry can and should take place: J. I. Packer, The Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (first to help me connect profound theology with the wisdom of pastoral care); Colin Gunton, The One, the Three, and the Many and The Triune Creator (Gunton was my Doktorvater, and his life and theology left a deep imprint on me); John Webster, Holiness (short yet dense, thick with the wonder of God and why theology matters); T. F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith (although Torrance sometimes blends his own theology with that of the early fathers, for example, occasionally expressing his opinion as if it were that of Athanasius, the volume is nonetheless brilliant and helped me in countless ways).

I have been deeply helped by reading not just classic Reformed dogmatics (which really are important to me and always nearby), but also the three volumes of Thomas Oden’s Systematic Theology (a beautiful attempt at a Protestant catholicity that draws deeply on the breadth of the Christian tradition) and Donald Bloesch’s seven volumes in his Christian Foundations series (one of my teachers for Modern Theology, whose generosity and creativity were models for me, even if I don’t always end up where he does).

Christopher Wright’s work, especially The Mission of God and Old Testament Ethics for the People of God, has significantly affected my understanding of a biblical vision of our participation in the kingdom of God. Also, Sinclair Ferguson’s writings have consistently inspired me because he so brilliantly and accessibly conveys deep theology.

Other voices who have shaped me include John Swinton (especially his Raging with Compassion and Becoming Friends of Time) and Diane Langberg (especially her volume Suffering and the Heart of God). The list could go on and on, from Thomas Goodwin to Geoffrey Wainwright, but this gives a sense of books I would point to.

What’s one book you wish every pastor would read?

I’m always going to say Owen’s Communion with God, but for a book that few have heard of or read, I suggest J. J. von Allmen’s Worship: Its Theology and Practice. There is a strangeness to it at times, but also a fresh wisdom and a remarkable push to think of corporate worship in terms of recapitulation; I believe his work has unexpected implications for connecting our theology with our church services, which is why I draw from it in my volume Christian Life.

Sorry, I can’t just give one: I also wish all pastors had a chance to slowly read through Sinclair Ferguson’s The Whole Christ and Alexander Schmemann’s For the Life of the World. Gerald Sittser’s Water from a Deep Well is also remarkably helpful!

What’s your best piece of writing advice?

Stop trying to be someone else and stop trying to do it “the right way.” It was vital for me to learn that I’m not my heroes, and I am not supposed to be them. I have particular limits, but I also have my own particular mix of gifts and experiences that go along with those limits.

This means I can bring a different voice and perspective, even as I have a great debt to so many. I am never going to be as smart as Augustine or Calvin, let alone Karl Barth or Katherine Sonderegger. I’m not a Protestant Scholastic (though they have deeply influenced my theology), nor am I Henri Nouwen (whose brilliant observations of the human heart have taught me so much).

I learn from countless others, but God didn’t give me their gifts, so when I write (or approach writing), it is vital to grow more comfortable with myself, not just my strengths but also my weaknesses. I hope the same for other writers.

What are you learning about life and following Jesus?

God is really there. Really! Learning to be more attuned to the presence and activity of God has been very helpful. I know, I’m a theologian and should say something more profound than “God is really there,” but the truth is that this is what I am continuing to learn.

It’s amazing how quickly I can get on with my endless to-dos, including speaking and writing about God. But there is no replacement for when I genuinely sense and foster intimate communion with God, sometimes when things are slow but even when things are moving quickly.

What am I learning? Maybe I’m just slow, but I’m learning there really is a God, he really does abound with compassion, and he really is near. May I learn this more and more.

AI is already showing up in everyday Christian life. People are using it to generate prayers and devotions, get quick answers to “Is this sin?” questions (with a Bible verse citation or two), and even generate small-group discussion questions instantly.

In each of these examples, it’s possible AI could churn out a biblically accurate answer. But the danger isn’t purely a matter of misinformation; it’s a matter of formation. The real issue is what habitual AI use does to us. It turns into muscle memory that, over time, will reshape basic Christian habits like what we pay attention to, what we expect, and where we look for counsel.

Biblical spirituality isn’t mainly about having an instant right answer. It’s about our slow formation into Christlikeness by the Spirit, through the ordinary means God gives us, like Scripture, prayer, and the life of the church.

The spiritual danger of AI is that it might condition us to take shortcuts in the means God uses to form disciples. Here are three ways this can quietly compete with biblical spirituality.

1. Attention Atrophy

AI trains our attention in the wrong direction. Instead of wrestling with God’s Word, meditating on it, or studying it, we’re tempted to turn to AI to acquire quick summaries and immediate takeaways. It gives us the (false) impression that biblical wisdom can be imparted to us in fast bullet points.

The spiritual danger of AI is that it might condition us to take shortcuts in the means God uses to form disciples.

But God’s Word isn’t meant to be skimmed or summarized. Scripture should be read, heard, meditated on, and obeyed.

What can the “attention atrophy” problem look like?

A person opens his Bible and asks AI to summarize the chapter before he reads it, because studying it on his own feels challenging or inefficient. It’s easier to ask AI to explain the verses in simple terms, rather than the believer sitting with the verses, comparing context, rereading, and praying. Another person listens to a sermon and asks AI, “Give me five applications for my life,” instead of praying through self-examination.

Over time, the speed of AI will likely accelerate the decline of attention spans and atrophy our muscles of focused attention.

2. Expectation of Less Friction

With instant answers comes the expectation that instant is best and struggle is wrong. This can normalize a “friction-free” spirituality that assumes growth should be quick and painless, that our devotional life can be “optimized.”

But in the Bible, God frequently forms his people through waiting, wrestling, suffering, and obedience—sometimes over painfully long periods of time. The way God forms us often feels inefficient and suboptimal.

Think about how seemingly harmless uses of AI might subtly shift our expectations about spiritual growth. People are already asking AI to give devotional encouragement that makes them feel closer to God. They’re generating personalized quiet-time plans tuned to their schedules, personalities, and specific areas of desired growth. They’re asking AI to help them make life decisions or provide clarity, even about what God might want them to do.

If we normalize these sorts of AI-optimized spiritual practices, we’ll be tempted to see friction and wrestling as avoidable impediments to spiritual growth rather than as opportunities to lean into God through faith.

3. Dependence on AI Shepherds

AI can provide users with a “private shepherding” experience. This creates a temptation to bypass the pastoral relationships God designed.

Consider what this growing dependence could look like. Someone uses AI for advice as her first stop when she feels anxious, tempted, or burdened by doubt, but never confesses her sin, asks another person for prayer, or invites accountability from a fellow Christian. A person feeling hurt by his church asks AI to help determine motives and blame and to give advice on whether to leave the church, without ever pursuing a conversation or reconciliation with the church leadership. A Christian struggling with recurring sin asks AI for reassurance that she’s saved, instead of praying, going to the Bible, and allowing her church to speak into the situation.

Even if the counsel AI gives is biblically sound, it’s still spiritually detrimental if it trains people to rely on AI for what God intends to mediate through his Word, his Spirit, and his people.

Five Principles for Pastors

Every pastor should take the time to understand the implications of AI use for spirituality so he can address them directly in his particular ministry context.

To that end, here are five simple principles you might teach and model in your local church:

1. Read first, then ask. Don’t start with AI summaries of Scripture (even in Logos). Read the passage, pray, and sit with the text, then use tools only as a secondary aid.

2. Pray before prompting. Don’t turn to AI for advice or reassurance before turning to God.

3. Seek pastoral counsel on serious issues. If you need input on matters involving ongoing sin, accountability, conflict, or major decisions, seek pastoral counsel and real people in a trusted church community, not AI.

4. Be clear on AI’s limits. Teach your congregation that AI can provide information (sometimes false information) but not true biblical wisdom. It lacks spiritual authority.

5. Talk openly about AI use. Encourage regular discussions in your church about people’s use of AI. Encourage a careful approach that involves community input as we weigh potential opportunities and hazards.

As AI transforms the world, the church needs to remain faithful and clear about what the Bible teaches about spirituality. AI doesn’t just give answers; it trains our instincts. We need to address now how those instincts might, over time, lead Christians and churches in spiritually malformative directions.

In terms of sales, Bunyan’s allegory of the Christian life, published in 1678, was literally next to the Bible. No book in English, except Holy Scripture, had been so widely read over such a long period of time.

Today, little has changed. The book has been translated into more than 200 languages. No work other than the Bible has had such a colossal, wide-ranging influence on American culture. Pilgrim’s Progress is America’s second-favorite book.

Early Republic

In the early United States, Bunyan’s work helped Americans make sense of their uncertain times. In 1825, William Weeks, a minister in the “Burned-Over District” of western New York, wrote Pilgrim’s Progress in the Nineteenth Century to warn his fellow patriots. The Revolution had unleashed an unbridled energy, defiance of authority, and recklessness that, unless tempered with order and biblical religion, would be their undoing.

Drawing from the language and images of Bunyan’s famous work, Weeks warned that the infant nation was plummeting to a spiritual “city of Destruction.” Only by the “wicket-gate” could Americans flourish as a people and reach “the Celestial country.”

As the nation began to fracture over politics and slavery, Bunyan’s words were imprinted indelibly on Northerners and Southerners alike. In the late 1820s, Boston merchant Lewis Tappan returned home from church one Sunday to find a local handyman named Caleb distressed about the salvation of his soul. Rushing into his office, Tappan returned with a handful of published sermons and “medicine suited to the case”: Pilgrim’s Progress.

Bunyan was a sound choice for helping someone understand salvation. After all, the book opens with a man clothed in rags, Bible in hand, and a great burden, who cries out, “What shall I do?” Below the Mason-Dixon line, the refined Charlestonian James P. Boyce also relished the book. When he visited the Yosemite Valley with his family, he recorded, “It seemed to us impossible how that anything could be more beautiful.” To Boyce, the scene “brought to [their] minds the description of the mountains from which Bunyan’s Pilgrim was said to look on the beautiful land of Beulah.”

On the frontier, Pilgrim’s Progress was sometimes the only religious work aside from the Bible that those of humble means could obtain. Other than classroom texts, Abraham Lincoln’s first books were those his stepmother brought from Kentucky. Pilgrim’s Progress was one of the first books Lincoln ever consumed, and according to historian David Herbert Donald, the future president knew the book so well that “the biblical cadences of Lincoln’s later speeches owed much to John Bunyan.”

Pilgrim’s Progress was one of the first books Abraham Lincoln ever consumed.

Even the glitz and glamour of the Gilded Age couldn’t erase the cultural staying power of Bunyan’s magnum opus. The greatest novelists of the late 19th century still tipped their caps to Bunyan. When Mark Twain published a European travelogue in 1869, he titled it The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrim’s Progress. When Harriet Beecher Stowe inscribed a short sentence on the flyleaf of her biography in 1889, she took the words of Valiant for Truth in Pilgrim’s Progress: “My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage & my courage & skill to him that can get it.”

Twentieth Century

At the dawn of what publisher Henry R. Luce called “the American century,” Pilgrim’s Progress continued to shape public discourse and the American mind. Not only did Bunyan help Americans conceptualize politics and literature, but he also influenced the way they thought about big business and even the national media.

During the Progressive Era, when President Teddy Roosevelt attempted to describe the new corps of investigative journalists who began exposing abuses of power in political parties and corporations, he sought Bunyan’s help. Roosevelt called these reporters “muckrakers”—named after Bunyan’s character “the man with a muck-rake,” who “could look no way but downwards,” ignoring the celestial crown above his head.

As Bunyan explained, “Earthly things, when they are with power upon men’s minds, quite carry their hearts away from God.” Roosevelt knew that most Americans would understand the reference.

The muckrakers themselves were reading Bunyan too. During her research to expose the Standard Oil Company, Ida Tarbell visited her father in Pennsylvania, who caught her reading a report on a congressional trust investigation before evening church. “You shouldn’t read that on Sunday, Ida,” her father reproved. Tarbell recalled, “I quickly exchanged it for Pilgrim’s Progress which is not without a suggestion for a student of the trust.”

In an instance of further irony, John D. Rockefeller, Standard Oil’s founder, justified his business practices by vowing to pull that “broken-down industry out of the Slough of Despond,” a reference to the bog in Pilgrim’s Progress that sinks Christian into a burdensome pit.

Every corner of American life was imbued with some allusion or reference to Pilgrim’s Progress. Whereas capitalists appealed to Bunyan, so did socialists. When Eugene V. Debs was nominated as the presidential candidate at the Social Democratic convention in 1900, he was announced in strikingly religious terms by a Massachusetts congressman: “Like a John of Patmos, he had revealed to him a vision of the things that were to be, of the new kingdom, of the new era. There it was that there came to him a message which was the completion of the Pilgrim’s Progress of labor.”

From socialist politicians to oil barons to muckrakers, everyone envisioned himself or herself on some form of pilgrimage, but Bunyan’s original idea of a spiritual conversion was often left behind.

Every corner of American life was imbued with some allusion or reference to Pilgrim’s Progress.

Pastors and professors appealed to Pilgrim’s Progress on both sides of the Fundamentalist-Modernist aisle and on both sides of the Atlantic. For instance, in the 1930s, liberal New York pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick appealed to the “foul fiend Apollyon” who straddled the road in the Valley of Humiliation to block Christian’s way. Fosdick then exhorted his listeners, “Once more Apollyon straddles the road, and what he wants above all else is to spill our souls. The hope of the world is in people who answer, No!”

In the same decade, American evangelicals read C. S. Lewis’s work The Pilgrim’s Regress, which plays on Bunyan’s classic work.

Pilgrims Today

While Pilgrim’s Progress may be less celebrated today than it was early in our nation’s history, its gigantic footprint remains in American culture. For example, while many Americans may not be familiar with characters like Mr. Worldly Wiseman or Giant Despair, they do perhaps know the magazine Vanity Fair, which draws its name from the town market in Pilgrim’s Progress. They may also be accustomed to phrases like “wilderness of the world” or “Doubting Castle” or “Great-heart.”

While America has changed significantly in 250 years, Americans across all walks of life and across all generations have envisioned themselves as a people on a journey. Therefore, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress continues to speak profoundly to sinners on the way, and especially to the Christian seeking a Heavenly City.

We chase after people who make us think we can have it all, and we recoil at the idea of being held back from reaching what we deem to be our full potential. In our world, limitations are a liability.

Perhaps this is why we often struggle to cope with our kids’ limitations. Without realizing it, we might inadvertently expect our kids to live up to our version of limitlessness. We may subtly communicate that their value comes from their achievements. We might put pressure on them to reach their “maximum potential.” Or we might even express disappointment when they struggle with things we think should come easily.

When we realize our kids can’t meet our expectations, we might be tempted to blame ourselves or think God is punishing us with a child who can’t succeed.

Consider the many possible limitations our children may face. There are personality strengths and weaknesses, physical conditions, learning disabilities, and mental health issues. Our children’s opportunities may be limited by our geographical location or income. Even their passions or preferences might seem to us like limitations, simply because they differ from our own. Both real and perceived limitations can drive us to fear, anger, sadness, or guilt.

But God’s Word offers a better way. We find wisdom for understanding our children’s limitations in the details of a well-known Old Testament story.

Consider Moses

In Exodus 3, God appears to Moses “in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush” (v. 2) and calls him to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. But Moses tries to convince God that he isn’t the man for the job. After multiple failed attempts, Moses points to his speech impediment to prove he’s simply incapable of being God’s spokesman: “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue” (4:10).

But Moses’s oratory skills don’t concern God. He responds, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak” (vv. 11–12).

This wonderful story provides three truths to help us think rightly about our children’s limitations.

Our children’s limitations aren’t a surprise to God and in no way hinder his plans for their lives.

1. God ordains our children’s limitations.

God was aware of Moses’s condition and had every intention of speaking through him anyway. Likewise, our children’s limitations aren’t a surprise to God and in no way hinder his plans for their lives.

God lovingly weaves every child together in the womb (Ps. 139:13). And as he pointed out to Moses, he even ordains our specific limitations. He makes no mistakes in the process of human formation.

Like a potter skillfully crafts his clay, God shapes and forms each of us according to his own desire; no two jars are the same, and each one is a masterpiece. Every child is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (v. 14), uniquely designed by God for what he has set before him or her to do.

2. God can overcome our children’s limitations.

God told Moses, “Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak” (Ex. 4:12). God didn’t need Moses to be a skillful orator. The Lord can speak through a donkey (Num. 22:22–31) or supernaturally write a message on a wall (Dan. 5).

With God, anything is possible (Mark 10:27), and he’ll ensure our kids complete all he has ordained for them to do (Ps. 138:8). His plans cannot be thwarted (Job 42:2).

3. God is glorified through our children’s limitations.

Who received the praise when Pharaoh finally let the Israelites go? It wasn’t the one who begged, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else” (Ex. 4:13). All the glory for the Israelites’ deliverance was attributed to God alone (14:30–31). When God uses weak, flawed, and broken people to accomplish his will, there’s no question about who deserves the credit.

Limitations Lead Us to Christ

The world pushes back on any sense of limitation by telling us we can do whatever we want. It whispers that we can be our own gods. But our limitations are a stark reminder that we aren’t completely autonomous. They humble us. They put us in our place. They force us to reckon with a God who alone is limitless and sets boundaries around our lives so that we feel our need for him.

Our limitations should make us long for Christ. He is everything we can’t be, and he shares all his benefits with us (see 2 Cor. 1:19–20; Heb. 3:14)—including the greatest benefit of all, everlasting fellowship with God.

When you struggle to understand what God is doing with your kids’ limitations, remind yourself that he created your children uniquely for his own glory. Their limitations (and ours) are sovereignly ordained, that we all might be captivated by Christ’s limitless perfection.

In this episode, Ligon Duncan and Matt Smethurst reflect on the doctrines of grace—often associated with Calvinism—and explore how a “big God” theology shapes assurance, prayer, evangelism, pastoral care, and suffering. They emphasize that God’s sovereignty isn’t a weapon for debate but a pillow for weary saints, a stabilizer in crisis, and a source of deep humility.

From hospital rooms to anxiety, from Scripture’s storyline to church history, this conversation shows why knowing a sovereign, wise, and compassionate God isn’t advanced theology—it’s everyday hope.

Resources Mentioned:

• Commentary on the Gospel According to John by John Calvin
• “How to Care for Sufferers (with Joni Eareckson Tada)” by Ligon Duncan and Matt Smethurst

After reading the book, I was skeptical that a movie adaptation could thread the needle between saying enough about the story’s science and not getting bogged down in it. And would the visual depictions of the novel’s Eridian aliens, interstellar spacecraft, and distant galaxies be cheesy or believable?

Amazingly (or in the film’s parlance, “Amaze! Amaze! Amaze!”), the movie more than does justice to the book. It elevates it, adding immersive layers to the compelling story in ways only big-screen cinema can.

It’s an instant sci-fi classic. Funny, moving, awe-inspiring, thrilling. And for Christian audiences, it’s the rare PG-13 movie that’s clean and wholesome without being cheesy (apart from one sexual innuendo only adults will get, the movie could be rated PG). It’s a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster that families can enjoy together without fear. How refreshing.

But the film is edifying not only for what it doesn’t depict but for what it does. This is a redemptive story, beautifully told. As the title and the main character’s name (Ryland Grace) might suggest, Christian ideas infuse this film’s worldview, even if they’re not explicitly invoked.

New High for Sci-Fi

Project Hail Mary is an epic sci-fi movie that builds on and evokes previous icons of the genre.

• It’s like Interstellar in that it follows an interstellar travel, “look to the stars to save Earth” premise.
• It’s like The Martian in its celebration of science and “look what we can do when we put our mind to it!” problem-solving.
• It’s like Arrival in the “world overcoming divisions to address cosmic problems” sense.
• It’s like E.T. in the “cute alien befriends human” sense.

But Project Hail Mary is also its own original thing, boasting exceptional artistry across the board—Greig Fraser’s cinematography and Daniel Pemberton’s score are especially awesome—and acting that makes us care for the characters.

The plot hews closely to the book’s narrative (major spoilers ahead). The movie opens with Grace (Ryan Gosling)—a long-haired, bearded, vaguely Jesus-looking astronaut—waking up from a long sleep aboard a spaceship. He’s disoriented and doesn’t know where or even who he is. But as Grace gains his bearings, gradually remembering his backstory and the mission’s purpose, the audience does too.

Like the book, the film jumps between flashbacks to Earth showing the origins of Project Hail Mary and Grace’s current experience as the mission’s sole survivor. He is humanity’s last hope to save Earth from extinction due to a dying sun. Standard sci-fi conceit.

What takes the story in a fresh direction is the introduction of an alien character in the second act—a counterpart to Grace who has also been sent by his own home planet, Erid, to solve the same problem Earth has: Their “sun” is dying too. Stars all over the galaxy are dimming because of a mysterious, microscopic parasite called “astrophage.”

When Grace discovers that Rocky (as he calls his alien comrade) is benevolent and wants to solve the same problem, the two team up to save their respective planets. What ensues is essentially a buddy movie that celebrates friendship, sacrifice, and self-giving love. It’s a joy to watch.

Quintessentially Metamodern

Project Hail Mary feels like a quintessentially metamodern movie. This is in part because Gosling—in movies like Barbie and The Fall Guy—has emerged as the metamodern actor of his generation. He can effortlessly oscillate between sincerity and irony, innocence and world-weariness, earnest joy and self-aware jokes.

The character of Grace really lets Gosling milk this “informed naivete” vibe. He’s a dorky middle school science teacher who wears periodic table T-shirts that say “I wear this shirt periodically.” He makes jokes constantly but also gets serious often. He takes moments alone to contemplate beauty or sadness. In a powerful scene, he holds a makeshift funeral for his two fallen co-astronauts.

Metamodernism is the mix of postmodern irony and modern sincerity, detached self-referentiality and “all-in” engagement, cynical despair and childlike hope. Project Hail Mary operates within this metamodern register.

The film embodies the new sincerity of metamodernism and the “affective turn” in the arts. It’s a disarmingly earnest movie, unembarrassed by emotional catharsis. It’s unafraid of depicting straightforwardly good, inspiring characters who embody classical virtues. At the same time, the movie is highly self-aware and full of the sort of sardonic, self-referential humor that is a postmodern staple. Intertextual references to other movies abound: Rocky, Alien, and even Meryl Streep’s acting. It’s an incredibly smart, quick-witted movie made for media-savvy audiences steeped in pop culture vernacular. Yet it’s smart without being cynical.

Project Hail Mary is  unafraid of depicting straightforwardly good, inspiring characters who embody classical virtues.

One scene in particular struck me as metamodern in its sensibility. It’s a funny-poignant scene in a bar as members of Project Hail Mary celebrate together, one last time before mission launch. Stratt (Sandra Hüller), the no-nonsense Hail Mary project lead, takes the mic to sing Harry Styles’s “Sign of the Times.” The song is a playful and comically ironic choice, especially for such a serious person as Stratt. But as she sings it—earnestly, with real pain and affect in her voice—the song vibe-shifts quickly from irony to the purest sincerity.

That’s metamodernism. It’s desperate people singing Harry Styles songs as a coping mechanism at the end of the world, yet singing them with real hope and unabashed belief that a better outcome is possible.

Belief and building are hallmarks of metamodernism. After the “don’t believe in anything” nihilism of postmodernism and its orientation around deconstruction, metamodern people want to believe in things again. They want to build and solve problems rather than only tear down and critique.

Belief and building are key themes in Project Hail Mary. While belief in God is only briefly mentioned, belief in science is a major theme. Characters believe answers are out there. Problems are solvable. They want to build and innovate again—moving past the malaise of partisan gridlock to leverage collective creativity for good purposes.

It’s a movie nostalgic for the Apollo missions, or even for Manhattan Project–style science collaborations with existential stakes. It’s a movie techno-optimists will adore.

‘Hail Mary’ Full of Grace

Perhaps the most metamodern, vibe-shifty quality to Hail Mary is how redemptive it is on a spiritual level. The film draws from Christian virtues and ideas like sacrifice, selfless love, and—you guessed it—grace.

Did Weir name his hero Grace mostly for the verbal pun aspect, as a riff on the Catholic prayer’s rendering of Luke 1:28 (“Hail Mary, full of grace”)? Probably. But the character’s name also speaks to the grace he gives—sacrificing his life to save humanity—and the grace he receives. When Rocky gives Grace a chance at life, even after he’s “made peace” with the mission ending in his death, Grace responds with the only appropriate response to such an undeserved gift: “Thank you.”

The film draws from Christian virtues and ideas like sacrifice, selfless love, and—you guessed it—grace.

Is Grace (or Rocky for that matter) a “Christ figure”? I don’t like using that term. He’s certainly a virtuous man—jarring for his kindness and innocence, never cussing once in the film, for example. And Rocky is a virtuous Eridian who, at one point, does wear a “Savior of the world” hat as a (half) joke. Insofar as both echo the beauty of a story where one lays down his life for the world’s salvation, Christ’s gospel isn’t far in the background.

But Grace is also flawed—a reluctant hero who must be (literally) dragged into the mission. He doesn’t volunteer to lay down his life. But that makes his arc in the movie all the more beautiful. He has room to grow, to overcome fear, to become more selfless as the story progresses. And he does. It’s inspiring.

Project Hail Mary doesn’t preach the gospel. But it makes virtue look good. It makes selflessness, sacrifice, and duty attractive. If the movie is a huge hit—and I expect it will be—perhaps Hollywood will take the hint. We’re not in postmodernism anymore. Goodness, truth, and beauty are attributes we want in art again. Really, they’re what we’ve always wanted.

At the time, I was an immature and selfish teenager. I needed this man in my life more than I knew. It still boggles my mind that amid his work, family life, and other responsibilities, he’d make time to pick up a high school student, take me to coffee, open God’s Word, ask me questions, and challenge me. But I know why he did it: Someone did that for him. He was the product of a generation of disciple-makers.

Could you tell someone your testimony without naming the people who shared the gospel with you? It’s probably impossible, because God ordinarily uses people to reach and disciple his people (Rom. 10:14–15). Now, when you think about the people God has used in your life, were they older than you?

The chances are good they were—and in many believers’ testimonies, they were much older. My faith journey includes five men the Lord placed in my life at different moments. Their spiritual investment shaped me into the husband, father, pastor, and friend I am today.

What might it look like to cultivate intergenerational discipleship for children and youth in your local church?

What Is Intergenerational Ministry?

In many evangelical churches today, discipleship ministries for children and youth are primarily age-specific. Yes, older volunteers serve in those ministries. But there’s often less intentionality about helping younger generations build relationships with older saints who aren’t in volunteer roles.

Intergenerational ministry, by contrast, strives to integrate kids and students into the life of the “all-age, all-stage body of Christ.” Intergenerational discipleship is one part of intergenerational ministry. It involves training every church member as a disciple-maker because every believing child and student is both a disciple and a potential disciple-maker. Jesus modeled intergenerational discipleship in his ministry with his followers. Paul also discipled Timothy, who discipled others so they could in turn disciple others after them (2 Tim. 2:2).

Here’s what I hope for your church and mine: Every church member should understand his call to disciple, and we should provide clear paths for all to pass on their faith to the next generation.

Let’s Get Practical

Here are four steps you can follow to launch an intergenerational discipleship initiative in your church.

1. Call your church to disciple.

All Christians are called to make disciples (Matt. 28:18–20). But we all need to be shown the importance of this ministry. Discipleship should be highlighted from your church’s pulpit, and you may also want to host a seminar that outlines discipleship’s biblical foundations. Help your congregation see how God works through his people to reach and disciple his people.

Every church member should understand his call to disciple, and we should provide clear paths for all to pass on their faith.

The success of an intergenerational discipleship initiative in your church depends on establishing a disciple-making culture. Through your teaching, you must show that it’s normal Christian practice for believers to invite others to follow and learn from them. As Paul put it, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1, NIV). Encourage your church to do the same.

2. Equip your church to disciple.

Give your church some handles to help them disciple others. A clear structure for discipleship meetings is good for both consistency and accountability. In our ministry, we train disciple-makers to P.A.S.S. on the faith:

Proclaim. Through gospel proclamation, the Holy Spirit brings transformation. But if God’s Word isn’t studied and taught during discipleship meetings, they’re just the sort of hangouts or mentoring times kids and youth can find anywhere. We provide our disciple-makers with a list of recommended Bible studies, group studies, books, podcasts, videos, and more for different ages, maturity levels, and genders.

Associate. Life-on-life discipleship takes significant time. It’ll involve disciple-makers checking in with those they’re discipling on Sundays, communicating with them throughout the week, and being involved in their lives—attending their ball games or recitals and remembering their birthdays.

Show. Disciple-makers must also model in their character, conduct, and disciplines what it looks like to live as a Christian. Often, what’s modeled sticks with disciples more than the words taught.

Supplicate. Disciple-makers should pray with those they’re discipling when they’re together, and they should pray for them regularly when they’re not together. Following up on prayer requests is essential so disciple-makers can celebrate with their disciples whenever God answers prayer.

When training your church in intergenerational discipleship, you’re free to use or adapt our P.A.S.S. framework or create one that fits your context. Whatever training outline you adopt, know that simplicity is better when starting a new ministry.

3. Match disciple-makers to those who want to be discipled.

Once your people have been trained in discipleship, create simple intake forms for those who want to disciple as well as for students who want to be discipled. Often, parents will initiate this ask for their kids, but you’ll quickly discover that many students want intergenerational relationships too.

When creating this form, you must decide whether you want to offer one-on-one discipleship, one-on-few discipleship, or a combination. Our church has found that most younger students prefer meeting in smaller groups, but as they mature, they become more comfortable with one-on-one settings.

In the sign-up forms, be sure to ask about each person’s availability, his interests, how he wants to grow in his relationship with Jesus, what questions he has, and anything else that may be helpful.

Ensure safeguards are in place for every ministry with minors, particularly for one-on-one relationships. Background checks, interviews, and guidelines for meeting times should be clearly communicated and agreed on by church leaders, disciple-makers, and parents. Be certain to fully comply with your church’s protection policies. Even with older teens, parents must be aware of discipleship relationships and meeting times.

4. Support disciple-makers.

Intergenerational discipleship is decentralized once disciple-makers and disciples are matched. Going forward, most communication is between the disciple-maker, the disciple, and her parents. That doesn’t mean you, as the church leader who initiated these relationships, can simply step back and relax. Your attention should shift to equipping, resourcing, and supporting the disciple-makers.

Once discipleship relationships are formed, a church leader’s attention should shift to equipping, resourcing, and supporting the disciple-makers.

Periodic check-ins are a must for accountability and encouragement and to address any issues that may arise during discipleship. Resource and check in with disciple-makers so they always know they have your support, especially when discipleship gets messy and difficult.

Our church hosts annual discipleship workshops, sends a monthly newsletter, and uses a two-minute online form to learn how often meetings take place and to hear any concerns, questions, or needs.

Enjoy the Fruit

You might think kids and teens would find intergenerational discipleship weird, but one student in our church says the “church grandma” who disciples her is her best friend. This ministry has become a joy for the young woman.

There’s joy for the disciple-maker too. As Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 2:19–20 (NIV),

What is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy.

Disciple-makers find joy in those they disciple, and by God’s grace, they’ll have the joy of hearing their names listed in the testimonies of many spiritual children.

Though I recently got married, during many years of singleness I observed behaviors of people I considered good married friends. This list isn’t exhaustive or representative of all circumstances, but embracing these principles can help married Christians cultivate more caring and vibrant relationships with their single friends.

1. Don’t assume your single friends are unhappy.

I could always sense when someone’s somber demeanor suggested she thought I cried myself to sleep every night, despite the fact that I enjoyed my life.

Not only are such assumptions often inaccurate, but they also contradict Scripture’s teaching that singleness is a good gift from God. While it’s true some singles struggle with contentment, plenty find joy and fulfillment while appreciating the benefits of life without a spouse (1 Cor. 7:7, 32–35).

2. Watch what you say to your single friends.

“He’s out there somewhere!” and similar well-meaning sentiments imply all single people will eventually marry. But Scripture suggests there are many reasons a person might remain single (Matt. 19:12), so it’s not helpful to presume that God’s will for a single person’s life will include marriage.

Additionally, referring to marriage as the ultimate means of sanctification implies singles are somehow missing out on this process. Scripture encourages us that “he who began a good work . . . will bring it to completion” by whatever means necessary (Phil. 1:6). A good married friend reminds a single person that singleness—just as much as marriage—reflects God’s goodness to her.

3. Include single friends in your family.

By being regularly invited into married friends’ homes, I developed meaningful friendships with their husbands and endearing, auntlike relationships with their kids. These were some of the greatest blessings of my life, gifts only married friends could give.

Believers are called to use their gifts to serve one another as “stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Pet. 4:10). Perhaps one of the most precious ways to use the gifts of marriage and family is to counteract the loneliness of singleness by adopting singles into a family where they’re cherished and invited to spend birthdays, holidays, Sunday lunches, and random Thursday nights.

4. Talk to your single friends about marriage.

Meaningful Christian friendships naturally involve sharing how God is working in one another’s lives. For those who are married, this rightly includes aspects of the marriage relationship.

While it’s true some singles struggle with contentment, plenty find joy and fulfillment.

Yet many people reserve marriage talk for fellow married people, assuming their single friends can’t relate or would rather not discuss it. All this does, however, is withhold a large part of your life from someone who cares about you and has valuable insight to offer. It might also deprive a single friend of wisdom that could strengthen her own marriage one day (Prov. 27:17).

5. Notice your single friends’ practical needs.

For me, the scariest part about contracting COVID-19 in 2020 wasn’t being sick. It was the thought of spending two weeks home alone, unable to go to the grocery store. As the author of Ecclesiastes explains,

Two are better than one. . . . For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” (4:9–10)

A good married friend remembers that her single friend doesn’t have a built-in life partner. And unless they have family nearby, many singles must rely on friends to care for their physical and tangible needs.

6. Offer to set up your single friends.

Opportunities to meet fellow Christian singles naturally decrease as people age and transition from settings like college, graduate school, and young-adult ministries. While online dating has become popular, connections made by friends can still be incredibly helpful.

In particular, a married friend’s spouse can play a vital role in the dating life of a single person because the spouse often interacts with entirely different pools of people. If a single friend desires a relationship, keeping an eye out for suitable matches is a great way to care for her (Prov. 3:27).

7. Share your single friends’ joys and sorrows.

Scripture calls believers to lovingly enter into one another’s lives, most notably in Romans 12:15: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” A good married friend acknowledges and celebrates her single friend’s joy and success. Singles’ accomplishments can easily go unnoticed without a spouse to share them with, and self-promotion may feel awkward or prideful.

Singles’ accomplishments can easily go unnoticed without a spouse to share them with. The same can be true of grief.

We also need companionship in grief. After I lost a beloved friend to cancer, my husband offered comfort I hadn’t previously experienced in grieving as a single. Having someone to witness our pain is significant. A good married friend realizes she may be the only person to grieve alongside her single friend.

As many of these actions suggest, a good married friend is really just a good friend. As you seek to build strong relationships with single people, keep in mind that you have far more in common with them than not—including the need to be understood, valued, cared for, and loved.

John Perkins (1930–2026), or “Brother John” (as he let me address him), was born into the sharecropping world of rural Mississippi, during the Great Depression and the worst of Jim Crow segregation. He lost his mother to malnutrition when he was seven months old. At the age of 17, he held his big brother—a decorated veteran of World War II—as he died, fatally shot by a racist town marshal. After a civil rights protest in 1970, Brother John was arrested along with nineteen black Tougaloo College students. He was tortured and nearly beaten to death in the Rankin County Jail.

When he first shared these stories with me, I could still hear the gravelly pain in his baritone voice. Born nearly a half century after Brother John, I was raised in middle-class Orange County, California, in the 1980s. How could I possibly find common ground with a man who had such a radically different experience of America?

Turns out, lo and behold, the Jesus who set out to save sinners from every tongue, tribe, and nation is all the common ground we needed to form bonds of profound friendship and brotherhood. In Christ we were truly “one blood,” as Brother John was so fond of saying.

Meeting Brother John

Several years ago, as I was writing a book about Christianity and social justice, one of Brother John’s best friends put us in touch. To say that he warmly embraced me, a no-name among many vying for his finite attention, would be an understatement. After years immersing myself in the work of critical race theory—with its tendency to treat individual image-bearers of God as exemplars of their vicious or virtuous group identities, thereby inspiring suspicion, resentment, and self-righteousness—talking with Brother John came like a rush of water to my joy-parched soul.

‘It would have been the easiest thing in the world for me to answer hate with hate. But God had another plan for my life, a redemptive plan.’

In our conversations, I learned more of his story. After he’d been beaten by the police, he spent months recuperating in the hospital: “It would have been the easiest thing in the world for me to answer hate with hate. But God had another plan for my life, a redemptive plan. Jesus saved me . . . He saved me from what could have easily become a life of hatred and resentment.”

Years later, he spoke to me as if, because of our shared union with Christ, we were brothers. That’s because, theologically and in real life (for Brother John there was no distinction between the two), that’s precisely what we were.

Learning from Brother John

There was much to learn from my brother, new friend, and mentor who had poured his blood, sweat, and tears into civil rights, community development, biblical education, and gospel preaching. He graciously offered to add his voice to my work on social justice. I asked him what nuggets of wisdom he most wanted to pass on to the next generation of Christian justice-seekers. He offered four imperatives that had shaped his 60-plus years of faithful ministry, and I share them here in his own words:

1. Start with God.

God is bigger than we can imagine. We have to align ourselves with his purpose, his will, his mission to let justice roll down and bring forgiveness and love to everyone on earth. The problem of injustice is a God-sized problem. If we don’t start with him first, whatever we’re seeking, it ain’t justice.

2. Be one in Christ.

Christian brothers and sisters—black, white, brown, rich, and poor—are all family. We are one blood. We are adopted by the same Father, saved by the same Son, filled with the same Spirit. If we give a foothold to any kind of tribalism that could teardown that unity, then we ain’t bringing God’s justice.

3. Preach the gospel.

The gospel of Jesus’s incarnation, his perfect life, his death as our substitute, and his triumph over sin and death is good news for everyone. In the blood of Jesus, we are able to truly see ourselves as one race, one blood. We’ve got to stop playing the race game. . . . If we replace the gospel with this or that man-made political agenda, then we ain’t doing biblical justice.

4. Teach truth.

Without truth, there can be no justice. And what is the ultimate standard of truth? It is not our feelings, or popular opinion, or what presidents and politicians say. God’s Word is the standard of truth. If we’re trying harder to align with the rising opinions of our day than with the Bible, then we ain’t doing real justice.

Brother John would often call out of the blue to swap flashes of theological inspiration, confide his struggles, and pray with me. I’ll always treasure the day he FaceTimed me mid-lecture during my afternoon course on biblical justice at Biola University. I put him on speaker phone and he proceeded to finish the lecture for me, offering students a fiery master class on how to obey God’s commands, not suggestions, to do justice (Mic. 6:8; Isa. 1:15-17; 58-6-10; Jer. 7:5; 22:6).

Saying Goodbye to Brother John

In one of my longest and last conversations with Brother John, he talked much of death. Hear his words:

I’m living at the doorway of heaven….  aware that any day could be my last. Joy is all around me. My heart overflows with gratitude for this joy. It has not diminished over time. It grows more radiant each and every day, with the promise of heaven set before me. The hymn writer said it best:

Oh, I want to see Him, look upon His face,

There to sing forever of His saving grace;

On the streets of Glory let me lift my voice,

Cares all past, home at last, ever to rejoice.

Oh, I want to see him! I am almost there. I can almost see his face. And he is Joy!

On the morning of March 13, 2026, surrounded by family and his cherished wife of nearly 75 years, Vera Mae, the Rev. Dr. John M. Perkins—my beloved Brother John—entered “the doorway of heaven.” He is not almost there; he is there, beholding the face of Jesus!

May we honor Brother John the way he would have wanted, by starting with God, being one in Christ, preaching the Gospel, and teaching the truth, all in the Joy that is Jesus.

I’m a ministry practitioner focused on helping churches and parachurch organizations understand and address poverty in meaningful ways. If there’s one question I get asked more than any other, this is it.

There are several reasonable answers:

• Pray for wisdom, and treat that person as an image-bearer of our triune God worthy of dignity, respect, and care.
• Extend a little human connection; stop and talk. Keep a card on you for local shelters, clinics, or addiction-recovery centers that could connect the person to long-term restorative programs.
• If the person is asking for food, offer to share a meal with her while you talk.
• My friends at True Charity suggest “taking their offer”—if someone says he’ll work for food, offer a small job at your church or business he could do, and then buy him a meal he earned.

Your church or ministry may want to go deeper in being part of long-term care. The Chalmers Center (my employer) offers numerous trainings—in benevolence ministry, job-readiness, financial literacy, collaborative ministry design, and more—that can help you cultivate a team and program focused on long-term restoration. Jesus Christ is making all things new, and his people are called to be outposts of his already-not-yet kingdom in how we declare and demonstrate the good news of the gospel in word and deed.

So far, the answers seem straightforward, and perhaps you’ve heard suggestions like these before.  But I’m more interested in the question under the question.

Proximity and Perception

Why, for so many American Christians I interact with, is the face of poverty almost always the man or woman on the corner?

A panhandler isn’t, by a long stretch, an accurate representation of most material poverty in the United States. Poverty often hides in plain sight, and many from middle-class communities can’t always see it. We need our eyes to adjust to a brighter light shining on our neighbors and their situations.

Poverty often hides in plain sight, and many from middle-class communities can’t always see it.

If we aren’t in regular proximity to those in poverty, we make assumptions about what it looks like based on the “anomalies” we encounter in our settled patterns of life. Increasingly, in American life, we’re sorted by income—we live, work, play, and worship around people in similar economic conditions. This plays out in neighborhoods all the way up to whole regions of the country.

This lack of shared community contributes to decreased social mobility. Perhaps more than at any time before in American history, the zip code where we’re born sets the tone of our economic lives.

Beyond that, our social isolation leads to superficial relationships. Sometimes our neighbors who seem outwardly to be flourishing might be on the verge of bankruptcy and breakdown, but won’t say anything out of shame.

Hidden Cost of Poverty in America

Part of our perception issue is that America feels abundantly wealthy. Here, even the lowest-income households are likely to have tremendous material wealth relative to much of the world (and most of human history).

People living well below the federal poverty line ($32,150/year for a family of four in 2025) often have a television, smartphones, a microwave, a refrigerator, beauty products, furniture, and more. How can people be experiencing deep poverty amid such apparent material comfort?

Last fall, investor Michael Green sparked debate by asserting the true poverty line in the United States is more like $140,000/year for a family of four—once he factored in housing, food, transportation, health care, childcare, taxes, and other essentials. Some of his metrics and calculations have been called into question, so I don’t think we should accept this as a baseline, but his chief point remains provocative.

In most areas of the country, he points out, consumer goods like those mentioned above have dramatically decreased in price relative to inflation (or increased in complexity and utility even as they’ve increased in price). Meanwhile, the things people need to live well have dramatically increased in price. “Amenities” that used to be markers of wealth are now commonplace, and their presence can mask underlying needs.

At the same time, real wages (purchasing power adjusted for inflation) have stagnated over the past several decades relative to this increased cost of living. Often, the middle of the income ladder is squeezed the most—those at the bottom are eligible for various subsidies of necessities, but they bump into steep “benefits cliffs” as they earn more, reducing their actual usable income.

Translation: We have to work longer hours to make ends meet than we’ve had to in a long time, and breaking out of poverty is hard. Not only that, but the cost of falling behind is high. One layoff or medical emergency can set a family’s financial stability back by decades, with generational effects.

Changing Faces of Poverty

So if the man on the street corner isn’t the face of poverty in America, who is? Let me give you some case studies. These aren’t hypotheticals; they’re composite stories of real people (names changed) that we at The Chalmers Center or our ministry partners have walked alongside.

Cherise lives in Nashville with her three young children. She works several shifts a week for $11/hour at a fast-food restaurant (but falls short of full-time hours and, therefore, benefits). She also works a few nights a week with a crew cleaning office buildings, but still only makes about $35,000–$40,000 most years. She is enrolled in SNAP and TennCare, but rent and daycare for her youngest child take almost all her earned income. She is focused on being a good mom to her kids but is often exhausted after working 12–14 hours in a day and barely sees them some weeks. She sometimes has to leave her 11-year-old daughter “in charge” to watch the other kids while she works at night.

The Thompsons are 8 years into a 30-year mortgage on a home in Albuquerque. Their three kids are doing well in school, and the family looks successful to their neighbors. Both parents are self-employed, so they have to buy health coverage from their state exchange. After Mrs. Thompson is diagnosed with a rare chronic illness requiring regular hospitalization and expensive treatments, they have to switch to a more costly plan, plus her earnings have fallen by 50 percent as she no longer has the time or energy to work as much. But the couple still makes enough money on paper that their kids don’t qualify for need-based state aid for college. They’re wrestling with whether they can help their kids pay for college and make payments on their mortgage at the same time.

Kevin and Crystal are trying to stay connected to the small rural community in Ohio where they’ve lived all their lives. They’re retired and on a fixed income. They have to spend significant time and money traveling to a nearby city for medical care and basic household goods because so few businesses can survive in their town, and they’re increasingly lonely. Their kids moved to Columbus for college and stayed for work, so they don’t get to see their grandkids as often as they want. Their local church has dwindled in attendance, and many houses on their road sit empty as more and more businesses close and neighbors move away because there are few good jobs and no social services in the area.

Phoenix is the first in her family to get a college degree, finishing a program at the University of Texas. She’s stayed in Austin, trying to break into the tech scene there, but hasn’t found work yet beyond the barista job she kept through college. She’s stuck most months trying to cover rent, car insurance, and student loan payments, and wonders if she’ll ever break her family’s generational cycle of poverty.

What Should We Do?

So, how do we help?

Your church could support each of the people in these case studies in concrete ways.

You could offer to help Cherise with transportation and childcare. Connecting her with a workforce development program could help turn her incredible work ethic into something more remunerative, and your benevolence fund could help cover the benefits cliffs she may encounter as she earns more.

You could create a scholarship fund to help kids like the Thompsons manage some of their college expenses, so their family doesn’t suffer long-term consequences from their current struggles.

One layoff or medical emergency can set a family’s financial stability back by decades, with generational effects.

You could adopt a church in the town where Kevin and Crystal live, supporting ministry programs there that they otherwise couldn’t afford, and explore ways to help rural entrepreneurs create new businesses. Larger churches might be able to sponsor mobile clinics or part-time satellite offices for health care (physical and mental).

You could connect Phoenix to a small group to introduce her to potential employers in her field who also go to your church, or even offer her part-time work at the church that helps cover her loan payments.

Beneath these plans for long-term, relational help are posture shifts: remember that poverty is relational as much as it is material, and that it requires more than just material solutions. Focus on long-term growth, not emergency patches.

Remember that living out God’s kingdom is a group project—it takes whole churches and communities to lift up and care for our neighbors in need (believers in Matt. 25:31–46, for instance, are addressed as a group). Healthy interdependence, not isolated self-sufficiency, should be our goal.

And remember that people can change, but God hasn’t designed us to change by ourselves. We need the Holy Spirit, and we need each other. Human beings are designed to flourish in relationship with God, self, others, and the rest of creation.

With that mindset, we can go to work:

• Look around; be aware. Are there people in your congregation or in your community who might fit the profiles of these case studies? It may not be obvious at a glance.
• Get curious. Talk to those people and find out more about their stories and their struggles, but also their dreams and goals. Be part of their team for the long haul.
• Get equipped. Learn more about how to walk with people well. Chalmers’ “Helping Without Hurting in Benevolence Ministry” training is a great place to start. True Charity has many model action plans to launch new ministry programs that address specific needs. LoveINC brings churches together to create pathways for transformational ministry (especially in rural areas).

Let’s remember that what we do for the least of these brothers and sisters, we do for Christ. Then, let’s look for real needs in our communities and begin to serve with eyes wide open.

The New Testament includes 350 direct quotations from the Old, along with 6,000–8,000 Old Testament allusions. Deep Bible study and the proper use of cross-references will help us rightly interpret both Testaments in light of each other and better understand how all the Scriptures together point to Christ.

In This Episode

00:00 – Understanding biblical theology and its importance

02:52 – Defining quotations and allusions

09:15 – Examples of allusions in the New Testament

14:06 – Tracing biblical themes

30:50 – Connecting the Old Testament to Christ

42:54 – Strategies for making organic connections

43:11 – The role of biblical theology in teaching and preaching

Related Resource: CSB Connecting Scripture New Testament edited by G. K. Beale and Benjamin Gladd

SIGN UP for one of our newsletters to stay informed about TGC’s latest resources.

Help The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Give today.

Don’t miss an episode of The Gospel Coalition Podcast:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube
  

But this year, one of the five Oscar nominees for Best Animated Short Film is a gorgeous example of what faith-driven artistry can look like. It’s called Forevergreen, and the logline is simple: “An orphaned bear cub finds a home with a fatherly evergreen tree, until his hunger for trash leads him to danger.” Ironically, it’s a story that explores a “tree of life” in a literal and symbolic sense.

The 13-minute film, directed by Nathan Engelhardt and Jeremy Spears, features a soundtrack by Josh Garrels and Isaac Wardell that’s every bit as beautiful as the stunning animation. But most beautiful of all is the story Forevergreen tells. It’s about a beneficent pine tree who sacrifices himself—literally bridging a chasm—to save a “prodigal bear” from his self-induced destruction.

Watch the film on YouTube (or embedded below) for a limited time. You’ll see why the Academy honored it with a nomination. You’ll also see a concise, gorgeous meditation on gospel truth.

I recently chatted with Engelhardt and Spears about the making of Forevergreen, how Christian artists tell stories, and what they think of AI’s disruption in the arts.

How did you two end up teaming up creatively?

Both of us have been in the animation film industry for roughly 20 years. We met 15 years ago at Disney Feature Animation, where we still currently work professionally together on films like Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, Moana, Encanto, Big Hero 6, Zootopia, and more. As Christian guys, we both had a desire to use our gifts to tell a story that glorified God. We know anyone can glorify God in their vocation without making a film, but we felt a strong calling from God to use the talents he gave us in this unique way.

Where did the idea for Forevergreen originate? What catalyzed the process that got you to an award-winning final product?

Forevergreen began as a shared desire to tell something meaningful about God’s grace and unconditional love toward sinners. Years earlier, Nathan had gone through a difficult season of spiritual darkness where past mistakes left him feeling unworthy of God’s love. During that time, Scripture—and a simple folktale called The Tale of Three Trees—reminded him that God can use broken and humbled things for his purposes. That message planted the seed of a story about undeserved grace and forgiveness.

What began as a loose adaptation of that folktale gradually evolved into an original idea about a tree and a woodsman. Around that time, Nathan invited Jeremy to join him as a codirector so they could develop the story together. As a story artist, Jeremy was excited to find a way to best communicate his own difficult spiritual seasons and eventual faith in Christ through an animated film. Both of us were eager to stretch ourselves creatively and experience the full animation process by making a film from start to finish, in our free time.

While researching and brainstorming, Jeremy came across an image that sparked a breakthrough: a massive fallen redwood spanning a deep ravine with a waterfall behind it. Instantly the symbolism became clear. The fallen tree could represent Christ-likeness in laying down his life to bridge the divide and rescue someone who could never cross on their own. Jeremy imagined the rescued character as a grumpy, undeserving bear—someone difficult to love yet still the recipient of sacrifice and grace.

Instantly the symbolism became clear. The fallen tree could represent Christ-likeness in laying down his life to bridge the divide and rescue someone who could never cross on their own.

What Jeremy didn’t realize was that something similar had already happened in Nathan’s life just days earlier. While explaining the gospel to a coworker, Nathan had drawn the classic Bible-tract illustration of a divide between God and man, with the cross forming a bridge between the two.

So when Jeremy pitched the idea of a fallen tree bridging a canyon, we realized we had both independently drawn the same picture only days apart. In that moment, it felt unmistakable that God was guiding the story we were meant to tell.

How would you summarize the emotional or spiritual effect you hope Forevergreen has on viewers?

Our hope is that Forevergreen would inspire a sense of wonder about what life is about and the God who desires to have a relationship with us. Even in your darkest times of hopelessness, God so desired to have a relationship with you that he reached across an infinite chasm by sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to save you and provide hope for your life.

On the website description, it mentions that Forevergreen features ‘never before seen animation techniques.’ Could you describe those new techniques?

We set out to create a film with a tactile, handcrafted aesthetic to reinforce our characters’ relationship. It was important for the bear to appear as if he was carved from the tree, serving as an allegory to reflect man being made in the image of God. Our process combined the tactile charm of hand-carved wooden figures with the precision of computer graphics, capturing the warmth of stop-motion through fully 3D-generated frames that look uniquely crafted.

To avoid the static or “rubbery” look of standard CG texture deformation, we needed surfaces that felt alive, changing subtly from frame to frame as if a unique wood carving were created for every pose of animation. Doing this by hand would have been far too time-intensive, especially for a volunteer passion project, so we needed a repeatable, scalable solution.

One of our crew members, Rich Fallat, developed a texture batching process that automated “wobble” and imperfections across keyframes using a proprietary paint tool to generate texture variations automatically, as well as directionality and variation to avoid repetition so no two textures were the same. This workflow allowed us to achieve our envisioned wood-carved look while maintaining production efficiency.

When did Josh Garrels and Isaac Wardell get involved on the music side? What did that collaboration look like?

We are both fans of Josh’s work, particularly his eclectic style and evocative, moody vocals—perfect for a film set in nature. To ensure the music was integrated from the start, we chose not to use traditional “temp tracks” from other films. Instead, Josh and Isaac were involved early on, providing demos during the preliminary storyboarding phase of production.

These early tracks significantly influenced the sequences and moods we aimed to convey. Our editor, Jeff Draheim, cut these demos into the storyboards, which allowed us to experience the emotional impact of the score alongside the visuals early in the process. In the final phases of the film, Josh and Isaac completed a final polish of the score, adding layers of instrumentation while maintaining the established animation timing. It was a wonderful process to witness.

I don’t think people realize how hard it is to make a standalone short film that feels complete and coherent and packs a thematic punch in a short narrative space. What makes a great short film? For other aspiring short filmmakers, what creative advice would you give?

An acid test for us on whether a story is worthy of our time and attention is to ask the simple question “Does this story need to exist?” If the answer is yes, we know we are onto something and must pursue it. A great film leaves you with something to think about. It stirs your heart and changes something inside you.

Our advice for aspiring filmmakers is to tell a story that is meaningful to you. Don’t let an idea just stay in your mind. Get it out into the real world by writing it down. Once it’s written down you can respond to it, and more importantly others can respond to it. You’ll never be able to show anyone your work if it stays in your mind.

Christians seeking to communicate gospel ideas through art often struggle to do it in a way that achieves clarity without it feeling preachy. But you achieve that balance well in Forevergreen. What advice would you give Christian storytellers seeking to make culturally significant, excellent work that also comes from a distinctly Christian sensibility?

With Forevergreen, we used characters the audience could connect with and ultimately see themselves in. We are this bear, and we know what that bag of chips represents. The reason this story connects with people so broadly is its universal relatability. It isn’t designed to be message-driven or targeted at a specific demographic; rather, the message is directed at everyone! We aim for films to be specific, have a point of view, and resonate with a wide audience.

You want to tap into universal truths, which the Bible is full of. Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Forevergreen is a relatable story because it’s a story about all of us.

What are your thoughts on ‘Christian art’ vs. ‘art made as Christians’? Are they distinct categories? If so, which do you think Christians seeking careers in the arts should pursue?

Speaking solely of visual art, both are valuable, although art made by Christians may have the potential to be more disarming. Jeremy has a side business where he makes wood carvings. He tries to make them with excellence because he’s inspired by his Creator, who made everything with excellence.

Forevergreen is a relatable story because it’s a story about all of us.

Even beyond our story being inspired by the gospel message, we think the act of making Forevergreen as artists can point to the Creator. A purposeful film is evidence of a purposeful filmmaker, just like creation is evidence of a purposeful Creator.

The Bible says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Eccl. 9:10, NIV). Paul reiterates this point in 1 Corinthians 10:31 (NIV): “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

I noticed a logo that says ‘human-made’ at the bottom of the film’s website. As artists highly skilled in your craft, what are your thoughts, fears, or worries about AI-made art? How should artists be thinking about the value of human-crafted stories and visual storytelling in a world where AI could one day make quality films in five seconds?

AI is just a tool. It has no POV, no heart, and no soul by definition. This is what separates us from the machine. Stories are innately human. AI can be helpful with repetitive tasks, but it should never remove the human voice or hand of the artists. If saving time and effort became the goal of every artist, we should not be surprised to find some pretty shallow stories in the future. Anything that’s not worth the effort to make is probably not worth anyone’s time. That’s why it’s called a work of art or a labor of love.

There’s a wonderful quote from Chariots of Fire that says, “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure.” Why would you deprive yourself of that God-given pleasure of process in exchange for the easy button of efficiency—especially if the end result is more soulless?

We must not swing the pendulum too far and fear AI or misuse AI. But we should take a measured approach and use our God-given wisdom to know when we have relinquished the part that makes creating art a human, life-giving endeavor.

This made me chuckle and yet grieved my heart at the same time. Three years ago, doctors diagnosed my mother with Alzheimer’s, the most common type of dementia. My father, who died last year, suffered from vascular dementia for many years.

Dementia is a loss of cognitive ability severe enough to interfere with daily life. There are more than 100 types of dementia, with Alzheimer’s, vascular, Lewy body, and frontotemporal being the most common. Each comes with unique challenges.

For example, my mother can become convinced she’s paraplegic when she walks just fine. In contrast, my dad honestly believed he could still safely drive to the grocery store, despite failing a driver’s test at the DMV and leveling a waist-high concrete mailbox with his minivan.

Dementia can drive a caregiver either to exasperation or to the cross.

It’s important to remember dementia is a physical disease that causes psychological symptoms. Dementia patients can’t always control their behavior. But for the more than 11 million U.S. adults caring for someone with dementia, it can be hard to remember that when a parent lashes out, empties every kitchen cabinet, or wanders outside at 3:00 a.m. It can be hard for me to remember, and I’ve spent my career in the medical field.

Dementia can drive a caregiver either to exasperation or to the cross. When I confessed before the Lord my utter helplessness to care for my parents, he gave me the faith to know he was near and the strength to offer empathy to my folks (Rom. 8:26–27). Along the way, God kindly provided both the resources and knowledge I needed to care for them.

Here are eight things to know as you care for a loved one with dementia.

1. Planning is crucial.

An estimated 70 percent of people turning 65 will require nursing-home care at some point in their lives. Most of us live as though we know for certain that we and our loved ones will be in the remaining 30 percent.

While it’s impossible to anticipate every need that will come with aging, we must have frank conversations with our loved ones. And in the face of a dementia diagnosis, time is of the essence. Consider these questions: What are your loved one’s expectations and desires for care? Are you willing and able to provide that? What steps do you need to take to ensure his or her care?

2. You’ll need the help of an attorney, not just a medical team.

Putting measures in place to enable appropriate care often involves legal documentation. Obtaining a power of attorney (POA) for both financial and health care decisions is wise in many situations, but it’s essential when caring for someone with dementia. A POA is a legal document that appoints someone to manage your affairs if you become incapacitated, allowing them to act on your behalf if necessary.

Having both documents for my parents allowed me to intervene when they made bad decisions due to dementia.

3. There are many false assumptions about financial resources for aging.

My job as a nurse case manager often involves helping a family find placement for an aging loved one in a long-term care facility. When I ask them how they’ll pay for the care, families often respond with “We know there must be some agency that pays for this.”

The reality is that Medicare doesn’t pay for long-term care, which can cost upward of $9,000 a month. Medicaid will pay for long-term care at selected facilities, with precise coverage depending on the state you live in. Even then, you must qualify financially, which can take five years.

4. Caring for a dementia patient requires patience and wisdom.

Our normal assumptions about how to navigate conversations and disagreements often don’t apply when it comes to someone with dementia.

For example, my mother asks us to buy her a cell phone every day. She can no longer operate one (even one made for seniors), but that makes no difference to her. I don’t give explanations as to why she can’t use a cell phone because laying out all the reasons gets us nowhere. She receives any disagreement from me as a threat, and that can make her anxious and even combative.

In this situation, I’ve learned it’s more helpful to ask, “Is there someone we can call right now, Mom? We can use my phone.” 

5. Reminders of reality can cause repeated grief.

When doctors first diagnosed Mom with dementia, I told myself I’d never lie to her. Then my dad died. Mom had trouble remembering he was gone. If I reminded her that Dad was dead every time she forgot, she’d experience each of those reminders as if we were telling her for the first time. Instead, we’ve told her that Dad cannot be with us right now. When she demands to know where he is, we tell her he’s getting rehab.

Though Scripture exhorts us to truthfulness, the example of the Hebrew midwives who deceived Pharaoh to protect newborn babies seems relevant here (Ex. 1:15–21). While each person must follow his or her conscience, in situations where telling the full truth to a dementia patient would cause unnecessary grief, a lie may be a form of compassionate protection.  

6. Dementia care is a marathon, not a sprint.

Alzheimer’s can last more than 10 years, depending on the patient’s overall health. Educate yourself about the disease to understand what’s ahead. John Dunlop’s book Finding Grace in the Face of Dementia provides an informative and compassionate look at this disease. Be Light Care Consulting offers seminars on dementia for a nominal fee. They can be viewed at your own pace in short snippets of time.

As you care for a loved one, get help when you need it; if possible, it’s wise to divide responsibilities. For example, my brother provides day-to-day care for Mom, and I manage the endless phone calls and related paperwork about her care. Several times a year, I swap places with my brother so he can have a much-needed break.

7. Even as cognitive abilities decline, the capacity for knowing Christ may still exist.

A dementia patient may forget, for example, that Cain killed Abel but remember old hymns right down to the fifth stanza. Don’t discount the importance of continuing to share the gospel with an unsaved loved one or of using Scripture and hymns to comfort a believer. God’s Word is powerful and effective regardless of our limitations.

8. God still uses dementia patients.

When an aged friend, Marcy, passed away, her neighbor, Renee, asked me for a ride to the funeral. Imagine my shock when 89-year-old Renee told me about her recent conversion.

God’s Word is powerful and effective regardless of our limitations.

“It’s Marcy’s fault,” Renee explained. “Every day for months, she would come over and tell me how Jesus loved me and died for me. Marcy kept forgetting she had told me about Jesus the day before, and the day before that. You get the picture. After the umpteenth time hearing about it, I realized it must be true. God loved me and died to save my soul! I don’t think anyone but Marcy could help me understand.”

For many of us, becoming incapacitated by dementia is one of our greatest fears. And caring for a loved one who has it is an incredibly difficult road. But I find comfort in knowing that nothing—dementia included—can separate us or our loved ones from God’s love (Rom. 8:35–36). As we care for those with dementia, may we be conduits of his love.

That is, no doubt, why so much of Scripture is poetry. When David writes, “My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Ps. 63:1), it communicates more vividly than simply stating that he’s distraught. Poetry communicates in images and ideas that go beyond the words on the page.

Yet many of us read little poetry in our prose-dominated age. That’s why Stephen Witmer, lead pastor of Pepperell Christian Fellowship Church and a TGC Council member, curated 40 of George Herbert’s poems with devotional commentary in his book In All Things Thee to See. Herbert (1593–1633) was a faithful pastor and author whose deep faith overflows the lines of his poetry and points us toward Christ.

I was delighted to have the opportunity to interview Witmer about his recent book.

How did you learn about George Herbert?

It was a bit unusual. Of course, George Herbert is best known for his poetry—he’s widely considered one of the greatest spiritual poets of all time. But I came to him via his only published work of prose.

Several years ago, while writing a book on small-town ministry (A Big Gospel in Small Places), I learned that Herbert had written a manual for rural pastors, The Country Parson, which remained hugely influential for hundreds of years.

The Country Parson is insightful, but it was when I heard Herbert’s life story and began reading his poems that my life was significantly affected. In the years since, Herbert has shepherded my soul toward deeper intimacy with Christ and increased my appreciation of the power and beauty of language.

Where does meditating on poetry fit within a Christian’s devotional life? Why should Christians spend time meditating on poetry?

By some estimates, one-third of the Bible is written in poetic form. This means that meditating on poetry is a necessary part of any Christian’s devotional life!

However, I think you’re referring to poetry that reflects on biblical truth but is not itself part of the canon of Scripture. I like to think of the relationship between reading excellent spiritual poetry (like that of Herbert, John Donne, Malcolm Guite, and many others) and reading Scripture as somewhat like salting a meal. The salt is not the main course, but (if you’re like me) it greatly increases your enjoyment of the main course.

Reading the Bible, meditating on it, and responding in prayer is the meat and potatoes of a Christian’s devotional life. But great spiritual poets awaken us to the sweetness of spiritual realities, the devastation of sin, and the majesty of God. And they can train us to read the Bible more fruitfully. For example, I now read the metaphors of Scripture with greater interest and benefit than I did a decade ago, before I began to enjoy great Christian poetry.

How does Herbert’s pastoral experience come through his poems? In what ways does his background make him especially encouraging to pastors?

I think of Herbert as “Pastor George,” a shepherd of souls (including my own). Early in his career, he held an important position as the public orator of the University of Cambridge. He served briefly as a member of Parliament. And eventually God led him to pastor a tiny rural church in the agricultural town of Bemerton, near Salisbury.

Great spiritual poets awaken us to the sweetness of spiritual realities, the devastation of sin, and the majesty of God.

Herbert served as an Anglican priest for three years until dying at the age of 39. By all accounts, he was a devoted and attentive pastor to the farmers of Bemerton. Only after his death were his poems published. So, as the people of Bemerton walked past his manse, they weren’t thinking, There lives the famous poet. They knew him as the pastor who loved and cared for them.

As you read the poems, it becomes clear that Herbert wrote in order to spiritually shepherd readers. All pastors (and all Christians) can benefit from experiencing a world-class talent using his remarkable gifts in humble, devoted service of Christ and his people.

Beyond your book, where should readers go to learn more about Herbert and his work?

I’d recommend beginning with two excellent and accessible books by the English author and churchman John Drury. Drury edited Penguin’s edition of Herbert’s poems, The Complete Poetry, and in that volume his comments on the poems are consistently insightful and illuminating. In Drury’s biography Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert, he masterfully weaves together skillful analyses of Herbert’s poems with a historically astute account of Herbert’s life.

If you could only pick one of Herbert’s poems to take to a desert island, which would it be? Why?

I love and have been shaped by “Aaron,” “Love (III),” “Prayer (I),” “Faith,” and many others. But I’d choose a poem that’s not as well known or anthologized: “The Glance.”

That poem is about God finding Herbert wallowing in sin and looking upon him, drawing him into relationship as he felt “a [sugared] strange delight.” Herbert knows that God’s look has sustained him through the many trials of his life, and in the last stanza of the poem, he lets his imagination play and his hope rise—if God’s first glance was so powerful,

What wonders shall we feel, when we shall see
Thy full-ey’d love!
When thou shalt look us out of pain,
And one aspect of thine spend in delight
More then a thousand sunnes dispurse in light,
In heav’n above.

For my money, this is one of the most beautiful, hopeful poems in the English language. On that desolate island, I’d want it with me.

But wait, it gets worse.

That matches the percentage of pro-life people in the general population, which means there’s no longer any significant correlation between regular church attendance and the likelihood of being pro-life.

But wait, it gets even worse.

The same study found that about 20 percent of regular churchgoers had “paid for, encouraged, or chosen to have an abortion.”

And that means “there was no significant correlation between being born again, how often one attends church, or how frequently one reads the Bible and the likelihood of having had an abortion,” the study authors wrote.

Whatever strategy Christian churches and families are using to disciple young people in this area, it isn’t working.

Herbie Newell knows this problem better than most. He’s the president and executive director of Lifeline Children’s Services, which offers counseling for unplanned pregnancies, support for at-risk families, and adoption services.

“Parents must intentionally teach a gospel sexual ethic and gospel family ethic,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be talking points from a pro-life rally or the March for Life. It can just be, like Deuteronomy 6:7 tells us, teaching as we go.”

Newell has done this himself.

“My wife and I never wanted to take for granted that just because our kids were hanging around pro-life ministry, they were going to see and understand the biblical ethics of pro-life ministry and human sexuality,” he said.

The Gospel Coalition asked Newell for his best tips on teaching kids how to value life, on how to resist cultural support for abortion, on handling teen romances, and on setting a good example for your kids, whether you’re married or not.

It’s heartbreaking and confusing that in 2025, less than half of churchgoers called themselves pro-life. How can we raise our kids to clearly value life?

This can start early. On birthdays, when your children are young, look back at pictures of Mom when she was pregnant with them. Look at their birth pictures, in the hospital or coming home. Talk about how excited you were to find out you were pregnant, to hear their heartbeat, and to feel them kicking in the womb. Talk about how they were fearfully and wonderfully made. Reinforce that life is sacred and precious.

As they get older, talk about gender. Who in your family is a boy? Who is a girl? Celebrate the roles of each person in your family—Dad, Mom, and siblings. Talk about how God created us to live together, to be in community with each other and with him.

When it’s age-appropriate, talk with them about sex. Don’t leave this to their fifth-grade science class or social media. I remember how awkward it was for me to do this, but talking about it meant those topics were not taboo anymore. It became easier for my kids to ask their questions.

As you explain the physical act, talk about God’s plan for that—why it’s good, perfect, complementary. Talk about how marriage is a picture of Christ and the church.

This is great. But we know we aren’t the only influences in our children’s lives, and some cultural voices can be loud. What do we do when our kids encounter other views on sexuality and family?

We want our kids to rub shoulders with people who aren’t like them—culturally, ethnically, socioeconomically, religiously. When we put them in places where they start to see something different, then we can be the ones to answer their questions, and we can reinforce their Christian worldview.

Before our kids were born, my wife was the director of a crisis pregnancy center. I have been the director of an adoption and foster care ministry for the last two decades. Our kids would ask questions like, “Where’s so-and-so’s dad?” or “How did she get pregnant when she’s not married?”

While not everyone works daily in pro-life ministry, similar questions might come up as your children encounter situations at school or even as they watch TV or movies.

In fact, media is so influential that when our kids are watching or listening to something, we should be close enough that we can hear what’s contrary to a biblical ethic or worldview.

And then we have to address it. When your kids ask questions about missing fathers or two moms, don’t shy away from answering—those are opportunities for discipleship. You can let them know what’s going on honestly (and age-appropriately), and then explain why we believe what we believe.

When your kids ask questions about missing fathers or two moms, don’t shy away from answering—those are opportunities for discipleship.

It’s also important to ask them questions: What did you enjoy about that show? What didn’t you enjoy? Did you notice the dad wasn’t providing for his family? Did you notice the couple wasn’t married? What did you think about that? How would you want to do that differently? What do you think is God’s design?

You don’t have to be formal—just talk as you go. “Hey, that’s interesting. That’s not how God would want it. I wish they wouldn’t have made those choices.”

Now that my kids are older, they’ll make comments when we watch something: “I wish he didn’t have to be such a womanizer.” “I wish that couple had been faithful to one another.” “Why do shows seem to normalize alternative lifestyles?”

They’re pointing out things that are contrary to God’s will. As parents, we can help them digest the differences between what they’re seeing and what’s true and orderly—and why.

That’s good advice. What about disordered sexuality that comes into our homes through the internet? Covenant Eyes tells us 75 percent of Christian men and 40 percent of Christian women consume pornography regularly. We also know the average age a child views pornography is 12.

There are many ways to fence your internet beyond pornography-blocking software. You can require a password (that a parent keeps) every time your child wants to access the internet. You can block your child from clearing his history. Covenant Eyes will take discreet screenshots from a device and alert an accountability partner. You can have your child’s time on screen and internet searches sent to you regularly.

These are all helpful. But underneath the logistics, consuming pornography is a heart issue. My wife and I talked with our teen son about the objectification of women—remember those pictures or videos are of someone’s daughter, maybe someone’s mom. Certainly they’re of someone made in the image of God. Matthew 5:28 says if you look at a woman lustfully, you’ve already committed adultery with her in your heart.

Everyone needs accountability, no matter what gender or how old you are. I always tell my kids, “Accountability is the friend of integrity.”

And I don’t mean telling someone about your sin so that person doesn’t feel so bad about his or her own sin. I mean friends who will hate sin with you and who will love you enough to help you run from it.

I love that. And of course, accountability also comes into play when your child begins to have relationships with significant others. How did you handle that?

When our children were younger, we’d say, “If it’s in the Lord’s will, you may get married someday. What are some characteristics you’d want in your spouse?”

One time my son said, “Well, I would want my wife to be just like Mom.” That was a good moment for my wife.

We’re not putting that future spouse on a pedestal, or saying that if he or she doesn’t meet some definition of perfection that you shouldn’t marry that person. But we are starting to set a standard.

As they got older, we also talked about displays of affection, about how that’s a slippery slope. We explained that sex is like a fire. It keeps you very warm if it’s in the fireplace. But if it gets outside of the bounds of where it’s supposed to be, it can burn everything down.

As my children have begun dating, I have encouraged them to have at least two other godly men or women, besides my wife and me, who will ask them about their relationships—not just the physical aspects but the emotional too. I have really seen them take this counsel to heart, and it is working in their lives.

You’re doing such a great job of teaching your kids. Do you think the example you’re setting in your home—of a healthy Christian marriage—is an even more effective witness?

I think even broken homes can be a witness.

Single moms and dads can teach God’s truth, even in the middle of situations that aren’t ideal. I know of single moms who teach God’s Word around the kitchen table while praying over their children. They encourage their children to have a relationship with their fathers, even when it is difficult.

I’ve seen single parents instill in their children a desire for a godly spouse who will love them and stick with them through hard things. Instead of scaring their children away from marriage, they hold up God’s ideal, while also finding godly and healthy examples of marriage for their children to witness.

Even in hard situations, you can be there for one another. You can even laugh through hard things, because you know where true joy is found.

One essential resource for that is the local church. At Lifeline, we equip churches to have parenting classes or mentoring programs for single moms, especially if they’ve gone through an unplanned pregnancy or lost their kids to foster care. The true help they need, after a relationship with Jesus, is the community that comes from a church.

Truly, we can only have joy and grace in hard situations because of the gospel. But we still stumble. What would you say to parents who have failed, or whose children have failed, on this front?

Remember, we aren’t teaching our kids these truths from a legalistic perspective, but because we know they’re going to fall short. Our children will mess up because we all mess up. We fail to meet Christ’s standard, which is why we need the grace of Christ.

Single moms and dads can teach God’s truth, even in the middle of situations that aren’t ideal.

As parents, it’s good to remember we can’t do this without Christ—we too are going to fall short. This is why he came to redeem us and has called us according to his purpose.

If we don’t preach that there’s redemption and hope, even for a young man fighting pornography or a single mom raising her children, then the only answer is society’s answer—addiction and abortion.

But there is redemption. And because that’s true, all of our failing is a witness, pointing back to the glorious nature of the gospel of Christ Jesus.

Online influencers who look 10 to 20 years younger than they are due to various products and procedures are setting the bar for beauty expectations, and the standards seem increasingly unattainable. Millions of women are flocking to get eyelash extensions, Botox, lip injections, breast implants, laser treatments—the list is never-ending. Not to mention the creams and serums that clutter our bathroom counters.

Beauty products and procedures have become so normalized that they may seem like a “to each her own” choice. But as believers called to glorify God in our bodies (1 Cor. 6:20), we need to evaluate our approach to beauty interventions in light of God’s Word.

Reflection, Not Rules

While there are no black-and-white rules for how believers should or shouldn’t fight aging with these modern techniques, three reflection questions can help us honor the Lord in this area.

1. What are my motives for using this treatment, and do they honor the Lord?

With the rise of body dissatisfaction and the normalization of many beauty treatments, we need to take time to examine our hearts and consider why we’re drawn to these interventions: Am I doing this for acceptance or others’ approval? Am I trying to bolster my sense of self-worth? Am I simply following cultural trends without evaluating them in light of my faith?

We’re called to maintain and steward our bodies in healthy ways so we can use them for God’s glory (1 Cor. 6:19–20). And it’s good to show care in our physical appearance and how we present ourselves to others. But sometimes our use of cosmetic alterations and anti-aging techniques reflects a heart that prioritizes the temporal over the eternal.

As believers, the way we pursue beauty should reflect the fact that our bodies aren’t the most important thing to us. One day, God will fully renew and redeem our bodies. But for now, our job is to steward them, not try to perfect them.

Sometimes our use of cosmetic alterations and anti-aging techniques reflects a heart that prioritizes the temporal over the eternal.

Growing older, having babies, and other life events will change our faces and bodies in ways we don’t like. It’s normal to feel the sting of these changes. But if we perpetually struggle to be content with our aging bodies, prayerful reflection may reveal how we’re basing our identity on our physical appearance.

Instead, when our identity is grounded in Christ, we can be faithful and fruitful in service to him and others, regardless of how many wrinkles or varicose veins we have. Even now, I have to remind myself that my aim isn’t to be the mom who doesn’t look like she has kids. My aim is to glorify God with the body he has given me and to maintain it well so that I can be fit for every good work.

2. Do my resources reflect that my greatest love is Christ?

What we spend money on reveals what we care about. If we printed out our bank statements and calculated how much we spend on beauty products and services alongside how much we give to the Lord’s work, would the results reflect a heart that treasures Christ? If our treasure is where our heart is, then where we spend our money matters (Matt. 6:21).

But money isn’t our only resource. We also need to evaluate how much time we devote to pursuing beauty. How much time do we spend getting ready in the morning and at hair, nail, or facial appointments? How much time do we spend scrolling social media, looking for ways to have better skin, stylish hair, or a more toned body? Comparing that to how much time we spend in Bible reading and prayer is often convicting.

Of course, it’s necessary to devote some time and money to caring for our appearance, and what’s reasonable will vary from person to person. The point isn’t to prescribe limits but to prompt reflection. Perhaps if we devoted more of our resources to being physically healthy, spiritually sanctified, and sacrificially generous, we’d be more content with our bodies as they are (1 Tim. 6:6–8).

3. Do I fear aging, or do I fear the Lord?

When I look at myself in the mirror and see the crow’s-feet around my eyes, the permanent smile lines around my mouth, and the furrowed lines between my brows, the way I respond is telling. Do I turn to my phone and start searching for a new cream, or do I turn to the Lord and express my longing to be made new?

We feel sorrow over the decay we see in ourselves and the world around us that began because of the fall. When we see our reflections and say to ourselves, “I am aging,” we feel the tension that this wasn’t originally how we were meant to be. At the same time, we know that God works all things for our good, so we don’t have to fear his plan for us in aging.

In these moments of longing, we can either speak truth to ourselves or we can frantically grasp at products and procedures, trying to create an illusion of staying young. As Proverbs puts it, “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised” (Prov. 31:30).

Gray hair, cellulite, and wrinkles are part of this broken body that will one day be made new. Trying to circumvent the aging process that God ordained can make us forget the finiteness of this life (James 4:14). But reflecting on our physical deterioration offers us a chance to worship and hope in faith—rejoicing that this isn’t our eternal state (1 Cor. 15:40–58). And reminding ourselves that our hope is in God, not in our appearance or the number of days we have left, can help us navigate aging with peace and joy (Eccl. 12:13).

Fight the Good Fight

The way we pursue physical beauty tells the world around us about what we value. In contrast to our culture’s increasingly unrealistic and unhelpful beauty standards, we have the opportunity to present a joyful understanding of aging, even as we seek to maintain the bodies God has given us.

Reflecting on our physical deterioration offers us a chance to worship and hope in faith—rejoicing that this isn’t our eternal state.

It takes intentionality to think through what measures would be God-honoring and responsible for each individual. And we know the Lord ultimately looks at the heart.

When we come to the end of our earthly lives, it won’t matter how successful we’ve been at fighting the physical signs of aging. But it will matter whether we can say with Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7).

Wrinkles and sags are understandably hard to accept. But if we learn to see them as part of God’s redemptive work in our lives, we can view our bodies with a deeper awareness that aging is bringing us closer to eternity with him.

We often forget that a robust education in the classical languages and the literary classics—including the literature of Greece and Rome—was an educational staple in America’s past. Reading the Founding Fathers, it’s striking how frequently references to Greco-Roman classics roll off their pens.

But we don’t live in the 1700s. My Virginia public high school offered Latin until the year after I graduated, yet that opportunity was rare. In the 1990s, only 3.5 percent of American high school students were enrolled in Latin. Additionally, fewer schools and universities are assigning the great works of premodern civilization at any level.

And so, most adults my age and younger probably missed out on much exposure not only to the Greco-Roman classics but also to non-Western and modern classics.

What if you’ve realized as an adult that you missed out by not receiving a classical education, and now believe that your kids need the classics? It’s not too late to dive in alongside your kids. It’s worth it, too, because Christian parents need the classics for the same intellectual and spiritual benefits that make these books good for our children.

Find Your Community

It may not feel like it if you don’t know a lot of like-minded families, but classics-reading families are legion, and there’s strength in numbers. It’s no coincidence that classical Christian schools and homeschool co-ops are growing so explosively now. They’re serving children whose parents often didn’t have the education their kids are now receiving, but who realized such an education is good—for the mind, undoubtedly, but also for the soul.

It seems there’s a greater awareness right now of the shortcomings of an education not rooted in goodness, truth, and beauty. A movement is afoot to recover it. This makes it easier for parents to find community and concrete support in educating their children—and even a college admissions test alternative (the Classical Learning Test) and scholarship opportunities.

It seems there’s a greater awareness right now of the shortcomings of an education not rooted in goodness, truth, and beauty.

Finding such community isn’t only encouraging but also an avenue for accountability. Depending on your family’s needs and the resources in your area, it could take the shape of a local classical Christian school, where equipped teachers educate your children. Or it could be a homeschool co-op or just independent homeschooling, where you learn Latin and Greek alongside your kids and read aloud all the great classics of the Western canon with your family. (Lucy S. R. Austen did a War and Peace read-aloud with her family, so now we know it can be done!)

Incorporate Daily Reading

Read-alouds are truly wonderful, and they remind us of another important truth. It’s not just kids who need to keep learning—parents do too. Your continued education matters. The Christian life has always been one of continued learning and growth.

The conversion stories of Augustine and, more recently, C. S. Lewis revolve around a lifelong love of books that ultimately led to God. That’s part of my conversion narrative too. The Bible also contains multiple books of wisdom literature, which means we must continue to learn and grow in wisdom.

Daily Bible reading should take chief priority in our quest for growth. But it isn’t the only kind of reading we should be doing.

There’s no question that daily Bible reading should take chief priority in our quest for growth. But it isn’t the only kind of reading we should be doing.

For people of the Book, books are an integral part of everyday life. Reading the Early Church Fathers, in particular, makes that abundantly clear. Yes, writers like Tertullian, Cyprian, and Athanasius were steeped in Scripture. They also knew the canon of classical literature—some of it by heart.

If (as The Lamp’s editor Matthew Walther encourages) you adopt the habit of reading 100 pages every day—a doable goal for many—you’ll get through two to three books per week, and well over 100 in a year. And if you can only read 30–50 pages a day, you could still read a book a week—and about 50 books a year.

Build Your Home Library

The best thing you can do for your entire family is to invest in a good home library. And when I say “invest,” I don’t mean you have to spend a lot of money. We live in an era of cheap mass paperbacks of classics and regular library sales where you can buy books by the bag.

It’s never been easier to amass a good home library—and having a home library will help you build a family culture centered around the virtues of goodness, truth, and beauty that are inspired by great books. Podcasts such as my Christians Reading Classics are also useful resources, whether you’re getting started on this journey or need encouragement along the way.

Having the classics on your shelves makes reading them more likely. Visible books invite parents and children alike to savor stories of other worlds and places and times, enjoy the twists and turns of a good plot, and live at a slower pace—dwelling on the timeless ideas on the page rather than the rapidly moving news cycle.

In a world where too many things that aren’t good, true, or beautiful vie for our attention, the classics helps us order our affections rightly—first and foremost toward God, and then toward a flourishing life filled with great stories to share with those around us.

Since the year 2000, religion in America has changed dramatically. As recently as the 1990s, religion in America was what Tim Keller called “thick”: In general, many clergy were held in high esteem, churches were respected, and people either belonged to a congregation or knew that would be a good idea.

Yet since 2000, the percent of religious Americans has dropped and the number of nones (no religion) has jumped up from 8 percent to 22 percent—and climbing.

So while social commentators lament how much time Americans spend on our screens, describe how views on sexuality have drastically changed, identify how our politics have become sharply polarized, and observe how mental health especially in Gen Z has declined, they often miss the biggest story of all, the one underneath all the others—the decline in attention and deference to God.

In This Episode

00:00 – The Great Dechurching: belief vs. disaffiliation

00:32 – Sarah hosts: why a 30,000-foot view now

03:26 – Factfulness and why we overlook positive trends

05:00 – #10: Global church leadership moving south

09:02 – Theological education hasn’t moved south at the same pace

10:03 – #9: Rise of nondenominational congregations

14:49 – Data point: nondenominationalism grows from 3 percent (1972) to 14–15 percent today

17:27 – Why churches drop denominational labels; media amplification; scandal-by-association

20:00 – #8: China’s church growth—and crackdown

22:07 – India, Hindu nationalism, and persecution; Nigeria and the Africa frontier

25:41 – #7: The dechurching of America

30:24 – Apologetics after dechurching: from hostility to apathy

34:25 – Are churches fewer but stronger?

36:39 – Retention vs. conversion: why evangelical identity declines less

39:09 – #6: The Great Awokening (Ferguson to Floyd)

47:20 – Four paradigms for navigating race in America

52:44 – Wrap-up: part 2 teaser

53:10 – Outro and where to find the podcast/newsletter

Resources Mentioned:

• Factfulness by Hans Rosling
• The Reason for God by Tim Keller
• Making Sense of God by Tim Keller
• A Secular Age by Charles Taylor
• Divided by Faith by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith
• The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby
• We Have Never Been Woke by Musa al-Gharbi

SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen Things.

Help The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Donate today.

Don’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube
• TGC Updates

After watching a year of fighting at Lebanon’s southern border, citizens of Beirut saw the missile strikes arrive in their city, where I live and pastor, in late summer 2024. Though embassies urged citizens to leave and missions organizations pulled out, our elders and their families chose to stay because so many in our church didn’t have the privilege of leaving.

As the primary preaching pastor, I didn’t know how I could preach the gospel of the kingdom and encourage the church with Paul’s words—“The sufferings of the present time are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18, CSB)—then leave because of the difficulties.

It’s hard to describe the nonstop buzzing of drones over Beirut during those months, the daily breaking of the sound barrier by Israeli fighter jets, and the near-daily explosions from missiles that took down buildings. Preparing sermons under these conditions was challenging, but by God’s grace our church gathered every Sunday during the war.

Now our city is again experiencing war.

Mass Displacement

About a week after the United States and Israel entered direct conflict with Iran, Lebanon was pulled into regional conflict. After a couple of days of missile strikes in Beirut, Israel issued two mass evacuation orders in Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese were told to flee their homes if they wanted to save their lives.

Mass panic ensued. Threats of mass destruction aren’t new, but Beirut was bombarded with hundreds of missile strikes more than a year ago, so the fears are fresh. It’s only in the last few months that I’ve noticed my body has stopped tensing up and my heart has stopped racing in response to loud sounds or distant rumblings. Now we’re hearing those sounds again.

Counting the Cost

Jesus teaches that a person cannot follow him without first counting the cost (Luke 14:25–33). He gives the example of a king who, before going to war, needs to sit down and decide if he’s able to confront another king with a bigger army. What is he willing to lose? What is there to gain? Does he stand a chance?

All those who follow Jesus are called to count the cost—but those who would be sent to least-reached and difficult places have a few more costs to count. Are you willing to go? Are you willing to stay?

I’ve been encouraged by some of our missionary church members who want to stay and have sought our counsel as elders in these matters. Just this morning, I had a conversation with a dear missionary couple in our church, checking in on them after a difficult night. They’re scared, and I told them that’s natural. They’re anxious; how can they not be? They don’t know what to do; that’s OK.

I told them, “This is hard, and it’s OK that it’s hard. We may end up with scars—that’s OK too. Jesus had scars . . . scars that will stay with him forever. Because of his scars, ours will heal one day. And that’s why we can stay.”

Scars for the Church

When Scripture calls the church to mourn and rejoice with one another (Rom. 12:15) and to bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2), this includes the responsibility and honor of suffering alongside one another (1 Cor. 12:26). That’s the heart of the one-anothers: We’re one with each other because we’re one with Christ. And ministers of the gospel should feel the responsibility and honor all the more.

We may end up with scars. Jesus had scars . . . scars that will stay with him forever. Because of his scars, ours will heal one day. And that’s why we can stay.

Those precious words from Hebrews 10 come to mind. “Let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching” (vv. 24–25, CSB).

For those who have been moved to go to the ends of the earth with the gospel, God strengthens us through the same gospel hope and the same means that sustain the brothers and sisters we serve—even when perseverance leaves us with scars.

A few days ago, I was speaking with this same couple about how to make decisions about staying or leaving—sharing with them the categories we consider as we think through those things—and I wanted them to hear clearly: It’s not wrong to go. And yet I told them how I’ve seen fruit over the years because we stayed.

When my brother finds his heart racing because of loud noises, I’m able to relate—and we bear one another’s burdens. When my sister is unable to sleep through the night, I get that because I struggle too. When parents worry about their children living through horrors they never wanted them to see, we can pray together and trust God together.

These scars and sufferings reflect Jesus’s scars and sufferings. And as we live by faith in the One who died for us, we’re able to “carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed in our body. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’s sake, so that Jesus’s life may also be displayed in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor. 4:10–11, CSB).

These are the privileges of staying. “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25), and we can reflect that love in giving ourselves away to one another.

Scars for the Lost

Staying and bearing scars also gives us an opportunity to share Jesus’s love. This was true in Paul’s life, and he rejoiced that his suffering served to advance the gospel to the nations (Col. 1:24–29).

It’s not wrong to go.  And yet I’ve seen fruit over the years because we stayed.

Too many people only know the brokenness of this world and not the healing and renewal available in Jesus. They don’t know about the God who stepped into the brokenness—the God whose body was broken for us. They don’t know the scars that save or, as Isaiah said it, the wounds that heal (Isa. 53:5). But we are a people who know the suffering Servant.

To suffer is to be human—it’s part of living in this broken world—but because of the cross, we can suffer with hope. We may get scars for staying through hard times, and that’s OK. We can entrust them to Jesus because we know the healing that’ll come.

At the core of Christian answers to these contemporary questions is a theological assertion: Human identity is grounded in the truth that God has created us in his image. But that biblical fact raises another key question: What does it mean for a human being to be created in God’s image?

One of the most influential and long-lasting books that seeks to answer that question celebrates its 40th anniversary this year: Created in God’s Image by Anthony Hoekema. The church should be thankful for Hoekema’s contribution to theological anthropology and for how it equips us for today’s complexities.

Groundbreaking Contribution

Anthony Andrew Hoekema (pronounced HOO-ku-mu) was born in the Netherlands in 1913, immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1923, and received his education at Calvin College, the University of Michigan, Calvin Theological Seminary, and Princeton Theological Seminary.

Hoekema was a minister in the Christian Reformed Church, serving in three churches, then taught for two years as professor of Bible at Calvin College before becoming professor of systematic theology at Calvin Theological Seminary in 1958. He stayed in that position until 1979, then died in 1988.

The church should be thankful for Hoekema’s contribution to theological anthropology and for how it equips us for today’s complexities.

Created in God’s Image is a well-developed, groundbreaking contribution to theological anthropology from a Reformed perspective. Though a third of the book treats the doctrine of sin, it’s Hoekema’s contributions to our doctrine of humanity that stand out today.

His analysis begins in the book’s first chapter. As one might expect, Hoekema rejects both materialism (an anthropology that insists a human person is only physical in nature) and idealism (an anthropology that declares human nature is immaterial only). Instead, he advocates for a version of holistic dualism or psychosomatic (body and soul) unity.

Hoekema covers humanity’s position in the cosmos as created beings (chap. 2) before launching into a sustained discussion of the image of God (chap. 3). He then gives a historical sketch of the development of this doctrine through church history (chap. 4). Next, his “theological summary” (chap. 5) has several key highlights.

Holistic Vision of the Imago Dei

Hoekema notes that because human beings are created in God’s image and likeness, we are to mirror and represent him. “When one looks at a human being, one ought to see in him or her a certain reflection of God,” and “like an ambassador from a foreign country . . . so man (both male and female) must represent the authority of God . . . and must seek to advance God’s program for this world” (67–68).

He also argues that the whole person—both one’s immaterial aspect (or soul) and one’s material aspect (or body)—is the image of God. Here, Hoekema agrees with Herman Bavinck, that the image extends to humans in their entirety.

Nothing in man is excluded from the image. . . . And he is that image totally, in soul and body, in all faculties and powers, in all conditions and relationships. Man is the image of God because and insofar as he is true man, and he is man, true and real man, because and insofar as he is the image of God (Hoekema’s translation).

Interacting with two common understandings of the divine image—the structural view (what kind of being a person is, especially in terms of rationality and morality) and the functional view (what a person does, especially in terms of worshiping and ruling)—Hoekema weds the two and transposes a traditional Reformed discussion onto them.

From a structural perspective, God’s image has a formal, or broader, aspect; humanity has been endowed with the gifts and capacities necessary to function as it should in its relationships and its exercise of dominion. From a functional perspective, God’s image has a material, or narrower, aspect; at creation, humanity possessed knowledge of God, righteousness, and holiness (Hoekema references Col. 3:10 and Eph. 4:24).

Distorted and Restored

Hoekema rightly sees that God’s image wasn’t totally lost in the fall but rather significantly distorted (Hoekema appeals to Gen. 9:6 and James 3:9, where fallen human beings are addressed as image-bearers).

In perfect relationship with God at creation, human beings possessed the divine image in both the structural/broader and material/narrower sense. But after their fall into sin, and because of their rebellion against God, human beings only retain the divine image in the structural/broader sense (though it’s marred) while we’ve lost the image in the functional/narrower sense.

Redemption includes the renewal of the divine image. Specifically, in its structural aspect, Christians experience restoration of our reasoning, morality, and volitional capacities as we learn to worship God and to respond in faithful obedience to him. In its functional aspect, Christians regain true knowledge of God, grow in righteousness, and progress in holiness.

In this renewal process, believers are more and more conformed to Jesus Christ. He is the “image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15; see 2 Cor. 4:4) into whose image we’re being transformed through the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18) and the Word (1 Pet. 2:2).

Specifically, Hoekema argues that Christ functioned in a threefold relationship:

1. He was “wholly directed toward God”; he didn’t come to accomplish his own will but that of the Father.

2. Christ was “wholly directed toward the neighbor,” ready to meet human needs for healing, food, and forgiveness. As he himself affirmed, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10, NIV 1984).

3. He “rules over nature” as he stilled the storm that threatened to destroy his disciples; walked on water; directed a miraculous catch of fish; multiplied loaves and fish; changed water into wine; freed demonized people from oppression; healed the sick, lame, blind, deaf, and leprous; and raised people from the dead.

Building on this threefold relationship that was true of Christ, the perfect image-bearer, Hoekema proposes that human beings, created and being renewed in God’s image, must function in these areas as well.

1. In terms of being directed toward God, human image-bearers must acknowledge we owe our existence to him, live dependently on him, and are primarily responsible to him.

2. As directed toward our neighbor, human image-bearers are characterized by sociality rather than isolation. Hoekema recognizes that this has particular and distinct applications for male and female image-bearers: “Not only is man incomplete without woman and woman incomplete without man; man is also incomplete without other men and woman is also incomplete without other women. . . . Man cannot be truly human apart from others” (77).

3. In terms of ruling over nature, God has given all human image-bearers the cultural mandate to “subdue [the earth] and exercise dominion” over the rest of the created order. Image-bearers are God’s vice-regents, ruling over nature as his representatives through using the earth’s resources, cultivating land, and developing agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry, science, technology, and art.

Advancing Theological Anthropology

From this overview, we can see that Hoekema curated numerous ideas from the theological anthropologies that preceded him, and he advanced them to a greater or lesser degree, even anticipating trends that persist today.

First, while Hoekema started with a discussion of God’s image according to biblical teaching (chap. 3), he didn’t begin with a traditional study of key terms (e.g., body, soul, spirit, heart). Rather, he delayed his word study for his penultimate chapter (chap. 11), even then (untraditionally) concluding that these terms (1) are often used interchangeably in Scripture and (2) underscore human beings’ body-soul unity rather than naming the disconnected parts of human nature.

This approach helped him—and thus helps us—cut through the classic and unsatisfying debate over dichotomy and trichotomy, and pioneered the contemporary embrace of human personhood as a psychosomatic unity.

Second, following Bavinck, Hoekema’s insistence that the divine image is holistic—especially his inclusion of the material aspect, or body, in the image—broke from theological anthropology’s traditional elevation of the immaterial soul over the body. With its emphasis on embodiment, Created in God’s Image paved the way for evangelical resources like Matthew A. Lapine’s The Logic of the Body and my Embodied that both confront transgender ideology and equip the church to provide care for people wrestling with gender dysphoria, or who have undergone gender-transition surgeries.

Hoekema’s insistence on universal human dignity is essential for evangelical ethics in a world of assisted suicide and genetically engineered children.

Third, Hoekema’s emphasis that a human being “does not simply bear or have the image of God; he is the image of God” informs contemporary discussions of sex/gender, disability, illness, burnout, transhumanism, and aging.

His insistence on universal human dignity—a divinely conferred dignity that’s true even when people’s sex, ethnicity, and socioeconomic or educational statuses differ, or when their physical abilities and mental acuity fade—is essential for evangelical ethics in a world of assisted suicide and genetically engineered children.

Hoekema may not have anticipated such a complex, puzzling world, but his theological anthropology has helped to prepare us for it. He’s equipped us with the faithful theological roots we need to stand on biblical truth and provide holistic care.

When his contemporaries—such as Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds, Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost, and Jared Wilson at The Gospel-Driven Church slowed down or moved on, he kept posting at Challies.com. When multiple organizations invited him to write for them, he kept going on his own. And when online communication shifted from Facebook to YouTube to Substack, he kept posting on his own site.

Even the increasing drama of the internet didn’t slow him down.

“If your blog grows large enough, you will one day realize there is absolutely nothing you can say anymore without being criticized,” he told Joe in 2018, after 15 years of online writing. Still, he kept going—he’s now up to 14,972 posts in 23 years. Every day, he posts an original article, points to a book deal, or highlights good content from around the web.

Tim knows he’s working with an aging medium.

“If I had a dime for every time someone has asked me whether there is a future for blogs and blogging, I could probably buy Twitter,” he said in 2023.

It’s not that Tim is a dinosaur or a Luddite. In 2003, he was one of the first in the game, experimenting with blogging software Movable Type, and then WordPress, almost as soon as they were released.

It would be more accurate to say he was self-motivated, independent, and faithful. Day after day, under the tagline “Informing the Reforming,” he wrote about books, theology, and the rapidly growing Young, Restless, Reformed (YRR) movement. Hundreds, and then thousands, and then tens of thousands of people began visiting his page every day.

By 2015, Tim was writing to make a living. But he also wrote to sort out his thoughts, wrestle with others’ ideas, and clarify what he believed.

And then, five years ago, he wrote to share news.

“In all the years I’ve been writing I have never had to type words more difficult, more devastating than these,” he wrote. “Yesterday the Lord called my son to himself—my dear son, my sweet son, my kind son, my godly son, my only son.”

Thousands of people read Tim’s blog post. His son’s college put out a press release. Religious news outlets reported what happened.

“A good friend—somebody who had been tracking my career as a writer—said, ‘This is what God has been preparing you for,’” Tim said. “‘All that you’ve been doing so far has been preparing you to be faithful in this—to show the world that a Christian can suffer well before this audience he’s given you.’”

Death and Life

The first Challies immigrants arrived from the United Kingdom sometime in the mid-1800s and quickly worked their way to position and prominence. Tim’s great-great-uncle George led a toothbrush company and, separately, a toilet brush company before transitioning to a 26-year stint as a member of Ontario’s provincial parliament.

Great-grandpa John worked for the federal government as chief hydraulic engineer. Grandpa George commanded an artillery camp in World War II before becoming the associate chief judge in the Superior Court of Quebec.

But the most famous—and tragic—Challies is Tim’s aunt Nancy. She wrestled with mental illness, likely exacerbated by the torturous treatment she received at the infamous Allan Memorial Institute. When she was 20 years old, she met a boy at the Royal Military College and became pregnant. The child was placed for adoption. A few months later, she shot herself with her little brother’s gun.

Four years later, her acquaintance Leonard Cohen wrote about her in “Seems So Long Ago, Nancy.” The song debuted in the middle of his 1969 album “Songs from a Room.”

The song “heaps shame upon her family for her suicide,” Tim said. Four years after its release, Nancy’s father—Tim’s grandpa—also killed himself.

“Imagine the pain the family faced as they dealt with another suicide, another tragedy, another humiliation,” Tim wrote. “He, too, dealt with tormentuous depression, anger, and grief. When it came to be too much for him to handle, he took his life. Could a family get any lower?”

Maybe not. But it could get better.

“At about the same time my grandfather took his life, something miraculous happened in that family,” Tim wrote. “My father was given new life.”

Tim’s dad, John, was in college when Pentecostals introduced him to Christ. Thrilled with his salvation, he shared the news with the first acquaintance he saw—a girl named Barbara. Two days later, he introduced her to the couple who would lead her to the Lord. A while later, John and Barbara were married and spent part of their honeymoon in Switzerland at the Schaeffers’ L’Abri.

“Their lives were transformed by sound doctrine,” Tim said. After another year with the younger generation of Schaeffers in the English L’Abri, “they came back to Canada thoroughly convinced of Presbyterian theology.”

John and Barbara shared their faith with their families, and saw Barbara’s sister and John’s mother and sister come to know the Lord.

Stable and Unstable Childhood

But even in a Christian family, fallout from drama is hard to untangle.

“My childhood was somewhat unstable,” said Tim, who was born in 1976. “But my parents were very committed to evangelism, Word, and prayer, so their tenacious faith made up for some of that instability.”

Part of the problem was John’s occupation as a landscaper, which wasn’t the future anybody expected from the judge’s son with the philosophy degree. John took the family to Scotland while he worked on an MDiv, then took them back to Hamilton, Ontario, where he finished it.

“Then he realized he wasn’t suited for ministry, so he went back to landscaping,” Tim said.

Along the way, John and Barbara were raising their five kids in a series of Reformed churches—Anglican, Presbyterian Church in America, and Canadian Reformed. Tim went to church, catechism class, and Christian schools. He memorized questions and answers from the Heidelberg and the Westminster Shorter.

“In my teen years, I was living disobediently and really not interested in the things of the Lord,” he said. “But strangely enough, I got into Christian rock music through a friend.”

Tim began listening to the songs of Petra, Whiteheart, and Keith Green, and reading the stories of Frank Peretti.

“I started hearing about a personal relationship with the Lord from a different voice than my parents,” Tim said. “That really confronted me and challenged me—Oh, I say I’m a Christian, but I’m not living like one. That was transformative.”

When he was 15 years old, he became a Christian.

Challies.com

After high school, Tim headed to McMaster University. Four years later, he emerged with a degree in history and a serious girlfriend—one he led to the Lord and to the Heidelberg Catechism.

“That degree is not going to do you any good,” said John, who had by now gathered three degrees he wasn’t using in his day job. “Let’s sign you up for a computer training course.”

“This was back in 1998, when you could earn a one-year certification and be qualified for a job,” Tim said. He got a job in network administration, and then web design. Then he found blogging software like Moveable Type and WordPress.

In 2002, he built his own personal website—Challies.com.

“I thought it could become a family portal, where my sisters and I could share pictures of our families and interact,” he said. “There was no Facebook or Twitter or anything. And now we had these little digital cameras.”

It didn’t work. Challies.com never did catch on as a family gathering spot. After a year, Tim grew frustrated. Nobody was posting or visiting regularly. Every time he wrote something, he spent half the article explaining why it had been so long since his last post. What was the point?

“I thought, I’m going to do this every day for a year or quit,” Tim said.

Blogging

The first thing Tim needed was something to write about. Since Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life had been out for about a year, and since the Challieses were then attending a purpose-driven Baptist church, he decided to review the book.

Every day, he reviewed a chapter, posting what was good and what was concerning—namely, the handling of Scripture references, the citing of Catholic sources, and the missing gospel presentation.

By the end of the series, it was clear Tim was a logical, principled, and deeply Reformed writer.

Tim was just figuring that out himself. He and his wife Aileen had moved from the Dutch Reformed congregation when their oldest child, Nick, was born. They weren’t sure about infant baptism, and they liked the evangelistic zeal of the seeker-sensitive Southern Baptists that had dreams of planting 200 churches in 20 years.

“But it wasn’t quite as theologically accurate with Reformed theology, and he began doing more reading and more studying to try to understand why this stuff wasn’t sitting right with him,” Aileen said.

Now he had a place to do that. Less than two weeks after his final Purpose review, Tim began blogging his concerns about the movie The Passion of the Christ, released in February 2004. His review picked up on the strong Catholic undertones (most prominently seen in the character of Mary) and lack of context (why was Jesus dying?).

“This site has never experienced traffic like it has had over the past two days following my review of The Passion of the Christ,” Tim wrote. He’d been found by readers on the leading edge of what would later be called the YRR movement.

One of those readers was Justin Taylor, who was working as director of theological resources and education at Desiring God. Justin had his own popular blog and was often engaging with others online.

“Tim was one of the best-known bloggers, and people paid attention to what he did,” Justin said. “At one point in my life, I had foxnews.com as my default home setting. I would go there every day to see what had happened. In the evangelical world, Tim’s blog was that default site for a lot of people.”

Growing

After a few months, Justin asked Tim if he’d be willing to liveblog the Desiring God conference in October 2005.

“It was before streaming, and at that time a lot of people were really intrigued by this movement,” Tim said. “When there were conferences, people really cared who was there and what was said.”

So he sat in the back of a large auditorium, typing as fast as he could. He spent his breaks searching for a wi-fi connection so he could post updates. He listened to John Piper, Carl Ellis, and David Powlison. He loved it—if given the chance to go again, he’d go “in a heartbeat,” he wrote.

He was asked to go again, but didn’t have to wait that long to liveblog another Reformed conference. He worked the 2006 Shepherd’s Conference, the inaugural Together for the Gospel conference, and WorshipGod06.

Like a lot of early blogging, those posts sound informal, relaxed, intimate. Tim took funny pictures, outed Justin for having Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman as his laptop background (“It was my wife’s!” Justin says), and passed along public greetings for attendees (“Amy, Russ and Reagan say ‘Hi!’”).

“Anybody who followed Tim got to hear live updates,” Justin said. “That raised his profile, and it raised the conference’s profile.”

And together, they were raising the profile of YRR. Over the next three years, Tim liveblogged another 14 Reformed conferences. Over and over, he summarized gospel-centered messages from men such as Mark Dever, John MacArthur, and Don Carson.

Tim was having a great time, but liveblogging doesn’t pay the bills—most of the time, all it pays is free conference admittance and, if you’re lucky, travel expenses. To make things worse, toward the end of 2005, Tim was laid off from his company.

Instead of looking for another employer, he launched his own web design company, which both paid the bills and freed his schedule for conference travel.

Around the same time, Tim and Aileen shifted the family to a Reformed Baptist congregation. By the next year, their pastor, Paul Martin, was traveling with Tim to conferences. A few years later, they needed a van to haul men from their church down to Together for the Gospel.

The growth was everywhere—in the number of conference attendees, blog readers, and YRR adherents. By 2007, Challies.com was getting around 175,000 visitors a month, and Collin Hansen was interviewing Tim for the book Young, Restless, Reformed.

“When I think back to the early days of the movement, I think it was youthful in its enthusiasm but also immature in its lack of wisdom and graciousness,” Tim said. “It had plenty of zeal, but little knowledge. It was like 1 million people were all in cage-stage Calvinism at the same time.”

Discernment Blogger

Tim was in the cage with them.

It was almost inevitable: He was in a Reformed church, reading Reformed blogs, and listening to hours of the best Reformed preaching at every notable Reformed conference. He was also reading books—in the first three years, he reviewed 260 books, many of them with titles like Getting the Gospel Right by R. C. Sproul, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church by Mark Dever, or Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J. I. Packer. (To date, he’s reviewed more than 1,000.)

Bright and logical, Tim had no problem spotting theological errors. He was so good at it that his first book, published by Crossway in 2007, was titled The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment.

But it wasn’t long before that led to trouble.

“I was becoming essentially a discernment blogger,” Tim said. “I would not want to go back and read some of my early stuff. I was rude, condescending, young, and just kind of gross. . . .  I realized if I wrote a positive article about somebody, it would get a fraction of the attention as if I wrote a negative article about somebody. And so I was doing more of that. I was focusing a lot on numbers and traffic. It was very, very unhealthy.”

After a while, his conscience began to convict him.

“The Lord really helped me see that I was becoming insufferable,” he said. “I was becoming somebody I didn’t like through this relentless focus on negativity.”

He decided to shift his discernment from “griping and complaining” to “lead people to the truth in love.” Importantly, he also quit tracking his numbers—even now, if you ask how many people read his blog, he doesn’t usually know.

“Once a year or twice a year, I take a look and send that out to advertisers,” he said. That’s key, because by 2006, Tim was earning enough from Amazon affiliate links, patrons, and advertisers to cut down on his web design job and work full-time on the website. Publishers, too, began to notice the difference a Challies review would make for book sales. Some began asking him for a heads-up when he was about to post a review, so they could supply extra copies to Amazon.

Tim kept at it until 2010, when he added another full-time job as an associate pastor at his church.

“I can’t even tell you how important it was—it showed me how complicated people’s lives are,” Tim said. “Those first few years changed me as I got to love and understand people more.”

“Caring about the local church had a discernible effect on him,” Justin said. “Pastoring people affected how he thought and how he wrote—in a good way.”

Tim stayed on staff at the church until 2015, when he could no longer manage the weight of a full-time pastoral position and a full-time blog. This was exacerbated by nerve damage in his hands and arms from doing so much writing—in addition to the blogs, Tim’s written 17 books and 2 ebooks.

Tim can only type for three to four hours a day, which is a severe mercy, Aileen said. It opens up time for reading, having coffee with church members, and spending time with his family—Aileen, daughters Abby and Michaela, and, for 20 years, his son Nick.

My Dear Son, My Godly Son, My Only Son

Nothing about Nick’s death was private.

That’s not because he was a public person—while Tim was well known, he didn’t write often about his kids. Nick didn’t have social media. And he was introverted—“When he was my intern, I told him he had to meet two new people every Sunday,” Paul remembers.

In early November 2020, Nick was playing a game with his fiancée, his sister, and some friends at Boyce College when his heart slipped into an unsustainable rhythm and stopped. No one—his friends, a passing doctor, or the responding emergency team—could revive him.

Within minutes, much of campus knew. Tim and Aileen got a text from Abby’s boyfriend: “I don’t know if you heard, but Nick collapsed. They think he had a seizure. They think he’s breathing.”

But he wasn’t. Nick was already gone.

Tim and Aileen traveled through the night to get to Louisville. On the plane, Tim was already writing.

“Question and answer one of the Heidelberg Catechism says I am not my own,” Tim said. “I belong, in body and soul, in life and death, to my faithful savior Jesus Christ. I’m not here to tell my story. I’m here to tell God’s story. And if this is part of what he’s given me, the best I can understand God’s providence is he would want me to keep testifying.”

Tim and Aileen stewarded their suffering, in part, by sharing it with others. Even before Nick’s funeral, strangers were watching them.

“I am heartbroken for Tim,” wrote one follower. “He’s been a solid resource for me over the past three years, a calm, quiet voice in a world of hot takes and chest-thumping. I’ll pray for his family!”

“As a new father I broke down crying when I saw [the news of Nick’s death],” wrote another. “I cannot imagine the pain his family is going through right now. I was greatly encouraged by the words he said, but we will be praying for his family.”

More than 25,000 people watched Nick’s memorial service in Louisville, live-streamed because of COVID-19. A few weeks later, 7,000 people logged on to see Nick’s funeral in Toronto.

All the way through, Tim kept blogging, sharing updates a month out (“Our grief is not what it was in the first days. It’s both better and worse”), six months out (“In some ways it feels like more than that, but in so many more it feels like less”), a year out (“As I look back on the most difficult of years, I also look back on the most blessed of years”). He shared the cause of death, when the cemetery staff laid new sod over the grave, and how he’d begun taking coffee to Nick’s grave.

“The anchor holds,” he told readers. “My faith, my anchor, has held, but not because I have been rowing hard, not because I have been steering well, not because I am made of rugged stuff, not because I am a man of mighty faith. It has held fast because it is held firm in the nail-scarred hands of the one who died and rose for me.”

Afterward

“Tim and Aileen both have grown in godliness, [into] deeper humility, in sensitivity to people,” Paul said. “It’s more than going through a trial. It’s working through things with the Lord. I look at my friend and think, He’s a different man. And I love him more because of it. I see more of the Lord in him.”

Tim is a different person doing largely the same things he did before—caring for his wife and daughters, serving as an elder in his church, traveling to attend conferences (now as a speaker), and writing.

“I’m a capable writer,” he said. “I enjoy writing, but I’d like to think there’s some someday coming, maybe in my 60s, when I’m going to fully hit my stride.”

He might be right. Paul, who likes to kid Tim about how long his early posts were, said “his writing has improved because he can say so much more in fewer words.”

Justin agreed: “With Nick’s death, his writing jumped to a whole new level. It’s economical, it’s thoughtful, and it’s well said.”

And it’s in the same place—Challies.com.

“Tim has marched to the beat of his own drummer as he has faithfully followed his Savior,” Justin said. “Most bloggers ended up writing under an umbrella ministry or magazine, but Tim has stayed independent. Most bloggers did their work as a side gig, but Tim has made a career out of it. Most bloggers dropped out along the way, but Tim soldiered on, without fanfare and with remarkable faithfulness in the same direction.”

For years, Tim has been edifying readers with sound doctrine and good recommendations, Justin said. “He’s a dinosaur who is not extinct because he is also a creative entrepreneur. As he has invited us into his life through the years, we have watched him walk through unimaginable tragedy, and witnessed a man who has leaned deeper into the Lord and the body of Christ.”

Tim’s assessment is simpler: “It’s just the record of one person as he lives out the Christian life.”

In Bavinck, we find the ground zero for many of the ways Christians in the 21st century speak about how to analyze, critique, and evangelize the late-modern world. His writings are the primary sources for concepts that have been so taken for granted that they’re used without definitions: common grace, Christianity as a worldview, and subversive fulfillment.

Oddly enough, however, Bavinck’s main works were untranslated until recently, with his four-volume Reformed Dogmatics translated in 2008 and other seminal texts like Christian Worldview and Christianity and Science as late as 2019 and 2023. Concepts like “worldview” and “common grace” have received a life of their own in Anglophone Christianity apart from the source that first articulated these notions.

In Bavinck, we find the silent influence behind many of the most formative minds in American evangelicalism and Reformed theology—figures like Keller, Francis Schaeffer, and Louis Berkhof. This is why, in Gayle Doornbos’s and my forthcoming book, The Essential Herman Bavinck, we seek to reintroduce his core texts in one volume, and why The Keller Center is including a session on Bavinck in a cohort on major figures in cultural apologetics.

In Bavinck, one finds the ground zero for many of the ways Christians in the 21st century speak about how to analyze, critique, and evangelize to the late-modern world.

Let’s consider the answers to three questions: Who was Bavinck? What were his major writings? And how does his work inform cultural apologetics for today?

Who Was Bavinck?

Bavinck was one of the first-generation Dutch neo-Calvinists who, along with his colleague Abraham Kuyper (1837–1920), sought to convey confessional Reformed orthodoxy to late-modern society and its holistic implications to every area of life.

A child of the Secession of 1834 (Afscheiding) that separated from the established Dutch Reformed Church (Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk), Bavinck grew up in the wake of the 1848 revolutions that granted religious freedom and toleration to the once-persecuted Seceders. He inherited his family’s ambition to integrate into modern life and education from an early age. Bavinck received his education at Leiden University, which hosted a leading modernist theological faculty in Holland. He studied under the likes of Johannes Scholten (1811–85) and Abraham Kuenen (1828–91).

After finishing his doctoral work on the ethics of Huldrych Zwingli, Bavinck went on to work a brief pastorate at Franeker, before taking up a post at the Theological School at Kampen. He taught there from 1883 to 1902, during which he published the first edition of his four-volume Dogmatics. He then accepted a position at Kuyper’s recently established Free University of Amsterdam in 1902, where he focused more attention on showing Christianity’s relevance for the other academic disciplines and public issues.

Bavinck was also elected as a parliamentarian in the First Chamber in 1911, representing Kuyper’s Anti-Revolutionary Party, and remained productive until his death on July 29, 1921. He was married to Johanna Adriana Schippers, and their daughter, Johanna Geziena Bavinck, was born in 1894.

Major Writings: From Kampen to Amsterdam

Bavinck’s writings fit into two major categories: those writings leading up to and during his tenure at the Theological School at Kampen (1883–1902), and then those in his Amsterdam years at the Free University (1902–21). This brief survey of his writings can only pick out a selection of the significant texts.

These works highlight Bavinck’s distinct contributions in the story of modern theology: the desire to be orthodox yet modern, the attempt to showcase the holistic implications of Christian faith, and the organic character of a Christian world-and-life view.

His works in the earlier period consisted of shorter treatises on various theological topics, culminating in the first edition of the Dogmatics. One of his first major publications was a new edition of the Synopsis purioris theologiae (Synopsis of a Purer Theology), establishing Bavinck’s connection to the earlier orthodoxy of 17th-century Dutch Reformed scholasticism while signaling his desire for further constructive work as noted in his Latin preface.

His inaugural lecture at Kampen, “The Science of Holy Theology” (1883), focused on the distinctness of theology’s grounds, character, and end. His “Catholicity of Christianity and the Church” (1888), another address delivered at the theological school, argued that catholicity extends not merely to the universality of the church’s theology  but also to the way in which Christian faith can organically transform other spheres of human life: culture, family, science, and art.

Two important essays from 1894 are worth mentioning. “Common Grace,” his rectorial address at Kampen, attributed the restraint of sin and humanity’s access to creational norms to the working of God’s general operations, which allows for the work of special grace to take place within history. Nature is thus not profane or insignificant but preserved for the redemption of special grace.

“The Future of Calvinism”––an essay that extended a lecture delivered two years prior––distinguished between Reformed theology as an ecclesial theological confession and Calvinism, which Bavinck considered a more holistic world-and-life view. While Bavinck would later emphasize that this holism is the product of Christianity in general (and not merely Calvinism in particular), in these earlier writings one already begins to see his lifelong commitment to display the leavening power of Christian faith and his desire to communicate orthodoxy well to shifting modern intellectual sensibilities concerned about immanent realities.

In the subsequent years, Bavinck continued working on his Dogmatics and Reformed Ethics, though only the former was completed and published. The first edition of Dogmatics appeared between 1895 and 1901, covering the various traditional theological loci, from prolegomena to eschatological consummation. His approach on each topic consists in moving broadly in three steps: (1) expositing the relevant biblical material on the doctrine, (2) tracing out the way in which ancient, medieval, Reformed, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, and modern theologians or philosophers have developed and articulated the material, and (3) Bavinck’s own constructive articulation of the doctrine that draws from steps #1 and #2.

Readers of the Dogmatics would thus learn much from Bavinck’s evaluative comments on the history of each doctrine, but would do well to consider each chapter as a whole and his constructive comments at the end to perceive Bavinck’s voice. Because of Bavinck’s irenic posture and the way he sympathetically described views with which he disagreed, many commentators note that locating Bavinck’s own position on a subject can be a challenging task.

While the Dogmatics was certainly his magnum opus, Bavinck constantly reconsidered and revised his stated positions on various issues. In this regard, his enlarged second edition was released between 1906 and 1911, adding, for example, sections on psychology and the science of religion. Bavinck continued to wrestle with his ideas, planning further revisions and expansions to the text (that never came to light) before his death.

During Bavinck’s Amsterdam years, he wrote three books which today stand out as a collective whole. In 1904, he published Christian Worldview and Christianity and Science. While the former work was a macrotreatise that argued for a distinct Christian treatment of the classical divisions of philosophy––epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics––the latter work tried to show how Christianity contributes to the formation of a university and its various academic disciplines.

Both works argued for the organic character of a Christian world-and-life-view––that Christianity isn’t confined to a single category of human existence (i.e., “religion”) but permeates all of life. These two works anticipated Bavinck’s 1908 Stone Lectures delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary, published as the Philosophy of Revelation (10 years after Kuyper’s own Stone lectures, published as the Lectures on Calvinism). These lectures explored the inescapability of revelation in the disciplines of higher study, treating the disciplines of philosophy, the natural sciences, religion, culture, history, and Christianity.

The next few years continued this focus on the public implications of theology, as Bavinck wrote shorter works on issues like the problem of war, pedagogy, classical education, religious psychology, unconscious life, aesthetics, and evolution. These treatments often signaled Bavinck’s ongoing wrestling with the newer questions of the 20th century.

This brief survey of Bavinck’s prolific academic output highlights his academic powers, rendering comprehensible his nomination to the literary division of the Royal Academy of Science in 1908 (his promising talents had already resulted in a nomination to the Society of Dutch Literature in 1883). Yet this shouldn’t eclipse his many ecclesial writings throughout his career. Two of his more accessible works are worth mentioning: his 1901 Sacrifice of Praise and his 1909 Wonderful Works of God (originally Magnalia Dei).

The former work was often given to a catechumen before his or her first partaking of the Lord’s Supper, for it emphasized the historical roots and importance of the public confession of faith. The latter work, a single-volume Dogmatics, was written for the modern layperson, without the copious documentation and historical surveys of the Dogmatics. Bavinck’s foreword to Wonderful Works particularly emphasized the need to engage readers afresh, for he deemed that the older works “do not speak to the younger generation” (xxxii). Readers wanting a sense of Bavinck’s mature theological views would do well to dip into Wonderful Works as a starting point into his wider oeuvre.

Contributions to Cultural Apologetics

What might we learn from Bavinck’s work for the sake of cultural apologetics? Two applications come to mind: (1) we should desire to convey classical Reformed orthodox theology into a modern intellectual milieu and (2) Christianity is holistic.

First, Bavinck’s theology conveyed that the heritage of classical Reformed orthodoxy can engage fruitfully with the insights of modern theology and philosophy. Along with Kuyper, Bavinck often conceived his neo-Calvinist position as that between “conservatism” and “modernism.” While conservatism decried the present in a nostalgic call for the past, Bavinck argued that the present age remains a remarkable opportunity to recommunicate the Christian faith in fresh ways.

One example comes to mind: his argument for the separation of church and state. Bavinck was part of a committee that argued for the removal of the clause from Belgic Confession (article 36) in which the government is called to “[upholding] the sacred ministry, with a view to removing and destroying all idolatry and false worship of the Antichrist.” Bavinck (and Kuyper) continued to believe that the Bible should inform our view of the state’s responsibility but that the state should also recognize that in this present—post-fall and pre-glory—period of history, God wants the believer and unbeliever to coexist (Matt. 13:24–30).

Thus, the state, as an institution of common grace, should recognize that it isn’t yet the period of God’s judgment and provide for the conditions for believers and unbelievers to engage in civil and public life together with relative peace. This isn’t a neutral view of the state but a biblically grounded one. For Bavinck, Christianity provides the theological resources that civil life needs: the virtues of toleration and of taking religion seriously beyond what the secular worldview can provide.

Christianity provides the theological resources that civil life needs: the virtues of toleration and of taking religion seriously beyond what the secular worldview can provide.

Instead of shying away from the modern debates and arguing that orthodox theology should bypass the academic discussions of the day, Bavinck often sought to incorporate as much of these contemporary insights as possible within the boundaries of orthodox Calvinism. James Eglinton rightly notes that Bavinck often “fought modern with modern.”

These inclinations led the neo-Calvinists to be critiqued by modernists and conservative thinkers alike––modernists argued that Bavinck and Kuyper were merely redressing fundamentalism in modern idiom, while conservatives often accused them of capitulating to the allure of the modern age. Bavinck’s 1911 oration “Modernism and Orthodoxy” addressed these charges directly. Though modernism as a secular worldview is contradictory to the gospel, modernity and orthodoxy may exist fruitfully together, simply because God’s Word addresses and fulfills the desires of every human heart in every age.

Second, Bavinck argued for the holistic and leavening implications of the Christian faith. Aware of the totalizing nontheistic ideals of the 1789 French Revolution and later of Nietzsche’s thoroughgoing nihilism, Bavinck, like Kuyper, saw it was necessary to present Christianity as a full-orbed alternative.

It was no longer viable to assume that Christianity was relevant for public life in those modern conditions, which increasingly argued that faith belonged within the ecclesial and private spheres alone. This realization led Bavinck and Kuyper to argue for theology to awaken to self-consciousness and to justify its existence not merely in the church but for every area of life.

However, while Kuyper argued for this in a deductive and perhaps inflated way, Bavinck’s method was more reserved and inductive. He argued that Christianity remained the inescapable conclusion if one patiently sifted through the data and contemporary arguments presented. He provides us with an example of patient investigation coupled with confidence in God’s Word.

In this way, Bavinck is a model for cultural apologetics: Christianity can engage any culture, any philosophy, and any time period because the gospel subverts and fulfills the desires of the human heart.

Back in the 2000s and 2010s, everyone was there. In 2001, Tim Keller founded City to City. In 2005, Mark Driscoll took over Acts 29. In 2008, the Pillar Network was born; in 2010, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) officially cannonballed in with what would become the Send Network. Harbor Network followed in 2011.

“The energy and enthusiasm about church planting in North America is at an unprecedented high,” missiologist Ed Stetzer and researcher Warren Bird wrote in 2008. Young men with beards and flannel shirts, inspired by the brashness of Driscoll and the brains of Keller, grabbed their Bibles and headed to the city centers—historically among the most difficult places to start a church.

But within a decade or two, the hype faded.

“A lot of great churches were planted, but a lot of people in that first wave also crashed and burned,” said Noah Oldham, executive director of Send Network. “Marriages fell apart, families fell apart, church planting teams had disasters.”

At the same time, the pipeline of young men dried up.

“Because it kind of happened out of nowhere, every college pastor, associate pastor, or student pastor that was hungry, ready, and gifted planted churches,” Oldham said. Once they were all sent out, “there was no backfill.”

Indeed, interest in pastoring seemed to be waning across the board. In 2017, the number of MDiv degree-seekers at evangelical seminaries began to drop.

“All this is coming together—an anxious generation, a higher degree of fragility, a lessening of resilience because of overprotection,” said Chris Vogel, church planting and vitality coordinator for the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). “A lot of the shift was students moving from wanting to be the pastor of a church to wanting to be ordained to be a counselor.”

It looked like the planting party was over.

And then, around 2021, Send Network’s numbers began to creep back up. Pretty soon, Acts 29 was seeing the same thing.

“Two years ago, we had 125 men in the planting pipeline,” Acts 29 vice president of church planting Adam Flynt said. “Today, that’s over 450 guys. In two years, it more than tripled.”

The PCA wasn’t far behind.

“In 2025, the PCA began 54 new works,” Vogel said. “That’s the highest number in 20 years.”These aren’t anomalies—church plants for all Protestant congregations rose significantly between 2019 and 2024.

It’s another party—but this one looks less like a solo planter experimenting with Bible studies in a bar and more like well-supported teams reading books about best practices. The participants are older, moving slower, and more likely to appreciate assessment and accountability.

That hasn’t been a bad thing.

“We are seeing not only the number of plants go up, but the survivability rate has increased as well,” Oldham said.

“I’m very encouraged,” Vogel said. “I think we’re at the precipice of a really good change.”

Seeker Sensitive in the Suburbs

“The last time we saw a significant number of new churches was after World War II,” Vogel said.

That’s because the large number of returning men—and the enormous number of the children they were producing—led to a housing crisis. As houses went up in the newly created suburbs around American cities, churches soon followed.

“During this period, the operative term was not so much ‘planting’ as it was ‘extension,’” Stetzer wrote. “Specific churches would partner with their denomination to extend new churches into a given area.”

But as American culture became more individualistic, so did church planting. Focus shifted from the church to the planter, Stetzer said.

This entrepreneurial focus naturally bent toward pragmatism and professionalism. Church leaders talked about the homogenous unit principle (people like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers) and seeker sensitivity (church services “designed to appeal to the unchurched, non-Christian, in an attempt to draw them into the church community where they might receive the gospel and be converted”). Those ideas soon went too far, leading to therapeutic preaching, numbers-based definitions of success, and businesslike leadership development summits.

The problems with running a church like a Fortune 500 company were so apparent that pushback arrived in multiple forms.

One of them was the Reformed movement.

Perfect Timing

In the 2000s, young men with early internet connections began to discover the doctrines of grace, expositional preaching, and the Puritans. Soon, dynamic preachers such as Piper, Keller, and Driscoll began challenging young men to use that knowledge to plant churches.

“Guys are getting this hunger: What if we could start churches like that?” Oldham said. “And the denominations and networks were saying, ‘You can.’ And the money began to come in. The timing was perfect.”

Back then, potential planters were plentiful.

“One reason was the maturing of youth ministry,” Flynt said. “Having a youth pastor was a relatively young endeavor in the church—that didn’t really occur until after the Jesus Movement in the late ’60s or early ’70s.”

It turned out to be a great place for pastoral training.

“After 10 or 20 years, you’ve done a lot of things that a senior pastor does, just on a smaller scale and with a new generation,” Flynt said. “You teach weekly, organize groups, go on trips, raise up leaders, manage budgets. The advent and maturing of youth ministry was almost like an incubator for that early push of church plantings.”

Their childhood culture also helped. The youth and associate pastors of the 2000s and 2010s were the tail end of Gen X (the least-parented, latchkey cohort) and the front end of the millennials (the confident, eager to lead generation).

“There was an independence, a ‘don’t tell me I can’t do that’ streak in that group,” Flynt said. There was also the zeal of the newly converted—Reformed blogger Tim Challies remembers that “it was like 1 million people were all in cage-stage Calvinism at the same time.”

“There was a missional vigor that rose up,” Flynt said. “They wanted to do hard things.”

Planting Hard

One of the most difficult things you can do in ministry is to plant a church. If you want to make it even harder, try planting a church in the center of a city, where religious affiliation is low and violent crime rates are high.

Not enough of a challenge for you? Try doing it alone, without a team.

“The first 8 to 10 years were like the Wild West,” Oldham said. “There was no accountability, because there was no real oversight. Networks didn’t fully exist.”

Even as they began to develop, networks didn’t necessarily offer comfort or security.

“The night before I got assessed with my previous network, one of the guys sticks his finger in my chest and says, ‘Wear a cup,’” Oldham said. “And then he looks at my wife and says, ‘Bring tissues.’ So what he just told me was he was going to kick me in the crotch and make my wife cry—these godly men who are going to assess my calling to start a church.”

Things started rough and got rougher.

“I would come to church-planting events, and I’d almost always hear the same thing,” Oldham said. “They’d say, ‘Church planting is hard and difficult. It almost killed me. Don’t do it like me.’”

But of course, the implicit—and sometimes explicit—message was: Do it exactly like him. Stay up late. Get up early. Work so hard you make yourself sick. If you can do it with almost no money or support, that’s even better.

Surprisingly, none of this deterred the church planters of the early 2000s.

In 11 years, Acts 29 went from 23 churches to 550. City to City funded and trained another 300. The PCA was planting about 50 churches a year; the SBC was adding around 1,000 annually.

Others caught the party fever too—in 2000, several nondenominational pastors started the Association of Related Churches and were averaging around 50 plants a year by 2014. But on the whole, “it was a Reformed movement,” Oldham said. “Calvinism definitely poured fuel on the fire.”

As a result, many of the 4,000 new churches in America in 2014 had good expositional preaching, a healthy plurality of elders, and solid gospel-centered theology.

“As you exposit the text and you preach it, you see the church needs to align with it,” Oldham said. “Ecclesiology is now clear. So you’re planting churches that look like the Bible. There’s clarity. There’s structure. It was like a trellis, and the church-planting movement could grow on it.”

Some of the slats in the trellis were books.

“I have books from my seminary that predate the Young, Restless, Reformed movement, and I have books I’ve read after that, and they’re vastly different,” Oldham said. “The talk of church leadership went from being very church-centric—how to run a committee or how to build a church staff—to how to lead in a city, how to be a movement leader.”

Dropoff

And then the music stopped.

By 2019, the SBC’s church-planting class was just 552—about half of what it’d been in 2014. The number of church planters in the PCA was down in the 20s. Acts 29 had dipped to just 125 planters globally.

“A number of things were happening there,” Flynt said. “One was just the maturing of the church-planting movement. . . . People didn’t just hand a youth guy a Bible and say, ‘Go start a church’ anymore. They started to ask, ‘Are you biblically qualified? Have you been trained? Do you have a team?’”

As the boomers aged, denominations were also beginning to lean into revitalization, Lifeway Research executive director Scott McConnell said. Restarting a church uses the same men who might otherwise have planted, but doesn’t code as a plant in church statistics.

The drop was also a sign of the times, as the increasingly combative conversations about politics, race, and sexuality culminated in the chaos of 2020. Pastors trying to hold their congregations together didn’t have the bandwidth to start anything new.

“We were dealing with internal hurt, not external multiplication,” Oldham said.

Not only that, but the “woke” culture—especially in conjunction with the generally screen-based, overprotected childhoods of the younger millennials—didn’t encourage bold, risk-taking endeavors. Even leading an established church seemed less appealing.

Overall, Americans planted 3,000 churches in 2019. Not only was this 75 percent of what they’d done in 2014, but it wasn’t enough to reach replacement level. About 4,500 churches closed that year.

Reboot

In 2021, signs of a new church-planting party began to appear.

“There is something happening in our culture right now,” Oldham said. “Think about what happened in the first wave of church planting—Mark Driscoll attracted young men in their 20s and 30s who were frustrated with the culture around them and saying, ‘There’s gotta be a better way.’”

Gen Z’s male frustration has been well documented.

“What if we could harness that?” Oldham said. “Let’s grab young men. Let’s equip them with the gospel. Let’s teach them to avoid the pitfalls of generations ago, and let’s plant more churches.”

It looks like that’s already happening.

“We’re seeing the rise of faith in young men outpace women for the first time in about 100 years,” Flynt said. “We’re standing on the cusp of a tremendous opportunity right now in church planting.”

Over the last two years, the number of planters in the Acts 29 pipeline more than tripled. City to City helped with 446 plants and revitalizations in 2025, up from 90 in 2020. Last year, the number of SBC church plants popped back up to 2016 levels.

But this time around, the party feels less impromptu-bash-at-the-farm and more well-planned-dinner-party.

“Our planters today don’t want the single big personality,” Flynt said. “They want serious biblical fidelity. They want to missionally engage. They want community, not just for the sake of community, but because there’s a shared mission that we’re on.”

They also want a chaperone.

“I see a lot of young guys who are eager to be trained,” Flynt said. “They’re humbling and submitting themselves to that. And that’s an incredible thing. I’ll take humility over pride any day of the week.”

At Acts 29, “there aren’t any more Lone Ranger church planters,” Flynt said. Everyone is placed in a coaching cohort, often geographically connected to one another.

Planter assessment and training are also less crazy and more considered than before. Vogel is clear on the four core competencies—gospel, emotional, relational, and leadership—that the PCA is looking for. The denomination’s assessment—now called “ministry discovery”—is gentler.

Denominations these days are less apt to pressure “every church to plant a church” and more likely to encourage several churches to plant together, Vogel said. They’re also more selective about who they’re financing, looking for close doctrinal alignment, Oldham said. And they’re more thoughtful about their support.

“We know we have to care for these guys,” he said. “We have to create a safety net. And that’s gotten better along the way.”

All of this means preparation for planting takes longer. The average age of an Acts 29 planter has “inched up over the years,” Flynt said. The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability found the average age of an American church planter rose from 36 in 2007 to 42 in 2022.

As you might expect, an older, better trained, more supported church planter is more likely to succeed. Nearly 90 percent of SBC plants now last longer than four years, Oldham said.

And since 2021, “no church plants that launched—and stayed—with Acts 29 have closed,” Flynt said.

Why Plant?

“Virtually all of the great evangelistic challenges of the New Testament are basically calls to plant churches, not simply to share the faith,” Tim Keller wrote in 2002. “Why would this be? . . . Only a person who is being evangelized in the context of an ongoing worshiping and shepherding community can be sure of finally coming home into vital, saving faith. This is why a leading missiologist like C. Peter Wagner can say, ‘Planting new churches is the most effective evangelistic methodology known under heaven.’”

Like so many of the Bible’s other commands, research backs it up.

“Congregations founded since 2000 are the most likely to be growing, and the regions most likely to see growth in the past five years are the Northeast and the West—precisely where Southern Baptists have concentrated church-planting energy,” Oldham wrote.

Plants are more likely to reach younger and more ethnically diverse populations, Lifeway found. They’re also more likely to reach non-Christians.

“In the most recent year with available data, nearly a third—29 percent—of all reported baptisms in states outside the South came from churches started since 2010,” Oldham wrote.

Those churches were started by guys wearing flannel shirts in their living rooms, young men who worked themselves sick and learned a hundred lessons along the way, and now by men leading church-planting teams to well-scouted locations.

“There are seasons,” Vogel said. “You depend on God differently in different seasons, and those seasons are never wasted. We know that personally, and Romans 8:28 is clear about it. Those moments in our history—good and bad, exciting and mundane—the Lord uses all of those to move his mission forward in the world.”

“Oh geez,” he groaned. Click. “Happy wife, happy life, I guess!” Followed by a sinister laugh and a few God-blaming expletives.

This was my introduction to a career filled with men who spoke about their wives with sarcasm, cynicism, or resigned humor. You’d think it would have turned me off to marriage. For a while, it did—until I realized the real danger wasn’t in their words but in what I was absorbing.

I started keeping an internal checklist: Never be a nag. Never have a honey-do list. Never talk too much. Always stay attractive so he won’t stray. I didn’t realize it then, but I was crafting my own version of the “perfect” wife—the one who would never be the subject of a “happy wife, happy life” complaint.

This phrase isn’t biblical, and if we’re not careful, accepting it as a principled excuse for passivity can disrupt God’s design for marriage.

Excuse for Passivity

On the surface, this common saying sounds harmless—perhaps endearing. But dig a little deeper, and the message is clear: A husband’s job is to keep his wife happy to avoid trouble. Is this what Adam thought when he stood by and let Eve take the fall?

If we’re not careful, accepting this phrase as a principled excuse for passivity can disrupt God’s design for marriage.

Genesis 1 tells us God created man and woman to steward creation together. But in Genesis 3, Adam chose passivity: “She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. . . . The man said [to God], ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate’” (vv. 6, 12).

Adam could’ve led. He could’ve slain the Serpent. He could’ve stood firm. Instead, he stayed silent and later blamed Eve (and God).

Yes, the Bible warns of quarrelsome wives (Prov. 21:9), but it also calls husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church—sacrificially, not passively (Eph. 5:25). God’s vision for marriage is mutual love and mutual respect, with husbands called to lead through humble, servant-hearted sacrifice, not appeasement.

Mark of Reluctant Compliance

Some might argue “happy wife, happy life” is just about loving gestures—giving her the bigger closet, letting her pick the movie. But the phrase rarely conveys that kind of joyful sacrifice. More often, it suggests reluctant compliance: Just say yes and avoid conflict.

This creates a distorted dynamic. The wife becomes more dominant—not necessarily through strength or virtue but often through emotional or sexual control, anger, or manipulation. The husband, rather than stepping up, disengages. She gets her way but loses his heart. He keeps the peace but forfeits respect and godly leadership. Over time, this dynamic can breed resentment and leave them both feeling unsatisfied and longing for a genuine partnership.

A strong marriage isn’t about power struggles. It’s about serving and submitting to each other in love (Eph. 5:21–33). Submission isn’t blind obedience, and love isn’t weak compliance. It requires courage, humility, and a desire to glorify God, not self.

Marriage isn’t about keeping peace at any cost. It’s about reflecting Christ’s love for the church—a love that sacrifices and sanctifies.

That kind of happiness far outweighs the temporary calm of appeasement. God’s design for marriage is good; it’s good for us, and it pleases him. Sometimes that means a wife doesn’t get what she wants. Sometimes that means a husband needs to lead and stand firm. That’s not a loss. It’s the beauty of God’s design at work.

Different Kind of Marriage

As I walked with God through singleness in my 30s, I had to unlearn the jaded lessons I’d picked up from the “happy wife, happy life” mentality in my early career. Instead of merely enduring while wanting to escape singleness, I learned to experience it as a full and meaningful season of life. I was a whole person, not waiting to become complete.

Yet I also hoped for marriage, aspiring to be the kind of woman Scripture calls an “excellent wife,” one who captures her husband’s heart because she “does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life” (Prov. 31:10–12). Those years shaped me deeply, forming my faith as I walked with the Lord in his Word and in prayer, and as I gleaned from the wisdom of godly couples.

God’s design for marriage is good; it’s good for us, and it pleases him.

When I married at 41, my husband and I committed to a different kind of marriage, one built on mutual accountability. Early on, a wise couple told us, “Pray together every day. It’s the key to a strong marriage.” We took that to heart, and in over 15 years, that habit has made us more humble, open, and dependent on God.

It’s hard to cling to control when you’re coming together before the throne of grace.

Better Kind of Adage

Since being married, I’ve heard some good-intentioned souls try to level the husband-wife playing field with a phrase like “happy spouse, happy house,” but it hasn’t caught on. Even with this phrase, the focus is on the wife and husband. There’s a better way.

In A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis writes about “a sword between the sexes till an entire marriage reconciles them.” Marriage heals this battle of the sexes, he continues, because the two of them express the fullness of humanity as they seek God together: “In the image of God created He them.”

When, as one, a husband and wife both seek God first and live out the marriage drama in love and humility, their marriage becomes joyful—not because it’s easy but because it reflects God’s glory.

For this reason, I’ll stick to the adage posted on our front door. “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Josh. 24:15).

“Look, I know your parents are Christians, but you can’t rely on their faith; you have to make their faith your own.”

Have you heard this sentiment? Parents, youth leaders, and pastors often say things like this to convey that every young person must personally place his or her faith in Christ or take initiative in spiritual matters.

If that’s all people mean, I agree theologically. But language matters, and I fear that this catchphrase has unintended effects: It perpetuates unbiblical ideas about the nature of salvation, appropriates the individualism of our culture, and promotes a subtle kind of legalism.

Salvation Belongs to the Lord

Strictly speaking, this language of making your faith your own isn’t biblical. The Bible’s testimony is that repentance is granted (2 Tim. 2:25), a new birth is necessary to see the kingdom (John 3:3), and this new birth comes from the will of God, not man (1:12–13). Additionally, faith is a gracious gift of God through Jesus (Eph. 2:8–9), the founder and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2); indeed, “salvation belongs to the LORD!” (Jonah 2:9).

The only place in Scripture we find language similar to “make your faith your own” is Philippians 3. Paul reflects on his former life in Judaism and explains that he’s no longer devoted to seeking righteousness by the law. His aim is to know Christ and experience the power of his resurrection. Paul says, “I press on to make it my own” (v. 12)—“it” being the knowledge of Christ and future resurrection (vv. 10–11).

Paul’s wording points to our participation in sanctification, not salvation. And even for sanctification, “make it your own” isn’t the consistent language of Scripture.

When we describe faith (and therefore, initial salvation) as something a child must take ownership of, the emphasis unintentionally shifts from receiving to producing. It takes the focus off what God has done and places it on what the child needs to do. In this way, a youth leader, pastor, or parent may inadvertently convey that the child contributes something to the process of salvation.

Discipleship Happens in Community

The idea of making your faith your own also evokes a distinctly American, Disneyesque individualism. Our culture pushes the narrative of the “self-made woman/man.” However, other people’s influence in our lives is real and powerful, and when it comes to the Christian life, that’s exactly what God intended.

Paul’s reflection on how Timothy’s faith was influenced by his mother is instructive for us:

I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. . . . Continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. (2 Tim. 1:5; 3:14–15)

Paul doesn’t commend Timothy for making his faith his own; he highlights how God used Eunice’s faithfulness in teaching Timothy the Word to bring Timothy to saving faith and develop his firm belief.

Similarly, I can look back and say I became a believer because of my parents (e.g., regular Scripture reading, praying with me nightly even into adulthood, regularly rehearsing the gospel with me). I wasn’t pursuing faith like a person stranded in the desert looking for water. Rather, the Lord used my parents’ faithful discipleship. We ought not to minimize the channels through which gospel seed is dispensed and discipleship is cultivated, whether that’s through teaching from the pulpit or in the living room.

We ought not to minimize the channels through which the seed of the gospel is dispensed and discipleship is cultivated.

When we do, we risk misguiding not only children but also parents. When parents come to believe that their children need to make their faith their own, it can loosen the parents’ sense of responsibility for the ordinary work of discipleship.

The Bible teaches that seeds of faith can be planted and grown through means of teaching, modeling, and retelling God’s wondrous works—especially in the home (Deut. 6:6–7; Ps. 78:5–7; 2 Tim. 1:5; 3:14–15).

Christ Fulfilled the Law

I grew up thinking that to make my faith my own meant I had to forsake some sin before I could genuinely embrace Christ. Or perhaps I needed to prepare myself for conversion through manifesting enough emotion or an inner willingness to forsake all else. I felt I could have peace with God only when my performance was up to snuff.

While it’s right to call children and teens to forsake their sin, telling them to make their faith their own may create confusion about the relationship between the law and the gospel. The weight of the law is meant to drive our children to Christ, who perfectly fulfilled its requirements. Christ alone, received with the empty hands of faith, grants us his righteousness and then transforms our hearts.

Rather than calling kids to make their faith their own, let’s call them to respond to Christ, the author and finisher of their faith (Heb. 12:2). Once they find refuge in the comforts of the gospel, we can point them to the law as their guide and “kind advisor.”

Better Way

We rightly desire to see children in our homes and churches “work out [their] own salvation” (Phil. 2:12), and it’s good for us to encourage them to actively seek the Lord. But we need to be thoughtful in how we talk to them about it. And we need to talk to the Lord about it regularly. I’ve found these two prayers helpful.

First, for kids who have professed faith, I pray that their faith would be tested and nourished to full maturity. That’s how Peter speaks: “that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 1:7; emphasis added).

Rather than calling kids to make their faith their own, let’s call them to respond to Christ, the author and finisher of their faith.

Second, if they’re not regenerated, I pray that Christ will make them his own. Our kids can then rightly pursue, by the Spirit, growth in knowledge of Christ and conformity to his image, as Paul pursued it: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Phil. 3:12; emphasis added).

No, our kids don’t need to make their faith their own, but we can pray that Christ’s truth prevails over unbelief and possesses their hearts, resulting in the knowledge of Christ coming to full flower.

While a translation of the Gospels into the language of a Muslim empire is itself noteworthy, the history behind this particular text is even more remarkable. It represents one of two times when the ruler of Iran (or Persia, as it was called by the West before 1935) praised the Bible and furthered its spread in the region.

At a time when Iran is often associated with hostility toward Christianity, these episodes remind us that God can work through unlikely and even evil leaders. I find encouragement—and a prompting to pray—when I reflect on unexpected ways God used infamous Iranian leaders to spread the gospel. Let me introduce you to two of them.

Nader Shah (1688–1747)

Iran’s most ruthless leader in its history arguably was Nader Shah, who ruled Persia from 1736 to 1747 and led a constant stream of military campaigns. His sack of Delhi in 1739 perhaps best demonstrated his military might and brutality. After taking the city, a revolt arose that the shah crushed, resulting in the deaths of up to 20,000 civilians.

The shah, characterized as a “notorious despot and mass murderer who wrought destruction on a large scale and ruined his country,” also brought together Jewish, Catholic, and Armenian scholars in Persia to translate the Old and New Testaments. This included the copy of the Gospels that Catholic missionaries sent to the Vatican Library.

I find encouragement—and a prompting to pray—when I reflect on how God has used Iranian leaders to support the spread of the gospel.

After the missionaries completed translating the Gospels, they went to present the translation to Nader Shah. As they waited an hour for an audience with the shah, they saw 18 people led to his chamber who later were carried out as lifeless bodies, having been strangled. With a trepidation reminiscent of Esther approaching the Persian King Ahasuerus, they entered the shah’s court expecting martyrdom. However, the shah received the Persian translation and rewarded them with silver equivalent to a few years’ wages.

Nader Shah’s motivations for developing a Persian translation of the Bible are unclear. He may have sought to understand Judaism and Christianity in his empire more fully. Perhaps he hoped to syncretize the religions. Whatever his motivations, he was the unlikely catalyst for the first effort to translate the whole Bible into Persian.

Fath-Ali Shah Qajar (1772–1834)

If Nader Shah was one of the most ruthless leaders of Iran, Fath-Ali Shah Qajar was perhaps one of the most opulent. He ruled for a relatively stable period over three decades from 1797 to 1834. He’s easily recognizable in portraits with his long beard, thin waist, and bejeweled attire.

In 1812, evangelical missionary Henry Martyn completed a translation of the New Testament into Persian. Martyn, who knew William Wilberforce, Charles Simeon, and William Carey, worked tirelessly in Shiraz, Persia, to translate the New Testament.

When he finished, he attempted to present a beautiful bound copy to Fath-Ali Shah. Martyn reached the shah’s encampment but couldn’t enter his court to present the New Testament. However, one secretary read to the shah three tracts Martyn had written to present the gospel to Muslims. Martyn died four months later, at the young age of 31, while trying to return to England.

While Martyn didn’t live to see it, the British ambassador to Persia presented his Persian New Testament to Fath-Ali Shah in 1814. After reviewing the New Testament, the shah sent a letter commending it. He asserted that Martyn had translated the text “in a style most befitting sacred books, that is, in an easy and simple diction.” He said he’d command his attendants to read him the New Testament from beginning to end and support its distribution around Persia. Those who were “virtuously engaged” in spreading the New Testament and teaching its meaning, the shah said, would be “deservedly honored with . . . royal favor.”

While there are certainly elements of diplomatic flattery in this letter, the shah’s approval had far-reaching consequences. Throughout the 19th century, missionaries like Peter Gordon and William Glen distributed hundreds of copies across Persia with a relative degree of freedom.

God’s Sovereignty and Iranian Leaders

These two stories of Persian leaders supporting the Bible’s translation and distribution are surprising in light of current religious restrictions in Iran. But it’s not that surprising in light of biblical history.

In the Old Testament, the Lord sovereignly uses Persian leaders to protect his people and further his covenant plan for redemption. King Ahasuerus circulates a letter that saves the Jewish people from certain destruction (Est. 8:11–13). Nehemiah receives a letter of support from the Persian King Artaxerxes to help rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. 2). King Cyrus sends incredible amounts of gold and silver to support the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:2–4).

In the Old Testament the Lord sovereignly uses Persian leaders to protect his people and further his covenant plan for redemption.

God sovereignly works to move kings and rulers—even the most pagan kings and the most ruthless rulers—to do his will. In Ezra 1:1, we see that the Lord “stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia.” The connection between God’s sovereignty and his directing of a Persian king is crystal clear in Isaiah 44:24–45:25. This passage first emphasizes that it’s the Lord “who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens” (v. 24). Turning to Cyrus, the Lord states that he “shall fulfill all [God’s] purpose” (v. 28). In the next verse, Cyrus is referred to as God’s anointed and the one “whose right hand [God has] grasped” (45:1).

Let’s pray for the next ruler of Iran. Pray that, as the Lord has done before in history, he’d use the next leader to protect his people and further the spread of the gospel message. Both Christians and Muslims have suffered greatly in Iran in recent decades, yet the gospel is still advancing.

We should pray for an end to suffering in Iran. But we can also trust that amid uncertainty, missiles, and war, our sovereign God guides the hand and thwarts the will of rulers.

In this conversation recorded at TGC25, Mike and Melissa Kruger consider biblical principles that serve as the foundation for the practical decisions we make as parents, while anchoring our hopes and expectations on Christ rather than on our child’s behavior or our perfection as parents.

In This Episode

00:00 – The importance of parenting with hope

07:39 – Principle 1: God-oriented hope

11:28 – Principle 2: Follow God first

20:13 – Principle 3: The power of the basics

27:50 – Principle 4: Parental warmth promotes healthy community

32:30 – Principle 5: Lead with conversation, not command

36:58 – Principle 6: Embrace difficulties and suffering

42:36 – Principle 7: Leave room for doubts and questions

Resource Mentioned: Parenting with Hope by Melissa Kruger

SIGN UP for one of our newsletters to stay informed about TGC’s latest resources.

Help The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Give today.

Don’t miss an episode of The Gospel Coalition Podcast:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube

It’d be easy to teach a child in this situation to be skeptical: Don’t take people at their word. And that mantra easily becomes a worldview that paints every experience with a shadow of doubt. The same can happen with our faith in Christ. Whether we’re new believers or seasoned saints, we may be tempted to ask if doubt and skepticism are hallmarks of reliable faith.

For example, is it good for me to question my salvation because I professed to believe in Christ as a 7-year-old who was afraid of dying? If I was motivated by a fear of death rather than a love for Christ, does that mean my salvation isn’t sure? Am I called to be a skeptic about the validity of my salvation until I’m absolutely certain of my faith’s purity?

We find an answer to these questions in Herman Bavinck’s little book The Certainty of Faith. Questions of personal assurance can be complex. The Bible speaks about the inner witness of the Spirit (Rom. 8:16). It also makes clear that true faith is evidenced in obedience (James 2:17). But as Bavinck makes clear, our assurance of faith finds its ultimate grounding outside of us in the certain promises of God. 

Bavinck’s Answer

The Certainty of Faith is lesser known among Bavinck’s works, but it shouldn’t be. Though the Dutch theologian had it penned and published in 1901, it reads as if it were written for 21st-century Christians in the age of skepticism.

Bavinck’s discussion of both personal assurance and the reliability of God’s promises is refreshingly biblical and profoundly encouraging. Bavinck declares,

[Faith] is the return of the confidence which right-minded children place in their father. In the disposition and condition of the soul on which Holy Scripture stamps the name of faith, [faith’s] certainty of itself is enclosed. First of all, there is the certainty regarding the truth of the promises of God given to us in the gospel, but then also the certainty that we personally participate in those promises out of grace. . . .  Faith is certainty, and as such excludes all doubt.

For Bavinck, true faith puts aside skepticism in all its forms, whether that’s overactive introspection or doubts about the Bible’s reliability. Moreover, he roots our faith’s certainty not in an internal conviction or feeling, nor in evidence judged by human reason, but in the reliable witness of God’s external work and Word. In other words, our certainty ultimately lies outside us. Here are three reasons that’s good news.

1. Certain faith in God’s promises offers rest from constant questioning.

Many treat skepticism and doubt as virtues. They say these protect us from naivete, from being swindled. But skepticism isn’t good in its own right. When elevated too highly, it leads to soul sickness. While doubt has its uses, it can also deaden us to faith’s life-giving power.

Whether we’re new believers or seasoned saints, we may be tempted to ask if doubt and skepticism are hallmarks of reliable faith.

Bavinck wrote of his generation, “A lust for doubt became the soul-sickness of our age, dragging a string of moral woes and miseries along with it.” He might as well have written that today. What if when we open the Bible, we forget about being swindled and simply receive God’s jaw-dropping promises?

God’s grace will always sound unbelievable, but that’s because the truth comes to rags and offers riches, not because we’re duped by a fairy tale. Bavinck reminds us that we can discard worldly skepticism and take up faith in who God says he is.

What will we find when we do this? Rest. “Certainty is rest, peace, and bliss; while doubt, suspicion, and opinion are always accompanied by a bit of unease and unrest.” Given today’s landscape of anxiety and angst, we’re desperate for the rest of certainty. Thankfully, our constant questioning will evaporate in the light of God’s certain Word.

2. Externally directed certainty shows us the goodness of dependence.

We not only live in a culture that worships autonomy and independence, but we also seem convinced that everything we believe requires internal validation—something we contribute. Our faith depends on our feelings and experiences. We strive to feel full of vigor and hope. When we don’t, we guilt-trip ourselves in despair.

But Bavinck points to the great news that faith’s certainty doesn’t depend on us: “Holy Scripture never leaves believers to depend on themselves. It always binds them to the objective word.” Faith depends on what God says and what Christ did, not on how we feel. Affections are the fruit of faith, not its root.

That’s liberating. We’re not trapped by our emotions and sensations, never fenced in by our feelings. There is always a way out, and that way is paved with words—God’s words. Jesus said that God’s Word is truth (John 17:17). And in that truth is freedom.

As Bavinck put it, “Truth is always life, always sets free, and always causes us to rule as kings over what it irradiates with its light.” Far better to store certainty in the light of God’s revealed truth than in our fickle feelings. It’s good for us to depend on what God says rather than trying to self-validate every belief.

3. Certain faith is the foundation for unity and love.

Though we live today with an acute awareness of how divided and fragmented the church can be, our certain faith can be a gathering place for weary saints.

“What divides the church internally,” Bavinck writes, “no matter how weighty it may be, is always less than what binds and unites her. The more unbelief becomes aware of its power and the bolder its actions grow, the more the Christian church closes her ranks against a common enemy.”

Our certainty makes room for communion, a circle of saints who gather to identify unbelief as the chief evil (Matt. 13:58; Mark 6:6). There we can be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3). Our certainty in faith has great power to bring us together and to give us concrete opportunities to love and encourage one another.

Our certainty makes room for communion, a circle of saints who gather to identify unbelief as the chief evil.

Bavinck says faith’s certainty “is by nature heroic and fearless, though there be as many devils as tiles on the roof.” Each of us has devils on the rooftop, things prying into the cracks of our hope and faith. But Spirit-gifted certainty can be the broomstick we use to knock on the ceiling and cast down all the devils of doubt. Certainty can bring us the peace we so desperately long for.

We’re all tempted to go looking for validation for our faith everywhere except in God’s Word. That’s what our skeptical age has taught us—don’t take people at their word. But God has something far better for us than skepticism: a certain faith.

Here is good news:

No human word, no result of scientific investigation, no ideal fashioned by the imagination, no proposition built by human reasoning can be the foundation of our hope for eternity. For all these things are shaky and fallible; they cannot support the edifice of hope, and will soon collapse into ruin. By its very nature, faith—that is, religious faith—can only rest upon a word or promise of God.

Thank God for the certainty of his divine promise.

Andrew Remington Rillera, assistant professor of biblical studies and theology at The King’s University in Edmonton, Alberta, strongly disagrees with this understanding. In Lamb of the Free: Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus’s Death, he argues that PSA is a thoroughly unbiblical idea.

His own approach to atonement is closest to the recapitulation understanding of Christ’s work that Irenaeus outlined, though many believe this view is compatible with PSA (see works by McNall and McKnight). Rillera doesn’t. He argues that PSA is a foreign concept to the Old Testament’s sacrificial system (chap. 1–4) and that even the New Testament doesn’t support PSA (chap. 5–8).

Though I find Rillera’s overall argument against PSA unpersuasive, I want to begin by noting the area I found most exemplary: the emphasis on our union with Christ in his death and resurrection. That union’s rich blessings should be regularly highlighted, and I’m grateful the book has done so. For me, it made union with Christ even more beautiful.

As for the book’s main thesis, I’ll consider three of its major claims against PSA.

Claim #1: Sacrifice Isn’t About Death

Rillera’s argument begins by asserting that “there is no such thing as a ‘substitutionary death’ sacrifice in the Torah” (10).

This assertion relies on the idea that Old Testament sacrifice is about presenting the animal’s life, not bringing about its death, and that Leviticus therefore “conceptualize[s] the death of the sacrificial animal as ‘not-a-killing’” (17, emphasis original). If this is true, then Old Testament sacrifice isn’t about the animal dying in the offerer’s place, and the ritual doesn’t foreshadow Jesus’s death on the cross.

To show that Old Testament sacrifice isn’t about death, Rillera argues in part that “the death of the animal—the slaughter itself—is given no ritual or theological meaning by any biblical text” (20). In support, he notes ways that sacrificial texts seem not to emphasize the animal’s slaughter but rather emphasize acts associated with the altar and performed by the priest, like burning the meat and presenting the blood. To him, this suggests the slaughter itself is insignificant.

But even a quick read of the key sacrificial texts in Leviticus 1–7 shows an interesting pattern: They regularly specify that the animal’s slaughter must take place “before the LORD” or “in front of the tent” where he dwells (1:5, 11; 3:8, 13; 4:4, 15, 24; 6:25). Leviticus 17:3–4 expands on this, emphasizing that the animal must be slaughtered before the Lord to count as being presented to him.

In short, if it’s not slaughtered before the Lord, it’s not slaughtered to the Lord. There’s no option for slaughtering the animal at one place and offering it at another. Slaughtering and offering go hand in hand. And that means that “the death of the animal—the slaughter itself”—isn’t insignificant but central to offering the animal.

Claim #2: Sacrificial Atonement Only Relates to Cleansing

Scholars agree that one of the only verses explaining how sacrificial atonement works is Leviticus 17:11: “The life of the body is in the blood, and I myself have given it to you on the altar to make atonement [kipper] for your lives, for it is the blood that makes atonement [kipper] by means of the life” (my translation).

But, as Rillera notes, scholars debate whether the Hebrew word kipper—typically translated “to make atonement”—refers here to ransom or cleansing or some combination of the two (122). For Rillera, the better meaning is cleanse (or in his language, “decontaminate”), whereas some combination of the two appears to me to account best for the data.

Ransom

We begin with ransom, which in the Bible refers to a payment delivering guilty people from a penalty—often death—that they would otherwise have to pay (Ex. 21:30; 30:12). Scholars from a wide array of backgrounds understand kipper in Leviticus 17:11 to refer to ransom (see Levine, 115; Milgrom, 707–8; Moffitt, 263–64). This is because the exact phrase “to [kipper] for your lives” found in 17:11 occurs in only two other places, both of which use kipper to refer to “ransom” (Ex. 30:15; Num. 31:50).

In response, Rillera argues that Exodus 30:15 and Numbers 31:50 occur in contexts about money, but Leviticus 17:11 doesn’t. The implication: If the monetary concept is absent, ransom cannot be in view.

What this misses is that in the biblical world, a ransom isn’t limited to money. A ransom can be the giving of one living being in place of another, such as one people group being given as a “ransom . . . in exchange for [the] life” of another people group (Isa. 43:3–4). So the question isn’t “Is this a monetary context?” but “Is this a ransom context?”

For the sins and major impurities requiring sacrificial atonement, the answer is “Yes, this is a ransom context.” That’s because sins and major impurities share an important similarity: Both endanger.

Sin obviously endangers because sinners are liable to God’s punishment and need ransom. But major impurities (like that coming from leprosy) also endanger and require ransom since they pollute not only people but also holy items (Lev. 16:16). This pollution results in death if not properly addressed (15:31). In either case—sin or impurity—the offerer is endangered, meaning we have a context requiring ransom.

Kipper in 17:11 is therefore well understood as relating to ransom. Instead of the offerer’s lifeblood, the animal’s lifeblood is given in death as the ransom payment. And this means all the elements of PSA are in place: The animal experiences the death the offerer deserves (the penalty) in the offerer’s place (as a substitute), to reconcile the offerer to God (for atonement).

Cleansing

What about the cleansing aspect? This is where a second similarity exists between the sins and major impurities requiring sacrifice: Both defile.

Major impurities obviously defile since the offerer needs cleansing, but sins also defile the sinner and need cleansing: “For on this day shall atonement be made for you to cleanse you. You shall be clean before the LORD from all your sins” (16:30).

Instead of the offerer’s lifeblood, the animal’s lifeblood is given in death as the ransom payment.

In short, sins and major impurities both endanger (requiring ransom) and pollute (requiring cleansing).

It’s a two-pronged problem requiring a two-pronged solution: ransom and cleansing. Sacrifice can achieve both because the blood is a dual-function agent: It’s both the ultimate ransoming agent (17:11) and the ultimate cleansing agent (see 8:15).

When sin is the focus, the ransoming function comes to the fore, and the offerer is “forgiven” (4:20, 26, 31). When impurity is the focus, the cleansing function comes to the fore, and the offerer is made “clean” (12:7; 14:20). But both ransom and cleansing are happening in each context because both are needed and the blood accomplishes both.

In the context of atoning sacrifices, kipper refers to a “purifying ransom” and a “ransoming purification.” And because of this ransoming element, PSA is at the heart of sacrificial atonement.

Claim #3: If Jesus’s Death Is Participatory, It Can’t Be Substitutionary

Rillera argues that New Testament authors understand Jesus’s death as a “participatory phenomenon” that believers “are called to share in experientially,” as shown by verses speaking of us “picking up our cross” and following Jesus (Mark 8:34) or speaking of our union with Christ in his death by faith (Rom. 6:3–8) (7).

Rillera then argues that if this is true, then Jesus’s death cannot be a substitutionary phenomenon since (according to Rillera) participation and substitution exclude one another by definition.

Even if we grant that the ideas of participation and substitution exclude one another (which I doubt), the book’s approach rests on a problematic assumption: When describing spiritual realities, the Bible can’t use different ideas or images that exclude one another.

This assumption doesn’t hold. For example, when describing a believer’s salvation, Paul sometimes uses adoption imagery (Gal. 4:5) and other times resurrection imagery (Col. 2:13). These images exclude one another by definition: One centers on a living person being adopted, the other on a corpse being made alive.

Why does Paul do this? Because there is a richness to salvation that is best communicated by using multiple images, even if they’re in logical tension with one another. And if Paul is happy to do this when describing salvation, he can surely do likewise when describing the events bringing salvation to pass.

This argument has important implications for a text like Romans 5:7–8, where Paul argues, “7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Rillera grants that verse 7 is speaking of substitutionary death, but argues that verse 8 can’t be doing the same. Why? Because Paul uses participatory language to describe Jesus’s death in Romans 6, and Rillera assumes Paul cannot speak of Jesus’s death as both substitutionary and participatory since these images exclude one another.

But as seen above, this assumption doesn’t hold, and the simplest explanation remains the most likely: Verses 7 and 8 are both speaking of substitutionary death.

7 For one will scarcely die for [= in place of] a righteous person—

though perhaps for [= in place of] a good person one would dare even to die—

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for [= in place of] us.

Paul is clear: Jesus dies as a substitute for sinners. He is equally clear that Christ’s death reconciles sinners to God (v. 10), meaning this is substitutionary atonement. And since Paul emphasizes in Romans that sin results in death (Rom. 1:32; 5:12–21; 6:23; 7:5, 11), the implication is straightforward: By suffering death in place of sinners, Jesus is suffering their penalty.

In Romans 5:7–8, we have PSA in its fullness: Jesus taking the penalty sinners deserve as their substitute, in this way reconciling them to God.

First Importance

In an extended review, I interact with most of the book’s other arguments and discuss various motivations Rillera identifies that led him to write a book against PSA.

Paul is clear: Jesus dies as a substitute for sinners.

But in this short review, I hope to have shown that the biblical text doesn’t support three of the book’s major claims and that the relevant biblical passages affirm that PSA is central to the Bible’s description of Old Testament sacrifice and of Jesus’s death on our behalf. Contrary to what Lamb of the Free argues, penal substitutionary atonement is a very biblical idea.

Why does this matter? In summarizing the gospel, Paul begins, “What I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3, NIV). If Christ’s death for our sins is where the gospel begins, getting it right matters deeply indeed.

Resources Mentioned:

• Remembering Death Teaches Us to Live
• The Dish on Gossip
• Becoming Good Stewards of Our Bodies
• Conversations with God
• When You Want to Change Your Husband

Related Resources:

• Sabbath Rest (Disciplines of Devotion series) by Megan Hill
• Women of the Word by Jen Wilkin
• Gospel Parenting During the Little Years

But this isn’t the way Matthew Avery Sutton—the Claudius O. and Mary Johnson distinguished professor and chair in history at Washington State University—describes American Christianity in his new book Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity. As evident by his subtitle, Sutton contends that, in their 500-year quest to turn North America into a holy land, Christians have repeatedly reinvented their faith with virtually nothing tying the reinventions together in the way of creed or idea.

In the process of “reconstructing,” “rebranding,” and “recasting” Christianity, Sutton claims, Americans have “spun Christianity into the United States’ most popular and enduring product” (4, 7, 9). The only constants of American Christianity have been its malleability and its marketability. Rather than a faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3), Christianity is “something packaged, advertised, and sold to Americans and exported to people around the world” (7).

This misrepresents the mission of the majority of believers in America over the course of 500 years, who were motivated to evangelize not by worldly profit but by the salvation of the lost.

Constant Critique

Sutton artfully demonstrates that the history of American Christianity hasn’t been heaven on earth. However, he seems to highlight the most carnal, self-interested episodes. Chapter 4, for example, begins with the account of eccentric revivalist James Davenport taking off the pants of which he was inordinately proud during a bonfire for burning away vanities.

Around every turn in Chosen Land, Christians wield the gospel for personal power or prestige. For example, Great Awakening evangelist George Whitefield didn’t just preach to the lost; he “pitched salvation” as if it were a product in a window (61). The famous Haystack Prayer Meeting (1806) wasn’t just an effort to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission; the students at Williams College “acted both as ambassadors for the gospel and as American imperialists” (193).

The only consistent feature of Christianity in North America, according to Sutton, is its near-constant use for material gain: preachers become “entrepreneurs of faith,” Puritans sanction free market capitalism, and Christianity becomes a “commodity” (7, 192, 40).

Examining the Puritans, for example, Sutton quips, “Had they aimed to establish a New Testament–type communist community, things might have turned out differently. But for these faithful, God ordained the pursuit of wealth rather than equality” (40). Rather than engaging Puritan theology at length, Sutton frames the early church as protocommunists and refashions Max Weber’s “Protestant ethic” thesis to paint Puritans as forerunners of the prosperity gospel.

Rebranding vs. Reforming

Sutton is well versed in American religious history, having written five other books on the subject. In his American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism, Sutton pushed back against George Marsden’s authoritative telling of American fundamentalism. In contrast to a “militantly anti-modern Protestant evangelicalism,” Sutton framed fundamentalism as an “apocalyptic movement” oriented more eschatologically than doctrinally.

But Sutton’s more recent views of evangelicalism have come under increased scrutiny. In a 2024 article in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion titled “Redefining the History and Historiography on American Evangelicalism in the Era of the Religious Right,” Sutton argues that post-WWII evangelicalism is best understood as a “religio-political coalition” and as a “white, patriarchal nationalist religious movement made up of Christians who seek power to transform American culture through conservative-leaning politics and free market economics.” There’s little that’s actually theological in Sutton’s view of religion.

There’s little that’s actually theological in Sutton’s view of religion.

Sutton elaborates on these ideas in his new book. He considers the term “evangelical” in the 1940s to be simply a “rebrand” of fundamentalism: “The postwar evangelicalism that they promoted was not the continuation of an older tradition but the start of a new American religious movement, a reinvigorated fundamentalism. There is no singular evangelical throughline dating from the colonial period to today” (9).

Rather than identifying a consistent evangelical emphasis on the rebirth or the atonement or the Bible, and rather than positing that evangelicalism might be “reformed” according to Scripture, Sutton argues evangelicalism is just another “rebrand” or reinvention of American Christianity. He doesn’t simply deny a “singular evangelical throughline.” At times, it seems as if he denies one for Christianity itself.

Kingdom of This World

Ironically, Sutton’s approach to history has much in common with certain corners of ultraconservative scholarship and Christian nationalism. For example, “American Christianity and American history are not two parallel stories,” he explains, “they are the same story. The history of the United States is the history of American Christianity, and the history of American Christianity is the history of the United States” (15).

However, while these two entities undeniably overlap, they aren’t identical. Christianity shaped America. Christianity suffused America. But America was also molded by people and ideas and movements that weren’t Christian, in confession or practice or otherwise. American history is, after all, also part of the long history of sin. Many of the founders spoke Christian language without embracing historic orthodoxy.

Christianity suffused America. But America was also molded by people and ideas and movements that weren’t Christian, in confession or practice or otherwise.

Sutton’s atheological approach to religion is never more evident than in the way he defines who is Christian and who isn’t. In Sutton’s book, a host of groups—Unitarians, Universalists, Deists, skeptics, Quakers, Shakers, Mormons, and Baptists—all fall under the canopy of “American Christianity.” But there’s little theological continuity between these movements.

Based on this approach, are we to believe that Christianity was “reconstructed . . . over and over again” to meet “the demands of the public” as if it were a new iPhone? (4). Or are we instead to profess that an ancient faith was passed down consistently to each American generation—to a people who modified their beliefs and styles based on their understanding of the Bible in their own day and yet still combated heretical challenges to the Bible? One view of American Christianity is transactional; the other is traditional.

Christian Tradition

The church sits atop the greatest tradition of all. For two millennia, Christians have believed the kingdom advances not through clever reinvention but through fidelity to what has been received.

By conflating the entire history of America with the history of its Christianity, Sutton implies that all American religious expressions are equally Christian, that doctrine evolves as rapidly as politics, and that the nation’s sins can therefore be imputed to the church. Sutton is right to assert, “Christianity in the United States was political” (123). But it was much more than political.

The once-for-all delivered faith isn’t a Starbucks coffee we customize to the felt needs and cultural trends of our generation. Christianity has endured because of Christ’s faithfulness, not because of our inventiveness. Still, Chosen Land reminds evangelicals that if someone believes that the gospel can be reduced to a commodity, we shouldn’t be surprised when he longs for a Christianity that looks exactly like the world.

Fast forward to the 1990s. In the movie Fight Club, Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) captured his generation’s growing sense of discontent:

We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars, but we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.

Skip ahead to today. Most Americans have luxuries that the prosperous in the 1800s couldn’t imagine and the movie gods of the 1990s only dreamed of: supercomputers in our pockets, AI to do our bidding, and entertainment always at the tip of our fingers. And yet amid this abundance, Tocqueville’s “strange melancholy” persists.

Deaths of despair have reached alarmingly high levels. Loneliness has been declared a public health epidemic. Student mental health has never been worse. And, like Durden, many of us are regularly “pissed off.” Psychologist Richard Beck sums it up:

The data is pretty clear. While America is the most affluent nation in the history of the world, our rates of anxiety, depression, suicide, and addiction are all skyrocketing. We’re not doing well. We are a deeply unwell society.

This all raises an urgent question: What’s the matter with us?

We could blame many culprits. The rise of the smartphone, the media, or simply those “other” people. Yet in various ways, each of these is related to a deeper underlying problem. As Andrew Root points out, something deeper is worth a closer look: the way we’re pursuing happiness.

Way of Disappointment

In a million subtle ways, we’re told that personal fulfillment is something we can win. Happiness is something we can achieve . . . if we just put in the work. Whatever we think will make us happy, we can go after and get it.

In a million subtle ways, we’re told that personal fulfillment is something we can win. Happiness is something we can achieve . . . if we just put in the work.

An 18-year-old arrives at college and is handed 180 majors to choose from. But she’s internalized a message from our culture: “Don’t mess this up because your entire life—your happiness and your self-fulfillment—is on the line.”

The pressure started long before this moment and will progress as she ages in our modern meritocracy. “You can be happy by way of marriage if you just find the perfect spouse.” “You can have the family, the career, the body of your dreams, if you just _____.”

No pressure.

But what happens if you fail? If you can’t rise through the ranks of our meritocracy? Either you’re a loser with no one to blame but yourself for not measuring up, or you’ll find someone, some group, some system to blame as the oppressor. If you can’t play the winner, then playing the victim at least helps deal with the guilt.

Or what happens if you do achieve your dreams and finally get what you think you want—when you get the job of your dreams, find the right spouse, achieve all you set out to do—but you still have a gnawing sadness that won’t go away. Then what?

As Westerners, we typically respond to these letdowns in one of two ways. We deal with the sorrow and the pressure of life by digging deeper, grinding even harder. We jump on the achievement treadmill. Move faster. Work harder. Fill up the schedule. Get people to like us. Prove to everybody that we’re somebody. Until we burn out.

Or we cope by quitting. We fill our lives with diversions to mask our sadness and fear. We binge on Netflix. We attach our self-worth to a college football team. We shop, scroll, drink, or do whatever we can to escape the burden and the boredom of life.

Sometimes we do both in the same day and call it “work-life balance.”

Even the most skilled jugglers, those who manage to accomplish what looks like almost perfect equilibrium between diversions and achievement, still have their moments. Channeling the book of Ecclesiastes, the world’s top golfer Scottie Scheffler recently asked, “What’s the point?”

Here’s the paradox: You can’t find true happiness by aiming for it. You can only discover true happiness by living a life worth living. We live in sad times because we don’t know who we are as humans and how to live worthily. The Psalter offers us another way to attend to life and answer the question “What’s the point?” Specifically, Psalm 8 is a gateway to the answer in the Psalms (and the rest of the Bible), inviting everyone to a new and life-giving way to live into our humanity.

Way of Worship

Psalm 8 begins, “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens” (v. 1).

The Psalms offer us a way of life centered around God. We’re called into the worship of the God whose name is in the earth and whose glory is above the heavens. Theologians describe this in-and-above dynamic as God’s immanence and transcendence.

God is wholly different from us. His glory is far beyond anything we can compare it to—the most glorious mountains, the most beautiful flower, the most riveting story, the thrill of a first kiss. None of it compares to God’s glory. He’s so far beyond us, and yet as Augustine says, “God is closer to you than you are to yourself.” He’s with us now and always. He knows you better than you know yourself.

God created, neither because he needed the world nor because he needed us. The triune God has never lacked, never been lonely. The Father, Son, and Spirit have always been in a perfect loving relationship. God’s love is unlike ours—it isn’t transactional. He doesn’t love out of lack. His love isn’t fragile. God is always radiating outward in joy. Creation was an unnecessary yet fitting expression of God’s overflowing love.

Worshiping God releases us from the trap of self-focus. Getting caught up in worship frees us to live according to the logic of the universe. When I say worship, I mean the raw and beautiful diversity of worship we see throughout the Psalms: telling God about our sadness, confessing our sins, arguing with him, praising him for his goodness and majesty. Instead of navel-gazing our way through life, we’re pulled out of ourselves by worship so that we too begin radiating outward, reflecting our Creator and Father.

Way of Infants

In Psalm 8:2, we find a paradox that reflects a repeated biblical pattern: “Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.” Infants are helpless, needy, and vulnerable. In the real world, we’re told you win through personal strength, through force of personality, or by having the most followers. You don’t win through weakness.

Verse 2 reflects the upside-down economy of God’s kingdom. Why was Israel chosen? Why did Samuel choose the youngest son, David, instead of his stronger older brothers? Whom must we be like to receive Jesus’s kingdom? Is it the resourceful, well-connected, rich, powerful young ruler? No. It’s the class of people whom everyone knew were vulnerable and dependent. “Truly, I say to you,” Jesus said, “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Mark 10:15).

This is the way of true wisdom. Or as the apostle Paul puts it, this is the way of the cross (1 Cor. 1:18–31). To be wise, we must confess our foolishness. To become strong, we must confess our weakness. We can’t achieve our way to the good life. Humble confession, rather than self-actualization, is the path to the life we’re all looking for.

As C. S. Lewis merrily explains in The Great Divorce, “We’ve all been wrong! That’s the great joke. There’s no need to go on pretending one was right! After that we begin living.”

When it comes to our pursuits of happiness, Jesus turns our instincts on their head. To live, we must die.

If we attempt to achieve happiness through self-fulfillment, we’ll spend our lives jockeying to stay in control by avoiding self-sacrifice and costly relationships. We’ll attempt to get everything and everyone to revolve around us.

Yet the more we demand to be in the center, the more we’ll always be on the brink of losing control. The more we try to control our way to happiness, the more we’ll always be on the edge of frustration, anger, and despair when we experience life’s uncontrollability.

We must die to trying to be the center. We must kill the quest to be our own God. Once we do that, we’re free to live. To live by the grain of the universe. To reflect our God. To live radiating outward in love.

Way of True Meaning

Friedrich Nietzsche famously observed that, with the death of God, intrinsic meaning died with him. Later 20th-century existentialists understood all too well the disturbing implications. As Jean-Paul Sartre confessed, it’s “extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven.”

The more we try to control our way to happiness, the more we’ll always be on the edge of frustration, anger, and despair when we experience life’s uncontrollability.

The proposed solution? If we can’t find meaning outside ourselves, our only option is to look within. We must rise to the challenge and create a meaningful life for ourselves.

Fast forward to today’s achievement society. Created meaning has become part and parcel with self-creation. A do-it-yourself attitude, along with a carefully curated identity, is the way to significance. If you’re going to validate your life, you must achieve it. If you’re going to live a meaningful life, it’s up to you to spin the webs of significance for yourself.

Verses 3–4 of Psalm 8, however, counter this approach:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
    and the son of man that you care for him?

Some have estimated there are up to 2 trillion galaxies and 700 quintillion planets. And here we sit on this one little planet in this tiny corner of our galaxy.

Who are we to think we could produce a life of any real significance? Who are you to think you could achieve something of lasting meaning?

With a little thought about the grandeur of our cosmos, we discover quickly that what in theory sounded like an exhilarating DIY project turns out to be a renovation nightmare. Add to this the specter of suffering and death, and our designs for a meaningful life and the construction of our cosmic significance begin to crumble.

But the good news is that you don’t have to bear the curse of trying to achieve your own meaning. If your significance depends on individual creation, it’s hard to avoid the despair of nihilism lurking in the background. Nihilism is the pesky voice whispering in the back of your mind before you fall asleep at night, None of your created meaning really matters.

If you believe ultimate reality is impersonal, the first thing you need to do is actively suppress that belief. Because if you want a meaningful life, the thought of an impersonal and meaningless universe will quickly destroy the fragile webs of significance you’re trying to weave for yourself.

Psalm 8 reminds us how fragile, small, and vulnerable we are. And yet, God is mindful of us. The God of the entire universe loves you. You matter. The scandal of God’s love is the news that feels too good to be true: God loves you, not because you’ve achieved something, nor because you’re useful. He loves you because he loves you.

Way of Receiving

The logic of verses 5–8 runs like this: We exist and are called in love.

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
    and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

Just as we didn’t achieve our births or create the air we breathe, we don’t achieve our ultimate significance. God’s creation of and love for us is what bestows our value. We can’t earn or achieve that; we must receive it. This directly confronts our present cultural logic of merit that’s wreaking havoc on our lives and society. God’s grace throws a wrench into the machinery of late-modern achievement society.

God’s grace throws a wrench into the machinery of late-modern achievement society.

Our entrance into this world was a divine gift. Likewise, the only way out of the mess we’ve made is by receiving a gift we haven’t earned. As the apostle Paul asks, “What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:7). Your life, your talents, and salvation itself are undeserved gifts. Paul presses in on the implications of the gratuitous nature of God’s gifts: “If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”

The implications of such radical grace make for a staggering reversal of the ethos of merit and reward. Divine grace subverts the notion that we’re fundamentally “earners” who frantically build résumés in hopes of winning public validation and the good life. God’s grace humbles us out of any sense of superiority. Our posture begins to shift from anxious achievers, competing against others to assemble a collection of status symbols, to jubilant children on Christmas morning, receiving extravagant gifts from loving parents.

Such excessive and unmerited gifts ultimately lead us into the hands of the loving Giver. This is how Bobby Jamieson puts it in his recent book on Ecclesiastes:

If you believe that life is good because life is a gift, and life is a gift because God gives it, and life is full of good things because the creator is constantly flinging gifts at your faster than you can catch them, then any meaning you discover is catching up with the meaning that God has already built in. Any goodness you enjoy is scratching the surface of the goodness that life is. Any happiness you experience is a glimpse of the one who is happiness himself.

Choose the Better Way

We circle back, as Hebrew poetry so often does, to where we began: to the worship of the living God. The final verse of Psalm 8 says, “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (v. 9).

Worshiping God doesn’t mean life will be easy. As a certain Beaver once said, Jesus isn’t safe, but he’s good. In this life, there will be many troubles. You can try to live so you control as much as possible and achieve your way to the good life, but in the end, that will only lead to anxiety, loneliness, and eventually despair.

Or you can receive the kingdom like a child and worship the living God––the God who is there, who isn’t safe, but whose majesty and glory shine through all the earth.

The Background: In Mirabelli v. Bonta, Christian middle-school teachers and a group of parents challenged California policies that required school staff to use a student’s chosen name and pronouns at school while concealing that change from parents unless the child consented. Teachers were instructed to deflect parents’ questions and direct them to administrators, who would refuse to disclose the information.

Two sets of parents in this case discovered their daughters were being “socially transitioned” (e.g., treated as boys at school through new names, pronouns, and other accommodations) without their knowledge. In one family, school officials continued to withhold information about the student’s gender identification even after the child attempted suicide and was hospitalized.

The federal district court initially ruled for the parents and teachers. That court entered a permanent injunction preventing schools from misleading parents and requiring schools to follow parents’ directions on names and pronouns. But the Ninth Circuit stayed that injunction while California appealed, allowing the secrecy policies to go back into effect. The parents then asked the Supreme Court to step in on an emergency basis.

On March 2, the Court partially granted the parents’ request, vacating the Ninth Circuit’s stay and putting the district court’s injunction back in force while the case continues. The Court held that the parents are likely to succeed on the merits of their constitutional claims and that allowing the secrecy policy to remain in effect would cause irreparable harm. The majority concluded that excluding parents from “highly important decisions” involving their children’s mental health and identity cannot survive the heightened scrutiny required when the state burdens fundamental parental rights.

The opinion bases the parents’ claims in both the free exercise clause of the First Amendment—citing last term’s Mahmoud v. Taylor decision and applying strict scrutiny—and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court found that secretly facilitating a child’s social transition is an even greater intrusion on parental religious liberty than the introduction of contested curricular materials, as in the Mahmoud case.

Ultimately, the substantive due process reasoning may prove more consequential since it extends protection to all parents, not only those raising religious objections. By recognizing the strength of the parental-rights claim at this interim stage, the Court signaled that both religious and nonreligious parents are likely protected from policies that deliberately keep them in the dark.

Justice Barrett, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh, wrote a concurrence emphasizing that this is a preliminary decision, not a final ruling on the merits. Justice Kagan, joined by Justice Jackson, dissented, arguing the Court acted too hastily through the emergency docket. Justices Thomas and Alito would have also ruled for the teachers, whose claims the majority left unresolved. Justice Sotomayor would have denied the entire application.

Why It Matters: At the heart of this case is a question Christians already know the answer to but that the law is still working out: Who has the primary responsibility—before God and under the law—to care for children and make decisions about their well-being?

California argued that protecting students’ privacy and autonomy justified keeping parents uninformed about gender transitions at school. In practice, this meant that teachers and administrators could socially transition a child while treating parents as potential threats to be managed or misled. The Court’s order strongly suggests such a policy is constitutionally suspect because it prevents parents from being involved in precisely the kind of decisions that the Court has long said belong to families.

When schools are instructed to deceive parents about a child’s mental health struggles and identity questions, parents cannot fulfill their God-given calling. Mirabelli is thus the latest test case of whether civil government will respect or erode the created order in which parents, rather than bureaucracies, are entrusted with children.

This case shows how quickly administrative “guidance” can harden into enforceable policy. California’s original guidance documents were later declared inoperative, only to be replaced by mandatory training that imposed essentially the same secrecy rules. These rules were then defended in court as binding policy.

Unless parents and churches pay attention to these lower-profile regulatory moves, we may discover too late that the legal groundwork has been laid to cut us out of crucial decisions in our children’s lives. The situation in California is a chilling reminder that parental rights aren’t self-enforcing. Even when the Constitution acknowledges parental authority, that protection can be weakened or ignored if Christians are unaware, disengaged, or silent. The parents in Mirabelli, for example, had to endure years of litigation simply to keep schools from lying to them about their own children.

We should also be clear-eyed about what this ruling is and what it isn’t. This isn’t a final decision on the merits of this case but rather an emergency order that reinstates a lower-court injunction while the case continues in the Ninth Circuit. There’s potential for the case to be returned to the Court. The legal battle over parental rights in the context of gender ideology is thus far from over.

Yet there’s real reason for hope. The Supreme Court has sent a clear message this week that the state may not treat parents as enemies to be circumvented. Mirabelli v. Bonta has the potential to give parents their strongest constitutional footing yet in the fight to remain the primary voices in their children’s lives. If we’ve missed or ignored earlier warnings about the fragility of parental authority in a secular age, this case offers another chance to act before more permanent legal precedents are set.

See also: California LGBT+ Law Builds ‘Wall of Secrecy’ Between Parents and Kids

You’re right to be diligent in your work. Whatever we do, Scripture tells us to work at it with all our heart, as if working for the Lord (Col. 3:23–24). But we can easily drift from serving God with our work as worship to serving our work as the god we worship.

If you’re feeling convicted that you’ve made work an idol, pay attention. With the Holy Spirit at work in us, we can ask ourselves questions to identify whether we’re approaching work as a good, purposeful way of glorifying God and loving others or whether we’ve made an idol of it in ways God never intended.

1. Why are you working?

If it’s been a while since you examined your motives for work, now may be a good time. Is your work still about trying to steward the gifts God has given you for his glory and others’ good, or has it become all about your own glory and good?

Are you finding your identity and value in work? Are you idolizing advancement because you’ve anchored your hope in human recognition? Is your paycheck a noble effort to provide for yourself and your family (1 Tim. 5:8), or are you simply toiling to acquire wealth (Prov. 23:4)?

Work has always been (and eternally will be) a good part of God’s design. Our God works. We ourselves are part of his handiwork, and he has prepared good works for us to do in reflection of him (Eph. 2:10). But our work is meant to be about taking up our role in God’s kingdom, not about building our own kingdom.

2. What are you sacrificing for your work?

Work will rightly demand you sacrifice many activities. Leisure, hobbies, and recreation must often fall second to your daily work (although they can have their place in your life) as you prioritize being faithful with all God has entrusted to you (Luke 16:10).

But you also need to ask if you’re sacrificing too much, or sacrificing the wrong things. Have you allowed work to compromise the amount of time, attention, and effort you should be putting into pursuing your relationship with God, investing in your marriage, discipling your kids, or actively participating in your church? Have you sacrificed more rest than God intended, given that he rested on the seventh day of creation as an example (Ex. 20:11)?

God warns us not to wear ourselves out to get rich but rather to be discerning enough to desist (Prov. 23:4)—especially for the sake of honoring all he has called us to outside our work.

3. Do you fear your work more than you fear God?

You were made to fear—not in the sense of being afraid but in the sense of having reverence for someone greater than yourself. You should fear God alone, and you can ask yourself whether you’ve come to fear work as an idol that rivals him.

For example, are you more eager to gain your leaders’ approval of your work or God’s commendation? Do your colleagues’ opinions of you matter more than God’s opinion? Are you more concerned about falling short of your career ambitions or of God’s glory?

He alone directs your steps, holds your future, judges all things rightly, and reigns over earthly leaders and authorities. It’s him you ultimately answer to, and him alone you’re to fear.

4. Does work govern your emotions more than it should?

It’s not wrong to be emotionally affected by your work. It’s often a sign that you care for those with whom, and for whom, you’re laboring. It can also be a sign you’re working with all your heart—a heart that can be moved by the failings, conflicts, inefficiencies, and frustrations you’ll face in an imperfect workplace.

But you’re also called to be steadfast and immovable as you abound in the work of the Lord (1 Cor. 15:58). You should ask if you’ve replaced your God of stability with the tumultuous god of work (Isa. 33:6).

Are you devastated when you don’t get the new role or promotion you felt you deserved? Can the uncertainty of your reputation in the workplace riddle you with anxiety? When you receive correction or critical feedback, does it shake your sense of worth? Does the weightiness of an upcoming project, meeting, or presentation grip you with fear and steal your sleep?

If so, it may be you’re looking to work to provide what only God can. Only the Lord gives unshakable peace amid all that threatens to shake you.

5. Would you leave your work if God asked you?

Although God may be calling you to remain faithful right where you are for the remainder of your career, you’re always wise to ask this question: If he called me to leave, would I obey?

If, through his Word, his wisdom, and godly counsel offered by others, it seemed he was asking you to give up the work you had today, would you do it? Could you trust God and gladly follow where he seemed to be leading you, or would you instead wrap your fist tighter around the god you’ve made of work?

If you, like Abraham with Isaac, would be willing to sacrifice your career on an altar of obedience if God asked you to do so, this may be a sign that you truly love God—far more than your work—as you haven’t withheld even this from him (Gen. 22:12).

Topple the Idol

If your answer to any of these questions brought the conviction that you’ve idolized your work, perhaps what you most need is to look this idol full in the face—its breathless, lifeless face—and acknowledge how powerless it is to save you.

For all the good to be found in and produced by your work, it was never meant to satisfy or rule over you as only the living God can. Just as every idol you read about in Scripture ultimately let its people down, so will any idol you make of work.

Instead, pray for the wisdom and self-control to keep work in its proper place in your life—a gift in which to enjoy him, a tool by which to serve him, and a way in which to reflect him—as you seek to only ever worship your heavenly Master.

I went outside a lot in those days, trying to escape the surreality and paranoia of life online in the COVID-19 era. I remember feeling more grounded, more human, more hopeful when I could breathe fresh air, sit outside at sunset, or pick avocados from our backyard tree. The script of creation—however uncontrollable—felt more predictable than the uncertain script of human history as our screens narrated to us an unfolding apocalypse.

The reality of COVID-19, we now know, was never as severe as our digital feeds declared. That’s not to say it wasn’t a nasty sickness that caused real suffering; it was and it did. But bigger than the pandemic’s biological disaster was its informational disaster—the tragic alchemy of an already brewing digital epistemological crisis, the algorithm’s acceleration of extreme takes, and the utter failure of the “expert class” to engender trust.

The rest of 2020 was a turning point for me—and I suspect many others—in recognizing the extent of screen-mediated information’s untrustworthiness. That year accelerated the death of expertise and crystallized the reality—which existed before the pandemic and has worsened since—that information in the digital era is severely compromised. There’s too much of it, being created and disseminated too quickly, in ways unhelpfully tailored (via algorithms) to the interests of tribes and partisan narratives.

In the years since, in books like The Wisdom Pyramid and Scrolling Ourselves to Death, I’ve tried to help Christians (and myself) reorient around nourishing truth in a digital world rife with malnourishing narratives and misinformation. But now, on the cusp of the AI revolution, I’m feeling the urgency again to remind us of the vital importance of reconnecting with physical reality in an age of digital delusions.

Trust What You Can Touch

This year reminds me of March 2020. As AI rapidly woos us into partnership with its brand of disembodied “knowledge work,” and more and more of what we see on screens and feeds might be AI-rendered (or significantly AI-enhanced), disillusionment with digital media is understandable.

What is real? How can I know if any written idea, rendered image, or even worship song is made by humans anymore? Is this email I’m reading AI-drafted or from the fingers (and brain) of a real person? Is this Substack post original to the author or a collab between the author and ChatGPT?

Increasingly, I feel what I felt in the first months of the pandemic: Nothing mediated to me on screens is as trustworthy as what I can see with my own eyes and feel with my own senses.

In a world as shaped by digital media as ours is, we sometimes forget what “media” means. It’s the mediating of reality: the secondhand re-presentation of something original and tangible, to those who didn’t perceive it directly. Media is an intervening agent between something primary, direct, and immediate, and what becomes secondhand, indirect, and mediated.

It’s like when kids play the telephone game. The first person says something, but by the time the last person hears it, after many translations and mediations, what’s heard is often far from the original communiqué.

We sometimes forget what ‘media’ means. It’s the mediating of reality: the secondhand re-presentation of something original and tangible, to those who didn’t perceive it directly.

Media can be helpful, of course; at its best, it can make distant realities more proximate and complex situations more easily understood. I’m a writer currently mediating my ideas to you in the form of a website article. I’m not discounting the good purposes media can serve.

But the process of mediating reality is admittedly fraught with peril and rife with potential for introducing distorting errors (as demonstrated by the comical results of the telephone game). Some reading this article will no doubt hear things I didn’t intend to communicate—things I could clarify were we talking about this face-to-face.

That’s why, if you have the choice, it’s usually better to trust what you can see with your own eyes—or hear from people you know in the flesh—more readily than what’s mediated to you.

The Upside Down of an Overmediated World

Our problem is that we live in a dangerously overmediated world.

Digital media has become more central and authoritative to us than our primary context, direct observance, or tangibly lived experience. It’s a world where commentary kerfuffles now take on a more important stature than the truth of the inciting incident being discussed. We’re more interested in something’s usefulness to our preferred narrative than the facticity of the thing itself.

This is a world where:

• Watching famous YouTube “influencers” is more compelling than tangibly exerting your own influence locally.
• Following the advice of celebrity podcasters is more common than heeding the counsel of your parents or local church pastor.
• Commentary on commentary, takes about takes, reaction videos to reactions are the norm—discourse about the discourse about the discourse.
• National news headlines shape our politics more than what’s happening in our own city that we can see, feel, and influence more directly.
• Online pastor-bashing influencers lead us to distrust our local pastor, even if we’ve never seen him do anything untrustworthy.
• Virtual sex via pornography or digital AI companions increasingly pass as substitutes for real human romantic relationships.
• We check the weather app to see if it’s raining rather than going outside to see if we feel raindrops.

The list could go on. You get the idea. In all this, the veracity of the digitally mediated is inferior to what we can directly observe. But we’re being conditioned to trust the digitally mediated more.

AI will only accelerate this tendency. It’s a new pinnacle of mediating power. It instantly mediates to us the entirety of human discourse or any particular topic in a concise, synthesized form. We’ll soon default to AI’s answers for all our inquiries, rather than trusting our observations or experiences in the real world—let alone the wisdom of other flesh-and-blood humans in our family or local church.

Resist this upside-down dynamic. God created you with eyes to see, ears to hear, fingers to touch. And because your senses can sometimes mislead you, God also created you to be placed in a family and church community that loves you, forms you, and helps you see what you miss. God created you to be embedded in a physical place, with other embodied people, who don’t have to be mediated to you because you’re beside them, face-to-face, shoulder-to-shoulder, unoptimized and unmanipulated by algorithmic efficiencies.

Freya India put it well in a recent blog post titled “You Have to Be Human”:

AI has to churn out the observations and opinions of other people, of a world it has never touched or experienced. You don’t have to do the same. So go outside, say yes to things, be scared and excited and uncomfortable. Feel your hands shake before you speak, your legs ache after a long day, your face flush when asking her out. Experience it all, the real world with all your senses, the fear of getting lost, the relief of finding your way, the hands of another person. Look people in the eye and learn about the world from living in it.

Arguably for Christians, the best place to look people in the eye, join hands with other embodied beings, and feel that very human discomfort India describes, is in a local church. The IRL church is a buttress of stability in a topsy-turvy world and a tangible community of hope in an age of digital disorientation. “Get offline and go to church” is advice most of us would do well to heed more often.

No Substitute for Immediate Experience

In his book Working, Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Robert Caro describes the immersive, on-the-ground research he did for his famous biographies of Lyndon B. Johnson. He moved with his wife, Ina, from Manhattan to live in the Texas Hill Country, where LBJ was raised. He even slept several nights under the stars in a sleeping bag, on a remote ranch, to feel with his senses what it was like to have been raised there.

Biographers in the age of AI can now easily deploy this technology for highly involved research. Likely, a good prompt could churn out an accurate, evocative description of the Texas Hill Country of LBJ’s youth. But there’s no substitute for observing things ourselves, digging into primary sources and primary places in the way Caro did, using the five senses God gave us—the original “media” of our ingenious design.

Digital media gives us access to infinite information, neatly retrieved and summarized for us by robots. We’ve never been more informed. But being informed is different from being wise. And mediated information is a poor substitute for immediate experience.

This is true spiritually, of course. We can know everything about God but not know him in a relational way. The former matters little if we don’t have the latter. We can be highly informed on theology but doxologically bankrupt; Trinitarian know-it-alls without really knowing the Trinitarian god personally.

Man or Machine?

The first book I read in 2026 was Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity. It’s an unflinching, refreshingly human jeremiad of the sort we need right now. We’re nearing a “man or machine?” decision point in contemporary culture, where we can choose to go all-in on machine authority or instead double down on old-fashioned human wisdom as an act of preparatory resistance:

• Wisdom that begins with embodied, sensory experiences AI doesn’t have
• Wisdom that involves love and affections AI can never have
• Wisdom shaped by painful setbacks and suffering AI doesn’t feel
• Wisdom rooted in human limits—limits AI is built to transcend

Reading Kingsnorth’s book coincided with my taking a monthlong break from all social media in January. I was less online than I have been in years; less aware of distant goings-on and trending outrages of the day; ignorant of a litany of pseudoevents that churned up discursive storms for a day or two before dissipating into remnant puddles, quickly evaporated and forgotten.

Being informed is different from being wise. And mediated information is a poor substitute for immediate experience.

This media downgrade allowed me greater presence with more permanent things. I had more time for the tangible, grounding, real-world experiences that shape my soul most fruitfully: Front-yard football with my two older sons, building LEGO castles with my daughter, holding my newborn son and seeing him recognize my face and smile, neighborhood prayer walks with my wife, long coffee meetups, worship and fellowship with my local church, receiving the hospitality of meal-train deliveries, avocado picking and sunset pondering—like in those uncertain days of March 2020.

COVID-19 feels far away now; none of my four kids even remembers it. The digital delusions and informational disasters are different now. But what grounded me then is what grounds me now—and can ground you, too, as the age of AI dawns.

What has always grounded Christians in the chaos? The unchanging reality of God, the gift of his Word, the communal power of his church, and the marvels of the sensory-rich world he made. These are all things we don’t have to ask AI to mediate to us. We can—and should—use our God-given brains and God-made bodies to encounter them directly. “Taste and see” that the Lord is good (Ps. 34:8). Don’t just take ChatGPT’s word for it.

That’s why one experience has lingered with me.

In conversations with classmates, I’ve noticed how often financial goals dominate our shared imagination of the future. The language is strikingly consistent: make money, invest aggressively, retire as soon as possible. The goal is rarely generosity or vocation. It’s freedom—defined almost entirely as freedom from work.

None of this is unusual. Modern society often views this approach as responsible. Yet it raises an important theological question: What kind of future are Christians living toward?

Question of Eschatology

At its core, the Christian struggle with money isn’t ethical or practical first. It’s eschatological. It’s a struggle between competing visions of the future.

Christianity is fundamentally forward-looking. Scripture consistently directs Christian hope beyond the present age toward a future already secured by God’s promise. Jesus tells his followers to store up treasure “where neither moth nor rust destroys”; he grounds financial faithfulness in the confidence that God’s kingdom will endure (Matt. 6:19–21).

According to the New Testament, wealth is provisional. Possessions are temporary. The Christian life is oriented toward spiritual inheritance, resurrection, final judgment, and new creation—realities that won’t be brought about by savvy financial planning.

This is the Christian future. And yet the way many Christians plan their financial lives suggests a different horizon.

Market’s Competing Future

The market offers its own eschatology, one that rivals the church’s without announcing itself as theology.

The market offers its own eschatology, one that rivals the church’s without announcing itself as theology.

In this vision, salvation comes through accumulation. Hope is deferred to financial independence, and peace arrives when one finally escapes risk. Investments mature, debts disappear, work becomes optional. The ideal future is retirement.

This story gains power even among believers precisely because it masquerades as prudence rather than idolatry. It promises control over uncertainty and insulation from suffering. We believe we can outrun fragility. Isn’t that wisdom?

But this eschatological posture subtly reshapes our desires. Work becomes something to endure, a means to an end rather than a vocation that’s a good in its own right. Instead of a tool for love, wealth becomes the condition of personal rest. The future becomes something to be secured through discipline and strategy rather than received as a gift.

Living Between Two Futures

Many Christians are pulled between these two futures without noticing the tension. We confess the coming kingdom on Sunday and organize our lives around financial self-preservation on Monday. We pray “Your kingdom come” while structuring our hopes around passive income.

Over time, the louder story wins.

This is especially visible among younger Christians caught up in hustle culture. I’ve listened to many stories about chasing crypto trends and working relentlessly with the hope of “being done” by 40. But is that vision of the good life—work and invest to get rich quick, then retire in your 30s—the vision the Bible prescribes?

A future defined primarily by achieving personal freedom bears little resemblance to the New Testament’s picture of Christian hope.

What Christian Hope Reorders

Christian eschatology forces us to be honest about what money can and cannot promise. If God truly secures the future, then wealth cannot be our savior. If resurrection is real, then work cannot be merely a burden to escape. If we’re promised an inheritance, we must live generously.

A future defined primarily by achieving personal freedom bears little resemblance to the New Testament’s picture of Christian hope.

Jesus warns against storing up treasure not because the future is uncertain but because it isn’t. An eternal spiritual future awaits everyone. That’s a far more important reality than whatever financial freedom we achieve for ourselves—or our loved ones—in this life.

When the church fails to teach this clearly, Christians will naturally default to the market’s priorities and the market’s vision of hope. Everyone lives toward a promised future, whether it’s named or not. The question is simply which one is forming us.

Different Orientation

We don’t need to reject wisdom or even wealth itself. Scripture consistently commends financial stewardship as a way to love of God and neighbor. Practices like generosity, Sabbath rest, and contentment are eschatological disciplines, training us to live now in light of what’s coming.

The question is never simply whether Christians invest but how and what for. Are our firstfruits offered back to God? Are we investing in or charitably supporting kingdom-advancing causes? Does this generosity disrupt our desire for comfort and control?

If Christians are increasingly shaped by the market’s story of salvation, the church must recover a clearer, truer account of the future we’re living toward.

For this reason, spiritual formation isn’t a self-directed project of personal optimization or a set of therapeutic life-hacks. It’s the shaping of human life according to a given norm. And because God has predestined his people “to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom. 8:29), that norm is irreducibly christological.

This raises a pressing question: What’s the role of God’s law in this process of becoming like Christ? Haven’t Christians, freed from the curse of the law (Gal. 3:10–13) and the debt it held over us (Col. 2:13–14), also been released from the law (Rom. 6:14; 7:1–6; Gal. 2:19; 3:24–25; 5:1, 18)?

In answer to these questions, Reformed theology has long been clear: Christlikeness isn’t opposed to God’s law but is its embodiment. To be formed into Christ’s image is to be conformed, by the Spirit, to God’s moral will—not as a means of earning life but as the shape of a life lived in filial communion with God through union with his Son.

Christ Came Not to Abolish but to Fulfill

Jesus fulfilled all righteousness on our behalf (Matt. 3:13–17; 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 4:4–5). He obeyed where we failed, and he accomplished what we couldn’t in our sinful flesh (Rom. 5:18–19; 8:3). Yet the One who fulfilled the law also insisted he hadn’t come to abolish it (Matt. 5:17–18).

Reformed theology has long been clear: Christlikeness isn’t opposed to God’s law but is its embodiment.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus deepens and intensifies the law’s demands (vv. 21–48), warns against relaxing its requirements (v. 19), and insists that true discipleship involves hearing his words and putting them into practice (7:24). He affirms the commandments when speaking with the rich young ruler (Luke 10:25–28), teaches that love for him expresses itself in obedience (John 14:15), and commissions his church to make disciples by teaching them to obey all he has commanded (Matt. 28:18–20).

Indeed, a stated aim of Christ’s redemptive work is that “the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us” (Rom. 8:4, emphasis added), so Paul calls us to fulfill the law of Christ in our lives (Gal. 6:2).

Perennial Threat of Antinomianism

One of the most persistent threats to this vision of Christian formation is antinomianism—what Dietrich Bonhoeffer calls “cheap grace.” Literally meaning “against the law,” antinomianism denies that God’s moral law has any constructive role in the believer’s life. Often framed as a safeguard of grace, antinomianism frequently functions instead as a license for lawlessness. The result isn’t freedom but deformation.

This error cuts deeper than is often recognized. Lawlessness isn’t merely one sin among others; one could argue it’s the sin beneath all sins. Scripture defines sin precisely this way: “Sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). The Westminster Shorter Catechism echoes this logic, defining sin as “any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God” (Q&A 14).

Rejecting the law repeats Eden’s primal distortion. The Serpent portrayed God’s command as restrictive, Eve embraced that lie, and Adam acted on it. Every sin since echoes this gesture, treating God’s commands as obstacles to joy rather than gifts for life.

The Reformed tradition has consistently resisted this lie. The Westminster Confession affirms that the moral law remains “of great use” to believers as a rule of life, directing them in God’s will (19.6). The law isn’t a burden imposed on redeemed people; it’s instruction for living in fellowship with the God who redeems.

Legalism and Antinomianism: Twin Christological Errors

Antinomianism is often contrasted with legalism, but the two share a common root. Both are, as Mark Jones explains, “fleshly” approaches to holiness. Legalism treats obedience as the ground of acceptance; antinomianism treats obedience as unnecessary. In different ways, both displace Christ from the center of sanctification.

The solution isn’t to strike a balance between law and grace, as though sanctification lay somewhere between license and rigor. Both errors are christological failures. The true alternative is union with Christ, in whom believers receive both full acceptance before God and real power for obedience by the Spirit.

Christ, the Pattern of Holiness

Biblical holiness begins not with projects of self-optimization or pure moral effort but with God himself: “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16; see Lev. 19:2). Fellowship with the Holy One requires corresponding holiness in us.

Jesus Christ stands at the center of this correspondence. He embodies God’s moral will in his human life. As Marcus Peter Johnson observes, “Conformity to Christ is . . . conformity to the law,” since “the law is an expression of God’s holy character.”

Christ, therefore, is both our holiness and our pattern of holiness. His obedience is imputed to us for justification, and that same obedience is replicated in us through sanctification. Scripture holds these together. God justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5), choosing us while we were still dead in sin (Eph. 2:1) and enemies (Rom. 5:10). Yet he chose us “that we should be holy” (Eph. 1:4), and he predestined us for conformity to Christ’s image (Rom. 8:29). To belong to Christ is also to be summoned into his likeness.

Christ’s Human Obedience and the Spirit’s Agency

It’s crucial to see that Christ’s obedience was genuinely human. Jesus kept the commandments perfectly (John 15:10; Heb. 4:15; 1 Pet. 2:22) without bypassing his humanity. John Owen is emphatic on this point: Christ’s divine nature didn’t replace his human faculties; rather, his obedience was exercised through his humanity empowered by the Spirit. In this way, Jesus lived the obedient human life precisely as human beings were meant to live it.

This has decisive implications for formation. The same Spirit who empowered Christ’s obedience is given to those united to him. Progressive sanctification isn’t Christ acting instead of us, nor the erasure of human agency, but the Spirit restoring and enabling it. As Paul writes, “God works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).

Antinomianism regularly stumbles here. While rightly affirming Christ’s obedience on our behalf, it wrongly infers that sanctification consists merely in believing that obedience is already complete. Salvation is collapsed into justification, and sanctification is reduced to correct thinking about forgiveness. The result is, as Jones argues, an ethical “hyper-Calvinism” that denies genuine human participation in holiness.

The Reformed alternative is richer: Christ’s obedience is the ground of our righteousness, but sanctification requires our active cooperation—dependent on the Spirit, yet involving our wills. God works in us, not instead of us.

Law as a Rule of Life in Christ

A decisive fault line, therefore, between Reformed orthodoxy and antinomianism concerns the law’s role in sanctification. Antinomians deny it any positive function. Reformed theology insists the law remains a rule of life for believers, guiding them in grateful obedience.

The Westminster Confession affirms that Christ and the gospel do not “dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation” to the moral law (19.5). Jones explains this through the classic Reformed indicative-imperative framework: Because the indicatives of the new covenant are greater, the imperatives aren’t relaxed but intensified.

Jones clarifies this by distinguishing between the gospel “narrowly” and “broadly” considered. Narrowly, the gospel announces what Christ has accomplished. Broadly, it includes the Spirit’s application of that work, writing the law on the heart.

Here’s how Richard Gaffin memorably puts it: Outside of Christ, the law is a condemnatory enemy. In Christ, it becomes a “friendly guide” for life with God. This is implicit in what the Reformed tradition has identified as the “third use” of the law (even though the “first use” of the law—convicting us of our failure to perfectly keep the law and driving us to gospel repentance—is never abrogated).

Romans 8 brings this into focus: What the law couldn’t accomplish because of sin, God accomplishes by the Spirit, fulfilling the law in us. The law no longer condemns, but neither does it disappear. It becomes both an instrument of sanctification and a goal of salvation as we’re conformed to Christ’s image.

Union with Christ and the Restoration of the Image

All this depends on union with Christ. As John Murray insists, union with Christ is “the central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation.” Murray is inspired by John Calvin, who expounded on the relation between union with Christ as our reception of the benefits of Christ’s saving work: “As long as Christ remains outside of us, and we separated from him, all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us” (Institutes, III.1.1).

Union with Christ is the ground of every saving benefit—justification, sanctification, adoption, and glorification. “Indeed,” Murray argues, “the whole process of salvation has its origin in one phase of union with Christ and salvation has in view the realization of other phases of union with Christ.”

This is why Calvin speaks of the duplex gratia, the double grace of justification and sanctification. Christ never gives one without the other. To separate them is to tear Christ apart (Institutes, III.16.1). Justification frees us from condemnation; sanctification restores us to the image of God. Both flow from the same union with Christ.

The goal of formation, therefore, is nothing less than the restoration of God’s image. Jesus Christ is the true image, the true human, the archetype of humanity as God intended it. To become most fully ourselves, to be “authentically” human, isn’t to look inward but to be conformed to him. As Coleman Ford writes, “Christ in us is the best version of ourselves. . . . Our ‘true’ or ‘authentic’ self is the self that is in Christ.” Sanctification isn’t mere morality; it’s participation in Christ’s holiness through union with the One who is that holiness.

Adoption and Family Likeness

Union with Christ reaches its height in adoption. As J. I. Packer argues, adoption is “the highest privilege the gospel offers.”

To be joined to the Son is to share in the Son’s relationship with the Father. We’re loved with the love with which the Father loves Christ. God doesn’t merely forgive us; he welcomes us as his children in love. And as Johnson says, “To be joined to Jesus Christ is to participate in the love the Father has for the Son. It means to belong to God as his children.” We’re loved as the Father loves Christ (see John 14–17).

This reframes obedience entirely. We don’t keep the law to earn life, nor merely out of abstract gratitude, but as sons and daughters who desire to please their Father. Obedience becomes family likeness. As children resemble their parents, so the children of God are conformed to their Father’s character (Matt. 5:45).

We don’t keep the law to earn life, nor merely out of abstract gratitude, but as sons and daughters who desire to please their Father.

Holiness, in this sense, is “simply a consistent living out of our filial relationship with God,” Packer explains. It’s a matter of being true to type—expressing adoption in life. The Spirit is key here. He reminds us of our filial status and works within us to shape us into children who resemble the Son and seek to glorify God the Father.

Christian formation isn’t about becoming someone else, engaging in self-directed self-improvement, or working our way to salvation. It’s the working out of the salvation already given to us—living out our fundamental union with Christ and adoption into God’s family. It’s about becoming, more fully and faithfully, who we already are in Christ.

God’s love precedes our obedience. God’s law gives shape to our obedience. God’s Son is both the source and pattern of our holiness. God’s Spirit enables real, human, joyful conformity to Christ.

Formation, then, is learning to live as beloved children—being remade into the likeness of the Son, by the power of the Spirit, for the pleasure of the Father.

Conflict is inevitable in pastoral ministry—but how pastors handle it shapes the health of their church. In this episode, Ligon Duncan and Matt Smethurst explore theological controversy, denominational tension, and local church conflict, offering biblical wisdom for leading with courage, humility, and love.

Resources Mentioned:

• “When Martyn Lloyd-Jones Confronted a Pastor Who Loved Controversy and Denunciation” by Justin Taylor
• “On Controversy” by John Newton
• The Multi-Directional Leader by Trevin Wax
• Forgive by Tim Keller
• The Excellency of a Gracious Spirit by Jeremiah Burroughs

I go outside, and a plume of smoke is in the sky over Dubai. A missile from Iran’s retaliatory attacks has been intercepted by the UAE. I’m thankful for the protection offered by the UAE from the barrage of missiles. As the day progresses these explosions continue, rattling the windows and doors, not to mention the nerves of my family and neighbors.

It’s strange how moments of crisis bring clarity. Each defensive burst clarifies realities I was already aware of but had hidden under the hum and drum of everyday life. These missiles provide moments of clarity into what’s most important.

Explosion 1

As the first blast wakes me, I’m reminded of the deep corruption and evil that fill the world. Weapons of violence are crafted to destroy, maim, and kill. Often, the violent are indiscriminate in their killing. Our swords and weapons have not yet been melted down and destroyed. They still explode. They still kill.

The insidious presence of evil in this world seeks to kill, steal, and destroy. Evil isn’t simply the absence of the good; it devours and ravages without pity. It corrupts and contaminates from within, leading to death. Natural and moral evil are inherently ugly, consuming, and pervasive.

Explosion 2

More drones are intercepted over Dubai. I’m gripped with the realization that normal life is a gift. I want to go back to thinking about the laundry piling up, the dentist appointment that needs to be scheduled, and the press of work life. Right now, those things seem distant. And I realize with a new clarity: Life is a gift. The daily rhythms themselves are a gift of grace.

Even in the tension of the moment and sheltering in place, I get glimpses of the beauty of normal everyday life. The hug from my wife, the smell of coffee, and the taste of chocolate remind me that life is good. Even in evil days, the vibrant beauty of life shines through.

Explosion 3

I’m not as strong as I think I am. Anxiety takes hold for a few moments. I want to put a strong face on for my wife and children and those around me, but I start to cave to old anxieties. What if we run out of water? What if there are no ways of evacuation? What if . . . ? As the “what ifs” mount, I remember my frailty and weakness. As I look at the official news about the number of drones and missiles intercepted, I need the Lord to breathe over me, “Peace, be still.”

These missiles are reminding me that I’m weak and frail, in need of the grace of God. I’m not a strong minister of the gospel; I’m a weak and needy human encompassed by concerns, anxieties, and needs.

I’m not a strong minister of the gospel; I’m a weak and needy human encompassed by concerns, anxieties, and needs.

Explosion 4

I’m struck by the fact that Jesus is still on his throne. Though the nations rage and the people plot in vain (Ps. 2), Jesus is ascended in majesty and glory. He rules over all and has authority over all people. Secondary causes are real, but he is sovereign over every piece of shrapnel that falls to the ground. The kings of the earth may think they have control over situations, but they do not.

All dominion over the earth has been given to the risen Son of Man. As Hebrews 2:8–9 says, “Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see . . . Jesus, crowned with glory and honor.” All things are under his control. All things will eventually reflect this reality. He is enthroned and in control now. Soon enough, we will see this reality perfectly realized, and there will be no more war, missiles, shrapnel, escalations, fear, and death.

These explosions—though frightening—are hollow sounds reminding us that evil will one day cease completely.

These explosions—though frightening—are hollow sounds reminding us that evil will one day cease completely.

Explosion 5

This explosion happens while we are in an online meeting for prayer with church members. This explosion is the largest of the day and the most frightening. I make sure my children are not too scared. A dear sister prays, “Father, remind us that these explosions and missiles and war are nothing in comparison to your wrath against sin. Remind us to share the gospel with those around us because we desire for them to be saved.” Explosions remind us of the coming wrath of God against sin when he returns to judge the living and the dead.

In daily life, the thought of the great day of judgment is far from our minds. We go about our business and think little of the wrath to come. But moments of crisis—especially moments of war—remind us that judgment is coming. We must be ready by turning from sin and clinging to Jesus.

Gift of Quiet Calm

As I write this, it has been quiet for a few hours. I mourn the loss of life in the region and hope the war ends quickly. I’m praying that it opens doors to a new way of life for many people and opens doors to more gospel ministry in this region.

For me, it was good to be reminded of the truths of God’s word (Ps. 119:71). These missiles have brought me moments of clarity.

In From Genesis to Junia: An Honest Search for What the Bible Really Says About Women in Leadership, Preston Sprinkle, president of The Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender and host of the Theology in the Raw podcast, explains his change of heart in an engaging, irenic, and accessible style. Though Sprinkle doesn’t provide new arguments for egalitarianism, his book will probably be referred to often because he changed his mind on the issue and states his views clearly. Nevertheless, I’m not persuaded by his argument.

In my judgment, the book hinges on Sprinkle’s interpretation of 1 Timothy 2. At the same time, his interpretation of Genesis 1–3 sets the direction for the entire book. After reading that chapter, I knew the way the book was going to travel. His exegesis of these two key passages reminds us that sometimes the best answer to doctrinal questions isn’t the newest.

Rethinking Genesis

Complementarians, like me, think it’s significant that Adam was created first—his creation before Eve signifies a particular role of authority. Paul appeals to this pattern in 1 Timothy 2, where he says a woman shouldn’t teach or exercise authority over a man.

The argument from creation has always been a linchpin for the complementarian interpretation, but Sprinkle finds it unpersuasive.

Disregarding Creation Order

He gives three main arguments against it. First, he claims that primogeniture (the priority of the firstborn) can’t represent a transcendent word from God that applies today. After all, primogeniture in the Scriptures applies to siblings, not wives. Second, primogeniture only applies after a father dies. Third, and most important for Sprinkle, God often overturns primogeniture, choosing, for example, Jacob over Esau and David over his brothers.

Sometimes the best answer to doctrinal questions isn’t the newest.

None of these arguments accounts for the text as it’s actually written in Genesis. Honestly (picking up a word from the title, and I hope with charity), Sprinkle explains away instead of explaining. Finding exceptions with reference to primogeniture elsewhere doesn’t mean there are exceptions here in Genesis, especially when Paul cites this text in 1 Timothy 2 to prohibit women from teaching and exercising authority (more on this below).

There’s a common saying that exceptions prove the rule, but for Sprinkle, the exceptions nullify the rule. In addition, noting that primogeniture in other texts applies to siblings and only occurs after a father’s death is interesting. However, such observations are irrelevant since Genesis 2 isn’t about fathers or siblings. The narrator in Genesis, under God’s inspiration, crafted the story with great care, and the order of creation clearly has significance. Such observations scarcely cancel out what’s said in Genesis 2, and it’s mystifying why Sprinkle thinks they do.

Defining ‘Helper’ 

Another issue Sprinkle engages is Eve being created as a helper in Genesis 2. For those new to the debate, Sprinkle restates the standard egalitarian understanding: God often helps Israel, and he isn’t subordinate to Israel. Sprinkle also emphasizes that the man and woman mutually rule the world under God’s lordship, thus verses 18 and 20 show that women are fully human and equal to men.

Sprinkle is right on both these points. The word “helper” is often used of God, and Genesis emphasizes the mutuality of men and women. We can all agree that the mutuality and equality of men and women are often taught in the Scriptures. And this is carried over into the New Testament in Jesus’s treatment of women, and in texts like 1 Corinthians 7:3–4 and 11:11–12.

Still, the question is whether such equality and mutuality cancel out different roles and responsibilities. Sprinkle seems to think they do, but such a move flattens the biblical text and the beautiful differentiation between men and women in the Scriptures.

Egalitarians are on target when they point out that God’s role as “helper” demonstrates that the one helping isn’t necessarily under authority. When God helps, he’s still the sovereign Lord. On the other hand, context is king, and words must be interpreted in context. It’s fallacious to say that since God helps, the term “helper” can’t designate help that comes from one under authority. The term is also used of those who assist someone who is their superior (e.g., 1 Chron. 12:1, 22–23).

The issue centers on what Genesis 2 means in its own context when it describes the woman as being a helper. Crucially, Paul picks up on the idea of women being helpers in 1 Corinthians 11:9, where woman was created for man’s sake.

An intertextual reading supports a different role between men and women. Sprinkle appeals to 1 Corinthians 11:11–12, which emphasizes the mutuality of men and women, to discount the unique authority of men in verses 8–9, even though he thinks the word kephalē means “authority” in verse 3.

Once again, he repristinates a common egalitarian trope. Equality and mutuality for Sprinkle rule out complementarity and role differences. Such a reading domesticates the text; it yields a simpler conclusion, but it doesn’t account for the richness and fullness of what the text says. Women are equal to men and have a different role. It’s hermeneutically illegitimate to use 1 Corinthians 11:11–12 to squelch verses 3–10.

Reconsidering 1 Timothy

The other key text on men and women is 1 Timothy 2. Sprinkle again disseminates common egalitarian readings.

The infinitive authentein in verse 12, he claims, means “dominate” instead of “exercise authority.” He also says that the word didaskein signifies teaching that isn’t fitting or right. Sprinkle concludes from this that women may exercise authority and teach in fitting ways.

Several problems plague Sprinkle’s analysis.

Authority or Domination?

Sprinkle doesn’t engage in a significant way with Andreas Köstenberger’s careful study of the syntax of the phrase “teach and exercise authority” (1 Tim. 2:12), which shows that both teaching and exercising authority are positive. Skating over Köstenberger’s analysis is a serious deficiency, since that analysis hasn’t been overturned even after much discussion.

Nevertheless, Sprinkle maintains that the word authentein is negative because it’s used where masters rule over slaves or where authority is exercised by someone higher on the social hierarchy. Such authority is negative, according to Sprinkle, since it doesn’t fit with Jesus’s understanding of authority, where we serve each other instead of dominating one another.

Sprinkle’s argument here is astonishing. Of course, Jesus subverts a common misunderstanding and forbids the abuse of authority, but this says nothing about the meaning of the term authentein in particular contexts. We would all agree that a master exercising authority over a slave isn’t a good thing since slavery is wrong, but that tells us nothing about the term’s meaning in an ancient text.

For this argument to carry much force, Sprinkle would have to show that in the ancient texts where authentein was used, the authors in question thought that masters exercising authority over slaves was negative, or that those in the social hierarchy thought exercising authority over one lower on the social ladder was negative. This is historically improbable. We may agree today that their conception of authority is incorrect, but we can’t appeal to our contemporary perception (or Jesus’s understanding) of authority to define how a word is used by an ancient author.

Sprinkle imposes on the text his conception of authority and then declares the authority described is bad because it doesn’t fit with Jesus’s understanding. As Al Wolters argues in Women in the Church, there are good reasons to think that the word authentein means “exercise authority” in a positive sense.

Teaching or False Teaching?

Sprinkle makes a similar mistake with the infinitive didaskein, which means “to teach.” He states that the word doesn’t have a positive meaning in 1 Timothy 2:12.

Again, I’m astonished, since the word has a positive meaning everywhere in the Pastoral Epistles and everywhere else in Paul’s writings. It only has a negative meaning if indicated by further contextual information.

Sprinkle appeals, for instance, to Titus 1:11 to say the word “teach” may have a negative meaning, but he fails to clarify that what makes the word negative is what Paul adds to it, for he speaks of “teaching what they ought not to teach.” Context is king! When Paul wants to use a term to describe false teaching in 1 Timothy, he uses another word, heterodidaskalein (to teach falsely, 1:3; 6:3). He could have easily used that word in 2:12.

He also fails to note that when Paul uses the verb “teach” (didaskein) elsewhere in 1 Timothy, he uses it positively: “Command and teach these things” (4:11) and “Teach and urge these things” (6:2). Also, in the near context, Paul refers positively to those who are “able to teach” (didaktikon, 3:2).

Sprinkle gives two examples from other contexts where teaching may have a negative meaning, but the examples don’t prove his point. There’s nothing wrong with the Jews teaching that adultery, stealing, and idolatry are wrong (Rom. 2:21); what’s wrong is that they don’t live by what they teach. There’s nothing wrong with Paul being taught the gospel by others (Gal. 1:12); Paul simply informs them that he learned the gospel directly from Jesus.

Sprinkle’s claim, then, that teaching has a negative meaning in 1 Timothy 2 has no evidence to support it.

Artemis or Eve?

When it comes to the reason Paul gives for prohibiting women from teaching or exercising authority (1 Tim. 2:12), Sprinkle reminds us of his reading of Genesis. Though Paul appeals to God creating Adam first (v. 13), Sprinkle concludes that the connection is illustrative instead of providing a foundation.

Instead, Sprinkle appeals to Paul’s concern about the Artemis cult as a possible explanation for the prohibition. Rather than looking at verse 13 as the grounds for the prohibition in verse 12, Sprinkle appeals to verse 14—where Adam and not the woman was deceived—which he says doesn’t have universal application. Let me take up the last point first.

Verse 14 makes the same point as verse 13. Satan subverts the created order by tempting Eve instead of Adam. The Serpent doesn’t approach Adam first but Eve, even though Adam had primary responsibility as the spiritual leader in the first family. On this understanding, verses 13 and 14 are both grounded in the created order. The point of verse 14 isn’t that women are more apt to be deceived but that the order of creation was subverted when the Serpent approached Eve instead of Adam. It seems to me, then, that the prohibition of women teaching or exercising authority (v. 12) is followed with the same reason (the order of creation in both verses 13 and 14).

Sprinkle appeals as well to the work of Sandra Glahn and Gary Hoag to support the idea that the false teaching may be derived from the Artemis cult. Yet the deviations perpetuated by the false teachers actually point to Jewish roots: devotion to myths and genealogies (1:3–4), the Jewish law (vv. 6–11), asceticism (4:3–4), and knowledge (6:20–21).

Nevertheless, according to Sprinkle, Artemis’s influence can’t be overstated. He sees it in the word “Savior,” the practice of celibacy, women being adorned, the emphasis on childbearing, a negative view of marriage, the concern for wealth, and Artemis being the firstborn. The problem with such an analysis is that Artemis is never mentioned, which is strange if the cult exercised such remarkable influence. All the matters Sprinkle mentions are ordinary and thus don’t point in any clear way to Artemis’s influence.

Sprinkle’s exegesis is an example of a flawed mirror reading. Mirror reading occurs when we read biblical texts to try to discern the situation that occasions the writing. For instance, when we do a mirror reading of Galatians, we see that the opponents insisted the Galatians had to be circumcised and to keep the Old Testament law to be saved.

Lyn Kidson, an egalitarian, criticizes the notion that Artemis played any role in the heresy. She rightly says that the “cult of Artemis provides little interpretive power when one closely scrutinizes the letter.” Elsewhere in the same article, she says the false teaching is “a world away from the cult of Artemis.”

Egalitarians tend, as we see here with reference to Artemis, to appeal to matters not stated or found in a text to overturn what a text actually says. An extratextual feature, never seen before in history, suddenly becomes the lens by which the text is read. Steven Baugh, in his essay in Women in the Church, elaborates on the deficiencies of such an approach with reference to ancient Ephesus.

Keep to the Old Paths

From Genesis to Junia surveys the biblical narrative for women’s roles in the Old Testament, the Gospels, and Paul’s writings, covering all the significant passages. Though Sprinkle hasn’t provided any new data on the question of the relationship between men and women, his arguments may carry weight with some readers because they echo contemporary cultural norms.

His arguments may carry weight with some readers because they echo contemporary cultural norms.

Based on this data, he reflects on leaders and leadership, female prophets in the Old Testament, the marriage relationship in Ephesians 5, and the controversial texts in 1 Corinthians 11 and 14 and 1 Timothy 2. These matters have been debated ad infinitum. Even though he dissents here and there from standard egalitarian views, his overall conclusions fit comfortably in the egalitarian camp.

Sometimes people question why complementarian Christians repeat the historical arguments for distinctions in male and female roles within the church. The answer is that it’s necessary to remind believers that old wine is often better than a newer vintage. In From Genesis to Junia, Preston Sprinkle explains why he changed his mind, but he offers no new reasons for other Christians to change theirs.

This is the world we’ve built. And a particular kind of man is thriving in it.

You’ll find him on podcasts and in pulpits, but everything he does is for social media. He’s the man who has confused being provocative with being profound, who mistakes the ability to offend for the courage to lead. He is the edgelord. And he’s becoming the dominant model of masculinity for an entire generation of young men.

The term “edgelord” emerged from internet culture in the early 2010s, combining “edgy” (intentionally provocative or transgressive content) with the suffix “-lord,” mocking someone who fancies himself a master of the craft. Originally, it described anonymous users on message boards like 4chan who competed to post the most shocking content. The edgelord’s currency is transgression, and his goal isn’t truth but reaction.

The edgelord’s defining trait is performative transgression. He pretends to speak hard truths that need to be heard, yet all he ever says are outrageous claims intended to generate attention. He isn’t leading anyone anywhere meaningful. He’s just seeing how close he can get to the line—or how flagrantly he can cross it—while his audience cheers him on.

This would be troubling enough if it were confined to the fringes of the internet. But social media has mainstreamed the edgelord aesthetic. Platforms that optimize for engagement have discovered that provocation performs exceedingly well, and they’ve trained a generation of content creators accordingly. The anonymous forum-poster and the pastor with a podcast are now playing the same game by the same rules. And the church has become one of the latest audiences for this behavior.

Why the Edgelords Win

To address the problem, we need to understand why edgelords command such a devoted following among young men.

First, edgelords offer belonging. Young men today often feel adrift, disconnected from the institutions and communities that once gave their fathers and grandfathers identity and purpose. The edgelord creates an in-group defined by shared enemies and insider language. That’s a powerful draw for men who feel like they belong nowhere.

Second, edgelords often name real problems. An entire generation of young men is suffering from loneliness, dying by suicide at devastating rates, and falling behind in education at every level. And for the better part of a decade, too many voices, both in the broader culture and within the church, have responded to these realities with indifference, dismissal, or active mockery. Young men have been told, implicitly and explicitly, that their struggles are either invented or deserved.

The edgelord’s currency is transgression, and his goal isn’t truth but reaction.

Into that vacuum steps the edgelord. When he says “the system is broken” or “nobody cares about men anymore,” he’s giving voice to frustrations that young men have been told are illegitimate. The fact that the edgelord’s diagnosis is cartoonish and his prescriptions corrosive doesn’t diminish the relief of finally hearing someone acknowledge the pain. If we want to understand why outrage merchants command such loyalty, we have to start by admitting that much of society abandoned young men, and the predatory edgelords simply filled the void.

Third, edgelords offer a shortcut to significance. Genuine maturity takes years to develop. It requires discipline, failure, growth, and patience. The edgelord offers an alternative: You can feel powerful right now by adopting the right posture, saying the right shocking things, and joining the right pile-ons. Why spend decades becoming a man of substance when you can feel like one this afternoon by dunking on someone online?

Fourth—and this is probably the most significant reason—the algorithm rewards them. Social media platforms are designed to amplify outrage. The meek may inherit the earth, but they won’t be going viral. A thoughtful 20-minute conversation about the nature of courage will lose every time to a 30-second clip of someone “destroying” an opponent.

Edgelords appeal to the basest instincts of human nature, which always gets attention. But a generation ago, such men could only embarrass themselves in front of the people who actually knew them. Now, the algorithm ensures their foolishness can reach thousands.

Biblical Vision of Mature Masculinity

What passes for boldness in this environment is often spiritual adolescence in a grown man’s body. The edgelord only “speaks truth” when he knows his audience of sycophants will cheer him on. But real courage speaks truth to power even when there’s a cost.

Scripture gives us a different picture of what mature manhood looks like. Consider Paul’s qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3: temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not quarrelsome. Or consider Titus 2, where older men are called to be “sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.” Absent from these descriptions is the ability to own the libs or dunk on the deplorables. Biblical maturity is marked by restraint rather than recklessness. It prizes wisdom over wit and substance over spectacle.

These aren’t abstract qualifications. We see them embodied in the men who wrote them down. Paul is the perfect example because he was fully capable of being devastating. This is a man who called the Galatian Christians foolish to their faces, who publicly opposed Peter, and who could dismantle sophisticated philosophical arguments in a single paragraph. Paul could have been the greatest edgelord in the ancient Mediterranean.

But look at what he did with that intellect and that force of personality. He wept over churches (2 Cor. 2:4). He worked with his hands so he wouldn’t burden anyone (1 Thess. 2:9). He described his ministry among the Thessalonians not as an authority flex but as a nursing mother caring for children (v. 7). When he had every right to pull rank, he appealed “on the basis of love” (Philem. 1:9, NIV). The man who could win any argument consistently chose to focus instead on showing godly love. That’s what true manliness looks like.

The tragedy of our moment is that young men are starving for such mature masculinity and often can’t find it because the platforms that dominate their attention are structurally hostile to it. When the loudest voices in a young man’s life are those modeling immaturity, he’ll assume immaturity is what strength looks like.

Path Forward

The same gospel that diagnoses our immaturity also provides the remedy. But there’s no single solution, because this is a multifaceted crisis involving technology, culture, and the human heart. Here are three fronts on which the church must engage.

1. Disciple men, don’t just debate edgelords.

There are times when we need to call out the effeminate histrionics of the edgelords, especially when it’s wildly popular. But it usually gives them exactly what they want: attention, enemies, and content. The most effective response is usually to ignore them and build something better.

Focus on the patient, unglamorous labor of one man investing in another. And promote the work of those who are faithful in such work. This means celebrating the 70-year-old deacon who has served the same church for four decades without applause. It means highlighting the father who works a steady job, leads his family in worship, and has never once gone viral. It means giving attention to the Sunday school teacher who has taught second graders for 25 years and couldn’t care less about “cultural influence.”

Such men aren’t building brands; they’re building the kingdom. And they should be the heroes we point young men toward as the model of what faithfulness looks like over the course of a life.

2. Teach young men how the machine works.

Young men need help understanding why certain content captures their attention so effectively. When they grasp that algorithms are designed to hijack their emotions to keep them doomscrolling, they have a better chance of resisting the manipulation.

Churches and parents can teach this, but too often we assume it’s common knowledge. For all their tech-savviness, the younger generation is largely unaware that their attention is the “product” being sold to advertisers.

3. Recover the boring virtues.

It isn’t glamorous nowadays to be a model of faithfulness, patience, steadiness, or restraint. You won’t get called “based” or get invited to speak at OutrageCon. But these characteristics form godly character, which is the only thing you take with you when the platform disappears.

Our churches should actively resist the gravitational pull that makes spectacle seem more significant than faithfulness. This means promoting the real men who led with conviction and humility, the ones who built institutions rather than merely burning them down.

Blessed Are the Edgy Meek

Jesus said the meek will inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5). The word “meek” is often misunderstood as meaning “weak.” What it really describes is strength under control, power channeled for righteous purposes. It’s the opposite of the edgelord, who is unable to exercise self-control because he has an adolescent desire to be noticed.

The edgelords won’t inherit the earth. The algorithms that reward them today will replace them with someone louder tomorrow. That’s the nature of the platform: It has no loyalty and confers no legacy. You cannot build a life on something designed to forget you by the next news cycle. The provocateur’s tragedy isn’t that he’ll be criticized; it’s that he’ll be ignored, which is the one thing he’s not equipped to survive.

You cannot build a life on something designed to forget you by the next news cycle.

The work that lasts has never depended on anyone watching. Somewhere this Sunday, a man nobody has ever heard of will stand up in front of a group of teenage boys and open his Bible. He won’t be clever, and he won’t go viral. He’ll just be there the same way he was there last week and the week before that. That man is doing the thing the edgelords only pretend to do. He’s forming the next generation.

Our cultural moment is desperate for men like him. An entire generation is looking for spiritual fathers, and too many are finding only wannabe influencers. The edgelords won’t help them become like Jesus. But the man with his Bible and his unremarkable Sunday morning faithfulness still can.

Loss of any kind can be lonely and isolating, but divorce is particularly complex and messy. It’s a death with no closure. There are no meal trains, flowers, or encouraging cards. Instead, my grief kept company with anger, stress, and shame.

Research shows that almost half of church attendees who get divorced leave their current church, and for those who remain, their relationships and service within the church dramatically decline. So how can the body of Christ better support people experiencing the pain of divorce?

1. Use words wisely.

Divorce left me feeling vulnerable and exposed. I’m sure I wasn’t always fun to be around. One day I was ranting. The next day I was in tears. A marital breakdown is much like a roller-coaster ride with constant emotional ups and downs. Because the situation is uncomfortable, fellow church members can be tempted to look the other way. Often, they don’t know what to say, or they’re afraid they’ll say the wrong thing.

Don’t avoid talking to a brother or sister navigating divorce. Use words that acknowledge the pain, but don’t try to solve the problem. Comments like “It’s OK to cry” or “I’m sorry this happened to you” express sincerity. Avoid clichés or insensitive comments like “You’ll get over it” or “This is your second chance.”

If words don’t come easily, a hug, a listening ear, and a quiet prayer are other thoughtful ways to communicate care and concern.

2. Share biblical truth.

Divorce can become an identity and the lens through which divorced people view themselves. So it’s important to point a divorced person to the truth of God’s Word. But be careful to avoid sharing verses about God’s purposes and promises in a way that might seem to dismiss her grief and pain. Instead, point to Scripture that will help her focus on who God is and who we are in him.

If words don’t come easily, a hug, a listening ear, and a quiet prayer are other thoughtful ways to communicate care and concern.

During my darkest days, Romans 8 reminded me of my position in Christ. I’m not condemned because of my marital failure (v. 1). I’m a child of God and coheir with Christ (vv. 16–17). God has prepared an eternity for me (v. 17). The Spirit intercedes when I don’t know what to pray (v. 26). God can use my divorce to grow me in holiness (v. 28). God gives victory over Satan’s attempts to destroy me (v. 37). Nothing can separate me from God’s eternal love (vv. 38–39).

Our identity is defined by God, not by divorce. Divorced people need to be encouraged by this truth, again and again.

3. Extend an invitation.

When I was raising my daughters on my own, I often felt left out because I didn’t seem to fit in anywhere, even at church. Single parents need adult friendship, connection with other families, and godly role models for their children.

Consider inviting single-parent families for dinner. Include them in family outings, such as a beach day or camping weekend. Remember a divorced person during holidays if he lives alone or his children are visiting the other parent. Helping a divorced person feel connected to the body of Christ can be as simple as setting an extra plate or two at the table.

Divorced people also need opportunities to remember their value within God’s family. Being invited to serve at church, for example, was a gentle reminder to me that God still viewed me as valuable in his kingdom, while providing an opportunity to connect with other members.

4. Commit for the long haul.

A friend recently described sticking with someone through hard times as “boring.” She’s right. It requires commitment when progress is slow and patience when problems are discussed repeatedly. Although divorce dissolves a marriage, there may be ongoing legal implications, custody battles, and parental visits. Certain milestones can be difficult to experience alone, such as graduations, weddings, and the birth of grandchildren.

Being there for the long haul includes practical help, regularly staying in touch, and continuing to listen and pray.

Looking back, so much has changed since that day my husband left in 2005. But, more than 20 years later, I still have support and encouragement from some of the same people. They stuck with us through thick and thin, good days and bad days, ups and downs. They’ve offered a prayer, a word of encouragement, or a helping hand whenever needed. I’m forever grateful for the friends who committed to walking with us, no matter how bumpy the journey.

5. Be a conduit of comfort.

The apostle Paul writes, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Cor. 1:3–5). This verse is a glorious reminder that God has provided the body of Christ to walk alongside those who are suffering.

Helping a divorced person feel connected to the body of Christ can be as simple as setting an extra plate or two at the table.

My first Sunday at church as a single mother was the hardest of my life. I cried through the songs. I sat numbly through the sermon. I bolted out the door at the benediction. But I returned, week after week, believing that church was the best place to be. Thankfully, I was right.

Over time, our little family of three came to know the Lord’s healing power, often provided through the simple gestures of his people who weren’t afraid to love us well.

The next time someone says, “I’m getting divorced,” don’t turn away. Embrace her with the compassion of Christ and love her with a servant’s heart. It won’t always be easy. But it’s a practical way the church can truly function as the family of God.

My first response to the essay was agreement. AI’s cognitive capabilities are extraordinary and accelerating rapidly. The business students I’m training will graduate into a world where AI proficiency isn’t a competitive advantage—it’s the baseline.

But then I had a nagging sense that something was missing from his argument. Shumer’s entire framework is built around capability. And nowhere in his article does he ask the question that helps me understand how to approach AI as a Christian educator: What does a human being bring to the table that an algorithm never will?

That question keeps running through my mind.

Identity, Not Intelligence

“You have made [man] a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor” (Ps. 8:5).

This verse names what the entire AI conversation is missing. Human beings aren’t merely cognitive agents. We’re creatures who have been crowned—not because of our processing speed but because of whose image we bear. Our distinction isn’t intelligence. It’s identity. We’re image-bearers of the living God.

We’re creatures who have been crowned—not because of our processing speed but because of whose image we bear.

John Calvin and the Westminster Larger Catechism both teach that God created humanity with knowledge of God, righteousness, and holiness—qualities that were corrupted by the fall but are being restored through the gospel.

The apostle Paul tells us this: “Put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator” (Col. 3:10). He reinforces this in Ephesians 4:24, where he calls believers to “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Through the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work, believers are being progressively restored in genuine knowledge of God (not data about God but relational, covenantal knowledge of the living God). This is accomplished through the sanctification process, and it produces something that no machine ever will—wisdom.

Grow in Wisdom

AI can process vast amounts of human knowledge in a matter of minutes, but it cannot fear the Lord (Prov. 9:10). It cannot exercise the kind of judgment that flows from a life being shaped by the Holy Spirit over years of prayer, repentance, suffering, and obedience.

I teach in a business school at a Christian university, and I see this play out tangibly. When my students and I are working through a complex business problem, AI gives us data, patterns, and potential insights at light speed. But then comes the part AI cannot do—discerning what actually matters.

As image-bearers of God, we can make judgments that weigh what’s best for a community’s long-term flourishing. We can consider business a calling, a platform for the Great Commission, not just profit maximization.

The same wisdom that sets us apart from AI can also be applied to AI. How do we train the next generation to wield this extraordinarily powerful tool without being mastered by it? How do we produce graduates who are both excellent with AI and deeply formed by the wisdom of God?

It starts with understanding what the Bible teaches about the human heart.

Apply Wisdom to AI

A pattern repeats throughout Scripture:

1. A new tool arrives.

2. It gives humanity a new capability.

3. The human heart quietly shifts its trust from God to the tool.

Consider the brick: “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly” (Gen. 11:3). The brick was a technological innovation in the ancient Near East—a man-made building material that replaced natural stone and allowed for more efficient and grandiose structures. It was a useful innovation for humanity and, by itself, morally neutral.

But look at what happens next: “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves” (v. 4). Making and using bricks wasn’t the sin. But the bricks did provoke sin. They gave the people at Babel a capability that made them feel like they didn’t need God anymore. Sound familiar?

The golden calf takes the pattern further. Remember the story of the Israelites taking the gold they’d carried out of Egypt and fashioning a replacement for God (Ex. 32)? Centuries later, when Stephen retells the story in Acts 7, he delivers a diagnosis relevant to our cultural moment: “[They] were rejoicing in the works of their hands” (v. 41).

The pattern keeps going. When Israel demands a king in 1 Samuel 8, they want the centralized power the surrounding nations have—armies, chariots, institutional strength. But in so doing, they’re rejecting God (v. 7). Through Jeremiah, God condemns their folly when he says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD” (Jer. 17:5).

Throughout the Bible, the tools change—brick, gold, chariots, horses, human kings—but the heart doesn’t. And AI may be the most seductive version of this temptation that humanity has ever encountered.

Way Forward

One more piece of the Babel story is critical for this conversation.

Genesis 11 ends with confusion, scattering, and the failure of humanity’s grand project of self-made glory. And then, Genesis 12 opens with God calling Abraham.

At Babel, humanity says, “Let us make a name for ourselves.” To Abraham, God says, “I will make your name great.”

Babel’s project is human self-sufficiency through technological achievement. Abraham’s project is divine redemption through covenant faithfulness.

At Babel, humanity tries to reach the heavens by their own effort. With Abraham, God reaches down and initiates a relationship of grace.

The gospel doesn’t reject human capability. It reorients it. Abraham was wealthy, resourceful, and capable. God didn’t call him to abandon those qualities. He called him to submit them to a larger story—God’s story of redeeming all things through a coming Messiah.

The same is true for our students. They don’t need to reject AI. They need to be formed by a story bigger than AI. We were made to be fruitful and to multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it (Gen. 1:28). That cultural mandate was given before the fall and reaffirmed after it (Gen. 9:1-7). AI can be a powerful tool in service of that mandate—if it’s used by people who know who they are in Christ.

Crowned, Not Coded

What does this mean for those of us teaching the next generation—in classrooms, at home, and in church?

We should teach them what Scripture says about the human heart before they ever open an AI platform. Let them see that this isn’t a new problem; it’s the oldest problem in the book.

We should teach the next generation what Scripture says about the human heart before they ever open an AI platform.

Before our students can use AI wisely, they need to know who they are. They need to see themselves clearly in Scripture’s story—as image-bearers of God, corrupted by the fall but being restored in Christ, called to participate in God’s redemptive mission in the world. They need to understand that their identity isn’t built on what they can produce but is found in Christ.

When a student understands that, AI takes its proper place. God, in his common grace, has always allowed fallen humanity to produce tools of remarkable power. AI is no different—and in the hands of a student formed by Scripture, AI becomes what it should be: a powerful tool of common grace in service of the cultural mandate. The young person who knows where she stands in redemptive history won’t be mastered by the tool, because she’s already mastered by her Lord.

Our students will need to know how to use AI at a high level in the jobs of the future. But even more, they will need to be the kind of people who can use it without being mastered by it. They will need to be shaped into young adults who know that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and that no amount of artificial intelligence can replace the real thing.

The question before Christian educators and parents right now isn’t whether AI will reshape the world. It will. Shumer is right about that. The question is whether we’ll form a generation that knows the difference between the brick and the Builder.

They rejoiced in the works of their hands. May our students rejoice in the work of his.

This panel discussion, recorded at TGCW24, explores the idea that the church is the household of God where we can serve together as the spiritual brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, and mothers and fathers that he intended. Panelists are Wendy Alsup, Blair Linne, and Sandy Willson, while Megan Hill moderates.

In This Episode

0:00 – Complementarity in the church: introduction and scriptural foundation

3:05 – Biblical basis for complementarianism

7:31 – Personal experiences and the value of men and women in the church

14:41 – Challenges and misunderstandings in complementarianism

28:48 – Positive vision for complementarianism in the church

34:30 – Practical steps for women in the church

40:19 – Conclusion and prayer

SIGN UP for one of our newsletters to stay informed about TGC’s latest resources.

Help The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Give today.

Don’t miss an episode of The Gospel Coalition Podcast:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube
  

When it comes to the gospel, preachers have a solemn duty to present its blessings accurately. Failing to do so misrepresents not only the message but God himself and runs the risk of leaving those who respond in faith regretful and disillusioned. The prosperity gospel that promises health and wealth is just one example of such false advertising.

So, what are the benefits every Christian can expect to receive from believing the gospel of Jesus Christ? Paul answers this question in his most comprehensive exposition of the gospel—the book of Romans. Let’s examine Romans 5:1–11, which gives a good account of such benefits and where the gospel’s money-back guarantees are mind-blowing and immensely appealing.

This passage acts as a bridge and turning point between the first two major units of the letter. In chapters 1–4, Paul expounds the gospel of God’s saving righteousness and provision of a righteous status before God to those who believe in Jesus. Then 5:1 recaps and summarizes chapters 1–4 before moving the argument forward to the life of those who trust in Jesus: “Since we have been justified by faith, we have . . .”

The change in 5:1–11 isn’t only one of topic but also one of tone. Paul moves from measured argument in chapters 1–4, using mainly second person verbs (you did this, you did that) and third person verbs (God did this, Abraham did that) to exuberant enumeration of the gospel’s blessings using first-person plural verbs (we have this, we have that); three occurrences of the verb “to rejoice/boast” (vv. 2, 3, 11) mark the passage with a celebratory character.

1. Peace with God

As a result of being justified by faith, believers enjoy peace with God (v. 1). A key term in Romans, the blessing of peace has a rich backstory, present and future dimensions, and ethical implications. In 2:7–10, peace with God is an eschatological gift, along with glory and honor. Alternatively, for those “who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth,” their future is grim (wrath, fury, tribulation, and distress).

In the Old Testament, peace is a consistent feature of the end-time fulfillment of God’s covenant promises. In Isaiah 9:6–7 the coming “son,” who is the “Prince of Peace,” will rule “on the throne of David,” and “of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.” More than just the absence of discord and hostility, peace with God connotes restored relationships with God and all people in a new creation.

More than just the absence of discord and hostility, peace with God connotes restored relationships with God and all people in a new creation.

Elsewhere in Romans: God is “the God of peace” (16:20), “the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace” (8:6), and the kingdom of God is a matter of “peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (14:17). Believers, by implication, are to follow “the way of peace” (3:17), “live peaceably with all” (12:18), and “pursue what makes for peace” (14:19). Although the full experience of peace awaits the eternal state, Paul prays, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing” (15:13).

2. Access to God’s Grace

The second benefit is “access by faith into this grace in which we stand” (5:2), and it comes “through him,” that is, Jesus Christ. Whereas Paul can use the word “access” with reference to entry into God’s presence (Eph. 2:18; 3:12), in 5:2 it refers to the continuing availability of God’s grace to believers made possible by Christ’s work. We have continual access to the grace that saves us (3:24); we aren’t only saved by grace but also strengthened and sustained by grace to live lives worthy of the gospel.

3. Sure Hope

The third benefit is “the hope of the glory of God” (v. 2; see vv. 4–5). The prospect of glory from God in the future is unsurprisingly something to celebrate, joyfully anticipate, and take pride in. The verb “take pride in” (kauchaomai) can have negative or positive connotations, and Paul exploits both poles of meaning in Romans. In 3:27 and 4:2, self-confident boasting as the basis for one’s standing with God is prohibited. But in 5:2, 3, and 11, boasting in and joyfully praising God for his blessings, including hope, is entirely appropriate.

Paul understands that hope can seem a flimsy concept. Hope, by definition, is unrealized longing: “Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?” (8:24). There are different types of hope. You can hope for a pay rise, fine weather, or a loved one’s recovery from a serious illness. The fulfillment of this kind of hope might seem doubtful and unlikely.

The hope of the gospel combines deep desire and confident expectation—a sure and certain hope that will not lead to disappointment or shame (5:5), for it’s guaranteed by God’s love. Hoping for the glory of God is a profound longing to experience the goodness and grace of the living God; it’s a yearning to be with God.

4. Beneficial Suffering

The fourth blessing of justification comes as something of a surprise: “We rejoice in our sufferings” (v. 3). The word translated “sufferings” (thlipsis) is a general term for all kinds of hardship and afflictions.

Paul claims we can be glad of our troubles, not out of some perverse enjoyment of pain but because we know they bring significant benefits: “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (vv. 3–4). Such reasoning, of course, assumes we highly value living in a way that pleases God and long for the day of our redemption.

5. Gift of the Holy Spirit

The next benefit of being justified by faith is in 5:5: God’s love for us being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Once again, there’s a critical backstory to the gift of the Spirit to all believers. Paul appears to be drawing on Joel 2:28–29: “It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. . . . In those days I will pour out my Spirit” (see Acts 2:17, 18, 33; 10:45; 1 Cor. 12:7).

In fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy, the Spirit of God gives believers the experience of God’s overflowing love, reassuring us of his care and concern during trials and giving us a firm ground for hope.

6. Assurance of God’s Love

The sixth benefit is being certain that God loves us (vv. 6–8), which reminds us of how Paul addressed the Christians in Romans 1:7 (“To all those in Rome who are loved by God”). The death of Christ “for us” (v. 8; see v. 6) is the irrefutable proof that God loves us.

The completely undeserved and extraordinary nature of God’s love is seen in three descriptions of those for whom Christ died: for “the ungodly” (v. 6), “sinners” (v. 8) and his “enemies” (v. 10). It’s also seen in contrast to two situations of human love where such sacrificial love is so unlikely and uncommon (v. 7). That Christ died for us “at the right time” (v. 6) points to his death as the climax of salvation history.

7. God Himself

The final verse in Romans 5:1–11 climaxes with the seventh benefit of being justified by faith: “We also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (v. 11).

Rejoicing in God himself is a fitting pinnacle of Paul’s celebration of salvation’s benefits. The justified, saved, and reconciled have peace with God, access to God’s grace, the hope of the glory of God, an experience of suffering that leads them closer to God, the gift of God’s Spirit, and the assurance of God’s extraordinary love demonstrated in the death of God’s Son. These six converge and reach their high point with Paul’s final call to rejoice in God himself.

Rejoicing in God himself is a fitting climax to Paul’s celebration of salvation’s benefits.

The money-back guarantees of the grace of God in the gospel are beyond measure. In Romans 5:1–11, we rejoice in God the Father with whom we have peace, who loves us, and from whom we’ll receive glory. We rejoice in God the Son, who died for us and through whom we have peace with God, by whose blood we’re justified, who saves us from God’s wrath, and through whom we’re reconciled. And we rejoice in God the Spirit, who continually assures us of God’s unfailing and extraordinary love for us.

Achievement addiction has led to emotional exhaustion. Today, many are ashamed of their failure to advance in their careers, frustrated over being underpaid, or bored from long hours of menial tasks. Maybe you’re afraid because of your industry’s direction, or perhaps you wonder if your work is valuable.

In the malaise of modern work, God offers us a hopeful alternative. First Thessalonians 4:9–12 presents a theology of work rooted in divine love, quiet ambition, and missional living.

Expression of Divine Love

In verse 9, Paul praises the Thessalonian believers for their “brotherly love.” But he still offers a subtle critique. In verses 10–11, he tells them to love one another “more and more” through their work. Paul goes further in 2 Thessalonians 3, rebuking some in the church who refused to have a job. At the heart of the Thessalonians’ dysfunctional work ethic is a misunderstanding of God’s love, which is the source of and standard for our work.

In our desperation to maximize productivity, we’ve become a society defined by voluntary self-exploitation.

Seeing work as a response to and expression of God’s love can reshape the way we approach our careers. Derek Thompson describes Americans as “adherents to a cult of productivity and achievement.” He calls this a cult of “workism.” We expect our careers to provide all we need—not only financial stability but also relationships, purpose, and even self-expression. We define ourselves by our work.

Christianity offers a more satisfying alternative. Because God loves and has worked for us, we’ve received the strength and example we need to love others through our work. Scripture often refers to God as a worker—a builder (Heb. 11:10), physician (Luke 5:31), shepherd (John 10:1), and vinedresser (15:1). He’s lovingly at work to renew us and the world.

In our vocations, we get to be agents of this renewal. We can serve the marginalized, offer to mentor someone younger in our field, or respond to a child’s tantrum with grace. Our work gives us the opportunity to show God’s compassion as we pursue the good of those around us.

Quiet Ambition

Paul also commands the Thessalonian believers, “Aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands” (1 Thess. 4:11). Aspiring to live quietly, or having quiet ambition, puts together two ideas we often separate. This apparent oxymoron is a potent subversion of the American dream.

Modern work often involves constantly comparing ourselves with others. We feel the pressure to make more, work harder, and climb faster than our peers. God, by contrast, offers a path to contentment: “Mind your own affairs” (v. 11). Paul didn’t tell the Thessalonians to achieve more by pursuing fame, influence, and wealth; he told them to quietly focus their passion on the work right in front of them.

Instead of being jealous about a coworker’s promotion, idolizing your boss’s approval, or endlessly comparing yourself with your LinkedIn network, you’re free to humbly accept the work God has given you. God offers contentment not through career accolades or a six-figure salary but through a quiet vocation faithfully submitted to Jesus.

Missional Living

According to Paul, a person with quiet ambition will be able to “walk properly before outsiders” (v. 12). Our work is a testimony to the world about God. When we think about how to apply our faith to work, we may think first about being generous with our resources and sharing the gospel in the workplace. While both are essential, what if we viewed work itself as a way to display God’s glory to the lost?

As Dorothy Sayers writes, “What the Church should be telling [an intelligent carpenter] is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.” High-quality work proclaims God’s creative excellence to the world.

Consider how the early church transformed multiple societal spheres through their distinctly Christian approach to work. They created the first public hospitals, introduced the legal concept of human rights, and invented social welfare that provided for the poor. God used their unique testimony to convert the Roman Empire.

What would it look like if we approached our careers in the same way? If you’re a manager, inspire your employees to work hard by exemplifying Christlike servant leadership. If you’re a social worker, use theological and clinical insights to heal your clients’ wounds. If you’re a parent, model the Father’s love by sacrificially nurturing your child. Every meeting, conversation, and decision is a chance to embody Christ’s Word and work to those around you.

Hope of Renewal

The gospel we proclaim is the hope that fuels our vocations. In verses 13–18, Paul describes the day when Jesus will return to fully renew the world. He’ll heal the ache we all feel. All will be made right through his work.

When Jesus returns to fully renew the world, he’ll heal the ache we all feel. All will be made right through his work.

The restoration of work is made possible through Christ’s death and resurrection. On the cross, Jesus took our shame, arrogance, overwork, and laziness so we could be forgiven. Christians receive Christ’s love not because of our performance but because of his. And as recipients of grace, we get to join God in his work of restoring creation.

Work can be consuming and painful. But because of Christ, we don’t work for an identity but from one. Let’s embrace our vocations and work with Christ to bring renewal to an exhausted world.

We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and . . . to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.

The UN charter perfectly captures how we feel. The past is dark. The future, we hope, can be better. That idea is baked into modern Western society.

You’ve probably heard somebody say “Get with the times,” “That was the Dark Ages,” “They need to update their thinking,” or “Those people are on the wrong side of history.” The progress story is so powerful nowadays that people try to win moral arguments by simply stating the date: “How can anyone believe that in 2026?”

In this way, even the most secular people believe in progress religiously. And we say religiously not just because of the force of this belief but because of its source: Progress is a biblical idea.

Biblical Vision of Progress

Consider a statue you can only see on the UN Headquarters garden tour. Unveiled in 1959, it’s called Let Us Beat Swords into Ploughshares, and it depicts a man beating a tool of violence into a tool of agriculture—moving from death to life. The statue is the perfect encapsulation of everything the UN is about, and it’s a profoundly biblical idea.

The image is taken straight out of Isaiah 2:3–4 (NIV, emphasis added):

Many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”

The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.

This is part of the biblical vision for progress, and it begins on page 1 of the Bible: “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day” (Gen. 1:5). God sets everything in a direction, and then he methodically improves things day after day. He even gets humanity to methodically improve things by instructing them to work and keep the garden of Eden and to name its animals.

So we go from darkness to light. We go from simple to complex, from water to land, from seed to tree, from animal to man and woman, from nothing to good, to very good. It’s all progressing.

Read on in the Bible, and you see it in Israel’s story. First they’re slaves in Egypt and then they’re headed to the promised land (see Ex. 1–15). You later find them in exile, but they’re awaiting the Messiah, and when the Messiah comes, he first suffers and then is glorified. It’s cross and then it’s resurrection.

Some cultures think of time as a great circle: Round and round it goes with no progress. Other cultures have a decline narrative: We started with a golden age, but it’s all been downhill since then. But the Bible has an arrow: We’re going onward and upward. One day, God will wipe away all tears (Rev. 21:4), and we’ll beat our swords into plowshares.

The UN charter perfectly captures how we feel. The past is dark. The future, we hope, can be better.

Progress is profoundly biblical. The drafters of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights admitted as much in their more candid moments. John Humphrey, the Canadian law professor who first drafted the declaration, wrote in his diary that his intention was “something like the Christian morality without the tommyrot.” “Tommyrot” is a brilliant word. It’s like poppycock or balderdash. Humphrey thinks Christian theology is nonsense. He exemplifies the whole Western project after Christendom—to ditch Christian theology as tommyrot but somehow keep Christian morality.

That’s why the UN Declaration can speak of humanity with dignity and hope. These are Christian ideas with their biblical roots hidden. But what happens when you do more than hide the biblical roots of progress? What happens when you cut yourself off from them completely?

Downfall of Modern Progress

Let’s take a second look at where the Swords into Ploughshares statue came from. It was sculpted by Evgeniy Vuchetich as a gift from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR, to the United Nations in 1959.

Communism is one example of severing the progress narrative from its biblical roots, and maybe the shape of the statue you can see in the video or image above is starting to make sense to you now that you know its origin. Here’s a proletarian worker holding a mallet and a plowshare, or in other words, a hammer and a sickle. You don’t have to be an expert in Cold War politics to know trolling when you see it. Khrushchev likely couldn’t believe he pulled this off—a giant statue of a hammer and sickle installed in New York City during the height of the Cold War!

Karl Marx, who wrote the Communist Manifesto, was a prophet of progress in the 19th century, but there were all sorts of other prophets of progress. Marx wrote about political progress. Hegel wrote about historical progress. Darwin wrote about biological progress. And Freud wrote about psychological progress.

When those secular prophets of progress prophesied, evidence seemed to back up their claims. The Industrial Revolution was taking hold in the West, and there were unprecedented upticks in wealth, health, and life expectancy. Prosperity seemed to be advancing just as the secular prophets had said.

But if the 19th century was a century of progress, what were we progressing toward? The 20th century has been called the “murder century.” More people died violently in those hundred years than in every century before. We all believe in progress. The big question is, What kind of progress?

Hitler wanted a thousand-year Reich, and the death toll from World War II stretched to millions. In the USSR, the communists killed millions more in their revolution and reign. When the Swords into Ploughshares statue was being unveiled, Chairman Mao was launching his Great Leap Forward in China, an effort in which probably tens of millions died from being either beaten, worked to death, or starved to death in the name of progress.

We all believe in progress. The big question is, What kind of progress?

Discerning Biblical Progress

How do we discern the biblical idea of progress from all the counterfeits? Here are three questions you can ask.

1. What is the standard of progress?

When we say things are better now, what do we mean? Things have improved a lot by the standards of economics, technology, and health care. But have human beings improved? Is our moral fiber better? If we were to travel to the past, we might impress an ancient society with our iPhones, but we probably wouldn’t impress them with our moral character.

What’s the standard? In Isaiah 2, the standard is clear. It’s the Lord’s ways, his paths, his law, his Word, his light. He is the judge.

2. Who is the bringer of progress?

On the statue, they shifted Isaiah’s language from “they” to “us” or “we.” Let us beat our swords into plowshares. We will bring about this brave new world. That’s a big shift.

In Isaiah, the focus is on the Lord. He will teach us his ways. The Word of Yahweh will flow out from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations. According to Isaiah, the Lord, through his Word, is the agent of progress. And that’s actually how history has worked out.

Think of the moral changes that have happened over the last 2,000 years—the birth of charities, hospitals, and hospices; education for all; the outlawing of blood sports, infanticide, and child sexual abuse. Think of the whole concept of human dignity, worth, and rights that the UN’s Universal Declaration is founded on. Think of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade. These have been profoundly biblical movements—Christian movements. The Lord, through his Word and through his Spirit at work in his people, brings progress.

3. What is the way of progress?

In 1958, while Vuchetich was working on that statue and Mao was enforcing his Great Leap Forward, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in a little magazine called The Gospel Messenger. For the first time, he used a line now remembered by millions: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

He got the line from a 19th-century abolitionist, a preacher named Theodore Parker. They both got it from the Bible. Parker and the abolitionists in the 19th century brought God’s Word to bear, and moral progress was made.

King and the civil rights movement in the 20th century said the arc of progress wasn’t done. The rights, dignity, and freedom that birthed abolitionism needed to be applied again in King’s day. So he proclaimed biblical truths and the arc continued to bend. But here’s a vital question: Which way does the arc bend?

We naturally imagine a rainbow-shaped arc rising up from the earth and soaring into the distance—an up and down trajectory. But that isn’t the biblical arc of progress—that’s a Babel arc. Remember Babel from Genesis 11? They built up a great tower by their own efforts to make a name for themselves, and in the Lord’s judgment, it all came down with a crash. Up then down—that’s the way of the flesh.

What’s the biblical way? Down, then up. In Isaiah 2, we see that nonviolence is at the heart of the Lord’s revolution. Swords turned into plowshares. The world brings progress by force, but the Lord brings progress by his Word. What’s it like to lay your weapons down and only use the Word of the Lord? It’s very costly, but King, like many others in the civil rights movement, embraced that way. He embraced the vulnerability of nonviolent, Word-based progress. It cost him his life. But that’s the way—down, then up.

That’s the way the Lord brings progress. Though he could’ve called 12 legions of angels, Jesus Christ refused to pick up his sword (Matt. 26:53). Instead, the weapons of violence were used on him, but he rose up to proclaim peace. That’s the way of his revolution, and it leaves all the others in the dust.

Jesus Christ refused to pick up his sword. Instead, the weapons of violence were used on him, but he rose up to proclaim peace.

When the Swords into Ploughshares statue was unveiled in 1959, Soviet propaganda seemed so cutting-edge, but now it’s the hammer and sickle that are on the wrong side of history. Progress is real, but it’s biblical. There is an arc, and it does bend, but it bends down and then up. It bends toward death then life. It’s cross and then resurrection, and in the end, all nations will see that it’s the Word of God that brings real progress. It’s the Word of God that will prevail.

Tied at the end of regulation—thanks to some insane saves from goalie Connor Hellebuyck—the sudden-death overtime period commenced. A few nerve-racking minutes in, Jack Hughes seized the moment and took his shot. History. Goosebumps. No algorithm could have scripted this outcome.

Not a miracle—but a moment that nevertheless felt transcendent.

“Great moments are born from great opportunity,” says Kurt Russell’s version of Herb Brooks in a locker room speech in Miracle, the film about USA men’s hockey’s 1980 gold-medal team. On Sunday, Hughes had a great opportunity and turned it into a great moment. The puck sailed into the net and Team USA secured its first men’s hockey gold in 46 years. I screamed and high-fived my boys. We watched with joy as the American team cleared the bench and the fans went wild.

As Hughes draped himself in the American flag, his smile—bloodied and full of gaps, thanks to Sam Bennett’s high stick knocking out three of Hughes’s teeth mere minutes earlier—added to the poetry of the moment. Here was an image Claude couldn’t have conjured up: a snapshot of the grit and the glory, the pain and the pride, the uncontrollable drama of athletic competition—one of the last singularly human spectacles in an age of machines.

Are Sports the Last Human Art Form?

Why do great sports moments resonate with us and indelibly stick in our memories? Because they capture the vulnerability and unpredictability of what it means to be human.

In the dawning AI age, distinctly embodied phenomena will increasingly stand out as displays that can’t be artificially reproduced, even by the most sophisticated LLMs. I expect that as movies, music, and other written works become more and more AI-rendered or AI-enhanced, athletic competitions and live sporting events will become dearer to us as refreshingly unenhanced displays of purely human prowess.

Maybe physical sports will become the last human art form. What literature and poetry have been to the humanities up until now, perhaps athletics will be for the humanities in the age of AI: a genre where the pain and glory of human existence is hashed out, not on a canvas or a page but on a field or in an arena.

Maybe physical sports will become the last human art form.

Even if teams of android robots could one day compete in professional athletic leagues of their own, would we care to watch? I don’t think so. We don’t watch sports primarily for the feats of hard athletic skill on display. We watch them for the human stories behind the skills—the families who made these athletes, their cultures and nations, their personal and patriotic passion, the physical and emotional hurdles they’ve overcome.

These athletes aren’t personality-lacking robots programmed and built in factories to be athletically perfect. They’re imperfect humans who put in the work to become as good as they can be. We’re awed because we understand the long hours, focused discipline, and “blood, sweat, and tears” sacrifices these athletes endured to get here. We know what they do isn’t easy, even if they make it seem effortless.

We know what they do isn’t easy, even if they make it seem effortless.

We also know that central to embodiment is the risk of injury, the limitations of biology, and the reality of mortality—things AI cannot know or model. These are actual, flesh-and-blood, highly breakable human bodies pushing themselves to the limit, flipping through the air on skis or skates, careening down steep slopes at 75 mph or bobsled tracks at 90 mph. This bodily vulnerability is part of what makes athletic competition compelling.

It’s Hughes scoring the game-winning goal while still spitting blood from just having three teeth knocked onto the ice. It’s the unforgettable moment of Kerri Strug clinching gold for the USA women’s gymnastics team in 1996 when she landed her second vault despite an injured ankle. But it’s also the horror of knowing that elite skiers like Lindsey Vonn can nearly lose a leg in a horrific accident, or that short-track speed skaters might get a blade to the eye during a race.

It’s the thrill of athletes embracing real risk, something AI is programmed to always avoid.

Possibility of Failure

We also resonate with sports because they’re unpredictable, uncontrollable, and utterly contingent on factors no algorithm could predict. In this way, sports feel like real life.

As much as modernity tries to tell us otherwise, our stories are hugely directed by providential factors beyond our control. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” is simply not correct. Curveballs can and do confront every ambitious high-achiever. We might try to force our own path, but God redirects us at his sovereign will (Prov. 16:9; 19:21).

Sports capture this reality in microcosm. We cheer our favorite teams and athletes, hoping to see them victorious. But we know the result might be heartbreak. Some of the hyped stars of Team USA collapsed under pressure at these Winter Games—like “quad god” Ilia Malinin’s eighth-place finish in men’s figure skating. For Canadians watching Sunday’s men’s hockey game, the “what might have been?” is hard to stomach. Every athlete and sports fan experiences the bitterness of losing. But this is precisely what makes sports so thrilling. Nothing is guaranteed. Outcomes are unpredictable.

In an excellent recap video of the Winter Games, NBC sports correspondent Mike Tirico said, “The truth is, you can be the best in the world for four years, over 1,400 days, but your career is often defined by what happens that one day. That’s why the Olympics draw us in.”

Indeed. You can’t script sports according to statistical probability or data analysis. And if you could, they’d lose their appeal. What resonates with us in life is what defies engineerability, as contemporary German sociologist Hartmut Rosa argues. You can’t manufacture resonance. It’s only possible when you release yourself to be touched or affected—perhaps the word is graced—in ways you didn’t plan or control but receive.

In his short book The Uncontrollability of the World, Rosa says,

It is only in encountering the uncontrollable that we really experience the world. Only then do we feel touched, moved, alive. A world that is fully known, in which everything has been planned and mastered, would be a dead world.

An AI-optimized world, I fear, will quickly begin to feel like a “dead world” devoid of true resonance. Yet athletic competition has the potential to keep us grounded in humanity, providing those ever-rarer moments of real resonance.

Because even as athletes and coaches certainly apply “optimization” techniques in every way they can, there’s only so much they can control. The weather, sickness, nerves, emotion, and other X factors throw a wrench into the best optimization schemes. But these God-given realities make life dynamic and interesting.

Image-Bearing Glory and Honor

As a sports fan, I’ve had other moments similar to watching Team USA’s 2026 hockey victory:

• Watching my Kansas City Chiefs at Super Bowl LIV (2020) come back from a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter to win their first championship in 50 years
• Watching the Kansas Jayhawks overcome a 9-point deficit against Memphis in the 2008 men’s basketball national championship, culminating in Mario Chalmers’s “miracle” 3-point shot to tie the game and send it to overtime

It’s interesting how often the word “miracle” is used in dramatic sports moments (or other religious language like “immaculate reception” and “hail mary”). The 1980 USA men’s hockey victory over the Soviet Union was dubbed the “miracle on ice,” revisited recently with an excellent Netflix documentary, Miracle: The Boys of ’80.

Why do we feel compelled to assign supernatural language to these events? We know these superstar athletes aren’t actually “gods” but rather breakable, mortal beings like us (albeit with more toned muscles). But maybe as they excel, win races, and break records—despite their human limitations—we see something of the imago Dei on display. We’re not God. We’re limited. But we’re also imbued with God-given dignity, image-bearers who are a little less than angels, and crowned with glory and honor (Ps. 8:5).

What resonates with us in life is what defies engineerability.

As Olympic athletes stand on the medal podium and have gold, silver, or bronze placed on their necks, perhaps we see echoes of this “crowning with glory and honor.” Humans are profoundly flawed and contingent, yes. But we’re capable of beautiful works and inspiring achievements because of how God wired us, because of the common grace he gives.

Perhaps pinnacle athletic achievements also appeal to us eschatologically, as we glimpse ever so faintly the future when our fallen nature and broken bodies will give way to redeemed humanity.

Sporting achievements are temporal goods, fleeting “highs” that won’t eternally endure. But they’re still good gifts, with values and virtues that will likely become even more vital as the age of AI unfolds.

Eventually, I took a job as an associate pastor. I was hired for my pastoral gifts, but I also noticed operational areas where the church needed help. Though I’d left camp ministry to focus on shepherding, it now seemed God had brought me to the church to share my operational gifts. Would I still be able to use my pastoral gifts?

Balance Call and Job Description

If you’re an executive pastor, or an associate pastor who spends significant time managing staff, budgets, and ministry plans, I’m certain you’ve felt the tension between God’s call to shepherd and the specifics of your role as an executive leader. Knowing how to properly spend your time can feel disorienting, because your call demands one set of skills while your job description demands another.

A job description lists the responsibilities your church pays you for. When you’re in an executive role, it’s often tailored to your unique talents and experience. But your call—felt internally and confirmed by your church—is like every other pastor’s call: to “shepherd the flock of God that is among you” (1 Pet. 5:2).

Executive pastor, don’t lose sight of your call amid the demands of your job. Your call comes from Scripture. Often, the details of your job description don’t. Moreover, remembering your call helps you fight burnout. You experience the joy of exercising your spiritual gifts when you’re locked in on your call. So don’t let it get overshadowed by your giant to-do list. Give shepherding your time and energy.

To help you remember your call, I’ll outline some primary responsibilities Scripture gives to pastors. Then I’ll provide self-assessment questions to help executive pastors like you prioritize these responsibilities.

1. Preach and teach.

Paul tells Timothy, “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:2). You may be an executive, but you’re still a pastor. So don’t lose sight of the God-given responsibility you have to teach and preach.

You experience the joy of exercising your spiritual gifts when you’re locked in on your call. So don’t let it get overshadowed.

Whether you’re preparing for a one-on-one meeting, a staff meeting, or a group on Sunday, you need to stay sharp in your biblical and theological thinking. Don’t hesitate to set aside the time and resources needed to ensure you do. Here are some self-evaluation questions:

• Am I abiding in Christ and growing in my ability to communicate truth—to explain and proclaim God’s Word?
• Do I have time in my work schedule set aside to study God’s Word?
• Do my staff need any specific training from the Word to help them better understand their work?
• Do I have a book budget, and am I using it well?
• What false ideologies are a threat to our church, and what can I do to help guard against them?

2. Equip your people.

Executive leaders are often operator types who can get a lot done on their own. But as a pastor, you’re called to empower others to use their gifts. This means more than delegating responsibilities. God has called you to disciple through equipping.

As Paul writes, “[Christ] gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:11–12). Ask these questions to assess your equipping work:

• Am I empowering others, or am I trying to do it all myself?
• Are there programs or initiatives for which we need to train more lay leaders?
• Whom can I take along with me to a meeting or two this week so he or she can simply observe and learn?
• Do I have a group of men I’m discipling?

3. Shepherd your people through Word and prayer.

Like the apostles, we pastors must “devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4). There’s a formal, preaching-and-teaching reason for this devotion (as I’ve described above), but we also have informal shepherding responsibilities that require such devotion.

Executive leaders must schedule opportunities to be with the men of our churches without an operational agenda—not to recruit them, close the loop on a decision, or address a pressing issue but to hear what God is doing in their lives and to minister to them. If you’re weak in this area, ask questions like these:

• How often do I stop to pray for someone I’m meeting with?
• Have I ever adjusted a meeting agenda to care for the person I’m meeting with instead?
• Am I setting agenda-free meetings with the men in our church to hear about their world so I can pray for them and encourage them in the Word?
• How often have I asked for more time on a decision so we can pray about it?
• Is studying God’s Word and praying regularly part of my job description? Do I include these responsibilities in the job descriptions of the ministers I lead?
• Is my pace slow enough that I don’t blow past people who are searching or hurting?
• Would my staff team say I’m led by God through his Word, or do they only see my gifts and effort?

4. Keep a close watch on your life and doctrine.

We’ve all heard stories of admired men who faltered in ministry because of a moral failure. Those stories remind us that we all need accountability. As Paul says, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this” (1 Tim. 4:16). To keep a close watch on your life, consider the following:

• Are there men in my life who know all the corners of my thoughts?
• Are there men who know all the corners of my family life?
• Have my wife and I made a list of people she can approach if she has concerns about my health, spiritually or otherwise?
• Am I being appropriately honest and vulnerable with my staff team?
• Who in my life will speak honestly to me if they see something off?

Are you fulfilling your call to be a pastor or merely accomplishing your job description? Maybe these questions have convicted you and revealed gaps in certain areas of your ministry. (I know they have for me!)

Are you fulfilling your call to be a pastor or merely accomplishing your job description?

You may want to sit with them for awhile and bring them to the Lord in prayer. But I hope they’ve brought freedom and encouragement in other areas and have given you an opportunity to thank the Lord for equipping and calling you to your role.

Remember, executive pastor, you’re not only allowed to engage in pastoral pursuits at work; you can’t fulfill your call without doing so. Slow down and consider your call, and if you’ve been neglecting it, reengage what you first loved about ministry. You’re a pastor. No matter what the job description says, be faithful to your calling, and enjoy it.

If you ask most Westerners what they want for their children, they’ll immediately tell you they want their kids to be happy. What better goal could there be?

Is Happiness the Best Goal?

This is the storyline we’ve been given, but it falls short for several reasons.

The first is hedonic adaptation. What’s that? Think of it this way. When you wake up in the morning and you have your first cup of coffee, you get that wonderful buzz. But if you have another later in the morning, there’s less buzz. Then, if you have a third cup in the afternoon, there’s no buzz. What’s happened? You’ve adapted to the coffee. You’ve gotten numb to it.

It’s the same with happiness. No matter how much we stimulate ourselves with pleasure, we become numb to whatever has made us happy.

Happiness studies show that whatever makes us happy—a new job, a new car, or a new romantic partner—gives us an initial burst of pleasure. But that burst of happiness lasts one or two years (if we’re lucky) before we’re back to where we started. We just get numb again.

You see it in the New York tourists. When they first arrive at Times Square, their eyes light up. They’re so happy; they jump, clap, and laugh. They take selfies and upload them on social media. They say, “Look at me. Look at how happy I am!” Then, after a while, they stop and think, “Huh, is this all there is?” They become numb to it all and walk away.

Another reason the happiness story falls short is what we call the hedonic fallacy. This principle says that just by chasing happiness, you’re guaranteed not to find it. That’s because happiness is ephemeral; it’s always the by-product of something else.

Chasing happiness is like chasing the rainbow. The rainbow always fades before you find it because it’s only a by-product of the sun. If you want to find a rainbow, perhaps you should be chasing the sun instead.

Something Better than Happiness

In a National Public Radio interview, a woman commented on parents who tell their children they just want them to be happy:

Be happy. I mean, if your parents tell you to get a job and make a certain amount of money, you know when you’ve achieved those things. But be happy? How are you supposed to know? It just makes you constantly question. Am I happy? How about now? Am I happy now?

She described how chasing happiness trips us up. But if running after happiness doesn’t make us happy, what should we be chasing? In Luke 9:23–25 (NIV), Jesus says,

Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?

Jesus says, “Chase me,” and he doesn’t promise us happiness. He says, “Take up your cross and follow me.” Pursuing Christ entails sacrifice, even hardship. Why would we want to do that? Because studies show that suffering, if it’s purposeful, will make us better people.

No matter how much we stimulate ourselves with pleasure, we become numb to whatever has made us happy.

Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, tells a story of two women. One woman is born beautiful and rich, but at the end of her life when she thinks of all the money, parties, and flirting, she realizes she had no purpose. Because she was self-absorbed, she dies empty and unfulfilled.

A second woman gives birth to a child with profound disabilities, and she has to care for this child her entire life. It’s a hardship, and she struggles to understand the purpose in it. But when she looks back at her life, she says, “My life is full of meaning. . . . I have done my best—I have done the best for my son. My life was no failure!” This woman ends her days fulfilled, because she lived for the sake of another. She lived for a story bigger than her own.

If we only live for ourselves, we’ll end up bent, curved in on ourselves, twisted, broken, and distorted. This is what the Bible calls “sin”—to fall short of the glory God designed us for (Rom. 3:23), to turn our backs on God’s bigger story for us. That’s why Jesus says, “Follow me.” He wants to be the big story we live for—not just as the model for how to live but as the One who opens the door to God’s great story for us by paying the penalty for our sin and giving us his new life.

God’s Bigger Story for Us

Imagine going to New York City but only seeing Times Square. That would be sad, because there’s so much more to New York. For example, you could see the Statue of Liberty with its story of freedom. There are museums with stories of art, culture, and creativity.

If we chase happiness, we won’t find it. But if we chase the Son, he’ll fulfill us, and we just might find happiness along the way.

But imagine if you had a reason to be in Times Square—a purpose or calling that took you there. Perhaps to see a friend, to demonstrate for a just cause, or to serve others and make a difference. Now you have a bigger story.

Jesus says, “Follow me.” Surrender to his bigger story for your life. Live for Jesus, and bring his love, mercy, and justice to this planet. Yes, there will be suffering. Yes, there will be hardships. Yes, there will be sacrifice. We may lose our lives, but we’ll gain so much more.

That’s the irony. By chasing rainbows, we won’t find them. But if we chase the sun, we’ll find rainbows. It’s the same with happiness. If we chase happiness, we won’t find it. But if we chase the Son, he’ll fulfill us, and we just might find happiness along the way.

It’s not that we think there’s only one answer. It’s that we want them to identify the top priority. Last year, we were surprised when every applicant gave the same answer. They talked about the public witness of gathered Christians, the church.

Maybe they were responding to negative press about the church, going back 25 years to the Catholic abuse scandal at the same time the internet became ubiquitous. Or maybe they were expressing renewed appreciation for the gathered church after the COVID-era shutdowns and public disorder. Either way, they were going back to a biblical concept rooted in Israel’s testimony to the nations, and the early church in the book of Acts that found favor with all.

Bob Thune is a fellow for The Keller Center and writes about this ecclesial apologetics in a chapter for our new book, The Gospel After Christendom: An Introduction to Cultural Apologetics (Zondervan Reflective). He’s also a featured teacher in an exciting new video small-group curriculum called Making Sense of Us, published by The Gospel Coalition and The Keller Center. His session, recorded against the backdrop of the Statue of Liberty in New York City, covers the cultural narrative we tell each other in the modern West about liberty.

We believe this curriculum can help you, especially young adults, to both evangelize and edify. When you watch and study with other church members, and even non-Christians, you can learn together about the Bible’s better story about liberty, which we live out together in the church.

In This Episode

00:00 – A deeper freedom: set free from self for love

00:32 – Keller Center fellows: why the gathered church matters for witness

01:41 – Introducing Bob Thune, ecclesial apologetics, and Making Sense of Us

02:39 – Lesslie Newbigin and a missionary posture toward the modern West

05:06 – Is Omaha post-Christian? Modern Western culture everywhere

06:34 – Ecclesial apologetics despite church messiness

09:17 – Gospel doctrine and gospel culture (truth, goodness, beauty)

11:03 – Christian hospitality: making room for outsiders with conviction and listening

17:03 – Why this differs from the seeker movement

19:10 – Transition to Making Sense of Us: liberty and the Statue of Liberty backdrop

20:16 – Modern misconception: freedom as “freedom from” (negative liberty)

22:17 – Galatians 5: freedom subverted and fulfilled—freedom for love and service

24:48 – Choice as happiness: dislodging the assumption pastorally

26:55 – Cultural pressure points: teen mental health, friendship decline, obligation

29:15 – Autonomy and assisted dying / euthanasia debates

31:56 – More choice, more frustration: speech platforms and “Netflix paralysis”

33:50 – Patience for contested proposals (post-liberalism, nationalism, and so on)

35:01 – “Freedom for” the common good and a shared human project

39:13 – Three church roles: solidarity-bringer, subversive fulfillment, alternative city

43:27 – Augustine’s lesson: church power, loss, and enduring hope

44:05 – Recommended reading and resources roundup

Resources Mentioned:

• The Gospel After Christendom edited by Collin Hansen, Skyler R. Flowers, and Ivan Mesa
• Making Sense of Us by John Starke, Rebecca McLaughlin, Sam Chan, Trevin Wax, Rachel Gilson, Bob Thune, Glen Scrivener, and Michael Keller
• The Air We Breathe by Glen Scrivener
• The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
• The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
• Democracy and Solidarity by James Davison Hunter
• City of God by Augustine of Hippo

SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen Things.

Help The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Donate today.

Don’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube
• TGC Updates

Or do they? Several reports published in 2025, including one from Barna, indicate Gen Z may be returning to church in a “historic reversal.” But the data is murky: A late 2025 Pew Research Center report finds little evidence of a major change in church attendance. Though there’s real religious excitement among Gen Z adults, data scientist Ryan Burge observes, “We will eventually become a country that is 40-to-45 percent ‘nones.’”

How are pastors, especially those who work with children and teenagers, supposed to minister in such a pivotal moment in American history? We must first accept a hard truth: We cannot continue to do children’s and youth ministry as we’ve done them and expect different results from today.

Keeping Kids Christian: Recovering a Biblical Vision for Lifelong Discipleship by Cameron S. Shaffer, senior pastor of Langhorne Presbyterian Church, offers a compelling blueprint for generational ministry in an age where people are abandoning institutions. It’s a vision that emphasizes the importance of the church, families, and intergenerational relationships in a culture more isolated, lonely, and disconnected than ever.

Ordinary Means

Too often, pastors begin with how they’ll do ministry and try to back into why. Shaffer challenges us to reverse this order and begin with our theological convictions. We must start with our beliefs about how God saves and work outward from these beliefs to how we’ll put them into practice in our churches. In the face of an everchanging, liquid modernity, we must remember that God doesn’t change. His means of justifying and sanctifying his people haven’t changed either.

One of Shaffer’s key beliefs is that God has designed the family as a primary avenue for passing down the faith to the next generation. God’s charge to Israel at Mount Sinai that they should “teach [his words] diligently to [their] children” isn’t a temporary arrangement (Deut. 6:7).

God has designed the family as a primary avenue for passing down the faith to the next generation.

Throughout Scripture, we’re told (Proverbs, Ephesians, 1 John) or shown (Judges, 1–2 Kings, Acts) that fathers and mothers are the leading influence on their children’s faith, for good or ill.

Shaffer is Presbyterian and explicitly argues that “the church needs to treat its kids as Christians” (35). Nevertheless, those who hold to believers-only baptism can agree that the family’s influence shapes an individual’s faith before, during, and long after he or she participates in any church program.

Yet kids without Christian parents aren’t without hope. Shaffer reminds us that God has designed cross-generational relationships in the church to meet this need. Those who leave their biological family behind to follow Christ will receive new fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers (Matt. 19:29).

A web of thick, healthy relationships between older and younger Christians in the church gives kids a place to belong and adults a catalyst to live sanctified lives for others to imitate. The “communion of saints” isn’t just a core belief of Christianity; it’s a foundational practice for how we minister to each other, including to our children.

Challenges of Church Culture

Shaffer’s blueprint is well tailored to small-to-medium-sized churches. Pastors at large churches, however, may balk when Shaffer remarks, “The prioritization of [standard youth and children’s ministry programs] fueled the great dechurching” (19). As churches grow in size and complexity, healthy church operations are vital to ensure pastors care for their people well. Programs often become a necessary backbone for stable ministry.

Shaffer isn’t opposed to programs in absolute terms. He’s really arguing “they should be downgraded in importance and treated as risky for faith retention” (19). While still critical, he’s making a case for caution that’s supported by anecdotal and empirical evidence.

A healthier model for ministry to young people emphasizes the primacy of the ordinary means of grace and the family’s centrality in discipleship. Departing from “the way we’ve always done it” can be scary. But it opens doors for creative ministry that equips parents with tools and training for discipling their families. That approach packs a much bigger punch than participation in a highly polished program for two hours on Wednesday night.

Shaffer offers suggestions for how children’s and youth ministry can complement parent-equipping generational ministry, such as how to incorporate children into Sunday worship without overwhelming parents or children. He also suggests prioritizing hiring staff for the men’s and women’s ministries before growing the staff for youth and children’s programs. Strategic discipleship of parents is important.

Courage to Change

Change is difficult, especially when it comes to raising kids. At first, an exhortation to parent-equipping generational ministry might feel like an attack on parents. Shaffer recognizes the challenge of leading change, especially in something as deeply personal as parenting. Moving too quickly might convince parents they’re failing and should rely on the experts.

But that’s exactly what Shaffer is trying to avoid. Therefore, he encourages a cautious approach to change, beginning with deep prayer and involving careful conversation over time.

Shaffer encourages a cautious approach to change, beginning with deep prayer and involving careful conversation over time.

Shaffer’s suggestions for implementing his approach are helpful but a little abstract. I’d love to see churches that implement this vision share their results, especially what did and didn’t work. Proven case studies would help busy pastors figure out how to adopt the family-centric approach.

Everyone leading ministries for youth and children wants kids to become healthy Christians. Yet Shaffer is right that some popular ministry approaches have lost their focus on deep discipleship as they’ve tried to broaden participation. A well-leveraged, family-centric approach is an effective way to make discipleship the main emphasis of our ministry to young people. As C. S. Lewis writes, “Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first & we lose both first and second things.”

Cultural trends like the Great Dechurching and deconstruction threaten to draw young people away from the Christian faith. Shaffer wants to help churches and families cultivate deep gospel roots. Keeping Kids Christian offers a powerful vision for putting discipleship first in our ministry to the next generation.

Unfortunately, we know little about Pamphlet’s early life. The earliest reference to him is an ad in the Virginia Gazette from July 3, 1779, that accuses him of stealing a horse, which was an offense worthy of hanging. In that account, he’s listed as the property of Jane Vobe, a tavern keeper in Williamsburg.

Yet what we know about the rest of Pamphlet’s life is remarkable. He was a faithful pastor who preached freedom from sin through the gospel of Christ as he worked for liberation from the sin of slavery. Pamphlet was in the first generation of black evangelical leaders who gained respect among their white brethren without abandoning their distinct ethnic identity.

Providential Opportunity

In the 18th century, the Great Awakening spurred a fresh generation of white Christian efforts to engage African Americans with the gospel. That’s how Pamphlet was converted to Christianity, beginning a life of service to Christ as he ministered to free and enslaved people of African descent.

Based on historical records, it’s likely that Pamphlet’s conversion experience came before his transfer of ownership. Yet his owner offered opportunities for her slaves to learn to read and write by using the Bible through the Bray School, one of the earliest institutions for black education in North America. Vobe also took her slaves to worship services at Bruton Parish, which was part of the Episcopalian church.

There’s no evidence that Vobe ever opposed slavery. However, her willingness to allow the people she enslaved to be educated enabled Pamphlet to gain the skills that would allow him to become a leading Baptist figure. Through God’s providence, he became one of the first black ordained ministers in the United States.

Risky Calling

Entry into the gospel ministry came with hardship for blacks. Historian Robert Semple reports that a black preacher named Moses Wilkinson, Pamphlet’s predecessor in Williamsburg, “was often taken up and whipped for holding meetings.” Yet Wilkinson’s courage in the face of persecution set an example for Pamphlet’s ministry to free and enslaved blacks in Virginia.

After Wilkinson’s Methodist ministry took him to New York and Nova Scotia, Pamphlet helped build the congregation Wilkinson founded into the nation’s first black Baptist church. Pamphlet began preaching on the wooded land of the Green Spring Plantation even before he was granted his freedom by David Miller (Vobe’s son) in September 1793.

Pamphlet never experienced safety as he preached the gospel of Jesus Christ for at least two reasons. First, Virginia didn’t establish religious freedom until July 1786, so as a Baptist in a state aligned with the Church of England, Pamphlet could have been punished for religious dissent. Nevertheless, historian John Asplund records Pamphlet’s Baptist church as founded in 1781 with about 200 members. Second, gatherings of that size would have been a concern to slave owners for fear of a possible uprising. Yet Pamphlet remained faithful to his calling.

Perpetual Resistance

Resistance seemed to come from every direction. The General Association of Baptists in Virginia “advised that no person of color should be allowed to preach, on the pain of excommunication.” Some, like Pamphlet, continued to gather and preach and were excluded from fellowship on those grounds.

Pamphlet never experienced safety as he preached the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Yet Pamphlet’s ministry was effective. And he continued to pursue unity with other Christians, even the white Christians who had rejected his ministry based on his race. Thus, in 1791, Pamphlet’s church petitioned the Dover Baptist Association for admission. The black congregation, now known as First Baptist Church of Williamsburg, was admitted into the association in 1793.

It’s remarkable that despite such pervasive resistance, Pamphlet’s desire for Christian unity and mutual accountability drove him to pursue inclusion in the Baptist association. His leadership was instrumental in showing that good faith and an iron will could help other Christians to consider the implications of their evangelical doctrine on social and civic life.

Notably, since black Christians had come into fellowship with white, slave-holding Christians, questions about how slave-holders treated their Christian brethren became inescapable. Virginia Baptists had to explore how church discipline should be implemented on white believers who were reluctant to treat black Christians fairly.

When Pamphlet and his congregants showed up at Baptist meetings, they advocated for church procedures that ensured slaves were treated as coheirs and brothers. Historian Charles Irons notes that in matters of church discipline, “black evangelicals could expect . . . far more respect for their persons than they enjoyed in any civil setting.” Nevertheless, white men were often the final arbiters on matters of church discipline.

Theological Challenges

The presence of black evangelicals like Pamphlet challenged their white colaborers to consider the way a biblical view of marriage could be applied to slavery and plantation life. For example, in 1793, the Dover Association had to modify its strict stance on divorce and remarriage in cases “where men and their wives, being slaves, [were] so far removed to each other, as not to have it in their power to discharge the mutual duties of man and wife.” Instead, the local church was to use judgment regarding the permissibility of remarriage.

Since black Christians had come into fellowship with white, slave-holding Christians, questions about how slave-holders treated their Christian brethren became inescapable.

This train of logic was never taken to its final destination, however. Most white Christians in the association were content to relinquish the decision on the permissibility of slavery and the surrounding practices to the state. This hesitation exposes the danger of allowing civil authorities to resolve moral questions the church was called to address.

Pamphlet’s legacy is profound. By engaging with the Dover Association, First Baptist Church of Williamsburg paved the way for other Baptist congregations to form in Portsmouth and Petersburg. Additionally, Pamphlet trained churchmen like Simon Gulley, Israel Camp, Lewis Armstead, T. Maise, Benjamin White, Thomas Mars, and James Roberts, who were noted contributors to early black evangelical life and the Dover Association. Moreover, during Pamphlet’s pastorate, First Baptist Church of Williamsburg grew to 500 members and became an exemplar for reaching black communities with the gospel.

Pamphlet’s encounter with the freedom of the gospel informed his passion to share the message of redemption and hope. He joined a biracial movement of evangelicals that offered true freedom even amid the injustice of chattel slavery.

Gowan Pamphlet’s body has long been in his grave, but his legacy still has the power to inspire the church.

• Derek Buikema: lead pastor at Orland Park Christian Reformed Church (Orland Park, Illinois)
• Trent Casto: senior pastor of Covenant Church of Naples (Naples, Florida)
• J. T. English: lead pastor at Storyline Church (Arvada, Colorado)
• Sam Ferguson: rector of The Falls Church Anglican (Falls Church, Virginia)
• Philip Miller: senior pastor of The Moody Church (Chicago, Illinois)
• Jeff Norris: senior pastor of Perimeter Church (Johns Creek, Georgia)
• Scott Redd: pastor at Briarwood Presbyterian Church (Birmingham, Alabama)
• P. J. Tibayan: pastor-theologian at Bellflower Baptist Church (Bellflower, California)

Nominated by the TGC Board and elected by the Council, these newest additions bring the total number of active Council members to 52. See the full list of current Council members as well as Council Emeritus members.

“The local church is TGC’s heartbeat,” said Mark Vroegop, TGC’s president since early 2025. “We want to equip pastors, other church leaders, and churchgoers with the resources they need for faithful Christian life and ministry. And TGC’s rootedness in the local church has always been strengthened by our Council. This group of trusted, experienced leaders from a variety of denominations and ministry contexts keep TGC on mission and connected to the practical needs of local churches. I know the addition of these eight new Council members will be a massive win for TGC’s ongoing efforts to help renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel.”

TGC’s Council convened for the first time in 2005, at the invitation of Don Carson and Tim Keller. Out of that first gathering, TGC was formally organized, adopting our Foundation Documents in 2007. Ever since, the Council has gathered annually to encourage one another and provide guidance to the staff team leading the many fronts of TGC’s global ministry.

Check out TGC’s latest resources by visiting TGC.org or subscribing to one of our newsletters.

Support the ministry of TGC by joining TGC Collective or making a gift to our Ancient Gospel, Future Church campaign.

I asked Winfree Brisley—editor of several books, including the Disciplines of Devotion series—about what’s on her bedside table, her favorite fiction, the books she regularly revisits, and more.

What’s on your nightstand right now?

What’s on my nightstand and what I’m reading are two different questions. I tend to have more books sitting around than I can realistically read. But I try to always be working through at least one fiction book and one Christian nonfiction book.

For fiction, I’m currently reading Middlemarch by George Eliot. I used to alternate between contemporary fiction and classics, but more and more I find myself staying with the classics as I struggle to find contemporary works that aren’t unnecessarily dark or explicit. However, Theo of Golden was a delightful exception that I enjoyed last year.

I’m also reading Matt Smethurst’s excellent book, Tim Keller on the Christian Life. I’ve read and listened to a lot from Keller, so the teaching is familiar. But Smethurst’s use of quotes from Keller and anecdotes from his life and ministry really bring the teaching to life in a beautiful way.

Speaking of bringing teaching to life, I also recently finished Radically Whole by David Gibson. It’s a reflection on the book of James, particularly working out the theme of double-mindedness. I’ve always struggled a bit with James, but Gibson’s insights helped me appreciate it and apply it in a deeper way.

What are your favorite fiction books?

I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time in 8th grade, and I’ve been hooked on Jane Austen’s novels ever since. Though I’ll happily read any of her books, Persuasion is probably my favorite at this point.

The reason I love Austen’s books, and the reason they’re worth rereading, is that their value isn’t in the plotline. It’s in the character development. No spoiler alerts are necessary. The guy and the girl are going to get together in the end. The beauty is in getting to know the characters along the way.

What are some books you regularly reread and why?

Other than Austen’s novels, I don’t regularly reread many books in their entirety. However, there are some that I go back to again and again for particular chapters or arguments.

One of those is C. S. Lewis’s The Four Loves. His exploration of the different types of love is insightful on both a philosophical and a practical level—particularly his reflections on friendship. Given that love is so foundational to the character of God and to our relationships with him and one another, I often go back to this book to inform my writing and teaching.

Given that love is so foundational to the character of God and to our relationships with him and one another, I often go back to this book to inform my writing and teaching.

Jen Wilkin’s Women of the Word is another book I frequently pull off the shelf. As I consider how to best teach and train other women, I certainly can’t improve on what she has outlined there, so I gladly borrow her 5 P’s of study—giving her credit, of course.

And I return again and again to Alexander Maclaren’s Expositions of Holy Scripture. His volumes on the Gospel of John are dear to me, and his sermon on John 21:7 has probably shaped me more than any other sermon I’ve heard or read.

What books have most profoundly shaped how you serve and lead others for the sake of the gospel?

When I was starting out as a high school English teacher in a Christian school, I stumbled on Leland Ryken’s Realms of Gold: The Classics in Christian Perspective. I was looking for particular help teaching Shakespeare and Hawthorne and others from a biblical perspective, and I found that. In fact, although I loathed The Scarlet Letter as a student, it became one of my favorite novels to teach once I saw it from Ryken’s perspective.

But even more importantly, Ryken instilled in me something he calls the literary imagination. He writes, “It is possible to set up a profitable two-way street between the Bible and literature, with the Bible enabling me to see a lot in literature that I would otherwise miss, and literature enabling me to see and feel biblical truth better.” That became a framework that shaped not only how I taught literature but how I thought about all sorts of areas of life.

This has informed my writing over the years, my Bible teaching, the way I engage culture and nonbelievers, and even how I parent. If we’re paying attention, we can see the truth of Scripture everywhere, even in unlikely places, and we can apply the truth of Scripture to everything, even to things it doesn’t speak directly about.

Though that seems obvious to me now, at the time I first encountered Ryken’s work, my intuitive approach to the world reflected a more rigid sacred-secular divide. He helped me begin to understand how to make “every square inch” theology practical.

What’s one book you wish every pastor would read?

Rory Shiner’s One Forever: The Transforming Power of Being in Christ is well worth a pastor’s time. It not only gives you an incredibly effective analogy for explaining what it means to be “in Christ” that you can use in your teaching and preaching, but it also provides a helpful example of how to make a complicated doctrine clear and accessible to the average Christian. And it’s less than 100 pages!

The more I write and teach, the more I realize that there are so many words and phrases from Scripture that we regularly say in Christian circles without ever really explaining what they mean. “In Christ” is one of those. In fact, I didn’t realize how poorly I understood that concept until I heard a speaker use Shiner’s airplane analogy.

Well-formed illustrations and analogies can accomplish a lot more than simply engaging listener attention. They really can enable people to understand theological truths in meaningful ways.

What’s your best piece of writing advice?

When you’re ready to write, sit down at your computer. If you need to think, do it somewhere else. I need to read and think and work out arguments before I have anything worthwhile to put down on the page. If I try to do that thinking work with a blank document and a blinking cursor in front of me, I just get discouraged that I’m not making progress.

Instead, I find it helpful to identify a specific argument or illustration that I need to work out and then go on a walk to think it through or forgo a podcast and process it while I’m driving. Even once I’m well into a writing project, if I get stuck, I often walk a lap around my neighborhood to think through my problem. There’s something about getting my body moving that seems to get my mind unstuck.

As editor of TGC’s new Disciplines of Devotion series, what’s your hope for this series aimed at Christian women, and what are ways that individuals or churches can use these resources?

For years now, as I’ve talked with women about their spiritual lives, I’ve heard a consistent frustration. They want to grow in knowing the Lord. They want to have a rich devotional life. But everything else in life seems to get in the way. So I’ve been wrestling with this question of how we can equip women to grow in devotion to the Lord even as they live in an age of endless distraction.

As I’ve looked to Scripture and considered the examples of faithful believers in church history and some in my own family and church, it stands out to me that discipline helps us grow in devotion. Habits and disciplines often get a bad rap in the church because we’re concerned about legalism. But as Dallas Willard explains, “Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.”

As I’ve looked to Scripture and considered the examples of faithful believers, it stands out to me that discipline helps us grow in devotion.

My hope for this series is to give women practical examples of the sort of effort that helps us grow in relationship with the Lord. Scripture points us to a variety of practices, and they’re not as complicated as we often think. So each booklet explores one discipline and offers three very accessible ways to practice it.

There will initially be six booklets: Prayer, Fasting, Sabbath Rest, Worship, Evangelism, and Bible Study. Readers can pick one or two that particularly interest them, or read the whole series. And the booklets include discussion questions, so they would make great content for small groups or discipleship relationships.

What are you learning about life and following Jesus?

I’m learning to turn to prayer more readily and more frequently. In a world of endless information, googling and scrolling can easily become our go-to source of help. But no parenting tip from social media has ever moved the hearts of my sons. Crying out to the Lord on their behalf has. No time management hack has ever given me peace and joy when my inbox is overflowing, deadlines are approaching, and there aren’t enough hours in the day. Crying out to the Lord has.

I’m finding the testimony of the psalmist to be true in my life day after day: “I sought the LORD, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears” (Ps. 34:4).

Against this backdrop of dispiriting long-term data, some recent studies suggest a growing spiritual interest on the part of younger people, with accompanying increases in church attendance. It’s too early to say if the decades-long decline in young-adult church participation is slowing or even reversing. Nonetheless, church leaders may face an opportunity to respond to what God is doing among young adults in ways that counter disengagement trends.

In this moment, many congregations feel stuck, unsure where to begin, unaware of the cultural and developmental complexities shaping young adults, or simply resigned to discouraging trends. But there’s hope. We identified “magnetic churches” across the country—congregations experiencing unusual fruitfulness in their ministries to young adults. Their witness is clear: Reaching emerging adults is possible when churches embrace a prayerful, biblical, and gospel-centered posture.

From this study, we found six strategic moves that offer a path forward for young-adult ministry in your church.

1.  Come to terms with reality.

Faithful ministry begins with embracing reality. As Derek Melleby observes, “In order to help young people develop a lasting faith, the church needs to have an understanding of the cultural conditions in which young people live.” Unfortunately, many congregations, including pastors, are unfamiliar with the lived realities of today’s twentysomethings. How do we correct this?

In their book Sustainable Young Adult Ministry, Mark DeVries and Scott Pontier write, “The only chance we have to really understand young adults is . . . getting to know them personally, not simply learning about them in abstract.” Introduce yourself to twentysomethings inside and outside your church. Be curious. Ask questions. Listen well. Build relationships with young adults, and be intentional about cultivating their trust.

Church leaders may face an opportunity to respond to what God is doing among young adults in ways that counter disengagement trends.

As you do, you can read books like Kevin DeYoung’s The (Not-So-Secret) Secret to Reaching the Next Generation, David Setran and Chris Kiesling’s Spiritual Formation in Emerging Adulthood, or other resources linked in this article. Books like these help to inform what you’re learning in your personal interactions.

With newly acquired knowledge in one hand and humility in the other, leaders should honestly assess themselves and their churches. Imagine experiencing your congregation for the first time as a nonbelieving young adult, or as a Christian twentysomething eager to grow, belong, and serve. Be brutally honest. Invite young adults into this evaluation process. Avoid defensiveness. Renewal and repentance start by first coming to terms with reality.

2. Pray.

Prayer must be the foundation of our efforts to engage young adults. Scripture reminds us that “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 9:10) and “the prayer of a righteous person has great power” (James 5:16). Charles Spurgeon warns,

If a church does not pray, it is dead. Instead of putting united prayer last, put it first. Everything will hinge upon the power of prayer in the church.

Prayer expresses our dependency on God; opens us to the Spirit’s conviction and leading; and, in the Lord’s mysterious providence, is a means by which he works in young adults’ hearts to bring them to faith and repentance and to produce greater Christlikeness.

3. Put together a multigenerational team.

Neither a single leader nor siloed, age-specific strategies can make a church magnetic for young adults. DeVries and Pontier recommend starting with a multigenerational team that will pray, build relationships, champion this work over the long haul, and leverage their gifts for the task. This team should include motivated lay leaders, key young adults, elders, deacons, and staff.

Becoming a church that better engages young adults necessitates congregational buy-in because, in many cases, pastors and elders need to lead systematic change. For example, financial and staffing priorities might need to shift from other efforts, or a long-serving leader might be asked to share responsibilities with a younger one.

Such change can be uncomfortable for existing members, so pastors must biblically shepherd their flocks. Congregations are more likely to embrace the challenges associated with becoming a magnetic church when leaders gently and firmly guide them toward a Scripture-grounded vision of God’s multigenerational household (Eph. 4:11–13; Titus 2:1–8; 1 Pet. 5:2–3; 1 John 2:12–14).

When employed wisely by pastoral leaders, multigenerational teams can play an invaluable role in this process by modeling intergenerational ministry, catalyzing young-adult outreach and discipleship, and contributing to congregation-wide efforts to become a magnetic church.

4. Cultivate hospitality and community.

For many, the notion of reaching young adults evokes images of extensive evangelistic campaigns. Yet reaching twentysomethings doesn’t begin with programs but with hospitality. Tim Keller says, “Hospitality is an attitude of heart and a practice . . . that seeks to turn strangers into guests, friends, and eventually brothers and sisters.”

In magnetic churches, young adults personally invite their friends, and then other older members of the congregation warmly welcome them. Simply inviting to take a group of twentysomethings out for lunch after church can open the gate onto a pathway toward deeper engagement with the church. After all, when young adults more regularly attend corporate worship and sit under the preaching of God’s Word, they’re experiencing the means God uses to convert sinners.

Community marked by mutual dependence and love (Rom. 12:4-5; 9–11; 1 Pet. 3:8) also plays a critical role in reaching young adults. As one pastor puts it, “Our most powerful tool of evangelism [with respect to young adults] is our life together as the people of God.” Magnetic churches encourage young adults to develop friendships with each other and with those from other life stages.

Small groups, shared meals, serving together inside and outside the church, and corporate worship are all ways churches can cultivate community. Such churches provide young adults with a rare commodity in today’s world: a place to belong as they learn what it means to be Jesus’s disciples.

5. Disciple and evangelize concurrently.

Magnetic churches recognize that discipleship pathways for young adults often serve dual purposes—edifying believers while evangelizing the curious (1 Cor. 14:23–25). This can be a protracted process. Keller emphasizes that Christ-centered preaching and ministry “both grows believers and challenges non-believers.” In such an environment, young adults of various stripes are both discipled in the gospel and introduced to gospel truths for the first time.

Magnetic churches soberly embrace their disciple-making mandate and carefully consider how to present everyone, including young adults, mature in Christ (Col. 1:28–2:3). Across these congregations, common discipleship pathways emerged in our study: contextualized, rigorous biblical instruction; small groups; meaningful service; and mentoring.

Young adults consistently expressed a desire for biblical instruction that’s theologically rich and attentive to their lived experience. Moreover, they expressed a longing to develop deep relationships with their peers and older adults. Many were motivated to learn from a mentor.

6. Prepare young adults for the long haul.

Young adults want to live purposeful lives. Mindful of this impulse, magnetic churches help this demographic understand that Christian discipleship encompasses all of life.

Leaders instruct young adults in the creation mandate (Gen. 1:27–28; 2:15). These churches aim to ground young adults in their identity as redeemed image-bearers and to equip them with a biblical understanding of vocation. In this way, magnetic churches direct young adults away from self-focus and toward obedience to God’s commands for “every square inch” of life.

Magnetic churches direct young adults away from self-focus and toward obedience to God’s commands for ‘every square inch’ of life.

Magnetic churches also equip young adults to live in light of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18–20) by providing personal evangelism training and encouraging participation in community outreach, global missions, and church planting initiatives.

Becoming a magnetic church is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a process that calls leaders to continually count the cost and place their confidence not in strategies but in the Lord. Engaging twentysomethings will require a willingness to experiment, to learn from mistakes, and, especially, to persevere. But as you undertake this task, be assured of the promise that Christ will build his church; not even the gates of hell can prevail against it (16:18).

Perhaps you’re in a similar position. You see the need to share the gospel. You want to share the gospel. But your days and weeks are spent with people who already trust in Jesus. How can we share the good news with the lost if we rarely interact meaningfully with them? The assignment taught me that I needed to make intentional lifestyle changes to cross paths more frequently with people who need the gospel.

Here are some practical ideas for how to pop the “Christian bubble” and invite more lost people into your life.

1. Use your hobbies.

Do you like art? Sign up for a class at a community college. Are you interested in pickleball? Go to a local court and ask if you can join a game. Maybe you’ve always wanted to learn a new language. Is there a language exchange program nearby? Think about activities you already enjoy and search online for groups, clubs, and classes to join in your community.

2. Join a gym and regularly attend at the same time.

After a while, you’ll recognize many of the same faces, and you can start to strike up conversations. Gyms that offer classes make this even easier. Shortly after my husband and I got married, we joined a CrossFit gym. By God’s grace, some of the people in the afternoon class we attend are now among our dearest friends. Some of these friends are Christians, and some aren’t.

3. Get involved with your local public school.

Public schools often have various opportunities for community members to get involved. Volunteer as a tutor or coach. Attend sporting events, band concerts, and plays. If your schedule allows it, become a substitute teacher. As you build relationships with the people you meet, take advantage of the opportunities the Lord gives to share the gospel.

4. Frequent the same restaurants and coffee shops.

Become a regular. Ask the staff their names and remember them the next time you visit. Show genuine interest in their lives. Tip generously and be kind. Invite them to attend your church, and be prepared to share what you believe.

5. Invite conversations with people of different faiths.

The next time a Jehovah’s Witness or LDS missionary knocks on your door, instead of turning off the lights and pretending you’re not home, invite them in. Respectfully listen to what they believe and then be prepared to lovingly push back against their false beliefs with the truth of the gospel.

I needed to make intentional lifestyle changes to cross paths more frequently with people who need the gospel.

You can also look for people who show evidence of a different faith. Maybe you have a neighbor who wears a hijab or you frequent a store where the clerk often wears a bindi. Maybe you notice evidence of a religious holiday celebration. Be kind to these people. Ask questions that honor them and be prepared to share what you believe as the Lord opens the door.

6. Talk to your neighbors.

It’s possible lost people live next door to you or down the street and you don’t even know their names. Offer to help carry in heavy groceries. Ask about a neighbor’s day when you pass her on a walk around the neighborhood. Bake cookies and introduce yourself when you deliver them. Be deliberate about developing relationships with your neighbors to share the gospel with them.

7. Take inventory of lost people you already know.

Maybe you have a lost relative who lives out of state. When was the last time you made a phone call? Maybe you have an old friend from college who doesn’t know the Lord. Perhaps you could send a text to check in. Do you have a lost coworker you don’t regularly interact with? Create a list of lost friends, family members, and acquaintances. Begin praying for those on the list, and make a plan to reach out to each of them.

Our God, who is sovereign over salvation, has providentially placed us in a specific time and place for his glory (Acts 17:26). It could be that your proximity to unbelievers is what the Lord uses to draw them to saving faith. What an honor! May the Lord give us eyes to see the opportunities all around us to share the gospel of hope with those who haven’t yet believed.

However, the divide isn’t just a sociological phenomenon. It’s an ecclesiological failure. Too often, the church mirrors the world’s divisions. What ought to be one body in Christ becomes a network of parallel, rarely overlapping ministries: youth over here, seniors over there, children down the hall, young adults off campus.

None of these ministries is inherently wrong. Age-specific ministries can serve the church well. As a member of Gen Z, I’ve benefited from youth ministries and young-adult groups. But when age groups become the primary lens through which we see discipleship, they distort the church’s nature.

The church isn’t a collection of age-based silos. It is a Spirit-wrought community of young and old, redeemed by Christ and bound together in covenant love. The church’s beauty isn’t in its sameness but in its holy diversity. And one of the clearest demonstrations of that kingdom diversity is when generations walk together in Christ.

Mutual Partnership in Christ

Like many younger men in ministry, I’ve wrestled with how to relate to those much older than me. I serve in a church where most staff and elders are a decade, if not multiple, ahead of me. At first, I wondered if I’d be taken seriously. Would they trust me? Would I connect with them?

But I’ve found that God uses these age gaps to stretch and sanctify his people. The older men in our church haven’t just taught me doctrine and leadership; they’ve shown me endurance. Their wisdom isn’t theoretical. It’s lived out.

One of the clearest demonstrations of kingdom diversity is when generations walk together in Christ.

What I didn’t expect was that they’re encouraged by me too. The beauty of intergenerational relationships is that they aren’t one-way pipelines of spiritual benefit; they’re mutual partnerships in Christ. Many older saints long to see younger Christians walking in the truth. They want to know their own faithfulness still matters, that someone is watching and learning. People of older and younger generations offer unique perspectives and benefits in these relationships.

I remember spending a night with an elderly, homebound brother whose wife was away for surgery. We didn’t do anything flashy. We talked, swapped stories, and prayed. That was it. But ministry is often just that—being present. That night was simple, but the Lord used it. His wife later told me how encouraged he was. It reminded me that the ordinary practices of life together in the local church are never small. They’re supernatural outworkings of the gospel’s unifying power.

Pattern of Discipleship

Intergenerational ministry isn’t a novelty. It’s simply what the Bible expects a church to be.

Scripture regularly assumes one generation will instruct the next. Psalm 78:4 commands God’s people to “tell the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD,” and Titus 2 gives clear instructions for older men and women to model and teach godliness to those younger in age. Discipleship in the New Testament is life-on-life. And God intends for that life to be shared cross-generationally.

Young Christians, these relationships are indispensable. You need concrete examples of perseverance. Hebrews 13:7 tells us to consider our leaders’ lives and imitate their faith. You can’t do that from a podcast. You need proximity. You need a covenant community. You need men and women who have followed Christ longer than you have, whose lives you can examine, whose counsel you can seek, and whose faith you can imitate.

Older Christians need these relationships too. You need to be reminded that the Christian life isn’t something you age out of. Your example of faith, your endurance, and your prayers aren’t small contributions. They’re evidence that God keeps and sustains his people.

But this vision isn’t merely for believers. It’s also evangelistic. The world idolizes youth. It prizes innovation over wisdom and relevance over endurance. Yet the church doesn’t operate that way.

When a congregation intentionally brings together teens, young adults, parents, empty-nesters, and seniors solely because they share in Christ, it sends a powerful message to our culture. It demonstrates a unity that the world cannot create for itself. It shows that the gospel really does bring together those who would otherwise have little to nothing in common. An intergenerational church stands out because it appears unremarkable and supernatural at the same time.

This is why Paul tells Timothy to entrust the gospel to “faithful men . . . who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2). The gospel moves forward through faithful churches consisting of younger generations trained and equipped by older saints. And when churches embrace that calling, it not only disciples its members but also displays to the watching world God’s wisdom and beauty in his redemptive plan.

Pursue Intergenerational Relationships

If Scripture presents intergenerational life as the typical model for everyday Christianity, then we must discipline ourselves as local churches to put it into practice.

People naturally gravitate toward those most like them. A church that wants to embody biblical community must resist that drift and choose patterns of relationships that reflect the gospel rather than personal preference.

The world idolizes youth. It prizes innovation over wisdom and relevance over endurance. Yet the church doesn’t operate that way.

For younger believers, this means taking real steps toward getting to know those who have walked with Christ longer than you have. Ask older saints how they came to know the Lord. Ask what sustained them in their sufferings. Invite their counsel when you face difficult decisions that require prudence. These are simple practices, but they shape the instincts of a maturing Christian. God has sovereignly placed seasoned believers in your congregation so you can learn from them in ways other resources cannot replicate.

For older believers, the responsibility is just as clear. Seek out younger members and encourage them. Share what God has taught you through the years of following Christ. Pray with them. Show interest in their spiritual growth. Invite them to meet weekly to read through a book of the Bible together.

In my experience, older saints are often unaware of how much credibility their lives carry. Even a brief word of encouragement from someone who has endured decades of hardship and remained faithful holds more weight than a thousand sermons.

The most profitable relationships I’ve had are those with brothers much older than me. My pastor has become one of my best friends. He has poured into me, invited me into his life, and mentored me through all sorts of personal challenges. In addition to discipling me for pastoral ministry, he, more than anyone else, has left a massive imprint on me as a man.

Many relationships with my peers are edifying; however, they’re rarely as influential as the relationships I share with my older brothers and sisters in Christ. So my exhortation to every Christian, young or old, is this: Seek out someone outside your generation and invest in that relationship, that the church as a whole might display to the world the unifying nature of the gospel, that individuals would be strengthened in their walk, and that God might ultimately be glorified.

In this talk recorded at TGC25, Stephen Witmer explains how Ephesians 5 presents a joyful, liberating, and distinctively Christian approach to marriage. We see that God’s instructions aren’t arbitrary or sexist. We’re freed to cherish marriage without totalizing it—neither holding it too loosely nor valuing it too highly. And we’re given grounds for perseverance in marital challenges and hope in marital disappointments.

In This Episode

0:00 – Biblical distinctives of Christian marriage: introduction and purpose

9:24– Purpose of marriage: a window, not a wall

28:45 – Partnership of marriage: one man, one woman

36:59 – Impermanence of marriage: not the ultimate reality

Resources Mentioned:

• The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy Keller with Kathy Keller
• A Preface to Paradise Lost by C. S. Lewis

SIGN UP for one of our newsletters to stay informed about TGC’s latest resources.

Help The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Give today.

Don’t miss an episode of The Gospel Coalition Podcast:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube
  

Crossway’s growing series of middle-grade biographies includes figures like Martin Luther, Katie Luther, John Bunyan, and Corrie ten Boom. Though we know less about Tubman’s theology than that of any other figures in the series, by all accounts she was driven by faith in Christ to risk her freedom and her life to lead others out of slavery.

Shar Walker’s addition to the series, The Story of Harriet Tubman: The Trailblazer Who Led Many to Freedom, is an exciting, age-appropriate celebration of an American hero. I was delighted to interview Walker about her book.

Why should Christians learn about Harriet Tubman?

Harriet did extraordinary things, but she was also a deeply ordinary woman. Her life is relatable because she stood at the bottom of the social order of her day. She was black, a woman, and a person living with a disability that stemmed from a brain injury she received from a slave owner.

Anyone who has ever felt invisible, unimportant, or unsure whether their life matters in God’s redemptive plan will likely find pieces of themselves in her story. In her own society—and even in ours today—she would probably be the last person we’d expect to shape history or advance God’s kingdom. Yet her life closely mirrors the men and women of Scripture—like Ruth, Daniel and his friends, and Esther—whose quiet, ordinary faithfulness believers still seek to follow.

Based on your research, how would you describe Tubman’s faith?

I think it’s important to recognize that Harriet’s expression of faith may not have looked like ours. She couldn’t read or write, so she didn’t have a traditional “quiet time.” While enslaved, her time wasn’t her own, and she had little space to study theology in formal ways. 

This also meant her faith was not theoretical or overly intellectual. I would describe it as contemplative and, at times, even mystical—something she saw through visions and symbols and heard through liturgy and song, rather than something she primarily read on a page.

Harriet did extraordinary things, but she was also a deeply ordinary woman.

Her faith isn’t something we can neatly chart like our own, partly because of the limited firsthand accounts of her life that we have access to today. A few things we know with certainty: She communed with God through prayer and music, later became a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and is believed to have referenced Jesus’s promise to prepare a place in heaven for believers (John 14:2–3) in her final living moments. Most clearly, her actions often aligned with Christlike orthopraxy. The exact details of her theological convictions, however, remain something of a mystery.

How did you balance the need to be clear about the brutality of race-based chattel slavery with the challenges of writing for a young audience? Why do you think it’s important to help 21st-century kids understand the evil of slavery in America?

My goal was to tell the truth in a way that was clear and age-appropriate, while still acknowledging the real suffering inflicted through race-based chattel slavery. I wanted to be honest without becoming unnecessarily graphic or overwhelming.

It took some work to strike a good balance. Too much detail about the trauma of slavery may have distracted from the heroine of the story, but too little might have left readers unsure why her actions mattered or how extraordinary they truly were.

Helping children understand this part of our nation’s history equips them to be thoughtful observers and wise interpreters of their world. I often think of it like medicine: A doctor would never make a diagnosis without first understanding a patient’s history, and the same is true for a nation. Our past helps explain, in part, many of the race-based realities we see today, including how race-based chattel slavery played a foundational role in access to opportunity and generational wealth; it even shaped the physical layout of cities.

What did you learn while researching Tubman’s life that surprised you the most?

I had two aha moments as I studied Harriet’s life. The first was how deeply she loved and cherished her family. I believe this was her earliest motivation to fight for freedom. She certainly knew slavery was wrong and longed to see others freed, but at the beginning, she simply wanted to be reunited with the people she loved. Only later did she realize she was uniquely gifted for this work and continued rescuing others.

My second aha moment was recognizing that, by today’s standards, Harriet would likely be considered a person living with a disability and chronic pain. That reality makes her courage and accomplishments even more remarkable.

What is your favorite story about Tubman?

I love the story of her rescue of Charles Nalle because it captures so many of her defining qualities—cleverness, persistence, and courage all at once.

Helping children understand this part of our nation’s history equips them to be thoughtful observers and wise interpreters of their world.

Nalle had escaped enslavement via the Underground Railroad but was arrested in Troy, New York, under the Fugitive Slave Law. Tubman donned a disguise, worked her way into the room where Nalle was being held, and put her body in harm’s way to enable his escape. Her bravery eventually led to his freedom through a sequence of events that seems too exciting to be a true story.

I’m also moved by the moment she discovers that her husband, John Tubman, had remarried after she escaped enslavement. When she returned to lead him to the North, she was saddened to find he’d already taken another wife. That heartbreak humanizes her in a powerful way. It reminds us that even someone so brave and accomplished experienced deep personal loss.

We can shake our heads and bemoan social media and “young people these days,” but without a theological grounding, we don’t have much basis for calling them to change. Life is often boring and painful. It’s full of disappointment and drudgery. Of course you’d want to escape that—people always have. Why not choose a relatively innocuous method of thumb-swiping over drugs, gangs, and unplanned pregnancies?

The good news is there’s a third option. C. S. Lewis found an alternate path to holistic enjoyment: What if real life is found in receiving and pondering . . . real life?

Quiddity

In Surprised by Joy, Lewis shares a story about his lifelong friend A. K. Hamilton Jenkin, who helped Lewis develop attentiveness:

Jenkin seemed to be able to enjoy everything; even ugliness. I learned from him that we should attempt a total surrender to whatever atmosphere was offering itself at the moment; in a squalid town to seek out those very places where its squalor rose to grimness and almost grandeur, on a dismal day to find the most dismal and dripping wood, on a windy day to seek the windiest ridge. There was no Betjemannic [detached and somewhat condescending] irony about it; only a serious, yet gleeful, determination to rub one’s nose in the very quiddity of each thing, to rejoice in its being (so magnificently) what it was.

This is a Copernican transformation. What if the baking asphalt, gleaming aluminum, and thick exhaust of your 5:11 p.m. traffic jam isn’t a time to catch up on texts but to delight in your stuckness, your community of solitary drivers, and both the immutability and omnipresence of God? What if the monotonous flatness of this moment is a training ground for learning to discover texture?

Quiddity means the “thatness” of something. Your house is in that neighborhood rather than another. Your spouse is wearing that shirt. You’re sitting in that chair with that view to eat that meal. Notice and appreciate that, instead of sinking into your phone because that isn’t enough.

Develop Depth: Gratitude and Attentiveness

How do you become a deep person? You can hear it in the word itself—it’s the desire to mine, uncover, excavate. That doesn’t happen in 14 seconds. One method, then, is through reading great books, but it’s not the only way. Lewis presents a method available to any person at any point in his or her day—practicing attentiveness.

What if real life is found in receiving and pondering . . . real life?

Start by giving thanks. Give thanks for everything: The people around you at this moment. The floor under your feet, the seat under your rear, the voices or white noise washing around you, the work you’re taking a break from right now.

Giving thanks does two things for you. First and most important, you’re giving thanks to someone. In the act of thanksgiving, you’re made aware of more than an unfeeling, random universe. A Creator God made you and orchestrated the specifics of the world around you at this specific moment. He weaved them all together so you might delight in your surroundings and worship him for them.

Second, giving thanks causes you to reflexively think about why: Why is there goodness to this person, place, or thing? You know God is good, which means his goodness can be found in everything. It then becomes a matter of tracing the sunbeam up to the sun. Gratitude births attentiveness. Cynicism and entitlement destroy it.

If you’re writing an email, consider why that action is good. God has made the person receiving it. God has made words and communication. He’s given you the presence of mind in the moment to put your thoughts into words. You get to reflect God’s desire to share his mind and heart; to address and build up people he relates to.

My Attempt

I started this article one week into a winter inversion in Boise, Idaho. Clouds get stuck in the bowl of mountains we live in and everyone walks around sober-hungover from the merciless gray. Perfect. I’d challenge Lewis to find something more dismal and dripping.

How do you become a deep person? You can hear it in the word itself—it’s the desire to mine, uncover, excavate.

I stared at the heavy, depressed sky and didn’t flinch. What does God want me to see? I started giving thanks that “joy comes with the morning” (Ps. 30:5).

Knowing that doesn’t only help in the morning, though. It helps in the gray and the waiting. There’s something sweet about the pang of expectation, waiting for a certain event at an uncertain time (Lam. 3:26). I was thankful for God’s steadfastness. His grace and promises aren’t contingent on how I feel them. When clouds cover the sky, the sun is still there. God’s favor, grace, and love are still working even when they’re obscured.

I wanted to go further. It’s not merely hope for sunshine that connects me with God. God is good in clouds and gray. It’s good to feel quiet and subdued before God. “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isa. 30:15). God breathes through the ordinary stillness of life, as well as in the times of exuberant radiance. We need seasons of being laid low. We need reminders to walk in submission to God with our mouths still and our ears open so we can receive his strength.

That’s how God met me in the thatness of a Boise winter. God wants to meet you in the thatness of whatever specific moment you’re in as well. Be attentive and give thanks. Live more by focusing on where you are.

Rather than speaking from a place of prescriptive legalism, Melissa and Courtney speak with infectious enthusiasm about the possibilities of a rich and growing prayer life.

Resources Mentioned:

• The Deep Dish: Conversations with God
• Lord, Teach Me to Pray in 28 Days by Kay Arthur
• 5 Things to Pray for Your Kids by Melissa Kruger
• 5 Things to Pray for Your Spouse by Melissa Kruger
• The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian
• Parenting with Hope by Melissa Kruger
• I’m Praying for You: 40 Days of Praying the Bible for Someone Who Is Suffering by Nancy Guthrie
• Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans edited by Robert Elmer
• Every Moment Holy series

Related Resources:

• Prayer (Disciplines of Devotion series) by Courtney Reissig
• In Prayer, Structure Serves Spontaneity
  
• 7 Ways to Fight Distraction in Prayer

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you have a routine for prayer? When and where do you usually pray?

2. What strategies do you use to organize your prayer time and guard against distractions?

3. How has God used prayer to rightly orient you toward seeking his will above your own?

4. When have you struggled to persevere in prayer or to accept an answer to prayer?

5. What benefits have you experienced as a result of praying with others (family, friends, or ministry partners)?

6. What next step will you take in your practice of prayer? What do you want to start, stop, or continue doing?

If we’re not careful, we can portray the triune God this way too. It’s easy to fall into what we might call a “divine multi-tool” theological error.

This happens when we separate the persons of the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—into three distinct actors. Father, Son, and Spirit are individual “divine tools,” so to speak, with their own unique set of powers and skills. They act individually in accordance with those skills and powers, but when they do so, they’re still part of the “divine multi-tool” team. Ultimately, they work together to finish the final project: defeating sin and Satan.

But this isn’t who God is or how he acts. Rather than describing God in such a way that the three persons work together, even if in harmonious ways, we should be careful to say all his works are one work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Let’s examine how we should rightly think about God’s actions as unified (one work) so we can avoid thinking about God’s actions as three different actors doing something collectively (working together).

‘Divine Multi-Tool’ Error

This error often rears its head while we attempt to describe divine action in the story of salvation presented in the Gospels. It sounds like this: While the Father is presiding over events (by himself), the Son is acting them out (by himself). While the Father is pouring out his wrath (by himself) onto the Son at the cross, the Son is experiencing that wrath. And, occasionally in the narrative, the Spirit does something too (by himself), like anoint Jesus at his baptism.

But, unlike a multi-tool, the triune God isn’t a single collection of separate tools with individual purposes held together by an external mechanism and often working together on particular projects. Instead, the triune God always acts as one.

Doctrine of Inseparable Operations

“Divine multi-tool” theology separates the persons of the triune God into three distinct individuals who act independently of one another, even if they always act in harmony with one another. This amounts to an error called tritheism (“three gods”). It’s rooted in a denial of, or at least a lack of attention to, a crucial doctrine related to the Trinity: the doctrine of inseparable operations.

This doctrine states that the external works of the Trinity are undivided. Every act of God is an act of the one triune God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and therefore every act of God is an act of Father, Son, and Spirit. It cannot be an act of only one or two of the persons to the exclusion or negligence of other persons.

Inseparable operations is grounded in Scripture and is crucial for an orthodox and biblical affirmation of the Trinity.

Every act of God is an act of Father, Son, and Spirit.

Jesus’s crucifixion is a good illustration of both the temptation toward the “divine multi-tool” theological error and the better, orthodox doctrine of inseparable operations.

Crucifixion as Test Case

Let’s begin with the key question: Which person of the Trinity sent Jesus to the cross?

An obvious answer is that God the Father sent Jesus to the cross. And this is correct—Jesus attributed his impending crucifixion to the Father’s will (Matt. 26:39), and we can also rightly appropriate texts like Isaiah 53:10 (“It was the will of the LORD to crush him”) and Acts 2:23 (“This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God”) to the Father.

But it isn’t only the Father who sends Jesus to the cross. If we left it at that, we’d have a “divine multi-tool” problem, in which only one person of the Trinity (the Father) performed a particular action (the providential oversight of the crucifixion). More fundamentally, we’d have a biblical problem: The other two divine persons are also said to send Jesus to the cross.

The Bible tells us, for instance, that the Son sent himself. Or, to quote Jesus regarding who is sending him to his crucifixion, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:17–18). Notice that Jesus is speaking of his own divine authority to both send himself to the cross and raise himself from the dead, an authority that is necessarily divine.

Finally, the Spirit sent Jesus to the cross. For instance, according to the author of Hebrews, Jesus offered his blood on the cross “through the eternal Spirit” (Heb. 9:14). The Spirit’s agency in Jesus’s actions was crucial to the cross’s enactment and effectiveness. Scripture tells us that all three Trinitarian persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—sent Jesus to the cross.

This wasn’t an act performed by one divine person, the Father, that affects another divine person, the Son. The divine persons weren’t “working together,” doing different things and working toward the same goal. Instead, the act of sending Jesus to the cross, just like any other divine act, was one work of the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

One Work, One God

We could multiply these examples from Scripture as they relate to other actions of the triune God—creation, providence, revelation, salvation, judgment, and so on. Every act of God is the one act of the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity isn’t “working together,” but instead the triune God acts in one work for everything he accomplishes.

All three Trinitarian persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—sent Jesus to the cross.

Why does this matter? For the same reason that anything having to do with God’s identity matters. Because it’s about who God is—the triune God who made us, the triune God who saves us, and the triune God we worship. Because he is one, his acts are one—the one work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And because of who he is and what he does, we worship him and him alone.

Amid pastoral regrets, I’m reminded that my standing with God is unchanged by my performance. Fifty years of ministry regrets deepen my reliance on God’s grace. Even now, they lead to God-shaped change and serve as a means of growth. Let’s consider some common categories of pastoral regrets.

Heart Issues

Life is about the heart in relationship to God and others. Fittingly, the older we get, the more we see areas of weakness and need. We recognize times when we’ve neglected spiritual disciplines and failed to value relationships in the church body. We think of paltry attempts to wrestle with sin issues and lameness in furthering friendships. As one dying man told a pastor friend, “The closer I get to heaven, the more I think about the little things”—referring to sins he brushed off earlier in life.

As a septuagenarian, I’ve often replayed that interaction, conscious of my life’s brevity. No doubt, when I consider the grace and love shown to me by my Savior, a brief essay won’t cover the areas I wish I’d done differently. So let me identify three heart issues that ring in my mind.

First, I regret being too quick to give my opinion instead of listening compassionately to a brother or sister. It’s easy to bruise the reed and crush the smoking flax instead of being like Jesus, who welcomes the weary and burdened to give them rest (Matt. 12:20; 11:28–30). Pride in my opinion, along with self-importance, often drove the quick advice I offered without feeling the weight of a fellow struggler.

Second, I regret my lack of patience with church members needing gospel transformation. Rightly, I wanted to see Christ formed in those I shepherded. But even as that kind of transformation has taken time in my own life, I’ve been impatient toward others. This exposes a failure to rely on God’s grace to transform.

Theologically, I knew my words couldn’t transform anyone. Only by Word and Spirit can appropriate maturity and change take place. But that didn’t conform to my schedule. At the root of my impatience lay my unbelief in the sufficiency of God’s power and the wisdom of his providence.

At the root of my impatience lay my unbelief in the sufficiency of God’s power and wisdom of his providence.

Third, I regret not learning the joy of divine providence early in life and ministry. By God’s grace, I’ve limped along in learning lessons of God’s wise, mysterious, and good providence. But how often I drooped when I should have been joyous in knowing that “my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ . . . so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head” (Heidelberg Catechism). The flock needed to see my example of resting in God’s faithfulness. Savoring God’s providence sustains perseverance.

Ministry Practice

By practice, I mean the activities and engagements foundational to public ministry. We don’t just show up to preach, counsel, encourage, or shepherd without regular practices that feed and sustain us to serve others.

First, I regret not spending more time meditating on the Word in personal devotions and sermon preparation. As a teenager, I spent several days over Christmas break on a survival trip with a dozen friends. Teenage boys without food creates misery. When we divided small game between us, there was only a tiny portion for each. I remember sucking on a bone for hours to get every drop of nutrition out of it. That’s what meditation does. You keep sucking the juices of the gospel to satisfy and sustain your soul.

Later in my ministry, meditation on the Word enriched my life and preaching. But I think of how many years I rushed from text to exegesis to homiletics to pulpit without sucking the juices out of the text to discover its deliciousness for my soul.

Second, I regret not praying more fervently and with greater dependence on the Lord. Yes, we all regret neglecting prayer. But this neglect exposes a lack of dependence on the promises in the gospel. It breeds self-reliance, or what might be termed a mechanical spiritual life. We go through motions, live nice lives, and do our jobs, but show little God-dependency flowing out of the redeeming work of Christ. Fervent prayer relies on what God can do.

Pulpit Ministry

I’ve preached thousands of sermons through the years. But I’m still learning about this “primary task . . . of the Christian minister,” as Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it. If it’s primary, it’s worth a lifetime of wrestling and digging to improve how we communicate the written Word through this God-appointed means—and doing so in the Spirit’s power.

If a pastor gets to the end of his life and thinks he has no more room to improve his preaching, he’s an arrogant and shameful man. Two regrets among many stand out.

First, I regret not being more focused in preaching to prepare my flock for heaven. In the last few years of pastoring, our oldest church member called me. His health had declined, and his mind had begun to slip. He didn’t have long in this world. We had a sweet conversation about the effects of the gospel and the joy of heaven.

When I got off the phone, I wept profusely. I couldn’t stop. My wife thought something terribly wrong had happened. I waved my hand to let her know I was OK, and with halting speech told her, “I finally realized that all these years of pastoring, my biggest responsibility has been to prepare people for heaven.”

I finally realized that all these years of pastoring, my biggest responsibility has been to prepare people for heaven.

I’m not referring to simply preaching sermons on heaven. Rather, the hope and longing of seeing Jesus face-to-face must be paramount in how I apply the sermon. That longing affects our daily walk. Are there other applications? Yes, certainly, and we mustn’t neglect them. But in worship gatherings, we need to build the homing device of eternal hope that we’re preparing to meet Jesus.

Second, I regret not making clearer gospel applications in the Lord’s Supper. For the last third of my ministry, times at the table became sweet, savoring moments of the sermon coming home with gospel power. But for the other two-thirds, I neglected to lead my flock to taste and experience the body and blood of Jesus in gospel application (John 6:52–58).

The supper brings home the mystery of the gospel with simplicity, using the senses to magnify the beauty and power of the Savior’s love, redemption, and promise. When we lead it perfunctorily, we neglect this ordinance gift to the body of Christ, where our senses engage to receive the fruit of Christ’s saving work.

I’m still learning. Regrets motivate me to diligently press on, knowing that one day I’ll see Jesus face to face, and he’ll wipe every tear from my eyes. Then, no more regrets.

I also experienced history more personally growing up. I spent numerous summer days wandering a musty brick building, looking at glass cases of old buttons and arrowheads as my grandmother, the curator of the county historical museum, helped visitors look up where ancestors had lived and were buried. For me, history always had more to do with cemeteries and censuses than textbooks and political triumphs. That approach to history is more consistent with the messy reality of a fallen world, but it doesn’t do much to inspire grand political movements.

In God and Country: Upholding Faith, History, and National Identity, John Wilsey, professor of church history and philosophy at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, argues that a virtuous approach to history helps us love our nation while recognizing its flaws. Along the way, he shows that since Christianity is a uniquely historical religion, we should have a special interest in rightly handling history. This is an engaging and encouraging book for those seeking to faithfully navigate between political extremes.

Christians as Historians

History matters for Christians because our religion is uniquely historical. As Wilsey notes, “If the Bible is historically wrong, then we have nothing to rely on for the truth of Christianity but the heart” (34). This is why Christians must embrace a virtuous approach to history.

For example, amid a vigorous theological debate about the Trinity and the person of Jesus Christ, the Council of Nicaea zoomed in on the historical facts surrounding Jesus’s death. “For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate” comes just a few lines before the declaration of Christ’s resurrection and ascension to heaven. Theologically, it doesn’t matter which Roman official ordered Jesus’s execution, yet millions of people repeat that historical fact every week as they recite the Nicene Creed in gathered worship.

But facts alone aren’t the substance of history. “History is our interpretation of the past based on the artifacts that are left over,” argues Wilsey. “The facts of what happened in the past are there, but we make sense of those facts differently as time and circumstances advance” (8). Christians need to become virtuous historians. We need to apply virtues like faith, hope, love, wisdom, and justice to our treatment our neighbors from another age so we can give them the respect they deserve.

Wilsey shows that, in reality, every Christian is a historian of sorts. As we wrestle with the copious evidence for Jesus’s bodily resurrection, we interpret the value of eyewitness testimony against our own uncertainty. More significantly, as we consider the facts recorded in Scripture and in extrabiblical sources, we need to come to grips with our culture’s distorted view of time.

Reckon with Time

Loving our ancient neighbors is often challenging because we live in a largely ahistorical age. As Sarah Irving-Stonebraker argues, “The premise underpinning the idea that our lives are a matter of self-invention is that there are no enduring stories shaping our identities and providing normative direction to public life.” We experience a timeless, eternal now filtered through the silicon rectangles in our hands. This will only get worse as AI animations of historical figures blur the boundaries between past and present.

Every Christian is a historian of sorts.

At the root of a Christian approach to history is recognizing the goodness of time. Time was created by God and has meaning. Wilsey observes, “God’s purpose for time was for it to be measured and that the standards for measuring time would be predictable, knowable, and permanent” (34). Thus, studying history is as much an exploration of God’s good creation as staring through a microscope.

Time gives us a sense of our place in the world. One of the defining attributes of prison life is to be “sequestered from the public, outside the flow of the world’s identifying and unifying narratives” (47). When we lose a sense of time, it robs our lives of a sense of meaning.

I’ve experienced this reality when living for months underwater on a submarine. Children had been born, a World Series had been won, and my wife had started a new job. Yet my memory of that time was confined to a relentless cycle of 18-hour, sunless days inside a steel tube. Those months are hard for me to fit within the rest of human history.

A right understanding of time is essential for Christians because it enables us to understand the ancient truths preached from our pulpits each Sunday. Peter wasn’t just a character in the Bible; though he lived long ago, he was a real man who feared death and heartbreak of failure. The events in our Bible really happened in time and space to people who (with one exception) lived as sinners in a sinful world.

Virtuous Historians

As Americans recognize the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding, temptations abound to fixate on the legitimate evils in American history or uncritically celebrate the Christian character of many of our founders. Wilsey is critical of both extremes.

A key point of God and Country is that a virtuous approach to history helps us avoid the ahistorical perspectives of anti-American cynicism and Christian nationalism. “Being an American means being part of a great tradition,” Wilsey explains. “America is not perfect, but America is the greatest champion of human freedom in history” (155). No history, much less that of our nation, can be accurately represented by a black-and-white framing.

Good history requires a biblical perspective on humanity. We all have mixed motives, a tendency to be selfish, and the potential to do great evil. One day, our lives will be summarized by the dash between the dates on our headstones. Neighbor love requires us to treat the dead—some of whom we’ll meet in eternity—as complex people living in confusing times rather than as two-dimensional caricatures.

Good history requires a biblical perspective on humanity.

A virtuous approach to the past requires us to “begin our reading of history by reading ourselves.” After all, Wilsey argues, “How we think about the people, events, and ideas of the past is directly connected to the kind of people we are and aspire to be” (132). That means the way we handle the sinful actions of slave-owning founding fathers needs to reflect an understanding of our status as simultaneously righteous and sinners.

This book is well written and deeply personal. It’s an excellent introductory volume on the method of history, particularly for American Christians. Though graciously articulated, Wilsey’s argument is unlikely to convince deeply invested critics on either side. Nevertheless, God and Country equips Christians to love their country without worshiping it and to critique its sins without despising its gifts.

I’d like to say this is a rare occasion, but it’s not. In January 2025, Russia launched a total of 2,629 Shahed-type drones into Ukrainian territory. Compare that to last month (January 2026), when Russia launched 4,442 drones.

As a pastor in Ukraine, I’d like my Christian brothers and sisters around the world to understand our situation and how the church is persevering through it.

Surviving the Damage

Eventually, the sky went dark again, and the sputter of heavy machine-gun fire died away. We gathered ourselves and crept off to bed, tired and uncertain about what had just been destroyed in the attack.

In the morning, I woke to the news that the Russian drones targeted a local market on the other end of town. Drone after drone pounded the market, destroying the sellers’ stalls, cars parked nearby, and hundreds of windows in apartment buildings surrounding the area. The powerful shock waves broke all the windows and completely smashed out the door of a local Baptist church.

Surviving the Cold

Many people in Ukraine lack heating. For example, Denis and Mariana, a young married couple, are both eagerly serving in their local church. Last summer, they moved into their first apartment and began setting it up. It was small, with just enough room for the two of them.

Then winter came, but the heat didn’t come. As November turned to December, temperatures in their apartment plummeted. Some mornings, it was barely 40 degrees Fahrenheit. They tried to heat the apartment with their gas stove until they both began to get terrible headaches and realized the carbon dioxide levels had become dangerous.

Finally, in January, I helped Denis and Mariana move some of their furniture to a new place that actually had heat. Unfortunately, most people don’t have the opportunity to move.

How Are Churches Responding?

This is the experience of millions of Ukrainians—nightly drone and missile attacks, and unbearable cold at home. Just this minute, as I’m writing, my phone began sounding the air-raid alarm for the fourth time today, and now I can hear the rumble of air defenses somewhere in the city.

How does the church survive such extreme conditions? What does it look like to remain faithful to the gospel and to continue ministering when the world around you is literally exploding?

In all honesty, not all churches have fared the same. Earlier in the war, we saw many church leaders leave the country, seeking safer pasture. They found it in Western Europe or North America. That left many churches with a deficit of trained and experienced leaders. Some churches are still struggling as a result. The leaders who remained have grown somewhat used to the constant attacks; nevertheless, it’s impossible to get used to them completely.

For those churches that continued and even flourished during wartime, I’ve noticed several common factors.

1. Focus on the Core Gospel Truth

Debate over secondary theological issues can be healthy, but it can also distract the church from its mission. Before the full-scale invasion began four years ago, many churches were caught up in debates over everything from what kinds of clothing are allowed at church to different eschatological positions. These debates quickly took a back seat when scared and bewildered people, who had never attended a Protestant church before, began showing up. Truths such as God’s grace, forgiveness, faith in Christ, and eternal life took center stage.

2. Willingness to Serve the Real Needs of People Around Them

Early in the war, there was a need for housing, and many churches responded by creating hostels for refugees and internally displaced people within their facilities. Tens of thousands of people saw the church not only as a place of worship but also as a safe, warm place to spend the night.

Four years in, many churches are still regularly engaged in feeding and clothing the needy. These tend to be difficult ministries; however, churches that have chosen to serve their community in this way often see lasting fruit.

3. Simpler Approach to Ministry

We’re accustomed to seeing ministries in North America bustling with tech and props. It’s easy to see these as vital to the ministry. Now imagine what would happen in your church if there were no power, no heat, no microphones, no screens, and no assurance that your facility would make it through the night?

What would happen? Ministry gets a lot simpler. You find you actually need few things to carry out the Great Commission. You need a Bible, you need your voice, you need prayer, and you need a few people ready to learn from God’s Word with you.

Lesson for the North American Church?

As I put the finishing touches on this article, it seems the drone attack is winding down. I just clicked over to check the news in our city, and it looks like at least one Russian drone hit an apartment building. The war isn’t getting any better, but the church of God moves on.

She doesn’t move in the same way she did before the war started; she moves a bit freer now, less encumbered by secondary issues and techy toys, but more concerned with real needs and gospel truth. Maybe the Ukrainian church has something she can teach her North American sister.

But Gen Z hasn’t been hostile to the faith. They’re not protesting Christian speakers or telling stories of how Christianity hurt them. Instead, they’ve been largely apathetic.

Until now.

This past fall, we began hearing from campus ministry staff about packed-out gatherings, rapidly growing Bible studies, and unexpected numbers of conversions.

“When we hear the gospel—that somebody loved us even when we were wretched and sinful—that’s what really draws our attention,” one University of Illinois Chicago student said. “That’s what really drew me in. And I feel like that’s what’s going on with Gen Z as well.”

These days, it seems almost every contemporary Christian artist will occasionally release an album of their his or her on classic hymns or occasional singles that reinterpret older hymns. As a way to highlight the best of these releases, I put together a playlist of old Christian hymns newly recorded by contemporary artists.

I hope the 100 tracks on the playlist will provide you and your family with a musical resource that will stir your heart to love Christ more and bind your heart to fellow worshipers of generations and centuries past.

You can find the playlist on Spotify or Apple Music. Enjoy!

Playlist Songs

1. “Hallelujah! What a Savior!” Boone Towne Hymns
2. “Be Thou My Vision,” The Riverside
3. “It Is Well,” Kings Kaleidoscope
4. “To God Be the Glory,” The Worship Initiative, Shane & Shane
5. “Holy Holy Holy,” Hillsong United, TAYA
6. “Praise to the Lord the Almighty,” Jess Ray
7. “Blessed Assurance,” Nathan Drake
8. “Come Thou Fount,” Forrest Frank
9. “Nearer My God to Thee,” Weston Skaggs
10. “I Surrender All,” sxxnt., Brother Joe
11. “Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy,” Poor Bishop Hooper
12. “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus,” Darla Baltazar
13. “Amazing Grace,” Kings Kaleidoscope
14. “Wonderful Grace,” Tasha Cobbs Leonard
15. “Solid Rock,” LOVKN
16. “Rock of Ages,” The Worship Initiative, Dinah Wright, Grace Tanner
17. “How Firm a Foundation,” Providence
18. “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” Poor Bishop Hooper
19. “What a Friend!” sxxnt., Brother Joe
20. “My Jesus I Love Thee,” Jess Ray
21. “What Wondrous Love Is This,” Boone Towne Hymns
22. “Be Still My Soul,” Paul Zach, Jessica Fox, iAmSon
23. “Because He Lives,” David Ramirez
24. “Just as I Am,” Carrie Underwood
25. “I Have Decided,” Wilder Adkins
26. “No Turning Back,” sxxnt., Brother Joe
27. “’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus,” Free as a Bird, Gretyl Baird
28. “Trust and Obey,” Chelsea Moon and The Franz Brothers
29. “How Long (Love Constraining to Obedience),” Pacific Gold
30. “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms,” Jess Ray
31. “The King of Love My Shepherd Is,” The Worship Initiative, Skye Peterson
32. “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need,” Cardiphonia Music, Lauren Hofer, Wendell Kimbrough
33. “Abide with Me,” Kyle Church, Jess Ray
34. “In the Garden,” Rothbury, Kate Gurren, Grace Coleman, Tiff Willmott
35. “Softly and Tenderly,” Wilder Adkins, Mckenzie Lockhart
36. “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” Providence
37. “I Need Thee Every Hour,” The Worship Initiative, John Marc Kohl, Hannah Hardin
38. “In the Garden,” Josh Garrels
39. “Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul,” Pacific Gold
40. “How Great Thou Art,” LOVKN
41. “Come Thou Fount,” Kings Kaleidoscope
42. “My Jesus I Love Thee,” Shane & Shane
43. “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go,” Providence
44. “Here Is Love, Vast as the Ocean,” Keith and Kristyn Getty, Sandra McCracken
45. “Love Divine, All Love Excelling,” Cardiphonia Music, Justin Cross, Wilder Adkins
46. “O Love of God How Strong and True,” High Street Hymns
47. “O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus,” Kenny & Claire
48. “Love Lifted Me,” The Sing Team
49. “The Love of God,” The Worship Initiative, Bethany Barnard, Dinah Wright
50. “Nothing but the Blood,” Forrest Frank, Lecrae
51. “There Is a Fountain,” Shane & Shane
52. “The Old Rugged Cross,” Ghost Ship
53. “At the Cross,” David’s Harp, Gracie Binion
54. “Were You There” LoFi Hymnal
55. “Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed?” Sovereign Grace Music, Bob Kauflin
56. “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross,” Keith and Kristyn Getty, Sandra McCracken
57. “Jesus Paid It All,” Kings Kaleidoscope
58. “And Can It Be,” Nathan Drake
59. “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” Paul Zach, Taylor Leonhardt
60. “All Hail the Power,” South of Royal
61. “To God Be the Glory,” FAITHFUL, JJ Heller, Jillian Edwards, Janice Gaines, Jess Ray
62. “Victory in Jesus,” Keith and Kristyn Getty, Matt Boswell
63. “I Stand Amazed,” Providence
64. “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today,” Ellie Holcomb
65. “Because He Lives,” Constanza Herrero
66. “Standing on the Promises (Medley),” Selah
67. “Wonderful Words of Life,” Boone Towne Hymns
68. “Rock of Ages,” Providence
69. “I Sought the Lord,” Advent Birmingham, Annie Lee
70. “Take My Life and Let It Be,” A New Liturgy
71. “Fairest Lord Jesus,” Sara Groves
72. “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” Anchor Hymns, Andrew Osenga, Sandra McCracken
73. “Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us,” Norton Hall Band
74. “He Leadeth Me,” Sovereign Grace Music, Bob Kauflin
75. “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me,” Pacific Gold
76. “Guide Me, O My Great Redeemer,” Sovereign Grace Music
77. “May the Mind of Christ My Saviour,” Ordinary Time
78. “Holy, Holy, Holy,” The Lofi Christian
79. “All Glory Laud and Honor,” Nathan Drake
80. “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” The Worship Initiative, Shane & Shane, Hannah Hardin
81. “Rescue the Perishing,” Maggie Amini
82. “No Not One,” Weston Skaggs
83. “The Church’s One Foundation,” The Falls Church Anglican, Madelyn Carmichael
84. “This Is My Father’s World,” Kings Kaleidoscope
85. “For the Beauty of the Earth,” Free as a Bird, Gretyl Baird
86. “All Creatures,” Shane & Shane, Davy Flowers
87. “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” Rain for Roots, Sandra McCracken
88. “Immortal, Invisible,” Emu Music
89. “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing,” Nathan Drake
90. “How Can I Keep from Singing,” Ginny Owens
91. “Amazing Grace,” Aaron Strumpel
92. “Grace Greater Than All Our Sin,” Sovereign Grace Music, Bob Kauflin
93. “His Eye Is on the Sparrow,” Victory
94. “O God Our Help in Ages Past,” Nathan Drake
95. “I’ll Fly Away,” The Gray Havens
96. “I Love to Tell the Story,” Chelsea Moon and The Franz Brothers
97. “Be Thou My Vision,” Son Francisco
98. “Take My Life,” Emu Music
99. “When We All Get to Heaven,” Casting Crowns
100. “Hallelujah, What a Savior!” Providence

Leah and I wondered if more of them had been in high schools that were implementing stricter cell phone policies, or if they’d had more time to bounce back from COVID-19 restrictions. I called up one of her professors—Mark Christians, who teaches psychology.

“Class attendance, especially from two or three years ago to now, has improved,” he said. “Even the consistency of completing assignments is at a much better level than it was a few years ago. And simple things like asking questions, engaging in conversation before class, after class— I think those are a little bit better.”

I asked him what he thought was going on.

“To be brutally honest, I don’t know,” he said. “I’m only comparing some of the classroom behaviors—coming to class, consistently completing assignments, the number of academic alerts that may happen in a semester. And I think this semester I’ve only sent out one. Other semesters, I may have already had six or seven out.”

I asked if it was something about the freshman class, but his upperclassmen are doing well too. I asked if it was a change in technology, but we couldn’t think of anything that would make such a difference between the spring and fall semesters. And then Mark said this:

Sorry for my random speculation, but chapel attendance has been up. Until the last five years, it was good, strong. But [now it’s] standing room only. It’s a voluntary, optional faith development activity, so that’s wonderful.

And there it was—only I didn’t fully see it, even then. I knew Dordt had a new dean of chapel, and it was the beginning of the school year, so maybe kids were simply piling in to see what was different over there.

To double check, I started emailing campus pastors I knew from around the country: “Hey, I’m hearing from Dordt University that students are more spiritually and academically engaged right now. Are you seeing anything like that?”

Here’s what they wrote back:

From Chicago: “100% it’s crazy!”

From Oregon: “Yep, we had 587 students at our college kickoff last week. We packed out the largest auditorium on campus. People sitting in the aisles.”

From Iowa: “Literally every Salt Company across the country would say it is uniquely fervent and open. Anecdotally, the Salt Attendance at Iowa State in September 2023 was around 1,400; 2024 was nearly 1,700; this past fall is just over 2,000. We’ve done Salt for nearly 40 years and NEVER seen increases like that in percent or numbers—all of this while the university enrollment is flat.”

Whoa. What’s going on here? Is it possible that Gen Z is having something of a revival?

Unlikely Converts

I’ll be honest: Gen Z isn’t the generation I expected to see in anything like a revival. Surveys show us they’re the most secular generation on record—the least likely to believe in God, go to church, or have a religious affiliation. One major reason for that is the shrinking faith of their parents—Gen Z is also the generation least likely to have grown up in church, attended Sunday school, or prayed over a meal with their family.

On top of that, they spend, on average, more than seven hours a day on screens and are famously anxious, depressed, and isolated. As a group, they’re much more likely to be playing games or streaming videos on their phones than showing up at youth group.

No, Gen Z isn’t the place you’d look for a renewed increase in spiritual engagement.

“I actually did not grow up in faith at all,” 19-year-old Kya Hardy said. “Nobody in my family was religious.”

Kya was raised on the south side of Chicago.

“In high school, I was a hot tamale,” she said. “I was captain of the volleyball team. I was on the cheer team. I was a pretty good student, but my time also consisted of partying, drugs, and drinking. I was really worldly—gossiping, dating. I was going all nine yards.

“[During] COVID-19, I was like, OK, I’m in school, but I’m also bored. I didn’t have anything to do. I wasn’t getting those social interactions with people. That’s when TikTok became big. So I got spiritual. I started believing in rocks and the universe. I started doing tarot card readings.”

Over in Iowa, college junior Ryan Goodman didn’t feel like anything was missing from his nonreligious home life. It was the opposite—Christianity felt like something his family didn’t have the time or desire to add to an already busy schedule.

“There was a consensus: We didn’t necessarily need God at the moment,” he said. “That was how we viewed it. It was just something that we didn’t do. High school was a very busy time. I thought, I already got so much stuff going on. I was in high school football. I was joining all these clubs. I had a lot of friends who went to church regularly and who had asked me to join various Bible studies and stuff. Back then, I was like, Well, I don’t really see the need for it.”

He still didn’t see the need for it when he got to college, joined a fraternity, and started going to class. Neither did Mike Chavez, who grew up Catholic in Chicago. He went to mass with his family, but that was about it.

“I really didn’t know a lot,” he said. “I was brought up on good morals and the Ten Commandments, but I couldn’t even name one commandment.”

He knew Jesus died on the cross but had no idea why. So he wasn’t looking for a faith community when he arrived at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC).

“I walked in and was like, You know what? I’m gonna get all my work done. I’m gonna be that dude that just is on top of all his stuff,” he said. “And that’s how it went for me for the first six weeks of freshman year. I was getting my work done on time and even early, and it was beautiful. But then I got drained out so fast. I was tired. I didn’t want to do the schoolwork anymore. And I was like, Man, this college life is gonna be hard for the next four years.

“I was struggling through that when one of my advisors was like, ‘Hey, you need to join a group or a club or something, so that you can get back into it, have more fun, and have a balance in your life. Because right now your whole life is school, and it’s getting unhealthy.’”

Mike’s attempt to work himself into an identity—the dude that is on top of all his stuff—was failing. His predicament is typical for Gen Z.

“A lot of times people pick a lane, and they don’t deviate from it,” Ryan said. “You have guys that are so into schoolwork, to the point where they don’t have many friends because they’re so focused on trying to stick to their grades. Or you have guys that are going to parties, probably three to four times a week.

“A lot of guys feel like they have to pick their identity super fast. They have to find their lane. And then once they find their lane, they get comfortable in it. And then they don’t feel like they need to deviate.”

That sounds familiar to me, because I’ve done research on girls using social media, and they tell me the same thing. Social media—which Gen Z starts younger and uses more often than any other generation—is framed around creating your own identity, or brand, and then filling your life with content that matches it. Kya’s identity was a popular party girl. Ryan’s was a busy overachiever. And Mike’s, for a while, was a single-minded academic.

Firstfruit: Mike

After Mike’s advisor told him to join a club, he started looking around.

“My friend said, ‘I joined this group called CODE, maybe you should be a part of it.’ And I was like, ‘OK, let’s go. I’m down,’” he said. “That’s how I ended up getting plugged into CODE and Campus Outreach ministry. And I didn’t think anything of it. They told me it was a leadership program, and they said it was faith-based. But that just went over my head.”

Perhaps Mike missed the faith angle because so few university programs in Chicago are faith-based. Though the city has half a million college students, even its largest institutions have only a handful of Christian campus ministries. Some of the city colleges don’t have any.

CODE is the leadership program of Campus Outreach, a student ministry largely based in the South. The only reason there’s a chapter in Chicago is that, eight years ago, the wife of Campus Outreach staffer Tony Dentman got a job in Chicago. He started a chapter at UIC, then started CODE to better serve and connect with students.

Mike’s CODE mentor was Andrew Martinez, who is on staff with both Campus Outreach and Holy Trinity Church. Andrew kicked off the relationship by asking Mike about his life, his experiences, and his personality.

“And then he starts slowly mentioning Jesus and the gospel,” Mike said. “And I’m like, What is this? Like, what are you talking about? I was like, I’m gonna shrug it off. Maybe it’s something that he brought up by accident.

“And one day, he ends up having a Bible study at his house. And I really liked Andrew. He’s really, really cool. I was like, I want to go check it out. What is this Bible study thing like? Because I just really like hanging out with him.”

Mike went to the Bible study, and there it dawned on him: These CODE guys are serious about their faith. I asked if that turned him off.

“It actually fascinated me, because I’ve always been a curious person,” he said. “It opened my mind—I wanted to know who this Jesus guy was, because I heard about him in church here and there. But I never really knew who he was or what this gospel thing was. And I’d been going to church my whole life. I wanted to know. I was very curious.

“One thing that fascinated me was the way Andrew was able to pick out verses. I’m like, Whoa. What are you doing here? I didn’t even know what a verse was. So when he started connecting dots and showing me diagrams—that’s when I felt like my eyes were beginning to open.

“He showed me Romans 6:23 and the bridge diagram. That really caught my eye. I was like, Dang, I’m really separated from God, and this Jesus dude is my way to him. That’s when my eyes were opening, and I was like, Man, I’ve been learning about Bible stories, but I didn’t know they were actually real. I thought they were just like stories, like fairy tales.”

Mike had, by his own estimation, about a million questions: How do you know the Bible is reliable? If God is so good, why is there so much sin in the world? Do kids who die go to heaven? Do all people get to hear the gospel, or only people in church? Does everybody get a fair chance?

These are hard questions, but Mike wasn’t looking for perfect answers.

“What I loved about Andrew was he would tell me, ‘Look, I don’t know all the answers. But the Bible has the answers, and maybe God will speak to you and comfort you,’” Mike said. “Andrew told me he wasn’t the main source. The Bible was. And that gave me a lot of comfort.”

Mike kept asking questions, and Andrew kept directing him to Bible verses.

“I was like, ‘This guy really knows his stuff. Wow,’” Mike said. “It started to make sense to me. I was like, ‘This is crazy.’”

All of this was happening in Mike’s freshman year. But it wasn’t until his sophomore year—about a year ago—that he gave his life to Christ.

“My first year, Andrew had been telling me all about the gospel, and it was cool, but I was still in a worldly relationship,” he said. “I was still doing my thing, I was still living my life, doing what I wanted to do. It wasn’t until sophomore year, when everything started spiraling down and I was confused, that I started speaking to God like, ‘Lord, what’s going on? I thought we were cool.’”

Nothing major happened. But Mike was increasingly uncomfortable about a lot of things—his identity in high school had been athletics, but in college he wasn’t playing a sport. He thought he wanted to be a teacher, but now he wasn’t sure. He was arguing more and more with his girlfriend.

“Andrew kept teaching me about God, and I felt like I was lying to him, like living a double life,” he said. “When we’d meet, I’d be like, ‘Oh yeah. I love God. And you’ve been teaching me all these things, and I’m learning.’ And then behind the scenes, I’m doing whatever I want, not letting God intervene, and staying in control. That’s when I came to the realization: I cannot continue to live this double life, because it’s not harming God, it’s just harming me. And it just didn’t feel healthy at all.”

Mike prayed, for real this time: Lord, take this relationship away from me. Let me start living for you. Let me start truly abiding in you.

“And he started transforming my life and letting me live for him, and answering me,” he said. “I was like, ‘This is crazy. I need to start really living for God.’”

Mike loved getting his identity and purpose from the Lord. His story of salvation is beautiful. But at first glance, it doesn’t seem to fit our timeline. He already came to faith last year, and the revival we’re talking about seems to have primarily started this past fall.

Hang with me a minute, because here’s what Mike’s Campus Outreach director, Tony Dentman, said about the timing of increased spiritual engagement.

“People have been saying this for the last three years: ‘I just feel like a revival is happening. Revival is happening,’” he said. “Even this summer, I was at a church planting network event, and they gave the numbers from Barna. They were like, ‘Man, look at this. The men are starting to turn to Jesus.’ And I’m like, ‘I have no clue what y’all talking about. I guess that it hasn’t made it to the north.’

“But starting in August—I think it made it to Chicago! The spiritual hunger, the spiritual desire, is higher than we have ever seen before.”

When I asked Tony and other campus ministers if it was this year’s freshmen who were driving the change, they said no. While there’s a high level of freshman engagement, the interest is no lower in the older grades. In fact, they said it’s the juniors and seniors leading the Bible studies that are bringing so many of the underclassmen to faith.

“I’ve been leading Bible study this year with a ton of freshmen, even sophomores as well,” Mike said. “And it’s been really fulfilling and really fun to do—talking about God and leading them into Scriptures and seeing those moments of realization that ‘I need to start surrendering this to God. And wow, God is so good, and God is so merciful.’ And I am like, ‘Yes, he is.’ Being able to see those moments really does bring me joy.”

Firstfruit: Kya

If Mike is a firstfruit of this increase in spiritual engagement, Kya is another. Like Mike, she’s studying at UIC.

“I did a lot of stupid stuff before Christ, but one thing I knew was I did not want to follow down the path of my mother or stay in the path of poverty,” she said. “So I was like, OK, I’m going to get higher education. I’m going to do something. So I decided to go to college.”

I asked if her party lifestyle shifted at all.

“Oh, it got worse when I was in college, because now I had all this freedom,” she said. “I had nobody watching me. I definitely did more partying, drinking, and smoking. It definitely hit an all-time high. And the boys—it wasn’t like boys, I was just indulging myself in one boy, but overindulging unhelpfully. That got worse because I could be at his dorm. Nobody’s expecting me home.”

One of Kya’s friends invited her to CODE. And since Kya had a crush on a boy in CODE, she agreed to go. Kya’s CODE mentor was Liza, who is married to Andrew and, like him, on staff with both Campus Outreach and Holy Trinity.

“She was asking questions: ‘What’s your spiritual life—your religious life—like? Have you ever heard of Jesus? How do you feel about the Bible?’” Kya said. “And I’m like, ‘No, girl, no. Keep that Bible away from me.’ I started running away from her.”

I asked why.

“I did not know the gospel,” she said. “I did not know the importance of it. I also had misleading information. You know how the Israelites were brought out of a bad situation? In my community, that is always thrown around—why didn’t God bring black people out of slavery?

“And they think Christianity kept people enslaved, when really it was not Christianity. It was how people portrayed Christianity. So that really pushed me away from it. I thought it was a white person’s religion.”

Kya quit going to CODE. But later, when her friend invited her to a Campus Outreach New Year’s conference, Kya said yes.

“I was thinking, It’s a conference. I’m going to meet friends, I’m going to experience college on a different level,” she said. “[Then] I get there, and it clicks, because everybody starts talking about Jesus, and their relationship with him, and how good he is. And I’m like, Hold up . . . What am I doing here?”

Kya was surprised and confused. How was it all these people, hundreds of them, were talking about the goodness of a God she didn’t know?

“We met this preacher, and he was saying, ‘You only call on God when you need something,’” she said. “I was like, Oh. I’d never felt something in my heart hurt so bad. I literally felt something grab at my heart, like my heart skipped a beat. I was like, You’re not lying. Actually, I do call on him when I need something.

“It was always, ‘Hey, God, can you fix this?’ Or when my grandmother passed away, I was like, ‘God, why?’ But that was the norm in society.”

Kya kept listening. She listened to the speakers, her leaders, and Liza. When she heard the gospel story—that Jesus, the Son of God, came to die for her sins and make her right with her Creator—Kya thought it sounded like a Disney story.

“I was honestly shocked, because you’re telling me this man who did not know me died on the cross for my future sins,” she said. “He paid the price before I was even alive. It was very shocking. I was really amazed. . . . I was like, You know what? You all sound like you’re living a beautiful life, and actually, I want to try it.

“I had a friend—the friend I went to the conference with. She knew something about religion—she wasn’t full-blown religious, but she knew something about Christ. So she kind of led me in prayer to giving my life to Christ. Because we came to an agreement—‘Yeah, let’s give our life to Christ.’ So that night we prayed together and gave our life to Christ.”

Maybe you’re wondering, like I was, if two basically non-Christian girls can lead each other to the Savior. Is that even legit?

Here’s what happened when Kya got back from the conference and one of her other friends called her up.

“You got liquor?” the friend asked.

“Yeah,” Kya said.

“You still got weed?”

“Yeah.”

“OK, come over.”

Kya did.

“In the middle of doing it, I’m like, Something does not feel right,” she said. “I felt uncomfortable. I felt icky. I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there, like I wasn’t supposed to be doing this. It was conviction—that was the first time I felt conviction. And I was like, I never want to feel that ever again in my life. And from that day forward, I stopped doing drugs. That conviction felt so terrible that it just knocked some sense into me right then and there.”

That wasn’t the only thing to change for Kya over the next few months. I asked her to compare her life today with her life a year ago.

“Drastically different,” she said. “I was periodically reading my Bible. I went to Bible study. I thought I was living the way of Christ, but you would always catch me at Chili’s for happy hour. And I’m justifying it with, It’s just one drink. It’s OK. The Bible says don’t get drunk. I’m not getting drunk, so it’s OK.” 

The drinking had become a habit, and Kya could tell it was affecting her walk with the Lord.

“I had my talks with God, and I felt his presence, but during that time, I was like, ‘Yeah, God, I’m not really feeling [you.] What’s the issue? Am I doing something? What am I doing?’ And it was just like something was on my spirit, like, That drinking. What do you mean, ‘What are you doing?’ It’s right in front of your face! That’s leading you away from Christ. Why are you doing it?”

But unlike before, the conviction alone wasn’t enough to stop her.

“I did not have the desire to stop drinking at all,” she said. “If I could do it today, I would still be doing it. I had to sit down, and I had to pray for the Lord to give me the desire to stop. . . . I was like, Honestly, God, I don’t have the desire to stop, but I know it’s bad, and I know it’s leading me away from you. So Lord, I pray that you give me the desire to stop. Lord, I invite you into the situation, and I pray that you just put your hands over me and stop me. Stop me yourself, because I can’t do this. And it stopped. The desire died down.”

Witnessing to Gen Z

Kya was baptized in August, at Holy Trinity Church in Chicago. She’s been doing a Bible study with two other girls, both new Christians. Along the way, she’s had some of the same questions Mike had.

“A couple months ago, one of my brothers in Christ had to give me reassurance,” she said. “I was questioning, ‘How do I know that Christ is the way?’ Because many other people say Buddhism—I have a friend and she’s Buddhist. So I was conflicted and confused. I’m like, ‘Is Christ the way? Like, is he? Because you got all these other religions, and who’s to say that their religion isn’t the way?’”

Her brother in Christ reassured her, which was enough for her to begin sharing her faith with her friend.

“Last week I was talking to my friend who is into Buddhism, and I told her something, and she was like, ‘Oh, my God,’” Kya said.

“Hey, don’t say that,” Kya told her friend.

“What do you mean?” the friend asked.

“No, don’t say that,” Kya said. “You don’t put that in the same sentence.”

“But God has different meanings,” the friend said.

“I looked at her like, ‘No, he does not. I’ve never heard somebody say that,’” Kya said.

Another time, a friend told her about a man on TikTok who said he was a Christian but also practiced voodoo.

“I hate to be the one to tell you, but it doesn’t work like that,” Kya told her friend.

“How I deal with it is I try to get my point across,” she told me later. “It’s starting to be more apparent to me there’s so many false prophecies and false leaders out there.”

There are also false ideas of what Christianity is like, probably also gleaned from social media. When Kya stopped drinking, she tried to share her reasons with her friend.

“She seemed like she was going for it, but then, months later, she was like, ‘Well, I hope you don’t become one of those white politicians who’s just against abortion and homosexuality,’” Kya said. “And I looked at her, and I was like, Oh, that’s what she thinks we are.”

Kya’s reaction is interesting, first because she has shifted her views on both abortion and homosexuality since meeting Jesus. But second, because a year ago, that was more or less Kya’s view of Christians. She thought they were a little weird. And judgmental. And harsh. And honestly, a little foolish, because why were they following someone they couldn’t see?

And that’s what makes her a perfect witness to the transforming power of the Spirit. I asked her what it was like to be involved in a campus ministry this past fall.

“It’s something that can’t even be explained—only a work that God can do,” she said. “Being surrounded by so many students with the same questions and struggles I have is such a beautiful thing. Being able to build relationships and talk to them—I would never replace it with anything else. It’s something so beautiful.”

She loves meeting with her Christian mentors, but she also loves meeting with the students on this journey with her.

“There’s a difference when you’re being led in Christ and when you’re sitting with people your age and just conversing about Christ,” she said. “[There have been] different times where different brothers and sisters in Christ will be sitting in the cafeteria of our campus, and I’ll just walk by and be like, ‘Hey guys,’ and then we’ll sit down and we’ll start talking. And somehow that conversation always leads its way to Christ—how good he is, what we’ve experienced, what we just read in the Bible. It’s not even forced. That’s the best thing about it. We don’t even have to be having Bible study that day. But he led us to talking about him and glorifying his name and learning more about him. It’s something unexplainable.”

Growing Harvest

“In October, there was a day we had seven people profess faith in one day,” said 23-year-old Sean Zerkle. He’s also a firstfruit, drawn to the Lord a few years ago by a young campus staffer in his fraternity at the University of Alabama. When he graduated in 2025, he started his first job as a Campus Outreach staffer with Dentman in Chicago.

“I was expecting a lack of spiritual interest,” he said. “I feel like in the South everybody kind of grows up with it, so if you ask them if they’re Christian, they’re most likely going to say yes, whether they are or aren’t. In Chicago, my expectation was, They’re not going to want any part of it. And that’s where I was wrong. That’s where I was completely wrong because they’re spiritually interested. They just don’t even know what to be interested in.”

Sean’s been having spiritual conversations all over the place. He told me about that day in October: “I sat down with a student, and right before I sat down, Liza, who’s on our staff team, she’s like, ‘These two girls just professed faith.’ And I was like, ‘This is crazy.’ And then the student I’m meeting with, he professes faith. And then Josiah, he met with three people and they were all like, ‘We want to give our life to Jesus.’”

Sean told me about his conversation.

“I was blown away, honestly,” he said. “His name’s Linus, and he’s from Ecuador. It was just different. I had shared [the gospel] at this point probably 25 times with other students. I could just tell something was different about this conversation. He’s there smiling, his eyes are big. And he’s like, ‘I want this.’ He has experienced a lot of brokenness, and he felt the weight of it. He was like, ‘I just want to be free from it.’”

Campus Outreach staff in Chicago saw 16 students come to Christ this past fall. Ten have been baptized. Dozens more have asked questions, shown up at Bible studies and larger worship gatherings, and asked if they could have a ride to church. A few years ago, all the Christian campus ministries at UIC—from Athletes in Action to Campus Outreach, Chi Alpha, InterVarsity, and the Navigators—came together for a joint event. They were excited to get 100 students, total.

This past November, Campus Outreach had its own conference and drew 120 people by itself. They’re seeing double, and sometimes triple, the number of attendees at each event or Bible study they host. The weekly gathering, which Dentman hadn’t been able to get off the ground until a few months ago, now regularly attracts 80 students each week.

This level of engagement isn’t just happening in Chicago. I’m hearing the same stories from campus pastors from California to Oregon to North Carolina—they’re seeing higher levels of attendance, questions, hunger, and conversions.

Fields of Fruit

A few weeks ago, I stood with thousands of Gen Zers in a conference center in Louisville, Kentucky. CrossCon was launched in 2013. That first year, about 3,500 students were there. The next year, attendance dropped to about 2,000.

Organizers wondered how much longer they should keep pouring money into it, whether anybody even wanted to go to Christian conferences anymore, and if this was a colossal waste of time and energy.

Then, slowly, things began to turn around. In 2024, for the first time, Cross sold out. Speakers like John Piper, Kevin DeYoung, and David Platt told more than 10,000 18 to-25-year-olds that though sin and enemies oppose them, they serve an undefeated God.

This year, organizers ran the conference twice—back to back. Around 18,000 Gen Zers packed into the convention center in Louisville to hear Piper, Platt, Shai Linne, and Carl Trueman challenge them to make their lives count. But conference organizer Matt Schmucker told me that what surprised him most wasn’t the record attendance. It was the breakout sessions they chose to attend.

“In the past, you would have expected to see maybe something on dating or courtship, which we did offer, or something on God’s take on exercise, which we did offer,” Matt said. But those weren’t the two that filled up first.

“The first one was on friendship with God,” he said. “That was Mike McKinley, who wrote the book Friendship with God. It’s based on John Owen talking about communion with God. So Mike takes this Puritan pastor from the 1650s and distills his message and makes it understandable. And that’s what these kids wanted to hear.”

The second session to fill up was even more surprising.

“The second one, much to our surprise, was Andy Davis on Scripture memory,” Matt said. “Andy Davis has been memorizing verses for 40 years. He does three every day, and he reviews 300 every day. He has 42 books of the Bible memorized. As Spurgeon said of Bunyan, you know, his blood is Bibline. Andy’s blood is Bibline. And I heard people rave about that. I had thought, If we can get 100 kids memorizing Scripture, that would be brilliant. Instead, there were 1,000 or more kids there.”

I love this. But know what makes it even sweeter? At the same time as those kids were learning at Cross, more than 4,000 college students and staff were gathering in Chattanooga, Tennessee, listening to J. D. Greear and Derwin Gray at the Campus Outreach New Year’s conference. A few weeks later in North Carolina, Greear spoke to another 1,800 at Summit Church’s WinCon—they couldn’t fit another person in that space.

Over in Iowa, 7,500 were at the Salt Company conference, hearing from speakers like Sam Allberry, Laura Wifler, and Mark Vance. In fact, Salt had so many in attendance that they outgrew their facilities in Des Moines and are looking for a bigger space for next year. Cross, too, has outgrown its space and will be in a stadium in St. Louis next time around.

Please hear me: I’m not saying this level of spiritual activity is everywhere—not every campus minister I talked to noticed an uptick in interest. I’m not even saying this should be called a revival. There’s a Barna study often cited as showing that Gen Z has more churchgoers than other generations—it doesn’t. But the Gen Zers who go to church do show up more often than churchgoers in other generations. Sociologist Ryan Burge notes that large-scale surveys are showing a pause in the decline of Christianity, but not an upswing. He tells me that a better way to describe it is “growing pockets of spiritual hunger.”

Wes Smith, who leads the college ministry for Summit Church in North Carolina, is in one of those pockets.

“I would say, for us here, it started a little bit last school year, and then this year just accelerated,” he said. “We’ve seen more students coming, which I know a lot of college ministries are experiencing. A lot more students are showing up, a lot more are spiritually interested. We saw a lot of decisions already in the first two months, definitely more than we would normally.”

In the fall, over the course of three evenings, Summit gave gospel presentations to large groups at North Carolina State, the University of North Carolina, and North Carolina Central.

“The amount of people who checked the box to say, ‘Hey, I made a decision for Christ’ was pretty large,” Wes said. “I think the first week it was around 80 people. It’s amazing. And I don’t know if I’d say all 80 of them made authentic decisions—we do a lot of follow-up to figure out exactly what’s going on. But still, at the end of the day, a lot more are making decisions and staying committed to the ministry.

“What’s also interesting is we’re at a couple of major public universities, an HBCU, a private school, and an all-girls school—and we’re seeing it at all of them. I think we were all pretty surprised by the response, because we did three services, three different nights, three different schools, all different preachers, all different things, and every one of them is having this kind of overwhelming response.”

In its annual report last year, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship reported an increase in the number of people meeting regularly to study the Bible together, and four straight years of increased first-time decisions for Christ. Seven thousand people attended its Urbana conference in December, up from 6,000 in 2022.

Cru saw more than 7,000 students at its 12 regional winter conferences, up from around 5,000 two years ago.

“It’s national,” said Mark Vance, the lead pastor at Cornerstone Church in Ames, Iowa, which oversees the Salt Company ministries on 33 campuses across the country. He rattled off a list of increases:

• Ann Arbor, Michigan: 2024 kickoff—320 students. 2025 kickoff—575 students; an 80 percent year-over-year increase.
• Bloomington, Indiana: 400 to 880—a 120 percent increase.
• Denver, Colorado: 586 to 915—a 56 percent increase.
• Tallahassee, Florida: 700 to 1,003—a 43 percent increase.
• West Lafayette, Indiana: 800 to just shy of 1,500—an 88 percent increase.
• Eugene, Oregon: 325 to just shy of 550—a 69 percent increase.
• Syracuse, New York: 80 to 130—a 62 percent increase.

“Here’s the point,” Vance said. “There are no exceptions. Every single place, we’re seeing increased numbers and increased openness.”

Just as remarkable to him is the invitation he received to deliver a lecture at Iowa State in February.

“I was invited by the university’s lecture panels to talk about civility in public discourse and the need for conservative voices that disagree in the public square,” he said. “They invited me, and they’re paying me to do it.  I’m going to come and make a common-sense, Christianity-in-the-public-sphere case. I was invited to do so at a major public university as the evangelical pastor in town. . . . Post-COVID, that is utterly unthinkable. It’s much, much more plausible that 5 to 10 years ago, the university would have worked to revoke our student work.”

At their first gatherings this past fall, the Salt Companies collectively saw about 23,500 students. One of them was Maya Gooneratne, a student leader at the University of Oregon. I asked how their kick-off event went.

“It was emotional, because we had been in the Bushnell Chapel originally,” she said. “That’s where I went to Salt my freshman year—at the small chapel of the college next to the University of Oregon. That filled up really quickly. And so when we moved to Straub, the biggest lecture hall on campus, we only took up the bottom level.

“There’s a balcony too, and last year we [just wanted] to fill that balcony. That was the goal—fill the balcony. And then we walked in [this past fall] and the balcony and more was full. It was just so cool. Sometimes it feels like we’re too big for Straub.”

Maya and her friends wondered if the attendance would dip after the first day. But it didn’t—the balcony is still consistently full. Jack Bertilson is the college director of Salt there.

“There’s something about the messages that Jack has been giving each week that are so convicting, in the best way,” Maya said. “Something about them is really bold—and maybe it’s just because my heart’s more open to it. We’ve been talking about, ‘Wow, this year, for some reason, something feels different.’ The audience seems ready for it. Every time we get to [our small groups], everyone’s like, ‘Wow, that message was so good.’”

I asked Jack if he’d been practicing his speaking over the summer. He said he has spent more time preparing messages this past fall—but not in researching the latest memes or TikTok references in order to relate to a younger crowd.

Here’s what he said: “I hear more and more from students saying that they want me to tell it how it is, to not disguise the truth or make it a little easier to digest. They want me to preach in a way that gives them the most clarity on what the Bible says about how they live their lives.”

So Jack has been working on changing his voice and tone so it’s less distracting. He’s trying to be easier to understand. And he’s trying to be more unapologetically clear and truthful.

“It just seems that the simple, timeless gospel truths are falling fresh on people who have never heard them,” he told me.

Why?

By this point in my reporting,  it seemed clear that God’s Spirit was doing something unexpected in Gen Z.

And I was asking the obvious—and almost impossible—next question: Why? Why now? Why these young people?

The first and best answer is that the Lord’s timing is perfect, and his ways are inscrutable. The fullness of time for this movement, however large or long-lasting it turns out to be, has come.

But there are also some interesting storylines we can see playing out.

Broadly speaking, Gen Z are the children of Gen X, who were coming of age and graduating from college in the late 1980s and 1990s. This is the exact time when American church attendance and affiliation began to slip, led primarily by the young adults.

This generation didn’t go quietly. With access to the internet and then social media, they deconstructed their faith in videos, into microphones, and on Instagram.

While exvangelicals are statistically a small group, they were moving in the same direction as Americans nationally—away from submission to God’s authority and toward a celebration of individual rights and a variety of sexual expressions. This was so widespread that by the 2010s, some universities were kicking out student ministries or disinviting speakers who stuck to a biblical view of sexuality.

But throwing off the restrictions of religion didn’t usher in widespread peace and joy. Even with screens that offered almost infinite ways to distract, entertain, identify, and express yourself, all generations—but especially Gen Z—sank further and further into depression, anxiety, and loneliness.

Throwing off the restrictions of religion didn’t usher in widespread peace and joy.

At the same time, Gen Z grew up less familiar with the stereotypes of church and Christianity than their parents. They didn’t carry the same hostility toward it. Over the last couple of years, especially after Donald Trump’s election and the waning of the woke era, campus pastors told me students were no longer protesting Christian speakers, campaigning to remove campus ministries, or telling stories of how Christianity had hurt them.

The latest surveys tell us only 18 percent of Gen Z attend church weekly. Fewer still read their Bibles or go to Bible studies. A whopping 43 percent say they’re nonreligious. They aren’t deconstructing something they feel is restrictive; instead, they’re shrugging at something they think is irrelevant.

And that makes a difference.

Gen Z Explains Why

“I think everyone’s looking for fulfillment,” Maya said. “That’s always been true. But for some reason, I feel that a lot more now when talking to people who haven’t been open to faith but have been stuck in this cycle of looking for different things to ‘complete’ them. Everyone’s just like, ‘This is not working. I promise, like, I’ve tried everything.’”

“Some people that I talk to are definitely overwhelmed,” Ryan said. “A lot of people feel like they’re dealing with too much. And it takes away a lot of that joy.”

Remember, when Ryan was a freshman, he thought he was too busy to add church or Christianity to his life. But when a senior in his fraternity invited him to church, he said sure. Surprised by how many people were there, and curious about why, he kept going, learning about the weight of his sin, the beauty of salvation, and the joy of Jesus. He’s been saved for almost two years, and now he’s the senior inviting freshmen to church. I asked how they respond.

“They say, ‘Yeah, 100 percent,’” he said. “They’re just like, ‘Sure, I’ll go. Yeah. Why not?’”

Gen X rebelled against the idea of being given an identity, purpose, and truth. They wanted to write their own story, and they wanted to give that freedom to their children.

But what sounds like freedom in an Instagram post can be a mess in real life. I asked Kya if it felt unstable to be in control of yourself.

“Very much, very much,” she said. “And knowing that God knows your story, knows what you did in private, knows what you’re going to do—why would I not follow him? He’s [the] all-knowing God.”

She loves feeling accepted, which “is not really shown in this generation,” she said. “Someone is always going to find something about you that they don’t like or that they deem unfit. [It’s good to] know that you have a higher identity and someone who accepts you, who knows it all.”

Mike said Gen Z is confused about love.

“Sometimes we think love is lust,” he said. “Sometimes we think love is fill-in-the-blank. We’ve been confused with thinking social media is the way to find fulfillment, or relationships are the way to find fulfillment, or drugs or alcohol. And so when we hear the gospel, when we hear that somebody loved us even when we were wretched and sinful—that’s what really draws our attention. I know that drew my attention. Even when I did all these horrific things, I was still loved. I can be fully fulfilled with God’s love and mercy. That’s what really drew me in. And I feel like that’s what’s going on with Gen Z as well.”

The generational shift was perhaps most clear in a story Maya told me. While cleaning up after a Salt event, she also grabbed a few beer cans that had been abandoned by another party nearby. A classmate walked by.

“Hey, I know you’re in Salt,” he said. “How come you’re holding a beer can?”

I can imagine the reaction of my Gen X: maybe embarrassment at being thought a prude, or frustration that Christianity was equated with rules about drinking, or a desire to distance ourselves from the legalistic restrictions of the Bible.

That wasn’t Maya’s reaction.

“I was thinking, People are starting to realize what Salt is, even if they’re not religious,” she said. “If you say you’re from Salt, they hold you to a certain standard, which is honestly such a compliment, because it means there’s an example out there of Salt Company people that try to stray from culture like that and focus on each other and faith.”

Abundance: Salvation and Friendship

Last year, Maya brought a friend with her to Salt.

“I feel like I’ve never seen a group of people so happy to be with each other, so enjoying each other’s company,” her friend told her.

Maya was thrilled: “That’s how it feels, so it’s so cool that other people notice it.”

She knows it’s the joy of knowing Jesus. But there’s a secondary joy the students are telling me about—a delight in being with other Christians.

“A lot of our students love to fellowship, especially since they’re new to the faith,” Mike said. “And so the more that they see us—the leaders—gather and have fun and have Bible studies, the more it encourages them, like, Man, I want to hang out as well with them, and I want to fellowship. And so I see our relationships building a lot more. Like, really, really fast.”

What a generous God, who is giving to Gen Z not only salvation for their souls but also restored purpose, identity, and relationships!

This joy is spilling out all over the place. For example, at UIC, Campus Outreach students are playing a long-running game of tag between classes. They make and eat food together. They head over to their leaders’ home to play games.

“That’s why I love being in this group so much—we can help people that are of this world, that still don’t know who God is, but are hungry for something that the Lord can provide for them, which is full satisfaction,” Mike said. “When they see us having fun, they’re like, Man, I want to know what that group’s like. I want to be friends with them and have fun with them. Maybe that will fulfill me. And little do they know that we provide them with the Lord’s love and we show them that we may not fully satisfy them, but God will. Being able to share that with them is the biggest joy for us. I feel like that’s why we continue to grow.”

At the University of Oregon, Maya’s friend was noticing the same thing.

“She was just like, ‘There’s just a glow about people there,’” Maya said. “It’s just the joy that is really hard to find in other areas. I think then people put it together, like, They all talk about this person called Jesus. That must have something to do with it.”

Maya could tell them: “It does. Totally does.”

This delight in Jesus, in the Word of God, and in each other, is such a contrast to Gen Z’s sad isolation that even a little bit is obvious.

“You don’t even have to verbally share about it,” Ryan said. “Honestly, you can be a little bit of a role model and lead by example, showing how fruitful it can be and how positive it can make your life, showing how joyful you can be in Jesus.”

That invites questions and opens up conversations.

“Most people are very open,” he said. “I don’t think people are closed off. I always like to try to make a connection with the person first—really get to know them. Once you really understand them and connect to them with a little bit from your story, it’s really powerful to share, ‘Hey, this is how I was similar. This is how Jesus affected me. What are your thoughts about it?’ Everybody, I would say, is pretty open.”

That’s a good thing, otherwise Iowa State students might be starting to get annoyed at the evangelistic zeal of the Salt students.

“Honestly, it’s hard to find a student sometimes at Iowa State that hasn’t been approached by another student,” Ryan said. “It’s kind of cool.”

“So many of us feel like we’re so lucky to know God and have that joy,” Maya said. “We want that for everyone else that we see on campus. So that’s the biggest incentive: I know how good it can be. And I want that for you. Cause I know that no one’s told you that before.”

Revival?

Tim Keller defined revival as “the intensification of the ordinary operations of the Holy Spirit,” which are “conviction, conversion, assurance, and sanctification.”

“When those operations are intensified across a church, denomination, city, or country, you’ve got revival,” he said. “And when you’ve got revival, three things usually happen”: sleepy Christians wake up, nominal Christians are converted, and non-Christians come to faith.

I don’t know if what we’re seeing is intense enough to be officially labeled a revival yet, or at all. The number of lives changed this past fall is still in the range of hundreds, not hundreds of thousands.

But I do feel confident saying that Gen Z has been given more wealth, education, technology, and freedom than any other in the history of the world—and they aren’t thriving. And I do know that some of them—more than before, more than expected—have been drawn to the Lord in the last six months.

They’re telling stories of sleepy Christians waking up, nominal Christians being converted, and non-Christians coming to faith on college campuses. They’re telling stories of conviction of sin, changed lives, and an almost glowing joy.

Whatever we want to call this, it’s certainly an occasion to rejoice and give glory to the only One who causes, sustains, or closes a generational or geographic revival.

But that’s not all this is.

International

After I wrote a story about what was happening in college ministries for The Gospel Coalition this past fall, I saw an email from Tim Savage, TGC’s international director:

Yesterday, we finished a three day conference in Stockholm, Sweden. Two decades ago young Swedish adults were skeptical of Christianity and scoffed at Christ. Calvary Stockholm church had 6 or 7 attending on Sunday morning and was close to shutting down. This Sunday every seat at Calvary Stockholm, on the floor and in the balcony, was filled, with many young Swedish men attending, some traveling over an hour by train, because “this church preaches the word of God!” . . . It’s remarkable what the Lord is doing in the “secular” European north.

Hmm. Well, you know what I did. I sent out another round of questions, this time to pastors overseas: “Is there increased spiritual engagement among the youth by you?”

No, said pastors in the Middle East, China, and India.

But I got yeses from Norway and Sweden, from Canada and Australia and Brazil. I heard this story from Jairo Namnún, a pastor in the Dominican Republic:

“We had a man come in, and he was selling us toys for our nursery,” Jairo said. “He came two Sundays ago. And when he came in, he saw so many people under 20, he started crying. And we were like, ‘What happened?’

“He said, ‘I need to meet the pastors.’

“Because we have two services, I’m usually in a small green room between the services. But I went and talked to him, and he was really crying and saying, ‘I am an agnostic’—which isn’t common in our culture—‘I’m an agnostic, but I need to come in and see what’s happening here, because I see all these youth, and I can’t believe these people are coming to church.’

“And he said, ‘I’m not selling you the toys—I’m giving them to you now. Just take them and I’m gonna keep coming.’ And we thought, Well, he’s probably just emotional.

“But he kept coming. He was sitting next to us this Sunday. So it’s not a usual thing. It’s something very unique and fresh that the Lord is doing.”

I love this story, because not only is the Lord pulling Gen Z to himself, and not only is he doing that around the world, but he’s also using them to draw others to himself. The students I talked to are sharing the gospel with their brothers and sisters, their parents, their aunts and uncles and grandparents. Multiple pastors told me they’re also seeing higher levels of engagement from those in their 30s and 40s. If it pleases the Lord, maybe this longing for him could spread—not only passed down from one generation to another but also passed back up, from the children to their parents.

And wouldn’t it be just like Lord—who chose the stuttering Moses, the youngest son of Jesse, and the little town of Bethlehem—to use the youngest, saddest, most lonely generation to light up the world?

Spiritual warfare is real in ministry—but often misunderstood. Matt Smethurst and Ligon Duncan help pastors think biblically and pastorally about Satan’s schemes, the Spirit’s indwelling power, and how to resist discouragement while persevering in faithful ministry.

Resources Mentioned:

• Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices by Thomas Brooks
• The Christian in Complete Armour by William Gurnall
• The Treasury of David by Charles Spurgeon
• The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
• The Work of the Holy Spirit by Abraham Kuyper
• New Life in the Wasteland by Douglas F. Kelly
• The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis

I asked Brad Edwards—a pastor and the author of The Reason for Church: Why the Body of Christ Still Matters in an Age of Anxiety, Division, and Radical Individualism—about what’s on his bedside table, his favorite fiction, the book he wishes every pastor would read, and more.

What’s on your nightstand right now?

I’ve recently been going back and forth between two nonfiction books that are right up my alley: the intersection of history, culture, and technology.

The first—A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914–1918, by Joseph Loconte—is a fascinating combination of cultural exegesis and historical biography. It is a fantastic complement to John Hendrix’s delightfully whimsical and gorgeously illustrated book, The Mythmakers (also about Lewis and Tolkien’s friendship).

Loconte has the rare ability to zoom in and out and back again without missing a beat, bringing in just enough historical context to make you see the familiar in a new light without getting bogged down or distracted by tangents. The result is a kind of literary and cultural road map that connects Lewis and Tolkien’s world with ours in a very fresh way.

The second is Paul Kingsnorth’s latest, Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity. I hold this very loosely because this is my first venture into his work and I’m only a few chapters in, but I have a hunch it may be one of the most important books written in the last several years (on par with Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation). It’s not just the content or the argument he’s making, either. Kingsnorth’s prose is invigoratingly right-brained, creative, and beautifully effortless to read.

I still can’t tell whether it’s due to or despite his pessimistic outlook, but Kingsnorth’s words reek of hope. It’s as if he’s seen, and perhaps even visited, a world where human nature is unleashed by rightly ordered constraint rather than enslaved by discarding the good of our creatureliness. It’s a world I’d love to see more clearly, and hope he continues to fill out in the rest of the book.

What are your favorite fiction books?

Fantasy is my first love. In third grade, I started devouring anything with chivalrous knights and wizards, or damsels in distress and dragons. At one point, I tore through a Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms novel every few days. Arthur and his knights were friends as well as characters. The worlds of Narnia and Middle-earth were more than an escape for a kid feeling caught between his divorcing parents; they were more familiar and more real than the one I resided in.

Even before I became a Christian toward the end of college, I sensed that they were pointing me to another world that infused mine with meaning. To paraphrase Lewis, it was reading fantasy that prepared me for “the fairy tale that is really true.”

Now that I’m an adult, The Lord of the Rings of course reigns supreme, but two other series continue to occupy my imagination long after reading them: Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga and Lewis’s Space Trilogy.

I didn’t really appreciate what I was getting myself into when, in late 2024, I started reading Wingfeather to my oldest son at bedtime. It took us well into 2025, not least because of the time it took me to answer all the questions about life and death; God and man; and, especially, fathers and sons (“Daddy, why are you crying again?” “Because, buddy, that’s how much Daddies love their boys . . .”).

Peterson has given the world a generational masterpiece. In fact, not only is it this generation’s Chronicles of Narnia, but I’d go so far as to argue (with great fear and trembling to admit this in writing) that it’s as good or better than Lewis’s Narnia. I’ve read both to my oldest son (now 9 years old), but it’s Wingfeather that he occasionally asks if his younger brother (4 ½) is old enough yet for us to read with him.

Speaking of Lewis, the first time I read his Space Trilogy, I almost couldn’t believe that it was written in the 1930s and ’40s and not the 1980s or ’90s—primarily due to his vision of advanced technology. Maybe it’s because I’m older and (I hope) wiser now, but when I read it for the third time this past summer I was again stunned, but this time by how he seems to have anticipated the social and anthropological challenges of the 2010s through the present (regarding gender, especially).

The first novel, Out of the Silent Planet, explores a fallen and redeemed masculinity. His surprisingly dark sequel, Perelandra, uses contrast to cast a regal vision of creational femininity. But it isn’t until That Hideous Strength that you realize the entire series is a sci-fi outworking of The Abolition of Man.

That Hideous Strength starts slow and without much obvious connection to the previous two books, but the last half is a surreal ride that includes Merlin, cosmic angels, and demons speaking through a decapitated head. It all adds up to an unexpected yet indispensable resource for anyone trying to wrap their minds around the potential disruption in the wake of artificial intelligence. 

What books have most profoundly shaped how you serve and lead others for the sake of the gospel?

The books I’ve found most helpful in pastoral ministry are not those that offer new ways of doing, but new ways of seeing. Application is great, but the more post-Christian our culture becomes, the more quickly even the best application becomes dated. Several books come to mind as offering practical perspectives that have proven both timeless and timely for our cultural moment, but I’ll limit myself to three(ish).

At the top of the list is Tim Keller’s landmark book The Reason for God. While the objections he covered in each chapter are specific to the rise of New Atheism and, therefore, a bit topically dated, it’s impossible to overstate how much his “defeater beliefs” and pastoral posture have influenced how I see my role as a pastor and church planter. The title of my book, The Reason for Church, is more than a homage to that contribution; it’s the only way to give sufficient credit for how much Keller’s life and ministry have indelibly shaped my own.

Alan Noble’s You Are Not Your Own is still, hands-down, the single best extrapolation of secular individualism, its pervasive and still-growing influence in Western society, and how dehumanizing it is without robust, church-based discipleship. Our church, The Table, hands it out for free to anyone who promises to read it from cover to cover because, as the meme goes, “once you see it, you can’t unsee it.”

This isn’t a Christian book, but reading Yuval Levin’s A Time to Build (side by side with Andy Crouch’s Playing God) opened my eyes to the glaring gap in my own ecclesiology: the institutional nature of the church. Their respective emphases on responsible leadership (Levin) and rightly stewarded power (Crouch) offer both a polemic and an apologetic for modern institutions—we insist we can’t live with ’em, but we can’t live without ’em.

It’s impossible to read them and still think that yet more individual power or autonomy can offer society a way out of our dysfunction. More importantly, they offer a gold mine’s worth of resources to help Christians and non-Christians alike taste and see that individualism is not good and can’t deliver on any of its promises.

With these books combined, the goodness and beauty of God’s promises to his people, and the ordinary means of grace he offers through his people, become much, much clearer.

What’s one book you wish every pastor would read?

I’m going to both cheat and risk making a serious faux pas by answering with my book, The Reason for Church—but not for reasons commercial or selfish. I wrote my book because I couldn’t answer this question without listing a score or more of books that all seemed to describe the challenges and opportunities of our cultural moment from slightly different but complementary perspectives.

It took the COVID-19 pandemic’s rapid acceleration of existing trends for me to see that radical individualism was the root of all our symptoms, and I wanted The Reason for Church to be a sort of “home base” from which to strike out and explore further the more comprehensive treatments that I could only scratch the surface of (and I used footnotes rather than endnotes, because I’m not a barbarian).

What’s your best piece of writing advice?

Don’t overthink it. As a verbal processor, I knew it’d be a challenge to get out of my head while writing a book, and it never would have happened if I hadn’t had a good friend and conversation partner who regularly challenged me to stop overthinking and just say, out loud and into the void if need be, what I’m trying to put on paper. I’ve heard his voice in my head at least three times while writing this, and it seems to knock something loose almost every time.

What are you learning about life and following Jesus?

In ways that continue to surprise me, writing The Reason for Church opened my eyes to how thoroughly individualism has subtly indoctrinated us to achieve our identity (through self-discovery and self-construction) rather than receive who we are in Christ (by grace, through faith). And the more I understood individualism’s soul-crushing tradeoffs, the more I started seeing where I’ve been compromised by the same indoctrination and have yet to fully source my significance, meaning, and purpose in Jesus.

Recently, I’ve been grappling with how little rest or receiving seems to characterize how I view faithfulness. That wasn’t a conscious decision, but it doesn’t have to be. Without realizing it, long-term exposure to individualism’s atmospheric pressure has functionally reduced my definition to little more than “ambition” with a Christian veneer.

Initially, that left me pretty deflated and tempted to chuck agency out with the proverbial bathwater. That started to change with the recovery of a theme John Houmes and I discuss on our podcast, PostEverything—an understanding of faithfulness as stewardship.

Where American ambition seeks to gain or achieve what we don’t have, Christlike stewardship seeks to leverage everything we do have for God’s glory and our neighbor’s good. It is too easy to forget that we are finite creatures immersed in a digital world that expands our awareness with near-godlike omniscience, or provokes our desires with unending reminders of more.

To be called to faithfully steward only the talents God has entrusted to us, and not a mote more, offers a freedom and contentment utterly alien to American ambition. In other words, I’m learning anew what it means for Jesus’s yoke to be easy and his burden light.

Moments earlier, the pastor had told the congregation that if we had any unresolved sin, we should abstain from the Lord’s Supper. Taking my pastor’s warning seriously, I sat and examined my heart, trying to decide if I should take and eat, or if I was so unworthy that doing so would bring God’s judgment (1 Cor. 11:29). In that moment, the table felt less like a feast of grace and more like a test I wasn’t sure I could pass.

In Reformed churches, fencing the table is a common practice. Communion is for believers, so we rightly warn those who haven’t confessed the faith against taking the bread and cup. In some churches, the fencing goes further, and the table is turned into a place of anxious introspection for believers. When communion is announced, heads drop in solemnity, and a quiet internal interrogation begins: Have I sinned in any way this week? Am I worthy of the table? Should I partake? Many Christians examine themselves in this way because they’ve been taught to do so by well-meaning pastors with sincere concerns over congregants eating “in an unworthy manner” (v. 27).

But is calling Christians to a private self-audit before the supper, or encouraging them to abstain if their consciences are unsettled, a valid application of Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34? Is this kind of self-examination what Paul had in mind?

Paul Calls Us to Church-Wide Unity

It’s not. When Paul rebuked the church for not “discerning the body” (v. 29), he wasn’t calling for a solitary inventory of personal sins but for the Corinthian church as a whole to examine its life together.

The preceding verses make this plain. When celebrating the supper, some believers ate privately (v. 21), others went hungry (v. 21), and the wealthy humiliated the poor (v. 22). The supper had become a public display of a divided church that undermined the unity it was meant to proclaim.

Is calling Christians to a private self-audit before the Lord’s Supper, or encouraging them to abstain if their consciences are unsettled, a valid application of Paul’s teaching?

In 1 Corinthians 10:16–17, Paul writes that because there is “one bread,” we who are many “are one body.” Communion proclaims that through Christ’s broken body and shed blood, God has united a diverse people into a single redeemed community. When the church comes to the table, we aren’t just remembering Christ individually; we participate together in a shared identity as his reconciled body. The act itself testifies that the gospel creates a family, not a collection of isolated spiritual consumers.

So when Paul says, “Let a person examine himself” (11:28), the examination he has is mind isn’t, as Mark Taylor observes, “mere self-introspection as this verse is often understood.” Taylor continues, “Paul’s perspective is communal. To examine oneself is to examine one’s . . . ways of relating to other members of the community.”

Paul tells the Corinthians to examine their relationships within the body. Are you despising your brother? Are you dividing what Christ has united? Are you celebrating the supper in such a way as to undermine the unified communion the Lord has won?

“[His] warning,” I. Howard Marshall writes, “was not to those who were leading unworthy lives and longed for forgiveness but to those who were making a mockery of that which should have been most sacred and solemn by their behaviour at the meal.” The problem in Corinth wasn’t unconfessed private sins but corporate behavior that contradicted the gospel.

Avoid Functional Excommunication

Many Christians have been taught to stay away from the table when they’re struggling to put to death sins like lust, greed, and jealousy. But in the New Testament, abstaining isn’t an act of personal piety; it’s a consequence of either an unrestored relationship or formal church discipline.

In 1 Corinthians 5:11–13, Paul tells the church not to eat with someone who bears the name of brother yet refuses to repent. Eating here naturally includes the supper. Similarly, Jesus teaches that the unrepentant are to be treated as outsiders by the church, no longer embraced as members in good standing (Matt. 18:17).

Then, in 2 Thessalonians 3:14–15, Paul again calls the church to withhold fellowship from those who persist in disobedience. As the word “excommunicate” itself implies, when a church formally recognizes that an individual is walking contrary to his profession of faith, he should be excluded from communion.

But what if a Christian recognizes he’s participating in the kind of corporate sins Paul condemns in Corinth—showing partiality, harboring contempt toward a brother or sister, or contributing to division in the body? In that case, the text calls for repentance that restores fellowship.

Pastors should call members to examine their relationships with others in the body, and as far as it depends on them, to seek peace with their brothers and sisters (Rom. 12:18). But when they’ve done so, we should call them to come to the table.

A Christians who has a broken relationship with a brother or sister may willingly abstain from communion until he’s had an opportunity to seek reconciliation (cf. Matt. 5:23–24). But this abstention shouldn’t be prolonged. Ideally, God’s people are examining themselves and meditating on the cross throughout the week—in the days rather than minutes before coming to the table. By God’s grace, this gives a Christian time to seek reconciliation and extend forgiveness before the Sunday gathering begins.

For these reasons, only unbelievers and those who are under formal church discipline should be barred from the table. Willing abstention due to a relational break should be rare. Abstaining due to a negative self-assessment of one’s personal piety should be avoided altogether. That’s functional self-excommunication, and it isn’t what Paul commends. He doesn’t tell the Corinthians to stay away from the supper until they feel clean. He tells them to stop despising one another and then to eat together in a way that proclaims the gospel truthfully (1 Cor. 11:33).

Come to the Table of Grace

Paul’s goal in 1 Corinthians 11 was never to create a room full of navel-gazers practicing isolated introspection. On the contrary, the table is precisely where believers should go when they’re battling private sin.

We should tell our people that if they’re burdened with sinful desires, they should come hungry to feast on Christ and remember his tender mercy. If they feel unworthy, they should come remembering that no one is worthy of communing with God apart from Christ’s work on the cross.

The problem in Corinth wasn’t unconfessed private sins but corporate behavior that contradicted the gospel.

The supper is Christ’s gift to sinners who need grace, not a painful punishment for those who haven’t had a perfect week. The primary qualification for the table is union with Christ and a willingness to walk in unity with his people.

Pastors, when we frame the supper primarily as a moment for private soul-searching, we unintentionally train the flock to disqualify themselves from one of God’s primary means of grace. But our people need to know that Jesus welcomes the weak to his table. It’s not for unbelievers, but it is for those who are fighting sin. At the table, Christ strengthens the weary by the memory of his blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins (Matt. 26:28). He restores the struggling as they feast on the bread of his body.

So let’s stop telling believers to abstain from communion and instead show them that the way of repentance is turning from disunity and taking communion. Pastor, let the table be what Scripture says it is: grace for sinners in need.

The longing I felt that night isn’t unique to me. In the years since, both as an intern with Cru and as a volunteer on my church’s youth staff, I’ve ministered to students who are where I once was. In Gen Z, I commonly see fear of rejection. As Gen Zers continue to live online and find relationships there, one of the most prominent forms of rejection they face emerges in the digital realm: ghosting. And I’ve learned to meet that fear with the doctrine of God’s unshakeable love.

Experience of Rejection

“Ghosting” is a popular term with Gen Z that means suddenly cutting off all contact without explanation. While its most common usage occurs in online dating spaces, it can also happen in friendships. One study revealed that 50 percent of Gen Z and younger millennials report being ghosted by a close friend. In an era when Gen Z mostly lives online, this kind of rejection is almost inescapable. The same study showed that 84 percent of respondents report being scarred by ghosting.

Ghosting, through its many apparitions, has left Gen Z socially isolated and lonely. Online communities become like exclusive country clubs where users can remove others, leaving them confused, hurt, and with a lingering pang of rejection from their peers.

Online communities become like exclusive country clubs where users can remove others.

However, for a generation highly motivated to continue learning about Jesus (52 percent) and eager for in-person relationships, what some Gen Zers find as they step into the church is sadly no different from what they experience among their peers. Another study found that the second-largest reason young adults stopped attending church was that they perceived church members as judgmental or hypocritical.

‘What Makes God Different?’

Ultimately, Gen Z isn’t searching for something new or unique to their generation but for what all generations desire: to be fully known and fully loved. As they explore Christianity, they’re asking, “What makes God any different from those who have rejected me?”

This question leads us to examine God’s character, where we see how he truly stands apart. He knows everything about us, the good and the bad. Yet, strangely, this guarantees a comfort no one else can offer.

No matter our story, God doesn’t reject us; he draws near and restores us. While others might reject us if they truly knew us, it isn’t so with God. Instead of turning away when he sees our ugly, broken, and sinful side, he draws near. It’s an act of agape love, a selfless, sacrificial act of goodwill, and an unconditional commitment to the one who is loved.

This kind of love is distinctly Christian. It isn’t merely kindness, or excusing sin, or doing whatever the person wants; it’s cross-shaped. He loves us because he loves his Son, who conquered sin and death in our place. There’s no “he loves me, he loves me not” dynamic with God; those in Christ never have to worry about God changing his mind or ghosting them. He chose rebels before the creation of the universe, knowing fully who he’d get involved with (Eph. 1:4), and he doesn’t make mistakes (Matt. 5:48; Ps. 18:30).

Revealing an Invisible God

Since God is invisible, it may feel like he’s ghosting us. This ushers in an opportunity for the body of Christ to reach Gen Z with God’s unshakable and eternal love.

The apostle John tells us that no one has ever seen God in his fullness, and yet his love is manifested in and through us when we abide in him (1 John 4:12). For Gen Zers questioning how God can be different, we can manifest God’s love through sacrificially meeting others’ needs.

We see a beautiful example of this in the gospel community in Acts. The early church created spaces for the living God to be made manifest, and Jerusalem became a place where they could display the reality of a loving God through their love for one another (Acts 2:42–47).

No matter our story, God doesn’t reject us; he draws near and restores us.

Are our Christian communities also devoted to the apostles’ teaching? To fellowship, communion, and prayer? Are we the aroma of Christ to members of Gen Z (2 Cor. 2:14–16)?

There’s no secret formula for getting Gen Z through our doors, but they need to see a gathering of people who recognize their brokenness and realize that Christ Jesus is the only source of restoration. Jesus said it isn’t the healthy who need a physician but the sick (Matt. 9:12). Scripture reveals we’re all sick (Rom. 3:23); everyone needs the Great Physician, including Gen Z. The sick don’t need a courthouse or a country club but a hospital where people come in need of healing and walk out experiencing that healing.

In an age increasingly dependent on snippets and sound bites, we need to recover the lost art of listening to sermons.

Fight to Listen

It’s easy to listen to a short Scripture reading, but what about listening to the sermon? This is usually the longest portion of the church service and the longest stretch of time with no response from us. That makes it an active spiritual battlefield. We’ve got to fight to listen—against distractions, intrusive thoughts, and, at times, drowsiness.

Just ask Eutychus about that last one. In Acts 20, Paul is preaching into the late hours on the Lord’s Day. Luke doesn’t say this, but the upper room was probably jam-packed; the young Eutychus is pushed to the fringes, so much so that he sits at the window.

Luke records that as Eutychus sat listening to Paul’s long sermon, he drifted asleep and fell from the window to his death—though, thankfully, he was raised to life again. While your pastor is unlikely to preach until midnight, you’ll still have to fight to listen.

Every Sunday, a spiritual war is waged as we seek to receive what God has for us from his Word. We come to worship with a real need—and desire—to silence the competing voices clamoring for our attention: the morning scramble with the kids to get out the door, the frustration of traffic or parking, the lingering tension from last night’s disagreement with our spouse, the anxious weight of what Monday might bring.

That only scratches the surface of the unseen, life-stealing enemies battling to keep us from hearing God’s voice and the gospel we so desperately need.

Listen Well

Consider the advice from the Westminster divines in the Larger Catechism:

Q. 160. What is required of those that hear the Word preached?
A. It is required of those that hear the Word preached, that they attend upon it with diligence, preparation, and prayer; examine what they hear by the Scriptures; receive the truth with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind, as the Word of God; meditate, and confer of it; hide it in their hearts, and bring forth the fruit of it in their lives.

This answer offers help in three areas: preparation, reception, and practice.

1. Preparation

We need to do some work before we listen. The Sunday work needs to begin Saturday night, and prayer is the place to start. We need ears to hear what the Spirit is saying (Rev. 2:7), so let’s pray that God would open the ears of our hearts to hear. The Devil wants to steal the Word (Mark 4:15); praying for protection will make our hearts fertile soil to receive the seeds of God’s sown Word.

Every Sunday, a spiritual war is waged as we seek to receive what God has for us from his Word.

We also need to increase our holy desire. The apostle Peter says as much: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation” (1 Pet. 2:2). He encourages his audience to come to church with a spiritual appetite (longing) for God’s Word. So if you want to listen to a sermon well, come hungry to receive.

2. Reception

Listening to a sermon well requires that we receive God’s Word with a humble spirit: “Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21).

James touches on something we dare not miss. The gospel word that saved didn’t simply pass through us; it took root. It was sown deep within our hearts and continues to grow there. In his gracious wisdom, God calls his people each Sunday to receive that same gospel anew—ever the same truth, yet ever speaking freshly to our hearts.

During the natural act of preaching, a parallel supernatural act of God occurs within the hearts of all listening. To listen and recieve, we need a right heart posture. This will give the message meaning and effect in our lives. Spiritual posture is what separates hearing a truth that takes deep hold of the heart from merely receiving a pleasant thought that descends and then quickly disappears.

The key to this posture is humility of heart. Meekness is the pathway that renounces pride and opens the soul to receive God’s living Word. Our readiness begins well before the sermon starts. We prepare for worship with intentional prayer, seeking God before we ever step into the sanctuary, asking him to help us set aside distractions and pride and to prepare us to humbly receive his Word as he intends.

Consider these questions from Joel Beeke and Michael Reeves:

Do I humbly examine myself under the preaching of God’s Word, trembling at its impact (Isa. 66:2)? Do I relish having the Word of God applied to my life? Do I pray that the Spirit may apply His Word?

3. Practice

Listening well to sermons doesn’t end with hearing. We don’t leave the message deeply buried in our hearts; instead, we move it outward into how we’re living. We put it into practice by applying God’s truth to our unique situations, struggles, desires, and concerns.

In essence, what we hear needs to move from our hearts to our hands and feet. This is how God’s message becomes real and powerful in our lives—through the courage of application.

Our readiness begins well before the sermon starts. We prepare with intentional prayer, seeking God before we ever step into the sanctuary.

It’s the husband who, after hearing a sermon on humility, apologizes instead of defending himself. It’s the young professional who, reminded of God’s generosity, loosens her fearful grip on money and gives sacrificially. It’s the anxious believer who, resting in God’s sovereignty, prays instead of giving in to panic. And it’s every time we remember God’s goodness and, trusting his sovereignty, resist the impulse to take matters into our own hands.

James captures this call to active faith with piercing clarity:

Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. (James 1:22–24)

The sermon isn’t meant to be merely informative but formative. Spiritual formation is what God is after (1 Thess. 4:3), and how well we listen to the sermon plays an important role in that formation. So this Sunday, be sure to prepare, receive, and put into practice what you hear.

In this talk recorded at TGC25, Michael Keller explains how understanding and critiquing these stories helps us communicate the gospel in comprehensible and compelling ways.

In This Episode

00:00 – Understanding cultural narratives and their influence

04:50 – Cultural narrative of identity

10:38 – Cultural narrative of freedom

14:54 – Cultural narrative of happiness

17:25 – Cultural narrative of power

26:32– Inoculating ourselves and others against cultural narratives

40:13 – The role of the church in cultural narratives

41:56 – Navigating political and cultural narratives

45:23 – Conclusion and Q&A

Resources Mentioned:

• The Stories We Live By: How Jesus Critiques and Completes What Our Culture Tells Us by Timothy Keller and Michael Keller
• The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt

SIGN UP for one of our newsletters to stay informed about TGC’s latest resources.

Help The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Give today.

Don’t miss an episode of The Gospel Coalition Podcast:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube
  

When we see marriages depicted in contemporary popular culture, they’re usually more broken than beautiful. Marital infidelity seems more common than fidelity in fictional narratives, marital frustration more frequent than bliss.

Marital infidelity seems more common than fidelity in fictional narratives, marital frustration more frequent than bliss.

Yet occasionally in pop culture, we find truly inspiring, lovely, aspirational depictions of marriage. At a time when marriage rates are declining and young people seem less and less interested in this cornerstone institution, Christians should celebrate when marriage is shown in a favorable, life-giving light.

Here are 12 of my favorite examples from contemporary movies, television, and literature (bonus: see a 2023 article and playlist with my favorite musical expressions of marriage).

Movies

Carl and Ellie, Up (2009)

Even though Carl and Ellie’s marriage is shown only through a five-minute, dialogue-free montage at the start of the movie, the memorable, tear-jerking sequence is a big reason most people consider Up to be one of Pixar’s finest films. Brilliantly animated, the potent sequence shows the couple getting married, turning a fixer-upper into a beautiful home, conceiving but losing a child, and sharing the quotidian pleasures and pains of life. Enhanced by Michael Giacchino’s Oscar-winning nostalgic score, the brief “married life” montage manages to capture more truth about marriage in a few minutes than many two-hour films do.

Tom and Gerri, Another Year (2010)

More people should watch this 2010 gem from acclaimed British director Mike Leigh. Another Year is (fittingly) a film about just another year in the life of a long-and-happily married couple, Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri Hepple (Ruth Sheen). The film follows the Hepples over the course of four seasons, showing how their enduring marriage is a stable rock and source of joy in an orbit of unstable, unhappy friends and family. It’s a bittersweet but realistic film, making a healthy marriage all the more attractive when juxtaposed with others’ chronic loneliness and self-destructive patterns.

Lee and Evelyn, A Quiet Place (2018)

Maybe this is an unexpected choice. An alien-invasion movie that showcases the beauty of marriage? But if you’ve seen A Quiet Place, you know. John Krasinski and Emily Blunt (who are married in real life) play a married couple with two going on three kids. The couple manages to create a safe, loving, joyful home despite the ongoing alien apocalypse. They show how powerful a healthy marriage is for creating stability and giving hope in otherwise bleak times. And as Lee acts heroically and sacrificially to protect his wife and kids, he presents one of modern cinema’s best portraits of masculinity.

Franz and Fani, A Hidden Life (2019)

I’m including one nonfiction couple on my list because the depiction of marriage in Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life is simply too good. As Franz and Fani Jägerstätter, European actors August Diehl and Valerie Pachner portray the “for better or worse” nature of covenantal love in a sublime way. As I argued in my lengthy review of the film in 2019, the WWII drama is ultimately a marriage story: “It’s about the struggle of fidelity amid hardship, love amid distance—for [Fani] and Franz, and for the church and her groom, Christ.”

Television

Eric and Tami, Friday Night Lights (2006–11)

For me, Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler) and his wife Tami (Connie Britton) are tops when it comes to healthy marriages on TV. As the centerpiece of the stellar Friday Night Lights—which debuted 20 years ago (!) this year—the Taylors constantly sacrifice for one another, support each other in the ups and downs of life, and team up to parent kids—both their own daughter and the many young men and women they coach and counsel. They complement each other beautifully and laugh a lot. They make marriage attractive.

Jim and Pam, The Office (2005–13)

Jim and Pam’s storyline is the heartbeat of The Office, giving the satirical show a strong dose of relatable sincerity. Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) are the “normies” of the series, playing the “straight man” foil to Michael and the many other kooky characters in the cast. And as they fall in love and pursue each other gently and patiently (perhaps too patiently . . . their flirtation-turned-courtship is around 8 years long), finally getting married in season 6, Mr. and Mrs. Halpert show how the coming together of man and wife remains one of life’s most compelling dramas.

Jack and Rebecca, This Is Us (2016–22)

Perhaps no contemporary television drama has captured so well how a healthy marriage bears fruit in subsequent generations. As they portray various eras of Jack and Rebecca Pearson’s love story, Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore show how a healthy marriage creates a ripple effect of love and safety for children, grandchildren, and other relationships. Among the aspects of the high, noble calling of marriage is what it can model for others, the legacy (for good or ill) it can leave. This Is Us makes that idea the central plank of its drama.

Bandit and Chilli, Bluey (2018–present)

Have I learned wisdom about marriage and parenting from an Australian animated show about a family of dogs? Yes. Yes, I have. The whimsically sweet show isn’t preachy about its pro-marriage, pro–nuclear family message, but it’s there. It’s impossible to watch Bluey without aspiring to emulate at least some of the virtues it models: engaged, playful presence with one’s spouse and children; a willingness to serve others rather than be served; the priority of cultivating a household of joy. If this type of love and joy is what a healthy marriage can cultivate, who wouldn’t desire it?

Literature

Larry and Sally / Sid and Charity, Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety (1987)

This beloved novel from celebrated American writer Wallace Stegner is a compelling portrait of the challenges and joys of marriage, as seen through the interweaving stories of two couples. The friendship between the Morgans and the Langs over decades helps each couple weather storms, professional ups and downs, and the “sickness and health” contingencies of life. The novel captures how each marriage has its own dynamics and challenges, but also that stormy waters need not be navigated in isolation. A healthy marriage is shaped by the community around it, buoyed and spurred on when it might otherwise sink in dangerous seas.

Nathan and Hannah, Wendell Berry’s Hannah Coulter (2004)

I read Berry’s Hannah Coulter a few years into my own marriage, and it made me all the more desirous of the sort of long, stable, resilient marriage Hannah and Nathan share in the novel. It’s not a perfect or trouble-free marriage, of course (“Troubles came, as they were bound to do, as the promise we made had warned us that they would”). But it’s a noble, sturdy marriage of shared work, common goals, love, fruitfulness, healing, and endurance in a post-war America where change was dizzying and challenges aplenty.

Reverend Ames and Lila, Marilynne Robinson’s Lila (2014)

The third novel in Robinson’s Gilead series, Lila is a gorgeous, theologically rich meditation on the complexities of covenantal love—giving and receiving it. The novel, deserving winner of a National Book Award in 2014, captures the healing and growth that can come from a healthy marriage, even after grievous tragedy and trauma. Marriage is messy and fragile because we’re fallen people prone to wander. Still, as Lila shows so beautifully, the choice to faithfully love, and to trust the faithful love of another, is a risk with miraculous rewards.

Charles and Lily / James and Nan, Cara Wall’s The Dearly Beloved (2019)

Similar to Crossing to Safety, Wall’s 2019 bestseller follows the interlocking stories of two married couples in midcentury America. In this novel, however, the two couples navigate the unique tensions of the husbands getting along well (they copastor a church) while the wives have a scratchy, often icy relationship. Wall renders a realistic and often beautiful diptych of marriage, set in a particular social (1960s New York City) and professional (church ministry) context. She shows how each of the four main characters is changed and grown through the commitments he or she makes, both in marriage and in ministry.

OK, that’s probably not why Parkison wrote it, given it also happens to be the opening volume in the Contemplating God series. But it is how he frames his discussion of God’s aseity (i.e., his eternal, unoriginated self-existence). And Parkison invites us to ponder this question with the spirit of a child, “asking a question for the sheer joy of getting its answer” (6).

Parkison reminds us, in a refreshingly accessible way, that “God the Trinity—the eternal fire of vitality, love, and radiance that ever burns as Father, Son, and Spirit—is eternal life. God is life in himself. And what he is by nature, he grants us to share by grace” (5). Even those who have never heard of aseity will appreciate this biblically saturated and devotionally rich book on what some might assume is an abstract topic.

Aseity’s Biblical Roots

So how do the Scriptures teach God’s aseity?

Negatively, Scripture presents God as standing in need of nothing (1 Chron. 29:14, 16; Job 22:2; Acts 17:24–25). This is implied in Scripture’s opening sentence (Gen. 1:1). For if God made all things, then all things are dependent on him for their existence. But since no one made God or gave him life, he’s clearly not dependent on anyone or anything for life—ergo, he’s self-existent.

The positive side of God’s aseity is that “he needs nothing because he is the plenitude of life” (19). Parkison explores this positive vision through God’s revelation to Moses at the burning bush. As he narrates well-known scenes from Scripture, Parkison displays a knack for telling Bible stories in a way that sneaks past the watchful dragons of familiarity and helps us see what’s really there.

Parkison displays a knack for telling Bible stories in a way that sneaks past the watchful dragons of familiarity and helps us see what’s really there.

He reminds us of how little Scripture Moses possessed at that time (i.e., none), and therefore how much of Scripture’s vision of God is downstream from that encounter. For as Moses contemplated this revealed divine name, he would’ve rightly concluded that “for God to be ‘I AM’ means he is absolute, incomprehensible, unbounded Being. He never became, nor is he becoming—he simply is” (28). We can quickly see from this how a right understanding of God’s aseity also bleeds into his immutability and simplicity.

Aseity’s Trinitarian Texture

The book’s latter portion shifts its focus to John’s Gospel to explore the triune aspect of God’s self-existence. Meditating on John’s prologue (1:1–18), Parkison creatively imagines how a first-century Jew, dedicated to the worship and existence of only one God, would’ve been stunned by this new wrinkle. For “the Word” described in verses 1–3, despite being “personally distinct from God,” also clearly falls on the God side of the Creator-creature divide (36–38).

The Word “from [whose] fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” is himself the self-existent fountain of all life (John 1:16; see 1:4). “He grants eternal life because eternal life is his to give” (41).

This leads into an exemplary discussion of the eternal relations of origin within the Trinity, namely, the Son’s eternal generation from the Father and the Spirit’s eternal spiration from the Father and Son. Theologian Fred Sanders describes these eternal relations as “the happy land of the Trinity”—emphasis on the word “happy.”

For it’s precisely these eternal relationships of love within the One divine being that constitute his infinitely happy “life in himself” (51). It’s why he was never lonely and therefore never created anything out of need. And it’s the same happy life he shares with us by grace when he saves us.

It’s precisely these eternal relationships of love within the One divine being that constitute his infinitely happy ‘life in himself’

Creatively using John as a Virgil-like tour guide, Parkison invites us to “come and see” God’s aseity in the ministry of Jesus in John’s Gospel (see John 1:46). Here we finally encounter the classic proof text of divine aseity: “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (5:26).

As Parkison rightly notes, Jesus here claims not only to possess the same aseity as his Father but also to possess that aseity as an eternal grant from his Father, making it a testimony both to the Son’s equality with the Father and to his eternal generation from the Father (65–66).

Thus, our Savior teaches us that God’s triune life isn’t a dry stream or a barren tree but, as Parkison joyfully puts it, “a boundless, ineffably wonderful fecundity—dynamic in his splendor and majesty . . . a bottomless ocean of vitality—spilling forth as a plenitude of life, light, and love” (67).

Aseity as Good News

In answer to his son’s question—Is God more eternal than us?—Parkison responds simply: “Yes, God is more eternal” (75). We’re given “eternal life” and even said to be “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). But we can never have “life in ourselves” the way God does, because, unlike the Father, Son, and Spirit, we’ll always receive life from outside ourselves as creatures.

And yet lest, like Lucifer, we experience this news as a “letdown,” we should instead rejoice that we’ll be made as much “like God” as a creature can be (75). Even God can’t create self-existent beings who had no beginning, just as he can’t tell a lie or create a square circle. But he can give us life, light, and love that will last forever, eternally spiraling “further up and further into” the divine life. And that’s exactly what he has promised to do in the gospel.

Parkison is correct when he writes, “There is nothing more practical than contemplating God, since this is the very thing we were created for as human beings” (7). The Fountain of Life is a creative and engaging invitation to worship God more fully by better understanding his self-existent nature.

At my elder’s business, I learned to use spreadsheets to track finances, inventory, and warranties. I learned to identify organizational problems, and I felt a burgeoning desire to solve them. Eventually, I hired staff and learned to lead to a team. This role I took to support my family equipped me with skills I’d later need as an executive pastor—skills I’ve learned are essential for promoting church health.

When pastors and ministry leaders teach on church health, we first talk about biblical marks such as preaching, prayer, discipleship, polity, and evangelism. These all matter deeply. No church thrives without them. But a church can have faithful teaching and vibrant relationships and still trip up if it neglects to manage finances, facilities, and people well.

We tend to overlook the organizational skills needed to lead in these areas, because they aren’t glamorous. Nobody posts pictures of clean budgets or systems for tracking members online. We rarely talk about such tools from the pulpit. But when our church operations systems are weak, our ministry is fragile.

Healthy ministry requires healthy organization. Why? Because bringing order out of chaos is a biblical norm.

Grounded in the Creation Mandate

Genesis opens by describing the earth as “without form and void” (1:2). Before God fills the world with beauty, he brings structure. He separates light from darkness, day from night, and heaven from earth. Order comes before abundance. Organization makes room for life to flourish.

When church operations are weak, ministry is fragile.

Then, God makes mankind, and he calls them to participate in the organizing. The cultural mandate in Genesis 1:28 calls people to responsible stewardship of God’s gifts. God wants Eden to expand, so he commands the man to “work it and keep it” (2:15), to cultivate and beautify the world through the expansion of the garden.

Reflecting Christ’s Sustaining Work

When we turn to the New Testament, the Son is revealed as “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.” Hebrews also describes Christ as the One who “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3). Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible God, holds all things together (Col. 1:15, 17). He keeps everything in order.

Then after Jesus’s ascension, the apostles appointed deacons to oversee the daily distribution of food so that their ministries of the Word and prayer wouldn’t be sabotaged by administrative neglect (Acts 6:1–7). Their spiritual wisdom protected the church’s mission.

When we do organizing work in the church—clarifying systems, stewarding finances, creating dependable pathways for members to serve or be discipled—we’re modeling all these biblical themes.

Essential for the Great Commission

But healthy church operations don’t just reflect the cultural mandate and the character of Christ, they also serve the Great Commission. For this reason, church operations shouldn’t be a side effort. They’re part of faithful obedience.

When a church’s operational work is healthy, the church is set free for discipleship. When you’re not chasing paperwork or untangling avoidable crises, you can invest more time in shepherding. When you have clear systems for connecting members to classes or groups, people will feel known, and fewer will get lost in the shuffle. When your church manages finances well, tithes will be spent on mission priorities, not on correcting financial mistakes.

When you have clear processes and church management systems, this eliminates the decision fatigue and emotional drain that can arise when staff are always guessing how to respond to each new situation. And when communication is clear, this can help to reduce conflict and maintain relational peace among both leaders and members.

When church leaders give their attention to organizing its operations, its mission goes forward with fewer distractions and greater depth.

Protect Gospel Ministry

Organization isn’t the center of the church’s calling, but healthy operations do strengthen the center. Our organizing work shouldn’t be prioritized above prayer, preaching, or shepherding, but it can protect them.

After all, poor operations rarely show up in the headlines, but over time they can wear a church down. Neglect this work long enough, and chaos grows. Pastors grow tired from doing work they should have delegated. Volunteers lose enthusiasm because expectations aren’t clear and they feel unappreciated. Staff relationships strain under regular misunderstandings. Financial priorities drift. And sadly, people—often the most vulnerable people—slip quietly out of sight because the church wasn’t organized enough to notice.

Good intentions won’t overcome disordered systems. Eventually, the disorder will show. But the alternative is beautiful. A church where the work of organization is well stewarded before God is free to do what Jesus has called it to do, to make and mature disciples.

Healthy church operations don’t just reflect the cultural mandate and the character of Christ, they also serve the Great Commission.

When I first answered a call to ministry, I had a grand vision for preaching and discipleship. I had gone to seminary to learn biblical languages and theology, and I’d been to conferences where I heard about the urgency of missions and the supremacy of preaching.

But in my church staff roles, I’ve needed leadership skills that weren’t taught in the classroom or from a big stage. That’s why I’m so thankful for that job at the medical equipment company. It’s there I learned that management and organization aren’t just for secular fields; they’re essential for churches, because they serve the ministry.

The book offers guidance for speaking with faithful persuasiveness in a secular age. Here are 20 quotes that struck me.

No matter your strategy, you can’t avoid culture, because culture itself is another way to describe what we mean by religion. Everybody worships—someone or something. Missiologist Lesslie Newbigin argued that culture is really just another way we describe religion, how we pursue meaning and understanding from life. . . . Religion isn’t downstream from culture. Culture is downstream from religion, the inevitable human pursuit of meaning and eternity. (3)

Apologetics can never be purely rational because the head never reasons alone. Culture shapes which desires we indulge and which we reject. . . . What the heart wants, the head will rationalize. Our intuitions follow our aspirations: What kind of person do I want to be? Or, to ask the same question another way, who’s my tribe? (4)

If traditional apologetics is about making arguments to defend Christian truth, cultural apologetics is about making arguments that showcase Christianity’s beauty and goodness, using cultural touchpoints as an opportunity for gospel witness. It’s a precursor to evangelism. It sets the stage so the gospel’s beauty can be accentuated. (18)

I’ve heard it said we’re to listen carefully for the questions being asked in each generation and then show how the gospel answers those questions. That’s good, but it doesn’t go far enough. Faithfulness to the gospel means we don’t merely answer the questions people in society are asking—we also raise questions people should be asking but aren’t. The gospel upends all earthly cultural scripts and frameworks, at least at some level. The gospel presses different questions. (28)

When Christians explain the biblical pattern of creation and fall to a secular and skeptical late modernity, we’re not entering enemy territory. We’re inviting wanderers back home to a view of the world that can make sense of both the best and the worst of humanity. In short, the Bible makes sense of us. It makes better sense of us than we can make of ourselves. (36)

If accommodation invites people to believe a false gospel, confrontation doesn’t invite people to believe the gospel at all. Are we really revealing cultural idols if our audience isn’t listening? And should we expect them to listen if we don’t invite and desire for them to listen? . . . A posture of confrontation is a hostile and alienating use of cultural apologetics that is more focused on making the Christian feel good about themselves than bringing the sinner to Christ. (67)

Human beings are a messy mix of knowing God and ignoring him, of running to him in creaturely need and running from him in autonomous rebellion. (79)

The gospel is a call to exchange old hopes and desires for new ones, because the new ones are the originals from which our false stories are smudged and ripped fakes. (80)

[In 1 Corinthians 1:22–24], the focal point for Jews is signs and power. For Greeks, it’s wisdom. Different groups, different worlds, different desires. Why does Paul bother with this delineation? Given the “no” of the cross, Paul might have said, “Who cares about Jews, Greeks, and their culture? It doesn’t matter. We preach Christ crucified—context is irrelevant.” Yet Paul doesn’t say this. . . . Daringly, and speaking their language, Paul says that Christ crucified is power. Christ crucified is wisdom. Yet Christ’s power and wisdom are displayed in a contradictory and subversive way from how Jews and Greeks conceived of such matters. . . . Paul can get apologetic traction by connecting the cross with their respective cultural narratives and at the same time subvert them. (82)

The point of contact isn’t simply that God satisfies a need, because sinful men and women don’t really know what they need. Like a patient who went to the doctor feeling a little unwell only to be told by the doctor that he has a fatal disease, we must remember that “the main thing that Christ came to do for men is to bring them escape from eternal death and to reinstate them to the favor of God. On this point, men don’t know their need: they only have a vague sense of lack.” We must be careful not to confuse symptoms with diagnosis and people’s felt needs with their fundamental need. Idolatry, for all the explanatory power it affords and the horizontal destruction it wreaks, is fundamentally against God, and this opposition needs to be exposed. (84)

Too often, we preach an Acts 13 sermon to an Acts 17 audience. We speak of forgiveness to those who have long since ceased to believe in guilt. (110)

[We need] patience in helping our non-Christian friends come to terms with the implications of modern secular assumptions. It will probably feel less like winning an argument and more like breaking a spell. (111)

Why do we call Jesus good? Not because his teachings measure up to our beliefs in human equality, care for the poor and weak, and the virtue of sacrificing even for those least like us, but because he is the source of those convictions. . . . If Jesus isn’t God incarnate, then the ethics we have learned from him are only subjective, arbitrary preferences. We need Jesus not just as the origin of our beliefs but as their firm foundation. (121)

First, as we have seen, our friends and colleagues are judging Christian history on the basis of Christian ethics, whether or not they realize it. Second, the persistent reality of sin within the church doesn’t discredit Christianity, because the Bible teaches us to expect it. Third, if we evaluate history with the measuring stick of care for the poor, sick, weak, oppressed, and marginalized, Christianity beats any other major belief system hands down. (121–22)

Many today think that what the Bible teaches about sexuality is a story of hate. But really it is bound up in the greatest love story ever told. (125)

The standards my secular neighbors use to call Christianity ugly are standards that were given to them by Christ himself. . . . Secularism is a child of the gospel, a teenager in rebellion against her mother. Yet she can’t shake that she has been molded by her parent since the womb. She can’t erase that her face looks so much like her mother’s, though she has disfigured it willfully. If I were to ask my secular neighbors, “Is Christianity beautiful?” their answer couldn’t help but be strongly influenced by the ways secularism, a radical Christian heresy, wants to reject the Christian God but still use his stuff. (135)

Christianity works for me because it connects me with reality that is true beyond me. (147)

For every person, the pursuit of truth eventually leads down the path of Pilate or the path of Thomas. The path of Pilate asks, “What is truth?” but only entertains answers that serve the self. The path of Thomas may pass through the ups and downs of doubt. But in the end, it descends to the feet of the risen Christ. “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). (151)

We tend to think of apologetics as something the church does. . . . An apologetic is also something the church is. . . . When churches take seriously our calling as countercultural communities, we start to do the work of cultural apologetics without even thinking about it! (156, 162)

Whatever a particular non-Christian’s reasons for rejecting the gospel, that non-Christian would [likely] find his own objections unpersuasive if he were born in a different culture or time. . . . Cultural apologetics explains to non-Christian Westerners why they respond to the gospel as they do—simultaneously finding parts of its content intuitive and familiar, while other aspects strike them as untenable and offensive. . . . [It helps them] approach Christianity with a clearer sense of who they are as non-Christians. (175)

The one true God speaks. He speaks 11 times in the Bible’s opening chapter (Gen. 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 29). Throughout biblical history, God speaks repeatedly, and his speech—whether direct or through holy men taught by the Holy Spirit—is recorded as God’s full and final revelation: the holy Scriptures. Moreover, Scripture is “living and active” (Heb. 4:12). God continues to speak to us through his Word and by his Spirit today.

Our challenge is discerning the Father’s voice. Our charge is following the Son’s call. Our task is being sensitive to the Spirit’s promptings. As Christians, our hope is that we can testify, “God told me . . .”

Yet this phrase, “God told me,” grates on me like nails screeched down a chalkboard. As with the daring Christian senior, it’s often employed as an unassailable justification for self-serving beliefs or actions that might otherwise be difficult to defend. It seems that for some reason, we think, My brothers and sisters in Christ can’t argue with me if God told me.

How, then, do we take seriously that God speaks yet embrace firmly Scripture’s authority? Can we hear Father, Son, and Spirit speak in our personal circumstances in immediate and specific ways and say truly, “God told me”?

Yes, within three guardrails.

Respect Authorial Intent

Authors craft sentences to communicate substance. I mean something with each line I write. So too the biblical authors. Likewise, God. Meaning doesn’t reside in the reader. Meaning resides within the vocabulary, syntax, sentences, and discourse of a given text. This is true for this article, for the last book you read, and for the Bible.

Can we hear Father, Son, and Spirit speak in our personal circumstances in immediate and specific ways and say truly, ‘God told me’?

Christians too often treat the Bible like a source of Christianized fortune-cookie wisdom. Snap a sound bite from the Bible and claim it for your life circumstances. Perhaps on the first day of a new job, you open your Bible to Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” So with an optimistic bounce in your step, you set off thinking, God told me he’ll make me prosper in this job.

But the author’s intent in Jeremiah 29 was to help God’s people settle down in exile for 70 years before God’s glorious future came to fruition. If we’re stuck in a tedious, dead-end job and we open Jeremiah 29:11, we may be right to hear God tell us to commit to it and to honor him in it. This implication of this passage aligns with the text’s original authorial intent.

As the Spirit applies the Bible to our lives—and he does—he’ll not tell us something contrary to what the passage’s author originally intended.

Recall Historical Readings

Tradition, church history, creeds, and confessions aren’t infallible. They don’t carry scriptural authority. But they’re good guides. For two millennia, Christians have considered, debated, refined, and documented their understanding of the Bible—what they’ve heard from God. This vast collection of Christian heritage is God’s good gift to us today.

I once preached on Psalm 37 at a wedding: “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (v. 4). We might reason, God told me if at our wedding we sing hymns, have prayers, read the Bible, and do that entire ceremony in a church building, God will give us the desires of our hearts: financial security, three children (two boys and one girl), a lovely house in a refined neighborhood, and health to enjoy it all. Psalm 37 makes no such promise!

Church history would help us see this. Augustine famously wrote, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in [God].” John Calvin explains, “This delight is set in opposition to the vain and deceitful allurements of the world.” Charles Spurgeon says, “There are many things which nature might desire which grace would never permit us to ask for.” If you read Psalm 37:4 on the morning of your wedding, you’d be right to hear God tell you, “Even if your fiancée doesn’t turn up today, you still have me, and in that, you can delight.”

If we think we’re hearing God tell us something that lies outside the boundaries of historical readings of the Bible, this ought to give us pause.

Receive Wise Counsel

Perhaps you believe God is telling you to do something more drastic than being overly optimistic on your first day at a new job or including songs and prayers in your wedding ceremony. Maybe you’ve just read 2 Timothy 4:2—“Preach the word”—and after more than a decade as a financial consultant, you believe God’s telling you to pursue vocational pastoral ministry. In this instance, receive wise counsel.

Tradition, church history, creeds, and confessions aren’t infallible. But they’re good guides.

Hearing a call to vocational ministry better adheres to the authorial intent of 2 Timothy 4:2, which is clearly a call to young Timothy to “preach the word” because he’s been appointed to do so by the “laying on of hands” (1 Tim. 4:14; 2 Tim. 1:6). Here Timothy is called to exercise his gift in accordance with the recognition of the broader body of Christ.

But before you make a seismic shift that would realign not only your career but your entire life, you need trusted and wise Christian counsel. Share your burden and conviction with mature brothers and sisters in Christ and then listen to their response. That includes your pastors, and your church’s denominational leadership. Be open to receiving correction. God often uses means to accomplish his purposes, and his wise people are a key means.

What we think God is telling us can often be clarified or confuted by wise counsel.

Living and Active

Hebrews 4:12 asserts that “the word of God is living and active.” This isn’t saying Scripture changes or means different things to different people. Rather, God’s Word is powerfully at work in us, and it makes different demands of different people at different times in different circumstances. This is what it means to hear God’s voice today.

So don’t ignore the Spirit’s promptings. But don’t pass off personal agendas as divine promptings; this honors no one. If what we believe God told us agrees with a passage’s authorial intent, historical readings, and wise counsel, then receive that word and act faithfully.

That’s the question posed by Robin John about tobacco, responsible for 100 million deaths in the last 100 years. Naturally, all of us would say no, we don’t want to benefit from other people dying. Yet as Robin points out in his new book, The Good Investor: How Your Work Can Confront Injustice, Love Your Neighbor, and Bring Healing to the World, many of us do hold mutual funds that invest in tobacco companies. We just don’t know it. Come to think of it, how much do we know about any of our investments, especially in long-term retirement accounts?

Robin John is the cofounder and CEO of Eventide, an asset management firm dedicated to honoring God and investing in companies that create compelling value for the common good. His vision for Eventide’s values-based investing shows how our work can benefit everyone and not just bolster the bottom line for a fortunate few.

I’d go so far as to say our world can be a much better place if investors—and employees of all kinds—will learn from his example and prioritize what really matters now and in eternity.

In This Episode

00:00 – Joy, purpose, and God’s design for everyday work

01:49 – Why The Good Investor is ultimately a book about joy

02:48 – Growing up in Kerala, India, and immigrating to the United States

04:42 – Community, individualism, and caring for the vulnerable

07:41 – Returning to India and confronting workplace injustice

10:49 – Rethinking success, profit, and the purpose of work

11:53 – Why Christians must examine their investments

14:33 – What does it mean to “root for” a company’s success?

15:36 – Discernment, gray areas, and biblical values in investing

18:07 – Avoiding evil and actively pursuing the common good

19:43 – Weaponry, conscience, and consistency at Eventide

20:13 – The cautionary story of Bill Hwang and ill-gotten gain

23:19 – The false divide between faith and work

25:07 – How investing has changed since 2008

27:14 – What ESG investing is—and where it diverges from Christianity

31:19 – Mission alignment vs. values alignment

32:23 – Encouragement for ordinary, faithful work

34:44 – Legacy, goodness, and hearing “well done”

Resource Mentioned: The Good Investor by Robin John

SIGN UP for my newsletter, Unseen Things.

Help The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Donate today.

Don’t miss an episode of Gospelbound with Collin Hansen:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube
• TGC Updates

The list left me feeling empty and fragile.

As I was writing the list, I was thankful for Dave Harvey’s The Clay Pot Conspiracy: God’s Plan to Use Weakness in Leaders. Harvey, a pastor and church network leader for more than 40 years, has suffered deeply and can now serve as a Paul-like model of God’s strength in human weakness.

As the title suggests, the book’s premise is that God has ordained a sort of conspiracy for Christian leaders: Our weakness plus God’s power equals resilient ministry. It’s a conspiracy because it’s God’s “covert plan to sabotage an enemy who manipulates human power and strength” (14). What the Devil, the world, and the flesh mean for evil—highlighting our human weakness—God transforms for our good and his glory.

Harvey’s short book is at once challenging and comforting because of the broken man who has written it and because of the timeless truths contained in it. It’s a modern example of facing the multifaceted trials of Christian ministry with the wisdom and perspective of the apostle Paul.

Grand Vision for Clay Pots

Second Corinthians is Paul’s weakness manifesto. He describes the immense pressure he faced in his missionary journeys—suffering until he even “despaired of life itself” (2 Cor. 1:8). But God allowed Paul and his colaborers to face this hardship so they would “rely not on [themselves] but on God who raises the dead” (v. 9). God’s plan for our weakness, then, is to teach us dependence on his resurrecting power.

Further, our great treasure—the divine beauty and power of the gospel—is held within such weak vessels as human beings. Why? “To show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (4:7, NIV).

Yet God is with us and has a purpose for our suffering. Harvey writes, “If dependence upon God is the point, weakness becomes an asset. Weakness is the space where reliance is built and grace is delivered” (51). This is such good news. God sees our weakness and is moved to compassion (Ps. 103:13–14). He loves to fill empty clay pots with his own presence and glory.

God is with us and has a purpose for our suffering.

Pastors need to embrace this clay pot conspiracy and let God’s power flow through our weakness. We must let repentance stoke resilience. We need to remember that God uses “enemies” to enlarge our souls. We should build strong teams and run together to finish well.

But most of all, we can be sure our tragedies and traumas don’t go unnoticed by God. Harvey concludes,

When God sees you, he is moved with grace and mercy. Yes, you—the doubting pastor, the struggling ministry leader. God has an unquenchable, unrelenting affection for you. (161)

When the Author Becomes the Message

Throughout the book, Harvey tells his own story as a display of Christ’s sustaining power in human weakness. In addition to providing a thorough exposition of Paul’s words on suffering in 2 Corinthians, he offers the highs and lows of his ministry to put flesh and blood on the issues we face as Christ’s followers.

After planting and leading a church for 20 years (even becoming his church network’s interim president), Harvey was removed from both positions due to the response of his local church to the breakdown of his eldest daughter’s marriage.

All of the ministry challenges were surpassed by the tragic pain in his family. His youngest daughter’s response to these tragic events contributed to a drift from Christianity and began a battle with addiction; a battle where she eventually lost her life. Losing a child is among the deepest wounds a person can endure. Amid mourning their daughter, Harvey and his wife, both in their 60s, graciously took their preschool-aged grandson into their home and adopted him. A blessing, but an unexpected complication at a stage in life when many people are slowing down.

Thankfully, most pastors won’t suffer as much as Harvey—either personally or professionally—but we can all learn from his integration of Scripture and experience. It’s a measure of God’s grace that “no leader knows the baseline of suffering drawn for him by the hand of Providence” (6). Yet Harvey relates how God strengthened him in moments of weakness: “Faith infused my soul as I remembered passages [of Scripture] packed tight with promises” (6–7).

Invitation to Weakness

Harvey’s message is so obviously biblical as he invites pastors to embrace our weak, limited, fragile humanity. It’s hard not to shine the light on our strengths and accomplishments. Everything in our culture teaches us to celebrate our wins. However, the light of the gospel was designed to be held and carried by weak, earthen vessels, not impressive, well-polished ones.

Most pastors won’t suffer as much as Harvey—either personally or professionally—but we can all learn from his integration of Scripture and experience.

Pastors need to resist the lure of the platform and power. “Leadership was never about exalting our strengths,” writes Harvey. “God’s plan was always to deliver his strength through our weakness” (5). Our weakness plus his power is the equation for God’s glory—and for our resilience in ministry. Accepting this truth is the surest path to a long and fruitful ministry.

As I reflect on the complexities of pastoral care, the constant spiritual warfare, and my physical exhaustion, Harvey reminds me that the solution isn’t found in doubling down and working harder. The solution is, as it was for the apostle Paul, to embrace my frailty and inadequacy. We’re all simple clay pots, designed to carry and display the gospel’s beauties. And what a relief: God’s power is made perfect in my weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).

Sometimes the most important spiritual lessons don’t come through detailed theological books. Dave Harvey’s story and his explanation of Scripture will encourage and comfort pastors worn down by the strain of ministry. The Clay Pot Conspiracy is a powerful reminder for church leaders that God’s grace is made perfect in our weakness.

On those questions, few books are as illuminating as Charles Taylor’s sprawling and brilliant Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity.

Why turn to a labyrinthine book on modern identity formation to answer those questions? Because Taylor argues we can only make sense the “good life” when we first grasp how our identities take shape. I determine whether my life is “good” based on the things that ground my identity.

Sources of the Self opens with a provocative claim. In the modern West, despite all our focus on the complexities of our inner lives, we nonetheless imagine our core identities in stark, uncomplicated terms. We perceive and present ourselves––and others––one-dimensionally. In asking “Who are we?” we reduce everything to a single label, imagining it plays a load-bearing role in constructing our identities. For some, that label is a nationality; for others, it’s a profession, a gender identity, a sexual orientation, a social class, or a social role. We see this reductionism clearly on social media: If you join a platform like X, the first thing you must do is choose what to present to the world about who you are in your bio (and in no more than 160 characters).

However, one of the driving ideas in Sources of the Self is that our identities are far more complex than our reductionistic tendencies suggest. Human identity is anything but tidy. To make this point, Taylor connects dots across vast expanses of time—from Homer to Plato, Augustine to Calvin, Descartes to Herder to Kant, and finally to us. By doing so, he creates a sketch of modern, Western identity. If you were to give that generic Western person an X bio, it would say something like this: #UniversalJustice #DoingGoodInTheWorld #Equality #Freedom #WantsToAvoidSuffering.

That cluster of values is generically Western in the sense that they aren’t shared by all cultures across all time. Ancient Spartans embraced suffering as character forming and saw pain as a useful tool. Confucian culture affirms hierarchy––rather than equality––as natural and necessary. In its pre-Christian past, Norse culture saw dying well as more important than living morally. Pagan Roman culture imagined an enslaved class as necessary to enable the flourishing of its free citizens.

By contrast, modern Western identity intuits those cultures’ values as foreign and undesirable. However, in Taylor’s argument, it doesn’t do so uniformly. Rather, the ways we prop up our own intuitions on justice, equality, beneficence, freedom, and suffering vary wildly from person to person. This, in his terms, is because we don’t share homogeneous “moral frameworks.”

In what sense, then, might two people formed in Western culture––one a Christian, the other secular––go about answering the question “What is the ‘good life’?” Sources of the Self answers that with a thought-provoking insight: In the cases of both people, Taylor claims, the concept of a “good life” is shaped by the notions of justification and sanctification. I want to focus on how those concepts give Christians a unique lens with which to view modern identity formation.

Understand Justification and Sanctification

Justification and sanctification are, of course, deeply Christian terms. And yet, Taylor argues, they also shape the lives of our secular neighbors. How so?

In Reformed theology, justification is viewed in a forensic, legal sense. We’re justified by faith alone in Christ alone. God examines our lives and declares us innocent of sin. As the Heidelberg Catechism puts it, it’s as though I had “never sinned nor been a sinner.”

Justification is a declaration from God that, in his sight, your life perfectly corresponds with the good life; in fact, it corresponds with the perfect life. This is because Jesus’s perfect life is imputed to you, transferred to you, and regarded as properly yours. God declares your life is grounded in what is objectively the highest vision of the good.

Justification is a declaration from God that, in his sight, your life perfectly corresponds with the good life; in fact, it corresponds with the perfect life.

However, justification is puzzling to consider in view of our actual, lived experience. It’s our real status in God’s eyes, yet it’s a status we hold by imputation: It’s attributed to our lives on the merits of Jesus’s life. The question for the justified person then becomes, What does Christ’s life mean for your life now?

This is where sanctification comes into play. Our lives need to be brought into harmony with Christ’s life. The faith that justifies must be transformative. Bit by bit, it changes us. In biblical terms, faith without works is dead (James 2:17).

In Reformed theology, we distinguish between sanctification as both objective and declarative on the one hand and subjective and progressive on the other. Sanctification is objective and declarative in the sense that if you’re in Christ, God declares your life holy and consecrated to a particular purpose—namely, Christlikeness.

But sanctification is also subjective and progressive in the sense that your imperfect life must become perfect; your broken life must be healed. Our progress in sanctification is brought about through a renewal of the will in regeneration, where the Holy Spirit works in us from the inside out.

Sanctification doesn’t begin externally through outward behaviors, as though you could do enough of that and eventually change your inner life. Rather, it begins with the Spirit’s regenerative work at the level of desire (which becomes a desire for God), and that inner change then begins to take effect on the rest of your life.

Through this, our good works take on a new motive: gratitude. We could say progressive sanctification is the shape of our gratitude. It’s carried out in the strength of what God has done for us in Christ in the power of God’s grace. And sanctification’s not easy: The New Testament describes it as the “mortification of sin”––the putting to death of our old nature. Our sanctification is imperfect until it’s made complete in death (see Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q&A 37).

If you’re a Christian, this understanding of justification and sanctification gives you a distinct way of living. First, your life becomes oriented toward the highest good. Second, it gives you a way of asking, Does how I live actually reflect that highest good? Third, it offers you a way of dealing with your failures in trying to reflect that highest good.

When I see that my sanctification is imperfect, I return to my justification for consolation. My sanctification is a work of gratitude for forgiveness, not a performance I hope will contribute to my forgiveness. By God’s grace, the gospel also teaches that one day, I, a justified sinner, will see God and become like the one I behold.

Inescapability of Moral Frameworks

If you’re a believer in Christ, this language of justification and sanctification is familiar—it’s fluent “Christianese.” But you may feel these concepts are categorically different from the beliefs of your secularized Western friends. This is where Taylor comes to our aid.

My sanctification is a work of gratitude for forgiveness, not a performance I hope will contribute to my forgiveness.

One of the most important claims in Sources of the Self is that all people live within moral frameworks. These frameworks are inescapable and diverse; nobody is a blank slate. While we tend to present ourselves one-dimensionally, Taylor says our normal way of answering the identity question—Who am I?—is actually narratival or story-driven.

We answer this question by trying to ascertain our highest good (in an objective sense) and whether we live in line with it (in a subjective sense). The story of whether and how we do that becomes the narrative of our lives.

Taylor describes this as a “yes/no question” that concerns the direction of our lives, toward or away from the good. To answer “Who am I?” a modern person must identify a highest good and then identify the directionality of his or her life in relation to it. Taylor writes,

The Puritan wondered whether he was saved. The question was whether he was called or not. If called, he was “justified.” But if justified, he might still be a long way from being “sanctified”: this latter was a continuous process, a road that he could be more or less advanced on.

Here’s the key point. Taylor continues, “My claim is that this isn’t peculiar to Puritan Christianity, but that all frameworks permit of, indeed, place us before an absolute question of this kind, framing the context in which we ask the relative questions about how near or far we are from the good” (45).

The modern Western sense of self is profoundly concerned with issues of justification and sanctification: What is the highest good with which my life is identified (what’s my justification?), and do I actually live in a way that corresponds to that highest good (am I sanctified?).

Secular Derivatives of Justification and Sanctification

Once we view modern life through this lens, we see what Taylor calls “secular derivatives of Christianity” everywhere. To notice them, though, we need a clear eye for their variety. Let’s examine a few moral frameworks prevalent in our culture.

Taylor identifies those whose outlooks view history as divided by a stark, polarizing antithesis. The basic feature of that individual’s identity comes from asking, Which side am I on: the side of the oppressed or the oppressor? In this framework, your sense of justification comes from being aligned with the right cause—with good rather than evil.

This sense of justification is so totalizing that personal sanctification often becomes an afterthought. Taylor writes, “The insistent and absolute question here is: which side are you on? This permits only two answers, however near or distant we may be from the triumph of the right” (45).

So in that sense, Taylor identifies some modern Western people who hold to an absolutist good-versus-bad view of the world, and who themselves are (obviously!) goodies rather than baddies because they side with the goodies. This results in a person who possesses an extremely powerful self-identification with the good cause, yet who may herself be a horrible individual. Her need for personal sanctification has been starved by the sense that she’s already on the right side of history.

We can describe this as a secularized version of the Christian heresy of antinomianism—the idea that because I’ve been justified, I don’t need to be sanctified.

Taylor gives another example: Consider a rationalistic person whose highest good is treating the self in a disengaged, objective way. That is a form of justification, locating it in clearheaded rationality, self-mastery, and self-control.

For this individual, sanctification involves answering questions like these: Am I rational enough? Am I in control of my emotions? In situations A, B, and C, was I able to be objective enough about myself? And how do I deal with all those irrational idiots out there who impede my sanctification?

In that kind of philosophy, it’s about slow, progressive sanctification. And the tools of progressive change are ruthless introspection, along with the psychoanalyst’s couch.

For another, the highest ideal might be providing for his family. His justification, his highest good, is domesticity. In his case, sanctification focuses on self-directed questions: Am I spending too much time at the office (although my being at the office feeds my children)? How is my work-life balance? Am I a good enough parent? Am I messing up my kids? Am I a good spouse?

Although more examples abound, consider lastly the artist. Her highest ideal is artistry itself. But her sanctification depends on the answer to certain questions: At what point will I have my epiphany? What if I never produce a great work of art? And what about all the barriers in the world of art to people of my social class, gender, and ethnic identity, which are obstacles to my sanctification?

Being and Becoming

Taylor argues that human identity is a matter of being as well as becoming. I am, but I also become. Modern Western people imagine the “I am” category as a kind of justification (alignment with a highest good) and the “I become” category as a kind of sanctification (examining if they practice what they preach).

Taylor also argues that we project our lives forward. For instance, we ask ourselves, Ten years from now, will I have moved toward my highest good? In that sense, Taylor says our life becomes a moral space, a quest, a tale of progress or regress to be tracked, measured, and held accountable by our selves. How does the tale of my ongoing sanctification line up with my justification?

David Zahl’s book Seculosity provides a fascinating example of this. Zahl coined the term “seculosity” to convey that becoming secular doesn’t free you from religiosity. Rather, religiosity carries over into secular life and doesn’t lighten the burden of selfhood. Zahl argues that secular culture’s highest ideal is “enoughness.” We need to know that through our performance—in careers, relationships, parenting, technology, diets, politics—we’re “enough.”

While “being enough” is the justification, the weight of the search for sanctification (the performance) often collapses the justification. We end up crippled with anxiety (Am I enough?), shame (imposter syndrome), and guilt (Have I done enough?). This is the struggle of Ken in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie—he yearns to know if he is “kenough.”

If the right-side-of-history activist represents a secular version of antinomianism, the anxious achiever seeking “enoughness” represents a secular version of legalism—law without gospel, obedience without grace. In this secular culture, we throw ourselves at sanctification, hoping to eventually conclude that we’re justified.

Out-Narrate the Secular Self

Taylor shows us we’re fundamentally dealing with hollowed-out versions of the deeply Christian notions of justification and sanctification. These aren’t arcane concepts; they’re the prototype of something the modern Western sense of self holds to in a variety of ways.

If the right-side-of-history activist represents a secular version of antinomianism, the anxious achiever seeking ‘enoughness’ represents a secular version of legalism.

I recently listened to a podcast interview with a coach who helps writers get book contracts. The interviewer asked what she says to authors who face endless rejection. The coach’s answer will strike many secular Western people as highly intuitive: “It’s really important to remember that your worth doesn’t depend on your writing being recognized. Even if all the publishers say your writing’s no good, remember that you have unconditional worth. Tell yourself that you are good.”

If you’ve spent much time around Western people, this way of dealing with a failed sense of sanctification will be recognizable. The logic is this: My actual life doesn’t match up with my highest good . . . but that’s OK; it doesn’t really matter if my life is externally a failure, because internally I affirm that I’m good.

In this case, our sense of self is a moral source: I’m just waiting for my epiphany to come, but even if it doesn’t, and I define myself as a writer, and everything I write gets rejected, I still affirm my goodness and dignity, and one day, if that epiphany comes, I’ll show you who I am.

This might sound benign for a struggling writer. But imagine the same sense of self applied to someone who inflicts horrible suffering on others yet maintains: I may have done this terrible thing, but I am in no way a bad person.

This is a counterfeit combination of justification and sanctification. It’s a forensic notion of justification—despite my failure, I’m declared righteous—but it’s a soi-disant (self-styled) righteousness. It’s self-proclaimed rather than declared by God.

How do the Christian notions of justification and sanctification shape up alongside this hollowed-out descendant? The crucial difference between the two is Jesus himself, whose life grounds one in reality and unmasks the other as mythology.

In the secular case, the “justified self” is a pure abstraction, flatly contradicted by the actual life. But it isn’t an abstraction when a Christian says, “My life is very imperfect. I’m a sinner. But God has declared that I’m righteous.” Why? Because the gospel says I’m justified by a real and perfect life—the life of Jesus. I’m not justified because I say so. I’m justified because God has said so, on the grounds that a real and superlatively better life has been credited to me.

Most of us can identify opportunities to grow in our pursuit of Christlikeness. For those who didn’t raise their hands, there’s a book on confession and another on repentance in the list below.

As an elder in my local church, I’m on the lookout for good, concise resources that can catalyze spiritual formation for new or seasoned believers. Most of these books are short. They’re also doctrinally sound and very readable. These are the sorts of resources churches should have on hand to give to people who need a little encouragement in their Christian life. Or they might be useful for a small-group study for church members longing to dig deeper.

The first five of these books were written for a general audience. The last three are the initial installments of the Disciplines of Devotion series, written by women and for women. (I still learned a lot by reading them.) The next three titles in that series will release in April, with an emphasis on evangelism, worship, and Bible study.

1. Aimee Joseph, Look, Listen, Live: Cultivating Attention in a Distracted Culture (Christian Focus, 2025) (Amazon | TGC Store)

This brief volume is less about one particular spiritual discipline than about the underlying problem that often thwarts our attempts to succeed in our spiritual disciplines. Nothing trips us up from prayer, fasting, or Bible reading like distraction—not just from our phones but from the million other attention grabbers our world offers.

Joseph reminds us that God is attentive to us, his children. She also outlines a biblical and theological basis for us to be attentive to God, his Word, and each other. Amid her rich reflection on this topic, she highlights actionable steps to become more attentive when surrounded by distraction.

2. Harrison Perkins, A Penitent People: The Doctrine of Repentance (Christian Focus, 2025) (Amazon)

Few evangelicals would deny that repentance is a vital part of the Christian life. Yet sometimes we focus so much on the settled fact of our deliverance from sin that we fail to recognize the way sin damages our ongoing relationship with God.

Perkins reminds us that repentance is “about increasingly knowing reprieve from sin’s grip and tyranny as we mature in the Christian life.” In a little over a hundred pages, this book offers both a thorough doctrinal foundation for ongoing repentance and practical advice for how to make that spiritual discipline part of our personal devotional life and the life of our church.

3. Phil A. Newton, Unburdening the Soul: Personal and Corporate Confession of Sin (Courier, 2025) (Amazon)

Personal and corporate confession of sin is an often neglected spiritual discipline. Our prayers tend to default to specific requests and general platitudes about our sin. There’s no doubt that admitting our general sinfulness is a good start, but we often fail to see our sin as God sees it.

Newton argues for a deeper, more regular practice of confession that reminds us how dark our sin is in light of God’s righteousness, but also how great our freedom from guilt is in light of Christ’s sacrifice. Unburdening the Soul offers six concise answers to questions about confession and 52 weekly devotionals that can help us practice confession faithfully.

4. Kenneth Berding, The Bible by Heart: The Bible’s Own Method for Scripture Memory (Christian Focus, 2026) (Amazon | TGC Store)

I’ve had Christians tell me that Scripture memorization is an outdated spiritual discipline now that we all have Bibles in our pockets. However, easy access to electronic forms of God’s Word doesn’t negate the psalmist’s prayer to God: “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. . . . I will not forget your word” (Ps. 119:11, 16). We may be able to do a keyword search quickly to verify facts, but memorizing Scripture is more about formation than information.

Berding’s concise volume reminds us of the benefits of Scripture memory. He also points us toward traditional, analog ways of learning Scripture like singing Scripture songs, listening to the Bible (aided, perhaps, by an audio Bible on repeat), or writing it out. He offers a complementary approach to Scripture memory to those recommended by Andy Davis in How to Memorize Scripture for Life or Glenna Marshall in Memorizing Scripture.

5. David Mathis, A Little Theology of Exercise: Enjoying Christ in Body and Soul (Crossway, 2025) (Amazon | TGC Store)

Our culture tends to oscillate between extremes on the issue of exercise. It’s popular to get into a fitness frenzy and go all in on diets and workouts. It’s more common for people to stick with the “couch” portion of the Couch to 5K plan. I’ve seen Paul’s admonition that “bodily training is of some value” used to justify both extremes (1 Tim. 4:8).

Yet Mathis reminds us that stewarding our bodies is part of our overall responsibility to God. His short book emphasizes the physical, mental, and spiritual benefits of exercise without encouraging obsession with outward appearances or worldly metrics. This is a good resource for people who need encouragement to pursue physical fitness for the glory of God.

6. Courtney Reissig, Prayer (Crossway, 2026) (Amazon | TGC Store)

Every Christian knows he or she should pray more, but we have to confess that it isn’t easy. Even Jesus’s disciples, having observed their Master praying regularly, still asked to be taught to pray (Luke 11:1).

Reissig’s booklet, primarily geared toward women, is a great starting place for new believers or Christians who need a little boost in their prayer lives. She reminds us what prayer is, why it’s important, and how we can learn to pray more regularly as individuals, in our families, and with other believers.

7. Cassie Achermann, Fasting (Crossway, 2026) (Amazon | TGC Store)

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I get cranky between meals. Though I’ve practiced fasting before, it’s one of the spiritual disciplines that has less appeal to me than others. I like being comfortable.

But Achermann shows that fasting can help us draw near to God because “our famished souls learn that there’s no one more satisfying than him.” The purpose of fasting isn’t to lose weight or gain merit before God but to better focus on prayer and dependence on Christ. This handy booklet lays out the biblical basis for fasting as a spiritual discipline as it encourages women to lean on Christ for every need, including our daily bread.

8. Megan Hill, Sabbath Rest (Crossway, 2026) (Amazon | TGC Store)

My grandparents wouldn’t allow me to mow the lawn on Sunday. That sort of rule, or the story of Eric Liddell refusing to race on Sunday, may be your primary exposure to the idea of Sabbath rest. But in our distracted age, productivity gurus are rediscovering the need for regular rest. The world is trying to reinvent the Sabbath because the always-on culture wears everyone to a frazzle.

In this booklet, written for women, Hill makes a biblical case that Christians ought to practice Sabbath rest—not in a legalistic manner but as a means of building community, delighting in worship, and remembering God’s mercy toward us. After all, Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). It helps to know how to practice Sabbath well.

The Background: The American Medical Association (AMA) has historically supported a broad range of so-called gender-affirming care for transgender adolescents, including social transition, counseling, puberty blockers, and hormones. As recently as 2023, it reiterated and even strengthened that support. But in its new policy statement, the AMA says that “surgical interventions in minors should be generally deferred to adulthood.” Their recommendation is based directly on the limited research on risks and benefits.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) went even further, issuing a position statement recommending that breast and chest, genital, and facial gender-related surgeries be delayed until at least age 19. The ASPS—the largest professional body of plastic surgeons in the country—cited “insufficient evidence” and “low certainty” about the risk-benefit profile of these procedures for patients under 18. ASPS leaders said their shift was influenced in part by England’s landmark Cass Review and the 2025 U.S. Health and Human Services report on pediatric gender dysphoria, which found the overall quality of evidence supporting these interventions to be “very low.”

These shifts are converging from multiple directions. Earlier this month, a woman who underwent a double mastectomy at age 16 as part of a gender transition won $2 million in damages against her medical providers. According to the Washington Times, this was the “first time a jury has ruled in the case of a detransitioner suing over gender-change procedures performed before age 18.”

Over the past two years, at least 27 U.S. states have enacted bans on some or all forms of gender-transition treatments for minors. The Supreme Court also upheld Tennessee’s law restricting such treatment. And last year, President Trump signed an executive order banning federal funding for institutions that provide such treatment to people under 19.

If followed, the recommendations from the AMA and ASPS could profoundly affect adolescents’ health. A major national analysis of gender-transition surgeries from 2016 to 2020 found 3,678 procedures performed on patients ages 12 to 18, including 405 who underwent genital surgery and 3,215 who had breast and chest surgeries.

Why It Matters: Christians watching these developments may be tempted toward one of two responses: triumphalism or cynicism. Triumphalism says, “We told you so! The medical establishment is finally catching up to what the Bible always said.” Cynicism says, “They’re only doing this because of political pressure and fear of lawsuits. Nothing has really changed.”

Although both impulses contain a grain of truth, a more interesting—and more biblical—response is to consider what it means when a society slowly rediscovers a truth it had suppressed.

Paul’s argument in Romans 1 is often cited in discussions about sexuality, but one dimension is particularly relevant here. Paul doesn’t describe humanity’s turn from God as a single catastrophic decision. Instead, he describes a process: “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (v. 21).

The progression is from knowledge to suppression to confusion. God’s response, repeated three times, is to give them up (vv. 24, 26, 28). God “gave them up” in the sense of allowing the internal logic of their error to play out until its consequences became undeniable.

What we’re witnessing in the medical community may be the tail end of that process. This is less a revival of morality and more a reality check imposed by biology. The consequences of intervening on children’s bodies with inadequate evidence and incomplete consent have become nearly impossible to suppress. The complications, the regret, and the lawsuits are the natural results of a framework that prioritizes ideological affirmation over the welfare of children. The medical establishment is running into the guardrails that God built into the created order.

Proverbs tell us that “whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment” (18:1). For years, gender medicine operated in exactly this kind of isolation—a closed ecosystem of activist doctors, compliant review boards, and intimidated dissenters. What the AMA and ASPS announcements represent is a small crack in that isolation.

Sound judgment is finally reasserting itself, not because the medical establishment has suddenly embraced the Creator’s design but because biological reality is stubborn and hard to ignore.

Because Christians care about the welfare of children, this is a moment for gratitude and continued vigilance. The Williams Institute estimates there are 300,000 transgender-identifying youth in the United States, many of whom live in states where these procedures are accessible and even encouraged. Every young person given room to grow rather than rushed to the operating table is a child who hasn’t been locked into a decision her or she can’t undo.

But vigilance remains necessary because the underlying ideology hasn’t changed. The AMA still affirms the broader framework of gender-transition treatments. Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones—which carry their own serious risks to fertility, bone density, and cognitive development—remain endorsed for minors by most medical groups in the United States. This means the struggle over what is allowed to be done to children’s bodies isn’t over; it has simply moved to a new line.

The underlying ideology has, unfortunately, not changed. But reality is patient. Every year that passes without long-term data vindicating these interventions is another year the truth has room to seep into the American conscience. Of course, we Christians shouldn’t be surprised by this, for we serve a God who built the world to testify about itself. And the testimony of the body, however long suppressed, will not stay silent forever.

My wife and I both work full-time jobs, and we live in a major metropolitan area with a high cost of living. We have a house to take care of and clean. We have two young kids whom we help with homework and shuttle to and from church and all their activities. Every minute is valuable, and every moment is spent doing something while feeling guilty that we should be doing something else.

Yet God commands us to rest; the fourth of the Ten Commandments is to “remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Ex. 20:8). This is hard for many people, but maybe especially for those in the midst of raising kids.

So how can families create space for rest? From one busy parent to another, here are four tips to create margin for rest in this wild season of life.

1. Identify Your Goal

The fourth commandment contains two main concepts. People tend to focus on the second—the idea of resting. But the first key phrase is to keep the Sabbath day holy. The goal isn’t merely the cessation of activity but a time to refocus on God.

The Hebrew word translated Sabbath means “to rest” or “to cease,” but the verse’s context in the first half of the Ten Commandments points to renewing our focus on God. Luke 5:16 tells us that Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Despite his ministry burdens, he frequently took time to refresh himself in the Father.

As families, we must ask ourselves this question: “Why are we taking this time to rest?” If the goal is to play more video games or binge a season of your favorite show on Netflix, you won’t have accomplished anything of eternal importance. Even a walk in the woods or a trip to the beach may achieve nothing more than physical or mental relaxation.

The goal of the Sabbath is to rest in such a way that each member of the family can reprioritize his or her relationship with God.

2. Plan to Rest

Anything worthwhile requires planning. If you’re a busy parent, your life is full of school events, sports practices, music rehearsals, church activities, and gatherings. If everyone else tries to plan your time, shouldn’t you try to plan your own?

The goal of the Sabbath is to rest in such a way that each member of the family can reprioritize his or her relationship with God.

Get all the family’s calendars together and coordinate accordingly. When you’re considering whether or not to engage in an extracurricular activity or what level of classes your kids should take, plan to remember the Sabbath first.

As churches, we should plan our schedule to allow families these types of breaks. Our youth ministry lightened the schedule to allow parents more time to spend with children and to create opportunities for rest rather than constant programming.

3. Set Boundaries

You can make plans as a family, but someone or something will always demand your time and pull you away. Bosses have tight deadlines or last-minute projects; family members or church members may need help; a last-minute volunteer might be needed for nursery duty.

There’s always a reason to be going full speed in this season of life, and while some demands must be met to keep our jobs and livelihoods, we shouldn’t allow them to control our time and our relationship with God.

Our son was going to try out for a travel basketball team until we found out that most games would be played on Sunday morning and early afternoon. When you decide as a family that you’ll rest and grow in Christ together, you must protect your decision, even if you have to make tough choices or have uncomfortable conversations.

4. Work. Rest. Repeat.

The goal isn’t to have one occasion for rest as a family; it’s to make rest a regular part of our lives. When God gave the command for the Sabbath, he meant it to take place weekly. Once per week, we’d take time away from our duties to recalibrate our relationship with him.

In Israel, the land was supposed to be given a Sabbath as well, called the year of jubilee. All throughout the Bible is the idea that there are regular periods of activity and rest.

The goal isn’t to have one occasion for rest as a family; it’s to make rest a regular part of our lives.

It’s tempting to keep working because we think we must keep up with the Joneses. It’s tempting to feel we’re in an all-out sprint to accomplish everything and that taking a step back will result in us losing out on everything.

But Matthew 16:26 asks, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” Honoring the Sabbath as a family isn’t about trying to cease all activity for its own sake; it’s a test of where our allegiance lies—with the world or with God. As parents, we need to create a regular practice of rest so our families can commune with God.

I didn’t suddenly find running easy. Even now that I’m in the habit of running a few times a week, it’s still painful. But I don’t merely know of running’s benefits; I’ve experienced them firsthand. It gives me more energy, it clears my head, and it strengthens my body. I’m enjoying being able to push myself after a decade of chronic illness.

You may have the same doubts about fasting as I did about running. It’s uncomfortable. It goes against what our bodies want. But despite the cost—even because of the cost—fasting is a means that God uses to bless us. The payoff is worth it. Here are a few blessings that come from this practice.

We Commune with God

Seeing more of God is the central benefit of fasting. Isn’t it why we practice spiritual disciplines in the first place? To come nearer to Christ, to draw strength and joy from his presence? If every other gift of fasting fell away, this would be enough.

Fasting helps us see more of God because it facilitates our communion with him through prayer. That’s why John Piper calls it the “humble, hungry handmaid of faith” that prompts us to pray. Fasting is pointless when not paired with talking to God—it’s an empty ritual, a form of self-deprivation to show our mettle.

While fasting does help us teach our bodies that they’re not our masters, that’s not the main purpose. Our focus should be less on what we’re saying no to and more on the better yes in its place. All the benefits of fasting are downstream from this one: deepening our relationship with God through prayer. Let’s consider a few ways that fasting does this.

We See Ourselves Rightly

I can give many reasons why my prayer life isn’t as vibrant as I want: I’m busy. There’s so much ministry to do. I haven’t found the right system. But Nick Thompson unmasks the reality: “Where prayer is wanting, humility is wanting.” My lack of felt dependence keeps me from praying. I don’t feel as though I need it.

Our focus should be less on what we’re saying no to and more on the better yes in its place.

Fasting doesn’t make me weak and dependent—it reveals how weak and dependent I’ve been all along. When I feel the piercing hunger pangs, I’m reminded how quickly my body breaks down without the food that God provides daily. He’s the source of everything I need for life: sustenance, water, oxygen, and shelter. So I’m drawn to him in dependent praise and gratitude.

When I feel capable, I’m more likely to work instead of pray. I can maintain the illusion of self-sufficiency. Fasting reorients me to the reality of my creatureliness and casts me on my Creator.

We Love What’s Worthy

When food is taken away, we realize how much we’ve relied on it for satisfaction and comfort. For those like me who struggle with emotional overeating, this absence is especially revealing—all this time, I’ve been turning to a gift instead of to the Giver.

Without food as an easily accessible crutch, I have to look elsewhere. In Habits of Grace, David Mathis writes, “In that gnawing discomfort of growing hunger is the engine of fasting, generating the reminder to bend our longings for food godward and inspire intensified longings for Jesus.”

Fasting creates space so that I can turn to Christ with my boredom, my anxiety, and my desire for control and find that “my soul [is] satisfied as with fat and rich food” (Ps. 63:5). I hunger less for food and more for righteousness—and for the Righteous One (see Matt. 5:6). As we sharpen our affections for Christ through fasting, our longing to see him face-to-face grows.

Fasting is a temporary measure because the Bridegroom is coming back (Matt. 9:14–15; John 14:1–3). Through our deprivation now, we’re viscerally reminded to long for the right thing—not for the dinner we’ll eat in a few hours but for the wedding feast of the Lamb and the fellowship we’ll enjoy with him forever (Rev. 19:6–7). Fasting is an expression of longing for Christ’s coming that in turn intensifies our longing.

We See God Work

Prayer is communion with God, but it’s also more than that. The Lord encourages us through Paul to bring all our requests and thanksgiving to him (Phil. 4:6). We come to God with our needs and desires, asking him to act in particular ways.

Fasting adds fuel to the fire of our prayers. It’s similar to how the posture of kneeling helps orient our hearts toward the Lord. By “leaning into the lack,” we feel our weakness bodily. We come more desperately; we come with more faith. We get the joy of focusing all our neediness on the One who promises to provide for all our needs (Phil. 4:19).

But we mustn’t treat fasting like a formula: subtract food and receive the answer we want. King David fasted and prayed for the life of his newborn son, but the boy died anyway (2 Sam. 12:15–23). Despite such a devastating outcome, David still worshiped the Lord (v. 20). Praising God even when our prayers aren’t answered the way we desire is an act of trust that his wisdom is greater than ours.

Fasting creates space so that I can turn to Christ with my boredom, my anxiety, and my desire for control.

When answers are delayed, we still have reason for confident hope. In Luke 2:36–38, the elderly prophetess Anna spent her days in the temple worshiping, fasting, and praying as she awaited the promised Savior—and she lived long enough to give thanks to God as the baby Jesus was brought into the temple.

If we humble ourselves and bring our requests, the Lord will answer according to his superior wisdom. We can use this God-given means of grace and trust that, whatever the outcome of our petitions, we’ll benefit by learning to rely more on the Lord. That’s his work too.

Throughout Scripture, believers have intensified their prayers with fasting in times of special need. Let’s imitate them and see what God does. Fasting isn’t reserved for those with great self-control; it’s also for those who see their need for self-control. It’s not reserved for those who walk closely with God; it’s also for those who lament their distance from him.

If you’re tired of relying on yourself, if you’ve experienced the emptiness of worldly comforts, if you desire a deeper relationship with God—fasting is for you.

Dykas talks about how to diagnose relational idolatry in our lives, bring real help and healing to those around us, and take steps of faith toward loving people without craving or worshiping them.

In This Episode

0:00 – Relational wholeness introduction and personal journey

2:35 – Overview of relationships in society

6:47 – Sin’s effects on relationships

8:58 – Codependency and relational idolatry

14:18 – Biblical perspective on codependency

23:27 – Diagnostic tools for relational health

29:27 – Path to wholeness and change

41:16 – Practical steps for relational recalibration

Resources Mentioned

• When People Are Big and God Is Small by Ed Welch
• Friend-ish: Reclaiming Real Friendship in a Culture of Confusion by Kelly Needham
• Toxic Relationships: Taking Refuge in Christ by Ellen Mary Dykas
• Jesus and Your Unwanted Journey by Ellen Mary Dykas

SIGN UP for one of our newsletters to stay informed about TGC’s latest resources.

Help The Gospel Coalition renew and unify the contemporary church in the ancient gospel: Give today.

Don’t miss an episode of The Gospel Coalition Podcast:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• YouTube
  

The rom-coms that do get made today tend to be raunchy and R-rated (think Judd Apatow’s mid-2000s hits like Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin), a bit too high-concept (like last year’s theologically mushy Eternity) or more rom-dram than rom-com (like last year’s Materialists or Song Sung Blue).

What I miss are the PG or PG-13 rom-coms that are sweet, funny, romantic, “old-fashioned” in their values, and relatively clean. Think Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, or While You Were Sleeping. Where are the rom-coms like that? I suspect I’m not alone in wishing Hollywood still produced them.

I’m all for more Jane Austen adaptations (2026 will give us a new Sense and Sensibility movie and a Netflix adaptation of Pride and Prejudice), but surely Georgian England isn’t the sole source of inspiration for this sort of fare?

‘Runaway Bride’ Meets ‘Under the Tuscan Sun’

Angel Studios’ Solo Mio (out today in theaters) is a step in the right direction. The PG-rated film—starring, cowritten, and produced by Kevin James—may not be an instant classic, but it’s a refreshing, old-school rom-com that, in its best moments, harks back to the genre’s heyday.

Released just in time for Valentine’s Day, Solo Mio is a date-night movie Christian couples don’t need to be nervous about—because it’s mercifully free of sex scenes and moral indiscretions, but also because it’s not embarrassingly cheesy. It’s a cut above the Hallmark-style formulaic romance, even though it has some of the elements that make those movies pleasurable.

Solo Mio is a date-night movie Christian couples don’t need to be nervous about.

The film opens on a sad note. Middle-aged elementary school teacher Matt (Kevin James), has seemingly found love and is about to marry fellow teacher Heather (Julie Ann Emery) at a destination wedding in Rome. But in a nod to another classic rom-com (Runaway Bride), Heather leaves Matt stranded at the altar and alone in Rome, heartbroken and confused.

Matt is left with an Italian “honeymooning couples” tour package he can’t get refunded, so he decides to take the vacation solo, hoping the blow of Heather’s decision is softened with enough Amatriciana and Chianti. What follows is essentially a gender-reversed, more chaste Under the Tuscan Sun. Matt begins to get his groove back when he befriends two American couples in his honeymooners tour group, as well as a friendly local café owner, Gia (Nicole Grimaudo), who may or may not become more than a friend to him.

James and Grimaudo shine in their roles, bringing real chemistry and gentle kindness (and a bit of world-weariness) to their characters. It’s refreshing to see a romance featuring middle-aged, normal-looking people whose relationship is believable.

Also noteworthy in the cast is Jonathan Roumie (The Chosen’s Jesus), who fills the familiar “wingman” supporting role trope as one of the fellow tourists in Matt’s group.

More Rom-Coms with These Qualities, Please

Solo Mio, directed by Catholic filmmaker brothers Charles and Daniel Kinnane, has commendable qualities I hope other Christian filmmakers seek to emulate:

• A rom-com that’s chaste without being corny. The film doesn’t include sex or even any suggestion of sex. There’s actually a funny moment where the filmmakers play with audience expectations on that front, only to underscore that the less predictable, more interesting plot turn is the one where characters exercise sexual restraint.
• Genuine appreciation for beauty. Filmmakers of faith often focus so much on plot that they give insufficient attention to the simple beauty of a film—the artistry of its setting, music, cinematography, and so forth. Solo Mio’s ambience is arguably the most beautiful part of the film. Rome and Tuscany are on gorgeous display, and the film makes space for an appreciation of life’s good gifts. La dolce vita.
• Friendliness to faith without being “faith-based.” Solo Mio isn’t a faith-based film. But it’s a faith-informed and faith-friendly story where Christian virtues and culture are in the background. Late in the film, there’s a scene of praying before a family meal that doesn’t feel out of place at all.
• Ability to depict real pain alongside real joy. I like movies that are genuinely funny and, at times, genuinely sad. But it’s hard to pull off, and faith-based movies tend to struggle to capture both low lows and high highs without it feeling cheap. Solo Mio captures the range of human emotions decently well, feeling honest without being over the top.

Solo Mio is far from perfect. The plot is far-fetched at times (even by Hollywood rom-com standards), the supporting characters are too cartoonish or one-dimensional, and the ending is fairly abrupt. But in a genre desperately needing a reset, Solo Mio is an enjoyable offering that manages to feel both family-friendly and “grown up.”

It’s the first romantic comedy Angel Studios has released, and I hope it’s a box-office success. In our cynical, profane, gender-polarized, marriage-leery contemporary world, we could use more wholesome, sincere rom-coms like this.

Melissa and Courtney talk with Jen Oshman about the lie that our worth is measured by what we possess. They discuss why we try to fill a God-shaped hole with earthly things and how to recognize materialism in our lives.

They talk about strategies to combat materialism, including inviting trusted friends into your financial decisions, seeking to be as generous to others as possible, and setting your heart on heavenly possessions rather than earthly ones.

Resources Mentioned:

• Heaven by Randy Alcorn
• The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn

Related Resources:

• Materialism, Money, and Me Culture
• Materialism Is Easy to Decry and Hard to Avoid
• Covetousness: The Sin Behind the Sin

Discussion Questions:

1. In what ways do you see materialism connected to deeper desires in your heart? How might you be settling for lesser gifts instead of storing up treasure in heaven?

2. What types of things most often capture your attention or stir up desire (e.g., clothes, home decor, technology, experiences)?

3. What rhythms or practices (daily, weekly, or monthly) could help you become more mindful of how you consume, spend, and steward what God has given you?

4. Share a time when you experienced God’s abundant provision. How does remembering his care grow your desire to trust him and reflect his generosity?

5. What Scriptures or truths about God’s character help reorient your heart when you feel the pull toward “more”?

6. How could other believers help you with accountability or input in the areas of spending, consumption, and giving?

7. What’s one next step you would like to take based on what you’ve heard and discussed today?

In Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around: How the Black Church’s Public Witness Leads Us out of the Culture War, Justin E. Giboney, an attorney and founder of the AND Campaign, challenges readers to retrieve the black church’s history as a way to help Christians hold on to justice and truth with both hands. He argues that a robust Christianity includes a political witness that takes more than “verbalizing conviction.” It also includes “the application of our convictions” (7).

Though political quietism is a perpetual temptation, it isn’t a viable option. Giboney writes, “A faithful public witness summons our creativity to serve the Creator and partake in his divine masterpiece. You can hear it in the abolitionist’s petition against the slave trader or the righteous prosecutor’s indictment of the sex trafficker” (6).

Christians must enter the public square. The black ecclesial tradition offers a historical example of faithful social engagement that flows from a distinctly Christian moral imagination.

Develop Moral Imagination

As the fight for civil rights unfolded in the United States during the Reconstruction era, around 2,000 African Americans held office. Many were recognized for their excellent oratory, which sounded like the preaching they heard or did on Sundays. As Giboney notes, “Their rhetorical techniques were soulful. It’s as if they’d taken the sacred desk and a Hammond organ, placed it in parliament, and made it their own” (8).

It wasn’t just the form and cadence of their speeches that were shaped by the church. Each week, African American Christians were immersed in scriptural imagery through the Bible and gospel songs that helped them navigate oppression, division, and vitriol during the long fight for civil rights. The content of their vision for society relied on moral imaginations saturated with Scripture.

Our moral imagination is shaped by the stories we tell ourselves. According to Giboney, “Moral imagination is the ability to see not simply what has been historically, what is in the present moment, or what’s likely to be in the future. It’s the ability to see what ought to be and what will be based on God’s capacity, character, and promises” (156).

Unless we keep up our guard, our culture’s stories about freedom and individualism influence us in ways we don’t recognize. That’s why every generation has blind spots. What one generation assumes is good and right about race, wealth, or politics may be forgotten by the next generation.

Unless we keep up our guard, our culture’s stories about freedom and individualism influence us in ways we don’t recognize.

A well-informed moral imagination “prevents us from being enslaved by the moment” (163). It can help us see alternatives to the dichotomies about social issues that our culture often presents. But that only works if our moral imaginations are conformed to something beyond the confines of our cultural moment—something like the orthodox Christian faith.

Explore Pluralism’s Potential

Giboney’s preferred approach to political engagement is civic pluralism, which he defines as “the recognition that we live in a diverse democracy, where people are free to speak their minds and live according to their convictions.” A commitment to civic pluralism also includes “protecting others’ right to advocate for beliefs that contradict the core of our value systems and self-perceptions” (107).

There are legitimate examples of civic pluralism from the black church tradition. However, we have to carefully examine how cultural conditions have changed. When we look back at the civil rights era, Americans of every race shared many more basic assumptions that tended to align with a Judeo-Christian moral consensus. That consensus is crumbling.

Furthermore, civic pluralism tends toward proceduralism that requires protecting “the agency of others not only in disputes about how the national anthem should be sung, but also in conflicts regarding when life begins and how it should end” (107–8). Yet these examples aren’t morally equivalent.

Choosing whether or not to sing the national anthem is a minor concession. However, a version of civic pluralism that refuses to outlaw elective abortion or euthanasia presumes a particular understanding of the value of human life, effectively marginalizing a robustly Christian vision for the public square. It’s clear that Giboney opposes abortion, but it isn’t clear how that works out in legislative terms.

Giboney’s preference for civic pluralism is understandable as calls for authoritarianism rise from the right and the left. Still, American society would greatly benefit from a principled pluralism instead. Principled pluralism advocates for equal treatment of different faith communities in both public and private life, despite significant differences in moral imagination. For example, Abraham Kuyper’s principled pluralism promoted a Christian worldview as the guide for a political framework without unduly marginalizing minority viewpoints.

Retrieve the Black Church’s History

Giboney’s basic argument is correct that recovering the black ecclesial tradition would benefit contemporary Christians caught up in the culture war.

Throughout most of its history, the black church tradition has pursued both public justice and orthodoxy without apology. Every tradition has nuances and outliers. However, as Walter Strickland argues in Swing Low, four theological anchors have held black Christians to doctrinal orthodoxy amid their social activism: (1) God’s bigness and ability to do great things; (2) the example of Jesus’s life, including his suffering; (3) the importance of conversion and walking in the Spirit; and (4) the Bible as the “Good Book” that informs and motivates both doctrine and practice.

Throughout most of its history, the black church tradition has pursued both public justice and orthodoxy without apology.

In Giboney’s account, the orthodoxy of the black ecclesial tradition is largely assumed rather than argued. That assumption leads to questions about the way a shared theology shapes a moral imagination that results in different approaches to activism in the public square.

For example, in 1961, the Progressive National Baptist Convention split from the National Baptist Convention over disagreements about political engagement by the church. Though Giboney doesn’t present the black ecclesial tradition as a monolith, these sorts of contours are flattened in his account.

Nevertheless, it’s undeniable that many civil rights activists like Willie Faye (Giboney’s grandmother) and gospel singer Mahalia Jackson were formed to pursue public justice by the black church tradition. Giboney has done Christians a service by bringing the faithful witness of these black women into focus along with the broader black ecclesial tradition.

As Christians navigate an increasingly polarized culture, the black church tradition reminds us that good ethics come from true theology. In Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around, Giboney encourages Christians to pursue biblical justice without compromising on orthodox theology.

Beyond academics, he enjoyed the arts, loved music, and maintained a famous love-hate friendship with the composer Richard Wagner. After beginning his studies in theology at the University of Bonn, he shifted to classical philology at the University of Leipzig. Then, at just 24 years old, he joined the faculty of the University of Basel as chair of classical philology.

This academic background matters for one key reason: Nietzsche’s philology shaped his philosophy. Understanding how he approached language and ancient texts helps us understand the philosophical goals he later pursued.

Before moving further, it helps to clarify the term “philology.” A philologist studies how language develops over time—how words originate, how they change, and how cultures shape their meaning. In today’s terms, philology is like doing “ancestry testing” on words: By examining them closely, we can trace their origins and the cultural histories they carry.

In the 19th century, philology was a rapidly growing field that captured the imagination of many German scholars. It connected naturally with new academic methods such as source criticism, redaction criticism, and historical-grammatical analysis, all of which used language to reconstruct the past. Using these tools, Nietzsche attempted something bold: to break apart the foundations of Western moral history, which he believed had been distorted by Christianity, and then propose an alternative.

Morality’s ‘Big Bang’

Throughout the 1880s, Nietzsche worked to overturn long-standing Greek and Christian ideas to imagine a new future for Europe. Earlier Enlightenment thinkers tried to rethink morality without Christianity, but Nietzsche went further. He tried to build a new moral world from the ground up. To do this, he believed Europeans needed new categories to describe themselves as they entered what he saw as a new cultural era.

This is where philology takes center stage.

Nietzsche attempted to break apart the foundations of Western moral history, which he believed had been distorted by Christianity, and then propose an alternative.

As he studied Western moral pairs such as “good and bad” or “love and hate,” Nietzsche asked a simple but radical question that formed the central tension in On the Genealogy of Morals: Where did these ideas come from, and who created them? For Nietzsche, these moral concepts aren’t universal truths. Instead, they have specific historical and cultural origins—what he called their “genealogy.” Thus, morality itself has an origin story, an ethical “big bang.”

According to Nietzsche, the terms “good” and “bad” trace back to Jewish and Christian communities. He read the Old Testament, especially the exodus story, as a case study in how moral values emerge through power struggles. Nietzsche argued that the Hebrews, observing their oppression in Egypt, developed deep resentment. This bitterness didn’t fade but grew into a deliberate moral reversal: the powerless rebranded the traits of the strong as “evil” and their own traits as “good.” Christianity, in his view, inherited and spread this value reversal across Europe.

For Nietzsche, this inversion is more than a shift in moral language; it reshapes cultural psychology. Ressentiment, which Nietzsche understood to be a psychological angst that grows in the powerless and flips moral categories, fuels a mindset that distrusts strength and prizes weakness as a virtue. He argued that Christian morality promises “life” but actually drains vitality by turning people’s hopes away from earthly flourishing and toward an imagined afterlife. As a result, he believed, European culture has been slowly weakened by Christian morality (and in his context, German Lutheran Pietism) that denies physical life instead of affirming it.

Instead, he insisted that life strives for expansion, intensity, and overcoming, or what he called the “will to power.” Engaging critically with Charles Darwin and Arthur Schopenhauer, Nietzsche rejected the idea that mere survival drives life. The will is the basic instinct to transcend limits, shape one’s character, and impose creative order on the world. Charles Taylor notes that Nietzsche saw the will to power not simply as dominance but as the pursuit of higher human potential.

Thus, Nietzsche urged people—especially those shaped by Christian morality—to break free from inherited values, create new ones, and prepare the way for the Übermensch: an ideal of humanity courageous enough to affirm life with creativity and authenticity.

It’s a massive understatement to say that Nietzsche’s thoughts on creativity and authenticity have haunted our anthropologies and moralities for the past 125 years since his death. He continues to cast a long, disruptive shadow over our sense of self and morality.

It’s Nietzschean Air We Breathe

Alasdair MacIntyre once called Nietzsche the most important moral thinker of our age, going so far as to say that we live, move, and have our being in a Nietzschean age. Even without reading Nietzsche, many modern people reflect his influence (and that of other figures in modernity): doubting God, celebrating the “true self,” searching for identity within, and viewing Christian morality with suspicion.

Nietzsche continues to cast a long, disruptive shadow over our sense of self and morality.

His ideas of ressentiment and the will to power help explain this shift. Nietzsche had a particular disdain for those who call strong “bad” and weakness “good.” As an alternative, Nietzsche proposed the will to power, the drive of the self to rise above its cultural limitations to create one’s own individualistic values.

Even a modern story like Wicked echoes these themes through a quasi-Nietzschean genealogy. The musical (and its movie) “reconstructs” the familiar Wizard of Oz to reveal the characters’ pasts, showing that their conflicts stem from jealousy, insecurity, and resentment—not simple good versus evil as first portrayed in the 1939 film.

Elphaba and the Wizard clash out of mutual fear and misunderstanding, while Boq’s bitterness urges him to lead a mob against Elphaba for his “tinned” situation (sorry for the spoiler). The story resonates with so many Nietzschean themes: genealogy, resentment, and how the pursuit of power shapes communities in similar categories to what Nietzsche described.

Beyond entertainment, we see similar patterns in American culture today. Many groups claim moral superiority by presenting themselves as victims and labeling opponents as “oppressors,” fueling identity battles where resentment often replaces dialogue and hospitality.

Out-Narrating Nietzsche

The challenge, I believe, isn’t merely critique but narrative capacity: Whose story can truly hold the weight of human longing and cultural meaning? As Chris Watkin aptly clarifies, “Out-narrating is not about telling the better story in the sense of being the most gripping or necessarily satisfying; it is about telling the bigger story, the story within which all other stories find their place.”

Even though Nietzschean categories of genealogy, power, authenticity, and endless self-creation are adopted and adapted nowadays, I’m convinced the Scriptures still out-narrate Nietzsche.

Nietzsche rejected Christianity yet repurposed its narrative framework for his own ideas: Dionysus (and the self) becomes the god figure, humans are always in flux, morality emerges from social revolt, Zarathustra speaks prophetically, and the Übermensch embodies a future messianic ideal. Nietzsche still included Scripture’s narrative framework: a god, a fall, a prophetic expectancy, a messiah, and an ushered-in eschaton. Though he sought to move beyond Christianity, he depended on the creation–fall–redemption–new creation structure, tacitly affirming Scripture’s narrative power even as he opposed it.

Though Nietzsche seeks to move beyond Christianity, he depends on the creation–fall–redemption–new creation structure, tacitly affirming Scripture’s narrative power even as he opposes it.

This engagement with Nietzsche serves as a case study for how the church might interact with contemporary cultural stories and philosophies. We can attend to these alternative narratives, hearing their longings and anxieties, while recognizing the gospel’s greater depth and breadth. Through Christ’s cross and resurrection, God absorbs the world’s anger, fear, resentment, and desire for control, dismantling their power through self-giving love.

To participate in Christ is to be carried by a narrative capacious enough to engage the world’s desires without surrendering to them and discerning enough to redeem culture without baptizing any Nietzschean illusions.

Just who is this person who is “of the flesh” (v. 14), whose flesh doesn’t contain what’s good (v. 18), and whose body is both a war zone and a death zone (vv. 23–24)? Some say it’s Paul the apostle. Others say it’s Paul the Pharisee (or someone else in bondage to sin and the law).

Too often overlooked in the heat of the debate is the apostle Paul’s pastoral purpose that lies behind the lament. John Newton is of particular help in remedying that neglect. He shows us how it’s in our sorrow that God gives us his comfort and joy, and in our disability that he provides his all-sufficient strength.

Letter to a Troubled Friend

Newton is best known as the converted slave trader who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace” in 1772. But he was also a loving pastor who wrote many letters full of wise and sensitive pastoral counsel.

A letter addressed to Mrs. Wilberforce, from July 1764, gives a window into how John Newton understood and applied Romans 7:

Lastly, it is by the experience of these evils within ourselves, and by feeling our utter insufficiency, either to perform duty, or to withstand our enemies, that the Lord takes occasion to show us the suitableness, the sufficiency, the freeness, the unchangeableness of his power and grace. This is the inference St. Paul draws from his complaint, Rom. vii. 25, and he learnt it upon a trying occasion from the Lord’s own mouth, 2 Cor. xii. 8, 9.

Let us, then, dear madam, be thankful and cheerful, and, while we take shame to ourselves, let us glorify God, by giving Jesus the honour due to his name. Though we are poor, He is rich; though we are weak, He is strong; though we have nothing, He possesses all things.

Newton’s Incisive Interpretation

Newton understands Romans 7 to be the apostle Paul’s confession—applicable to all Christian believers—of his “utter insufficiency” to live dutifully or to withstand his enemies. He sees this insufficiency as total. We are “poor” and “weak,” and we “have nothing.”

It’s in our sorrow that God gives us his comfort and joy, and in our disability that he provides his all-sufficient strength.

That’s interesting, since observing the grim extent of the speaker’s condition leads many interpreters to conclude that the “I” of Romans 7 can’t possibly be Paul the apostle.

But Newton draws a parallel between what Paul confesses in Romans 7 and what he learned in 2 Corinthians 12. In the latter passage, Paul pleads three times for God to remove a painful thorn from his flesh, but God chooses to keep it there to prevent Paul from becoming conceited (vv. 7–8). Instead, the Lord assures Paul with these words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9).

God doesn’t equip and empower Paul by removing Paul’s weakness but by perfecting his own divine strength in Paul’s weakness. Or as Paul summarizes, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (v. 10).

According to Newton, Paul presents the same dynamic in Romans 7. Paul’s total inability is the context within which the Lord makes the sufficiency of his power and grace known to Paul and other believers like Mrs. Wilberforce. Paul confesses an innate inability, an incapacity to please God. But though in himself he’s unable to do good, in Christ he experiences “the suitableness, the sufficiency, the freeness . . . of [God’s] power and grace” (for which he gives thanks in verse 25).

As Newton puts it to Mrs. Wilberforce, “Though we are poor, He is rich; though we are weak, He is strong; though we have nothing, He possesses all things.”

Newton’s Pastoral Application

It’s clear that Newton is writing because Mrs. Wilberforce is troubled by her sin.

But he says that though our grief for sin “cannot be too great,” it “may be under a wrong direction.” The wrong direction he warns against is turning in on ourselves. Instead, as Newton instructs, our spiritual poverty is the very occasion and context in which we experience the Lord’s grace and power. And that’s cause for being “thankful and cheerful” and giving honour and praise to Jesus.

In a different letter, writing to Lord Dartmouth, Newton speaks of the believer experiencing “a law in his members warring against the law in his mind,” a clear allusion to Romans 7. But by such painful self-knowledge, he is “weaned more from self, and taught more highly to prize and more absolutely to rely on him, who is appointed to us of God, Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption.”

That’s how Newton sees the weak-but-strong, unable-but-enabled dynamic working in practice. Incapable and helpless in ourselves, we learn more and more to distrust ourselves and to rely on Christ, who provides all we need. Knowing how helpless and incapable we are in ourselves takes us out of ourselves and into Christ, and thus leads to joy.

Knowing how helpless and incapable we are in ourselves takes us out of ourselves and into Christ, and thus leads to joy.

Therefore, the wise pastor Newton doesn’t tell the distressed believer that God has made her able and strong to resist sin’s power. He tells her that if she relies on Jesus, his strength and his grace will be sufficient. God doesn’t put us in possession of a new spiritual power. He puts us in the loving possession of Jesus (Rom. 7:4), on whose power and grace we continually rely by faith.

Do you see the difference? Can you see how feeling within ourselves our incapacity both feeds humility and fuels faith?

“We should be better pleased, perhaps”—as Newton puts it in a later letter to Lord Dartmouth—“to be set up with a stock or sufficiency at once, such an inherent portion of wisdom and power, as we might depend upon.” Instead, “His own glory is most displayed, and our safety best secured, by keeping us quite poor and empty in ourselves, and supplying us from one minute to another, according to our need.”

Just as the sun’s crepuscular rays pierce through dark clouds and delight us with their glory and grace, so God’s grace in Christ only becomes sweeter the darker our hearts appear.

In response, Jesus heals the man’s paralysis. At this, the crowd is amazed. They glorify God, they’re filled with “awe,” and they exclaim, “Today we have seen paradoxa!” (Luke 5:26).

The word paradoxa is unusual. It’s used nowhere else in the New Testament, and translations are divided as to its meaning; the ESV renders it “extraordinary,” the NIV and NASB say “remarkable,” but many others prefer “strange things” (KJV, NKJV, NRSV, ASV, WEB, YLT). Dictionaries of ancient Greek retain both positive and negative meanings and also add “paradoxical.”

It seems that either the crowd as a whole was confused by what it had witnessed, not knowing exactly what to make of Jesus, or the crowd was divided, with some denigrating Jesus as a blasphemer and others praising him as a prophet of divine commission.

Either way, paradoxa captures the crowd’s belief that it witnessed something supernaturally strange, unsettling, and inexplicable, something perhaps paranormal, as we might say in English. The word paradoxa therefore isn’t inherently negative, but it isn’t inherently positive either—it connotes the kind of astonishment that leaves one bewildered, wondering what the source of the paradoxa might be. Are these of demonic origin? Are they divine? Without context, who can tell?

In my recent book Josephus and Jesus (read TGC’s review), I show that the ambiguous connotations of paradoxa reveal remarkable new evidence for Jesus’s miracles—evidence, moreover, that comes from an early, non-Christian writer well placed to know all about Jesus of Nazareth.

Accusations Against the Source of Jesus’s Miracles

First, a bit of background. The implications of paradoxa aren’t unique in the New Testament and call to mind the debates recorded in the Gospels regarding the source of Jesus’s power. They also fit with what other unbelievers accuse Jesus of doing.

The Jewish Talmud claims Jesus practiced “sorcery.” The Toledot Yeshu (second to fifth centuries), a hostile Jewish biography of Jesus, presents a frankly ridiculous account of Jesus somehow obtaining the four sacred letters of God’s name, YHWH, and verbally wielding them as a power totem to raise the dead.

Pagan sources echo the same and admit Jesus’s miracles, but they venture to account for them with their own spin. Perhaps, some suggest, Jesus was a kind of lesser pagan deity; or maybe, some submit, he learned the dark arts in Egypt. Celsus, a vicious second-century critic of Jesus, subscribes to the latter idea and even employs the same word found in Luke 5:26 to claim that Jesus performed paradoxa by magic.

It seems that in the ancient world, Jesus’s miracles were so indisputable that both Jewish and pagan critics couldn’t deny they had occurred and instead sought all manner of explanations, however unlikely such explanations might be. Early Christians wisely replied by asking how it could be honestly maintained that Jesus’s deeds were malevolent sorcery when he preached repentance from sin, pursuing truth, and loving one’s enemies?

Josephus and the ‘Paradoxa’ of Jesus

But here is where new evidence for Jesus’s miracles arises. It turns out that once we’ve understood paradoxa for what they are, a compelling confirmation of Jesus’s miracles comes to light from a first-century Jewish chronicler. I speak of course of the famous historian Flavius Josephus.

In the ancient world, Jesus’s miracles were so indisputable that both Jewish and pagan critics couldn’t deny they had occurred.

Born in AD 37 to an eminent family, Josephus descended from high priests and kings. He received an aristocratic upbringing in Jerusalem, where he became a priest, a Pharisee, and an army general. He was astoundingly well connected: He knew two or three high priests, the leader of the Sanhedrin, and Herod Agrippa II (the last king of the Jews). As I argue in my book, Josephus even knew some of the men who attended Jesus’s trial.

It so happens that Josephus also wrote about Jesus in a passage much debated by scholars. In it he claims that Jesus wrought paradoxa (Antiquities 18.63). Past scholars have rendered this term positively as in “miraculous deeds,” or “wonderful things,” or other synonymous phrasing.

Such a positive understanding has been one reason that many scholars questioned the passage’s authenticity: Why would Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, write so glowingly about Jesus? On these grounds, they conclude a later Christian scribe must have tampered with Josephus’s text to cast Jesus in a better light.

But in view of the above, we see now that paradoxa aren’t obviously positive deeds; they’re instead ambiguous, potentially even negative. This, for example, is how Josephus used the term elsewhere, when he described the supernatural works of Pharaoh’s magicians in their duel with Moses. There, he wrote that the magicians conjured a paradoxon, the singular form of paradoxa. Josephus then had Moses claim that the magicians’ power wasn’t divine but only human wizardry.

Josephus’s words about Pharaoh’s magicians unmistakably parallel his words about Jesus. He hence seemed to wonder whether Jesus was a magician using forbidden or illegitimate powers.

Certainty of Jesus’s Miracles

The implications are clear: Josephus fully acknowledged Jesus’s miraculous deeds, as other ancient non-Christians did. And this comes from a man raised in first-century Jerusalem, a man who knew those involved in Jesus’s trial, a man who went on to become one of the finest historians the ancient world ever produced.

He was also perfectly ready to deny the miraculous—he laughed at the idea of certain wizards casting spells on him when he served as a general, and he unmasked false prophets and charlatans when writing his books of history—but in the case of Jesus, he didn’t claim his miracles were false, or exaggerations, or the stuff of legends. While Josephus wasn’t sure of the source for Jesus’s supernatural deeds, he was sure they happened.

And we can be sure they happened too.

While Josephus wasn’t sure of the source for Jesus’s supernatural deeds, he was sure they happened.

Yet this conclusion that Jesus worked miracles should spur us on to a more important realization. The crucial point of Jesus’s supernatural deeds isn’t that he did them but that they testified to his divine commission, just as we saw when Jesus healed the paralyzed man and also forgave his sins.

Jesus’s miracles were signs validating his more vital gospel message—they authenticated the good news of Jesus that all should repent of their sins and receive forgiveness by trusting in him.

Although Jesus’s miraculous deeds were great and awesome, they were only waymarks guiding us along the pathway of mercy on which all the forgiven walk with the Lord. Thus, Jesus healed the paralyzed man in body, and then the man walked before Jesus. But the greater miracle was that Jesus also forgave that man in spirit, and now the man walks with Jesus forever.

Jesus will do the same greater miracle for you. Will you walk with him?

That kind of experience helps explain why Ryanne Molinari’s Spirit-Filled Singing: Bearing Fruit as We Worship Together feels so necessary. Molinari, a classically trained musician and a worship director in her local church, challenges worship leaders and musicians to rethink their musical life together—not according to taste, trends, or production value but according to the fruit of the Spirit.

In her synthesis of Paul’s teaching on the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5) and his call to sing to one another (Eph. 5), she points out that “worshipful singing and godly living are inextricably linked as ministries of the Spirit” (3). She presents a well-argued case that those leading church music need to think beyond technical excellence and song selection to the spiritual formation of both the music team and congregation. Worship isn’t just something we do; it forms us for good or ill.

More than Song Selection

At the heart of Spirit-Filled Singing is a call to prioritize love as the “firstborn” of the fruit of the Spirit, as every other aspect springs from this one (13). For Molinari, love isn’t merely a feeling or sentiment. It’s practical, communal, and countercultural. Love is expressed not only in how we feel while singing but in how we care for one another as we sing together.

Yet love doesn’t simply shape the way we perform music; it affects the songs we choose and how we respond to people’s concerns.

It seems obvious that songs can come to mean different things to different people. However, when we read the story of a woman’s anger toward traditional worship music and heartache at overhearing Molinari practicing the hymn “How Great Thou Art” in what she thought was an empty room, it’s easy to see how important love and mutual care are in church music. That hymn brought the woman’s memories of pastoral maltreatment to the surface in ways that Molinari couldn’t have anticipated. Thankfully, a gracious, loving response brought unity in what could have been a divisive situation.

Love doesn’t simply shape the way we perform music; it affects the songs we choose and how we respond to people’s concerns.

Not every worship leader will encounter such emotional challenges to his or her song selection. Nevertheless, Molinari’s anecdote reminds us that churches need an approach to musical worship that combines scriptural faithfulness with a willingness to accommodate preferences when possible.

Church music ministries should focus on cultivating the character in musicians that enables them to offer a gracious response when critiques and complaints inevitably arise. The root of that character is a genuine, heartfelt love toward one another.

Cultivate People

The most spiritual worship isn’t necessarily the most polished. Yet there’s a critical balance between avoiding distraction and allowing for the development of budding musicians within the congregation. We need to resist the temptation to prioritize musical excellence over spiritual growth and broadened participation.

As a songwriter and worship leader in Nashville, I think Molinari’s concerns about the growing trend of churches regularly employing nonbelieving musicians are valid. This isn’t about gatekeeping. It’s about the congregation’s spiritual formation. Molinari asks, “Are we really willing to exchange the edification of musicians in our congregations for the entertainment value and ease of hiring non-Christians?” (63).

A key idea here is that leading a congregation in worship grows the musicians as much as the people in the pews. Moreover, having people who aren’t part of the congregation routinely leading worship prevents the congregation from developing meaningful relationships with its musicians.

Of course, there are huge differences between the way worship ministries function at large churches and small churches. Molinari addresses the heart of the matter by emphasizing the ordinary faithfulness of regular music ministry: the simple work of showing up and working together in small churches, at volunteer posts, and even in larger church settings.

“Giving our all on stage—where we receive applause and accumulate followings—is a human accomplishment,” she argues. “Worshiping week after week in anonymity, with broken instruments, in unglamorous settings, or before small congregations—well, that’s a spiritual feat” (110).

True faithfulness often requires demonstrating patience with unskilled volunteers, enduring awkward rehearsals, and finding creative ways to encourage involvement from the whole congregation.

Fruitful Guide

The tragedy of musical worship is that one of the means God has ordained to unite congregations has become one of the most dissonant aspects of church life. Sadly, Molinari is correct when she writes, “As we try to make music, we too often seem to break peace” (44).

True faithfulness often requires demonstrating patience with unskilled volunteers and finding creative ways to encourage involvement from the whole congregation.

Though musical worship is the topic of Spirit-Filled Singing, church health is the underlying theme. We can’t have a healthy church without the fruit of the Spirit, especially among those who lead worship.

Molinari notes, “To be patient with others’ skill levels is to practice love. To sing with self-control—with focus and intentionality—is to prioritize and protect love” (15). A ministry that cultivates character in its musicians can do a lot to help a church become healthy.

Unlike many books about musical worship that argue for or against particular styles, provide guidelines for navigating multiethnic worship, or promote mere tolerance of differences, Spirit-Filled Singing goes much deeper. It’s a guide for church leaders to pursue spiritual maturity within the whole congregation. At the same time, it’s also designed for use in a small group (like the worship ministry), with study questions and a hymn at the end of each chapter.

By emphasizing musical worship’s role in forming the congregation, Molinari offers church leaders and musicians a biblically and theologically rich resource for catalyzing church health. Spirit-Filled Singing reminds us that faithful worship is measured not by what we produce on a stage but by the kind of people we’re becoming together before God.