We want to be a church marked by prayer—both as individuals and as a community gathered together. It is most certainly true that apart from Christ, we can do nothing (John 15:5). We might busy ourselves with all sorts of good things—noble efforts, worthy causes—but if we rely on our own strength, those efforts will bear no lasting fruit. We are utterly dependent on the Lord to produce any real, enduring impact in our lives and in our church.

In preparing for this prayer gathering, I found myself convicted by and encouraged by a quote from A.C. Dixon:

“When we rely upon organization, we get what organization can do; when we rely upon education, we get what education can do; when we rely upon eloquence, we get what eloquence can do. And so on. But when we rely upon prayer, we get what God can do.”

—A.C. Dixon

Prayer isn’t just a task—it’s an invitation to see God move in ways we never could on our own.

So, why do we gather to pray corporately? Is it not enough to simply pray on our own, in our personal time with God? Especially in light of what Jesus says in Matthew 6:5-6:

“And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

—Matthew6:5–6

On the surface, this text seems to oppose gathering for corporate prayer. However, Jesus’s teaching here does not prohibit praying together but warns against the sinful pitfalls that can accompany public prayer. For all its potential dangers, the value of gathering for prayer with other believers is hard to overstate. I have five brief reflections on the value of corporate prayer to encourage your faith and anticipation as we go to the Lord in prayer together.

First, corporate prayer displays and spreads God’s glory. On the one hand, we can misuse corporate prayer for our own glory—to be seen and admired by others (as warned in Matthew 6). This is an evil trap and snare. But on the other hand, when we gather with other believers, there’s an opportunity to see God’s glory multiplied.

In 2 Corinthians 1:11, Paul writes,

“You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.”

—2 Corinthians 1:11

The more people who are praying, the more people there will be to give thanks when they see the blessed result of that prayer. As thanksgiving increases, more people behold God’s glory on display. This is why Paul later says,

“For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.”

—2 Corinthians 4:15

Think about it: if you’ve been praying for something personally and see God answer, you are filled with gratitude and give Him praise. This is good and encouraging to you individually. But if many people are praying together and see God move, that thanksgiving and praise multiplies. This is the privilege we have in corporate prayer—we ask God for many things together, and when He answers, many people give thanks, and God receives the glory.

God loves putting His glory on display for the good of His people, and that fills me with faith and anticipation for what He’ll do when we gather to pray.

Second, corporate prayer brings unity and releases power. We pray to one God through one Savior, Jesus Christ, united by the one Spirit He has given us. Therefore, there ought to be a togetherness, or agreement, in our communal prayer.

In corporate prayer, we are speaking to the Lord in the hearing of other believers so that they can affirm and agree with our prayer. This means we’re not just waiting for our turn to speak but actively listening and following along with what others are saying. I am all too familiar with the temptation to tune out while others are praying, distracted by other thoughts or by planning what I am going to say next.

This ought not to be the case. Rather, as someone prays, we might offer a “Mmm,” a “Yes,” or an “Amen”—not as empty habits, but as signs of our unity and earnestness. When others affirm my prayers, it assures me they’re with me, interceding alongside me, not drifting off to sleep. And as Spirit-filled believers echo their affirmations, my faith is strengthened.

Scripture underscores this. In Matthew 18:19-20, Jesus says,

“Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.”

—Matthew 18:19–20

God is always with us by His Spirit, but there’s a unique manifestation of His presence when His people come together.

James 5:16 says,

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”

This command to confess sin and pray for one another comes with the assurance of healing—whether physical, emotional, or relational. Coming together for prayer provides an opportunity to confess sin, share burdens, and ask for prayer so that God’s healing power is on display.

We pray not because God needs something from us but because we need Him. And He delights to display the glory of His grace by working on behalf of needy sinners like you and me.

Here are some promises from Scripture to cling to as we go to the Lord in prayer together:

Isaiah 64:4 — "No eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him."

2 Chronicles 16:9 — "The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him."

Mark 10:45 — "For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Acts 17:24-25 — "The God who made the world and everything in it… does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything."

The assurance from these verses produces a thrilling and freeing perspective as we come to pray. I am filled with hope to pray knowing that God is committed to glorifying His name by working on behalf of needy people. We are needy people. Because of Christ, our greatest need is met, and we have access to the God of all grace who is eager to work for the good of His people. What a privilege! So let’s gather, let’s pray, and wait expectantly for what God will do.

Here are 5 books I read last year that I think you might like as well.

#1 - Leadership and Emotional Sabotage - Joe Rigney
This book belongs in the “must read” category for every Christian. Filtering insights from Edwin Friedman, William Shakespeare, and C.S. Lewis, Joe Rigney very incisively cuts through much of the confusion and emotions of our day and helps us to see and live with biblical clarity and courage. While the book was primarily written for leaders, it has broad applicability for everyone.

#2 - How to Read a Book: Advice for Christian Readers - Andy Naselli
At the risk of overkill, I would also put this book in the “must read” category as well. You might be thinking, “Why should I read a book about reading books? That seems counterintuitive.” But don’t think that. This book is just dripping with wisdom and insights that will help you not only become a better reader and thinker, but also a better Christian. Naselli knows books, and he knows how to guide you to become a better student of words, and especially God’s Word. Don’t miss out on this book.

#3 - Unpacking Forgiveness: Biblical Answers for Complex Questions and Deep Wounds - Chris Brauns
What is forgiveness and how do we know if we are rightly practicing it? Is there a difference between punishment and discipline? Does forgiveness eliminate consequences? In this book, Chris Brauns walks through the mechanics of biblical forgiveness and helps Christians to navigate what forgiveness looks like in different real world situations. If you are new to the topic of conditional forgiveness, Braun will help you to understand what that is and why it is important.

#4 - Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture - Anthony Esolen
Anthony Esolen is one of my favorite writers. With refreshing wit and engaging prose, he knows how to tap into the longings we all feel for truth, goodness, and beauty. While published in 2017, which almost feels like a different world from now, this book illustrates timeless principles that help us to answer the question, “Where do we go from here?” Some have referred to Out of the Ashes as the more positive foil to Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option, and while dated in some respects, it is still timely and relevant.

#5 - God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades - Rodney Stark
Many modern people view the Crusades as an unforgivable blight in the Church’s history that Christians ought to be entirely ashamed of. However, historian Rodney Stark paints a different and more modest picture. His thesis is that the Crusades were largely a justified response to Muslim terror, aggression, and conquest in the Mediterranean world. Like all history, there were bad actors and unjustified behaviors included as well, but on the whole the Crusades weren’t near as bad as you’ve been told. A fascinating, enjoyable, and well-researched book.

Honorable Mention:

• Predestination: An Introduction - Andy Naselli
• Creation in Six Days: A Defense of the Traditional Reading of Genesis One - James B. Jordan
• The Church-Friendly Family - Randy Booth & Rich Lusk
• Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up - Abigail Shrier
• Return of the Dragon: The Shocking Way Drugs and Religion Shape People and Societies - Lewis Ungit

Ephesians 5:22-33
22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Mark and Ann, we have come a long way since that first date where the word on the street is that, Mark, you didn’t dress up nice enough for Ann’s liking. But today’s a different story, you both look great and we are all here to celebrate one of the most beautiful things in the entire world: marriage.

You guys have chosen Ephesians 5:22-33 as the text for this wedding meditation. In one sense, this passage is simple and straightforward, and yet in another sense, it is so deep and so marvelous that we will scarcely scratch the surface of its meaning on this side of heaven. In Ephesians 5:31-32, the Apostle Paul quotes from Genesis 2:24 and draws our attention to the very first marriage when he says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” Paul says that marriage is a mystery, but we should not confuse that with it being a secret. Marriage is not a mysterious secret, rather it is a majestic symbol that points beyond itself to something else. And when God created marriage in the beginning, he intended it to be a profound parable that would point toward his plan to save his people from their sins.

It was not after Christ came in the flesh and died on the cross that God looked around in the creation and thought that marriage would make a good analogy. Instead, it was precisely the anticipated coming of Christ and his dying on the cross that God had in mind when he created marriage in the beginning. The relationship of Christ and the church is the substance of marriage, and the relationship between a husband and a wife is only the shadow. Therefore, in this profound parable, a husband is to model his part to play after Christ and a wife is to model her part to play after the church. So let’s consider each of those roles.

Mark, we will start with you. You are to take your cues from Christ.

First, as a husband, you are to lead and love your wife. Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Husbands must first lead themselves so that they can then lead their wives. Paul knows that they already know how to love themselves, but they need to learn how to love their wives as their own body. And verse 25 shows us that this loving should primarily look like dying. The manliest thing that a husband can do for his wife is die for her. And that is precisely why Adam failed at his task in the garden. Rather than offering his life for Eve’s when they fell into sin, he pointed his finger and tried to make her die for him instead.

But the godly husband will serve his wife by sacrificially leading her and loving her… how? “As Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

Second, a husband will teach and sanctify his wife. Ephesians 5:26 says, “that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.” A godly husband is to be the resident theologian of his home. He needs to know his Bible and he needs to know how to use it. Or as Joe Rigney puts it, “A mature husband wakes up in the morning knowing who he is and what he’s about” (Rigney, Leadership and Emotional Sabotage, pg. 55). He is responsible for the spiritual aroma of his marriage. And his goal should be to beautify his wife through God’s word so that she might be presented in splendor on that last day.

Third, a husband will provide for and protect his wife. In Genesis 2:15, God sets Adam in the garden to “work it and keep it,” to cultivate it and defend it.  In other words, he was to be a gardener and a guardian. In Ephesians 5:29, Paul uses the words “nourish” and “cherish,” implying that husbands will give nourishing provision and tender protection to their wives. A husband ought to ensure that there is food on the table, clothes in the closet, and a roof on the house.  And when there is a sound at the door in the middle of the night, he should be the one to go and handle it like a man.

Mark, being a godly husband is a tall order. Because the example you are to follow as a husband is the perfect man, Jesus Christ, you will inevitably fall short at times. But that is a built-in feature of marriage. And when you sin, it provides you with a perfect opportunity to show your wife what true repentance and faith and humility should look like. It allows you to point your family to Christ. The key is that you take responsibility. There are times when you, like Adam in the garden, will be tempted to abdicate or blame-shift, or be lazy; but as a husband, it’s your duty to be responsible. And only in Christ will you find the grace and power to live that out, so rely on him in your husbandry. The amazing thing is that God also knows that you will need help in this husband business, and he has provided you with a wonderful gift in Ann. As one author says, “In an absolute sense, then, [a wife] is a gift of God, the greatest gift that God could give to the man who had been created in his image—a gift that the man must therefore receive and value as given from the Lord’s own hand” (Bavinck, The Christian Marriage, pg. 4).

So, next, we’ll consider Ann’s part in this parable. Ann, you are to take your cues from God’s will for the church.

First, as a wife, you are to follow, submit to, and obey your husband. Ephesians 5:22-24  says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” Submission has gotten a bad reputation in our day. The idea is not popular, but the Bible speaks about submission positively. It is a good thing. We could think of it like glue. It binds things. And “every human institution in the history of the world has been held together by it” (Wiley, …War for the Cosmos, pg. 108). Armies, sports teams, churches, businesses, governments, and families cannot function without submission. It’s required and necessary. It’s a fact of life. And in 1 Corinthians 11, the Apostle Paul highlights that the woman was created after the man, she was created from the man, and she was created for the man. Eve was oriented toward Adam, and therefore she was to respond to his initiative. We could say that Adam was the head, and Eve was the heart. And a godly wife will learn to gladly follow a godly husband.

Second, a wife is to help and glorify her husband. In Genesis 2:18, God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” As Herman Bavinck says, “[Man] needs a helper; a woman, who does not stand above him to dominate him, nor beneath him as one degraded to the status of a tool for pleasure, but one who stands alongside him, stationed at his side and therefore formed from his side” (Bavinck, The Christian Family, pg. 6). None of the other animals God created were fit to be Adam’s helper. Adam needed a helper that corresponded to him in a way that was complementary and different and the same and opposite him. And when Adam finally set his eyes on Eve after his brief nap in the garden, he said “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Genesis 2:23). When Adam saw the beauty and grace of Eve, he knew that she was his glory, and so when he named her, he embedded his own name in her’s. As Matthew Henry once said, “She is the crown, a crown to her husband, the crown of the visible creation. The man was dust refined, but the woman was dust double refined.” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:7, she was the glory of the image and glory of God. Or as Proverbs 12:4 says, “An excellent wife is the crown of her husband.”  Ann, you should seek to be a crown on Mark’s head.

Third, a wife is to respect and encourage her husband. Ephesians 5:33 says, “However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” Just as love is a wife’s currency, respect is a husband’s currency. And one of the best ways that a wife can influence her husband and win him over is by showing respect and honor to him. Mark will need to know that you think he is strong, wise, and capable. That will put wind in his sails and encourage him to be the best husband that he can be. A man will go to battle for a woman who shows him respect like that.

Ann, being a wife is a good thing and it is also a difficult thing. There are times when you may become envious or want some independence like Eve did in the garden. The key is to be humbly and joyfully responsive to your husband in obedience to Christ. He will supply you with all the grace and strength you will need to be a godly wife.  And as you play your part in the parable, I hope that you will also come to realize the sweetness, and freedom, and goodness of God’s design in marriage.

So, those are the two parts to play in this parable. But, as Ephesians 5:31 mentions, one of the most profound things about the mystery of marriage is that the two people playing two separate parts will also become one flesh. One new, inseparable unit that is sent out into the war for the cosmos for God’s glory, displaying the gospel for the world to see. And, together, as one flesh… You are to seek to take dominion over what God has given you. And you are to take seriously God’s command to be fruitful and multiply. And if the Lord blesses you with children, you are to receive them gladly.

But most importantly, as one flesh, you are to display the beauty of the church’s union with Christ and the glory of imputation. What do I mean by that? Mark, after today, everything that belongs to you will belong to Ann. And everything that belongs to Ann will belong to you. You both will share one bank account, one budget, one bed, even one bathroom…you will have one last name, and one life of loving union together. As C.R. Wiley says, “[Marriage] means that what goes for one, goes for the other. And Paul tells us that all of this applies to Christ and the Church. What belongs to the Church, belongs to Christ [that is all of our sin]; and what belongs to Christ, belongs to the Church [that is all of his righteousness], because they are one flesh” (Wiley, …War for the Cosmos, pg. 112).

So the question really is, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” May your marriage remind all of these witnesses here that the answer to that question is nothing. Nothing in all the earth can separate us from the love that God has shown to us in Christ Jesus. And earthly marriage, as a picture of that love, should encourage all of us to put our faith in Christ, who died for our sins, was buried, and rose again, so that all who are joined in union with him might live and reign forever with him. And that is good news for the world.

Mark, here is my charge to you: Tend your garden. Work it and keep it. Know it well and know what it needs to thrive. Plant seeds. Water them and give them light. Make sure that there aren’t any hidden sins creeping in to suffocate the plants in your garden. Fend off the aphids, and snakes, and rabbits that threaten your produce. Don’t make any excuses. And lay down your life for the good of your garden so that it bears fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.

And Ann, here is my charge to you: Tend your gardener. Because he needs help. Take the work and produce of his hands and turn it into hospitality and feasts with rich food and drink. Receive Mark’s love and turn it into fruitfulness. Take the plants, flowers, and fruit from the garden and make them more beautiful and glorious. Pray for your husband and give him wise counsel. And become more radiant as God’s Word continues to transform you with each passing year.

And together, Mark and Ann, may your marriage, and all the metaphors that we can think of to explain it, reveal the glorious mystery of Christ’s love for his Church.

In a recent online exchange on the new administration's immigration policy, our new Vice President J.D. Vance posted this on X: “Just google ‘ordo amoris’”. He posted this in reply to criticism over statements he made in a Fox News interview where he said, “You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.” He claimed that the “far left” has inverted that.

Unfortunately, if you were to go and google ordo amoris right now, all that would populate would be the hundreds of news sites and blogs commenting on Vance’s X post. But if you sift through the information, you will see that Vance is alluding to the great 4th century theologian, Augustine of Hippo. Augustine's famous concept of ordo amoris ("rightly ordered love") appears explicitly in City of God:

"Love itself is to be ordinately loved, because we do well to love that which, when we love it, makes us live well and virtuously. It seems to me that it is a brief but true definition of virtue to say, it is the order of love (ordo amoris)."

—Augustine

According to Augustine, all humans must love things according to their true worth, with God as the highest object of love. C.S. Lewis references this same idea in his great work The Abolition of Man:

“St. Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it.”

—C.S. Lewis

To summarize this, Lewis, Augustine, and Vance are all promoting the idea that the world was made a certain kind of way by a certain kind of God. And the world he made consists of things that deserve our affection. Not because they fit our tastes, but because they merit our love—we ought to love things that are lovely. If we don’t, the problem is with us, not the object.

If you want evidence that a definite vibe-shift is underway in American culture, surely our Vice President referencing Augustine is a giant sign.

In our modern society, the prevailing assumption is that love and beauty are completely subjective. I would disagree. So what are the things that are lovely and that deserve our affection? Surely we have examples all around us in nature. No one can spend time in the mountains or on a beach or at the Grand Canyon and say, “Wow, this is ugly and unimpressive.” Well, I’m sure someone could say that, but they would be wrong.

Marriage, an institution created by God, is an objectively beautiful thing. The direct and special revelation of God to us in Scripture begins with a wedding—”This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23)—and ends with a wedding—the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev 19). Marriage was created by God for the good of mankind—as the right context for sexual relations, for childbearing and child-rearing, and to display to the watching world the mystery of the relationship between Christ and His Church (Eph 5:22–23).

Marriage is a covenantal institution. It is a lifelong, exclusive, one-flesh union between a man and a woman that is established by a solemn, public covenant before God. That covenant, like all covenants, is kept together by vows and obligations. At my wedding, I vowed before God and before our family and friends to love my wife, Jami, no matter how I felt. Love is not first and foremost a feeling of affection, but rather the choice to act towards someone regardless of how I feel in the moment.

I am called to order my affections not to the whims of my various day-to-day emotions, but in line with the objective reality of God’s world, and to obey the commands he’s given me regarding my marriage. No matter how I feel, I am to love my wife as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her (Eph 5:25). That is my call as a husband, and that sets the standard for my actions. That is the order my affections must follow.

Today is Valentine’s Day. This is a day dedicated to love and affection, particularly romantic love towards our spouses. It’s a day where the whole world recognizes the goodness and beauty of love towards our spouses and our families. And yet, we all know that life and marriage is not always as rosy as February 14. There are days when I don’t feel like loving my wife. And I know there are days where she doesn’t feel like loving me. There are days where neither of us are lovely, and yet we are called to love.

Husbands, remember the command of Paul in Ephesians 5. Not just the command, but also the wonderful truth that makes that command possible.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

—Ephesians 5:25–27

We are called to love one another even when we aren’t very lovable, because Christ laid down his life and died for us when we were the picture of unlovable. It wasn’t just that we weren’t lovely, we despised him. And yet, through his supreme loving act, he makes us lovable and lovely. Because of what Christ did, we are the picture of splendor, without spot or wrinkle, holy and unblemished. Even at our worst, because of Christ, we are lovely.

Do you see your spouse that way? We are called to love our spouses like Christ has loved us—not based on their perfection, but with the same sacrificial, purifying love that Christ has for His Church. When we are tempted to let our feelings dictate our actions, we must remember how Christ loved us at our worst, laying down His life to make us holy and blameless. In light of this great love, let us love our spouses with patience, grace, and faithfulness, reflecting the love of Christ in our marriages.

On Sunday, February 9, I shared the following update on the progress of our plans for a future church building.

The elders have been working with Architecture Incorporated, a local architecture firm, to create a site master plan, conceptual floor plans, and renderings for a building that would serve as the physical home for Emmaus Road Church. I am excited about the progress we’ve made and the direction we’re heading. We are currently comparing those plans with our expected budget, and we are eager to share those initial plans publicly as soon as we can. We’re getting close!

We started by giving careful thought to how our biblical convictions shape who we are as a church and how that should be reflected in the architecture of a building, and I look forward to spelling that out for you soon as well.

For now, I want to highlight one conviction that comes from the promise Jesus gave us in Matthew 16:18, when he said, “I will build my church.” He said that, not about a building, but about his ransomed and assembled community.

J. C. Ryle said it well: “The mightiest conceptions of architects, like Michelangelo and Wren, are mere trifling and child's play in comparison with Christ's wise counsels respecting His Church.”

Please continue to pray for God’s wisdom and direction as we finalize plans. Give to the Building Fund as the Spirit leads you.

And continue to edify one another, as you are already doing. Whether we are meeting in a cafeteria, a gym, or a sanctuary, every member of the church is involved in edifying and building up the church. The last thing we want is to have a building but no church.

It's the last day of January and Quitters Day is already 3 weeks in the rearview mirror.

Whether you kept up with the Bible reading plan all month, fell behind, or never got around to starting, here are six encouragements to keep going.

The most powerful motivation to regularly read God's Word is faith in God's promises. Pick one, cling to it in faith, and then open your Bible and read no matter how you feel. Reading when you don't feel like it isn't hypocritical, it's an act of faith. Reading when you don't feel like you "got anything out of it" isn't foolish, it's faithful. If you need a promise, I recommend Psalm 1:3. That says the person who meditates daily on God's Word "is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers." If you want God to make you like fruitful, well-watered tree, read his Word and trust that he will.

When we say we're "trying" to do something, it usually means we have a goal to do something but no plan. Instead of "trying" to do the Bible reading plan, train yourself for godliness (1 Tim 4:7–8) by coming up with a plan. Pick a time, a place, a Bible, a writing utensil and notebook, and get started today.

It's okay if you don't get to all four bookmarks everyday. It's okay if you don't read all of the chapters on one of the bookmarks. It's better to read something from God's Word than to read nothing at all.

There are so many great things about Bible reading plans, but there's one danger to avoid. The danger is thinking that you're "behind," letting that discourage and overwhelm you, and then quitting. You have two options. You can either keep plodding along at your own pace, or you can skip all the days you missed in January and start fresh in February. Both are acceptable and you should do either one without any guilt or shame.

It doesn't matter if you didn't start the plan in January. Don't wait for January 1, 2026 to start. Just start reading something today. I personally don't recommend starting at the beginning (but you sure can). I recommend starting with the February readings. Knowing that you're reading along with the rest of us is more encouraging than reading on your own.

Spectators at a marathon can be a huge encouragement to tired runners, but one thing that’s not so helpful is shouting, “You’re almost there!” Unless the runner can see the finish line, it’s just not true. Besides the fact that we have 11 months to go in this Bible reading plan, the reality is that we don’t read the Bible to “finish” it. Think of it like eating. You may finish a meal, but you never finish eating. Your body will need fuel later today and then again tomorrow. When we get to the end of the Bible, our plan is to read it again and again. And that takes a lot of pressure off. It means you don’t have get everything out of every text. (You can’t anyway!) So take in what you can and relax. The plan is to revisit these pages over and over.

Nobody is a product of their own making. You did not wake up this morning and simply decide, this is what I am going to be like. We are all easily influenced, while also having a potentially high degree of influence on others. I am sure each of us could identify a line of people who were pivotal in our development. Like it or not, we are all being discipled by influences around us. So consider, who (or what) are you being influenced by? And who are you influencing?

We cannot truly follow Christ while living in isolation. You need others to help you grow in following Jesus, and in turn, you need to help others follow Jesus. This is what we call disciple-making or discipling. The aim of discipling is to help others grow in their love for and likeness of Christ. There are two distinct parts to disciple-making; evangelism and discipleship.

Evangelism is proclaiming the good news freely, while trusting God to convert spiritually dead people to Christ. In order to make new disciples, disciples of Jesus must go out and proclaim the gospel to unbelievers. This is the first step in the disciple making process. From there, we are to go on “teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded.” The goal of discipleship is that every Christian may be “presented mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28).  My focus here is on this second stage of disciple making—discipling those who believe into greater Christ-likeness.

The Church is only ever one generation away from extinction. Imagine if every follower of Christ were to take the advice of the world—to put aside the truths of scripture and live a quiet and tolerant life where we do not press our ideas on anybody. You are fine to practice your own faith, but must keep that to yourself. If the church were to take this posture, it would continue to decline in vibrancy until it ceased to be.

In many ways, this trend is visible as we look out across our nation today. We can see wickedness on the rise, indifference to sin in the church, a straying from sound orthodoxy among “Christians”, key leaders in the church abandoning the faith, and fruitlessness in our own lives. At the heart of these failings, is a lack of biblical discipling.

Jesus will build his church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18). He will surely do this by his own power and authority. But how does he intend to assert his authority to bring this about in the world? His plan is revealed in the final marching orders he leaves to his disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

From this, we see that Jesus’s plan A for building his kingdom here on earth is through the multiplication of his disciples. In order for this to happen, Jesus’s disciples must make more disciples. Jesus commands us to make and multiply disciples—I know of no plan B for how he intends to fill the earth with his worshipers (Hab. 2:14). So, how are we to go about making disciples?

In my college days, I had a zeal for making disciples, but lacked a good deal of wisdom. My view of disciple-making was pretty flat. It was all about going out to make converts, teaching them a few basics, and then sending them back out to make more disciples. This all took place largely on my college campus, outside of any church context. I found pride in this work, and looked down my nose at those in local churches who only seemed to care about going to their kids' events, planning a meal with their small group, or taking their wives out on a date. Why was no one out on the front lines trying to make disciples?

Little did I know, much of discipleship takes place in the context of the local church. We are to apply the gospel to all of life, not just a few spiritual sounding activities. When we come to Christ as Lord, he calls us to follow him as Lord over every detail of our life. Jesus cares about the way we read, pray, cook meals, play games, talk to our spouses, sing songs, and every other thing we engage in. He is Lord of all.

It is within the household of God that discipleship comes into full view. Nobody has arrived.  One person may be gifted in evangelism, another may seem to have a more natural heart of compassion. We must learn from each other. One may have raised 4 grown children, another may be a new mother. One may be tired yet experienced by trials of life, another young, full of energy, but ignorant of much of life. Learn from each other. Growth in spiritual maturity is multi-dimensional, we need each other to sharpen and spur one another on in Christ-likeness.

There are hundreds of marvelous ways that you are being discipled and that God is using you to disciple within a local church. One of the most straightforward ways you can be faithful to the Great Commission is to simply lean into a body of believers with a generous portion of your time, energy, and resources.

The normative discipleship that takes place in a local church is aided by intentional one-on-one discipleship. People do not naturally drift into godliness, so intentionality in relationships is required in the discipling process. Paul’s example of discipling in 2 Timothy is a great model for what this looks like.

“...what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”

—2 Timothy 2:1-2

There are four generations of disciples in view: Paul, Timothy, faithful men, others. All Christians are somewhere on this path, possessing something to pass on to others, while still having much to learn. To apply this, ask yourself some questions—Who will be my Paul? Who will be the person or persons you are looking to model your life after? And who will be my Timothy? Who can I pour into and push to Christ, even with the little I have to offer?

Paul instructs Timothy to find “faithful men” to entrust his teaching to. He is not telling Timothy to just go out and start investing in anybody that walks by. We only have so much time and resources, and so I cannot pour my life into everybody. Nor can we expect that everybody is required to pour their life into me. We are limited in our capacity, so we have to have wisdom in how we use our time and decide who and where to invest it.  Look for people who are hungry and eager to learn and grow. Who has a teachable heart? On the flip side, if you would be discipled, be someone who is eager to learn and has humility to be taught and be pushed out of your comfort zone.

Fulfilling the Great Commission requires new disciples to be taught all that Christ has commanded. That does not mean only familiarizing them with the red letter parts of the Bible. Rather, they must be instructed in the “whole counsel of God”(Acts 20:27) and taught to apply all its implications into their lives. New disciples need instruction on various habits of grace, how to read and apply their bibles, and how to apply the gospel to every part of their life. These are not just ideas, but are truths that have implications to be worked out in one’s attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors. The scope of this kind of learning takes place over a lifetime.

The phrase “more is caught than taught” is often used, and rightly so, to the work of disciple-making. Given the breadth of all of life discipleship that is in view, it must take place life-on-life. It cannot all be taken in through books, lectures, blogs, podcasts, or sermons. As important as these things are, a crucial part of teaching is opening up your life for others to walk with. Look at Jesus’s example with his disciples. They did 3 years of life: eating, traveling, fishing, praying, etc together. Open up your life to others. Invite people over for a meal, to the gym, to the grocery store, or to join your family for a trip. Allow them to see both your successes and failures, and then point them to how God’s truth comes to bear on the situation. You can have confidence that God’s Spirit will be at work through this—both in you and in spite of you, in order to make all God’s people more into the image of his Son (1 Cor. 3:5-9; Rom. 8:28-32).

Life is full of moments which leave a person asking the question, “now what?” In a game of chess, your friend moved his queen to put your king in check—now what? You got accepted to both of your top 2 favorite colleges—now what? Your boss just informed you that the company you have worked for the last 5 years no longer has a place for you—now what? You just arrived home with your first born child—now what? The answers to these questions can vary in difficulty and importance. When it comes to being a new Christian there are few questions as important to get good answers for than this question.

I have just become a follower of Christ, now what?

In the Bible, the followers of Christ are often referred to with the Greek word mathētēs, which means “disciple” or “student.” This is where we get the word oftentimes used to describe the process of being a disciple of Jesus—discipleship. Understanding some of the basics to Christian discipleship is an essential part of growing and nurturing your relationship to Christ.

In a discussion on the topic of discipleship, it is important to make a distinction between discipleship and discipling. I use the term discipleship to describe one’s own following of Christ. It is the process of learning to love and follow Jesus and become more like him in our attitudes and actions. Discipling or disciple-making is a subset of discipleship where you help others follow Christ. The aim of discipling is to help others grow in their love for and likeness to Christ. Each of these are an essential part of the Christian life, but the focus of this article will be on one’s own personal discipleship.

In order for discipleship to happen, one must actually be a disciple of Jesus. This begins with a saving, personal relationship to Christ. To enter into this relationship, a person must hear God’s call in the gospel, and then repent and trust in Christ. When a person places faith in Christ, God considers them united to Christ in his life, death, and resurrection. In this way, he takes your sins and forgives them on the cross, and you are given the righteousness of his perfect life. So it is important to see that being a disciple of Jesus does not begin with something we do, but begins with something that Christ has already done for you.

Faith in Christ’s work is not only the place where discipleship begins, but lays the groundwork for how the Christian life progresses. Christ continues to apply his saving work to his followers by giving them the Holy Spirit, whom he has given to those who trust in him. A common error is to attribute becoming a Christian to faith in Christ, but then to move on from there to something else. No, the Christian life begins by faith and must continue by faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). A disciple never moves on from the basic call of trusting all that Christ says and does (Gal. 3:2-9). So, as we move on to consider how to follow Christ and become more like him (discipleship), we are really considering ways to grow our faith and confidence in him. Then faith expresses itself out in hearing and obeying.

This is not an exhaustive list of ways to grow your faith, but are ways that have proven significant in the discipleship of Christians for centuries. Whether you are a new believer or been a Christian for years, practicing these means of grace are essential for ongoing growth.

In order to follow Christ and trust what he says, we must actually know what he has said. We know what Christ desires for his followers by the truth he has revealed in Scripture. We are told in 2 Timothy 3:16 that, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” A disciple of Jesus Christ must devote themselves to the regular study of Scripture in order to receive the teaching, reproof, correction, and training that is required for his followers to grow.

Time spent in God’s word enables us to know the promises that are ours in Christ, so that we have definitive claims that we can cling to in faith. It also reveals God’s will for our lives, so we know how to obey and live a life pleasing to him. Faith expressed by trusting God’s promises and obeying his word communicates a confidence in Christ. This confidence in Christ honors God and signifies progress in Christian maturity.

One of the greatest privileges available to disciples of Christ is the ability to pray. Through Christ, you can speak with your heavenly father and be assured that he loves you and hears you. We are invited and even commanded to pray in Scripture (Phil. 4:6-7; Heb. 4:16; James 5:14-16; Matt. 7:7; John 14:13-14). These verses call us to seek the Lord in prayer, present our requests to him, and assure us that God hears and responds to our prayer. Prayer not only expresses a faith and confidence in the Lord, but also strengthens our faith as he ministers to us out of time in prayer.

 If you are not sure how to pray, the book of Psalms contains 150 chapters that model what faithful prayer looks like in a variety of forms; repentance, praise, thanksgiving, etc. Praying responsively through the Psalms can give you words and categories to help guide you as you learn to pray. One of the great effects of prayer is how it ends up changing the one praying. This is evident in the Psalm as we see the psalmists moved and changed as they pray over the course of their psalm. Time in prayer often has the blessed effect of transforming the one coming to pray in faith.

Another major step for a new disciple is to connect themself to a local church as quickly as possible. The local church is where you hear and respond to God’s word preached, receive sacraments (Baptism and Lord’s Supper), and are guarded by the blessing of church discipline. The Christian life is not an individualistic endeavor. Yes, you must respond personally to Christ’s call on your life, but you are saved into a covenant people. The church is Christ’s blood-bought people who together reflect the glory of his grace to the world. Scripture likens the relationship between believers in the church to a body. Each a different member with unique gifts and abilities that require dependence on one another. We need others around us to regularly speak into our lives; encouraging, rebuking, and pointing us to Christ.

To neglect fellowship with a local body of believers hinders growth and places your soul in danger (Heb. 3:12-13; 10:25). Jesus has provided numerous “one another” commands that require other Christians to put into practice. I don’t see how anyone can obey Christ’s commands without connecting regularly with a local church. At the heart of church life is love for one another. One of the clearest ways we reflect Christ and demonstrate that we are his disciples is by our love for one another (John 13:35).

Jesus commanded his disciples to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.” A key part of your discipleship is to reproduce other disciples. This involves sharing your faith with non-believers (evangelism) and discipling those who believe into greater Christ-likeness. There is much that could be said about this. I aim to cover an introduction to disciple-making in part 2.

1 God is our refuge and strength,

    a very present help in trouble.

2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,

    though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,

3 though its waters roar and foam,

    though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

    the holy habitation of the Most High.

5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;

    God will help her when morning dawns.

6 The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;

    he utters his voice, the earth melts.

7 The Lord of hosts is with us;

    the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

8 Come, behold the works of the Lord,

    how he has brought desolations on the earth.

9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;

    he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;

    he burns the chariots with fire.

10 “Be still, and know that I am God.

    I will be exalted among the nations,

    I will be exalted in the earth!”

11 The Lord of hosts is with us;

    the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

Father in heaven, this is our confession of faith this morning. That you are with us. That you yourself are our refuge and our strength. That you are a present help in times of trouble. And our desire as we live our lives in this broken, fallen world is to know you and to find our refuge in you… We want our souls to be enlivened and made glad by that river, that river whose streams make glad the city of God. We pray that you would cause rivers of living water to flow in our hearts this morning.

What we need most today, what our nation needs most today is to know you, to behold you, to know your character, to know your truth, to know your promises, to know your law, to know your ways, to know your goodness, to know your grace, to know your gospel, to know your son, Jesus Christ, the savior of the world. And so we are fixing our eyes on you; we are gathered in the name of Jesus to worship you, confident that you are with us. Yet we know Lord that all around us the earth gives way. Mountains are moved into the heart of the sea.  We thank you that in spite of all that, we need not fear because you are our God, you are in our midst.

And this morning, Father, our hearts are heavy for our nation. In light of the events last night and the attempted assassination on former President Trump’s life. Our hearts are grieved by the state of things in our nation, by those events. We thank you, Father, for protecting and preserving Trump’s life. We pray for his safety. We pray for the family members of victims at that rally yesterday who are grieving today. And we pray that you would be near to them through your word and through your Spirit and through your people. That in the midst of their loss, they would know you.

You are a God of justice and we pray that your justice would be done. That justice would prevail. And we pray today, as your people, for peace in our nation. We ask you, O God, to restrain sin and all kinds of reactions that might ensue from this. Would you save us from violence and discord and confusion, and from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way? Would you, O God, defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought here out of many kindreds and tongues, and endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in your name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to your law, we may show forth your praise among the nations of the earth.

That’s what we long for. That we would trust what you say to, “Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in [all] the earth!”

God we do not deserve, as a people, any of these blessings or protections or liberties, but we are asking for your mercy. And most of all that through the preaching of the gospel, through the witness of your people, that your Spirit would move in our nation and bring revival and repentance. Have mercy on us, O God, for our sins are great, they are piled up to the heavens. We deserve your judgement and we look to you for mercy. Grant us what we ask because we ask it in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Much fanfare and spectacle has swept through the evangelical world due to Megan Basham’s new book Shepherds for Sale. Fault lines have once again emerged and scores of onlookers have streamed behind their preferred battlements, some to defend the book and others to decry its illegitimacy. As polemical books are wont to do, this book has brought submerged conflict out into the open (S/O Joe Rigney), and now it’s up to us to wisely and appropriately navigate the new terrain.

I do not intend to write a review of the book, as many others have taken up that task elsewhere, but I do intend to make some general comments on the Shepherds for Sale phenomenon and interact with a few of the active players and ideas floating around.

To begin with, we should be slow to judgment until all the dust settles. Moments like these make Proverbs 18:17 all the more relevant and important. In this case, I can see the process unfolding like this:

First, Megan Basham provides her initial journalism and the merits of her analysis are weighed in the balance (the shock value of the book causes many people to rush to judgment and join a camp or tribe). The first person states her case. Then, those named in the book are given an opportunity to defend themselves, and we should give them a fair hearing. The other person comes and examines her. (At this point, the critics of the book might want to circle the wagons and raise their glasses in victory as though the matter is settled). However, I would argue that our application of Proverbs 18:17 isn’t complete yet. It isn’t just an open-and-shut case with the second person’s word trumping the first person’s word. It’s more like opposing forces coming to an equilibrium with the equilibrium not being a consensus or third-way between both voices, but the truth. In this way, each voice needs examining until the truth comes more clearly into focus. (E.g., consider the initial treatment of JD Greear in the book, JD Greear’s response to the book, and then Megan Basham’s response to JD Greear’s response).

With that being said, it should also be noted that a large majority of Megan’s journalism is not being disputed at all—she is certainly over the target.

Some have responded to Megan’s book by pointing out that the people she names in her book would not always agree with her representation of them, which is not something we should take lightly. As Christians, it is our duty to charitably represent the views of others in ways that they both recognize and claim as their own—this is what the 9th Commandment would require of us. So far so good. But, what happens when the weight of evidence stacked up against someone is in conflict with their own perception of their views? This introduces a new difficulty into an already difficult situation. This can’t simply be shrugged off as “thinking your enemies are as bad as possible,” wishing “black to be blacker,”  or hoping for their misfortune as C.S. Lewis warns against. It requires sober-minded clarity to look things straight in the eye. I’m not saying that creating a category for this dynamic automatically leads to a guilty verdict for those in question. However, when the evidence is substantial and conclusive, it is not a time for damage control; it is time to take responsibility for where you went wrong and to humbly repent. You might be surprised at how many who are sympathetic to Basham’s work would be eager to grant forgiveness were this to happen (myself included).

In Neil Shenvi’s review of Shepherds for Sale he writes, “Basham believes that a misrepresentation of one clip calls into question the framing of all the others. Unfortunately, after finding multiple misrepresentations in Basham’s work, I reached a similar conclusion: she is an unreliable interpreter. While many of her claims may be true, I can’t assume that any quotation I find in her book has been represented accurately.”

He writes this after documenting what he believes to be four blatant examples of misrepresentation related to Karen Swallow Prior, Todd Benkert, JD Greear, and Tim Keller. Briefly, I’ll address three of those examples (because Greear has been responded to elsewhere).

First, Shenvi calls Basham’s comments related to Prior untrue, but then he also seems to agree that her views were somewhat ambiguous when he interacted with Bethel McGrew here. While Prior herself denies what Basham alleges, perhaps the situation reflects a difference of opinion related to how her words were logically working rather than a blatant untruth.

Second, related to Todd Benkert, Neil believes that the response he received from the task force chairman, Marshall Blalock, completely clears the air related to Todd’s departure from the ARITF. But as anyone working within an institution knows, what is communicated publicly doesn’t always represent the full story of what goes on behind the scenes (e.g., do you remember when Kimberly Cheatle “resigned”?). While it does provide an alternative view to what Megan provided, it hardly settles the matter on whether or not Megan’s claim was misrepresentation.

Lastly, Shenvi claims that “Basham’s characterization of Keller is incorrect on multiple levels.” While I do think it is fair for Neil to be concerned about the accuracy and completeness of the citations in the book, sometimes it comes across as pedantic when the larger context seems to support Megan’s claims. For example, Robert A.J. Gagnon compellingly defends Megan’s comments related to Keller’s seeming contempt for Trump voters. One can agree with Neil that Keller never explicitly claimed to be Never Trump while still disagreeing with him (and Keller) on how Keller’s words landed on Trump supporters.

In the end, the verdict remains open regarding each of the examples that, Neil claims, prove Basham’s untrustworthiness. It seems illegitimate to conclude that she is an unreliable interpreter based on what he presented. There are other things that could be said about Neil’s review and tactics, but we can leave that for another time.

Most importantly, what those examples illustrate is the concept of plausible deniability and how it can function in subtle ways to protect those at the top. It goes like this: People with considerable influence can make statements that appear to carry certain implications with them (consider Gavin Ortlund’s initial video on climate change), but then, when they are called out on their claims (like many were in Shepherds for Sale), they can deny that they were intending for people to draw any conclusions from their statements.

As Timon Cline pointed out though, “We evaluate rhetoric not simply on the literal words in abstract, but the other implicit aspects of good communication.” In other words, we understand things based on the context from which they originate. The actions and words of leaders and other figures in the last decade did not come to us in a vacuum, so they should not be received or interpreted as though they did.

Further, many want to maintain their conservative bona fides even though their views are no longer conservative nor do they represent the rank-and-file conservative in their audience. If nothing less, Megan’s book made it a lot more difficult for those people to fly under the radar as conservatives. Those people may not like that it happened, but it seems disingenuous to shoot the messenger when she isn’t the one making the compromises.

And while we are on the topic, it should be noted how many of the above-the-fray, pietistic types will try to dismiss Basham’s book by calling it too political or partisan. However, we should ask: why is it only political when the right calls out what is happening? Is it not equally political, if not more so, to let leftward agendas influence our teaching and institutions? There may have been a time when it was easier to escape the realm of politics, but that is virtually impossible now. And we shouldn’t simply be asking if certain ideas are left-wing or right-wing, we should be asking how those ideas map onto a biblical worldview. The goal is not to play the middle, the goal is to be biblical, even if that doesn’t fit neatly into the prevailing Overton Window.

Megan’s book has caused quite a stir, and rightly so. I do worry that the concerted effort to discredit the book will distract people from dealing with the significant substance of Basham’s case. It is fair to withhold judgment until the dust settles and the truth outs, but once it does, we should follow where it leads.

Certainly, the goal of such a book is not to cancel or anathematize those who have been caught up in the liberal drift, but to call those who have wandered back. For those who see their error and repent there is certainly hope “that times of refreshing may come” (Act 3:20).

The online dating website eHarmony launched in the year 2000 as the first algorithm-based dating site. The platform is built on the assumption that compatibility is the most significant factor for married couples. The more “compatible” a man and woman are, the happier and healthier the marriage will be. And compatibility is a complicated quality calculated by background, interests, personality, skills, beliefs, and more. So eHarmony analyzes all these factors in couples who report having happy marriages and crafts a questionnaire to create a profile for each user. That profile is plugged into an algorithm that is supposed to pair people up with the most compatible options.

Apart from relying on the eHarmony algorithm, how can anyone possibly get married with any confidence that they are as compatible as possible with the other person? When it comes to what to look for in a spouse, what are the essential qualities and traits you should have on your “list”? While the psychology experts can create complex algorithms, Christians living by faith and following God’s Word have a simple list.

The most essential, non-negotiable factor that a Christian should look for in a spouse is that he or she is a Christian.

“Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?”

—2 Corinthians 6:14–15

While Paul was not directly addressing marriage, his point certainly applies to the choice of a spouse. This goes far beyond compatible beliefs and values, though that is a blessing. To marry another Christian is to marry someone who has been regenerated by the Spirit of God and born again to spiritual life. A follower of Christ has been forgiven and adopted by the Father and is being sanctified by the Spirit. Another Christian is living by faith in Christ, submitting to the authority of God’s Word, and desiring God’s glory above all. These are not trivial matters; they are life changing realities. Marrying another Christian is not just the better of two valid choices. It is the only option and a matter of faithful obedience to God.

Besides marrying a Christian, the most important quality to look for in a spouse is a demonstrated ability to resolve relational conflict God’s way (which is only possible between two Christians).

For the Christian, conflict resolution is simple. It means responding to your spouse’s sin the way God responds to your sin.

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

—Ephesians 4:32

The key word in that statement is the conjunction as. It indicates a comparison and points to the pattern. You must forgive others as—that is, in the same way that God has forgiven you. And how has God forgiven you? He removes your sin from you as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). He chooses not to remember your sins (Isaiah 43:25). He casts your sins into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19). So that is how Christians forgive each other.

No amount of compatibility has ever spared any couple from conflict. That’s because what causes fights and quarrels is not incompatibility, but unfulfilled desires (Jas 4:1–2). And no amount of compatibility can make up for the Spirit-empowered ability to confess your sins to one another and to forgive from the heart.

The ability to resolve conflict God’s way should be at the top of your list when choosing a spouse. Does this person deal with problems quickly, or do they ignore, avoid, or try to sweep things under the rug? Does this person quickly admit when they are in the wrong and confess that sin humbly to God and to others? Or do they make excuses or shift the blame? Are they quick to forgive, or do they hold a grudge, grow bitter, and punish relationally? This ability to resolve relational conflict biblically matters far more than shared hobbies and interests, similar backgrounds, or compatible personality types.

Besides the two qualities above, there are two basic questions you are trying to answer during courtship. The first one is, Do I trust this person? Trust is the currency of every relationship. Your entire marriage will be established on the foundation of covenant vows. On your wedding day, you will stand before God and witnesses to promise and covenant exclusive love and faithfulness as long as you both shall live. Of course, anyone can make such a weighty promise. And many people do. But not everyone keeps that promise. When one person makes a promise, the recipient of the promise can either believe it or not. This is why trust is the currency of relationships.

And trust is built on truth. The more truthful someone has been in the past, the more we trust them in the future. Trustworthiness is like your credit score: people who tell the truth and keep their word have a high credit score. So how do you run a credit check on a possible spouse? A wise approach is to get to know their closest friends and family. Do other people trust them? Do they have a reputation for integrity and reliability at home, at work, and with friends?

In the end, there is no way to guarantee the future with total certainty. Humans will let you down and break your trust, but the Lord never will.

The second question depends on whether you’re a man or a woman, since God gives different commands to husbands and wives. God requires husbands to love their wives (Eps 5:25, 28, 33), and God requires wives to submit to and respect their husbands (Eps 5:22, 33).

As a man, the question is whether or not you are willing to love this particular woman for better or for worse. And love is biblically defined. In our culture, love is subjectively defined. “I love you” basically means “you make me feel good.” In Scripture, love is defined by God’s law. “For the commandments … are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:9–10).

In Scripture, love and give often appear together as parallel verbs.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son” (Jn 3:16).

“The Son of God … loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20).

“Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph 5:2).

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph 5:25).

So as a man, you are not asking whether you are “in love with her” merely in a romantic, subjective sense. The question is whether you are willing to commit—by grace through faith in Christ—to denying yourself and laying down your life for the good of this particular woman, no matter how you feel.

For a woman, the question is whether you are willing to submit to this particular man. While the idea of submission is offensive to our culture, it should be noted that Scripture does not require all women to submit to all men. A wife is called by God to submit only to her own husband, and she gets to choose her husband. So if you’re a woman, it’s important to choose a man you respect and would be happy submitting to as long as you live. If you’re going to commit to following him, you want to find a man who can lovingly lead you, stand up to you, provide for you, and protect you.

The danger with any checklist is that you can become a critic and a faultfinder, constantly evaluating other people under a microscope. In the end, you have to remember that you’re not looking for a perfect person. You’re going to marry a sinner. And worse, he or she is going to marry you, with all your faults and flaws. That’s why your hope must rest, not in compatibility scores, but in the grace of God. In Christ Jesus, there is hope for every marriage.

What does your life run on? If your day was a battery commercial, what would you be selling? The Apostle Paul’s answer is something durable and long-lasting. In Philippians 4:4, he emphatically calls his readers to joy.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice.

—Philippians 4:4

Joy can also be equated to happiness. We are happy people, unashamedly the happiest of people on earth, because the gospel we embrace is good news of great joy (Luke 2:10). The God who has saved us to Himself is a happy God, known as the “most blessed God” (1 Tim. 6:15).

No one has ever been nor will ever be happier than God. He is God and there is no other (Is. 46:9). He is happy because He does all that He pleases (Ps. 115:3). Nothing stands in the way of His purposes (Is. 46:10). He has no needs (Is. 40:28). He is completely independent and sufficient in Himself (Acts 17:24-25).

And in saving us, the happy God gives us Himself (1 Peter 3:18). He gives us Jesus and in Jesus, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (Col. 1:19). In Christ are unsearchable riches (Ephesians 3:8) and living water (John 7:38).

It is possible to have joy from eating a savory steak meal. In this world are many joys, but what we have in Christ is far superior. Even when the greatest gifts are lost, still we have everything in the surpassing worth of knowing Him (Phil. 3:8).

That means true joy is not rooted in personality or temperament. The virtue of joy is not something like an on and off switch that we flip when it’s sunny outside. Those who know this joy are the most balanced of people. Their moods don’t rise and fall with everything around them. True joy is not connected to our circumstances.

When the Bible speaks about “joy” it is not something that is dependent on everything around us being exactly how we want it to be. “Great station in life, great happiness. Rejoice!” No, if that was merely the message of where joy is found, we either would not be happy very long, or we would be discontent and discouraged too often.

In fact, many of the places joy is spoken about in scripture are areas where suffering and hardship are present. And the motivation for joy in those times is to look forward to the reward of fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore at God’s right hand. That’s because joy is a product of faith, whatever you are trusting in to secure and satisfy you. Faith does not look past the Giver to what He gives, but receives Him as greatest Treasure. So the measure of your joy is not in the heights or depths of seasons, but in the value of the object you are trusting in.

Satisfied people are glad people, and when you’re satisfied with that which is most satisfying, you rejoice with joy inexpressible (1 Peter 1:8). Therefore, it’s possible to obey the command, “Rejoice always, I say again, rejoice” because you know the joy that nothing in this world can give. This durable and lasting joy is secure in Christ who will never fall from His throne.

And this joy is contagious. It spreads through households and bursts out of gospel communities. Joy becomes the manner in which we are to carry out so many of the one-another commands. The bible not only calls us to serve one another, but it specifies how we should serve one another. “Serve the Lord with gladness” (Ps. 100:2). “Show hospitality, without grumbling” (1 Peter 4:9). What’s the opposite of grumbling? Rejoicing.

The attitude of joy in God’s people no matter the season or circumstance proves the worth of who He is to everyone watching. In 2 Corinthians 8, Paul is commending the Macedonian church for how they gave financially to another church. He writes “for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.”

It’s impressive when someone gives an abundant gift. It’s supernatural when people are joyfully, gladly giving even when they themselves are lacking greatly. That is a picture of the gospel working in our lives.

And joy is a shared virtue. That’s why gathering corporately is what we’re called to do. We are recipients of grace that comes through other people’s joy.  Have you ever shown up to a Sunday meeting downcast and distracted, but then the joy of others expressed through song and fellowship swept you back into the grace of God?

For all these reasons, joy should be the dominant trait in our lives.

Saint Augustine once said, “Death is not to be deemed an evil when a good life precedes it; nor is death made an evil except by what follows death.” In the case of Donald L. Heck, certainly a good life preceded his death and a very good life will forever follow after his death—a life of joy in the presence of the Lord. And in this way, death loses some of its sting, and we who are gathered here today can remember my grandpa with faith, and with hope, and with love.

We do not grieve as those without hope, but as those who know [as Nick just read] that “the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him” (Ps. 103:17). We are those who know that God “does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities” (Ps. 103:10); instead, he is the one who “redeems [our lives] from the pit” (Ps. 103:4). We know this as surely as we know that Christ Jesus died and rose again—and on the basis of these things rest our hope today.

Grandpa Don professed these truths with his life. Yet, our confidence in the eternal outcome of his soul does not rest in the strength or the stability of his faith but in the steadfast love of the Lord and in the sinless sacrifice of Christ Jesus. What good news this is for anxious hearts, and weary souls, and doubting minds.

Though Grandpa was not without his faults and failures, I remember him as a living, breathing, walking proverb—perhaps you do too. He was a man of few words, but when he spoke, you listened. Maybe this is why some people wished that he would have said more while he was here with us.

As we consider the good life that Donald Heck lived, I would like to briefly highlight three words that aptly describe this man that we knew and loved.

First, he was a judicious man. Perhaps this goes without saying, but I think it describes more than just his vocation as a judge. Don knew right from wrong—if only we had more of those people in our world today. He was a man who knew that, “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him” (Pr. 18:17). He was slow to make judgments, but when a guilty verdict was reached, he knew how to render a just punishment. I know this firsthand from the many times that he and grandma would put soap in my mouth when I was unruly as a child, and from the time that my friends and I flipped and damaged one of his four-wheelers. Because Don was a judicious man, we learned how to take responsibility for our actions, and to make things right when we were in the wrong. I’m sure many of you could add stories like mine to the list. I loved talking to Grandpa about the world, and about politics, and about anything else because I trusted his judgment.

Second, Don was an industrious man.  He was a man who used his hands to build things, and to beautify things, and to bless those around him—to bless us. We are all the recipients of his diligence and handiwork. How many memories have been made at the ranch and at the Kadoka house and at the cabin that he built with his hands? Way too many to count if you ask me. Grandpa never met a project that he didn’t like. He never faced an owner’s manual that was too intimidating for him to open and inspect. And he never seemed rushed for time. He would just stroll around—slowly—in the background and whistle while he worked. Things got done, and he did them.

Lastly, Don was a generous man. Psalm 112:5 says, “It is well with the man who deals generously and lends; who conducts his affairs with justice.” It was well with Grandpa. Not only did he love to help those in need around him, he also loved to spoil his family with a steak dinner at the Alpine Inn or the Outback Steakhouse, or to treat them to breakfast at his favorite restaurant, Cracker Barrel. And not only was he generous with his finances, but he was also generous with his time. He loved being with his family, he shared his cabin freely, he spent countless hours watching his grandsons play baseball, and he never once complained about what it cost him. Perhaps, he did some of these things only because Freddie made him do them. But guess what, he was generous with her too. And today, we get to honor him for the way that he gave himself for those around him.

Grandpa’s judgment, his industry, and his generosity were reflections of the character of the God he served. In Donald Heck, we had a gift, an example of embodied wisdom that we did not deserve.

And today, we plant Grandpa in the ground. Graveyards are gardens, and like a seed, Donald Heck is planted. Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). And just as Jesus died and was buried in the tomb. So too, he rose again from the grave and was resurrected as the firstfruits from the dead. And we are told in 1 Corinthians 15 that all who die in Christ shall also be made alive with him and will have their physical bodies resurrected and united to their souls on the last day. And when the Chief Farmer harvests this field, Grandpa Don will be among the crop.

But even now, while Don is absent from his flesh, he is at home with the Lord (cf. 2 Cor. 5:6-8). He is freed from the presence and power of remaining sin. He is freed from the frailness of his failing body. He is freed from all his doubts and his loneliness. And he is where he has always wanted to be—face to face with his Savior and fully satisfied in him. And if he could return to us now, I think he would tell us to believe in Christ, because it is all worth it.

And while he is now in heaven, we remain here on earth, somehow still surprised and saddened at death’s sudden arrival. But our lives will go on in the wake and memory of this man, and we praise God for his steadfast love and covenant faithfulness to us, for God let us live downstream from the grace that flowed from Donald Leon Heck.

May we continue to trust in Christ with our lives like he did, and one day be joined again with him in the resurrection when Christ returns for his own.

Malachi 2:15 reveals one of God’s own aims for human marriage: “Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring.”

In marriage, God himself joins a man and a woman and makes them one. And God himself intends for each Christian marriage to produce godly offspring. God’s purpose is for marriage to result, not simply in more offspring, but in godly offspring. The goal is sons and daughters who trust the Lord and love him with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

On Sunday, May 12, we introduced 15 children from 14 families, as those parents dedicated themselves to raising their sons and daughters in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In Psalm 78, one of the passages in Scripture that informs our practice of Parent & Child Dedication, we see the God-given task, purpose, and result of parenting.

“Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth! I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments”
—Psalm 78:1–8

Verse 5 says, “He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children.”

That command is found in Deuteronomy 6, where parents are first commanded to love the Lord wholeheartedly and to carry his Word on their hearts. Then parents are told to diligently teach God’s works and words to their children.

The verbal witness of parents is central in Psalm 78. It speaks of “teaching,” “the words of my mouth,” “sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our fathers told us” (vv. 2–3). Verse 4 says, “We will … tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.” And verses 5 and 6 speak of teaching the Word of God to children and telling children about the wondrous works of God.

The task of parenting, then, is to resolve by God’s grace to immerse children in the Word of God from infancy.

We see this in verse 7: “He commanded our fathers to teach their children, that the next generation might know them, … and arise and tell them to their children ... so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments” (Psalm 78:5–7).

Why did God command parents to teach his Word to their children? So that they should set their hope in God. Reproducing living and active faith is the purpose of parenting. As parents teach children God’s Word, the goal is not merely that children know God’s Word with their heads, but that they love and trust God with their hearts.

The prayer and longing of Christian parents is that our children will one day come to trust Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of their sins and for the fulfillment of every promise Jesus makes to them, and that they will be steadfast in heart and faithful in spirit.

Look again at vv. 5 and 6: “He commanded our fathers to teach their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children.” From our fathers to us, from us to our children, and on and on.

This same multi-generational transmission of faith is discernible in the opening verses as well, where “our fathers have told us” and “we will … tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord.”  (vv. 3–4). From our fathers to us, from us to the coming generation, generation after generation.

Throughout Scripture, God is interested, not only in children, but in children’s children. And Psalm 103 records this promise: “The steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant” (Psalm 103:17–18).

If God is interested in generational faithfulness—if God desires generation after generation of faithful disciples, then so should we.

And that’s why we practice Parent & Child Dedication. These families are responding in faith to God’s promises and commands to parents. They are accepting by faith this God-given responsibility. The most important thing to know about parenting is that it’s all by grace through faith in Christ.

All day, every day, you are making distinctions between good and bad. You are making determinations about what would be good or bad in a given circumstance, and then acting accordingly. How do you know the difference between good and bad, and how did you learn that? By what standard are you able to call something bad or good?

These are some of the foundational questions in the disciple called ethics. Likely, you have taken some sort of ethics class at some point in your life—either in high school or college. Often, ethics is viewed and discussed primarily in the world of theory or philosophy. It can often feel as though it is nothing more than thought experiments—like a complicated version of the game “Would You Rather.” But however you answer those theoretical questions, you are using some standard of right and wrong. And we assume (rightly) that good and evil are objective, existing outside of us, and apply to all of us equally. And as Christians, we believe that the source of this standard is God and his revelation to us in Christ and in Scripture.

The study of ethics is not supposed to stay in the realm of theory. One of the foundational questions of ethics is, “how shall we live?” This is not supposed to stay in our minds, but will necessarily come out of our fingertips. Therefore, we must take care about what the Bible says about how we are to live. So what does the Bible say about our actions?

If you found yourself talking to an unbeliever about the Bible, you would likely hear some complaint about all the rules and laws contained within. You will likely hear about all the “Thou Shalts” and Thou Shalt Nots” that they likely find backwards, outdated, and oppressive. Although it is true that the Bible does contain many imperatives and commands, it also contains many more indicatives—statements of reality.

Doug Wilson helpfully defines it this way:

There is a basic difference between the indicative and the imperative. The indicative is simply a statement of fact. The imperative is a command. The indicative states, “The book is on the table.” The imperative commands, “Put the book on the table.” The former states what is; the latter attempts to control what will be.

—Doug Wilson

We must understand how those two work in the gospel logic. All of the imperatives in the Bible flow out of the indicatives. We can and must act because certain realities are true first. And this order is vital—indicative then imperative. If we reverse this order—imperative then indicative—we twist Scripture into some sort of earned salvation. Instead of 1 John 4:19 reading “We love because he first loved us”, it would read “We love so that he will then love us.” This is not the gospel.

Doug Wilson again is helpful:

The imperatives of the Bible tell me what I must do. The indicatives of the Bible tell me what has been done. When I take the message of what has been done and turn it into something that I must do, I am twisting Scripture.

—Doug Wilson

We do not “do” the right things (ethics) in order to secure our status—our status is secured in Christ first. Thus we are empowered and enabled and commanded to “do” the right things (ethics). If our obedience to the commands of God are done in an attempt to earn or secure our status before God, it will fail. We will be frustrated. We will never experience any assurance, because our assurance is based on our performance, which is inconsistent at best.

Praise God that this is not the case! Our status before our God is not on the basis of our obedience, but on the basis of Christ’s. But as we have been learning in James, that is not to say that we need not obey. Far from it! Because of what Christ has done, we not only can obey, but we must.

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

—Ezekiel 36:26–27

What was commanded in the Old Covenant is now the promised reality of the New Covenant. Obedience is a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.

Recently I was taking my son to school. He was extremely reluctant to go, wishing to just stay home and keep playing. As we walked to my car to leave the house he said to me, “But Dad, I can’t go to school. I’m just a little kid.” As adorable and sweet as that was—and as tempted as I was to just acquiesce and let him go back inside and keep playing dinosaurs—I knelt down and reminded him of who he was and how God made him.

He was built not to stay in the home, sheltered from the world and from growing responsibilities. He was made and built by God to grow, develop, learn, and be sent out into the world to build nations and fight dragons, all to the glory of the God who alone makes it possible.

We are just like that. Our temptation is to declare that we can’t do it or we don’t want to do it, but by God’s grace secured in Christ and applied to us through the Holy Spirit, we can do what God has called us to do.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

—Ephesians 2:8–10

Because of the gospel, we have victory over our sin. Let us fight to obey and walk in the good works God has prepared for us in Christ Jesus.

The Great Divorce, published 1945, by C.S. Lewis, is a captivating read. Often misunderstood as an allegorical work, Lewis himself referred to it as a “supposal.” Lewis, drawing from his deep imaginative well, supposes a fantasy world where men and women from heaven and hell meet to have a discussion about their innermost desires, longings, and how they got to where they are. It is a sobering book because of the accuracy in which it describes the heart of humanity.  However, it is also a hopeful book because of its clarity in revealing the heart of Christ.

There are two main characters in this work—Lewis writes himself as the first, who is the narrator of the story, and the second is the 19th century Scottish minister and fantasy author George MacDonald. The narrator is one of the many men and women who travel up from hell by way of a special bus into the outskirts of heaven. Upon arrival, the passengers instantly realize they are in a different kind of country. As the narrator remarks looking at his fellow travelers, “They were in fact ghosts: man-shaped stains on the brightness of that air. One could attend to them or ignore them at will as you do with dirt on a window pane. I noticed that the grass did not bend under their feet: even the dew drops were not disturbed.”

This detail is of central importance. Heaven serves as the ultimate, permanent, and eternal reality. Those from below are living in the shadowland. They themselves are exposed in this country due to their corrupted nature. They can barely walk on the blades of grass—it actually causes them pain. A raindrop falling from the sky would rip holes through their shadowy bodies. The land is not safe for them—they will need to be transformed to experience its fullness and beauty. I suspect that as Lewis penned this narrative he had 2 Corinthians 3:18 in mind: “And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.”

What does this transformation from “one degree of glory to another” require?” This is the question that is answered through the rest of the story. We walk with the narrator, listening in on the dialogues between the ghostly shadowy people and the bright, solid people. We learn that the real, solid humans have journeyed far from deep within the mountains where they have been experiencing the fullness and beauty of Christ. The aim of their quest is to reveal this beauty, to draw the voyagers in so they can witness it for themselves.

Interesting enough, you will notice the people that travel up from the abyss are not the devilish monsters you might expect. No, instead, Lewis writes in characters that are much more relatable. A mother that (while alive) held too tight of a grip on her son, a wife who did the same to her husband, a renowned artist that was passionate about his profession, and highly respected business people and academics who chased status, just to name a few. It is through these ordinary people that Lewis reveals the dividing line, or great divorce, between truth and fiction, life and death, Heaven and Hell.

So what is it that these shadow people need to do to become citizens of this high country? “And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23

As you read through these conversations you will see that the heavenly people, like Jesus, are calling for the visitors to deny themselves. Full surrender of self, and all desires, will lead to regeneration. Beholding Christ for His own sake and repentance can cure the ghosts, making them bright and solid. But pride stands in the way, keeping many from accepting the offer to be made new. You’ll see these ghostly people have desires that are ostensibly good, but without regeneration these passions are unfit for the Holy land they occupy. Lewis writes, “Every natural love will rise again and live forever in this country: but none will rise again until it has been buried.” (105).

Death to self is the precondition to breathe the sweet air, to drink the cool water, to become solid enough to summit the mountain where every satisfaction is met. It was for the joy set before Him that Jesus endured his sufferings (Hebrews 12:1-2), and it is that same joy that is offered to these disoriented souls. Too many of them, tragically, have been numbed by a lifetime of self-centered actions and superficial choices—settling for the copy when they could have the original, mistaking the sign for the thing signified. One of the solid people tries to explain this to a stubborn ghost who is shut in by his curiosity, unwilling to accept that there is an answer to all his questions: “It’s all true you know. He is in me, for you, with that power. And–I have come a long journey to meet you. You have seen Hell: you are in sight of Heaven. Will you, even now, repent and believe?” (39)

The Great Divorce is a short book, jam packed with goodness. Lewis has an uncanny ability to awaken the imagination to add clarity to the most difficult questions in life. May it encourage you in your journey to the mountains!

There are many opportunities for us to gather together as the church during the week, but what happens on Sunday—well, there is nothing like it. On Sunday, we are surrounded by others who are tasting and seeing that the Lord is good. On Sunday, we have the joy of joining our voices with the sound of many praises being sung to God. On Sunday, we have the privilege of being uniquely positioned with the church under the Word of God that is preached. Sunday is a time we fellowship together, serve one another, edify the body. Don’t you love Sundays? I sure do.

And while I could list off many more reasons for why we love coming together as the church on Sunday, there is something that precedes our gathering and gives it meaning. There is an unshakable reality that engenders more anticipation and worship for our hearts than any other good thing. That reality is God Himself. Before we gather, God is. He is! And that changes everything.

God did not happen. Like one day, ‘poof’ He showed up on the scene. No, God is. There is nothing before Him and nothing beyond Him. One of the most concise ways that God reveals this about Himself is in Exodus 3:13–14. Moses is encountering the living God on Mount Horeb, and a conversation ensues.

“Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

—Exodus 3:13–14

In saying, “I AM WHO I AM,” God is revealing to Moses and to us that there is no one or nothing like Him. God is, and that has incredible implications for us as we gather on Sunday. Here are three things that this declaration of God communicates so that our love and anticipation for being with the church on Sunday grows.

God precedes everything. He never began. Nobody made God (Acts 17:24). He always was and always is and always will be (Psalm 45:6). There is no number or limit you can place on God as “the number of His years are unsearchable” (Job 36:26).

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

—Psalm 90:2

God will never end. He is absolute. He will never not be. And that means there is no reality outside of Him, unless He says so—unless He wills it or creates it.

God is eternal, and that matters for our gatherings with the church because it means He precedes everything we do and He is the aim of everything we do. We don’t gather for ourselves—we gather because of God who endures forever. We don’t hold up the gathering and make it happen. It doesn’t happen unless God is.

So when we gather together this Sunday, think on the reality that God eternal, in eternity past, thought this moment, and is speaking this moment into being, and is upholding this moment, with absolute freedom, and absolute joy—so we might praise Him forever.

For God to be independent means that no one is holding God up. He does not need a helping hand. No one is telling God what to do, whispering in His ear the real plan. Another way we could say it is that God is self-sufficient. He is not dependent on anything outside of Himself.

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

—Romans 11:33–36

Think on all the things that make you dependent. You need food and friends. God has never been lonely because He is always enjoying full fellowship in the Trinity (John 17:24). He has no needs because He is fully satisfied in Himself (Psalm 36:8). We need sleep or we die, He is the One who never sleeps nor slumbers (Psalm 121:3-4). There are no obstacles in front of Him that cause Him to pause and worry (Isaiah 46:9-10). Everything that isn’t God is dependent upon God (Acts 17:25). He is independent, self-sufficient, and all-sufficient.

And that is significant for our gatherings because first, He does not need us. He is not served by human hands as though He needed anything. We’re not doing God a favor when we gather together. We aren’t the ones who keep the flame burning.

So when we gather together on Sunday and you are keenly mindful of so many things you need, think on the reality that God is independent, and there is nothing standing in His way to meet your many needs in His sufficiency. And what’s more staggering is that, though He does not need us, He has called us and redeemed us so that we can please Him with faith that is expressed in constant need for Him.

God is the source of all that is good, and for what is beautiful and right (James 1:17). And all He does is good and beautiful and right (Psalm 25:8). He is the ultimate standard for truth and so all He does is in accordance with who He is.

“Righteous are you, O LORD, and right are your rules.”

—Psalm 119:137

Because God is infinitely pure and right and good, that means He is the most important reality we could ever know. Nothing outweighs God, nothing outshines God, nothing out-satisfies God. He is THE Worthy One.

This is significant for our gatherings because He determines when we meet, what we should do, and why it all matters. We not only get our cues for how to live from Him, but He reveals what we should do and why it’s important—what is worth our affection and what’s not. We would not know that what we’re doing is a really good thing unless God was not who He is and did not do what He does.

So this Sunday when we gather together as the church and you come preoccupied with a bunch of things you think are important, think on the reality that God is righteous and He is more worthy than the best things. He is more impressive than the greatest landscape you’ve ever seen on a vacation, more true than what we might be tempted to think up on our own, and worship begins and ends with Him.

Unless God is, gathering together doesn’t make much sense. There are no songs of praise. There is no unity, or joy, or satisfying fellowship. Something precedes our worship of God, and that is God Himself. Before we gather, God is. Would that this unshakable reality that is beneath our gathering together as the church spark steady confidence and eager anticipation in us week after week.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader begins with the memorable line, “There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” And while he almost deserved that name, there was something that he most certainly did not deserve—grace. But that was exactly what he got.

He was a miserable boy who only read the wrong sorts of books. He knew lots about exports and imports and governments but very little about dragons. He was sulky, moody, and disagreeable. It wasn’t so much that no one liked him—though it was definitely hard to like him—it was that he didn’t much like anyone else.

And he remained that way, ugly and unchanged; that is, until Aslan changed him. I want to tell you about how that happened.

At one point in the story, Eustace found himself alone in a dark valley with a decrepit and dying dragon. Fortunately for him, the dragon didn’t notice him, hobbled to a nearby pool for a drink of water, and died without a fight. Swelling with misplaced pride at his so-called victory, Eustace took shelter in the dragon’s lair and contemplated all the things he planned to selfishly do with his newly-acquired dragon wealth. He thought dragonish thoughts. He fell asleep. And then, unironically, he awoke a dragon.

The point is not to belabor all that he did while he was a dragon, the point is to explain how he became un-dragoned.

The experience of being a dragon eventually made Eustace come to his senses and realize how miserable of a person that he truly was. It was at this point when a huge lion approached him. The lion beckoned him to follow him up the mountain to a garden and told him to undress—and terrified, Eustace obeyed.

At first, he tried to use his dragon claws to scratch off his scaly skin. But after several molts were removed, there was always a new layer of skin underneath. In his own power, Eustace found he was powerless to get his dragon skin off. As one author has said, “As long as Eustace was doing his own scraping, it would be dragon skins all the way down.” Eustace recalls…

“Then the lion said—but I don’t know if it spoke—‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off” (pg. 109).

Only the lion was able to remove the dragon skin. It was incredibly painful for Eustace, but the pain was entirely necessary. Because of it, he was no longer a dragon. And after a cool bath and a new set of clothes, he was just Eustace again—but a changed boy, a new man.

After Eustace retells the story of his encounter with the lion to Edmund, Edmund tells him that the lion must have been Aslan. Eustace responds by saying, “But who is Aslan? Do you know him?” And Edmund says, “Well—he knows me… He is the great Lion, the son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, who saved me and saved Narnia” (pg. 111).

What is amazing is that the story of Eustace is the story of each one of us. Helplessly miserable, sinful, and poor. Unworthy to receive grace and favor from God. Unable to save ourselves in our own power.

But, as Christians, our testimonies are all the same. We can say, “God knows me. God saved me. God is changing me. And I do not deserve any of it one bit.” In fact, all we deserve is the name Sinner.

Ephesians 2:1-10 says:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

But God. Perhaps the two most comforting words in the whole Bible. God made us alive. God undressed us so that he could dress us up. God took our filthy, unrighteous rags and gave us his pure, righteous robes. The process wasn’t always painless or pretty, but it was necessary. He had to first unmake us so that he could remake us after his image.

And what’s humbling about all of this is that he’s not done yet. Lewis writes about Eustace near the end of the chapter…

“It would be nice, and fairly nearly true, to say that ‘from that time forth Eustace was a different boy.’ To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still many days when he could be very tiresome. But most of those I shall not notice. The cure had begun” (pg. 112).

Isn’t that true of us too? We still sin and falter at times. We haven’t yet stepped across those eternal shores where there is no more death, and crying, and tears, and sin, and struggle. But take heart, for those who are in Christ Jesus, the cure has begun.

Memorizing Scripture is a fruitful practice. If you’re not one of those people blessed with photographic memory, this may be a daunting and difficult practice, but the rewards make it worthwhile.

James is one of the most popular books of the Bible amongst everyday Christians. The letter is full of practical wisdom and vivid word pictures. There are many passages in James that would be beneficial to memorize.

If you’ve never memorized an entire book of the Bible, James would be a good one. The whole letter is just over 2300 words in the ESV, or roughly 15–20 minutes of speaking. (For inspiration, check out this video of my friend and fellow Sovereign Grace pastor Joel Shorey, reciting the book of Hebrews from memory.)

Below you will find a selection of recommended passages to memorize from James. I chose these passages because

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. —James 1:2–4

This opening exhortation not only sets the tone for the whole letter, it functions powerfully in our lives every time we face trials, challenges, tests, and afflictions. This passage provides us with much needed perspective, which is worth storing in your heart for those times when you need to preach it to yourself.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. —James 1:12

If faith is confidence that God will keep his promises, then knowing specific promises is crucial to living by faith. This promise is suited for ‘trials of various kinds,’ from tiny trifles to  major afflictions. Arm yourself with this promise!

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. —James 1:19–20

Opportunities to get angry are abundant. Slowness is to anger is precious and rare. In Proverbs, being slow to anger is a mark of wisdom (Prov 14:29, 19:11, 29:11), and here is wisdom from James to help us slow down. The first part of the passage holds out God’s instruction for us. The second part provides powerful motivation: sinful anger does not sanctify anyone.

For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. —James 2:13

This truth is comforting and convicting. We all want to be recipients of mercy when we’re in the wrong, but we demand justice when others wrong us. Memorize James 2:13 and preach this to yourself when you are tempted to respond in bitterness toward the person who sins against you. Can you honestly say that when you stand before God, you want God to deal with you the way you deal with those who sin against you? That is how Jesus taught us to pray: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12).

For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. —James 2:26

This is a central point in James, and it would be worthwhile to memorize more of the surrounding passage (James 2:14–26). Understanding the relationship between faith and works is vital to the Christian life, and James gives us great clarity when he calls for living and active faith.

Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. —James 3:13–18

We are often reminded of our desperate need for wisdom (Jas 1:5), and here is the compelling description of the kind of fruit produced by God-given wisdom, set forth in stark contrast with worldly and demonic ways. The description alone is motivating, but it comes with a sweet promise of a fruitful harvest.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” —James 4:1–6

This passage asks and answers one of the most important and practical questions in life, and it doesn’t pull any punches. The cause of conflict is disordered passions and desires inside our own hearts. The wisdom of this diagnosis is applicable in all of your relationships—marriage, parenting, in-laws, co-workers, etc.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. —James 4:13–17

In all of our focus on goal-setting, planning, and productivity, it’s easy to drift into sinful attitudes—from arrogance and self-reliance to anxiety and despair. This passage provides the divine paradigm that will both stabilize and motivate us.

My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. —James 5:19–20

This last passage stirs up our evangelistic zeal. We need both courage and love to overcome the fear that keeps us from speaking the truth to those who are living in sin. It is motivating to know that God uses people like us to rescue eternal souls from death.

Out of the 3 books I set out to read so you don’t have to, I knew that Jesus & John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez was going to be the most intense. With a subtitle How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, it isn’t difficult to see why this book caused quite a splash when it was released in 2020. Published in the midst of the political and evangelical earthquake that was the beginning of this decade, rather than offer solutions, Du Mez’s book adds to the confusion.

Her project traces all the various threads of the last 100 years in evangelicalism to show that theology, power, and politics were all intertwined to make the nomination and subsequent election of Donald Trump to the American presidency inevitable. In essence, Du Mez makes the implicit case that in 2016, evangelicals voted for Donald Trump not in spite of his moral flaws, but precisely because of them.

At almost 300 pages of historical prose, Du Mez takes a blow-by-blow approach, walking through every aspect of cultural evangelicalism in the 20th and 21st centuries. This is another attempt at "history.” However, like Beth Allison Barr, although she is attempting to be objective in her history, Du Mez can not help but show her cards throughout. She clearly has an ax to grind, and she can not hide her bias.

The nature of this book makes it really difficult to review—it is part storytelling, part historical drama, and part shrill activism. Du Mez has dismissed any and all critiques of her book by deflecting, accusing her audience of misunderstanding the connection between faith and history, and claiming that people simply want to discredit her and her work (for one example, see here). So this review is an attempt to highlight the key problems I see with this book and the dangerous method it employs. Let’s begin.

The title of the book is central to her argument. She asserts that Christians of the 1900s were sick of wimpy, feminine Christians, so they latched on to anybody who exuded some form of masculinity—like John Wayne. Wayne's masculinity was militant and rugged, and that masculinity was then transferred to homes from fathers to sons, producing a hyper-masculinity and inevitable patriarchy (more on that below).

Americans in the 20th century, particularly post WWII, desired to see America become a leading figure in the world, and despised any sort of effeminacy. The general love of manly men like John Wayne, despite his moral foibles, were evidence of this. American Christians, then, fought to reconcile that rugged and aggressive masculinity with traditional Christian virtue. For Du Mez, this approval of brash Christianity was at its root racist. "Invariably, however, the heroic Christian man was a white man, and not infrequently a white man who defended against the threat of nonwhite men and foreigners (p. 39)."

Du Mez then spends chapter after chapter connecting the assumed dots. Throughout the entire project, she makes every effort to show the connection between religion and politics—the creation of the “Religious Right”. This, coupled with “macho masculinity” led inevitably to militarism and Christian nationalism (p. 95). She seems to be tracing and critiquing these pastors and theologians from various decades and across a diverse range of contexts—ranging from Billy Graham to Carl Henry to James Dobson to Mark Driscoll—as war-mongering and dramatic men with the intention of stirring up religious activism. Ironically, Du Mez’s entire book is meant to do the exact same thing.

Du Mez’s targets vary, but very clearly in her crosshairs are the topics of reformed theology and complementarianism (patriarchy). Again, multiple chapters are given to tracing the history of the dramatic and public sexual scandals throughout the past 100 years in evangelicalism. Oftentimes, Du Mez’s book reads like a gossip column of a bygone era, carelessly weaving together facts and allegations from suspect and disgruntled sources. It is as if she has collected all of the salacious details of the very real sins of men in order to create a barrage of cases to prove some point. But what is her point?

Du Mez’s clear intent is to show you that conservative theology necessarily produces these types of abuse. For Du Mez (and Barr), the flowchart looks like this: inerrancy leads to patriarchy, which leads to Christian nationalism, which leads to white supremacy (p. 27). For Du Mez, this is a slippery slope that results in racism, misogyny, and sexual abuse. But this simply doesn’t follow. Can bread, in certain conditions and if left unattended, develop mold? Of course. But that doesn’t mean all bread necessarily will produce mold. And it certainly doesn’t mean that the possibility of mold means to never make bread. The same analogy could be employed for every position, including Du Mez’s. In a sinful world, there will always be cases of abuse and extreme misapplication, but that doesn’t mean that the starting point was wrong.

There is also an obvious association fallacy between all these stories. Just because these cases have some things in common—conservative evangelicalism and “traditional” views of manhood and womanhood—does not mean they are the same nor that they will lead to the same conclusion. Any student of Church history would contest the equivocation between men like Billy Graham and Bill Gothard, Mark Driscoll and James Dobson, and more. It is just simply too simplistic to equivocate between all these characters in order to draw the conclusions that she does.

One of the most frustrating parts of reading this book was that Du Mez documents these events throughout history and presents them as objective, undisputed facts. This is laughably and demonstrably false. There is no such thing as a perspective from nowhere. There is no such thing as an objective history. Throughout the entire project, beginning with her subtitle, Du Mez reveals that she has an axe to grind. Words and phrases are loaded and framed in a negative light—”patriarchal marriage”, “militant Christianity”, “fundamentalist preacher”, “conservative evangelicals”, “‘getting saved’” (in scare quotes). Her attempt at scholarly work reads more like hysterical activism.

I would dare say that any and all of the cast of characters she describes throughout all 300 pages would object to the way that Du Mez represents them. Many of the men she describes are dead, so they are unable to defend themselves. But many are alive—some are even men I know. So where is she getting all her info?

This may be a personal thing, but I like books that include their citations in the footnotes of the page. Not only does that make the reading experience easier (as opposed to in-text citations that muddy the prose), but it also allows the reader to check and trace the author’s sourcing much quicker and easier. Du Mez’s citations are all collected at the end of the book in a sea of words and numbers, forcing you to flip back and forth to see where she gets her evidence.

I’m not attributing any malicious motivation to her, but simply to note that, as you read story after story and scandal after scandal, you really are taking her word for it. However, I started digging into her sources for the more recent scandals. I found many of her citations to be websites. When followed through, I discovered that there are frequent references to activist blogs. For example, when commenting on an alleged cover up abuse scandal, Du Mez cites a blog by T.F. Carlton, a former member of the church in question, as an accurate and authoritative source on the history of the scandal. However, T.F. Carlton’s bio reads as “the founder/editor of Are Women Human?, a space for queer feminist and critical race analysis of religion, media, and pop culture.” Considering what she is critiquing is a conservative, reformed church like ours, this is far from an objective, scholarly source.

If this is her method, doubt is cast on all of her historical work throughout the entire book.

This is not a serious work. Despite the appearance of an unflinching history and a machine-gun approach meant to overwhelm the reader with evidence, Du Mez’s book lands as nothing but a shrill and unhelpful piece of activism. It is filled with dishonest framing and misrepresentation.

Despite a complete absence of Scripture or theological engagement, Du Mez can’t help but make theological and ethical conclusions. But because she presents this material as simple and objective history, you must accept her implicit conclusions or be seen as part of the problem. But I can condemn the very real sin and lament the very real pain described in these stories, as well as reject the conclusion that it is the natural and unavoidable consequence of conservative theology. In fact, it is precisely because of my biblical standards that I am able to call that sin wrong. I can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Proverbs 20:19 says, “Whoever goes about slandering (“gossiping” NIV) reveals secrets; therefore do not associate with a simple babbler.” The wisdom of Scripture, and my recommendation, would be to avoid the gossip and babbling found in the pages of Jesus & John Wayne.

Moving from Aimee Byrd’s book to the more recent The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr was not only a shift in time (2021) but in tone. Right from the introductory chapter, it is clear that what is about to follow is personal for Barr.

She opens with a story of her husband losing his job as a youth pastor at a conservative Southern Baptist church. The reason Barr gives us is that he had dared to challenge the beliefs of the Elders—particularly their refusal to allow women to preach and hold leadership positions in their church. The predictable narrative of the betrayal of leadership, abandonment by friends, and relational bifurcation follows as is typical in those who leave churches for such grievances.

But, as will become a theme, Barr’s hurt was multiplied because she knew better. “And the hardest truth of all was that I bore greater responsibility than most in our church because I had known that complementarian theology was wrong (p. 6).” She had stayed silent while the church leaders propagated a theology that she knew was wrong—but now, she will stay silent no longer.

This tone pervades the entirety of Barr’s book, which is part historical argument and part personal narrative. This is clear as chapter after chapter contains stories of her experiences in the classroom or in her (very former) church, being frustrated by her suppressed gifts at church, and her historically ignorant students in her college classroom who don’t know all that she knows.

For Barr, “biblical womanhood”—a confusing term because she uses “biblical” in a sarcastic sense against her opponents—is her catch-all word for complementarianism and patriarchy. And her relationship with those terms is inseparably personal. As she says clearly, “[My] experience, along with my husband’s firing, frames how I think about complementarianism today (p. 204).” At least she knows she’s not objective—at least all of her cards are on the table.

With that in mind, here are a couple weaknesses I perceived throughout her entire project.

Dr. Beth Allison Barr is the James Vardaman Endowed Professor of History at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Her speciality is Women History, particularly in the Medieval period. It’s clear that she is a historian—a fact that she will not let you forget with the repeated expression throughout, “As a historian, I know…” (I stopped counting at 15 examples). This expertise governs the lens by which she considers all of this, but that leads to a few problems.

History is a necessary and helpful form of revelation. However, it is vital we understand what history does and what it does not do. History is helpful inasmuch we understand it to be documentation of man’s interaction with God and his world. It tells us what was. But history, on its own, can not tell us what should have been. We need a different tool for that.

As C.S. Lewis says, you cannot get an ought from an is. Barr spends page after page telling us story after story of Medieval women who rose in the ranks of Church leadership, who preached boldly, and who so followed God’s calling that they threw aside their duties as wives and mothers to preach like men. But underneath all of this is a begging question that continues throughout—is that good? Is it bad? How do we know? History reveals what was—theology and ethics seek what ought to be.

As Christians, we have an answer to this epistemological problem. We thank God that he has not left us blind, but has revealed to us his divine will in his inspired word (1 Tim 3:16–17). So I was both pleased and disappointed when Barr did go to the Scripture in her chapter entitled “What If Biblical Womanhood Doesn’t Come from Paul?”

Dr. Barr is a historian (again). How she reads and understands Paul is intrinsically bound to the ways she understands that Paul’s words have been abused. That colors her lens so much that after stating a straightforward and Biblical position—that Paul’s household codes and his understanding of manhood and womanhood are grounded in Genesis 2 and creational realities, not fallen social constructs—she simply states, “Men lead, women follow. Paul tells us so. Is it any wonder my students hate Paul (p. 41)?”

Yikes. A good teacher would ask the question, “should they hate Paul? Or do they need to change their views?” In other words, whatever your final authority is will determine how you view Paul. If the Bible is your final authority, you will seek with all your might to understand what it is he is saying in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 and 1 Timothy 2 and obey. If your final authority is something else, you will use that other framework to make Paul say something he isn’t.

Because Barr is operating out of such an historical framework, she argues that Paul was simply a man of his time, operating in a Roman patriarchal system, and that if you read his words in Ephesians with the right emphasis, it becomes obvious that Paul was actually resisting Roman hierarchical structures. Somehow, Paul is actually saying the exact opposite of what he is saying. And isn’t it possible that he is doing that everywhere that he mentions the household codes? Thus Barr is able to declare that we have read Paul wrong (p. 66).

Exegesis matters. And our method matters. We believe that Paul’s letters were actual letters Paul wrote that had a real historical audience, occasion, and intent. And before we can apply the truth of God’s word to ourselves (hermeneutics), we must labor to know what was Paul’s original intended intent for his letters—and of course, that will include historical context. But we also believe that these letters are not just historical documents, but that Paul (and all the Biblical writers) were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet 1:21) and thus produced a divinely inspired text (2 Tim 3:16–17). We must labor to take God at his word, but Barr’s historical presuppositions wreak havoc on her hermeneutic.

It’s important to note that none of the objections raised by Barr in her book are new to the complementarian position. There are Biblically satisfying answers to her exegetical and historical questions. The purpose of this review is not to answer those objections point by point (for a short and faithful primer, see here). But there is a pervasive weakness in Barr’s argument, and it is in how she frames her opponents.

As a historian, she is able to tell us what has happened. But she often then takes the next step to tell you why it is happening. For example, during the Reformation, domesticity and being a wife were elevated to a place of honor. However, rather than the motivation for that being the Reformers’ recommitment to go to the Scriptures and to the sources (ad fontes), the clear reason for this, according to Barr, is the desire to subjugate the women who had gotten out of control during the Middle Ages.

Another example described the debate that was ignited in the 1990s with the release of the new edition of the New International Version (NIV) translation of the Bible, specifically its introduction of “gender-neutral” language. In response, Wayne Grudem led the team of translators that would produce a new, more faithful translation—the English Standard Version (ESV). In her discussion, rather than disagree with the ESV committee’s translations of the original Greek, she is somehow able to omnisciently decree that their sole motivation for the ESV was to secure male headship and keep women in their place (p. 132). Later, she conflates this same motivation to the battle in the 1900s for inerrancy. Again, rather than disagree with her opponents on an exegetical level, she simply declares that inerrancy was important because it provided an opportunity to push women out of the pulpit (p. 191).

The sad result of this type of argumentation is that it removes any ability to have an actual discussion that works toward agreement. It creates an environment where there is no choice but to talk past one another. If even my commitment to the Bible’s inerrancy is tainted with motivations to subjugate women, there is no way to avoid that. If there is no objective truth for us to seek, then there is no way to bridge our divide. This is lamentable.

With the popularity of Barr’s book, there have been many reactions and reviews. For a gracious and chapter-by-chapter review, I recommend Dr. Brad Green’s—a former professor of mine at the Pastors College—review (found here). For a longer and more “in the weeds” review, I recommend Kevin DeYoung’s review on The Gospel Coalition (found here).

Unfortunately, Dr. Barr’s attempt to thread the needle between historical argument, theological exposition, and personal narrative fails.

Out of the 3 books I plan to review, this one is clearly the most serious. What do I mean by “most serious”? This book is not shrill or whiny, but actually attempts to make a real Scriptural argument. Byrd (at least at the time of her writing) would place herself within the general vein of “Big Eva” and, more precisely, in the "Reformed" camp of that world. To me, this is what makes her book the most serious in its danger.

I understood this book to have a similar effect that Betty Friedan’s "The Feminine Mystique" had in America during the 60s. Depressed, anxious, and aimless housewives—made that way by the incredible technological advances that produced dishwashers, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, etc—read that book and could identify with everything the author was saying. Friedan tapped into the pervasive dissatisfaction among women in America in the post-WWII era, which then led to a culture of "empowerment.”

I could see this book having the same effect on a normal, godly, stay-at-home mom who feels overwhelmed by life and little kids, feeling undervalued and underappreciated. She loves her husband, her family, her church, and the Bible, but something feels off. Given those assumptions, I could see this doing real damage to unsuspecting women.

At the very beginning of the book—in her "Introduction That You May Not Skip!" chapter—Byrd introduces a metaphor that she will lean on for the rest of the book. She references a short story written by a woman at the turn of the 20th century who had experienced "rest therapy" for her social anxiety. This therapy called for women who felt overwhelmed by life to sit in a room by themselves and "rest.” Having experienced this “therapy” firsthand, the author took the opportunity to exaggerate the prescription in her short-story.

In the hyperbolic short story, a husband takes the doctor's prescription of rest therapy to the extreme by renting a remote cabin in the woods for his wife to receive the treatment. Essentially, she is locked in a room for a summer. The room she is locked in has peeling yellow wallpaper in it, and as the protagonist slowly loses her mind, she begins to imagine that behind that wallpaper, there is a real, empowered woman that is fighting to get out. If only she would peel back the wallpaper to see the true woman she could become released from this patriarchal prison, manufactured by men who seek to control her.

Throughout the rest of the book, Byrd will use this metaphor to show how the church—traditionally controlled by men—has repressed and almost gaslighted women, denied their full humanity (which must include doing everything men can), and hampered their sanctification.

For Byrd, one of the chief wallpaper installers is the book Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem (The Big Blue Book hereafter), as well as The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW). From the title of this book you can see that it is this complementarian perspective that she has in her sights.

With that introduction, let us turn to two key themes that Byrd weaves throughout her book. While her argument is chaotic at times and ultimately unconvincing, Byrd is thorough in her research, dealing with key people and key arguments. She seeks to engage honestly and directly from the Bible—a commendable and appreciated approach.

Byrd begins where all discussions of life and theology must begin—Scripture. Part 1 of the book is entitled “Recovering the Way We Read Scripture”. She affirms that men and women read the same Bible, but she laments that men and women are taught to read the Bible differently, according to their sex. Instead, she wants men and women to read the Bible equally as humans. She seems to desire an androgynous discipleship where we can all approach the Bible from a neutral, unisex way.

The difficulty with that is that it is not possible to read the Bible detached from our sex. I can not read the Bible without being a man. My wife can not read the Bible without being a woman. In his introduction to The Big Blue Book, John Piper quotes Paul Jewett saying:

Sexuality permeates one’s individual being to its very depth; it conditions every facet of one’s life as a person. As the self is always aware of itself as an ‘I,’ so this ‘I’ is always aware of itself as himself or herself. Our self-knowledge is indissolubly bound up not simply with our human being but with our sexual being. At the human level there is no ‘I and thou’ per se, but only the ‘I’ who is male or female confronting the ‘thou,’ the ‘other,’ who is also male or female.

—Paul Jewett

That is a foundational reality of how God made us. Yes, we are all commanded to obey every word of Scripture, but we can not obey them in some androgynous or unisex way. We obey them as men and as women.

Ironically, Byrd is also critical of how people have missed the gynocentric (female-centric) voice in the Bible through stories like Ruth, Deborah, and Mary and Martha. For her to call for equal representation and highlight female voices is confusing given her demands that we all read the Bible androgynously. She would consider this female-centric neglect part of the yellow wallpaper that needs to be torn down and replaced by the “true woman” revealed in the Bible.

Part of Byrd's failure is her deficient exegesis and chaotic hermeneutic. For instance, as she walks through various female voices in the Bible, she greatly confuses description and prescription. Often, she will look at descriptive narrative (stories) in the Bible—which is equally as inspired as the rest of the Bible—and take it as universal for all people. "Hey, look, a woman leading! Any attempt to repress that is wallpaper and needs to be peeled off!" However, she will take clear commands in the NT (Eph 5, Col 3, 1 Cor 6, etc) and read all sorts of nuance into them to where they no longer mean what they clearly mean. But how we read the Bible matters; and this pervades throughout her book. I find this most dangerous because to the layman, this will look like good "Bible work". But it is deceptive.

From the beginning, it was clear that there are clearly presuppositions that separate Byrd and myself that just aren't bridgeable. My exegetical and hermeneutical framework is what she would call "biblicist", which is just a scary way of saying I read the Bible on its own terms. But those frameworks, those lenses, effect our reading of the Bible.

Byrd rejects the idea of "roles" for men and women, and views them purely as cultural constructs. For Byrd, any attempt to argue for ontological "roles" or differences between men and women is due to a faulty, even heterodox, view of the Trinity. I would simply disagree. So it makes sense why we end in disagreement. However, she makes the bold statement that to disagree with her is to be in sin. I appreciate the clarity.

Like their brothers in the faith, they too are encouraged to seek the greater gifts and to mature in their knowledge of the faith so they can teach others. There's no qualifier in these verses, saying that men are not to learn from women or that women are only to teach their own sex and children. Any divinely ordained differences that men and women have do not prohibit women from teaching. It would be disobedient to Scripture to withhold women from teaching (174).

I appreciate that she deals directly with Genesis 1–2, and not only the “household codes” listed in the NT. It is in the Garden that we see God’s intended design for manhood and womanhood. Genesis 2:24 is the bedrock of all marriages and the way men and women relate to one another.

However, instead of laboring to understand what Moses meant in the opening chapters of the Bible, Byrd launches into a strange, mystical, almost New Age anthropology. Leaning heavily on catholic literature, Byrd takes some weird leaps in Genesis 1–2 to describe a Biblical understanding of men and women. What motivates her demand for equal representation in teaching and leading for men and women in the church is tied to her belief that in order for women to express their humanity, they must express it just like men.

Her conclusion—siblingship. For Byrd, what is needed to peel back the yellow wallpaper is a rediscovery of siblingship between brothers and sisters in Christ. For this, she uses Romans 16 and Paul's references to various women, creating a framework where men and women are totally the same, and should be able to do all things the other can do (lead, teach, etc).

You can see where Byrd got the framework to write a book like "Why Can't We Be Friends"—a book calling for more platonic (intimate yet not erotic) relationships between Christian men and women who are not married. This can and has led to all sorts of tomfoolery, but underneath this is the call for men and women to be disciplined androgynously—which I just don't think is possible. As discussed above, we are always sexual beings and that can not be avoided. So women will grow into Christ AS WOMEN, and men will grow into Christ AS MEN. That's just unavoidable. And because of God's creative work, men and women are different—therefore, our discipleship is different. And that does not negate our humanity.

I appreciate the clarity that Byrd sought to bring to her argument in this book. She is careful in her articulation and her argument attempts to be derived from exegesis rather than emotion. Byrd—at least at the time of writing—would share many of the same core convictions I hold regarding the Bible and its inerrant authority.

But exegetical method—how we determine what the original author meant—is vital. And if we get that wrong, we necessarily will get our hermeneutic—how we apply the original intended meaning to us today—very wrong. Sadly, this is where Byrd fails. And to say that is not to wallpaper over the way women have been mistreated in the past, but rather to point all of us back to the Scriptures, which is the only place we can actually find life.

It has been said before and will likely continue to be said: we live in a confused world. Of course, confusion and chaos has been a category since the Fall, but it seems as though we have entered into a new era of confusion—what Carl Trueman has dubbed the “Strange New World.”

Our society is filled with and led by men and women who don’t know what a man or a woman is. Our school and city libraries contain books aimed at our children promoting promiscuity, homosexuality, and what could rightly be branded pornography. We have detached ourselves from any conception of objective morality and truth, and the result has not been freedom, but tyranny. Up is down, down is up. Like I said—confusion.

One thing that is true of the human condition is that when there is disorder, there will be attempts to bring order to that disorder. A culture and society that is marked by disorientation will look for guidance from sages, prophets, and truth-tellers. And there will always be willing Conditioners who are ready and able to fill that void and tell you what is good, true, and beautiful according to their preferences. It should be no surprise to us that the root of this chaos is a rejection of a transcendent, holy, and glorious God. It really is Christ or chaos, and mankind has a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel headed toward the latter.

So in this confusion, who are some of the sources we turn to for guidance in the fog? The options really are limitless—scientists, politicians, cultural elites, etc. But what about the church? A part of the frustration that many Christians have felt is that in a time of such evident confusion, church leaders have remained silent. Many pastors have decided that it is not in their job description to be experts on politics, CRT, gender theory, etc. They are called to study God’s word … and that’s it. Others are fearful of the blowback that will come whenever you take any stance, not wanting to alienate or offend.

While well-meaning, the result of such stances has left the flocks of American churches totally exposed. And when there is a resulting void, people will turn to someone to help them navigate these confusing times.

Paul could see this coming. This chaotic world is not a 21st century phenomenon, but a universal human one. And in 2 Timothy 4, immediately after earnestly commanding Timothy to preach the word above all else, he gives this reason:

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

—2 Timothy 4:3–4

At Emmaus Road Church, one of our core convictions is our complementarian view of manhood and womanhood. We believe that God has made men and women equal in worth but different in design and duty—and these differences are good and glorious. When men and women live in accordance with these creational realities, families are created, kingdoms and cultures are built, and people flourish. But in our modern age, our society will not endure such sound teaching. And it is a growing theme within the church itself to turn away from such perceived bigotry and follow the new relevant thought leaders into myths that suit the passions of the day. As Lewis says, modern society is attempting to remove the organ of God-designed sexual differences yet demand the function of human flourishing.

This is dangerous.

We want to chart a different course—not a new course, but an ancient course, a biblical course. We want to be clear about what we believe. Over the next 3 posts, I will be posting book reviews of 3 books that I read so that you don’t have to. These books range in their tone, approach, and content, but all are attempting to make the case that a complementarian view of men and women (often dubbed “The Patriarchy” ... scare quotes intended) is dangerous and has been the means by which the church has subjugated women throughout history. The 3 books I will be reviewing are as follows:

• Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, by Aimee Byrd
• The Making of Biblical Womanhood, by Beth Allison Barr
• Jesus & John Wayne, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

The aim in reading and reviewing these books is not to defame and discredit these authors, but rather to be like the Bereans who examined Paul’s words according to the Scriptures to see if they were true (Acts 17:11). That should be our goal in all that we do. We do not believe things because they are trendy or useful or socially accepted—we must believe things because they are true according to the objective standard of God’s word.

The goal of any pursuit is to take all thoughts captive to obey Christ. May that be true of Emmaus Road Church.

If you have been around Emmaus Road Church for any length of time, I trust you have heard of  something called “Our Shaping Virtues.” You know about things like humility and joy and generosity. These are some of the virtues that are highlighted. But why do we need to know more about these things? What’s the big deal that our denomination would write a bunch of articles on them?

My aim in this post is to summarize these shaping virtues enough so that we might prioritize them in our lives together. Not merely because we want our church to look and feel a certain way, not merely because the family of churches we belong to is prioritizing them, but because they are a faithful display of the effect of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ on our lives. That is worthy of our prioritization.

One way we can begin to define these shaping virtues such as joy, encouragement, servanthood, is to say that they are “the fruit of the gospel displayed in gospel community through lives gripped by the gospel, empowered by the Holy Spirit.”

Those of you who have participated on a team of any kind know that as you spend more time together as individuals centered around a specific goal, a type of culture is created. When you come together, there is a certain vibe. Not only do you use similar lingo, you know lots of the same things, but there is a feel that is distinct about when you are with that team. It is true, wherever a group of people center around something common whether it’s winning the championship, knitting sweaters, or working out at the gym—a culture is formed.

Just as a rainforest produces rain and an apple tree produces apples, so the gospel produces fruit that is visible and enjoyed in the environment where the gospel is prized. Another way we could say it is “gospel-centrality produces gospel culture.” And the culture the gospel creates transcends every human interest group or institution. So we’re not talking about something that a bunch of shmos out there can just start up or produce.

Think of these virtues, such as joy or gratitude, as the aroma or the flavor that fills and animates and characterizes a gospel-centered community.

As a SGC pastor says, “When the gospel of Jesus is embraced, it produces a culture marked by the fruit of the gospel.” That’s powerful.

We want to embrace the gospel here. And embracing the gospel starts by believing the gospel.

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.”

—1 Corinthians 15:1–2

Notice, Paul is saying here that not only was the gospel preached and heard audibly, but it was received—it was believed. The message of the cross of Christ became precious to its hearers. And Paul goes on to lay out what that message is…

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.”

—1 Corinthians 15:3–5

Not only is the gospel true, but it must be true for us. It must be true for me and you. That’s the starting point.. It’s not enough to have a banner waving outside that reads, “the gospel is great!” We value the gospel here…we are gospel-centered… we celebrate the gospel…we soak in the gospel…and we never move on from the gospel…not just because we believe the gospel and are saved, but it is that which continues to save, and it is that which has becomes precious to us in all of life. We embrace the gospel of Jesus.

What we believe matters to who we are and what we are becoming. These are beliefs that we hold to as a church which keep us united and on course and distinct from other groups of people.

So it’s important for us to remember that values and virtues (beliefs and behaviors) must be held in tension. Values and doctrine, truth and virtues; they all have to work together. What I mean by that is, it is possible for us to get our doctrine right—“I know the gospel, I understand Scripture, and I get how God saved me”—and yet be unaffected in my attitude, my countenance, my behavior. Gospel doctrine without gospel virtue will be callous and cold. Values without virtues do not honor God nor does it represent rightly who saved us and what He has saved us for.

On the other hand, if we pursue these virtues without starting in the right place, or if we seek to be about humility and generosity without being moved by the grace we have received in Christ and motivated by the power of God’s Word, then these virtues will be flakey and lifeless because they aren’t connected to the very thing that makes them all possible—the very life-source of their existence.

What we are talking about is other-worldly. It’s supernatural. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God to save sinners and to break in and make dead people alive to God. Through the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are saved out of the domain of darkness and into God’s covenant community. The gospel creates a new community made up of people who no longer live for themselves but unto God. And it’s in that context where the fruit of the gospel can be cultivated and on display.

It is our hope that everyone who comes on a Sunday experiences the culture that the gospel creates. Our prayer is that everyone would witness true humility that only the gospel can produce in the preaching of the Word. We desire that all would be on the receiving end of faithful men and women who are eager to give up their time to serve others in so many ways, no matter the cost. We long for our church to experience the sound of joy in God expressed through singing and shouting and clapping and praying and fellowship. Our goal would be that if you are in the church, you are to one degree being shaped and molded by the culture that makes up the church.

This gives great meaning to why we would gather together throughout the week. We are all seeking to grow in such a way that is in accordance with the power of God that saves us. Our time in Gospel Community isn’t merely a discussion time that fills our heads with stuff, but grace comes to us as we commit ourselves to these habits, and in that we have ample opportunity to express our love for Christ and build up one another into His likeness.

That makes what we do on Sundays together and on Wednesday nights together and in our homes together and in this city together much more than just a meeting. We aren’t just checking off a box when we come together. The church isn’t a social club or a product of our culture. It’s not just what people do on Sundays. The sinless Son of God, through His sin-atoning death, glorious resurrection and ever-present session has made a way for sinners to be right with God, adopted by God, and forever held secure by God. The gospel has done something and here we are.

So let’s prize what brought us here. Let’s embrace the God who brought us to Himself through the blood of His Son. And let us witness the blessing of God’s grace to us in the fruit that He plants and produces in lives that bring honor to His name.

In his classic book The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, theologian B. B. Warfield defends the concept of the “plenary inspiration” of the Scriptures. By that term he means,

…the doctrine that the Bible is inspired not in part but fully, in all its elements alike, — things discoverable by reason as well as mysteries, matters of history and science as well as of faith and practice, words as well as thoughts.”

—B. B. Warfield (pg. 120)

In another place he describes it more simply by saying that the Bible is trustworthy and true in all its parts, all its elements, and all its affirmations of whatever kind. Write those three things down for future reference.

This is the way that Jesus viewed the Scriptures in the Gospels (e.g., Matt. 4:4; Jn. 10:34-35; etc.), this is the way that all the New Testament authors viewed the Scriptures (e.g., 1 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Pet. 1:21; etc.), and this is the way that the Church has—predominantly—viewed the Scriptures down throughout history (e.g., Origen, Irenaeus, Polycarp, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Bavinck, Piper, etc.).

Appropriately then, Warfield says,

“This church-doctrine of inspiration was the Bible doctrine before it was the church-doctrine, and is the church-doctrine only because it is the Bible doctrine.”

—B.B. Warfield (pg. 114)

Why then are there higher critics and modern minds who would like us to doubt the veracity of the Bible? Many people today find the Bible to be outdated, outlandish, and out-there. They’ve drunk the Kool-Aid of the cynics and skeptics and Enlightenment rationalists and found “problems” with the text and “errors” in the manuscripts. They’ve traded the authority of God for the authority of man. But Warfield is unamused and unphased. Bluntly, he quips,

“Needless to say that the only ‘strangeness and difficulty’ in the text arises from the unwillingness of the commentator to approach the Scriptures with the simple trust in their detailed divine trustworthiness and authority which characterized all our Lord’s dealings with them.”

—B.B. Warfield (pg. 119)

The masterful polemic continues,

“The effort to explain away the Bible’s witness to its plenary inspiration reminds one of a man standing safely in his laboratory and elaborately expounding — possibly by the aid of diagrams and mathematical formulae — how every stone in an avalanche has a defined pathway and may easily be dodged by one of some presence of mind. We may fancy such an elaborate trifler’s triumph as he would analyze the avalanche into its constituent stones, and demonstrate of stone after stone that its pathway is definite, limited, and may easily be avoided. But avalanches, unfortunately, do not come upon us, stone by stone, one at a time, courteously leaving us opportunity to withdraw from the pathway of each in turn: but all at once, in a roaring mass of destruction. Just so we may explain away a text or two which teach plenary inspiration, to our own closet satisfaction, dealing with them each without reference to its relation to the others: but these texts of ours, again, unfortunately do not come upon us in this artificial isolation; neither are they few in number. There are scores, hundreds, of them: and they come bursting upon us in one solid mass.”

—B.B. Warfield (pg. 120)

Warfield spends an entire chapter—35 pages to be precise—working through the self-attesting Biblical data from Old and New Testaments supporting the idea of plenary inspiration. I won’t do that here, but the avalanche is certainly real and unavoidable. Go see for yourself starting on page 65.

So why does this matter for us? It matters because I want your confidence in God’s Word to be bolstered. I want you to have unwavering certainty that the Word of God is entirely true and trustworthy. So that when you stand to hear the Bible read aloud every Lord’s Day, you receive it not as the mere message of men but as the very Word of God—whatever it says, He says.

Warfield shows the vital importance of the doctrine of plenary inspiration by saying,

“In that doctrine men have found what their hearts have told them was the indispensable safeguard of a sure word of God to them, — a word of God to which they could resort with confidence in every time of need, to which they could appeal for guidance in every difficulty, for comfort in every sorrow, for instruction in every perplexity; on whose ‘Thus saith the Lord’ they could safely rest all their aspirations and all their hopes.”

—B.B. Warfield (pg. 124)

To illustrate how a young Christian may come to believe in this beautiful, good, and true Word, Warfield reminds his readers of two mothers—the mother who raised them and Mother Church. He writes,

“...Our memory will easily recall those happier days when we stood a child at our Christian mother’s knee, with lisping lips following the words which her slow finger traced upon this open page, — words which were her support in every trial and, as she fondly trusted, were to be our guide throughout life. Mother church was speaking to us in that maternal voice, commending to us her vital faith in the Word of God.”

—B.B. Warfield (pg. 107)

As we raise our children, may we never forget the significance of things that are both taught and caught. We are teaching our kids with both our lives and our doctrine. What an incredible opportunity that earthly mothers have to build confidence in God’s Word in their children as they sit them on their lap and read to them and as they constantly turn to God’s Word in every need and trust in what it says.  And may we be thankful and praise God for the mothers who came before us and taught us to rely on God’s Word.

Furthermore, may we marvel at the steady witness of Mother Church who with its “maternal voice” has so faithfully carried this doctrine down to us. How amazing is it that we can stand in line with the cloud of witnesses who likewise approached God’s Word with this simple, childlike faith.

May God remove the doubts and despondency from our hearts and minds, and give us great boldness and confidence to rest in and rely on God’s Word in every circumstance.

With Warfield and the witness of all the faithful Church through history, let it be said of us…

“...how unquestioningly we…

• receive its statements of fact, 
• bow before its enunciations of duty, 
• tremble before its threatenings, and 
• rest upon its promises” (Warfield, pg. 107).

For as Psalm 19:7-11 says:

The law of the Lord is perfect,

    reviving the soul;

the testimony of the Lord is sure,

    making wise the simple;

the precepts of the Lord are right,

    rejoicing the heart;

the commandment of the Lord is pure,

    enlightening the eyes;

the fear of the Lord is clean,

    enduring forever;

the rules of the Lord are true,

    and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold,

    even much fine gold;

sweeter also than honey

    and drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover, by them is your servant warned;

    in keeping them there is great reward.

Amen and amen.