http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15032237/sing-sing-sing-to-each-other-and-the-lord
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The Law Imprisoned People Under Sin: Galatians 3:19–22, Part 1
The Joy of John the Baptist
What is it that filled John the Baptist with such joy towards the end of his short life? In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper opens John 3:22–30 for a look at the source of John the Baptist’s surprising happiness. -
Loud and Quiet Women: The Portrait God Finds Beautiful
In a day like ours, you could scarcely ruffle more feathers than by suggesting that women should be quiet. To many, the words squeal and crunch like a car wreck. They caw like birds from some barbarous past. Many would prefer the sound of a foghorn at close range.
The recoiling isn’t entirely unjustified. In many places and times, quietness has been forced upon women unkindly, undeservedly, indefensibly. Women, who share the sex of lady Wisdom herself (Proverbs 9:1–6), have often had their words muffled, their intelligence hushed, their needed counsel dismissed. The world has known (and still knows) many Nabal-like men, who live foolishly beside an Abigail unheard.
Yet at some point, even in a day like ours, we find ourselves confronted with the words of Peter and Paul:
Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. (1 Peter 3:4)
Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. (1 Timothy 2:11)
I write, of course, as a man — a fact perhaps frustrating to some. But I write as a man who has spied glimmers of this hidden beauty and has understood in such moments why God calls it “very precious.” I find myself falling quiet before this heavenly hush, this imperishable calm. I am, in short, an admirer of quietness, hoping with a few words to win more.
Consider with me, then, the endangered virtue of womanly quietness.
Quietness Reconsidered
Explore the Bible’s teaching on quietness, and you may notice some surprising features.
You may notice, first, that despite female-specific applications in 1 Peter 3 and 1 Timothy 2, God commands and commends quietness for both sexes. In the Old Testament, for example, we read of the mighty David calming and quieting his heart (Psalm 131:2), of sages urging quietness as the way of wisdom (Proverbs 29:11; Ecclesiastes 4:6; 9:17), and of God’s whole people clothed with quiet strength (Isaiah 30:15).
The apostles likewise lay quietness on both men and women. “Aspire to live quietly,” Paul tells the Thessalonians; he later exhorts the idlers in the church “to do their work quietly” (1 Thessalonians 4:11; 2 Thessalonians 3:12). And then, a few sentences before his command that women “learn quietly,” Paul offers the following reason to pray for the powerful: “that we [men and women] may lead a peaceful and quiet life” (1 Timothy 2:2). As with submission, both men and women are called to be quiet, even if the call takes different shapes.
And then, second, you may notice that the adjectives adorning quietness in Scripture differ greatly from those our society might use. Ask many today to list words they associate with quietness (especially female quietness), and you get the impression of gray aprons and baggy blouses: weak, passive, inert, insignificant, marginalized, oppressed. But when you consider Scripture’s own associations, you find a different dress indeed:
fearless (1 Peter 3:6)
hopeful (1 Peter 3:5)
peaceful (Isaiah 32:17–18)
precious (1 Peter 3:4)
imperishable (1 Peter 3:4)
strong (Isaiah 30:15)
content (Ecclesiastes 4:6)“Quietness is not first about the mouth but about the heart.”
In the hush of a growing garden, some may hear only the sound of aching silence, while others hear the pulsing of quiet life. Which brings us to a third observation, less obvious than the first two but just as crucial: quietness is not first about the mouth but about the heart.
Calm and Quiet Heart
No doubt, when Peter and Paul called women to learn quietly and adorn themselves with a quiet spirit, they had the mouth in mind. Paul expounds “learn quietly” with the words, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man” (1 Timothy 2:12). And Peter describes a quiet woman as winning an unbelieving husband “without a word” (1 Peter 3:1). So, quietness certainly has implications for speech: in some situations — under the preaching of the word, in wise submission to a husband — quietness will lead a woman to speak little or not at all.
Yet quietness goes deeper than decibels — far deeper. In 1 Timothy 2:2, Paul’s “peaceful and quiet life” means not a silent life, but a life calm and well-ordered, “godly and dignified,” a life that advances God’s kingdom without clamor. Peter likewise speaks of “the hidden person of the heart” and a “quiet spirit” — the inner outfit of a woman who hopes in God and fears him only (1 Peter 3:4–6). Quietness concerns a woman’s spirit more than it concerns her speech.
In the scriptural background, Isaiah describes quietness as the sound of a soul returning and resting in God (Isaiah 30:15), while Zephaniah attaches it to a heart hushed beneath God’s song of love (Zephaniah 3:17). And then, in Proverbs, we catch the nature of quietness by contrast, as we listen to the voice of a woman decidedly unquiet: woman Folly.
Loud and Wayward
When Solomon tells us woman Folly “is loud and wayward” (Proverbs 7:11), he’s showing us a woman not merely brash in mouth, but disordered, rebellious, and unsubmissive in heart — hence why the NIV renders loud as “unruly.” Her noisy tongue wags from her noisy spirit; her shouting words offer the transcription of her shouting soul. Close her mouth, and woman Folly remains loud.
By contrast, we hear quietness in the figure of lady Wisdom — despite the fact that she speaks, and sometimes loudly (Proverbs 1:20–21; 9:1–6). For her words, measured and wise, are so many streams flowing from a heart that fears the Lord (Proverbs 9:10). She speaks “noble things,” for her heart is noble; she utters “what is right,” for her soul is right with God (Proverbs 8:6). Even as she opens her mouth, she remains quiet.
We might describe quietness, then, as the atmosphere of a heart at peace with God and its place in his world. Calm and well-ordered, a quiet woman hopes in God and knows herself cared for by him. And then, from that place of spiritual strength and repose, she decides when to remain silent and when to speak.
Her actual volume will be shaped, in part, by her personality and culture (and not wrongly). But whoever she is and wherever she lives, a quiet woman seeks to adorn her words with the same gentle glory that clothes her hidden heart. From a meek and quiet spirit, she breathes out Godward beauty.
Loudest Kind of Quiet
Lady Wisdom has many quiet daughters throughout the biblical storyline, “holy women who hoped in God” (1 Peter 3:5) and who silenced sin and Satan through the beauty of a quiet life. Peter points us to Sarah, whose quiet submission to Abraham made her the mother of many nations (1 Peter 3:6). Alongside her, we might mention Ruth and Hannah, Abigail and Esther, Elizabeth and Mary, among others — women whose quietness spoke a louder word than the voice of woman Folly.
Study such women, and you will not come away with a sense of sniveling inferiority, as if they were any less mighty than the men beside them. Ruth joined meekness with a bold request to Boaz — and became David’s great-grandmother as a result. Hannah mixed quiet love for Elkanah with a mighty life of prayer — and under God, her secret words shook the world.
Abigail, tactful and reserved toward a most unworthy man, quietly rescued his life and won a name among the wise. And then, of course, we dare not forget how our Lord entered the world through a woman who answered the angel with a quietness more commendable than Zechariah’s: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
“A quiet life under God is itself a weapon, a danger, a threat to the kingdom of darkness.”
Such women suffice to show that quietness does not mean standing on the sidelines of life, walking through the world without making a whisper of difference. It means, rather, refusing to believe that the noise of self-assertion is the best way to get God’s work done. It means trusting that a quiet life under God is itself a weapon, a danger, a threat to the kingdom of darkness ever blaring with the uproar of sin.
Her Hidden Beauty
Perhaps till now we have heard the word quietness and thought only in negative terms: Quietness means not speaking, not teaching. Quietness is absence and hollowness, a vacuum and a hole. The apostle Peter could hardly have described quietness more differently: far from an empty nothing, quietness is an adorning: “Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:4).
When we hear quietness, we ought to imagine not the absence of speech, but the presence of calm and peace, of fearless hope and endless beauty. And we ought to dress quietness in the brightest, most wonderful colors we have, for though hidden from our sight, the heart of a quiet woman holds the attention of heaven. The only voice that ultimately matters calls quietness “very precious,” imperishably beautiful.
And when one day God cuts the volume from this noisy and clamorous world, the quiet woman will remain, her beauty no longer hidden.
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How Do I Pray for My Husband’s Salvation?
Audio Transcript
Good Monday morning, and welcome back to the podcast. We have talked recently about the tensions inside a home when a Christian is married to a non-Christian. This dynamic can happen for several reasons, sometimes intentionally. A Christian may sin and knowingly marry a non-Christian. We saw this in APJ 1560. Or two non-Christians marry, and one eventually gets saved. We saw this in APJ 1029. Or two professing Christians get married: one proves their faith over the years, or is genuinely converted, and the other falls away over time. We have seen this dynamic in APJs 680, 1690, and in 1839 just a couple weeks ago.
I don’t know which category fits today. We have limited information. But, Pastor John, six times over the years we have gotten an email from a woman named Rose. Her emails are always the same. They’re always brief. They’re always one sentence, the same sentence — this one: “Pastor John, how do I pray for my husband to be saved?” What would you say to Rose?
Oh, how I wish I could see into Rose’s sorrowful heart and pinpoint where she feels the greatest difficulty in praying for her unbelieving husband. Is it how often she should pray? Is it how to avoid vain repetitions when you’ve been praying the same prayer for years and years — hundreds of times, thousands of times? Is it how to keep on praying after decades of seeing no evident change? Is it particular texts that she’s struggling with and how to apply them? Is it loss of desire, maybe, or loss of hope, or loss of love in her own heart? Is it the cooling of trust in God? Is it practicalities like, “Do I pray out loud? Or do I pray in a closet? Or how many times a day?” Is it whether it dishonors the husband to pray for him in groups, maybe? I’ve had women ask me that. Is it whether to pray for him in his presence? “Can I do that? Can I pray for him in his face?” Is it whether to pray for others to reach out to him or whether to pray directly for his soul? Oh, how I wish I could see where the point is that she is asking about.
But maybe it’s just a heart cry: “Help — anything you can say, Pastor John, that might encourage me or keep me going.” And so, I don’t know the details of her struggle, except that it’s been a long time, evidently, because of her repeated requests.
Hope-Sustaining Sovereignty
And what I like to do is suggest a way of praying for unbelieving loved ones that I have found hopeful. It’s premised (I have to say this; it’s really crucial to say) on the biblical conviction that God is sovereign and, whenever he chooses, he can overcome all resistance and save the hardest sinner. I do not believe that human beings have final veto power over the sovereign will of God.
Some might think that this kind of absolute sovereignty over the human will, which I deeply believe is biblical, would create a sense of fatalism, maybe, or discouragement that God may not choose to save our loved one in the end. But looked at another way, it actually creates hope, this sovereign God. It means God really can save no matter what the unbeliever does or has done. Nothing can stop him.
“God really can save no matter what the unbeliever does or has done. Nothing can stop him.”
This means no amount of passing time, no amount of accumulated sin, no degree of hardness of heart, no sneering antagonism, no public mockery, no angry resistance — nothing can hinder his salvation if God wills to take away the hardness and save. To me, that’s the only hope we have that unbelievers would be saved, because they’re all dead in their trespasses and sins — and dead is dead. There’s nothing I can do. If God doesn’t do it, people perish. I would’ve perished.
Our Generous Father
So, building on this conviction of God’s hope-sustaining sovereignty, I love to pray the promises of God, especially the new-covenant promises of salvation. But before I mention a few of those, I find it encouraging to remind myself — I must do this every week or so from Scripture — that God really does delight to answer the prayers of his children. I need to see that. I need to be reminded of that in his own words. He’s not a begrudging Father.
So for example, I return often to Matthew 7:9–11:
Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Or Luke 12:32: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
“God really does delight to answer the prayers of his children.”
Surely Jesus told us these things to encourage us to pray, to remind us that we should think of him this way — a generous Father to his children. He loves to see us pray: a Shepherd eager to bless, a King eager to give to his subjects. And then, with that fresh reminder of God’s eagerness to hear our prayers and answer them, I turn to the promises of the new covenant.
Turning Promises into Prayers
Now, remember that the new covenant, according to Ezekiel 36, is different from the Mosaic covenant because it doesn’t just come with demands from outside; it comes with enablement to do the commands from inside. He says, “I will cause you to walk in my statutes” (Ezekiel 36:27). “I’m not going to just give you statutes — I will cause you to walk in my statutes.” That’s the key of the new covenant. And Jesus said that this new covenant was secured by himself by his own blood. He held up the cup at the Last Supper: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). He bought it, and so it is sure.
So here are some of the precious new-covenant promises that I turn into prayers for beloved unbelievers.
‘Become his God.’
Ezekiel 11:19–21:
And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
So, pray like this for your husband: “Dear Father, I pray for my precious husband that you would, in your great mercy, bought by the blood of Jesus, take out the heart of stone and give him a tender, soft heart toward you. Put a new spirit in him. Give him a new disposition to love your word and keep it. Become his God. Make him your child.”
‘Circumcise his heart.’
Or here’s another new-covenant promise, from Deuteronomy 30:6. God looks to the day when a prophet like Moses will arise — namely, Jesus — and promises this for his chosen ones:
The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.
So, you pray, “O Father, none of us loves you first and turns your heart to love us. We can’t love you unless you in your great, free, gracious love first circumcises our hearts. You must cut away the old nature of self-exaltation and self-rule. You did this for me. I didn’t deserve that any more than my husband does. O God, I plead with you, circumcise his heart so that it is set free from resistance to your truth and goodness and beauty. Cause him, O Lord, to love you because of Christ.”
‘Grant him repentance.’
Or think of the instruction and the promise in 2 Timothy 2:24–26. It applies, I think, to all of us who at any time use the word in prayer to try to lead an unbeliever out of darkness. It says this:
The Lord’s servant [now that would be me, that would be this wife] must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
So, we pray, “Father, even though no one deserves to be saved, no one deserves the gift of repentance, no one deserves escape from the devil, nevertheless, you are a God of mercy. I know this because I escaped when I was just as blind and snared in deadness of heart as my husband. Here I am praying, loving you, trusting you — amazing grace in my life! So, you are a God of mercy, and if you will, you can grant repentance, and liberation, and faith, and life. I know you have mercy on whom you have mercy. I know you are free and all-wise, and as your child, I am asking that, for the glory of your grace, you would give repentance to my husband.”
Do Not Lose Heart
And we could go on, of course — on and on, in fact — turning the promises and the works of God into prayers.
We could turn Acts 16:14 into this: “Lord, open his heart like you did Lydia’s.” Or we could turn 2 Corinthians 4:6 into this: “Father, shine into their hearts with the light of the gospel of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Or we could pray the words of Jesus in Luke 18:27: “Lord Jesus, you said of the conversion of the rich man, ‘What is impossible with man is possible with God.’ So do the impossible, I pray. Convert my husband.”
So, Rose, we are with you in this great work of wrestling in prayer for your beloved unbeliever. Let’s not forget the words of Jesus in Luke 18:1: “always . . . pray and [do] not lose heart.”