ABSTRACT: For the first 1,500 years of church history, most Christians believed Paul wrote the letter of Hebrews. The resurgence in Greek scholarship at the time of the Reformation, however, revealed serious concerns with Pauline authorship, not least of which is the large stylistic discrepancy between Hebrews and Paul’s other letters. In the time since, though many have tried to tie authorship of Hebrews to others in the apostolic band — from Barnabas and Silas to Apollos and Luke — doubts still render the matter uncertain. Nevertheless, even in the absence of a known author, the authority of Hebrews rests secure. Christians for two thousand years have heard the voice of Christ in the letter of Hebrews, and possessing this God-breathed epistle is far more valuable than knowing its author.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors, leaders, and teachers, David Mathis explores what we can and cannot say about the authorship of the letter of Hebrews.

“It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”

Famously, that was Winston Churchill’s description of Russia in 1939 when asked about the nation’s intentions and interests. “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia,” he conceded. Then he added his zinger.

Over the years, many have sought to apply Churchill’s memorable line to other puzzles, such as husbands admitting (whether comedically or with genuine humility) to their inability to grasp the endearing mysteries of their wife.

In New Testament studies, the line may apply most aptly to the epistle to the Hebrews, one of the most enigmatic of the field’s enduring riddles. Romans and Hebrews, of similar length, may be the two great pillar epistles of Christian theology, and yet far more is known, and certain, about Romans. With Romans, we get the systematically reasoned heart of Paul. With Hebrews, we get another learned, powerful, complementary voice — but whose? Turning to Hebrews, one thinks about the strange Melchizedek figure and the complex argument of chapter 7, the arresting warning passages in chapters 6 and 10, and the opening catena of Old Testament quotations in chapter 1 that many readers struggle to understand in context.

William Lane begins his impressive two-volume commentary with this tribute:

Hebrews is a delight for the person who enjoys puzzles. Its form is unusual, its setting in life is uncertain, and its argument is unfamiliar. It invites engagement in the task of defining the undefined.1

And the biggest riddle of them all is information that church history, and the faithful today, do not consider to be lacking for any other New Testament document: who wrote it.

Could This Be Paul?

Unlike Paul’s epistles — and all other New Testament letters, except the epistles of John — Hebrews does not begin with the name of its author. Nor does it in any place divulge his name, or give any telltale clues as to his identity. The closest information we have is the mention of Timothy, as an associate, at the close: “Our brother Timothy has been released” (Hebrews 13:23). Assuming this to be the Timothy we know from Acts 16–20 and the epistles of Paul (and especially the two letters addressed to him), the author of Hebrews seems to be from the Pauline circle. So the question has long been, Might it be Paul himself?

“The canonicity of Hebrews stood essentially unchallenged by the end of the fourth century. Paul was presumed the author.”

When we consider the history of the recognition of Hebrews in the Christian canon, we cannot ignore the early assumption that it was from Paul. The extant records are not extensive, but the Eastern church plainly accepted Hebrews as Pauline. However, acceptance was slower in the West, though it solidified by the time of Augustine (354–430) and Jerome (347–420). The epistle’s strikingly high Christology proved valuable in combatting the Arian heresy, which confessed Christ as mere creature, not eternally God. The canonicity of Hebrews stood unchallenged by the end of the fourth century. Paul was presumed the author.

For the next millennium and more, that position remained essentially unquestioned as many read the Scriptures in Latin. However, new queries began to arise at the Reformation as scholars went ad fontes (back to the sources), read the Greek for themselves, and became comfortable enough in the New Testament to spot the stark differences in Paul’s typical style and that of Hebrews.

Some scholars, clinging to Pauline authorship, have attempted various explanations for the manifest differences in style. Perhaps Paul wrote in Hebrew, and Luke, say, translated the letter into Greek. Or maybe Paul cowrote with another member of the apostolic band. Perhaps Paul’s amanuensis (secretary) had a longer-than-normal leash, giving this epistle a distinctive style compared with his other thirteen letters. (Such a rationale suffices for the more moderate differences of the Pastoral Epistles, but not for Hebrews.)

However, the best argument against Paul as author comes in the letter itself.

Not Paul

Even though the author of Hebrews does not leave us his name, he does refer to himself in a revealing statement at the beginning of chapter 2 — and in doing so he speaks in a way that we can acknowledge, on good authority, that the apostle Paul emphatically would not speak.

Speaking of the Christian gospel (and the new covenant in contrast with the old) as “such a great salvation,” the author writes, “It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard” (Hebrews 2:3). Note carefully three parties in view here. First is “the Lord” Jesus himself. He not only came as the great salvation, and to accomplish the great salvation, but he told of it. He himself preached, taught, and declared it. Then Hebrews mentions a second group: “those who heard” — that first generation of apostles and Christians, who followed Jesus’s life, witnessed his death, saw him resurrected, and believed. They saw and knew and heard Jesus for themselves. Then the author of Hebrews puts himself in a third group: “it was attested to us by those who heard.”

Based on what Paul writes elsewhere, and how he reasons and understands his call as an apostle of Christ, Paul would not put himself in this third group, which received the message through another group, and did not receive it directly from the mouth of the Lord. For instance, Paul writes to the Galatian church about the gospel he preaches, “I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:12). Critical for Paul, as an apostle “untimely born” (1 Corinthians 15:8), was that he met the risen Christ face to face on the road to Damascus and received the truth, and his commission, from Christ himself.

Hebrews 2:3 thus leads many post-Reformation scholars to say, with Lane, about the author, “It is certain that he is not Paul.”2

Who Could It Be Now?

J.A.T. Robinson (1919–1983) comments in his 1976 book Redating the Testament about the writer to the Hebrews,

The mantle of the Apostle [Paul] has in part fallen upon the writer himself. He can address his readers with a pastoral authority superior to that of their own leaders and with a conscience clear of local involvement (Heb. 13:17f.), and yet with no personal claim to apostolic aegis. There cannot have been too many of such men around.3

Many have agreed that we’re dealing with a very limited pool of candidates, even if we can’t claim to know that pool exhaustively.

Tertullian (c. 160–220) suggested Barnabas, who partnered with Paul in gospel triumphs on the first missionary journey (Acts 13:1–15:35). Some have wondered whether the author’s closing reference to the epistle as a “word of encouragement” (13:22) might allude to the name Barnabas, “which means son of encouragement” (Acts 4:36). However, Paul and Barnabas didn’t remain in the same circle indefinitely. The two had “a sharp disagreement” about Mark and “separated from each other” (Acts 15:37–41), doing so before Paul met Timothy (Acts 16:1).

Others have suggested Silas (Silvanus), who was together with Paul and Timothy for the writing of 1 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, and 2 Thessalonians (and also helped with 1 Peter). Memorably, Martin Luther suggested Apollos, who appears to be “the kind of person who wrote Hebrews.”4 Acts 18:24 describes Apollos as a Jewish native of Alexandria, “an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures.” However, the train of early church fathers from the city of Alexandria does not mention Apollos as a possibility. Would the Alexandrian church have forgotten that one of its own authored such a masterpiece?5

In the end, the suggestions of Barnabas, Apollos, and Silas meet the same fate: we do not have writing samples from them to compare. However, we do have an additional candidate to mention from whom we do have extensive writing — and even then, it’s not conclusive.

Someone Like Luke

One of the first names to be suggested in church history was Luke. Origen of Alexandria (c. 184–253) found the epistle’s theology to be complementary to Paul’s but its style plainly foreign to his (“the verbal style of the epistle . . . is not rude like the language of the apostle . . . but . . . its diction is purer Greek”), and Origen wondered aloud about Luke or Clement of Rome (c. 35–99, not to be confused with Clement of Alexandria, c. 150–215). John Calvin (1509–1564) and the German Hebraist Franz Delitzsch (1813–1890) both went on record favoring Luke.

B.F. Westcott (1825–1901) claims in his Hebrews commentary that “no impartial student can fail to be struck by the frequent use of words characteristic of St. Luke.”6 Henry Alford (1810–1871) was also struck: “Readers of this commentary will frequently be struck by the verbal and idiomatic coincidences with the style of Luke-Acts.”7 Many have joined them in observing “resemblance of style” or “stylistic similarities.”

More recently, Southwestern Seminary professor David Allen published a full monograph in 2010 titled Lukan Authorship of Hebrews.8 There is indeed a case to be made for Luke. Students who have advanced enough in Koine Greek to know Hebrews well, and then read through Luke-Acts, will notice similarities of expression, with Alford and Westcott. Clearly, both Luke-Acts and Hebrews belong to a finer level of Greek than the rest of the New Testament documents. If we start with known authors of New Testament books, as Allen suggests, then Luke seems to be the clear choice. And if we could count Luke reliably as the author of Hebrews, we would have him as author of nearly a third of the whole New Testament (and perhaps also as Paul’s amanuensis for 1–2 Timothy and Titus).

However, we are not limited to known authors, and as Allen himself concedes in his commentary, the most we can say is that “someone like Luke must have been the author.”9 Lane captures the humbling truth: “The limits of historical knowledge preclude positive identification of the writer.”10

Canon Fodder

The question, then, that has attended the riddle about the epistle’s author is canonicity: If we cannot convincingly establish the identity of the author, can we reasonably receive Hebrews as part of the New Testament canon — the rule, or measuring stick, of our faith, Holy Scripture?

The church, as a whole and throughout time, has long held to relative certainty about the author of all other New Testament books. Of the 27 books, 21 were written by Paul (13) and members of Jesus’s original twelve — Matthew (1), John (5), Peter (2). In addition, we know the identity of four other New Testament writers, clearly associated with Christ and his apostles: Mark wrote his Gospel in association with Peter; Luke wrote his and Acts as a companion of Paul; James and Jude were (half) brothers of Jesus (Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3; Galatians 1:19; Jude 1), with James in particular serving prominently in early-church leadership (Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:18; 1 Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 2:9). Apostleship, we might say, is at the center of canonicity, but not the entirety of it. For this reason, many have spoken of “apostolicity” and applied the adjective apostolic broadly.

Hebrews, then, pushes us one degree further. If it was written by Luke, we have no further concern, as his Gospel and Acts are recognized without question. But since we remain uncertain about Luke — or suspect another author who was not an apostle or close associate — then further rationale is needed.

In fact, we may have enough evidence to consider the author of Hebrews an associate of Paul’s and a member of the Pauline circle, since Hebrews 13:23 refers to “our brother Timothy,” who seems to have been well-known to both the writer and his readers. But we need not pretend to be more sure than we are. This uncertainty can serve us well. It presses us to answer the question of canonicity by another means: not by the identity of the author, but by the glory of God shining through Scripture.

Supernatural Encounter

John Piper makes the case — which applies so well to Hebrews. Leaning on 1 Corinthians 2:11–13 (“we [apostles] impart [the thoughts of God] in words . . . taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual”), Piper writes,

Apostolicity is the supernatural transmission of naturally incomprehensible reality to spiritually discerning people (“those who are spiritual,” 1 Corinthians 2:13), through writing that is “taught by the Spirit.” This means that the recognition by the church of the apostolicity of the 27 books of the New Testament was neither a mere historical judgment about who wrote the books nor a mere preference for some over others. Rather, the historical judgments and the corporate preferences were the outworkings of the supernatural encounter between the unique work of God in the writings (“words not taught by human wisdom”) and providentially discerning Christians endowed with the Holy Spirit (“interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual”).11

“The epistle, even without identification of its author, manifests the peculiar glory of God in Christ to his people.”

That “supernatural encounter” between Christ and his church, confirmed over generations, is key. The upshot, as this dynamic relates to Hebrews, is that the epistle, even without identification of its author, manifests the peculiar glory of God in Christ to his people, and as Michael Kruger writes, has been “understood to bear the essential apostolic deposit.”12 A.T. Lincoln summarizes, “In the providence of God, the church catholic rightly heard in Hebrews the apostolic gospel that witnessed powerfully to God’s decisive action in Christ and to its implications for faith and life.”13 To this, I would add, with Piper, that in the hearing the church has seen, for centuries, and continues to see, not only truth but beauty: the self-authenticating glory of Christ.

God Only Knows

Origen’s third-century statement on Hebrews has endured: “Who wrote the epistle, in truth, God knows.” We are not sure of his name, but we can surmise some important details about “the kind of person who wrote Hebrews,” whoever this “someone like Luke” was. Though not Paul himself, the author was part of the apostolic circle, and known to readers as proximate to Paul and Timothy. He likely had a Jewish background, with Hellenistic upbringing and training.

Scholars uniformly admire his Greek: “a master of elegant Greek”;14 “the most elegant stylist among the New Testament writers”;15 “the finest Greek in the New Testament, far superior to the Pauline standard both in vocabulary and sentence-building.”16 Andrew Trotter claims, “The writing of Hebrews is easily the finest in the NT, both in its use of grammar and vocabulary, and in its style and knowledge of the conventions of Greek rhetoric.”17

In the end, far more important than our having his name is our having the letter that the risen Christ breathed out for his church through this man.

Look to the Reward

From beginning to end, Hebrews sounds the consistent refrain, as many have captured it, Jesus is better. Not only as God, but now as man, he is superior to the angels (1:4; 2:9–10), “worthy of more glory than Moses — as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself” (3:3). Better than Joshua (4:8–10), better than David and Aaron and Melchizedek, he provides a better hope (7:19) through mediating a better covenant (7:22; 8:6). He has prepared for us a better country (11:16) and will raise us, after death, to a better life (11:35). Foreign as some parts of the letter may feel, we are called again and again, without riddle, to look forward, in the pursuit of real and lasting joy.

“From beginning to end, Hebrews sounds the consistent refrain, as many have captured it, Jesus is better.”

Whatever the standard of comparison, Jesus is better. He himself is our better and abiding possession, and our great reward (10:34–35). Hebrews summons us to seek such holy satisfaction, to know our God as one who “rewards those who seek him” (11:6), to release our grasp on the treasures of this age by “looking to the reward” (11:26), to “consider Jesus” (3:1), and run with endurance, “looking to Jesus . . . who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross” (12:1–2).

Riddle, mystery, and enigma though Hebrews may be, its vision and value have never been in serious doubt.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back this Monday morning. We begin our new week together asking whether we should encourage non-Christians to pray for faith. Or is a faithless prayer like that basically pointless? Here’s the question: “Dear Pastor John, my name is Jeff, a PhD student in Los Angeles. My question is about faith. Many times, I have been evangelizing my friends and they say that they admire my faith, but they don’t possess faith like mine. They have difficulty believing themselves. I always tell them that God generously supplies faith, and it’s not something I mustered up myself. I might show them 1 Peter 1:3: ‘He [God] . . . caused us to be born again.’ Or 1 Corinthians 2:11–14: ‘We received the Spirit . . . that we might understand.’ What should I tell someone who realizes that God gives us faith, but who feels stuck, waiting for God to give them that faith? The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God until they’ve been given the Spirit. Or should a faithless person not pray at all? Do they simply wait until God may (or may not) give his Spirit?”

Well, first let me agree with Jeff that saving faith is humanly impossible. The fallen, sinful, spiritually dead human soul does not have the moral ability to believe. They have the mental powers, they have the powers of volition, but the heart is so bent away from God, it cannot make itself prefer God. You can’t make yourself love God; you can’t make yourself treasure God; you can’t make yourself rely upon God if you are dead and bent away from God.

Dead, Blind, Unable

When the rich young man turned away from Jesus and refused to follow him, in love with his money, Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of [heaven].” And his disciples threw up their hands and said, “Well, who then can be saved?” (Matthew 19:24–25). And Jesus didn’t respond by saying, “Oh, you overinterpreted my words.” He didn’t say that. He said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

And Paul underscored this condition of the natural human heart with the words, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to [he cannot] understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). In Romans 8:7, he said, “The mind of the flesh [that is the natural mind, the unregenerate, unconverted, non-born-again mind] is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.” Or again, Ephesians 2:5, “We were dead in our trespasses” — and that’s how God found us and made us alive.

That deadness included a blindness to the glory of Christ: “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Christ does not look glorious or supremely valuable or desirable to the fallen human heart. A new birth is needed, a spiritual resurrection.

God Does the Impossible

Yet the command remains for unbelievers to believe. God has the right to require from humans what they ought to render to him, even if sin has made that rendering humanly impossible. We are responsible to do what we ought to do, even if we are so bad we won’t — and thus can’t — do it.

For example, in Acts 16:30–31, the jailer cried out, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” And they say, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.” And Paul isn’t the first to command the impossible. Ezekiel looked out on a field of dry bones and prophesied, “Hey, dry bones, live.” And they did (Ezekiel 37:4–6). Jesus did the same in John 11 with Lazarus. He spoke to a dead man, “Lazarus, come forth” (John 11:43). And he did.

“Human evangelism is indispensable in the miracle God works to raise the spiritually dead and give them saving faith.”

And Jesus sends us — he sent Paul and us — out to do the same impossible thing. He said in Acts 26:17–18, “I am sending you to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God.” Human evangelism is indispensable in the miracle that God works to raise the spiritually dead and give them saving faith. “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6). Humans plant; humans water — absolutely essential. And God does the impossible — he gives life.

And the reason faith is impossible for spiritually dead sinners is not that spiritually dead sinners can’t make decisions, but that faith is more than a decision. Saving faith is a treasuring faith, a treasuring trust. Faith involves seeing Christ not just as useful for getting out of hell or getting well or getting rich. Saving faith sees Christ as glorious — better than any other treasure in the world. That’s why faith is not possible for sin-loving, self-exalting humans, unless they are born again. We must be born again.

Born Again by the Word

But Peter says — and now we’re getting close to the issue that was raised — Peter says the miracle of the new birth comes by the word. In other words, alongside 1 Peter 1:3, which Jeff quotes — “[God] . . . caused us to be born again” — we must put 1 Peter 1:23–25:

You have been born again . . . through the living and abiding word of God. For “all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

Now that implies two things in answer to Jeff’s question about what to say to an unbeliever who listens to all of this and feels paralyzed, as if the only thing he can do is simply wait — like lie in bed, sit in a chair, and wait — for a gift of faith.

The first thing it implies is that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17 NKJV) — or to use Peter’s words, new birth comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Therefore, the absolutely key thing to say to the unbeliever is, “Keep reading the word of God. Keep listening on your app to the word of God. Keep pondering the word of God. Don’t be passive. Here’s a book. Read it. Be greedy, greedy, greedy for understanding the word — as greedy as you are for silver and gold.”

This is how faith is sustained for believers; this is how faith comes into being and is awakened for unbelievers: “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” New birth comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Keep exposing yourself to the word of God in whatever way you can. And believer, keep putting it forward.

“Keep exposing yourself to the word of God in whatever way you can.”

The other thing implied in 1 Peter 1 is that we should encourage the unbeliever to call out to God for eyes to see and ears to hear and a mind to understand. Remember the man who cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief” in Mark 9:24? I think he could have said, “O God, help my unbelief!” In the Old Testament, several times we are taught that those who feel unable — in other words, paralyzed, trapped in their own inability, in their own sin — to return to God should cry out. This is an exact quote from Lamentations 5:21: “Cause me to return, and I will return, O God.” Isn’t that an amazing prayer? “Cause me to return, and I will return. Enable me, and I will be able. Make me come, and I will come. Do whatever it takes, God.” So we encourage the unbeliever to pray.

Christ in Our Concern

Besides keeping the word before unbelievers and encouraging them to pray, I would mention one more thing. Keep leaning in to their lives personally with care. Keep communicating, not to make yourself a nuisance — you need spiritual discernment to know when that’s happening — but to show them that you really do want them to believe and be saved, to be your everlasting brother or sister with God forever in joy. Just as God may open their eyes to see the glory of Christ in the gospel, he may also open their eyes to see the love of Christ in your concern.

Audio Transcript

The prayer you don’t want answered. Fascinating topic today, coming up because we meet it soon in the Navigators Bible Reading Plan, later this weekend. On May 12, we read Psalm 106:15 together — a text we’ve been asked about by a listener. “Pastor John, hello! My name is Amy, and I live in Lincoln, Nebraska. As I read the Bible, I see that there are times when we ask God for things wrongly, and he mercifully just says no. We see this in James 4:3. And there are times when we ask God for things wrongly, and he says yes. That seems to be the case in Psalm 106:15. Can you explain this verse and Israel’s ‘wanton craving in the wilderness’ in Psalm 106:14? I presume it’s for food. What about this prayer is evil? Why do you think God responded by giving them what they wanted? Why also the ‘wasting disease’?

“I’m confused here, having a hard time understanding the principle, one I find in other texts — namely, in Psalm 78:29–31.” Yes. And I (Tony) am going to add a pair of other texts into the mix here too, and interject them — 1 Samuel 8:7, 22 — because those are verses we just looked at in APJ 2029. “So, can you explain this,” Amy asks, “and tell me whether this should inform how we ask for things today and what we ask for? Are we liable to have a wrongfully asked prayer get answered by God for our own undoing?”

When I lived in Tennessee for a year, I discovered that there were two hiking routes up the back of Stone Mountain. One was about twice as long as the other, but the short one was really rugged and steep. Now, suppose I had a nine-year-old son with me — I didn’t at the time, so I had to imagine this, but I tried both of them myself, and I know what would happen — and we hiked the mountain, say, once a week on Saturday for fun, for exercise. And suppose every time we got to the fork in the path where the two hiking routes diverged, he complained and he complained and he begged and he begged to “go the short one, Daddy. I want to go the short one, because the other one took so long.”

Now, there are two ways that I could seek to teach my son to trust me for my wisdom in this life. One is to say, “No, that’s not a wise decision. We’re going to do the one we can do. So, we’re taking the long route. It takes longer, but we can do this. We can handle that, and you need to learn to trust me.”

“The sinful prayer for a king becomes the means by which Jesus enters the world as king.”

But there is another way. You might choose to teach this kid a thing or two. You say, “Okay, let’s do it.” And halfway up, he’s utterly exhausted. He’s looking at these rocks in front of him, looking like a straight-up cliff, and he’s saying, “I can’t do this, Daddy.” I’m saying, “Yes you can, and you will. You prayed for it; you got it.” That’s the wasting disease, right? This rock face and his misery. And the point is to teach my son, one way or the other, “Trust me, son. You need to trust me. I know what I’m doing when I make decisions in this family.”

Sinful Prayers, Sorrowful Answers

Psalm 106:13–15 says,

[Israel] soon forgot [God’s] works;     they did not wait for his counsel.But they had a wanton craving in the wilderness,     and put God to the test in the desert;he gave them what they asked,     but sent a wasting disease among them.

God had met every need since Israel left Egypt. But these people grumbled again and again and again against the Lord. They were hungry for meat. Psalm 78:19 says, “They spoke against God, saying, ‘Can God spread a table in the wilderness?’” That was how they tested the Lord. They doubted him. They challenged him.

This prayer for what they craved was not a humble expression of trust, which is what good requests are. It was a skeptical expression of anger. God could have kept supplying their needs, the way he was doing all along. That would be a lesson: amazing grace and provision. “Learn to trust me. Trust me.” That wasn’t working. Or he could teach them a lesson this way: “I’ll grant your doubting, challenging request, and misery to go with it.” Lesson: “Trust me; don’t doubt me.”

“God is amazing in the way his providences twist our sins, so that they actually can work for our salvation.”

So yes, I think God does that today. It’s never right today to forget God’s works and then fail to wait for his counsel. It’s never right to think that we know what’s best and become demanding and challenging to God. He just might give us the car we demand, or the spouse we demand, or the rising stock price that we demand, or the child we demand. And then five, twenty years later, those answers might come back with great sorrows in our lives.

Twists of Providence

That could sound fatalistic, but here’s the twist. There’s a twist of providence in this peculiar way that God disciplines us by giving us what we ask for and then misery to go with it. We can see this twist if we look at the other example that I think you mentioned, Tony, at the beginning, with regard to the demand for a king. The twist is that they should not have demanded a king the way they did, and yet God gave them a king and then made their ungodly desire serve his eternal purposes of grace. That’s the twist. And it’s so hopeful for those of us who have made stupid decisions and have asked for terrible things — or asked for things that seemed good, and we were all wrong in the way we asked for them. God can work this for good.

The Sin

So, here’s the way it worked. In the transaction in 1 Samuel 8:5, the elders of Israel say to Samuel, “Appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” Now, that’s the sin: We want to be like the nations. But it says in 1 Samuel 8:6–7, “The thing displeased Samuel when they said, ‘Give us a king to judge us.’ And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Obey the voice of the people . . . for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.’”

And then Samuel seems to give them one more chance to change their minds by telling them all the miseries that the king is going to bring into their lives (1 Samuel 8:11–18). The king’s going to take your sons and make them soldiers. He’s going to take your daughters and make them perfumers and cooks. He’s going to take your fields and your vineyards. He’s going to take your flocks. And then it says in 1 Samuel 8:19–20, “But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, ‘No! But there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations.’” And then in 1 Samuel 8:22, God says, “Obey their voice and make them a king.”

Now, here’s three hundred years later. This is Hosea, the last prophet who prophesies before Assyria destroys Israel. Here’s Hosea 13:10–11: “Where now is your king, to save you in all your cities? Where are all your rulers — those of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princes’? I gave you a king in my anger, and I took him away in my wrath.” So, God answered their request, and it did not go well for them.

The Twist

And I pause and say, “But wait. Wait. There is something else going on here.” In Psalm 2:6, God says, “I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” God set his king on Zion, his holy hill. And Isaiah 9:6–7, “To us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder. . . . Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom [forever].” His kingdom forever. In Luke 1:32–33, Gabriel says to Mary, “The Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Here’s the upshot, the twist. The sinful prayer for a king becomes the means by which Jesus enters the world as king to die and rise and forgive the sins that they brought upon themselves by asking for a king. I just think God is amazing in the way his providences twist our sins, so that they actually can work for our salvation.

So, the twist of providence is this. If you are, today, in a situation of God’s discipline in answer to an unbelieving, angry, misguided prayer, don’t despair. Don’t despair. Repent, accept your sin and your guilt, turn to Christ’s mercy and blood, and ask God to twist this situation into something good and God-honoring. I have seen him do this in my life. I have seen him do it. I know he can do it in yours.