The Bible presents a complex view of reality and how modern political ideologies dismember parts of this complex reality, isolate them, and treat them as the whole. And it helps Christians to engage with liberalism, CRT, and other political ideologies in a way that doesn’t invest them with ultimate, messianic hope or allow them to become the uncontested and sovereign ideology of our souls.
Perhaps you saw the video. A woman stares down the lens of the camera, straight into our eyes. Her expression is weary, her tone angry. “How can you win?” she cries, with the air of a question she’s asked a thousand times. “You can’t. The game is fixed,” she answers. “So when they say, ‘Why do you burn down the community? Why do you burn down your own neighborhood?’—it’s not ours. We don’t own anything. We don’t own anything.’”
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Kimberly Jones’s viral video gave voice to the anger and anguish felt by many black men and women in the United States and beyond. She spoke of a society rigged so that most black people cannot succeed—however hard they work and whatever the content of their character.
Though the assumptions and commitments informing this view of a systemically racist society go by multiple names, here I’ll use “Critical Race Theory” (CRT) as a general term to capture the set of concerns. (To be clear, lamenting the presence of systemic racism does not necessarily make one a CRT proponent.)
When discussed in Christian circles, CRT is often explicitly or implicitly contrasted to a version of classical liberalism: not the liberalism of the liberal/conservative divide, but the liberalism of individual freedom, universal rights, and the importance of property propounded by thinkers like John Locke and Adam Smith. Some Christians, rightly sensitive to the problems of CRT, end up espousing a secular liberalism because it provides an off-the-shelf alternative. Others, whose education or life experience have primed them to see liberalism’s dangers, give a free pass to CRT as the go-to tool for addressing them.
But both reactions sell the Bible short, not by opposing it at every point but by isolating an aspect of its interconnected truth, distorting it, and making it into the whole truth. Many of today’s social and political pitched battles are staged between complementary biblical truths that have been dismembered, isolated, and opposed. This tragic and unnecessary spectacle characterizes much of the struggle between CRT and liberalism.
To be clear, my  aim in this article isn’t to keep score between these secular ideologies and pronounce which error is worse or which is more compatible with biblical Christianity. I simply aim to show how both reduce the complexity of biblical truth, often in symmetrical and opposite ways.
The Bible is not, of course, a book of secular political philosophy: it addresses ultimate realities and calls people to find eternal life in knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent (John 17:3). Nevertheless, the Bible does describe the world, human beings, and the flow of history in particular ways (in a forthcoming book I call them “figures”), and these ways have implications for how we think about political and social issues. So let’s consider the key biblical turning points of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation as a grid through which to compare CRT and liberalism to the biblical truth they both simplify and distort.

To preach God’s counsel in these ways requires boldness. Paul was humble, but he was also bold: “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable” (Acts 20:20; see also Acts 20:26–27). The temptation can be to shrink back to maintain popularity, but that was not Paul’s way. Rather he unfolded God’s counsel with confidence and boldness: “declaring . . . teaching, . . . testifying, . . . proclaiming, [and] . . . admonish[ing]” (Acts 20:20–31).

What does it mean to “preach the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27)? That question surely occupies the hearts of all gospel preachers. Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to consider the context of Paul’s statement to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20. When we do this, we see three things clearly involved in preaching the whole counsel of God: the life of the preacher, the content of preaching, and the method of preaching. Additionally, we see that preaching God’s Word faithfully brings consequences—that is, it is effective.
The Preacher’s Life
Acts 20:17–38 contains Paul’s farewell address to the Ephesian elders. As he bids them farewell, Paul reflects on his life among the Ephesians, and he makes clear that his call as a preacher was intertwined with his life. The context for preaching the whole counsel of God is a life that is consistent with the message preached.
Paul makes this explicit when he directs the elders, “Pay careful attention to yourselves” (Acts 20:28). Only someone living a godly life can go on to faithfully declare the whole counsel of God. This is the constant message of the New Testament (1 Tim. 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9).
Paul specifically highlights several important features of his life:

Consistency. “You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia” (Acts 20:18). He essentially says to them: “You know I have lived a consistent and transparent life. My life is an open book.”
Humility. “Serving the Lord with all humility” (Acts 20:19).The calling to preach God’s Word is a calling to humble service, which marked Paul’s life.
Endurance. “Trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews” (Acts 20:19). Paul had to endure. Hard times came upon him, and he was tested. But he endured.
Compassion. “I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears” (Acts 20:31). Here we have the heart of a pastor. His words are not harsh. He does not stand indifferent to the sufferings and well-being of his people. He weeps over them.
Self-denial. “I coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel” (Acts 20:33). In other words, “I am not in ministry to enrich myself. I am not one of those who peddle God’s words for gain” (see 2 Cor. 2:17).
Prayer. “And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all” (Acts 20:36). Paul praying for his flock was as natural to him as breathing.

So, Paul tells the Ephesian elders that preaching the whole counsel of God is bound up with the life that the pastor lives.
What Is the Whole Counsel of God?
Entirely in harmony with his life, Paul had a message to proclaim. He has been entrusted with a revelation from God, which for us today is found in all its completeness in the Bible (2 Tim. 3:16–17). Paul was to declare all the counsel of God. He could not ignore the truths that press on the sins of society and of the church. He had to proclaim the truths of God’s sovereignty in salvation that humble man. He needed to drive home the application of God’s Word to all areas of life, and it is the same for any who would preach today.
Paul preached God’s whole counsel in a specific way: “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable” (Acts 20:20).
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There is a sinister underlying message in the trend of “mommy humor.” My sweet friend, just under the surface of that humor is a lie. It whispers that motherhood should make us happy—eventually. But motherhood can never produce what we will only ever find in the Lord. Who Is Our True Enemy? Sweet sister, we are in a spiritual battle for the very souls of our children. There is an enemy that would have us fighting the wrong fight and looking to him for refreshment and refuge in the battle. Peter reminds us that the enemy “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

“But how do I find joy in the middle of the cracker crumbs and dirty diapers? When will it ever get better?” she asked. The woman asking the question had five children under the age of five, and four of them came two-by-two. Her circumstances were challenging, to say the least. Tired but eager to learn, she sat at a folding table in our small Bible study room among women of many generations and walks of life, who had all likely asked a similar question.
It Can’t Get Better; It’s Already Good
As we dug back into God’s Word, the discussion led us to conclude that it can’t really get any better. God has ordained or allowed every circumstance that we will face. And those circumstances? They are for our good and His glory. How could it get any better than that? Romans 11:36 tells us that all things are “from him and through him and to him.” And this compels Paul’s response—the one we can all echo— “To him be the glory forever. Amen.” Our frustration in the daily challenges of motherhood comes when we confuse the idea of things “getting better” with what we truly desire: joy. But how do we find joy in the Lord in a world that seems to call us in a different direction?
The Source of Our Joy
There is a trend in social media that makes it seem as though we are fighting our way through the torture of raising children, as if they are like an enemy. Culture tells us that their needs are a burden, their inexperience in life is something to make fun of, and their emotional meltdowns are viral content for entertainment. In many ways, the world would have us believe that challenging seasons of parenting are a bad thing that we have to trudge through until we get to the “better” thing. In the meantime, we can find temporary relief from these frustrations by enjoying the never-ending stream of humorous memes and video clips.
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