It must be difficult to live out the gospel of self-esteem, the “gospel” that insists I’m nothing short of awesome. It is, however, delightful to live out the gospel of Jesus Christ that insists that I’m not all that awesome and don’t need to be. Here’s a short quote from Adam Ramsey that explains.

The gospel means that I’m not all that awesome. But I am loved. And that’s awesome. The gospel frees me to be honest about the ways I fall short instead of being crushed by them, because it reminds me that Jesus was crushed for me. The gospel means I don’t have to hide, because the good news of what the holy and all-knowing Savior on the cross is true for me too. The gospel means I don’t need to impress, because Christ has eternally secured for me the smile of my Maker. If that’s true, then let’s burn those useless fig leaves of our self-justifying excuses and lean wholly into the justification of God. As my friend Alex Early has written, “Jesus is not in love with some future version of you or what you used to be. He loves you right where you are, sitting in that chair.”
Do you hate your sin? Do you find yourself turning to Jesus again and again with cries of confession and desires for change? Then take heart, beloved struggler. You are undoubtedly a child of God. The fact that you are fighting sin is the evidence of spiritual life. Dead things don’t fight, only living things do. So press onward into the light of holiness.
God will not despise our honesty; he meets us in it with renewing tenderness; he rushes to us there and smothers our confessions with kisses of acceptance. We often think that honesty makes us poorer. But judging from the Father’s reaction to his prodigal son’s return, we could not be more wrong. He dignifies our repentance with the family ring, reminding us of our true identity. Honesty means exchanging the pig food of our sins for the banquet of God’s grace; the tattered clothes of our foolish decisions for the clean suit of Christ’s sinlessness; the cold loneliness of the mud, for the warm embrace of the Father. It is the way back home.
Drawn from Truth on Fire.

In my travels, I encountered a man whose work is demolition. When buildings are old and decrepit, or even when they just need to be removed to make way for others, his job is to destroy them and haul them away. New or old, big or small, plain or fancy—it makes no difference to him. He will blow it up, knock it down, or dismantle it piece by piece.
“Why are you in demolition?” “Because it’s a whole lot easier than construction. And it pays better too.” Fair enough. It’s good and honest work, that. Sometimes it’s necessary for the sake of safety—to remove what might collapse, injure, or kill. Sometimes it’s necessary for the sake of beauty—to remove eyesores that blight a cityscape. Sometimes it’s necessary for the sake of progress—so the old can make way for the new, the ancient for the modern, the broken down for what will soon be built up. Demolition can be good and honest work.
Later, I found myself thinking about how much more difficult it is to build than to destroy. Building is exacting work that depends upon precise measurements and careful craftsmanship. Demolition is brusque work that depends upon brute force and blunt strength. I found myself thinking about how much faster it is to build than to destroy. It may take years for a building to be constructed but just hours for it to be demolished. And I found myself thinking about how strange it is that this man had become wealthy by tearing down what others had so carefully built up.
There is a lot of that in the Christian world—a lot of demolition. In fact, there are many people who make a “ministry” out of demolishing what others have constructed. I have often cringed as I’ve seen people of little character and no accomplishments attempt to destroy what has been built by people of great character and substantial accomplishments. These people intuit that it is faster and easier to create a platform for themselves by destroying than by building—that they can earn a reputation for themselves by demolishing another person’s reputation, that they can gain a name for themselves by dragging another person’s name through the mud. The devil gives them the inspiration, the internet gives them the reach, and we give them the attention.
I’ve seen people of little character and no accomplishments attempt to destroy what has been built by people of great character and substantial accomplishments.Share
Of course, some ministries, like some buildings, deserve to be demolished. Some are so dangerous, so hideous, or so abhorrent that their loss is the church’s gain. Some ministers and some personalities ought to have been silenced and exposed long ago. But I have learned to be wary of those who make it their ministry to demolish people and organizations, for I have learned that they are often untrustworthy, unreliable, and unqualified. Demolition may be honest work in the world of business, but I’ve yet to see it form the basis of a valid ministry within the church.
The man whose business is demolition can surely find fault with every building and propose a reason to tear it down, for its loss is his gain. And the same is true of those who make a ministry of destruction. To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and to the person whose ministry is demolition, every word rings with heresy and every person resembles a heretic, for their loss is his gain, their destruction is her path to clicks, views, power, and self-importance. They have no need to commit themselves to the laborious work of putting on godly character, growing in leadership, casting vision, and persuading others to catch it. They need only dig for dirt, cast aspersions, and delight in destruction.
A lesson I have learned through long observation and hard experience is this: be wary of those whose life’s work is destruction and whose legacy is demolition. Be warier still of those who consider it their ministry and who conflate discernment with destruction. For it is hard to construct and easy to destroy. It is slow work to build up and quick work to tear down. And there are many who understand that the easiest way to gain a platform is to build it upon the rubble of someone else’s ministry or someone else’s reputation.

It can be difficult to know how to tell others about our Christian convictions. It can be difficult to know the best way to tell others about what we believe and why we believe it. And while I am sure this has always been the case, there are new challenges that come with the seismic shifts we’ve seen in Western culture over the past decade or two—shifts that have carried us into what is increasingly obviously a post-Christian West in which our religious convictions are now a social liability far more than an asset.

I am often asked for recommendations on books that someone can hand to an unbeliever, a skeptic, or a religious wanderer—books that may help persuade them to come to the Christian faith. I generally recommend Keller’s The Reason for God because of the way he engages intellectually with the modern mind, but now I’m glad to also be able to recommend a newer option: Rory Shiner and Peter Orr’s The World Next Door: A Short Guide to the Christian Faith. This book, they say, “is our best shot at commending the Christian message to our friends. It’s driven by the universal human instinct to increase the joy of finding a good thing by sharing it with others. We both think we’ve found a good thing—the best thing—in finding God through Jesus. We want to share it.”
Shiner is a pastor in Perth, Australia while Orr is a Northern Irish professor who now teaches New Testament in Sydney. Shiner was raised in a Christian home while Peter was not. Yet both have come to the Christian faith and both are now eager to share it with their friends and family members. This book is their best attempt to do so.
They take an interesting angle on an evangelistic work by framing it around the Apostle’s Creed, the most widely accepted summary of Christian truth. This creed “is associated with baptism and the entry of new converts into the faith. We figure the creed will keep us on the straight and narrow, tethering us to an account of the faith that is briskly orthodox and historically grounded…” The creed also allows them to do more than talk about the Christian faith—it forces them to share exactly what its primary claims are. It forces them to deal immediately and unashamedly with matters Christians may shy away from as they talk to unbelievers—God as Creator, Jesus born of a virgin, the triunity of God, and so on.
Where they begin, though, is with demons. Yes, demons. They begin by telling of Jesus’ confrontation with a demon-possessed man, explaining how it opens up an understanding of the unseen world—the world the biblical writers described as existing above and below us. Why would they begin here? “Francis Schaeffer, a Christian thinker from the mid-20th century, apparently used to give his first talk on angels when addressing university students. When asked why, he explained that when he spoke about God and sin, people heard him to be speaking about morality. But when he spoke about angels, people understood he was speaking about spiritual truths. About a bigger reality, about transcendent truths. That’s what we want to talk about, too.”
This is clever, I think, because it immediately confronts the reader with the reality that the Christian faith is not merely a way to live or a system of morality, but something far bigger, far broader, far more all-encompassing. “The Christian faith is less like an object in the world, whose existence is accepted by some and denied by others, and more like a pair of glasses through which you look at the rest of life, the universe, and everything.”
And so they lead the reader through the Creed, phrase by phrase. They discuss the being and nature of God and tell of his creative power; they introduce Jesus as God and man, as incarnated and virgin-born, as crucified and buried, as resurrected, reigning, and returning; they tell of the Holy Spirit and his ongoing work in this world. In other words, they lead the reader through the most essential claims of Christianity.
While I am obviously not a skeptic of the faith, and while I have not yet had opportunity to hand this book to one, I do believe its approach is helpful and will prove effective. I admire the authors for not running away from even the most offensive of Christianity’s claims and from its most difficult doctrines. I admire them for wanting to share their own enthusiasm for the God who has met them and saved them. And I admire them for remaining engaging and winsome all the while. “Christianity’s explanatory power, bracing beauty, and sheer otherness are some of the best things about it. It ends up making our modern, secular, materialistic Western view of life look a bit, well, dull. There are all sorts of good reasons to become a Christian, some of them very serious. But one of the more surprising reasons is that being a Christian is actually really interesting and, in its own way, fun.” I couldn’t agree more and it’s my hope that many people read The World Next Door and come to embrace the faith it describes.

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