Audio Transcript

We close the week with a question from me, Pastor John, about one of Paul’s most profound statements of applied theology — and it’s too often overlooked. It’s on my mind because I heard you recently explain it off-air. You were leading us in a devotional at a Desiring God Leadership Team meeting, something we do to open every meeting together. We gather and begin with a brief devotional and pray together, to focus our minds and hearts before we go on to plan and dream and make decisions.

And last time we met as a Leadership Team, you led us in a study of Galatians 4:4–7. It was a great little devotional. The guys in the room were all met pretty powerfully there, as you explained this cry: “Abba! Father!” And as soon as you were done, I was like, “Wow, I want that recorded and shared with the APJ audience.” So here we are. “Abba! Father!” What exactly is this experience? What’s happening to us — and in us? Is this “Abba! Father!” cry my own cry? Is it the Holy Spirit crying in and through me? Explain that. And then, does this text apply to struggling believers? How so? Explain all this for us on the podcast if you would.

What I have found, Tony, over the years is that being a Christian Hedonist — that is, being a person who believes that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him — what this has done to me is make me hungry for experiential theology. In other words, I have a discontent with theology that floats in the air above my life with no connection to my living now or living forever. So, I am on high alert when I read the Bible for statements that are intensely theological and intensely experiential.

Inward, Experiential Reality

One of those texts that took hold of me months ago is Galatians 4:4–6. So let me read the text and break it into four parts, and then I’ll address some of those things you ask.

The first part: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law . . .” So there’s the incarnation and the life of Jesus, lived perfectly under the law in fulfillment of the law.

Then the text goes on part two: “. . . to redeem those who were under the law . . .” So when Jesus died, a redemption price was paid to set free slaves of sin and death, slaves of law-keeping. A kind of legal transaction happened by which the Father satisfied all the demands of his own justice and purchased for himself a people.

Third, the text goes on: he redeemed those who were under the law “so that we might receive adoption as sons.” Now, the effect of that legal redemption, that price that was paid, was that God now legally possesses a people for himself — he bought them. They are legally his, his children. He’s adopted them, paid the necessary price for them. They are sons of God.

“Because we are legally sons, God gives us the experience of sons.”

Now, the last part, verse six: “And because you are sons” — so the legal transaction has taken place at the cross — “God has sent the Spirit of his son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” Now, this is where that magnificent, glorious theology in the first three parts of those verses becomes intensely experiential. Until now, we have incarnation, we have redemption, we have legal transactions on the cross securing our adoption. All of that is historical, outside of us. That’s not inside of us. This is different. Now, he says, our hearts are in view — our hearts, the place of spiritual experience, the experience of perceptions and the experience of affections. Because we are legally sons, God gives us the experience of sons. The Spirit of the Son of God is sent into our hearts, and he cries in our hearts, “Abba! Father!”

Cry of Every Christian

Now that should shake everybody up and make every Christian say, “Have I experienced that? Am I real?” Now, Paul had already said just a few verses earlier: “You are all sons of God, through faith” (Galatians 3:26). So, there are at least three ways that we can talk about becoming sons of God. One, Ephesians 1:5 says, “He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Christ Jesus.” Number two, Galatians 4:5 (we just read it) says, “. . . to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” And third, now Galatians 3:26 says, “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.”

Predestination is not an experience in the heart. Redemption is not an experience in the heart — it’s on the cross. But faith is an experience in the heart. And that’s what Paul is describing when he says that God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

Let’s think about this experience for just a moment. Every Christian has experienced this. And if that shakes you up and you say, “I can’t remember when I got the Spirit, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” well, just listen carefully. Every Christian has experienced this, at least in some measure. Some of us have been so badly taught or not taught at all that we experienced this — we really did — and we had no idea what was happening to us. No one ever explained it to us. Oh, how keenly interested we should be in understanding what has happened to us to make us Christians and how we should understand our experiences as Christians. Paul is not saying that God sent the Spirit of his Son into a few special Christians — like pastors — crying, “Abba! Father!” That’s what he does to all the redeemed sons of God.

The Spirit Gives Us Our Voice

So, what is it like? What is this experience of the Spirit of the Son of God crying in our hearts, “Abba! Father!”? To answer that question, let’s bring in the really close parallel from Romans 8:15–16:

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

In Galatians 4:5, Paul says the Spirit is poured into our hearts, he himself crying, “Abba! Father!” But in Romans 8:15, he says we have received the Spirit, and we cry, “Abba! Father!” So, is this an experience of us crying, “Abba! Father!” from our heart, or the Spirit crying, “Abba! Father!” in our heart?

And then Romans 8:16, the next verse, gives us the answer: “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” We don’t hear a voice inside of us saying, “Abba! Father! Abba! Father!” as though we were separate from the experience, watching it happen and then deciding whether we like it or not. That’s not at all what’s happening here. This is the Spirit of the Son of God taking possession of God’s child and giving voice.

He’s giving voice to the child, his Spirit witnessing with our spirit — a voice, our voice, inside our heart. It’s a voice of recognition, a voice of affection, a voice of joy. It says something like this: “I have God as my Father. He has paid for me. He has adopted me. He cares for me. He wants me. He loves me. He protects me. He provides for me. He has made me an heir of all that he owns. God is my Father.”

Jesus’s ‘Abba’

Now, the word crying — crying, “Abba! Father!” — doesn’t mean lament. I mean, in English, the word cry so often has been connected with weep. That’s not the meaning here. This is a cry of joy — unspeakable joy. It’s the same word used when the children back in the Gospel said, “Hosanna to the son of David!” (Matthew 21:15). They were crying that, and that’s the way we should hear the word crying here — not weeping, but crying, “Hosanna! Father! Abba! I can’t believe I’m a child.”

That’s the spirit of this cry. And the word abba is the Aramaic word used by Jesus himself in speaking to his Father in Mark 14:36. When Paul chooses to use this Aramaic word, taken over into Greek — it isn’t a Greek word — he takes it straight over and transliterates it in Greek as abba. When he does that, he makes clear that we are being drawn into the very experience of the Son of God. The Son of God called his Father, “Abba! Father!” and that word stuck with the early church because the Holy Spirit creates the very experience of the Son of God toward his Father in our heart so that we are sensing the same kinship with God that the Son of God has as our elder brother in the family.

So, this experience is the inner voice of the Spirit-indwelt child of God. It’s the experience of God’s Spirit causing to rise up in us a spiritual sight of God’s blood-bought, fatherly care and a spiritual taste of the sweetness of Christ’s own love for his Father. It’s the Spirit of the Son crying, “Abba! Father!” in and with our spirit.

Now, let me make one more connection that I had never seen before when I was thinking about this a while back. In John 7:37–39, Jesus stood up, and it says, he “cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’” And then he adds this: “Now this he said about the Spirit.” So, believing is described as the thirsty soul coming to Jesus to drink. And the effect of that drinking, that believing, Jesus says in John 4:14, is that we will never be thirsty again. The water will become a spring, a spring of water, ever self-replenishing.

And then, he says in John 7:38, “No, more than a spring — a river.” And then he adds, “This is the Spirit.” This is the experience of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Son of God, the Spirit of the risen Son of God: the sight and the taste of God becoming our all-satisfying Father through Christ.

Word to Strugglers

So, you asked, Tony, “How does this apply to a struggling believer?” So may I put it like this? Jesus was trying to help his disciples experience the loving provision of God as their Father in Matthew 6, remember, where he said, “Don’t be anxious about anything. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.”

“God is very patient with his children as they grow up into the wonders of what their adoption really means.”

He’s trying to persuade these disciples, “If you follow me, come to me, trust me, God almighty will be your all-providing Father.” And then he says, “O you of little faith” (Matthew 6:30). So, I take that to be the struggler. I mean, what else is struggle except, “I hear John Piper talk about this — I don’t know if my faith reflects what he’s just described”? That’s who I’m talking to right now. So what did Jesus say when he said, “O you of little faith”? “Get out of here I’m done with you”? Thank God he doesn’t do that. Instead, he gave them eight reasons to trust their heavenly Father. He didn’t throw them out. He named them as little-faith strugglers, and then he kept on pleading with them, “Listen to me. Listen to me. I’m talking about the birds; I’m talking about the lilies.” There are eight reasons to trust him as our Father.

So, I would say to all strugglers: Get to know what has happened to you. Get to know it. You’ve got to learn it from the Bible. You can’t learn it any other way. We can’t interpret what has happened to us if we don’t read our Bibles through and through. Get a biblical understanding of how you came to faith, because you probably don’t know how you came to faith, if nobody’s taught you truly.

Get a biblical understanding of all those emotions in your heart. You can’t even name them. You can’t describe them. You don’t know what’s going on inside of you when the Holy Spirit is stirring you up from within. God is very patient with his children as they grow up into the wonders of what their adoption really means.

ABSTRACT: The “Five Points of Magnetism” articulated by the twentieth-century missionary theologian J.H. Bavinck serve as a grid for understanding human cultures in every age. Formed in the image of God, humans necessarily ask the same basic questions about who they are and how they fulfill their place in the world. The gospel of Christ answers those questions and fulfills every longing. Learning to recognize these questions can help pastors serve their people in preaching and counseling, as well as empower them to offer a compelling witness to the world.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Dan Strange (PhD, University of Bristol), director of Crosslands Forum and the vice president of The Southgate Fellowship, to recover the “Five Magnetic Points” of missionary theologian J.H. Bavinck as a foundation for the church to engage with culture in a compelling manner.

If you knew me, you would know that I have not been gifted with the body of a climber. However, a few years ago I became somewhat obsessed with the Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo, which captures Alex Honnold’s breathtaking ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park: 2,900 feet (884 meters) in 3 hours and 56 minutes without any ropes or safety aids. In parts of the climb, the rock face appears so vertical and smooth that it seems impossible for Honnold to get a grip (could he really be Spiderman?). On closer inspection, though, we discover indentations, nubs, and abrasions, however small, that Honnold uses creatively, not to mention with great effort and patience, to get traction and continue his journey to the top.

Engaging late-modern culture, and indeed any culture, in terms of our pastoring, preaching, and persuasion can seem as if we’re trying to climb a sheet of glass. We may not like to admit it, but we often struggle to get traction, to understand and connect with people where they really are — their hopes, dreams, and fears. It can feel as if we’re losing our grip and slipping down. How do we get traction given such pervasive uninterest and even antagonism?

As evangelical Christians, however, getting traction is not our only concern, and this is where my Free Solo illustration breaks down. Alex Honnold is not to be our example. There’s a tragic montage in Free Solo that shows how many of Alex’s friends in the free-solo climbing community have fallen to their deaths. Free soloing is absolute madness. Yes, we want to get traction, but we also know we need to be tethered. Our ministry, in all its facets, if it is to be truly life-giving, must be tethered to Christ and his word. This is where we find not only safety and security, but also sight. Far from being restricting, such tethering gives us confidence, freedom, and imagination to get traction in whatever cultural context the Lord has placed us because we learn from God’s word that there is always a point of contact to confront and call our culture to come to Christ.

Seeing Culture Through Scripture

What I’ve said so far is nothing original. The swirl and interplay between our confession and our context — and to which I would add our character — are perennial issues in theology and missiology that can discombobulate and paralyze. Which theory of “contextualization” can we understand, let alone utilize? How do we have the time and energy to keep up with the constant shape-shifting of cultural trends and artifacts? Do all pastors today need PhDs in the sociology of religion and an intricate theory of secularization?

To aid our progress, I have found the Dutch Reformed missiologist J.H. Bavinck (1895–1974), the nephew of Herman Bavinck, to be an expert guide in helping us gain traction while remaining securely tethered: exegeting culture through the exegesis of Scripture.1 In this essay, I outline Bavinck’s theological anthropology in his understanding of humanity’s religious consciousness, unpacked in what he calls the “magnetic points,” which are subversively fulfilled in Jesus Christ. I then apply this to our pastoring, preaching, and persuasion.

The ‘Perilous Exchange’

To unpack what it means for humanity to be religiously conscious, Bavinck focuses his attention on Romans 1:18–32. In the cosmic game of hide-and-seek, Bavinck says, God is not the one hiding. He has made himself known in everything he has created, with the climax of creation being his image bearers. This revealing is dynamic, personal, and relational. More than most commentators on this seminal passage, Bavinck unpacks the revelation of God’s “invisible qualities” (Romans 1:20 NIV). God’s “eternal power” notes our creaturely dependence on our Creator.2 His “divine nature” recognizes our personal accountability to a Someone — the Someone — rather than a “something” or an “It.”3 Dependence and accountability are hardwired into human beings (something to which we’ll shortly return).

What do we do with this personal knowledge? In the game played out since Eden, we are the ones who try to hide. We suppress the truth and try to drown it, and with that choice comes a “perilous exchange”4 where we idolatrously substitute all kinds of created things for the uncreated God in the foolish attempt to extricate “eternal power” and “divine nature” from them.

This suppression and substitution of revealed truth can be hard to understand, but Bavinck offers a memorable illustration in the metaphor of a dream, or better still, a nightmare. In a nightmare, the phenomena we experience in reality during the day are ripped out of their original contexts and become grotesque — twisted and distorted new ideas and fantasies. This whole process makes up what Bavinck calls humanity’s universal “religious consciousness.” We are God’s image bearers built for worship, and yet we have rebelled against our Creator. We know God and so are without excuse, but we are also ignorant of him. We are running to him and away from him at the same time. This is the dignity and depravity of our humanity.

This messy mix is what I believe Paul is getting at in Acts 17 when he calls the Athenians “very religious” and points to their unknown god. He’s not commending their idolatry (he’s been deeply distressed, notes their ignorance, and will call them to repentance), but he starts where they are, recognizing their need for worship as a point of contact (or better, attack).

Five Magnetic Points

Bavinck’s experience on the mission field in Indonesia and then back in a theological seminary in the Netherlands led him to unpack this religious consciousness. Yes, different religions and worldviews are vastly different, and yet, he writes,

There seems to be a kind of framework within which human religions need to operate. There appear to be definite points of contact around which all kinds of ideas crystallize. There seem to be quite vague feelings — one might better call them direction signals that have been actively brooding everywhere. . . . Perhaps this can be expressed thus: there seem to be definite magnetic points that time and again irresistibly compel human religious thought. Human beings cannot escape their power but must provide an answer to those basic questions posed to them.5

These “magnetic points,” fashioned from our distortions of God’s “eternal power” and “divine nature” (which stress our creaturely accountability), can manifest themselves in a multitude of mutations, but “since they are rooted in our existence, they are stronger than ourselves, and somehow we must come to grips with them.”6 Even if these points are never consciously articulated, human beings still answer them by “their entire conduct” and “attitude to life”: their “whole way of living already implies an answer, and is an answer.”7 These are the itches that we have to scratch, even if they just lead to more irritation.

Bavinck notes that there are five of these magnetic points, each offering a perspective on the one religious consciousness. The following is my own summary of them.8

1. Totality: Is there a way to connect?

All humans have an innate sense of totality and connection that shapes our identity. On the one hand, we often feel so small and insignificant, just specks in the vast universe with no value or worth, and treated as such. Any yet, when we connect with something or someone(s) bigger, we find significance through belonging and enjoy communal awareness. Therefore, we crave connection, often feel abandoned after we’ve experienced it, and crave for it again and again.

2. Norm: Is there a way to live?

We have a vague sense there are rules to be obeyed. People recognize and accept moral standards and codes that come from outside them and to which they must adhere. This knowledge brings with it a sense of responsibility to live up to those norms. Even groups that seek to be countercultural have their own set of rules of nonconformity.

3. Deliverance: Is there a way out?

We know something is wrong with the world. There is finitude, brokenness, and wrongdoing, and the problems of suffering and death consistently confront us. We mourn for some kind of paradise lost and long for deliverance from these evils, craving redemption. And yet, we can’t agree on what our ultimate problem is, let alone whether there is a solution that would deliver us.

4. Destiny: Is there a way we control?

Although we know ourselves to be active players in the world, we have a nagging feeling that we are also passive participants in somebody else’s world. We both lead and undergo our lives. Sometimes we feel confident that we are masters of our destiny with agency and power to determine reality. Other times we feel restricted and trapped with no agency, like pawns in a cosmic game of chess or puppets on a string. We’re victims. We oscillate between these two moods, and cannot settle and find cognitive or existential rest.

5. Higher Power: Is there a way beyond?

This is the meta-magnetic point on which all the others converge. Humans perceive that behind all reality, beyond the veil, stands a great reality. The deeper we look to find connection, discover the norm, search for deliverance, and relate to our destiny, the more we come to the question of a higher power. But what is it? Who is it?

These, then, are the magnetic points that make up our religious consciousness, all formed from the anthropological clay of Romans 1 and the broader theological anthropology of Scripture. In Bavinck’s life and ministry, the phenomena before him (with which he used this framework) were what we might call recognized religious traditions and worldviews. And such analysis in cross-cultural settings is as relevant then as it is now.

However, I believe this anthropological framework, these five magnetic points, are just as relevant in our late-modern, post-Christian Western context. These magnetic points can be the lens through which we start to read our culture. They can help us connect with those around us who are scratching their “very religious” itches.9 They can be the magnetic poles we use to orient wandering souls to True North.

One Magnetic Person

Using this framework enables us to connect and confront our culture with the Lord Jesus Christ. In him, all the magnetic points are yes and amen. He is where the traction lies. The gospel of Christ confronts and subverts idolatrous religious consciousness and its historical manifestations, but it also provides its fulfillment. As we observe in 1 Corinthians 1, Christ crucified confronts all idolatrous cultural stories (1 Corinthians 1:20–25). It’s foolish and scandalous to Jews (who look for power) and to Greeks (who look for wisdom). And yet, to those who are being saved, Jesus is the power and is the wisdom that completes these stories (and the myriad of other stories we tell).

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the subversive fulfillment of the magnetic points. He is the magnetic Person that we present to people. In the cosmic game of hide-and-seek, where God is not hiding but we, Jesus, the light of the world, pierces the darkness. He is the greatest seeker who comes to seek and save the lost. (I can only present the barest pencil outline here. I will leave it to you to color in these points with the boldest and richest gospel colors.)

First, Jesus is the subversive fulfillment of totality (the way to connect). The beautiful doctrine of the image of God affirms both our insignificance (we are not God) and our significance (we are images of God). We are Adam — ones “from the earth” — and so our need for connection is natural. And yet, we are disconnected: from ourselves, each other, the creation, and (most of all) the Creator, against whom we have rebelled. Being connected to this world means being connected to a world that is under judgment and is perishing.

Jesus, the Second Adam, offers a new kingdom into which we enter by repentance and faith. Entering this kingdom requires death and sacrifice but not a loss of self in terms of individuality and responsibility. Rather, it brings rebirth and resurrection, communion with God in our union with Christ and community in the body of Christ, the church.10

Second, Jesus is the subversive fulfillment of the norm (the way to live). Jesus offers himself as both the standard and the Savior. In following Jesus, people come to see that God’s unchanging holy law is for our flourishing. Yet, he offers compassion to the outcast and marginalized, and he hates religious hypocrisy.

Third, Jesus is the subversive fulfillment of deliverance (the way out). The war between ourselves, within ourselves, and with our environment has a root cause: our enmity with God. We face his righteous wrath and an eternity in hell. Deliverance can be found only through one Mediator, the God-man Jesus Christ — and through him alone. In him there is not only escape but restoration and eternal blessing.

Fourth, Jesus is the subversive fulfillment of destiny (the way of control). Our world is not governed by blind fate or malevolent forces but by a sovereign God who is Lord over all creation, both natural and supernatural. This sovereignty does not take away human freedom but is its precondition. Christian destiny is liberating and joyful.

Finally, Jesus is the subversive fulfillment of the higher power (the way beyond). We do not worship a non-Absolute deity or an impersonal force, but a Someone, maximally Absolute and maximally Personal, who is both transcendent and immanent, Judge and Savior. We worship One who has reached down to us in grace, the Word made flesh.

Many Magnetic People

Now that we have considered the five magnetic points and the one magnetic person, Jesus Christ, how might we utilize this framework in our ministry and mission?

Pastor Toward the Magnetic Person

First, in our pastoring. Our evangelism and apologetics flow from our discipleship. In 1883, Charles Spurgeon preached a sermon on John 12:32 titled “The Marvelous Magnet.” He said,

All the magnetism comes from the first place from which it started, and when it ceases at the fountainhead there is an end of it altogether. Indeed, Jesus Christ is the great attractive magnet, and all must begin and end with Him. . . . Thus from one to another the mystic influence proceeds, but the whole of the force abides in Jesus. More and more the kingdom grows, “ever mighty to prevail,” but all the growing and the prevailing come out of Him. So it is that Jesus works — first by Himself, and then by all who are in Him. May the Lord make us all magnets for Himself.11

A teacher wrote to me recently about this quotation and gave me a physics lesson. Some materials can become magnetic when placed in a magnetic field, as they are made up of lots of regions called “domains,” which are essentially “mini-magnets.” When not in the magnetic field, they align randomly and cancel each other out so that there is no overall magnetic field. But in the presence of an external magnetic field, these domains align so that, instead of canceling each other out, their strengths combine to make the material magnetic.

Our hearts are like the unmagnetized material: we are fragmented. Our inner desires, commitments, loves, emotions, and beliefs are attracted by all sorts of created things. We have divided hearts (Psalm 86:11). What we need is to be close to Christ. As we behold his glory (2 Corinthians 3:18), spending time in his magnetic field, all our fragmented “mini-magnets” become attracted to him and start to align. He makes us magnetic.

We are either being formed by Christ or being deformed by something or someone else. If we are not being drawn to Christ, we are being drawn away by something else. The magnetic points serve as a helpful diagnostic tool as we pastor ourselves and those in our care. Where are our hearts seeking connections, norms, deliverances, destinies, and higher powers that are not in Christ?

The question then becomes, How are we to stay properly magnetized? The extraordinarily ordinary answer is, of course, by loving Jesus and loving his body, the church, through which the Holy Spirit re-magnetizes us each week, and sends us out on mission and into our God-given vocations. May the Lord make us all magnets for himself!

Preach with the Magnetic Points

Second, in our preparation for preaching. To connect every aspect of their sermons to the lives of the people in their churches, the Puritans used preaching grids that helped map out particular sermon applications. The magnetic points can function in a similar fashion, acting as a bridge to connect our preaching to the lives and concerns of our listeners. Because they are a way of understanding the Bible’s own anthropology, using them as an application grid is not an artificial imposition on the text. Because they are part of who we are, we can’t avoid touching on these themes.

Preachers don’t have to explain the magnetic points in their sermons. Like the scaffold in a building project, such a grid is temporary and won’t be on display in the final product. But the magnetic points do provide a useful grid as we aim to present Christ in our preaching as the fulfillment of our deepest longings.

Persuade with Magnetic Spaces

Third, in our persuasion. As I’ve already noted, the magnetic points provide a helpful framework for connecting with the non-Christians God has placed in our lives in a natural but intentional way.12 Sometimes this occurs in more direct and immediate evangelistic engagement. However, given our increasingly post-Christian culture — which is frantic, fractured, and polarized — civil dialogue and conversation is becoming more difficult. How do we even create opportunities to speak of Christ where people will genuinely listen and engage? Increasingly, some relationships call for a longer “run up.”

Among many steps churches could take, we could consider creating “magnetic spaces,” places where people can pause in the journey of life, gaining some relief from the storm. Like the ancient hospiciums, which before the nineteenth century were not places for the dying but rest houses for travelers, such spaces could provide relief from the storms of life and opportunities to reflect on the many issues people face. A magnetic space could be a book or film club, a regular meeting of parents or businessmen, a sports ministry, a mental-health discussion group, or more.

It should be noted that such magnetic spaces would not be guilty of what can be called bait-and-switch tactics. While each magnetic space is built by a local church, every space would be happily self-contained with an integrity of purpose in serving the community (for example, to produce better leaders, parents, or mental health) and in fostering and promoting civility. We would love all citizens in our hostile and fractious culture to be learning a convicted civility that combines a civil outlook with a passionate intensity, and where there is improved self-understanding, awareness, and listening. We might call this pre-pre-evangelism.

However, we need to note that helping people think through issues of life through the magnetic points serves the gospel by helping people uncover their own ultimate heart commitments. As Isaiah says in his great satire of idolatry, the problem with the idolater is that “no one stops to think” (Isaiah 44:18–19 NIV). Magnetic spaces would be places to get people to stop and think about their commitments and the objects of their worship. By God’s Spirit, they may begin to see the futility of lives not built on Christ, the only one who can give us connection, norm, deliverance, and destiny.

In other words, conversational difference creates the space and the platform for conversional difference. We might call this pre-evangelism. At this point, the churches that built the spaces are open and welcoming for those who want to hear more about Christ being the subversive fulfillment of their idolatrous longings.

Traction and Tethering

Tackling pastoring, preaching, and persuasion in our late-modern culture can seem as daunting, dizzying, and arduous as one of Alex Honnold’s vertiginous climbs. However, the magnetic points can provide both the traction and the tethering we need to make it to the top. Yes, such climbing requires creativity, imagination, and stamina, but we aren’t climbing solo. We have God’s Spirit with us, and we trust what God’s word says about the religious nature of all human beings, our security as Christian disciples, and the magnetism of the Lord Jesus Christ. What an exciting adventure to be part of.

What is the point of suffering in obscurity?

That question haunted me for years. I wondered if there was any purpose to the days, months, and even decades of pain that no one witnessed. My suffering wasn’t neat and tidy, with a definite beginning, a short duration, and a clear purpose. It dragged on till I was tempted to give up hope and to rage against my circumstances. I questioned whether my faithfulness was pointless. I assumed my private response to suffering was ultimately inconsequential.

Nothing could have been further from the truth.

“Our suffering is, in fact, never private, because everything we do and say is being watched by the unseen world.”

I’ve since learned that, instead of being insignificant, our private suffering carries massive significance, with far-reaching, eternal consequences. Our suffering is, in fact, never private, because everything we do and say is being watched by the unseen world, a world of angels and demons, of powers and principalities, of a great cloud of witnesses and our triune God himself. While this may sound unnerving to some, knowing we’re surrounded by all these unseen spectators has inspired me to press on through my own pain.

The Watching (Unseen) World

I may feel like no one sees or knows what I’m going through, but in reality, we are all on a giant battleground, where angels and demons are craning their necks to see what they can learn about God through us. They are watching to see how God helps us, how his presence dispels our fears, and how he inspires our worship. Our lives are on full display. This isn’t sci-fi fantasy or some reassuring myth designed to ease our pain and loneliness. No, the stunning truth that we are constantly being watched is firmly grounded in Scripture.

We know we’re surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1), which includes “watchers,” heavenly beings, who see what is happening on earth (Daniel 4:13, 17). Satan is also watching us, accusing us before God (Zechariah 3:1; Revelation 12:10), as he did Job (Job 1:6–12), while his fallen angels, “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,” carry out his schemes (Ephesians 6:12). Satan wants us to doubt God’s goodness and to believe that God’s value is tied to the material blessings he gives. So, when we bless God in the midst of trial, we are showing Satan and his demons the greatness and worth of the God they rejected.

Many of the heavenly beings are angels who watch us closely, and God sends them in response to our prayers (Daniel 9:21–23), often encircling us in a protection we cannot see (2 Kings 6:17; Psalm 34:7). They rejoice when sinners repent (Luke 15:10) and peer intently into our lives to understand the mysteries of God (1 Peter 1:12).

I first heard about the unseen world’s attention from John Piper when he unpacked the book of Job and highlighted how Job’s faithful response demonstrated the value of God to the heavenly realms. I saw that my response to suffering mattered — not just for me, but because a watching world (a world that I can neither see nor hear) was waiting to see how I would respond to trials. My life is for God’s glory, and when I find contentment in God rather than in his gifts, I am spotlighting God’s worth to an immense, invisible audience. And that spotlight shines even brighter when I’m racked with pain, or too exhausted to move, or feeling enveloped by a deadening numbness and still choose to praise God.

Displaying Wisdom to the Heavens

Ephesians 3:10 beautifully underscores this truth. God’s grace was given to Paul to preach the riches of Christ and the mystery of the gospel “so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” This means that through the church, through you and me, God’s wisdom is made known to the heavenly realms. The angels and demons learn about God through watching us respond to affliction.

Charles Spurgeon gives us a stirring picture of how the angels are learning through us:

As every day brings to us our daily bread, so every day brings to heaven its daily theme of wonder, and the angels receive fresh stores of knowledge from the ever-new experience of the people of God. They lean from the battlements of heaven today to gaze on you, ye tried believers; they look into your furnace as did the King of Babylon, and they see the fourth man with you like unto the Son of God. They track you, O ye children of Israel in the wilderness; they see the places of your encampment and the land to which you are hastening; and as they mark the fiery cloudy pillar that conducts you and the angel of God’s house that leads the van and brings up the rear, they discover in every step of the way the wonderful wisdom of God. (“Another and a Nobler Exhibition”)

As the unseen world watches us, they see God’s grace sustain us, his power deliver us, and his comfort encourage us. They see us bless God in sickness and in health, and they witness God’s manifold wisdom as he uses everything in our lives for good. With all these watchers, our faithfulness has a cosmic impact. We shake the universe by choosing to bless God in the midst of trial, showing that God really is our treasure, even now, and that he’s worthy of worship.

We Never Suffer Alone

Joni Eareckson Tada demonstrates this reality better than anyone I know. She once said to me in an interview, “I think about Ephesians 3:10 when I’m in pain at night, and I remember a great many somebodies are watching. They are observing me. I want my life to be the blackboard upon which God chalks these incredible lessons about himself. I don’t want to do anything to defame God or make him look untrustworthy.”

At the True Woman 2010 conference, she reiterated that idea, saying, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been able to press on because I know my life is on display. We don’t suffer for nothing, and we never suffer alone. . . . My response to hardship is never isolated. It is not true that no one cares or notices. The stakes are high, and God’s reputation is on the line. It’s all for God’s glory.”

As Joni reminds us, every day we can choose to show the surpassing value of Christ to the unseen watching world. We can glorify God when we are unfairly accused and choose to respond with grace. When we are worried about a loved one and choose not to fear. When we are racked with physical or emotional pain and choose to praise God through our tears. These choices all matter, because a heavenly host is watching.

Your Suffering Really Matters

While we have the honor of proclaiming the greatness of our God to the universe, sometimes we feel too broken or weak to care. Suffering has worn us down, and we need the comfort of Christ’s love, knowing he has engraved our name on the palms of his nail-scarred hands (Isaiah 49:16). He is tenderly watching over us.

“The angels and demons learn about God through watching us respond to affliction.”

Jesus knows when we sit and when we rise, knows our every thought and every word even before we speak it (Psalm 139:1–4). He sees our silent suffering, is drawing near to us in it, and is ever interceding for us (Romans 8:34). He is praying for us to persevere through the pain, making sure our faith will not fail. He is with us always (Matthew 28:20), and as we are faithful unto death, we may see Jesus standing in heaven to welcome us (Acts 7:55).

In heaven, we will receive a reward for our faithfulness. A reward tied to what we’ve endured, since we are assured our suffering on earth is producing something, preparing for us an unimaginable weight of glory that we will one day experience (2 Corinthians 4:17).

So, don’t believe the lie that your suffering doesn’t matter, that no one is watching, and that there’s no point to your faithfulness. While it may seem like you’re suffering alone in a dark room, you’re actually on an enormous stage with innumerable eyewitnesses. And the stakes are higher than you think. So press on. Fight with joy. Remain faithful. Our lives are on display.