http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14839397/a-strange-and-holy-calm
My wife and I are investing in calmness therapy for our twin 11-year-old boys. It’s called youth baseball. The financial expenses pale in comparison to the deposits of time.
Baseball not only facilitates brain and body development, and teaches teamwork, but also produces contexts for learning to handle pressure and deal with failure. In other words, it provides avenues to cultivate self-control — the one virtue the apostle Paul saw fit to set before young men in Titus 2. After multiple charges each for older men, older women, and younger women (Titus 2:2–5), he gives a single focus for the young men: “urge the younger men to be self-controlled” (Titus 2:6).
Do not misunderstand. We do not want our boys to be unemotional; and they are not. They’re competitive, and they’re kids, prone to react without proper emotional restraint. Which is why youth baseball can be one valuable tool, among others, in seeking to build men. We want them to learn how to be composed under pressure, when the moment requires it, and give release to their emotions in the proper time and place. We want them to learn to keep their head when others are losing theirs, to not lose control in outrage or self-pity but keep a sober mind, aware that how they carry themselves and treat teammates, umpires, and the opposing team is far more important than winning a game.
At times, we cheer, and celebrate a win after the final out has been made. At other moments, we process the disappointment of errors, strikeouts, and losses. But in the ups and downs of the game — and in life off the field — our passions can push us to celebrate prematurely, or wallow extensively. We want our boys to learn how to stay calm in the storm, not by repressing emotions but learning to master them. In the heat of the moment, we want them to keep their wits, tell themselves truth, and stay calm enough to faithfully take the next step for their own good, and the good of others.
More than baseball players, we want our boys to become Christian men.
He Held His Peace
In a day when outbursts of emotion are not only accepted, but respected, and encouraged, it can be more difficult to raise men who learn to righteously “hold their peace.” It’s a curious phrase at key junctures in the history of God’s people. Some outburst of rage, or rash expression of anger or retaliation, is expected, yet a man of God, we’re told, “held his peace.”
First, we see it in the patriarch Jacob, when he hears that Shechem, prince of the land, “had defiled his daughter Dinah.” We expect an explosion. But “Jacob held his peace” until his sons could come in from the field (Genesis 34:5). It’s not that Jacob ignores or minimizes this outrageous act against his daughter, and family, but he maintains self-control until his counselors can gather and decide how to respond. Two of his sons, Simeon and Levi, do not exercise the same restraint and become Jacob’s foil. They come against Shechem with swords, and in doing so, bring “trouble on [Jacob] by making [him] stink to the inhabitants of the land” (Genesis 34:30).
So also Aaron, Moses’s brother and the first high priest. When his sons “offered unauthorized fire” before God and were consumed (Leviticus 10:1–2), we might expect Aaron to erupt with rage against heaven at the loss of his sons. Instead, Moses reports, “Aaron held his peace” (Leviticus 10:3) — not because he didn’t care, or wasn’t severely grieved, but because he revered God with a righteous fear and trusted God’s goodness, that he had done no wrong, painful as Aaron’s loss was.
King Saul, at the outset of his reign, before his falls from grace, demonstrated admirable restraint when dishonored. As the rest of the nation acknowledges and embraces him as its first king, the critics emerge, “some worthless fellows,” with their cynicism: “How can this man save us?” As king, Saul now has the power to dispose of such men, quickly and quietly. “But he held his peace,” reports Samuel, in an admirable demonstration of his early magnanimity (1 Samuel 10:27).
Slow to Anger
Most noteworthy, though, is God himself. He says, through Isaiah, to his rebellious people, “For a long time I have held my peace; I have kept still and restrained myself” (Isaiah 42:14). God has not ignored or discounted their sin; nor has he raged in an outburst of unrestrained fury against them. Later he pleads, “Have I not held my peace, even for a long time, and you do not fear me?” (Isaiah 57:11). Now he will act in justice, giving vent to his righteous anger, but none may reasonably charge him with rushing to judgment or the slightest impatience.
“In times that socialize us for outrage and outbursts, we need men who know how to hold their peace.”
In times that socialize us for outrage and outbursts, we need men not just like Jacob, Aaron, and a young Saul — who know how to hold their peace when the moment requires it — but also like God himself, who the Scriptures describe repeatedly as “slow to anger.” Significantly, when God reveals himself to Moses in response to the request “Show me your glory,” the first words the prophet hears are “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger” (Exodus 34:6).
Such divine composure, as we might call it, would become a legacy for the Israelites, that their God was slow to anger. Not without anger. He clearly stood ready to punish the guilty in time. And never before it was time, and never with an intensity that was unjust or in any way that wronged those he punished or disciplined. Yet, given the rebellion of his people, often outrageous, he was enduringly patient and markedly “slow to anger,” as prophets and psalmists alike would cherish (Nehemiah 9:17; Joel 2:13; Psalms 86:15; 103:8; 145:8).
So Too His People
The collected Proverbs of the nation made this striking application: As your God, so too his people. If God himself, by all accounts and remembrances, is indeed slow to anger, how can his people not seek to be like him?
Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding,
but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly. (Proverbs 14:29)A hot-tempered man stirs up strife,
but he who is slow to anger quiets contention. (Proverbs 15:18)Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty,
and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city. (Proverbs 16:32)Good sense makes one slow to anger,
and it is his glory to overlook an offense. (Proverbs 19:11)
Here we see how God is forming and shaping his people: to have “great understanding”; to “quiet contention”; to be “better than the mighty”; to manifest “good sense” and the rare glory, in a world like ours, to overlook an offense. This God would save his people from hasty tempers, from exalting folly, from stirring up strife. So too in the New Testament, James extends this legacy to his Christian readers: “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19).
Jesus Whipped and Wept
But what of Christ himself, God incarnate?
In Jesus, we find full and holy humanity, along with expressions we might not label “calm,” yet are manifestly righteous. We do not picture Christ as calm when he made a whip of cords, cleared the temple, and overturned tables (John 2:15) — actions that prompted his disciples to remember Psalm 69:9: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
Nor would we call him “calm” when he came to Bethany in the wake of Lazarus’s death. “Deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled” (John 11:33), Jesus wept — visibly enough that onlookers said, “See how he loved him!” (John 11:35–36). Then he came to the tomb and was “deeply moved again” (John 11:38).
Nor would we think of his anguish in the garden as serenity. “Being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). We don’t typically think of calmness as accompanied by “loud cries and tears” — but even here in Gethsemane, in his distress, he did not abandon reverence but was heard because of it (Hebrews 5:7).
We would go too far to pretend that Christ was always calm. There were moments he was righteously and manifestly moved by holy emotions. Though neither in the temple, nor in Bethany, nor in the garden, did he lose control.
Apart from a few exceptions, the Christ we encounter in the Gospels is stunningly calm. What composure, what self-control, what holy calmness he shows again and again when failed by his disciples, interrupted by the sick, imposed upon by the well-meaning, challenged by the sophisticated, and disrespected by the authorities. The one to whom our Christian growth conforms is one who was decidedly, manifestly calm, with only the rarest of, and most fitting, exceptions.
Not Stressed to Rule the Stars
But just as helpful today, as we seek to live with the pattern of holy calm that echoes our Lord’s, is his unshakable composure right now, seated on heaven’s throne. Indeed, we are not yet fully glorified. We are not yet beyond the reach of earthly storms, injuries, strange behavior, and surprising acts of evil in this unreasonable world. But our captain is. As his soldiers, we draw on his calmness as absolute sovereign and utterly invincible. His holy composure and admirable serenity are not only our model to follow but also, and most significantly, our hope to lean on.
Unlike the priests in the first covenant, standing daily in God’s service, ever in motion, “offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins . . . when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:11–12). The priests stood, but as John Piper comments,
Christ is not standing. He is not in perpetual motion. . . . He does happen to rule the world. And care for his church. But he doesn’t need to stand up to do it. According to Psalm 8:3, he made the stars with his fingers. It is no stress for him to rule one, infinitesimal planet without jumping out of his seat like a basketball coach, or pacing back and forth like a general waiting for news from the front lines. The accession of Christ to the throne of the universe — and his sitting on his throne with complete equanimity — is a signal to all his enemies, and to us, that this war has been won.
“The enemies of Christ hate calm and fearless responses in Christ’s people.”
The enemies of Christ hate calm and fearless responses in Christ’s people. They signal to Christ’s foes that their destruction is coming (Philippians 1:28). But more than that, holy calm, in the midst of our storms, makes us available to love others in the thick of crises, rather than being absorbed in our reaction.
Oh, for Christians like this in our day of outrage and outburst. And for men like this especially — for husbands and fathers and pastors — to be a non-anxious presence in our homes and churches. For men who lean on the stressless, complete equanimity of Christ, showing holy calmness through the emotionally trying and explosive moments in life and leadership, ready to be responsive without being reactive, engaged and even industrious without being frantic, able to hold their peace when needed, and bring genuine concord in our skirmishes, knowing the war has been won.
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If God Is Sovereign, Why Is His World Full of Suffering?
Audio Transcript
We open the week with a pretty raw email from a hurting man — a hurting dad. He’s sad over the brokenness of the world. And that brokenness hits home for him. Here’s his story, sent in as an anonymous email.
“Dear Pastor John, to be totally truthful and honest with you, I struggle to believe the Lord is completely ruling his world today. It’s impossible to believe simply because of the state of the world today — or, I should say, his world today. Not only has our nation gone down a slippery road of immoral self-destruction, but our economy is faltering. National debt is skyrocketing. The unborn are massacred daily. Murder rates in America are swelling. In Chicago the crime rate has escalated to such a high degree that I’m beginning to believe it is safer in Iraq or Afghanistan than it is in the South Side. Most children sleep under their beds in fear they may become victims of gun violence.
“The struggles hit home for us, too, a family of four. We have a son born with ADHD, and this has created a life of pure frustration, pain, sorrow, and sometimes even despair. One night while attempting to do his school homework across the kitchen table, he told me, ‘Dad, I hate going to school. Even the teachers make fun of me. I hate ADHD and this medication that makes me sick to my stomach.’ Pastor John, if God is in charge, why is there so much suffering all around?”
Well, the most grievous thing this dear man says is “It is impossible to believe.” And so I’ve been praying — I pray now — that God might perhaps use something I say to make it possible again. We’ve tried to address this question many times at Desiring God and in Ask Pastor John. But when I saw the question, I thought, I really do want to address this again.
World of Pain
I feel the gut-wrenching pressure of the problem, not just because of the way this man so effectively articulated it, but also because a while back, Noël and I watched a three-part documentary called Pain, Pus, and Poison. And in the second episode, about the history leading up to the discovery of penicillin and the emergence of antibiotics in the twentieth century, I was almost overwhelmed with the thought of how many thousands of years the world languished horribly under the most horrific diseases with no medical defense whatsoever — and in fact, with medical procedures that often made matters worse.
For example, the night before George Washington died, they bled four pints of blood from his body. Four pints. That’s almost 40 percent of his blood. That second episode showed pictures of people dying of horrible open infections and little children covered with smallpox sores as I watched their mothers fanning the flies off of them just waiting for their children to die. When I saw them, my wife looked away. She couldn’t look. And I just felt myself gasping, saying, “No! What if I were there? What if I were the parent fanning this horribly deformed child, hideously covered with smallpox sores, and just waiting for a miserable death?” And that happened millions of times in the history of the world.
Most of us in the West have been spared any immediate contact with the most gruesome, ghastly, repugnant forms of infection and disfigurement and writhing pain. And I felt the force of the question, “God, what does this mean about you? What are you doing? What are you saying?”
And I’m aware from this man’s question, and from thousands of others, that such experiences of unimaginable suffering and hideous disfigurement have confirmed countless people in unbelief. They would say, as he does, “It’s impossible, Piper. It’s just impossible to believe anymore, simply because of the state of the world today.” That’s his quote — only I’m saying the problem is worse. It’s horribly worse, because between 1900 and 1977, 300 million people died of smallpox. Then, with a massive global vaccination effort in 1977, it was gone — and today, nobody. Think of it: from 300 million to nobody. Nobody gets smallpox. Nobody gets polio.
The problem with suffering is not that the world has gotten worse. Oh yes, it’s plenty bad, and he documented its badness. It’s plenty bad. But the worst problem is that for thousands of years, the world had it so much worse than it is today in terms of horrific suffering. So how do I, John Piper, stay a believer when the little suffering that I have been exposed to, directly and indirectly, takes my breath away? Here’s my witness. I think I’ve got three thoughts here.
Scripture Is Not Naive
One, the first thing that grips me is the absolute realism of the Bible. I spent several years writing a book on providence, and month after month I was stunned at how candid and open and blunt and even gory the Bible is in presenting God’s judgments upon the world, especially his own people. Just a taste from Deuteronomy 28:
The Lord will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought and with blight and with mildew. . . . And you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. And your dead body shall be food for all birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth. . . . The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed. The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind . . . because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God . . . because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things. (Deuteronomy 28:22, 25–28, 45, 47)
“The Bible doesn’t shrink back from any horror or injustice in this world.”
Now, my point here is simply that our objections to God’s ways are not because we have seen things more clearly or honestly than the Bible sees them. The Bible doesn’t shrink back from any horror or injustice in this world. That’s my first step. I can’t throw away the Bible because it’s naive or deceptive or a whitewash of the miseries that God himself ordains.
Suffering Witnesses to Sin
Here’s my second step: I would say that the physical horrors in the world can make sense to us and have meaning and eventual righteous resolution only if we come to embrace the biblical reality that sin against an infinitely wise and just and good God is a moral outrage greater than the physical outrage of centuries of global suffering. Let me say that again, because it is the heart of the matter, and it is very difficult for people without the Holy Spirit’s massive work to embrace: the physical horrors of suffering in this world can make sense to us and have meaning and eventual righteous resolution only if we come to embrace the biblical reality that sin against an infinitely wise and just and good God is a moral outrage greater than the physical outrage of centuries of global suffering.
I’m not saying that each experience of suffering corresponds to each person’s particular sins. If that were true, we’d all be in hell. As far as I can tell, and as far as the Bible reveals, there is no clear correlation between the extent of an individual’s suffering in this world and the extent of their guilt. What I’m referring to is what Paul means in Romans 8:20–23, when he says,
The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. [It’s like the earth is pregnant and screaming with birth pains.] And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
The universal groaning of creation, the agonizing of all creation in suffering, is owing to what verse 20 calls “subjection,” the creation’s subjection, and what verse 21 calls “bondage to corruption.” And this subjection and corruption is owing to the one who is subjected it “in hope” — namely, God.
This is what I’m referring to when I say that the sin that came into the world through Adam and spread to all people is a moral outrage greater than the physical outrage of suffering, which means that seeing and believing the goodness and justice of God assumes a Copernican revolution of our mind and heart. If we’re going to see God as good and just and wise, we have to undergo such a profound mental and spiritual Copernican revolution of mind and heart so that God ceases to be a planet circling the sun of humanity and becomes the massive, blazing, glorious sun at the center of the solar system of all things. God becomes supreme reality. His being becomes the supreme worth and treasure of the universe.
“All human suffering is a screaming witness to the greater horror of human sin.”
Only in this way will the moral outrage of sin be seen as worse than the physical outrage of suffering, which means very practically that when I gasp at the hideous pictures in the documentary and find myself inevitably saying, “Oh God, oh God, what does this mean?” the answer I hear is “All human suffering is a screaming witness to the greater horror of human sin.”
Christ Died for Sinners
Finally, the third thing that keeps me believing is that God sent his Son into this world, sent his very self, to suffer a moral outrage greater than the outrage against his Father by all his people in their sin. For the infinitely pure and good and wise and strong and holy Son of God to descend to the degradation and torture of a Roman crucifixion is enough suffering, enough indignity, to cover all the outrage of all the sins of all who believe.
Therefore, all who believe will have eternal life; all who believe will have eternal joy. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). So I don’t claim that such faith is simple or easy. It is a gift, and I am simply bearing witness to how it is that I am still a Christian.
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Men of Exemplary Faith: How Pastors Lead a Church Well
Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in . . . faith. (1 Timothy 4:12)
The great thing about setting an example is that you don’t need anyone’s permission. You have God’s command. You don’t have to budget for this. Money has nothing to do with it. And you don’t have to wait. You can start right now, while you’re still young in ministry, before you feel seasoned and venerable and worthy.
Pastor, here is a powerfully inspiring gift you can give to your church: set an example in your faith. And that faith includes both your doctrinal orthodoxy and your personal reality.
Orthodoxy Soaked in Vitality
It is downright exciting to attend a church where the pastor reveres the age-old truths of the gospel. All week long, this world belittles us with its demoralizing insinuations that we never measure up and we never fully belong and we’re always second-rate, because we don’t wear the latest fashions or have beautiful bodies or whatever. But then we stumble into church on Sunday morning, feeling low, and the songs and the Scripture and the sermon and the sacraments breathe fresh life into us. We float out of church, feeling alive again, confident again. We want to go live for Christ that week!
This renewal flows into us not because the pastor has followed faddishly popular ideas but because his preparation dug deep into the Bible, and he found there, once again, the grace and glory of Jesus for the undeserving. A pastor’s orthodox faith sets an example for how all of us can be refreshed in Christ again and again — with our Bibles, and our hearts, wide open.
It gets even better. In addition to his theological faith, a pastor’s personal felt reality with the living God — his inner awareness that God is very present, very involved — that visceral faith is a life-giving example to a whole church, setting a tone of eager anticipation Sunday after Sunday. Pastor, if your faith is orthodox but hypothetical, your church will spiral down into either tragic lethargy or rigid pride. And it will be your fault, on your watch.
But if your faith is both orthodox and vital, if the biblical Christ of our historic creeds is also an existential reality to you, your church will awaken. Your congregation will grow in sensitivity and alertness and sitting-on-the-edge-of-their-seats expectancy. What greater gift could you give them?
Leading in Vulnerability
But it’s a costly gift. A pastor’s personal faith is honest — to the point of vulnerability. Any pastor with a devoutly felt faith will find himself free to admit shortcomings and weaknesses, because he knows and feels the all-sufficiency of Jesus. And his transparency will send a signal to everyone in the church, “We can get real here. We can put our problems out on the table here. This is a safe place for people with failures and fears. The Lord is here, and he is enough for every one of us.”
Some people might feel threatened by such unusual openness. But most people will feel relieved, and they will happily jump in. The pastor’s personal faith sets an example that frees sinners to come out of hiding and find healing in Jesus, through and according to the gospel. They even experience this renewal together, as friends, which is the best way. It’s how church services stop feeling routinized, and they start feeling revived.
Theological orthodoxy soaked in personal vitality — this is the faith with which a young pastor can set an inspiring example for his congregation.
Three Qualities of Exemplary Faith
Now let’s take another step and run this exemplary faith through Titus 2:2, which describes a mature saint as “sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled.” Those words describe what every young pastor aspires to become — especially in his faith.
SOBER-MINDED
A young pastor’s sober-minded faith puts first things first, is allergic to faddish crazes, and abhors fanaticism. Sadly, we live in an age of extremism, even among Christians. But the Bible calls us in the opposite direction: “Let your reasonableness be known to everyone” (Philippians 4:5).
Some people need crazy extremism. They sense that their pet doctrine lacks solid biblical evidence. So they get pushy and political to offset their weak arguments. And by its nature, fanaticism is never satisfied; it never quits. It is too self-righteous, and too insecure, to moderate its claims. But sober-minded faith has the maturity to know where each doctrine fits within the total structure of orthodox belief. Exemplary faith cultivates a sense of theological proportion. And a young pastor can excel in this very way. (My son Gavin explains this wisdom in his excellent book Finding the Right Hills to Die On.)
DIGNIFIED
Pastoral ministry is reserved for grown-ups. It is for father figures who can lead the church family well. And a young pastor can shine with the exemplary dignity of his faith. This word dignified in Titus 2:2 refers to the gravitas of a serious adult, one who truly deserves to be listened to. As the apostle wrote, “When I became a man, I gave up childish ways” (1 Corinthians 13:11). He embraced dignity.
Pastor, you are not in the entertainment business. You’re called to be a serious man of God. Not pompous and stiff, of course! As Spurgeon wisely pointed out,
A man who is to do much with men must love them and feel at home with them. An individual who has no geniality about him had better be an undertaker and bury the dead, for he will never succeed in influencing the living. (Lectures to My Students, “The Minister’s Ordinary Conversation,” 169)
Should you exude gentle warmth toward your people? Yes! But all behavior that is nonsensical, vulgar, or simply “cute” is immature, self-indulgent, unworthy of a pastor. You are there among the people not ultimately as their servant but ultimately as the Lord’s servant in their midst. Your theological faith and the glory of the gospel, along with your personal faith and sense of God’s presence, will grace you with the dignity of the Lord’s mature servant.
SELF-CONTROLLED
This word in the original text is hard to pin down. The great thinkers of ancient Greece located it around the ideas of moderation, balance, good judgment (F.E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms, 179–80). The New Testament narrows the sense to personal modesty, careful behavior (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:8; 2:5).
What a fascinating lens, then, to put on a pastor’s faith. What insight do we gain here? This kind of faith, both theological and personal, is not impulsive or reckless. It doesn’t leap to conclusions or strain the evidence or jump on bandwagons. This kind of faith weighs the alternatives thoroughly, shows good judgment, and discerns the best path forward. It satisfies the congregation’s questions and concerns. Its maturity is obviously credible.
A young pastor who thinks well stands a good chance of leading his congregation well, because he has already led himself along the path of strict discipline and careful consideration. He doesn’t have to stoop to arm-twisting. His exemplary faith is persuasive.
Need for Inspiring Faith
Pastor, this world of tragic unbelief needs your exemplary faith. And we disheartened Christians need your exemplary faith. Please, please startle us awake with your theologically robust and personally captivating faith in the Lord Jesus Christ!
Let me conclude by stating it as bluntly as I can. We need you, because we need him. Thank you for leading us by inspiring us.
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Feast on the Bible’s Grammar
Audio Transcript
Pastor John, about a month ago, in APJ 1993, an episode on expository preaching and youth ministry — namely, should youth ministries work through books of the Bible? — you mentioned “how artificial it is to distinguish between exposition and application,” because the preacher is always moving from language to reality. There’s no faithful exposition if the preacher isn’t constantly feeling the tug from words to reality. This is a profoundly important point, with a principle behind it.
I was wondering if you could explain today on the podcast one line from your new book, Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy. There you wrote this: “Every ‘therefore’ in the Bible” — and there are about five hundred of them in the Greek New Testament alone — “is a doorway to life and love.” Explain this principle. How do these five hundred “therefores” in the New Testament — translated in different ways into English, but all from the same Greek word — open the door to life and love?
Just a word about that statistic. I wanted to find some juicy therefores, so I did a search on the word therefore in the Gospel of John. I think I found sixteen matches, but it’s translated into words like thus or so instead of therefore, which is just fine.
Now, I love this question, especially the last part about the therefores opening the door to life and love. Before I go there, I really want to say something about the other comment you drew attention to first — namely, “how artificial it is to distinguish between exposition and application.”
That can be quite controversial because of the real danger of reading our situation back into the biblical situation, and possibly missing the original meaning because we smother it with our own sense of what it must mean for our situation. That’s the danger, and I want to warn students about that. I want to warn our listeners about that.
First-Century Readers and Me
A great deal of emphasis usually is put on figuring out the original intention of the author for his situation first. Then, only after you have done that hard work of interpreting the original meaning in the original setting, you ask the question about whether it has any application to your own life. What you’re drawing attention to when you quoted me is that I have said that this approach can be quite artificial — meaning, it simply won’t work to keep the intention of the author separate from my situation, because my situation may be a part of his intention originally.
For example, when Paul, quoting Jesus and the Old Testament, says in Romans 13:9, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” whom does he have in mind by you? He has in mind, I think, everybody reading his letter. Whether it’s the Romans or a church in northern Germany, he wills for everyone to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
So, what does it mean to interpret that sentence apart from applying it to myself? It would mean trying to grasp the meaning of the word love from Paul’s other uses of the word love, not just my use of it — which would be a mistake. And it would mean trying to understand the meaning of the word neighbor as Paul, Jesus, and the Old Testament use the word neighbor.
But do I know what this command means — I mean, really means — if I can give no illustration or application of what it would mean for me to love my neighbor this afternoon? I don’t have any idea. The command is addressed to me, not just to the Romans, not just to a first-century Jew listening to Jesus. And if it is addressed to me, the line between original meaning and application to me vanishes.
“I have not finished finding the original meaning until I know some of what it means in my life this afternoon.”
Here’s what I mean by that, because I could be misinterpreted. What I mean is that I have not finished finding the original meaning until I know some of what it means in my life this afternoon. What would it look like for John Piper, today, to love his wife, his children, his neighbor, the people on the street, the beggar at the corner? If I have no idea what that sentence means for my life, I have not interpreted it yet fully, according to its original intention, because that was God’s and Jesus’s and Paul’s intention — that whoever reads this text would do what it says in his or her situation. That’s the intention of the text. That’s its fullest, original meaning.
So, by all means, let the original usage of the words and the grammar and the historical context govern our interpretation. But let’s not think we are done interpreting, done grasping the author’s original intention, until we have a sense of how the text works itself out in our lives. This is urgent for us to the degree that we believe God is addressing us — not just the first century, but us — by the words of Scripture.
Logic, Life, and Love
Now, here’s the connection with all those life-giving, love-producing therefores in the New Testament. Dozens and dozens and dozens of these therefores are intended to have a practical, emotional, intellectual, behavioral effect on our lives today. That’s their purpose. That’s their intention. We don’t know the full meaning of these therefores until we see what their effect is, or is intended to be, on our lives.
What shocked me 55 years ago, in the fall of 1968, was the realization that every time you see one of these therefores in the Bible, you should realize that the authors are arguing — arguing, not squabbling (that’s another meaning for arguing, but I’m not talking about squabbling). They are making logical arguments. That’s what I mean by arguing. They are stating premises and drawing conclusions.
Like, if I were to say to a weary traveler, “You haven’t eaten for two days? You’re hungry. I have a lot of food. Therefore, sit at my table and eat your fill.” Now, that is a life-giving therefore, and it is a logical argument, like hundreds of texts in the Bible. There are three premises:
Premise 1: You haven’t eaten for two days.Premise 2: You’re hungry.Premise 3: I have much.
And there’s a conclusion:
Conclusion: Therefore, sit at my table and share my food.
Of course, there could be other premises added to those three, like “I love you” and “I’m not afraid of you.” Now we have five premises that lead to the great “Therefore, share my table.”
So, when you ask me, Tony, about the therefores, you’re asking me to celebrate one of the simplest and greatest discoveries I’ve ever made — namely, that the biblical authors make arguments, and the signal that they are making arguments is words like because and therefore. And hundreds of these are life-giving, love-producing therefores.
‘Therefore’ in Action
For example, consider Jesus’s words in Matthew 7:11–12: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! So [therefore] whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.” That’s worth an hour’s reflection. How does that therefore work? Where does love come from? That’s what Jesus is answering: Where does the power to obey the Golden Rule, to treat others the way you’d like to be treated, come from?
And Jesus says that it comes from the reality behind the therefore — namely, the confidence that your omnipotent Father in heaven will meet every need you have when you ask him. Period. Do you believe him? He will give you the good you need; therefore, do unto others as you wish them to do unto you. That is what I mean by a love-producing therefore. If you don’t grasp the logic and the reality of the therefore, you will forsake one of the great powers and motives for obeying the Golden Rule.
Or take 1 Corinthians 15:56–58. Paul has just spent fifty verses describing and defending the glories of what it will mean for us to be raised from the dead, and he ends the chapter like this: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
That’s what I call a life-giving therefore. Death does not end your life. You’re going to be raised from the dead. Therefore, nothing you do, nothing you do in the name of Jesus, is in vain. Press on, be steadfast, abound in good work, and live — live because of the therefore of 1 Corinthians 15:58.
There are hundreds of these texts, but we have to stop. Therefores give life, therefores produce love, and we have not gotten to the full intention of those texts until we see this.
