http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16899957/apostle-of-tears
At the beginning of Romans 9–11, Paul tells us he is sad. Really sad. “I speak the truth in Christ — I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit — I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart . . . for the sake of my people . . . Israel” (Romans 9:1–4 NIV). Paul is so sad that he doesn’t finish his thought and tell us what’s wrong with Israel. For that, we have to wait an entire chapter.
We come to find out that many within Israel had rejected Jesus, their long-awaited Messiah, and as a result weren’t “saved” (Romans 10:1). This reality not only made Paul sad; it also raised difficult questions about God. Did Israel’s unbelief mean that God had rejected his people — or worse, failed to keep his promises (Romans 9:6; 11:1)? And if God could reject his people and default on his promises, wasn’t this awful news for everybody, not just Israel but Gentiles too?
His Secret
To answer these questions, Paul reveals a secret hidden in the Bible and revealed only once God sent Jesus. God would save Israel and keep his word, but he would do so in a surprising way.
First, he would begin by reducing believing Israel to a tiny remnant. True, believing Israel and all Israel had never completely overlapped, even from the start (Romans 9:6–13). But it was only later, during the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles near the end of the Old Testament, that God reduced believing Israel to a mere remnant (Romans 9:27–29). And, surprisingly, believing Israel’s remnant status did not change even when the Messiah, Israel’s Savior, came (Romans 9:30–33; 11:7–10). As the apostle John put it: the Messiah “came to . . . his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:11 NIV).
Second, God would use Israel’s unbelief to make space for Gentile salvation (Romans 11:28, 30). Surprising space. Everybody expected Gentiles to one day join with Israel, but nobody anticipated they would become Israel. Paul tells us, however, that Gentile salvation would fulfill Old Testament promises about the salvation of Gentiles (Romans 10:19–20; see also 4:17; 15:9–12) and the salvation of Israel (Romans 9:25–26). Paul never explicitly calls Gentiles Israel, and he preserves a place for “natural” or ethnic Israel (Romans 11:17–24). But when he applies Israel’s promises to Gentiles, he shows us that the line between the “wild” and “natural” branches in the church is harder to see than anyone would have guessed.
Third, God would use Gentile salvation to get Israel’s attention. The surprising salvation of Gentiles would provoke Israel to envy and then salvation (Romans 11:11–12, 15). This was one of the reasons Paul shared Jesus so tirelessly with Gentiles. He hoped his success as “apostle to the Gentiles” might lead to Israel’s salvation. Granted, Paul knew he couldn’t provoke all Israel, but he hoped and prayed that he could provoke some (Romans 11:13–14).
Finally, God would provoke all Israel to salvation only when Jesus returned (or “in connection with” Jesus’s return). This might just be the most surprising part of Paul’s secret. Careful readers of God’s promises in the Old Testament were right: Israel would be saved when the Messiah came. But nobody could have guessed that Israel’s salvation would be at the Messiah’s second coming. Two comings! Nobody saw that coming. Paul tells us that Israel would be saved when Jesus returned from heavenly Zion, a place Jesus opened with his death, burial, and resurrection (Romans 11:26–27). In this way, Israel’s conversion would mirror Paul’s own — transformed by a heavenly vision of the risen Lord.
Paul tells us this secret then bursts into praise (Romans 11:33–36). Only an infinitely wise author could craft a plot where (nearly) every expectation created is fulfilled in an unexpected way. Surprising faithfulness. As paradoxical as that sounds, there’s really no other way to describe it. And there’s no other story like it.
His Grief
While Paul’s secret wonderfully dispels any doubts we might have about God’s faithfulness, I don’t think it diminished Paul’s grief. We may be surprised by what Paul writes in Romans 9–11, but Paul wasn’t. He wrote Romans 9:2 knowing full well what he would write in Romans 11:25–27. He wrote these chapters with a tear-stained face despite the secret he reveals.
After all, Israel wouldn’t be saved until Jesus returned, and Jesus wouldn’t return, Paul tells us, until God completed his work among the Gentiles (Romans 11:25). For Paul, this at least meant that Israel wouldn’t be saved until somebody pushed beyond Rome and evangelized the Gentiles on the edge of the map. So, Paul tells us how eager he is to get to Spain (Romans 15:14–33). Still, Paul knew that every delay, every setback, every change of plans, every pocket of unreached Gentiles meant more time would pass without Jesus’s return and, therefore, more death and judgment for so many — too many — within Israel.
Paul also knew that the timing of Israel’s salvation would mean that many within Israel would miss out on experiences he writes about in his letters and preached about everywhere he went. The Israel that would be saved at Jesus’s return would be an Israel that would miss out on life in the church during this present age. They would miss the goodness of working out their salvation (Philippians 2:12–13), struggling to walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:16), and renewing their minds (Romans 12:2). Israel would miss out on the goodness of waiting for Jesus’s return and all the ways this experience prepares us for and enriches our experience in the world to come (see Matthew 25:21, 23).
His Example
Paul’s secret dispels our doubts about God’s character, but it doesn’t — it shouldn’t — diminish our grief. Not if we’re going to follow Paul’s example, which is precisely what the Bible calls us to do (1 Corinthians 11:1).
Paul’s example teaches us to celebrate every part of God’s story. In fact, it’s a sign of immaturity — or worse — if we can’t. Paul’s heart swells when he tells God’s story. That’s why he ends these chapters with a soaring doxology, reveling in God’s wisdom and knowledge. Our hearts fail to align with Paul’s if we’re unable to feel what he feels in Romans 11:33–36. We fail to follow Paul’s example if we can tell God’s story without wonder and praise.
At the same time, Paul teaches us that doxology can and should be accompanied by lament, by anguish. Paul’s heart breaks when he tells God’s story. That’s why he begins these chapters like he does and why he speaks of his tears elsewhere (Philippians 3:18). It is a sign of immaturity — or worse — if we can’t feel what Paul feels in Romans 9:2. In fact, here, as elsewhere, Paul was simply following the example of his Lord, who shed tears for precisely the same reason as Paul (Luke 19:41–44). Jesus’s tears, moreover, point us to an unfathomable mystery: God’s own “response” to his story (2 Peter 3:9).
Friends, rejoice in God’s story. Let it cause you to hallow his name. But in your rejoicing, don’t fail to weep. Don’t fail to cultivate a heart that is eager for others to share the good you have received from God and a heart that is grieved — even unceasingly grieved (Romans 9:2) — when they don’t. To the paradox of God’s surprising yet faithful story, let us add the paradox of our response to it: “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). In this way, we learn to follow Paul as he followed and waited for Christ.
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Let There Be Rest: Recovering Healthy Weekly Rhythms
In the beginning, God created rhythms. He spoke on day four,
Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years. (Genesis 1:14)
When Adam entered Eden two days later, he stepped into a dance of day and night, month and year, winter and spring and summer and fall. And then, between the rhythms of the day and the month, God added one more, a pattern taught not by the heavens but by his own example: the seven-day rhythm of the week (Genesis 2:1–3).
God could have made a rhythm-less world if he wanted — a world without days and weeks and months and years. But in his wisdom, days four and seven of creation serve day six; rhythms make the world a good habitation for finite humans, in need of rest and refreshment. As creatures of dust, we are creatures of rhythm.
“Which is why it’s so concerning,” Kevin DeYoung writes, “that our lives are getting more and more rhythm-less.” He represents many when he says,
We don’t have healthy routines. We can’t keep our feasting and fasting apart. Evening and morning have lost their feel. Sunday has lost its significance. Everything is blurred together. The faucet is a constant drip. (Crazy Busy, 94)
In other words, life today looks less like Eden, and more like Egypt.
Days in Egypt
By the time we reach Exodus 1, Genesis 1–2 is a lost world. We find no reference to weeks or months, seasons or years in Egypt — only to an endless sequence of workdays. Perhaps some Egyptians lived by routines of work and rest. But for Pharaoh’s slaves, Egypt was a world without rhythms.
Unlike the restful God of creation (Genesis 2:2–3), Pharaoh exhibits a single-minded madness for labor and production. When Israel grows mighty, he sets them to work (Exodus 1:11). When Moses tells him to let the people go, he makes their work harder (Exodus 5:4). And when Israel finally leaves Egypt, he pursues, wondering how he could have allowed them to leave their work (Exodus 14:5). To Pharaoh, a slave’s 80-year life was merely a sequence of 29,200 workdays, inconveniently disrupted by the need for sleep.
“As creatures of dust, we are creatures of rhythm.”
Though the modern West has no singular equivalent of Egypt’s restless king, the cultural air we breathe carries a pharaonic scent. Not only do average work hours in America exceed that of many other countries, but as DeYoung notes, the boundaries between work and rest have stretched and blurred. We no longer need to go to the office to make our bricks; we just need Wi-Fi. And even our “off time” regularly falls prey to what Andrew Lincoln calls “the hectic round of activities [showing] that leisure itself is caught on the treadmill of working and consuming” (From Sabbath to Lord’s Day, 404).
Such is the rhythm-less life, a life with no square on the calendar labeled “Rest.” And many need a fresh exodus.
‘You Shall Not Work’
As soon as God rescues Israel, rhythms return. The first mentions of month and year appear as God commands Israel to celebrate the exodus annually (Exodus 12:2–3). Soon after, we find the first reference to the Sabbath (Exodus 16:23), Israel’s weekly commemoration of creation and redemption (Exodus 20:11; Deuteronomy 5:15). The drumbeat of endless days gives way to the rhythm of the seasons.
Pharaoh knew only how to say, “You shall work,” but God knows how to say, “You shall not work.” Over a dozen times, he tells his redeemed people, “You shall not do any work” (or “any ordinary work”) — a command that applied not only to the Sabbath (Exodus 20:10), but also to Israel’s festivals (Leviticus 23:7–8, 21, 25, 31, 35–36). In this blessed shall not, God snatched something of Egypt out of the lives of his people, and put something of Eden in its place.
Today, of course, we no longer live under the old covenant and its cultic rhythms. Christians are not bound to observe Israel’s festivals — nor even to keep a literal Sabbath, which, along with the festivals, has found its fulfillment in Christ (Colossians 2:16–17). But the imperative to rest still reaches us today, indirectly if not directly.
The heavens above still sing their rhythmic song. We still walk as creatures of the dust. God’s 6-and-1 pattern still invites our imitation. And Jesus’s own routines of work and rest still model the fully human life (Mark 1:35; 6:30–32). “You shall not work,” though not a covenantal command, is still the wisdom of the saints.
Reclaiming Rhythm
So, how might we begin unlearning the rhythm-less ways of Pharaoh? How might we gather up our days into some sustainable pattern of work and rest? Though we would be wise to consider, at some point, seasonal or annual rhythms of rest (in the form of weekend retreats or weeklong vacations, for example), weekly rest is likely our best starting point.
“If nightly sleep places a period at the end of each day’s sentence, weekly rest adds a paragraph break.”
If nightly sleep places a period at the end of each day’s sentence, weekly rest adds a paragraph break: once a week, we slow down, catch our breath, and live in the white space of life’s page. We pause after the pattern of the world’s first week and remember that we were made for rhythms; we were made for work and rest.
Consider, then, a few modest first steps.
Set boundaries.
Rhythms of rest require boundaries. The best resters build a gate in time, the entrance of which reads, “No work allowed.” The boundary need not protect a strict 24-hour period (since, again, we are not under the fourth commandment). But unless we put a boundary around some period of time — Friday morning, Thursday afternoon and evening, sundown Saturday to sundown Sunday — rest will likely prove elusive.
Setting a boundary, of course, is far easier than keeping a boundary. As soon as we build a gate, something will start banging on it. Keeping the door closed calls for bold faith that God will provide for us once we set down the pen, close the computer, finish for the day. God told Israel to rest not only when work allowed for it, but even “in plowing time and in harvest” (Exodus 34:21). In other words, “Even in your busiest seasons, when your livelihood seems to depend on restless work, trust me and rest.”
To be sure, we would be wrong to set our boundaries so firmly that we close our ears to urgent needs. That kind of coldhearted boundary-keeping made Jesus angry (Mark 3:1–5). But exceptions to our boundaries should be just that: exceptions. If they become the rule, we may need to reevaluate our sense of what needs truly are urgent.
Refresh yourself.
As many quickly discover, however, a day off does not equal a day of rest. Just as some people return from a trip saying, “I need a vacation to recover from my vacation,” so we sometimes end a day off feeling like we need another. Maybe we packed the day with good but exhausting activities (sports practices, home projects, taxing social events), or maybe we entertained ourselves into oblivion. Either way, our “rest” has left us more restless than rested.
Again, God’s own pattern gives us our goal: “In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed” (Exodus 31:17). Following God into this kind of rest requires not only setting boundaries, but also filling those boundaries with genuinely refreshing activities — activities that send us back into our work replenished in mind, soul, and body, ready to spend and be spent for the good of others.
The kinds of refreshing activities available to us will vary according to life stage, of course. Rest for a husband and father will look different from rest for a single man — less reading and napping, perhaps, and more time with the kids outside. Even still, all of us would do well to consider (and discuss with family or roommates) what some refreshing rest might look like, taking all factors into account.
Perhaps some time alone refreshes us — or perhaps people time does. Maybe we benefit from reading poetry or taking a walk. Some will want to be more physically active; others less. Probably everyone could benefit from curbing digital technologies and finding what Albert Borgmann calls a “focal practice”: an activity that “has a commanding presence, engages your body and mind, and engages you with others” — playing music, fishing, handwriting a letter, cooking a meal.
And of course, one activity rests at the heart of the Christian’s refreshment: worship.
Worship your Redeemer.
Before God gave Israel the fourth commandment, he gave them the first: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:2–3). The Sabbath rested on (1) the reminder of redemption and (2) the call to revere God above all. Which implies that, if Israel were really to rest — if they were really to find refreshment in the Sabbath, and not just a day off — they needed to worship their Redeemer.
“Ultimately, rest flows not from a weekly pause, but from a Person.”
Millennia later, Jesus would issue an invitation that follows a similar pattern: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Ultimately, rest flows not from a weekly pause, but from a Person. Unlike Pharaoh, he has no need for store cities and slave labor, for he owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalm 50:10). He looks not first for workers but for worshipers, and he calls us not to Egypt but to the Eden of Himself.
For good reason, then, many Christians seek to join their weekly day of rest with their weekly day of corporate worship. If we can do the same, wonderful. If not, we can at least find some special way to say with both our hearts and our lips, “Jesus, not Pharaoh, is Lord” — and then live it out by laying down our bricks.
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The Fearlessness of Christmas Joy: Six Wonders of Christ’s Lordship
We focus our attention this Advent on Luke 2:10–11: “The angel said to [the shepherds], ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord’” (Luke 2:10–11). And the question for us is this: how does the Lordship of this newborn baby boy make possible the fearlessness and greatness of your joy this Christmas and as 2022 begins?
And I do mean you — not just the shepherds — because it is clear from this context and this gospel, as we will see, that the fearlessness and the greatness of the joy is not just for the shepherds. It is for everyone who says, “Jesus is Lord!” and is glad to have it so. We know this because of the word for at the beginning of Luke 2:11. This word signals that calling Jesus “my Lord and my God” (John 20:28) is the foundation of Christian fearlessness and great joy.
Luke 2:10 tells us that fearless, great joy is coming into this world, and Luke 2:11 answers the questions, How can it come? How can it be sustained in such a world? Because this baby boy is not only a Savior — not only the Christ, the Messiah — but is the Lord.
What makes the fearlessness and the greatness of your joy possible in 2022 and beyond is not just that this baby boy will be a Savior, and not just that he will be the long-awaited Messiah, but that he is the Lord. This is the foundation of your fearlessness and the greatness of your joy this Christmas and in the coming year.
Imagine someone says to you, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling! It’s falling on your family. It’s falling on your church. It’s falling on your city. It’s falling on your nation. It’s falling on the world. Don’t you realize the sky is falling?” What will be the foundation of the fearlessness and the greatness of your joy as you go merrily on your way to do more good until Jesus comes?
So that’s our question: How does the Lordship of this newborn baby boy make possible the fearlessness and greatness of your joy this Christmas and in the coming year? Here are six wonders of Jesus’s Lordship that answer this question.
1. Jesus the Divine Lord
The fearlessness and greatness of your joy is possible because Jesus is a divine Lord. When we say, “Jesus is Lord,” we mean no less than “Jesus is God.” Luke says this in many ways in his gospel. I’ll mention only four.
God from God
First, Luke uses the word Lord interchangeably with God in reference to Jesus. Take just the first two chapters for example. The word Lord occurs twenty-seven times, with twenty-five of them referring to God.
Look right here in our text: “An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them” (Luke 2:9). Two verses later he says, “Unto you is born Christ, the Lord” (Luke 2:11). No hesitation. No qualification. The Lord (God) sent his angel, and the glory of the Lord (God) shone — and the child born is the Lord.
In Luke 2:26, Jesus is called “the Lord’s Christ,” and here in Luke 2:11 he is called “Christ the Lord.” That’s virtually the same as the apostle John saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Jesus is “the Lord’s Christ,” and Jesus is “Christ the Lord.”
Born of a Virgin
Second, the divine lordship of Jesus is the point of the virgin birth. Look at Luke 1:31. Gabriel tells Mary she will have a child. Mary asks how that can be (Luke 1:34). Here’s how the angel answers in Luke 1:35: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy — the Son of God.”
This is not the crass slander of Christianity that claims God the Father had sex with Mary, and that’s why Christians call Jesus the Son of God. This is the Holy Spirit making clear that no human father will be needed because he is going to work an unfathomable miracle in Mary’s womb so that there will be a child with two natures, divine and human: Jesus the God-man, Jesus the Lord.
Greater than David’s Son
Third, in Luke 20:41–44, Jesus will go on the offensive to challenge the Jewish leaders with his identity. He says, “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son? For David himself says in the Book of Psalms, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ David thus calls him Lord, so how is he his son?”
No answer. Because the point was that already, in the Psalms, the Holy Spirit was pointing to the fact that the Messiah, the Christ, would be vastly more than a human son of David.
Worthy of Worship
Fourth, where does the Gospel of Luke leave us at the end? What are we doing as we walk away from this inspired display of the Lord Jesus? Luke 24:51–52: “While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” They worshiped him! That’s the point of Luke’s Gospel: Worship him with great joy! Cherish him as your greatest treasure!
So, the fearlessness and greatness of your joy this Christmas is possible because Jesus is a divine Lord. “Jesus is Lord” means “Jesus is God.”
2. Jesus the Historical Lord
The fearlessness and greatness of your joy is also possible because Jesus is a historical Lord. What I mean by this is that the accounts of Jesus’s birth, life, death, and resurrection are not mythical. They are not like Greek mythology. They are rooted in world history — the kind of history you can read and know about whether you are Christian or not.
The life of Jesus does not take place in Middle-earth or in a galaxy far, far away. It takes place “in the days of Herod, king of Judea” (Luke 1:5). Mary was from “a city of Galilee named Nazareth” (Luke 1:26). She came with Joseph to Bethlehem, a town about five miles outside Jerusalem, because “a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Luke 2:1–2).
And John the Baptist began his ministry “in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene” (Luke 3:1–2).
What’s the point of all these secular, historical references? The point is that Jesus was just as real as if he had been born when Joe Biden was president of the United States, when Tim Walz was governor of Minnesota, and when Jacob Frey was the mayor of Minneapolis. He was not, and is not, mythical.
So, the fearlessness and greatness of your joy is possible because Jesus is a historical Lord.
3. Jesus the All-Governing Lord
The fearlessness and greatness of your joy is possible because Jesus is an all-governing Lord. From a boat during the storm, his disciples cry out, “‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased . . . and [his disciples] marveled, saying to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?’” (Luke 8:24–25). The answer is obvious: the one who made them.
Then there were the demons: “Demons also came out crying, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak” (Luke 4:41). And then there were the diseases of every kind: “All those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them” (Luke 4:40). No failures.
What about our great enemy, death? “[Jesus] came up and touched the [casket] . . . And he said [to the dead man], ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’ And the dead man sat up and began to speak” (Luke 7:14–15). What about the so-called “self-determination of the human will” in coming to know Christ? “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Luke 10:22).
Jesus the Lord governs all natural events. No demons can do anything but by his permission. He can heal any disease. He can and will raise the dead. And it is he who opens the blind eyes of the human heart to know God.
Luke loves the all-governing Lordship of God, which is shared by the God-man Jesus Christ. Why else would Luke begin his gospel with God’s amazing reversal of the butterfly effect? The butterfly effect is the theory that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil may cause a tornado in Oklahoma because of a thousand unknown links working in a causal chain. But God reverses the butterfly effect, using something as massive as a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico to cause a single Chinese university student in Beijing to stumble into Christian fellowship and be saved.
So, don’t you think Luke was smiling as he began his Gospel with this story? God chose a virgin, and her betrothed, who were living in Nazareth. Their family line was from Bethlehem, where the Messiah must be born. To get this virgin to the proper birthplace, he puts it in the mind of Caesar Augustus — the most powerful person in the world, living over a thousand miles away — to call for empire-wide registration, involving millions of people, at exactly the moment when it would get this one obscure, pregnant Jewish girl from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
“The events of history are not about nations and industries. God governs the world for the sake of his children.”
God did all this to fulfill his prophecy. That’s amazing. That’s our all-governing God, and that’s the Lord Jesus. And he is doing that today. Do you think the great events on the stage of world history are about nations and industries? They’re not. They are about you. God governs the world for the sake of his children. Jesus governs the world for the sake of those who say, “Jesus is Lord!” and mean it.
4. Jesus the Everlasting Lord
The fearlessness and greatness of your joy is possible because Jesus is an everlasting Lord. As the angel Gabriel said to Mary in Luke 1:31–33,
You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
He will reign forever. His kingdom will have no end. If you are the subject of his Lordship, you will live forever. He will raise you from the dead. He will bring you with him into everlasting life. His power to govern all things for your good will never end. Never. You can never be lost if you are his.
5. Jesus the God-Glorifying Lord
The fearlessness and greatness of your joy is possible because Jesus is a God-glorifying Lord. Look at these five verses in Luke:
The lame man who Jesus healed, after the man was lowered through the roof, “went home, glorifying God” (Luke 5:25).
The crowd who saw Jesus heal him “glorified God and were filled with awe” (Luke 5:26).
When he raised the widow’s son from the dead, “fear seized them all, and they glorified God” (Luke 7:16).
The woman whose back had been bent over for eighteen years was straightened, “and she glorified God” (Luke 13:13).
When the blind beggar received his sight, he “followed [Jesus], glorifying God” (Luke 18:43).We don’t need to make our way through the rest of Luke’s Gospel to see the God-glorifying purpose of the birth of this Lord.
In Luke 2:12, the angel gives the shepherds a sign. The angel says, “This Savior, this Christ, this Lord — you will find him ‘lying in a feeding trough.’” I cannot help but think that the shepherds, at that point, would have been totally confused: Savior, Christ, Lord — plus dirty, smelly feeding trough. But before they can venture to ask this angel for clarification, the sky fills with armies of angels praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest” (Luke 2:14).
“The mission of the Savior is to show the world that God is infinitely great, beautiful, and valuable.”
The Savior is born. The Messiah is born. The Lord of the universe is born. And before you can layer your perplexed interpretation on top of it, Mr. Shepherd, here’s the point: “Glory to God in the highest” (Luke 2:14). The point of this birth is that God is glorious. The mission of this Savior and this Messiah and this Lord is to show the world, and the powers of darkness, that God is infinitely great and beautiful and valuable. Glorious.
But we should ask a question. Since God has sent a Savior to save man, and a Messiah to fulfill all the promises made to man, and a Lord to rule all things for the good of man — why don’t the heavenly armies say, “Glory to man in the highest”?
Why not? Because the universe was created to display and uphold and communicate the glory of God. If we displace God as the ultimate end and goal of creation, history, and redemption, we don’t gain status. We lose God. And then, losing God, we lose joy. Great joy. This brings us now to the sixth wonder of the Lordship of Jesus.
6. Jesus the Happy Lord
Finally, the fearlessness and greatness of your joy is possible because Jesus is a happy Lord. Not only this, but he is the perfect embodiment of his Father’s happiness. When the angels say, “Glory to God in the highest!” (Luke 2:14), they are obeying God — that’s what he wants said! — and it is a happy shout. This is a glad night. And the gladness started in heaven.
Luke completes the picture of God’s gladness later in his Gospel. Only Luke records the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son (Luke 15), and Jesus tells all three parables to explain why he eats with tax collectors and sinners. He does it because he embodies his Father’s happiness in saving sinners.
Here’s Luke 15:9–10: “When she has found [her lost coin, representing Jesus finding a lost sinner], she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’” And Jesus adds, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Look carefully to the wording. It doesn’t say, “There is joy among the angels.” It says, “There is joy before the angels,” joy in their presence. This is God’s joy. That’s God’s happiness.
Then comes the parable of the lost or prodigal son. He has squandered all the father’s inheritance. He heads home, hoping to be a taken-care-of slave. “While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). And then the Father says, “‘Bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.”
And, as if to make it crystal clear, the father says to the grumbling older brother: “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:32).
In Luke’s inspired view of the all-glorious, God-glorifying God, what makes God happy? What makes the Lord Jesus happy? The joy of his people as they rediscover the happy goodness of their Father. This is a parable about the glory of the Father and the awakening of a blind son to that glory — namely, the beauty of his Father’s happy goodness.
Fearless (and Happy) Under Fallen Skies
When the angels say, “Glory to God in the highest” (Luke 2:14), this is not at the expense of God’s people. This story is the joy of God’s people. Seeing and savoring and being caught up into this glory is the salvation of God’s people. This glory is the fulfillment of all the messianic promises. This glory is the overflow of the happy Lordship of Jesus.
Bethlehem’s mission statement didn’t come out of nowhere: “We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.” We got it, in part, from Luke’s Gospel: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14). God gets the glory. We get the peace. We get the fearlessness of great joy within his glory.
“The Holy Spirit frees us from the deceit that self-lordship is the path of joy.”
As the angel says, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10). Will the fearlessness and the greatness of this joy be yours this Christmas? You can’t take away your own fear, and you can’t create your own joy. The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12:3, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” It is a divine miracle when a sinful, self-exalting human being says, “Jesus is Lord!” and means it.
The Holy Spirit works this miracle by the word of God. This is why our submission to the Lordship of Christ is a free act. The Holy Spirit opens the eyes of our hearts and frees us from the slavery, from the deceit, that self-lordship is the path of joy. He fixes our gaze on Christ and causes us to leave our fears and leap for joy. Great joy.
So, if someone says to you, “Don’t you know the sky is falling?” you will say, “Perhaps, and if it is, my divine, historical, all-governing, everlasting, God-glorifying, happy Lord Jesus — he is in charge of the sky falling. And he will make it serve the great and fearless joy of his church. So why don’t you come on in? Everyone is invited: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).
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Before Division Comes: A Playbook for Pastoral Unity
There you sit at the elder meeting. Some disagreement again surfaces.
Maybe you disagree about a potential elder candidate. He’s a good friend of one brother. But to you, he doesn’t seem sober-minded. You don’t think he’ll add to the team, but detract. He seems more like a liability than a blessing.
Perhaps you disagree about a troubled marriage. One pastor thinks the wife is mature and has been long-suffering with the husband, who is largely to blame; another pastor thinks the wife has come to imbibe an unbelieving perspective and is angling to be free from her marriage vows.
Perhaps it’s a doctrinal or exegetical disagreement. Let’s say female deacons. You’re on a counsel of eight. The other seven brothers have expressed openness to female deacons, and you’re the one that doesn’t see it in 1 Timothy 3. You think gunaikas there is deacon wives, not women deacons.
Or you disagree about priorities. How often should we inform the church about the latest pro-abortion legislative disaster in our state? How often do we call our people to prayer and some kind of action?
Or maybe it just seems to be the same brother all the time. Clearly the algorithms have the two of you on different feeds. Whatever the causes, you’ve been pulled into different ecosystems of digital influence. You wonder how much of this has been conditioned through these devices.
Our focus in this session is on seeking unity among pastor-elders. That is, unity in the lead or teaching office of the church, variously called pastor, elder, and overseer in the New Testament — three names for one office, the lead office (with deacon being the name of the assisting office). Our task in this session is handling disagreements among pastor-elders.
First, I’d like to make some preliminary assumptions explicit, and then give some practical counsel and reasons for hope.
Preliminary Assumptions
Now, a preliminary word about these “preliminary assumptions.” These actually may be the most important part. Many of the most important factors related to disagreements among pastors begin long before the specific disagreements emerge. I will try to speak to working for unity amidst disagreement, but I suspect the best working for unity happens before disagreement.
1. Church leadership is teamwork.
Even in rural settings, where the idea of a team of pastors may seem unrealistic, we still have the New Testament’s stubborn ideal of plurality. Twice Peter addresses the plural elders in 1 Peter 5:1–5; local church elders are plural in Acts (Acts 14:23; 20:17); so too in the Pastoral Epistles (1 Timothy 4:14; 5:17; Titus 1:5), and in James 5:14. In fact, every instance of local-church leadership in the New Testament implies plurality.
If I could give you a four-part summary of the New Testament vision for church leadership, it would have team at the heart of it: “local teams of sober-minded teachers.” Four parts: locality, acuity, didacity, and plurality.
“Our churches not only need good men as pastors; they need good men who are good friends.”
But not only plurality. The hope is not just that pastor-elder teams would be plural, but that pastor-elders would like each other, enjoy each other — that they would be friends, not rivals. Maybe “team of rivals” worked in Lincoln’s cabinet. But none of us is Lincoln, and besides, the local church is not the Lincoln administration. My experience has been that friendship, love, genuine affection among elders is not icing on the cake for good eldering. This is part of the cake. Our churches not only need good men as pastors; they need good men who are good friends.
Oh, “how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” (Psalm 133:1). That is, not just put up with each other, but actually enjoy each other, and look forward to being together, rather than dread it. Whether the pastor-elders enjoy their fellowship will soon affect the church. And it will profoundly affect how we work for unity in the midst of the disagreements that will inevitably come.
If fact, related to working for unity, my counsel would be to always be working for unity through friendship, through investing in team dynamics, long before disagreements arise. Work for unity ahead of time, and seek to have such settled, stable unity, that when disagreements do arise, your unity isn’t soon called into question. Then you can give your focus to actually working through the issue, rather than working for unity prematurely.
And get this: when the relationships are strong and enjoyable among elders, you’re not so nervous about conflict and avoiding certain issues. Rather, you’re free to mine for conflict — to ask about it and talk about it long before it becomes an elephant in the room. You read a frustrated look on a brother’s face and ask him to say more, rather than barreling forward to get your preference in the moment. Your relationship is stable enough to try to surface potential disagreements early, rather than avoiding them and letting them fester.
So, church leadership is teamwork — and best done by friends, not rivals.
2. Good teams guard the gate.
That is, they are careful whom they add to the team. They don’t rush the process. They aren’t “hasty in the laying on of hands” (1 Timothy 5:22). So, we ask all sorts of questions up front. Ask about theology and theological hobbyhorses. Work carefully through the elder qualifications (take them seriously!). And ask each other, Do we think this man fits with the shared instincts of our team? Will he be a good teammate? Does he seem to have our chemistry? Or, how will he affect our team’s chemistry?
Remember, this is not “team of rivals.” There are plenty of issues in life and ministry to disagree about, in big and small degrees. Inevitably, some differing instincts reside in your team. They are there, and they will come. After a while together, you’ll be able to plot on a line who’s the most knee-jerk conservative, who’s most compassionate, who’s most hopeful about the world and culture. Those differences of instinct that make a team healthy and effective will emerge soon enough. But don’t try to staff for difference. Difference will be there and arise. Staff for chemistry. Try to build a team of friends who like each other and have significant shared instincts and genuinely want to spend time together, and so come to enjoy the often burdensome work of teaching and caring well for the church together.
At the gate, be clear about what you have in writing. What, if anything, beyond Scripture does your elder team commit to? Do the leaders subscribe to any confession beyond the membership covenant? Is there a pastors’ covenant? Any agreed-upon documents on ministry philosophy? I’d encourage you to have some things in writing (though not too much). Know what it is, and use it.
3. Unity does not require unanimity.
I’ve heard of elder boards who insist on unanimity in their decisions. I don’t think that’s necessary (or good). We need to be wise and patient regarding particular situations. If it’s a huge initiative in the church — say, a capital campaign — you might want to press for unanimity, or very close to it, not mere consensus. And in major decisions like that, don’t rush the process. And for lead pastors, I say don’t bring a fully formulated proposal to the team. Take the initiative. Point in a direction. Give time to think it over carefully. Ask all the brothers to speak in and develop ownership in the process. Give space for that. Mine for hesitations and conflict. Seek to refine the proposal. On major initiatives, do your best to rally the whole team together.
But on other items, it’s simply not worth all the work to get to unanimity, and not necessary. One or two guys have a different opinion, but you have a clear consensus in the team. The decision needs to be made tonight, and so you move forward.
So, that’s one disclaimer on the idea of working for unity. Most things do not need unanimity.
Another disclaimer on working for unity is that true Christian unity is not something we first produce, and definitely not in a moment, but a grace we receive and then maintain and protect, even as we grow and deepen it. Consider Ephesians 4:1–3:
Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
In Christ, we don’t produce our unity. The Spirit gives it. Once we are in Christ, we have in common with others who are in Christ the most important realities in the universe. Unity, then, is what we seek to maintain.
Yet also there is a sense in which it is attained. Ephesians 4:12–13: Pastors “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood.” The Spirit gives it; we maintain it, even as we pastors lead the church in attaining the unity of full maturity.
“We are prone to move too fast or not at all. Moving forward with patience is most difficult, and most rewarding.”
In Philippians, Paul is writing to a church with some newly emerging unity issues. He wants them to “[be] of the same mind, [have] the same love, [be] in full accord and of one mind” (Philippians 2:2). He hopes to hear of them that they “are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel” (Philippians 1:27). How, then, might that happen? How might they practically seek to maintain their unity in Christ and together attain the unity of maturity? Philippians 2:3–4 (this text might be the single most important one on pursuing unity):
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
(First Peter 3:8 mentions a similar cluster of virtues with “unity of mind”: “All of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.”)
4. Different kinds of disagreement lead to different courses of action.
First, some disagreements on small or silly matters are overlooked by wise, peaceable, magnanimous men.
In 2 Timothy 2, before Paul gives Timothy some of the most pointed words in Scripture on how to deal with conflict, first he says in 2 Timothy 2:23, “Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.” And 1 Timothy 6:4–5 warns us about
an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth.
Brothers, “not quarrelsome” is an elder qualification (1 Timothy 3:3).
It’s long been a live issue, but in recent years, online life has thrown gas on the fire. Brothers, you don’t always have to have an opinion. And you don’t have to express your opinion. (This is a particular temptation for word guys like us; words come so easy for some of us pastors.) Don’t let foolish, distant, impractical quarrels divide your pastoral team and ruin your trust with your own people.
Second, some disagreements are on clearly defined matters, like doctrine.
In Acts 20:29–30, Paul warns the Ephesian elders that wolves will rise up from within their own team:
I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.
God made the souls of men in particular to rise to the unpleasant and essential work of protecting the flock from wolves, with its emotional and physical costs. (As an aside, the threat of false teaching, and the necessity of pastors protecting the sheep from wolves, may show plainest of all God’s building of men for the pastorate. God made men to be conditioned for this calling.) And of course, the worst of this is when such errors, doctrinally or ethically, arise “from among your own selves,” from within the team.
Brian Tabb recently wrote in Themelios under the title “On Disagreements in Ministry.” I’d recommend it. He says there,
Christian workers are sometimes morally obligated to separate when matters of essential biblical doctrine and practice are at stake. Some separations and divisions between professing believers are necessary to distinguish true faith and morality from counterfeit Christianity. For example, Paul exhorts, “Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers” (2 Cor 6:14), and he explains that “there must . . . be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized” (1 Cor 11:19). Likewise, John asserts, “They went out from us, but they were not of us” (1 John 2:19), and he warns against partnering with or receiving any teacher who “does not abide in the teaching of Christ . . . for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works” (2 John 9–11). It takes biblical wisdom, humility, and courage to practice “theological triage” and discern between those hills that are worth dying on, on the one hand, and matters where fellow believers may agree to disagree, on the other.
And even when you find yourself in such a conflict, remember the rest of Paul’s counsel in 2 Timothy 2:24–25:
The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.
Third, some of the most difficult are gray-area disagreements.
These are issues that matter but are not easily settled by texts of Scripture or shared statements of faith. One classic example is Paul and Barnabas disagreeing about John Mark and separating over their difference in assessment. This is Acts 15:36–41:
After some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” [So they’re agreed!] Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.
In another Themelios essay, Don Carson refers to “differences in vision and priorities. . . . Is it a case of a Barnabas and a Paul unable to reach an amicable agreement on a pastoral issue where both sides feel strongly and can marshal compelling arguments?”
Again, pastor-elders are to be men who are not quarrelsome, but peaceable. And peacemaking is very different from conflict-aversion. To be a peacemaker, one must be willing to engage in and endure conflict, and do so with Christian speech and conduct, but not as an end — rather, aiming for the restoration of peace on the far side.
Which leads us to the practical counsel (after all those preliminary assumptions!).
Practical Counsel
What more might we say about the Paul-and-Barnabas type of disagreement? I’m not here dealing with disagreements on clearly defined matters, or disagreements on trivia, or foolish quarrels insighted by the Internet, but real-life gray-area disagreements between brothers on the same pastor-elder team — and that from my limited perspective (fifteen years as an elder).
When the situation arises, when disagreement emerges that feels significant enough that it draws your attention as a disagreement, here are six counsels (among many others, I’m sure).
1. Rehearse what you share in common.
Hopefully you’ve been working for unity ahead of time: fostering relationships with each other; cultivating affection for each other; keeping short accounts; mining for conflict, rather than letting it fester underground until it erupts through the surface. Remember what you share in common as redeemed sinners, indwelt by the Spirit, caring for the good of this church. Consider how much doctrine and philosophy of ministry you share. And pause to cherish it afresh.
2. Query the disagreement in three dimensions.
In abiding disagreements, query (1) your own soul, (2) God’s word, and (3) the counsel of others.
When trying to discern between controversies to avoid and conflicts to engage with courage, you might query your own soul like this:
Is this about me — my ego, my preference, my threatened illusion of control — or is this relevant to Jesus, his gospel, his church? Am I remembering that my greatest potential enemy here is not others, and not even Satan, but my own indwelling sin?
What is the tenor of my ministry? Is it one fight after another? Are there seasons of peace? Am I engaging in conflict as an end in itself, or is preserving and securing Christian peace clearly the goal?
Am I going with or against my flesh, which inclines me to fight when I shouldn’t, and to back down when I should kindly, patiently, gently fight? As the “servant” of the Lord, not self, am I avoiding petty causes that an unholy part of me wants to pursue, while taking on the difficult, painful, and righteous causes that an unholy part of me wants to flee?
Am I simply angry at my opponents, desiring to show them up or expose them, or am I sad for them — better yet, compassionate for them — genuinely praying that God would free them from deception and grant them repentance? Am I more inclined to anger against them or tears for them?Also, you might want to revisit the elder qualifications afresh related to how you are engaging the disagreement. Which of the essential pastoral virtues are live challenges or come into fresh light in the conflict? Ask, Which single attribute do I need the most help with in this brewing conflict?
3. Carefully ask others for perspective and counsel.
I say “carefully” meaning (1) not to violate confidentiality and (2) not to rally support. You are asking for counsel for you — what you might do, how you might grow and change — not simply for a verdict from a buddy that you’re in the right. You could ask others in the room, fellow elders. Or carefully ask for outside perspective — again with the goal of receiving counsel for how you can be a means of grace, how you might wisely humble yourself and faithfully navigate the situation.
4. Look for objective cues and clarity to go on.
Good decisions are not ex nihilo but “sub-creation” with various givens. You need some objective grist to work with. Perhaps the confusion and disagreement stems from awareness, or lack thereof, of objective givens related to the situation. Rehearse what you know for sure and is not speculation. One way to move toward agreement is to get more of simply a clear given on the table.
5 Give it more time (without negligence).
Related to looking for objectives, you may be stuck because you need more data, another given, another data point, to lead and guide — which might mean you are not yet to a wise point to make the decision. Resist the pressure to make decisions prematurely. Giving it more time means patience, not neglect. This is like untying knots on our kid’s ice skates or untangling a necklace: we are prone to move too fast or not at all. Moving forward with patience is most difficult, and most rewarding.
Also, related to time, if you do begin to discern you’re at an impasse, be careful not to part too quickly. But also don’t stay stuck in an impasse when both sides are really entrenched. From here, there likely is one party that, given the situation, and in hopes of the health of the church, should stand down. Humbly assess if you’re the one who should stand down.
6. Ask afresh how Scripture speaks to the issue.
You might be able to get to this right away, but with a gray-area or jagged-line disagreement, you may simply come across surprising insights as you continue reading, meditating on, and sitting under God’s word. So, the deliberate passage of time may shed new light on the issue, which is why I’ve put revisiting Scripture here at the end, rather than first in the list.
As time passes, you have the opportunity to keep meditating on Scripture every day. It’s amazing what clarity you might get on an issue and what discoveries of biblical wisdom you might gain over the course of a year, say, if it remains with you while you read the whole Bible through. You might start seeing connections you had not previously seen as new issues are raised and become personal through the presenting disagreement. There can be wisdom in letting disagreements pass through a few seasons of the year (especially through winter and seasonally affected places like Minnesota). And other than 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1, and 2 Timothy 2:23–26, another particular passage to meditate on for disagreement is James 3:13–18:
Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Every Conflict an Opportunity
Many disagreements will lessen, if not resolve, as you proceed patiently, query the Scriptures, query the situation, audit your own soul, and solicit perspective (and exhortation) from wise counselors. But some disagreements prove intractable. As you discuss and keep revisiting the issue, you seem to be getting further and further apart, not coming together. Some disagreements you may be able to live with. For others, it may be a matter of time before some parting will happen, like Paul and Barnabas.
“Disagreement is a chance for deeper harmony, greater friendship, wiser elder actions, and healthier churches.”
And when that happens, my counsel would be walk humbly and carefully as to who leaves and who stays. If the elder board is split ten to one, and deeply entrenched, it’s the one who needs to leave. Navigating a righteous departure demands great wisdom and perhaps even more energy in working for unity.
Let’s close with this hope: in Scripture, conflict is an amazing opportunity for God’s grace. Disagreement is a chance for deeper harmony in the end, greater friendship, wiser elder actions, and healthier churches.
We don’t know any more about Paul and John Mark from Acts. But we do see in Paul’s letters that they ministered together later on. And even this, from the last chapter of Paul’s last letter:
Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. (2 Timothy 4:11)
May God give us such hope, and such reunions, even in this life — and even more, even better, together in the one to come.
