Which is more revealing of the “real you”: your spontaneous and unguarded emotions, or your purposeful and intentional choices? Put another way, which is more fundamental to who you are: the feelings that spontaneously erupt from your heart, or the choices that you intentionally make?

At Bethlehem College & Seminary, I teach a class called “Foundations of Christian Hedonism.” Alongside the Bible, we read Piper, Edwards, Lewis, and more. We talk about the supremacy of God, the indispensable importance of the affections, the Christian life, and pastoral ministry. I love it.

One stimulating aspect of the class is identifying tensions and disagreements between our favorite Christian Hedonists and wrestling together with them. Last semester, we discovered a seeming dissonance between how Piper talks about feelings and how Lewis talks about the will.

Piper’s Grief

In chapter 3 of Desiring God, Piper explores “Worship: The Feast of Christian Hedonism.” In doing so, he accents the importance of feelings, emotions, and affections in worship.

Piper emphasizes that genuine feelings are spontaneous and not calculated. Feelings are not consciously willed and not performed as a means to anything else. He gives numerous examples of feelings — hope (that spontaneously arises in your heart when you are shipwrecked on a raft and catch sight of land), fear (that spontaneously arises when camping and you hear a bear outside your tent), awe (that overwhelms you as you stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon), and gratitude (that spontaneously erupts from the heart of children when they get the present they most wanted on Christmas morning).

“Feelings are spontaneous, unsought, unplanned. They are our immediate and natural reactions to reality.”

The most poignant example of spontaneous feeling that Piper describes, however, is the grief that poured from his heart when he received the news that his mother was killed in a car wreck. In that moment, “The feeling [of grief] is there, bursting out of my heart” (91). No planning, no performance, no decision — just emotion and feeling. And here’s the crucial bit: “It comes from deep within, from a place beneath the conscious will” (91).

Lewis’s Prayers

At the same time, we were reading Lewis’s Letters to Malcolm. In Letter 21, Lewis discusses the frustrating irksomeness of prayer and the nature of duty. One day, when we are perfected, prayer and our other obligations will no longer be experienced as duties, but only as delights. Love will flow out from us “spontaneously as song from a lark or fragrance from a flower” (154). For now, we contend with various obstacles and impediments.

Even still, we have rich moments in the present — “refreshments ‘unimplored, unsought, Happy for man so coming’” (156, quoting John Milton). But then Lewis makes this statement:

I have a notion that what seem our worst prayers may really be, in God’s eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling and contend with the greatest disinclination. For these, perhaps, being nearly all will, come from a deeper level than feeling. (157)

In other words, our best prayers may be the ones we pray even when we don’t want to pray, when our prayers are not riding on positive feelings toward God, but are actively, deliberately trying to overcome resistance within us. The will, Lewis might say, rises from deep within, from a place beneath even our feelings, proving who we really are at bottom.

Clarifying the Tension

We can see the tension, can’t we? Are feelings deeper than the will (as Piper says)? Or is the will deeper than feelings (as Lewis claims)?

Before evaluating, we need further clarity. We can begin by noting key areas of agreement. First, both Piper and Lewis agree that we ought to distinguish feelings from the will.

Second, they seem to agree about some of the key differences between feelings and the will. Feelings are spontaneous, unsought, unplanned. They are our immediate and natural reactions to reality (like birds singing and flowers blooming). The will, on the other hand, involves intention, planning, choice, and execution.

Third, both Lewis and Piper agree that the will and the feelings ought to be viewed in some sort of hierarchical arrangement, with one being “deeper” than the other. We might call this sort of arrangement of the mind’s faculties a “tiered psychology.” Certain faculties are deeper (or perhaps higher) than others.

These three points of agreement help to clarify the tension. The arrangement of the mind’s capacities into different levels implies that one level may somehow be more important (or at least more revealing). The implication, in both Lewis and Piper, is that one level is more genuine, more authentic, more reflective of the real self (one could say, deeper). The corresponding implication is that the other level is somehow less genuine, less authentic, and less reflective of the real self (one could say, more superficial).

So then, which level better reflects the real self — our feelings or our willing?

From Feelings to Passions

We turn now to evaluation. And this is where we might simply conclude that one of them is right and one of them is wrong. Or perhaps, that both of them are wrong. That sometimes happens, even with very intelligent authors. My own goal, however, is to honor the truth in both perspectives by attempting to take up whatever aspect of the truth each author is emphasizing. Perhaps with some minor modifications and clarifications, the two perspectives might yet be reconciled.

For example, Lewis and Piper both refer to feelings. However, the older word for the phenomenon they are discussing is passions. Passions are the immediate, spontaneous reactions or motions of the soul.

Reframing feelings as passions enables us to see how Lewis and Piper can be reconciled. On the one hand, Lewis is correct that the will is deeper (or higher) than the passions. In classical tiered psychology, the intellect and the will are considered the higher faculties of the soul, with the intellect as the faculty that reasons, reflects, contemplates, and judges reality, and the will as the faculty that moves toward or away from what the intellect perceives.

Additionally, the soul also has two lower faculties: “sense apprehension,” which receives impressions from the senses, makes snap judgments about those impressions, and stores the impressions in memory; and “sense appetite,” which immediately reacts to what the sense apprehension perceives and thus is the seat of the passions.

Thus, the human will frequently has to contend with the disinclinations of the feelings at the lower level. While the will can restrain and sometimes overcome the passions, it doesn’t directly control or direct the passions. The very term passions suggests that we are passive; they aren’t consciously willed or decided upon in that moment. They occur spontaneously.

The Will Constrains Passions

Reframing feelings as passions demonstrates the truth in what Piper emphasizes as well.

Piper is adamant that feelings (passions) are spontaneous. Thus, when he says that his grief comes from “beneath the conscious will,” he means the grief bypasses conscious decision-making in the moment. Our feelings are more like snap reactions than considered responses. They are spontaneous, not because they are necessarily deeper (or more reflective of our genuine self), but because they are closer to the surface, more visceral and therefore frequently intense, and almost always tied to some bodily expression (such as tears or laughter).

Even Piper’s example of extreme grief suggests the will’s capacity to restrain and overcome the passions. When he receives the news of his mother’s death, he takes his own baby son off his leg, hands the child to his wife, and walks to the bedroom to be alone, before collapsing in tears for the next hour. In other words, as grief begins to bubble up, Piper’s will is able to temporarily hold back the floodgates of the passion until he is alone and able to give expression to them. He puts on the brave face until the occasion for release is right.

The Real You

So then, we now have a tiered psychology, consisting of the higher powers of intellect and will, and the lower sense powers. The will performs actions; the sense powers experience passions or feelings. What then can we say about which level is more genuine, authentic, and reflective of the real self?

“Both our actions and our passions, our willings and our feelings, are reflective of who we are as embodied creatures.”

The truth is that they both are. Both our actions and our passions, our willings and our feelings, are reflective of who we are as embodied creatures. This is doubly so since our passions flow from all of our previous history, including our beliefs, the stories that we tell ourselves, our experiences, our memories, and our choices. While the will does not despotically direct the feelings, the higher powers can train and cultivate habits of heart that spontaneously flow in particular directions.

Again, we can infer this from Piper’s story of grief. While Piper may not have consciously chosen feelings of grief in the moment, he had, for 29 years, been shaped and molded into the kind of person who spontaneously responded to that news in that way. The spontaneous tears and visceral sorrow of that day were the fruit of nearly thirty years of motherly kindness and filial gratitude, of hundreds of tender hugs and bedtime kisses, of lively dinnertime conversations and glad-hearted, lifelong obedience to the fifth commandment.

One can imagine a different mother, a different son, a different relationship and history, different choices and actions, a different setting, and therefore different feelings when the phone call comes.

With Piper and Lewis

Thus, we don’t need to choose between Piper and Lewis on the will and feelings. We can bring them together. We are complex creatures, bodies and minds, capable of both spontaneous reactions and intentional responses. We make choices and experience feelings, and our choices shape our feelings and our feelings shape our choices.

This is how God made us, and this is how he is remaking us in the image of his Son. With our new hearts and transformed minds, we willingly offer our bodies (including our passions) to God as our spiritual act of worship (Romans 12:1). We put off the old man, with its desires and practices, and we put on the new man, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of our Creator (Colossians 3:10).

Does Christian Hedonism help us understand the Bible? That is, does the emphasis on magnifying the worth of Jesus by delighting in him above all else help us to know “the secrets of the kingdom” (Matthew 13:11)? I believe it does, and Matthew 13 is a great example why.

Matthew 13 is the “parables” chapter of the Gospel. In it, Jesus gives seven public parables (to the crowds), three private explanations (to his disciples), and two surprising statements on the purpose of parables. And in the midst of all of that, he also gives us two startling lessons about joy in God. What is joy in God — and what is it not? And how do we distinguish between true and false joy?

What Parables Reveal and Hide

The seven parables are easily organized into four groups:

A parable about how we hear the word (the sower and the soils, Matthew 13:3–9)
Two parables about the mixture of good and bad in this age, and their separation at the end of the age (the weeds, Matthew 13:24–30; the net, Matthew 13:47–50)
Two parables about the slow but sure growth of the kingdom (mustard seed, Matthew 13:31–32; leaven, Matthew 13:33)
Two parables about the value and worth of the kingdom (treasure in a field, Matthew 13:44; pearl of great price, Matthew 13:45)

The purpose of these parables, Jesus says, is both to reveal and to hide. The parables divide Jesus’s audience. Some come to know the secrets of the kingdom (Matthew 13:11), but others do not. Some have eyes that see and ears that hear; others see, but do not see, and hear, but do not hear. That is, some truly understand what Jesus says, and some do not. For the latter, the parables are a form of judgment, a further deadening of already dull hearts (Matthew 13:15).

Thus, the key issue in this chapter is understanding. When we hear the parables, do we truly understand them? Or do our hearts remain hardened and dull? And as we try to understand them, what difference, if any, does Christian Hedonism make?

Same or Different Joy?

When a Christian Hedonist reads Matthew 13, he naturally notices the word joy. It appears twice, once in verse 20 and once in verse 44. These are two of six total uses of the word joy (Greek chara) in Matthew. So, does meditating on the place of joy in these particular parables reveal anything significant?

One use of the word joy is likely familiar. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matthew 13:44). The message is clear: our joy over finding the supreme treasure leads us to gladly sell everything in order to have that treasure. What we are willing to joyfully sacrifice is the measure of our treasure — and, in this case, that was everything.

The other use of joy occurs in Matthew 13:20. Here Jesus is explaining the parable of the sower and the four soils. The first soil is the path, and the birds devour the seed before it takes root. The second soil is rocky ground; the seed is planted, but lacks deep roots, and thus withers beneath the scorching heat. The third soil has thorns, which choke the life of the plant. And the fourth soil is the good soil, which produces an abundance of grain.

Now, given how joy is used in verse 44, we might expect joy to be associated with the fourth fruitful soil. To receive the word with joy must mean that we’ll bear fruit for eternal life, right? But instead, we’re surprised to discover that it’s the second soil that “hears the word and immediately receives it with joy.” This joy, however, proves to be only a flash in the pan; the joyful receiver has no root in himself, and thus falls away when trials and persecution come.

This parable presents a different angle on joy. We learn that receiving the word with joy does not guarantee that God is pleased or glorified. In this case, the presence of joy proves not to be the measure of the treasure, but instead a shallow and fleeting mirage.

Two Different Joys

Picture two men. One man has sold all he has. The other has received the word.

These two men, based on these two parables, could not be more different. In the end, one will be commended; the other will be condemned. One will have joy everlasting; the other will find himself weeping and gnashing his teeth in the outer darkness. And yet at this moment in each story, their faces look identical. They are both radiant with joy — one as he receives the word, the other as he sells all he has.

Now a new Christian Hedonist might be puzzled. He expected the presence of joy to make all the difference. Receiving the word with joy and selling everything with joy belong together, don’t they? And yet Jesus distinguishes them in his parables. And so we must press in further and see more than we have yet seen to understand the secrets of the kingdom.

Joy We All Want

What should we learn from the juxtaposition of joy in these two parables?

The juxtaposition of joy reinforces that we are dealing with a mixed field. As in the parable of the weeds, the wheat and the tares grow up together until the harvest. Or again, with the parable of the net and the fish, the kingdom “gathers fish of every kind” (Matthew 13:47), both the good and the bad. But they are not sorted until the end of the age. And the presence of joy at any given moment in this age isn’t an infallible mark that one is wheat or a tare, a good fish or a bad.

Even though joy is found among the wheat and the tares, it is still possible to distinguish them. The parables about the slow but sure growth of the kingdom may help here. The joy that we’re after is joy like the mustard seed: it may start small, but it grows to be a large tree. It’s like the leaven in the dough that comes to pervade the entire loaf. Thus, in looking for joy, we are looking not merely for a snapshot; we are looking for a growing and increasingly pervasive sense of joy in the kingdom.

The Christian Hedonist also, however, notes that the key distinction between the joy of the Treasure-Seeker and the joy of the Second Soil is the response to trials and tribulations.

Trials Prove Our Joy

Trials reveal the quality of our joy. In looking for joy, we’re after a supreme joy in God that endures hardship and affliction.

“Trials reveal the quality of our joy. We’re after a supreme joy in God that endures hardship and affliction.”

The two parables of joy express the importance of trials explicitly; they simply locate the trial at different points. The Treasure-Seeker faces his trial at the outset. He finds the treasure and must decide whether to leave it buried in the field, or to sell all in order to buy the field, and with it, the treasure. And he passes the test. The loss of his possessions is nothing compared to the value he places on the treasure. The roots of his joy run deep, and thus he gladly lets goods and kindred go in order to gain it.

On the other hand, the Second Soil faces his trial after receiving the word with joy. The scorching heat tests the depth of his roots. His joy does not pervade the whole loaf. His is a shallow joy, and its superficiality becomes evident when trials and conflict come. He abandons the word of the kingdom in order to keep his goods and kindred.

Have You Understood?

After speaking his parables and giving his private explanations, Jesus asks his disciples, “Have you understood these things?” (Matthew 13:51). Today he asks us the same question. Have we understood the secrets of the kingdom? Seeing, have we truly seen? Hearing, have we truly heard?

Christian Hedonism, with its focus on the worth of Christ in the joy of his people, has helped. By focusing on the presence and juxtaposition of joy in these parables, we’ve seen more. We can bring out of our treasure what is new and what is old (Matthew 13:52).

“The presence of joy is the measure of our treasure, and the quality of our joy is tested by suffering.”

We see that a snapshot of joy isn’t enough. A moment of joy, on its own, tells us very little. The wheat and the tares grow together, and their joy can sometimes look identical. And so we are looking for joy that endures. We are looking for joy that works its way into all of our lives and grows from seed to tree. We are especially looking for joy that keeps rejoicing even in the face of hardship, affliction, trials, and loss. The presence of joy is the measure of our treasure, and the quality of our joy is tested by suffering.

These are not merely academic questions. We can intellectually grasp the point of the parables and still lack true understanding. We can see the point and still miss the point.

The real test is not whether we’ve mentally grasped what Jesus said. The real test is how our hearts respond when we find the treasure in the field. The fundamental question is what happens when the scorching sun beats down on our faith. Does our joy die, or does it endure? Does it just endure, or does it grow?

Christian Hedonism emphasizes the importance of feelings. The Bible commands us to delight in the Lord, to love mercy, to fear God, to rejoice in hope. Emotions are essential to the obedient Christian life.

At the same time, Christian Hedonism recognizes that not all emotions are godly emotions. Not all feelings are faithful feelings. Not all affections are holy affections. Emotions aren’t always our friends. Far from serving worship of God, they can hinder and undermine it.

“Not all feelings are faithful feelings. Not all affections are holy affections.”

It’s my growing conviction that we need to develop (or recover) a more robust vocabulary for describing various categories of feelings and emotions. In particular, it seems good to distinguish between immediate and impulsive feelings that are rooted in the soul but closely tied to our bodies, on the one hand, and deeper, more stable emotions that are exercises of our will, on the other. The former we can call passions; the latter we can call affections. With a little help from the apostle Peter and C.S. Lewis, we can see the value of making this type of distinction between immediate (and superficial) passions and deeper (or higher) affections.

Set Your Hope on Grace

First, consider Peter’s exhortation in 1 Peter 1:13–16.

Preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Notice the three phrases in verse 13: (1) “preparing your minds for action,” (2) “being sober-minded,” and (3) “set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you.”

The first phrase literally means “girding up the loins of your mind.” To use a modern image, we might say, “rolling up the sleeves of your mind.” Peter calls them to get ready to do some serious mental work, the kind that takes effort. This isn’t roll-out-of-bed-in-your-pajamas work. This is get-your-work-clothes-on, make-sure-your-shoes-are-tied, get-your-game-face-on work.

The second phrase refers to the opposite of drunkenness. Be sober-minded. Now, drunkenness impairs our perception, our judgment, our reaction times. So the opposite of drunkenness is an alertness, a clarity of mind, a steadiness. So roll up the sleeves of your mind, get clear and steady, and then what?

The final phrase calls for a particular affectionate response. Hope is a future-oriented affection. It is a glad-hearted expectation of something good that is coming. We don’t yet possess it; we don’t hope for what we already have. And Peter knows it is far too easy to be distracted by the cares and anxieties of this world, to look to the future with fear rather than faith. And so he exhorts us: Roll up the sleeves of our mind, get clear and steady, and then set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you. You’ve been born again to a living hope, an imperishable inheritance (1 Peter 1:3–5). Now set your hope fully on the tidal wave of coming grace.

What Are Passions?

Now, why is setting our hope in this way so necessary? The next verse expresses the danger. “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance” (1 Peter 1:14).

Passions are the immediate and intuitive and impulsive exercises of the soul that are closely tied to the body. Passions can be good. Paul desires to depart and be with Christ (Philippians 1:23), using the same word translated as passions in 1 Peter 1. However, frequently the word passions in the Bible refers to sinful and ungodly passions. Elsewhere in 1 Peter, they are called “passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Peter 2:11). They are linked with vices like sensuality, sexual immorality, drunkenness, and lawless idolatry (1 Peter 4:3). As human passions, they are opposed to the will of God (1 Peter 4:2). And these passions want to lead. They want to take us somewhere. If we follow them, then we indulge or gratify our passions, and they begin to conform us to their image.

So Peter depicts a conflict between an affection (hope) that requires serious mental effort, and the fleshly passions that wage war against our soul. And this is where Lewis is so helpful.

Blitz Against Belief

Lewis knows that the human mind is not completely governed by reason. There’s often a conflict between what we know to be true and what our emotions (or passions) and our imaginations tell us is true. He says once someone has accepted the gospel, here’s what will inevitably happen:

There will come a moment when there is bad news, or he is in trouble, or is living among a lot of other people who do not believe it, and all at once his emotions will rise up and carry out a sort of blitz on his belief. Or else there will come a moment when he wants a woman, or wants to tell a lie, or feels very pleased with himself, or sees a chance of making a little money in some way that is not perfectly fair: some moment, in fact, at which it would be very convenient if Christianity were not true. And once again his wishes and desires will carry out a blitz. I am not talking of moments at which any real new reasons against Christianity turn up. Those have to be faced and that is a different matter. I am talking about moments when a mere mood rises up against it.⁠ (Mere Christianity, 140)

Lewis knows that our moods pose a real danger to our faith. Elsewhere he says,

Our faith in Christ wavers not so much when real arguments come against it as when it looks improbable — when the whole world takes on that desolate look which really tells us much more about the state of our passions and even our digestion than about reality. . . . When once passion takes part in the game, the human reason, unassisted by Grace, has about as much chance of retaining its hold on truths already gained as a snowflake has of retaining its consistency in the mouth of a blast furnace. (Christian Reflections, 43)

In the grip of passions, all sorts of dubious and preposterous arguments begin to seem plausible. Our moods really do affect our faith, and our moods are frequently influenced by our bodies — what we’ve eaten, how well we’ve slept, whether we’ve exercised — as well as by our circumstances or even the weather. In my own life, I’ve regularly had to face these kinds of unbelieving moods, these foggy clouds of vague unbelief that seem to settle over my soul.

Steering Elephants

How do Peter and Lewis help me in the face of these moods? First, by enabling me to recognize them as passion-driven moods. This sort of unbelief is a fog that clouds thinking. That’s why we have to roll up our sleeves and clear our heads in order to set our hope.

Second, they encourage me to pray for the gift of faith, for “the power to go on believing not in the teeth of reason but in the teeth of lust and terror and jealousy and boredom and indifference that which reason, authority, or experience, or all three, have once delivered to us for truth” (43).

“Faith is the art of holding on to what we’ve believed in the face of our changing moods.”

Now faith, or what Peter here calls “setting your hope fully,” is the art of holding on to what we’ve believed in the face of our changing moods. There’s a kind of rebellion of our moods against our real self. Our sinful passions wage war against our souls. Our lower, superficial, and immediate feelings seek to grab the steering wheel, leaving our higher faculties to trail along behind.

To use an image from Jonathan Haidt, it’s a bit like trying to ride an elephant. The elephant (our passions and moods) is strong and powerful and lurches left and right. But if we roll up our sleeves and stay clearheaded and steady, we can, by grace, learn to steer the elephant. We can tell our moods where they get off.

Stubborn Faith

Lewis calls this “practicing our faith.” Repeatedly engaging in the practice of our faith turns that practice into the habit of faith, a kind of persevering dedication and affectionate commitment to the truth that we’ve received. True faith is a stubborn thing.

Cultivating this habit is no easy task. It requires ongoing effort. It’s why we daily seek to bring the truths of Scripture before our minds. It’s why we labor to pray consistently and constantly, thankfully and humbly calling on God as our Father for help. It’s why we gather with other believers to encourage each other in the faith and stir one another up to love and good deeds. These habits of grace are ways that we roll up the sleeves of our mind and soberly set our hope on future grace.

One of the reasons to read the Old Testament is so you can be shocked at the right times when reading the New Testament. Philippians 2, for example, is a wonderful, glorious passage — but it becomes a shocking passage when read in light of Isaiah 45.

Isaiah 45 records the prophet’s oracle concerning Cyrus, king of Persia. Despite being a pagan ruler, Cyrus is the Lord’s anointed, his christ with a lowercase c (Isaiah 45:1). Though Cyrus does not know Yahweh (God’s personal name, Exodus 3:14), Yahweh knows Cyrus, names Cyrus, calls Cyrus, and equips Cyrus to fulfill God’s purposes by restoring the fortunes of Israel following their exile to Babylon (Isaiah 45:4–5). And Yahweh acts in this way so that all people will know that “I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God” (Isaiah 45:5–6).

“One of the reasons to read the Old Testament is so that you can be shocked when reading the New Testament.”

In fact, the uniqueness of the Lord becomes the dominant theme in the oracle of Isaiah 45. Again and again, Yahweh asserts his unique divine prerogatives. He alone is the Creator God. He forms light and creates darkness (Isaiah 45:7). He sends showers to the earth and causes plants to grow (Isaiah 45:8). He is the potter who forms the clay and the father who makes all mankind (Isaiah 45:9).

God Over All

Isaiah draws our attention back to Genesis 1:

Thus says the Lord,who created the heavens     (he is God!),who formed the earth and made it      (he established it;he did not create it empty,     he formed it to be inhabited!). (Isaiah 45:18)

Not only did he alone create the world, but he alone governs it from beginning to end.

Thus says the Lord,     the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him [Cyrus]:“Ask me of things to come;     will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands?I made the earth     and created man on it;it was my hands that stretched out the heavens,     and I commanded all their host.” (Isaiah 45:11–12)

And not only is Yahweh alone the Creator God; he alone is “a righteous God and a Savior” (Isaiah 45:21). Yahweh is distinct from all the gods of the nations, since the pagans “carry about their wooden idols and keep on praying to a god that cannot save” (Isaiah 45:20). Yet even the nations will one day recognize the futility of their idols and acknowledge the God of Israel (Isaiah 45:14).

There Is No Other

Again and again in this chapter, the Lord, through his prophet, shouts that he alone is God. Hear the trumpet blast of God’s absolute uniqueness sound seven times in this one chapter.

Verse 5: “I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God.”
Verse 6: “There is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other.”
Verse 14: “They will plead with you, saying: ‘Surely God is in you, and there is no other, no god besides him.’”
Verse 18: “I am the Lord, and there is no other.”
Verse 21: “Was it not I, the Lord? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me.”
Verse 22: “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.”
Verse 24: “Only in the Lord, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength.”

And that is why it is no surprise in this passage when Yahweh declares,

By myself I have sworn;     from my mouth has gone out in righteousness     a word that shall not return:“To me every knee shall bow,     every tongue shall swear allegiance.” (Isaiah 45:23)

As the only supreme God, he has no one greater by whom he can swear (Hebrews 6:13), and his sure and certain word establishes that all shall bow to him and him alone. Every tongue will confess that Yahweh is Lord.

One Shocking Name

But what is not surprising in Isaiah 45 becomes unbelievably shocking in Philippians 2. Like Isaiah, Paul is celebrating the anointed of the Lord, Christ Jesus himself. Whereas Cyrus did not know the Lord, Jesus does, and his humility and obedience is the model for our own. Jesus humbled himself, and his obedience extended all the way to death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:6–9).

And then the turn. Because of his humility and his obedience, God has highly exalted him. He has given him the supreme name in the cosmos. And what does this exaltation and name-giving mean? It means that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11).

“Jesus, the man from Nazareth, is not just a great prophet or the anointed king. He is Lord, the Lord, Yahweh himself.”

Paul knows what he is doing. He knows that this fundamental Christian confession — Jesus Christ is Lord — does not merely declare him to be a human ruler like Herod or Caesar. He knows that he is echoing the words of Isaiah in that great monotheistic chapter. The chapter that rang with “there is no other god” is now shockingly, surprisingly, incredibly redeployed to declare that Jesus, the man from Nazareth, is not just a great prophet or the anointed king. He is Lord, the Lord, Yahweh himself, come in the flesh to rescue and redeem, to suffer and to save.

Yes, Paul knows what he is doing. And he knows that he’s not the first to do so.

Jesus Is Lord

The shepherds heard it first, declared by angel tongues on the night of Jesus’s birth. The good news of great joy for all people shockingly brought together Isaiah’s words in a simple sentence. “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Not merely the Lord’s Christ (like David or even Cyrus). This Christ is the Lord himself, now laying aside his divine privileges and emptying himself, humbling himself, taking on the form of a servant, and being born in the likeness of men.

Now when the ends of the earth turn to be saved, they don’t merely turn to the Creator God. They turn to the God-man from Nazareth, the boy from Bethlehem. Jesus is Lord, and there is no other. Jesus is Lord, and there is none like him.

“It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). The words of Jesus, quoted in the book of Acts, are some of the most famous in the Bible. They celebrate the goodness and blessing of generosity. The Christian virtue of generosity, however, is surprisingly nuanced, involving both receiving and giving, and doing so in particular ways.

To understand generosity, we might begin by considering the opposite vice — greed or avarice. Dante’s treatment of this sin in Inferno shows us how greed corrupts both receiving and giving.

When Dante arrives in the fourth circle of hell, he sees two mobs rolling large stones at each other and jeering. Both are greedy, but the form of their greed is different. On one side are the misers, those like tightfisted Scrooge, whose philosophy is best summarized as “Get all you can; can all you get; and sit on the can.” Opposed to them are the squanderers, those who fritter away their goods in wastefulness and luxury. Dante’s keen insight is that while these two groups may outwardly look different, at heart they are the same. Both are in the grip of greed, since greed can either manifest as ill-receiving or ill-giving.

In both cases, the greedy have gone cross-eyed in the mind; they can’t see reality rightly since they are fixated on earthly goods.

Receive, Don’t Take

Recognizing that both our receiving and our giving can be corrupted helps us to see the wisdom and beauty of the biblical virtue of generosity.

Perhaps surprisingly, generosity begins with receiving. And not just any kind of receiving, but a particular kind. We can grasp it if we consider the difference between receiving and taking. In both cases, we end up with some good, but there is a difference between gratefully receiving the good and sinfully seizing the good. Thus, one of Paul’s many exhortations to generosity begins with, “Let the thief no longer steal” (Ephesians 4:28).

“The first step toward Christian generosity is to receive what God has supplied with deep and heartfelt gratitude.”

But theft is only one form of taking — or rather, there are many kinds of theft. The obvious kind involves plundering your neighbor’s goods, but we also can steal from God. When we refuse to receive his gifts with gratitude, but instead act as though the things we have are ours by birthright, we rob him of his rightful glory as the Giver. So Paul can rebuke the Corinthians by saying, “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

Thus, the first step toward Christian generosity is to receive what God has supplied with deep and heartfelt gratitude.

Receive to Give

It’s not enough, however, to merely gratefully receive. Grateful reception can quickly turn into ill-keeping or ill-giving. The thief who stops stealing must now labor honestly in order to have enough to share with others (Ephesians 4:28).

Here we consider the difference between sharing and wasting, between well-giving and ill-giving. James 4:3 warns of the danger of asking God for blessing with the wrong motives: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” Desiring wealth in order to selfishly spend it on our passions is wasteful. God loves a cheerful giver, not an indulgent squanderer.

Wealth is a gift from God for the sake of his mission. He gives to us that we might give to others.

As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. (1 Timothy 6:17–19)

God has richly provided us with everything for four purposes. First, for our enjoyment; it is good for us to gladly receive what God supplies and to enjoy it for his sake. Second, he provides so that we might do good, that our wealth might serve the joy of others. Third, he provides so that we would be rich in good works. Not just rich in wealth, but rich in deeds of charity and mercy. He meets our needs so that we can gladly meet the needs of others. Fourth, he provides so that we would be generous and ready to share.

This readiness is crucial. It challenges the greed in our hearts. When we have good gifts, are our eyes locked onto the gifts alone? Like the avaricious, have we gone cross-eyed in our fixation on earthly goods? Or are our eyes up, looking around for opportunities to share what we’ve received? Is there an eager readiness to be generous, or is there a selfish miserliness on our part?

Christian generosity begins with grateful receiving and then moves to ready giving. We receive in order to give.

Give to Receive More

This isn’t the end of the story. Christian generosity doesn’t terminate in the giving of our goods; it terminates in the good we receive from God in the giving of our goods. We must not lose sight of the fact that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Receiving is a blessing. Receiving and then giving is a greater blessing.

“Receiving is a blessing. Receiving and then giving is a greater blessing.”

But what is this blessing? Our giving is also a storing up. Paul puts it clearly in 1 Timothy 6:19: “They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.”

The key word is thus. In doing good and being generous with God’s provision, we are, in that very act of giving, storing up treasure for ourselves. Giving here and now stores up treasure for the future. This is the treasure in heaven that Jesus promises. This is the “better possession and abiding one” that gladly fortified the early Christians in the face of the plundering of their property (Hebrews 10:34–36).

Christian generosity isn’t simply receiving in order to give. It’s gratefully receiving in order to generously give in order to gladly receive more in the future. Our hope is ultimately in God, not in our wealth. What we take hold of is not the fleeting pleasures of this life, but the eternal pleasures of the life to come.

And we are taking hold of true life when we loosen our hold on the goods of this life. This is Christian generosity.

What is Christian boldness? For some, the phrase conjures images of bravado, machismo, and swagger. For others, the phrase signifies a vague sense of courage and conviction in the face of opposition.

The fourth chapter of Acts provides an unusually clear picture of Christian boldness. The noun for boldness (parrēsia) appears three times in this one chapter (and only twice more in the rest of Acts) and here sets the context for Luke’s use of the verb speak boldly (parrēsiazomai) seven times in the coming chapters. He apparently intends for us to see the events of this chapter as a particularly poignant example of Christian boldness. By examining them, we can see not only what Christian boldness is, but where it comes from, and how we can cultivate it for ourselves.

Astonished at Common Men

The word first appears in Acts 4:13: “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished.” What had the Jewish leaders seen that so shocked them?

Recall that Peter and John had been arrested following a miraculous healing at the temple (Acts 3:1–4:4). Peter had healed a man lame from birth, amazing the crowds. He followed the healing with an evangelistic sermon to the gathered crowd. The sermon is interrupted by the Jewish leaders, who, annoyed by the apostolic teaching, arrest the apostles and throw them in prison overnight.

The next day, Peter and John are brought before the entire council, including the high priest and his family. The rulers demand to know how Peter and John were able to do this miracle. And then Peter responds with the words that surprise the Sanhedrin and show us the meaning of boldness.

Three Elements of Christian Boldness

First, their boldness shines in a hostile context. The gathering of the entire council seems to be an attempt to intimidate these uneducated, common fishermen. Here are the elite, the educated, the men who have power. It is they who ask, “What do you have to say for yourselves?”

No doubt other uneducated men had stood before them and shivered, looked pale, and found their tongues tied in the presence of these religious leaders. But not Peter and John. Their answer to the accusatory question is as clear as a bell. “Let it be known to all of you . . . ,” Peter says (Acts 4:10). One imagines him lifting up his head and his voice so that he can be clearly heard by those in the back. This fisherman is unmoved in the presence of these leaders.

Second, their boldness manifests in their clear testimony about Jesus. It is by his name that the man was healed. It is by his name (and his name alone) that any man can be saved. This Jesus, whom God raised from the dead, is the cornerstone, and there is salvation in no one else (Acts 4:10–12). Thus, clarity about Jesus, and his power to heal and save, is at the heart of Christian boldness.

Finally, their boldness is displayed in their clarity about sin. This man, “Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified . . . this Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you” (Acts 4:10–11). You rulers, you who purport to be the builders of Israel, rejected him, the cornerstone who has become for you a stone of stumbling and rock of offense. Here is a turning of the tables. Peter and John are the ones on trial; they have been arrested. And yet here they accuse and condemn the powerful men who not a few months earlier had killed Jesus himself.

“Christian boldness is courage and clarity about Jesus and sin in the face of powerful opposition.”

So then, what is Christian boldness? It is courage and clarity about Jesus and sin in the face of powerful opposition. It is plain and open speech with no obfuscation or muttering. It is unhindered testimony to the truth, whether about Christ and his salvation, or about what he came to save us from.

Obey God Rather than Men

This understanding of boldness is confirmed if we consider the next chapter, when Peter and John are again arrested and hauled before these same leaders for their refusal to stop speaking in the name of Jesus.

The high priest questioned them, saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us” (Acts 5:28). But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him” (Acts 5:29–32).

‘God Raised Him’

“You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching.” What teaching? The teaching about the resurrection of Jesus. The apostles are preaching the lordship of the risen Jesus. “God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:31). That’s what every sermon in Acts is about. God raised Jesus. God exalted Jesus. Jesus is Savior. Jesus is Lord. Jesus forgives sins. There is no other name by which we can be saved. This is the message the apostles preach in defiance of the Sanhedrin’s threats. They are determined to fill Jerusalem with the good news about who Jesus is and what God has done through him.

‘You Killed Him’

But not only teaching about Jesus. They also preach clearly and courageously about sin, and in particular the sin of betraying, rejecting, denying, and murdering Jesus. “You intend to bring this man’s blood upon us,” the high priest says (Acts 5:28). You’re trying to blame us for killing him. “That’s exactly right,” responds Peter. “You killed him by hanging him on a tree” (Acts 5:30).

It’s remarkable how often the apostles strike this note, in Jerusalem no less, only a few months removed from the crucifixion itself. The unjust death of Jesus is fresh, and yet the apostles make it a repeated and central note in their preaching, both to the crowds and to the Jewish leaders.

This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. (Acts 2:23)

God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. (Acts 2:36)

The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. (Acts 3:13–15)

By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. . . . This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders. (Acts 4:10–11)

And this clarity and courage about the particular sin of killing Jesus is one part of the larger apostolic clarity about all sin and the need to repent.

Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. . . . Save yourselves from this crooked generation. (Acts 2:38, 40)

Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. (Acts 3:19)

God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. (Acts 3:26)

“Every one of you [turn] from your wickedness.” Not your neighbor’s wickedness. Not the wickedness of those people over there. Your wickedness. This is Christian boldness — clearly and courageously testifying to the resurrection of Jesus and the need to repent, both in general and in the specific ways that we have rebelled against God.

Dare to Be Specific

This leads us to a key lesson for us about Christian boldness. If we are to be bold, we must bring the reality of Jesus to bear on the reality of human sinfulness. And not just generic sinfulness. While calls for repentance from generic sins have their place, true Christian boldness gets specific about sin and particular about context.

“If we are to be bold, we must bring the reality of Jesus to bear on the reality of human sinfulness.”

There is a perennial temptation for Christian preachers to gather a crowd and preach about all the sins “out there.” But faithfulness and boldness demand that we address the sins actually present in whatever room we find ourselves. And if we ever wonder which sins we ought to boldly address, we can simply ask which sins we’re tempted to ignore and minimize. Which sins do we tread lightly around? Where are we tempted to whisper? That context requires Christian boldness.

And Peter and John maintain this boldness in the face of threats and opposition, as they go from being a mere nuisance (Acts 4:2), to the objects of jealousy (Acts 5:17), to the objects of rage and violence (Acts 5:33; 7:54). The opposition escalates, and the boldness abides.

How Can We Grow in Courage?

Where then does this boldness come from? Fundamentally, it comes from the Holy Spirit. Peter, “filled with the Holy Spirit” answers the Sanhedrin’s question (Acts 4:8). In the face of threats, the early Christians “were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31). Steven, “full of the Holy Spirit,” indicts the Jewish leaders who have arrested and falsely accused him (Acts 7:55).

But not only the Holy Spirit. The Jewish leaders, in recognizing the apostolic boldness, recognized that Peter and John “had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). And while this no doubt refers to their engagement in Christ’s earthly ministry, it contains a word for us today.

We too, if we wish to be bold, must be filled with the Spirit and abide with Jesus. And the book of Acts shows us not merely the ultimate source of Christian boldness, but also the means for growing in it. After Peter and John are released and warned to no longer speak in the name of Jesus, what do they do?

1. Gather

“They went to their friends and reported what the chief priest and elders had said to them. And . . . they lifted their voices together” (Acts 4:23–24). Christian boldness is not an individualistic affair. It comes from gathering with God’s people to seek his face together.

2. Pray

“Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them . . . look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak the word with all boldness” (Acts 4:24, 29). Boldness comes to those who ask the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth for it. The Spirit fills them with Christian boldness because they petition the throne of grace to bestow it generously.

3. Ask God to make good on his promises

In their prayers, they repeat back to God what God has said. They quote Psalm 2 and celebrate God’s royal victory in Jesus. Christian boldness is a boldness built on the word of God.

4. Look for God’s Hand and Plan

Not only do they read the Bible and pray the Bible; they read their own story in light of the Scriptures, looking for God’s hand and plan in their lives. They see God’s hand and plan behind the Jewish and Roman opposition to Christ, and they see God’s hand and plan behind the continued opposition to Christ and his people. Jesus’s story is our story, and it is in the midst of that story that we gather and pray God’s word so that we, like the apostles, can speak God’s word with boldness.