Jon Bloom

Behold the Man Upon the Cross

A man is hanging on a wooden cross from stakes driven through his hands and feet.

This is the most widely recognized and revered image in human history. Billions of people over twenty centuries have venerated it. Countless thousands of artists have depicted it. Countless millions have mounted these depictions in their homes, carried them in their pockets, hung them from their necks and ears, even tattooed them into their skin. This image of a dying man.

And he is not merely dying; he is being executed. By crucifixion, no less. Does that strike you as odd? That the most famous image of all time is of a man in the horrific throes of death by one of the most barbarous, hideous forms of capital punishment depraved minds ever devised? It’s typically not a sign of good mental or moral health when people fixate on gruesome torture and death — not to mention wearing depictions of it as jewelry. It’s a strange phenomenon.

What is it about Jesus’s agony that has captivated so many? Why has it captivated us? Why are we engrossed in the very moment of his utter humiliation, when he’d been betrayed and deserted by those closest to him, accused and condemned by those in power over him, mocked and taunted by those who gathered to watch the grisly spectacle of his death?

This is what we want most to remember about him? This is the most memorialized moment in history? What kind of people are we?

Morbid Memorial

It’s an important question. This is not the typical way people have historically honored their greatest martyred heroes.

Think about it. How many of the most iconic memorials to our most honored and beloved martyred heroes are graphic depictions of their violent deaths? Why don’t we hang framed prints in our homes and schools of Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King Jr. with fatal head wounds? Why didn’t ancient Greek sculptors create busts of Socrates in the throes of suffocation from hemlock poisoning? Why aren’t the most inspiring portraits of William Wallace of his disembowelment? Why not Mahatma Gandhi being shot in the chest? Why don’t our memorials to fallen soldiers feature images of mangled bodies?

And wasn’t Jesus’s death penultimate? Isn’t the climax of his story and the Christian hope his resurrection? Wasn’t his death on the cross a prelude of apparent defeat that was swallowed up by the victory of his emergence from grave? Why don’t we feature depictions of an empty tomb at the front of our church sanctuaries? Why don’t we hang that in our houses and around our necks? Why have we chosen to remember and memorialize his terrible crucifixion, an event so horrid to witness that it would have made most of us nauseous and some of us faint?

Either we are a very strange people or there is something very strange about Jesus’s death.

How Jesus Wanted to Be Remembered

If we are a strange people for making Jesus’s torturous death a central focus of our private and public remembering of him, Jesus himself made us so. It’s how he wanted to be remembered.

“Either we are a very strange people or there is something very strange about Jesus’s death.”

Before the dreadful event, he repeatedly told his disciples that he must “suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matthew 16:21). His death was necessary.

More than that, he told them, “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). And to make sure we understand what he meant, John adds, “He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die” (John 12:33). His crucifixion would be the great draw.

More than that, on the night Jesus was betrayed and deserted, accused and condemned, during his Last Supper, he instituted a tradition to help his followers remember what was about to take place. He broke bread to symbolize the intentional sacrifice of his body, which, he said, “is given for you.” And he poured out wine to symbolize, as he said, “the new covenant in my blood.” Then he said, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19–20). His death is what he wanted memorialized.

And more than that, after his resurrection, Jesus captured in one sentence why his death was necessary and why it would draw all people to him:

Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. (Luke 24:46–47)

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to be the final Passover Lamb of God, whose willing, necessary, sacrificial death would take away the sin of the world — necessary, because without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. And henceforth, whoever would believe in the Son would not perish but have eternal life (John 1:29; 3:16; Hebrews 9:22).

The apostle Paul captured in one sentence the connection between the memorial meal Jesus instituted and the gospel proclamation to the nations: “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26).

The Kind of People We Are

What kind of people are we who are so captivated by the image of a crucified man? The kind of people who have good reason to be so. A supremely good reason. A reason we glimpse in words this man uttered in his moment of utter desolation, words of life he used his dying breath to say on behalf of people like us: “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34).

“Our only hope before a holy God is that, in love, he will mercifully provide a way to righteously forgive our sins.”

The kind of people who need forgiveness are sinful people, and that’s the kind of people we are (Romans 3:23). We are the kind of people whose only hope before a holy God is that, in love, he will mercifully provide a way to righteously forgive our sins. And “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

This is what makes Jesus unlike any other martyred hero in history. All other martyrs laid their lives down for a cause they believed worth dying for, but their deaths weren’t inherently necessary to their cause. Given different circumstances, their aims conceivably could have been achieved through other means. But Jesus’s death was inherently necessary to achieve his aim: “to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). It was a strange death, for it was a moral, judicial, merciful necessity at the very core of ultimate and eternal reality.

We do not remember Jesus’s death at the expense of his resurrection, for the cross would have been in vain without the empty tomb (1 Corinthians 15:12–19). The two are inextricably connected. But this is why Jesus’s death is so central in what we remember about him. This is why it’s the most memorialized moment in history. Because of the kind of people we are.

Behold the Man

Behold this man hanging on a wooden cross from stakes driven through his hands and feet.

It’s a horrid image. And it’s beautiful. It’s tragic. And it’s hopeful. This man is the tortured Paradox. His execution was simultaneously history’s most despicable act of injustice and most noble act of justice, an utterly merciless death and an utterly merciful death, the supreme display of hatred and the supreme display of love.

This is why people like us paradoxically call the day Jesus horribly died Good Friday. This is why we find the cross so wondrous, so captivating. This is why it moves us to sing,

Behold the man upon a cross,My sin upon his shoulders.Ashamed, I hear my mocking voiceCall out among the scoffers.It was my sin that held him thereUntil it was accomplished;His dying breath has brought me life,I know that it is finished. (“How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”)

The Joy of God in Us

When we experience the joy of the Holy Spirit, we taste the joy that is at the core of ultimate reality. For when we are born again by the Spirit (John 3:6–7), we receive the astounding, incredible, empowering, priceless gift of the Holy Spirit who resides in us, just as Jesus promised.

As we read through the New Testament, we encounter a unique connection between the Holy Spirit and joy. I’ll give you a few examples. Luke tells us how at one point Jesus “rejoiced in the Holy Spirit” (Luke 10:21) and Paul tells us how the Thessalonian Christians had “received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 1:6–7). In Romans, Paul instructs us that “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17).
I call this connection unique (and worthy of further reflection) because the New Testament pairs joy with the Holy Spirit in a way it doesn’t with other affections. For instance, we don’t read of people experiencing the “sorrow of (or in) the Holy Spirit” or the “anger of (or in) the Holy Spirit,” even though it’s clear the Spirit can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30) and angered (Romans 1:18).
So, why does the New Testament uniquely tie joy to the Holy Spirit? To explore this question, we’ll briefly look at who (and what) the Holy Spirit is, what it means for us to experience this Spirit-empowered joy, and what difference it makes in the Christian life.
Spirit of Joy
Two qualifications before I delve in further. First, the few words I’m about to share on the nature of the Holy Spirit are, I believe, foundationally helpful to understanding the joy that the Holy Spirit produces in us. I don’t have space here, however, to offer a full treatment of that complex reality, so if you’d like to explore this further, this sermon by John Piper and this article by Scott Swain are good places to start.
Second, it’s helpful to keep in mind that while Scripture describes the Holy Spirit as a divine person distinct from the Father and the Son (John 15:26), it also describes him as the Spirit of the Father (Matthew 10:20) and the Spirit of the Son (1 Peter 1:11). In one place, Paul refers to the Spirit in all three Trinitarian ways in the space of three verses (Romans 8:9–11). As we talk about the joy of the Holy Spirit, we need to remember the oneness of God.
Now, let’s probe deeper into the nature of the Trinity as it relates to joy. Citing New Testament texts such as 1 John 4:16 — “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” — theologians at least as far back as Augustine have understood the Holy Spirit to be the living, personified love flowing between the Father and the Son (John 17:26). John Piper says it this way — and note the connection between the love of God and the joy of God:
God the Holy Spirit is the divine person who “originates” (eternally!) from the Father and the Son in their loving each other. And this love is not a “merciful” love as if they needed pity. It is an admiring, delighting, exulting love. It is Joy. The Holy Spirit is God’s Joy in God. To be sure, he is so full of all that the Father and Son are, that he is a divine person in his own right. But that means he is more, not less, than the Joy of God. (“Can We Explain the Trinity?”)
Piper goes on to say, “This means that Joy is at the heart of reality. God is Love, means most deeply, God is Joy in God.” If an essential dimension of the Spirit’s nature is that he is “God’s Joy in God” personified, that helps us understand what makes the joy he produces in us a distinctive joy.
God’s Joy in Us
When we experience the joy of the Holy Spirit, we taste the joy that is at the core of ultimate reality.
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The Joy of God in Us: Why the Spirit Produces Happiness

As we read through the New Testament, we encounter a unique connection between the Holy Spirit and joy. I’ll give you a few examples. Luke tells us how at one point Jesus “rejoiced in the Holy Spirit” (Luke 10:21) and Paul tells us how the Thessalonian Christians had “received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 1:6–7). In Romans, Paul instructs us that “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17).

I call this connection unique (and worthy of further reflection) because the New Testament pairs joy with the Holy Spirit in a way it doesn’t with other affections. For instance, we don’t read of people experiencing the “sorrow of (or in) the Holy Spirit” or the “anger of (or in) the Holy Spirit,” even though it’s clear the Spirit can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30) and angered (Romans 1:18).

So, why does the New Testament uniquely tie joy to the Holy Spirit? To explore this question, we’ll briefly look at who (and what) the Holy Spirit is, what it means for us to experience this Spirit-empowered joy, and what difference it makes in the Christian life.

Spirit of Joy

Two qualifications before I delve in further. First, the few words I’m about to share on the nature of the Holy Spirit are, I believe, foundationally helpful to understanding the joy that the Holy Spirit produces in us. I don’t have space here, however, to offer a full treatment of that complex reality, so if you’d like to explore this further, this sermon by John Piper and this article by Scott Swain are good places to start.

Second, it’s helpful to keep in mind that while Scripture describes the Holy Spirit as a divine person distinct from the Father and the Son (John 15:26), it also describes him as the Spirit of the Father (Matthew 10:20) and the Spirit of the Son (1 Peter 1:11). In one place, Paul refers to the Spirit in all three Trinitarian ways in the space of three verses (Romans 8:9–11). As we talk about the joy of the Holy Spirit, we need to remember the oneness of God.

Now, let’s probe deeper into the nature of the Trinity as it relates to joy. Citing New Testament texts such as 1 John 4:16 — “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” — theologians at least as far back as Augustine have understood the Holy Spirit to be the living, personified love flowing between the Father and the Son (John 17:26). John Piper says it this way — and note the connection between the love of God and the joy of God:

God the Holy Spirit is the divine person who “originates” (eternally!) from the Father and the Son in their loving each other. And this love is not a “merciful” love as if they needed pity. It is an admiring, delighting, exulting love. It is Joy. The Holy Spirit is God’s Joy in God. To be sure, he is so full of all that the Father and Son are, that he is a divine person in his own right. But that means he is more, not less, than the Joy of God. (“Can We Explain the Trinity?”)

Piper goes on to say, “This means that Joy is at the heart of reality. God is Love, means most deeply, God is Joy in God.” If an essential dimension of the Spirit’s nature is that he is “God’s Joy in God” personified, that helps us understand what makes the joy he produces in us a distinctive joy.

God’s Joy in Us

When we experience the joy of the Holy Spirit, we taste the joy that is at the core of ultimate reality. For when we are born again by the Spirit (John 3:6–7), we receive the astounding, incredible, empowering, priceless gift of the Holy Spirit who resides in us, just as Jesus promised:

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. (John 14:16–17)

And when the Holy Spirit dwells in us, the Father and the Son dwell in us — and we in them (John 17:20–21):

If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (John 14:23)

Given all that Jesus says about the Spirit in John 14–16, we know that the Spirit factored significantly in what he meant when he said,

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. (John 15:11)

“When we experience the joy of the Holy Spirit, we taste the joy that is at the core of ultimate reality.”

For the only way we can abide in the Son (John 15:4–5), the only way the Son and the Father can abide in us (John 14:23), the only way the Son’s words can truly abide in us (John 15:7), and the only way the Son’s joy in the Father and the Father’s joy in the Son can abide in us is by the Helper, the Holy Spirit, dwelling in us.

This is why Jesus said our experience of the Holy Spirit would be like having “rivers of living water” within us (John 7:38–39). The Spirit is the indwelling wellspring of joy in God that we experience as we “live by faith in the Son of God” (Galatians 2:20).

Joy of Believing

This brings us to the unique experience of joy that a Christian experiences by the power of the Holy Spirit in this age. We see it all over the New Testament, but Paul captures it beautifully in Romans 15:13:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Paul describes the ground of this Spirit-empowered, joy-producing hope in Romans 5:

Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. . . . And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1–2, 5)

And Peter describes the ineffable joy produced by the love we experience for the now-unseen Jesus, in whom we believe because of his Spirit-revealed word:

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:8–9)

This is how the New Testament typically describes the joy we receive from the Holy Spirit: hope in the glory of God’s grace, received by faith, fills us with deep joy in the Spirit.

He was watching the Father, by the power of his Spirit, reveal the gospel of the kingdom to “little children,” and fill them with hope in the glory of God’s grace toward them as they believed in it, that moved Jesus to “rejoice in the Holy Spirit” (Luke 10:21). It was hope in the glory of God’s grace toward them that filled Gentile disciples “with joy and with the Holy Spirit” as they believed the gospel (Acts 13:52). And it was hope in the glory of God’s grace toward them that filled the Thessalonians “with the joy of the Holy Spirit” as they believed the gospel message, even though they received it “in much affliction” (1 Thessalonians 1:6–7).

Joy to Pursue

We all know from personal experience and observation that Christians are not always filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit. The fact that the New Testament repeatedly draws our attention to specific instances when believers experienced this joy shows that the early Christians didn’t always experience it either.

“This Joy of God is an eternal joy — it will outlast death and only increase in us forever.”

But Paul said that “joy in the Holy Spirit” is a crucial dimension of the kingdom of God (Romans 14:17). It is something we are to pursue. For Joy is at the heart of reality, and if the Spirit dwells in us, we have the one who is ultimate Joy dwelling within us. So, to experience the joy of the Holy Spirit is to experience the joy of “life indeed” (1 Timothy 6:19 NASB).

Not only that, but it is to experience indomitable joy. For this Spirit-empowered joy can’t be destroyed by persecution (Colossians 1:24), suffering (Romans 5:3–4), various trials (1 Peter 1:6–7), sorrow (2 Corinthians 6:10), or a sentence of death (Philippians 1:21). In fact, it is the hope of this joy set before us that helps us, like Jesus, endure all manner of adversity, suffering, and death (Hebrews 12:2). And that is because this Joy of God is an eternal joy — it will outlast death and only increase in us forever (Psalm 16:11; Mark 10:21). Indeed, it is the hope of this eternal joy set before us, which we lay hold of by faith, that makes us “more than conquerors” over any would-be obstacle to the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:35–39).

And so, “May the God of hope fill [us] with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit [we] may abound in hope.”

Some Kindness Stings: Why Love Uses Hard Words

A few months back, considering the heightened level of contention among some American Christians in recent years, I stumbled upon this golden nugget of pastoral wisdom from Richard Sibbes, the English Puritan pastor from four hundred years ago:

It were a good strife amongst Christians, one to labor to give no offense, and the other to labor to take none. The best men are severe to themselves, tender over others. (The Bruised Reed, 47)

Sibbes was exhorting his Christian brothers and sisters during a terribly contentious historical moment, when professing Christians in England were saying and doing appalling things to one another. And it seems to me that we would be wise to heed Sibbes’s counsel, and do our part to contribute to the collective public reputation Jesus desires for us: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

We all know from Scripture, however, that there are times when faithful love requires us to speak hard, even sharp, wounding words (Proverbs 27:6). And we all know that those on the receiving end of our hard, wounding words may, and often do, find them offensive. So, if we embrace Sibbes’s biblical principle that, when possible, we all, for the sake of love, should labor to give and take no offense, what principle should guide us for the (hopefully) rare exceptions when we must, for the sake of love, risk offending someone with our words?

“There are times when faithful love requires us to speak hard, even sharp, wounding words to someone.”

Well, not surprisingly, Sibbes has something very helpful to say about this as well. But first, I need to provide the biblical context from which Sibbes draws his principle.

Jesus on the Offensive

It was during the last week of Jesus’s earthly life, just days before his crucifixion. There had been numerous tense verbal exchanges between Jesus and the religious leaders, as the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees all tried to get Jesus to incriminate himself with his words — and all failed. So, they gave up that strategy (Matthew 22:46).

And then Jesus laid into them, delivering seven prophetic, scathing “woes” to the scribes and Pharisees, requiring 36 of 39 verses in Matthew 23 to record. Here are a few choice excerpts:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. (Matthew 23:13)

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. (Matthew 23:15)

You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! (Matthew 23:24)

You are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. (Matthew 23:27)

You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? (Matthew 23:33)

This is Jesus at his most offensive — at least we would have thought so, had we been scribes or Pharisees back then.

But this raises an important question: Just because most of the scribes and Pharisees would have taken offense at Jesus’s words, does that mean he was truly being offensive? The distinction may seem small, but answering the question illuminates when our own love requires hard words — and what our aim in those hard words should be.

To answer, we need to briefly look at how the New Testament defines an offense. (Then I promise I’ll share that other gold nugget from Sibbes.)

No Offense?

Let’s start by tackling one of the most straightforward statements on offense in the New Testament: “Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God” (1 Corinthians 10:32). Just on the face of this phrase, it looks like Jesus broke a Spirit-inspired command. But these few words don’t tell the whole story. We need to examine their context to understand what Paul specifically means when he says to “give no offense.”

He makes this statement after spending three chapters instructing the Corinthians to “take care” that they not exercise their Christian freedoms (like eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols) in a way that “somehow become[s] a stumbling block to the weak,” thereby destroying another’s faith (1 Corinthians 8:9). And then, as examples of forgoing personal freedoms for the sake of love, Paul describes three ways he and Barnabas had set aside their apostolic “rights”:

They were careful not to offend others by what they ate or drank (1 Corinthians 9:4).
They refrained from getting married so as to maintain undivided devotion to the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:35; 9:5).
They made no demands on the Corinthian church to provide them financial and material ministry support, even though they had brought the gospel to the Corinthians at great cost to themselves (1 Corinthians 9:6–12).

And why did they deny themselves in these ways? Because, Paul says, “We endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:12).

And right there we see what Paul means by an offense to Jews, Gentiles, and Christians: anything that is an obstacle to faith in Jesus. At one place, he even says, “If food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble” (1 Corinthians 8:13). The Greek word Paul uses here for stumble (skandalizō) is the same word Jesus uses when he warns us not to cause “little ones who believe in [him] to sin,” and to cut off our hand or foot or tear out our eye if it causes us to sin (Matthew 18:6–9).

These texts (and many more) capture what the New Testament considers a true offense: saying or doing anything that would prevent others from coming to faith in Christ or persevering in their faith.

Painful Application of a ‘Sweet Balm’

Now we can return to our question: Just because most of the scribes and Pharisees would have taken offense at Jesus’s words, does that mean he was truly being offensive — in the New Testament sense? Finally, it’s time to share that gold nugget from Richard Sibbes I promised:

We see that our Saviour multiplies woe upon woe when he has to deal with hard hearted hypocrites (Matthew 23:13), for hypocrites need stronger conviction than gross sinners, because their will is bad, and therefore usually their conversion is violent. A hard knot must have an answerable wedge, else, in a cruel pity, we betray their souls. A sharp reproof sometimes is a precious pearl and a sweet balm. (The Bruised Reed, 49)

I love Sibbes’s take on Jesus’s scathing rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees. He didn’t lose his temper with them and unleash his pent-up frustration with offensive language. He was taking the sharp wedge of a hard rebuke to the hard knots of their hearts.

If, like me, you’re an inexperienced woodsman, you may wonder what a wedge has to do with a knot. Sibbes was quoting an old proverb everyone probably knew back when felling trees was a normal part of life and a sharp wedge was needed to break through a hard timber knot.

“Jesus took the sharp wedge of his words to the knot of their unbelief. He applied a ‘sweet balm’ with painful reproof.”

The wedge wasn’t the real offense; the knots were the real offense. The scribes and Pharisees were putting obstacles in the way of the gospel (1 Corinthians 9:12), obstacles that were preventing both them and others from entering the kingdom of God (Matthew 23:13). It would have been a “cruel pity” for him to say nothing — or to say something soft. So Jesus took the sharp wedge of his words to the knot of their unbelief. Or to use another image from Sibbes, he applied a “sweet balm” with painful reproof. And we can see the heart behind this reproof in the tears of Jesus’s lament that appear in the last three verses of the chapter (Matthew 23:37–39).

Hard Kindness of Christian Love

If we embrace Sibbes’s biblical principle that, when possible, we all, for the sake of love, should labor to give and take no offense, what principle can we distill from Sibbes’s counsel above that can guide us when we encounter the (hopefully) rare exceptions when we must, for the sake of love, risk offending someone with some hard words?

Give no offense to anyone (1 Corinthians 10:32), unless it would be a greater kindness (1 Corinthians 13:4) to bring a hard word and an act of cruelty to withhold it.

This is why Nathan risked offending King David (2 Samuel 12); it’s why Paul risked offending Peter (Galatians 2:11–14); it’s why Jesus risked offending the scribes and Pharisees; and it’s why we are sometimes called to risk offending someone with a painful rebuke. In these cases, if our motive is love and our goal is to remove a stumbling block from someone’s path of faith, our hard words are not truly offensive. They are acts of love, the “faithful . . . wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6). If our hearers find them to be “a rock of offense” (1 Peter 2:8), it may be due to the hard knots of unbelief in their hearts, rather than the sharp wedge of our words.

The Strange Sounds of Praise: A Sufferer’s Introduction to the Psalms

The book of Psalms is a collection of 150 ancient Hebrew praise songs that were composed by numerous writers over hundreds of years.

That’s a true one-sentence summary, but it’s also incomplete — woefully incomplete. It leaves out the most important dimension of what the psalms are.

So, let’s briefly explore where these songs came from, why they have been preserved for thousands of years, and how they model, sometimes in surprising ways, what the author of Hebrews calls “acceptable worship” (Hebrews 12:28). Then we will be able to add in the crucial dimension to our one-sentence summary — and perhaps challenge some of our assumptions for what makes worship “acceptable” in God’s eyes.

What Is a Psalm?

Why do we call these Hebrew poems “psalms”? The word psalm is an English transliteration of the Greek word psalmos, which means “song.” And psalmos is a Greek translation of the Hebrew word for “song.” That’s one way we know these poems were written to be sung. The word appears in many of the titles of individual psalms.

In my one-sentence summary, I referred to the whole collection of psalms as “praise songs.” Some obviously fit that description, like Psalm 135 (“Praise the Lord! Praise the name of the Lord . . .”), but some psalms don’t sound like the praise songs most of us sing in church, like Psalm 10 (“Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”). So, is it accurate to call them all praise songs?

The reason it’s right to call all the psalms in sacred Scripture “praise songs” is because the ancient Hebrews did. The Hebrew title for this book is tehillîm, which means “praises.” This gives us a critical insight: the original singers of these songs considered the breadth of these expressions to all be praise to God. And if our ancient forebears in the faith had a broader definitional range for what qualified as praise than we modern worshipers do, it seems to me that some reevaluation on our part would be good, especially since these praise songs were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Songs Written to Remember

These songs were written to provide God’s people collective expressions of worship through singing. They are means by which believers in every era can teach and admonish one another through song in order to stir up the adoration and thankfulness of faith (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). And just as important (integral, actually, to achieving this), these songs were written to help God’s people remember.

Keep in mind that during the centuries when the Psalms were written — and, really, up to just a few centuries ago — the vast majority of any population was illiterate. The most important information had to be memorized. And recent studies have since confirmed what history has demonstrated, that among the most effective human mnemonic devices ever discovered is combining words (especially poetically arranged words) with a pleasing, patterned musical melody. Songs have always helped us remember.

“Songs have always helped us remember.”

Some psalms were written to mark special occasions (Psalm 20), or to recall pivotal moments in Israel’s history (Psalm 78). Others were crucial in helping the ancient Hebrews remember who God truly was (Psalm 103), who they, as a people, truly were (Psalm 95), how intimately aware God was of each individual (Psalm 139), what happened at key moments in their history (Psalm 135), why they had good reason to thank God (Psalm 136), and why, in spite of the toil and trouble of life, they had cause to give God exuberant, loud praise (Psalm 147).

The reason this book is still beloved by millions today, though, is that so many psalms were written to help God’s children remember a crucial truth that God (the Son) later articulated this way: “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Sacrifices of Praise

God’s people throughout redemptive history have been called to “hope in God” (Psalm 43:5) while living as full participants in a world full of suffering. Which means we all live much of our lives “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).

That’s why there are so many psalms of lament in this sacred book. And it is in these darker psalms that we find what might be for us the most surprising expressions of “acceptable worship,” because they give worshipful expression to a wide range of human misery — the kinds we all experience — with its accompanying fear, grief, and confusion.

These ancient Hebrew composers wrote with sometimes startling honesty and transparency about their faith struggles. They wrote about feeling abandoned by God (Psalm 22), suffering severe illness (Psalm 41), fearing great danger (Psalm 54), almost giving up on God out of disillusionment (Psalm 73), experiencing a faith crisis (Psalm 77), enduring chronic, lifelong, severe depression (Psalm 88), feeling dismayed over God seemingly neglecting to keep his promises (Psalm 89), seething with anger over another’s treachery (Psalm 109), and more. They also wrote candidly about grievous sins they committed (Psalm 51) and being on the receiving end of God’s painful, fatherly discipline (Psalm 39). And these authors all wrote their deeply personal, even exposing, songs for the benefit of all God’s people, since some members at any given time would be experiencing something similar.

“Every psalm encourages the readers to believe God’s promises over their perceptions.”

All these psalms of lament were considered “praise songs” by the ancient Hebrews. Why? Because every psalm, whether sorrowful or rejoicing, encourages the singers (or readers) to “trust in the Lord” (Psalm 37:3), to believe God’s promises over their perceptions. And whenever a believer exercises and expresses true faith in God — that is, “the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name” — God receives it as “acceptable worship,” as a “sacrifice of praise” (Hebrews 13:15).

It’s interesting to note that in the structure of most of these darker psalms, as well as in the general structure of the whole book, there is a progression from fear to faith, from doubt and discouragement to hope in God, from sin to repentance and forgiveness, from sorrow to joy. The Psalms were written to help us shift our focus from ourselves and our circumstances to the God of hope, who fills us with joy and peace as we believe him (Romans 15:13).

Does Our Worship Sound Like Psalms?

Now we can fill out our one-sentence summary:

The book of Psalms is a collection of 150 ancient Hebrew praise songs that were composed by numerous writers over hundreds of years in order to help God’s people remember in every circumstance that God is the only source of the salvation they most need and the joy and peace they most long for, so that they will always put their full hope in him.

The more that added dimension is an experienced reality for us, the more we engage in “acceptable worship.”

I can’t help but think that we Western Christians should examine how closely our definitions of “acceptable worship” align with what we see modeled in the Psalms. In particular, does the thematic range of songs we’re willing to sing (or for leaders, allow people to sing) during corporate worship strike the same notes as the psalms?

A dangerous temptation we face, especially in America, is being too influenced by our consumer-driven culture in how we design our corporate worship events and what songs we incentivize modern praise-song composers to write. Christian worship music is a large and profitable industry. Which means our modern psalmists in many cases (though certainly not all) are being incentivized to compose songs for quick mass-consumption (to score a hit), rather than out of real, deep, complex spiritual experience. The predictable result is a fairly narrow thematic range and relatively shallow lyrical content.

What’s best for God’s people is often not the same as what sells the best and attracts the most. It’s what provides fresh worshipful expressions for the wide range of complex and sometimes deeply painful experiences God’s people go through in order to help them remember in every circumstance that God is the only source of the salvation they most need and the joy and peace they most long for, so that they will always put their full hope in him.

Thank God that he has preserved the book of Psalms for us all these years. For they continue their fruitful ministry of providing us sacred songs of praise as we seek to “offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28). And they continue their fruitful ministry of modeling for us what worship looks like when we lose our bearings.

Will I Trust God?

When you believe God, he counts it to you as righteousness, as full acceptance from God himself. And when you believe God, it leads to the Isaac-laughter of inexpressible joy as you at last see God do for you what he has promised. And when you believe God, you will share inexpressible joy with a host of others who, because you believed, will be laughing in joy with you.

Had you been there that very moment, watching from a distance, you wouldn’t have observed anything dramatic. I’m talking about the moment Abraham (still called Abram at the time) stepped out of his tent and gazed into the heavens, looking at the stars.
You may have heard him muttering something or other, perhaps at some point raising his hands or bowing to the ground. These gestures wouldn’t have seemed out of character to you because everyone knew Abram was a deeply pious man. And being tired, since it was the middle of the night and all, you probably would have left Abram to whatever he was doing and headed to bed.
You would not have known that this was a defining moment in Abram’s life. You certainly wouldn’t have guessed this was a defining moment in world history that would impact billions of people. Because it would have seemed so undramatic.
But that’s the way moments like these — moments that powerfully direct and shape the arc of history — often appear at first. And in this case, what made the world-changing minutes of stargazing so quietly monumental was that this old man, in the deep recesses of his heart, believed God.
Pushed Nearly Beyond Belief
To understand the profundity of this defining moment, however, we need to see how this old man’s belief had been pushed to the very brink.
It all began in Genesis 12, where God delivered to Abram a promise that would have been incredible on its own, quite apart from the fact that Abram, at age 75, and Sarai, at age 66, as yet had no children:
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1–3)
So, “by faith Abraham obeyed,” packing up his household and setting out, though “not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). And when he and his small tribe arrived at Shechem, God spoke to him again and said, “To your offspring I will give this land” (Genesis 12:7).
Time passed. God’s blessing rested on Abram and his tribe, which included his nephew Lot’s household, and their combined possessions and herds grew larger — so large, in fact, that Abram and Lot had to separate into two tribes. Still, Abram had no offspring — the key to the fulfillment of the Lord’s greatest promise to him. Nonetheless, the Lord once again affirmed his promise (Genesis 13:14–16).
More time passed. God continued to prosper whatever Abram did. And once again, the Lord appeared to him and said,
Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great. (Genesis 15:1)
But for Abram, now in his eighties, and Sarai in her seventies, there was still the same glaring problem. Amid all the abundant blessing of prosperity God had showered on him, there was one conspicuous, crucial place of poverty: Abram still had no offspring.
Desperate Prayer of a Man of Faith
It was at this point that Abram could not contain his anguished perplexity over the ongoing void at the core of God’s promises, and it poured out in a desperate prayer.
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Will I Trust God? Simple Prayer in a Desperate Moment

Had you been there that very moment, watching from a distance, you wouldn’t have observed anything dramatic. I’m talking about the moment Abraham (still called Abram at the time) stepped out of his tent and gazed into the heavens, looking at the stars.

You may have heard him muttering something or other, perhaps at some point raising his hands or bowing to the ground. These gestures wouldn’t have seemed out of character to you because everyone knew Abram was a deeply pious man. And being tired, since it was the middle of the night and all, you probably would have left Abram to whatever he was doing and headed to bed.

You would not have known that this was a defining moment in Abram’s life. You certainly wouldn’t have guessed this was a defining moment in world history that would impact billions of people. Because it would have seemed so undramatic.

But that’s the way moments like these — moments that powerfully direct and shape the arc of history — often appear at first. And in this case, what made the world-changing minutes of stargazing so quietly monumental was that this old man, in the deep recesses of his heart, believed God.

Pushed Nearly Beyond Belief

To understand the profundity of this defining moment, however, we need to see how this old man’s belief had been pushed to the very brink.

It all began in Genesis 12, where God delivered to Abram a promise that would have been incredible on its own, quite apart from the fact that Abram, at age 75, and Sarai, at age 66, as yet had no children:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1–3)

So, “by faith Abraham obeyed,” packing up his household and setting out, though “not knowing where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). And when he and his small tribe arrived at Shechem, God spoke to him again and said, “To your offspring I will give this land” (Genesis 12:7).

Time passed. God’s blessing rested on Abram and his tribe, which included his nephew Lot’s household, and their combined possessions and herds grew larger — so large, in fact, that Abram and Lot had to separate into two tribes. Still, Abram had no offspring — the key to the fulfillment of the Lord’s greatest promise to him. Nonetheless, the Lord once again affirmed his promise (Genesis 13:14–16).

More time passed. God continued to prosper whatever Abram did. And once again, the Lord appeared to him and said,

Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great. (Genesis 15:1)

But for Abram, now in his eighties, and Sarai in her seventies, there was still the same glaring problem. Amid all the abundant blessing of prosperity God had showered on him, there was one conspicuous, crucial place of poverty: Abram still had no offspring.

Desperate Prayer of a Man of Faith

It was at this point that Abram could not contain his anguished perplexity over the ongoing void at the core of God’s promises, and it poured out in a desperate prayer:

“O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” (Genesis 15:2–3)

The apostle Paul later wrote, “No unbelief made [Abram] waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:20–21). But in this prayer, do we overhear Abram’s faith wavering?

No. What we’re hearing is not unbelief, but sincere perplexity. And there’s a difference. Abram’s perplexity is similar to the young virgin Mary’s perplexity when Gabriel tells her that she will “conceive in [her] womb and bear a son.” She responds, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:30, 34). It’s a reasonable question; virgins don’t get pregnant. Abram’s question is also reasonable with regard to nature; barren women past childbearing years do not get pregnant.

God was not offended or dishonored by Mary’s or Abraham’s sincere perplexity, which is why he responds to both with gracious kindness. And God’s answers are also reasonable, even if his reasonableness often extends far beyond the limits of human reason (“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” Genesis 18:14).

So, in answer to Abram’s sincerely desperate prayer, God graciously invites him to step outside.

Starry, Starry Night

God says to Abram,

“Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” (Genesis 15:5)

Here, suddenly, is a defining moment for Abram. God’s answer doesn’t include how Abram is going to obtain descendants. All God does is reaffirm, and even expand the scope of, what he has already promised. In other words, “I’m going to give you more offspring than you can count or even imagine. Do you believe me?”

And old Abram, with an old wife and a childless tent, looking up into the night sky so full of stars that in some places they looked like clouds of light, with the word of the Lord ringing in his mind, realizes that whatever God is doing is about something much bigger than he has yet grasped, and so he resolves to trust “that God [is] able to do what he [has] promised” (Romans 4:21).

[Abram] believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6)

“The world would never be the same because of that moment on that starry, starry night.”

No one, not even Abram, could have seen just how history-shaping, how destiny-determining, this moment was, when a man was justified — counted righteous — in the eyes of God simply because he believed God. Because a man believed God’s promises over his own perceptions. Because a man trusted God and did not lean on his own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). The world would never be the same after that moment on that starry, starry night.

Joy Beyond Belief

I’m not saying it was smooth faith-sailing from then on for the man God renamed Abraham, “the father of a multitude of nations” (Genesis 17:5). It wasn’t. The Hagar and Ishmael event, as well as others, were still in the future. Isaac, the first of the promised offspring, wouldn’t be born for another fifteen years or so. And God had another defining moment in store for Abraham on the slopes of Mount Moriah. The path of faith is a rugged one, and almost always more demanding than we expect.

But after that night, Abraham did not waver in his belief that God would, somehow, do what he had promised. And God did. He made both Abraham and Sarah, and all who knew them, laugh for joy — “joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8) — when Isaac was finally born. For that’s where the rugged path of faith, the hard way that leads to life (Matthew 7:14), ultimately leads: to “fullness of joy and . . . pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

“The path of faith is a rugged one, and almost always more demanding than we expect.”

God leads most of his children, who are Abraham’s children because they share Abraham’s faith (Romans 4:16), to defining moments of faith, moments when our faith is pushed nearly to a point beyond belief, or so it seems to us. These moments may not appear dramatic to others. But to us, in the deep recesses of our hearts, everything is on the line. And at these moments, everything comes down to a simple but profound, and perhaps anguishing, question: Will I trust God?

What usually isn’t apparent to us is how significant the moment is for an untold number of others. For it is often true that in “obtaining [as] the outcome of [our] faith, the salvation of [our] souls” (1 Peter 1:9), what also results in the years and centuries that follow is the salvation of others — so many, perhaps, that they would boggle our minds if we could see them.

When you believe God, he counts it to you as righteousness, as full acceptance from God himself. And when you believe God, it leads to the Isaac-laughter of inexpressible joy as you at last see God do for you what he has promised. And when you believe God, you will share inexpressible joy with a host of others who, because you believed, will be laughing in joy with you.

What Does a Faith Crisis Feel Like?

At some point, many Christians experience unsettling doubts regarding their professed beliefs. Some Christians experience this more than others.

The areas of our individual doubt struggles are as diverse and complex as our Christian faith claims. Some battle doubts about the genuineness of their conversion (“Have I truly been born again?”). Some battle doubts about the character of God (“Is God truly good?”). Some battle doubts about the validity of their theological framework (“Does Calvinism truly represent the biblical revelation of God’s nature, purposes, and actions?”). Some battle doubts about the authenticity of their spiritual experiences (“Was my remarkably fast health recovery after receiving prayer truly a divine healing?”). Some battle doubts about the veracity of the Christian faith itself (“Does God truly exist?” or “Does another religion or belief system more truly reveal the nature of ultimate reality?”). Some battle a hodgepodge of these and still other kinds of doubts.

For most Christians, the intensity of their doubts falls into the mildly to moderately troubling range. In relation to faith-health, these battles with doubt are like battling a bad cold or flu — they require care, but they are not faith-threatening. However, a minority of Christians (though I’d say a substantial minority) endure one or more seasons of doubt so intense we’ve given them a special term: faith crises.

When Doubts Become Crises

To call these experiences crises is not hyperbole. When a confluence of factors moves us to question whether our fundamental understanding of reality is indeed true, it can feel like our world is on the verge of collapse. In relation to faith-health, this kind of doubt is more like a heart attack or stroke.

“I know the oppressive spiritual darkness, the agonizing fear, the confusion, disorientation, the sense of isolation.”

I say this from experience. Like everyone, I occasionally battle some doubts that are like a cold or the flu. But more than once in my forty-year sojourn as a Christian, I’ve also endured doubts more like a heart attack. I know the oppressive spiritual darkness, the agonizing fear, the disorienting confusion, the sense of isolation.

Since I am part of the substantial minority of Christians who have (or will) experience this, I thought it might be helpful if I briefly describe the emotional and psychological state a person often is in when such a crisis hits. My goal is to increase awareness in Christians — especially those who have not experienced a faith crisis themselves — of the destabilized state someone enduring a faith crisis can be in. Such awareness can help us extend the most needed kinds of initial “crisis care” when ministering grace to beloved brothers and sisters who are reeling.

Stage 1: The Build-Up

A person’s faith crisis often appears to happen suddenly. Someone you know (perhaps you) seems to have a strong, sturdy faith. Then, all of sudden, it looks like their faith is falling apart. And you wonder, “What happened?”

Although that’s the way it often appears, rarely do such crises come out of nowhere. Almost always, destabilizing elements have been building up under the surface, even if the person wasn’t fully aware.

All of us experience and observe realities that don’t seem to make sense within our Christian worldview or our theological framework. Often, we’re able to mentally file these under Scriptural categories such as:

Proverbs 3:5: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

Or Isaiah 55:8–9: My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

But some people, over time, gradually accumulate sufficient, seemingly incoherent experiences and observations that their faith becomes destabilized, often more than they realize. Each experience or observation on its own likely causes them only mild to moderate confusion or unsettledness — it looks and feels much like the doubt common to all believers, which may be why they don’t more urgently address them prior to the crisis moment. But if enough faith-destabilizing elements build up, such people, even if they don’t consciously realize it, become vulnerable to a faith crisis, only needing the right (or wrong) catalyst to set it off.

Stage 2: The Catalyst

Sometimes a catalyst moment is a significant life event, like a betrayal or a tragedy. But often, it is an apparently and surprisingly insignificant event, like an offhanded comment someone makes in an ordinary conversation.

Whatever the catalyst event, when it occurs it ignites a kind of chain reaction. It’s as if the various destabilizing elements that have built up now psychologically fuse together into a sudden awareness that the person’s belief system — Christianity as ultimate reality — might not be true, but might instead be, like other belief systems, a human construct. This awareness produces a kind of internal explosion: a faith crisis (which nowadays some might refer to as a deconstruction).

What’s important to keep in mind when ministering to someone experiencing this, especially in the early stages of the crisis, is that the catalyst event, whether extraordinary or mundane, is frequently not what’s only, or even mainly, fueling the person’s crisis. Often, well-meaning friends coming alongside a person in faith crisis can focus too much on the catalyst and give too little attention to the doubts and experiences that built up over months or years.

The catalyst is more like a lit match dropped on an accumulated pile of tinder, or like the last Jenga block pulled that suddenly brings the weakened structure down. And when it happens, the person usually finds himself suddenly caught in a raging spiritual tempest.

Stage 3: The Storm

For those who haven’t experienced a faith crisis, it’s hard to capture in words what it feels like. As I have tried, I have found a storm to be a helpful metaphor.

The human brain is a remarkably, even incomprehensibly, powerful and complex creation. The speed at which it can process, especially in a state of alarm, is incredible. And people in the initial stages of a faith crisis are typically in a state of alarm. The brain is processing in overdrive — and not only processing the Christian claims in question, but the possible implications of those bedrock claims proving untrue. And they’re trying to resolve those overwhelming questions in a storm of anguishing emotions.

If those who have taken their faith seriously suddenly and unexpectedly experience the kind of internal faith explosion I described above, resulting in intense doubts regarding their fundamental beliefs, these are the sorts of implications crashing in on them:

That God — the Person they have most profoundly trusted, most deeply loved, most passionately worshiped, the one they believed they have experienced and been led by, the one they’ve oriented their whole life around and taught others about — might not be real.
And if God’s not real, much of what they’ve found meaningful in life would either be a delusion or built on a delusion.
And if they’ve been deluded, what is real? What does everything mean? They wonder, “Who am I?”
And if they were to lose their faith, they’d grieve and confuse believing family members and friends they love deeply, and lose a priceless dimension of relational connection they have shared with those loved ones.
And they would lose the church community that has been integral to their lives.
And if they’re in vocational ministry — because pastors, missionaries, and vocational Christian workers of all kinds are not immune from faith crises — then they’d lose both the missional purpose that oriented their lives as well as gainful employment. And what would they do, or even want to do, next?
And most frightening of all, if they were to lose their faith only to discover too late that their doubts had deceived them, they would be condemned to hell, and may cause others to stumble and end up there too.

Hopefully you can see why this experience is so often psychologically disorienting and emotionally distressing.

What I want to stress here is that when we are ministering to those who have recently entered a faith crisis, it’s important to get as clear a sense as possible of their state of mind before attempting to seriously engage the faith questions they’re wrestling with. Because for some, their inner turmoil, their internal storm, is overwhelming. I like to say that when a faith crisis hits, it’s like trying to think and discern clearly in a hurricane. It’s wise to assume strugglers’ anxiety and fear levels are running high, that they’re depressed, and they’re in need of rest, since this experience often robs them of sleep at night.

At this moment, what a person in faith crisis often needs most is not immediate answers, but shelter.

Providing Shelter in the Storm

Shelter is what anyone caught in raging storm seeks. A shelter doesn’t end a storm, but it does provide a storm-tossed struggler a measure of needed respite, safety, and peace.

Jude instructs us to “have mercy on those who doubt” (Jude 22). Providing merciful shelter for a Christian in the tumultuous throes of a faith crisis is one way to show mercy, and one of the most important initial ways we can extend “crisis care” to him.

“Faith crises are complex, and God’s mercy is many-faceted.”

But what does it mean to provide spiritual shelter for someone in this kind of spiritual storm? Like most parts in the Christian life, there’s no simple formula. People’s faith-crisis experiences are unique. Their doubts are unique, their contexts are unique, their histories are unique, their temperaments are unique, their spiritual-maturity levels are unique, and so on. Therefore, the kind of merciful shelter each person needs will be unique. Faith crises are complex, and God’s mercy is many-faceted.

But we know what people experience when they find a storm shelter: their fear reduces, they breathe easier, and they’re able to rest. In a spiritual shelter, a person can be open and honest about their doubts and fears, release pent-up emotions, and God willing, gain some much-needed, Spirit-granted perspective and guidance.

Providing this kind of merciful shelter for someone requires discernment. And discernment requires a listening ear. Which means, while God hasn’t given us a one-size-fits-all formula for how to do this, he has given us a governing principle we can apply: “Let every person [who wishes to have mercy on those who doubt] be quick to hear [and] slow to speak” (James 1:19). This is crucial because we won’t know what (or if) to speak unless we have first carefully and prayerfully heard.

So, as we seek to care for those in a faith crisis, we’re wise to remember that (1) the crisis is often the sudden explosion of doubts that have accumulated over time, (2) the crisis is often ignited by a catalyst event that may itself not be fueling their doubts, and (3) their most pressing initial need may not be our immediately addressing their doubts, but experiencing through us the sheltering mercy of Jesus, who extends this invitation to all strugglers: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

What Does ‘Deconstruction’ Even Mean?

So, what does deconstruction even mean? It means different things in different contexts. It is a postmodern philosophical label that has been adopted by current and former evangelicals to sometimes mean navigating a faith crisis, to sometimes mean identifying harmful cultural influences that distort the true gospel, to sometimes mean questioning and rejecting traditional evangelical doctrines and authority figures, or to sometimes mean departing the Christian faith altogether.

“Deconstruction” is a term that has increasingly been used in evangelical circles, especially over the past decade. But it is a confusing term, because there’s no single or simple definition for “deconstruction.” It has different meanings in different contexts. It has technical meanings in certain academic contexts and various informal meanings when current and former evangelicals use it to describe their (or others’) faith experiences.
It’s not surprising that many are asking some form of, “What does ‘deconstruction’ even mean?” It’s an important question and needs clarifying answers — certainly more answers than I can adequately cover here. But I hope to provide something of an introductory overview.
First, we’ll examine briefly where the term, “deconstruction,” came from, so we can, second, understand the primary ways evangelicals are using the term today.
Where Did ‘Deconstruction’ Come From?
In the 1960s, a French philosopher named Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) began to advocate for a postmodern philosophy of language and its relationship to our conceptions of meaning that he called “deconstruction.” It is an abstruse philosophy and notoriously difficult (some say impossible) to summarize. In fact, Derrida himself refused to summarize deconstruction, claiming that his whole life’s work was a summary of his philosophy.
Nevertheless, I’ll take a shot at summarizing it as I currently understand it — and stick with me, because knowing something of where “deconstruction” comes from will hopefully give us insight into why some Christians have adopted and adapted it to describe their experiences — and why many find it confusing.

A fundamental assumption undergirding Derrida’s philosophy is that humans, through biological evolution, developed the capacity to impose psychological constructs of meaning upon their world as a survival mechanism. In other words, meaning — as in the ultimate meaning of things — is a human psychological creation, not a discovery or divine revelation of absolute truth.
Therefore, deconstruction asserts that human language at best communicates, not absolute truth, but how a certain individual conceives of truth at a certain moment in time, in the contexts of his cultural, political, religious, environmental, and experiential influences.
Therefore, deconstruction asserts that philosophers (or theologians) consult written works of the past in vain to discover absolute truth or meaning, since all they’re encountering are other authors’ constructs of truth or meaning. And not only that, but the more distant a reader is culturally, linguistically, and historically from an author, the less the reader will understand what the author actually had in mind when he used terms like truth, justice, good, evil, etc.
And therefore, the philosophy of deconstruction asserts that in an effort to understand as much as possible what an author actually meant by the language he used, sophisticated methods of textual criticism must be employed to deconstruct the author’s words in order to decipher the conceptual constructs that shaped that author’s understanding of truth and meaning.

Let me try to simplify it even more. If I understand Derrida correctly, deconstruction is

A literary philosophy arguing that we’re wrong to assume that by merely reading an author’s words we can understand something about absolute truth, since our conception of truth — our constructs of what everything means — will be significantly different from the author’s; and
Deconstruction is a method of literary criticism that takes apart and analyzes an author’s use of language in effort to discern his construct of meaning.

For Derrida, there is no meaning outside the text of a philosopher’s written work — no absolute truth that the writer is shedding light on for the reader. There’s only the writer’s construct of meaning, of truth, represented in the text he wrote.
Which means that there is no absolute truth inside the philosopher’s text either. Just a reflection of how the author interpreted what the world means. Which, according to Derrida, is what meaning is for all of us: a human psychological construct shaped by multiple influences.
Why Have Christians Adopted ‘Deconstruction’?
So, why have Christians adopted the term “deconstruction” from a philosophy based on principles of philosophical naturalism? I think we can make a connection from something theologian Kevin Vanhoozer has written about Derrida:
The motive behind Derrida’s strategy of undoing [deconstruction] stems from his alarm over illegitimate appeals to authority and exercises of power. The belief that one has reached the single correct Meaning (or God, or “Truth”) provides a wonderful excuse for damning those with whom one disagrees as either “fools” or “heretics.” . . . Neither Priests, who supposedly speak for God, nor Philosophers, who supposedly speak for Reason, should be trusted; this “logocentric” claim to speak from a privileged perspective (e.g., Reason, the Word of God) is a bluff that must be called, or better, “deconstructed.” (Is There a Meaning in this Text?, 21–22)
Over the decades since Derrida introduced his philosophy of deconstruction, the term has worked its way into the common vernacular where it now has come to generally mean “a critical dismantling of tradition and traditional modes of thought.”
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What Does ‘Deconstruction’ Even Mean?

“Deconstruction” is a term that has increasingly been used in evangelical circles, especially over the past decade. But it is a confusing term, because there’s no single or simple definition for “deconstruction.” It has different meanings in different contexts. It has technical meanings in certain academic contexts and various informal meanings when current and former evangelicals use it to describe their (or others’) faith experiences.

It’s not surprising that many are asking some form of, “What does ‘deconstruction’ even mean?” It’s an important question and needs clarifying answers — certainly more answers than I can adequately cover here. But I hope to provide something of an introductory overview.

First, we’ll examine briefly where the term, “deconstruction,” came from, so we can, second, understand the primary ways evangelicals are using the term today.

Where Did ‘Deconstruction’ Come From?

In the 1960s, a French philosopher named Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) began to advocate for a postmodern philosophy of language and its relationship to our conceptions of meaning that he called “deconstruction.” It is an abstruse philosophy and notoriously difficult (some say impossible) to summarize. In fact, Derrida himself refused to summarize deconstruction, claiming that his whole life’s work was a summary of his philosophy.

Nevertheless, I’ll take a shot at summarizing it as I currently understand it — and stick with me, because knowing something of where “deconstruction” comes from will hopefully give us insight into why some Christians have adopted and adapted it to describe their experiences — and why many find it confusing.

A fundamental assumption undergirding Derrida’s philosophy is that humans, through biological evolution, developed the capacity to impose psychological constructs of meaning upon their world as a survival mechanism. In other words, meaning — as in the ultimate meaning of things — is a human psychological creation, not a discovery or divine revelation of absolute truth.
Therefore, deconstruction asserts that human language at best communicates, not absolute truth, but how a certain individual conceives of truth at a certain moment in time, in the contexts of his cultural, political, religious, environmental, and experiential influences.
Therefore, deconstruction asserts that philosophers (or theologians) consult written works of the past in vain to discover absolute truth or meaning, since all they’re encountering are other authors’ constructs of truth or meaning. And not only that, but the more distant a reader is culturally, linguistically, and historically from an author, the less the reader will understand what the author actually had in mind when he used terms like truth, justice, good, evil, etc.
And therefore, the philosophy of deconstruction asserts that in an effort to understand as much as possible what an author actually meant by the language he used, sophisticated methods of textual criticism must be employed to deconstruct the author’s words in order to decipher the conceptual constructs that shaped that author’s understanding of truth and meaning.

Let me try to simplify it even more. If I understand Derrida correctly, deconstruction is

A literary philosophy arguing that we’re wrong to assume that by merely reading an author’s words we can understand something about absolute truth, since our conception of truth — our constructs of what everything means — will be significantly different from the author’s; and
Deconstruction is a method of literary criticism that takes apart and analyzes an author’s use of language in effort to discern his construct of meaning.

For Derrida, there is no meaning outside the text of a philosopher’s written work — no absolute truth that the writer is shedding light on for the reader. There’s only the writer’s construct of meaning, of truth, represented in the text he wrote.

Which means that there is no absolute truth inside the philosopher’s text either. Just a reflection of how the author interpreted what the world means. Which, according to Derrida, is what meaning is for all of us: a human psychological construct shaped by multiple influences.

Why Have Christians Adopted ‘Deconstruction’?

So, why have Christians adopted the term “deconstruction” from a philosophy based on principles of philosophical naturalism? I think we can make a connection from something theologian Kevin Vanhoozer has written about Derrida:

The motive behind Derrida’s strategy of undoing [deconstruction] stems from his alarm over illegitimate appeals to authority and exercises of power. The belief that one has reached the single correct Meaning (or God, or “Truth”) provides a wonderful excuse for damning those with whom one disagrees as either “fools” or “heretics.” . . . Neither Priests, who supposedly speak for God, nor Philosophers, who supposedly speak for Reason, should be trusted; this “logocentric” claim to speak from a privileged perspective (e.g., Reason, the Word of God) is a bluff that must be called, or better, “deconstructed.” (Is There a Meaning in this Text?, 21–22)

Over the decades since Derrida introduced his philosophy of deconstruction, the term has worked its way into the common vernacular where it now has come to generally mean “a critical dismantling of tradition and traditional modes of thought.”

In other words, “deconstruction” has become a kind of shorthand term that, in addition to critically questioning traditional ways of thinking, also implies a refusal to recognize as authorities those who see themselves (or are perceived to see themselves) as ones who “claim to speak from a privileged perspective” about what truth is.

In the Christian world, this translates to critically questioning traditional modes of Christian belief, and often refusing to recognize as authorities those perceived as occupying privileged Christian institutional positions who “supposedly speak for God.”

Now, because this is only a brief overview, that explanation is unavoidably reductionistic. Christian experiences of deconstruction are complex and often very painful. But viewed from 30,000 feet, these characteristics — of questioning traditional Christian beliefs and rejecting supposed Christian authorities — are, I believe, why some have adopted the term.

What Evangelicals Mean by ‘Deconstruction’

And, I believe, it’s why some evangelicals (and former evangelicals) have also adopted Derrida’s term. Perhaps we might say it like this:

Deconstruction is a critical dismantling of a person’s understanding of what it means to be an evangelical Christian, and in some cases a refusal to recognize as authorities those perceived as occupying privileged evangelical institutional positions who “supposedly speak for God.”

But this definition still leaves plenty of room for confusion because the “dismantling” can look quite different for different people. For instance, here are four primary ways I hear evangelicals applying the term deconstruction.

Dismantling Harmful Cultural Influences

A smaller group of evangelicals use deconstruction to describe ways to protect historical evangelical doctrine and healthy practices. For example, in the final episode of the podcast, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, Paul Tripp says,

We should all be deconstructing our faith — we better do it. Because our faith becomes a culture, a culture so webbed into the purity of truth that it’s hard to separate the two. And we better do some deconstructing or we’re going to find ourselves again and again in these sad places. (Aftermath, 36:57)

“Deconstruction is a critical dismantling of a person’s understanding of what it means to be an evangelical Christian.”

If you listen to Tripp’s full quote, it’s clear that what he means by “deconstruction” is a critical dismantling not of historical orthodox Christian beliefs, or rejecting the oversight of New Testament-endorsed faithful, godly, spiritual leaders (Hebrews 13:7), but of cultural influences that distort and redefine the faith in unbiblical, harmful ways.

Dismantling Doctrines

A larger group use deconstruction to describe ways they have arrived at the conviction that certain historic evangelical doctrines must be adapted or altered. For example, in his book, Deconstructing Evangelicalism, Jamin Hübner writes,

Deconstruction simply refers to the process of questioning one’s own beliefs (that were once considered unquestionable) due to new experiences, reading widely, engaging in conversations with “the other,” and interacting in a world that is now more connected and exposed to religious diversity than ever before. (Deconstructing Evangelicalism, 20)

In the full context of his book, it’s clear that what Hübner means by deconstruction is “a critical dismantling” of evangelical beliefs that experience, education, and scientific discoveries have rendered obsolete or harmful. Hübner, like many, does not reject the Christian faith altogether, but claims that evangelicals in general distort the faith. And he refuses to recognize as authorities those he considers spokesmen of the “American-evangelical-industrial-complex” (18). I believe it’s fair to say that this generally is the position of numerous former evangelicals who now identify as “progressive” Christians.

Dismantling Christianity

A significant number of those who formerly professed an evangelical faith use deconstruction to describe their departure from Christianity altogether. This is probably the most frequent way I see the term used on social media. And it’s the use I prefer the least because it tends to conflate deconstruction with deconversion.

Now, likely most people who refer to their “deconversion” from Christianity (evangelical or otherwise) as their “deconstruction” went through a process of critically dismantling their understanding of what it means to be a Christian that resulted in their abandoning the Christian faith, and that’s what why they label it as deconstruction.

“Deconstruction is a process; deconversion is a result.”

But because they use deconstruction and deconversion synonymously, when some evangelicals now hear “deconstruction,” they immediately assume “deconversion.” But deconstruction is a process; deconversion is a result. And it’s only one possible result. Others go through a deconstruction process that results in a strengthened, invigorated faith.

Constructive Dismantling

In 1951, Francis Schaeffer, having recently moved his family to Switzerland to launch a new mission, suddenly found himself plunged into a spiritual crisis.

As Schaeffer contrasted the New Testament’s description of Christian love with the suspicious, angry, separatistic culture of American Protestantism he had been a part of for the previous two decades, he was “torn to pieces by the lack of reality.” He questioned whether Christianity itself was real. For agonizing months, he dismantled his beliefs and reassembled them piece by piece. As a result, Schaeffer emerged with a greater confidence in the core truth claims of Christianity and a deep, life-changing, ministry-shaping conviction that Christian truth and love are inseparable.

Schaeffer’s experience is not uncommon and so serves as a good illustration of the sort of “deconstruction” that represents the experience of many who still call themselves evangelical. However, the term most people recognize for such an experience is a faith crisis.

Responding to Deconstructing Christians

So, what does deconstruction even mean? It means different things in different contexts. It is a postmodern philosophical label that has been adopted by current and former evangelicals to sometimes mean navigating a faith crisis, to sometimes mean identifying harmful cultural influences that distort the true gospel, to sometimes mean questioning and rejecting traditional evangelical doctrines and authority figures, or to sometimes mean departing the Christian faith altogether.

How should we respond to deconstructing Christians? I hope to return in a future article to delve into this question in more detail, but the short answer is, we should respond as faithful Christians have long responded. In the typical ways evangelicals use the term, deconstruction isn’t new. Since the church’s earliest days, some have endured faith crises, some have been harmed by sinful cultural influences, some have questioned traditional doctrines and church authorities, and some have departed the faith. And to each person, whatever their struggle, we are called to extend the grace of Christ.

What does that mean? Well, the grace of Christ will have various manifestations and measures in various contexts. For as we see in the New Testament, grace comes in many forms. Sometimes it’s tender; sometimes it’s tough. We are to “give grace” in whatever way “fits the occasion” (Ephesians 4:29). Which means, what form of grace a particular struggler needs is an issue of prayerful discernment.

But it’s helpful to keep in mind that a deconstructing Christian is often someone in significant pain. Anyone, like me, who has gone through a faith crisis (or multiple ones) knows that it’s not some abstract academic exercise. Questioning our foundational beliefs and wrestling with doubts about them often feels like we’re being, in Francis Schaeffer’s words, “torn to pieces.” If you read more in-depth about Schaeffer’s faith crisis and reconstruction process, you will see how disturbing, disorienting, and frightening it can be to experience (or to watch a loved one experience).

So, as we seek to extend the grace of Christ to someone experiencing deconstruction — however passively or actively, however privately or publicly — it will be important to press in carefully, ask clarifying questions, and listen well, to inform how we do or do not respond, so that our love may “abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment” (Philippians 1:9).

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