I had never thought of myself as passive. Throughout high school and college, and all throughout my twenties, I had been the driven dreamer and achiever. I thought of myself as the organized one, the proactive one, the disciplined one, the visionary. I was the one who initiated next steps, important meetings, needed changes, group plans, hard conversations.

And then I married, and marriage showed me sides of myself I had never had to see.

A man does not change much by making vows and putting on a ring, but an awful lot changes for a man that day. The apostle Paul tried to prepare us: “The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided” (1 Corinthians 7:32–34). Divided me was not as put-together and proactive as single me had been. And as the pressures rose and the cracks began to show, I suddenly saw just how tempted to self-pity and passivity I could be.

What God Expects of Husbands

Over the first year or two of marriage, the passivity of Christian husbands went from a foreign and somewhat perplexing problem to a profoundly familiar and personal and humbling one. Vision and initiative were easier, in some ways, when they were fenced into certain parts of my life. Now, as two became one, all of life required a leading love.

Will I give myself up for her good again today (Ephesians 5:25)? Will I keep pursuing her, studying her, wooing her? Will I develop and carry out a vision for our family? Will I consistently open the Bible and pray with them? Will I lead our family in loving and serving the church? Will I lean into conflict with patience and love, or will I withdraw? Will I anticipate our family’s needs and preserve space to rest? Will I discipline our children, even when I’m tired? Will I bring up difficult conversations and make tough decisions? Or, like Adam, when God comes calling, will I hide and point the finger somewhere else (Genesis 3:12)?

God expects much from husbands. As my senses have been heightened to my own tendencies to passivity, stories of husbands in Scripture — good and bad — have come alive with greater gravity and relevance for marriage.

Weak and Wicked Example

God often trains men to be faithful husbands and fathers by giving us great examples to follow — the faith of Abraham, the conviction of Moses, the leadership of Joshua, the wisdom of Solomon, the heart of David. Sometimes, however, God trains us for faithfulness by showing us just how wicked men can be. He trains us to love by showing us men who failed to love, to lead by showing us men who failed to lead, to fight by showing us men who refused to fight, to die for others by showing us men who saved themselves.

And as husbands and fathers go, few were as corrupt and shameful as King Ahab.

“Sometimes God trains us for faithfulness by showing us just how wicked men can be.”

When we first meet the man, Scripture tells us, “Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years. And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him” (1 Kings 16:29–30). The kings before him were a cauldron of evil — conspiring, deceiving, stealing, murdering, and in it all, insulting God by choosing idols over him. Ahab, we learn, was worse than them all.

And his marriage was at the center of his rebellion. “As if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him” (1 Kings 16:31). He first mocked God by marrying an idolator, and then — as God warned would happen — he caved and bowed in submission to her and her god.

The facets of Ahab’s wickedness are worthy of much reflection, but here I want to focus on a scene that exposes the allure and peril of his passivity.

Seduction of Self-Pity

When 1 Kings 21 opens, Ahab covets the vineyard of his neighbor, Naboth, and asks to buy it from him — disregarding God’s law that prevented the permanent sale of land (Leviticus 25:23). Naboth doesn’t merely refuse because he wants to keep his land; he refuses because to do otherwise would be to disregard God. Now watch how Ahab responds, crumbling into self-pity and passivity:

Ahab went into his house vexed and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him, for he had said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” And he lay down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food. (1 Kings 21:4)

The most powerful man in the land curled up in a ball, like a brokenhearted teenager. He refused to eat. He pouted because he didn’t get his way. He’s almost a parody of passivity — almost. As pitiful as the cry-baby king seems, many husbands will know something of the temptation he indulged. Self-pity is strangely seductive, and can be equally paralyzing. It can keep a man from confessing his sin, from initiating reconciliation, from picking up the phone, from attempting family devotions, from making a difficult decision or taking the hard next step.

What happens next, as Ahab nurses his hurt feelings, compounds his shame all the more. See how self-pity imprisons and disables him.

Passivity Encourages Iniquity

Knowing his wife and what she was capable of, Ahab should have stepped up to stop her — for the good of Naboth and those who loved him, for the good of the kingdom, for the good of his own soul, for the good of his wife. A passive husband will inevitably enable and encourage the sins of his wife (and vice versa!). When Jezebel sees how miserable and pathetic poor King Ahab is, she takes matters into her own hands. She says to him, “Do you now govern Israel? Arise and eat bread and let your heart be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite” (1 Kings 21:7). Ahab’s sorry silence suggests he was all too glad to acquiesce.

So Jezebel instructed the leaders in Naboth’s city to kill him. She wrote letters (and signed them with Ahab’s name and seal), saying, “Set two worthless men opposite him, and let them bring a charge against him, saying, ‘You have cursed God and the king.’ Then take him out and stone him to death” (1 Kings 21:10). The greed, the deceit, the robbery, the conspiracy, the murdering of a blameless man. These were the weeds of wickedness in full bloom.

We could explore the devilry of Jezebel — a wife so awful Jesus himself uses her as a metaphor for immorality (Revelation 2:20). For now, however, notice how her peculiar sins were kindled by her husband’s passivity. While he wallowed in self-pity, he nurtured her iniquity. Had he had the conviction and nerve (and honor) to act as God called him to, he likely could have prevented all that unfolded here. He could have saved a good man’s life.

But he stayed in bed instead. Ahab proves that sometimes a man who does nothing is as harmful as the man who does the wrong thing.

“Sometimes a man who does nothing is as harmful as the man who does the wrong thing.”

A good husband cannot keep his wife from sinning, but he also will not lie on the couch while she does. A bad husband — especially a passive husband — will encourage her to sin all the more. In the challenging moments of our own marriages, some men will lie down like Ahab, others will rise up like the man we meet next.

Refusing the Pull of Passivity

Jezebel tells Ahab that Naboth is dead and that his vineyard is now available. “As soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab arose to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it” (1 Kings 21:16). Again, the passivity. Not, What have you done? Not, How did he die? Not, Is this dead man’s vineyard mine to have? No, “as soon as he heard that Naboth was dead,” he finally found the strength to leave his bed and went to enjoy another man’s field.

“Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite” (1 Kings 21:17). As much as I despise how selfish, passive, and evil Ahab was, I admire all the more the man who stepped up to confront him. While Naboth’s innocent blood ran in the street, the prophet Elijah came knocking at Ahab’s door — notice he comes to Ahab, not Jezebel — with a word from the Lord: “You have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord” (1 Kings 21:20).

They had just killed a man for refusing to sell them a vineyard. Imagine what evil they might do to a man who accused them like this. While other men watched and stayed silent (and even participated in the injustice), one refused the pull of passivity and embraced the costs of obedience. He would rather die than sit and watch God’s law be vandalized.

Don’t miss what God says next through Elijah. Ahab’s passivity would come back not just on his own head, but on the heads of all he loved — his sons, their sons, his wife: “I will utterly burn you up, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel . . . for the anger to which you have provoked me, and because you have made Israel to sin. And of Jezebel the Lord also said, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the walls of Jezreel’” (1 Kings 21:21–23).

Ahab’s judgment is a vivid, bloody picture of how unchecked sin ruins a home. When a husband grows passive, the whole family suffers — perhaps not in judgment like Jezebel, but they will suffer nonetheless.

Mercy for Passive Men

The story circles back to where it began with Ahab: “There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited” (1 Kings 21:25). The narrator wants us to see all that just happened as a clinic in iniquity, a masterclass in marital failures. The next verse, however, is one of the more surprising verses in Scripture:

And when Ahab heard [Elijah’s] words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went about dejectedly. (1 Kings 21:27)

One might think this is the same man we found lying in bed, feeling sorry for himself, refusing to eat. This, however, is not the same man — not in God’s eyes anyway. Instead of lashing out in fury at the prophet, instead of retreating into more self-pity and passivity, Ahab humbles himself in repentance. He does the hard thing. He sees his sin, hates his sin, and seeks the Lord’s mercy.

“And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, ‘Have you seen how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the disaster in his days; but in his son’s days I will bring the disaster upon his house” (1 Kings 21:27–29). Consequences still remained, to be sure, but something of his sin had died. The selfish, prideful, passive husband became a humble one, at least for a time, giving hope to selfish, prideful, passive husbands.

It’s easy to hate the passivity of Ahab — a king who stubbornly mopes while his wife commits murders, who blatantly disregards, even mocks, God’s calls to lead and love, who selfishly sets God’s will below his own desires. It’s harder, however, to hate the passivity in ourselves. Will we, as husbands in Christ, practice an intentional, costly, active love? Will we keep leading when it’s inconvenient to lead? Will we receive the mercy of God, humble ourselves before him, lay down our pride and self-pity, and resist the enticing pull of passivity?

Men professing faith in Christ have been walking away from him since the church began.

“Some have made shipwreck of their faith,” the apostle Paul reports in his first letter to Timothy. In fact, the language of leaving is all over 1–2 Timothy: men were wandering away from the faith, departing from the faith, swerving from the faith, being disqualified from the faith (1 Timothy 1:19; 4:1; 5:12; 6:10, 20–21; 2 Timothy 3:8). There seemed to be something of a small exodus already happening in the first century, perhaps not unlike the wave of deconversions we’re seeing online today.

We shouldn’t be surprised; Jesus told us it would be so: “As for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature” (Luke 8:14). Those same thorns are still sharp and threatening to faith in our day. In fact, with the ways we use technology, we’re now breeding thorns in our pockets, drawing them even closer than before.

This context gives the charge in 1 Timothy 6:11–12 all the more meaning and power, both for Timothy’s day and for ours:

As for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

“Men professing faith in Christ have been walking away from him since the church began.”

Who are the men who will fight the good fight of faith? Who will stay and battle while others fall away? In the words of 1 Timothy 4:12, which young men will step up and set an example for the believers in faith?

Fight of Faith

That faith is a fight means believing will not be easy. It won’t always feel natural, organic, or effortless. We could never earn the love of Christ, but following him will often be harder than we expect or want.

“If anyone would come after me,” Jesus says in Luke 9:23, “let him deny himself and take up his cross” — and not the light and charming crosses some wear around their necks, but the pain and heartache of following a crucified King in the world that killed him. If we declare our love for Jesus, God tells us, suffering will expose and refine us (1 Peter 4:12), people will despise, slander, and disown us (John 15:18), Satan and his demons will assault us (John 10:10), and our own sin will seek to ruin us from within (1 Peter 2:11). If we refuse to fight, we won’t last. The ships of our souls will inevitably drift, and then crash, take on water, and sink.

The verses before 1 Timothy 6:12 give us examples of specific threats we will face in the fight of faith, and each still threatens men today.

Enemy of Pride

When Paul describes the men who had walked away from Jesus, specifically those who had been teaching faithfully but had now embraced false teaching, he points first to their pride. These men, he says, were “puffed up with conceit” (1 Timothy 6:4). Instead of being laid low by the grace and mercy of God, they used the gospel to feel better about themselves. Like Adam and Eve in the garden, they seized on the love of God to try to make themselves God. Many of us do not last in faith because we simply cannot submit to any god but ourselves, because we do not see pride — our instinct to put ourselves above others, even God — as an enemy of our souls.

Enemy of Distraction

Pride was not the only enemy these men faced, however. Paul says they also had “an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people” (1 Timothy 6:4–5). It’s almost hard to believe the apostle wasn’t writing about the twenty-first century. Were these distractions really problems thousands of years before Twitter, before the Internet, before even the printing press? Apparently so. And yet the temptation explains so much of our dysfunction today.

In our sin, we often nurture an unhealthy craving for controversy. Faithfulness doesn’t sell ads; friction does. As you scroll through your feeds or watch the evening news or even monitor your casual conversation, ask how much of what you’re allowing into your soul falls into 1 Timothy 6:4–5. How much of our attention has been intentionally, even relentlessly, steered into passing controversies and vain debates? How much have we been fed suspicion, envy, and slander as “news,” not realizing how poisonous this kind of diet is to our faith?

Enemy of More

Greed is a threat we know exists, and often see in others, but rarely see in ourselves — especially in a greed-driven society like ours in America. The insatiable craving for more, however, can leave us spiritually dull and penniless.

Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (1 Timothy 6:9–10)

When you read “those who desire to be rich,” don’t think elaborate mansions in tropical places with pools beside the ocean; think “those who crave more than they need.” In other words, this isn’t a rare temptation, but a pervasive one, especially in wealthier nations. The temptation may be subtle, but the consequences are not. These cravings, the apostle warns, “plunge people into ruin and destruction.” Their life is choked out not by pain or sorrow or fear, but by the pleasures of life (Luke 8:14) — things to buy, shows to watch, meals to eat, places to visit.

“The more we see how much threatens our walk with Jesus, the less surprising it is that so many walk away.”

Do we still wonder why Paul would call faith a fight? The more we see how much threatens our walk with Jesus, the less surprising it is that so many walk away. What’s more surprising is that some men learn to fight well and then keep fighting while others bow out of the war.

How to Win the War

If we see our enemies for what they are, how do we wage war against them? In 1 Timothy 6:11–12, Paul gives us four clear charges for the battlefield: Flee. Pursue. Fight. Seize.

Flee

First, we flee. Some have been puffed up by pride, others have been distracted by controversy, and still others have fallen in love with this world — “but as for you, O man of God, flee these things” (1 Timothy 6:11). Spiritual warfare is not fight or flight; it is fight and flight. We prepare to battle temptation, but we also do our best to avoid temptation altogether. As far as it depends on us, we “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Romans 13:14). If necessary, we cut off our hand or gouge out our eye (Matthew 5:29–30), meaning we go to extraordinary lengths to flee the sin we know would ruin us.

Pursue

Spiritual warfare, however, is not only fight and flight, but also pursuit. “Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness” (1 Timothy 6:11). We could linger over each of the six qualities Paul exhorts us to pursue here, but for now let’s focus briefly on faith. Are you pursuing faith in Jesus — not just keeping faith, but pursuing faith? Are you making time each day to be alone with God through his word? Are you weaving prayer into the unique rhythms of your life? Are you committed to a local church, and intentionally looking for ways to grow and serve there? Are you asking God to show you other creative ways you might deepen your spiritual strength and joy?

Fight

Third, we fight. “Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). We avoid temptation as much as we can, but we cannot avoid temptation completely. Whatever wise boundaries and tools we put in place, we still carry our remaining sin, which means we bring the war with us wherever we go. And too many of us go to war unarmed. Without the armor of God — the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit — we will be helpless against the spiritual forces of evil (Ephesians 6:11–12). But having taken our enemies seriously and strapping on our weapons daily, “we wage the good warfare” (1 Timothy 1:18).

Seize

Lastly, men of God learn to seize the new life God has given them. “Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called” (1 Timothy 6:12). This is the opposite of the spiritual passivity and complacency so common among young men — men who want out of hell, but have little interest in God. Those men, however, who see reality and eternity more clearly, know that the greater treasure is in heaven, so they live to have him (Matthew 13:43–44). Their driving desire is to see more of Christ, and to become more like Christ. They may look like fools now, but they will soon be kings. They wake up on another normal Wednesday, and seize the grace that God has laid before them.

Some men will lay down their weapons before the war is over, even some you know and love. But make no mistake: this is a war worth fighting to the end. As you watch others flag and fail and leave the church, let their withdrawal renew your vigilance and fuel your advance. Learn to fight the good fight of faith.

Impatience is a dark and prevalent sin that we love to explain away. We were worn out. We were busy. We were distracted. The kids were being difficult. We were carrying too much at work. Our spouse was short or cold or harsh again. We didn’t sleep well last night. What excuses do you reach for when your patience runs low?

I usually reach for tired. If only I got enough sleep and enough quiet time to myself, I often think (or even say), then I wouldn’t be so impatient. I’m a patient person who gets impatient when I’m tired. Can you hear yourself arguing that way? No, the truth is that I’m an impatient person whose impatience often crawls out of hiding when I’m exhausted. Weariness never makes any of us sin; weariness, and other pressures like it, only bring our sin to the surface (Matthew 15:11).

So where does impatience come from? At bottom, impatience grows out of our unwillingness to trust and submit to God’s timing for our lives.

What We Cannot Control

Impatience is a child of our pride and unbelief. It rises out of our frustration that we do not control what happens and when in our lives. We see this dynamic in the wilderness, among the people God has just delivered from slavery and oppression:

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God. (Numbers 21:4–5)

“Impatience grows out of our unwillingness to trust and submit to God’s timing for our lives.”

Even after God had carried them out of Egypt, and walked them through the Red Sea, and wiped out their enemies behind them, and fed them with food that fell from heaven, they still grew impatient. Why? Because the life God had promised them, the kind of life they really wanted, didn’t come fast enough. The path he had chosen for them was longer and harder and more painful than they expected. They grew angry over how much they could not control. So much so, in fact, that they even began to long for the cruelty of Pharaoh — at least then, they got to choose what they ate (Exodus 16:3).

Our impatience has much in common with theirs. We don’t get to decide how much traffic there will be. We don’t get to decide whether our kids will cooperate at any given moment. We don’t get to decide when we’ll get sick, or when an appliance will fail, or how often interruptions will come. So many decisions are made for us, every single day, without our consent or even input. And God’s plans for us are famous for upending our plans for ourselves.

So when we are confronted with our lack of control, when life inevitably interrupts what we had planned, when we are forced to wait, how do we typically respond? Impatience tries to wrestle God for control, while patience gladly kneels, with hands spread wide, ready to receive all that God has planned and given. Impatience grumbles, while patience rejoices, even while it experiences real pains of delay.

So where does patience come from? If impatience is a child of our pride and unbelief, patience springs from humility, faith, and joy.

Humility Subverts Impatience

Humility subverts impatience by gladly admitting how little we can see in any given moment, however difficult or inconvenient the moment may be. As John Piper says, “God is always doing ten thousand things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.” When we grow impatient, we overestimate our own ability to judge our circumstances, and we underestimate the good God can do through unwanted inconveniences and unexpected delays. The humble receive the same inconveniences and delays as callings, not distractions — as God revealing his will and timing to them.

The humble are patient toward God, and they are patient toward others. “Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,” Ephesians 4:1–2 says, “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.” Humility fosters the kind of patience that love requires. Every truly loving relationship is an exhibition in patiently bearing with one another, because our sin both makes us difficult to love and keeps us from loving well.

“Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’” (1 Peter 5:5). Do you want to grow in patience and experience a fuller, richer stream of grace from God? Wrap yourself in humility.

Faith Subverts Impatience

If humility subverts impatience by admitting how little we can see in the midst of our trials, faith subverts impatience by holding firm to God’s promises, even when life calls them into question.

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. (James 5:7–8)

Farming well requires waiting well, and so does living well. Faith trusts that God is both sovereign and good, that all of his promises are true in Christ, that suffering produces endurance, that Jesus really will return and make all things new, and so we can afford to wait, to bear, to be patient. The patient continue to sow, even when the ground seems hard and the harvest uncertain, because they know they will eventually reap (Galatians 6:9).

And where does James go in the next verse? “Do not grumble against one another” (James 5:9). This kind of faith subverts our impatience with one another. The farmer believes the seeds will sprout and bear fruit, so he endures the dry weeks or months with patience. The Christian believes he will soon experience fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore — and not alone, but with everyone who has ever believed — so he endures offenses from other believers. He doesn’t grumble like others would. The promise of what’s to come makes him more durable in love, more gracious in his judgments, more patient in conflict.

Joy Subverts Impatience

This faith, however, is not merely a trusting in verses, but an overflowing joy in experienced wonders. The apostle Paul prays that the church would be “strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy” (Colossians 1:11). The patient are not secret grumblers; they’re not simply bottling up irritation and bitterness and hiding it from others. Their patience flows out of the wells of their joy in God. They’re too happy in him to be undone by interruption or inconvenience.

Where do we see this kind of resilient joy? Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:1–2, “We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.” They did not grumble like Israel in the wilderness. They did not resent what they could not control. No, when their lives were upended and they were thrown into the fire, their joy not only held, but overflowed in generosity.

“The patient are too happy in God to be undone by interruption or inconvenience.”

The patient can wait and embrace inconvenience because whatever happens today or tomorrow or next Tuesday, their Treasure is unthreatened in heaven and therefore their joy is secure. Their happiness is not tied to their plans, so when their plans are disrupted, their happiness holds and continues pouring over in love.

Joyfully Accepting Disruption

The same miraculous patience appears in Hebrews 10:32–34:

You endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

They joyfully accepted the plundering of their property. They were not just willing to have their possessions vandalized and stolen because they followed Jesus, but they were glad to suffer for his sake. If we were in the same circumstances, would others be able to say the same of us? Would we so joyfully accept the plundering of our possessions, our homes, our budgets? Do we now joyfully accept the upheaval of our schedules, the derailing of our dreams, the setbacks in our work, the monotony and difficulty of our parenting, the trouble of our lives?

We will if we, like them, know that we have a better possession and an abiding one — if we know that we have God forever, and in him more than enough to endure whatever we’re called to endure for now. Patience flows from a humble embrace of what we do not know and cannot control. It flows from our deep and abiding trust that God will follow through on his promises, however unlikely that may seem at the moment. And it flows from hearts that are profoundly happy to have him as our exceeding joy.

Is it strangely possible that love is both pervasive and yet endangered in our day? The label is certainly plastered, like bright yellow tape, across anything and everything around us. Or, perhaps more accurately, society has made love a big-beige wall, drained of the definition or vibrancy it once had, so that anyone can decorate it however he or she likes. “Love” has come to mean whatever anyone says it means — and to suggest otherwise is, of course, “unloving.”

That those four letters are overused and abused, however, does not alter what love is. We could, for instance, start calling our mailbox a “tree,” and even convince our neighbors to do the same, but it wouldn’t erase the living realities of roots, and bark, and branches, and leaves that grow green, then yellow, then red, then fall. So what might we be losing by blurring the lines of what we call love?

Who Can Love?

Love, we know, not only has a definition but an identity, a personality, a name:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7–8)

Only those who know God, the true God, can love, because this God, and only this God, is love. Drawing on texts like these, John Piper helpfully defines love as “the overflow and expansion of joy in God, which gladly meets the needs of others” (The Dangerous Duty of Delight, 44). If that’s true, that means millions — billions — of people think themselves loving while having never truly experienced or extended true love.

“Millions of people think themselves loving while having never truly experienced or extended true love.”

Closer to home, many of us, even in the church, consider ourselves loving without having wrestled with what it really means to love. We mistake not-loves for love, and therefore often fail to pursue the real thing.

What Love Is Not

In 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul wrote, perhaps, the most familiar and cherished lines on love ever written. And while weddings today might lead us to believe the chapter was written for bright-eyed grooms and their brides dressed in white, he was actually writing to an ordinary, conflict-afflicted church struggling to love one another (1 Corinthians 1:10–11).

While we could focus on what he says love is and does, Paul also teaches us that pursuing love requires carefully discerning what love is not. For instance, “Love does not envy or boast” (1 Corinthians 13:4). It is not arrogant or rude, irritable or resentful. It does not insist on its own way. In fact, he begins the chapter not with startling examples of love, but by distinguishing love from four common not-loves. Notice how we can practice each without practicing love.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1–3)

Serving Is Not Love

The first of the four warnings is to the spiritually gifted. Our giftings, even our spiritual giftings, are no sure evidence of love. Don Carson writes, “The various spiritual gifts, as important as they are and as highly as Paul values them, can all be duplicated by pagans. This quality of love cannot be” (Showing the Spirit, 84).

What kinds of gifting did Paul have in mind? He gives examples in the previous chapter: the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, healing, miracles, prophecy, spiritual discernment, and speaking in tongues. The apostle encouraged, even charged them to practice these giftings. Evidently, though, some were given profound spiritual insight and an unusual ability to articulate those insights, but still lacked love. They probably assumed they were loving the church when they really loved being gifted and needed and seen.

And still today, some of us pursue gifting, and insist on using our abilities (whether in our churches, our communities, or our careers), but we do so without love. We’re more concerned with being needed, being productive, being successful than we are with loving others. We likely see this best when what others need from us diverges from the ways we want to be serving.

Knowing Is Not Love

Others in the Corinthian church pursued knowledge, and assumed their knowing made them loving. But even if we had all knowledge and understood all mysteries, Paul says, we can still lack love. In fact, the more we know, the more susceptible we may be to temptation, because “knowledge puffs up” (1 Corinthians 8:1). If Satan can’t keep us from the truth, he’d be happy to see us fill our minds with knowledge if it means enflaming our sense of pride and emptying our hearts of love.

So how do we distinguish between proud knowledge and good knowledge? Paul says, “‘Knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know” (1 Corinthians 8:1–2). Pride betrays a knowledge running low on love. As godly knowledge grows, though, so does its sense of humility. Gold in a leaky boat will sink the boat, but gold in a well-built boat adds weight that strengthens and stabilizes the boat, even through heavy storms.

Those who know more, with love, have an increasing sense of just how much they do not know — and of how little they deserve to know anything they do know. And they use whatever knowledge they have not to stoke their personal sense of worth or image, but to build others up in their walks with God. They wield their knowledge to comfort, to encourage, to teach, to heal, to correct, to restore, to love.

Giving Is Not Love

“If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3). On the surface, it’s hard to conceive of a scenario like this. Could a man really give away all he had, even his very life, without love?

The apostle says yes. How could that be? Because people make radical sacrifices for all kinds of reasons, and usually not because of “an overflow of joy in God that gladly meets the needs of others.” In fact, many of the reasons have nothing to do with God at all. And as we’ve already seen, if an act has nothing to do with God, it has nothing to do with real love.

Sadly, our own reasons for giving, serving, and sacrificing, even in the church, sometimes have little to do with God. We want to appear generous. We want more power or influence. We like the feeling of having others indebted to us. We want to be rid of a guilty conscience. We want to fit in with some crowd or cause. “If men do great things and suffer great things merely out of self-love,” Jonathan Edwards warns, “that is but to offer that to themselves which is due to God, and so make an idol of themselves” (Charity and Its Fruits, 87).

Whenever the roots of our motivation stray away from our joy in God, our love will starve and wither. We will give, even give much, and gain nothing of eternal fruit or significance. Sweat, bleed, and even die as we might, our deeds can never cover a lack of love.

Believing Is Not Love

Perhaps most surprising of all, some even make the pursuit of faith a detour around love. “If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). These people might say, “Of course I’m loving, look at what I believe.” To which, Paul might say, “I will know what you really believe by how you love.”

And he’s not alone. “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? . . . Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:14–17). Our acts of love could never save us, but neither can a faith that does not work through love (Galatians 5:6). We can have faith enough to hurl mountains into the sea, and yet still not be willing to climb the hills of love God has put in front of us.

“Genuine faith is not as concerned with moving mountains as it is with knowing and enjoying God.”

Believing and even expecting great things from God does not prove we belong to God; people in every religion, and even some pagans, hope for great things from God. But none of them — none of them — can love like anyone who truly knows Jesus. Genuine faith is not as concerned with moving mountains as it is with knowing and enjoying God, and the more it learns and enjoys of him, the more its love overflows into the needs of others.

Notice that Paul says four times, “If I have not love,” not, “If you. . . .” Even as he rebuked the heated and divided church, he modeled the kind of humility he longed to see in them. He knew how much even an apostle’s heart could be prone to resist and avoid the high costs of love. So are we similarly aware? Have we allowed our love for one another to grow cold behind the veils of our knowing, our serving, our giving, our believing?

No Greater Privilege

For all the ways “love” is used today, any real experience of love is a treasure beyond counting. Those who truly love prove not only that they know God, but that they are known and loved by God. If we see any genuine love in ourselves, we see God in us. Edwards captures something of the miracle in this love:

The saving grace of God in the heart, working a holy and divine temper of soul in the gift of faith and love must doubtless be the greatest blessing that ever men receive in this world; greater than any of the gifts of natural men, greater than the greatest natural abilities, greater than any acquired endowments of mind, greater than any attainments in learning, greater than any outward worth or honor, and a greater privilege than to be kings and emperors. (Charity and its Fruits, 74)

The love that God empowers is the greatest privilege on earth. When we love one another, God is pressing the wonders of his own heart into the cracks and corners of his kingdom — into our families and friendships, into our churches, into our neighborhoods. Without love, no matter how much we know, give, or do, we are and gain nothing. But if we walk in love, we gain more of God and we become more like God — and we hold out real love to a world whose God is love.

Earnestness in our day is becoming all the more admirable for being rare. The age of scrolling, skimming, and lol’ing, by and large, has made us a lighter, more superficial, more fragile people. Many of us have slowly developed an allergy to seriousness. Our hearts faint too easily.

The bright lives of a few, though, pierce through this spiritual fog, and sparkle with a reality that has grown dim for many. Their words, their priorities, their responses repeatedly reveal that Christ has captured their fuller devotion. They delight to sacrifice and serve when others would groan and make excuses. They seem stronger in the face of adversity, kinder in the midst of conflict, more joyful than others, even in suffering. They have a focus that eludes the stressed and distracted. We’re drawn to them (and perhaps sometimes intimidated by them), because their lives remind us of what really matters, of the world that exists below the surface of our senses, of the spiritual war for our souls. Time with them stimulates us to pray more, love more, and grow more.

These saints have many qualities in common, but one is that, in the words of 2 Corinthians 8:7, they excel in earnestness.

Slothful in Zeal

Christian earnestness is a settled and joy-filled intensity toward God. As Hebrews 6:11–12 says,

We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Earnestness is the opposite of spiritual dullness, laziness, apathy, complacency. Like all believers, the earnest experience seasons of doubt and struggle and discouragement, but even then (maybe especially then), the flame of their faith burns warmer and brighter than expected.

“The daily fight for faith is often fought in the trenches of our own dullness.”

Where else is this spiritual fire mentioned? The apostle Paul exhorts us, “Do not be slothful in zeal” — same word — “be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord” (Romans 12:11). That verse alone calls for some serious reflection and prayer. How often have we felt slothful in zeal? How often have we felt spiritually aflame? And how comfortable have many of us grown with our persistent sluggishness? Do we still pray for God to rekindle the fire we once had?

The daily fight for faith is often fought in the trenches of our own dullness. Like the mercy that comes every morning, we each need a fresh awakening for the day at hand.

Sinners Set Aflame

This word for earnestness (Greek spoudei) appears most often (four times) in 2 Corinthians 7–8. In these two chapters, the apostle outlines the deadly difference between godly grief over sin and ungodly grief. “Godly grief,” he says, “produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10).

The Corinthians had been neglecting to discipline those who had sought to discredit and ruin Paul, so when he wrote his previous (and painful) letter (see 2 Corinthians 2:2), he meant for his words to grieve them. But he wanted them to experience a godly grief, a repentant grief, a hopeful grief, a grief that leads to salvation — not the shallow, self-centered sorrow so many, even atheists, often feel over the consequences of sin. What did the apostle want to happen in them as they were confronted with their sin?

Although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God. (2 Corinthians 7:12)

As you prepare to stand before God, Paul says, I want you to see your own earnestness in his eyes. I want you to savor the spiritual fire my letter has sparked in you.

And the Corinthians did grieve well. Paul affirms them, “See what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal” (2 Corinthians 7:11). As they were confronted with their sin, they not only acknowledged it, and repented of it, but they were also filled with a fresh, sobered, active sense of reality. Serious conviction before God birthed a more serious devotion to God and a more serious love for others.

Notice that this awakening, this earnestness, was seeded by a hard word from Paul. Rebuke, as unpleasant as it may feel in the moment, is often an invitation from God into greater spiritual sanity and vitality. And yet, too often, we instead wallow in self-pity, miss the invitation, and forfeit the fire we might have experienced.

Growing in Earnestness

That the Corinthians lacked earnestness and then grew to excel in it means that, however spiritually sluggish we feel, we too can grow in earnestness. What might it look like to pursue earnestness? The word appears again in 2 Peter 1:3–8 — “make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,” and so on. One might say, “With all earnestness, supplement your faith with virtue . . .” In these verses, Peter gives us windows into what sets the earnest apart.

The earnest consistently live and build on a firmer foundation, with higher and more Godward priorities, while drawing on a wealth of resources so few learn to access.

Foundations of Earnestness

First, the earnest are unusually secure and settled, because they live and build on a firmer foundation. Peter writes, “[God has] called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort . . .” (2 Peter 1:3–4). Notice the convictions that fuel this earnestness:

God himself has called us to his glory and excellence.
God has granted us all of his precious and very great promises.
God has made us partakers of the divine nature — by his Spirit, he now lives in us and conforms us to himself.
God has delivered us from the corruption of this world.

Active awakeness to these realities produces gravity and freedom in a soul. They form a foundation underneath a person that keeps him or her from being tossed to and fro by circumstances. They steady and anchor our faith so that we can see more clearly and act more decisively in love.

“Christian earnestness is a settled and joy-filled intensity toward God.”

Part of pursuing earnestness is assessing the ground beneath our feet. Are we really building our lives and ministries on the rocks God has laid before us in Christ? Are we finding our footing, morning by morning, upon the most important realities in the world, or have we become preoccupied with everything else?

Directions of Earnestness

In addition to security and stability, though, souls need direction. If the earnest make every effort, where does all that effort go? Many work hard, with unfettered passion, until they’re burnt out, but in all the wrong directions. The joy-filled intensity of godly earnestness, however, aligns its effort with the priorities of heaven.

Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5–8)

Part of what sets the earnest apart is found in how they spend themselves. They devote themselves to spiritual concerns and opportunities over worldly ones — and they delight to do so.

The earnest have not fallen in love with this present world (2 Timothy 4:10), and so they refuse to pour their best energies into the passing parts of this life that feel so pressing. They seek truth like silver. They want, with God’s help, to master their cravings and impulses. They treasure godliness above anything they might achieve. They’re not content to love only a little, but want their love to “abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment” (Philippians 1:9).

Wells of Earnestness

As the earnest make every effort toward faith, toward steadfastness, toward holiness, toward love, they do not rely on their own strength. They carry more than most longer than most precisely because they endure in the strength and grace of another. “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises” (2 Peter 1:3).

When it comes to life and godliness, we are helpless on our own. Jesus says, “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). If we really believed those seven words, they would solve an enormous amount of dysfunction in our hearts and relationships. But God did not leave us to ourselves. “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.” Through faith, God takes our nothing — our utter inability to think, feel, and act in ways that glorify him — and he gives us all things in Christ.

The earnest make their homes beside these wells. They know that heaven’s storehouses of strength, wisdom, courage, and love are only a prayer away. They draw constantly from the precious, great, and specific promises of God. His strength makes them look strong, but only because they know themselves weak without him.

Make Every Effort

Among those you know, who seems to live closest to Jesus? Whose life consistently pierces through the worldliness around you and shines with a supernatural quality? Whose words and actions are marked by both urgency and patience, ambition and humility, hunger and contentment? Whose conversations stimulate you to pray and love and grow more?

Make every effort to study, befriend, and imitate such saints. Their lives are a priceless testimony and reminder, and their camaraderie invaluable, in our shallow and distracted age. Disrupt any comfort you feel with your own sluggishness. Ask God for the grace to excel in earnestness.

When I married, I had wanted to be married for a long time. For sure, I didn’t have to wait as long as many have (and are), but I waited far longer than I expected anyway — long enough to hurt.

That waiting, however, meant that when my wedding day did finally come, it rose all the brighter, stronger, and more vibrant than it would have otherwise, like a sunrise so beautiful it unsettles you. Even if I never saw another picture of that day, I would remember minute details — the squirmy 10-year-old on the aisle, the Scripture reader coming up a song too early, the longer-than-expected wait standing at the altar, her smile when she finally appeared. Even if, without warning, rain had drowned out the sun, soaked everyone in sight, and ruined all our decorations, it would have served only to make our happiness more memorable.

There’s no day quite like a wedding day, and there are few pleasures like those first hours of marriage — the first blissful, awkward steps of a lifelong dance together.

How tragic would it be, though, if our joy in marriage were limited to our memories of that one day? What if my wife and I spent all our years together looking at wedding pictures and retelling the stories of those first hours? What if we never walked beyond the beauties of the altar into the wild and thrilling gardens of actual married life? What if, after all our years waiting for marriage, we settled for a wedding?

As absurd as it may seem, I wonder how many of us have that kind of relationship with the cross.

Beyond the Altar

Some, it seems, love Jesus for forgiving their sins, for canceling their debt, for providing a perfect righteousness in their place — and then spend the rest of their lives rehearsing our justification, as if that were all that the cross could afford. Make no mistake, the cross is our altar — that central, crucial, and glorious event, that deathblow to Satan and all his armies, that blazing climax of history — but it is the altar, not the marriage.

“Without justification, we have no hope, no life, no future, but justification alone is not our life; it is our entry into life.”

Without justification, we have no hope, no life, no future, but justification alone is not our life; it is our entry into life, our gateway into so many more glories, our path into ever-widening fields of grace. And this side of heaven, some of the greatest treasures in those fields are the changes God works in us to make us more like him — the deep, startling, often slow process we call sanctification. “[Christ] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,” 1 Peter 2:24 says, “that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” Do you relish the opportunity, in Christ, to live to righteousness — to be increasingly holy?

This holiness is not only possible and necessary — no one goes to heaven without it (Hebrews 12:14) — but this holiness also holds the highest and most durable pleasure. As J.C. Ryle writes, “Let us feel convinced, whatever others may say, that holiness is happiness. . . . As a general rule, in the long run of life, it will be found true that ‘sanctified’ people are the happiest people on earth. They have solid comforts which the world can neither give nor take away” (Holiness, 40).

High Cost of Access

Justification — the act by which God declares guilty sinners righteous — is an unfathomably precious and glorious reality.

“Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). The life and death of Christ made an impossibility a reality — those, like me, who should have drowned in divine wrath were instead baptized into oceans of mercy. Those, like me, who deserved every ounce of divine justice have been showered instead with unrelenting peace.

“Through him,” Paul goes on to say, “we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2). Access. Many of us live in a world so inundated with access — access to information, access to resources, access to one another — we may have lost the gravity and wonder of a privilege like our access to God.

Despite how small and insignificant we are, and how often we have sinned against him, and how prone we are to take him for granted, God did not make war against us, but received the war to give us peace. He did not cast us into the lake of fire, but sent his Son into the flames so that he might welcome us into his family.

Tents Pitched at Calvary

The grandeur of the glory of this peace, this access, this justification cannot be overstated — unless we make it the only glory of the gospel, unless we never leave the altar. John Piper writes,

Jesus did not die so that we would pitch our tents on Calvary. He died to fill the world — this one and the new one — with his reflected holiness. . . . He died so that we would not be incinerated by the glory of God, but rather spend eternity reflecting it with joy. . . . The glory of justification serves the unending glories of sanctification. (“Justification Is the Gate, Not the Garden”)

Among the gospel glories we might begin to overlook, sanctification might be the most overlooked. Those who champion justification by grace alone, through faith alone — not by works — can understandably become skittish about any talk of works.

The apostle Paul, however, that greatest of all champions of justification, did not shy away from celebrating and pressing for real sanctification. The bright stars of justification and peace and access were not the only stars in his sky. He loved justification — the wedding, the altar, the declaration — but he also wanted to see and experience more of Christ. As he holds up the cross, he draws us, again and again, into the marriage.

Not Only That

“Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God. . . . Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character” (Romans 5:1–4). Not only that — that is the burden of this article. In the gospel, God gives not only forgiveness, but new character. Not only justification, but sanctification. Not only pardon, but transformation. Not only the altar, but the marriage. Don’t limit your joy in Jesus to the relieving of your guilt and shame.

We see these stars of justification and sanctification align again in Titus 3. “God saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy . . . so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5–7). No work we had done won God’s attention or intervention. He saved us through faith alone, by grace alone, according to his great mercy alone. In the very next verse, Paul writes, “I want you to insist on these things” — the justification of sinners by faith, not by works — “so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works” (Titus 3:8). We were justified by faith alone, not by works, in order that we might devote ourselves to good works.

“Jesus died to redeem and to purify, to justify and to sanctify.”

Or, as he wrote just sentences earlier, “[Jesus Christ] gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14). He died to redeem and to purify, to justify and to sanctify. To celebrate justification, and not sanctification, is to celebrate half a gospel, half a cross, half a grace, and half a Christ. As much as any voice in history, Paul fought to preach and preserve justification by faith alone, but justification was not the destination. It was driving him somewhere. Paul was not content to rejoice only in the canceling of his sins, but longed to experience greater freedom from the power of his sins.

In fact, he prized his blood-bought, Spirit-empowered, grace-filled holiness so much that he could rejoice even in suffering. “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character.” He could rejoice in imprisonments, rejoice in beatings, rejoice in robberies, rejoice in hunger and need, rejoice even in betrayal, because he saw how adversity conformed him to Christ. He knew that when suffering is met with faith, the fire produces and refines a wealth of godliness.

Marriage Beautifies the Wedding

Not only, however, does justification lead us into the glories of sanctification; the glorious experience of sanctification also leads us further into the glories of justification. Notice how this sequence in Romans 5 ends: “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3–4). Hope — in other words, a deeper and stronger assurance that we belong to Jesus and will spend eternity with him.

Christlikeness is a prize to be pursued and treasured, in part, because it strengthens our confidence in our justification. Every inch of progress in godliness is another testimony that God is real and that he really lives in you. Holiness not only flows from hope, but actually produces greater hope. Just as a good marriage, year by year, makes the wedding day more beautiful and meaningful.

So don’t forget the wedding, but don’t miss the marriage. Praise Christ every day for the fathomless gifts of forgiveness, of peace, of access — of full acceptance with a holy God because of Christ — but also plead to experience everything else he is and bought for you.

A scarcity of encouragement can become a crisis for any soul. Can you remember a time you really needed encouragement but didn’t receive it?

Encouragement often runs dry in our churches because we fail to prioritize and practice it, but some of us fail to encourage one another because we don’t really know what encouragement is. We assume encouragement is merely some word of comfort or affirmation — something to make us feel better about ourselves — when what our souls really need to hear is something that deepens our hope and confidence in God.

To encourage is to give courage — not simply to console or compliment someone (and certainly not to flatter, but to strengthen a heart for risk or adversity. Every Christian needs a steady stream of courage to endure suffering, to reject temptation, to sacrifice in love, to embrace discipline, to persevere in ministry, to trust and obey God.

And we will not survive long on the light and superficial inspiration that sells by the millions. We do not need hearts more filled with self; we need hearts regularly inflamed with God. We need soul-anchoring, heart-stirring, love-unleashing encouragement.

Church in Need of Encouragement

The church in Thessalonica seemed to suffer from a deficit of encouragement. Why else would the apostle Paul urge them, again and again, to encourage one another?

Encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:18)

Encourage one another and build one another up. (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1 Thessalonians 5:14)

“We do not need hearts more filled with self; we need hearts regularly inflamed with God.”

Why such a serious and repeated charge? Because the apostle had seen firsthand the troubles the Thessalonian church faced. The believers in Thessalonica were not, like so many in more affluent and comfortable places today, merely low on self-esteem. These were embattled men and women who were hated and threatened for their faith in Jesus.

When Paul and Silas preached the gospel there, many believed and joined the church (Acts 17:4), but a jealous mob rose to oppose them (Acts 17:5). Even when Paul and Silas left the persecution in Thessalonica behind and went on to Berea, the mob was so outraged that they followed them there, “agitating and stirring up the crowds” (Acts 17:13). And while Paul and Silas could leave town, the Thessalonian believers stayed and made their homes in the fire. They “received the word in much affliction,” 1 Thessalonians 1:6 says, and they would now have to hold fast in much affliction. Therefore, they needed real, meaningful, compelling encouragement.

Encouragement of a Father

As Paul exhorted the Thessalonians to encourage one another, he also gave them (and us) a godly example of encouragement to follow.

You know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonians 2:11–12)

Notice how he sets this kind of encouragement next to a complementary kind of love a few verses earlier: “We were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7). We were gentle among you like a mother, and we encouraged and charged you like a father. That picture gives encouragement a masculine strength, weight, and urgency that we don’t always associate with encouragement. Paul was both gentle like a mother and tough like a father, both understanding and pleading, both compassionate and assertive.

And how did he encourage them in this case? Not by saying, “Everything’s going to be alright,” but rather by charging them, “Walk in a manner worthy of God.” Encouragement sought to compel them out of spiritual sluggishness and complacency into a glad and disciplined faithfulness. How much of the encouragement we give and receive today sounds like that?

Facets of Encouragement

As we look more closely at the specific commands to encourage one another in 1 Thessalonians, we see more of the depth and complexity of real encouragement. Encouragement is not a simple reality or practice; it comes in various shapes and colors and tones, in each case aiming to stimulate the courage needed to walk in a manner worthy of God. Notice three major threads of encouragement in this letter alone.

Comfort the Sorrowful

Some in the Thessalonian church were despairing over those who had died. Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:13, “We do not want you to be uninformed about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” These younger believers grieved as the world did, as if the grave were the end, as if the dead would never live again. They feared, it seems, that those who died before Christ returned would never see him. This made their grief even more unbearable.

How does Paul encourage them? “Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (1 Thessalonians 4:14). In fact, “The dead in Christ will rise first,” he tells them. “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17). In Christ, those who have died will not remain dead. They will live, and be more alive than they ever were before, because they will finally live in the presence of the glorified Christ.

Then, in the next verse, “Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18). Some are carrying a weight of sorrow or grief they cannot bear; therefore, encourage them. Strengthen their battered souls to endure heartache with hope. Remind them that all who have believed in the Lord Jesus will soon always be with him.

Awaken the Idle

Others in the Thessalonian church made the return of Christ an excuse for idleness in the meantime. If Christ is coming any time, why, they thought, would we keep working so hard? In a second letter to the church, the apostle says, “We hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies” (2 Thessalonians 3:11). A spiritual sleepiness had fallen on some, producing negligence and laziness.

How does Paul encourage them?

Let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober . . . having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. (1 Thessalonians 5:6–10)

While encouragement comes to console and strengthen those who are grieving, it strives to light a fire under sleepy souls. Strap on your breastplate. Put on your helmet. Arm yourselves for battle. Take action. Those who sleep through this war are destined for wrath. Those who will inherit the kingdom of God, however, stay awake, alert, and diligent.

Then, in the next verse, “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). Awaken and compel the idle. Receive the work God has given you to do, and do it with all your heart, as unto the Lord and not men (Colossians 3:23–24). Remind one another of all that’s at stake and of how serious the spiritual armies are that are lined up against us (Ephesians 6:12). “Take up the whole armor of God,” as Paul says in Ephesians 6:13, “that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.”

Fortify the Fainthearted

Other believers in Thessalonica were not sleepy in idleness, but had grown weary under the weight of life in a fallen world.

“We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all” (1 Thessalonians 5:14). The word fainthearted appears only once in the New Testament, but it does appear several times in the Greek translation of the Old Testament. For instance, Proverbs 18:14, “A man’s spirit will endure sickness, but a crushed spirit who can bear?” Do you know someone who seems crushed in spirit? Has your heart felt weighed down by life?

How does God himself encourage the fainthearted? He does so twice through the prophet Isaiah, first in Isaiah 57:15. Notice the unusual kindness and compassion of God:

Thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

“Who can fathom a God so mighty and yet so tender, so above and yet so near, so holy and yet so compassionate?”

Though God is high and lifted up, dwelling in the high, holy, and eternal heavens, he draws near to the fainthearted, to revive and strengthen us. Who can fathom a God so mighty and yet so tender, so above and yet so near, so holy and yet so compassionate?

Notice, however, how God encourages the fainthearted in Isaiah 35:4 with urgency and earnestness: “Say to those who have an anxious heart” — same word for fainthearted — “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” Anything you have suffered, God will repay. However bleak life may become, he will surely deliver the redeemed and repay any evil committed against you.

Do you know someone suffering from sorrow or grief, someone leaking hope in the storms of loss? Do you know others who have grown idle or complacent, making excuses to avoid what God has called them to do? Do you know some who are suffocating under the burdens they bear, living just barely above water? If so, how might you strengthen their souls in Christ? How might God use you to stir their confidence in him?