Not long ago, purity was something all Christians seemed to admire, and want, without qualification. Now, many professing believers associate the pursuit of personal purity with the scandal of “purity culture.” Christian pleas for purity, some claim, have spread fear, guilt, and shame instead. I encountered these concerns again as I researched and published a fresh plea for sexual purity.

Some reformation was warranted. In some circles, the concerted effort for sexual purity in the nineties was a desperate effort to stem the tide of teenage pregnancy, AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and abortion. In the eyes of many, sexual sin and temptation were the hordes outside the gate, and we needed extraordinary measures to hold them back. So they held rallies, published books, printed cards, and fashioned rings. And also (in the eyes of some, anyway) mass-produced shame, even as untold numbers made admirable resolves and were spared great miseries.

Some, it seems, came away thinking of purity mainly as a means to marriage, to health, to earthly happiness, even to salvation, and not mainly as fruit of knowing and enjoying Jesus. Purity was not the final solution to AIDS, pornography, or teenage pregnancy; worship was. Purity wasn’t the ultimate key to a better marriage or better sex; worship was. But teenagers weren’t angsty about worship; they were angsty about marriage, sex, pregnancy, and disease, so that’s where the messaging often went (or at least what many kids came away with). Therefore, while teenage pregnancy and STDs did decline over the next couple decades (truly amazing when you think about it), many testified to experiencing more shame than freedom, more disillusionment than worship, more self than Jesus.

And, in the process, some (certainly not all) missed the gift and peace of true purity. They may not have dated young or kissed someone before marriage, but they didn’t get to taste what God means by purity either.

Lies That Spread in Purity Culture

Calls for sexual purity were (and are) biblical and needed. Even in the midst of the good that was done through lots of preaching and discipleship during those years, several lies seemed to spread in the renewed emphasis on purity — each laced with enough truth to be taken seriously and yet with enough deceit to lead some astray.

Lie 1: Sexual purity guarantees a happy marriage.

Some heard, If you want to get married to a great guy (or girl), have a great marriage, and enjoy a great sex life, then abstain from any sexual sin. One commentator has called this “the sexual prosperity gospel.”

It is true that sexual purity before marriage does guard and bless our future marriage, and it may improve our chances of marrying well and enjoying a healthy and happy sex life. But it doesn’t guarantee a great marriage. Sexual purity does not guarantee we will marry, or that our spouse will be wonderful and faithful, or that sex will easy or satisfying.

Marriage is not a reward for purity in singleness, and prolonged singleness is not a curse for sexual sin. Sexual purity before marriage is a profound way to love your future spouse (if God brings you a spouse). More than that, though, it’s a profound way to honor God and experience more of his presence and power. “Blessed are the pure in heart,” Jesus says, “for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).

Lie 2: Virginity is what makes someone desirable.

Some heard, If I want a godly guy (or girl) to want to marry me, then I should abstain from sexual sin. They went away thinking that virginity was the greatest gift anyone could give a future spouse and that those who kept their virginity would, again, receive marriage as a reward for their waiting.

“Virginity is not the greatest gift anyone can give a future spouse; a genuine faith in Jesus is.”

Virginity is a precious gift to give a spouse. Perhaps my greatest regret as a husband, a father, as a man, is that I did not practice the love and self-control of waiting for the marriage bed. Virginity, however, is not the greatest gift anyone can give a future spouse; a genuine faith in Jesus is. Make no mistake, your sexual history (or lack thereof) will affect your marriage for better or worse, if God gives you a spouse, but the effect will not compare to your lived-out love for Christ (or lack thereof). Virginity is not at the top of a godly man’s or woman’s priorities; Jesus is. Whatever the history, he or she is now most committed to marrying in the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:39).

That means sexual sinners are not ruined for happy marriages if we turn from our sin and commit to pursuing purity in Christ.

Lie 3: Girls are why men sin.

Some pushback against “purity culture” has come from women who felt the burden was unfairly laid on them to keep men from sinning. Lust is every young man’s battle, and they’re tempted and fall because women dress and act immodestly. As a result, some women may have carried shame and guilt over the sins of their brothers — and some men may have left thinking they experienced lust mainly because women dressed inappropriately.

Jesus did not diagnose lust this way. He pointed first to our own hearts: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person” (Matthew 15:19–20). This doesn’t discount God’s real call to modesty, that women “adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control” (1 Timothy 2:9); nor does it dismiss that immodesty can feed sexual temptation and lust. But Jesus does not lay a man’s sin chiefly at the feet of women. A man’s sexual immorality comes first and foremost from within him.

How Does God Motivate Sexual Purity?

If these untruths compromised the cause for purity, how does God inspire purity? What kinds of realities does he rely on to kindle a grace-filled, Christ-exalting, joyful pursuit of purity, especially sexual purity? A good place to start would be 1 Thessalonians 4:1–8, and especially verse 3:

>This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality.

Do you want to know God’s will for you? (Everyone, of course, does, and especially young people trying to figure out their lives.) This verse says God’s will for you is your sexual purity. In the wrong hands, the verse could become a prooftext for distorted teaching on purity, but I believe this passage still holds the cure for an ailing purity culture — and the catalyst for a new one.

So how does Paul motivate sexual purity in 1 Thessalonians 4? In at least five profound ways.

1. Do you want to be free from lust?

Again, beginning in verse 3, “This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God” (1 Thessalonians 4:3–5).

Paul is preaching freedom from the tyranny of the passions of the flesh. Those who don’t know God are enslaved to their cravings. They do what their body tells them to do — and their body consistently tells them to defy the living God. And so they forfeit fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore — and their very lives — for fractions of joy and moments of pleasure.

But those who know God realize that sexual immorality is not freedom; it is slavery. And sexual purity is not slavery; it is a truer, longer-lasting freedom (Romans 6:6–7).

2. Do you want to experience the power of God?

God not only calls us to sexual purity; he promises to work that purity in us. “God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you” (1 Thessalonians 4:7–8). With the command — abstain from sexual immorality — he also gives himself. I will work in you that which is pleasing in my sight, God says, as you work out your salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:13–14). The soul successfully pursuing sexual purity in Christ is a soul coursing with the power of God — with the presence and help of the Holy Spirit.

3. Do you want to avoid the wrath to come?

First Thessalonians 4:1–8 is a weighty passage. It’s not “Come as you are, and stay as you are.” It’s filled with warning.

The Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God. (1 Thessalonians 4:6–8)

Faithful teaching on sexual purity will sound severe warnings. Those warnings, however, will harmonize with the melody of God’s grace to sinners — and they will focus most not on temporary, earthly consequences, but on spiritual, eternal ones. To be sure, there’s a place to warn about sexually transmitted diseases, teenage pregnancy, unwanted singleness, and marital dysfunction, but the weight of the church’s warnings about sex should land on God. And God makes himself clear:

Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9–10)

4. Do you want to guard the ones you love?

Satan wants us to think that sexual sin is secret and private. That no one has to know. That we’re the only ones who suffer for our lack of self-control. The testimony of Scripture, however, is that our sexual sin always harms more than ourselves. That means sexual purity is an act of love. “This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality . . . that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter” (1 Thessalonians 4:3–6).

“The consequences of sexual sin always injure others, and especially those we love.”

There may have been particular ways the Thessalonians were using sex against one another, but the principle applies much more broadly: the consequences of sexual sin always injure others, and especially those we love. Sexual sin treats people as objects, and fuels sex slavery around the world. Sexual sin corrupts leadership, in the home and in the church, and it ruins ministries. Sexual sin destroys marriages and wounds children.

Because God has given sex such unusual power for good in marriage, it has unusual power for destruction everywhere else. So, abstain from sexual immorality as an act of earnest love.

5. Do you want to feel the smile of God?

Finally, a great reason to practice sexual purity in our pornographic age is that our purity pleases God. In Christ, by the power of the Spirit, we now have the profound ability to make the King of heaven smile.

Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. (1 Thessalonians 4:1)

This does not mean God only loves those who kept their virginity before marriage. It does mean that when his chosen, forgiven, imperfect children choose purity, it pleases him. It makes him happy. Paul prays elsewhere, “that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:9–10). Our God is the happiest being in the universe (1 Timothy 1:11), and one of his great pleasures is seeing his people overcome sin and temptation by his grace.

Do you want a reason to resist sexual sin? Your purity pleases the Father. And your purity allows you to see and enjoy more of God (Matthew 5:8). Those who live to please him experience deeper, more enduring pleasure than this world can offer.

Purity Is Greater Than Sex

We likely won’t get to read many articles about the men and women who signed cards and wore rings out of a real, burning love for Jesus. The New York Times likely won’t cover the countless stories of those who credit the movement for helping them make Christian resolves against peer pressure and fight the good fight for purity in days when many weren’t.

Where purity culture erred or was unclear, it wasn’t because Christian leaders called for sexual purity, but because sex and marriage threatened to become bigger than God. Wherever the messaging downplayed grace, or relied disproportionately on fear, or reduced purity to sexual ethics, it plundered the riveting and appealing beauty of purity in Christ — and, ironically, robbed purity of its power to overcome temptation. As purity becomes smaller and more human, it also becomes more burdensome — and less Christian. Christian purity is rooted in the bigness and goodness of God — his grace, his power, his love, his worth.

The pursuit of purity (then and now) is not mainly about rejecting sexual temptation, but about receiving and embracing the heart of God. Yes, God calls us to walk in purity, but the only path to true purity is covered in blood and leads us to him.

I can remember exactly where I was sitting, wrestling with guilt and shame and regret over failed relationships and sexual sin, wondering if I would ever overcome my broken history, when a friend recited Micah 7:8–9 from memory:

Rejoice not over me, O my enemy;     when I fall, I shall rise;when I sit in darkness,     the Lord will be a light to me.I will bear the indignation of the Lord     because I have sinned against him,until he pleads my cause     and executes judgment for me.He will bring me out to the light;     I shall look upon his vindication.

God pleads my cause. The one I betrayed kneeled down to appeal for me. His gavel landed, not on me, but on his Son. Having lived and hidden in darkness, I found a home in the light. The purity I thought I had lost was now suddenly and undeservedly possible.

As we raise up younger men in the church, and encourage them toward becoming men of God, how can we call them into the kind of freedom and purity God gave me in Christ?

Set an Example in Purity

Of course, raising up godly men is about far more than sexual purity. A man of God is more than his self-control in dating relationships. He’s more than his last Internet accountability report — far more. When grace grips a man, it more than curbs his lust for porn; it lights fires for good under every area of his life. And so, young men need strong, dynamic, ambitious pictures of what they might become in Christ.

Fortunately, God gives us plenty of great lessons on manhood in his word. First Timothy 4:12 has become one especially concise and compelling picture for me:

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

The apostle Paul gives Timothy, his son in the faith, five cues for spiritual growth and development. The areas are not exclusive to men, but they are each critical for godly men. Each of those five words is a battlefield to be won, and each can become its own stronghold for holiness. Do this man’s conversations consistently say he belongs to God? Does his lifestyle set him apart from the unbelieving? Is he a man of surprising and sacrificial love? Does he fight for faith in the trenches of temptation and doubt? Is he pure?

In previous articles, we looked more closely at the first four — speech, conduct, love, and faith. Here we turn to purity, the area that may receive the most attention in young men’s discipleship (often for good reason), and yet often in ways that miss the heart of Christian purity.

In All Purity

First, what kind of purity did the apostle have in mind? The only other use of this Greek word in the New Testament — agneia — comes just one chapter later in the same letter:

Encourage [an older man] as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters, in all purity. (1 Timothy 5:1–2)

This suggests the purity Paul had in mind was sexual purity — a broad and consistent holiness that marks all of Timothy’s relationships with his sisters in Christ. Purity is bigger and wider than personal sexual morality, but sex and sexuality (then and certainly now) play a major role in setting followers of Christ apart from the world. Man of God, as you encourage younger women in the church, do so with purity. Don’t talk, behave, or daydream in ways that make them vulnerable to serve your lusts. Put to death sexual immorality within you (Colossians 3:5). Flee from sexual temptation (1 Corinthians 6:18). Treat young women with the respect and concern with which you would treat your own sisters — because they are (Matthew 12:50).

“Be the safest man on earth for a young woman to meet.”

And not just purity, Timothy, but all purity. Don’t treat women just slightly better than men in the world do, but wholly differently. When other men flirt with ambiguous messages and signals, be surprisingly clear and honest. When other men secretly gratify their lusts, make moments alone a training ground for self-control. When other men dishonor themselves and others through sexual sin, be a man who loves to honor and protect women. Don’t look for the lowest bar to crawl over, but be ambitiously pure — love any women God has put in your life with all purity. Be the safest man on earth for a young woman to meet.

‘Husband of One Wife’

Earlier in his letter to the younger Timothy, the apostle gives at least one other glimpse into how godly men relate to sex and sexuality.

When he names qualifications for pastor-elders, the majority of the list simply pictures a normal godly man, whether he ever serves in church office or not. He must be “sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, . . . not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money” (1 Timothy 3:2–3). These qualities mark every mature man who follows Jesus. And according to that same list, such a man is also “the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2).

Now, Paul did not mean that an elder could not be single. Paul himself was unmarried, after all, and he was not only an elder, but an apostle. No, more fundamentally, this is a way of saying men of God are to be sexually pure. They are men, whether married or not, who refuse to indulge themselves sexually (in thought or action or suggestion) with any woman but their wife. “The husband of one wife” (literally, “one-woman man”) is a concise way of saying, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous” (Hebrews 13:4).

So, do our thoughts and hands and clicks honor the spiritual wonder and purity of marriage? Or, when asked by God himself to stand guard along the walls around the marriage bed, have we instead gone missing? Worse, have we turned and fired the arrows he gave us against him and the women he has made? Have we indulged lustful thoughts, lengthy glances, wicked searches, sensual touching, sexual impatience, and self-gratification? Have we used God’s gift of sex to assault the hands that gave it?

Purity Tells the Story

Why would men of God be “the husband of one wife”? Because God has made marriage and sex an unusually compelling way of drawing attention to Christ and his love for his bride, the church.

It’s not the only way, by any means. Jesus himself never married. And single believers in Jesus often experience more of Jesus than married believers do (1 Corinthians 7:35). But from the beginning, God has joined one man with one woman, for one lifetime, to tell the world physically and relationally (though certainly imperfectly) about the depth and duration of his love for us (Ephesians 5:31–32). The fire in a new husband’s eyes is a flicker of the roaring flames in heaven. The brilliance of a bride, wrapped and radiant in white, is a glimmer of what it means for the church to be chosen, wooed, won, and made pure.

And so how men (and women!) treat sex and sexuality, whether married or not, sheds light on Christ for all to see, or obscures and slanders him. The world has found countless ways to distort, abuse, and vandalize God’s masterpiece, but the added darkness has served to make true purity a brighter and clearer picture of reality. Few phenomena are more spiritually revealing and provocative today than a man who consistently denies his sinful flesh and makes war against sexual temptation. It will make him an alien in the eyes of the world — and a king in the eyes that matter most.

Purity for Sexual Failures

What if we’ve already failed sexually? What if we’ve already spurned purity and fired our arrows back at God? Have we been dishonorably discharged and forever branded with our worst thoughts and actions? Is sexual purity possible for sexual failures?

It is — and I should know. Pornography and sexual immorality plagued me for years, even after coming to know Jesus. I know what it looks like to fire arrows at God because I was often pointing the bow. Sexual repentance, to my shame, was a decade-long war. I indulged desires outside of marriage that were meant to lead me to a bride. I flirted and dodged and disappeared in dating. I dishonored sisters in Christ, women whom Jesus had bought with his blood and who had entrusted themselves to me, a brother. With my thoughts and hands and clicks, I slandered the Lion of Judah and concealed his wondrous cross. I squandered opportunity after opportunity to be the man I knew God wanted me to be.

But God pled my cause. He brought me out into the light. After I had fired my arrows against him, he intervened and took my thorns, my nails, my wrath. “I received mercy for this reason, that in me, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience” (1 Timothy 1:16). By his grace, he forgave what I had done, and by that same grace, he trained my hands, my thoughts, my words for good. He made a once impure man pure — not perfectly, but genuinely.

“Stories of sexual brokenness have their own way of honoring the worth of Christ and his cross.”

Stories of sexual brokenness have their own way of honoring the worth of Christ and his cross. God wired sexual purity and marital fidelity to sing the truth about Jesus — a soaring and mesmerizing melody — but he sings something just as captivating over harlots, like me, who leave our sexual sin for him.

Pure Men Move Toward Women

One more lesson from Paul’s counsel to Timothy: setting an example in sexual purity does not mean avoiding women in the church. Notice the posture in his charge to the younger man: “Encourage . . . younger women as sisters, in all purity” (1 Timothy 5:1–2).

He could have said, “Play it safe and just keep your distance,” but instead he says, “Encourage younger women as sisters” — care for them like you would if they grew up next to you. Move toward them, Timothy. Look for ways to give courage — to strengthen their hearts in the Lord and their resolves to love. The picture here is the opposite of the kind of divide that can emerge between men and women in churches and ministries. To be sure, there may be certain women to avoid (Proverbs 5:3–8). Generally speaking, however, men of God do not sidestep their sisters in Christ, but engage and care for them in all purity. In other words, they treat women like Jesus did.

Safest Man for Women

When you stop to look, Jesus spends a surprising amount of time caring specifically and personally for women — in a day when these kinds of interactions were more socially scandalous. Even the disciples marveled at how he would stop and talk to women (John 4:27).

Listen to the warmth and tenderness in Jesus’s voice when a seriously ill woman grabs the edge of his garment: “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace” (Luke 8:48). When he finds the woman at the well, with her deeply broken and painful history, he doesn’t look the other way or scramble to another well, but offers to refresh and restore her soul: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10).

When he saw the woman horribly disabled by a demon, he “called her over and said to her, ‘Woman, you are freed from your disability.’ And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God” (Luke 13:12–13). He reached out and touched her, in all purity, because that’s what a good brother would have done. When he saw a mother grieving over the death of her son, he drew near to her broken heart. “He had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep’” (Luke 7:13).

And when he rose from the grave, what was the first name on his death-conquering lips? “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary’” (John 20:16). This is the truest, most manly picture of purity the world has ever seen — a man abstaining not from his sisters, but from mistreating them or neglecting their needs. A man who consistently and profoundly encouraged women in all purity.

When we, as a society, stopped reading and started watching, we began thinking and talking less — at least with the same substance or effectiveness. That was the bright red flag Neil Postman began waving in the sixties, captured for future generations in his classic work, Amusing Ourselves to Death. The book was published in 1985, the year before I was born.

With the introduction of the television, Postman observed, entertainment did not merely become a bigger and bigger part of our lives — it became our lives. And everything else in our lives — news, politics, education, even religion — was increasingly forced to perform on its stage. Suddenly, everything had to be entertaining. Newspapers gave way to “the nightly news”; classroom lessons made their way to Sesame Street; worship services transformed into televised concerts with TED talks.

“The television slowly taught us that nothing was worth our time unless it was entertaining.”

The television slowly taught us that nothing was worth our time unless it was entertaining. And anything entertaining, almost by definition, requires less of us — less thinking, less study, less work. Entertainment, after all, isn’t meant to be taken seriously. But when everything is entertainment, doesn’t that mean little, if anything, can be taken seriously?

For those who take the glory of God seriously, and our joy in him seriously, that becomes a very serious question.

What Will Ruin Society?

Postman warned about this devolution long before others noticed what was happening. He writes,

[George] Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in [Aldous] Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. . . . In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right. (Amusing Ourselves to Death, xix)

When he wrote those words, television had only been around for thirty years (invented much earlier, but not common in households until the fifties). The internet would not become publicly available until the 90s. Social media didn’t come along for another fifteen years (and really didn’t become widespread until the iPhone in 2007, several years after Postman died).

If Postman was right about the early years of television, how much more today — a day when we no longer have to schedule time to sit and watch our favorite shows, but carry our entertainment with us literally everywhere we go? If entertainment could control our lives from a small box in the living room, how much more so when it’s nearly surgically attached to us on our phones?

Postman, I believe, was more correct than even he realized — and the implications are not just social or cultural, but spiritual.

Irrelevance Binds Us

What makes television such a terror to the collective mind of a culture? Postman begins by arguing that the “medium is the metaphor.” Meaning, any given medium — whether text, television, or social media — doesn’t only distribute content, but unavoidably shapes the content. How we consume, he argues, is as important as what we consume. Mediums determine how we take in information. For instance, over time typography (despite its own limitations) generally taught us to follow arguments, test conclusions, and expose contradiction. Television, by contrast, consistently does away with arguments, strips away context, and darts from one image to the next.

Television, however, not only teaches us a new way to process information, but it also floods us with information and from far beyond our everyday lives. The telegraph, of course, had begun doing this with words long before the television, but notice what was happening then, even with the telegraph:

In the information world created by telegraphy, everything became everyone’s business. For the first time, we were sent information which answered no question we had asked, and which, in any case, did not permit the right of reply. We may say then that the contribution of the telegraph to public discourse was to dignify irrelevance and amplify impotence. (68–69)

For the most part, the kind of information that would interest people in both Los Angeles and Minneapolis, would need to be nonessential to life in either place (irrelevance), and all the more so with news from around the globe. Stories had to transcend ordinary life in a real place (part of the appeal for people looking to escape the malaise of ordinary life).

And, for the most part, the information had to be the kind of information neither could do anything about (impotence). Postman asks a pointed question of all our media consumption: “How often does it occur that information provided you on morning radio or television, or in the morning newspaper, causes you to alter your plans for the day, or to take some action you would not otherwise have taken, or provides insight into some problem you are required to solve?” (68).

Television only made the irrelevance that much more accessible and that much more appealing (actual images and videos of celebrities doing everyday activities as opposed to the short descriptions the telegraph could produce). And how much more is this the case through social media? We know more and more about our favorite athletes, actors, and musicians and yet often less and less about our neighbors and the places where we might actually make a difference.

Worth a Thousand Images

But isn’t a picture worth a thousand words? In 1921, the marketer Fred Bernard famously said so, promoting the use of images for advertising on the side of streetcars. He was probably right as far as streetcars go. If you want to make a memorable impression on someone in a couple seconds, by all means use a picture — but is this effective communication or just effective marketing? Maybe it’s more accurate to say a picture is worth a thousand more sales, or clicks, or likes. Even then, though, can a picture really convey what a consumer needs to know about a new phone, or clothing line, or dish soap? For serious shoppers, haven’t we learned that one coherent sentence of honest description might be worth a thousand pictures?

Postman saw that as images overtake words as the dominant form of communication in a society, communication invariably suffers. “I will try to demonstrate that as typography move to the periphery of our culture and television takes to place at the center, the seriousness, clarity and, above all, value of public discourse dangerously declines” (29). We descend into “a vast triviality,” he says. We get sillier.

As he attempts to summarize his warning to the ever-entertained, he says, “Our Ministry of Culture is Huxleyan, not Orwellian. It does everything possible to encourage us to watch continuously. But what we watch is a medium which presented information in a form that renders it simplistic, nonsubstantive, nonhistorical, and noncontextual; That is to say, information packaged as entertainment. In America, we are never denied the opportunity to amuse ourselves” (141).

In the Beginning Was the Word

According to Neil Postman, America (and much of the modern world) has laid our collective minds on the altar of entertainment. But why should followers of Christ care about television (or websites or social media)? Should we spend much time worrying about how much we watch and how little we read?

Yes, because the fullest Christian life is firmly anchored in words and sentences and paragraphs. When God revealed himself to his chosen people, of all the infinite ways he could have done so, he chose to unveil himself with words. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2). God didn’t build a gallery or start a YouTube channel, he wrote a Book (2 Timothy 3:16). “In the beginning was the Word. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1, 14). From the beginning, God has put the Word, his Son, at the center of reality, and, in doing so, he has given words unusual power and importance in anticipating, explaining, and celebrating him.

Yes, the heavens are declaring the glory of God (Psalm 19:1). Yes, his eternal power and divine nature have been seen, from the beginning, in the things that have been made (Romans 1:20). But “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). For now, faith looks “not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18). And we look to the unseen through words. We may see God in mountains and oceans and galaxies, but we only know him savingly through sentences. He wrote the story that way.

Serious Joy in Silly Days

If the way we’re using entertainment erodes our ability to reflect, reason, and savor truth, it erodes our ability to know and enjoy Jesus. “Blessed is the man . . . [whose] delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:1–2). If we lose the ability to think, we lose the ability to meditate. And if we lose the ability to meditate, we lose our path to meaningful happiness. The life of the mind, and heart, is a pivotal battleground in the pursuit of real and abundant life.

“The life of the mind is a pivotal battleground in the pursuit of real and abundant life.”

The medium is not the enemy — television and YouTube and Instagram are not the enemy. But if Postman was right, the medium can be wielded by our world, our flesh, and our enemy when we soak up entertainment and ignore the consequences. What, if any, of your entertainment habits need to be curbed or redirected for the sake of your soul? What are ways you are seeking to cultivate the spiritual gift of your mind — slower Bible study or memorization, reading substantive books, meaningful conversation with friends, more time in unhurried reflection and meditation?

As we learn to guard and nurture our minds as our God-given pathways to God, the kinds of mindless entertainment that are undoing millions today will be far less appealing and far less dangerous. And we will find pleasures deeper, and far more enduring, than what we see on our screens.

For a forgiven people, we can still be terribly bad at coping with our imperfection. I can be terribly bad at coping with the fact that, though redeemed, I am still deeply and pervasively imperfect.

My remaining imperfections regularly, even daily, disrupt and corrupt my thoughts, decisions, and conversations. How do you respond when you’re forced to see those same sins in the mirror again — the ones you have confessed, fought, and even overcome — only to have to rise, confess, and fight again? As God mapped out our narrow paths to glory, he chose that imperfection would be our constant (and unwanted) companion.

When I say imperfection, I’m not talking about unrepentant sin. “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. . . . No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:8–9). Unrepentant sin should disturb us until we genuinely repent and receive mercy. It should unnerve us enough to keep us awake at night. It should ruin our mental health. God will not abide in any soul where sin still reigns.

He does, however, live in souls where sin remains. In fact, every person he chooses is still darkened by some imperfection. Our remaining sin is forgiven and expiring — the day we die will be the last day we sin — but our remaining sin is still very real, and powerful, and ugly. Almost unbearably ugly at times. How could this selfishness, or impatience, or lust, or laziness, or envy possibly still entangle me?

Because God has chosen, for now, that the forgiven still be imperfect.

Well Acquainted with Imperfection

So what does a godly life of imperfection look like?

The apostle Paul was aware of his own imperfection. “Not that I have already obtained this” — the resurrection of his glorified body — “or am already perfect. . . ” (Philippians 3:12). Even as an apostle, he was acutely aware of just how not-yet he was. He knew he was an unconditionally elected, irresistibly loved, blood-bought, Spirit-filled work-in-process. An unfinished apostle. Paul was fully aware that he was not yet what he would soon be.

He was aware of his imperfections, but not paralyzed by them. “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Philippians 3:12). He didn’t just sit back and wait for his resurrection to come, but pressed on to make it his own, from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18). Knowing that God would one day make him fully righteous at the resurrection, he was all the more hungry to grow in righteousness until that day. He worked out his salvation — he really, diligently worked, with fear and trembling — for he knew that God was at work — really at work — in him (Philippians 2:12–13).

Forgiveness, for Paul, was not an excuse to make peace with sin, but drove him further into war against sin. He didn’t see his imperfection as a reason to settle for less righteousness; he saw his imperfection as motivation for more righteousness — for more of Christ. And so he pressed on to have it, to have him.

Ambitious Imperfection

In the next two verses, the apostle draws us further into his earnest, focused, and imperfect pursuit of holiness:

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. [I am not the glorified man I want to be.] But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13–14)

What does he do in the face of all his many imperfections? He presses on. “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on.” This is a picture of godly and ambitious imperfection in Christ — not clinging to a sense of self-righteousness or wallowing in the pit of self-pity, but pressing on to know more of Christ, to enjoy more of Christ, to live more like Christ.

To press on is unavoidably uncomfortable. It means meeting and overcoming resistance. The same word is used (in the same chapter) for persecution (Philippians 3:6). This pursuit of holiness is a steady, and at times aggressive, pursuit, a resilient pursuit, a determined pursuit. It’s not surprised by opposition or undone by setbacks. It’s a straining forward, he says. It keeps taking the next step toward godliness, even when the steps sometimes feel small or slow or sideways.

This resolve to press on is clarified and intensified by three life-changing mindsets — a disciplined forgetfulness, a focused longing, and an ambitious sense of security.

Disciplined Forgetfulness

We don’t often associate forgetfulness with faithfulness. Yet Paul says he presses on, “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.” The word for forgetting is the same word used in Matthew 16, when the disciples forgot to bring bread on one of their trips with Jesus (Matthew 16:5). Paul’s forgetting, however, is no accident; it’s deliberate.

So what does Paul deliberately forget? Earlier in the chapter, he catalogues his proud attempts at self-righteousness, the ways he mocked God by trying to please God on his own (Philippians 3:5–6). He knows how sinful he once was: “I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent” (1 Timothy 1:13). But grace broke through his hardness, interrupted his defiance, and led him to Jesus (1 Timothy 1:13–15). So what would he do now with the evil he had done? He consciously leaves it behind.

Everyone forgiven by God carries the memories of awful, shameful sin. Our past apart from Christ, whatever past we have, is dark enough to make any of us despair. And Satan fights hard to see that it does. He’s an accuser by vocation (Revelation 12:10). He wants us to forget all that would lift and satisfy our souls — and to remember anything that makes us question God’s love for us. And we each give him plenty to work with.

To defy him, we have to learn to forget what God has forgiven — like the loaves of bread the disciples left behind. We can’t let the sins of our past, or even the sins we’re presently battling, keep us from stepping forward, by the Spirit, into greater obedience and faithfulness today.

Focused Longing

One way to forget the regrets that would undo us is to focus on what God has promised to those he has forgiven in Christ. “One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

“The strength to endure imperfection comes from treasuring the one who died for our imperfection.”

What does lie ahead for the imperfect but forgiven? What is the prize of the upward call of God? The not-yet perfect apostle tells us earlier in the chapter, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). Knowing Jesus is the blazing fire under Paul’s persistent pursuit of holiness. Every other prize pales next to having him. Christ himself is the prize of the Christian life, the one reward worth all our obedience and sacrifice, our pearl of great price. The strength to endure imperfection comes from treasuring the one who died for our imperfection.

Can we not bear imperfection a little longer, and keep battling our remaining sin a little longer, if we know that at the end of our short, hard race here on earth is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11) — a wreath that will always satisfy and never perish (1 Corinthians 9:24–25)?

Christ Made You His Own

A third life-changing mindset, and the most crucial, is hiding in verse 14: “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Two verses earlier, he says, “I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” The redeemed life of imperfection is a captured life of imperfection.

We can keep striving to lay hold of holiness only because we know that Holiness himself has laid hold of us — and he will never let go. If you belong to him, your imperfections are imperfections purchased and cleansed by the blood of Jesus. Any not-yet-ness you find in yourself is an opportunity to remember what he paid to make you his own — as you are, sins and all — and to remember that everything ugly about you, your sins and all, will one day be made whiter than snow and brighter than the sun.

“To be sure, you are not what you will be, but even as you are, Christ has made you his own.”

In the next verse, verse 15, the apostle writes, “Let those of us who are mature” — or “perfect,” same root word as in verse 12: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect” — “Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you” (Philippians 3:15). In other words, let those of you who are complete in Christ know you are incomplete. Let those of you who are mature know you are imperfect — and chosen, and bought, and captured, and loved. To be sure, you are not what you will be, but even as you are, Christ has made you his own.

So press through your imperfections into holiness, forgetting what lies behind and pressing forward toward all that lies ahead, so that you might experience and enjoy more of Jesus.

Patience is a virtue we admire, and even aspire to, from afar. The closer it comes to us, however — the more it invades our schedule, our plans, our comfort — the more uncomfortable it becomes.

Patience exists only in a world of disruption, delays, and disappointment. It grows only on the battlefield. We cannot practice patience unless our circumstances call for it — and the circumstances that call for it are the kinds of circumstances we wouldn’t choose for ourselves. We would choose convenience, speed, efficiency, fulfillment. God often chooses circumstances that call for patience. And he never chooses wrongly.

Impatience grows out of our unwillingness to trust and submit to God’s timing for our lives. Impatience is a war for control. Patience, on the other hand, springs from different soil — from a humble embrace of what we do not know and cannot control, from a deep and abiding trust that God will follow through on all of his promises, from a heart that is profoundly happy to have him.

“The kind of patience that honors God is so hard that we cannot practice it without help from God.”

In other words, the deepest patience comes from a humble and hopeful joy in God above all else. That means that real patience is not only inconvenient, difficult, and wearying, but, humanly speaking, impossible. The kind of patience that honors God is so hard that we cannot practice it without help from God. It grows only where the Spirit lives (Galatians 5:22–23).

Many Shades of Patience

What might we say, then, practically speaking, about real patience in real life? Where could we look in Scripture to see some of the colors and texture of patience in action? One verse, in particular, humbles me and bursts with lessons for everyday patience:

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

The ways we approach each group — the idle, the fainthearted, the weak — are different, but we’re called to patience with them all. Which means we’re likely going to experience temptation to be impatient with them all (and many more besides them). So what might patience look like in each case?

Help the Weak

The weak test our patience because they need more from us than most. Many of us have an impulse, at least in the moment, to step in when we see a weak person in need, whether that person is young, or old, or sick, or emotionally or spiritually vulnerable. But weakness, we all know from personal experience, rarely stays contained within a moment, which means the weak need more than in-the-moment help; they need for-the-long-haul help — and for-the-long-haul help requires patience.

Paul does not charge the church to admonish the weak, but to help them, and the word for help here can also mean to hold firm or be devoted. There’s a tenaciousness in this help, a clinging to the weak, even after months or years of inconvenience and sacrifice. Where does that kind of patience come from? From knowing that “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6) — in other words, he died for us. And that “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27) — in other words, he chose us.

Those who know how painfully and helplessly weak they are apart from God are more ready to endure the weaknesses of others. They don’t resent helping for the hundredth time, because they gladly trust and submit to God’s plans, including the weaknesses he has placed around them.

Encourage the Fainthearted

The fainthearted test our patience because they get more easily discouraged than most. Among the Thessalonians, some were beginning to wither while they grieved the loss of loved ones (1 Thessalonians 4:13–5:11). Discouragement was drying up their spiritual strength and resolve — and so they needed more from others (who were also likely grieving).

The fainthearted lack the strength or stamina others have in relationships and ministry. They bring burdens they cannot carry by themselves. They often despair of their burdens, struggling to see how life will ever be more bearable. And we all already have our own burdens to bear, so regularly speaking grace into someone else’s emotional and spiritual needs can feel especially taxing over time. The ministry of encouragement often requires unusual endurance.

Those who keep walking with the fainthearted, even when the path is slow and winding, demonstrate the strength of a supernatural patience. They have discovered, first for themselves, and then through themselves for others, that

[God] gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:29–31)

Anyone who has experienced the gift of strength and renewal longs for other fainthearted people to experience the same. And how much sweeter when God strengthens and renews someone through us?

Every Christian experiences discouragement, which means 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 those streams run low or even dry in churches when we lack the patience needed to persevere in encouraging one another.

Rebuke the Idle

It’s not hard to see how the idle test our patience. In the case of the Thessalonians, it seems, some thought Jesus was returning imminently, and so they started shirking their work and leaving it to others (2 Thessalonians 2:1–2; 3:6).

The idle test our patience because they refuse to take responsibility and initiative. They could do more, help more, carry more, contribute in more significant ways, but they’re content to do just enough (or less), which means someone else has to do more. And when we are that someone, we understandably grow impatient.

But Paul doesn’t let the impatient off the hook, even with the idle. He does say admonish them — warn them, exhort them, wake them up — even if you have to withhold food for a time (2 Thessalonians 3:10–11) or remove them from fellowship (2 Thessalonians 3:6). Nevertheless, he says to do so with patience. Be patient with them all. What might that mean? We don’t usually associate hard words or painful consequences with patience.

Why of Patience

First, we might ask, Why are we patient, even as we admonish the idle? We’re patient with sinners, in part, because we still are one. The idleness of others — or the greed of others, or the lust of others, or the anger of others, or the vanity of others — is never so evil that we cannot see something of their sin in ourselves. It takes very little imagination for us to see that, apart from an undeserved miracle, we would be them — and perhaps far worse.

Impatience with sinners betrays a small view of God’s mercy toward us. The same apostle that says we should rebuke the idle also says,

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Timothy 1:15–16)

Even our rebukes should be seasoned with a humble awareness of our own sinfulness — of just how wicked we would be without the grace of God.

How of Patience

Knowing why we are patient, even with those we need to rebuke, how do we rebuke with patience? First, it probably needs to be said that good rebuke itself is an evidence of patience. It’s easy to give up on sinners. It’s easy to lash out and tear down someone who has sinned against us. Those who rebuke well — who aim to restore someone through honest and gentle confrontation and correction — demonstrate that they haven’t given up, and that they still have hope that God will grant conviction, forgiveness, reconciliation, and transformation.

Patience in rebuke, though, will also mean a willingness to wait for change. Sanctification can be painfully, sometimes excruciatingly, slow. We shouldn’t expect the slothful to become immediately diligent — or, for that matter, for the proud to become immediately humble, the angry to become immediately kind, the lustful to become immediately pure. We don’t overlook patterns of sin in those we love, or make excuses for their sin. We go to them, we warn them, we implore them, we even rebuke them sharply, if necessary — and we keep doing so — but we do so knowing, again firsthand, that change often comes slowly. We plant seeds knowing that they may need time to take hold, mature, and eventually blossom.

Patient God for Impatient People

We might welcome the opportunity to rebuke the lazy and negligent, but can we do so with patience? If we can’t, it’s likely because we haven’t meditated enough on the patience of God toward sinners like us — sinners like me.

“God never asks anyone to be patient who hasn’t already received the infinite riches of his patience.”

When Moses pleaded to see God’s glory, what did God reveal about himself? “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’” (Exodus 34:6). He has every reason and right to get angry with us, and yet he’s slow to anger. He’s patient with us, 2 Peter 3:9 says, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” God never asks anyone to be patient who hasn’t already received the infinite riches of his patience.

That doesn’t mean patience isn’t hard. It is. Whether in traffic on the way to work, or in a season of significant transition or uncertainty, or beside the hospital bed of someone we love, patience can require uncomfortable sacrifice and surrender. In the Father’s patience, after all, he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us. As it was at the cross, so it is with us. The painfulness of our patience serves its hidden but beautiful purpose: to call attention to the beauty and power of God’s love.

Today marks forty-nine years since the society-altering, life-plundering, God-mocking decision by the Supreme Court in Roe versus Wade. Since 1973, abortion has essentially been available on demand in America, leaving the lives of the unborn at the precarious whims of people who value their own lives above the lives of their children.

From the beginning, the delivery room has been a sacred and cursed place. Sin invaded the world, and the womb, before the first child was born. When God warned Eve, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children,” Eve had not born a child without pain. Childbirth was never painless. And it was never less than miraculous.

We’re so acquainted (and enamored) with babies now, it’s nearly impossible to imagine what it would have been like to meet the first. To see those first tiny feet. To stroke that first tiny head. To hear those first weak cries. To hold that first tiny frame. Can you imagine bearing your baby, delivering your baby, holding your baby, without having seen a baby before?

“Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord’” (Genesis 4:1). That first birth may have been the most breathtaking in history — the wild inbreaking of a new, unique, and eternal life, woven together by God from the love between that first husband and his wife. The two became one, and then, just as dramatically, three. Birth, for them, was not a choice to make, but a wonder to behold and receive with worship to their Maker.

We, however, live in a society at war over where exactly in those five short words the first baby came to life: “Eve conceived and bore Cain.” At what point was that little boy’s life a life worth preserving and defending?

Bitter Fruit of Abortion

How might that first mother — that first woman to bear the weight and pain and wonder of new life — how might Eve respond if she heard that, just this year, nearly a million mothers in the United States alone refused the life within them? What if someone told her that we kill, on average, thousands of our children every day before they even take a breath? Could she have possibly imagined that the consequences of those first sins would one day bear the bitter and brutal fruit of abortion?

Maybe she could have. That first baby, after all, went on to murder his little brother. Eve felt the sinfulness of sin as pain multiplied within her through pregnancy and delivery, and then she felt the sinfulness of sin even more as she buried her second born. And were the temptations that provoked Cain, and wiped out Abel, all that different from those fueling the abortion industry in our day? Pride, envy, selfishness, resentment, anger, greed.

Because of sin, no child has ever been born into a safe world. Far fewer children, however, have been born into a country as unsafe as ours. The United States, even in 2022, is still one of the most dangerous places on earth for an unborn person. Clark Forsythe, in his excellent book Abuse of Discretion, writes,

The United States is an outlier when it comes to the scope of the abortion “right.” The United States is one of approximately ten nations (of 195) that allow abortion after fourteen weeks of gestation. . . . When it comes to allowing abortion for any reason after viability, however, the United States is joined only by Canada, North Korea, and China. (126)

“The United States of America in 2022 is still one of the most dangerous places on earth for an unborn person.”

The twin verdicts read on January 22, 1973 did not, as is often assumed, merely permit abortion for the first three months. No, they legalized abortion at every stage of pregnancy, and for almost any reason. The U.S. is one of only four countries in the world — only four — that refuses to protect the unborn even after viability. And what defines viability? “Having reached such a stage of development as to be capable of living, under normal conditions, outside the uterus.” The U.S. and Canada are half of the nations worldwide that will not defend a baby even when that baby could already survive outside the womb. The other two are North Korea and China.

For nearly fifty years now, the United States has made the womb a minefield, and millions of our sons and daughters have become the innocent casualties of our lust for sex, for freedom, for power, for self.

Abuse of Discretion

Roe is the national monument to this decades-long death march.

The surprising, perplexing, overreaching ruling of the seven justices — Burger, Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, Blackmun, and Powell (White and Rehnquist voted against) — superseded abortion laws at the state level and functionally established a woman’s right to have an abortion at any point of her pregnancy.

In 1970, “Jane Roe” (Norma McCorvey) filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, her local district attorney, to challenge a Texas law that prohibited abortion except to save the life of the mother. Forsythe summarizes the Supreme Court’s controversial verdict:

Roe had two essential rulings based on interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which declares, in part, that no state shall deprive any “person” of “liberty.” First, the Justices interpreted “liberty” to include a “right to privacy” and held that abortion is part of the right to privacy. . . . Second, the Court held that the “unborn” are not included with other “persons” protected by the Constitution. (7)

So, a woman’s right to privacy was interpreted to include her right to abortion — despite the fact that the procedure is not done in true privacy (doctors and nurses are involved). And the unborn were not considered living people with rights, despite the wealth of medical information that suggested otherwise (not to mention, the amazing advances in technology since, which only give us better and better windows into all the evidence for real life in the womb).

Kevin DeYoung helpfully distills the myths about Roe that Forsythe exposes in his book. For instance,

Abortion was a common and widely accepted practice throughout history. No, it was rare for most of history because it was exceedingly dangerous.
Roe was based on a careful investigation of the facts. No, the deliberation spent very little time discussing facts, and focused almost exclusively on procedure.
Women were dying by the thousands because of back-alley abortions. No, at that time less than a hundred women died from illegal abortions each year, a fraction of the number reported.
Abortion is safer than childbirth. No, the seven studies that said as much at the time have all been exposed for their lack of medical data, and the short-term and long-term dangers of abortion have only become clearer and clearer, especially to the mental health of the mother.
The American public is polarized over abortion. No, the majority of Americans at the time and still today do not support abortion on demand — abortion at any time for any reason (the precedent Roe instituted).

The more one reads about the decision, the more indefensible it becomes. It really is difficult to overstate how weak the case was for perhaps the most pivotal, controversial, and corrupt verdict in our nation’s history.

The Other Roe: Redefining Health

Alongside Roe, though, was a second, similarly monumental (and yet often overlooked) case: Doe v Bolton. The ruling was handed down the same day, and was every bit as consequential.

“Mary Doe” (Sandra Cano) filed a lawsuit against the Attorney General of Georgia, Arthur K. Bolton, challenging a law that permitted abortion only in cases of rape, severe fetal deformity, or the possibility of severe or fatal injury to the mother. In the Doe decision, the justices redefined the “health” of the mother from those stricter parameters to “all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age — relevant to the wellbeing of the patient. All these factors may relate to health” (Abuse of Discretion, 150). As a result of the decision, “‘Health,’ in abortion law, means emotional well-being without limits” (8).

Functionally, this meant abortion could be justified at any time of the pregnancy for almost any reason. “Where Roe prevented any prohibition on abortion before viability, the Doe health exception eliminated prohibitions after viability as well” (8). Any consequence the mother felt — and bearing a human life is always consequential — became an excuse to end the life. We went from protecting the physical survival of the mother to preserving her sexual freedom and personal autonomy.

Forsythe quotes a Harvard Law Professor,

Doe’s broad definition of “health” spelled the doom of statutes designed to prevent the abortion late in the pregnancy of children capable of surviving outside the mother’s body unless the mother’s health was in danger. By defining health as “well-being,” Doe established a regime of abortion-on-demand for the entire nine months of pregnancy, something that American public opinion has never approved in any state, let alone nationally. (151)

Sandra Cano, it’s worth mentioning, ultimately decided not to have an abortion after she felt her baby kick (94).

The New Roe: Life at Fifteen Weeks

Even if a case were to overturn Roe, that decision in and of itself would not end abortion. Overturning Roe wouldn’t dam the river of child-killing, but it would stem the terrible tide — and unleash possibilities for new pro-life legislation. Ending Roe would return the debate to the states, which would once again give the American people the power to decide — a change faithful Christians and churches welcome and pray for.

As I write, for instance, the Supreme Court has already heard arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization about a Mississippi law that prohibits abortion after fifteen weeks (an opportunity made possible by new appointees to the Court). The justices are specifically arguing over the question, Are all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions unconstitutional?

“If Roe is overturned, Christians and churches will play an even bigger role in saving human lives.”

Whatever happens in this case, this is the future of the abortion debate: state by state, election by election, neighborhood by neighborhood advocacy for life. Forsythe reminds us, “If Roe were overturned today, abortion would be legal in at least forty-one states tomorrow, perhaps all fifty. . . . The long-term legality of abortion depends on public opinion” (348, 351). That means that if Roe is overturned, Christians and churches will play an even bigger role in saving human lives.

The Power of Wanted Pregnancy

Wherever the Dobbs case leads, and however long Roe stands, our country desperately needs to recover the sanity and wonder of wanted pregnancy. What might change in our debates, our laws, our clinics, our families if the collective American imagination awakened to the God-soaked miracle of new life?

You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:13–16)

Today, we pause to mourn fifty million lives abandoned — their forming assaulted, their weaving unraveled, their making arrested, their needs discarded, their stories suddenly and violently ended. God will repay what was stolen from them.

But we also pause to pray for him to intervene and interrupt the killing. As personally and specifically and sovereignly as he made each one of us, would he now so personally and specifically and sovereignly tear down the calamity of abortion in our land?

The habit of quiet may be harder today than ever before. Don’t get me wrong: it’s always been hard. The rise and spread of technology, however, tends to crowd out quiet even more.

Now that we can carry the whole wide and wild world in our pockets, it’s that much harder to keep the world at bay. Our phones always promise another update to see, image to like, website to visit, game to play, text to read, stream to watch, forecast to monitor, podcast to download, headline to scan, article to skim, score to check, price to compare. That kind of access, and semblance of control, can begin to make quiet moments feel like wasted ones. Who could sit and be still while so much life rushes by? Even if we don’t immediately pick up our phones, we’re often still held captive by them, wondering what new they might hold — what we might be missing.

As hard as quiet might be to come by, however, it’s still a life-saving, soul-strengthening habit for any human soul. The God who made this wide and wild world, and who molded our finite and fragile frames, says of us, “In quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). In days filled with noise, do you still find time to be this kind of strong? Or has stress and distraction slowly eroded your spiritual health?

How often do you stop to be quiet?

What God Does with Quiet

What kind of quietness produces strength? Not all quietness does. We could sell our televisions, give away our phones, move to the countryside, and still be as weak as ever. No, “in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” The quiet we need is a quiet filled with God. Quietness becomes strength only when our stillness says that we need him.

Be still, and know that I am God.     I will be exalted among the nations,     I will be exalted in the earth! (Psalm 46:10)

This still, trusting quietness defies self-reliance. Quietness can preach reality to our souls like few habits can. It says that he is God, and we are not; he knows all, and we know little; he is strong, and we are weak. Quietness widens our eyes to the bigness of God and the smallness of us. It brings us low enough to see how high and wise and worthy he is.

You can begin to see why quietness can be so hard. It’s deeply (sometimes ruthlessly) humbling. For it to say something true and beautiful about God, it first says something true and devastating about us. Our quietness says, “Without him, you can do nothing.” Our refusal to be quiet, on the other hand, says, “I can do a whole lot on my own” — and that feels good to hear. It just robs us of the real strength and help we might have found.

God strengthens the quiet with his strength, because quietness turns weakness and neediness into worship (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). We get the strength and help and joy; he gets the glory.

But You Were Unwilling

The context of Isaiah’s words, however, is not inspiring, but sobering. God says to his people,

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling . . . (Isaiah 30:15–16)

Quietness would have made them strong, but they wouldn’t have it. Assyria was bearing down on Judah, threatening to crush them as it had crushed many before them. And how do God’s people respond?

“Ah, stubborn children,” declares the Lord, “who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction.” (Isaiah 30:1–2)

Even after watching him deliver them so many times before, they cast his plan aside and made their own. They sought help, but not from him. They went back to Egypt (of all places!) and asked those who had enslaved and oppressed them to protect them. And they didn’t even stop to ask what God thought. They did, and did, and did, at every turn refusing to stop, be quiet, and receive the strength and support of God. I would rush to help you, God says, but you were unwilling. You weren’t patient or humble enough to receive my help.

“How often do we choose activity over quietness, distraction over meditation, ‘productivity’ over prayer?”

Why would they refuse the sovereign help of God? Deep down, we know why. Because they felt safer doing what they could do on their own than they did waiting to see what God might do. How often do we do the same? How often do we choose activity over quietness, distraction over meditation, “productivity” over prayer? How often do we try to solve our problems without slowing down enough to first seek God?

Consequences of Avoiding Quiet

Self-reliance is, of course, not as productive as it promises to be — at least not in the ways we would want. The people’s refusal to be quiet and ask God for help not only cut them off from his strength, but also invited other painful consequences.

First, the sin of self-reliance breeds more sin. Again, God says in verse 1, “‘Ah, stubborn children,’ declares the Lord, ‘who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin.” The more we refuse the strength of God, the more we invite temptations to sin. Quiet keeps us close to God and aware of him. A scarcity of quiet pushes him to the margins of our hearts, making room for Satan to plant and tend lies within us.

Second, their refusal to be quiet before God made them vulnerable to irrational fear. Because they fought in their own strength, the Lord says, “A thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you shall flee” (Isaiah 30:17). A lone soldier will send a thousand into a panic. The whole nation will crumble and surrender to just five men. In other words, you will be controlled and oppressed by irrational fears. You’ll run away when no one’s chasing you. You’ll lose sleep when there’s nothing to worry about. And right when you’re about to experience a breakthrough, you’ll despair and give up. Fears swell and flourish as long as God remains small and peripheral. Quiet time with God, however, scatters those fears by enlarging and inflaming our thoughts of him.

The weightiest warning, however, comes in verse 13: those who forsake God’s word, God’s help, God’s way invite sudden ruin. “This iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant.” Confidence in self drove a crack in the strongholds around them — a crack that grew and spread until the walls collapsed on top of them. All because they refused to embrace quiet and trust God.

“In quietness and trust would be our strength; in busyness and pride will be our downfall.”

For Judah, ruin meant falling into the cruel hands of the Assyrians. The walls will fall differently for us, but fall they will, if we let busyness and noise keep us from dependence. In quietness and trust would be our strength; in busyness and pride will be our downfall.

Mercy for the Self-Reliant

In the rhythms of our lives, do we make time to be quiet before God? Do we expect God to do more for us while we sit and pray than we can do by pushing through without him?

If verse 15 humbles us — “But you were unwilling . . .” — verse 18 should humble us all the more. As Judah hurries and worries and strategizes and plans and recruits help and works overtime, all the while avoiding God, how does God respond to them? What is he doing while they refuse to stop doing and be quiet?

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. (Isaiah 30:18)

While we refuse to wait for him, God waits to be gracious to us. He’s not watching to see if he’ll be forced to show us mercy; he wants to show us mercy. The God of heaven, the one before time, above time, and beyond time, waits for us to ask for help. He loves to hear the sound of quiet trust.

Blessed — happy — are those who wait for him, who know their need for him, who ask him for help, who find their strength in his strength, who learn to be and stay quiet before him.