Some years ago, a professor told our class about a brief word from his wife that lodged itself like an arrow in his chest.

A new semester was approaching, and he had labored to develop syllabi that would serve his students. He chose the books, outlined the assignments, scheduled the essays and exams, and charted a careful academic course from August to December. Then his wife, noticing such thorough professorial planning, asked her honest question: “Why don’t you give the same kind of thought and planning to our family?”

Though a single man at the time, I could still understand the sting. Now a husband and father myself, however, I can feel it. I know many men can. All too easily, we can devote tremendous effort and creativity to career or ministry, perhaps not even thinking of doing the same for family. We can show far more ambition — more thought, more planning, more intentionality, more eagerness — toward work or church than toward fatherhood. We can be passionate employees or ministry leaders, but comparatively passive dads.

Surely kids need to see a dad whose eyes look upward and outward, ambitious about serving God in work, church, the neighborhood, and beyond. But with equal surety, kids need to see a dad ambitious about being dad.

A Father’s 5-to-9

God’s own descriptions of fatherhood in Scripture show us a man who yearns to do good in the world, yes, but who also gives vast energy to the world of his family. He has not only a 9-to-5 job but a 5-to-9 job, a calling just as demanding, and often more so, than his career (and one that includes mornings and weekends as well).

The Bible’s most extended portrayal of fatherhood comes to us in the book of Proverbs, which records a father’s words to his maturing son. Much in the book reminds us that God made men for outward dominion: the call to work hard, the instructions about business and farming, the picture of the father sitting “in the gates . . . among the elders of the land” (Proverbs 31:23). But the very structure of Proverbs — affectionate, earnest, persistent counsel from a father to his son — reminds us that a man’s dominion includes being dad.

Proverbs portrays fatherhood as an all-of-life affair. The book’s dad is a Deuteronomy 6:7 kind of man, one who disciples his son at home and abroad, from morning till night. He teaches a course called “Life” in a classroom as broad as the world. We can perhaps imagine him talking to his son as they walk past the forbidden woman’s street (“Do not go near the door of her house,” 5:8), as they nearly step on an anthill (“Go to the ant,” 6:6), or as they sit down for a meal (“Eat honey, for it is good,” 24:13).

His teaching covers topics both spiritual and practical, both eternal and everyday. Across the book’s 22 instances of the phrase “my son . . .” he speaks to his son’s head, heart, hands, feet, eyes, soul, mouth, and more. He knows his boy’s particular strengths and follies. He spends enough unhurried time around him to say, “Let your eyes observe my ways” (Proverbs 23:26). And though this father has ambitions beyond his boy, he can hardly imagine himself glad apart from this young man’s lasting good (Proverbs 10:1; 17:25; 23:15, 24). He is, in a word, ambitious to be dad.

Home for Ambition

Such a broad, demanding vision of fatherhood suggests at least one reason why men can find outward ambition easier or more natural. In the end, being a godly father may prove harder than starting a company, building a career, or even becoming a pastor.

I for one feel that I have entered a more difficult job when I walk through the doorway after work. Children do not simply ask us to be good accountants or teachers or engineers or project managers: they ask us to be good men. And they do not simply require eight hours of our attention, but in some sense, all of it. If we want to be able to say, “My son, give me your heart” (Proverbs 23:26), then we will need to give them our very selves.

We need some good reasons, then, to put our passivity away and devote ourselves to being better dads. Alongside the simple fact that Scripture gives us our pattern for godly fatherhood (and all God’s patterns are good), consider three other reasons our ambition needs not only an office or a pulpit but a home: for our own soul, for the world, and for our kids.

Honest Ambition

First, ambition at home serves a man’s own soul, particularly by keeping his other ambitions honest.

An elder “must manage his own household well,” Paul writes, “for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” (1 Timothy 3:4–5). A man who struggles to lead the little fellowship inside his home will struggle to lead a larger fellowship outside it, at least in a way that pleases God. Paul’s principle holds in part because leadership skill carries over from sphere to sphere, but also for another reason: home trains a man for the specific leadership required of a Christian.

“In large part, our job as dads is to offer a faithful image of the Father who delights in his Son.”

Truly Christian leaders do not despise humble acts of hidden service (Mark 10:43), and home provides such opportunities in spades. Christian leaders gladly associate with the lowly (Romans 12:16), and children are a knee-high society. Christian leaders patiently invest in people slow to change (1 Thessalonians 5:14), and family gives daily (often hourly) practice for that kind of patience. And Christian leaders wisely apply God’s word to each person’s needs (1 Thessalonians 2:11–12), and kids come with strikingly diverse personalities and temptations.

Like Peter or John hurrying past the children, I sometimes imagine Christian ambition in terms far larger than these little ones. But then I look back and notice my Lord lingering there among them, his own ambition large enough to include kids. And I remember that unless my ambition includes the same, I am not yet fit to lead well elsewhere.

Archer’s Arrows

Second, and counterintuitively, ambition at home serves the world, at least when blessed by God.

Negatively, we might consider the sad examples of passive dads whose kids grew up to dismantle much of their work in the world. David was a mighty king, but his lack of attention at home caused chaos in his kingdom (2 Samuel 13:20–22; 1 Kings 1:5–6). And Eli lost his priesthood for letting his sons run amok (1 Samuel 2:29).

Positively, however, Scripture gives us an image of children that is anything but insular and homebound: “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth,” Solomon writes (Psalm 127:4). When a father raises children with godly ambition, he is not excusing himself from God’s mission in the world. He is an archer bent beneath the wall, sharpening his arrows. And in a world of warring spiritual kingdoms, it is no waste of time to sharpen arrows.

As with all discipleship, one paradox of fatherhood is that we often serve the world best when we focus on a few. Jesus changed the world through a few ordinary men. Fathers seek to go on changing the world through a few ordinary children. Such children may divide a man in the moment, taking his time away from good pursuits elsewhere. But with God’s favor, they do not leave him divided, but multiplied. A father’s faithful children are that man made many.

Godly men will seek to make disciples beyond their families, of course. At the same time, they will not see fatherhood as something different from making disciples. All this time at home, all these moments saying, “My son,” “My daughter,” all those days retreating from the rush of the world, all the daily dying to self — these are like a man drawing his bow, aiming to die with arrows in the air.

Dad’s Delight

Finally, ambition at home serves the eternal souls of children.

The image of arrows is helpful as far as it goes. We do well to remember, however, that children are not simply tools or weapons to be wielded — and many children have come to resent a dad who treated them as such. No, children are also gifts to be embraced. They are treasures to be cherished. They are endlessly interesting persons to be known. And in a Christian family especially, they ought to know themselves beloved.

That word beloved strikes close to the heart of good fatherhood, the kind that comes from the Father above (Ephesians 5:1). Hear this first Father’s benediction over his dear Son:

This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. (Matthew 3:17)

In large part, our job as dads is to offer a faithful image of the Father who delights in his Son. And in a world that often twists fatherhood into something utterly unlike the true Father, one of the best things we can do for our kids is to give God’s pleasure a bodily presence in our big laughter and bright eyes and strong arms — to love them so manifestly that they fall asleep feeling, My dad delights in me.

That kind of love and delight draws out generous amounts of our time and attention. It warrants creative thought and planning. It calls for the kind of initiative we often give to our career or our ministry, such that when our children look at us, they see a dad ambitious to be dad.

In our world of easy mobility and tremendous choice, life can feel like a hallway with a hundred doors.

We choose one among a hundred majors after having chosen one among a hundred schools. Then a hundred careers confront us, along with a hundred places to live. And these decisions aren’t even the most important. We choose a church among not quite a hundred options but many, consider a potential spouse from a hundred physical and digital possibilities, prioritize friendships from the hundred people we have known. True, friendships and jobs and marriages don’t always come easily (our world knows many jobless and lonely people) — yet, for many, the possibilities can seem dizzyingly diverse.

In such a world, we might feel tempted to believe that freedom consists in keeping as many options open as possible. Or if we do walk through a particular door, we would prefer to keep it propped open, just in case something better appears. Many enter one door only to retreat to the hallway shortly after, and then enter another door only to do the same — job to job, church to church, friend to friend, place to place. Or if we did choose to lock ourselves into a room (say, by getting married or having children), we might find ourselves chafing, itching, imagining what life might be like through a different door.

How hard it can be to believe, then, that in this hallway with a hundred doors, the best, most freeing decision we can make is to close ninety-nine of them. Only then will we discover the blessings of being bound — by covenant, by commitment, by friendship, by faithfulness.

Bound in the Beginning

From the very beginning, the Bible teaches a principle that seems paradoxical, and especially in a day like ours: Binding relationships liberate. Personal autonomy enslaves.

The principle appears as soon as people do. Almost immediately after he is formed from the dust of the earth, Adam, free and sinless Adam, finds himself bound by the two most enduring relationships in the world. He hears his Maker, he beholds his bride, and to both he gives his covenant loyalty (Genesis 2:16–17, 23–24). And so he becomes a worshiper and a husband, bound in spirit to his God and in flesh to his wife. He is not his own — at the same time, however, he is the freer for it.

The short story of Eden gives us glimpses into Adam’s paradoxical freedom. In being bound to God, Adam may have forfeited the freedom of self-rule, but he gained the freedom of enjoying God’s presence, reflecting God’s character, and fulfilling the mission God made him for (Genesis 1:28; 2:9, 19). In being bound to Eve, he may have lost the freedom of bachelorhood, but he gained the freedom to be fruitful and multiply and to live with one who was bone of his bones — his home in human flesh (Genesis 1:28; 2:23–24). Here is freedom without bitterness or regret, freedom naked and unashamed.

The joy of Eden was a binding joy, a committed joy, a joy where you found yourself by losing yourself. It was a joy that would weave a whole fabric of relationships, each with its own kind of binding: children, kin, and neighbors to love as yourself. And in such joy, we get a glimpse of the life God made us for. As fish need water and birds need air, as trains need tracks and cars need roads, so we need the kind of relationships that tie us to others with cords far stronger than convenience.

We need marriages bound by covenant and sealed with vows, children who call forth from us a glad fidelity to family, church communities that feel as indivisible as the human body, friendships sturdy enough to withstand opposition and offense. We need loyalty strong as a tree with roots long grown.

For as Adam and Eve show us, the alternative to such loyalty is not freedom, but a far, far worse kind of bondage — the tyranny of autonomy.

Our Great Unbending

As we watch Adam and Eve walk out of Eden, with shame wrapped around them like shackles, we see the true choice that lies before us: not whether we will be bound, but to what. In cutting the ties that bound them to God and to one another, they became entangled in a different cord, barbed and cruel. They became slaves to sin and self-will.

“We need the kind of relationships that tie us to others with cords far stronger than convenience.”

When humanity fell, we fell not only downward, but inward. We became “lovers of self” (2 Timothy 3:2), “haters of God” (Romans 1:30), and all too frequently, users and abusers of others. No wonder, then, that when God redeems us, he calls us upward (to him) and outward (to others). He begins a great unbending of our concave souls — teaching us that our great need is not to find freedom from others, but to find freedom from our dogged devotion to self.

No wonder, then, that God often speaks of our redemption using images of new and holy bindings. When we believe, God unites us to his Son (Colossians 3:3), engrafts us into his people (Romans 11:17), makes us members of Christ’s body (Ephesians 5:25), welcomes us into his household (Ephesians 2:19), and places us like living stones on the wall of his temple, surrounded on every side (1 Peter 2:5). We left our God alone; he binds us back home.

God knows that such relationships — and not only with church members but with spouses, children, roommates, and friends — have a way of freeing us from our slavery to self. And really, what else will? If our relationships operate on a kind of end-at-will basis, then what else will challenge our inward allegiance? People, with their pesky requests and intrusive needs, are marvelous foes of tyrant Self. They will become, if we allow them, so many saws that cut our inward chains.

But only if we allow them. Only if we refuse to let a little trouble take us out of the door that led us to them. For freedom is found in the binding.

Freedom Lost and Found

What kind of freedom do we find in the binding? Many kinds.

On a relatively small level, we find freedom to live within the bounds of a decision. God did not make us to continually walk through life’s hallway, wrestling again and again over the biggest decisions — whom to date or marry, which job to take, what church to join, where to live, which people to love. Nor did he make us to constantly question what life would be like had we made a different choice.

How much time, emotion, and mental energy do we spend on choices that would be wonderfully settled if we were more willing to be bound? Rather than repeatedly wondering how to live, we could get down to the business of actually living.

More significantly, we find the freedom of a broader, deeper vision, the kind that comes only with long acquaintance with the same people. Just as residents of a place know far more of its true pleasures than tourists do, residing long in certain relationships opens our eyes to marvels we would otherwise miss. For those with eyes to see, familiar people become not boring, but more beautiful, in time.

If we will allow spouses and children, church members and friends to lay their claims upon us far after the relational tourist leaves for new people, we may become like Psalm 104 explorers — this time tracing not the hills and valleys of earth but the expansive landscapes of human souls. We may discover wonders as broad as the image of God.

Most significantly, however, we find the freedom of increasingly becoming the people God made us to be.

Loveliness Born of Loyalty

The unbound life may be free of many commitments, many requests, many demands that come from close relationships, but often at the incalculable cost of a human’s highest dignity: love. “Love your God” and “love your neighbor” are not only the two greatest commandments; they are the blueprint for the fully human, the fully free, life (Matthew 22:37–39).

God made us to be burdened and bent by the glorious weight of other people. He made us to find greatness in serving others (Mark 10:43), blessedness in giving to others (Acts 20:35), joy in sacrificing for others (Philippians 2:17), true life in dying for others (Matthew 16:25). He made us to remove the bubble wrap of a selfish life so that we might see and hear and taste and touch and smell the beauty of binding relationships — relationships that can hurt, yes, but whose scars are so often better than safety.

Even in the harder seasons of our relationships — a troubled marriage, a conflicted church, an unreconciled friendship — there is a loveliness born of loyalty we will not find any other way. For God gives strength to those who set their faces like flint toward faithfulness (Philippians 4:13, 19). He has an infinite reserve of steadfast love to offer (Exodus 34:6). And as many discover, relational wildernesses can lead to a land of milk and honey, where married couples laugh again and friendships bloom again and churches bear the fruit of holy love again.

True, not every loyalty in this world is for life. Some friendships fade and church memberships transfer and jobs transition for upright reasons. But those who remain loyal longer than their flesh wants, and longer than the world advises, will discover the stunning loveliness born of loyalty, the untold blessings of being bound.

Two men went up into the temple to worship. These men, however, unlike the two in Jesus’s parable (Luke 18:9–14), looked and sounded the same. Both lifted their hands in praise. Both sat silent beneath God’s word. Both bowed their heads in confession. And yet, only one of the men went down to his house justified. Only one was right with God.

Some may find this scenario troubling. If we cannot discern a person’s spiritual sincerity by his worship, then how can we discern it? If raised hands and attentive ears and a bent head can mask a hard heart, then where does true love for God appear?

The main answer comes in Jesus’s response to a certain lawyer. “Teacher,” the man asks, “which is the great commandment in the Law?” (Matthew 22:36). And Jesus, instead of responding with a single commandment, gives two:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37–39)

“Love God” is the first and greatest commandment, the crown of God’s good law. But such love never stands alone, Jesus says — nor is it chiefly known by outward acts of worship. Rather, love for God appears (or not) in how a person treats his neighbors. So, if you want to see someone’s spiritual sincerity more clearly, don’t mainly watch him in church. Watch him with his children. Watch him at work. Watch him in traffic. Watch him when offended. For you will know him by his neighbor-love.

Jesus’s Most-Quoted Verse

While the first and greatest commandment appears in the Shema — perhaps the most prominent Old Testament passage (Deuteronomy 6:5) — “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” may seem all but buried beneath the laws and ceremonies of Leviticus. But not to Jesus. Leviticus 19:18 became his most-quoted verse — and the most-quoted verse in the entire New Testament.

Why did Jesus repeatedly return to a passage we often rush through in Bible reading? For at least two reasons. First, Leviticus 19:18 summarizes, in remarkably compact form, the heart of God’s law as it relates to our relationships. As Paul would later write, “The one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments . . . are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Romans 13:8–9). Leviticus 19:18 is like the brief surfacing of an underground river that runs through the whole Old Testament, giving life to every law.

Yet Jesus returned to Leviticus 19:18 for another reason as well: perhaps more than anything else, neighbor-love reveals the sincerity of our religion. John Calvin notes how the first table of the Ten Commandments (relating to the love of God) “was usually either in the intention of the heart, or in ceremonies.” But, Calvin continues, “the intention of the heart did not show itself, and the hypocrites continually busied themselves with ceremonies.” Which is one reason why God gave the second table of the law (relating to love of neighbor), for “the works of love are such that through them we witness real righteousness” (Institutes, 2.8.52).

Here, in everyday interactions with family, friends, strangers, and enemies, the hidden heart appears. Hence, in the parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus illustrates true spirituality not by religious ceremony (in which the priest and the Levite excelled) but by practical mercy (Luke 10:30–37). Without such mercy, the most scrupulous religious observance becomes the white paint on a coffin (Matthew 23:27). As Jesus said in another repeated quotation, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13; 12:7; quoting Hosea 6:6). Better to lend a hand on the side of the road than to arrive at the temple on time.

The spiritually dead can perform many religious ceremonies. They can gather with God’s people, pray long and often, memorize God’s laws, and tithe with precision. But they cannot love their neighbor as God requires.

Broader Neighbor, Deeper Love

At this point, however, we might ask, “Yes, neighbor-love reveals our spiritual sincerity, but can’t neighbor-love itself be feigned?” Indeed it can. Many Jews of Jesus’s day imagined they were obeying Leviticus 19:18 when they were actually obeying a command of their own making — a diminished and domesticated command more friendly to the flesh.

“Anyone can love lovely neighbors. But loving the hostile and the needy is a mark of Christlike grace.”

And so may we. The nineteenth-century preacher John Broadus notes how, precisely when we think we are loving our neighbors as ourselves, we may actually “be loving only [ourselves] — a kind of expanded selfishness” (quoted in Matthew, 160). Jesus often went to war with such “expanded selfishness.” He will not allow us to shrink neighbor-love to the level of unregenerate powers. Then and now, loving our neighbor as ourselves calls for something far beyond ourselves.

So, to stab us awake and send us running to God for mercy and help, Jesus not only tells us to love our neighbor, but he also reclaims the true meanings of neighbor and love.

Who Is My Neighbor?

When confronted with such a staggering command as “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” one of our first natural impulses is to narrow the meaning of neighbor to those who are easy to love.

The first time our Lord quotes Leviticus 19:18, he also quotes a popular addition to the command: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy’” (Matthew 5:43). Scour the Old Testament as we may, we will not land upon a command to hate our enemies (and we will find, to the contrary, commands such as Exodus 23:4–5). So, against the natural impulse to exclude enemies from the company of our neighbors, Jesus says, “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44).

Alongside enemies, the needy can easily be denied neighbor status, especially if those needy ones have no near relation to us. So, when a lawyer, “desiring to justify himself,” asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus has him picture a half-dead, stranded man, the kind of needy person who threatens to upend our schedule and empty our wallet (Luke 10:29–30). You may not know him; he may have no claim on you besides being a fellow human. But if you are near to him and able to help, then this needy one is your neighbor.

To assess the depth of our neighbor-love, then, we can ask who receives our regular care and attention. For whom do we pray (Matthew 5:44)? To whom do we “do good” (Luke 6:27)? And whom do we go out of our way to greet (Matthew 5:47)? Does the list include any enemies — those who offend us, provoke us, try us, wrong us, or simply ignore us? And does the list include any needy — the kind of people who disrupt your day and “cannot repay you” (Luke 14:14)?

If not, then our list of neighbors needs to grow. “For if you love those who love you,” Jesus asks us, “what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matthew 5:46). Anyone can love lovely neighbors. But loving the hostile and the needy is a mark of Christlike grace.

What Is Love?

Perhaps the lawyer’s question (“Who is my neighbor?”) is not our own. Perhaps we know neighbor spreads over our fellow humans whole, impartial as the sky. But what of love? Here as well, Jesus will not let us narrow the definition to something doable apart from him.

One of the most profound descriptions of true neighbor-love appears in what we know as the Golden Rule:

Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 7:12)

“This is the Law and the Prophets” bears a striking resemblance to Matthew 22:40, where Jesus says that “all the Law and the Prophets” depend on the two great commandments — suggesting that the Golden Rule offers the gold standard for neighbor-love. And what a standard it offers.

Here we find an active, practical love, a love that goes beyond well-wishing to well-doing. Here we find an imaginative love that gives time and thought to what would truly benefit another. Here we find a self-denying love that serves others regardless of how they have served us. And here we find a broad, capacious love, one whose limits extend to “whatever you wish.” “Love your neighbor” pushes us further outward than we often go, bidding us to put our neighbors at the forefront of our consciousness rather than treating them as the background characters to the play starring me.

So, along with asking whom we love, we might ask how we love. Does our love regularly inconvenience us? Does it flow from a heart warm with desire for another’s welfare in Christ? Does it take shape in concrete action rather than remaining in the mouth or imagination? And for the task-oriented among us: Do our to-do lists include the varied needs of others, and not only our own?

He Neighbored Among Us

When Jesus commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves, then, he tells us to love all our neighbors — including enemies and the needy. And he tells us to really love them — applying to them the measure of our self-love. Such love, however imperfect (and imperfect it will be till heaven), infallibly marks those who truly love God.

Yet if the first commandment becomes visible through the second, the second becomes possible only through the first. Jesus commands a deeper love than our fallen hearts can offer. He commands a love that comes from God — indeed, a love that comes from the very God who became our neighbor. Jesus, to show us this righteousness and to be for us this righteousness, came and neighbored among us.

In him, we see flawless neighbor-love unfold amid a demanding life. Here is one who loved the enemy and the outsider, who healed centurions’ sons and sought Samaritan sinners. Here is one who loved others as himself, allowing endless needs and persistent pleas to interrupt his days and infringe on his rest. Here is one who loved his neighbor even when that neighbor held a hammer and nails to his skin.

More than that, here is one who loved us — needier than a half-dead man on the roadside, more hostile than any enemy we’ve known. Only love such as his can bend our hearts away from religious formalism to obey the first commandment. And only love such as his can fill our hearts enough to obey the second. Loving our neighbors as ourselves flows from being loved by Jesus, deeply and daily.

“Let every Christian take up the duty of Christian love with tenfold seriousness,” the Scottish pastor Maurice Roberts once wrote. And let him do it by beholding Jesus with tenfold attention, devotion, and love.

Several weeks ago, I bore witness to a miracle. It was the kind of miracle I had often prayed for — and the kind I had come not to expect. And then, in an ordinary moment of an ordinary day, it happened.

A man I have long known and loved, a man I have poured into and prayed for, a man I have sometimes despaired of and sinned against, changed. He really changed. The Spirit of God moved upon the waters of his soul, shining light into an old and stubborn darkness, and I bore witness to a startling, miraculous act of obedience. It was a moment worthy of angels’ admiration.

As I reflect on the miracle now, and the years leading up to it, I find myself wishing I could take back many impatient responses along the way: cynical thoughts, reproofs spoken in fleshly frustration, unbelieving prayers on his behalf, unrighteous inner anger. But even more, I find myself marveling at the patience of God unashamed to call this man — and me — his own.

So often, I labor for others’ growth on a timeline dramatically shorter than God’s. Whereas I tend to track others’ progress in terms of days and weeks, “the living God,” says David Powlison, “seems content to work . . . on a scale of years and decades, throughout a whole lifetime” (Making All Things New, 61). And oh, how I want to be like him — zealously yearning for change, faithfully praying for change, and then patiently waiting for change.

For miracles are wondrous things. But many miracles take time and remarkable patience.

Disciples of Perfect Patience

The apostle Paul knew something of such patience. His own testimony bore the marks of God’s long-suffering love, his “perfect patience” (1 Timothy 1:16). And Paul remembered that patience. He couldn’t forget it.

In response, he lived and ministered with a profound patience of his own. What else could have kept Paul loving churches that sometimes broke his apostolic heart — churches like Corinth or Galatia? Though slandered (2 Corinthians 10:1–2), though underappreciated (Galatians 4:15–16), though repeatedly faced with startling folly and sin (1 Corinthians 3:1–4), Paul remained patient, a disciple of God’s perfect patience. He yearned, he prayed, he labored, he pleaded, but he also waited “with utmost patience” (2 Corinthians 12:12). He let miracles take their God-appointed time.

And so he instructed others. “Reprove, rebuke, and exhort,” O Timothy — yet do so “with complete patience” (2 Timothy 4:2). “Admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak,” dear Thessalonians — yet “be patient with them all” (1 Thessalonians 5:14). Patience, for Paul, was not merely one way of responding among many: it was a robe to clothe all responses.

“Miracles are wondrous things. But many miracles take time and remarkable patience.”

Where might such “complete patience” come from? Where might we find the strength to be patient not just with the outwardly hopeful, or with those whose struggles we understand, but “with them all”? Patience like Paul’s comes in part (as we’ve seen) from the backward glance, from the story of God’s patience with us. But Paul also gives us more. For so often, as he responds to sin and folly with patience, his eyes are looking ahead.

Imagine Them Then

Consider the Christian who causes you the most grief: a brother or sister in your small group, a parent or sibling, your own believing child. What do you see when you look at this person, especially in his worst moments? A stubborn young man, perhaps, who can’t seem to take counsel seriously. Or maybe a flaky woman whose “yes” is actually “we’ll see” and often “no.” A headache or a heartache. An inconvenience or an interruption. A waste of time.

Those assessments are understandable, at least to a man like me. But what did Paul see? He saw, no doubt, a troubled soul, just as we do. But whereas we often see only what is, Paul had an astounding ability to see what could be — and in Christ, what will be. We see a house unfinished; Paul saw an unfinished house. He saw stumbling saints in light of who they one day would become:

I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (Philippians 1:6)

The picture frame I place around people is often no more than a cramped little square: I imprison them in the present moment, neglecting to see where they came from or where they’re going. But what a broad frame the apostle used! Broad enough to see the darkness and death from which others came (“he who began a good work in you . . .”) — and broad enough to see the light and life to which they are headed (“. . . will bring it to completion”).

Paul could still see the present moment, of course. And his patience did not prevent him from rebuking and reproving, nor from earnestly warning when needed. But when he looked upon someone in Christ — repenting, believing, yet often stumbling — today was not as important to him as “the day of Jesus Christ,” when this unimpressive saint would shine like the sun in the kingdom of God (Matthew 13:43).

And so, he could look upon today’s stumbling and see tomorrow’s standing. He could trace a line between today’s discouraging failure and tomorrow’s final victory. He could imagine the angry turned calm, the lustful made pure, the grumbling quietly content, and the bitter full of forgiveness — not because people themselves are so full of promise, but because our faithful God finishes whatever he begins.

Name Them Now

Ah, yes, I find myself thinking. Paul wrote those words to the Philippians, a maturing church. Would he say the same to the struggling? Indeed he would; indeed he did. He begins his letter to the Corinthians in much the same way (1 Corinthians 1:8–9). And as he does, he reveals another dimension of godly patience: the patient not only imagine other Christians then; they also draw that future reality down into the present moment and name these Christians now. They see, in Christ, that the sun of another’s life is rising, not setting, and then they define this person by the coming day, not the lingering night.

And so Paul, though discouraged and disappointed by the Corinthians’ slow progress, begins his letter with their true name: “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1 Corinthians 1:2). O Corinthians, you might act sometimes like sinners and fools, but that’s not who you are. In Christ, your name is saint.

We find this patient naming elsewhere as well, perhaps especially in Peter’s life. When he saw himself as merely “a sinful man,” worthy to be forsaken by Jesus, our patient Lord named him a fisher of men (Luke 5:8–10). Later, when Peter surely felt like little more than a lost and desperate sheep, our patient Lord named him a shepherd (John 21:15–17).

Every failed Peter needs someone to believe that failure need not define him. Every stumbling Corinthian needs someone to see his sin and still call him saint. Every discouraged Christian needs someone to lift his eyes to the coming day, when all the soul’s shadows will flee before the face of our patient and purifying Christ.

Of course, we don’t want to give anyone a name that God himself doesn’t give. But if Jesus could see a shepherd in Peter, and if Paul could see saints in the Corinthians, then surely we can name others more hopefully than we sometimes do. And what a difference such a name might make. When we feel utterly lost in some forest of failure, a faithful name can be like a path that suddenly appears and a light to guide our way. I don’t need to stay here, such a name suggests. In Jesus, I can be more than I am right now.

Room for Good to Grow

Several times in Paul’s letters, the grace of patience holds hands with another Spirit-given virtue: kindness. “Love is patient and kind,” he tells the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 13:4). He writes also of “the riches of [God’s] kindness and forbearance and patience” (Romans 2:4). In the garden of the Holy Spirit, the two grow side by side: “patience, kindness” (Galatians 5:22).

“Every failed Peter needs someone to believe that failure need not define him.”

Such a pairing suggests that the truly patient do not merely hold their tongue or restrain their burning frustration behind a forced smile. No, their patience is the product of a deeper passion, godly and pure: a love of kindness, the very kindness that leads to repentance (Romans 2:4). As God has been patiently kind with us — as God is, right now, patiently kind with us — so we love to be patiently kind with others.

Imagine, then, patience like the walls of a garden, protecting the fragile shoots of grace in another’s soul. Whereas impatience lets wind destroy and animals trample and chew, patience gives room for good things to grow. It gives room for kindness to shine like the sun and fall like rain, for the work that God began to grow toward completion.

You and I, dear Christian, are a garden within God’s walls. Whatever grace we have is a miracle wrought by his patience and nourished by his kindness. And the same miracles still happen today. We may see more of them if we pray, and imagine, and name, and wait, and robe our every word with some of the patience we have received from him.

When a man stands before his bride and says, “I do,” his relationship with God suddenly takes on a new shape.

His relationship with her takes on a new shape, no doubt — as new as two becoming one. But so too does his relationship with God. No more will he relate to God simply as a single man. He is now a head with a body, an Adam with an Eve, a husband with a wife.

The apostle Peter gives us men a sense of what’s at stake. “Live with your wives in an understanding way,” he tells husbands, “so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7). The prayers of a single man can certainly be hindered — say, if he lives in unrepentant sin (1 Peter 3:12). But on his wedding day, a new element enters a man’s prayer life: how he treats his wife now has a direct bearing on how God hears him (or not). For God does not listen to the prayers of an unrighteous husband.

When a man becomes a husband, then, the path of his discipleship runs through the rooms and halls of his marriage. Just as Adam could not image God faithfully while neglecting or mistreating Eve, so a husband cannot follow Jesus well without loving his wife. A bad husband may still be a good employee, a good sports coach, or even a good neighbor, but he cannot be a good Christian.

We could describe God’s calling on a husband in many ways. But one particular description has helped to capture my focus (and give me a whole lifetime of work): a good husband brings out the best in his wife.

Bring Out Her Best

This calling to bring out a wife’s best confronts us every time we say the word husband. For, in one sense of the word, to husband is to cultivate, to bring forth flowers from buds and fruit from seeds. A good husband kneels in the garden of his wife’s soul, laboring by God’s grace to draw forth latent beauty, to become a spade in the Holy Spirit’s hands, used by him to bear his wonderful fruit (Galatians 5:22–23). Like the perfect heavenly Husband, a good earthly husband nurtures his wife toward resplendence (Ephesians 5:25–27). He brings out her God-given best.

“A good husband brings out the best in his wife.”

To be sure, this husbandly calling does not mean a woman is helpless without a good man — Ruth, Abigail, Anna, Phoebe, and others testify to the contrary. Nor does the calling suggest that a husband’s godliness guarantees his wife’s — some quarrelsome women contend against good men (Proverbs 21:9). Nor does a husband’s responsibility diminish the profound effects a good woman may have on him.

Nevertheless, the point and the general pattern still stand. The beauty of a godly woman often blooms best in the soil of a godly man. As Jonathan Leeman writes, “Few things on this earth can strengthen, embolden, empower, encourage, enliven, or build up a woman like a head who is devoted to her good” (Authority, 174) — like a husband who gives himself to bringing out her best.

And how do normal, imperfect husbands like us become such men? I have been striving after two simple postures vital for godly husbands: love her and lead her.

Love Her

The first posture faces inward. Here Adam sings over Eve (Genesis 2:23), the wise son rejoices in “the wife of [his] youth” (Proverbs 5:18), the smitten lover gets lost in his beloved’s eyes (Song of Solomon 1:15), the marveling man praises his excellent bride (Proverbs 31:28–29). “Christ loved the church,” the apostle Paul tells us (Ephesians 5:25), and good husbands love to learn his ways. By the inward-facing posture, we admire all that’s lovely in a wife, and we adore her into deeper loveliness.

Love, of course, is a many-petaled rose. Consider just a few of the petals.

Enjoy Her

Such love often looks like a smile and sounds like laughter. It may joke and dance and make a man do silly things. It writes unlooked-for love notes and takes her by the arm into adventure. It does not allow children and jobs and homes and bills to silence the song once sung, but finds ways to fill ordinary days with the unashamed joy of Eden.

“Enjoy life with the wife whom you love,” the Preacher tells us (Ecclesiastes 9:9). Yes, “rejoice in the wife of your youth”; let her love make you woozy (Proverbs 5:18–19). For such joy says something wonderful and true about the great Groom: he is never bored with his bride.

“The beauty of a godly woman often blooms best in the soil of a godly man.”

Some flowers raise their heads at the sight of the sun; many a wife raises hers at the sight of a glad and admiring man. True, not every married moment can know the poetry of deep pleasure, the wine of overflowing delight. Some days, we live by the water and prose of covenant loyalty. But if our marriages never wear white robes, never anoint themselves with the oil of gladness and say, “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away” (Song of Solomon 2:13), then some of her best will lie hidden within.

Serve Her

In our Lord Jesus, affection joins hands with sacrifice. He loved the church, and so he “gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). Now united with him, the church receives his daily nourishing and cherishing. He loves and serves her as his own body (Ephesians 5:29–30). And so, the pattern holds in other happy husbands. They are Jacobs who gladly serve seven years and more for their Rachel — and their love makes the labor feel light (Genesis 29:20).

A godly husband’s service will include all manner of practical duties, no doubt. Take care of the yard; plan for the family; clean up after dinner; spend regular, unhurried time with the kids while she gets away — he will lift what weights he can from her body, her task list, her time. But a Christian husband also looks deeper and asks how he can serve her spirit.

How can he nourish and cherish not just her outer self but her inner self (Ephesians 5:29)? How can he wash her heart with the cleansing water of God’s word (Ephesians 5:26)? In the end, although Jesus uses husbands, only he has the power to bring out the best in a wife. So, what rhythms of Bible reading and prayer and fellowship will a man weave into the family’s life such that she, like Mary, lingers often at the feet of her Lord (Luke 10:39)?

Honor Her

A husband who enjoys his wife and serves his wife certainly honors his wife. But a good husband’s honor also goes further. He not only embraces her and smiles upon her, helps her and speaks God’s word over her; he also lifts his voice to praise her. Like the husband in Proverbs 31, he speaks words that echo her excellence back to her (Proverbs 31:28–29).

The apostle Peter names honor as a particular husbandly privilege, and as he does, he fastens our attention to where the deepest honor is due. Honor your wives, he says, “since they are heirs with you of the grace of life” (1 Peter 3:7). She is a queen, this wife of yours, a daughter of God and an heir of eternity. The world may miss the true beauty of this heavenly heir, “the imperishable beauty” in “the hidden person of the heart”: her “gentle and quiet spirit,” her refusal to “fear anything that is frightening” (1 Peter 3:4, 6). But such beauty need not, should not, be lost on you.

A godly husband’s praise, of course, cannot be false; he cannot flatter. But I imagine most husbands err in the opposite direction: not by praising inappropriately, but by remaining silent as our wives parade praiseworthiness before us. When the silence is broken, however, a husband’s praise often bears fruit. As he honors the grace in her — noting it, loving it, speaking it — he helps to bring forth more of it.

Lead Her

So far, we’ve considered a husband’s inward-facing posture. But a good husband, a husband who brings out his wife’s best, faces outward also. He loves her, yes, and looks often into her eyes. But he also leads her, inviting her to join him on a mission far larger than marriage.

“Whatever her gifts, the way a husband leads will either draw them out or bury them.”

God gave Eve to Adam not just so he would sing the poetry of love over her, but so they both would sing the poetry of God’s reign over all the world (Genesis 1:28). He intended the two of them to become not only one but many, as together they multiplied God’s image through the earth. He gave them marriage for mission — a mission that cannot succeed apart from inward love, but that cannot succeed either if inward love never turns outward. And as so many husbands have discovered, some of the best in a woman appears only as she turns her heart, her mind, her soul toward need.

Toward what kind of need? The answers to that question are many. The mission of any Christian marriage will take its bearings from Jesus’s Great Commission (Matthew 28:19–20), but the possibilities beneath that banner are broad. For direction, a husband will need to look to the gifts that God has given him, and that includes his greatest earthly gift of all: his wife.

Perhaps God has made your marriage to flourish and bear fruit in the harvest field of an unreached people. Perhaps he has made your wife capable of mothering many children, of bearing and fostering and adopting till no minivan can hold you all. Perhaps she has the skills of an incredible host and neighborhood evangelist. Whatever her gifts, the way a husband leads will either draw them out or bury them, make the most of them or mute them.

In my own marriage, the needs of young children and a young church have brought out beauties in my wife that I never could have called forth on my own. And wonderfully, watching her devote her days to the needs of toddlers and saints, to the demands of a home and a fellowship, has only made me love her more.

So it often happens. A marvelous cycle begins: a man loves his wife and leads her into mission — and while on mission, he falls more in love. And over time, with much mercy along the way (for we husbands often stumble in our calling), her soul’s garden becomes more flowered and fragrant, and anyone with eyes to see gets a glimpse of that bride who will one day appear “in splendor” (Ephesians 5:27), the perfected beloved of her perfect Bridegroom.

To many, the idea of self-examination sounds about as enjoyable as standing before the mirror and slowly surveying your bodily imperfections. Who has heard, “Let’s spend some time examining ourselves,” and smiled?

For some, self-examination may even recall memories we have tried hard to forget. Maybe, in some miserable past, we spent untold hours digging inwardly, desperately trying to root out hidden sins. In the process, we discovered just how dark and hopeless — how Christless — life underground can be.

I can sympathize. I remember times when I felt locked in my own soul like Christian in the castle of Giant Despair. I’ve lived through long seasons without spiritual sunshine. Morbid introspection still tempts me today.

“In Scripture, healthy saints look outward mainly, but they don’t look outward only.”

But alongside that dismal past and present danger, I’ve also discovered something unexpected: the cure for unhealthy introspection is not simply to think about yourself less, but to think about yourself better. Yes, self-examination can become a prison cell of introspective gloom — but it need not. Done rightly, self-examination can become a pathway to spiritual health, a friend who leads us inward only to lead us further outward, who shows us self so we might see more of Christ.

Search Me, O God

But why, some may ask, do we need to examine ourselves at all? If God transforms us as we behold Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18), why would we spend any time beholding self? We change by the outward look, not the inward, don’t we?

Indeed we do. We are plants who grow by the rain of self-forgetful worship, the sun of Christward praise. Nevertheless, even well-watered, well-lit plants need to watch for thorns. Similarly, self-examination doesn’t grow us by itself, but it may clear the ground for growth — and keep us from getting choked.

In Scripture, healthy saints look outward mainly, but they don’t look outward only. Like Timothy, they keep a close watch not only on the gospel but on themselves (1 Timothy 4:16). Like David, they love to consider God’s glory in sky and Scripture, but they also allow that glory to illuminate self (Psalm 19:11–14). As the author of Hebrews exhorts, they devote their best attention to “looking to Jesus,” but from time to time they also consider the weights and sins that slow their pace (Hebrews 12:1–2).

The wise know that spiritual progress yesterday does not guarantee spiritual progress today. Judases become traitors and Demases become worldlings one small, self-deceived step at a time. And as both history and experience testify, it is all too possible to live a half-life as a Christian, bearing tenfold fruit when one hundredfold could be ours — if only we would stop to pull the thorns that block our way.

“The unexamined life is not worth living,” Socrates famously said. And we justly add that the unexamined soul will not go on living — or will limp instead of run.

How to Examine Yourself

How then might we examine ourselves without becoming imprisoned by introspection? How might we draw water from the soul’s well without falling in?

Healthy self-examination can take many forms, and what helps one soul may help another less. As with prayer and Bible reading and other spiritual disciplines, Scripture gives us principles but leaves plenty of room for personal application. Consider, then, some basic guidelines for self-examination and how you might make them your own.

1. Plan to examine yourself.

Often, self-examination becomes morbid when it turns from a spiritual practice to a spiritual atmosphere: a vague cloud of condemnation that follows you around, a crippling sense of self-consciousness.

Scripture never counsels such a constant inner gaze. The life of a saint is a self-forgetful, Godward, others-oriented life. “Love God” and “love neighbor” are the twin priorities of our days (Matthew 22:37–39); “examine yourself” is a practice meant to serve those greater loves. And strangely enough, one way we might reclaim healthy self-examination is by giving it a thoughtful, well-defined spot in our schedule. Instead of perpetually examining yourself, plan to examine yourself.

“Only the Searcher of hearts can expose our hearts; only God can make us known to us.”

Such a plan will include a specific when. Many saints across church history have benefited from a brief time of self-examination every evening, a few minutes when we can remember the day’s mercies and confess the day’s sins. But for growing in the practice of self-examination, especially for those prone to morbidity, I might suggest something a little longer but less frequent — say once a week (perhaps in place of a normal devotional time).

As important as the when is the what. Where will you focus your attention? For most of us, “examine yourself” offers too broad a charge. But “examine your prayer life,” “examine your friendships,” “examine your parenting,” “examine your relationship with money” — these we can get our hands around.

I find it helpful to think in two broad categories for self-examination: callings and concerns. By callings, I mean the areas of responsibility God has given you: disciple of Jesus, husband or wife, mother or father, church member, friend, neighbor, employee, and so on.

And by concerns, I mean those areas of your soul that call for careful attention. Say, for example, you feel a pang of envy on a Tuesday afternoon at work. You confess the pang but don’t have time in the moment, or perhaps even in the day, to plumb its depths, even though you sense it would be helpful to do so. Why did I feel that? Where did that come from? Having a plan for self-examination allows you to say, “I’m not sure, but I don’t need to figure that out now. I’ll return to it on Friday” — or whenever you have planned.

2. Let God’s word guide you.

So there you are on Friday morning (or whenever), with time set aside for self-examination. What might that time look like? We might take some cues from David’s prayer in Psalm 139:23–24:

Search me, O God, and know my heart!     Try me and know my thoughts!And see if there be any grievous way in me,     and lead me in the way everlasting!

David knows that only the Searcher of hearts can expose our hearts; only God can make us known to us. So, instead of diving into his own soul unaided, he asks God himself to search him.

Notice, however, that David doesn’t simply ask God to search him; he also places himself in the presence of this searching God. Most of Psalm 139 travels the depths of God, not self. David stands in awe of God’s all-knowing thoughts, God’s all-seeing eyes, God’s all-encompassing presence, God’s all-consuming righteousness. And then, in the context of this profound Godwardness, David says, “Search me.”

Psalm 139 (and the rest of Scripture) gives self-examination a decidedly asymmetrical focus: we see ourselves rightly only in relation to God. So, if you want to examine yourself well, follow David and place yourself in God’s presence. Practically, as you examine yourself, allow adoration to play just as significant a role as confession. And all along the way, treat God’s word as your best guide — the word given for our reproof and correction (2 Timothy 3:16), the only word that can discern the heart (Hebrews 4:12).

To that end, consider choosing a passage relevant to your present focus and using it like a pathway into the soul. If you want to examine your prayer life, linger over the Lord’s Prayer. If you want to examine your husbanding, look into the mirror of Ephesians 5:22–33. If you want to get beneath some persistent tug toward bitterness, walk slowly through Psalm 37 or 73. And as you do, ask God himself to search you.

3. Query your soul and confess your sins.

To sharpen our self-examination, we might look again to David’s prayer. As he asks God to search him, he doesn’t ask God to reveal everything about him. But he does ask to see “any grievous way in me” — any unknown or half-known sin, any deepening unbelief, any developing pattern that could keep him from following “the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:24).

Similarly, we don’t need to treat self-examination as an exhaustive enterprise. We cannot know everything about ourselves, or even everything about one part of ourselves. No matter how self-aware we become, we will die knowing ourselves, just as we know God, only “in part” (1 Corinthians 13:12). But we do want to see anything that needs our present attention — any poisonous bud that could open into grievous sin.

As we meditate on a passage, we may find help from asking questions like the following (drawn from page 148 of Tim Keller’s book Prayer):

Am I living in light of this?
What difference does this make?
If I believed and held to this, how would that change things?
When I forget this, how does that affect me and all my relationships?

If such questions reveal sins we have tolerated, habits we need to stop, subtle compromises that have grown over time, good — our self-examination is bearing fruit. An hour ago, something troubling lay hidden in the soul; now no longer. Now we can take it, place it before the Lord who knows us exhaustively yet loves us eternally, and say with David,

I acknowledged my sin to you,     and I did not cover my iniquity;I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”     and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. (Psalm 32:5)

4. Forget about yourself.

Self-examination, like deep-sea diving, is a good but occasional exercise. God has not given us enough light or oxygen to swim always in the deeps; sun and air and land await us above. So, once you have queried your soul and confessed whatever sins you’ve seen, return to the surface.

“The end of self-examination is not self-consciousness, but Christ-consciousness.”

The prayer acronym A.C.T.S. puts thanksgiving after confession for good reason: in Christ, confession of sin is not a room but a doorway, not a wall but a path. God would not have us sit forever in some gloomy cellar of guilt; he would have us sing under the blue sky of his kindness and walk in the broad fields of his grace, his steadfast love our atmosphere (Psalm 32:10). So, if self-examination does not regularly lead us to a fuller, deeper, sweeter taste of God’s grace in Jesus, then somewhere self-examination has gone wrong.

The end of self-examination is not self-consciousness, but Christ-consciousness. Yes, we have scrutinized our souls for a time, but only so we might bring our sins to Christ and receive his strength to walk a better way. The last step of self-examination, then, is simply this: forget about yourself. Go love your God. Go love the people he has placed before you. Go walk in “the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:24).

On my desk sits a book with a dark image on its cover: a Christian soldier stands alone, surrounded by spiritual enemies. Seven arrows and a spear aim at his heart; death and the devil draw close. The soldier has some armor and a shield, but he still looks desperate — outmatched, outmanned, and utterly aware of it. He folds his hands and looks to heaven.

As a portrayal of the Christian’s spiritual warfare, the image holds some merit. We live in “the evil day” (Ephesians 6:13). Lies fly toward us like invisible arrows as we engage “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2). We often feel besieged and beleaguered, tempted and tossed, pushed down and kept down. O Lord, we cry, deliver us.

If we imagine, however, the saints of Christ always defending, and never advancing, our idea of spiritual warfare needs a sharper blade. As Richard Lovelace writes, “In folk religion the posture of the Christian toward fallen angels is defensive; in Scripture the church is on the offensive, and the blows it receives from Satan come from a retreating enemy” (Dynamics of Spiritual Life, 136).

“We are, first and foremost, not a church attacked, but a church attacking.”

Our Lord Jesus did not commission his disciples to hunker down and protect themselves, but to launch the world’s most epic offensive (Matthew 28:19–20). We are, first and foremost, not a church attacked, but a church attacking. And so, among the spiritual weapons Paul hands believers in Ephesians 6:12–18, we find not only “the sword of the Spirit,” but also “as shoes for your feet . . . the readiness given by the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15, 17).

Peace in our hearts, gospel on our lips, we are messengers of the triumphant Christ, the tide of war irreversibly on our side.

The Soldier’s Shoes

Some uncertainty surrounds the Christian soldier’s shoes in Ephesians 6:15. In Roman warfare (from which Paul seems to have drawn some of his imagery), a soldier’s shoes helped him to stand firmly under attack — and in context, Paul calls Christians to “stand” three times (Ephesians 6:11, 13–14). So maybe “the readiness given by the gospel of peace” means our readiness to stand immovable in the true gospel rather than being “tossed to and fro . . . by every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:14).

On the other hand, Paul’s language here bears a striking resemblance to the prophet Isaiah’s description of the happy gospel messenger: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness!” (Isaiah 52:7). Iain Duguid notes that the words feet, good news, and peace appear closely together only three times in Scripture: Isaiah 52:7, Nahum 1:15 (an echo of the Isaiah text), and Ephesians 6:15. These shoes, then, seem made for more than standing firm: they’re made for marching.

Notice also the fury of the devil’s attacks in Ephesians 6. In this battle, flaming darts fly, swords maim, and helmets get tested. Only “the whole armor of God” will guard us (Ephesians 6:13). Consider, however: Upon what kind of church is the devil likely to launch such a full-throttled assault? Upon a calm and quiet church? Upon a church that keeps to its own business? Upon a church that shares the gospel only on Sundays and in small group?

Perhaps. The devil hates faith in Christ wherever he finds it. But his real dread is an advancing church. The feet he hates most are marching feet, tramping feet, feet whose forward steps thunder his coming doom (Romans 16:20).

“Wherever they go, Christian soldiers are willing, eager, ready to talk about Jesus.”

Just as Pharaoh didn’t mind the Israelites until they multiplied, the devil may not mind silent churches all that much. But he will unleash his powers to keep the front line from advancing, to keep the church of Christ from placing one more foot on his domain of darkness. He will bend back his bow against any man or woman who embraces Paul’s ambition: “[Pray] for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly” (Ephesians 6:19).

Evangelistic Misconceptions

Paul’s description of the church’s evangelistic task corrects some common misconceptions.

First, Paul hands this armor to the whole church, not just its pastors and evangelists. Yes, the risen Christ has given “evangelists” to the church (Ephesians 4:11), those wonderfully restless saints who itch to speak of Jesus and seem to do so effortlessly. But Jesus gave such evangelists “to equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:12), a work that includes speaking “the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15). Some Christians are formal, gifted evangelists; every Christian is a messenger.

Second, Paul has in mind proactive, not merely reactive, evangelism. Christians who follow Jesus faithfully may indeed attract notice and even questions, and our gospel shoes make us ready for such moments (1 Peter 3:15). But the feet of God’s messengers are “beautiful” precisely because they “bring good news” (Isaiah 52:7), not because they offer it when asked. Such shoes send us to people and places we never would have approached otherwise. They spur us to cross oceans or cross streets, strike up words with strangers and ask bold questions, invite over neighbors no one else would.

Third, faithful evangelism relies far more on will and desire than it does on methods. No doubt, methods can be helpful in evangelism. But methods cannot create a desire to share Christ where it doesn’t already exist. So, in Ephesians 6:15, Paul fastens upon the Christian soldier’s readiness: “As shoes for your feet . . . put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.” Wherever they go, Christian soldiers are willing, eager, ready to talk about Jesus.

With Christ Our Captain

Perhaps, like me, you need help putting on these shoes. I can think of two recent situations where I was not ready and missed a wide-open opportunity to speak a word about Jesus. On many days, I find myself far more ready to work, rest, read, play, eat, or even do chores than to say “Jesus” to a friend or neighbor. How, then, might we become more ready to speak the gospel of peace?

“Every faithful word you speak has the authority of the King behind it. Every hill you see will one day wave his flag.”

In some ways, simply meditating on that word readiness might begin to shape our daily prayers and plans. Ready Christians, or Christians who want to be ready, have a habit of praying, “Lord, give me opportunities to speak of you today — and give me the courage to take them.” They also have a habit of putting themselves in places and among people where opportunities are likely to arise.

But the most stirring thoughts come from remembering the kind of spiritual battle we’re fighting — and what Captain we follow.

He Came and Conquered

Consider, first, the Captain you follow. Unlike some, he does not issue commands from the back of his army. Nor does he hide himself among his troops, like some Ahab wearing another’s robes (1 Kings 22:30). No, before he ever handed us shoes and called us to go, “he came” (Ephesians 2:17). He came and preached peace. He came and made peace. He came and became our peace (Ephesians 2:14–15, 17). He rode not just at the head of the army, but alone, utterly alone — our solitary Victor, high and lifted up.

And now, his every call comes with a promise: “Behold, I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20). The shoes he hands us are an invitation to run in his beautiful footsteps, to publish the peace he won, and all along the way, to know a fellowship with him that comes only as we advance his cause.

He Will Fill the Earth

Then, second, look to where your Captain leads. When Paul mentions the “rulers” and “authorities,” the “cosmic powers” and “spiritual forces of evil” in Ephesians 6:12, he surely means for us to see them as fearsome enemies. But he also means for us to remember what he wrote in chapter 1, where he tells us that Jesus, our risen Lord, is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (Ephesians 1:21). He is, moreover, “head over all things,” with the church as “his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:22–23).

Christ, our exalted and unassailable Captain, already holds dominion over every foe. Their time is short, their days numbered. His kingdom has already spread to a degree terrible for our enemy to see. And the spreading must continue. His kingdom will advance until the gates of hell lie fallen beneath the feet of the triumphant body of Christ.

And so, J.I. Packer writes to every trembling evangelist,

You are not on a fool’s errand. You are not wasting either your time or theirs. You have no reason to be ashamed of your message, or halfhearted and apologetic in delivering it. You have every reason to be bold, and free, and natural, and hopeful of success. (Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, 116)

Every faithful word you speak has the authority of the King behind it. Every hill you see will one day wave his flag. Don’t imagine, then, Christian, that you are a soldier simply on defense. Yes, take the whole armor of God; shield yourself from assault. But put on your shoes as well — and pray and run and speak beneath the banner of your advancing King.

Some truths about God we receive into our minds as we might receive a houseguest, expecting them to behave nicely and generally keep the furniture in place. But then, sooner or later, we hear the sounds of drills and saws. We feel the rumble of a sofa being dragged across the floor. And we discover that we have welcomed not a houseguest but a construction worker.

One such truth, for many of us, is the sovereignty of God. That God “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11) struck me, at first, as both biblically plain and experientially sweet. I became a Calvinist almost without realizing it. But then, in time, no truth caused me more mental angst, and even anguish, than this doctrine of God’s total, unstoppable sovereignty. I had imagined myself the calm host of this truth, until my mind became a construction zone.

“Over creation, over history, and over hearts, God reigns.”

Many could testify to a similar experience of mental renovation. Open the door to God’s sovereignty, and walls of supposed rationality may collapse. Stairways of instinct may be turned right around. A whole new floor of possibility may be added. You will emerge “renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Ephesians 4:23), but the process may sometimes feel like a hammer blow.

How Sovereign Is He?

Whatever place God’s sovereignty has in our present mental framework, we may find help from Acts 4:23–31, a passage that has renovated many minds. Perhaps nowhere else in Scripture do we get such a sweeping sense of God’s sovereignty in so small a space.

The early church prays, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them . . .” (Acts 4:24). Their “sovereign Lord” is none other than the sovereign Creator of Genesis 1: star-speaker, mountain-maker, ocean-carver, creature-crafter. And as the rest of Scripture celebrates, the same God who spoke the world into being goes on speaking, upholding “the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3). His sovereignty over creation continues every second. Not a blade of grass grows without him saying so.

But his sovereignty doesn’t end with creation. “Sovereign Lord . . . who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, ‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain?’” (Acts 4:24–25). The events of Good Friday may have seemed to some like a chaotic tragedy, like innocence caught in the death gears of political corruption, but the believers say, “No, the death of Christ fulfilled the story of David’s ancient psalm. For a thousand years, the threads of history have been running toward the cross.” History, to them, was prophesied, predestined, planned (Acts 2:23; 4:28).

And not just the events of history, but even the desires and impulses of human hearts. “Truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:27–28). Why did Judas betray his Lord? Why did Herod mock the King of kings? Why did Pilate, knowing his duty, let justice be trampled by the raging mob? On one level, because Judas wanted money, because Herod “was hoping to see some sign” (Luke 23:8), because Pilate feared man. These were “lawless men” (Acts 2:23), fully responsible for their sins. But on another level, on the ultimate level, they acted as they did because this is what God had predestined to take place.

Here, then, is the sweep of God’s sovereignty in the space of a few verses. Over creation, over history, and over hearts, God reigns. And such a reign cannot help but renovate our minds.

Renovation of the Mind

One of the marvelous features of Acts 4:23–31 is that these believers not only affirm God’s exhaustive sovereignty, but they also teach us how to apply it. And oh, how we need such teaching. Countless errors creep into minds and churches when we take true doctrine from Scripture without also allowing Scripture to guide our applications. And few doctrines are more prone to misapplication than the sovereignty of God.

The prayer of Acts 4, repeated, internalized, embraced, would guard us from a dozen dangers and keep us on God’s level path, even if the process brings pain. For truth can indeed seem “painful rather than pleasant” for a time. But like God’s fatherly discipline, “later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).

Here, then, are three new rooms (among others) God’s sovereignty builds into the minds of those who welcome it.

1. God is sovereign — so pray boldly.

Remarkably, the high sovereignty we encounter in Acts 4 comes to us not in a treatise, a confession, a debate, or even a sermon, but a prayer. While some hear of sovereignty and wonder what difference their prayers could make, the early church received sovereignty as a reason to pray. Here, they kneel before a “sovereign Lord” (Acts 4:24); they plead beneath his providence.

God’s sovereignty rightly communicates something of his transcendence, his highness and holiness. But the believers in Acts 4 know something else about God: in his transcendence, he remains deeply personal with his people. He speaks and listens, invites us to pray and responds to our prayers — all while somehow weaving everything into his “definite plan” (Acts 2:23).

Rightly understood, faithful prayer depends on both God’s transcendence and his nearness. If God were only transcendent, he wouldn’t bend to hear our prayers; if he were only personal and near, he wouldn’t be able to answer our prayers. But if God is both transcendent and personal, mighty and near, then he can both hear our petitions and act. We don’t need to know exactly how he sovereignly folds our prayers into his plans. It’s enough for us to know that he does.

2. God is sovereign — so take action.

The early believers were heirs, as we are, to Jesus’s promise to build his church (Matthew 16:18). As the kingdom spreads throughout the book of Acts, they know they are not the ones spreading it, not ultimately. Such expansion was the work of the risen Jesus, who had poured his Spirit upon his people (Acts 1:1, 8). Seated upon his throne, he was sovereignly fulfilling his promise to build the church against the gates of hell.

But the church did not for that reason grow passive or complacent. They did not merely wait and watch the Holy Spirit act. At Pentecost, Peter gets up and actually preaches (Acts 2:14). Before the council, Peter and John take a breath and actually obey God rather than man (Acts 4:19–20). And when persecuted, the church prays for boldness and actually continues “to speak the word of God” (Acts 4:31). They trusted God would sovereignly fulfill his promises — and then they acted as if he just might do so through their efforts.

For these believers, a seemingly closed door (“Speak no more to anyone in this name,” Acts 4:17) was no reason to stand back and watch; it was reason to pray for boldness, stand up, and turn a handle. They trusted that the same “hand” that governed history was with them still, ready to “stretch out” not before, but precisely “while” they went forth and spoke (Acts 4:28, 30). So, as you stand before some opportunity for the gospel, even if many obstacles stand in the way, take courage from God’s sovereignty and act.

3. God is sovereign — so draw near.

Amid their affliction, we might have expected the believers to address God as something other than “sovereign Lord” — perhaps “sympathetic Lord” or “merciful Lord” or “loving Lord.” These titles are certainly appropriate, and Scripture proposes them to the suffering elsewhere (Hebrews 4:15; 2 Corinthians 1:3). But this time, in their pain, these Christians drew near to the sovereign Lord. They did so for at least two reasons.

First, they knew that only a sovereign God could take the wrongs done against us and turn them for our good. Sympathy, mercy, and love are precious qualities in our God, but their preciousness runs thin if he cannot actually do something about our pain. But oh, how he can.

“In his sovereignty, he became a Lord with scars.”

The God we serve was able to take the worst moment in the history of the world and turn it into a moment of eternal remembrance (Acts 4:27–28). And the early church knew that if God could do that at the cross, then he could do it anywhere and everywhere for anyone, no matter how black the sorrow or deep the loss. As on the world’s worst Friday, he can take our most shattered days, rearrange the pieces, and make them spell good.

Then, second, who is this “sovereign Lord”? He is not only the God who turned such a Friday good; he is the God who felt this Friday’s sharpest grief. In his sovereignty, God could have stayed aloof from us, working out his plan from his high throne. But he didn’t. Instead, in his sovereignty, he put on flesh and bone. He took the dark prophecies of the Messiah’s sufferings and laid them on his own human shoulders. He received the whips and the nails and the thorns. In his sovereignty, he became a Lord with scars. And therefore he is, and ever remains, the strongest refuge for suffering saints.

Receive, then, this renovating doctrine of God’s unstoppable sovereignty. Watch how it inspires your prayers, emboldens your witness, and then, in the pit of your deepest pain, leads you to the one who once died under sorrow, and now lives forever as Lord over it all.

Our tired, sinful world has never seen a surprise so momentous as the one that spread from the tomb on Easter Sunday. “The dead stayed dead in the first century with the same monotonous regularity as they do [today],” Donald Macleod writes (The Person of Christ, 111). No one, in any age, has been accustomed to resurrection.

To the disciples, it mattered little that their Lord had already given away the ending (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:34). The resurrection of Jesus Christ — heart beating, lungs pumping, brain firing, legs walking — could be nothing less than a surprise. The greatest surprise our world has ever seen.

Pay attention to the resurrection narratives, however, and you may find yourself surprised at how Jesus surprises his people. He does not run from the tomb shouting, “I’m risen!” (as we may have expected). In three separate stories, in fact — with Mary, with Peter, and with the two disciples on the Emmaus road — he does not reveal himself immediately. He waits. He lingers. He hides, even. And then, in profoundly personal ways, he surprises.

Some of us woke up this Easter in desperate need of this same Jesus to offer a similar surprise. We declare today that he is risen, that he is risen indeed. But for one reason or another, we may find ourselves stuck in the shadows of Saturday. Perhaps some sorrow runs deep. Or some old guilt gnaws. Or some confusion has invaded the soul. Perhaps our Lord, though risen, seems hidden.

Sit for a moment in these three stories, and consider how the Lord of the empty tomb still loves to surprise his people. As on the first Easter, he still delights to trade our sorrow for joy, our guilt for forgiveness, our confusion for clarity.

Sorrow Surprised by Joy

Maybe, this Sunday, some long sadness seems unmoved by the empty tomb. Maybe the Easter sun seems to have stopped just below the horizon of some darkened part of life — some love lost, some long and aching wait. Maybe you remember Jesus’s words, “Your sorrow will turn into joy” (John 16:20), but you still feel the sorrow, still look for the joy.

Stand at the tomb with Mary Magdalene. Others have come and gone, but she waits, weeping (John 20:11). She has seen the stone rolled away, the absent grave, and the angelic entourage of her risen Lord — and now, Jesus himself stands near her. But though she sees him, she doesn’t see him. “She did not know that it was Jesus” (John 20:14). She mourns before the Lord of holy joy, not knowing how soon her sorrow will flee. And for a few moments more, Jesus waits.

He draws her out with a question: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” (John 20:15). She offers her reply, supposing she speaks to a gardener. And then, in a moment, with a word, the mask comes off. Shadows break, sun rises, sorrow makes its sudden happy turn. How? “Jesus said to her, ‘Mary’” (John 20:16). One word, one name, and this Gardener blooms flowers from her fallen tears. “Rabboni!” she cries — and cries no more (John 20:16).

Unlike Mary, you know your Lord is risen. Even still, for now, you may feel bent and broken. Seeing Jesus, but not seeing him. Knowing he lives, but not knowing where he is. Maybe even hearing his voice, but supposing you hear another’s. Dear saint, the risen Christ does not stand idly by while his loved ones grieve. He may linger for the moment, but he lingers near enough to see your tears and hear your cries — near enough to speak your name and surprise your sorrow with joy.

Keep waiting, and he will speak — sooner or later, here or in heaven. And until then, he is not far. Even if hidden, he is risen, and the deepest sorrow waits to hear his word.

Guilt Surprised by Forgiveness

Or maybe, for you, sorrow is only a note in a different, darker song. You have sinned — and not in a small way. The words of your mouth have shocked you; the work of your hands has undone you. You feel as if you had carried the soldiers’ nails. And now it seems that not even Easter can heal you.

Sit in the boat with Peter. He knows his Lord is risen — and indeed, he has even heard hope from Jesus himself. “Peace be with you,” the Master had told his disciples (John 20:19). But that “you” was plural. Peter needed something more, something personal, to wash away Good Friday’s stains.

“Jesus still delights to trade our sorrow for joy, our guilt for forgiveness, our confusion for clarity.”

And so Jesus stands on the shore — risen, hidden, and again with a question: “Children, do you have any fish?” (John 21:5). These are words to awaken memory (Luke 5:1–4), “yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus” (John 21:4). No, not yet. He will allow Peter to feel the night’s empty nets a few moments longer, and then the surprise will come. And so he reveals himself, this time not with a name but with fish — many fish, actually (John 21:6). Then, after feeding his men, he leads Peter in personal repentance and, as if all is forgotten, calls him afresh: “Follow me” (John 21:19).

That Jesus should turn our sorrow into joy is one of Easter’s greatest wonders. But perhaps greater still is that he should turn our guilt into innocence — that he should address our most sinful, shameful moments so personally, that he should wash our souls as humbly and tenderly as he washed his disciples’ feet. Yet so he does.

The process can take some time, however. We may not feel his forgiveness immediately, and he does not always mean us to. He sometimes hides for some moments or some days. Yet as he does, he prepares the scene for a surprise so good we too may feel like leaping into the sea (John 21:7). Our Lord is here, bringing grace and mercy; we must go to him.

Confusion Surprised by Clarity

Or maybe you find neither sorrow nor sin afflicting you this Easter, but rather another kind of thorn, a pain that can pierce deep enough to drive you mad: confusion. Life doesn’t make sense. Logic fails. God’s ways seem not just mysterious but labyrinth-like. Who can untangle these knots or find a way through this maze?

Walk with the two disciples toward Emmaus. “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel,” you hear them say (Luke 24:21). Yes, had hoped. No more. Three nails and a spear stole the breath from that dream. Now all that’s left is confusion, a body and blood and a burial of all that seemed good and right and true. If not Jesus, then who? Then how? We had thought he was the one.

But then “the one” himself “drew near and went with them” (Luke 24:15). Again he asks a question: “What is this conversation that you are holding?” (Luke 24:17). And again he conceals himself: “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him” (Luke 24:16). So they walk; so they talk; so they spill their confusion all along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Yes, they have heard his body was gone, have heard even a report of his rising (Luke 24:23–24). But still, they just can’t make sense of it all.

But oh, how Jesus can. So, with a swift and tender rebuke, a lesson in the Scriptures, and a face revealed over broken bread, he picks up their shattered thoughts and arranges them in a vision of startling, stunning clarity. Then “he vanished” (Luke 24:31), taking all their confusion with him. “Did not our hearts burn within us?” they ask each other (Luke 24:32). Christ had risen, and the clarity they could not imagine had walked with them, talked with them, and loved them into the light.

Our hearts today may brim with questions, some that seem unanswerable. But the resurrected Jesus knows no unanswerable questions. He can solve every riddle in every corner of every human heart — even if, for the moment, he walks beside us incognito.

Our Final Surprise

We live today in an in-between land. Jesus is risen, but we don’t yet see him. Jesus lives, but we haven’t yet touched the mark of the nails in his hands. If we are his, however, then one day we will. And these stories give us reason to expect on that day a final, climactic surprise.

If hearing Jesus’s word by faith can lift the heaviest heart, what sorrow can withstand his audible voice and the new name he will give to us (Revelation 2:17)? If even now we taste the relief of sins forgiven and condemnation gone, what will happen when he puts a white robe around our shoulders and renders sin impossible? And if we have moments here of bright clarity, then what will come when the mists lift altogether, when Truth himself stands before us, and when all deception disappears like a bad dream?

Then we will see what a risen Christ can do. His dealings with Mary, with Peter, with the Emmaus disciples — these are but the fringes of his power, the outskirts of his ways. So keep waiting, dear Christian. At the right time, he will speak your name. He will appear on the shoreline of your long-repeated prayers. He will walk with you on the road of confusion and loss until you reach a better table, and in the breaking of the bread you will see his face.