What an exciting moment in the life of a church when missionaries are sent out for the sake of Jesus’s name. Their departure reminds the whole church that we live as pilgrims in this world, sent forth to proclaim the good news that Jesus, the crucified Messiah, lives and reigns as our saving Lord. We rejoice to see such workers go into the harvest fields in answer to prayer. And we frequently respond well to the call to make personal and corporate sacrifices to send these workers well.

But what do we do when they come back?

The work of supporting missionaries in a manner worthy of God does not end when they return, either for a temporary respite or a permanent move. As important as providing for their needs on the field may be, thoroughly caring for missionaries requires ongoing care — practically and pastorally. This remains just as true when they return as when they go.

Receiving the Sent

A few verses in 3 John frequently (and rightfully) receive attention as central for helping the church understand its work of supporting missionaries well. John, the elder, commends his beloved friend Gaius for how he received missionaries who had come to his church. Then John encourages him to continue:

You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth. (3 John 6–8)

These missionaries have gone out from their home church. They have left the comfort of friends and family, the security of steady income, and the familiarity of their hometown for a single purpose: to make Christ’s name known and exalted among the nations (Romans 1:5). They are, therefore, worthy to receive ample support. In fact, John says that it is the duty of Christians to support such workers: “We ought to support people like these.”

But what does it look like to support missionaries “in a manner worthy of God”? The answer is not so straightforward as helping them get to the field and ensuring they have what they need while there. While John instructs Gaius on how to send them out, he also commends him for how he received them — a strong antithesis to the self-centered Diotrephes, who “refuses to welcome the brothers” (3 John 10). Gaius’s hospitality and care for the missionaries was so warm that, when they returned to their sending church, they bore witness to his love for them (3 John 5–6).

“What returning missionaries need most is to freshly behold the glory of God.”

The way he treated these missionaries, strangers as they were to him, testified to his commitment to magnify the name of Christ. Gaius welcomed them as brothers, fellow adoptees into God’s expanding family of redeemed children. He understood that the welcome Christ had given him in salvation served as the example for his own ministry of welcoming others (Romans 15:7). Thus, the hospitality he and his church demonstrated proved to John that he was indeed “walking in the truth” (3 John 3).

Three Needs Churches Can Meet

Every church that sends missionaries will, God willing, have the opportunity to receive them again and care for their needs close at hand. While many specific needs of each missionary unit (singles, couples, or families) will change, other basics will remain the same no matter the stage of life or ministry. Churches that aim to receive missionaries well can seek to meet at least these three categories of need: rest, community, and worship.

1. Rest

Missionaries returning from the field are usually tired. They may not admit it, but they are likely worn out. It is hard work to move to unfamiliar regions; learn to function in a new language; navigate the complex, multilayered nuances of cultural exchanges; face the spiritual and physical needs of multitudes; work to fulfill ministry commitments; and, on top of all that, raise a family, keep up a healthy marriage, maintain personal spiritual disciplines, and work through the difficulties of team life (which often involves layers of multicultural complexity). Most returning missionaries need a season of recovery from their labors if they are to enter them again with renewed reserves of strength.

Churches have the opportunity to make their return from the field as low-stress as possible. This can mean everything from helping with basic necessities (housing, transportation, clothing, food), to making sure that they have access to services such as counseling, to providing opportunities to get away for an extended time, to making sure their calendars don’t fill up with too many ministry commitments. While receiving well doesn’t mean that the church by itself must provide all these things, a willing team of brothers and sisters can alleviate the stress of the many unknowns missionaries face when returning from the field.

The health of a missionary’s community on the field varies widely. In some ministry locations, Christian community might be nonexistent, whereas in others it may be more vibrant than anything the missionary knows elsewhere. Regardless, the need to be in community with fellow believers doesn’t change once missionaries come home. Intentionally integrating them into the rhythms of regular church life beyond the Sunday-morning gathering will remind them that they truly belong to their sending church.

Folding them back into the community also means making sure they are known. Missionaries often come back to churches where new leaders now serve, new members have joined, and other members have moved on. A sending church can feel awfully full of strange faces. Thus, a church’s leaders would do well to make the whole church aware of returning missionaries and ensure there are opportunities for them to both know and be known by the congregation.

Receiving missionaries back into the community also means reestablishing friendships (and making new ones). This process usually requires greater intentionality on the part of those who receive. It means opening up our homes to newer faces, listening well, and asking questions about experiences and places for which we might not have categories. In short, it means stepping out of comfort zones and (to a small degree) crossing the cultural boundaries that divide the dining-room table. Once again, making the most of these opportunities reflects the kind of Christlike love for which John commended Gaius — a love that demonstrates who are the true children of God (1 John 3:10, 17).

3. Worship

Finally, what returning missionaries need most is to freshly behold the glory of God and have their whole hearts captivated by love for him. Hopefully it was just such a vision and desire that compelled them to cross cultures in the first place. But the wearying demands of overseas ministry can cause our sight to grow dim. Don’t be surprised if missionaries return from the field needing reminders of God’s purpose to fill the earth with his glory “as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). Don’t be surprised if discouragement has dampened godly desires. Loving missionaries well when they return includes encouragement and building up their faith.

Not everyone will have the same experience. While some missionaries serve in locations where they are part of an established church, others serve where there is no church at all. Regardless of ministry context, no one outgrows the need to behold the living triune God, declare and sing with fellow believers the wonders of who he is and what he has done (without translation into their mother tongue), sit under preaching that faithfully exposits and applies the whole testimony of God, and partake in the shared meal of the new covenant. Receiving well, in this case, means folding missionaries into the established rhythms of worship and, as a whole church, ensuring those rhythms faithfully reflect the biblical vision.

Conferences and retreats can also be good opportunities for renewal. Pastors, other leaders in the church, and fellow members who know the returning missionaries well can ask wise questions to discern their spiritual health. Where greater needs exist, they might provide scholarships for missionaries to participate in these events. However, the weekly gathering of the local church remains the primary means God has given for renewal.

Receive Them in a Manner Worthy

Churches are called to both send and receive missionaries “in a manner worthy of God” (3 John 6). Sometimes the sending can be easier. They get on a plane and disappear from view, packing along with them the opportunity for frequent and direct engagement. But when they return, those opportunities return with them. And just as we ought to support them as they go, so too we ought to support them when they come back. By this we become “fellow workers for the truth” (3 John 8).

In sub-Saharan West Africa, the dry season slowly tightens its deathlike grip until that first thunderstorm. It begins as a speck on the horizon. The breeze stills; the furnace-like heat threatens to consume all in its oven. Dark clouds pile upon each other in the distance, as if in a mad race to block out the sun.

Then comes the wind: at first a whisper, but before long a mighty force that lifts months of dust and sand, whirling them into miniature tornadoes. In our early years, my siblings and I would run out and try to fight the strength of these winds. Taking our stand on the old garden mounds of last season’s planting, we would test our young legs against the power of the storm (always an exercise in futility).

Then the sky turns black. The rolling clouds have conquered the sun, declaring victory with lightning flashes and mighty cracks of thunder, a barrage of heavenly artillery. At last, finally, comes the rain — a marching wall of gray obscuring everything it passes, driven by the relentless wind. We fled for home as it approached and then flooded our street, turning the hard-packed earth into a sudden river.

I’ve always been awed by the power of storms. Their sheer might delights and overwhelms me. They produce in me a certain diminishing effect, reminding me that though God gave humans dominion over the earth, I am still made from dust. It’s fitting to flee.

But God designed thunderstorms to teach us about more than our smallness. In their unleashed fury, they are emblems of the wrath of God poured out in judgment. The short book of Nahum, tucked in the middle of the Minor Prophets, is one such place where God teaches us to rightly read events in nature like thunderstorms.

‘Woe to the Bloody City’

Nahum’s brief oracle, a mere 47 verses in our English translations, thunders with God’s righteous judgment against Nineveh, one of the great cities of the ancient Assyrian empire. We usually associate Nineveh with the ministry of Jonah. Jonah knew God to be “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster” (Jonah 4:2). Thus, he preached to Israel’s enemies with reluctance, knowing that his prophetic word of judgment might just lead to Nineveh’s preservation.

We know the story. Nineveh repented, and God, in keeping with his character, relented from unleashing disaster upon them (Jonah 3:6–10). These events took place during the reign of Jeroboam II of Israel (2 Kings 14:25), which lasted from about 793 to 753 BC (Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets, 456).

It may come as a surprise, then, that Nahum’s prophecy a century or so later contains only words of judgment against Nineveh, with no opportunity to repent. Prophesying to Judah around 650 BC after the fall of the northern kingdom in 722 to Assyria (Dictionary, 560), Nahum declared that Assyria would be washed away “with an overflowing flood.” God would “make a complete end of the adversaries” of his people (Nahum 1:8).

The once-repentant Nineveh had spurned the mercy of God and directed its armies against God’s chosen people, leading the northern kingdom of Israel into captivity and even laying siege to Jerusalem itself during the reign of Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:17–25).

God directed his fury against this “bloody city, all full of lies and plunder” (Nahum 3:1), declaring that the name of Assyria and Nineveh would no longer be perpetuated among the nations of the earth (Nahum 1:14). And through the poetic tongue of Nahum, he captured his fury with the image of a storm.

Chariots of Wrath

Nahum’s oracle begins with a threefold declaration that Yahweh takes vengeance (nōqêm) on his enemies. Similar to how the threefold “holy, holy, holy” in Isaiah 6:3 emphasizes the completeness of God’s holiness, Nahum’s repeated nōqêm reveals the fullness of God’s wrath. The fierce clouds seethe in the distance, and none can stay their path. Though “slow to anger” — a slowness Nineveh had experienced in the past — “the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.”

His way is in whirlwind and storm,and the clouds are the dust of his feet. (Nahum 1:3)

Nahum’s opening salvo (1:1–8), like the West African rainclouds piling upon each other, heaps image after image to describe the poured-out wrath of God. Before his rage, bodies of water dry up, vegetation withers, mountains quake, the earth heaves, and rocks split. His wrath is “like fire” (1:6), like “an overflowing flood” (1:8).

Who can stand before his indignation?Who can endure the heat of his anger? (1:6)

Anyone who has been caught in the elements by a powerful storm can appreciate, in part, the terror and doom Nahum intends to convey. Through such storms, God means for us to understand in a small way what it feels like to face his judgment with no hope. The hymnist appropriately captured this sense when he penned,

His chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds form,And dark is his path on the wings of the storm.

Strong storms that flash and rage, that whip dust into frenzies and hurl rain in torrents, that envelop the earth in darkness, declare the glory of his just judgment on the wicked, teaching us not to treat his wrath lightly. They symbolize the frightening words uttered by God against unrepentant sinners: “Behold, I am against you” (Nahum 2:13; 3:5).

Named No More

In 612 BC, about forty years after Nahum spoke his oracle against Nineveh, the city was overrun and destroyed by the Babylonians. Though a few Assyrians escaped and tried to reestablish themselves, they too were wiped out in 609 BC. The Assyrians disappeared (ESV Study Bible, 1710). In fact, a mere three hundred years later, a whole army passed over the place where Nineveh had been without even recognizing the location of the once-famous city (The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, 72).

The Lord has given commandment about you:“No more shall your name be perpetuated. . . .I will make your grave, for you are vile.” (Nahum 1:14)

Nahum’s prophecy was no hyperbolic description of God’s vengeance. Every word came to pass. Nineveh took its stand against the awesome storm of God’s wrath — and perished.

Nineveh’s fate reveals the holiness of God. He will not, cannot, allow sin to remain in his presence. Every unrepentant sinner stands, as it were, on the garden mound of ancient Nineveh’s ruins, shaking a fist in the face of God and daring him to unleash the winds of wrath. God does not change. The same words he uttered against Nineveh he will speak again in judgment. “Behold, I am against you.” “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). No sinner will stand in the assembly of the righteous people of God (Psalm 1:5).

‘Stronghold in the Day of Trouble’

Though it may seem like a misnomer for one tasked with prophesying judgment, Nahum’s name means “comfort.” But where shall one find comfort in his oracle?

Though Nahum spoke a word against Nineveh, his audience was the people of God, those remaining in the southern kingdom of Judah. Twice in the opening chapter, the Lord speaks directly to his people (1:12–13, 15), giving them reason to hope as he lifts the yoke of oppression Assyria had laid upon them. This wicked nation will not pass through Judah again to bring terror. As his word of wrath displays his holy character, so too does this word of comfort. The punishment of God’s enemies displays, at the same time, his covenant-keeping love for his people.

Tucked away in Nahum’s opening description of divine wrath stands a little verse, a place of shelter from the storm:

The Lord is good,a stronghold in the day of trouble;he knows those who take refuge in him. (Nahum 1:7)

This knowing refers to more than God’s knowledge about his people. It suggests an intimate knowledge that means salvation, a setting of love upon his own. This is the same knowing described by the Good Shepherd, who knows his own sheep and preserves them to the end (John 10:14, 28–29). This knowing serves as a firm foundation for hope (2 Timothy 2:19).

Those who are known by God have a shelter to which they can flee: not the pitiful garden mound, but the secure home, with windows that fasten tight, solid walls, and a strong roof. Though the storm rages outside, in this stronghold peace reigns.

Flee for Shelter

God has always provided a shelter from the storm. To Noah and his family he gave an ark, a fortress to carry them through the cleansing flood of wrath. To Moses he gave a basket of reeds and pitch, a floating bassinet to guard the future leader from the storm of Pharaoh’s decree. To Jonah he gave the belly of a fish, a place of repentance and preservation. To the disciples, he gave the God-man, whose words made a haven for a wave-tossed boat. To us he gives the risen and exalted Christ, and he promises that all who take refuge in the shadow of his wings will find a shelter from the storm.

Flee, then, to this stronghold. Learn to read the weather and seek refuge in Christ. Tucked into his everlasting arms, we experience no raging storms of wrath. While his glory “thunders” and his voice “flashes forth flames of fire” (Psalm 29:3, 7), we ascribe him glory, and we rest secure in his peace and under his eternal reign.

Early morning hours are precious. The house is still, quiet. The aroma of coffee wafts from the steaming mug. A single lamp illuminates the chair and table. Here is a sanctuary, a peaceful place of communion between a man and his God.

And yet on many days, it is anything but peaceful. Rather than quiet contemplation, I find myself battling on my knees against a persistent and pernicious straying of the heart. The prayer is not that of the demonized boy’s father: Lord, “I believe; help my unbelief” (though I too have prayed such words). Instead, I pray, “Lord, I desire; help my erring desires.”

While striving to meditate on the steadfast love and faithfulness and eternal goodness of God, I find that other concerns arrest my attention: anxious thoughts about how my work will be received, a nagging fear that somehow I’m just not doing enough, questions about what my coworkers think of me, jealousy over the success of others. A long list of anxious thoughts grip my mind and lead me away from the one offering rest and peace, satisfaction and joy. Here lies the battle. The straying thoughts reveal what’s driving my heart this morning: desire for the fleeting approval of man, not the eternal good.

One misaligned desire would be a significant battle by itself; this is a wide and diverse war. Fears about parenting failures reveal desires to be self-sufficient. Worry about a medical condition (whether minor or life-threatening) may indicate a greater love for this present life than the never-ending one to come. Pride fails to acknowledge that our plans are in the hand of the Lord, and reveals an arrogant boasting rooted in the desire to order life according to our own design. My sanctuary, it turns out, is also a battlefield.

Disordered Hearts

The struggle to rightly order our desires lies at the heart of each Christian’s daily walk. Our redeemed hearts, still twisted by sin, simply do not function as they ought. In general, we have no problem desiring. We do have serious problems desiring rightly. Our hearts are disordered, and so we frequently spin out days chasing small and fleeting ends that fail to satisfy. We grow weary and despondent in our Sisyphean pursuits, and we wonder where our first love has gone.

In a meditation on Psalm 119:97–104, the late John Webster (1955–2016) describes the reordering of affections as “one of the most weighty claims [of] the Christian gospel” (Christ Our Salvation, 6). He argues that the affections are “the fundamental loves which govern us and determine the shape of our lives . . . [the] part of us through which we attach ourselves to things outside of ourselves. . . . [They are] the engines of our attitudes and actions” (7). In other words, each and every day, what we love and desire determines what we set ourselves to pursue.

‘Nature Abhors a Vacuum’

God made us, each and every one of us, to pursue. He gave us hearts that desire. Our pursuits — what we desire and strive toward — reveal our hearts because behind our pursuits lie affections. Imagine a string tied between the desire in your heart and each object you run after. If you pause long enough to tug on the strings, you will unearth what lies (and pulls) in the hidden recesses of your heart. And far too often, those hidden recesses are not filled with pure love for God; they contain the kind of covetousness that leads to strife (see James 4:1–4).

Sometimes, in the battle with such wayward affections, the temptation to quell desire rises to the forefront. “If only I could put the desire for X to death, then I would walk in freedom.” Erasing that disorderly affection seems like the key to holiness. And so we aim (rightfully, I should say) to put sin to death (Romans 8:13). We fight the battle with X and, by God’s grace, win. Then we stop.

Consider a knight on the warpath. He has heard of a dragon who reigns over a castle and keeps a king’s daughter locked up as a prisoner in the tallest tower. With great courage, he risks life and limb to face the dragon in open combat. Eventually he emerges from the battle victorious (though certainly wounded and a bit more well-done). What does he do next? He mounts his warhorse and returns home. No, good stories don’t end that way — and for good reason.

Everyone recognizes that the knight has won only half the battle. The princess still needs rescuing. If he leaves her locked up and the castle vacant, another winged, fire-breathing worm will soon take the place of the first. So too, the man who cleaned the house after the unclean spirit left suddenly finds himself fighting the original spirit again, plus seven more (Matthew 12:44–45). The man needs to fill up the house, not leave it empty; the knight needs to actually rescue the princess.

Scottish minister Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) wrote, “Nature abhors a vacuum” (The Expulsive Power of a New Affection, 41). What did he mean? It does no good to merely take away a man’s sinful affection. By God’s design, man cannot be affectionless. To attempt to remove all that stirs his heart, in the name of pure and holy living, would be an “unnatural violence” to his soul (44).

Let’s apply Chalmers’s insight to my early-morning battle. As I analyze the internal struggle, I see how my worry over how I might be received reveals a desire to please men. Behind my desire is an unhealthy craving for the kind of recognition, applause, and affirmation I might receive from my coworkers. I might pray in that moment for God to remove that desire from my heart — but the struggle doesn’t stop there. Affection cannot merely be put to death; it must be remade.

‘Seek the Things Above’

Paul wrote to the Colossian believers about the emptiness of merely negative commands. Seemingly powerful and wise in the fight against sin (at least initially), “they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Colossians 2:23). We cannot stop at mere negation. For this reason, Paul gives the Colossians a positive command: “Seek the things that are above. . . . Set your minds on things that are above” (Colossians 3:1–2). Do not expect denial, by itself, to lead to holiness. We need redirection.

God created us with the capacity for affections, and it’s a good design. To attempt to merely get rid of sinful desires (and not redirect the heart) is to deny our very nature. Chalmers understood this, which is why his little sermon continues to resonate with readers. “We have already affirmed,” he wrote, “how impossible it were for the heart . . . to cast the world away from it and thus reduce it to a wilderness. The heart is not so constituted, and the only way to dispossess it of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one” (49).

The pursuit of holiness has to be just that: a pursuit. And to pursue something means that we desire it, we want it, we set our minds and order our days to have it. Left to ourselves, such a task is hopeless. Twisted and corrupt trees do not produce good fruit. But we haven’t been left to ourselves. The Lord has raised us up to new life (Colossians 3:1). He has given us his Spirit. And he is at work to detach our affections from their empty, death-producing objects and reattach them to their proper treasures. We do not enter the fray alone or without hope.

Test, Seek, Pray, Fight

What might this good battle look like each day? We can sketch the fight in four steps: test, seek, pray, fight.

TEST

What captures your heart today? What do you find yourself aiming for? What do your recent actions and decisions reveal about what you love? Start pulling on those strings. Try to unearth the loves behind and beneath those strings. Before you engage the enemy, you have to know who the enemy is. What do you find yourself repeatedly struggling against? Unfortunately, the desire for others’ approval didn’t simply go away that morning. I still find myself seeking to put it to death (and quite frequently).

Honest self-reflection, while important, can’t be the only means to putting twisted desires to death. We need communities of brothers and sisters around us who know us well. Because we’ve cultivated strong relationships of trust, these fellow soldiers have the freedom to tell us when a path we’re pursuing leads to death.

SEEK

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above” (Colossians 3:1). The apostle’s command requires us to actively set our hearts on other, heavenly objects. We must come to see them as more worthy of pursuit than the ones that tempt us.

Early-morning meditation has been the single best practice I have learned over the years (and one that countless believers have practiced throughout history). Psalm 90:14 sets the agenda: “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” Finding our delight in the Lord orients and redirects our hearts. When we have tasted and seen the goodness of God, the fool’s gold of worldly pursuits grows tarnished in our eyes (1 Peter 2:1–3). Where do we see his goodness displayed? In the word as we open it with fresh eyes of faith.

PRAY

While prayer accompanies every step in this battle, concerted effort comes during and after time in the word. “Lord, you’ve shown me your goodness and character this morning; grant belief and desire for more. By your Spirit, mold my desires to conform to your goodness, your holiness, your majestic worth.” These steps of prayer and seeking, like testing, can (and arguably should) also take place with our local church. The Lord uses fellow saints to help us see more of him in the word. And God will use the prayers of other saints to strengthen and encourage right thinking and feeling in our hearts and minds.

FIGHT

“Put to death,” writes Paul. Them’s fightin’ words. Just because we taste and see the goodness of God doesn’t mean our battle is over. Sinful desires remain, and they reveal themselves throughout the day in our attitudes, actions, and words. Paul calls us to the strenuous life, actively working to kill corrupt desires in the hope that God himself works within us to cause conformity to the image of Christ (Philippians 2:12–13).

So, test and seek, praying at all times, and then fight. And fight alongside friends, because wars like these are lost alone.

When you hear the word eschatology, do you feel its significance to your present life — I mean the people, responsibilities, and decisions before you today? Or do you (more likely) think of debates over when Jesus is coming back or whether we’ll be raptured? Do you even know what the word eschatology means?

Eschatology means “the study of the last things,” and this precious and relevant doctrine often gets relegated to the periphery of church life. I remember leading a Bible study through Revelation that routinely devolved into a debate between a couple of elderly saints over whether the rapture would be “pre-trib” or “mid-trib.” For some, eschatology conjures images of multiheaded beasts, the dissolution of stars and planets, or mountains swallowing people alive. Like the painting of a master hung on the wall, eschatology might invite animated discussion and yet seem to bear little consequence to work or marriage or rush-hour traffic.

The problem is that the portrait of the end times in the New Testament refuses to stay on the wall. Like the picture of the ship in C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when you look closely, the waves begin to move, the briny wind whips your hair, and before you know it you find yourself treading water in a cold and wild sea.

We can’t approach eschatology like Eustace Scrubb (the whiny, narrow-minded cousin in Lewis’s story) looks at his dead beetles: specimens pinned to cards for the purpose of mere analysis. The end of the ages has come barreling upon us; we live in the end times.

‘End of the Ages’

The New Testament persistently speaks of Christians as living in the end times near to the return of Christ. The author of Hebrews, for instance, says that “in these last days [God] has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:2). Likewise, the apostle Paul, recounting the punishments that fell on Israel for their sins, writes, “These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). James writes, “You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand” (James 5:8).

First-century Christians understood they inhabited a new epoch of world history: the last of the ages. The end times burst upon the world when Christ rose from the dead and ascended to the Father. And the next event in redemption’s sequence, as the Apostles’ Creed reminds us, is Christ’s return to judge the living and the dead.

Centuries have passed, but our basic situation hasn’t changed. Christians today still live in the unique age of history that some theologians have described as the “already–not yet.” Christ has already come; he has not yet come again. The hyphen between those comings has become our home. Moreover, the hyphen is not some motionless, undefined line without purpose or end but a vector, containing both magnitude (a predetermined length) and direction (a predetermined end). Like all history, God has ordered that little hyphen to a particular purpose. And thus, everything contained within that hyphen, even the most mundane moments, echoes with eternal weight and meaning.

Life Within a Shrinking Frame

The apostle Peter captures the weight and relevance of the hyphen in his second letter. There he reminds believers that many scoffers will not recognize the significance of the already–not yet life. Failing to understand that because creation had a beginning, so too it must have an end, they mockingly say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:4). Rejecting what God has clearly revealed, they live as though the world will continue as it has from the beginning, locked in an immanent frame with which God (let alone Jesus Christ) has little or nothing to do.

Thus, they give themselves to sinful desires, empty pursuits (2 Peter 3:3). Self-realization becomes all in all. Life consists of the possessions one owns. Happiness grows out of the fragile planters of career achievement or relational success. “Real living” shrinks to the size of weekends or vacations. And even for those who find satisfaction in their work, a certain meaninglessness dogs every step.

Not so for you Christians, says Peter. You recognize the space in which you live. You know the brevity that characterizes life and work on this earth. You know that “the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise” to return “as some count slowness” (2 Peter 3:9). You know that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar . . . and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed” (2 Peter 3:10). You know the limited nature of the hyphen and its end. Jesus will return. Judgment will come. So, “what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness?” (2 Peter 3:11).

A friend recently told me about a youth pastor who ends youth gatherings with a simple creed: “Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.” The purpose of that recitation is to train the youth how to live in the present. He wants them to understand that the immanent frame, the boxed-in natural world in which God plays no part and to which he won’t return, the motionless painting on the wall, is a delusion. There will come a day when “the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed” (2 Peter 3:10). All the works of humankind will face judgment.

A Hyphen Changes Lives

This two-thousand-year hyphen changes how we spend our lives, awakening us to the preciousness and import of each moment. The regular routines of today, the tasks (big and small) that we’re required to complete for work, the multitude of interactions we will have with spouse, children, parents, siblings, friends, classmates, coworkers, and strangers — every moment is an opportunity God has provided (planned, in fact, from the beginning) to show that we live for the glory of the one who will return. When we remember our beloved Master is coming back, we aim for faithfulness in every activity.

Christ’s coming provides us with necessary perspective as we deal with these everyday moments. The frustrations of rush hour — getting cut off by an errant motorist, another detour due to seasonal construction, an accident that adds ten minutes to your commute — are opportunities to remind yourself and show others that your clock is set to a heavenly time zone. An extra few minutes on the way to work is given by the God who owns all times. Will we squander it in frustration or put it to use in prayer?

Likewise, the work you do each day bears great significance. Your vocation may seem unimportant in the grand scheme of world history, yet the one who planned the end from the beginning included your labors in the blueprints for this day. And in some small way, these labors can become part of hastening the return of Christ. Whether your work today means changing yet another diaper, crunching numbers in a spreadsheet, or serving the needs of an ailing stranger, remembering that it fits into God’s eternal purpose guards us from the despairing thought that none of it really matters in eternity. Rather, because Christ rose and will return, “in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Eschatology also matters for our relationships. Each interaction you have with spouse or children or others is an interaction with an immortal being whose existence is eschatologically shaped. The passing remarks and small jests, the serious conversations, the tender or harsh tones, the kind or disparaging looks — in every instance we are, as Lewis reminds us, helping others toward either the new heaven and earth, where righteousness will dwell, or the lake of fire, reserved for the devil, his angels, and all who reject the love and reign of Christ (The Weight of Glory, 45–46).

The day of God is coming, says Peter, so “be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish” (2 Peter 3:14). Strive in his strength to walk in holiness and godliness as you order your life toward his glory in these last days.

Magic Beneath This Life

The study of the end times bears heavily on the here and now, precisely because the end times are not some future age to come but the very real present. Every moment of daily life, every drawn breath, every word and act takes place within a realm, so to speak, of magic.

The Eustaces of the world cannot see this for they’ve become enthralled by the events, inventions, and busyness of a God-less world. To them, the picture on the wall of life between the advents of Christ is just that, a picture and nothing more. The challenge for Christians is to not succumb to such blinded ways of thinking but to remember that the picture, if you look closely, is more real and expansive than what we see.

In your mind, what are the most appealing aspects of our churches for nonbelievers? Is it the personal invitation? The welcoming and thrilling atmosphere? The uniqueness and oddity of Christian worship?

When it comes to corporate worship, I’ve been a bit of a nomad. I grew up a missionary kid, and now have served both in American churches and overseas. I’ve seen the gamut of approaches. In Africa, I’ve been to a church without walls. Anyone nearby knows exactly what happens under that thatched roof. The bright colors of their Sunday best and the loud joy of West African believers sing the invitation, “Come and see our God!”

The gatherings in suburban America, by comparison, are walled in and so tucked away from their neighbors. They often rely on more creative efforts to make their presence known, like professional music, stage lights and smoke, seeker-focused sermons, and craft coffee. It’s still a “Come and see” strategy to reaching the lost but tries to bend worship to look and feel like the surrounding culture.

Still other churches emphasize sending. Sunday mornings are for the saints. While nonbelievers are certainly welcome, the emphasis is on going and telling. As they go out into the workforce and weekly rhythms of errands and bumping into neighbors or strangers, the saints share the good news of the gospel and invite nonbelievers to embrace Christ.

While none of these approaches is necessarily wrong, any one of them (by itself) may be missing how God means to draw people — and not only in the new covenant, but even in the old.

Wisdom of Israel

Moses delivered his final sermons to Israel as the people prepared to enter the long-awaited Promised Land. The western banks of the river meant, for Israel, the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham (see Genesis 13:16–17; Deuteronomy 1:8). With God’s help, they would conquer the land, wipe out its idolatry, and become a blessing to all the peoples of the earth (Genesis 12:3).

Israel was called to be a holy people whose way of life reflected the righteousness of their God. Their obedience was meant to be a light to other nations.

Keep [these statutes and rules] and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” (Deuteronomy 4:6)

God’s law, his gift of grace to the Israelites, was designed to lead them in love toward him and toward one another (Deuteronomy 6:4–5; Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:37–40; Galatians 5:14). God desired their flourishing as a nation, as they walked with him in the righteousness for which he created them (Deuteronomy 4:7–8; 5:33). The people of Israel, centered on the worship of God (first at the tabernacle and then the temple), were never intended to be a reclusive nation tucked into that narrow strip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. They were meant to shine forth to the surrounding nations as an expression of the goodness of God.

As the surrounding nations watched this strange people, they would see the remarkable fruit of Israel’s two great loves and recognize them as a nation full of wisdom and understanding.

Wisdom of the Church

That’s how Israel drew the nations to God, but what about true Israel, the church? Hours before he went to the cross, Jesus took time with his disciples to prepare them for the events of his death and subsequent return to the Father. Like Moses, he gave them a commandment to follow as they began their boundary-crossing mission to the world.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:34–35)

Jesus had just given them a dramatic display of the kind of love he was describing. During supper, he stood up, laid aside his outer garment, and washed their feet. The new commandment Jesus gave the disciples that night was a command to love as he loved.

“As your Teacher, I washed your feet. Go and do likewise.”

“As your Savior, I am laying down my life for the sake of yours. Go and do likewise.”

“Love one another with the same kind of love with which I have loved you.”

What wondrous love is this love of Christ? It is not the love demanded by so many today, which sets the self on center stage and requires unconditional acceptance. Neither is it the natural love that exists between friends or family or a married couple (see Matthew 5:46–47). It’s a distinct love, a unique love, a renewing, life-giving love that causes those who receive it, in the words of Augustine, to be “new men, heirs of the new covenant, singers of the new song” (Homilies on the Gospel of John, 65.1).

Jesus told his followers that as they loved one another in this way — in the same manner as he loved them, with the renewed love that he bestowed on them — the world would come to recognize that they were his disciples. This love stoops down in humility to serve and, if necessary, even to die. “This love like mine,” Jesus says in effect, “will be your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the nations.”

Gathered Together on Mission

Every time our churches gather — on Sundays, in small groups, and in a thousand informal ways throughout the week — we have an opportunity to put the love of God on display to a watching world. What will draw nonbelievers to God is not necessarily the welcoming and exciting atmosphere that can be curated with large meeting spaces and expansive budgets. Nor will it be mere evangelistic invitations. Rather, it will be the simple attractiveness of how his people love and keep loving. Concerning this, Augustine writes,

This is what he conferred upon us by loving us — that we would be bound together among ourselves by mutual love, and that by so sweet a bond and the reciprocity of its members that we would be the body of so great a head. (Homilies on the Gospel of John, 65.2)

This love cooks a meal for a tired and suffering family. It opens its home with the arms of welcome. It happily lingers after a worship service has ended, looking for burdens to bear and hearts to encourage. It prays in secret places, lifting others to God. It plans (and budgets) for the needs, expected and unexpected, that will come.

Ordinary Christian one-anothering is revelatory. When believers bear the fruit of love in how we relate to one another, it reveals that we are true children of God (1 John 3:10). It reveals who this God is and what he’s like. This means our mission doesn’t start when we scatter from our Sunday morning or midweek gatherings to our various homes and workplaces. When we gather and when we scatter, the church is on mission to display God’s love.