“Build Not Your Nest Here”
Christian, the compass of suffering points true north to God’s eternal dwelling place. Therefore, “build not your nest here,” but seek and “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (Hebrews 11:16).19 Your Lord will graciously sustain and bear you through your pain and suffering in this life, and in his timing, usher you into his presence, where there will be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain (Revelation 21:4).
The English Puritans and their Scottish counterparts, the Covenanters, experienced intense suffering. Along with their contemporaries, they faced the normal hardships of the seventeenth-century world: plagues, illnesses, and the deaths of infants, children, and women in childbirth. In addition to these, however, many of the Puritans endured deep and persistent persecution.
The Stuart monarchs (1603–1685) — James I, Charles I, and Charles II — viewed the Puritans as threats to and seditious rebels of the English Commonwealth due to their refusal to conform to the Church of England and their attempts to bring “further reformation” to the Church. As a result, the magistrates fined, dismembered, and incarcerated Puritans for not adhering to the Book of Common Prayer and the various ceremonies of the Church of England. In spite of the cruel, abusive mistreatment that they received at the hand of their tormentors, these Puritans demonstrated courageous resolve and Christian perseverance as they remained steadfast in their devotion to their Lord Jesus Christ.
Though our own hardships may not be the same, we can learn and apply three valuable lessons about suffering from the Puritans’ thoroughly biblical reflections on the trials they endured. Applying these lessons to our own circumstances helps us to recognize them as purifying fires meant to prove the genuineness of our faith and increase our affection for Christ.
A More Precious Christ
The Puritans teach us, first, that suffering can be a catalyst to understanding and experiencing the inestimable value of Christ, which in turn leads to an active, perpetual treasuring of Christ above all else. In the midst of his suffering, the Covenanter Samuel Rutherford was able to see and embrace Christ as his “Pearl.” Christ was so precious to him that he refused to “exchange the joy of my bonds and imprisonment for Christ with all the joy of this dirty and foul-skinned world.”1
For the Puritans, suffering was a purifying agent to “aggravate sinne” so that “sinne bee the sowrest, and Christ the sweetest, of all things.”2 Richard Sibbes asserts that suffering yields a “bruising” that enables a Christian to “prize Christ above all.”3 When all is prosperous, it is more difficult to see the treasure that Christ is, but when trials come, “nothing comforts [the soul] like the riches of Christ. . . . Nothing makes a Christian sing care away, like the riches of Christ.”4 Even as suffering batters the body or the mind of Christ’s disciple, the soul can become more enamored with the beauty of Christ.
Severe Mercy
Second, the Puritans reinforce the truth that God is the divine Author over suffering. Nothing in this life, including suffering, eludes the sovereign will of God. Therefore, Christians are to “question not but there is a favourable design in [suffering] towards you.”5 God uses suffering for his divine purposes, which include the good and growth of his children, thus displaying at one and the same time his sovereignty and covenant love. In the Lord’s sovereign hands, suffering becomes a divine, gracious means of sanctification, by which “God is but killing your lusts.”6
God’s love permeates the suffering of his elect. Every trial that his elect encounter discloses the warmth, sweetness, and affection of the Father. He does not intend to hurt or destroy.
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Christ Divides
The cross is folly to those who are perishing, and the power of God to those who are being saved (1 Cor.1:18); it is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks, but to Jewish and Greek believers in Christ it is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor.1:23-24). In the Gentile world of Athens, the proclamation of the resurrection of Christ led to some mocking, some inquiring, and some believing (Acts 17:32-34). The gospel as a whole is a matter of death to death for those who are perishing, and life to life for those who are regenerated by the Holy Spirit (2 Cor.2:15-16).
It is a startling and counter-intuitive thought that Christ Jesus came into the world to usher in hostility and trouble and controversy. Surely we have enough of that already. Yet He tells us clearly that we are not to think that He came to bring peace on earth, but, no, He came to bring division (Luke 12:51). Within the one family there will be divisions – father against son; mother against daughter; mother-in-law against daughter-in-law (Luke 12:52-53). The household will not always be the refuge of peace and harmony that we all desire.
What, then, about all those ‘peace’ verses? ‘When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him’ (Prov.16:7). We are not to aim to be cantankerous and hard to get on with: ‘If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all’ (Rom.12:18). Even where a Christian has an unbelieving spouse, God has called us to peace (1 Cor.7:15). In the civil sphere we are to pray for those in authority over us that we might lead a peaceful and quiet life (1 Tim.2:2).
Yet the proclamation of the true gospel is invariably divisive. At the birth of the Messiah, old Simeon foresaw that this child was appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel (Luke 2:34). As people began to understand something more of His claims, there was a division among the people over Him (John 7:43). He was not just a talking point in the pub; there were those who wanted to arrest Him (John 7:44).
After Jesus had healed a man born blind (John 9), and claimed to be the good Shepherd who would give His life for the sheep, and then rise again (John 10:11, 17-18), there was a similar response.
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Marriage Matters More than Ever
Today, more kids grow up in single-parent homes in America than in any other country in the world. No wonder we’re flailing and falling behind in so many ways. Strong marriages build strong families and strong societies. Humans were created with a desire to love and permanently connect and procreate within the institution of marriage. We should still encourage that as a society, especially because it’s an even healthier partnership than before.
It’s no surprise that marriage matters for the well-being of children, but a new report from the Institute for Family Studies finds that it matters now more than ever before.
A study comparing intact and broken families between two generations—boomers and millennials—found that the correlation between two-parent families and life success has dramatically increased with millennials.
For example, growing up with an intact family increases millennials’ odds of graduating from college by 163 percent, compared to just 78 percent for boomers. And 77 percent of millennials from intact families achieve middle or higher income by their mid-30s—a figure that is 20 percentage points higher than for their peers from non-intact families.
Children’s financial, social, and emotional welfare is on the line when it comes to marriage, and it’s worth Americans of all political stripes taking note. Thankfully, some progressive academics are getting on board.
“Denying that marriage has major consequences for the economic and social well-being of individuals and society is dishonest and counterproductive, especially when it comes to how children are being raised,” wrote Melissa Kearney, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of The Two-Parent Privilege.
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Commercialising Church
Written by T. M. Suffield |
Monday, November 1, 2021
It is easier—more comfortable, less effort, and less vulnerable—to engage with church content on social media platforms than to do so in person would be. While using the platforms to their upmost could be a helpful step into church for many—and enough so that I think it’s worth engaging in some fashion—the conversion will be hard, and harder the more you’ve suggested what you’re doing online is church. Also, plenty of people will feel the draw the other way, to disengage from meeting together and to use the online ‘alternatives’ instead.This article in the New York Times describes two tools that Facebook are developing for churches. Firstly, a subscription service, “where users pay, for example, $9.99 per month and receive exclusive content, like messages from the bishop” and secondly a prayer service “where members of some Facebook groups can post prayer requests and others can respond.”
As my friend Duncan put it to me:
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptise them and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. But make sure to put the really good teaching behind a paywall.
Friends, Scientology is not our model. The fact that senior leaders of a number of churches didn’t immediately smell a rat means something’s gone wrong with their noses.
I won’t speculate what their problems may be, but this is a terrible idea. So terrible it surely only needs to be laughed at. What we offer we offer for free. Yes, we ask for people’s money, that’s how all churches exist and continue to run, but these are generous offerings in response to what they received from God.
Or in the crassest terms, if you really want an extra £10 a month from someone, teach them the really good stuff. God might inspire them to want to give it to you.
Praying to commercial gods
I’m more concerned about the prayer tool, because it sounds like something we might conceivably use. But why are Facebook doing this? After all, Facebook is not our friend. People who used to work there have been surprisingly candid about their intent to ‘exploit a vulnerability in human psychology’.1 The old adage that if it’s free you’re the product rings true. Facebook are an advertising company, which they make no bones about.
I am concerned that if I input my prayer request I will be bombarded with adverts on their platforms for services which will fix my problem in some fashion. I may even be deceived into thinking this is a message from the Lord. Can the Almighty move an advertising algorithm to my benefit? Yes. But that doesn’t mean he did.
Imagine the most painful situation. A couple struggling with the deep feelings of shame and the ongoing heartache of infertility summon up the courage to input their prayers online. Adverts from fertility clinics, potentially offering all manner of unethical options, abound. At best this is confusing, most likely asking for prayer seems to have deepened their pain.
Even in a more run-of-the-mill situation, do I want an advertising company knowing my deepest thoughts? Their business is structured around knowing as much as they can about me in order to sell me things.
Or, if people are aware of this, do we want them to be afraid to ask for prayer because of how Facebook might use it?
It’s quite possible that many of the tools they’re developing will be useful to gospel ministry. Have a look at my previous post to for some initial thoughts about tools in ministry, and how to approach those questions.
Connection-makers
Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg is quoted as saying “Faith organizations and social media are a natural fit because fundamentally both are about connection.”
Are they? It’s the sort of thing that sounds very reasonable in an executive’s mouth, but let’s pause to hear the nonsense. Is Christianity fundamentally about connection? Is church? It sounds like it could be true enough for us to nod along, but it’s not actually true. It’s truth-adjacent, if you will. It isn’t wrong, but it’s not what the message of the crucified carpenter king is about at all.
“I died on the cross because I really want you all to love each other and get connected.”
Not Jesus, thank goodness
Let’s not accept the premise. Are we given ‘connection’ with God by Jesus work on our behalf? I suppose, but much better I’m given sonship, friendship, and a table richly laden. I’m adopted, not simply connected. By the Emperor of the cosmos, the Potentate of Time. As the meme goes, “you and I are not the same.”
A Centre of Gravity
Here perhaps we reach for a bigger lesson. Is there nothing that cannot be online? Is there nothing that cannot be subsumed under totalising social platforms? Sometimes it feels like there isn’t anything left. But it’s a lie. Most of what makes life good, from the Lord’s table to gathering around my table, is not online.
I appreciate that there will be some who would beg to differ, and that they have often been driven to online places that understand them from deep and lasting hurt. I can only sympathise and gently suggest that while I’m sure those spaces have been very helpful, there is better promised.
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