Audio Transcript

And we’re back again for another week and for another Fourth of July on the podcast. I think it’s the fourth time an episode has landed square on the holiday — at least our fourth. So happy Independence Day for those of you here in the States. If the inbox is any indicator, questions over politics, patriotism, and the pulpit are perennial concerns. When better to broach the topic than on a day like today?

Jamison, a pastor in Virginia, writes in to ask this: “Pastor John, hello and thank you for this podcast! I admire your approach to politics and patriotism. You seem to be very careful here. Even when the heat is turned up in election times, and pastors feel social pressure to endorse specific candidates, you notoriously refrain from participating. As you have watched this impulse in American Christian life for many decades, this impulse among Christian leaders to periodically endorse candidates and to get involved in politics, what observations have you drawn from your decades of refraining?”

Maybe the most important or helpful thing that I can do in response to this question is to point to passages of Scripture that capture the emphasis I think is needed, not just in the American church, but in the global church, the church around the world. Because the tendency to confuse and combine Christian identity and its earthly expression, the church, with political identity, ethnic identity, national identity, or any other earthly identity — that conflating tendency is so strong, and I think so destructive to the radical call of the gospel, that it needs steadfast resistance generation after generation.

Christian Identity in a Politicized World

So my burden is to join forces with the Bible (as I understand it), and millions of faithful Christians, to encourage and nurture a faithful Christian identity that will survive and thrive with faith and hope and joy and love and purity, whether America survives, or Brazil survives, or Britain survives, or China survives, or Russia survives, or India survives — or not.

So let me point to six kinds of passages that shaped my passions in that direction.

1. Not of This World

Jesus said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world” (John 18:36). From which I infer that we’d better be very, very careful before we undertake any processes that involve force or coercion to put the kingdom of Christ in place. Any identity that we can put in place by force or weapon or law is not the kingdom of Christ. In this age, King Jesus is creating a people a very different way. That’s number one.

2. Hidden with Christ

Paul said in Colossians 1:13, “[God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” And again,

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1–4)

“Our most fundamental and defining identity and location is the kingdom of Christ, not any kingdom on earth.”

So our most fundamental and defining identity and location is the kingdom of Christ, not any kingdom on earth. It is the right hand of God, not the right hand of any earthly power. Our most essential life is Christ, and only when he comes will we be openly known for who we really are.

3. Citizens of Heaven

Philippians 3:20–21:

Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

So no earthly citizenship, whether American or Russian or Chinese, has any ultimate allegiance over those who are in Christ Jesus. Our political allegiances are to Jesus. No party, no nation, no ethnicity, no ideology has any ultimate claim on us. Our decisive constitution is the word of God, and no human document.

4. Chosen Race, Holy Nation

Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” These are ethnically and politically shattering words. Born-again Christians, real Christians, are a chosen race (genos eklekton), a holy nation (ethnos hagion). The kind of human we are and the kind of nation we belong to is not any longer our essential identity. We are a new kind, a new nation. None of the existing human realities, ethnic or national, is God’s chosen and holy people. Christians are a new thing, a new reality, a new people, a new nation, a new ethnicity and race. And we should bear witness to it.

5. Resident Aliens on Earth

Therefore, Peter says in 1 Peter 2:11, “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” Christians are not first Americans, or Canadians, or British, or Russians, or Nigerians. In every nation, we are exiles. Let that sink in. I want to scream that from the top of the buildings to every nationalistic tendency. In every nation, we are exiles.

Jesus said, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19). If you are going to run for office, be sure to inform your constituency that you are a resident alien. Your primary citizenship and allegiance are the kingdom of Christ.

6. Servants of God

Peter said in 1 Peter 2:13–16,

Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

“We belong to God. We are slaves of God, not any man. We are his servants. He owns us. We do his bidding.”

In other words, realize as Christians that you are free — free from emperors, free from governors, free from presidents, free from worldly powers and parties. We belong to God. We are slaves of God, not any man. We are his servants. He owns us. We do his bidding. And when the human state tells us to pay our taxes and keep the speed limit and shovel the snow off of our sidewalks, we do it, not because the state is our authority, but because God is. We submit for his sake and in his limits.

7. People from All Nations

Jesus said in Matthew 28:19–20,

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Now that does not mean, “Go and turn pagan cultures into whitewashed tombs with the paint of so-called ‘Christian’ externals.” We know that. We know it doesn’t mean that, because Jesus defines “discipling nations” — which is the neuter plural Greek word ethne, “nations” — by “baptizing and teaching them,” and the “them” is masculine plural. That’s crucial. You don’t disciple political entities. You don’t disciple ethnic corporate realities. You disciple “them” — autous, plural in Greek — people that you can baptize.

In other words, our job is to so magnify Jesus and his saving work, among all the peoples of the world, that individual human beings are brought from death to life and formed into the image of Christ. In every race, ethnicity, nation, this new people, this chosen race, this holy nation among all the nations are to let our light so shine before others that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16). “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:12).

You Don’t Need to Know It All

Now I have no illusions, Tony, that until Jesus comes, Christians will ever agree on precisely what it looks like in professional life, and political life, and cultural life for the church to be the kingdom of Christ — a kingdom, Jesus says, that’s not of this world.

But my encouragement to pastors is that you don’t need to figure that out. You don’t need to figure that out for all of your amazingly diverse people invested in a thousand ways, in all kinds of cultural and professional and political endeavors. You don’t need to be the expert to figure all that out. We’re not smart enough. Speak these biblical truths and others that you see as relevant from Scripture. Call your people to radical allegiance to King Jesus. Set them on a quest of lifelong learning, and trust the Spirit of God in their lives.

My aim in these next few minutes is to provide another incentive for the perseverance of your faith and your fruitfulness for the next seventy years. To say it another way, my aim is to sharpen your sword so that you will be able to fend off the forces that threaten to make you faithless and fruitless for the next seventy years.

I chose the number seventy not only because a few of you will live that long, but also because this year — 2022 — marks the 70th anniversary of my becoming a Christian. I have been pondering, with a kind of trembling thankfulness and wonder, how God has held me fast for so long. That’s what I want for you. Will you endure to the end, or not?

Be Tree-Like, Not Trendy

The word deconversion is not in the Oxford English Dictionary. At least, not yet. Words are created to name reality, not the other way around. But we didn’t need the word deconversion. The Bible abounds with words and descriptions of some forsaking Christ:

apostasy (2 Thessalonians 2:3)
falling away (Matthew 24:10)
shipwreck of faith (1 Timothy 1:19)
turning back from following the Lord (Zephaniah 1:6)
trampling underfoot the Son of God (Hebrews 10:29)
going out from us (1 John 2:19)
cutting off of a branch (John 15:2)
becoming disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:27)
turning away from listening to the truth (2 Timothy 4:4)
denying the Master who bought them (2 Peter 2:1)

We didn’t need a new word. My guess is that the new word deconversion came into existence so that the old, foolish, tragic, heart-breaking reality could feel as trendy as the word. How shrewd is our enemy.

If it lay in my power, I would spare you this trendy tragedy. It is a wonderful thing to remain a Christian for seventy years — and more. To stand like Polycarp on the day of his martyrdom in AD 155 and say, “For eighty-six years I have been his servant, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” For some of you, that would be sixty years from now. Would it not be glorious to say that when you turn eighty-six?

“Be like a tree: old, gnarly, battered winter after winter, storm after storm — and still standing.”

Did you know that the Fortingall Yew tree in Scotland may be five thousand years old — the oldest living thing in Britain? It’s still standing after millennia. You won’t live five thousand years on earth. But many of you will live three, four, five, six, seven more decades. I hope you feel that it is a wonderful thing to be like a tree, not like “a reed shaken by the wind” (Luke 7:24). Not like a reed, but like a tree: old, gnarly, battered winter after winter, storm after storm — and still standing. Become that kind of tree.

How Sin Shipwrecks Faith

The incentive that I want to give you for your endurance, or the sword-sharpening that I offer to help you to fend off the forces of apostasy, falling away, making shipwreck of your faith, and being part of the trendy tragedy of deconversion, is this: be aware that the shipwreck of Christian faith is owing most deeply not to the mind’s problems with history, science, logic, or ethics, but to the heart’s overpowering desire for something that does not fit with Christian faith.

We stumble over the cliff of apostasy not because there is no light, but because we love the dark. “Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (John 3:19).

This came home to me recently when someone asked me what it means to “make shipwreck” of your faith. I went looking for biblical examples. Let me give you five illustrations of what I found. Time after time the ship of faith floundered not on the rock of ignorance, but on the rock of sin.

1. Life’s Cares, Riches, and Pleasures

In the parable of the soils, Jesus says that the third soil represents those who make a beginning in discipleship and then fall away: “As for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature” (Luke 8:14). So there they were, making a good beginning. But something went wrong. What was their downfall? “The cares and riches and pleasures of life.” Whatever the presenting issues, Jesus says that the fear of losing things, and the desire to gain things, and the craving for the pleasures of the world — these are the rocks where the ship of faith shattered.

2. Love for the Present Age

The apostle Paul says in Philemon 1:24 that Demas was a fellow worker. He lists him right beside Luke. So Demas must have looked enough like a true Christian to actually pass muster for Paul to approve him on his team, even though Paul’s standards were so high that John Mark was excluded (Acts 15:38). But then later, in 2 Timothy 4:10, Paul writes: “Demas, in love with this present age, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.” What happened? Paul says it was an issue of love. Desire. Passion. In love with this present age, Demas quit.

3. Rejecting a Good Conscience

In 1 Timothy 1:18–20, Paul tells Timothy, “Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this [a good conscience], some have made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander.” How did Hymenaeus and Alexander make shipwreck of their faith? They rejected a good conscience. Their consciences were testifying to them, “These desires that you have for sin are not the way of Christ, not the way of life. Listen! You cannot navigate those rocks!” And they rejected the voice of conscience and wrecked their lives on the desire for sin.

4. Re-Entangled in Worldly Defilements

In 2 Peter 2:20, Peter says, “If, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.” In other words, their knowledge of Christ and their beginnings of sanctification — aborted. Why? Like Lot’s wife, they looked back with overpowering desire and became entangled again in the defilements of the world.

5. Deceitfulness of Sin

Finally, now that we have seen Jesus and Paul and Peter testify about what causes the shipwreck of faith, what about the book of Hebrews? Here’s Hebrews 3:12–14:

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

What is the danger? What could lead to the hardening of the heart and the falling away from the living God? Answer: the deceitfulness of sin. Sin, the heart’s preference for this world over God. So, in sum:

The shipwreck of the third soil is owing to the riches and pleasures of life.
The shipwreck of Demas is owing to his love for the present age.
The shipwreck of Hymenaeus and Alexander is owing to rejecting a good conscience.
The shipwreck of those who escaped the defilements of the world is that they become entangled with them again.
The warning against shipwreck in Hebrews 3 is a warning against the deceitfulness of sin.

“The root cause of apostasy is not the failure to detect truth, but the failure to desire holiness.”

I don’t think you will find any exceptions to this in the Bible. The root cause of apostasy, or falling away, or making shipwreck of faith, or deconversion, is not the failure to detect truth, but the failure to desire holiness. Not the absence of light, but the love for the dark. Not the problems of science, but the preference for sin.

Savor Holiness

Remember how Jesus said in John 7:17, “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.” If the inclination of the heart is right, the illumination of the mind will be bright.

We all know — you have been well taught — that God never loses any of his elect. Not one of his predestined children is ever lost. “For those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). None of them deconverts finally. The ship of saving faith always makes it to the haven. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19).

“Be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall” (2 Peter 1:10). God is faithful. Those whom he calls he keeps. He will do it (1 Corinthians 1:9; 1 Thessalonians 5:24) — and he uses means. You will be kept from shipwreck not only by seeing the way of truth, but by savoring the way of holiness. Because without the savoring of holiness, the seeing of truth is lost (Hebrews 12:14).

As surprised as we might be by divisiveness in the church, and as uncomfortable and maddening as it may feel at times, such cracks in the walls have dogged us from the beginning.

The kinds of cracks have varied from age to age and culture to culture, but give any congregation enough time — even the best of them — and cracks will emerge. They’re side effects of making covenants with fellow sinners — as unpleasant as they are unavoidable. It’s just part of keeping a home in a fallen world.

Many have tried hard to diagnose and treat the current cracks in our walls — politics and elections, mask mandates and rebellions, racial disparity and superiority, men’s and women’s roles in the home and beyond, domestic abuse and other moral failures, and so on — but many of them have overlooked or marginalized a missing ingredient to harmony. In fact, I can’t help but wonder if the wildfires in some pews are as fierce and contagious as they are because this piece seems so small in many of our eyes.

When God planted the first churches, he knew the cracks he’d find. He wrote them into our stories, in fact, because he knew that cracked but loving churches served his purposes better than ones with brand-new walls and pristine floors. He had planned the cracks, and he had plans for the cracks, and one of those plans was called deacons.

Strong Enough to Help

We first encounter deacons during a meal (which, as any normal family knows, is when fights often break out). As the early church began to meet and grow, Greek-speaking Jews who had been scattered outside of Israel (“Hellenists”) returned to Jerusalem to join the church and follow Jesus. After a while, though, they came and complained to the Hebrew-speaking apostles because Greek widows were not receiving the food they needed (Acts 6:1).

Urgent needs like this, as any church knows, require time and attention, pastoral sensitivity, and careful follow-through. This meant the leaders would have less time and attention for teaching and prayer, and they knew the church would suffer even more if that were the case (Acts 6:2). So, the apostles called the church to appoint seven men to make sure all were fed well. And because they did, “the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem” (Acts 6:7).

How much or little we think of diaconal ministry today rests, in significant measure, on what problem we think those first proto-deacons were solving. Was this merely a matter of entrées and sides for some lonely and vulnerable women, or was the church facing a deeper, more sensitive threat?

Matt Smethurst, in his introduction to deacons, draws our attention to the greater dangers hiding beneath the dining tables:

How our churches react to conflict can make all the difference in whether our gospel witness is obstructed or accelerated. Acts 6 is a story of church conflict handled well. . . . The seven weren’t merely deployed to solve a food problem. Food was the occasion, sure, but it wasn’t the deepest problem. The deepest problem was a sudden threat to church unity. (Deacons, 44, 52)

“How could the church win the war for souls if there were wars within her walls?”

Cracks were suddenly surfacing and spreading. How could the church win the war for souls if there were wars within her walls? How could the word run if its people were mired in swamps of bitterness? The church didn’t merely need better waiters; it needed peace and healing. It needed men strong and wise enough to help mend fractures in the family.

Giants Bowing Low

Many might hear deacon and immediately think of dull or menial tasks that few people want to do — building maintaining, budget crunching, nursery cleaning, furnace repairing, meal serving. They might imagine a sort of junior-varsity team that relieves the pastors of lesser work. When the apostles saw those seven men, however, they saw something different in them — a stronger and more vibrant force for good, a noble and vital ministry.

We know how much they thought of diaconal work because of the kind of men they appointed: “Pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty” (Acts 6:3). They weren’t content with someone who was handy around the house or good with spreadsheets; they wanted men filled with the Spirit and abounding in wisdom. These were remarkable men doing difficult and precious work. “The apostles did not delegate this problem to others because it wasn’t important,” Smethurst observes, “but because it was” (53).

Because they knew how much food could poison fellowship, they set spiritual giants-in-the-making like Stephen over the tables. “And Stephen, full of grace and power, was doing great wonders and signs among the people” (Acts 6:8). The Jewish leaders “could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking” (Acts 6:10). And yet feeding widows was not beneath him. In fact, the faith and humility that freed him to quietly serve tables was the same faith and humility that freed him to boldly die for Jesus (Acts 7:58). Like Jesus, he knew that those who bow down lowest get to see more of God and his glory.

Diaconal ministry is not merely about checking boxes next to tasks, but about helping to maintain a home where a family not only lives but thrives.

Office of Tedious?

What do deacons do? In short, they assist the elders by meeting needs in the life of the church. They unleash the word of God by allowing the elders to focus on praying, teaching, and governing. And in doing so, the deacons guard and encourage the church’s love for one another. For the church of Acts 6, that meant making sure everyone was fed. In our day, it might still be feeding the hungry in our congregation, or it might be maintaining the church budget, or overseeing ministry to children, or taking care of the building, or leading a small group.

The tasks may seem tedious to the untrained eye, but imagine how much our churches would be crippled if no one stepped up to do them well. Imagine how horribly distracted and worn out our pastors would be, trying to cover all those bases themselves. Imagine how the preaching and teaching would inevitably suffer, leaving the church starving in far worse ways.

“The apostles recognize a fundamental truth,” Smethurst writes.

A church whose ministers are chained to the tyranny of the urgent — which so often shows up in “tangible problems” — is a church removing its heart to strengthen its arm. It’s a kind of slow-motion suicide. A church without deacons may lack health, but a church without biblical preaching cannot exist. There is, in fact, no such thing. (47)

Sent into the Cracks

What should churches look for in a deacon? I believe both men and women can serve as deacons (though I don’t have space to argue for that here). Scripture is not as clear on that question as we might like, so I understand why others come down differently. Whether we ordain women as deacons or not, though, Scripture does give us a clear picture of what marks a good deacon: dignity and honesty, self-control and generosity, conviction and faithfulness (1 Timothy 3:8–10). The men must also be devoted husbands and fathers, raising their families in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (1 Timothy 3:12; Ephesians 6:4).

“When they see something that needs to be done, deacons love to help see that it gets done.”

Beyond the biblical qualifications, Smethurst shares some practical counsel for recognizing good deacons in the wild: “Pastor, when eyeing future deacons, look for godly saints who see and meet needs discreetly (they don’t need or want credit), at their own expense (they sacrifice), and without being asked (they take the initiative to solve problems)” (76). These qualities prepare a man (or woman) to anticipate and heal cracks in the church by meeting practical needs.

Sincere Humility

First, good deacons serve discreetly because of their deep-seated humility. The public nature of preaching and teaching means pastors get greater amounts of attention and encouragement (and criticism, with it). Doing diaconal work well requires a kind of humility, ready to forfeit the attention and affirmation others may receive. By all means, we should regularly encourage our deacons, but the very nature of their ministry means that many will not see or fully appreciate what they do.

Generous Sacrifice

Second, good deacons are strangely quick to sacrifice. I say strangely because all Christians should be quick to sacrifice. To follow Jesus Christ at all is to lay down our lives and pick up a cross (Matthew 16:24). Deacons, however, are examples in cross-bearing. Sacrifice is not an occasional blip on the radar of their decisions, but woven deeply into their lifestyle. They rejoice to spend and be spent for the sake of others (2 Corinthians 12:15), and especially for the church (Galatians 6:10).

Creative Initiative

Third, good deacons are creative problem-solvers. They’re solution-initiators. While others in the church might walk past problems (or even fail to notice them), deacons are drawn to these opportunities. How might that need be met? What might resolve this tension? What would it take to repair that wall or appliance? What is keeping my pastors from their most important work? When they see something that needs to be done, deacons love to help see that it gets done. When possible, they resist the impulse to leave a need at someone else’s feet, and they’re especially sensitive to how much pastors already have on their plates.

Durable Happiness

Good deacons are humble, and sacrificial, and creatively constructive — and they’re also deeply happy. Their humility is a happy humility. Their sacrifices are glad sacrifices. Their initiative is not just willing, but cheerful and eager. They have found, like the Servant they follow, that joy not only fuels ministry to others, but blossoms from that ministry. Jesus, after all, was betrayed, mocked, beaten, and slaughtered “for the joy set before him” (Hebrews 12:2). Likewise, as 1 Timothy 3:13 promises, “Those who serve well as deacons gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.”

Many have noticed the trend in modern films: the warrior woman. From animated stories to superhero genres to crime mysteries, women are cast less frequently as the damsel in distress, and more often as the physically powerful rescuer come to save the day.

Rather than reflect the realistic differences between men’s and women’s physical strength, many of these movies portray impossible ideals. While our family is very picky about what movies we watch, we occasionally go ahead with one that indulges this sort of fantasy, and when we do, we talk through it together, asking questions and making sure we don’t check reality at the door.

It matters what kinds of figures we set before our sons’ and daughters’ eyes. Stories shape our understanding of what’s good, true, and beautiful. They shape our sense of what’s normal and what we ought to aspire to in life. Often the stories that put women in the role of the physically dominant hero do so to serve a particular feminist agenda that would have us understand men and women as interchangeable — or, even more so, it would have us believe women are superior to men, both mentally and physically.

Tent-Peg-Wielding Weaker Vessel

Stories from the Bible give us glimpses of women in real life — some godly, some not. There are women we should imitate, like Abraham’s wife, Sarah, and women we should not imitate, like Ahab’s wife, Jezebel.

The book of Judges tells the story of God’s people, Israel, during one of the more terrible times in their history. God’s people were doing what was right in their own eyes rather than remembering his faithfulness to them and obeying all he commanded them to do (Judges 17:6; 21:25). So he gave them judges, each of whom ushered in a brief time of turning back to God and subsequent rest. Of all the judges God gave to Israel, he gave one who was a woman — and she wasn’t only a judge, but also a prophetess. Her name was Deborah.

When God made a woman to rule over Israel as judge, it was likely a signal of his judgment on them. The prophet Isaiah describes the judgment upon Judah this way: “Infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them” (Isaiah 3:12). And God doubles down on this theme by using another woman, Jael, to deal the fatal blow to Israel’s enemy. In God’s good design, men are rulers and fighters; they bear the responsibility of providing and protecting. A female judge and warrior, then, suggests that something has gone wrong in Israel.

But first, God commands Barak to gather ten thousand of his men at Mount Tabor, where God himself will draw out the troops of Sisera’s army and give them into Barak’s hand. Barak refuses to obey, instead insisting that he won’t go unless Deborah goes with him. Because of his disobedience, Deborah tells him, “The road on which you are going will not lead to your glory, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman” (Judges 4:9).

Everything happens just as the Lord said through his prophetess Deborah. The troops are drawn out and given into Barak’s hand, but the leader Sisera escapes, only to come upon the tent of Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite. Jael comes out to meet Sisera, lures him into her tent, puts the fleeing man’s mind at ease, and gives him food, drink, and a blanket. Before he falls asleep, he tells her to keep watch at the door for him. “But Jael the wife of Heber took a tent peg, and took a hammer in her hand. Then she went softly to him and drove the peg into his temple until it went down into the ground while he was lying fast asleep from weariness. So he died” (Judges 4:21).

She Killed Like a Woman

Too often, the moral of this story is reduced to something ridiculous like, “Yeah, girl power!” — a rallying cry for women, many of whom wield it against those supposedly misogynistic words of the apostle Peter, who dared call women the “weaker vessel” (1 Peter 3:7). But is it?

What some fail to notice is the distinctly feminine way Jael conquers her enemy. She does not approach him on the field of open combat so that she can jujitsu her way to a victory. She deceives him, making him believe she’s a place of safety and refuge as she bides her time, tent peg within reach. This is not unlike the subversive work of the Hebrew midwives — or, in more recent history, the subversive work of Corrie Ten Boom, as she deceived the Nazis who were hunting Jews.

“Deborah’s and Jael’s unlikely roles were a sign of God’s judgment on his people.”

Perhaps more importantly, though, the story is fundamentally one of God’s mercy triumphing over (and even through) his judgment. Deborah and Jael did nothing to incur guilt in this story — they acted with integrity and did what God required of them. Yet their unlikely roles were a sign of God’s judgment on his people. And it doesn’t end there. God takes that sign of judgment and turns it around to put a song of triumph in his people’s mouth and to give them rest for forty years (Judges 5).

This is the story God tells over and over on the pages of Scripture, and it climaxes at the cross. Jesus — God’s perfect Son — incurs the wrath and judgment of God, and it is through that very judgment of death that the mercy of God triumphs forever in the empty tomb.

Copy-and-Paste Womanhood

How might Christian women think about figures like Deborah and Jael now? Should we try to imitate them? Well, yes and no.

“Are we the sort of godly woman who overcomes her fears, keeps her wits about her, and acts with resourcefulness?”

We should imitate them in such a way as to apply the godly principles they followed, but not try to replicate the exact scenarios. In other words, I think it unlikely that many of us will find ourselves in a position to kill our people’s sworn enemy after he’s fled the battlefield. But I do think we ought to consider if we’re the sort of woman who could do such a thing if God asked us to. And on a more fundamental level, are we the sort of godly woman who overcomes her fears, keeps her wits about her, and acts with resourcefulness when called upon? How might we grow into that sort of godly woman?

It’s unlikely that any of us will be called upon to sit as judge over a people, so our imitation of Deborah will not be a copy-and-paste job, but how might we take the principles of godliness that she displayed and begin living those out in our own set of unique circumstances? I’m not called to be the mother of Israel, but I am called to be the mother of my own children. That may sound small in comparison to Deborah’s role, but I find that too many women have worldly ideas of big and small, not realizing that it’s our faithfulness in little that qualifies us for much. What do you suppose God thinks of those who neglect the job of actual mothering as they pray, “I just want to do ministry and lead people to you, Lord!” We can start with the ones he’s already given us.

When God wove Deborah’s and Jael’s stories into his big story, he didn’t do it so that we would turn the whole thing into a call for female empowerment, intent on making it all about how awesome women are. He did it so that we would know what kind of God he is — he is a God whose mercy triumphs over, and even through, judgment. He is a God who keeps his promises to his people and provides everything we need to walk uprightly in the strangest of circumstances.

What is Look at the Book?

You look at a Bible text on the screen. You listen to John Piper. You watch his pen “draw out” meaning. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. And (we pray!) all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love.

“We live in a divided age” is so self-evidently true that it’s frankly boring to write. Theories abound on how we got here; what’s undisputed is that we’re here. It sure can feel as if the temperature of virtually every conversation and debate, however trivial, is set to blazing hot.

And worst of all, the previous paragraph doesn’t just describe the world — it describes many churches. Rather than shining as a contrast to the perpetual outrage machine, many of us are too busy being conformed to the pattern of this age (Romans 12:2).

How, then, can believers forge meaningful unity in a fractured time? It is looking unlikely that we’re going to tweet our way out of the problem. So what’s the path forward?

Whiplash World

As author Yuval Levin has observed in A Time to Build, the function of institutions in modern life has largely shifted from formative to performative — from habitats for growth to platforms for self-expression. Enter a secular university, for example, and you may well emerge more coddled than shaped. But this performative dynamic isn’t confined to colleges; it also infects local churches.

Long past are the days when American churchgoers looked to their pastors first (or perhaps even second or third) for help navigating a fraught cultural landscape. Nowadays it’s pundits — whether on cable news or talk radio or social media — whose voices are most formative. On one level, this is understandable. Pastors are not omnicompetent. They aren’t experts on everything, or even most things. Thus when it comes to current events, Christians should (in one sense) expect less from their pastors.

Nevertheless, the larger trend is troubling. When church becomes just another arena in which to perform — whether via a “leadership position” or simply by keeping up appearances — rather than a family in which to be shaped, it has ceased to occupy the gravitational center of one’s life. No wonder priorities spin out of orbit. No wonder people demand that their pastors affirm, and publicly echo, their settled opinions on debatable matters. I’ve heard countless stories of someone leaving their church because of their politics. What I have yet to hear is someone leaving their politics because of their church.

One reason churches are losing the battle to form hearts is because the Christians who visit and join and show up for worship Sunday after Sunday are battered by the storms of digital discourse. They’re limping along, exhausted and distracted and confused.

No Longer Tossed

This is precisely why congregational unity is so essential. Unity is not a squishy sentiment or optional add-on to the Christian life; it is something for which Jesus prayed and bled and died (John 17:22). Just consider the apostle Paul’s logic in Ephesians 4. The ascended King Jesus gave the gift of pastors to equip church members for ministry (verses 8–12). As such ministry builds up the body (verse 13), the ensuing unity tears down whatever threatens it (verse 14). In other words, ministry generates unity, and unity generates stability. Thus, unity’s purpose is plain: “so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (verse 14).

Living in a turbulent time? Labor for unity. It will have a stabilizing effect.

But how, practically, do we do this in the local church? How do we keep each other from being pummeled by the raging rapids of modern media? Here are two suggestions.

1. Dust Off Your Documents

A good statement of faith, used properly, is a goldmine for church unity. Same with a members’ covenant. These documents shouldn’t gather dust in a file drawer or be confined to a website. They should be used, for they are pregnant with unity-forging potential. Why? They provide a common core, enabling churches to keep the main things central and helping to regulate the temperature of our debates. The million-dollar question then becomes whether our statement of faith speaks to a given topic. Yes, clearly? Then we also will. Yes, sort of? Then we might. No, not at all? Then we likely won’t.

In my estimation, a good statement of faith is neither so exhaustive that an undiscipled Christian couldn’t join the church, nor so mere that there’s little the church is actually standing for. But we refuse to divide over things we never agreed to agree on.

As a church planter, I’ve had to think about developing documents that will establish biblical guardrails — while recognizing that not all doctrines are equally important or clear. In a recent membership class, someone asked why we don’t stake out a clearer position on the end times. It’s a good question. I briefly explained the idea of theological triage — there are first-rank doctrines we must agree on to be Christians, second-rank doctrines we must agree on to be members of the same church, and third-rank doctrines we can actually disagree on and still be members of the same church.

Even if various gospel-proclaiming churches classify second- and third-rank doctrines a bit differently, the classification system itself is a useful tool. By codifying only certain doctrines (statement of faith) and promises (covenant), a church crystallizes what members must agree on — and where there’s room to disagree. This engenders confidence in the essentials and freedom in everything else. This is not to say that a pastor should avoid debatable matters in his preaching — as he unfolds the “whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), many such matters will arise. It’s simply to say that a church cannot bind members’ consciences on issues where (the church has agreed, as reflected in its documents) God has not clearly spoken.

“It’s counterintuitive but true: one way to preserve sound doctrine is to leave ample room for Christian freedom.”

It’s counterintuitive but true: one way to preserve sound doctrine is to leave ample room for Christian freedom. Otherwise, churches can easily succumb to legalism by requiring agreement on third-rank issues. But by lowering the fences on debatable matters, we raise the fences on non-debatable ones. Or to change the metaphor, by lowering our collective voice on issues where Scripture is not clear — say, a specific political-policy proposal — we can raise our voice on issues where it is. This is why liberty of conscience is so critical in an age of outrage. As Mark Dever has observed, leaving space for disagreement (on many matters other than gospel clarity) is, in part, what keeps the gospel clear. When we lack a clear understanding of Christian liberty and space for conscience, we will be tempted to stick more into the gospel than is there — that is, agreement on a wider variety of issues.

Don’t underestimate the practical value of church documents. They are your friends; weave them into the life of your church. Corporately confess portions of your statement of faith on Sundays. Rehearse the covenant’s promises when you convene a members’ meeting or celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Quote the documents in sermon applications. In so doing, you will forge unity around what has been agreed on — and avoid division around what hasn’t.

2. Get a Table

Another way to foster church unity, not to mention sanity, is to trade the Twitter timeline for a table. I mean this literally. How many hours per week do you typically spend scrolling through social media? (Statistically, it’s probably more than you think.) By comparison, how many do you spend conversing with fellow church members over meals? (Statistically, it may be less than you think.) If the first number dwarfs the second, consider that a check-engine light for your soul. Proximity may not always breed unity, but distance certainly won’t. It’s just harder to resent someone when you’re asking them to pass the salt.

“Christian, you are spiritually responsible for the members of your church, not for strangers on the Internet.”

Christian, you are spiritually responsible for the members of your church, not for strangers on the Internet. Yet who is getting your best energy these days — the members or the strangers? Likewise, if you are a pastor, remember that on the last day you will give account to God not for your followers, but for your flock (Hebrews 13:17). Who is claiming your best energy these days — the followers or the flock?

To borrow language from later in Ephesians 4, we are called to “put off” anything that decreases our joy in God, and in his children, and to “put on” whatever increases it (verses 22–24; see also 1 Thessalonians 2:19–20). If something is generating suspicion or coldness toward fellow believers — especially fellow members — then put it off. Maybe that means shut it off. Pray your heart would be more animated by the faces in your membership directory than by the faces in your newsfeed.

No Replacement

Technology and parachurch ministries are gifts, but they are no replacement for the local church. Anchor your identity there, friend, for only in the communion of the saints will you find ballast amid the storms. In a world of endless options, the church makes our commitments clear. In a world of enormous complexity, the church makes our duties simple. In a world of escalating division, the church makes our unity sweet.

These are my people, and I am theirs.

Audio Transcript

Part of mature Bible reading is the willingness to stop and ponder the hardest realities that God reveals to us in his word. We don’t skim over hard texts. We press in with questions, seeking understanding.

So this summer we’re addressing three sobering questions inspired by serious Bible readers working through the first two chapters of 2 Thessalonians. Namely, is God present or is he absent in his eternal judgment? Second Thessalonians 1:9 seems to say he’s absent. On Monday we addressed that in APJ 1801. Next, many of you have written us asking Pastor John to identify the mysterious “man of lawlessness” in 2 Thessalonians 2. Who is he? That’s today. And then a question about God sending strong delusions into the world. Does he still do something like that today? And if so, what is that? This third question, on 2 Thessalonians 2:11, is on the table in a week — next Friday in APJ 1806.

So today, we approach this topic of the man of lawlessness. Here’s one representative email from many: “Pastor John, my name is Jared, and I live in San Jose, California. I was reading through my Bible and recently came across the section about ‘the man of lawlessness’ in 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12. At first, I assumed this man was Satan himself. But it becomes clear in verse 9 that this ‘lawless one’ is ‘by the activity of Satan.’ So, it’s not Satan. In your estimation, who is this lawless man?”

I don’t usually read twelve verses of Scripture when we do an APJ. But Jared’s question can only be answered by specifics from the text of 2 Thessalonians. So, let me read the first twelve verses of 2 Thessalonians. I think people will find it riveting, frankly. This is the sort of Scripture people hang on. They say, “Whoa! What’s that talking about?”

Hysteria in Thessalonica

The situation is that some kind of rumor is going around in Thessalonica to the effect that Paul has taught, by some letter or some revelation, that the day of the Lord has come — meaning that Jesus is going to show up in the clouds any day. People were quitting their jobs and mooching off of others, and Paul had to handle this feeling that was running through the church. And here’s how he did it. These are the first verses of 2 Thessalonians 2:

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come unless the rebellion [apostasy or falling away] comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:1–12)

So Paul says that the day of the second coming cannot have arrived and will not arrive until the great apostasy happens and the man of lawlessness is revealed. That’s his basic answer to the hysteria in Thessalonica.

Who Is This Man?

Here’s my summary, then, from that text of what we can say about the man of lawlessness. There are questions that are left unanswered, but we can say something.

1. He’s a man — a human, not an angel, not a demon. A “man of lawlessness.”

2. He is quintessentially lawless. That is, he’s called a man of lawlessness. He considers himself absolutely above law. He is lawless in considering himself subject to no law and no lawgiver and no authority.

3. Since there’s only one person who’s above law — namely, God, who writes it — the man of lawlessness claims to be God. He says so explicitly. Verse 4: “. . . who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.”

“This man of lawlessness claims to be the final climactic antichrist.”

So, this man of lawlessness claims to be the final climactic antichrist. “I am a man. I am God. But I’m not Jesus. And I don’t believe in Jesus. I’m against Jesus.” That’s the ultimate expression of antichrist. “Many antichrists have come,” John says (1 John 2:18). And this one is the last. He’s going to be destroyed by the mouth of Jesus, and the fire of heaven, when he comes.

4. He’s born for destruction. Paul calls him “the son of destruction” in verse 3. His DNA, so to speak, is from his satanic father, so he’s going to be destroyed. That’s what his DNA is. He is going to be destroyed. He has no future. He is quintessentially lawless and doomed.

5. As a man, he is coming, nevertheless, by the power of Satan. Verse 9: “The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan.” He’s not Satan. Jared got that exactly right. He is empowered and driven by Satan, animated by Satan, serving Satan, accomplishing Satan’s purposes in vain.

6. Therefore, as a man, he will nevertheless have supernatural power. Paul calls it “all power” in verse 9. And he will work signs and wonders. And when the ESV translates verse 9 and calls them false signs and wonders, be careful. We should not read that to mean “They don’t really happen; they’re really not supernatural. This is cloak and dagger. This is the rabbit out of a hat.”

No, no, no. It’s not. It means they really do happen. Satanic power really is at work in them, but they happen in the service of falsehood. That’s what it means by calling them false signs and wonders. They serve a lie. They are signs and wonders in the service of a great lie, but the satanic supernatural power is real. That’s why it’s going to be so deceptive.

7. Therefore, the man of lawlessness will be unparalleled in his ability to deceive. Verse 10 says he comes “with all wicked deception for those who are perishing” (2 Thessalonians 2:10). Literally, it reads, “in all deception of unrighteousness,” because two verses later, we see that the way he deceives is by making unrighteousness seem pleasurable. They found “pleasure in unrighteousness” (verse 12).

Still Waiting

Now I would argue that Paul is unpacking in these words the prophecies of Jesus. Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 24:10–13:

And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another [these are Christians; this is a great apostasy]. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

“This man of lawlessness is going to be destroyed by the final fiery second coming.”

So Jesus foresaw a great deception, betrayal — a great betrayal, a great apostasy. And he foresaw a horrible season of lawlessness in which the love of many grows cold. So no matter how many forerunners of this man of lawlessness there have been in history, we know that none of them is what Paul is talking about.

I think some people try to get around this text by saying, “Oh, there’ve been lots of men of lawlessness. They’ve cropped up in all kinds of seasons of history.” Well, that’s true, but it’s irrelevant because this man of lawlessness is going to be destroyed by the final fiery second coming. Verse 8: “Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8).

This is it. It’s over — end of the age. This is the coming of verse 1, when Christ gathers his elect from the four winds. It’s the coming of 2 Thessalonians 1:7, when he comes with his mighty angels in flaming fire. It’s the coming of 1 Thessalonians 2:19; 3:13; 4:15, when the saints will be raised from the dead to meet the Lord in the air. In other words, the great apostasy and this man of lawlessness are at the climactic end of the age. They are brought to an end by the glorious appearing of the coming of the Lord. This is what we hope for. This is what we pray for. Come, Lord Jesus.

Audio Transcript

Hello everyone, and welcome to this special episode of the podcast. I just returned home from Brazil. There we launched my new technology book in Portuguese at a conference hosted by our friends at Fiel. In fact, I discovered that thousands of Brazilians listen regularly to this podcast. There’s even a Portuguese version of APJ. So hello to all of you listening right now. It was a delight to meet so many of you in Atibaia, and to receive your gratitude for APJ, which you wanted me to pass along to Pastor John, which I do now. So on behalf of at least the hundreds of Brazilian Christians that I met, thank you, Pastor John, for your decade-long investment in this podcast.

While I was in Brazil, big news broke here in the States. Roe v. Wade has been overturned by the Supreme Court. On Friday, the SCOTUS ruling was made official. We knew it was coming. Back on May 2, a draft opinion of the decision was leaked. I texted you immediately when that news broke, Pastor John. That’s now official. Roe was overruled Friday, on June 24.

This is not the end of abortion. This simply turns the legal status of abortion back to individual states. The work of defending the unborn is far from over. Discerning Christians will continue to ask, “What should Christians be doing?” Our work is urgent. And our work is now more local. So it might be helpful for our listeners to know something of what you have done, Pastor John, over the past four decades. As the work continues, what has been your answer to the question “What should I do?” How have you answered that question in your own life and ministry?

Well, I don’t see myself as the ideal pro-life person because I am fallible. I am sinful. There are things I’ve left undone in the last forty years. Things could have been done better. But as you and I have reflected on this, and as I’ve thought about my own life, looking at imperfect examples has often proved very helpful, very inspiring to me in my Christian walk. So I will go ahead and venture to say some things that I’ve done, imperfect though they have been. And hope that they will be a help to others. So here are the sorts of things that I’ve done in the last forty years or so, and I think they are the sorts of things that will probably need to be done now for years to come, long after I’m gone.

Thirteen Pro-Life Efforts

Beginning in 1987, I preached at least one explicitly pro-life message every year — with, I think, two exceptions along the way in my pastoral trek — until my stepping away from pastoral leadership in 2013. The last one I preached was January 2021 because the church invited me back for that Sunday. It was called “Doing the Right Thing Never Ruins Your Life.” I looked at it the other day, and I’m really persuaded that message is super important. It’s there at Desiring God. That’s about 25 morning messages on Sanctity of Life Sunday over my pastoral life. I recall the very first pro-life sermon I preached was from James 4:2: “You desire and do not have, so you murder.” I still think that text is one of the most penetrating biblical texts about the origin of abortion in the Bible.

Second, I tried to spread those messages by putting a few of them in a little book called Exposing the Dark Work of Abortion, which I think is free at Desiring God. Then when Desiring God came into existence in the mid-1990s, we put all these sermons online, where they are today.

Third, I wrote articles for Desiring God and for other outlets. The one that I think is still about the most helpful is “Fifteen Pro-Life Truths to Speak,” which I think is available there at Desiring God.

Fourth, since we started this podcast ten years ago, there are at least ten episodes related to abortion.

Fifth, I love to write poetry about the things that move me — and I mean move me positively and move me negatively. I’ve written two relating to the pro-life cause. One is called “It?” about a young woman who goes in for an abortion and they keep referring to her baby as “it.” Then after the procedure, she lifts up her head and sees this little tiny torso on the tray and notices it’s unmistakably female. And this overwhelmed her. This is not an “it.” This was not an “it.” Experiences like that, hearing things like that, have moved me over the years to write poetry about the cause of life.

Sixth, I’ve tried to pray and lead our people in praying against the sin of child-killing and for the spiritual miracles that will have to happen in people’s lives so that it is overcome in what they want, not just what they do.

Seventh, I mobilized our people to be part of major rallies, and I participated in them myself, like the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL) rally at the capitol here in Minnesota every year. Usually, it’s below zero. It’s just absolutely unforgettable to march with five thousand or ten thousand other people when the wind is howling and everybody is bundled up like Eskimos, and you’re walking in the cause of prayerful support for the opposition to child-killing in this country.

Eighth, there was a season of about three years where I was part of direct action and civil disobedience, sitting in front of abortion clinics to block the way into the place of death. I was arrested several times and spent one night in jail.

Ninth, I encouraged and shared in sidewalk counseling, where you simply stand peacefully outside abortion clinics and offer literature and conversation to anyone entering, in the hopes that perhaps one last obstacle to overcome would help and might change their minds.

Tenth, I took an abortionist doctor out to lunch. This is one of the most memorable things in my life. I felt so inauthentic not dealing directly with abortionists. So I found a way to contact a local abortionist doctor about four blocks from my house. I took him out to lunch. I told him, “I’m a local pastor. I’m pro-life. I want to understand you. Would you go out to lunch?” And he was willing. I went with my ten points to make the case that he was killing children. And he disarmed me immediately by saying, “I know I’m killing children. It’s the lesser of two evils. The other evil,” he said, “is that it’s unjust that men can have sex and bear no consequences, but women can have sex and have to bear all the consequences. That’s unjust. Killing the child is the solution to that injustice.” He really was unbelievably honest with me. He said, “I wouldn’t be doing it except my wife pressures me to do it. She believes it’s the path of justice.”

Eleventh, I give financially, regularly, to several pro-life organizations.

Twelfth, while I was a pastor, I tried to cultivate a life-affirming culture, which included things like a strong, positive view of adoption as a beautiful and normal thing, and a strong ministry to the disabled to combat any notion that it would have been better if they’d been aborted. I tried to encourage the most pro-life-engaged people so that they didn’t feel like they were marginal in this church, but crucial. And generally, I tried to create the atmosphere that this church community is unashamedly pro-life and anti-abortion, without any fear that this would have offensive effects on some people. I’m sure those people just migrated to other churches where this issue was completely neglected. And that was sad. I would rather have them change their mind. But we weren’t going to mute this crucial reality.

And finally — and this may be the most important thing, Tony — we did not turn the church into a political or social think tank or action group for the sake of any earthly cause, including the cause of pro-life. For the sake of preserving the power and effectiveness of our prophetic witness, we did not make the pro-life cause the main thing. The main thing is the glory of God — and under the glory of God, the salvation of sinners from the wrath of God through the glorious substitutionary work of Jesus Christ dying for sinners on the cross. The glory of God — shining through the salvation of sinners by the blood of Jesus — is the main thing.

Far greater than the danger of abortion is the danger of hell. Rescuing people for eternal life is more crucial and more loving than rescuing babies from abortion. In other words, we care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering. I think it is precisely this maintenance of spiritual proportion that keeps in clear view that our citizenship is in heaven, and we’re rescuing lost people as we wait for our Savior. That spiritual proportion, that maintenance of spiritual priority and proportion, is what gave us Christian credibility over decades in the cause of life, rather than simply sinking down to the level of being a world-oriented band of do-gooders.

“The aim for us is not just the end of abortion, but the eternal joy of forgiven sinners.”

We are Christians before we are pro-life. We are Christ-exalting before we are life-exalting. We want to save souls, the souls of mothers and fathers, as much as we want to save the bodies of the babies. The aim for us is not just the end of abortion, but the eternal joy of forgiven sinners.

Unknown Future

Amen. You’ve been in the fight against abortion for a very long time. So now the court has effectively struck down Roe v. Wade, making it possible for states to legally protect the unborn. Many states are doing that very thing right now. So what’s your own reaction to the SCOTUS decision and this most recent news?

I am thankful. And the reason I am thankful is mainly because this was the right thing to do. A federal law that prevents the legal protection of children from being killed is an evil law. An evil law has been in place for fifty years. It is a good thing that the evil law is gone, and I am thankful to God — thankful to God in his glorious providence — that it is gone.

If someone says to me — which I thought they might, so I say it — “Aren’t you thankful, John, because lives are going to be saved? You seem distressed. ‘It’s the right thing.’ Aren’t you thankful that lives are going to be saved?” My answer is that I hope they are, and I will be thankful if they are. But there are too many variables at play here for me to know what is really going to happen in America as far as the loss of life goes.

For all I know, we may be entering an era of such visceral rage, and coldness of love, and multiplication of wickedness — both on the right and on the left — that a civil war right here in America could take hundreds of thousands of lives. It happened just 160 years ago. The issue of killing millions of children is as explosive as the horrors of slavery.

Or another upshot could be, over the next ten or twenty years, that the morning-after pill — or some new pill for weeks after or months after — becomes so cheap, so effective, so free from side effects, that abortions may double, triple, quadruple in their frequency over what they are now, with no need for Planned Parenthood at all. I don’t know whether that’s going to happen or not. It could.

Or another possible scenario is that this kind of freedom from consequences of pregnancy unleashes a new tidal wave of premarital sex, and some new lethal strain of venereal disease arises with hundreds of thousands of young people dying every year. That’s an easy possibility.

In other words, I don’t know. I don’t know if the overturning of Roe v. Wade will save lives. I hope so. I pray so. It was absolutely the right thing to do, whether more lives are saved or not. But the wickedness afoot in America is very deep. Where it will take us as a culture, I do not know.

Lives are destroyed by sin. Abortion, whether with suction or a pill, is only one kind of sin that destroys life. There are so many more. Over 100,000 people, for example, just recently now are dying every year from drug overdoses. And most of those people are not people on the street anymore; they’re middle-class opioid users who can’t find meaning in life. There will, I don’t doubt, arise other new ways of destroying ourselves as wickedness multiplies.

New Birth Needed

Yeah, the dark side of our potent technologies, amplifying our self-destructiveness. And this leads to my last question as we wrap up this special episode. I heard you say recently, in a meeting, that the real post-Roe challenge will not be how to make abortions hard to get, but how to make them hard to approve of in the human heart. Explain that. What did you mean?

I meant that the main battle for human righteousness is not fought at the level of human behavior but at the level of human desire. Jesus said in Matthew 15:19, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”

“An evil law is gone, and I am thankful to God in his glorious providence.”

Now, at least four of those sins relate directly to abortion. “Murder”: that’s what abortion is. “Adultery and sexual immorality”: at least 85 percent of abortions are owing to sexual immorality, because 83 percent of abortions are done on single women, not counting the cases of rape and incest. Those women and their boyfriends sinned by having sex, which God has protected by putting it in the happy bounds of covenant-keeping marriage. “False witness”: that too comes from the heart, and the entire abortion industry is built on false witness — namely, that the unborn are not human persons.

We can build legal dams to keep the river of sin that pours out of the human heart from flooding the world with actual behaviors like abortion. And that’s a good thing; that’s a good thing to build those dams with laws. That’s what all good laws do — they make it harder for the sinful heart to overflow in outward crimes. That just happened with the overturn of Roe v. Wade. It was a good thing.

But we should remember that if the river of sin that flows from the human heart is simply dammed up, and nothing changes the heart, that river is going to build behind the dam until the reservoir is so deep and so heavy that no legal dam, no mere law, can hold it back. And a tidal wave of wickedness will overflow the land.

So what I meant — and I’m thinking of Christians now, especially pastors — is that’s our job: preaching to change those hearts. That’s our job: to portray the glories of Jesus Christ so clearly, with such spiritual power, that people will see and their hearts will be changed. Second Corinthians 3:18 describes that miracle. It says, “Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed . . . from one degree of glory to another.” Our main job is not new laws, good as they may be, but new hearts. That’s our main job. If that doesn’t happen, new laws will collapse under the pressure of unchanged hearts. It’s only a matter of time.

But even that way of saying it bothers me. It skews the reality in an unbiblical direction. It gives the impression that we want to change hearts mainly to preserve good laws. That’s not the main reason. The main reason, to quote Jesus in John 3:3, is this: “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Without a Christ-exalting heart change, people perish. We perish.

It is a loving thing to work for good laws. It is more loving to help people enter the kingdom of God. The overturning of Roe v. Wade will have its greatest effect if its limitations give life to the Christian truth “you must be born again” (John 3:7).

Andrew Walls (1928–2021) has been called the “most important person you don’t know.”1 He was a Scottish scholar with an Oxford pedigree who devoted much of his life to serving the African church and challenging the academic community to turn its attention to the remarkable growth of Christianity in the non-Western world.

The numbers are staggering. In the year 1900, some 82 percent of the world’s Christians lived in Europe and North America. By 1970, the number of Christians in the Global South had grown to more than 40 percent, reaching nearly 70 percent in 2020!2 Walls could feel the changes taking place around him while he was teaching church history in Nigeria in the 1950s and 1960s, and he remained active in teaching World Christianity right up until his death at the age of 93.3

How could historians make sense of the explosive growth of Christianity in the Global South?

Missions Is Not the Bomb

One of the many trends Walls noticed was that the church was growing in the main through indigenous witness and local revivals. This was instructive for teaching church history and understanding Christian missions. He insisted that scholars needed to place a greater focus on the African, Asian, and Latin American church in situ rather than simply relegating their entire story to a summary chapter on the history of missions.4 He pleaded with scholars to start teaching “church history” and stop teaching “clan history.”5

At the same time, Walls stressed that “it is difficult to imagine that the change [the rapid growth of Christianity in the Global South] could have occurred without the missionary movement.”6 And then he captured the importance of Christian missions in one sentence: “Missions were not the bomb, but they were the detonator, and as a result Africa and Asia and Latin America have become important theaters of Christian activity, the representative Christianity of the twenty-first century.”7 Missions had triggered the explosive growth of Christianity in the Global South.

Indispensable Detonator

Christian missions as the “detonator” for the explosive growth of Christianity is an insightful metaphor. On the one hand, it tames our pride, reminding missionaries (especially those from the West) that they are part, not the whole, of the work that God is doing in the global church. The Lord of the harvest has poured out his Spirit on all flesh and is using people all over the world to spread the gospel. The work of Western missionaries is only part of the story.

On the other hand, the “detonator” imagery infuses the entire church with a sense of urgency: someone must ignite the Spirit-primed explosion that will set the world aflame with the love of God. As John Piper has taught us, we aim in missions “to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory.”8 Missions is essential for this task.

God has been working in powerful ways through the missionary efforts of his people for two thousand years. When the Spirit of God came blowing in, setting tongues on fire in Jerusalem in the early first century, he translated the message into the languages of the earth. The miracle at Pentecost made clear that the good news was for all people “from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5). The Acts narrative shows that “word of God increased and multiplied” through missionaries and martyrs who could not remain quiet about the things they had “seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).

In the world of late antiquity, the Christian faith spread along Roman roads to the West, and silk routes to the East. To borrow from the mission historian Stephen Neill, these early witnesses to the gospel were possessed with a “burning conviction” that “a great event had burst upon them in creative power.”9 During the medieval period, contrary to popular imagination, the flame continued to spread through missionaries who followed Paul’s counsel to remain single so that they could offer their lives “with undivided devotion to the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:35). Missionary monks gave up homes and families to carry the gospel to the “ends of the earth.” 10 During the Age of Discovery, following the European Reformations, Catholic and Protestant missionaries boarded ships, leaving kith and kin, bound for Africa, Asia, and the New World, inflamed by the love of Christ for the salvation of the world.

The evangelical revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries created an unprecedented wave of missionary fervor, and helped usher in the new era of world Christianity in our own day.

Igniting Transformation in the Dark

By the year 1900, there were some 62,000 cross-cultural missionaries, increasing to 240,000 by 1970, and some 420,000 by century’s end! 11 Most were young, more than half were women, and many left prestigious schools like the University of Cambridge to lay down their lives for the gospel.12

“Missions is the means God has chosen for igniting transformation in the dark corners of the world.”

Academic presses are now churning out research showing direct causation between missionary fervor and the new era of world Christianity. As it turns out, Barbara Kingsolver’s missionary caricature of a failed Southern Baptist missionary in the Congo is misleading. To quote Philip Jenkins, “The runaway success of Christian missions to Africa and Asia are all the more striking in view of the extraordinarily poor image that such activities possess in Western popular thought.”13 Missionaries set off an explosion that has changed the course of human history.14

The rapid growth of Christianity is cause for celebration, but not complacency. About 40 percent of the world’s population, or approximately 3.5 billion souls, remain culturally cut off from the gospel. The vast majority of these unreached people groups do not know a Christian, do not have access to the Scriptures in their own language, and do not live in proximity to a local church. Missions is the means God has chosen for igniting transformation in the dark corners of the world.15

Can Local Pastors Change the World?

I know from personal experience that one of the great perils of pastoral life is that we become so preoccupied with important matters in our local churches that we can fail to see the urgent needs in the world. It is instructive that the word parochialism, meaning “narrow-minded,” is derived from the Anglo-French word parish. Pastors can become so involved in their local parish that they become parochial parsons. It is easy to do. It can happen to any of us. If you are a pastor or a Christian leader, bringing change to the world may need to begin with you.

“We become so preoccupied our local churches that we can fail to see the urgent needs in the world.”

How might pastors help fan the flame of missions today? Take up and read in order to learn about the work God is doing in the world and the work that remains unfinished. These developments are not happening in a corner. Go and see the church at work in the world — and go to learn. Like Peter in Acts 10, eat and drink with your brothers and sisters and let God change you by your encounter with people in other lands. Encourage people you know to go on short-term trips, and use the help of experienced guides. Don’t just send your people to go paint the orphanage.16 Challenge your people to give to ignite change through giving to worthy causes, such as sending a missionary, translating the gospel into a local language, planting an indigenous church, or equipping underserved pastors, evangelists, and missionaries who have ready access to unreached people groups. Finally, send missionaries out, laying hands on no person quickly (1 Timothy 5:22). Combine zeal with knowledge (Proverbs 19:2).

Don’t waste your influence. Don’t let your people waste their lives. Fan the flame that is in you, and help start a blazing fire somewhere in the world.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15402177/dont-make-ministry-a-pretext-for-greed