Audio Transcript

We are going to start the week talking about prayer. Sometimes we say that we are “wrestling in prayer” for something. We hear others use that phrase as well. And that phrase — “wrestling in prayer” — is a biblical one, used by Paul in the book of Colossians. But it only appears one time. So what does it mean, biblically speaking, to wrestle in prayer?

That’s the question from a listener to the podcast named Jason. “Pastor John, hello! I listen to your podcast daily through my iPhone. Thank you for helping me think through questions, even questions I didn’t even know should be asked. Here’s mine: In Colossians 4:12, Paul affirms Epaphras because he is always ‘wrestling’ or ‘struggling’ in prayer for the church of Colossae. What does it mean to wrestle in prayer? Who is the wrestling against? And how do I — and all of us — learn to wrestle in prayer ourselves?”

Well, the first thing I’d say is, that kind of question is so good, so important. And it’s so simple. You’re reading along, and you tend to just breeze by something, and he’s stopping and saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa — wait a minute. What’s that really like? He says he’s wrestling in prayer. What would that feel like? What would I be doing differently than I’m doing?” It’s just a great question, and good for me to think about.

And I think — this is the best I know how to proceed — the best way forward in answering a question like that is not first to look into my experience and say, “Okay, where have I done that? What’s wrestling like for me?” Because I might just read in my experience into the text.

So, I think the best thing to do is to take the word “wrestle” or “struggle” (or whatever the word happens to be you’re working on) and look up, with a concordance, how Paul (or whoever you’re reading) used it in other settings. So in this case, the Greek agonizomai — and you can hear the word “agonize” in the Greek: agonizomai. Where has he used that word? (Or you could just use the English with “wrestle” or “struggle.”) And what light might that shed on the way you pray?

Ephaphras’s Wrestling

So, let’s start with Colossians 4:12, because that’s the text he is asking about. Here’s what it says: “Epaphras, who is one of you” — so, Epaphras was from Colossae, but he was with Paul, and that’s why Paul knew how he was praying. “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling [or wrestling] on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.” So, the answer that Epaphras is after in his prayers for the Colossian believers would be that they stand, and that they stand mature and be fully assured of God’s favor and God’s will as they live their Christian life.

But what Jason is asking about is not what Epaphras is praying for, but about the way Epaphras is praying. And he’s wrestling; it says he’s wrestling. And he wants to know, and I want to know, well, what’s that like? Should I be doing more of that? And if I did, what would it look like?

So, let’s go to those other uses of the word “wrestle” or “struggle” or “fight” (or however that agonizomai is translated).

Toiling in Another’s Strength

Probably the most important one is right here in Colossians, back in Colossians 1:28–29. Paul says, “[Christ] we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” That’s the same goal as Epaphras’s prayer, by the way. “For this I toil” — now, that’s not the word, but the modifying participle that comes after is the word. “For this I toil, struggling [or wrestling] with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” He works within me. Now, two things stand out there concerning this wrestling.

“There are hardships and obstacles in this work that have to be wrestled out of the way.”

One is the word toil. This form of wrestling is work — it’s work. So, Paul is saying that his teaching, his warning, his ministry efforts to present the Colossians mature in Christ is toil. It’s work. It’s the kind of work that involves wrestling — which sounds like, in other words, there are hardships and obstacles in this work that have to be wrestled out of the way. It requires exertion and effort as if there were this big boulder on the path and you’ve got to wrestle, put your shoulder into it and push it out of the way so you can get on with your work of teaching and working and praying for these people.

So it’s a rigorous kind of work. So, I think it would be right for us to say that in Paul’s understanding, Epaphras in praying was doing something similar. The kind of prayer that he undertook for the Colossians involved toil — the kind of toil that included wrestling with hindrances or barriers that have got to be pushed out of the way in order to be able to keep praying.

Now, the other thing that stands out is almost the opposite — or at least it’s a relief from the pressure of putting your shoulder against a boulder. The other thing that stands out in Colossians 1:29 is this: “[wrestling] with all [the] energy that [Christ] powerfully works within me.” So, Paul does not think of his ministry wrestling as something he does in his own strength, even though there’s enormous effort and toil. It’s not being done in his own strength to try to get Christ to be active for him. It’s just the other way around.

He says Christ is super active prior to his effort and in his effort, enabling his effort to toil with wrestling. And I think that’s the idea with prayer. You don’t pray — even though it may be hard; there may be work in it — in your own strength.

Fighting All Battles by Faith

And I think in 1 Timothy 6:12 Paul is saying, in effect, that the fight of faith is exactly that. That word “fight” there is agonizomai. He says, “Fight the good fight of faith, Timothy,” and the word “fight” is the same word as “wrestle” and “struggle.”

“Even though the word ‘wrestle’ sounds demanding, what it demands above all is faith.”

The point is that the very nature of the Christian life is that we are to live by faith and fight all our battles by faith — that is, seeking to rely on the strength of another and do everything we do, easy or hard, by faith, by relying on the one who is at work in me enabling me to do what I’m striving to do. So, even though the word “wrestle” sounds demanding, what it demands above all is faith that God is the one who wrestles in us and through us and for us.

Practicing Athletic Self-Control

Another implication of wrestling comes from the way he uses it in 1 Corinthians 9:25–26, where he says, “Every athlete” — now that word “athlete” is one who wrestles, one who struggles.

Every athlete [every wrestler] exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and keep it under control.

I think this implies that Epaphras, in his praying for the Colossians, used self-control, and he disciplined himself in his prayer.

Maybe that means, in order to find the time in his busy life, he had to get up earlier. So he denied himself half an hour’s sleep, and he pummeled his body, as it were, to say, “Body, get up! This bed feels really good right now.” And he says to his body, like an athlete who gets up to train at five o’clock in the morning, “Get up, body!” And he devoted himself to focused time in prayer for his loved ones back in Colossae. That took control of his own inner impulses, which might have preferred to stay in bed.

Taking a Shield and Sword

Maybe one more example. This time it comes from the way the Gospel of John uses agonizomai, or “wrestle” or “struggle.” In John 18:36, Jesus said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting” — now that’s the word. And you know that in this context, that means, “They’d be pulling out their swords and sticking your soldiers in the throat to keep me from being handed over to you.”

So, agonizomai here isn’t “wrestle a boulder out of the way.” It’s “kill somebody to keep them from making your Jesus ineffective” (at least as they understood it). So that means literally fighting against the Roman soldiers with swords and clubs. So I think, when Paul says that Epaphras is wrestling, struggling, or fighting, there really is warfare going on. So, I’m drawing in the warfare imagery now, not just the athletic imagery. You’ve got athletes who need discipline, now you’ve got war, and you need to defeat an enemy.

And we all know from Ephesians 6:12 that Paul says, “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood.” Now that’s a different word for “wrestle” in the Greek, but the idea is the same. We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. So when Paul says that Epaphras is fighting, not just wrestling, but fighting in prayer, he probably includes the reality that Satan does not like what Epaphras is doing at all and is trying to stop him, and he must take the sword of the Spirit and the shield of faith and quench the prayer-destroying fiery darts with that shield of faith and with the sword of a good promise from God.

Prayer Is Not Always Easy

So those are a few of the ways that prayer is like a wrestling match. It’s like wrestling in hard work with obstacles to be removed. It’s like wrestling with athletic efforts, with the need for self-control and discipline. It’s like wrestling in a fight with swords when the devil has to be driven off. Anyone who has ever tried to pray in any focused or sustained way for some spiritual breakthrough knows something of this kind of struggle.

So, don’t think of prayer always as an easy conversation. You hear so many people talk about prayer as just wonderful — “have a little conversation with Jesus.” Well, it is sweet, and it is easy sometimes, but often, it is a walkie-talkie during war: the bombs are dropping; the enemy fire is heavy all around. Prayer is embattled, and we are called to get on the frequency of the heavenly headquarters and send in for fire cover here. “I’ve got to have the air force quick, Father, because I’m in trouble.” But never forget that even our call for help is an act of help from the Lord who is for us.

Complacency falls softly, even pleasantly, on a sleeping soul. It’s the secret to its appeal and power over us. The complacent crave comfort, quiet, ease — an inner life resembling a calm lake just after sunset. The birds have fled, the fish descended, the other animals have hidden themselves away for the night. Even the water stops to rest. Serene. Peaceful. Undisturbed.

Complacent people may still do a lot of things — just not what matters most, what requires more of us. Few of us, of course, think of ourselves as complacent. Life is “full” and “hard” and often overwhelming. But underneath there’s an eerie stillness — not the stillness of peace and security and joy, but of a spiritual stagnancy. Like a child in a car seat during rush hour, the harried rhythms of life slowly lull our souls to sleep.

The Bible stays closed for days at a time. Prayers are quicker and less frequent. We keep one eye on our email, our texts, our feed. Conversations linger near the surface and feel inconvenient. Excuses multiply for missing church. Needs around us go unnoticed. We go to sleep and wake up anxious and distracted, and we’re not sure why. The spiritual seas within us go from restless to sluggish to dormant.

Unless, of course, God lovingly sends a storm to awaken us:

Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works. . . .

Provoking Good

The pastoral charge in Hebrews 10:24–25 can easily become so familiar that it’s no longer provocative. The storm it describes can begin to sound more and more like a gentle breeze.

Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

The Greek for “stir up” means “to provoke” or “to agitate.” The same word is used just one other time in the New Testament, and it’s used (surprisingly) to describe the “sharp disagreement” that arose between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark (Acts 15:39). There’s a kind of sharpness in the imagery. Shake one another, unsettle one another, upset one another — with a holy interruption — until love spills over and good works spring to life.

“Shake one another, unsettle one another, upset one another until love spills over and good works spring to life.”

Why reach for such strong language to describe ordinary life together in the church? Because, like any good preacher, the writer of Hebrews knows how easy it is for any of us to settle into lives of little love and few good works. He knows how deeply and regularly we need brotherly storms to keep our souls alert and alive to God.

First Step in Good Stirring

How do we send these brotherly storms in love? The first step in stirring one another up may be so obvious we miss it. It comes in the next verse: “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some. . . .” The first step in stirring up one another is simply to see one another face to face — to consistently gather in the same place with the explicit purpose of enjoying and obeying Jesus.

Many of us tasted the painful absence of this over the last couple of years during lockdowns and social distancing. We tried hard to bridge the gap with technology, but we all felt its inadequacy. One of the many good lessons God was teaching us amid all the confusion, tension, loss, and heartache was that we need to be stirred, we need more than Zoom calls and livestreams, we need to meet. God has given presence a soul-stirring power that texts and screens cannot replace.

And yet some, then and now, neglect the gift and necessity of presence. Why had some made a habit of avoiding the gathering? The excuses may have been many and varied, but they likely shared a common root: some unrepentant sin (next verse, Hebrews 10:26). They knew deep down that sin went to church to die, and so they found ways to stay away from church. Maybe it was secret sexual sin. Maybe it was bitterness over past hurt. Maybe it was envy over another’s marriage, or children, or home, or success. Maybe it was an idol of me-time. First, they had a bad morning and missed worship once. Then a couple times in a month. Then most of a summer. Over time, absence was no longer an anomaly, but the norm. A habit.

“The storms we all need only come when we each keep investing what it costs to meet.”

The storms we all need only come when we each keep investing what it costs to meet. Week after week, we need to be awakened. We need to be reminded that God exists. We need to be reminded that he really came in the flesh, died a sinless death in our place, and three days later broke out of the grave. We need to be reminded that all the burdens and responsibilities that feel so heavy and demanding are small and light next to our coming reward. We need to be reminded that sin will ruin us. We need to be shaken free from the sleepy spiritual fog that so easily sets in. In other words, we really need to meet.

Love Prepared for Us

When we stir one another up to love and good works, we join God in something he has been conceiving over centuries. We’re being used by God to enact a plan he outlined before the world was born. “We are his workmanship,” the apostle Paul writes, “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). Any good work we do today is a good work that God himself has prepared for us.

“God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Ephesians 1:4). And he knew precisely what shapes and colors that holiness would take. He knew and planned the details of our love, our patience, our kindness, our generosity and hospitality. The good steps we take, with his help, are steps he placed in front of us. Before God poured the Pacific Ocean, he had planned ways for us to step in and sacrifice ourselves for others. Before God laid out the sunflower fields in Italy, he had planted needs that we would uncover and meet. Before he formed the Himalayas or carved out the Grand Canyon, he had prepared fruitful conversations for us to have, even this week.

And we get to help one another walk into those good works, works written out for us, specifically for us, before we knew what one was. In fact, our stirring others up into this Christ-like love is one of the many good works God prepared for us beforehand.

Consider One Another

Perhaps the most overlooked dimension of the command to stir one another up, however, is how personal it is: “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” Literally, “one another” is the object of the verb consider: “Let us consider one another . . .” Provoking one another well begins with studying one another well. It means paying close enough attention to know each other’s particular abilities and plans, temptations and fears, challenges and opportunities. These are the kinds of questions we might regularly ask as we consider one another:

What strengths or abilities has God given you?
What specific callings has he placed on your life?
What other needs has God put around you?
Who, in particular, has he called you to love? And who do you struggle to love?
What are areas you excel in where I could affirm grace in you?
What are areas you struggle in where I could come alongside and encourage you?
What fears keep you from taking good risks and making sacrifices in love?
How might God use me to help you carry out the good works he’s planned for you?

Often, just asking good questions is enough to spark the right kind of awareness, selflessness, creativity, and love. And asked consistently enough by people who love us and know us well, they can serve as something of a spiritual alarm clock, calling us out of cycles of sleepiness.

So, who stirs your heart out of the soothing calm of complacency? Whose friendship awakens the right kind of conviction, ambition, and joy? And who might need you to be that loving storm for them?

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15363357/dead-idols-dont-give-living-joy

In 2007, 14-year-old Yeonmi Park crossed a frozen river and three mountains in a desperate attempt to leave North Korea. Eventually, after suffering dreadful abuse in China, she made it safely to South Korea. In 2014, she received the opportunity to study in America, where she would be able to pursue an education in the “land of the free.”

Yeonmi entered a program at Columbia University. Founded in 1754, the school’s motto reads, “In Thy light shall we see light” (Psalm 36:9). The first universities were established on the basis that God’s creation is an objective reality that can be studied. Humans created in God’s image have the capacity to investigate and reason. The truth that ultimately comes from God is the only solid protection for freedom of thought, conscience, and belief. Earthly authorities can’t tell us what to believe and think (Mark 12:17). Sadly, Yeonmi’s experience didn’t remotely resemble the school’s founding vision.

Having escaped the tyrannical regime of North Korea, where criticism of “Dear Leader” can land you (and your family) in a concentration camp, she never anticipated the thought control she’d find at this elite American university. Her professors insisted that history and culture had to be seen through the lens of patriarchal, racist, heterosexist oppression. Belief in absolute truth and morality was regarded as dangerous and wrong. Transgression of the dominant orthodoxies resulted in social ostracism or lower grades. If she was to achieve the degree she wanted, she would have had to self-censor all she said and wrote.

The land of the free was not as free as she had anticipated. What was going on?

‘No Universal Truth’

By the end of the nineteenth century, increased acceptance of evolutionary theory had contributed to a widespread naturalistic worldview: “There is no Creator God, and there won’t be a judgment.”

Without a transcendent authority, who or what is left to judge between competing claims to truth? Radical doubt has now taken root in nearly all the major institutions of the West. Objective truth is challenged. What counts is the perception or “lived experience” of each individual, particularly those deemed to have suffered oppression. The new inquisition insists that the feelings of any perceived “victim” must never, ever, be hurt. It’s viewed as hateful to question their claims. And that means that an increasing number of academics have been “cancelled.”

Kathleen Stock, a professor at Sussex University, England, was effectively hounded out of her position in 2021 for affirming the biological reality that women are women:

The problems all started when I began making such controversial statements as: “there are only two sexes” and “it’s wrong to put male rapists in women’s prisons.” . . . It has been all too much for certain colleagues. My critics have produced an apparently unstoppable narrative, according to which I’m a bigot and a terrible danger to trans students. . . . Eventually any hopes I could lead a relatively normal life on campus were definitively extinguished.

End of Free Speech

In The Madness of Crowds, Douglas Murray (who is himself gay and an atheist) describes this worldview, which insists that society is made up of different hierarchies. If you don’t accept the claims of anyone in a “victim” group, you may be condemned as bigoted, sexist, racist, homophobic, or transphobic. This signals the end of free speech, as people become anxious about stumbling over hidden trip wires. One ill-judged comment could make someone a social pariah.

“When you repeat lies, it destroys your integrity. Eventually you may come to believe them.”

Many go along with this madness because they’re scared to speak out, but it’s demeaning and soul-destroying to go along with claims you don’t believe to be true. Abigail Shrier, the author of Irreversible Damage, was invited to speak at Princeton in 2021. An investigative journalist, Shrier has documented the social contagion leading large numbers of teen girls into gender transition — and the regret that often followed, sometimes after irreversible damage had already been done. The invitation caused a furor. She had to speak in a venue with limited capacity away from the campus. Shrier took the opportunity to urge the students not to tell lies, to speak the truth openly, to refuse to be “bought” with flattery and to “keep their integrity.”

Sadly, too many university students churn out what they know their professors want them to say, even when they know it’s patently untrue. They “put truth on hold.” It’s too costly to challenge the current orthodoxies. But when you repeat lies, it destroys your integrity. Eventually you may come to believe them.

When Truth Retreats

The late Francis Schaeffer (1912–1984) observed that whenever truth retreats, tyranny advances. The Creator God will hold all, including all rulers, to account (Romans 13:1–3). He has placed his moral law on the hearts of all (Romans 1:18–21). The blessings of freedom are found within the framework of order (Deuteronomy 30:19–20). The Lord Jesus is the ruler of kings on earth (Revelation 1:5).

When you deny that there is a God, and deny any transcendent truth or absolute morality, you are left with unfettered human freedom. That quickly degenerates into anarchy. And then, out of fear, people may respond by submitting to an all-powerful state. Totalitarianism arises when you look to human reason alone to create utopia. We need only look back at the twentieth century to see the price tag in blood and suffering.

“If the retreat of truth leads to tyranny, the reverse must be true as well. The advance of truth will turn back tyranny.”

But if the retreat of truth leads to tyranny, the reverse must be true as well. The advance of truth will turn back tyranny.

Only Firm Basis for Dignity

The biblical worldview is the only firm basis for human dignity. Every person has value because each one has been created in the image of God. The biblical worldview is the only solid foundation for real freedom: no government, academic institution, or employer has the authority to tell us what to think. We will each answer to God.

History has shown that when the gospel has influenced a society, freedoms have been extended to more people. Far from limiting human endeavor, Christians were the first champions of universal education, the founders of the first universities, and the pioneers of modern science and medicine.

We are living in times that have been poisoned with lies. We have an opportunity to hold out truth. If we learn to fear the Lord, we won’t need to fear anyone or anything else. As we grow in love for God and his word (Psalm 119:97; John 14:15), and as we daily sing joyful praises (Psalm 92:2), our courage will be renewed. We’ll love others, even those who hate what we believe, speaking truth with grace (1 Peter 3:8, 14–16), serving humbly, and showing by deed as well as word that our God is a God of compassion and grace (Matthew 5:44; Isaiah 58:6–8).

God calls us to stand for truth and seek to rescue those imprisoned by deceit. In John 8:32, our Lord Jesus Christ promises to all who come to him: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. We end the week talking about a marriage struggle. We have talked about many of the struggles and tensions marriages face over the years. Here’s another one of those topics, one we have not directly addressed yet. It comes to us from a young wife, who writes in anonymously to say this: “Pastor John, hello, and thank you for this podcast! I have a question about your point that men owe women a special kind of care. You’ve made this point several times on the podcast.

“In particular, Paul commands husbands to ‘not be harsh’ with their wives. He says this in Colossians 3:19. You say, ‘This admonition to men is owing to a peculiarly male temptation to be rough — even cruel — and to a peculiarly female vulnerability to that violence, on the one hand, and to a natural female gladness, on the other hand, to be honored with caring protection and strong tenderness.’ My question is this. My husband is not violent to me, praise God. But he is harsh. He’s just not a gentle man. How should I approach this topic with him?”

Well, if I’m talking to the husband — I need to just say this to get it out of the way and make sure it doesn’t go unsaid — I would have lots to say biblically, spiritually, relationally, about how he needs to deal with his own sins and personality quirks or weaknesses. But that’s not the question she’s asked. She asked us, How can I most helpfully approach him on this topic? So that’s what I’m going to talk about, perhaps with five suggestions. So, here they go.

Pray for Both

First, I would encourage our friend to pray both for her husband and for herself in this matter of his harshness. Jesus said that we should ask God that his will would be done on earth — and that would include in our marriages — as it’s done in heaven (Matthew 6:10). And that includes that his will be done the way the angels would do it. Husbands would love their wives, and wives would love their husbands, the way angels obey God — namely, joyfully and fully and without begrudging.

“It’s completely fitting that she would intercede with her Father in heaven that her husband would be softened.”

So, it’s completely fitting that she would intercede with her Father in heaven that her husband would be softened and moved toward greater Christlikeness in his demeanor toward her. And I say that she should pray for herself as well, because even though he bears his own peculiar burden of responsibility before God for his own change, we know from Scripture and experience that God uses the behavior of husbands and wives to bring about change in each other. He uses the people around us to affect the way we do things and feel about things. So, what God does in her will have an effect on what he does in him. So, she prays for herself as well.

Win Him with Gentleness

Second, in 1 Peter 3:1–2, Peter says to wives that they should try to bring about godly change in their husbands by means of their “respectful and pure conduct.” In other words, Peter underlines what we know from experience, that a person may be helped in his deliverance from his own sinning by the godly way that others behave around him, especially people close to him that he loves, like his wife.

I would guess that among the kind of conduct that God might use in the case of a harsh husband to bring about change would be what God said in Proverbs 15:1 (for the wife, for example): “A soft answer turns away wrath” — or maybe “turns away harshness.” Or Proverbs 25:15: “A soft tongue will break a bone” — the bone of harshness. In other words, I would encourage her not to return evil for evil or harshness for harshness, which will probably only spiral into a worse situation, but rather to try to win him toward gentleness with gentleness.

Share the Burden Wisely

Third, there will probably come a point where she desires and needs the support of others in this effort to love her harsh husband. She will need them to pray for her and encourage her and counsel her. But I would earnestly caution her against bad-mouthing her husband behind his back with other people. This will almost certainly backfire in a more hopeless situation.

“There will probably come a point where she desires and needs the support of others in this effort.”

So then, the question is, “Well, what can she do?” Well, let me illustrate maybe what might happen. During some of our darkest days of marriage, Nöel and I both knew we came to a point where we needed to have others to counsel us. We weren’t sure yet whether it needed to be a professional counselor, a Christian counselor (which it did eventually), but we wanted some friends to encourage us and pray for us, where we could unburden ourselves and be heard with sympathy — and yet not naively, as though everything is her fault or his fault. We wanted others to pray for us.

So, we knew we did not want to talk about our problems just randomly to everybody that came along. That would’ve been harmful. So we asked each other, and we just agreed with each other on a handful of very trusted friends. And we gave each other the trusted permission to say anything that seemed helpful to say, and to ask that other couple not to share anything.

In fact, it was interesting. One of the counselors that we did choose to go to insisted that we bring with us to every counseling session — well, not to every one, but to most of them — another couple with us. Isn’t that amazing? What a strategy! I thought, That’s really good. It’s a huge commitment of time for the other couple to invest, but it means somebody else always knows what you’re dealing with, and you can’t get away with too much when that’s happening. That requires an enormous amount of trust, but that was our way forward. And it kept us from speaking about our problems with just random people. We trusted each other with those we had agreed upon. So, that’s a possible way forward, perhaps.

Distinguish Sin from Personality

Fourth, I would encourage this wife to recognize that very likely, part of what she is experiencing in her husband’s harshness is owing to sin, and part of it is probably owing to — what should we call it? — the inherited genetic tendencies embedded in his own basic personality or in his upbringing.

Now, I’m not excusing any sin by saying this, but I am being realistic and acknowledging how complicated human beings are. I know people whose personality is such that you wish they would smile more. You wish that they would oil the relational wheels with a few more kind words or forthcoming encouragements or affirmations. But instead, there’s almost continual bluntness, terseness, unemotional communication.

And I have learned over the decades that in certain cases this is simply not sinful. This is a deeply ingrained personality trait with no ill will. There’s no ill will behind it. You know this over time. And it will only make matters worse if the people around these folks continually impute sin to them, where in fact that’s not mainly what’s going on.

Approach Him with Hope

Finally, last point. When it comes to actually approaching the husband, here are a few thoughts about how to go about that.

Create a context of encouragement.

It is perfectly biblical — as you can see from the way Paul approaches the problems, say, in 1 Corinthians — to find explicit things that you can say by way of thankfulness and encouragement and affirmation (call them evidences of God’s grace that you see in his life), so that criticisms, when they come, are embedded in a rich context of love and verbal affirmation.

Model humility and vulnerability.

In the overall context of your relationship, then, also ask him from time to time, perhaps, if there is there anything in your own behavior or your own attitudes that are bothersome to him or frustrating to him or maddening to him or annoying to him, and ask him to point out any ways that he would like you to make changes.

I’m saying this in the larger, bigger context — no artificial way of saying, “Okay, here are three affirmations I’m going to make and three vulnerabilities I’m going to express, and now here comes my criticism.” It’s just a bigger, healthy relationship that you try to build so that when you broach a problem, it’s not part of an ugly pattern.

Try not to globalize.

When you try to describe to him what you mean by his harshness, try not to globalize. This is something I had to learn about myself in dealing with my wife. Try not to globalize. That is, try not to say, “You always do this. You’re always saying it that way. You always do it that way.” I can tell you, human beings do not like the word always. If you want to push somebody away, make it sound like this criticism is global; it’s all-consuming. “That’s all you are as a human being.” Because what that says to the other person is this: “There’s no hope for you.” They will feel paralyzed and helpless.

So instead, you give one or two concrete examples that you wish they did another way — a different tone of voice or a different way of answering. And that gives them some sense, “Okay, I get that. I can see how you would hear that. I’ll try not to do that anymore.” And incrementally, then, who knows how God might be pleased to work.

Keep pursuing change.

And then, finally, I would say that if he indicates a sense of openness to talk about this, then you can explain your feelings more fully, you can ask for what you long for and maybe explain why it would be so happy for the relationship if he would be less harsh in these several ways. And if you both feel stuck after a while, it is perfectly biblical and right to seek help from close friends, or even, if it comes to that, from a wise Christian counselor.

Picture yourself in a group Bible study. Your small group is studying the book of Ephesians, and you’ve made it to chapter 5. Someone reads aloud verse 18: “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.” Then Steve, the new guy, says, “Well, Paul clearly forbids getting drunk on wine. I’m just thankful that he said nothing about getting drunk on whiskey. That’s my favorite way to become intoxicated.”

We all intuitively recognize that Steve is mistaken. We might even think him absurd. But how do we explain his error? My guess is that we would say something like, “Steve, that’s not what the Bible means. Paul intended to prohibit all drunkenness, not just drunkenness from wine.” To which Steve might reply, “But that’s not what the Bible says. Paul mentioned wine only. I’m sticking to the text.” Or he might say, “That’s just your interpretation. I’m talking about what the Bible means to me.”

Learn the Habit of Reading Well

When people ask what I do for a living, I often say, “My job is to teach college students how to read.” This is only half a joke, because the reality is that our educational system and society has left many people incapable of reading well. That’s why, at Bethlehem College & Seminary, our approach to education centers on imparting to our students certain habits of heart and mind.

In all of our programs, we aim to enable and motivate students

to observe their subject matter accurately and thoroughly,
to understand clearly what they have observed,
to evaluate fairly what they have understood by deciding what is true and valuable,
to feel intensely according to the value of what they have evaluated,
to apply wisely and helpfully in life what they understand and feel, and
to express in speech and writing and deeds what they have seen, understood, felt, and applied in such a way that its accuracy, clarity, truth, value, and helpfulness can be known and enjoyed by others.

“You can’t say whether something is true or false, good or bad, until you first know what the something is.”

There is a certain order to these habits. Before you can feel appropriately, you must evaluate rightly. And before you can evaluate rightly, you must first observe accurately and understand clearly. Note this: evaluation depends upon understanding. Without clear understanding of what someone has said or written, evaluation is impossible, because you have nothing to evaluate. You can’t say whether something is true or false, good or bad, until you first know what the something is.

Meaning and Significance Are Not the Same

My own experience as a teacher suggests that there are many confusions and pitfalls around the question of “meaning” when we read a text. Consider this a crash course on the meaning of meaning.

Let’s begin with the Golden Rule: “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12). When it comes to reading, we ought to practice Golden Rule Interpretation. That is, we ought to treat authors the way we want to be treated. No one wants his own words treated like a wax nose that a reader can bend according to his will. No one likes to have his words twisted into something he didn’t intend. When we speak or write, we mean something, and we want that meaning to stand — to be understood and respected as ours (even if others disagree with us). And so, given that’s how we want to be treated, we ought to treat authors the same.

To do this, we must distinguish between what the author meant by his words and the effects of his words on subsequent people and events. For clarity, let’s refer to the first as meaning. Texts mean what authors mean by them. The second we may call significance. The author’s meaning can be related to different texts, contexts, concepts, situations, people, places — anything you can think of, really.

Meaning and significance are distinct. Meaning is stable through time; significance may and does change. Meaning is about what authors do in public by means of words (as one theologian puts it). Significance is about the effects of those words on everything else. Meaning is fixed and bounded; significance is, in principle, limitless. When an author writes something, he means this and not that. But significance has to do with the relation between the author’s meaning and this, that, and the other.

With this basic distinction in hand, let’s consider four puzzles in relation to meaning: the source of meaning, the means of meaning, the levels of intent, and the boundaries of meaning. To aid in solving these puzzles, we’ll use Steve’s surprising interpretation of what the Bible says in Ephesians 5:18 as a test case.

Puzzle 1: Source of Meaning

The first puzzle has to do with the source of meaning. Note that I introduced the quotation as “what the Bible says.” But if we’re thinking carefully, we realize that this must be a form of shorthand. People say things, not objects. So when we say, “The Bible says . . .” what we (ought to) mean is, “Paul says (or God says) in the Bible . . .”

“Texts are not free-floating entities with autonomous meaning. Instead, authors are the source of meaning.”

Meaning, then, is a matter of the author’s intent. This is crucial to remember. Whenever we talk about meaning, we are talking about persons. Sometimes we say things like, “The text means what it says.” But this again is misleading. Texts don’t mean; only people mean. To put this another way, a text doesn’t mean what it says, because it cannot say anything; instead, it means what the author says. Or to say it in yet another way, if there is meaning, there must be a mean-er. Meaning exists only when someone has meant.

Thus, we stress that texts are not free-floating entities with autonomous meaning. Instead, authors are the source of meaning.

Puzzle 2: Means of Meaning

If authors are the source of meaning, what then are texts? Texts are the means of meaning, and therefore are absolutely crucial for interpretation. Stressing the importance of texts helps us avoid another confusion and solve another puzzle.

When we are interpreting a text, we sometimes say that we are looking to “get inside the mind of the author” and to “see what he wanted to do.” Now, this could be another form of shorthand, a way of stressing that we are interested in the author’s intention, and seeking to avoid usurping his place by imposing our own meaning on his text.

However, speaking like this could also be misleading. It could lead someone to think that the aim of interpretation is to somehow recover the author’s psychological state at the time he was writing. We might attempt to psychoanalyze him, and discover the hidden motives of his mind. So someone might try to discern what in Paul’s personal background led him to prohibit drunkenness in Ephesians 5. And because many recognize the impossibility of such a task, this mistake has sometimes led interpreters to abandon the idea that the author matters at all.

How, then, can we avoid this error? By stressing both the author and the text. The text is the public means by which an author accomplishes his purpose. As we said above, meaning is about what authors do in public by means of words. Note this: meaning is not about what the author wanted to do, or what the author tried to do, or what the author subconsciously attempted to do. It’s about what the author did do through his text.

Meaning, then, is a public affair, because through the text it is shareable and reproducible. The norms of our language establish the boundaries of what we can say. Within those boundaries, we select the appropriate elements (words, grammar, syntax, and more) and put them to use to accomplish our purposes. Someone who shares our language is thus able to discern our intent in what we’ve said. Authors are the source of meaning, and texts are the means of meaning.

Puzzle 3: Levels of Intent

Now we introduce an additional puzzle, having to do with the English word intent, which is potentially ambiguous. Consider the simple phrase “Do not get drunk.” When Paul writes this phrase to the Ephesians, we can see two different levels of intention. At one level, his intent is to exhort or issue a command. That’s what his words do. At another level, his intent is that his command be obeyed. That’s what he hopes his words accomplish.

But it’s important to keep these two levels distinct. The first level is entirely within Paul’s power. Assuming he writes clearly in a language his audience understands, he accomplishes his intent simply by writing, regardless of whether the Ephesians obey or not.

The second level is not within Paul’s power. While he may intend (in the sense of “hope for”) the obedience of the Ephesians, securing that obedience is not within his power. The first level refers to the force of Paul’s words — what he is doing in speaking at all. The second refers to the desired results of his words — what he is trying to accomplish by speaking. But these are distinct. The first level — issuing the command — is a matter of meaning; the second level — the Ephesians’ obedience or disobedience — is a matter of significance.

Puzzle 4: Boundaries of Meaning

The final puzzle has to do with the boundaries of meaning. Earlier, we noted that meaning is stable, fixed, and bounded. But how do we determine such boundaries? When Steve says that Ephesians 5:18 only prohibits getting drunk with wine, but has nothing to say about getting drunk with whiskey, how can we explain his error?

One way might be to focus on the logic of Paul’s statement. “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery.” The word for indicates the ground on which the command is issued. And drunkenness is debauchery and corruption, whether it is caused by wine or whiskey or beer.

But even without the grounding statement, we can know our friend to be in error if we recognize that meaning is both explicit and implicit. When Paul explicitly mentions wine, he is using wine as an instance of intoxicating beverages. Wine is a type of intoxicating beverage that represents the entire class. Implicit within Paul’s statement is an etcetera; we might reproduce his full meaning as, “Do not get drunk with wine (and things of that sort), for that is debauchery.”

This is how communication works. We can’t say everything all the time. We can’t identify every instance of every type. And so, we frequently will the type of thing that we mean, and trust that, using language and shared context, our audience is able to discern the boundaries of our meaning.

How Good Readers Interpret

Much more could be said about meaning. But being a good reader means learning to think clearly about the task of interpretation. When we interpret, we are looking for the author’s intent or meaning. This original intent is distinct from the significance of that meaning to us. The author is the source of meaning, and the text is the means of meaning. Because the text is public, readers are able to attend to the author’s intention embedded in his words. And good readers attend both to the explicit and implicit dimensions of an author’s meaning.

The task of interpretation does not exhaust our responsibilities as readers, especially as Christian readers who are interpreting for ourselves or trying to help friends like Steve. As mentioned above, our school seeks to teach students to evaluate, feel, apply, and express what they learn from their reading. But none of those steps can happen apart from patient, persistent, humble observation and understanding — that is, hard work. And that hard work of good reading is not without great reward.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15359297/dont-underestimate-the-power-of-human-example

Our family serves in the Himalayan mountains, with the desire to see the church spread and flourish far into the unengaged villages confettied on these snowy peaks. The people here, as you might imagine, have a grit that I haven’t inherited from my suburban childhood. Wrinkled shepherds lead their goats to menacing heights with learned ease. If you peek inside a brightly painted cement home, you might see a woman browning onions over a fire, her daughter wringing out clothes, and her toddler sleeping to the buzz of cartoons.

I’ve always dreamed of this sort of a place. As a middle-schooler, I read Jesus Freaks aloud to the kids at my art table, and when playing Would You Rather on the topic of death, I would argue that martyrdom is the best way to go out. If I could have seen the place where I would raise my children, I would have thought all of my dreams had come true.

What I didn’t expect was that life here would feel like a meat-tenderizer to the heart. I didn’t see the grief coming in like a tidal wave. I’m learning a language that puts me in situations where I’m exposed and embarrassed. We are always the ones asking questions and bending our preferences to better serve those around us. Homeschooling five kids and cooking food from scratch doesn’t make me feel like Wonder Woman, but just very, very tired. How was I to know how sharp the sting of this calling would be, the pain of dying daily?

I have formed a bad habit when I’m hurting. When too many guests come for chai and my character is as robust as the brown apple core in my toddler’s sticky grip, I exit mentally. I cherry-pick a golden memory and think how those were the days.

Imagined Land of Yesteryear

The past is a commonplace to run for escape. Isn’t the entire world wishing for life to go back to normal, before COVID reared its ugly head? How often do we pine after the freedoms of life before kids, only to ache for that noisy house a decade later? Don’t we wish relationships could morph back to what they had been before the argument? If only time could rewind the consuming cancer, the regretted affair, and the old age from surprising us.

When the call to live in the present feels like cruelty, dealt out by God’s own hand, we can drown in self-pity and enter an ugly world. A world based on our memories of the past, but altered. Everything was right back then. Such good old days are often talked about in passing, and most people agree how much better it would be if only we could return. We don’t realize the damage at stake in allowing our brains and hearts to live in this imagined land of yesteryear.

“We don’t realize the damage at stake in allowing our brains and hearts to live in this imagined land of yesteryear.”

The worst part in exchanging the present for the past is that we can make ourselves gods. We become interpreters of what’s good and what’s not. We don’t lean on the Lord’s providence, but think we know what we need. We remember ourselves ten pounds thinner and everyone a lot happier than they truly were. We are most deceived about ourselves, the memories usually a highlight reel of us at our prime.

Running Somewhere

Maybe you aren’t tempted to live in the past like me. But Luke 15 makes a good case that all of us are running somewhere when the present feels difficult to swallow. Here are two sons discontent at home. When life isn’t what they want, the younger son runs to another country to feed his appetite for pleasure (Luke 15:11–13). Meanwhile, the older brother stays physically near his dad, but his heart is far from home (Luke 15:28–32).

Where are we running when life is not what we want it to be? Perhaps we seek success, to create a comfortable home, or to be thought well of in our workplace and church. If we seek escape in these places, as I have in memories of the past, we won’t like where we end up. Life away from the Father is empty. Like a popped balloon, joy whooshes out and we are left limp, deflated. The sons’ attempts of finding life elsewhere leave them homeless and toiling like slaves (Luke 15:14–16, 29).

Even if we have a lifetime of sermons in our head, do we live what we claim to know? If we did, how could we ever run from someone so ready to love us, who waits with unparalleled patience and pursues us wherever we are, however painful the present moment? God wants us home with him. So much so that he left perfection for a world writhing in pain. He took on the violence of hell so that his children wouldn’t have to.

Home Among the Thistles

Maybe we are at a crossroads. Perhaps, like myself, your shoes are well-traveled. You’ve also formed bad habits in order to escape the places where life hurts the most. You’ve called God names and aren’t certain you can live with the one who ordained life’s present pain.

Look again at Luke 15 and dare to believe this is your story, too. The house is alive with music, and the table is set. You smell meat roasting in herbs and touch the silk of the slippers placed on your feet. See your Father run to embrace you. Hear his laughter that fills your heart with a happiness you were born to enjoy.

“We can make our home among the thistles because God promises to be there too.”

Or hear the father’s words to his older child: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (Luke 15:31). These words are for us, right now. Do we believe it? If so, we can make our home among the thistles because he promises to be there too. He will never, ever leave us. And because we have his promised nearness, all that is his is now laid before us as a feast. Every spiritual blessing is at our fingertips when we live at home in our Father (Ephesians 1:3). Especially when our circumstances are January gray, he’s waiting for us to see the rainbow of his love.

Black-Edged Envelopes

Charles Spurgeon once testified,

The worst days I have ever had have turned out to be my best days, and when God has seemed most cruel to me, he has then been most kind. If there is anything in this world for which I would bless him more than for anything else, it is for pain and affliction. I am sure that in these things the richest, tenderest love has been manifested to me. Our Father’s wagons rumble most heavily when they are bringing us the richest freight of the bullion of his grace. Love letters from heaven are often sent in black-edged envelopes. The cloud that is black with horror is big with mercy. . . . Fear not the storm, it brings healing in its wings, and when Jesus is with you in the vessel the tempest only hastens the ship to its desired haven.

I am receiving more black-edged envelopes right now than I would care for. Dying daily has been less like Perpetua facing the beasts, and more like getting out of bed every morning to face the responsibilities of a calling that requires an unsavory dose of humility. This painful present, this everyday death is unnoticed by most, and as with the objects in a room when the lights are off, I can’t seem to find the outline of my old identity.

And yet, the storm of today will not end in shipwreck. I’m not at the random mercy of the winds. The current rolling of thunder and high waves only assist me in getting home safe and sound. The presence of my Father and his continual invitation has repeatedly snapped me back from the past, allowing me to see the wonders in front of my face, like my children, the food on my plate, and the way the goats follow the voice of their shepherd down the valley with the sun dripping into the horizon.

When my daughter Eliana was 6 years old, I wrote her a lullaby that included these words:

You, Eliana, remind me each dayThat God does answer the prayers that we pray.And though the night falls and we cannot see,He will bring light when the time’s right for you and me.

These four lines are packed with profound meaning for me. I rarely can sing them without tears. They refer to an extended season of what Christians call spiritual darkness, or a dark night of the soul, or a faith crisis, which I experienced the year before Eliana was born.

Since I told this story in some detail a number of years ago, I won’t recount it all here. I do, however, want to recount the moment God brought light into my night, because it was a transformational moment when I experienced the biblical truth David describes in Psalm 139:

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,     and the light about me be night,”even the darkness is not dark to you;     the night is bright as the day,     for darkness is as light with you. (Psalm 139:11–12)

I say it was a transformational moment, not merely because light pierced my darkness, but because it drove home David’s poetic point: that just because “the light about [us] be night” and we, for various reasons, lose sight of God, it does not mean the Light is gone. In this moment, I experienced that God really is faithful to keep his promise to be with us when we walk through the valley of deep darkness (Psalm 23:4) — whether we perceive him or not.

Though the Night Falls

One spring day in 1997, for reasons too complex and distracting to describe now, God, who had been the Sun of my world since my youth, suddenly became eclipsed in the sky of my spiritual sight. I couldn’t perceive him at all. Existential darkness covered me; the light about me was night (Psalm 139:11). And my faith was in a full-fledged crisis.

This terrifying experience was foreign to me. But as I desperately ransacked the Bible and books searching for answers, it quickly became clear that this experience wasn’t foreign to saints in Scripture.

In one sense, this should have been clear to me prior to this crisis, given how often I had read the descriptions of dark nights like mine in the Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, and so on. But in another sense, it’s understandable why it wasn’t. When we haven’t personally experienced such disorienting blackouts (and the disturbing doubts that typically accompany them), it’s almost impossible to imagine what “darkness without any light” is really like (Lamentations 3:2).

Now, I found myself walking through a “valley of deep darkness” (Psalm 23:4). I found myself praying with Heman the Ezrahite, “You have put me in the depths of the pit, in the regions dark and deep” (Psalm 88:6). I found myself crying out with David in desperation,

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. (Psalm 22:1–2)

And I found myself wondering what incomprehensible darkness covered Jesus when he made this desperate cry.

“God sometimes ordains dismayingly dark nights of the soul to descend on his children for redemptive purposes.”

The Holy Spirit used my darkness to illuminate for me the Bible’s clear witness that, for various and deeply good reasons, God sometimes ordains dismaying dark nights of the soul to descend on his children for redemptive purposes. And God had provided these scriptural witnesses to help people like me “not be surprised at the fiery trial . . . as though something strange were happening” (1 Peter 4:12). Their experiences gave me a frame of reference as I sought to navigate my way in the dark.

And We Cannot See

Navigation, in fact, became a helpful metaphor to me during this time. To explain what I mean, let’s look at David’s description of spiritual darkness with more context:

Where shall I go from your Spirit?     Or where shall I flee from your presence?If I ascend to heaven, you are there!     If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!If I take the wings of the morning     and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,even there your hand shall lead me,     and your right hand shall hold me.If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,     and the light about me be night,”even the darkness is not dark to you;     the night is bright as the day,     for darkness is as light with you. (Psalm 139:7–12)

In beautiful poetry, David says that it doesn’t matter where he goes — whether to the dwelling of God or the dwelling of the dead, whether to the place where the sun rises or where it sets — God is there with him. And if we widen the lens to include Psalm 139:1–6, we’d hear David say God isn’t merely with him, but God fully knows him. God is acquainted with all of David’s ways, even his thoughts. When David is in such a dark place that God seems absent, God is fully present with him and fully cognizant of him. For there is no such thing as darkness to God.

‘Various Trials’ Theological Seminary

Why was David able to make such profound theological assertions? Because he received his theological education in the seminary of “various trials” (James 1:2), where his courses were “many dangers, toils, and snares” — and spiritual darkness. He practiced theology as if his life depended on it.

So, when David exulted in God’s continual knowing and guiding presence, even when deep darkness descended, he wasn’t waxing poetic over some romantic ideal; he was speaking of a reality he had experienced. Hard-won experience had taught him to navigate life by trusting God’s reliable promises, not his unreliable perceptions and emotions — especially in the darkness.

I remember when the thought “fly by the instruments” hit me while trying to figure out how to navigate my stormy darkness. When pilots fly planes into dense, dark clouds, they lose all points of perceptual reference. Their normally reliable perceptions suddenly can’t be trusted anymore, since they can feel like they’re flying horizontal and straight when they’re actually spiraling gradually toward the ground. Survival in this situation depends on trusting what the plane’s navigational instruments tell them over what their perceptions and emotions tell them. They must fly by the instruments.

That’s what David learned in the realm of faith — and so must we. One of the hardest and most valuable lessons we learn during our stormy, cloudy, spiritual nights is to trust what the instruments of God’s promises tell us over what our perceptions and emotions tell us. Such seasons force us to exercise faith. Which is why so many faithful biblical saints learned to “walk by faith and not by sight” during seasons of great desperation (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Why We Long for Light

As necessary and valuable as it is for us to learn to trust God in the dark — that he’s with us and fully knows us when we cannot see — we still deeply and rightly desire to experience that truth. We long for God to “lighten [our] darkness” (Psalm 18:28) because “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). We long for light because we long for God.

“We long for light because we long for God.”

And so, on Saturday, August 23, 1997, while alone in the house, I threw myself on the living-room floor and pleaded with God (again) for light and deliverance. I prayed something very specific: “Lord, if you just somehow whisper to me that you’re still there, and I’m your son, and this whole dark season is something you’re allowing for your good purposes, I think I can endure anything. All I need is for you to whisper to me that I’m your son!”

And God answered. He answered in such way that all the attempts my inner skeptic has made to explain it as something other than an answered prayer seem so improbable as to be incredible. (If you’d like to know specifically how, I describe it here; in short, God spoke not through an audible whisper but through a friend directing me, unaware, to a specific passage of Scripture.) And when God answered, he brought light into my night. In his light I again saw light (Psalm 36:9).

Then, quite unexpectedly, one more aspect to this story occurred, which only made it harder to explain away.

When the Time Is Right

Several months after these events, my wife and I joyfully discovered we were expecting our second child. When we found out we were expecting a girl, we began searching for the right name. We ended up choosing Eliana, which in Hebrew means my God answers. We chose it as a memorial to that moment of answered prayer.

Eliana was born on Saturday, August 22, 1998. The day after her birth, I got to thinking, “It was somewhere around this time last year that God answered my prayer.” So, I got out my journal and realized Eliana had been born exactly 365 days after that answered prayer, on the corresponding Saturday one year later. A shiver of awe passed through me, and grateful praise filled my mouth.

God had been faithful, not only to his promise to cause “light [to] dawn in [my] darkness” (Psalm 112:4), but also to his promise to be fully and attentively present in my darkness, even when I couldn’t perceive him. And that’s why, even 25 years later, it brings me to tears almost every time I sing,

You, Eliana, remind me each dayThat God does answer the prayers that we pray.And though the night falls and we cannot see,He will bring light when the time’s right for you and me.

Audio Transcript

Today we look at one of John Piper’s favorite Bible texts on the Christian life. The text that I’m thinking of is 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12. Pastor John doesn’t talk about this text a lot, but when he does, you immediately sense its significance. He has mentioned it here on the podcast a few times. A while back, speaking of 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12, he said, “I encourage everybody to meditate on every single phrase in those two verses.” That was in APJ 1473.

And the text pops up on the podcast annually, in early January, whenever we talk about New Year’s resolutions. That’s because Pastor John calls it “the most important” text in the Bible on resolutions. That’s a claim he made in APJ 1415. And back in APJ 246, he called it “a theology of resolutions in two verses.” But this same text has year-round value because it offers us “eight steps of sanctification” (APJ 367) — eight indispensables for Christian living, as we see in today’s episode, in a great little sermon clip from 2012. Here’s Pastor John to explain 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12.

Let’s read these two verses again. “To this end” — and what he means by that in the preceding verses is “so that you will be able to marvel at the Lord when he comes.”

To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good [or good resolve] and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, notice eight crucial things in those two verses.

1. Calling of God

There is a calling of God on and in every believer. Verse 11: “. . . that our God may make you worthy of his calling” — that is, the glorious destiny that he has for you, a destiny to be a part of his kingdom, and to be a part of and shaped by, glorified by, his glory. The easiest place to see that that’s what it means is 1 Thessalonians 2:12, which goes like this: “[We] charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.”

“Your calling is to be in the kingdom of God. Your calling is to share the glory of God.”

So, the calling of every Christian is that we will be destined — we are destined — and we’ll be there in God’s kingdom, and in his glory, perfectly someday. So your calling is to be in the kingdom of God. Your calling is to share the glory of God, as will be increasingly clear as we get to that part of these two verses. That’s number one, the calling of God.

2. Made Worthy of His Calling

There is a being made worthy of the calling. Verse 11: “. . . that our God may make you worthy of his calling.” So, that’s what God is doing if you’re a Christian. He’s making you worthy of his calling. Being made worthy of something doesn’t mean being made deserving of it — it means being made suitable for it, or being made fitting or appropriate for it.

If you know that the queen of England has decided to come and stay in one of the bedrooms of your house, your thought will be, first (probably), “I don’t deserve it, and the room certainly doesn’t deserve it,” which would be true. But what you mean by, “I must make the room worthy of the queen” is that she’s got the worth and the room needs some work. “I want to make the room suitable. I want to make the room fitting.” She’s already decided to come. It’s not about deserving her coming.

The Lord has put his favor on his people and said, “You’re going to be in my kingdom. You’re going to be my children. You’re going to be there glorifying me.” And then he goes about the business of suiting us out, fitting us for that destiny called being made worthy of our calling. That’s number two.

3. Good Resolves Fulfilled

There is a fulfillment, therefore — in the exercise of that being made worthy of the calling, there’s a fulfillment of our good resolves. Verse 11: “. . . that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every good resolve,” or “every resolve for good.” So, the Christian life is a resolving life. It’s a planning life. It’s a purposing life. It’s an intending life.

God has given every one of you wills. And he intends for you to use your will to make plans and purposes and designs and intentions and resolves, to do something right and beautiful and good every hour of your day. That’s why we have brains and wills, volition.

4. Power of God in Us

And the question is, how do those resolves become real — turn into deeds, get fulfilled? And that’s number four: by the power of God. Verse 11: “. . . that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.” So our resolves become works by his power, and he intends to get the glory for the fulfillment of our resolves. And that’s why he makes himself the giver of the power. The giver gets the glory.

If you did your resolves in your own strength, you would get the glory, and you should. And if you depend on him to fulfill your resolves with his power, he gets the glory, and he should. And that’s the way he set it up.

And so, how do our resolves become acts? How does the resolve to do a right thing and not do a wrong thing become effective? God’s power, that’s how. So, the Christian life is a life of supernatural power coming in, moving out, and giving us the ability to fulfill our resolves.

5. Works of Faith

How do we tap into this power? How do we avail ourselves of the power? How do we depend upon the power? By faith. Verse 11: “. . . that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every good resolve” — every resolve for good — “and every work of faith.” When God fulfills, by his power, a good resolve, it becomes a work of faith. That’s the way I’m taking the connection between fulfilling a resolve for good and a work of faith: the power of God enabling needs to happen.

When the power of God meets you in your good resolve, it meets you by making that resolve become a work called now a “work of faith,” which shows how you tapped into that. Got it? It’s a work of faith — you could call it a work of power, it’s true. He’s just bringing you into the picture now. He’s already said God’s power fulfills your resolves and turns them into fulfillment — that is works, deeds, acts. And then he adds, “And those acts are acts of faith,” which tells me exactly what my role is in availing myself of divine power to fulfill the resolves I have in life — namely, I must trust him. I must trust his promise to give me power tonight, to fulfill a resolve I have when I go home.

That’s what I have to do: believe him; trust him. That’s the plug into the power. The outlet and the electricity is his power. And the plug is my faith. I trust you — click — power. That’s what faith does: it gets in, and power flows through it. And God has designed it that way because, when you’re a little child leaning on God for power to fulfill your resolves, he’s going to get the glory, which is where we’re going in just a moment — in fact, not a moment, a second.

6. Jesus’s Glory in Us

In this text, the name of Jesus is going to be glorified. Now we’re at verse 12. When God fulfills our resolves through our faith and turns them into works of faith, Jesus gets glory. So, verse 12: “. . . so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you.” So, when God’s power comes through your plug of faith and turns your resolves to do the right and to avoid the wrong into an act of faith, Jesus gets glory.

“All God’s power now, because of the cross and our connection with Jesus, is pouring on us for our good.”

Which must mean, since he hasn’t been mentioned yet in these two verses, that Paul is assuming that the power that he calls “God’s power” is power purchased and provided by Jesus, which is exactly what I argued for last week. When Christ dies, what he purchases for us is that God would now no longer be against us. His power is no longer devoted to our destruction, no longer devoted to our condemnation. All his power now, because of the cross and our connection with Jesus, is pouring on us for our good, not our destruction.

So anybody who knows the gospel — and I hope that last Sunday’s message hasn’t ceased to be real for you — would know that it’s so fitting that Paul would say here that Jesus’s name would be glorified. When God, by his power, comes into the life of imperfect people like me, who don’t deserve any help at all from him, and he takes my little puny, half-baked, vain resolves to do right, and he makes them happen to some measure of good, Jesus gets glory. That’s right. God gets glory too, but Jesus is named as the one who gets the glory. He purchased that awesome sanctifying event that enables us to fulfill our resolves.

7. Our Glory in Him

And we are glorified in him. So, he’s glorified in this process, and now it says we are too. So let’s read that again. Verse 12: “. . . so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him.” So, as he purchases and provides the power by covering all of our sin and providing all of our right standing with God, we are being conformed into Christ’s likeness, because our resolves for good are being fulfilled by faith in that.

And the effect is that we too are becoming glorious with his glory. “We all . . . beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to the next” (2 Corinthians 3:18). And oh for the day when that will be complete, in the moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, when we shall be changed — saved to sin no more. Hasten that day.

8. All of Grace

All of this is according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus. End of verse 12: “. . . so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” It is all of grace — the grace of our Father and the grace of our Lord Jesus. The power that comes to us moment by moment to fulfill our resolves for good is the power of grace, the extension of grace.

Grace to Glory

So those are the eight crucial, indispensable, wonderful elements in verses 11 and 12. Let me try to sum them up. How do they work? Let me put them together in the order that they work instead of just the order that they come.

Paul ends with the beginning, right? At the bottom of the Christian life is grace, and everything moves up from that foundation. If there were anything we could do down here beneath this to get under it and make it happen, it wouldn’t be grace. That’s the meaning of grace. So grace is free, and it comes to us in our total undeserving, and it starts to do good things for us. And so, it’s all of grace. Grace is at the bottom of the Christian life.

And now, up from that grace, God’s power flows. And that power flows through your faith. If we were doing other texts, I could show you that the power, in fact, awakens that faith and then moves through it, awakens those resolves and then fulfills them. But all it says here now, which is all we’re going to talk about, is when you have a resolve to do right, and do good — to honor God, to love people, to kill sin — that resolve, if it gets fulfilled, gets fulfilled by the power of God.

And the way you tap into that power is by faith. And when you do, then Jesus is made to look glorious in your life, and you participate in the glorification of Jesus by becoming increasingly beautiful yourself — somewhat in this life, unspeakably in the life to come.