Some three hundred years ago, an unusual kind of church gathering spread throughout the English-speaking world like fire in the brush. When describing these groups, church historians reach for the language of newness: one refers to the gatherings as “innovations,” another as “a fresh ecclesiological proposal,” and still another as “decidedly novel.”

To some, the groups seemed dangerous, a threat to existing church order. But to countless normal Christians, the groups held immense attraction. They were a new wineskin of sorts, and new wineskins have a way of offending and appealing in equal measure.

Revealing the name of these gatherings risks anticlimax, however, because today they seem to many Christians as somewhat ho-hum, a churchly inheritance as traditional as pulpits and pews. For these innovative groups, these fresh and novel gatherings, were none other than the first modern small groups.

Daring Idea of Small Groups

Small groups, of course, were not all new three hundred years ago. In fact, when the German Lutheran Philip Jacob Spener (1635–1705) proposed the idea in 1675, he likened the groups to “the ancient and apostolic kind of church meetings” (Pia Desideria, 89). Bruce Hindmarsh, in his article “The Daring Idea of Small Groups,” suggests Spener had in mind passages like Colossians 4:15 and 1 Corinthians 14:26–40, where the early Christians met in houses and exercised the gifts of the Spirit. To these we might also add Acts 2:42–47, where the newly Spirit-filled church met not only at the temple but also “in their homes.”

For Spener, then, small groups were a retrieval project, an attempt to restore an ancient gathering somehow lost through the centuries. He wanted passive laypeople to act like the “royal priesthood” they really were in Christ (1 Peter 2:9). He wanted to see the Spirit working mightily through not only pastors and teachers but all members of the body, as in the days after Pentecost. Spener couldn’t help but trace a connection between the new-covenant ministry of the Spirit and the New Testament pattern of small groups.

He was right to trace a connection. A few decades after Spener proposed his daring idea, a massive spiritual awakening spread throughout Western Europe and America. And just as in the days of Acts 2, the newly Spirit-filled church began to gather in small groups. Sunday morning couldn’t contain the Spirit’s flame.

Fostering and Facilitating Revival

Richard Lovelace, in his Dynamics of Spiritual Life, notes “the persistent reappearance of small intentional communities in the history of church renewal” (78). And so it was in the First Great Awakening of the 1730s and beyond. In the decades surrounding the awakening, small groups were instrumental in both fostering and facilitating revival.

In the first place, small groups had a way of fostering revival. Fascinatingly, we can draw a providential line between Spener’s small-group advocacy and the awakening of the 1730s. Spener’s godson, Nicolaus von Zinzendorf (1700–1760), led a group called the Renewed Moravian Brethren, who themselves had experienced the Spirit’s power in small-group community life. Then, in 1738, Moravians in London helped start the Fetter Lane Society, one of whose members was named John Wesley (1703–1791). And that society, writes Colin Podmore, would become “the main seed-bed from which the English Evangelical Revival would spring” (The Moravian Church in England, 1728–1760, 39). Spener’s idea — taken, tried, and tweaked from the 1670s to the 1730s — became one of the greatest means God used in the awakening.

From then on, small groups also had a way of facilitating revival. As awakening spread through England, Wesley and his colaborers gathered earnest believers into small groups or “bands.” As awakening spread through America, writes Mark Noll, Jonathan Edwards created small groups “as part of his effort to fan this spiritual blaze” (Rise of Evangelicalism, 77). Really wherever you look, Hindmarsh writes, “As the fires of evangelical revival spread, the fervor of small-group religion branched out too.”

Small groups may have looked, at first, a little like the disciples in Acts 2:1, huddled “all together in one place,” waiting for the fire to fall. And then the fire did fall, creating communities that resembled Acts 2:42–47 in various degrees. Those awakened wanted to gather — indeed, felt compelled to gather — just like those early Christians in Jerusalem. And one gathering a week simply was not enough.

Small groups fostered revival, and small groups facilitated revival, in both the first century and the eighteenth. And so they may again today.

Four Marks of the First Small Groups

Three hundred years after the First Great Awakening, small groups no longer raise eyebrows. The new wineskin has grown familiar, becoming one of the most common features of evangelical church life. Nevertheless, a closer look at these groups reveals a gap between the first modern small groups and many of our own. Often, we have settled for something less daring.

Recovering the features of the first groups would not guarantee revival, of course. Awakening is the Spirit’s sovereign work. But in God’s hands, small groups like those of old may become a means of revival — or, short of that, a means of greater growth in Christ.

Consider, then, four features of the first small groups, and how we might work to recover them.

Experiential Bible Study

When many of us think of small groups today, we imagine a Bible study: several people in a circle, Bibles open, discussing some passage and praying afterward. The Bible held a similarly central place in many early small groups; Spener couched his whole proposal, in fact, within the larger aim to introduce “a more extensive use of the word of God among us” (Pia Desideria, 87). Even still, the phrase Bible study may not capture the practical, experiential spirit of these groups.

Listen to Spener’s hope for “a more extensive” use of Scripture: “If we succeed in getting the people to seek eagerly and diligently in the book of life for their joy, their spiritual life will be wonderfully strengthened and they will become altogether different people” (91). Altogether different people — that was the goal of Bible study in these first groups. And so, they took an immensely practical bent to the Scriptures, studying them not only with their minds but with their lives.

I can remember, as a young college student freshly awakened to Christ, how eager a group of us were to open Scripture together, often spontaneously. The Bible seemed always near, its wisdom ever relevant for “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). Importantly, we were as eager for application as we were for knowledge. Yet I can also recall Bible studies that must have seemed, to any impartial observer, like a mere matter of words. We were studying a map without any clear intention of visiting the country.

The first groups, needless to say, resembled the former far more than the latter. “These were not book clubs, lifestyle enclaves, or discussion groups,” Hindmarsh writes. “These were places for those who were serious about the life application of the teaching of Scripture.” We cannot manufacture a spirit of biblical earnestness, of course; we can, however, refuse to treat Scripture as a mere collection of thoughts to be studied.

Frank Confession

Zeal for life application, for becoming “altogether different people,” naturally gave rise to another feature: utterly honest confession. In fact, Podmore writes that, for many of the groups associated with Wesley and the Moravians, “mutual confession, followed by forgiveness and the healing of the soul, was not just a feature of the society, but its raison d’être” — its very reason for being (Moravian Church, 41).

The word band, sometimes used for these groups, referred to “conversations or conferences where straight talking had taken place” (129). Hence, “these small groups were marked by total frankness.” For biblical warrant, the group leaders often looked to James 5:16: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” The rules of the Fetter Lane Society even stated that “the design of our meeting is to obey that command of God” (Pursuing Social Holiness, 78).

The groups exercised wisdom, to be sure: they often shared only with those of the same sex, and they agreed to keep others’ confessions confidential. But there was no way to escape exposure in these groups. Honesty was the cost of admission.

Some of our small groups already have a ready-made structure for mutual confession in what we may call accountability groups. Yet even here, I suspect much of our accountability has room to grow toward the kind of utter honesty Wesley and others had in mind, as reflected in one of the rules for Fetter Lane: “That each person in order speak freely, plainly, and concisely as he can, the state of his heart, with his several temptations and deliverances, since the last time of meeting.”

How can our groups grow toward such free, plain honesty? Partly by believing, as they did, that greater healing lies on the other side.

Common Priesthood

The Reformation, as has often been said, did not get rid of the priesthood; it gave the priesthood back to all believers. Or at least in theory. In Spener’s Germany, a century and a half after Luther heralded the priesthood of all believers, the laity once again had become largely passive. And not only passive, but fractured by class, creating an unbiblical hierarchy not only between clergy and laity but between rich and poor laity: “Elevated and upholstered places were reserved for the upper classes and only the common people sat on hard seats in the nave,” Theodore Tappert writes (introduction to Pia Desideria, 4–5).

The small groups of Spener and those who followed him dealt a devastating blow to that state of affairs. All of a sudden, normal Christians — mothers and fathers, bakers and cobblers, lawyers and doctors, farmers and clerks — sat in the same room, none of them elevated above the others. And more than that, they believed that they, though untrained in theology, could edify their brothers and sisters by virtue of the Spirit within them. Small groups made the people priests again.

“Small groups made the people priests again.”

The groups, rightly, did not aim to erase all distinction: pastors often led or oversaw the gatherings, aware that small groups could sometimes splinter from the larger body and seek to overturn godly authority. That danger will always be present to some extent when the people are empowered to be priests. But far better to deal with that danger than to render laypeople passive.

Are we as persuaded as they were that the body of Christ grows only when it is “joined and held together by every joint with which is it equipped, when each part is working properly” (Ephesians 4:16)? If so, we’ll seek to unleash the gifts of every believer, including those “that seem to be weaker” (1 Corinthians 12:22). Though weak in the world’s eyes, they have been given crucial gifts “for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7).

Outward Mission

We have small groups today, in part, because some of the first small-group members refused to keep the groups to themselves. Hindmarsh notes that, among the Moravians, revival drove them “in two directions: inward, in an intensity of community life together; and outward, in missionary enterprise to places like Georgia and the American frontier.”

How easily the Moravians might have prized their rich community life at the expense of outward mission, as we so often do. Instead, they lifted their glorious banner — “May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of his suffering” — and sought to spread that same community life elsewhere. And because they did, they encountered John Wesley, helped begin the Fetter Lane Society, and thus gave shape to the small groups that would explode throughout the North Atlantic.

“From the beginning, small groups, like cells in a body, were meant to multiply.”

From the beginning, small groups, like cells in a body, were meant to multiply. Sometimes multiplication happened as Christians like the Moravians traveled to far-flung places as missionaries; other times, it happened as small groups remained porous enough for outsiders to look in and, like the unconverted John Bunyan, hear serious believers speak “as if they had found a new world” (Grace Abounding, 20).

One of our great challenges, then and now, is how to move our groups outward in mission while maintaining the kind of trusting relationships that allow for mutual confession and life together. That challenge likely will feel perennial. But believers with an inward bent — perhaps most of us — can probably risk erring in the outward direction, whether by finding some common mission, inviting outsiders into the group, or praying together earnestly for the nonbelievers in our lives. We may even find that mission binds us together like never before.

Small Day of Small Groups

Perhaps, as we consider the vitality that marked the first evangelical small groups, our own group grows a bit grayer. If so, we may do well to remember the biblical passage cited, it seems, more often than Acts 2 or 1 Corinthians 14 — that is, James 5.

James 5:13–20 lays out a compelling program for small-group life. Yet we know from James’s letter that the community was not enjoying the kind of awakening we see in Acts 2. Class division, bitter tongues, fleshly wisdom, and worldly friendships were compromising the church’s holiness (James 2:1–13; 3:1–18; 4:1–10). Yet even still, James tells them to gather, to sing, to confess, to pray.

Spener, himself unimpressed with the state of his church community, reminds us,

The work of the Lord is accomplished in wondrous ways, even as he is himself wonderful. For this very reason his work is done in complete secrecy, yet all the more surely, provided we do not relax our efforts. . . . Seeds are there, and you may think they are unproductive, but do your part in watering them, and ears will surely sprout and in time become ripe. (Pia Desideria, 38)

Indeed, those seeds did bear fruit in time — far more fruit than Spener could have imagined. So don’t despise the small day of small groups. More may be happening than we can see.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15335099/hope-will-put-you-to-work

Audio Transcript

Some of the best questions you all send to us come from the tensions you see directly in Scripture as you read the Bible — like the one we have today. Do we pray for the salvation of unbelievers directly? Or do we pray for the evangelists who bring the gospel? It’s an interesting Bible question on this Friday, as we close out week number 489 on the podcast.

The question today is from a listener named Tim: “Hello, Pastor John! Can you tell me if we are commanded to pray for unbelievers? It seems like the prayers and the instruction on prayer in the New Testament are focused on praying for believers in contexts of evangelism. I’m thinking of Colossians 4:3–4 and Ephesians 6:18–20. In those places Paul is seeking prayer for his bold preaching, not prayers for unbelievers themselves. Is this instructive for us? Are we to pray for unbelievers? Or pray for evangelists? How does the Bible instruct our priority here?”

Yes, the Bible teaches us to pray for unbelievers, and particularly to pray for their salvation — but not only for their salvation, but also lots of blessings of other kinds that flow from salvation or lead to their salvation.

But the question Tim asks is not uncommon because Tim is right that, ordinarily, Paul in particular asks for prayer for his preaching more than he asks prayer for those who are hearing his preaching. Now I’ll come back at the end to why that might be the case, but that is the case, and that’s why the question arises.

I can remember maybe forty years ago at a conference at Wheaton College where a person stood up in the audience and asked J.I. Packer point-blank, “Give me one text where we’re told to pray for unbelievers.” And I’ll tell you what he said in a minute when I get there, but this is not an unusual question. Now, my reason for saying the Bible does teach that we should pray for unbelievers is that there are at least five lines of evidence pointing more or less explicitly in this direction.

David’s Prayers for Enemies

First, there’s the Old Testament example. It may be surprising to you (it was to me) that this example turns up in a psalm where righteous indignation, the righteous indignation of the psalmist, is calling on God to vindicate him against his enemies. But listen to what brought him to this point in Psalm 35:11–14:

Malicious witnesses rise up;     they ask of me things I do not know.They repay me evil for good;     my soul is bereft.But I, when they were sick —     I wore sackcloth;     I afflicted myself with fasting;I prayed with head bowed on my chest.     I went about as though I grieved for my friend or my brother;as one who laments his mother,     I bowed down in mourning.

So, the psalmist had prayed for his enemy until, evidently, God showed him that he’s going to become an instrument of God’s judgment. That happens in the psalms. So we’ve got an Old Testament example of praying for our adversaries.

Jesus New-Covenant Commands

Second, there are Jesus’s instructions in Matthew 5:43: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Same thing in Luke 6:28: “Pray for those who abuse you” — not “pray against them.” These aren’t imprecatory prayers. This is, “Pray for them — pray for what they need.” And what they need most is faith in Christ and eternal life.

‘Bless Those Who Curse You’

I think this is what the command of Jesus to bless means as well. Jesus said in Luke 6:28, “Bless those who curse you.” Well, what does bless mean? It means we pronounce a Godward wish of well-being on someone. Blessing is the hope that things will go well with someone, and then that hope is directed to God in longing and expressed to our enemy in words. That’s the way blessings work, whether they’re to believers or unbelievers. You can see it in that famous blessing in Numbers 6:24–26: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you.”

So you’re asking the Lord to do something, but you’re speaking directly to a person. So this command to bless our enemies became a watchword in the early church. It’s amazing how frequent it is:

1 Peter 3:9: “Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless.”
Romans 12:14: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.”
Paul set an example of this in 1 Corinthians 4:12 when he said, “When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure.”

Now, these blessings are prayers; they’re prayers for unbelievers — that God would cause things to go well for them, for their ultimate good, for their salvation.

‘As in Heaven’

Then there’s another instruction Jesus gave. I think it indirectly tells us to pray for unbelievers, and this is the answer that J.I. Packer gave. I remember it all these years later because I didn’t expect him to go here at all. He went to the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father in heaven,hallowed be your name.Your kingdom come,your will be done,     on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:9–10)

“The Lord’s Prayer is a prayer for unbelievers to believe and obey and do the will of God the way the angels do it.”

Well, when it says to pray for the kingdom to come and for God’s will to be done as in heaven, that phrase “as in heaven” means not just that God’s sovereign will would be done the way Judas did it — that’s not the way it’s done in heaven — but that it would be done the way angels do it. And the angels do it full of joy, full of faith. So, think of the Lord’s Prayer as a prayer for unbelievers to believe and obey and do the will of God the way the angels do it in heaven. I thought that was a remarkable, insightful answer.

There are a lot more direct answers. I’m not sure why he went there — maybe that was just all that came to his mind at the time — but I thought it was remarkable.

Jesus’s and Stephen’s Dying Pleas

Here’s the third line of evidence: There’s Jesus example — not just the instructions that we just saw, but his example. While he is on the cross, he prays for his enemies: “And Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’” (Luke 23:34).

And then Stephen continued that same dying prayer as he was being stoned in Acts 7:60: “And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’” That’s amazing. He prayed for his unbelieving killers.

Paul’s Prayers for His Kinsmen

The fourth line of evidence is Paul’s example, not only of blessing, which we just saw for those who persecute him, but also of explicitly praying for the salvation of his lost Jewish kinsmen in Romans 10. I think, if somebody asked me in public, “Give me one example of the Bible teaching that we should pray for unbelievers,” I’d say Romans 10:1: “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.”

So I take this to mean that this was his steady prayer as he ministered in the Lord’s name: “Lord, save my brothers in Israel, and make them my brothers in Christ.”

Paul’s Personal Requests

And now the fifth line of evidence. Tim, when he asked the question, pointed to Colossians 4 as a typical way that Paul asks for prayer — namely, for the preachers and not the hearers. And I commented that this is typical. That’s right. Paul does that most often. He said this: “Pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison — that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak” (Colossians 4:3–4).

We see the same thing in Ephesians 6:19, where he says, “[Pray] for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel.” And we could add to this 2 Thessalonians 3:1: “Pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you.”

Now, none of these texts says explicitly that we are praying for the unbelievers — none of those last three that I quoted. But when you think it through, what they’re asking for is that Paul’s word would be bold and clear and unhindered and triumphant and glorified. You can’t avoid the fact this includes, “Lord, grant converts to Paul’s preaching.”

“God has bound salvation to the news of Jesus Christ so that Christ gets glory for the faith.”

So, I think Paul is indeed asking indirectly for prayer for unbelievers. And I suspect — this is my effort to answer the question of why Paul spoke the way he did most often — that one of the reasons Paul asks for prayer this way (namely, for himself and his preaching) is that he is so keenly aware that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ (Romans 10:17). He knows that it is God who raises dead people spiritually and brings them to faith. And God gives them life and faith and eyes to see the glory of Christ by causing them to hear the word of God.

Paul really wants us to keep in mind that God does not move around through the world bringing people to faith apart from the hearing of the gospel. God has bound salvation to the news of Jesus Christ so that Christ gets glory for the faith. So let’s always keep these things together — namely, prayer for the salvation of unbelievers and prayer for the word to run and be glorified through more and more faith.

On May 27, 1564, just after eight o’clock in the evening, a nurse urgently summoned Theodore Beza (1519–1605) to Calvin’s bedside. “We found he had already died,” Calvin’s friend and fellow pastor later wrote. “On that day, then, at the same time with the setting sun, this splendid luminary was withdrawn from us.”1 Calvin was 54 years old.

Calvin’s death sent a shock wave throughout Geneva and beyond. Beza writes, “That night and the following day there was a general lamentation throughout the city . . . all lamenting the loss of one who was, under God, a common parent and comfort.” He records that two days later “the entire city” gathered at the St. Pierre Cathedral to honor their beloved pastor. Despite Calvin’s prominence, the funeral was unusually simple, “with no extraordinary pomp.”2 But Calvin’s burial was particularly unusual.

Unmarked Grave

Eighteen years earlier, on February 18, 1546, fellow Reformer Martin Luther died at the age of 63. As was common practice for ministers, Luther’s remains were interred inside the church where he had faithfully served. His casket lies in Wittenberg’s Castle Church, near the pulpit, seven feet below the floor of the nave. Luther’s successor and fellow Reformer, Philip Melanchthon (1490–1560), is buried beside him.

So also William Farel (1489–1565), who first called Calvin to Geneva in 1536, is buried in the cathedral of Neuchâtel, where he spent the final years of his ministry. When Calvin’s friend and successor Theodore Beza died in 1605, he was buried next to the pulpit of St. Pierre, the Genevan church in which he and Calvin ministered together.

But Calvin’s remains lie elsewhere.

Rather than being interred in St. Pierre, Calvin’s body was carried outside the city wall to a marshy burial ground for commoners called Plainpalais. With close friends in attendance, Calvin’s body was wrapped in a simple shroud, enclosed in a rough casket, and lowered into the earth. Beza writes that Calvin’s plot was unlisted and, “as he [had] commanded, without any gravestone.”3

Why did Calvin command that he be buried, contrary to common practice, in an unmarked grave? Some speculate that he wanted to discourage religious pilgrims from visiting his resting place or to prevent accusations from the Roman church that he desired veneration as a saint.4 But the answer lies somewhere deeper — in Calvin’s understanding of Christian modesty.

Forgotten Meaning of Modesty

When we speak of modesty today, we most often mean dressing or behaving in such a way as to avoid impropriety or indecency. But modesty more generally refers to the quality of being unassuming or moderate in the estimation of oneself. For centuries, the church understood the connection. Immodest dress was not simply ostentatious or sexually suggestive; it reflected an overemphasis on appearance. As Jesus warned, outward appearance can mask impiety (Matthew 6:16) or pride (Luke 18:12).

This is why both Gentile women converts in Ephesus and the Jewish Christians addressed in Hebrews are urged to consider how their outward appearance relates to the disposition of the heart. Excessive adornment could be evidence of self-importance (1 Timothy 2:9). Acceptable worship requires a posture of reverence, not pretension (Hebrews 12:28). Thus, a modest person represents himself neither too highly nor too meanly because he understands both the dignity and the humility of being transformed by the grace of God.

“Modesty is simply the outward reflection of true Christian humility.”

Modesty, then, is simply the outward reflection of true Christian humility. It obliterates pride by embracing the reality that a Christian is both creaturely and beloved. In this light, self-importance becomes absurd. Grandiosity becomes laughable. Celebrity becomes monstrous.

We Are Not Our Own

For Calvin, the gospel radically reshapes our view of self. As those created in God’s image, provisioned by his goodness, redeemed by his mercy, transformed by his grace, and called to his mission, those who belong to Christ no longer live for themselves. “Now the great thing is this,” Calvin writes, “we are consecrated and dedicated to God in order that we may thereafter think, speak, meditate, and do, nothing except to his glory.” Calvin continues,

If we, then, are not our own but the Lord’s, it is clear what error we must flee and whither we must direct all the acts of our life. We are not our own: let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us not therefore see it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours.

Conversely, we are God’s: let us therefore live for him and die for him. We are God’s: let his wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We are God’s: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward him as our only lawful goal. Oh how much has that man profited who, having been taught that he is not his own, has taken away dominion and rule from his own reason that he may yield it to God! For, as consulting our self-interest is the pestilence that most effectively leads to our destruction, so the sole haven of salvation is to be wise in nothing through ourselves but to follow the leading of the Lord alone.5

“Modesty blossoms when we experience the freedom from having to prove ourselves to God or one another.”

Modesty and humility flow from a heart transformed by the Spirit of Christ. “As soon as we are convinced that God cares for us,” Calvin writes, “our minds are easily led to patience and humility.”6 The Spirit shapes us with a kind of moderation that “gives the preference to others” and that guards us from being “easily thrown into agitation.”7 Modesty blossoms when we experience the freedom from having to prove ourselves to God or one another.

‘Modesty, His Constant Friend’

Calvin’s life reflected this reality. Despite the doors that were opened to him through his writing and network of connections, he was committed to “studiously avoiding celebrity.”8 When the Institutes was published in 1536, he was so successful in his object to “not acquire fame” that no one in Basel knew that he was its author. For the rest of his life, wherever he went, he took care to “conceal that I was the author of that performance.”9 Calvin even sought to avoid a wider ministry in Geneva, having “resolved to continue in the same privacy and obscurity.” He was drawn into the limelight only when William Farel warned him “with a dreadful imprecation” that turning down the post would be refusing God’s call to service.10 In brief autobiographical comments he wrote the year that he died, we see a glimmer of his own surprise over God’s sovereign hand through his life.

God so led me about through different turnings and changes that he never permitted me to rest in any place, until, in spite of my natural disposition, he brought me forth to public notice. . . . I was carried, I know not how, as it were by force to the Imperial assemblies, where, willing or unwilling, I was under the necessity of appearing before the eyes of many.11

It is no surprise, then, that a few days before his death, Calvin exhorted his friends to not be those who “ostentatiously display themselves and, from overweening confidence, insist that all their opinions should be approved by others.” Instead, he pleaded with them to “conduct themselves with modesty, keeping far aloof from all haughtiness of mind.”12 For Beza, Calvin’s modesty — forged by his vision of God’s glory, Christ’s redeeming love, and the Spirit’s animating power — was his defining characteristic. After Calvin’s burial, Beza captured it in verse:

Why in this humble and unnoticed tombIs Calvin laid — the dread of falling Rome;Mourn’d by the good, and by the wicked fear’dBy all who knew his excellence revered?From whom ev’n virtue’s self might virtue learn,And young and old its value may discern?’Twas modesty, his constant friend on earth,That laid this stone, unsculptured with a name;Oh! happy ground, enrich’d with Calvin’s worth,More lasting far than marble is thy fame!13

Free to Be Forgotten

In old Geneva, on the grounds of the college Calvin founded, stands an immense stone memorial to four leaders of the Protestant Reformation. At its center are towering reliefs of Calvin, Beza, Farel, and John Knox (1513–1572). Calvin would surely detest it. But the monument is a metaphor. We live in a culture that fears obscurity and irrelevance. We measure ourselves against others and build our own platforms in the hope that we will not be forgotten. We attempt to distinguish ourselves at the expense of the humility and modesty that honors Christ. Calvin would have us be free from such striving.

For however anyone may be distinguished by illustrious endowments, he ought to consider with himself that they have not been conferred upon him that he might be self-complacent, that he might exalt himself, or even that he might hold himself in esteem. Let him, instead of this, employ himself in correcting and detecting his faults, and he will have abundant occasion for humility. In others, on the other hand, he will regard with honor whatever there is of excellences and will, by means of love, bury their faults. The man who will observe this rule, will feel no difficulty in preferring others before himself. And this, too, Paul meant when he added, that they ought not to have everyone a regard to themselves, but to their neighbors, or that they ought not to be devoted to themselves. Hence it is quite possible that a pious man, even though he should be aware that he is superior, may nevertheless hold others in greater esteem.14

We may rightly regard Calvin as a hero of the faith, but he didn’t ultimately see himself that way. Humility had taught him to walk modestly before God and others — and, in the end, the freedom to lie down in a forgotten grave.

It was Sunday morning, and as I got up to the pulpit and looked out, a flood of emotions hit me as I tried to begin preaching.

I was staring out at people I knew, who were waiting to hear what God had said. I had fired someone recently — a brother for whom Christ had died. That morning before the service, multiple children had come up to me to get a hug or high five, followed by a new widow who was just overwhelmed. To my left was a woman whose husband was in steady decline. Just behind her was a guy who had recently begun experiencing freedom from pornography. Behind him was a woman whose husband had suddenly abandoned her and her daughter. An abuse victim sat to my right. The couple near the back had just buried their daughter. Directly in front of me, there were thirty eager college students exuding energy, passion, and joy. And then, of course, there were my children, sitting with my wife, wondering what Dad would say. Some 650 souls, all with a unique story God was weaving. I know their names.

How should a pastor handle the waves of emotions that come from knowing about the souls of more people than most? With that knowledge come joys and burdens. Enough studies have shown that many pastors are not carrying those burdens well. So what can be done?

Emotional Toll of Pastoring

I’m not going to tell you not to let your emotions get the better of you. I want to remind pastors, myself included, that emotions are a gift of God meant to serve us, not undo us — that our feelings are part of our humanity that God once declared “very good” (Genesis 1:31). They are vital and necessary, helping us know and navigate reality.

Sin, of course, has corrupted our feelings. Our love is not what it should be. Neither is our joy. Our compassion meter is broken. Articles on emotions often highlight this brokenness, and then tell us how to put up guardrails to protect ourselves from burnout — weekly rhythms, days off, friendships outside of the church, sabbaticals. We are only human, after all. And so, we are often told not to rely on emotions, or listen to emotions, or be led by emotions. But what if some of us are avoiding emotions God has given us because we’ve been taught, whether subtly or explicitly, that these kinds of emotions are unhealthy in leadership?

The emotions that arise in ministry come involuntarily and can feel overwhelming. I’m often deeply grieved, not just over trials in my own life, but over the trials of our people, whom I love (1 Peter 1:6). I can be perplexed, sometimes to despair. Hard pressed, and sometimes crushed. Outwardly getting older and wasting away, and not always feeling renewed inwardly (2 Corinthians 4:8, 16). The emotional toll of pastoral ministry is undeniable and unavoidable.

Suppression Is Not a Cure

I have noticed something of a relationship between growing theological rigor and skepticism about emotions. An emotional blindness can slowly emerge, which leads to an emotional deficit, so that when the overwhelming nature of pastoral ministry hits, we are crushed by it. Or we might try to shield ourselves from the blow by hiring others to do the interpersonal work of discipleship so that we can just teach in front of groups. In the latter, the church becomes an audience, instead of the flock God has put under our care.

“Suppressing God-given emotions is one way we quench the Spirit in life and ministry.”

Suppressing God-given emotions is one way we quench the Spirit in life and ministry. We often suffer because we are fighting his work within us. We end up suppressing emotions that the sinless Jesus experienced and expressed. As a result, the congregation often suffers because they’re being led by a one-dimensional pastor.

In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis reflects on suppressing love and its odious results:

If you want to make sure of keeping it [your heart] intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. (155–56)

A cold, dead pastor.

How might we then deepen our emotional maturity and avoid one-dimensional shepherding? By training our emotions.

Imitate the Emotions of Jesus

First, we ought to allow ourselves to imitate the emotional life of Jesus. Yes, he was without sin, and we are not, so we cannot trust our sorrow or anger like we can trust his. But because he was without sin, and can sympathize with our weaknesses and temptations, he models the kind of Spirit-filled emotional life we should pursue.

Our personalities seem to dictate what we believe about the emotional range of Jesus. For example, when you read Jesus saying, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,” what emotion do you project on the Lord? Is he stern at that moment? Is he yelling? Or is it a lament? When Jesus weeps over unbelief (John 11:35), is it driven by anger or frustration or sadness?

The emotional range of the most perfect human being was complex. Jesus was moved to act when people were in distress (Matthew 20:34). He could be indignant and merciful in the same moment (Mark 1:41 NIV). He wasn’t sentimental. He wept, but not with everyone or in every circumstance. Even as he headed to the cross, he told the women not to weep (Luke 23:28). We see Jesus annoyed, frustrated, angry, distraught, compassionate, loving, merciful, and tender.

As we study him in the Gospels, though, we tend to fill his words and emotions with meaning based on our inclinations and experiences. We push some emotions down that we (or our culture) are naturally uncomfortable with, while expressing other emotions more freely. That’s why you’ll find harsh pastors, in the name of holiness, imitating a stern, severe “Jesus,” while more cowardly pastors, in the name of holiness, imitate a “Jesus” who cries with you and affirms you no matter the circumstance.

Healthy pastors experience the fullness and complexity of their emotions, and then hold them up against the sinlessness of Christ. How might Jesus respond to the pain and loss and victory and neediness in front of me? We grow emotionally as leaders by studying the heart of Jesus as he walks among sinners and sufferers.

Submit Your Emotions to Others

Perhaps the first way to train emotions is what you would have expected (and even counseled others to do). And maybe that has not produced as much fruit as you expected. If that’s so, it may be because we have done so alone and not allowed the body of Christ to minister to us.

Pastors need to read our Bibles with others, not just alone. We need to pray with others, not just alone. The pursuit of personal piety through spiritual disciplines is often presented as something we do only by ourselves. Time alone with God is essential to the Christian life, much less to ministry, but we all need the body of Christ to train our emotions.

“A lack of friendship in a pastor’s life will lead to a stunted emotional life.”

Friendships for pastors are notoriously challenging, especially within the church. I remember sitting in the back of a pastor’s conference and hearing my friend wonder aloud if anyone attending had a friend. A lack of friendship in a pastor’s life will lead to a stunted emotional life. My life has been enriched and challenged by friends who are so different from me in how they read their Bibles, experience the Holy Spirit’s work, and obey Christ’s commands. How they experience Jesus (and his emotions) in Scripture forces me to think beyond my own limited perspective.

These relationships require the kind of vulnerability from pastors that we typically ask others to show us. For these friendships to refine us, we have to be willing to lay down the mantle of teaching and learn from those whom God has given us to teach. Who are the people who live in close enough proximity to you that they can help train your emotions?

Emotionally Healthy Shepherds

God has given pastors a wide range of emotions to help us relate to himself and others: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).

As I looked out that Sunday morning on 650 stories and situations, it was clear to me that our church needed an emotionally healthy shepherd — one feeling and expressing, in measured and appropriate ways, a sanctified and maturing range of emotion. They’ll learn to steward their emotions, in part, by imitating what they see and hear in their pastor. Ignoring or suppressing my emotions would not only stunt my growth, but theirs as well.

We don’t have to limit our emotional output in the name of holiness. We can’t assume emotions are unhealthy because we’re experiencing them in new or deeper ways. Acknowledging pain, showing compassion, being grieved, feeling stress, and more, are not necessarily signs of emotional immaturity. They may be the opposite: signs of increasing maturity in Christ. Even feeling a sense of helplessness can be a healthy way God reminds us of how much we need him.

Emotions are gifts to pastors, and the healthy emotions of pastors can be a great gift to a church. So are you an emotionally healthy pastor?

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15331180/what-does-it-mean-to-be-in-god

Audio Transcript

What is the easiest step of love — a step so easy, you can accomplish it before you even get out of bed in the morning? Today, we find the answer in an unsuspecting context. The answer comes in an old sermon from John Piper on 1 Timothy 2:1–4. And it happens to be my favorite Piper sermon to turn to when geopolitical tensions become evident in the world, as we have seen a lot of in 2022.

The sermon is an early one, preached back on January 20, 1981. In fact, it was preached just two days before the Iran hostage crisis came to an end — also the same day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the new president of the United States. There was a lot of national and international news in the air when Piper preached this sermon on 1 Timothy 2:1–4. In this context, the apostle Paul was eager for Christians to hold to the faith with “a good conscience” (1 Timothy 1:19).

And to that end, as Paul explains, Christians should entertain a global view of reality. It’s why Paul urges these early Christians to offer

supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings . . . for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:1–4)

For individual Christians, these prayers for kings, prayers for the leaders of nations, are essential to us keeping a clean conscience and not shipwrecking our faith. That’s an incredible claim, connecting our awareness of, and love for, the globe’s rulers to our own perseverance in the faith. Here’s Pastor John to explain how it all works.

A good conscience is a conscience that does not condemn us for what we do and that approves of what we do do. Did I say that right? It does not condemn us for what we do and approves us for what we do. That means, therefore, that the reason Paul is saying, “You’ve got to have a clear conscience in order to maintain faith” is that if we do things that our conscience constantly condemns, what’s going to happen is something like this — this is the way my experience works, anyway. See if yours doesn’t also.

If I fall into a habit that my conscience condemns, my conscience starts to say to me, “Piper, all that talk about trusting Christ and hoping in God is a lot of hot air, because if you really trusted in Christ and hoped in God, you wouldn’t go on breaking your conscience like that.” And therefore, conscience starts to bore holes in the belly of the ship of faith, and it starts to sink, and your confidence in the reality of your own conversion starts to melt away, because you’re constantly acting against your own conscience.

Either one of two things is going to happen. Either we confirm the genuineness of our faith by changing our behavior and plugging up those holes of conscience, or we go on and we show that our ship of faith was never seaworthy in the first place, and we sink into unbelief and blasphemy like Hymenaeus and Alexander did (1 Timothy 1:19–20).

Keeping the Conscience Clear

Therefore, Paul’s charges to Timothy to hold to faith and maintain a good conscience are tremendously important commands or admonitions, and anything that Paul can say that will help us maintain a good conscience ought to be welcomed with open arms. I think that’s what he does in 1 Timothy 2:1. Since you must keep a good conscience in order not to make shipwreck of faith, therefore, I urge you, first of all, pray for all men.

Now, in order to see why it is that failing to pray for all men will give us a bad conscience and jeopardize our faith, I think we have to ask, What is it that, for a Christian, pricks his conscience in relation to other people? The answer to that, of course, is clear from the whole Bible. All of God’s instruction is summed up in two commandments: love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself.

In other words, anything that a Christian does, or leaves undone, that is unloving, will give him a bad conscience — or ought to give him a bad conscience if it’s not seared. Now, with that as a foundation, I think it starts to become clear why we must pray for other people in order to keep a clean conscience and so not make shipwreck of faith.

I see three reasons why prayer for other people is of first importance. That’s what I’m after to explain: How come he says prayer is of first importance in keeping a clear conscience and not making shipwreck of faith?

Prayer Helps Others with God’s Power

First, prayer taps the power of God on behalf of other people. I could try to help you as a pastor. You could try to help your neighbors. You could try to help Ronald Reagan, Governor Quie, Mayor Fraser, without praying for them, and you might do a little good, and judged from a limited perspective, you could do perhaps much good in the world’s eyes. But the little good that we could do without praying isn’t worthy to be compared with the great good that God can do if he, in response to our prayer, starts working on behalf of another person.

“The first thing you do for a person, if you love them, is ask God to work on their behalf.”

So if we want to do what’s best for people, if we really love them, then I think of first importance will be to pray that God work for them. The first thing you do for a person, if you love them, is ask God to work on their behalf. Of course, the way that God answers that prayer is almost always going to involve your labor of love on their behalf, but what can be accomplished through prayer is vastly more than you could accomplish without prayer.

Prayer Is the Easiest Step of Love

There’s a second reason why I think it’s of first importance to keep our conscience clear through praying for other people. It’s the easiest step of love. You don’t even have to get out of bed to pray for kings and all those who are in high positions. It doesn’t take any great physical strain, no great financial output. Of all the forms that love can take, prayer is probably the easiest. You just get down on your knees and rest and talk to the Lord about what you want him to do for other people.

Isn’t it true that if we are unwilling to do for other people what is easiest, then it’s very unlikely that we will be willing to do what’s hard on their behalf? Therefore, it makes sense, doesn’t it, that Paul would begin by saying, “Of first importance, if you want to love other people, is that you pray for all men.”

Prayer Goes Farther in Its Effects

The third reason why I think it’s of paramount importance is that prayer reaches farther than anything else in its effects that we can do. Before there were those satellites up there going around the earth, we could send a live television program from coast to coast, but we couldn’t send it, could we, all the way around to the other side of the world live? But now, if we want to get it to the other side of the world live immediately, we send it away from the world, and then it comes back to the world. Pretty simple. Get it live immediately.

“Prayer reaches farther in its effects than anything else that we can do.”

I think that’s a beautiful picture of the efficacy and extension of prayer. Without prayer, we can have an influence on a limited circumference of people, we can work hard and try to do good for them, and if we wait long enough, maybe by osmosis, our influence will spread all the way around the world. But God’s influence is everywhere and immediate. Therefore, doesn’t it make sense that first of all, if we want to help other people, if you want to bless the most people in the shortest amount of time with the most blessing, it just makes sense that you’d start by going to the satellite, going to God?

When a broadcaster wants to get a message to the greatest amount of people in the shortest amount of time — you can be sure that’s going to happen today if those hostages are released before this service is over, or before we meet tonight; we’re all going to know about it because of those satellites. If a broadcaster wants to do that, isn’t it interesting that, paradoxically, to get the message quickest this way, he sends it that way? That’s what we should do for other people. To bless them quickest this way, we should look that way first, up to God.

Pray for All People

If we would not make shipwreck of faith, but rather keep a clear conscience, therefore, we must pray for all men because of these three reasons:

Prayer taps the power of God for other people.
Prayer is the first and easiest step of love.
Prayer reaches farther in its effects than anything else that we can do.

Two weeks before Christmas, my heart stopped.

Seated next to me in a congregational meeting, my wife sees me close my eyes and slump. After a few seconds, the old ticker providentially revives “on its own.” It happens four times during that meeting. Maybe I’m just too inactive, I think. Perhaps if I get up and walk around a bit, I can get the juices flowing, and whatever is going on will clear up.

While I’m pacing in the church lobby, one of the elders says he doesn’t think I look quite right. I call my physician, and he recommends that I get to the emergency room for an evaluation. I’m not to drive myself.

In the emergency room, the surgeon hooks me up to a bunch of wires and asks a whole battery of questions to diagnose what’s going on.

“Are there heart problems in your family?”“Yes, my dad died of a heart attack at 60. So did his dad.”“But do you feel pain?”“None.”“Did you feel dizzy?”“Not really. The room wasn’t spinning. I wasn’t nauseous.”“Did you pass out?”“Not really. I could still hear, sort of.”“What do you mean ‘sort of’?”“I was uninterested in it all, like it was all background noise.”“Did you break into a sweat?”“Nope.”

The surgeon is puzzled. Maybe he is dealing with a hypochondriac.

While he goes off to another room, it happens — another episode. Before I slump into semi-consciousness, I glance at the monitor: my pulse registers a big giant zero; I have flatlined. A few seconds later, as I revive “on my own,” the surgeon comes running in from the other room, thinking he may have to do CPR or call a Code Blue or something. He exclaims, “Your heart completely stopped for about eight seconds!”

I’m not having a heart attack from plugged arteries, causing oxygen-starved muscles to die in pain. It’s just that my internal cardio-electrical circuitry is taking a break. Which it will do five more times that evening in the hospital. Pacemaker, here we come.

Sitting on the gurney, I say to Vicki, my wife, “I might see Jesus before Christmas.” We pray. We cry. She affirms that she knows where all our important documents are. She adds, “If you go, I’ll be right behind you.” In sudden concern, I ask, “Why? Are you having a medical crisis too?” Then she says something untrue, but very endearing: “I can’t live without you.”

When Your Heart Fails

Since the word heart is in our English Bibles over nine hundred times, the heart is, apparently, a big deal. It’s common knowledge that heart has more than one meaning. It’s bad if your physical heart fails, like mine did. It is worse if your spiritual heart fails. What does spiritual heart failure look like, and what can be done when, as several biblical writers experienced, you sense your spiritual heart at zero?

I know this pain (or gloomy numbness, as the case may be). If our heart has failed, it will do no good to deny it. We may as well admit it. And we should expect heart challenges. It’s an unfortunate and painful aspect of life in a fallen world that sometimes our hearts fail — even if you are more stable than most. Even Superman encounters his kryptonite. Heart failure is not novel or strange, so don’t be caught unaware.

Even simply admitting spiritual heart failure is a step in the right direction. As Paul puts it,

He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses [like a failed heart], so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses [like a failed heart], insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9–10)

Spiritual heart failure can take several forms. Let’s consider three.

Heart Failure of Discouragement

Hearts can fail when the obstacles seem too impossible. Big adversity puts big holes in our little courage buckets. For example, the heart of Saul’s entire army failed when taunted by a single giant (1 Samuel 17:11, 32). The spies returning from the promised land were discouraged when they thought they seemed like grasshoppers in the eyes of their enemies (Numbers 13:31–33). David’s heart failed when “evils encompassed [him] beyond number” (Psalm 40:12).

Mountains of foreboding discouragement loom large — war, sleeplessness, unfortunate genetics, failed diets, relational pressures, natural disasters, financial burdens, and even ordinary weather. Our hearts are not impervious to such blitzes.

Heart Failure of False Feelings

Doubts send assurance toward the drain, morphing into miserable dread. Like weeds, the seeds of doubt germinate in the thought life and multiply, overtaking one’s feelings, producing a vague sense of nagging guilt and that God has turned against us. Waffling belief and theological confusion can cause me to feel like God is against me. Key word: feel.

Feelings make a bad chief executive, yet they often speak with the loudest voice. They can be, and typically are, shortsighted and short-lived. They demand that gratification be immediate, and once appeased still make more demands. Instead of listening to the siren song of feelings, wise souls listen instead to a more reliable, still small voice: the voice of the Spirit. The failed heart needs faith, and faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17) — sometimes found in the mouth of a wise Christian friend.

“Ask God for the enabling grace to do what your feelings tell you can’t be done.”

The failed heart is helped by doing what it doesn’t feel like doing. Get up in the morning. Work out (tell your feelings to take a hike — literally). Aim your eyeballs at the pages of the Bible. Ask God for the enabling grace to do what your feelings tell you can’t be done. Then act the miracle. Say with Jesus, “Not my will, but yours be done.” Then be a doer, not a hearer only (James 1:25).

Heart Failure of Exhaustion

When your heart fails, it won’t work for someone to say, “Snap out of it!” Affliction, perplexity, and persecution are tiring, heart-depleting. You are out of gas. The sleepless children have left you downright exhausted. The sun rises, and you sit there, bent over in a motionless lump.

But when your heart is failing, consider Jesus.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted [that is, lose heart]. (Hebrews 12:3)

Look at Jesus (for a model of stoutheartedness), and look to Jesus (for enabling grace to persevere). God has not abandoned you. For example, he has given you sufficient enabling grace to read this sentence. There’s more grace where that came from.

Accordingly, don’t do anything drastic. Don’t quit your day job. Don’t binge on something regrettable. Slow down. Rest where you can. When Elijah despaired of life and asked that he might die, he was helped by some common ordinary sleep (1 Kings 16:5).

Strength of My Heart

When your heart is failing, perform a simple self-inspection. A spiritually failing heart may be evidence that we are treasuring the wrong object. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).

“My heart may fail, but God’s heart never does.”

What is it I really love? Am I supremely valuing the supremely valuable? What was I expecting? How biblical are my expectations? Am I perceiving reality realistically?

Whatever the cause, my heart may fail, but God’s heart never does. Asaph put it this way:

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:26)

God loves his children whether their hearts are thriving or failing. Remind your failing heart that your sins were completely cancelled at the cross, where Jesus took them.

In the emergency room that night, though my physical heart was intermittently failing and reviving, my spiritual heart was raring to go. One day, I expect my ticker to quit ticking altogether. And when my physical heart finally stops completely, I expect my other heart to exult in Jesus, the one who will carry on to completion what he has begun.

For the past two years, the realities of life in a pandemic have posed enormous challenges for parents. In the best cases, masks and testing, remote learning and limited childcare have strained family rhythms and routines. In the worst, COVID has claimed the lives of loved ones, stirring our kids to wakefulness as they grieve and wrangle with questions that cut to the heart of their faith: Why would God allow a pandemic? Why didn’t he save my loved one? Is God really good?

Such questions are so vital to our children’s faith that parents can buckle under the pressure of how to respond. During such moments, we can first and always turn to Scripture, all of it breathed out by God and profitable for teaching (2 Timothy 3:16). When their own questions arose during the pandemic, a deep dive into the book of Job helped my kids appreciate that God works all things for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28), even when we can’t comprehend his specific designs. I’ve been grateful to God for how his word has guided our kids during hard moments, anchoring them in the storm.

And in between the hard moments, I’ve also been grateful for another gift, far less weighty, but one that reflects the truths my kids read in Scripture: a hobbit, whose adventures in Middle-earth point our kids back to God’s word with every reading.

Gift of Stories

No fiction can replace God’s inspired word. Yet during these strange times, the right stories — those that applaud goodness in the face of terror, hope against all hope, and celebrate the just, true, and lovely (Philippians 4:8) — can help point our kids to the one true Story: Christ crucified and risen for us.

“The right stories can help point our kids to the one true Story: Christ crucified and risen for us.”

I first glimpsed the power of great stories to enrich our gospel teaching while reading The Fellowship of the Ring with my kids. My son and daughter munched peanut butter and jelly while Frodo and his companions fled across the bridge of Khazad-dûm. As Gandalf wheeled about to face the Balrog, my kids paused mid-bite and leaned in, enraptured. The bridge gave way; my kids leaned in farther. Then the Balrog’s whip lashed around Gandalf’s ankle. The beloved wizard urged the fellowship to save themselves, and then he sank into the abyss.

I paused and studied my kids warily. Finally, my son spoke up. “I think he gave himself for the others, Mum,” he said. “Kind of like Jesus did for us.”

Dozens of similar moments have since burst through our read-aloud time. An abridged version of Oliver Twist elicited comments about how we are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), are to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:36–40), and are to extend compassion to the poor (Zechariah 7:10). The Ring of Power in The Lord of the Rings inspired conversations about sin, how it entices and then enslaves us, and how it burdened Frodo just as Christian’s pack encumbered him in Pilgrim’s Progress.

As we read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader on the couch, my little girl paused between mouthfuls of goldfish to smile as a gleaming albatross appeared in the sky to guide Lucy Pevensie out of danger. When Aslan’s voice boomed, “Courage, dear one,” my daughter remarked, “It’s kind of like the Holy Spirit appearing.” I wiped away tears.

J.R.R. Tolkien believed that such moments in narratives occur because the very best stories resonate with gospel truth. In his essay On Fairy Stories, he writes the following:

The peculiar quality of “joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. . . . It may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world. (77–78)

In other words, good stories delight us because they reflect the true Story — the Christian Story — and point us to the hope of the ultimate happy ending: our adoption as God’s children through Christ’s death and resurrection.

How do we reap these joys and wonders for our kids? How do we make the most of our read-aloud time, and point them to the true happy ending?

Give Them Scripture First

The fact that Tolkien has an enormous secular fan base illustrates that great stories alone can’t instruct us in the gospel. Stories can enliven the imagination and fan the sparks of a child’s understanding into flame — but we need to light those sparks first. Great stories will point to the gospel only if our kids first know God’s word.

“Great stories will point to the gospel only if our kids know God’s word.”

The Bible is clear that we’re to infuse our kids’ days with Scripture, allowing it to spill over into every moment as we walk in the way, lie down, and rise (Deuteronomy 6:6–7). It’s to seep into what we read with them, what we laugh about, what we share. The Bible informs how we live, not only during devotions, but in every moment of the day.

Teach your kids that God’s word is a lamp to their feet and a light to their path (Psalm 119:105). Then help them to perceive glimmers of his truth through stories.

Pick the Best Stories

How do we discern whether a story we read with our kids reflects the world, or the One who has overcome the world? Paul’s words on discernment can guide us:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:8)

Seek books with pages that overflow with the true, pure, and lovely. Educator Charlotte Mason referred to “living books” as the sustenance for children’s minds, and described such literature as “the fit and beautiful expression of inspiring ideas and pictures of life” (Parents and Children, 263). Search for such books that explore our sinful nature with humility, point to our hope in Christ with reverence, and highlight the victory of good over evil. If you’re not sure, sites such as The Read-Aloud Revival offer helpful booklists and reviews.

Draw Out Gospel Themes

As you read with your kids, be alert to biblical themes. Look for the redemptive arc in each story — the character arc or plotline that points to our salvation in Christ. The following brief list includes some examples of redemptive arcs:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Aslan giving his life to save Edmund
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Aslan saving Eustace from his fate as a dragon
The Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf giving his life for the fellowship
The Return of the King: Aragorn returning to rule over a kingdom made new
The Wingfeather Saga: Janner giving his life to save the Cloven

While these examples reflect the works of Christian authors, even less-overt literature can prove instructive if approached with discernment. Shakespearean tragedies vividly portray the destructive power of sin. Dickens stirs us to compassion for the poor, for widows, and for orphans (Deuteronomy 10:18; James 1:27). The Cricket in Times Square and Charlotte’s Web highlight love for neighbor and hope in despair. And Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson (we read the abridged versions) illustrate God’s faithfulness and provision.

Even the bad guys from Greek mythology can offer teachable moments: when we openly discuss the brutality and lasciviousness of Zeus, the false deity withers before the majesty, mercy, and holiness of the one true God.

Beyond the End

Great stories leave imprints upon the heart and mind that linger long after “The End.” Stories shape us, leaving marks that never fade. And when Christian themes weave through stories like glittering threads, those marks point our children to the hope that endures in the face of even the deepest darkness. The best stories point us to the one true Story, the greatest Story of all. The best stories point us to Christ.

And the ending of his Story is perfect. It will never disappoint. It flows like a cool cup of living water, ushering us to eternal life. The King, the One who bore our burdens (Isaiah 53:4), will return. The cursed ring will burn up. And in this ending, the greatest of all happy endings, we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Psalm 23:6).

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15325647/the-setting-of-1-thessalonians