Audio Transcript

Happy Friday, everyone. If you have listened for a while, you know we don’t delve into social and legal and political issues on the podcast very often, for various reasons that have been explained over the years. And that means attempts by APJ listeners to get us into that conversation, and whether or not the church should legislate sin, must get creative. And they do get creative — even resorting to hypotheticals, as in the case of today’s question, the most recent creative attempt.

And it comes to us from an anonymous man, a regular listener who writes this: “Pastor John, hello! I often wrestle with the question over what role our government should play in outlawing sin. Specifically, I would like to ask you a hypothetical question here. If you were an influential pastor-theologian back in 1913 America, would you have supported Christian temperance organizations and lent your voice to Prohibition?”

I will try to answer this question honestly, but I confess at the very beginning that this question leads into complex issues of church-state relations, where I do not have as many answers as I would like to have. But I will take you as far as I can, and then you can go further.

World Without Drunkenness

The question of whether I would have supported Prohibition in 1913 might mean, Would I have supported it with all the cultural assumptions I may have shared as a child of my times in that day, and without any of the hindsight that I now have? It might mean that, or the question might mean, Given everything I know now, would I have supported Prohibition if I could get in a time machine and go back?

Now, the answer to the first question is that I don’t know. Nobody knows. You don’t know who you would be. What would you be like? It would’ve been relatively easy to see that a world without drunkenness would be a vastly better world than the one we live in, or the one they lived in back in 1913. And I can imagine myself being persuaded that the benefits of sobriety in families and workplaces would justify taking away some legitimate pleasures that both the Bible and culture would ordinarily allow.

This is the sort of limitation on people’s pleasures and freedoms that we have embraced with regard to smoking, for example. When I was a boy, it would’ve been absolutely unthinkable to tell a person that he could not smoke in an airplane, or in the office where he works, or in a restaurant. Unthinkable. Rebellion everywhere — “Mandates! Mandates!” But little by little, society as a whole has become so persuaded that smoking is dangerous to our health, and so unpleasant to most people, that we are willing for governments and institutions to mandate the prohibition of smoking in most workplaces, and restaurants, and theaters, and transportation.

Now, I like these limitations. I like them so much that it’s easy for me to imagine supporting something like Prohibition for similar reasons. So I don’t know what I would have done in 1913.

Two Problems with Prohibition

But if the question means, “Given everything I know now, would I have supported Prohibition if a time machine could take me back?” the answer is no. I wouldn’t.

“The Bible does not require teetotalism. It prohibits drunkenness. It warns about the dangers of alcohol.”

First, because the Bible does not require teetotalism. It prohibits drunkenness. It warns about the dangers of alcohol. “In the end it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder. Your eyes will see strange things, and your heart utter perverse things. You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast” (Proverbs 23:32–34).

That’s a great picture. But there’s no prohibition in the Bible. I think a very strong case can be made for total abstinence in our world as a matter of wisdom for oneself, but not as a requirement for others, except maybe in some limited institutional expectations. This is mainly a matter of conscience.

The second reason I would not get in my time machine and go back and vote for Prohibition is that it didn’t work. It had unintended consequences that may have been as destructive as the previous abuse of alcohol itself. And this is because, unlike the limitations on smoking in our day, the long-term societal support was simply not there. It seemed like it was there, because it takes a lot of people to get an amendment to the constitution passed in 1919. But by 1933, the adequate support had disintegrated, and it was reversed.

Guidelines for the Church-State Relationship

Now here’s where the issues are raised, like the one our friend asked in his question: What role should our government play in outlawing sin? That’s part of his question. That’s where it’s all leading, which gets us into the weeds here. I think a more precise way to ask the question is this: How does the state decide what actions should be outlawed that Christians regard as sin? And you’ll see in a minute why I think that’s a better question.

So here are my guidelines — four guidelines for wrestling with the question about the relationship between the revealed will of Christ in Scripture and the law-making power of the state, enforceable with the sword.

First, the church today — the people of Christ on this side of the cross, unlike Israel in the Old Testament — are not a geopolitical entity. The church is not a nation-state. Therefore, the Old Testament legal stipulations — with their punishments like capital punishment for idolatry or cursing one’s parents — are not simply brought over and implemented in the church. The church excommunicates unrepentant idolaters; it doesn’t execute them.

Second, this does not mean that those sins are less grievous or less worthy of capital punishment. It means that the church hands over that judgment to Christ at his coming. There will be a perfect reckoning from the judge of the universe. Christ will settle all accounts. That ultimate reckoning is not the job of church leaders.

“The entire history of Christendom-by-force, from Constantine to the Puritans, was misguided.”

Third, Christian faith, and all the heart obedience of faith that flows from it, cannot be coerced by the sword — that is, by the state. The entire history of Christendom-by-force, from Constantine to the Puritans, was misguided. Any arrangement of church-state relations that sanctions state penalties to promote true heart faith and the heart obedience of faith will eventually corrupt the church.

Fourth and finally, Jesus said in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not of this world.” Now, the inference I draw from that statement and other aspects of the New Testament is that Christ, in this age, does not sanction the use of the sword to punish those who disobey him. This means that the state, to whom God has given the sword, according to Romans 13, should not seek to compel obedience to Christ.

Purpose of the Sword

Now, listen carefully, because I’m going to make some distinctions here that are fine. I’ll leave a lot of questions unanswered, but I think these distinctions really help. Obeying a law that Christ would approve is not the same as obeying Christ, and disobeying a law that Christ would approve is not the same as disobeying Christ.

A person who doesn’t even believe that Christ existed can obey a law that Christ approves. Therefore, punishment for disobeying a law that Christ approves is not the same as punishment for disobeying Christ. I don’t think the state should ever punish a person for disobeying Christ. I think that is the prerogative of church discipline, and I think the most severe form of church discipline is excommunication, not death.

There is a difference between saying that Christ wills that a person be punished by the state for breaking a law Christ approves, and saying that Christ wills that a person be punished by the state for disobeying him. The former is right; the latter is wrong.

Christ does will that a person be punished by the state for breaking a law that he approves, but Christ does not will that a person be punished by the state for disobeying Christ. All of which implies that Christians should consult Christ in his word when thinking through what sins should be prohibited by law, because the use of the sword to enforce Christ-approved laws is not the same as using the sword to enforce obedience to Christ.

ABSTRACT: Thoughtful Christians familiar with the claims of modern science recognize apparent disagreements between the Bible and scientific claims. Many of the biggest tensions, however, arise not from the findings of science but from the philosophical assumptions of non-Christian scientists. For the tensions that remain, Scripture offers principles for wisely navigating them in ways that honor God’s revelation. In the end, because God is consistent with himself, all apparent disagreements are just that: apparent. And until we find their resolution, God has told us all we need to know in order to trust him.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors, leaders, and teachers, we asked Vern Poythress, distinguished professor of New Testament, biblical interpretation, and systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary, to offer principles for navigating apparent disagreements between Scripture and science.

Apparent disagreements between the Bible and scientific claims trouble some people, and understandably so. Three areas of apparent tension quickly come to mind.

What about evolution?
What about the days of creation?
What about miracles?

How do we tackle these questions?

Question of Miracles

The third area of tension, about miracles, can serve as a useful place to start. Did God speak in an audible voice from the top of Mount Sinai, as described in Exodus 19–20? Did Jesus multiply the loaves and the fish to feed five thousand men (Matthew 14:13–21)? Did Jesus cast out an unclean spirit from a man in the synagogue at Capernaum (Mark 1:21–28)? Do evil spirits even exist? Did Jesus raise Jairus’s daughter from the dead (Matthew 9:18–26; Mark 5:21–43)? Did Jesus himself rise from the dead (Matthew 16:21; 28:1–10)?

Quite a few people in our day would say that “science has shown us” that miracles are impossible. It is true that some scientists would claim that miracles are impossible. But other scientists, especially scientists who are Christians, would say that miracles are possible and that the miracles described in the Bible actually happened.

The difference in viewpoint here is not due to the results of scientific investigation. It is due to differences in people’s view of God and the world — to differences in worldview, we might say. If you believe in a personal God who can do whatever he wishes, you also believe that he can work in an exceptional way any time he wants. In other words, he can work a miracle. On the other hand, if you do not believe in God at all, you probably expect that there are no exceptions. You think that the laws of the universe are just mechanical and impersonal.

So the deepest question is about the nature of the world. Are the roots of the world ultimately personal or impersonal? God is personal. He made the world with personal purposes. And every day he continues to govern the world with personal purposes, even down to every detail (Psalm 104:14; Proverbs 16:33; Matthew 10:29–30).

Regularities (‘Law’)

The regular processes that scientists study are processes controlled by God. The regularities exist only because God exists. “He makes his sun rise” (Matthew 5:45; see Genesis 8:22). He causes “the grass to grow for the livestock” (Psalm 104:14). Science is possible only because there are regularities. And the regularities are there because God is consistent with himself. He has a plan, and he is faithful day by day in carrying it out.

But because God is personal, there may also be exceptional cases, which are due to his personal purposes. For example, the resurrection of Christ is highly exceptional. People in the first century did not have the findings of modern science that we have, but they knew just as clearly as we do that people do not rise from the dead. In other words, they knew right away that the resurrection of Jesus was an exception to normal experience.

So how is such an event possible? If God is God, he can make exceptions. No one can say to him, “Oh, by the way, you are not allowed to do that!” And in the case of the resurrection of Christ, we can see some reasons why God did it. It was not an irrational, meaningless exception. No. Through the resurrection of Christ, God not only brought the body of Christ to resurrection life, but accomplished deliverance from death and damnation for all who belong to Christ (Romans 4:25; 1 Corinthians 15:45–49). The whole of it makes sense, provided that you believe in God.

Let us consider God’s rule over the world in greater detail. God governs the world by speaking. “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). It is God who spoke and specified that plants reproduce “according to their kinds” (Genesis 1:11–12). It is God who rules the weather by speaking: “He sends out his word, and melts [the snow and ice]” (Psalm 147:18). When scientists seek to discover scientific laws, they are actually looking for the word of God that governs the processes they are studying. If they think they understand a specific regularity, they may call it a “law”: Newton’s laws of motion, Newton’s law of gravitation, Kirchhoff’s laws for electric circuits. These laws are human summaries of the actual law — namely, God’s word, his speech, which governs motion and gravity and electric circuits and everything else.

“Scientific investigation depends on God, day by day.”

It should be clear, then, that scientific investigation depends on God, day by day. It could never show the impossibility of miracles. Scientists discover what some of the regularities are. But they cannot tell God that he cannot act exceptionally.

Science Then and Now

The history of the rise of modern science confirms this principle. Many of the early scientists, like Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton, were Christian believers themselves, or were heavily influenced by a Christian worldview. It was the Christian worldview that gave them the incentive to study the world and look for regularities. Because they believed in one God, who was the source of all rationality, they knew that the world itself was governed rationally. There was hope for understanding it. This hopeful situation contrasts with what happens in polytheistic religions. If there are many gods and if they fight with each other, the world itself is semi-chaotic. It may seem to be hopeless to find in it a consistent order.

The early scientists also knew that man was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27). So there was hope that the human mind could be fundamentally in tune with the mind of God. Even though our minds are limited, there was hope that, with God’s help, we could begin to understand some of his ways in governing the world.

By contrast, in our day many people understand science as a discipline radically at odds with God. Scientific laws are thought to be an impersonal mechanism. It is this assumption about an impersonal origin, rather than the details of scientific experiments, that is the source of religious skepticism. In other words, when some people do work in science, they bring in an assumption about an impersonal origin, before they ever start. They bring that assumption into whatever science they study. Even Christians who engage in science may unconsciously absorb the assumption. It is inevitable, if they follow that assumption consistently, that they will not allow exceptions. They will deny the possibility of miracles.

This assumption of impersonalism helps to explain why there is so much conflict about evolution and the days of creation. The standard mainstream approach to evolution says that new plants and animals originate only by very gradual, unguided processes that go back to the first cell, and even before that (so-called “chemical evolution”). The framework of assumptions includes the assumption that God did not in a sudden way miraculously create any new species or any family of living things. People also hold this assumption when they come to the subject of the origin of humanity. Before ever looking at genetic information or fossil bones from apes, the mainstream scientist assumes, as a given, that humanity must have originated by gradual processes from earlier kinds of creatures. And the most likely predecessors are apes. (Even before the rise of Darwin’s theory, biologists who classified animals into larger groups saw that on anatomical grounds the natural larger group for human beings was the primates.)

Origin of the Universe

Similar influences from assumptions confront us when we look at scientific theories for the origin of the universe. The usual mainstream approach assumes from the beginning that there are no miracles, no discontinuities in the normal operation of physical causes. The reconstruction of the past history of the universe assumes that the past history operates in line with the same system of physical regularities that scientists can test today in the laboratory. It is an assumption. No one proves it. Indeed, no one can prove it, because we cannot literally transport ourselves into the past with a time machine. For all we know, God may have governed the universe differently in the past. God is a personal God, not a set of mechanical rules.

The key role of assumption becomes vividly evident if we consider briefly one of the theories that Christians have suggested, to show the possibility of harmony between the Bible and the current state of the universe. There are a number of such theories, and several of them have some merit. This particular theory, called the theory of “mature creation,” observes that God created Adam and Eve as mature (Genesis 2:7, 21–22). Neither of them was a helpless baby when God first created them. But if God created them mature, is it not possible that he created the entire universe mature? And could it not have been coherently mature, so that it coherently looked billions of years old? Let us suppose that Adam looked about 24 years old. So the universe could have looked 14 billion years old, at the end of the period of six days during which God created it and brought it to maturity.

Not everyone is fond of this theory. To some, it may feel like a trick. But it illustrates the fact that scientists do not actually know for sure how old the universe is. They cannot say to God, “You can’t do it that way.” God is God.

Difficulties with Mindless Evolution

Ironically, severe difficulties for scientific explanation arise not in a Christian approach, but in an atheistic approach. How? Most forms of modern atheism say that human beings arose by mindless evolution from random motions of atoms and molecules. According to these conceptions, we are a cosmic accident. Our origin is thoroughly impersonal. There is no personal plan from God. There is no special reason for expecting that human beings with their distinctly personal qualities would arise from the evolutionary goo. In the end, we are just blobs of goo. We just happen to have some peculiar and unaccountable abilities to be conscious and to think about truth.

“The theory of evolution fails to provide a basis for believing that it is true.”

But then can we trust our own minds? All that an atheistic theory of evolution requires is that we would be fit to survive. It cannot guarantee that our consciousness makes any difference (because survival is all about the proper firing of neurons, not consciousness). So there is no reason to believe that our minds are in contact with the truth. And if that is so, there is no reason to believe that the theory of evolution, which is a product of our minds, is in contact with the truth. The theory of evolution fails to provide a basis for believing that it is true.1

Guiding Principles for Dealing with Difficulties

Now, let us begin to list some of the guiding principles that can help us deal with apparent discrepancies between the Bible and science. In such a short space, of course, these principles are not a comprehensive treatment of such a large topic. For readers interested in learning more about the relationship between Scripture, science, and how God works in the world, I would recommend Reijer Hooykaas’s Religion and the Rise of Modern Science, John Piper’s Providence, and my own books Redeeming Science and Interpreting Eden.2

Principle 1

Our basic assumption: God rules the world.

We need as our basic assumption the truth that God created the world and that he rules it. God is our personal God, not a set of mechanical rules. God can act in exceptional ways (“miracles”) if he chooses. This assumption sets the stage for all the detailed study of the Bible and of the world.

Principle 2

God is consistent.

“There is no actual discrepancy between the Bible and the facts about the world.”

God is consistent with himself. Since he is consistent with himself, what he says in the Bible and what he does in ruling the world are consistent. There is no actual discrepancy between the Bible and the facts about the world. The discrepancies that come up are apparent. Because we are finite and God is infinite, we do not know everything. We cannot guarantee that, within one lifetime or many lifetimes on earth, we will be able to solve completely to our own satisfaction all the apparent discrepancies. There is hope that we might solve at least some of them, if not many of them, because the discrepancies are only apparent. But we cannot guarantee beforehand when a solution will arise.

We must be patient and trust God. He knows what he is doing, even when we do not. These are fundamental aspects of Christian living. Everyone in his individual life confronts events that seem inexplicable and frustrating and painful. The events may seem to be incompatible with God’s goodness and with what we expect him to do. (Think of Job.) The same kind of dissonance that happens in our personal life can also happen when we try to compare the claims in the Bible with the claims made by modern scientists.

Principle 3

The Bible is the word of God.

The Bible is what God says. God has put his word in writing, through human authors whom he raised up and directed. So what the Bible says is fully trustworthy. What the Bible says is true.

Whole books are devoted to showing that the Bible is the word of God.3 We cannot repeat all the arguments here. Let us mention only a few verses, in order to remember that the Bible makes this claim for itself. The most famous verse for showing that the Bible is the word of God is 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is breathed out by God.” Similarly, 2 Peter 1:21 says, “No prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Jesus affirms the divine authority of the Old Testament in a number of places (Matthew 5:17–20; 19:4; John 10:35). These verses are the tip of the iceberg.

Principle 4

God gave human beings dominion, so scientific investigation is legitimate.

As we saw earlier, the people responsible for the early steps in the growth of modern science operated with assumptions in tune with a biblical worldview. The truths about God and about their being made in the image of God actually encouraged their scientific explorations. The same should be true today. Scientists work more robustly if they can come back to serving a personal God, rather than imagining that laws are impersonal mechanisms.

Principle 5

Scientists’ formulations are not the word of God, but human reflections concerning evidence in the world.

Scientific formulations are not parallel to the Bible. The Bible is infallible, because it is the word of God. It is composed of words and sentences that God crafted (through human authors) in order to express the truth and communicate it to us. We can trust what it says.

By contrast, all the work of modern scientists is human work. God gives them gifts. God gives them insights. God gives them energy for their labors. But it is all fallible. Scientists may say many true things, but because they are fallible, we cannot merely assume that what they say is true. It has to be tested. And of course, when sciences are operating in a healthy way, the first line of testing is through other scientists. Experiments may be repeated, under varying conditions. Alternative hypotheses may be tried out.

Sometimes a particular scientific theory settles in. Scientists have growing confidence in a single theory, which the majority see as the right explanation, fruitful in further research. Newton’s theory of gravity became one such theory. It seemed to many scientists that it was a kind of final answer about the working of gravity. Knowledgeable people felt that it was destined never to be superseded. But it turned out, even then, that it was not the final theory. It was eventually superseded by Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity and theory of general relativity.

Normally we have confidence in established theories, because they have borne the test of time. But even here, we should remind ourselves of several cautions.

Even well-established theories are fallible in principle.
Even well-established theories may have exceptions, because God is a personal God who can work miracles.
Even well-established theories, such as Newton’s theory of gravity, can be superseded in surprising ways by a later theory.
Even well-established theories can have deep difficulties and call for suspicion, if they rely on hidden assumptions that are false. For Darwinism, one such assumption is that biological development is unguided (purposeless).
Theories about the past require assumptions about the continuities of lawful regularities in the past. They are intrinsically on a less firm basis than theories that can be tested in the present (such as Newton’s theory of gravity, or Kirchhoff’s laws for electrical circuits).

We must therefore distinguish two kinds of scientific investigation. Historical science tries to reconstruct the past. It includes theories about the origins of kinds of plants and animals; theories about the origins of the geologic strata; theories about the origin of the moon, the planets, the comets, and the asteroids; and theories about the origins of galaxies. Nomothetic science studies the regularities of processes that are currently taking place. Nomothetic science is more firmly established, because it rests on repeatable experiments. Historical science has to deal with one-of-a-kind events in the past. Some of these events may have been miraculous. Nomothetic science avoids the difficulties of the miraculous by relying on repetition. A single anomalous event would eventually be excluded from a formulation that describes regularities.

Principle 6

Though the Bible is infallible, all later human interpretations of the Bible are fallible.

We must distinguish what the Bible says from what we or other human interpreters think it says or implies. The basic teachings of the Bible concerning salvation are clear. But not all the details of its affirmations are equally clear. The Westminster Confession of Faith gives a balanced summary concerning the clarity of the Bible:

All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them. (1.7)

Because not everything is equally clear, and because even the parts that are clear can be twisted in people’s minds because of sin, all merely human interpretations are fallible.

Principle 7

Apparent discrepancies between the Bible and science are discrepancies between fallible human interpretations of the Bible and fallible scientific pronouncements, based on fallible interpretations of evidence from the world.

The source of discrepancies lies in human fallibility, which extends both to interpretations of the Bible and to everything in modern sciences. There is no discrepancy in God himself. There is no discrepancy between what the Bible actually affirms and what is true concerning the world.

Principle 8

An apparent discrepancy needs further investigation.

When we find an apparent discrepancy, we do not immediately know whether it is due to a mistake in biblical interpretation, a mistake in scientific reasoning, or both. We should continue to trust that God is true, and wait patiently while we try to find the sources of mistakes.

Principle 9

The Bible has a practical priority, because of its design by God.

God designed the Bible to function as our guide in life (Psalm 19:7–11; 119:105). It is wisely tailored to our need for guidance and the need for a comprehensive remedy for sin. Moreover, it is completely true. It is a verbal expression, unlike the nonverbal evidence found in the created world. We should trust what it says. But we should also beware of trying to force it to provide answers about technical scientific details, which lie beyond what it actually says.

Principle 10

When there is an apparent discrepancy, we should see whether there are competing explanations from scientists or from Bible interpreters.

Scientific opinion is often divided. There is often one or even several minority opinions, as well as a majority opinion. Majority opinion tends to get amplified by social pressure and in the popular press.

People who are not scientists themselves may feel that they are not competent to evaluate the claims of specialists. But frequently, scientists make claims far outside of their specialty, and in that kind of case they have no special competence beyond anyone else. Even when they make claims within their specialty, there may be competing viewpoints and competing claims that they do not want to mention. We do well to be aware that the actual work of science has a social component, and that healthy science includes healthy disagreements, which sometimes extend even into the middle of major theories. (There are to this day competing interpretations of the meaning of quantum mechanics.)

If an ordinary person wants to be well-informed about a particular special issue, he should be careful not merely to do his reading within a single circle of opinion, even if it is a Christian circle (other Christians may disagree).

Principle 11

The Bible gives us sufficient instruction for the next practical step in obeying God, even when we have many unanswered questions about the apparent discrepancies.

God is faithful, and he understands the limitations of our knowledge. He has given us enough to know him, through Jesus Christ, and to walk in his way.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15290257/the-camaraderie-of-spiritual-conflict

I haven’t yet been through midlife, but now I seem to be at it. Or at least approaching it, depending on how you define midlife. Some get as specific, and early, as age 41.5; others define midlife as a broad range beginning around 45, and even dragging on as late as 65.

Standing here at age 41, and looking around, I can imagine — without even considering what physiological and neurological components might be involved — why this juncture in a man’s life can be difficult.

Swirl of Complex Factors

John Piper has written about the tumults he faced at midlife, a “season [that] lasted several years,” and was most acutely confusing and difficult in his forty-first year. Writing more than thirty years later, he says, “That was a very hard season of life, and the record of it in my journals is to this day painful to read.” (For those who would like to chase that trail, Piper published some excerpts in the article “Walk with Me Through a Midlife Crisis.”)

His journal entries include self-descriptions like irritable and unlikable, and phrases like “felt like lead,” “could hardly converse,” “wanted to cry again and again,” “my emotions were dead,” “on adrenaline all day Sunday,” “incredibly cranky and so discouraged,” “so blank,” “so blind to the future,” and again “so discouraged.” He says at one point that “it seems that yesterday’s near collapse is the outcry of my body for some relief.” And perhaps most striking of all to me as a pastor is this: “I must preach on Sunday, and I can scarcely lift my head.”

In sum, Piper captures midlife as “a critical stage in life when physical changes, marital stresses, children’s challenges, vocational aspirations, and the burdens of success (or failure) create the conditions for meltdown. This perilous confluence of forces leads to a shuttering reassessment of life and the desire to be somewhere else.”

Facing Finitude and Failures

One definition of “midlife crisis” centers on a man’s growing awareness of his finitude and his failures: “a psychological crisis brought about by events that highlight a person’s growing age, inevitable mortality, and possibly lack of accomplishments in life.” One dear friend of mine, who has made it far past 41.5, and is now closing in on 60, said to me recently about his journey through midlife,

The reality of your limitations (on most fronts) become clearer. We are often forced to face who we really are instead of who we imagine we’ll be someday. Midlife is a phase where one’s psychology (in terms of self-understanding) has an opportunity to grow into one’s theology. For it’s a phase when one’s functional theology is tested by the reality of mortality.

With the ring of wisdom, that presents midlife not only as a trial to be endured, but an opportunity for Christian maturity — “to grow into one’s theology.” With that in mind, I came across Proverbs 16:1–9 recently and found that this unit of ancient wisdom speaks to an aspect of the phenomenon that I’m hoping to steady myself for. Consider at least five layers it might offer to men approaching, or in, midlife trials.

1. Our actual life is ‘from the Lord.’

The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. (Proverbs 16:1)

I suspect one conscious reason midlife can be tough is the stubborn, immovable realities of life. As young men, two decades ago, so many doors seemed open; the possibilities seemed endless. It was easy to dream, and even expect we might live out some, if not all, of those dreams.

“Rarely, if ever, do our actual lives live up to the grandeur of the great hopes we’re prone to generate in our youth.”

But midlife brings a bracing reality check. Far fewer doors are now open. Many of our secret and spoken dreams and aspirations now seem unrealistic, or impossible. What might be has crashed on the rocks of what is. Somehow it got real in the last two decades, and perhaps it took us a while to realize it. Then it dawned on us almost all at once.

Rarely, if ever, do our actual lives live up to the grandeur of the great hopes we’re prone to generate in our youth. Our youthful plans are one thing. Then, in time, comes the “answer of the tongue.” That is, what really emerges and is manifest in our lives in the years that follow, to midlife and beyond, is “from the Lord.”

2. His plans include our ‘days of trouble.’

The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. (Proverbs 16:4)

The midlife disappointments we may feel, with ourselves and others and our circumstances, are no sign that God is distant and has lost control. In fact, just the opposite. He has his purposes for his sons in precisely those failures and letdowns and pains. Our “days of trouble,” however external or internal the obstacles, and however past or present — and the ones sure to come in the future — are lovingly sifted through his fingers for the deeper joy and final good of his sons. He has planned all our days. Even the worst ones. Especially the worst ones. And the days beyond them.

3. God matures us through humbling.

Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished. (Proverbs 16:5)

One purpose God accomplishes, among others, in our midlife disappointments is our humbling. He is, and has been, purging our hearts from the arrogance of youth and unholy ambition. How much of our youthful sky’s-the-limit wishes were not simply natural but proud? How much, in arrogance, did we presume health, wealth, and prosperity, on our terms? One of God’s great works in moving men from naive youth to mature manhood is the great humblings leading up to, and in, midlife. He moves, with severe mercy, against the arrogance of our youth.

We’ve had our dreams, and made our plans, as we should, but God’s plan is definitive, and humbling. “One can strategize about the future, to be sure,” comments Tremper Longman on Proverbs 16, “but this wise observation would lead one to acknowledge that the future can only be determined by God. Such recognition would engender a proper humility and open one up to changes” (Proverbs, 327). How often does the hard, painful midlife crash against the rocks of reality serve to “open us up to changes” of God’s leading that we’ve been long, subconsciously resisting?

4. Christ has atoned for sin.

By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for, and by the fear of the Lord one turns away from evil. (Proverbs 16:6)

Midlife brings awareness not only of compounding frustrations, or how we’ve been hurt or deterred by other’s sins, but also of our own iniquity. We are sinners. Midlife “crisis,” however profound it might feel, has not yet plumbed the depths if there is no awareness of our own sin — sin that does not just disappear or go away with avoidance but needs to be addressed and forgiven.

Perhaps midlife brings new awareness of bad choices and wasted time. This “crisis” is an opportunity to acknowledge that and own it, in the full confidence that God, in Christ, has made full provision for our sin. And by his Spirit, change is possible. We can pivot. Even if none of the presenting complexities seems to involve our own sin, how liberating to know that in Christ our “iniquity is atoned for,” and can fearlessly be mined for, found, and confessed, leading to our turning away from evil.

5. Our ‘lesser’ can be his ‘better.’

Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice. The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. (Proverbs 16:8–9)

To the degree we’re mourning something, or many things, that seem to be lesser in our life than we dreamed in our youth, it might be good to consider how lesser, in God’s economy, often amounts to better.

“Midlife confronts us with the limits, and errors, of our own all-too-human ways of reckoning.”

Midlife confronts us with the limits, and errors, of our own all-too-human ways of reckoning. What we have, at our seeming halfway point, may seem like so little compared to the “great revenues” we hoped. But what soul-destroying revenues might we have been spared? And how upside down might our instinctive evaluations be, without learning something of God’s vantage? And what might we, and others, discover to be true when our Father issues the last word?

Proverbs 16:9 not only echoes Proverbs 16:1, but also sums up Proverbs 16:1–8 under the banner that Derek Kidner captures as “God has not merely the last word but the soundest” (Proverbs, 119). Yes, look to him now, by faith and in patience, for his last word, and soundest word, that is coming as you endure.

Able and Faithful

Humbling ourselves, at midlife, under God’s mighty hand brings no promise of immediate relief. From beginning to end, the Scriptures promise real rescue — and exaltation — to the one who genuinely humbles himself. But when? Peter says “at the proper time” — that is, on God’s perfect timetable, not ours.

Some may see only a few discouraging days; others may struggle under debilitating weights for months, or longer. Yet all are invited, one day at a time, to roll those burdens onto the broad, omnipotent shoulders of our God, “casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

However long, however discouraging, however debilitating the season, in Christ our heavenly Father cares, and until the sun rises again, and the air is fresh again, and our burdens are light again, and beyond, he is able to keep us. Perhaps midlife will be the time when the power of Jude’s doxology really begins to hit home:

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy . . . (Jude 24)

God is faithful — faithful to his Son, and to his sons. He will not let us be burdened beyond what we can bear but will help us endure (1 Corinthians 10:13). He is able to “make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times,” even in this season, you may not only endure, but “abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).

Audio Transcript

Happy Wednesday, everyone. For a few weeks, we have been looking at a two-part sermon Pastor John delivered in the spring of 2010. Today’s episode is the final installment of clips from those two messages. Historically, this pair of sermons is interesting because they come in the days leading up to his eight-month leave of absence, time away from the pulpit to work some things out in his own heart and in his family. We’ve talked about this leave, and lessons he took from it, particularly in three episodes of this podcast: APJs 138, 220, and 1227. As you know from those episodes, if you’ve heard them, it was a defining season for him.

The precursor to that leave is these two sermons. And they’re interesting because in them Pastor John explains what makes him tick. Why does he do ministry the way he does? He explained in these sermons, as we saw in APJ 1769. And then we looked at a related theme. God makes much of us. He does. He really does make much of us. So why does God make much of us? That was APJ 1772. Then we looked at how God makes much of us. In six or seven profound ways, God makes much of his children. Pastor John substantiated that claim in APJ 1775, which led to last week’s conundrum. There we looked at whether or not God ruins his love for us by loving us for himself and for his own glory — a key question to answer, and it was answered last Wednesday, in APJ 1778.

Today we finish this little miniseries of sermon clips by looking at how profoundly we are loved by God. Oh, how Pastor John wanted his church to feel the gravity of God’s “great love” to us in Christ, as Paul called it in Ephesians 2:4. And here’s how Pastor John did it in the following clip from his April 25, 2010, sermon, as he leaves for eight months. Here’s he is, expounding 1 Corinthians 1:26–31.

In these six verses of 1 Corinthians 1:26–31, Paul describes at least (it depends on how you divide it up) four ways that God loves us — loves you personally. And by you — let’s get this clear now — I don’t mean everybody. God doesn’t love everybody in the same way. The kinds of love that are described here are for those who have been awakened in their heart to see themselves as desperate sinners in need of a Savior, and Christ crucified has shone for them as their wisdom and their power. And he has become compellingly true, and beautiful, and attractive, and valuable, and you have received him, and he is yours, and you are his. That’s who I’m talking about.

I hope the rest of you who aren’t in that category will be drawn in by this message. I’m sure not everybody in this room is in that category. There’s just too many of you, and there’s lots of people of all different kinds. And so my prayer is that those of you inside will feel massively loved in fresh new ways, and those on the outside would become so jealous and envious that you would be drawn in.

Why God Loves Us This Way

What we have in these six verses is four ways that he loves us and then a double purpose for why he loves us this particular way. So, two things: four ways that he loves us, and a double purpose for why he would love us that way. It’s a how question and a why question. Got it?

How does he love me? Why does he love me this way? The answers to those two questions are here in this text. So let’s take it in reverse order. Let’s go to the purposes first, a double purpose for why he loves us in these four ways.

Eliminate Boasting in Self

The first half of the double purpose is 1 Corinthians 1:29: “so that” — some kind of result or purpose is coming — “no human being might boast in the presence of God.” So the purpose of God in loving us in these ways is so that we will be loved in a way that does not incline us to boast in ourselves in the presence of God. That’s the purpose of loving us this way. So that no human being will put their arms in their suspenders and say, “What a good boy am I?” in the presence of God.

“God will not let you ruin the experience of being loved by God by converting it into an experience of boasting.”

He loves us so much that he will not let us ruin the glorious experience of being loved by turning God’s love into a reason to boast in ourselves. He loves you too much. He will not let you ruin the experience of being loved by God. He won’t let you ruin it by converting it in our fallen way into an experience of boasting in the presence of God in ourselves. He loves you too much. He will not let that happen to you. He will come at you from every side imaginable to kill that in you.

Promote Boasting in God

So that what? The second half of the double purpose is found in verse 31: “so that, as it is written, ‘Let everyone who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” So, you see the contrast: in verse 29, his purpose in loving us this way is so that nobody will boast in the presence of the Lord, and the positive way of saying it in verse 31 is so that the one who boasts, boasts only in the Lord.

We’re going to boast in the presence of the Lord. We’re going to brag on God forever and not on ourselves. We will not boast in our own doing. If we stand in front of a mirror in heaven and like what we see — which I suppose we would if there would be mirrors (I don’t think there would be mirrors in heaven; just an opinion) — if we stood there, we would say, “Praise God.” That’s what we would say.

So, there is the double purpose in the text for the four ways that I’m now going to show you that he loves you. First, so that you won’t boast in yourself in his presence — or, putting it positively, so that you will boast in the Lord. Oh, that this church would be resounding in hallways and small groups and families with boasting in the Lord.

Speak well of the Lord. Say much about the Lord. Talk about his deeds. I just read this morning in my devotions, “You have made me glad by your works” (see Psalm 92:4). And I spent about two minutes, I suppose, just naming them and being glad, sitting on the couch — just being glad in the works of God. Name them; exult; boast in God. Forget about your painful self for a moment; it just might get well.

How God Loves Us

What are the four ways that you are loved in this text? I’ll name them, and then we’ll look at them. Number one, God chose you. He loved you by choosing you. Number two, he called you. Number three, he put you in Christ. Number four, he made Christ your wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. That’s it. Those are the four ways in this text that God loves you. Let’s take them one at a time.

He Chose You

Number one, God loved you by choosing you.

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are. (1 Corinthians 1:27–28)

Very clear: “God chose.” If you are Christ, he chose you. He leaves some unchosen; he chooses others. If you are in, he chose you.

In fact, if you asked him, “When did that happen?” This word in the Greek for chose is only used one other place outside this text: Ephesians 1:4, which was the text we looked at last week. “God chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” Only in that place in Paul does it occur, and therefore, I take it to mean that he chose you, he chose you, he chose you (in verses 27 and 28) — meaning, from eternity.

That’s why, in Romans 11:5, when he uses the noun, not the verb, he calls it the “election of grace,” meaning that when God stood in eternity and contemplated you, he contemplated you as needing saving in Christ. I get that from Ephesians 1:4–7, where we are chosen in Christ. We don’t need to be chosen in Christ if we aren’t sinners. We need to be chosen in Christ if we need righteousness, if we need forgiveness and redemption.

“You are spectacularly blessed for nothing in yourself. This love is absolutely unconditional.”

He contemplated — he saw all of us as unworthy of being chosen. Nobody is wronged if they’re unchosen; you are just spectacularly blessed for nothing in yourself. This love is absolutely unconditional, without any exception. O Holy Spirit. If it doesn’t happen right now, let it happen later tonight or later this week. Sooner or later, come and pour this being loved from eternity.

I don’t know about you, but I was really helped by my sermon last week. I’ve been just sitting around saying, “He chose me in love. He created me in love. He sent Jesus in love. He died for me in love. He keeps me in love. He made much of me by sitting me on his throne. He made much of me.” I’ve just been going all through that, just preaching to myself. I need as much help as anybody. So I’m preaching the same sermon.

He Called You

Number two, God loved you by calling you. So first, he chose you, and now, secondly, God loved you by calling you. First Corinthians 1:26: “Consider your calling, brothers.” That’s what I’m asking you to do right now: just do some considering right now. And the first thing I suppose you’d ask is, “What’s he talking about? My job — a carpenter, nurse, teacher, homemaker?” No, that’s not what he’s talking about.

People of the Call

How do you know that’s not what he’s talking about? Well, mainly I know because of 1 Corinthians 1:22–24. Read this, and consider your calling, brothers and sisters.

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles [or Greeks; he’s using them interchangeably], but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

So when the called look at Christ crucified, they don’t see a stumbling block; they don’t see folly. They see power. So there are three groups in those verses: (1) Jews, (2) Gentiles, and (3) called. That’s not quite accurate, is it? Let me say it a little more carefully. There are (1) Jews who are not called, (2) Gentiles who are not called, and (3) Jews and Gentiles who are called. Those are the three groups. Are you with me?

We’re considering our calling. We’re obeying verse 26. There are Jews not called, Gentiles not called, and Jews and Gentiles, some of whom are called. And then he describes the response of each to the cross. To Jews, a stumbling block. “Crucified Messiah? Never heard of such a thing.” To Gentiles, foolishness. “A dying god? Silly. Mythological.” To the called, power. “My God.”

Power of the Call

What kind of call is that? I’ll tell you what kind of call it is: it’s the kind of call that creates what it commands. The call gives light. The call creates sight. The call raises the dead. “Lazarus, come forth.” He didn’t decide to. The call raised him from the dead.

Let me give you an analogy that could be misleading. It helps me, just to get your head around it, because lots of you have never been taught about the call of God — the mighty, effectual, irresistible, powerful, saving, awakening, life-giving call of God that saved you. You’ve never been taught about this. So you need a little analogy to help you. “What is he talking about? I’ve never heard anything like this. I thought I just believed in Jesus.”

Suppose somebody is asleep, and you want to wake them up. What do you do? Well, you bend over — they’re sound asleep — and you say, “Wake up!” And they bolt right up. Now, what are the dynamics of that moment? They were sound asleep and — bang — they were awake. Did they hear the call and say, “I’ll think about that before I wake up, and then I’ll decide if I want to wake up”?

That is a good analogy. When God issues a call to your dead heart and says, “Wake up,” you wake up. You did not make yourself a Christian. Just face it. You didn’t make yourself a Christian, which is why you should feel so incredibly loved. In fact, if you need a text to say that, just go to Ephesians 2:4, where Paul says, just as clearly as can be, “Because of his great love.” It’s the only place he uses that phrase in all of the New Testament. Because of his great love, he made you alive when you were dead.

So, if you have any spiritual life in you at all, you have been greatly loved. It’s called regeneration. It’s called calling. You have been called, and you are greatly loved in this calling.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15285223/the-helmet-the-sword-and-the-seriousness-of-the-war

Much ink has been spilled over the mundane days of motherhood — days, many seem to assume, full of mindless tasks and repetitive duties.

While the job of mothering certainly requires us to do many jobs on repeat, I wonder if the “mindless” and “mundane” descriptors are more a reflection of our lack of imagination. God has given us countless ways we might fruitfully engage our minds as we mother. Far from mundane or mindless, motherhood can provide fertile soil for thinking, problem-solving, expanding interests, growing in competencies, and learning our Father’s world.

“When a mother’s mind is fixed on the Spirit, it becomes a wellspring of blessing to those around her.”

The life of a mother’s mind is sacred. Those who live according to the Spirit of God have minds set on the Spirit — minds full of life and peace (Romans 8:5–6). When a mother’s mind is fixed on the Spirit, it becomes a wellspring of blessing — physically and spiritually — to those around her.

Multitasking Mother

With many of life’s jobs (not just tasks related to motherhood), we can operate on autopilot. That is, we often perform tasks that we have done before — tasks that we can do without having to think about them.

For instance, when we first learn to drive, all our senses are on high alert for intense learning. But after years of driving, we rarely think about using our turn signal or pulling into a parking spot, because our subconscious brain and body know what to do. That means that while we drive, we’re able to have a conversation with someone, or sing along to music, or listen to a podcast. Our minds can do something else while we drive.

This same concept holds true for parts of motherhood. When we’re doing the dishes, or folding the clothes, or cleaning the bathroom, our minds have already learned the job, so our hands can go on autopilot to get them done while we engage our minds elsewhere. In some ways, this is like having a homeroom class in school where we get to choose what to do. We get to choose how to engage our minds while we work on autopilot.

Your Autopilot Moments

How will we engage our minds during those moments? We could engage them in all sorts of unhelpful ways — anxiously worrying about the state of the world, counting wrongs others have done to us, complaining internally about all we have to do, replaying difficult circumstances and wishing about different responses. We could also squander that “homeroom” time for the mind by turning on frivolity and foolishness via a show or ungodly music.

Or, we can set our minds on things that enrich and deepen us as women of God. “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). Listening to the Bible on an audio app is not the only way to obey this command, but it is the surest way to have our minds shaped properly.

Tuning into godly, wisdom-filled podcasts could be another way to engage our minds fruitfully while we work to serve our families. From getting tips on practical Christian living, to deepening our understanding of good theology, to increasing our awareness of church history, podcasts can help us grow in our love for God and his people. Listening to audiobooks that either explicitly (Christian non-fiction) or implicitly (great stories) inspire us toward virtue can also help us keep our minds on things above.

Some days, when we’re tired or spent, cultivating our minds may mean setting aside watching or listening and simply keeping our minds more aware of God — his goodness, his love, his holiness — not necessarily trying to learn anything new, but resting our minds, savoring what we know of him, and receiving his care for us.

Lastly, prayer is one of the best ways to use our minds (and spare moments). As our arms scrub the floor or change the diaper or hold the baby, hopefully our minds are regularly lifted up in prayer to our Lord who is always with us. We can pray through singing, or we can pray silently, but a mind that is fixed on Jesus in prayer, making our requests known to God with thanksgiving, is a mind bearing good fruit (Philippians 4:6).

What Needs Are Around Me?

Our thought life need not be explicitly spiritual or theological to be empowered by the Spirit to meet the needs of those in our care. The same Spirit who reveals the glories of God in Christ also created the earth and everything in it.

A mind set on the Spirit will delight to learn the patterns and intricacies of the Spirit’s creation. There may be hundreds of practical topics you wish to give your mind to as a way of enjoying God’s world and blessing others — from bread-making, to gardening, to furniture-building, to home repair, to computer programming, to learning a foreign language, to animal husbandry, to canning. There is so much knowledge available to us, it often feels daunting to know where to begin!

We can start by asking, “What are the needs around me? What might best serve my husband and children and church family? In what areas am I lacking?” Those questions can at least give us a starting point for what areas might be helpful to pursue. Perhaps we need to brush up on our cooking skills. Maybe we never learned how to maintain a home. As we grow in competence, we inevitably grow in enjoyment of our duties. No one enjoys doing a job poorly, but when we take the time to be interested in our work and learn to do it well, we take greater delight in it.

“The fruitfulness of our minds is meant to spill over into fruitful, productive lives and homes.”

Beyond these ideas, our own God-given interests are a good place to explore as we seek to fruitfully engage our minds. We never know how the meeting of practical needs and our own areas of interest may coalesce in surprising ways. The fruitfulness of our minds is meant to spill over into fruitful, productive lives and homes.

Learning to Teach and Teaching to Learn

A mother’s duties are not all repetition and autopilot; our duties change and expand. The skills required in one season are different from those required in a later season. Much of a mother’s time is spent engaging with her rapidly growing and changing children. It seems the minute we learn how to parent one child at a particular age and stage of life, the child grows and changes, and we must adapt and expand our mothering to new scenarios.

Perhaps one of the most important tasks of a mother is drawing out the life of her children’s minds and sharing hers in order to help shape and form them. There are many words for this task: education, discipleship, formation, parenting. A mother must learn to teach, but she will also be taught as she teaches. Paul goes on to say to the Philippians, “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me — practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:9). We mothers have “learned and received and heard and seen” from the very word of God. We want our children to learn and receive and hear and see the same wonders we have, so we teach.

We teach them all that is in our sanctified minds — all the knowledge and insight and wisdom, all the Bible stories and proverbial principles and prophecies from of old. We grow them up from words to sentences to ideas to arguments. We help them crawl and stand and walk and run. We teach them the gospel. But we also practice these things. The fruitful life of our minds must be put on display and practiced. And as we practice, our weaknesses will be exposed, and we will have more opportunities to continue learning — to continue being conformed to Christ ourselves.

In the end, the life of the Christian mother’s mind is sacred, but it is not solitary. It is a place where Christ’s Spirit is present with her. It is a place where family, friends, and children are welcomed — to share in the insights, the competencies, the knowledge, the Spirit-given life and peace that are hers in Christ.

Audio Transcript

Good Monday morning, everyone. Well, we are Christian Hedonists, and that’s something we have dedicated several episodes to explaining on the podcast. You could look at, for example, APJs 958, 1201, and 1281.

For those of you who want to teach this glorious truth, how do we take Christian Hedonism and make it our own? Or even more broadly asked, how do any of us take the key teachings of others and incorporate them into our ministry so that we’re not simply mimicking our teachers? That’s an important question faced by any budding Christian communicator, writer, teacher, or preacher. And it’s the question today in the inbox.

“Dear Tony and Pastor John, hello to you both! My name is Gabriel, an international student studying in Australia. I praise God for your ministry and for the realities you have pointed to in the Bible, especially in opening my eyes to the connection between our joy and God’s sovereign glory. My question is this: How do I make Christian Hedonism my own, especially when it comes to teaching? I’m young, but I hope to teach one day, maybe even preach the word. But often I find that I’m checking myself to see if I’m simply copying what you said. I see that the realities are there in the text and the Bible, but your ministry is so thorough and wholesome I almost feel I can’t say anything without echoing you. Perhaps I think incorrectly. How can we carry on encouraging, teaching, preaching this reality in our own voice? I would be honored to hear your thoughts.”

Gabriel’s question touches on a tension that every teacher feels when he has found something true and precious in God’s word, and desires that it be seen and loved by others, and that those others, generation after generation, preserve and pass on the truth and the preciousness of the reality that he has seen.

Tension of Treasured Truth

And the tension is this: On the one hand, we want the very thing we have seen in Scripture to be preserved and not distorted or corrupted or lost. And on the other hand, we know that if it is to be preserved for generations, the people that preserve it must have a grasp of it that is deeper than simply imitating the words of those who taught them the reality, showed them the reality. So, there’s a tension between holding fast to what is fixed and having freedom to give fresh and vital expression and application to that fixed reality.

So Gabriel has discovered the truth and the beauty of what we call Christian Hedonism — namely, the thought and the life that flow from the truth that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. And as he grows in his understanding and seeks to share with others what he’s seen, he finds himself sounding like his teacher, like me in particular. And he wonders if there are steps he can take so that he isn’t what I would call — he didn’t use this language, this is my language — a secondhander, a mimic. We don’t want him to be that; he doesn’t want to be that.

Moving from Imitation to Maturity

Now, what would I point out to Gabriel first if he’s going to be helped beyond being a secondhander? What I would point out to Gabriel first is that he’s probably at a particular point in an inevitable process that moves from discovery, through imitation, through the maturity of creative expression, and onto more and more discovery, and so on.

So his question is really, I think, “How can I move along in a natural process that I’m in?” Let me use an analogy. Compare the mystery and the wonder of how little tiny children learn language. The first thing they do is listen, look, and feel; listen, look, and feel. So you’ve got this two-week-old baby — listen, look, feel, with some very uncreative crying to express inarticulate desires.

And then one day they echo back, “Mama.” “Dada.” You just burst with the thrill that they made the connection between the reality of a person and a word coming out of their mouth: “Mama.” “Dada.” And all of it right now is simply imitation, echoing, copying — but oh, how real it is, right? It’s real. You don’t say, “Oh, he’s just copying me.” This is an awesome point in his development.

And then, within a year or so, an absolutely astonishing thing happens. All of the reality that this baby has been processing quietly (eyes, ears, touch) suddenly comes together, miraculously it seems, in his mind and out comes a sentence — two words, three words — that the baby put together out of his own little head, imitating nobody. Nobody had just spoken that sentence to him. It emerged out of his own mind. Absolutely amazing. And the rest of their lives, they’ll be turning observed and desired reality into sentences, some of which have never been spoken in the history of the world. Amazing.

1. Imitate for a season.

Now that pattern of listening, then echoing, and then creating and ongoing discovery is the way we learn for the rest of our lives. So, my first piece of advice for Gabriel is this: don’t begrudge a season of discovery and imitation. When someone helps you see a reality that you hadn’t seen before, it is inevitable that you will describe the reality in the words of the one who helped you see it. That’s normal; it’s good. But you are right to be concerned that you should not remain in this early phase of understanding and expression. So how do you move on to find your own voice and not lose the reality?

2. Press through words to experience.

So my second piece of advice is that you practice pressing through language to reality, that you never settle for mere words — not my words, not even Bible words. When the Bible speaks, uses words, you press into those words, and through those words, to the reality — the reality of love, the reality of joy, the reality of faith, the reality of Christ, the reality of God. These are not mere words. This is the rock-bottom necessity of not remaining a child or a secondhander.

“Before you can find your authentic voice, you must have an authentic experience.”

Have you tasted the reality expressed in the words of your teacher or the Scriptures? That’s what everyone should ask. Have I tasted the reality, or is it just words? Before you can find your authentic voice, you must have an authentic experience of what you are trying to give voice to. This is a matter of earnest prayer, earnest study. O Lord, “open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18).

3. Observe the truth from different angles.

The third piece of advice I would give is that you not only press through your teacher’s words to that reality, but that you be constantly on the lookout in Scripture for more reality — realities that when they are brought together with the reality of Christian Hedonism will cause you to see it in fresh light, and the diamond will reveal more of its facets than you knew existed, perhaps even more than your teacher has ever seen.

4. Find fresh language for old reality.

The fourth piece of advice I would give is that you make a studied effort to find fresh, faithful, compelling, culturally appropriate language to describe the reality that you have come to love. This studied effort at creative expression will almost certainly go off the rails if the biblical reality is not clearly seen and firmly rooted in Scripture, and gladly embraced with your heart and your mind. Without this, the effort at creativity will almost certainly degenerate into creating new reality, rather than new expressions of old, unchanging reality.

5. Don’t despise tried-and-true expressions.

The fifth piece of advice I would give is that none of us be put off by old, tried-and-true expressions of reality. That is, we shouldn’t feel the need to always be saying things in new ways, as if old ways are inevitably inadequate. Some of the language describing a wonderful reality is so rooted in Scripture, and so well-suited to the reality, and so compelling in its application that it shouldn’t be left behind just because it’s been around for a long time.

“God gave us the language of Christian Hedonism, and we don’t need to be ashamed of repeating his old, happy language.”

“Delight yourself in the Lord” has been around for three thousand years (Psalm 37:4). “Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love” has been around for three thousand years (Psalm 90:14). “We have this treasure,” treasure in earthen vessels, has been around for two thousand years (2 Corinthians 4:7). “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” has been around two thousand years (Philippians 4:4). “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” — that’s been around for three thousand years (Psalm 16:11). These aren’t John Piper’s words. God gave us the language of Christian Hedonism, and we don’t need to be ashamed of repeating his old, happy language.

6. Read widely.

And the last thing I would say is that you read widely concerning the things you care about. It is good to find a teacher who shows you things you’ve never seen. It is also good to listen to a half a dozen other teachers who can help you see the same thing from different angles, or other things that put the thing you love in an even brighter perspective.

No Longer a Secondhander

And I’ll just end by saying that in the mid-to-late ’70s, anybody who listened to or looked at the twentysomething John Piper, and also knew his teacher, Dan Fuller — they laughed. They laughed because my mannerisms, my tones of voice, my peculiar expressions, they all echoed my most influential teacher. I didn’t begrudge that. Frankly, I considered it a badge. I liked it. I was very happy to be the inadvertent imitator of the man who showed me so much glory. But I grew out of that, and there came a day when nobody saw me as an imitator anymore.

Many people know C.S. Lewis as the author and creator of Narnia. A slightly smaller group know him as a remarkably effective Christian apologist. An even smaller group appreciate him as a scholar of medieval and Renaissance literature. Fewer recognize him as a prophet of civilizational doom. But he was.

In a number of essays, in his lectures on The Abolition of Man, and then in his novel That Hideous Strength, Lewis clearly, patiently, and methodically identifies and warns his readers about an existential threat to Western civilization, and indeed to humanity as a whole.

This threat is a pernicious error that enables tyrannical power and totalitarianism. It’s a fatal superstition that slowly erodes and destroys a civilization. It’s a disease that can end our species and damn our souls. Lewis calls it “the poison of subjectivism.”

Doctrine of Objective Value

Until modern times, nearly all men believed that truth and goodness were objective realities and that human beings can apprehend them. Through reason, we examine and study and wonder at reality. When our thoughts correspond to the objective order of reality, we speak of truth. When our emotional reactions correspond to the objective order of reality, we speak of goodness.

Lewis refers to this as the doctrine of objective value, or, in shorter form, “the Tao.” The doctrine of objective value, Lewis writes, is

the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are. Those who know the Tao can hold that to call children delightful or old men venerable is not simply to record a psychological fact about our own parental or filial emotions at the moment, but to recognize a quality which demands a certain response from us whether we make it or not. . . . And because our approvals and disapprovals are thus recognitions of objective value or responses to an objective order, therefore emotional states can be in harmony with reason (when we feel liking for what ought to be approved) or out of harmony with reason (when we perceive that liking is due but cannot feel it). (Abolition of Man, 18–19)

Poison of Subjectivism

The poison of subjectivism upends this ancient and humane way of viewing the world. Reason itself is debunked — or we might say today that reason is deconstructed. Instead of the human capacity to participate in the eternal Logos, reason is simply an epiphenomenon that accompanies certain chemical and electrical events in the cortex, which is itself the product of blind evolutionary processes. Put more simply, reason is simply an accidental and illusory brain secretion.

“Under the influence of this poison, moral value judgments are simply projections of irrational emotions.”

Under the influence of this poison, moral value judgments are simply projections of irrational emotions onto an indifferent cosmos. Truth and goodness are merely words we apply to our own subjective psychological states, states that we have been socially conditioned to have. And if we have been socially conditioned in one way, we might be socially conditioned in another.

Education Old and New

Lewis thus refers to the apostles of subjectivism as “conditioners” rather than teachers. Under the old vision of reality, the task of education was to “train in the pupil those responses which are themselves appropriate, whether anyone is making them or not, and in making which the very nature of man consists” (22). Teachers accomplished this through initiation; they invited students into the same experience of reality in which they lived.

The new education merely conditions. Having removed all objective value and consideration from reality, they are “free” to shape and mold future generations into whatever they want. Having seized the reins of social conditioning, they will condition for their own purposes (wherever those happen to come from) and with little or no regard for the constraints of custom, tradition, truth, or goodness. Lewis concisely describes the difference in the old and new education:

The old dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly; the new deals with them more as the poultry-keeper deals with young birds — making them thus or thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing. In a word, the old was a kind of propagation — men transmitting manhood to men; the new is merely propaganda. (24)

How Subjectivism Conditions

Lewis shrewdly demonstrates the subtlety of conditioning in his fiction. In Orwell’s 1984, O’Brien forces Winston to confess that 2+2=5 under the threat of having his face eaten by rats. In Lewis’s That Hideous Strength, Mark Studdock is conditioned with both carrots and sticks, lures and threats. He is enticed chiefly by social pressure, as his conditioners work on his desire to be “on the inside,” his “lust for the Inner Ring.” Accordingly, they work on his fear of being left out, cast out, and ostracized. Social pressure, more so than direct threats of physical violence, are the tools of Lewis’s conditioners.

In this, Lewis was remarkably prescient. Who among us can’t recognize the impression-shaping propaganda in social-media algorithms, in Twitter bans, in the cancellation of YouTube channels? What we hear and say daily, what we scroll past and click through, what we see and come to assume — all of these are meant to condition us by detaching us from the Straight, the True, the Good, even the Normal. Such conditioning is meant to aid the sinful human tendency to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

Richard Hooker, the English Reformer and a hero of Lewis, once wrote of the destructive effect of ungodly customs.

Perverted and wicked customs — perhaps beginning with a few and spreading to the multitude, and then continuing for a long time — may be so strong that they smother the light of our natural understanding, because men refuse to make an effort to consider whether their customs are good or evil. (Divine Law and Human Nature, 43)

The poison of subjectivism removes the ordinary checks to such error and evil by denying that good and evil objectively exist at all. And yet, because we live in God’s world and not the world of our fevered imaginations, we can’t escape the pressure of the objective moral order, pressing upon us both from our conscience and from the Scriptures.

Our Cultural Insanity

The result, as Lewis again so ably highlights, is a kind of absurd tragi-comedy. It would be funny if it were not so sad. In Lewis’s memorable words, “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful” (27).

As prophetic as Lewis was in his warnings, not even he seemed to have imagined the insanity that subjectivism would lead to. While he clearly saw that such poison would infect our sexuality, the most twisted form that he portrayed was the grotesque femininity of Fairy Hardcastle. But compared to the demented debauchery of the modern LGBTQ+ movement, Miss Hardcastle seems almost quaint.

What’s more, Lewis thought that the practical need for results in the hard sciences would limit the infection of subjectivism when it comes to research. But in the twenty-first century, we are witnessing technological and scientific advances employed in the service of subjectivism. Some of the latest “advances” in medicine are used not to heal, but to maim; not to restore the body to its proper function, but to mutilate the body and render it impotent or barren. In a literal fulfillment of Lewis’s warning, “We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”

Readiness Is All

What then can be done to stave off civilizational doom, the end of our species, and the damnation of souls? Books could be written (and have been written) in answer to that question. But a simple answer runs like this: we can cultivate communities that, by the grace of God, love God and the objective order that he has made, and are ready to act in a world poisoned by subjectivism.

“We can cultivate communities that, by the grace of God, love God and the objective order that he has made.”

Such communities include churches where the good news of Jesus is faithfully proclaimed in word and deed, where refugees from the world are welcomed in the name of Jesus, and where apostles of the world are refuted by the word of God. These communities include families that glory in God’s goodness in manhood and womanhood, that seek to live fruitfully on God’s mission in the world, and that raise children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

These communities include schools that love the truth and do the good, that explain reality without explaining it away, that seek to form students into mature Christians who live with resilient joy in the midst of this broken world.

Such is the need, and the hour is late. But the readiness is all, and our God is still in heavens, and he does all that he pleases.

It’s one of my favorite memories of my mother, Marilyn. She’s standing on the platform in the sanctuary of Wayzata Evangelical Free Church, where she’s been a member for over six decades. She’s a vibrant eighty-something (who you’d assume was a decade younger) surrounded by an exuberant, dancing throng of developmentally disabled adults as they all sing praises to Jesus together, some at the top of their lungs. Perhaps it’s not musically beautiful, but it’s all beautiful, nonetheless.

A half-century of loving labor has led up to this wonderful, mildly wild platform moment. And as I sit in the audience that evening, I think to myself, “That is a great woman.” She, of course, isn’t thinking about her greatness; she’s just enjoying the beautiful chaos enveloping her. Besides that, she doesn’t think she’s great and would dismiss such praise with a wave and an “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” But she’s great, nonetheless.

And it should be said, since the Bible tells us, “A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30). So, I trust you’ll indulge me for a few minutes as I unapologetically obey this text.

Humble Beginnings

Mom grew up in a quiet, modest, depression-era Minnesota home, the only child of her Swedish father and Pennsylvania Dutch mother. Her mother was a devout evangelical Christian who made sure Mom attended a solid church, where her own devout evangelical faith was born.

She and my dad, Marlin, were high-school sweethearts, voted “cutest couple” by their senior class (I mean, “Marilyn and Marlin” — how cute is that?). After graduation, Dad joined the Navy and Mom went off to teacher’s college, where she studied elementary education. A few years later, they married and started having children.

Having children was what really began to draw out greatness in my mother. Though this was due not only, or even mainly, to the biological children she had (of which I am the youngest of four), but to the additional children she had. And one in particular uniquely altered the course of Mom’s life. This child is the reason she found herself on the platform that evening.

Annie

My folks began fostering children from troubled homes years before I was born (in 1965) and did so for decades. Which is how Mom came to “have” Annie in 1963.

Annie was only a year old when her parents’ severe alcoholism forced the State of Minnesota to intervene. My mother got a call asking if they’d take in a little girl in great need of a safe, stable home. Mom said yes. It’s amazing how consequential a phone call can be.

But it soon became clear that something wasn’t right with Annie. She was rapidly falling behind the timeline of typical child development. Mom immediately became her advocate, having her evaluated by doctors and psychologists, and working with her to try to improve her cognitive and physical capacities. In 1963, the term Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) didn’t exist (and wouldn’t for another decade), so no one could diagnose exactly what was wrong. But as the extent of her disabilities became clear, so did the sad reality that no one in Annie’s birth family network would be able to care for her. And Mom could not imagine sending this vulnerable, disabled little girl to an almost certain future of institutionalization. So, Annie became a permanent member of the Bloom family.

And my mother became Annie’s lifelong advocate. She educated herself, informally and formally, on early childhood development and disabilities in order to meet Annie’s needs, later becoming a self-taught expert on FAS. She made sure Annie received good medical care and the best special educational and recreational opportunities she could find and afford.

World of Annies

The more Mom learned, the more aware she became that there existed a world of Annies in need. And in those days, the world most developmentally disabled people lived in largely neglected them — and their parents. Very few therapeutic, educational, occupational, and caregiving support options existed. So, Mom joined a growing movement of people who advocated for these precious, defenseless lives. And their collective labors over time resulted in significant changes at almost every level of society that drastically improved the lives of millions.

“In those days, most developmentally disabled people lived in a world that largely neglected them — and their parents.”

For Mom, this began in 1967, when she saw a local newspaper ad calling for a volunteer to work with a handful of disabled children at a church’s nursery school. She answered the call. It’s amazing how consequential an ad can be.

Her volunteer position grew into a part-time paid position, which grew into a full-time paid position, which grew into a professional vocation as St. David’s nursery school, inhabiting a few rooms in a small church’s basement, grew into the multi-campus St. David’s Center for Child & Family Development. All because my mother and others like her put their love for developmentally disabled children and parents into strategic action.

So, what started as a volunteer gig became a career spanning thirty years. And Mom became known not merely as an expert in her field, but as a woman whose love for disabled children and their parents was simply remarkable. Literally, remarkable. Mom retired 25 years ago, and veteran St. David’s staff still talk about her impact.

But as important and fruitful as all this was, there’s another dimension to the story. For Mom’s concern for the developmentally disabled extended further than their physical and educational well-being. She also cared deeply for their spiritual well-being.

Reaching the Overlooked Unreached

Annie’s responsible for this too. It started when Mom, a longtime Sunday school teacher, realized as Annie grew older that she had no Sunday school option. And our church wasn’t unique; no church she knew of offered biblical instruction for people with Annie’s limitations.

My mother’s realization quickly broadened in scope. There existed almost no evangelical outreach to the developmentally disabled anywhere. Annie was part of a people group largely unreached with the gospel.

So, in the mid-70s, Mom decided to start a Sunday school class for Annie and a few others. It turned out to be one of the first of its kind in the nation. Word spread and the class grew. A major Twin Cities newspaper ran a story about it, and so did our denomination’s magazine. Mom found herself consulting and training others on how to start similar programs in their churches. And this led to the birth of something else.

In 1979, after teaching a workshop at a church, Mom was approached by a young man with a desire to help developmentally disabled people know Christ, and they started sharing ideas. Out of that conversation emerged an outreach ministry now called Christ For People (with Developmental Disabilities), which for four decades has provided these precious, long-overlooked unreached people opportunities for weekly worship events, fellowship, Bible studies, and evangelism — all designed especially for them. Mom was a core volunteer with Christ For People for many years.

True Greatness

This leads us to that moment on the platform, with Mom surrounded by that beautiful singing throng. Because that took place at a special Christ For People celebration a few years ago.

As I watched Mom enjoy that moment of worship, it hit me: I was looking at a priceless sample of the fruit of my mother’s life. It had happened. She had faithfully, lovingly labored for fifty years, and God had “established the work of [her] hands” (Psalm 90:17). Mom had truly loved her neighbor as herself (Luke 10:27), she had received many children in Jesus’s name (Luke 9:48), and she had given herself to serve the least of his brothers and sisters (Matthew 25:40). Jesus said, “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant” (Matthew 20:26). As I watched her, I couldn’t help but think, “That’s a great woman.”

“She had faithfully, lovingly labored for fifty years, and God had ‘established the work of [her] hands.’”

And this great story is just a part of a greater story. If I only had time and space, I’d tell you how well she loved a husband who struggled with mental illness, and how well she loved her children — all the children she “had” — and her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren, despite our collective sinfulness, foolishness, prodigality, addictions, and mental illnesses. I marvel that we didn’t break her heart.

My mother is a great woman, though she’ll deny it. She’ll likely wish I hadn’t said it so publicly. But “a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30). I’m just obeying the Bible, Mom. And I’m a big fan.

Mom’s Biggest Fan

But Mom’s biggest fan is undisputedly Annie.

Annie just turned 60. She lives in a beautiful home, lovingly designed to serve the needs of all its developmentally disabled residents. She lives with friends she’s known for years and has wonderful, attentive caregivers around the clock. She has a job and earns money. She goes on vacations and dines out at restaurants. She goes to parks, sporting events, and movies. She is provided transportation to church or to Christ For People anytime she wishes to go. And she owes her amazing quality of life in no small part to her remarkable mother, though she’s blissfully unaware of this.

What Annie is aware of is how much her mom loves her and how much she loves her mom. The highlight of Annie’s life is still to spend the night at Mom’s place. And Mom, who’s about to turn 90, still loves to drive across town, pick her up, and bring Annie home.