John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Providence.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

A great exchange lies at the heart of the Christian faith. God’s people contributed their sin, their failures, their guilt, and exchanged them for forgiveness, for joy, for Jesus’s righteousness, leading to eternal life. Have you marveled at this recently?

Allow me to tell the story again.

Scripture depicts God’s people as a woman who formerly had nothing but sin and shame (Ezekiel 16; Hosea 1). Yet somehow, the righteous King of heaven decided to pursue her for marriage. She was poor, naked, and diseased beyond hope of recovery. She laid on her sickbed, unable to rise; he sat on the throne of heaven, worshiped by angels. She committed sedition against this King, cursing him in her sin — despite all his unceasing kindness and provisions.

The last thing she expected — indeed the last thing she looked for — was the love and forgiveness that this King would ensure she acquired.

He Came to Become Sin

From heaven, he came and sought her. He came to the ancient ruins of Eden, taking a human body and reasoning soul to visit the fallen realms of his earth.

And although he created the world, the world did not know him. Taking wonder deeper, he traveled even to Israel, his own people, and they still did not recognize him. He taught among them as no one before. He healed their sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead to life.

As he hinted at his identity, Israel’s spiritual watchmen did not grow relieved or enthralled, but incensed and jealous. They rejected him, refused to follow, questioned him at every turn, stirred up the people against him, and in the end, crucified him. Yet not without his consent. He gave himself willingly unto death, bringing his Bride — still ignorant and dead in sin — to life. He embraced that wrath she deserved. He became sin, our sin, that we might be forgiven.

Second Exchange?

I hope you’ve heard that story before — love hearing it over and over. Heaven has no greater to tell.

Yet as we feast upon its bounty, drawing strength for each new day, do we forget this was a two-way exchange? For myself, I often emphasize what Jesus took on my behalf: wrath, punishment, death, sin, abandonment. Before the cross, I gratefully sing,

Here we have a firm foundation,Here the refuge of the lost;Christ, the Rock of our salvation,His the name of which we boast.Lamb of God, for sinners wounded,Sacrifice to cancel guilt!None shall ever be confounded
Who on him their hope have built.

What remains less in view, though, is what we get in return beyond canceled debt. C.R. Wiley observes,

Most Christians are familiar with salvation as accounting, but they think in terms of single-imputation. They believe that our sins have been imputed to Christ and that’s why he died on the cross, so that he could pay for them. But that’s where it stops for them. They think that Christ’s death has left them with a zero balance. (Man of the House, 111)

But notice again the verse: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Christ does not merely forgive; not merely cancel debts. He gives righteousness in such degree that we become the righteousness of God. Christ’s perfect life is ours — his perfect obedience reckoned to us. Our accounts burst with the eternal riches of the perfection of Christ.

Our ‘Not-Yet’ Fight

O believer, though you still put the flesh to death daily, and carry a cross through a fallen world, remember Christ has made you, in a real and living sense, perfect — right now.

“O believer, Christ has made you, in a real and living sense, perfect — right now.”

Yes, you still sin, but every sin that lies ahead is paid for at the cross. “By a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). Your ongoing sanctification, as slow and arduous as it runs, confirms a remarkable reality: By Christ’s one offering, he has perfected you already. We feel the “not yet” of continuing to fight, but how often do we delight in the “already” of our holy status before God?

Why does this matter practically? As we realize our standing in Christ — the great blessing we have in not only giving the penalty of our sins to Christ, but receiving his perfect life — we know we are loved and accepted before we make great strides in the Christian life. And reckoning this allows us to make the greatest strides in the Christian life.

As Chosen Ones

Notice carefully the order of Paul’s words in one example among many:

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Colossians 3:12–13)

As Paul commands us to put on the radiant clothing of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and love, he inserts a phrase bearing the weight of ten worlds: Put these on as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved.

“You have no need to work your way into his love or achieve his holiness. Christ has done it in your place.”

Put on these virtues — or, in another place, simply “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14) — as a chosen one, one already holy and beloved. Continue to pursue a life worthy of the gospel with this sure gospel footing: You journey forth already holy, already beloved of God. You have no need to work your way into his love or achieve his holiness. Christ has done it in your place.

Bringing Holiness to Completion

Through this side of the great exchange, he welcomes you before you continue making those strides in humility, meekness, and love. You do not put on Christ to become definitively chosen, holy, and beloved, but as a response to what Christ accomplished two thousand years ago. As we progressively “bring holiness to completion in the fear of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 7:1), we do so already basking in the statements that we stand holy and beloved in Christ. Our growth in Christian living is growing into what we already are in union with our Savior.

At the heart of Christianity is indeed a great exchange, a double exchange. Christ, our great Groom, became our sin and bore the wrath we deserved. And in exchange, we get his perfect life and all that justly comes with it: God’s love, eternal life, heavenly rewards, unity with each other, restored and unbreakable fellowship with God. We are rich beyond measure, having God himself as our treasure, and this empowers us to live wholly for him.

Audio Transcript

Today’s question is anonymous — whether from a man or woman, I’m unsure. Here it is. “Pastor John, why did God make some people ugly and unattractive? How can I accept the fact that God, though capable of making me beautiful or at least average looking, chose to create me in an unattractive manner? As an unattractive person myself, I can say life is tough for us. Our opinions and ideas are most often sidelined. We have it tough in offices and schools and colleges. I can’t express in words how difficult it is to be confident.

“This is straining my relationship with God. Clearly, in the Bible there are some features described as examples of beauty. I count dozens of verses in the Bible that speak of physical beauty. Moses was a fair and beautiful child (Exodus 2:2; Hebrews 11:23). David was ‘ruddy and handsome in appearance’ (1 Samuel 17:42). Esther ‘had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at’ (Esther 2:7). Absalom had thick hair and ‘from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him’ (2 Samuel 14:25). Now I know God is concerned about what we do with our bodies. And he cares about our bodies. So why does he make some of us so unattractive?”

Relevant for All

When I hear a question like this, it makes me groan, partly because I can count on three fingers, maybe less, the people who have ever called me ugly or handsome. In other words, I groan because I know I’m being asked to speak to a sorrow that I’ve never tasted. It would be so much easier for me to just ignore this question, because I know that when I’m done, many people would have the right to say, “But you’ve never experienced this.” And that’s true.

Another reason it makes me groan to hear a question like this is that I know that what this person calls ugly is the tip of the iceberg of human suffering when it comes, for example, to horrific deformities — the kinds of dreadful disfigurements that in another age would be exploited in what were often advertised as “human freak shows.” And then there are the kinds of diseases that produce hideous malformations and growths and cankerous, open, unhealable flesh. Then there are ghastly wounds that leave a person in pain the rest of their lives — disabled, unsightly.

So as I try to say something biblical, which is all I have any claim to say as far as helpfulness or authority goes, I have all of that in mind. I see this question about ugliness as a species of a larger question about disfigurement and disease and deformity and injury. And if anyone thinks this is not relevant for them, keep in mind that you may not start life ugly, but you may well spend the last year curled up in a fetal position, weighing eighty pounds and wearing a diaper. Very few people escape the relevance of this question at some point.

Groaning Together in Hope

I think the deepest answer to the question of why there is so much ugliness and deformity and injury and disability and misery in the world is found in Romans 8:18–23. I don’t think it gets any more helpful or important or profound than these verses. I want to read the whole thing, making comments as I go, because I think this paragraph is worth meditating on for the rest of your life. Here’s what he says. This is Paul in Romans 8:18:

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

I’m going to include in that every form of ugliness or disfigurement, and you’ll see why I include it in this word sufferings as we go on. So, the fundamental hope of Christianity is suffering now, glory later — suffering now, glory later. Now, what kind of suffering?

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. (verse 19)

Now take note: this is not primarily suffering persecution here. This is creation-based suffering.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope . . . (verse 20)

Who’s that? That’s God, because only God subjects the creation in hope. The devil doesn’t do that. Sinful man doesn’t do that. Only God subjects the creation to futility in hope. So this is a reference to the fall in Genesis 3, the fall into sin and the consequent miseries that were brought into the world — all the horrific consequences of sin, including every disfigurement, every injury, every disability, every catastrophe. And so, he says that God subjected the creation to that in hope. What hope?

. . . that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption . . . (verse 21)

That’s just another phrase for “subjected to futility.” So we have creation in subjection to futility and in bondage to corruption — decay, ruination, futility, horrors. Continuing now with the description of hope:

. . . and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (verse 21)

So, the physical world, the creation — including our bodies — will share in the glory God has destined for his children.

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. (verse 22)

What an image! This is another way of saying “subjected in hope.” It’s as if the creation is pregnant, and all the pain and misery and disfigurement are like cosmic birth pangs — a mother crying out in pain, a world in labor. And here’s where it gets really personal:

And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (verse 23)

“The physical world, the creation — including our bodies — will share in the glory God has destined for his children.”

And you can hear Paul responding to people here who say, “Look, I’m saved. I’m redeemed. I’m forgiven. I’m a child of God. I have the Spirit of God in me. How can it be going so bad for me?” And he’s drawing attention to that.

The phrase “redemption of our bodies” covers the whole waterfront of aging miseries, disease miseries, disability miseries, ugliness miseries. In other words, he makes explicit that the horrors of groaning and corruption and futility include Spirit-filled Christians. Our bodies — John Piper’s body, Tony Reinke’s body, everyone’s body — desperately need now, or will need soon, redemption. We feel it in disease, we feel it in aging, and we see it in the mirror — some early, some late. And that redemption is coming. I think that’s the most important passage in the Bible for our friend to think about.

Deformity of Sin and Satan

Ugliness and disfigurement have their roots in the origin of human sin. Now listen carefully, because this could be so easily misunderstood: the roots are not in a person’s particular personal sin, but the origin of human sin in Adam and Eve, which infected the whole human race. In his wisdom, God decreed that there would be physical manifestations of the horrors and outrage of sin against God. This does not mean that everyone’s disability or everyone’s disease or everyone’s disfigurement is because of their own sin. John 9:2–3 makes clear that’s not the case:

His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.

So, the point is that Romans 8 gives a global explanation for why there is such a thing in the world as ugliness and every form of physical misery. God brought the physical world, the bodily world, into sync, into correspondence, with the moral world. He made physical ugliness and misery correspond to moral ugliness and misery, even in some of the most godly people on the planet. Every bodily or material burden in the world should point us to the burden of sin. Every ugliness should point to the ugliness of sin and Satan.

“Romans 8 gives a global explanation for why there is such a thing in the world as ugliness.”

Satan is a real secondary cause under God. He is immediately responsible for many physical horrors. Jesus said that in Luke 13:11–16. There was a woman bent over for eighteen years. So picture her: she’s probably walking at a ninety-degree angle, with horrible scoliosis. And Jesus says, “Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed?” (Luke 13:16). So, all physical ugliness and deformity and misery points to the moral ugliness and deformity of sin and Satan.

End to Ugliness and Misery

And then, within that global sorrow and corruption and futility, God saves sinners and promises new bodies at the cost of his Son’s life. He sends Christ into the world, describing him like this: “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). He took it all on himself — all the ugliness, all the misery — and died to put an end to all ugliness and all misery for everyone who trusts him and treasures him more than we treasure human beauty.

And then, in his precious blood-bought people, he makes all physical ugliness serve to show his own worth, because he satisfies the soul so completely and promises a future so glorious that he makes his homely family happy. And that happiness, in spite of all earthly rejection, bears witness to the all-satisfying moral beauty of Christ and the confidence we will share in it. Christ is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, especially in our temporary ugliness.

We, body and spirit, have desires that are at odds with one another until Christ our Lord comes to help. He places the jewels of the virtues in their proper places — and in the place of sin, he builds the courts of his temple. He makes for the soul ornaments from its dark past to delight Wisdom as she reigns forever on her glorious throne. (Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, Psychomachia)

To those of us accustomed to a wide array of rich resources for discipleship, lists of vices and virtues might seem rudimentary. In fact, we tend to view lists that say “do this” or “don’t do that” as legalistic obstacles to spiritual formation. But dismissing the seven virtues and their related vices would be to abandon centuries of profound theological and pastoral reflection. To understand their history is to take a large step toward recovering their value.

From Martyrdom to Monasticism

The church underwent massive transformation as Christianity transitioned from a persecuted sect to the predominant religion of the Roman Empire.

For much of the first two centuries of the church’s existence, the Roman government regarded Christianity as an illegitimate religion. Professing faith in Christ, therefore, was a sober and serious commitment. Christians faced episodic persecution by the empire and were occasionally publicly executed as martyrs. Because of these dangers, candidates for membership in the early church were rigorously examined to ensure a clear understanding of the gospel and prepare them for the possibility of martyrdom.

The situation changed markedly under emperor Constantine the Great (reign 306–337), who declared tolerance of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire in AD 313. As Christianity became more acceptable and the ranks of the church swelled with new converts, the task of discipleship became more difficult. The threat of death by martyrdom no longer protected the church from insincere professions. This resulted in assemblies that neglected basic Christian discipleship and biblical spirituality. In some cases, churches looked as decadent as the surrounding culture.

Men and women arrested by the call of Scripture to live in holiness and service to others found it increasingly difficult to do so in a church in cultural captivity. Many of them established new communities outside of urban centers where they committed themselves to generosity, Scripture memory, worship, and prayer. The monastic movement became the new martyrdom — committed believers gave up wealth and prestige to bear witness for Christ in lives of radical self-sacrifice and personal holiness.

It was in this setting of intense disciple-making that virtue and vice lists were freshly developed.

Diagnosing the Disease

In their decades of caring for members of monastic communities, leaders like Evagrius of Pontus (346–399) and his disciple, John Cassian (360–430), sought to understand the patterns in sin and temptation.1 The most enduring and comprehensive account of these patterns emerged with the teaching of Gregory the Great (540–604), the bishop of Rome. As a monk, Gregory traced the many permutations of sin to seven “heads” that branched from the root of pride:

For pride is the root of all evil, of which it is said, as Scripture bears witness: Pride is the beginning of all sin. But seven principal vices, as its first progeny, spring doubtless from this poisonous root; namely, vainglory, envy, anger, melancholy, avarice, gluttony, lust. For, because He grieved that we were held captive by these seven sins of pride, therefore our Redeemer came to the spiritual battle of our liberation, full of the spirit of sevenfold grace.2

“Understanding the seven ‘capital’ sins was critical to diagnosing disordered affections in the Christian life.”

Understanding the pathology of the seven “capital” (from Latin caput, “head”) sins — how all other sin branched from these heads — was critical to diagnosing disordered affections in the Christian life.3 But diagnosis of the disease only goes so far. Following the pattern of Scripture, the church also sought to find ways to capture the virtues that characterize new life in Christ.

Applying a Remedy

The term “virtue” comes from the Latin translation (virtus) of the Greek word meaning “moral excellence” (aretē). For centuries, Greek philosophy consistently identified four virtues as central to a life of moral excellence: prudence (wisdom), justice, temperance (self-control), and fortitude (courage).

These four virtues not only appeared in Aristotle’s (384–322 BC) Nicomachean Ethics and Plato’s (c. 427–347 BC) Republic, but also in intertestamental literature like The Wisdom of Solomon — a book that was included by Alexandrian Jews in first century BC editions of the Greek translation of the Old Testament.4 According to Wisdom 8:7, “If anyone loves righteousness, her labors are virtues (aretai); for she teaches self-control and prudence, justice and courage; nothing in life is more profitable for men than these.”

Christian leaders like Ambrose of Milan (c. 340–397) thought the four classical virtues reflected what the Scriptures taught as the “cardinal” excellencies upon which all other moral virtues in the Christian life hinged (Latin cardo means “hinge”).5 They added to these the three transcendent “theological” virtues identified by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:13: “So faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Augustine (354–430) argued that the four cardinal virtues ultimately grew out of the greatest theological virtue, love:

. . . temperance is love giving itself entirely to that which is loved; fortitude is love readily bearing all things for the sake of the loved object; justice is love serving only the loved object, and therefore ruling rightly; prudence is love distinguishing with sagacity between what hinders it and what helps it. The object of this love is not anything, but only God, the chief good, the highest wisdom, the perfect harmony. So we may express the definition thus: that temperance is love keeping itself entire and incorrupt for God; fortitude is love bearing everything readily for the sake of God; justice is love serving God only, and therefore ruling well all else, as subject to man; prudence is love making a right distinction between what helps it towards God and what might hinder it.6

Foils for the Deadly Sins

Thus, a tension emerged between the seven deadly sins and the seven heavenly virtues. The virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, fortitude, faith, hope, and love) did not clearly oppose an opposite deadly sin (vainglory, envy, anger, melancholy, avarice, gluttony, and lust).

Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (348–c. 410) recognized this tension and saw the pastoral benefit of assigning opposing virtues as foils for each of the deadly sins. In Psychomachia, a graphic poem in the style of Virgil’s (70–19 BC) Aeneid, Prudentius squares off each of Cassian’s vices with the personified biblical virtue that could defeat it in the Christian’s battle for holiness. In the poem, as in the life of the believer, vainglory is defeated by humility, lust by chastity, anger by patience, and so on. The idea sprang from biblical teaching: the command to put off sin is grounded in the call to put on Christ — to walk by his Spirit and so bear spiritual fruit (Galatians 3:27; 5:16–24). Christians fight the schemes of their adversary clothed in gospel armor and equipped with spiritual weaponry (Ephesians 6:10–20). Additionally, the New Testament almost always places the characteristics of true spirituality alongside the descriptions of the sins the believer is to flee.7

Nevertheless, despite the widespread influence of Prudentius’s poem in the medieval period, the seven heavenly virtues — not a list of opposing virtues to contrast the deadly sins — endured as a lasting framework for spiritual formation.

Framework for Spiritual Formation

Writing for the instruction of fellow Dominican monks, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) gave extensive attention to the nature of virtue and how it functioned in the life of the Christian. In his Summa Theologica, Aquinas argued that virtues are habitual dispositions — patterns of mind and heart that bring about good actions, especially by preventing our impulsive desires from taking us to sin’s opposite extremes.8 The virtue of temperance, for example, guards the appetite against gluttony on the one hand and abstinence on the other. Similarly, fortitude fears neither danger nor labor.9

“Christians act in virtuous ways because of the regenerating power and sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit.”

Aquinas also argued that Christian virtue was more than the Greek philosophers’ quest for self-improvement. Christians are disposed to act in virtuous ways because of the regenerating power and sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit. But new dispositions also require habituation — intentional cultivation through a life of obedient dependence on Christ.10 Like Augustine, Aquinas argued that the theological virtues — connected to and comprehended in love — were the specific means of grace God used to deepen and mature all other virtue.11

The seven heavenly virtues, however, remain more foreign to contemporary readers than the more familiar seven deadly sins. The centuries-old tension Prudentius felt between the two lists, persists. Therefore, we shouldn’t abandon either approach to spiritual formation. Contrasting the deadly sins with their opposite virtue can be a valuable way to gain insight and mature in holiness (see Colossians 3:5–17). Humility poisons pride, chastity defangs lust, temperance bridles gluttony, charity overpowers greed, diligence overcomes sloth, patience outlasts envy, and kindness conquers anger.

Ultimately, cultivation of virtue is not the remedy for sin — justification and final salvation come through the atoning work of Christ, alone. But in the same way the seven capital sins provide a diagnostic for disordered affections, the seven heavenly virtues provide a framework for spiritual formation. Generations of faithful Christians have used the language of heavenly virtues and deadly vices as means for growing in grace. And by recovering these tools for the modern church, we are better equipped to present ourselves holy and acceptable to God, which is our spiritual worship (Romans 12:1).

In the late summer or fall of 1525, sheets of thin sewn paper bounced across the English Channel, hidden in bales of cloth and sacks of flour. They passed silently, secretly, from the Channel to the London shipyards, from the shipyards to the hands of smiths and cooks, sailors and cobblers, priests and politicians, mothers and fathers and children. De-clothed and un-floured, the first lines read,

I have here translated (bretheren and sisters most dear and tenderly beloved in Christ) the new Testament for your spiritual edifying, consolation, and solace.

And then, a few pages later:

This is the book of the generation of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son also of Abraham . . .

Here was the Gospel of Matthew, translated from the original Greek into English for the very first time. The entire New Testament would soon follow, and then portions of the Old Testament, before its translator, William Tyndale (1494–1536), would be found and killed for his work.

Reforming English

For centuries past, a normal Englishman might have thought God spoke Latin. England’s only legal Bible was a Latin Bible, translated over a millennium prior by the church father Jerome (who died in 420). For them, the Psalms were simply the songs of a foreign land. The Ten Commandments rumbled toward them with no more clarity than Sinai’s thunder. They knew, perhaps, that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us — but apart from bits and snatches, they had never heard him speak their language. Until now.

Over the following years, some would burn this book, and some would be burned for it. Some would smuggle this book into England, and some would cast it out. But the book itself, once translated, could not be forgotten. Illegal or not, the English Scriptures would find their way into English pulpits and English hearts, reforming England through its mother tongue.

And along the way, another reformation would take place — a reformation often overlooked, and yet, one could argue, just as far reaching. Tyndale’s translation would reform not only England, but English; it would shape the future not only of English religion, but of the English language. As biographer David Daniell writes, “Newspaper headlines still quote Tyndale, though unknowingly, and he has reached more people than even Shakespeare” (William Tyndale, 2).

Dangers of Translation

From a distance of five hundred years, we may struggle to grasp how the English Christian church could possibly oppose the English Christian Scriptures. For, amazingly enough, it was the church that banned and burned this book. The Catholic authorities of Tyndale’s day offered at least two reasons.

First, translation is inherently dangerous. In the early 1400s, a generation after John Wycliffe (1328–1384) had published the first English Bible (translated from the Latin Vulgate, however, rather than the Hebrew and Greek), the Constitutions of Oxford declared,

It is a dangerous thing, as witnesseth blessed St. Jerome, to translate the text of the Holy Scripture out of one tongue into another, for in the translation the same sense is not always easily kept. . . . We therefore decree and ordain, that no man, hereafter, by his own authority translate any text of the Scripture into English or any other tongue . . . and that no man can read any such book . . . in part or in whole. (God’s Bestseller, xxii)

“They could burn the book, and they could even burn the man, but they could not burn away the words so many heard.”

The priests and magistrates of Tyndale’s day enforced such laws with a vengeance, sometimes burning Christians alive simply for possessing the Lord’s Prayer in English. An English Bible, of course, posed more danger to a corrupt church than to a common Christian. Even still, such was their position: translation was simply too dangerous.

Our Rude and Rusty Tongue

Apart from translation itself being seen as dangerous, however, the idea of an English translation was considered “ridiculous.” “The English language, when Tyndale began to write,” says Daniell, “was a poor thing, spoken only by a few in an island off the shelf of Europe. . . . In 1500 it was as irrelevant to life in Europe as today’s Scots Gaelic is to the city of London” (The Bible in English, 248).

Though English sufficed for everyday communication, Latin dominated the highest spheres of life. Magistrates wrote in Latin. Professors wrote (and taught) in Latin. Literary works appeared in Latin. The clergy conducted their services in Latin. How then could the Bible be translated into English?

A poem from John Skelton, written in the early 1500s, captures the supposed absurdity of an English translation:

Our natural tong is rude,And hard to be enneude [revived]With pullyshed terms lusty;Our language is so rusty,So cankered and so fullOf frowardes [awkward words], and so dull,That if I wolde applyTo wryte ornately,I wot not where to fyndTerms to serve my mynde. (273)

Such a rude and rusty tongue could not carry the oracles of God. Or so the authorities thought.

Bible for Plowboys

William Tyndale grew up, along with every other boy his age, hearing the word of God in Latin. The Lord’s Prayer did not begin, “Our Father, which art in heaven,” but “Pater noster, qui es in caelis.” And like some other boys his age, he spent his school days preparing to speak that Latin word as a priest to the next generation.

But he never did — or at least not for long. We know few of the reasons Tyndale grew weary of a Latin-only religion and began to burn to read the Bible in English. Perhaps he noticed that, of all Europe in the 1520s, England alone had no legal vernacular translation (Bible in English, 249). Perhaps he heard about — and even read — Martin Luther’s groundbreaking German Bible, published in 1522. Perhaps he noticed all the Catholic corruption that only a mute Bible could endorse. And perhaps, as an extraordinary linguist himself, he heard far more potential in our English tongue than did the church of his day.

We do know, however, that when twentysomething Tyndale heard a certain man say, “We were better be without God’s law than the pope’s,” he answered, “I defy the Pope and all his laws. . . . If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plough, shall know more of the scripture than thou dost” (William Tyndale, 79). The gospel of the Scriptures, Tyndale knew, “maketh a man’s heart glad, and maketh him sing, dance, and leap for joy” (123). But how would the plowboy sing if he understood not a lick of that gospel?

And so, Tyndale began to translate. He went first to London, to see if he could find any support for his work close to home. Finding none, he left London for the continent, and there set to work on a translation that would give the plowboy not only the Bible, but the Bible clothed in an English so fair it would endure for centuries.

Tyndale’s Translation

In the judgment of one scholar, Tyndale “was responsible almost single-handedly for making the native language, which at the start of the sixteenth century was barely respectable in educated circles, into the supple, powerful, sensitive vehicle it had become by the time of Shakespeare” (The King James Version at 400, 316). Another goes so far as to say, “There is truth in the remark, ‘Without Tyndale, no Shakespeare’” (William Tyndale, 158). Under Tyndale’s pen, English grew from callow youth to mature man, capable of expressing the subtleties and profundities of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.

But how did he do it? By focusing all of his linguistic genius toward two great goals: “First,” Daniell writes, “to understand the Greek and Hebrew of the original Bible texts as well as it was then humanly possible to do. Secondly, to write in English that above all, and at all times, made sense” (92). Accuracy and clarity were Tyndale’s hallmarks, and they made for an English at once strangely new and strikingly familiar.

Moses Speaking English

First, Tyndale’s commitment to accuracy gave his English a strange newness. A foreign flavor clung to his English phrases, as if his language traveled abroad and came home with a new accent.

Sometimes, readers felt the change in the totally new words Tyndale coined to capture the meaning of the text. Intercession, atonement, Passover, mercy seat, scapegoat — these are all Tyndalisms, the work of a wordsmith in his forge. Alistair McGrath comments, “It can be seen immediately that biblical translation thus provided a major stimulus to the development of the English language, not least by creating new English words to accommodate biblical ideas” (The Word of God in English, 61).

Tyndale forged not only new words, however, but a new style, especially in his translations of the Old Testament. Striving for literalness, he crafted a kind of Hebraic English, as if Moses should speak English in the patterns of his native tongue. For example, strange as it may seem, the simple construction “the+noun+of+the+noun” — “the beasts of the field,” “the birds of the air” — came into English through Tyndale’s translation of a Hebrew form called the construct chain (William Tyndale, 285). Tyndale could have fitted this Hebrew form into existing English syntax; instead, he invented a new English form, and thus adorned our English with Hebrew robes.

“Following the syntactic contours of the Hebrew,” Robert Alter writes, “achieved a new kind of compelling effect, at once lofty and almost stark” (The King James Bible and the World It Made, 136). And more examples could be listed. The influence of Hebrew on our language (and to a lesser extent Greek), Daniell argues, is nothing short of “immense” (William Tyndale, 289) — and the credit is largely due to Tyndale. By grasping the original languages so tightly, he brought much of them back into English, to our great enrichment.

Scripture in Plain Language

Alongside that strange newness, however, was a striking familiarity, born from Tyndale’s commitment to clarity. His English may have traveled abroad, but it never lost touch with its roots — and particularly its Saxon roots.

Latin, as we’ve seen, dominated the respectable discourse of Tyndale’s England. Yet even when an author did write something important in English, he typically adopted a Latinate style, an English filled with abstract, polysyllabic words in complex syntax. As an example, Daniell offers the following excerpt from Lord Berner’s 1523 translation of a French history:

Thus, when I advertised and remembered the manifold commodities of history, how beneficial it is to mortal folk, and else how laudable and meritorious a deed it is to write histories . . . which I judged commodious, necessary, and profitable to be had in English . . . (Bible in English, 250)

Of the 46 words in this partial sentence, 11 consist of three syllables or more, 6 of those 11 reach into the four- or five-syllable range, and most of them lie under a fog of abstraction. Turn to Tyndale, either in his prose writings or his Bible translations, and you enter a different world — a world more Saxon than Latin, populated with short words and sentences that evoke images of real life. Here we find light, not illumination; eat, not ingest; grow, not cultivate; burn, not incinerate.

Latinate words have their place in English, of course, but Tyndale knew that “a homespun Anglo-Saxon vernacular” not only matched “the plain diction of the Hebrew,” but also that it spoke to the hearts of English readers and hearers (King James Bible, 137). He translated “in the language the people spoke, not as the scholars wrote” (William Tyndale, 3) — as, for example, in the familiar Christmas story of Luke 2:

And there were in the same region shepherds abiding in the field, and watching their flock by night. And lo: the angel of the Lord stood hard by them, and the brightness of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them: Be not afraid: Behold I bring you tidings of great joy, that shall come to all the people: for unto you is born this day in the city of David a saviour, which is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:8–11)

Of the 87 words in this passage, only one reaches three syllables (abiding). Here was a language familiar and warm, a world of words where even a plowboy could feel at home. And yet, at the same time, here was a beautiful language, a “fountain from which flowed the lucidity, suppleness and expressive range of the greatest prose thereafter” (William Tyndale, 116).

Our Wonderful Tyndalian Tongue

In 1611, 86 years after Tyndale’s partial New Testament was smuggled into England, a new English Bible appeared, a Bible that would so win the hearts of English-speaking Christians that, for three centuries, you could almost call it the English Bible. And yet, remarkably, most of the King James Version belongs to Tyndale’s pen: 84 percent of the New Testament comes from his translation, along with 76 percent of the Old Testament books he finished before he died (God’s Bestseller, 1). The translators of 1611 were so indebted to his pioneering work that C.S. Lewis could say of the KJV, “Our Bible is substantially Tyndale” (Word of God in English, 60).

“With Tyndale’s Bible came reform — theologically and spiritually, but also linguistically.”

No wonder Daniell writes, “Tyndale’s gift to the English language is unmeasurable” (William Tyndale, 158). Through his own translation, and then through the KJV, Tyndale — a hunted, solitary translator eventually martyred for his work — would tutor poets and playwrights, politicians and pastors, in “the sounds and rhythms as well as the senses of English” (2). Tyndale gave us an English worth speaking and writing, and not only in everyday conversations and informal documents, but in the most precious matters of life and death.

Still today, we feel his driving influence whenever we read or hear the English Standard Version, whose translators note that “the words and phrases . . . grow out of the Tyndale–King James legacy.” But his influence goes far deeper, down into the instincts and thought worlds of all English speakers. We speak English like fish swim in water, rarely noticing the qualities of the language in which we live and move and have our being (there’s a Tyndale phrase, Acts 17:28). As David Norton writes, “It is difficult to imagine how our language would have been without the Tyndale tradition embodied in the KJV — in large part because we are so accustomed to the language we have and therefore find it difficult to observe” (King James Version, 21).

We do know, however, that English is no longer the rude and rusty tongue John Skelton thought it was. With Tyndale’s Bible came reform — theologically and spiritually, but also linguistically. They could burn the book, and they could even burn the man, but they could not burn away the words so many heard. Under God, Tyndale gave the English-speaking world the gospel of justification by faith alone, and in doing so, he gave us a new tongue to sing of it.

If you are the only pastor-elder in your church, and don’t want to be the only pastor-elder in your church, I know your pain all too well.

I was a solo pastor of a church plant for six years, and then a solo pastor of a declining church for almost five (really long) years before we installed our second pastor (who was not on staff). When I started identifying and training men for ministry, it wasn’t only because I believe Scripture tells us to do so (it does!) — it was for survival. God doesn’t mean for men to lead a church alone. By God’s grace, a team of five pastors (two vocationally) now leads our church.

The New Testament presents a consistent pattern for a plurality of pastors in local churches. These leaders will give an account for their oversight of the members’ souls to “the great shepherd of the sheep” (Hebrews 13:17–20). Many churches, however, have a shortage of pastors bearing the burden, which often causes the solo pastor to overextend himself in ministry. I’ve said to myself and my wife too many times, “This is just for a season.” That kind of season, of course, can easily turn into years.

“God doesn’t mean for men to lead a church alone.”

For our churches to become more healthy and fruitful, God calls us to identify and invest in faithful men who will, in turn, become teachers themselves (2 Timothy 2:2). So, pastor, who are the faithful men in your church? And if you can’t identify any now, what would have to happen for one or two able men to become faithful?

Lessons in Raising Pastors

I first saw this vision of a thriving church — identifying, training, and commissioning men to lead — up close as a member and short-term pastoral intern of a healthy church. The church had previously been declining for decades. I arrived fourteen years after the church began its reform, and the congregation was overflowing with fruit, including multiplying leaders who are now pastoring other congregations.

Our own church has been reforming for nearly seven years now and has yet to send out a man to pastor, plant, or revitalize elsewhere, as we are praying for. Nevertheless, God has given us a handful of men who pastor our church, and even more men who can faithfully preach Christ from the Scriptures in our pulpit. So, after more than a decade of identifying and developing leaders for the church (and with lots of room to learn and grow), here are some valuable lessons we’ve learned so far.

1. God has already answered prayers.

The Lord Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:37–38). Christ instructs us to pray for God to raise up and send out laborers into the harvest. So, pray and look to God to answer that request even as he equips you to play your part.

To encourage you in this kind of prayer, remember that you are where you are, in part, because others before you prayed for God to send a laborer like you. Years ago, our church had two members regularly stop by our church building to pray after work for the future of the congregation. Our pastors today are part of God’s answer to prayers prayed years before we came. When we consider our own ministry from that perspective, how much more confident can we be as we join them in praying for more laborers?

2. God intends the (slow) process for our joy.

We may erroneously think the primary joys in ministry are found in the church thriving and bearing obvious fruit. They’re not. Christ our God is our greatest joy — and not only in “good” times, but also in the difficult and lonely ones (Psalm 73:25–28). This Christ-centered, God-exalting joy will sustain patient ministry.

Furthermore, this joy is precisely what we want to reproduce in those who would disciple others. Enjoying Christ as both central and supreme stabilizes us so that we can pour ourselves out for the church, those we disciple, and our neighbors, without depending on any of them for our contentment and peace (Philippians 4:4, 11–13).

3. People are our commendation.

In a day when we often look for validation from a social media following, website visits, podcast downloads, books written, academic degrees, or obvious fruit in our churches, Paul refreshes our vision for validation when he writes, “Do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all” (2 Corinthians 3:1–2).

We pour ourselves into the lives of ordinary, slow-growing saints because they are the certificate and diploma proving our credentials as servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every member matters. And together, they are our joy and crown (Philippians 4:1; 1 Thessalonians 2:19–20). Such is the God-centered, others-oriented validation behind the apostle John’s striking sentiment: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 4).

I, for one, can testify to a unique delight in watching men I have discipled serving, loving, leading, and investing in others in ways that spread a passion for Christ’s supremacy.

4. Multiplying yourself requires sharing yourself.

Many schools operate today by setting up repetitive systems that don’t require as much teacher effort per student. In some ways that approach to education is fine, but the quest for efficiency often undercuts effectiveness. The apostolic pattern for discipling many and raising some to be leaders is “to share . . . not only the gospel of God but also our own selves” (1 Thessalonians 2:8). Paul taught Christ not only publicly but from house to house, often through tears and trials, considering his life of no value in order that he might finish his course and ministry (Acts 20:18–24). If we’re going to help people grow and change, we have to share our whole lives with them, open our homes to them (Romans 12:13; 1 Timothy 3:2), and be willing to be regularly inconvenienced and vulnerable, confessing sin and modeling repentance (Psalm 51:12–13; Luke 22:31–32; James 5:16).

“Take some risks in letting men lead the gathering, lead a ministry initiative, or even preach publicly.”

Sharing yourself also means sharing your responsibilities in such a way that those you disciple feel the pressure to serve in situations where much is on the line. Leaders of ingrown ministries tend to wrongly keep the big-pressure responsibilities for themselves. Take some risks in letting men lead the gathering, lead a ministry initiative, or even preach publicly.

5. Patience comes from perspective.

I have often heard Mark Dever say, “Young men tend to overestimate what they can do in one or two years, and underestimate what they can do in ten.” The Bible talks about seasons of sowing and seasons of reaping. Ultimately, God gives the growth, so all glory belongs to him. “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6–7).

But there is a smaller lesson here too: planting and watering takes time. Seeing deep change and more effective ministry takes too long for the impatient and unbelieving. We can’t microwave faithfulness. Many still try, to their own disappointment and frustration. When we lack the perspective that growth and maturity take time, we give up too hastily on others and are drawn to the “missing secret” of effective ministry.

6. Wisdom comes through feedback.

God made us for fellowship and learning from others. In spending time with other pastors, I’ve noticed that some pastors don’t have mentors or other voices to both commend and critique their discipling and leadership practices.

“Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in abundance of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 11:14).
“Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed” (Proverbs 15:22).
“By wise guidance you can wage your war — and in abundance of counselors there is victory” (Proverbs 24:6).

Creating channels for regularly communicating critical feedback is crucial to effectiveness. We are too easily offended. But “faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Proverbs 27:6). Wise pastors invite critical feedback and evaluation from other pastors so that they can improve their perspective and adjust accordingly.

7. Something is better than nothing.

One may have large dreams to do great things for Christ. Well and good. But not being able to do everything you want doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do something. Jesus himself said, “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much” (Luke 16:10). Don’t spend too much time dwelling on what might happen down the road; ask what small step you can take this year, this month, even this week, and then take it.

Practical Possibilities

At our church, the pastors strive to raise up men for ministry intentionally and consistently. We work toward this goal generally in the life of the church, and intensely through our pastoral internship program.

Generally, we call all members, men and women, to faithfully exercise their personal responsibility for the spiritual growth of the church. Then, among the men in good standing, we consider candidates for leading our Sunday gathering (welcoming from the front and leading the congregation through elements of the service). In addition, different men are invited to give the fifteen-minute sermon-devotional in our weekly Sunday evening prayer-and-praise gathering. Some of the men we did not foresee excelling in these ministries have surprised us, and we’ve found God raising them up to be pastors (Acts 20:28; Ephesians 4:11).

We also offer a part-time, non-paid pastoral internship program for a small group of men aspiring to some form of pastoral ministry. The men read several books on historical and current ecclesiology, pastoral ministry, and general Christian living. They write papers on each reading, and we discuss their papers every week for two to three hours, along with other questions they have about life and ministry. They repeatedly sit in our six-week membership class for church guests to refine and solidify their vision for life as a member of a local church.

At the end of our Sundays — after Sunday school, our Sunday-morning gathering, and our Sunday-evening gathering — we get together for a one- or two-hour Sunday review, where the brothers give and receive godly encouragement and criticism on the teaching, leading, praying, preaching, Lord’s Supper, and any other aspect of ministry that day. All of this means Sundays can be physically taxing and emotionally draining — a big sacrifice for the wives and children. The high level of commitment certainly makes a healthy rhythm of weekly rest and recovery more challenging for everyone involved.

We have more than a handful of men aspiring to be pastors in our modest-sized church, and many of them are well on their way. By God’s grace, we have reached the point where I was finally able to take a three-month sabbatical, completely disconnected, while the church continued on without me.

Joys of Multiplying Myself

Almost seven years into pastoring our church, it has been a joy to see two men who were faithful members without an initial pastoral aspiration become faithful pastors. It was a taste of God’s goodness to see two former pastoral interns submit themselves to the long process and eventually become full-fledged pastors as well. To say the least, it has been edifying, humbling, and life-giving to have several men, pastors and non-pastors, initiate, teach, and lead, including challenging me and calling me to account when needed.

Raising up others as spiritually mature disciple-makers is a joy and privilege. At times when we are discouraged, it may seem impossible, but trust that the Lord of the harvest is working while you plant, water, and wait. He loves to raise up new laborers to meet needs in his church.

John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books, including Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Providence.

Audio Transcript

On the morning after the crazy November 2020 election here in the States, several cultural commentators observed that amid all the confusion over who won the presidency, there was no mistaking who won the night: marijuana. Four additional states passed ballot measures to legalize recreational use of pot for adults, and none of the votes were close. Those states included Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota, bringing the total to fifteen. And many remaining states have decriminalized it, showing where the cultural trajectory is headed. Thirty-seven states have legalized medical-use marijuana — something you support, Pastor John, if governed by appropriate physician oversight and prescriptions (as you explained way back in episode 77). But just a decade ago, I believe recreational cannabis was illegal in all fifty states. That is being overturned quickly. And each year this is growing as a bigger and bigger issue for Christians and pastors and parents and churches. Do you have anything new to say as recreational use gains widespread support in red and blue states across our country?

It’s not exactly new, but I do have something I want to say in regard to the fact that ten years ago, recreational cannabis was illegal in all fifty states, whereas this is increasingly not the case today.

Ethical Overlap

And what I want to draw attention to, by way of exhortation and encouragement, even though it may sound pessimistic to some, is that this fact, the legalization of pot, draws attention to something that we need to be aware of and we need to adjust our thinking about — namely, that the church for a long time has leaned too heavily on the overlap between the state and the church for the strength of our conviction concerning what is right and wrong.

“The church leaned, you could say, on the culture for its catechism, its teaching, its inspiration, its conviction.”

In other words, if the state has regarded something as wrong or illegal, then the church hasn’t had to work very hard to teach any deep roots for the conviction or any thorough biblical argumentation or any conviction-strengthening inspiration, because everybody just assumes that the behavior is out of bounds. The state expectations and the cultural mores overlap with Christian ways, and so we can just coast.

Now stop and think of the number of behaviors that were once illegal and are no more.

Divorce was once illegal.
Adultery and fornication were illegal.
Homosexual practices were illegal.
Indecency was illegal, in such a way that what’s considered acceptable in movies and on beaches today would have been forbidden.
Sabbath-breaking was illegal.
Abortion was illegal in every state.

And the list could go on and on.

Catechized by Culture

Now, the point is not that these things should or shouldn’t be illegal. The point is that because they were illegal, the church didn’t have to think very hard or work very hard or teach very deeply or inspire very effectively to inculcate convictions and attitudes and behaviors in our young people or in new converts. We simply could assume that our people wouldn’t do these things because they were taboo and illegal in the culture.

The church leaned, you could say, on the culture for its catechism, its teaching, its inspiration, its conviction. So the church assumed so much overlap between cultural convictions and Christian convictions that you didn’t often hear teaching or preaching that taught the church how to be alien or strange or weird or maligned. And I used the word maligned because that’s the word Peter uses in 1 Peter 4:3–4, when he says,

The time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised you do not join them . . . and they malign you.

In other words, for most of American history, there has been so much overlap between cultural mores and outward Christian behaviors that this text in 1 Peter 4 seemed designed for another world — like, “What does that text have to do with anything in America?” For centuries, many Americans would go to church, not in spite of being maligned, but because not to go would be maligned.

Deep Moral Roots

So the so-called Judeo-Christian ethic shaped laws and churches to such an extent that the culture, as much as the church, discipled our young people. I grew up in that world, anyway, when I was a kid. And little effort went into cultivating a mindset that Christians are not of this world but are sojourners and exiles and will be maligned if they walk in step with Jesus. Little effort went into helping Christians sink their moral roots deep into Christ and the gospel and his word and his way, such that we would be able to take a stand for some truth or some attitude or some behavior when no one else is standing with us.

That’s a biblical, spiritual, parental church responsibility that has been significantly neglected. And that neglect is now being exposed by the speed and flagrancy of the cultural normalization of sin. So, the destigmatization and legalization of attitudes and behaviors that are out of step with Christ can be, I think, a roundabout way of something good for the church. We should not have been leaning so heavily on the culture for support of what we held to be right and wrong.

America tried — Christians included — to use the legislature to banish the misuse of alcohol by making alcohol illegal. Prohibition lasted from 1920–1933. It failed. My guess is that a better case could be made today to outlaw alcohol than to outlaw cannabis. Forty percent of all violent crimes involve alcohol, and forty percent of all fatal motor-vehicle accidents involve alcohol. We may find that the legalization of pot puts it in that category, but maybe not. In fact, from what I read, it’s probably not going to work that way. It doesn’t have those same kinds of effects.

Raising Miracles

My point is this: the focus and the moral energy of the church, the great majority of our effort, should not be on pursuing political and legal and cultural support for behaviors and attitudes we want to see in our children and in our churches. That is a misplaced focus. I’m not saying there’s no role for Christians in politics or legislatures where they can make their case for what they consider to be healthy for society. But I am saying that effort should never, never even come close to being the primary focus of pastors and parents.

“Our primary focus should be to do what only the Bible and only the gospel and only the Holy Spirit can do.”

The primary focus should be to do what only the Bible and only the gospel and only the Holy Spirit and the truth and Jesus can do in transforming human beings into the kind of Christ-exalting, Spirit-dependent, God-glorifying people who freely choose not to use drugs — whether caffeine or alcohol or cannabis or cocaine or meth or heroin — to escape into a world where Christ is less clearly perceived, and the Scriptures are less understood and precious, and the Spirit is less personal, and the glory of God is less satisfying, and the way of righteousness is less defined, and the path of obedience is less compelling. We want Christians who freely reject anything that would put them in that kind of mindset.

To be a Christian, a true Christian, is a very radical thing. It’s a miraculous thing. It’s a supernatural thing. It requires not a little bit of effort while we try to get the world on our side — which, by definition, is never going to happen. It requires the whole focus of the pastoral ministry — evangelizing and preaching and worshiping and counseling and teaching and setting radical examples for the people. It requires focus — Spirit-dependent, Bible-saturated efforts of parents to call down the miracle, through their parenting and through the church, of the creation of young people who are joyfully willing to be out of step with the world.

That’s the message, I think, God is sending us in the destigmatization and normalization and legalization of behaviors and attitudes and drugs that we think are out of step with the gospel. It’s a call to be the church and to be the home.

As any discerning Christian knows, sin doesn’t stay outside — it gets into the house. Sexual immortality creeps into the bedroom and must be fled (1 Corinthians 6:18). Sluggishness slumps on the couch and must be starved to death by mission and meaning (Colossians 3:23–24). Slander and grumbling air through our vents and must be forced out by prayer and praise (Philippians 4:4–6). And one of the most subtle sins walks in through the door and sits at your table: gluttony.

Some of us may associate the word gluttony only with morbid obesity. But as a pastor of a young, relatively fit church, I would not only say that I have known the sin of gluttony, but I would estimate that nearly half of our members would say they struggle with habitual overeating, excessive dieting, food obsession, or another food-related issue. Forms of gluttony can tempt both men and women, whether obese or thin, sedentary or active.

Indulge, Restrict, Repeat

To be clear, when I talk about gluttony, I’m not talking about having a second (or third) helping at a party, or during a holiday celebration, or while hosting close friends for dinner. Jesus’s ministry began with a feast (John 2:1–12), and history will be consummated with a feast (Revelation 19:7–10). Throughout redemptive history, God has invited (and commanded) his people to regularly and rejoicingly feast.

When I use the word gluttony, I’m talking about overeating, not because it’s a feast, but because it’s Friday — or because of any other reason among the many we use to justify our extra helpings.

Many of us begin the day with fresh resolve to “eat better,” only to find ourselves reaching for something we shouldn’t — a kind of forbidden fruit — within mere hours. We have another bite, another piece, another portion, and immediately following the deliciousness comes the bitter aftertaste of shame and regret. From here, we may starve these feelings with redoubled efforts to restrict again (“My diet starts tomorrow”), or we may comfort them with more food. By the end of the night, we go to bed bloated, but deflated; stuffed, but far from satisfied.

“What if the problem isn’t that we enjoy food too much, but far, far too little?”

Those familiar with this pattern may be tempted to think they enjoy food — or at least certain foods — too much. But what if the problem isn’t that we enjoy food too much, but far, far too little?

Decade of Dieting

I know the cycle well. Since high school football, I’ve counted calories, cut carbs, and codified more personal food laws than the Torah has commandments. I have declared foods that are free of fat, sugar, gluten, dairy, and cholesterol as “clean,” and foods that contain high amounts of salt, sugar, fat, carbs, or preservatives as “unclean” — or at least as “bad.”

Countless mornings, I set out with fresh resolve to restrict what would enter my body, and if I transgressed any of my food laws, I felt guilt, shame, and regret. This was classic legalism, and it led to where all legalism leads: “down a path of grinding effort, at the end of which there is no God — only insecurities, mental anguish, and more labor,” as Knute Larson puts it, commenting on 1 Timothy 4:3 (HNTC, 1 Thessalonians–Philemon, 204).

As I have worked through my own sinful relationship with food, and as I have now walked with many down the same path, I’ve learned that deep down, beneath the calorie-tracking apps and diet attempts, beneath the fear of being fat, even beneath the desperate desire to gain control of life by controlling our diet, at the bedrock of our food issues is a vision of God — a severely malnourished one.

To Those Who Restrict

Judging by the size of the diet industry (now valued at around $200 billion a year), many of us are well acquainted with dieting. Go to any gathering with food, and surely someone will not partake because he or she is currently cutting the item being offered. To be sure, much dieting can be good and healthy. But as Tilly Dillehay argues in her superb book Broken Bread, our tendency to excessively diet often comes from a form of asceticism, which she defines as the “belief that God is stingy as we are.” Such a view of God leads us to distrust anything that is “too enjoyable, too luxurious, too free, too unstructured” (13).

For those of us who feel a constant need to diet, we can have a hard time believing that “food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do” (1 Corinthians 8:8). We struggle to receive the good news that Jesus declared all foods morally clean (Mark 7:19), and that “everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:4–5). Instead, like Peter, we can find our identity in our refusal to eat foods we have deemed unclean (Acts 10:14).

We are, in J.I. Packer’s words, “too proud to enjoy the enjoyable” (“How I Learned to Live Joyfully”). And oddly, our inability to enjoy the enjoyable often leads us to the sin of gluttony.

To Those Who Indulge

Dillehay describes gluttony as a “kind of tastelessness” that doesn’t really enjoy the first bite, and so keeps eating more and more in an effort to grasp the missing pleasure (40, 44). In other words, the reason we must have another bite is because we didn’t fully enjoy the one before it. She continues:

Perhaps it’s not that pie got ahold of you, but that you never properly got ahold of pie. It’s that, perhaps, you never learned to think of life as waves coming toward you directly from God, waves that you must embrace as they come and then put behind you, readying yourself for the next wave. Waves cannot be repeated at will. Neither can the first bite of pie. (42)

“The best way to overcome overeating is to eat — slowly, mindfully, worshipfully.”

And there’s the breakthrough: gluttony reflects not an excessive enjoyment of food, but a deficient enjoyment of food as God’s gift — and of God as the giver. When you binge, the problem isn’t that you’re enjoying what you’re eating too much; the problem is that you’re not enjoying God in and through what you’re eating, and therefore you must have another bite.

For ten years, I thought the way to overcome overeating was to redouble my efforts to restrict. Surprisingly, I’ve learned that the best way to overcome overeating is to eat — slowly, mindfully, worshipfully.

Eating in God’s Presence

Practically, this means put the food on a plate. Sit down. Put your phone away and turn the TV off. And pray. Before you eat, let your eyes look to God, for the food has come from him (Psalm 145:15).

Then, as you relish the contours of texture and manifold layers of flavor, praise him from whom all blessings flow. As you sit and savor, remember what Edwards taught us: the greatest earthly gifts, food included, “are but shadows; but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean” (Works, 2:244).

Freedom from both over-restriction and over-indulgence comes from focusing not on what we eat, but on how we eat — enjoying God in every bite. Again, Dillehay helps us here:

The true answer to gluttony has much more in common with feasting than with dieting. . . . It is becoming more and more a child who receives, and less and less a parent who withholds (from ourselves and those around us). It is sitting quietly and with full presence of mind, glorying in tastes that were created by a good God, instead of fearing and distrusting tastes that were made too good by a good God. The answer to gluttony is knowing when enough is enough, learning the feel of a wave passing, and growing in the wisdom that looks to the next wave from God with satisfaction, contentment, and readiness. (50–51)

Come and Eat

Many of us make food laws, break those food laws, feel immediate guilt, shame, and regret, and then either starve those emotions with redoubled restriction and dieting, or comfort those emotions with food. If we continue down this path, the end result will be hunger — physical and spiritual.

Freedom will come not only in learning how to fast, but in learning how to truly feast (Isaiah 55:1–3). As Michelle Stacey writes, “The true cure for our dietary sins may lie in an almost opposite direction to that prescribed by the nutrition cognoscenti: not in claiming more control, but less; not in taking power away from food, but giving it back; not in fear of death, but in love of life” (Consumed, 206).

If dieting has become a way of life, and overeating has become routine, God is inviting you to slow down and feast — for “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof” (1 Corinthians 10:26). Slowly, mindfully, worshipfully eat, enjoying the goodness of God in every bite. Jesus, the bread of life (John 6:35) and living water (John 4:10), won’t only fill your stomach; he will satisfy your soul.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14839398/why-new-clothes-in-christ