ABSTRACT: Prayer is one of the most crucial parts of the Christian life, yet often one of the most neglected. Even when we do pray, we may struggle to pray prayerfully, with fervency and faith. The Puritans provide a model for a praying life that regularly takes hold of the self in motivation, cultivation, constancy, and discipline, and that takes hold of God in dependence and faith. This earnest, engaged prayer is the kind the church needs in the present (and every) age.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Joel Beeke (PhD, Westminster Theological Seminary), chancellor and professor of homiletics and systematic theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, to offer lessons from the Puritans on prayer.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

—James 5:16–18

In the epistle of James, we read that the prophet Elijah “prayed fervently.”1 Literally, the text indicates that Elijah “prayed in his prayer.”2 In other words, Elijah’s prayers were more than a formal exercise; rather, he poured himself into his prayers.

Christian prayer is holy communication from the believing soul to God. Thomas Manton (1620–1677) defined prayer as “the converse of a loving soul with God.”3 Similarly, Anthony Burgess (1600–1663) said that prayer is “the lifting up of the mind, and of the whole soul to God.”4 John Bunyan (1628–1688) offers another rich definition: “Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to his Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God.”5

Prayer should be the Christian’s great delight. As Matthew Henry (1662–1714) observed, prayer is the believer’s companion, counselor, comforter, supply, support, shelter, strength, and salvation.6 The true believer enjoys praying despite the attacks he faces from the world, the flesh, and the devil. As Henry wrote, “This life of communion with God, and constant attendance upon him, is a heaven upon earth.”7 Thomas Brooks (1608–1680) exclaimed, “Ah! How often, Christians, hath God kissed you at the beginning of prayer, and spoke peace to you in the midst of prayer, and filled you with joy and assurance, upon the close of prayer!”8

After studying the prayer lives of the Puritans, I am convinced that the greatest shortcoming in today’s church is the lack of such prayerful prayer. We fail to use heaven’s greatest weapon as we should. In our churches, homes, and personal lives, our prayer is often more prayerless than prayerful.

The giants of church history (such as the Puritans) often dwarf us in true prayer. Prayer was their priority. The Puritans were prayerful men who knew how to take hold of God in prayer and were possessed by the Spirit of grace and supplication (Isaiah 64:7). They taught that the solution to prayerless praying is prayerful praying, which happens in two ways: by taking hold of ourselves and by taking hold of God.

Taking Hold of Yourself

As with every other attainment in the Christian life, prayerful praying is not achieved automatically. The apostle Paul urged Timothy, “Train yourself for godliness. . . . Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called” (1 Timothy 4:7; 6:12). I thus plead with you to seek a more fervent and faithful prayer life, with effort, urgency, and dependence on Christ and the Holy Spirit, practicing the discipline of self-control, which is not a natural ability but a fruit of the Spirit purchased by Jesus Christ at the cross (Galatians 5:22–24).

We look to Christ as the vine who alone can produce good fruit in us, and then get a grip on ourselves and engage diligently in disciplined prayer. Let me suggest four principles for taking hold of yourself in prayer: motivation, cultivation, constancy, and discipline.

Remember the Motivation

Many infirmities choke our motivation to pray. Archbishop James Ussher (1581–1656) lists some of them: “Roving imaginations, inordinate affections, dullness of spirit, weakness of faith, coldness in feeling, faintness in asking, weariness in waiting, too much passion in our own matters, and too little compassion in other men’s miseries.”9 We can take hold of ourselves, then, by remembering motivations for prayer regarding its value.

First, remember the purpose of prayer — the glory of God in the happiness of man. As Matthew Henry writes, in prayer “we must have in our eye God’s glory, and our own true happiness.”10 James Ussher explains the motivations for true prayer: “to use all other good means carefully; to seek God’s glory principally; to desire the best things most earnestly; to ask nothing but what God’s Word warranteth us; to wait patiently till he hear and help us.”11

Second, remember the privilege of prayer. William Bridge (ca. 1600–1671) observed, “A praying man can never be very miserable, whatever his condition be, for he has the ear of God. . . . It is a mercy to pray, even though I never receive the mercy prayed for.”12 Anthony Burgess also dwelt on the great privilege of prayer: “By praying holily we are made more holy; it’s like exercise to the body, which makes it more strong and active; it’s the rich ship that brings in glorious returns from God: heavenly prayer leaveth an heavenly frame, it keepeth a soul in longings after God.”13

Third, remember the power of prayer. “The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer [that] fetched the angel,” wrote Thomas Watson (ca. 1620–1686).14 John Bunyan exhorted, “Pray often, for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourge for Satan.”15 Remember that “when God intends great mercy for his people the first thing he does is to set them a praying,” observed Henry.16 As Ussher writes,

Because prayer is the voice of God’s Spirit in us, a jewel of grace bequeathed by Christ unto us, it is the hand of faith, the key of God’s treasury, the soul’s solicitor, the heart’s armorbearer, and the mind’s interpreter. It procureth all blessings, preventeth curses, sanctifieth all creatures, that they may do us good, seasoneth all crosses, that they can do us no hurt. Lastly, it keeps the heart in humility, the life in sobriety, strengtheneth all graces, overcometh all temptations, subdueth corruptions, purgeth our affections, makes our duties acceptable to God, our lives profitable unto men, and both life and death comfortable unto our selves.17

Finally, remember the priority of prayer. John Bunyan stressed the priority of prayer by asserting that we can do more than pray after we have prayed, but we cannot do more than pray until we have prayed.18 Prioritizing means ranking the value of something higher than other things. Is it possible that your prayer life suffers because something else ranks too high with you? Does your social life crowd out prayer? Is the use of electronic media hindering your prayers? Media may do so by absorbing too much precious time while your prayer life languishes; it may also fill your mind with worldly thoughts so that your prayers become shallow, cold, self-centered, materialistic, or unmotivated, and thus infrequent. Prioritizing prayer requires putting other activities in a lower place to make room for communion with God.

In the strength of Christ, strive to avoid prayerless praying, whether in private devotions or public prayers. Even if your prayers seem lifeless, do not stop praying. Dullness may be beyond your immediate ability to overcome, but refusing to pray at all is the fruit of presumption, self-sufficiency, and slothfulness.

Cultivate Your Heart

The Puritans taught that we must prepare our hearts to seek the Lord. Above all, prayerful praying requires the cultivation of a sincere heart. To pray with your mouth what is not truly in your heart is hypocrisy — unless you are confessing the coldness of your heart and crying out for heart-warming grace. Thomas Brooks touched on the importance of Spirit-worked sincerity and transparency in prayer: “God looks not at the elegancy of your prayers, to see how neat they are; nor yet at the geometry of your prayers to see how long they are; . . . but at the sincerity of your prayers, how hearty they are. . . . Prayer is only lovely and weighty, as the heart is in it. . . . God hears no more than the heart speaks.”19

If we want God to accept our prayers, then our prayers must be driven by attitudes formed in us by the Spirit of Christ. The more he forms us, the more our prayers will take hold of God and please him. These attitudes include a heart of faith toward God (Mark 11:24), repentance from sin (Psalm 66:18), fervent and holy desire (James 5:16), humility before God (Luke 18:13), boldness in Christ (Hebrews 4:16), love and forgiveness for other people (Mark 11:25), and overflowing gratitude for God’s goodness (Philippians 4:6).

Second, prayerful praying involves the cultivation of a childlike heart where we pray to “our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9). Thomas Manton (1620–1677) said, “A word from a child moves the father more than an orator can move all his hearers.”20 God is pleased by simple trust, love, and reverence. To come as a child to the Father is to honor him in the highest degree and to engage his deepest compassion.

Finally, prayerful praying requires the cultivation of a word-saturated heart. One reason our prayer lives droop is because we have neglected the Holy Scriptures. Prayer is a two-way conversation; we must listen to God, not just speak to him. We do so by filling our minds with the Bible, for the Bible is God’s voice in written form. Our Lord Jesus declared in John 15:7, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” Every Scripture passage is fuel for burning prayers. As Thomas Manton wrote, “One good way to get comfort is to plead the promise of God in prayer. . . . Show him his handwriting; God is tender of his word.”21

Some years ago, an elderly friend brought me a spiritual letter from my father, who passed from the pulpit to glory in 1993. My father wrote the letter in the 1950s, shortly after his conversion. “I thought you might like to have this,” the friend said. “Like to?” I said, “I would love to have this.” I sat down and read it immediately with great pleasure; it was so personal because it was my father’s handwriting. How do you think your Father in heaven feels when you show him his own handwriting in prayer?

Matthew Henry once said in reference to Scripture reading, “Hear [God] speaking to you, and have an eye to that in every thing you say to him; as when you write an answer to a letter of business, you lay it before you.”22

Remain Constant

“Pray without ceasing,” wrote Paul to the Thessalonian church (1 Thessalonians 5:17). God desires his children to cultivate a spirit, habit, and lifestyle of prayerfulness; this command refers more to praying with your hat on and eyes open than to petitioning in private. Thomas Brooks described such constant prayer: “A man must always pray habitually, though not actually; he must have his heart in a praying disposition in all estates and conditions, in prosperity and adversity, in health and sickness, in strength and weakness, in wealth and wants, in life and death.”23

Whatever our calling or trade, prayer is our work throughout the day (Romans 12:12; Colossians 4:2). We fulfill this mandate in several ways. First, we maintain an attitude of prayer throughout the day. As Matthew Henry exhorted, we should seek to begin, spend, and close the day with God.24 Or as another man once said, when we finish talking to God, we don’t “hang up” on him but rather keep the line open. We live moment by moment in the presence of God and should be conscious of it.

Second, if we are to pray without ceasing, we can establish set times of prayer in our daily schedules. The Puritans taught us that we should begin and end each day with prayer, marinate family worship in prayer, and use mealtimes to give thanks and lift up our needs.

Third, we strive to be alert and ready to pray at a moment’s notice. Maintain a state of spiritual alertness (Ephesians 6:18; Colossians 4:2), like the soldier in the squad who carries the radio and is always ready to call in support. Whenever you feel the least impulse to pray or see a need to pray, do so. Even if you are in the midst of a difficult job that demands concentration, obey the impulse to pray (in a manner that is safe and wise). The impulse may be a groaning of the Spirit, and we must not regard the Spirit’s promptings as intrusions. Train yourself to pray inwardly while the outward man is busy with daily tasks.

Embrace Discipline

Prayerful prayer also involves discipline, requiring time, perseverance, and organization. First, disciplined prayer involves a significant investment of time. Theodosia Alleine, the wife of Joseph Alleine, wrote about her husband’s time commitment to prayer:

All the time of his health, he did rise constantly at or before four of the clock, and on the Sabbath sooner, if he did wake. He would be much troubled if he heard smiths, or shoemakers, or such tradesmen, at work at their trades, before he was in his duties with God; saying to me often, “Oh, how this noise shames me! Doth not my Master deserve more than theirs?” From four till eight he spent in prayer, holy contemplations, and singing of psalms, which he much delighted in, and did daily practice alone, as well as in his family.25

Disciplined prayer also requires perseverance. It is easy to pray when you are like a sailboat gliding forward in a favoring wind. But also pray when you are like an icebreaker smashing your way through an arctic sea one foot at a time. George Swinnock (1627–1673) said, “Wrestle with God . . . bending and straining every joint of the new man in the soul, that they may all help to prevail with God.”26

Finally, disciplined prayer requires organization. Paul modeled regular intercession for many different churches and Christians, including some that he had never met (Colossians 1:9; 2:1). It would have been impossible for Paul to do so without some system for intercession. In his epistles, he commands Christians to offer “supplication for all the saints” (Ephesians 6:18) and for all men (1 Timothy 2:1). Without a method of prayer, we will hardly pray for anyone on a regular basis.

“Every Scripture passage is fuel for burning prayers.”

Organize your petitions by some system or list. Any system is better than none. Remember that you can adapt it over time. It may not seem very spiritual to use a prayer list, but it is eminently practical. Be reasonable and do not overburden yourself, but discipline yourself to pray much for your own church and other churches, for missions, and for many specific people. Praying may be your most valuable ministry.27

Taking Hold of God

Deep within us, we know that it is impossible to overcome prayerlessness by our own strength. The sacredness, gift, and power of prayer are far above human means. God’s grace is necessary for prayerful praying. Yet grace does not make us passively wait for God to grant it. Grace moves us to seek the Lord. As David sings in Psalm 25:1, “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul” (see also Psalms 86:4; 143:8). Direct your mind and affections toward our covenant God in Christ, and draw near to his throne of grace (Colossians 3:1–2).

Just as Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord and would not let him go until he blessed him (Genesis 32:26), so we must take hold of God until he blesses us. The prophet Isaiah lamented the prayerlessness of his own generation, saying, “There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you” (Isaiah 64:7). Will you stir yourself up to take hold of God today? Doing so will require dependence and faith.

Depend on God

Taking hold of God requires dependence on the Holy Spirit. We depend completely on the Holy Spirit, for we can do nothing without Christ working through his Spirit (John 15:5). As Anthony Burgess observed, “The heart is but as so much dull earth, till the Spirit of God inflame thee; thy prayer is a body without a soul, if there be words but not God’s Spirit in the heart.”28 David Clarkson (1622–1686) also explained the work of the Holy Spirit in the Christian’s prayer life: the Spirit “helps the weakness and infirmity of spiritual habits and principles, and draws them out into vigorous exercise. He helps the soul to approach with confidence, and yet with reverence; with filial fear, and yet with an emboldened faith; with zeal and importunity, and yet with humble submission; with lively hope, and yet with self-denial.”29

Second, taking hold of God requires dependence on the mediation of Christ. How can sinners take hold of God except in Jesus Christ? In the book of Hebrews, we read that it is only by Christ’s blood and intercession as our High Priest that we can boldly “enter the holy places” — that is, the place where God dwells on high (Hebrews 10:19–22). Thus, all our prayers must be offered by faith in Christ. Through him we have access to the Father, for Christ alone is the mediator between God and men (Ephesians 2:18; 1 Timothy 2:5). Furthermore, the adoption we have received in union with Christ is the foundation of our prayers.30

George Downame (1563–1634) wrote that we must ask “how it cometh to pass that man being stained and polluted with sin, and by reason thereof an enemy of God, should have any access to God, or be admitted to any speech with him, who is most just and terrible, a consuming fire, and hating all iniquity with perfect hatred.” He then answers his own question, saying, “Therefore of necessity a mediator was to come between God and man, who reconciling us unto God, and covering our imperfections, might make both our persons and our prayers acceptable under God.”31

Pray with Faith

Some fruits of living faith are reverence, fervency, confidence, Trinitarian piety, and the action of laying hold on divine promises.

First, the fruit of living faith is reverence. Only the Holy Spirit can work in us true reverence in prayer. As Thomas Boston (1676–1732) wrote, the Holy Spirit works in us “a holy reverence of God, to whom we pray, which is necessary in acceptable prayer. By this view he strikes us with a holy dread and awe of the majesty of God.”32

Second, the fruit of living faith is fervency. William Gurnall (1616–1679) exhorted, “Furnish thyself with arguments from the promises to enforce thy prayers and make them prevalent with God. The promises are the ground of faith, and faith when strengthened will make thee fervent, and such fervency ever speeds and returns with victory out of the field of prayer. . . . The mightier any is in the word, the more mighty he will be in prayer.”33

Third, the fruit of living faith is confidence. Joseph Hall (1574–1656) wrote, “Good prayers never come weeping home. I am sure I shall receive either what I ask or what I should ask.”34 The Holy Spirit is the ground of this confidence: “This is it that makes prayer an ease to a troubled heart, the Spirit exciting in us holy confidence in God as a Father.”35

Fourth, the fruit of living faith is Trinitarian piety. John Owen (1616–1683) advised Christians to commune with each person in the triune God in our prayers.36 He did so based on Paul’s benediction recorded in 2 Corinthians 13:14: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” In your prayer life, pursue a deeper and more experiential knowledge of the riches of grace in Christ’s person and work, the glory of the electing and adopting love of the Father, and the comfort of fellowship with God by the indwelling Holy Spirit.

In this way, you will pray not just for God’s benefits but for God himself, which will serve as a blessing both for you and for your church. Your sense of God-intimacy and God-dependency, experientially known in private, will spill over into your public life, so that you will also, by the Spirit’s grace, encourage other people to depend on God and seek intimate communion with him.

Fifth, the fruit of living faith is laying hold of divine promises. John Trapp (1601–1669) wrote, “Promises must be prayed over. God loves to be burdened with, and to be importuned in, his own words; to be sued upon his own bond. Prayer is a putting God’s promises into suit. And it is no arrogancy nor presumption, to burden God, as it were, with his promise. . . . Such prayers will be nigh the Lord day and night (1 Kings 8:59), he can as little deny them, as deny himself.”37 Similarly, Gurnall observed, “Prayer is nothing but the promise reversed, or God’s word formed into an argument, and retorted by faith upon God again.”38

Joys That Yet Await You

Prayer can be difficult and demanding work. Sometimes we get on our knees, then rise, only to realize we haven’t truly prayed in our prayer. So, we fall back on our knees again, praying to pray. At other times, prayer is amazing, glorious, delightful work. I suppose that there is scarcely a believer on earth who cannot identify with these extremes. Prayerful prayer will sometimes lead you to profound sadness as you see your wretched sinfulness, but it will also lead you to profound joy when you “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” and are “filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19).

The Puritans provide a rather ideal standard for true prayer. We certainly have much to learn from them. Learning to truly pray in our prayers is not just a matter of deciding to work harder or to find a new method in prayer. It involves trials, warfare, and the enabling Spirit of God. It is a process of growth inseparable from our sanctification, and thus unending until we reach glory.

Ask God to make you a praying Elijah who knows what it means to battle unbelief and despair, even as you strive to grow in prayer and grateful communion with God. Isn’t it interesting that James presents Elijah in James 5:17 as a person “with a nature like ours”? He “prayed in his praying,” but he could also despair in his despairing (1 Kings 19:4). When you hit low spots in your spiritual life, remember the tenderness of God toward Elijah. Sometimes the answer to depression, as it was for the prophet, is not more effort, but a good meal and a night’s sleep so that you can resume the battle tomorrow.

Press on by faith in Jesus Christ, dear believer. If you have fallen, get back up. If you stand, beware lest you fall (1 Corinthians 10:12). No matter where you are in your spiritual journey, the greatest danger is to stop and become complacent. Press on toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14). Since the essence of prayer is communion with God, there are riches you have not yet discovered, depths you have not reached, and joys that yet await you.

At age 43, I can still remember times when I felt like my body was improving. I could tell I was getting stronger, or running faster, or my overall energy was increasing.

But now the most recent and prevailing feeling has been that I’m getting older. I notice the incremental declines. I can feel movement slowly but surely becoming more challenging. New aches and pains come and linger. In recent years I’ve felt both the glory and the humiliation of the human body in this age.

C.S. Lewis wrote in 1960,

Man has held three views of his body. First there is that of those . . . who called it the prison or the “tomb” of the soul, [those] to whom it was a “sack of dung,” food for worms, filthy, shameful, a source of nothing but temptation to bad men and humiliation to good ones. Then there are [others], to whom the body is glorious. But thirdly we have the view which St. Francis expressed by calling his body “Brother Ass.”

Lewis says, “All three may be . . . defensible; but give me St. Francis for my money.” He continues,

Ass is exquisitely right because no one in his senses can either revere or hate a donkey. It is a useful, sturdy, lazy, obstinate, patient, lovable and infuriating beast; deserving now a stick and now a carrot; both pathetically and absurdly beautiful. So the body. (The Four Loves, 93)

As Lewis saw these three views sixty years ago, so we see them today. We have those who feel their body to be a prison; they accent the humiliation of the body. The body holds them back; screens and virtual reality and plastic surgery create new possibilities.

On the other hand, those same screens show image after image of meticulously sculpted and enhanced bodies — those for whom the body is glorious, or must be glorious, no matter how much dieting and exercise and surgery it takes.

Third, we have perhaps the road least traveled. Saint Francis’s road. Lewis’s road. Our road. The road of the cross: humiliation now, but not humiliation forever. And that mixed with glory now, but not the glory that is to come.

I mention “Brother Ass” because our passage this morning (surprisingly) mentions our bodies — our present bodies created for glory, now in a state of humiliation, with a spectacular glory still to come — and because we live in times in which we are especially prone to consider the earthly things the real things, and the heavenly things to be pretense or speculation or wishful thinking. What’s implicit in the world’s way of thinking is that the earthly is right now, and more real, and better, while the heavenly is distant, and less real, and less desirable. But Philippians 3:20–21 says exactly the opposite.

Stand Firm Like This

Last week, we saw at the end of verse 19 Paul’s warning about “the enemies of the cross” who have “minds set on earthly things.” This morning we turn to verses 20–21, where Paul makes a contrast between these enemies of the cross and those who are friends of the cross and citizens of heaven. Verse 19 speaks of mere citizens of earth: “their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame” — and especially significant is the final phrase “with minds set on earthly things.”

What we’ll see this morning is the contrast in verses 20–21. Last week was the warning: “Don’t be like this.” Now we catch another glimpse of true Christianity, of the friends of the cross, as we’ve seen other glimpses in chapter 3.

But before we linger in verses 20–21, let’s not miss the main point in 4:1: “stand firm thus in the Lord.” This idea of “standing firm” goes all the way back to 1:27:

Only let your manner of life [literally, your “citizening”] be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents.

The idea of “standing firm” marks off the heart of the letter in 1:27 to 4:1. We have the citizen-language and talk of opponents (be they legalistic Judaizers, 3:2, or worldly “believers,” 3:18–19), and the call to stand firm — and do so together (“in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side”) and do so “in the Lord.” At this structural level, we might summarize the main point of Philippians as stand firm together in the Lord.

But critical to this letter is not just that they stand firm but how. See the “therefore” at the beginning of 4:1? It points us back to all of chapter 3, and even to chapter 2, back to 1:27. Also, see that word “thus” in 4:1? “Stand firm thus in the Lord.” That means, “Stand firm like I’ve been saying. Stand firm in this way, like I’ve been showing you. As I’ve been writing about Jesus in chapter 2, and Timothy and Epaphroditus, and like my own testimony in chapter 3 [which he expresses in such a way that he means for us to imitate him], stand firm in this way in the Lord.”

Stand firm like Paul stands firm: on the footing of Christ’s work for you. Stand firm against legalistic threats and worldly temptations, and press on to know Jesus now, and look forward to seeing and knowing Jesus face-to-face. And all that is especially captured and summed up in verses 20–21, which lead into 4:1 for a reason.

So, let’s linger in this vision. And what’s striking is that Paul casts this vision in terms of citizenship or civic belonging.

Our Commonwealth in Christ

The leading claim in verses 20–21 is that “our citizenship is in heaven.” Our commonwealth, our homeland, exists in heaven. Our place of true belonging is not just elsewhere on earth, but it is alive and well in heaven.

There is a match here between this citizenship theme in Philippians and what we learn about Philippi in Acts 16, when the gospel first came to town. Philippi wasn’t originally Roman but had become a Roman colony, and with Rome being the great superpower of the day, the citizens of Philippi naturally prided themselves on being Roman citizens.

How does Paul speak into that civic consciousness in Philippi? He says to those in the church: “our citizenship is in heaven.” No balancing word here about dual citizenship. Nothing like, “Ah, yes, you’re privileged to be Romans, of course (what an exceptional nation), and remember you’re Christians, too.” He says simply, without qualification or adjustment, “Christians, our citizenship is in heaven.”

Our commonwealth is heaven. Our homeland is heaven. Not “we have another homeland also.” But our homeland, our one homeland, in Christ, is heaven. Which is our deepest and most fundamental identity and place of belonging.

Ask yourself: Am I truly more deeply American or Christian? The spoken answer is easy. But what are the instincts of your heart? And if you can say in good conscience, “Oh, yes, Christian over American,” we might also ask, By how much?

Because we ourselves are not Roman, we don’t get nervous if a first-century Christian says, “I’m a Christian ten thousand times more than a Roman.” Amen! That’s right and good. But as Americans today, with all the socialization it involves — how we’ve been conditioned and songs we’ve sung and putting of our hands over our hearts and pledging our allegiance — do we hesitate to say, “I’m a Christian ten thousand times more than an American”?

Back to verse 20, where the key contrast is earthly versus heavenly. Our homeland being heaven contrasts with those who have “minds set on earthly things.” What does that mean to “set your mind on earthly things”?

“Press on to know Jesus now, and look forward to seeing and knowing Jesus face-to-face.”

There is a difference between dealing with earthly things and setting your mind on earthly things. Christians and non-Christians alike live in this world and deal with earthly things. But enemies of the cross “set their minds on earthly things.” They awake to earthly things, and reset to earthly things, and default to earthly things. They dream about earthly things and meditate on earthly things. They’re animated by earthly things. They have the mindset of the world, of natural man, rather than of the Spirit, and of heaven.

Three Marks of Heaven’s Citizens

But in contrast to those enemies of the cross, with minds set on earthly things, verses 20–21 give us three marks of heaven’s citizens.

1. Heaven’s citizens marvel at the power of our King.

Verse 21 ends with “the power that enables him [Jesus] even to subject all things to himself.” In our homeland of heaven, a King sits on the throne, a divine-human king. We have a king. If you are in Christ, you have a king — the King of kings. He already rules over all the universe by right. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him by the Father. And he exercises that power as he chooses, and works primarily through his poured-out Spirit, indwelling his own people. And one day, when he returns, he will rule over all in conspicuous, indisputable, manifest power.

In celebrating Jesus’s power, Paul uses this curious expression “subject all things to himself.” In the background are two famous psalms and a link between them.

Psalm 8 celebrates the majesty of God by marveling at his grace toward us lowly humans. And Psalm 8:6, remembering the creation, says about man, “You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.” The trouble is, as we saw last year in Hebrews 2, “we do not yet see everything in subjection to him,” that is, man. This world, its creatures, its weather, its disasters, and even our own lives do not operate under our control. Not yet.

“But,” says Hebrews 2:9, “we see him . . . namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death.” We ourselves have not yet fulfilled the commission of Psalm 8, but Jesus is crowned with glory on heaven’s throne. Already, in principle, he rules over all, and in function, all is being put under his feet.

Which brings in the second psalm: 110. Verse 1: “The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” Psalm 110 is King David talking, and he says that the Lord God says to David’s Lord, the promised Messiah, “Sit at my right hand,” on the throne in heaven, “until I make your enemies your footstool.”

This is a picture of what’s going on in the world right now: God almighty is putting Christ’s enemies under his feet. And it’s not as if the Father has all the power and the Son sits back passively. But Christ himself, even now, wields “the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

His sovereign power is unstoppable, uncurbable, unthwartable. He will, with utter certainty, accomplish his will in the ways he sees fit and in the perfect timing he sees fit. His power — his ability to accomplish what he wills — is infinite power, which he not only wields over Satan and demons, and over nations and their rulers and their elections, and over technology and algorithms, and over hurricane-force winds and tsunami-size waves, but he also amazingly uses this very power, his infinite power, to benefit us, and not only in soul but also in body.

So, heaven’s citizens marvel at the power of our King.

2. Heaven’s citizens anticipate the spectacular upgrade of our bodies.

This is the first part of verse 21: Jesus “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.”

The phrase “lowly body” is the “body of humiliation” we mentioned earlier. On the one hand, our bodies are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14); they were created with a glory, and they have glories still. And on the other hand, because of human sin, God subjected all creation to futility (Romans 8:20), which we see not only in natural disasters but in our own bodies.

And so, we “groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for . . . the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). God’s glorious design and building of our human bodies has now become a “body of humiliation” for us in various ways. From aging to disability to sickness to disease, to the aches and pains that dog us or devastate us, our bodies are now not what they were — and not what they will be.

Now, this is a young church. Some of you have the most able, strong, healthy bodies that you’ll have in this life. Soon you will age, and your body will never again, in this life, be what it was. More acute bodily humiliation is coming.

And many in this room already deal with devastating disability and disease and weakness and sickness in this fallen world. Oh, you know well “the body of humiliation,” and how sweetly does this promise fall on your ears? Jesus “will transform your body of humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory.” You will be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, it will all be gone — all the pain gone, all the frustration gone, all the humiliation gone.

The place where Paul lingers longest over this glorious, resurrection body that will be ours is 1 Corinthians 15, especially verses 42–49:

What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body [that is, a body fit for the fullness of human life in the Spirit]. . . . Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust [Adam], we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

Your resurrection body will be spectacular. No more aches and pains. No more colds and COVID. No more sprains, contusions, and broken bones. No more heart attacks and strokes and cancer. No more devastating physical and mental disabilities.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, you will shine like the sun, not as mere spirits floating like ghosts in heaven, but in your perfected, strong, imperishable, glorified, human body.

And the best part of it all isn’t what your body will be like, but who our imperishable bodies and souls will help us to know and enjoy and be near and praise: “the man of heaven.” Our focus in the new heavens and new earth won’t be our bodies. Our perfected bodies will get the distractions of our previous humiliations out of the way. They will enhance and support our making much of our King. But the focus in glory will be the one that we as Christians eagerly wait right now — the man of heaven.

So, we marvel at the power of our King, and we anticipate the spectacular upgrade of our bodies.

3. Heaven’s citizens wait eagerly to see Jesus face-to-face.

Back to verse 20: “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Heavenly citizenship matters because Jesus is there as heaven’s King. And glorified spiritual bodies matter because they enable us to enjoy Jesus with full focus and without distraction. As Christians, our hope doesn’t terminate on perfect human societies or perfect human bodies. Our prevailing hope, as Paul says in Philippians 3:10, is “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection.” Seeing him face-to-face. Hearing him. Praising him. Knowing him. Enjoying him.

When he returns, the partial knowing of verse 10 will become the full knowing of verse 11 as we ourselves “attain the resurrection from the dead.”

Do you await him? That is, do you eagerly wait for him? Romans 8:19 says, “The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” And Romans 8:23 says, “We wait eagerly for adoption as sons.” Galatians 5:5: “we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.” And Hebrews 9:28: “Christ . . . will appear a second time . . . to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”

Let me ask you this: What do you want more than Jesus coming back? Ask yourself; query your heart. Where are your instincts? How has your heart been conditioned by the conversations you have, the articles you read, the shows you watch, the podcasts you listen to, the allegiances you pledge, the anthems you sing? Have your habits of life produced a heart and mind that really are set on earthly things?

Do you say, from the heart, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus”? What is it that makes you hesitate? What relationship(s)? What comforts and luxuries? What joys seem to you like they will be better if Jesus delays rather than returns this week?

Are you eagerly awaiting his coming? And how does it, or how might it, shape our lives as we await his coming?

Leave Here Looking There

Let’s close with the “mindset of heaven’s citizens.” The main contrast in this passage is that there are those whose minds are set on earthly things and those who eagerly await Jesus’s return. Enemies of the cross set their minds on earthly things, while friends of the cross, citizens of heaven, set their minds — where? Not merely on “the things of heaven” but on “the man of heaven.”

I want to offer two ways to set our minds on the man of heaven. Just two among many: one daily, one weekly.

Daily, we wake up and turn our early morning spiritual hunger to God’s good news, not the world’s news. In the words of Colossians 3:1, we seek the things above, “where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” We open God’s word and set our minds on things above, not on things that are on earth. And not just early mornings. But the man of heaven, and his things, animate us, woo us, captivate us, spur us on in life.

Weekly, we gather here each Sunday to worship the man of heaven together. Which brings us back to Philippians 4:1, where we started. Isn’t it amazing how Paul talks with such over-the-top affection for his fellow believers in Christ?

My brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.

We are not lone citizens of heaven. Heaven is a society. Our love for Jesus, and longing for Jesus, and joy in Jesus, becomes a love of and longing for and joy in those who likewise eagerly await his return.

See Him Face-to-Face

We do not come alone to this Table week in and week out. And we do not come alone to know and enjoy Jesus. Together we come to him, love him, long for him, seek joy in him, and eagerly wait for him — spiritually now, by faith, in this bread and cup, and fully and finally and physically at his second coming.

Brothers and sisters, we will see him face-to-face. As surely as you hold and eat this bread, and as surely as you take and drink this cup, you will stand before him face-to-face. And so, at this Table, the friends of the cross eagerly await his return.

The seventeenth-century English poet William Habington said, “He who is good is happy.” Indeed. He who is good and abounds in all good things is happiest and most blessed. And because none is good like God is good, none is blessed like God is blessed.

God’s blessedness or felicity (that is, his enjoyment of the highest good) was not given much attention in the work of the Reformers. Even after the time of the Reformation, blessedness does not receive the type of attention that other attributes do. Interestingly, in the medieval period of church history, two of the most famous theologians, Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, gave copious attention to God’s blessedness. Others before the medieval period, like Augustine in the early church, were clearly not unaware of this special attribute of God when they connected the highest good with God’s own felicity and blessedness.

We live in a time when a reacquaintance with God’s blessedness could prove extremely useful for pastors and their flocks. This attribute may also function as an evangelistic tool to a generation of people, young and old, who are decidedly not experiencing true blessedness and joy.

Rediscovering Blessedness

Meditating upon God’s blessedness should, in a certain sense, cause us some holy envy of what God possesses. His attributes, as we conceive of them, involve a perfect union of all that is good. So, for example, his blessedness is an unchangeable blessedness, an eternal blessedness, an infinite blessedness, and so on. God’s delight is chiefly in himself as a fully self-sufficient being who needs nothing because he possesses everything. The apostle Paul speaks of “the gospel of the glory of the blessed God” and calls God “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Timothy 1:11; 6:15).

The idea of blessedness as the union of all good things is not particularly difficult to understand. If we could conceive of a good God who is unable to effect good because he lacks the power to do so, he would not be happy but miserable. Or consider a God both holy and merciful but lacking the wisdom to be both just and the justifier of sinners — he also would be miserable. God is a perfect being insofar as his attributes are not in competition with one another, but instead gloriously harmonize in a way that can only mean he is blessed above all.

Theologians refer to God as a fully actualized being such that he is not just blessed but infinitely blessed. He cannot be more or less blessed than he is. Where unchangeable and infinite holiness, justice, power, knowledge, wisdom, and goodness exist, there must be blessedness.

Blessed Knowledge

God enjoys blessedness because there is no ignorance in him. He knows himself fully. As Stephen Charnock says,

The blessedness of God consists not in the knowledge of anything without him but in the knowledge of himself and his own excellency, as the principle of all things. If, therefore, he did not perfectly know himself and his own happiness, he could not enjoy a happiness. For to be and not to know to be is as if a thing were not. “He is God blessed forever” (Romans 9:5) and therefore forever had a knowledge of himself. (The Existence and Attributes of God, 624)

God is blessed because he fully knows his blessedness. God’s life is “most happy,” as the Reformed theologian Benedict Pictet said. Anyone who understands true happiness will affirm that God is “most happy” since he is “in need of nothing, finds all comfort in himself, and possesses all things; is free from evil, and filled with all good” (Theologia Christiana Benedicti Picteti, 2.4.7).

“Unlike humans, God does not need anything outside of himself to make him happy and blessed.”

Unlike humans, God does not need anything outside of himself to make him happy and blessed. The blessedness in this universe, wherever it may be, is from God and can only be from God. Even the human nature of Christ receives its happiness from the divine essence. As Edward Leigh once said, “The human nature of Christ himself in heaven . . . lives in God, and God in it, in a full dependence on God, and receiving blessed and glorious communications from him” (A Treatise of Divinity, 2:200).

Trinitarian Blessedness

When we say that God is “most blessed” we are affirming that the Father, Son, and Spirit all equally possess this infinite happiness. There is no divine attribute that belongs to one person and not another.

John Owen, who never shied away from his robust Trinitarian theology, speaks of the blessedness of God as the “ineffable [that is, indescribable] mutual inbeing of the three holy persons in the same nature, with the immanent reciprocal actings of the Father and the Son in the eternal love and complacency of the Spirit” (Works of John Owen, 1:325). The reciprocal love between the persons makes them blessed. True love is the ground for true happiness. The one who loves most is most happy.

We worship and serve a most happy God, which should make us happy. We bow before the three persons knowing they are not distressed like the pagan gods but rather full of joy, which is good news for us. God is not just happy but free from all miseries. “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). God knows his perfect blessedness, which means he also knows he cannot not be blessed. It is impossible for any misery to ever be in God.

Christ’s Blessedness

Affirming God’s blessedness raises an important question for us regarding our Savior, Jesus Christ. We drink from God’s blessedness because Christ drank in our misery as the God-man. God sent his Son to make us happy. But what, then, can we say about Christ’s own felicity, joy, and blessedness?

Was not Christ “a man of sorrows” (Isaiah 53:3)? Or was he a man of joy at the same time? While possessing a human nature allows for the experience of real misery, we should also think of our Savior as a man of joy who was always aware of his blessedness. Christ was always joyful and therefore blessed while on earth, even though he was also acquainted with grief.

As one who received the Spirit without measure (John 3:34), he would necessarily have been joyful (Galatians 5:22). As one free from sin, he did not possess the miseries of a sinful nature; rather, he was holy, innocent, and unstained (Hebrews 7:26). He would have been supremely satisfied in his holiness, which he received from the Father through the Spirit. Our Lord also knew that he was doing God’s will (John 4:34; 17:4), which brings joy and blessedness. Even going to the cross, Christ had joy set before him (Hebrews 12:2). Knowing that all he was doing would lead to the salvation of his bride would be cause for great felicity. At one time, we read of Jesus rejoicing in the Spirit because the Father had revealed to “little children” the salvation accomplished through defeating the devil (Luke 10:18–21; Hebrews 2:14).

Our Lord was and especially now is a blessed man, the most blessed man.

His Blessedness Is Ours

What does the church gain by recovering blessedness today? There is no denying that we are living in a day when people are lacking joy. Depression is on the rise, and many are coping in unhealthy ways with their miseries.

We believe that God is the fountain of all blessedness and joy. We cannot experience true joy in this life until the triune God becomes our God. We are only as happy or miserable as the God we serve. Blessedness is not only something God is but something he offers, appropriate to our creaturely condition. God has decided to offer the best to us in and through his Son, Jesus Christ, which we can receive by our union with him and the Spirit’s dwelling in our hearts.

George Swinnock wisely states,

Those who serve the flesh as their god are miserable (Romans 16:18; Philippians 3:18) because their god is vile, weak, deceitful, and transitory (Psalm 49:20; 73:25; Isaiah 31:3; Jeremiah 17:9). Similarly, those who prize the world as their god are miserable because their god is vain, troublesome, uncertain, and fleeting (Ecclesiastes 1:2–3; 5:10; 1 Corinthians 7:29–31; 1 Timothy 6:9–10). But those who have an interest in this great God are happy: “Happy is that people, whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 144:15). (The Blessed and Boundless God, 167)

The Lord Jesus received his happiness from God through the Spirit. We receive our happiness from God, in Christ, through the Spirit. This blessedness is the only blessedness worth having because it comes from an inexhaustible fountain overflowing into our hearts, a joy that will be ours forever.

Many people think that riches or prestige will make them blessed, but those gifts easily turn into curses when God is not put first. And it is hard to put God first when we receive riches and prestige. Unless we receive the greatest gift that God can give — his Son — we cannot receive any blessing well. David understood this in Psalm 16. He speaks of how the lines fell for him in pleasant places (verse 6), but only in the context of enjoying the Lord as his “chosen portion” (verse 5). At God’s right hand are pleasures forevermore (verse 11), which is how one may be truly blessed in this life and the life to come.

And we should not forget who is at God’s right hand now: the exalted Christ. At God’s right hand is his greatest pleasure, his Son, and we are most like the Father when we love what he loves, which is true blessedness.

Audio Transcript

Happy Fourth of July to those of you in the United States. This holiday is a big one here, of course, and one that reminds me of many episodes on this podcast, Pastor John, where you have delved into the church-state separation controversy, political activism, Christian patriotism, US flags in the sanctuary, things like that — all sorts of topics we’ve covered in this realm. I attempted to digest all those episodes into one summary you can find (hopefully it’s handy for you) in the APJ book on pages 47–56.

Citizenship in a country like America is a wonderful grace, a common grace. On a day like this one, I am reminded of the apostle Paul and his Roman citizenship, which afforded him certain privileges and protections, and we see those come up all over Acts (Acts 16:35–40; 22:22–29; 23:26–27; 25:13–27; etc.). Paul’s passport is always showing up in Acts because his nationhood was useful. It was a common grace he returned to and claimed. We too have a ton of privileges, Pastor John, and protections in being American citizens. We cannot take them for granted. And so, on a day like today, it is good to celebrate them. So, Pastor John, what are your thoughts today as you ponder this common grace of citizenship, and how we got it?

I have little doubt that the lavish blessings of common grace that we enjoy in America are rooted in the pervasive cultural transformation that came from centuries of Christian influences in Europe and America. I don’t doubt that. And just by way of thanksgiving on this special day (and we should be thankful), the kind of common grace I have in mind are things like this — and the list is short and could be many times longer.

America’s Uncommon Gifts

I have in mind a stable government, whose processes so far have freed us from anarchy and mob rule, which are so destructive. You can just look at certain countries in the world today and imagine how horrible it could be.

I have in mind the freedoms we still enjoy to gather for worship and for all kinds of discussions that may or may not support the present persons and policies in power, without fear of the gestapo breaking in.

I have in mind the moral and legal forces that still hold sway that make people trust contracts when they sign them (and banking and currency) without fear of pervasive bribery or graft undermining the entire working of business and industry and personal finance — as is the case in so many countries that can’t do anything because everything breaks; it doesn’t work because of graft and corruption.

I have in mind reliable infrastructures that we simply take for granted. Electricity for virtually every home and apartment, with heat and air conditioning and refrigeration, and countless appliances that work at the flip of a switch. Indoor plumbing — imagine! Indoor plumbing! (And in Minnesota, that’s really good.) And invisible sewers that keep our streets from stench. (They were working outside my house some time ago, and they did this amazing relining of the sewer pipes without even digging them up — just incredible technology.) Hot and cold running water at the twist of a handle, and you can even drink it. You can drink it. Food supplies that almost magically show up every day on the shelves of thousands of stores because of countless processes of production and delivery. Roads and highways and trains and trams and buses and cars and air travel that, by the way, is astonishingly safe and reliable. An Internet that puts the world of information and commerce at our fingertips for almost everyone.

And Tony, I deleted a whole bunch, just to make this shorter. On and on we could go, and all this is true. Yes, though there are criminals at every level of society, from street drug dealers to white-collar fraud, the fact remains, for now, owing to the common grace of God in this land, in America, for the most part, things work amazingly.

I have an immigrant friend that I meet with almost every week to practice his English and to study Scripture, and we talk about his country of origin, where virtually nothing works. There’s no reliable infrastructure or economic system. The poor are kept poor because there’s no stable way for them to work themselves out of poverty in a system that is shot through with bribery and corruption and instability. A tiny layer of people at the top are rich enough to have multiple mansions all over the world, and they simply steal the country’s resources, with no effort to provide structures that enable people to make a living. And we both know, he and I, we know that will never change as long as the human heart of selfishness and greed dominates the culture.

Maintaining Perspective and Priority

So, what do I conclude from lavish blessings in America, rooted in a history of morality-shaping Christianity, and from hopeless brokenness in societies rooted in selfishness and greed and corruption? And lest anybody think I’m naive, of course I’m aware that there is ample selfishness and greed at every level of American society. But that’s not why America works. To the degree that those forces gain ground, to that degree will things simply break down, collapse, stop working. That may be where we’re going. I don’t know. So, what do I conclude from all this?

Not a Tool for Nation Building

Let me say again what I don’t conclude. I don’t conclude that we should think of the Christian gospel as the pathway to nation building or nation preservation. I don’t conclude that the church should define its priorities of ministry as nation building or culture transformation. Why not, since that is often the effect that they have? Two reasons.

“We’re not promised, in this age, the survival of any nation or culture.”

First, in the New Testament, the gospel was given to save sinners from the wrath of God, not from the collapse of the Jewish state or the Roman Empire. Jesus Christ came into the world to solve the biggest problem that exists in the world for everybody on the planet — namely, we will all perish eternally under the wrath of God if we are not saved by Jesus Christ, who reconciled us to God by his death in our place.

This is the most important news we have. No other religion has it. Jesus Christ — crucified, risen, and trusted — is the only hope for every person on the planet to be saved from eternal suffering. That’s the primary reason Jesus came into the world, and the message of the New Testament focuses on it. That’s the great problem of humanity. That’s the great glory of Jesus Christ. If we think of the Christian gospel in another way, and we promote the Christian gospel as a political tool for preserving a nation or transforming a culture, we will move away from the heart of the best news in the world, and the power of the cross will be lost.

The second reason that we don’t prioritize the gospel as nation building and culture transformation is that in that very process of prioritization of the wrong thing, we would undermine the very force of the gospel to transform cultures and build nations.

In the New Testament, the process of becoming godly, righteous, humble, courageous, loving people who are radically different from fallen human nature and from corrupt cultures — that process is profoundly personal and is a deeply spiritual warfare against Satan and against indwelling sin. Where the gospel takes a detour away from the prioritization of justification by faith and sanctification by the deeply personal process of spiritual warfare, the Christian church will reflect culture, not change it.

Faithful and Forward-Looking

So, what do I conclude? What can I say positively? With all our might, let us take the Christian gospel to all the unreached peoples of the world, and let us present the gospel in the most compelling way we can to the people around us, and let us seek to be so radically changed by the gospel that our lives are full of good deeds, which bring glory to our Father in heaven by showing that our treasure is not on this earth. These good deeds may or may not preserve a nation and build a culture.

We’re not promised, in this age, the survival of any nation or culture. C.S. Lewis said, “Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat” (The Weight of Glory, 46). What we are promised is meaningful lives of love in this world and eternal joy in the next — and that Jesus Christ, when he comes (and he is coming, personally, on the clouds), will create a new nation, a new culture, a new world that lasts forever. And so we pray, “Keep us faithful, and come, Lord Jesus.”

“Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?”

So asked a curious lady on the streets of Philadelphia in September 1787, giving voice to the question of her fellow citizens. The “Doctor” to whom she directed her query was none other than the aging Benjamin Franklin, who was emerging from the Constitutional Convention. Delegates from across the colonies had met all summer in their city. Beyond Pennsylvania, twelve other colonies waited to hear from the Franklins, Washingtons, Madisons, and Hamiltons, What is it?

“A Republic,” Franklin replied, and then, with his typical wit, added, “if you can keep it.”

For almost 240 years, the collective American psyche has often suspected — sometimes mildly, other times more acutely — that the republic was fragile, and someday soon, an ascendant Caesar would take it away, as happened with Rome’s republic. Frequently, left- and right-leaning parties have suspected the other side. Franklin’s memorable condition “if you can keep it” has been explained against an array of looming threats.

No Christian Founding

Such suspicions played out ferociously in the 1790s, the Constitution’s first full decade. Some suspected Washington; more suspected Hamilton, his de facto prime minister. By 1800, the Federalists suspected Jefferson. Long had Jefferson and Hamilton suspected each other, and now both suspected Aaron Burr. Hamilton and Burr would soon suspect each other — even after both had fallen from power — and take it to the dueling grounds.

Those early administrations in the new republic were not idyllic, peaceful, and pristine, like we might presume from elementary history lessons. Nor were the 1790s as culturally Christian as many today might assume. An early form of what we might now call “secularism” was on the rise, and it was widespread, particularly in the halls of influence. (Conservative evangelicals at the time would have called it “infidelity,” their watchword for Deism and progressive, Enlightenment Christianity.)

The Declaration of July 4, 1776, had mentioned “Nature’s God” and “Creator,” but that is a far cry from any distinctively Christian notion. A decade later, in 1787, the drafters of the Constitution found no need to mention the divine at all. Jefferson, of course, made his own Bible of what he was willing to accept (and not) in the Gospels, and Washington, despite his public mentions of Providence, was conspicuously reticent to say the name of Jesus. Formally, the founding of the United States was not distinctively Christian. In fact, at the time, perhaps as few as 10 percent of Americans were church members.

That is strikingly low compared to almost 40 percent in 1860, on the cusp of the Civil War, and more than 60 percent in the post-WWII era of the 1950s and 1960s. So, what happened that made America feel so culturally Christian from the Civil War until Civil Rights?

God’s Surprising Work

Given the acute sense of decline that U.S. Christians today have lived through — from the heights of church membership and attendance in the 50s and 60s, to the subsequent dip in the 70s and 80s, the small uptick in the early 90s, and now the rapid decline of the last two decades — we should not be surprised that many alive today assume a simple declension narrative. That is, they observe the decline of the last twenty years, or the decline of the last seventy years, and project that trajectory back onto the full 250 years of the nation, presuming the founding to be the height from which we’ve fallen. But such is fiction.

For many, the present sense of alarm stems from a recency bias, comparing their own sense of the state of our union to what’s been mediated to them in their own lifetime — whether in school, in conversation, through television, or now through social media. But the 1950s proves to be a very different standard of comparison than the 1790s.

As for Christianity and the church, American history has been far less a smooth downward trajectory and far more a story punctuated by the surprising work of God. Some historians talk of third and fourth “great awakenings” in the late nineteenth century and in the 1960s and 70s. But most fundamentally, the Second Great Awakening significantly altered the landscape of American life in the early 1800s and produced a nation that felt different, more Christian, than the founding.

How was it that this Second Great Awakening made America feel more Christian? The answer isn’t government power. Neither the Apostles’ Creed nor even God was added to the Constitution. Governments at the national, state, and local levels did not newly mandate Christian professions or church membership, or censor free speech by those deemed heretical.

What changed the social landscape was widespread revival and Christian mission. It was the growing and bearing fruit of the Christian gospel — the power of God, not government, through the movement of his Spirit, making much of his crucified and risen Son. From around 1810 to 1840, the tenor of American life changed, in a way Franklin and Jefferson never would have foreseen, through a Second Great Awakening that lasted far longer and had a far greater impact than the First of the 1730s and 40s.

Religion Indispensable?

Whatever lay behind Franklin’s sly “if you can keep it,” Washington, through the pen of Hamilton, expressed his concerns for the republic in his 1797 farewell address. Framed as “the disinterested warnings of a parting friend,” he warned first of the destructive forces of partisanship, and he praised “religion and morality” as “indispensable” to the prosperity of the republic. And note again that the “religion and morality” in view is not expressly Christian.

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,” he wrote, “religion and morality are indispensable supports.” Moreover, “let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.”

Now, on the one hand, from a Christian point of view, these are surprisingly measured commendations of “religion and morality.” Our Scriptures, from beginning to end, aren’t the least bit affirming of paganism so long as it’s religious and moral. So too, Washington’s frame honors and appreciates religion not as true and valuable in itself, but in terms of its usefulness for the life and prosperity of the republic.

But on the other hand, in our increasingly secular climate, with immorality or amorality seemingly on the rise, Washington’s affirmation of “religion and morality” is met with enthusiasm by many Christians. Oh, for a return to virtue and order, for more men and women of principle, for a moral citizenry — the kind that Washington and Franklin believed would be necessary to keep a republic.

‘We Need to Work’

In a recent interview with Kevin DeYoung, Allen Guelzo (who, according to George F. Will, is “today’s most profound interpreter of this nation’s history and significance”) calls American Christians to remember the heart, and hands, of that Second Great Awakening that so transformed the nation’s life. When DeYoung asks, What can we do if it seems like interest in virtue, and the Christian foundations for that societal virtue, have almost disappeared? Guelzo answers, “We need to work.” He explains,

When I hear people say today, “Oh, if we could only get back to a Christian America,” my response is, Then we need to work as hard as the people who created the Second Great Awakening. We need to dedicate ourselves that way, rather than sitting on our hands complaining about it, whining about the situation we find ourselves in, and then imagining, as I’m afraid some of our friends do, that all we need to do is to put some kind of authoritarian regime in place that will enforce the Ten Commandments.

No, that’s the lazy way. If you really want to transform the culture, then you have to take on the culture itself, and you have to meet it on its own terms, and you’re going to have to arm wrestle with it. And my recommendation is that we take a serious leaf out of the book of the Second Great Awakening. If what we want are the recovery of those mores, then my recommendation is that this is a signal that some very hard work has to get done, and we are not going to accomplish it simply by waving our hands and introducing some kind of authoritarian solution.

To the degree that we would like American life to feel more Christian, or at least less anti-Christian, the lesson to take away — both from the New Testament and from our own history — is that of the Second Great Awakening and the power of God through conversion to Christ and spiritual revival and renewal. American life was first transformed not through any seizure of political power nor through the ballot box. Rather, it was transformed through Christian awakening, through the constant preaching of the gospel, through Christian disciple-making, through the widespread movement of the Holy Spirit to grant new birth and spiritual growth, and through Christian initiative and energy and hard work to plant new churches, and build Christian institutions, and establish gospel witness and vibrancy in new places.

Hands to Prayer and the Plough

Here on this 248th Fourth of July, we remember not only the nation’s markedly unevangelical founding, but also the remarkable societal changes brought about by Christian revival — and the prodigious evangelistic efforts and Spirit-blessed industry that served as kindling for that awakening.

On this anniversary of the Declaration, American Christians concerned for the state of the republic will do well not to settle for wish-dreams about seizing power but, like the evangelists and missionaries of the early nineteenth century, put their faith and hands to the plough, believing, in the Spirit, we need to work.

Revival and its lasting ripples has changed the social feel of this nation before. It remains to be seen how long we might “keep” this republic. I don’t presume it will endure until Christ’s return. But being real, rather than nostalgic, about our history, and God’s surprising work, might feed fresh hope that he could work the same remarkable changes in the days ahead, beginning in us.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

Let no one say when he is tempted [or “tested,” as in verse 12], “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:12–18)

When you hear the words of verse 12, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial [testing],” you are hearing an echo of what it was like to be a Jewish Christian in the churches to whom James was writing. Testing, testing, testing.

Some were poor and wore shabby clothes and lacked daily food (2:16). Some were humiliated when they came to church dressed like that and were told to “stand over there” (2:3). Some were dragged into court by the rich (2:6). There were fights and quarrels (4:1). People spoke evil against them (4:11). Some were defrauded of their wages (5:4). Some were condemned and murdered (5:6). Some were sick (5:15). And all of them were told to be patient in suffering (5:7, 10).

We usually think of the book of James as the book of doing. And it is at least that. “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (1:22). Put away anger (1:19). Be done with filthiness and wickedness (1:21). Visit orphans and widows (1:27). Don’t practice any partiality (2:1). Shun adultery and murder (2:11). Give to the needy (2:16). Tame your tongue, and use it for blessing, not cursing (3:8, 10). Forsake jealousy and selfish ambition (3:16). Be peaceable and gentle and open to reason, impartial, full of mercy and good fruits, bearing a harvest of righteousness (3:17–18). Learn how to pray like a wife who loves her husband (God), not like an adulterous wife who uses her husband’s generosity to hire lovers (4:3–4). Love your neighbor as you love yourself (2:8). Yes, it is the book of doing the word. Faith without doing is dead.

But what this text in chapter 1, and I think the whole book, presses on us is that all of James’s exhortations are written to people whose lives are characterized by suffering.

Painful Path to Joy

He begins with it in 1:2: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds.” He spends almost the whole first chapter on it. And he ends with it in 5:10: “As an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.” And he soberly implies that it will be this way till Jesus comes: “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord” (5:7).

Therefore, if you are a faithful Christian, this is going be your life — a life full of faith-filled good deeds clothed with hardships and suffering, which James calls “tests.”

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials [or tests] of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. (1:2–3)

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial [testing], for when he has stood the test [i.e., when he has been proven and found genuine] he will receive the crown of life. (1:12)

James calls them tests because they are from God. Neither nature nor Satan gives tests. They attack faith; they don’t test faith. They do not put you through fire to prove the gold of your faith is genuine. Satan aims to devour, not refine.

We know this is the way James thinks about suffering because in 4:13–15 he says,

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.” . . . Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

If I live to the end of this chapel, it is because the Lord willed it. If I die before the end of this chapel, it is because the Lord willed it — and thus it will be an all-wise test for my wife. And he goes further. If I “do this or that,” it is because the Lord willed it. If I totally blank out while preaching and can’t finish the message, that will be from the Lord, and it will be a test for my faith in the goodness and kindness of the Lord for me.

Or we could make the same point — that God governs our suffering — from James 5:10–11:

As an example of suffering and patience . . . you have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord [telos kyriou], how the Lord is compassionate and merciful.

All Job’s sufferings were purposeful. And the purpose was God’s (see Job 42:11). And the goal was a compassionate and merciful testing.

So, when we read James 1:12, “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial [testing],” James means for us to understand that the testing is from the Lord, not Satan and not nature. And I am going to argue now that all of verses 12–18 are intended by James (and by God!) to help us see our lives as blessed (with the deepest and longest happiness) because of this testing.

Blessing Through Testing

In other words, James says, I am about to exhort you five dozen times (there are 62 imperatives in the Greek of this letter) to be doers of the word (1:22). And I am fully aware that I am calling upon you to live this unselfish, other-person-oriented, loving, sacrificial way of life in the midst of many God-given miseries called tests. And since I am aware of that, I am devoting most of the first chapter to persuading you that these painful tests are designed by God to make you blessed (makarios) — that is, deeply and lastingly happy. I believe that is the main point of my text (James 1:12–18), and it is the main point of this message. Everything after 1:12a (“Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under [testing]”) is argument.

The text is built around four arguments that support this main point — namely, that God’s tests are designed to lead us to deep and lasting happiness (our blessedness), not designed to make us sin and lead us to death.

Argument 1

Blessed [deeply and lastingly happy] is the man who remains steadfast under trial [testing], for when he has stood the test [been proven like gold through fire] he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. (verse 12)

So, the reason that God-given tests of affliction make you more deeply and lastingly happy is that they provide the circumstances, the occasions, the means by which God fits us to wear the crown of life — to have eternal life. Painful tests and patient endurance and provenness lead to life. If we really believe this is how God is fitting us for eternal life — for eternal joy — would we not say, “I am blessed”? These are reasons for me to be deeply and lastingly happy.

But here’s a key question for your real-life experience of this: What’s being tested by hardship? James mentions only one thing. He doesn’t mention faith (which would be my first thought). He doesn’t mention hope. What he mentions is love — love for God.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. (1:12)

Who gets the crown of life? Those who love God. So, those who are tested and endure and are proven as real get the crown, and those who love him get the crown. Surely those two ways of describing how we get the crown of life are not alternatives! Surely James is saying, “When you walk through the fire of testing, will you come out on the other side more deeply loving God, or not? If you do, you get the crown.” What’s being tested and refined and proven is love. Love for God. Valuing God. Enjoying God. Treasuring God. Being satisfied in God.

So, what is that? Do you love God? What are you feeling or willing or doing when you are loving God? Your eternity hangs on this. Here’s a picture of it in James 4:2–4:

You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask [God]. You ask [God] and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You [adulteresses]! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

The word really is “adulteresses,” not “adulterous people.” Why? Because the picture is of God as our husband and we as his bride — the church. And James presents us praying — going to our generous husband (God) and asking him if we can have some money to go hire a prostitute because he does not satisfy anymore. That’s the picture: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulteresses!”

To love God means you find God to be so satisfying as your husband, shepherd, Father, King, Savior, treasure that you will not turn him into a cuckold and use his gifts to go get your satisfaction from another. That’s adultery.

“Take heart, suffering Christian. All your hardships are God’s tests.”

And the fires of affliction are designed by God to test and refine and prove the reality of that. Do you love God more than the spouse you just lost? Do you love him more than the health you just lost? Do you love God more than the life the doctor just said you will lose in six months? Suffering tests and refines and proves our love for God — that God is our supreme treasure, the deepest desire of our souls. And those who love God like this, verse 12 says, receive the crown of life.

Therefore, argument 1 that God’s painful tests lead to deep and lasting happiness (blessedness) is that God’s tests are designed to refine and prove our love for God, which in turn is how we inherit the crown of life.

Argument 2

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (verses 13–15)

The main point of verses 13–15 is this: Nobody should ever say, “Those God-given tests of verse 12 are really God-given temptations designed to entice and drag us into sin and death.” And the reason we should never say it is because it’s not true. And verses 13–15 are the explanation for why it’s not true. So, the way verses 13–15 argue for the main point (tests are to make us deeply and lastingly happy) is to prove that those tests are not designed to entice us into sin and death.

What makes the connection between verse 12 (God is testing us) and verses 13–15 (God is not tempting us) difficult for the translators is that those two English words, testing and tempting, are the same word in Greek. So, all of us here at Bethlehem College & Seminary who are learning Greek have to decide where James stops talking about testing and starts talking about tempting (if he does), and what that connection means.

Here’s what I propose, and I’m not unique in this. In verse 13, I would translate it, “Let no one say when he is tested, ‘I am being tempted by God.’” And that’s how the two units relate to each other: I am being tested by God. Verse 12 says so. But I am not being tempted by God. And that’s what verses 13 and 15 explain and defend.

To make the argument work, everything hangs on the meaning of tempt. What does James mean by tempt in this text? Not, what do you mean by it? Or what do I mean by it? James has a very precise and limited definition for tempt in verses 13–15.

Verse 13b: “God cannot be tempted [apeirastos] with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” God can be tested (as he was sinfully tested over and over in the Old Testament, as Psalm 78:41 says). And God does test us. That’s the point of verse 12. So, James is drawing a firm line between testing and tempting in this text. God does test, but he does not tempt.

What’s the difference? Verse 14 gives James’s definition of tempt and temptation. “But each person is tempted when he is lured [literally dragged] and enticed by his own desire.” So, James is drawing a line through the progress of desire. On one side of that line, desire is moving toward an object without sin. When Jesus had fasted forty days in the wilderness, Matthew says he was hungry (Matthew 4:2). Hunger is a desire for food. After forty days, it would be a strong one. And as Jesus’s desire moves toward the object of bread, his desire approaches a line. And it doesn’t cross the line. On Jesus’s side of the line, his desire is holy and without sin.

And James is saying that the line is crossed when desire turns into being dragged and enticed by a sinful pleasure. For Jesus, that would have been doing what the devil wanted him to do. “Use your amazing power and satisfy your desire by abandoning the path of suffering and sacrifice” (see Matthew 4:3). None of Jesus’s desires ever crossed the line where they became sinful enticement.

This understanding of temptation (namely, being dragged away with sinful enticement) helps explain verse 13b, where James says, “God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.” God is never dragged by or enticed by sinful allurements. He is never the victim of his own passions. This is the meaning of the doctrine of God’s impassibility — not that he has no emotions, but rather that they are never governed from outside his own sovereign will and self-sufficient fullness. God (and Jesus!) cannot be tempted in James’s sense because he is perfectly happy and self-sufficient. Nothing from outside him can create a controlling craving in him. He never says, “I’ve got to have that!” because he has everything in himself.

So, James infers from this that God doesn’t tempt anyone. James says in verse 14 that when anyone’s desire crosses the line from good desires to being sinfully enticed and dragged toward sinful acts, all that’s needed to explain this is our own desires.

God does not need to intrude into the dynamic of movement from good desire to sinful enticement. He doesn’t need to add anything from outside for our desires to cross from holy desires to sinful enticement. Our own desires make it happen. And we are responsible for those desires.

If we put this together with the absolute sovereignty of God over all things in James 4:15, what we conclude is this: God governs all things in such a way that he doesn’t need to reach in and drag us across the line from holy to unholy desires. Our desires in this fallen state are perfectly sufficient to bring about our entanglement in what James calls temptation.

And he completes his explanation in verse 15 by saying,

Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

So, we have the picture of conception in the womb, birth out of the womb, and a completed lifespan ending in death. The conception happens in verse 14 with the coming into being of sinful enticement — that’s the unborn baby. So, verse 15 describes desire that, having conceived (namely, back in verse 14 with the awakening of sinful enticement), now gives birth to this active child of sin. And that sinning child grows up, fills up his life with sins, and as a result dies — perishes.

And James’s point in all of verses 13–15 is this: When God tests you with suffering (verse 12), he is not tempting you. He’s not intruding himself into your desires with a design to bring about sin and death. He is aiming to deepen and refine your love and bring you to the crown of life, and so make you deeply and lastingly happy — blessed.

Argument 3

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (verses 16–17)

Do not be deceived about what? I don’t see any reason to think he has changed his focus from what he’s been saying. So, I take this to be the same warning he gave in verse 13: “Let no one say when he is [tested], ‘I am being tempted by God.’” Don’t say that. It’s not true. It’s a deception. So, don’t be deceived into thinking God is the kind of God who is using tests as a way to get you to have sinful desires and then sin your way into death. That was the deception of verse 13.

So, here in verse 16 is the same warning: “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers.” Yes, he sends many painful tests your way. But in doing that, he is not evil. He is not whimsical and unpredictable, with dark intentions. No. He is the source of every good gift. Every test that comes down on you comes from the Father of lights. Yes, all the lights of heaven — the sun and moon and stars — change continually. Brighter, less bright. Full moon, no moon. Bright sun, clouded sun. And shadows run with constant change all over the ground.

But it is not so with the Father of lights. He is the source of all light. And the source of light is always bright, always unchanging — inexhaustible in goodness and perfection. So, don’t be deceived. Your suffering is not sinister. Your testing is not temptation.

Argument 4

Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (verse 18)

The most striking link with the preceding is the word “bring forth,” or “cause to be born.” He caused us to be born by the gospel, the word of truth. The only other place in the New Testament where this word “cause to be born” (apokyeō) occurs is in verse 15: “Sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” — “causes death” to be born.

It is utterly striking. Who talks about giving birth to death? Birth leads to life. But that is exactly what James is contrasting. Temptation — the crossing of the line by our desires into sinful enticement — gives birth to sin, which gives birth to death. But God is not like that. He does not tempt, and he does not send tests to give birth to death. He gives birth to life. And that life is the life of the new creation, which has begun with every new creature in Christ. The “firstfruits of his creatures.”

The Heart Behind Every Test

So, the main point of the text and the message is this: God’s tests are designed to lead us to deep and lasting happiness (our blessedness), not designed to tempt us into sin and lead us to death.

Argument 1 (verse 12): All God’s tests are designed to deepen our love for him, which leads to the crown of life.
Argument 2 (verses 13–15): It is totally wrong to say, “When he tests us, he is tempting us.” He can’t be tempted and tempts nobody with sinful enticements that lead to death.
Argument 3 (verses 16–17): To think otherwise is deception, because God is the source of all good and all light, not the source of sinful enticements that lead to death.
Argument 4 (verse 18): Yes, God causes birth, but it is not the birth of death by sin. It is the birth of life and new creation.

Therefore, take heart, suffering Christian. All your hardships are God’s tests. They do not come from a fickle heart, or a dark heart, or a tempting heart. They come from the Father of lights, the life-giver, the all-sufficient, untemptable one, whose whole design for you is your unshakable love for him and his crowning you with life — with blessedness, with the deepest and longest happiness.

Some years ago, a professor told our class about a brief word from his wife that lodged itself like an arrow in his chest.

A new semester was approaching, and he had labored to develop syllabi that would serve his students. He chose the books, outlined the assignments, scheduled the essays and exams, and charted a careful academic course from August to December. Then his wife, noticing such thorough professorial planning, asked her honest question: “Why don’t you give the same kind of thought and planning to our family?”

Though a single man at the time, I could still understand the sting. Now a husband and father myself, however, I can feel it. I know many men can. All too easily, we can devote tremendous effort and creativity to career or ministry, perhaps not even thinking of doing the same for family. We can show far more ambition — more thought, more planning, more intentionality, more eagerness — toward work or church than toward fatherhood. We can be passionate employees or ministry leaders, but comparatively passive dads.

Surely kids need to see a dad whose eyes look upward and outward, ambitious about serving God in work, church, the neighborhood, and beyond. But with equal surety, kids need to see a dad ambitious about being dad.

A Father’s 5-to-9

God’s own descriptions of fatherhood in Scripture show us a man who yearns to do good in the world, yes, but who also gives vast energy to the world of his family. He has not only a 9-to-5 job but a 5-to-9 job, a calling just as demanding, and often more so, than his career (and one that includes mornings and weekends as well).

The Bible’s most extended portrayal of fatherhood comes to us in the book of Proverbs, which records a father’s words to his maturing son. Much in the book reminds us that God made men for outward dominion: the call to work hard, the instructions about business and farming, the picture of the father sitting “in the gates . . . among the elders of the land” (Proverbs 31:23). But the very structure of Proverbs — affectionate, earnest, persistent counsel from a father to his son — reminds us that a man’s dominion includes being dad.

Proverbs portrays fatherhood as an all-of-life affair. The book’s dad is a Deuteronomy 6:7 kind of man, one who disciples his son at home and abroad, from morning till night. He teaches a course called “Life” in a classroom as broad as the world. We can perhaps imagine him talking to his son as they walk past the forbidden woman’s street (“Do not go near the door of her house,” 5:8), as they nearly step on an anthill (“Go to the ant,” 6:6), or as they sit down for a meal (“Eat honey, for it is good,” 24:13).

His teaching covers topics both spiritual and practical, both eternal and everyday. Across the book’s 22 instances of the phrase “my son . . .” he speaks to his son’s head, heart, hands, feet, eyes, soul, mouth, and more. He knows his boy’s particular strengths and follies. He spends enough unhurried time around him to say, “Let your eyes observe my ways” (Proverbs 23:26). And though this father has ambitions beyond his boy, he can hardly imagine himself glad apart from this young man’s lasting good (Proverbs 10:1; 17:25; 23:15, 24). He is, in a word, ambitious to be dad.

Home for Ambition

Such a broad, demanding vision of fatherhood suggests at least one reason why men can find outward ambition easier or more natural. In the end, being a godly father may prove harder than starting a company, building a career, or even becoming a pastor.

I for one feel that I have entered a more difficult job when I walk through the doorway after work. Children do not simply ask us to be good accountants or teachers or engineers or project managers: they ask us to be good men. And they do not simply require eight hours of our attention, but in some sense, all of it. If we want to be able to say, “My son, give me your heart” (Proverbs 23:26), then we will need to give them our very selves.

We need some good reasons, then, to put our passivity away and devote ourselves to being better dads. Alongside the simple fact that Scripture gives us our pattern for godly fatherhood (and all God’s patterns are good), consider three other reasons our ambition needs not only an office or a pulpit but a home: for our own soul, for the world, and for our kids.

Honest Ambition

First, ambition at home serves a man’s own soul, particularly by keeping his other ambitions honest.

An elder “must manage his own household well,” Paul writes, “for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” (1 Timothy 3:4–5). A man who struggles to lead the little fellowship inside his home will struggle to lead a larger fellowship outside it, at least in a way that pleases God. Paul’s principle holds in part because leadership skill carries over from sphere to sphere, but also for another reason: home trains a man for the specific leadership required of a Christian.

“In large part, our job as dads is to offer a faithful image of the Father who delights in his Son.”

Truly Christian leaders do not despise humble acts of hidden service (Mark 10:43), and home provides such opportunities in spades. Christian leaders gladly associate with the lowly (Romans 12:16), and children are a knee-high society. Christian leaders patiently invest in people slow to change (1 Thessalonians 5:14), and family gives daily (often hourly) practice for that kind of patience. And Christian leaders wisely apply God’s word to each person’s needs (1 Thessalonians 2:11–12), and kids come with strikingly diverse personalities and temptations.

Like Peter or John hurrying past the children, I sometimes imagine Christian ambition in terms far larger than these little ones. But then I look back and notice my Lord lingering there among them, his own ambition large enough to include kids. And I remember that unless my ambition includes the same, I am not yet fit to lead well elsewhere.

Archer’s Arrows

Second, and counterintuitively, ambition at home serves the world, at least when blessed by God.

Negatively, we might consider the sad examples of passive dads whose kids grew up to dismantle much of their work in the world. David was a mighty king, but his lack of attention at home caused chaos in his kingdom (2 Samuel 13:20–22; 1 Kings 1:5–6). And Eli lost his priesthood for letting his sons run amok (1 Samuel 2:29).

Positively, however, Scripture gives us an image of children that is anything but insular and homebound: “Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth,” Solomon writes (Psalm 127:4). When a father raises children with godly ambition, he is not excusing himself from God’s mission in the world. He is an archer bent beneath the wall, sharpening his arrows. And in a world of warring spiritual kingdoms, it is no waste of time to sharpen arrows.

As with all discipleship, one paradox of fatherhood is that we often serve the world best when we focus on a few. Jesus changed the world through a few ordinary men. Fathers seek to go on changing the world through a few ordinary children. Such children may divide a man in the moment, taking his time away from good pursuits elsewhere. But with God’s favor, they do not leave him divided, but multiplied. A father’s faithful children are that man made many.

Godly men will seek to make disciples beyond their families, of course. At the same time, they will not see fatherhood as something different from making disciples. All this time at home, all these moments saying, “My son,” “My daughter,” all those days retreating from the rush of the world, all the daily dying to self — these are like a man drawing his bow, aiming to die with arrows in the air.

Dad’s Delight

Finally, ambition at home serves the eternal souls of children.

The image of arrows is helpful as far as it goes. We do well to remember, however, that children are not simply tools or weapons to be wielded — and many children have come to resent a dad who treated them as such. No, children are also gifts to be embraced. They are treasures to be cherished. They are endlessly interesting persons to be known. And in a Christian family especially, they ought to know themselves beloved.

That word beloved strikes close to the heart of good fatherhood, the kind that comes from the Father above (Ephesians 5:1). Hear this first Father’s benediction over his dear Son:

This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. (Matthew 3:17)

In large part, our job as dads is to offer a faithful image of the Father who delights in his Son. And in a world that often twists fatherhood into something utterly unlike the true Father, one of the best things we can do for our kids is to give God’s pleasure a bodily presence in our big laughter and bright eyes and strong arms — to love them so manifestly that they fall asleep feeling, My dad delights in me.

That kind of love and delight draws out generous amounts of our time and attention. It warrants creative thought and planning. It calls for the kind of initiative we often give to our career or our ministry, such that when our children look at us, they see a dad ambitious to be dad.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. We’re on the topic of joy again — namely, is our joy commanded by God as an act of obedience? Or is our joy in God made authentic by being spontaneous? It’s a common question posed to Christian Hedonists and a great question asked by Emily today. “Dear Pastor John and Tony, thank you so much for this podcast! I have a question that comes from listening to two of your more recent episodes. In them you stated that joy is not a choice but a sovereign gift. To quote you, Pastor John: ‘Joy is a God-given, spontaneous experience of the beauty, worth, and greatness of God.’ Then in the next episode, you discussed that we are commanded to rejoice by Jesus, Peter, and Paul, implying we have some control over our rejoicing.” Those are from APJ 1983 and APJ 1984. “Pastor John, can you explain how this works, spontaneous joy and commanded joy?”

This is such an important issue because not only does it relate to joy, but it relates to all the behaviors and all the decisions and all the emotions of the Christian life. The paradox between an emotion being given by God and being commanded by God runs through the whole Bible.

And the reason it does — the reason it runs through the whole Bible — is because it’s at the heart of living a life that glorifies God by depending on God in doing what he commands us to do. When God commands us to do things, or believe things, or decide things, or feel things, he’s treating us as genuinely responsible moral persons in his image, unlike all the animals. He’s honoring us as the kind of beings in his image who can perceive things, and think about things, and evaluate things, and then feel and act in accord with how we think and evaluate.

But while he created us to be morally responsible persons, he did not create us to be independent from him and his enabling power. Because if we use our own native powers to analyze the world, think it through, make decisions, experience emotions, perform actions without relying on him, we’re going to get the glory, not him. He didn’t make the world for us to gain independent glory. That’s not why he created the world. He created the world for us to live in such a way that he gets the glory and we get the help. We get the joy; he gets the glory.

We Get Help, He Gets Glory

So, here’s the principle with a couple of texts. For example, 1 Peter 4:11: “Whoever speaks, [let him speak] as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, [let him serve] as one who serves [now, this is key] by the strength that God supplies.” So, as we serve in obedience to what he commands, we rely upon strength that’s not our own. And then, why? He gives us the why: “. . . in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.” That’s an absolutely fundamental principle of living the Christian life. We get the help; he gets the glory. We obey commands by relying utterly on his gift.

“We get the help; God gets the glory. We obey commands by relying utterly on his gift.”

Another way to say it is that the Christian life is meant to be a life of “[walking] by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16) or being “led by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:18). We fight against sin, Paul says, by putting to death the deeds of the body “by the Spirit” (Romans 8:13). All those phrases — “by the Spirit,” “by the Spirit,” “by the Spirit.” We do the action but, Father, you give the strength. We do it in reliance upon your power: “by the Spirit.”

So, the whole Christian life, not just the emotion of joy, is built on this paradox of moral responsibility to do what God tells us to do, and yet to do it in the strength that he supplies. So, it’s really a gift. It’s really a gift from him, even though our willpower is involved.

Command and Gift

Probably the most famous words outside the Bible to capture this paradox were spoken by St. Augustine. He prayed like this in Confessions book 10. “Give what you command, O Lord, and command what you will.”

Now, here are some of the concrete biblical illustrations of what he meant. Let’s just take belief in Jesus. Command: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). It’s a command. Gift: “It has been [given] to you that for the sake of Christ you should . . . believe in him” (Philippians 1:29).

Or take repentance. Command: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). Gift: “The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone. . . . God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:24–25). It’s a command; it’s a gift.

Here’s another one — love. Love is a command: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you” (John 13:34). But it’s a gift: “the fruit of the Spirit is love” (Galatians 5:22).

So, Emily was exactly right to quote me as saying, on the one hand, “Joy is a God-given, spontaneous experience of the beauty, worth, and greatness of God” — that’s true; it’s a gift — but then saying, on the other hand, that we are commanded to rejoice by James and Peter and Jesus and Paul, implying that we have some control over our rejoicing (that is, control over the pursuit of it and obedience to that command).

For example, we’re commanded (returning now to the issue of joy), “Rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings” (1 Peter 4:13) — a command. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4) — a command. “Delight yourself in the Lord” (Psalm 37:4) — command. But on the other hand, joy is a gift: “The fruit of the Spirit is . . . joy” (Galatians 5:22). Or Romans 15:13: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.”

Look and Pray

So, what do we do to live in this paradox of joy being a gift and a command? To make it as simple as I can, here’s what we do. We look — that’s the key word — at the reasons God has given us to rejoice; we look at them in the Bible. And second, we pray. Look and pray. Look and pray. Look and pray. We pray that God would open our eyes to see and feel the value of those reasons the way God intended them to be felt.

For example, Paul says, “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2). So, we look at it, we look at the hope, we ponder it, we think about it, and then we pray, “O God, open my eyes to see the worth of the glory of your hope.” Or Jesus said, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5:12). So, we read about that, and we look, we ponder, we think, we meditate on the reward in heaven. And then we pray, “O God, open my eyes to the worth of the reward, so I feel what I ought to feel when I’m gazing at this amazing reward. Make me happy the way Jesus commanded me to be happy, because of how beautiful this reward is.” Or the psalmist says in Psalm 119:162, “I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil.” So, we read the word — we read it, we meditate on it, and we pray and pray and pray, “God, open our eyes, that we may behold wonderful things in your word” (see Psalm 119:18).

Now, if this is new to any of our listeners, this kind of paradox between living with commands and gifts like this, and you’d like to probe more deeply, I really simplified things by saying the key is looking and the key is praying. If you want to read a whole book about it, I wrote a whole book. It’s called When I Don’t Desire God, and you can read it for free at desiringGod.org. So, as paradoxical as it sounds, this is a glorious way to live. “Give what you command, and command what you will.”

“If your God is so mighty, why doesn’t he speak my language?” So asked an indigenous man in Guatemala to William Cameron (Cam) Townsend (1896–1982) between WWI and WWII.1 Townsend had come to Guatemala selling Bibles in Spanish, but many did not know the language or used it only as a trade language. So, Townsend changed course: he learned the Cakchiquels’ language, devised an alphabet, analyzed the grammar, and translated the New Testament.

We know Townsend today as the founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators, the Summer Institute of Linguistics (now SIL International), and Jungle Aviation and Radio Service (now JAARS). The founding principles that led this “pioneering Protestant missionary”2 to launch those organizations still shape Bible translation today. This is the remarkable story of Wycliffe’s beginnings.3

Unexpected Assignment

It was 1917, the year the United States entered WWI. Cam was in his junior year at Presbyterian-founded Occidental College in California and served as a corporal in the National Guard. Never fond of academics, “he was restless and frustrated with studies that, to him, seemed disconnected from the life of action he craved,” writes Boone Aldridge. (Ironically, his lowest grades were in Greek and Spanish.)4

After reading a biography of Hudson Taylor, missionary to China, whose pioneering faith missions deeply impressed him, Cam joined the Student Volunteer Movement (SVM), pledging, God willing, to “become a foreign missionary,” though at the time he could not provide thorough reasons for joining.5 Then, in January 1917 he attended a special missions meeting held by John R. Mott, leader of the SVM, who pleaded for students to “evangelize the world in this generation.” Hearing Mott cemented Cam’s desire to engage in missions; shortly afterward, he learned of the need for Bible salesmen in Central America, so he and college friend Robbie Robinson applied for the one-year position.

The Bible House of Los Angeles sent them to Guatemala, where Cam would spend the next fifteen years, never completing his college degree.

Overcoming Linguistic Barriers

Once in Guatemala, Cam began selling Spanish Bibles house by house and sharing the gospel, but he quickly discovered that many people spoke only their mother tongue (Cakchiquel or another local language).6 This prompted Cam to reconsider his approach.

The primary factor leading Cam to work specifically with the Cakchiquel was his close friendship with Francisco (Frisco) Díaz, a 35-year-old Cakchiquel Christian who traveled with him as bag-carrier, cook, and fellow evangelist. Frisco was one of few bilingual indigenous men, fluent in his mother tongue and Spanish. Frisco walked with Cam to villages all across Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, evangelizing and selling Bibles in harsh conditions — from mosquitos and malaria to threats by machete (and at least one at gunpoint). Through such harrowing gospel exploits on “a thousand trails,” Cam gained a profound admiration for Frisco as an equal, a colleague, and a friend — at a time when people of Spanish heritage there generally disdained indigenous people.

In 1918, after “constantly” hearing Frisco share about the need for Jesus among the Cakchiquel,7 Cam surveyed missionaries in Guatemala and found that almost all worked in Spanish; hardly any learned the indigenous languages (all unwritten) due to the difficulty.8 The spiritual needs and social plight of the oppressed indigenous population weighed heavily on Cam. Frisco and Cam started dreaming of a school for indigenous children in Frisco’s hometown of San Antonio, Guatemala.

In 1919, the work began. Having recently married Elvira Malmstrom, a stenographer from Chicago who was serving as secretary for a missionary in Guatemala City, Cam joined the Central American Mission (initials providentially CAM) as a general missionary. He and Elvira started learning the Cakchiquel language and opened the first school for indigenous people in Guatemala (along with a clinic and much more).

Now firmly engaged in ministry using the Cakchiquel language, another influential encounter would soon direct Cam toward Bible translation.

Translation Work Begins

In January 1921, twelve expatriate missionaries gathered in Guatemala for a General Indian Conference to discuss ministry among the indigenous peoples of Central America. In attendance were the Townsends and Leonard Levingston Legters, a former missionary to the Comanche and Apache in Oklahoma who had come to Guatemala at Cam’s invitation.

The delegates reached two important decisions, both controversial at the time: “Indians should be trained to evangelize their own people” and “mother-tongue Bible translation was . . . an absolute necessity.”9 In order to ensure progress on these objectives, they formed a new mission called Latin American Indian Mission (LAIM) and instructed “Townsend and [Dr. Paul] Burgess to form a Bible translation committee.”10 The Townsends immediately set to work on translating the Gospel of Mark into Cakchiquel.

A series of hardships threatened to derail Cam from work with the Cakchiquel. His dear trail partner Frisco died of malaria at the inception of the school project in 1919. His wife Elvira experienced physical and mental-health issues that persisted throughout their marriage. And Robbie, his college friend and missionary colleague, drowned in 1922. Despite such challenges, he and the mother-tongue translators completed the New Testament in 1929, dedicating it two years later. Cam even presented the president of Guatemala with a special leather-bound copy, an event that made front-page news.

Mission to Mexico

Cam’s next phase of ministry meant new opportunities beyond Guatemala. In 1934, he cofounded the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) with Legters and began work in a new field of service: Mexico.

Several factors led the Townsends to transition out of Guatemala. Both Cam’s and Elvira’s health began failing. It was the height of the Great Depression, and they had little money. And as the Cakchiquel congregations were becoming self-supporting and self-governing, Cam had a growing desire to serve in a new field.11

A new ministry opportunity was also presented to them. While the Townsends were in the United States on deputation in 1933, Legters met with Cam to discuss the idea of starting a linguistic training school. They had exchanged several letters since the conference in Guatemala twelve years prior and shared a passion for Bible translation among indigenous peoples. Legters had also conducted surveys among jungle tribes in the Amazon, and his reports intrigued Cam. That year, after much prayer by him and others, Cam sensed that God would have him “give his talents and energies to Mexico.”12

Cam and Legters took a vision trip to Mexico that November, but they faced opposition from the start. At the border, the Mexican immigration official denied them entry, stating, “Religious missionaries are not permitted to enter.”13 But God amazingly opened the door. As the two men paused to pray and consider their options, Cam remembered a letter he had with him. In God’s sovereignty, two years prior, while in Guatemala, Cam had met Dr. Moisés Sáenz, then undersecretary of Mexico’s Department of Education and a “champion of Protestantism.”14 A few months after that meeting, Sáenz sent him a letter of invitation to come do multifaceted work in Mexico similar to Cam’s work in Guatemala.

Cam promptly presented this letter to the Mexican border official, who granted him and Legters provisional entry.15 During that initial trip to Mexico, Cam met key leaders who suggested he conduct rural educational research. He published the results, and Mexican officials invited him back to conduct linguistic research.

Further convinced that God was at work, Cam organized “Camp Wycliffe” in Arkansas during the summer of 1934. He named the summer linguistic school after John Wycliffe, translator of the first complete Bible in English. For several years following, he returned to Mexico with SIL trainees, entering “as linguists rather than as missionaries.”16 A few years later, he received an unexpected village visit from Mexico’s then president Lázaro Cárdenas, who gave Cam’s Bible translation work a huge endorsement. The visit began a lifelong friendship that cemented a fruitful partnership with SIL.17

Finally, in 1942, when SIL membership reached almost one hundred, Cam founded Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT) to handle the administrative needs in the USA. WBT-SIL soon expanded work throughout the Americas, Asia, the Pacific, and Africa.

Pioneering Ministry

Cam was a visionary pioneer, decades ahead of his time. He devoted his life to indigenous peoples when no other full-time missionaries in the region were doing so. It wasn’t until many years later that mission agencies shifted strategy from reaching continents and countries to reaching people groups.

In 1931, Cam published the diglot Cakchiquel-Spanish New Testament, aiming to transfer literacy in Cakchiquel to Spanish — a full twenty years before UNESCO preferred bilingual over monolingual education.18

Cam also broke ground by applying descriptive linguistic principles rather than the more common comparative linguistics of the day to help gain understanding of the complex system of word formation in Cakchiquel. (Each verb had one hundred thousand possible conjugations!)19

“Cam Townsend was a visionary pioneer, decades ahead of his time.”

In addition, Cam began dreaming of using airplanes to reach peoples in the jungle when flying was still in its infancy, a vision he would realize through founding JAARS in 1948.20 It was not without reason that Billy Graham said concerning Cam’s legacy, “No man in this century has . . . advance[d] the cause of Christian missions as [has] Cameron Townsend.”21

Scripture in Every Tongue

In the ninety years since Cam’s first summer institute of linguistics (1934), the pace of Bible translation has accelerated among minority languages. Several Bible-translation organizations now contribute, with WBT-SIL still playing a significant role. In 2018, Wycliffe celebrated their one thousandth New Testament. The first five hundred languages took 67 years (1934–2001), but the second five hundred languages took only 17 years (2002–2018).22

In 1935, the French Academy reportedly listed 2,700 different languages in the world, which led Cam to reason at the time that “a thousand languages . . . needed the Scriptures.”23 Today’s updated list more precisely identifies 7,396 different languages. One-sixth of these still require Bible translation to begin (1,216). A third have either a full Bible or a New Testament (2,437). Over half currently have Bible-translation activity in progress (3,801). This past April, the Tz’utujil of Guatemala, a people group next door to the Cakchiquel, became the 744th language in the world with a full Bible; their celebration was held where Cam and Elvira lived a century ago!

To help finish the task, the Townsend-launched Bible-translation organizations are making advances in AI technology, leveraging satellite Internet, serving as authorities for linguistic data and research, publishing on translation theory, and doing much more. In addition, Wycliffe Global Alliance was formed in 2011, bringing together over one hundred organizations to collaborate in translating the Bible in language communities worldwide.

Cam’s fingerprints can be found on Bible translation work among thousands of language groups and countless people around the world. Such people include Chief Tariri in Peru, who learned of God’s love in his language from Bible translators and turned from hate to “let God come into [his] heart,”24 or Kwame in Ghana, the son of a witch doctor, who learned about Jesus from the translated word in Dilo, his mother tongue; he trusted in Jesus and is now a Bible-translation leader.

With Romans 15:20 in mind, Cam’s motto was “always pioneer.” That same pioneer spirit is alive and well today. The remaining task of Bible translation includes some of the least-reached, most under-resourced, most isolated people on the planet. Much has been done; much work remains.

Early in my marriage (and midway through an argument), my wife complained to me one day that I talked to her like I would a guy from seminary. By my beard, she was right. I knew exactly what she meant.

Amidst my band of brothers, sword fights were not uncommon. Generals trained us for battle; we could not be afraid to spar. Fights happened, as they must when important things are at stake, but we asked forgiveness if necessary and left the stronger for it. Our spiritual program, a place for serious joy, prepared us to affect untold people and places and eternities. We needed one another for sharper service. To be the men our Lord was calling for, we needed heat and friction and resistance from brothers who were for each other in Christ.

My marriage, however, I confused with this combat training. When we disagreed, I instinctively strategized, mobilizing forces of argumentation and logic here, mounting a brigade of illustration there; war must decide which idea prevailed. When I listened, it was the calculating variety — cold and non-interrupting, as Chesterton once said, “he listens to the enemy’s arguments as a spy would listen to the enemy’s arrangements” (What’s Wrong with the World, 26). A good practice for debate; a poor way to live with my wife in an understanding way.

Though as theologically sharp as many seminary men, she was my wife, not my fencing partner. Though she could hold her own, she did not find the swordplay, even when discussing Scripture, nearly as uplifting as I did. Note to self: I should not duel my wife over doctrine. Good to know.

Of Mice and Men

A man ought not debate his wife as he would a brother. But let’s add another truism: a man need not disagree with brothers in the same way he would with his wife. It is one problem to talk to wives like men; it is another to talk to men like wives. It is one loss to forget how to live with our wives in an understanding way, another to forget how to live with men according to the nature of men. Are we losing the ability to talk to men as men?

The writer of Ecclesiastes writes that for everything (speech included) there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to build up, plant, laugh, heal, embrace, and make peace. But this is not all he says. At other times, you must sit among your brothers to pluck up, to kill, to die, to break down, to refrain from embracing, to weep, to lose, to attack his darling sins or cherished unbelief (Ecclesiastes 3:1–8).

God’s rams still need to butt heads; his lions still need to roar. We can’t always play two-hand touch. Nathans need to tell Davids, “You are the man!” Pauls need to oppose Peters to their face or stand aghast at the Galatians. We need Nathaniels in whom exists no guile or flattery. We need men whose “letters are weighty and strong” (2 Corinthians 10:10), servants not tickled by man-pleasing (Galatians 1:10). We need Judes able to contend for the faith because they’ve learned how to contend with their brothers in seminary classrooms and with men who hold them accountable.

Where are the Luthers, the Spurgeons, the Ryles that roused sleeping generations with masculine boldness? We have few and need more. When masculine directness, Christlike candor, and warlike speech fade from the mouths of good men, the world and church suffer rot.

The Man Christ Jesus

Imagine our Savior’s deliberation the moment Peter, his second-in-command, stands between him and the cross. Heaven’s cheers had not yet died down at Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ,” before Peter tries to confront this Christ (Mark 8:29, 32). Jesus plainly taught that the Son of Man must suffer and be rejected, yet Peter, trusting his assessments too much, “took him aside and began to rebuke him” (Mark 8:32).

Do not miss the phrase preceding Christ’s masculine reply:

But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Mark 8:33)

Jesus commends Peter, the rock, in one breath (Matthew 16:15–20), and administers the strong rebuke in the next. Notice where he looked before he struck: at his other sheep. He considered them as a good father considers the other children who witness a sibling’s defiance. Peter needed to hear this; the disciples needed to hear this. To withhold it would fail not only Peter, but them. We imagine Peter’s eyes following his Savior’s to the other disciples in that intense moment, only to reengage with the blow: “Get behind me, Satan!”

Modern-day disciples trained in a generation of safe spaces recoil: Jesus, don’t you see he only cares about your welfare? He was only considering group morale. Did you really have to call him Satan and belittle him in front of the others? Jesus, don’t you think that was a little harsh? He did well just a minute ago; I wonder if you missed an opportunity to encourage him.

But Jesus, perfectly concerned with God’s glory and the eternal good of his sheep, struck the rock before the others. He had manly words and a manly tone for his chief man and friend. Seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter to teach them all. A man bold only toward his enemies is not yet as Christlike as he needs to be.

And take note: nobody ran away crying. No one took to blows. No one challenged another to a duel. The truth was spoken, the rebuke taken, and men moved on, better for it. How can we establish fellowship like this? A couple of starting points.

1. Set terms in peacetime.

Unlearning the coddling of modern speech, especially within male circles, need not be done overnight. We do not put gloves on, sneak up behind a brother, and sucker punch him in the name of courage. In my experience, rules of engagement should be established beforehand. When some men and I formed a group years ago, we drew from an old meeting covenant and agreed in the affirmative:

Are you willing to charitably rebuke, chasten, and instruct each other?
Are you willing to take rebukes, chastening, and instruction from others?

We make it clear at the beginning that we must have priorities higher than comfort. Here we strive for a culture concerned with grace-giving but also sin-slaying so that we might be more God-pleasing. We resolve — God helping us — not to let personal ego or weaker-brother sensitivities stop our ears from hearing (or giving) a discomforting word, a naked question, or a plain rebuke.

Bold speech had been a weakness of some in our brotherhood; now it’s a strength. Caring they remain, but without the coddling that shelters sin and harbors — for the sake of “unity” — God-belittling theology and practice.

2. Consider the goodness of correction.

Yes, confrontation is unpleasant. To some it feels like a slow suffocation. To others, a frozen chill climbing the spine. To others, the kindling of a flame to devour culprits offering this strange fire. To still others, the words replay in the mind as hammer blows, driving them down and down into the floor.

After the initial tremor, a man’s pride usually demands satisfaction. Criticism, disagreement, correction all seem to drag our reputation into the contest. I’ve felt what Richard Baxter describes:

They think it will follow in the eyes of others that weak arguing is the sign of a weak man. . . . If we mix not commendations with our reproofs, and if the applause be not predominant, so as to drown all force of the reproof or confutation, they take it as almost an insufferable injury. (The Reformed Pastor, 129–30)

“A man bold only toward his enemies is not yet as Christlike as he needs to be.”

In the heat of the moment, I’ve found that cool reflection on the goodness of correction helps me summon the cavalry of humility. In my disagreement, am I loving the truth, the church, my brother, my God, or myself? If the former, the jousters may need to take another pass. If the latter, I should be suspicious of my urge to swing back, slow to speak, and willing to disengage for a time to drown my pride in Christ’s blood.

Love Peace, Go to War

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 3)

Jude did not live to fight, but he would fight. He wished to discuss the thing that brought him the most joy: their common salvation in Christ. He wanted to explore the treasury of Christ’s excellencies, the bliss of the new birth, the grandeur of God’s glory, and the wonder of the cross. He wanted to drape these glories over all of life (and he does some), but alas . . .

There is a time to discuss our common salvation and revel in Christ. And there is a time when we must draw a sword and defend the Savior and salvation in which we revel. In our times, the spirit of the age scolds that the masculine tone is toxic, aggressive, and unnecessary. Boys should not be boys — much less, someday, men.

Brethren, we are chiefs of our tribes, leaders of families. If we cannot spar over the greatest, most urgent verities of this world and the next, where can we? If we are to hear “you’re wrong” or undergo cross-examination or hear rebuke, should it not be over these truths and with brothers who love us? “A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool” (Proverbs 17:10). Let hard words sink in, men of God. Speak them with patience; deliver them for each other’s good; remember to speak to men as men. Learn not only to endure them but to cherish them.