Desiring God

The ‘Ask Pastor John’ Book Is Here

Audio Transcript

In January of 2013, we launched a little podcast into the world. We called it Ask Pastor John. We slapped a jingle on the front end and hit publish on a temporary podcast meant to last us fifteen months or so to fill a short need we had here at Desiring God. And Pastor John, here we are, two thousand episodes later.

I can’t even remember those days.

I know. It seems like a distant memory. And I think I used to call you up on your phone. You used a landline phone for those early years. Do you remember that?

Yep. Down in Tennessee.

Two thousand episodes later, we’re now into our twelfth year. And today we look back. We look back at what God has done in the past years of APJ. And we look forward, with prayers for the future and prayers for what God might do in a new APJ book. That book releases today. More on that in a moment. As we start off, Pastor John, tell us how this podcast fits within your ministry legacy. How do you think of it now, twelve years in?

Bible-Saturated Legacy

My parents built into me from the time I could read — that’s about six years old, when we moved into the house I’m thinking about — a passion for legacy. And I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t know what legacy was, but that’s what it was, because hanging on the wall in our kitchen — and it hangs behind me right now where I’m standing in my study — was this motto: “Only one life, ’twill soon be passed. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” That’s legacy talk.

So I believe, Tony, that you and I have produced Ask Pastor John for Christ. “Only what’s done for Christ will last.” And we didn’t do it for ourselves. We did it for Christ. We’re doing it for Christ. Your book will be, I believe, part of the fulfillment of the second half of the motto: “What’s done for Christ will last.”

“Almost every episode is a careful expression of about an hour and a half of study and thought and prayer.”

You know well, Tony, that I have my favorite hyphenated phrases: God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated. And I think that’s what Ask Pastor John is; that’s the legacy: God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated counsel for people who are in need. And I would underline Bible-saturated, because many podcasts are enjoyable conversations that people have online. That’s not what we’ve done for ten years. Almost every episode is a careful expression — well-prepared and a lot of thought gone into it — of about an hour and a half of study and thought and prayer, saturated with the Bible.

So I think, Tony, our legacy will be this: “They were God-centered; they were Christ-exalting; they were Bible guys — with a strange twist called Christian Hedonism because they believed that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” I think that’s the way I would express the legacy.

Distilling the Archive

Amen. May it be! That has certainly been our prayer from the very start of this podcast. And if you want the full backstory of where it came from and how it’s tied to the unique ways that Pastor John is gifted to answer questions, I tell that backstory in the introduction to my brand new book, just mentioned. It’s titled Ask Pastor John: 750 Bible Answers to Life’s Most Important Questions. That new book launches today. It’s the point of this special episode to announce the new book, Ask Pastor John: 750 Bible Answers to Life’s Most Important Questions.

People hearing about it for the first time ask me, “What is it, Tony? Why did you write a book about a podcast, especially when the whole archive is transcribed; it’s online; it’s just a Google search away for anyone who wants it?”

Really the genesis of this new book came years ago when friends of ours, ministry partners (donors), would email me, asking about some pressing question that has come up in their life, their family, their church — asking me for one APJ episode that could answer a dilemma. And I think the archive is intimidating for a lot of people. I think we’re up to about 250 hours of content now. And that grows by the week. That’s a lot of content to sift through.

So, what I would do is I would take the question from the donor, dive into the archive, and always find multiple episodes on a topic, and respond with an email that was basically a digest of all those episodes that I found — or even just parts of an episode that I found — that I thought could help answer a given challenge from different angles, explaining why each episode I found was uniquely valuable in answering the question.

And over time, those little digests just seemed to prove useful. As they did, I collected them into one document on my computer, and at some point I realized I could do this with the broader archive. So, I set aside two years of my book-research-and-writing time. I identified our most popular episodes from our first decade. That was the easy part. This type of podcast really offers us a feedback loop like no other — the audience asks the questions, and then the audience responds to the episodes we record. It’s very easy to see what topics most resonate with our audience.

So, I isolated our 28 most popular topics, and basically just created 28 huge digests of 750 episodes, in one comprehensive guide, to help find the episodes that you need when you need them. It was a huge project. There were times early on when I wondered if this was a good idea or not.

Book for Every Home

But now it’s done. And I have high hopes that this book will prove useful. Sinclair Ferguson, in his kind endorsement, likened it to Richard Baxter’s classic, massive book, A Christian Directory. It’s an amazing comparison for those of you in the Reformed world who know what that huge book is like. And then Dr. Ferguson called the APJ book “one of those rare contemporary books that can be described as ‘should be in every Christian home.’” My jaw dropped when I read that. I mean, that is an amazing endorsement of the book, but even of your deep labors in this podcast too, Pastor John, each episode being that careful expression of about an hour and a half of your study and thought and prayer, saturated with the Bible. That’s a huge investment. A ringing endorsement of your labors.

And then Kevin DeYoung, another friend of ours, said, “I can’t imagine any Christian who wouldn’t be helped by and fascinated by the hundreds of topics covered in this amazing resource.” Again, that highlights the value of having a printed guide you can easily thumb through and browse. It’s a unique way, I think, to appreciate such a long-running podcast like APJ.

So, if these kind words are accurate — and I have high hopes that this book is going to serve listeners to help them benefit from the archive in the years ahead — I can’t wait to see what the Lord does with this. Pastor John, as you consider what this new book will offer the podcast in the near future and in the distant future, what would you add to this conversation?

Trembling and Rejoicing

When people say nice things about our teaching, we could easily overlook what makes us tremble in this project — namely, James 3:1: “Not many of you should become teachers . . . for you know that we who teach will be judged [that means judged by God] with greater strictness.” Wow. But you and I involved in this constant teaching ministry take heart from God’s word to Isaiah: “This is the one to whom I will look [declares the Lord]: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2). So, we believe God will look to us — he will smile upon us because of Jesus and because we don’t play fast and loose with his word. We tremble at the very privilege of knowing his word and speaking his word.

Teaching is what we do. It’s our calling. It’s a dangerous work. It’s a trembling work. But oh, what a happy work! It’s a happy work because we get to spend untold hours immersed in God’s word for the sake of God’s people. And Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you . . . that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). And then he told us to go share what we’ve heard and added, “It is more blessed [more happy] to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). So, it’s been a happy work.

Tony, you can bear your own witness to the joys of facing, amazingly, two thousand episodes of APJ, and selecting and distilling them into a usable manual of Christian counsel. But I want to bear witness to the joy of watching that happen. It really has been astonishing to watch. For ten years, I have watched you evaluate questions by the thousands, record answers, edit recordings, record or host a podcast, and schedule the episodes.

Now, that’s one source of joy (and it’s big and solid), just watching those competencies that God has given you put into action for his glory. But the skill that our readers are going to see in this book — this synthesizing skill — is of another order. Weaving hundreds of thousand-word answers into topical, coherent, readable chapters has inspired — still inspires — my happy admiration and thankfulness to God.

So thank you, Tony, for the investment of ten years of your life on the podcast and two years of your life on the book. It has been a precious partnership. Clearly you and I both believe in the value of the written word and the spoken word. You’ve reminded me of that over and over again — about the peculiar nature of this audible conversation that we have. We’ve seen lives captivated for Christ through both writing and speaking. We pray for that to continue to happen through both.

You and I both love to write. We are writers. We get our thoughts out on paper with joy. It is in our God-designed bones. But neither you nor I will surrender the living voice, because the living voice carries the affections of the heart more effectively than the written word. And we believe that new Christ-exalting affections of the heart are the goal of this ministry, the goal of books, the goal of speaking, the goal of Desiring God. I believe it’s the goal of the Bible — new Christ-exalting affections.

So, Ask Pastor John — the book and the podcast — aim to impart new affections. That’s what we want to happen. We aim at a miracle. We hope that you, our listeners, will hear and read our hearts. There is a happy melody there in our hearts — a God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, happy melody — and we hope that you hear it, and that it becomes the melody of your life.

Two Prayers for Listeners and Readers

Well put! Thank you, Pastor John. I appreciate that. We want the living voice captured in this podcast to bless people around the world for years and decades to come. To that end we have two prayers with this book.

First, we pray this book helps you who are listening to us right now. We want you to better navigate our over two hundred hours of audio, to find episodes you need when you need them, and the episodes your friends need when they need them. I think we can help you better serve others if we can help you find your way around the archive better. That’s prayer one.

“The book and the podcast aim to impart new affections. That’s what we want to happen. We aim at a miracle.”

Prayer two is for future listeners to this podcast, those who are not listening right now. They can’t hear me right now; they’re not listening to me; they haven’t even started listening. Imagine an audience of people who have never listened to APJ that will come online and listen to our content in future years and decades. Millions of people right now — that’s not an overstatement — don’t know that this podcast exists: people in our churches, people in our neighborhoods, people at work, people wrestling with suffering, people asking the most important questions in life. And I want them to see quickly the ground we’ve covered in the first ten years of the podcast so that they can benefit from the archive immediately.

So, those are our two prayers. And I put them in the introduction to my new book when I wrote this: “As we build this podcast into a single content library, our first decade lays the groundwork for everything else to come. For current listeners, the book rehearses key highlights from the past. For future listeners, the book is an on-ramp to summarize the ground we’ve already covered. The book will immediately serve thousands of current listeners who found their way from the podcast to the book.” That’s you if you’re listening, hearing about the book for the first time; you’re moving from the podcast to the book.

“But perhaps, if the Lord is gracious, the current will reverse in due time, and thousands of readers will find their way from this new book to the podcast. That’s our prayer. As you gift this book to not-yet-listeners, you’re helping us fulfill this dream in answer to that prayer. Think of this book as a podcast promo made of paper and ink that you can physically hand to others” (xxviii).

That thought thrills me. I can’t wait to hand out copies of this book to introduce new listeners to the podcast, to share with others this happy melody — this God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated, happy melody of what this podcast is. What a joy! What an honor to be able to do that.

Okay, so where can you get copies? To launch this new, big, red Ask Pastor John book, we are again partnering with our friends at Westminster Books. Support a wonderful Christian bookstore, and get discounted copies of Ask Pastor John: 750 Bible Answers to Life’s Most Important Questions right now at wtsbooks.com.

I have been honored to be your podcast host for over a decade from behind a microphone. And now to be your podcast host in a new book format is a new joy for me. Whether by microphone or by book, I am your host, Tony Reinke. See you next time.

Rejoicing over Judgment: Why God’s Wrath Is Good News

A couple of years ago, a friend and I were enjoying the view from a downtown hotel’s rooftop bar when we realized there was a function going on around us. Wanting to get some free food, we stuck around and started to mingle. But after just a couple of minutes, someone stood up to address the gathering, and we quickly discovered this was an event for a particular activist group — one whose cause both of us felt profoundly uncomfortable with, and so we discreetly slipped away.

Many people might feel similar as they read certain passages of Scripture. In Psalm 98, for example, we find ourselves in the middle of a celebration: there is a lot of music and energy (verses 4–6); all creation seems to be joining in (verses 7–8). But the cause of all the festivity quickly becomes apparent: “[God] comes to judge the earth” (verse 9). Which is where the discomfort might start. Perhaps we want to slip out.

The surprise is not just that the Bible speaks about God one day judging the world, but that his doing so is something to celebrate. Paul connects coming judgment to the gospel he preaches: “. . . on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus” (Romans 2:16). God’s judgment is part of the good news.

The Bible gives us at least five reasons why.

1. God’s judgment is needed.

Many today assume that people, deep down, are fundamentally good, and that bad things only really happen because of poverty, lack of education, poor upbringing, lack of privilege, and the like. What we need is progress, not judgment. Judgment is outdated. We’re sophisticated enough to know what’s right and wrong.

Miroslav Volf, professor of theology at Yale Divinity School, grew up in Croatia and lived through the bloodshed in that part of the world in the 1990s. In his book Exclusion and Embrace, he argues that one reason so many Westerners do not believe in judgment is that their lives are often too sheltered, too suburban, too quiet (300). For those who have lived through genocide, the idea of judgment can bring deep comfort. The fact is, many things in this world are not just unfortunate, but truly evil. We are naive to think otherwise. And too much wickedness is never adequately dealt with.

The truth of God’s judgment shows us that every wrong will be righted. No evil will ultimately prevail. No one will escape justice.

2. God’s judgment is fair.

Many people who don’t believe in God’s judgment do believe in judgment itself, and that it is down to us to implement it. Our social media feeds cry out with comments decrying injustice; often, the commenter also seems certain of exactly what needs to be done. Bloodshed erupts in the Middle East, and people who moments ago hadn’t even heard of the places in turmoil have no apparent doubt about who’s to blame and how to fix it.

The Bible does speak of a form of judgment that takes place in this life. Paul shows us that the state carries the sword of justice as an instrument of God’s wrath and an expression of his judgment (Romans 13:1–4). But such justice is incomplete and proximate at best. Even those of us fortunate enough to live in countries with healthy systems of justice know they are imperfect. Which is why Paul also speaks about “the day of [God’s] wrath,” when full justice will be done (Romans 2:5). If we don’t believe in that future judgment to come, our only hope for justice tends to be political justice in this life. Without God, such measures are all we have left.

“God sees the whole situation; we don’t. He is perfectly just; we’re not. He is not vindictive; we are.”

But we should be very hesitant to think we know how to fix the problems of the world. Paul’s language around the future judgment through Jesus shows us why: he will judge “the secrets of men” (Romans 2:16). Without that capacity, we will never have full justice. We can hide things from one another, even from our nearest and dearest, but we can hide nothing from Jesus. He sees the secrets of our hearts. He knows all our motivations, all our circumstances. His judgment — and only his judgment — will be fair.

3. God’s judgment shows we matter.

It is common to think that if God loves us, he won’t judge us; and if he judges us, he doesn’t love us. But the opposite of love is not judgment, but indifference.

When I was at university, a friend and I began to suspect a particular professor didn’t actually read our papers. They were often ungraded, with only vague comments and no evidence of the pages having been physically turned. So, we conducted an experiment. We each wrote an entirely random, outrageous sentence in the middle of our papers to see if he would spot it and comment on it. He never did. It was quite a blow.

There were some papers I’d worked especially hard on — papers on topics I deeply cared about, and where I wanted to make sure my understanding was clear. And yet he’d never actually bothered to read them. Which told me I didn’t matter to him — or at least this part of my education didn’t matter to him. Not grading and assessing someone’s work is a sign you don’t care about them.

So, God’s judging us is a sign that we really do matter to him. He is not indifferent to us. He cares how we live and what we do. His judgment is a backhanded compliment: our lives really are consequential.

4. God’s judgment makes us less violent.

If God is judgmental, we might think that gives us a personal license to be so as well. But Scripture shows us the exact opposite is the case: because God will bring final, perfect judgment at the end of time, I can trust him and not seek to enact my own form of justice now. If there is no judgment to come, then all I have left is whatever I can come up with in this life. Wrongs will have to be avenged here and now.

Paul writes, “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Romans 12:19). Paul wouldn’t need to write this if the tendency toward vengeance was not so prevalent in the human heart. His words are emphatic: “never avenge yourselves.” This is not a recommendation or a rule of thumb that applies most of the time. It is a categorical command. However grievous the wrong, we are never to seek personal vengeance.

Paul shows us why. Significantly, he addresses his readers here as “beloved,” a term he does not typically use in this letter. He is reminding us of the undeserved love we have received from God. We haven’t received what we truly deserve from him; we were his enemies, but he has lavished his love upon us. So, as recipients of such undeserved love, how can we refuse it to anyone else?

But it is not just the love God has shown us, but also his judgment to come, that restrains us from vengeance in the present. We are to “leave it to the wrath of God.” He is the one who repays. He punishes sin and brings judgment. He sees the whole situation; we don’t. He is perfectly just; we’re not. He is not vindictive; we are. We can trust him to repay — and he will. And because he will, I can hold back my own desire for vengeance.

5. Jesus delivers us from judgment.

Perhaps the biggest way the good news of the gospel connects to the judgment of God is this: in Christ, we have no need to fear it. As Paul writes to the believers in Thessalonica,

You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. (1 Thessalonians 1:9–10)

God will indeed judge the world. History will not lack a moral resolution. Perfect justice will come. But those in Christ do not need to fear it. The wrath our own sins deserve has already fallen on Jesus. We have been justified through faith in him. So, along with all creation in Psalm 98, we will be able to celebrate when that judgment finally comes.

Is Obedience Without Affection Still Love?

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast on this Monday. We’re going to start the week with a doozy of a question: Do we love God only by obeying him, or do we also love him verbally by using affectional language about him and to him? A hugely important question today that gets at the very heart of what we call Christian Hedonism.

The question is from an anonymous listener. “Pastor John, hello to you! My pastor recently admitted that he does not love God, or Christ, emotionally. He said he loves God, or loves Christ, by keeping his commandments. Obedience is love, he claims, returning often to 2 John 6 — ‘This is love, that we walk according to his commandments.’ And to 1 John 5:3 — ‘For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.’ I’ve known many other Christians in my life who seem to have no place for emotional or affectional language for God. They like to relate to him merely in similar categories of obedience. Is this healthy? How important is it to cultivate affectional language for God as God? And what would you say to those who are uneasy with such language for their relationship with God and only ever use this obedience language?”

Okay, I hear three questions.

1. Is it healthy to relate to God only in categories of obedience but not affections? Answer: no, it’s not healthy. It’s confusing at best, deadly at worst. I’ll come back to that.

2. How important is it to cultivate affectional language for God? Answer: it’s very important. However, language is not the ultimate issue. The reality of our hearts’ affections for God is the ultimate issue. The language of affections is important only because the heart reality is important.

3. What would you say to those who are uneasy with affectional language for their relationship with God and only use this obedience language? I would say, “Get over your uneasiness with affectional language, because the Bible is full of it — full of it — toward man and God.” You’re uneasy with the Bible. That’s your problem. And I would say if your heart is really emotionally dead toward God, repent and cry out for life.

Confused or Dead?

Now, we need to be careful here with our words, because it may be that this pastor is not denying that he has real and strong affections for God; he’s just denying that he should call them love, maybe. Love for God, he’s saying, is something else — namely, love is obedience. Now, if that’s what he’s saying, then he may be a good Christian and just biblically confused. In other words, his heart may be right, but he’s naming things in unbiblical ways, and probably he’s confusing his people in the process. It sounds like it from this question.

“God commands that we feel affections for God.”

On the other hand — this is more scary — it may be that he really doesn’t have any affections for God, and in that case he needs to be born again. If there is not even a mustard seed of delight in God, thankfulness to God, hope in God, satisfaction in God, desire for God — if none of those emotions is in his heart for God and Christ, he’s not a Christian. So, let me try to address both of those kinds of people at the same time.

The first kind is the Christian who is confused about the affections that he genuinely has for God and simply doesn’t know whether to call them love or not. And second is the person who thinks he’s a Christian when he has no emotions in his heart for God and Christ at all; he’s just dead emotionally toward God.

Affections in the Christian Life

Now, here’s the main thing to say about the confusion of claiming to love God with obedience but not with heart affections: that’s like affirming fruit but denying apples. I’ve said this so many times. Affirming obedience and denying affections is like affirming fruit and denying apples, because obedience means doing what God commands, and God commands affections. It’s confusing, it’s contradictory, to say, “I obey God, but I don’t have any of the affections that God commands me to have.” That’s just really confusing and contradictory.

1. God commands affections.

For example, Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord.” Now, that’s a command. So, a pastor who says he’s obedient to God’s commands would be obedient to the command to delight himself in the Lord. Now, he might not call it love — though I think he should, but he might not. (And I’ll show in a minute why I think he should.) That’s not a deadly problem. To get your language confused is not a deadly problem. Not to have any delight in the Lord is a deadly problem.

But for now, whether he calls delight in the Lord love or not, he is commanded to have delight. And it is simply confusing and contradictory to say he obeys God but does not relate to God with his emotions, because those emotions are commanded. And if he doesn’t have them, he’s disobedient to the command. We can add to Psalm 37:4 the command in Psalm 32:11: “Be glad in the Lord.” And Philippians 3:1: “Rejoice in the Lord.” And many others.

2. The godly model affections.

Not only are affections for God commanded, but that way of feeling in the heart is held out to us as an example — not just a command, but an example — of how godly people relate to God. For example, in Psalm 43:4: “I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy.” Or Psalm 84:2: “My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.” Or Psalm 63: “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you. . . . Your steadfast love is better than life. . . . My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food . . . when I remember you upon my bed” (Psalm 63:1, 3, 5–6).

3. We are to pray for affections.

And not only are affections for God commanded and given as examples of how godly people relate to God, but we are taught to pray for those affections. This is what we ought to do if we don’t have them. Psalm 90:14: “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love.” This is a cry to God to give us the affections for him that we ought to have and may not at the moment have.

And on top of all that, Jesus warns against outward obedience where the heart feels nothing. Matthew 15:8–9: “This people honors me with their lips,” — so, lips are moving; that’s outward obedience — “but their heart,” he says, “is far from me; in vain do they worship me.” “In vain”: that’s a big, terrible, horrible statement. Without heart, our outward obedience is nothing.

So, I conclude that it is confusing and contradictory to say that you obey God’s commands, but that you don’t pursue the very affections for God that he has commanded.

Love Worthy of Christ

Now, one last thing. Why should we use the word love for these affections for God? Now, I’m not saying that love for God is only affections. The Bible talks about love in a very broad way. But I am saying that love for God is not less than affections for God. Now, why would I say that? And I’ll give just one reason: because of Matthew 10:37. Jesus said this: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

Now, in that sentence, love for Jesus cannot mean obedience to Jesus’s commands, because he’s comparing love for Jesus with love for our children. “Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Love for our children does not mean obedience to our children. So, the point is, we must love Jesus with the kind of love we have for our most precious family members — only more so — and that is an affectional love.

So, I hope the pastor who said, “I love God by keeping his commandments, not with my affections,” will realize that God commands that we feel affections for God. And I hope that this is just a confusion of language and not a case of real deadness of heart.

Temptations Common to Marriage

I love everything about Christ-centered weddings. I love the love songs, the festive decorations, the contagious smiles, the time-honored traditions. I love the theology that marriage pictures and the miracle God performs by joining a man and a woman together as one. And I hate divorce. I hate all the damage it leaves in its wake. I hate how sin attacks what God has blessed and all that Satan does to undermine these vows.

So, when my wife and I start premarital counseling with a couple, I tell them that we will seem like good cop and bad cop. My wife openly expresses her joy to the engaged couple, while I keep a poker face over the six meetings, deliberately poking holes to see if their relationship is sufficiently built on the solid foundation of Christ.

Too often, couples stumble into marriage blinded to the problems in front of them because they look at their relationship through the distortion of rose-colored glasses. Then, shortly after the honeymoon (if it takes that long), the glasses fall off, and the couple becomes overwhelmed by what feel like painful, “irreconcilable” issues. Equally sad and tragic are the marriages that make it through earlier years only to yield to feelings of loneliness, resentment, or indifference, and then the couple gives up on the marriage in their later years.

I don’t know where you are relationally, but I’m writing to encourage couples married or about to be: if you and your spouse love Christ, your marriage can survive and thrive. So, for the purpose of thriving in your covenant, I’ll share three common challenges that all marriages between sinners face, holding up Christ as the only reliable solution for each.

1. Remember who the real enemy is.

If your marriage often feels more like a battleground than a bed of roses, you’re not crazy. In the Christian movie War Room, an elderly wise patron, Ms. Clara, tells a young wife struggling in her marriage, “You’re fighting the wrong enemy.” Oh, if every Christian couple took full heed of this danger! Satan studied Adam, and developed a specific and tailored plan — and what did he do? He went after Adam’s bride. He deceived Eve in his successful attack on their union (Genesis 3:1–6; Revelation 12:9). The Bible warns us that his war plan against marriage has not changed.

Before the apostle Paul tells Christian husbands and wives what he expects of them in Ephesians 5, he writes three whole chapters to ground us in the abundant grace that is ours in Christ. That grace is the means by which couples can make our marriages reflect Christ and his love for the church (Ephesians 5:22–31). Without regularly walking in the gospel of Ephesians 1–3 together, marriage easily becomes marred in fights centered around felt needs and grievances.

Then, in Ephesians 6, Paul tells believers why we need all the blessings from chapters 1–3: Satan and his horde of demons are still waging war against us (Ephesians 6:10–12), just as they did against Adam and Eve. You are at war with Satan, and your marriage is the battleground.

What’s the prescription? Remember that your spouse is not your enemy. How often do we turn our weapons against each other and unleash our anger there? That’s how Satan slowly builds a beachhead to launch his attacks against marriage (Ephesians 4:26–27). Our Lord taught us that a house divided against itself can’t stand. Satan’s strategy is to use friendly fire — spouses attacking each other — to defeat our marriages.

It’s imperative, then, for couples to learn how to engage in spiritual (not spousal) warfare. And spiritual wars can be won only with spiritual weapons. So, put on the whole armor of God, all the gracious gifts God has given you in Christ. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).

2. Reject any voices who reject God.

Satan spoke through the serpent to confront Eve with a choice: believe what God had said, or accept what she was hearing now. She chose to believe the serpent’s lie. She believed that she could step out from God’s authority and decide for herself what was right and wrong. As Satan led, Eve followed, and as Eve led, Adam followed. The order of creation was turned upside down, with God at the bottom. And lest we think we would have fared better, this is always how sin works in a marriage — yes, even our sin.

God has not called the husband to lead because he is superior to his wife (he’s not). A husband must lead because God intentionally made the man to lead and his wife to help (Genesis 2:18). God looked at that kind of marriage, and he saw that “it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Satan saw the same dynamics, and he hated them, so he came to overturn them. He sought to make the wife the head; the head, the helper; and God, the enemy. And, again, he’s whispering the same lies today. He wants women to chafe under the idea of submission and for men to run from the calling of headship.

What’s the prescription? Again, notice how Paul weaves the marriage story in Ephesians. Wives are called to submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22–24), and husbands are called to sacrificially love and serve their wives the way Christ loved the church (verses 25–30). This kind of marriage is possible only when wives and husbands are filled with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). Elsewhere, Paul adds that believers are filled with the Holy Spirit when we are filled with God’s word (Colossians 3:16).

So, regularly read God’s word, on your own and as a couple, and follow what you read by faith. And know that when you hear a voice that contradicts God’s word — in society, in your circles of relationships, in your own sinful mind — you hear the enemy’s voice (1 Timothy 4:1). Satan stirs the zeitgeist of societies to rebel against God’s ways (Ephesians 2:2–3). When I counsel struggling couples, I make sure I ask questions like these: What has your time in God’s word been like? How consistently are you attending Bible study and adult Sunday school? Not surprisingly, couples struggling in their marriages usually aren’t consistently listening by faith to the word of God.

3. Resist the urge to idolize marriage.

So far, I’ve only mentioned Eve’s failure in the fall, so let me shift to the principal one responsible for the fall: Adam. Where was he?

The indictment God raised against him was that he “listened to the voice of [his] wife” (Genesis 3:17). What could be sinful about Adam listening to his wife? We know that God gives a wife to help her husband, and he assumes the man will listen well to her counsel. The book of Proverbs personifies wisdom as a woman whom a man should embrace and listen to. It climaxes with a man finding a wife whose wise words are immensely helpful to him (Proverbs 31:26). However, preferring anyone or anything to God (or against his will) is to make that person or thing an idol.

We don’t know much about the first woman, Eve, but Moses makes at least one thing about her clear: her husband delighted in her (Genesis 2:23). The serpent, then, seems to have used the man’s delight against him. Satan used her to get him to choose her over God. And if we let him, he’ll do the same in our marriages today. How often couples sin to try to get what they want from each other (James 4:1–2)! Anytime you are willing to sin to get something (or to sin because you don’t get something), you have an idol.

What’s the prescription? If you are sinning in your marriage, follow that pattern to the idol and repent of it. God blessed couples to enjoy each other in marriage, but we’re never to allow our delight in marriage to supplant our desire for God. Whether your spouse gives you much or little, true contentment will never come from him. It can’t. So, stop telling yourself that. If your spouse could satisfy your soul, why would we need the bread of life and the fountain of living water (John 6:35; 7:37–38)?

Embrace the secret to contentment (in marriage and in all of life): that you won’t find contentment in getting what your flesh wants, but in being satisfied in what God has given you in Christ (Philippians 4:12–13).

Greater Than Our Challenges

Sadly, because of sin and the consequences of sin, we’ll have to face more challenges than these in our marriages. The fall robbed us of shalom with God, with our spouse, and with the world. The hope for our marital challenges is the last and better Adam, Christ. God, who knows the end from the beginning, promised in Genesis 3:15 that he would send another man who would subdue the serpent and restore God’s righteous reign over our rebellious creation. Through his death and resurrection, that man is reconciling all things back to God. He is the hope for your marriage, and his name is Jesus.

No, he has not lifted the curse from creation yet. So, none of us has a struggle-free marriage. However, he has overcome sin and Satan for us. He is Immanuel — God with us — and he is all the grace we need to overcome the challenges common to our marriages.

‘Baptism Now Saves You’ The Meaning of a Misunderstood Text

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Throughout church history, 1 Peter 3:21 has proved to be one of the more challenging texts to interpret in all of Scripture. Not only does the verse appear in one of the more puzzling paragraphs in the New Testament (1 Peter 3:18–22), but Peter seems to depict baptism as actually being salvific. How does baptism save us?

As is the case with so many difficult texts in Scripture, persistently pressing on the biblical text sheds light on its meaning — in this case, that baptism is not regenerative in itself, but powerfully expresses the individual’s faith in the sufficiency of Christ to save.

Righteous Sufferers Will Be Exalted

In the immediate context of the verse, Peter’s main point is that faithful Christian suffering results in eternal blessing. Christians are “blessed” if they suffer for the sake of righteousness (1 Peter 3:14), and they should deem it “better” to suffer for doing good (1 Peter 3:17).

The word “for” at the outset of verse 18 is crucial, for it shows that 1 Peter 3:18–22 grounds why Christians should believe such suffering is “better.” Verses 18–22 recount the story of Christ, who suffered and died (verse 18a) but who then was “made alive,” proclaimed victory, and ascended to God’s right hand (verses 18b–22). Though Christ is unique in that he accomplished redemption through his death and resurrection, he also serves as an example for us to follow (see 1 Peter 2:21). Just as Christ’s suffering led to his exaltation, so too will our righteous suffering.

In the midst of Christ’s story, Peter offers Noah as another example of a righteous sufferer whom God exalted in due time. In contrast to those in Noah’s generation who had disobeyed, Noah and those with him — they numbered eight in all — “were saved through water” (verse 20). Peter then draws out a typological relationship between the flood and baptism: the flood is the type and baptism the antitype, the latter of which “now saves you” (verse 21).

Just as Noah and his family were delivered by means of the ark “through water,” so Christians are delivered by means of Christ through baptism. In this sense, since Noah’s salvation typifies ours through Christ, Peter includes it at this point in his letter to help us grasp more clearly our own salvation through Christ and to ground more firmly our hope for future exaltation.

With this context in mind, what does it mean that baptism saves a person? Does baptism save apart from faith, or does baptism express faith? Do the baptismal waters in themselves wash away sin and infuse new life into the baptized, or is baptism a metonymy (a figure of speech that stands for the thing it represents) for Christ’s saving work that we receive by faith, which is expressed in baptism?

Does Baptism Actually Save?

One of the major interpretations of 1 Peter 3:21 is that Peter teaches some version of baptismal regeneration. According to Roman Catholicism’s understanding of the verse, for example, baptism is salvific in three ways: it washes away sin, grants new life to the baptized, and admits the baptized into the church.

In its purifying function, according to this view, baptism washes away both original sin and actual, pre-baptismal sins. The baptismal waters wash away both the guilt and the condemnation of sin. In its regenerative function, baptism infuses new life into the baptized so that the individual is actually and really dead to sin and granted a share in eternal life. In its ecclesiological function, baptism admits the baptized into the church, the communion of the saints, outside of which there is no salvation.

Baptism, then, conveys saving grace in that God’s grace becomes effective to the individual in baptism, for what baptism “signifies” it “actually brings about” in the baptized (Catechism of the Catholic Church §1234). According to Thomas Aquinas, the sacraments, of which baptism is the first, “effect what they signify,” not as the principal cause (which is God alone), but as the instrumental cause of God’s saving grace (Summa Theologica 3.62.1). This view of the sacraments, sometimes labeled ex opere operato (“by the work worked”), places the efficacy of the sacrament in the act itself. In this sense, the Roman Catholic interpretation of 1 Peter 3:21 is that baptism is necessary for salvation because baptism in itself actualizes salvation.

While Roman Catholicism’s interpretation of 1 Peter 3:21 may account for Peter’s straightforward claim that baptism saves the individual, it fails to account adequately for two features in the text: (1) the typological relationship between the flood and baptism (1 Peter 3:20–21a) and (2) the close association between faith and baptism (1 Peter 3:21b).

What Do the Waters Picture?

Regarding baptism’s typological relationship to the flood, the flood was not the means of salvation per se, but the occasion for salvation through the ark. Baptism certainly represents cleansing from sin, but it also evokes salvation through judgment. In the ancient context, large bodies of water and floodwaters were foreboding and dangerous because they were uncontrollable elements in nature that often brought destruction. Peter’s link between baptism and the flood is meant to draw out the link between baptism and judgment.

The flood was God’s judgment on humanity for sin, and Noah and his family were saved because they were in the ark. While in some sense Noah’s salvation included his deliverance from the corruption of those around him, at a more fundamental level he was delivered from the floodwaters of death by means of the ark. In this sense, the floodwaters in themselves worked judgment, whereas the ark worked salvation for Noah and his family in the midst of judgment.

Peter’s link between the flood and baptism suggests that baptism operates in similar ways. Like the flood, the waters of baptism in themselves evoke judgment; they are not the means of salvation per se, but they signify the occasion in which God worked salvation for his people through Christ. Further, just as the ark was the formal means of salvation for Noah and his family, believers are saved “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (verse 21). The mode of immersion poignantly portrays such salvation through judgment, for immersion evokes both the overwhelming floodwaters of judgment (as the person is submerged) and the salvation from judgment the baptized receives through Christ (as the person emerges).

This observation about the typological relationship between the flood and baptism suggests that Peter did not conceive of baptism as effectual in itself. According to the typology, baptism is not an ex opere operato mechanism by which the baptismal waters effect what they signify. Rather, the typology points to Christ, who like the ark saves us in the midst of God’s judgment through his death and resurrection on our behalf. Since baptism signifies our union to Christ in his death and resurrection (see Romans 6:3–4), baptism is an apt metonymy for Christ’s saving work that draws our attention to the image of salvation and judgment as typified in the flood.

Baptism as Faith Expressed

The baptismal waters do not convey saving grace in themselves, for baptism, in expressing the faith of the baptized, inexorably contains a subjective element. Baptism is not the “removal of dirt from the body but . . . an appeal to God for a good conscience” (1 Peter 3:21b). The contrast between the “body” and the “conscience” points to an outward versus inward reality.

Peter wants us to see that the significance of baptism is not the outward washing of water but that which is inward. Peter’s point isn’t to minimize water baptism — quite the opposite! Rather, the water is an outward reality that corresponds to a greater inward reality. The inward reality is “a good conscience,” which refers to a conscience unburdened by guilt and an awareness of sins forgiven and a righteous standing before God. Since Peter identifies baptism as an “appeal” or a “request” for a good conscience (these words offer a better translation than “pledge”), baptism is the act through which the individual requests forgiveness and cleansing from a guilty conscience, a request made in the presence of God and God’s people.

Such an understanding of baptism shows its inextricable link with faith in Christ, since Peter clarifies that baptism is the individual’s expression of faith in the sufficiency of Christ’s death and resurrection on his behalf. If the Roman Catholic view of baptismal regeneration were true (in which the sign actualizes the thing signified), it is difficult to see why Peter would downplay the baptismal water itself and instead draw our attention to the subjective element of faith bound up with that act of baptism.

Future Glory, Fresh Resolve

While 1 Peter 3:21 offers a hermeneutical challenge, Peter gives sufficient clues to elucidate in what sense he considers baptism salvific. Of particular importance is the way in which he frames the relationship between the flood and baptism, as well as his explanation of baptism as the request issuing from the individual’s trust in the sufficiency of Christ to save.

Peter reminds us that our accomplished salvation in Christ, typified by Noah’s deliverance from the flood, has already been powerfully expressed in our baptism, and that therefore we can find fresh assurance of future glory and a renewed resolve to endure present suffering for the sake of righteousness.

Leaders in the Church: Speaking and Living God’s Word

In this message, we are going to dig into the biblical teaching about leaders in the church — who they are and what they do. So, I invite you to come with me through five steps.

Step 1: I will try to show that it is God’s will that there be leaders in all Christian churches.

Step 2: I will try to formulate a brief definition of what this leadership is, or what leaders do.

Step 3: I will point to some biblical cautions about leadership.

Step 4: We will zero in on how leaders lead successfully. What’s the basic prescription for effectiveness?

Step 5: We will flesh that out with two practical implications for the pastor.

If you are helped by one-word summaries: We will deal with the justification of leadership, the definition of leadership, cautions about leadership, the implementation of leadership, and some illustrations of leadership.

Step 1: Justification of Leadership

It is God’s will that there be leaders in all Christian churches. We know this because God himself uses at least seven different words for these leaders as the New Testament describes them in the churches.

First is the very word “leader,” the present participle of hēgomai, hēgoumenos. This is the same word that Matthew 2:6 uses, where Micah’s prophecy is quoted: “From you, [Bethlehem], shall come a [leader] who will shepherd my people Israel.”

Then the word is used in Hebrews 13 for church leaders.

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. (Hebrews 13:7)

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. (Hebrews 13:17)

The second word for leaders is translated in various ways. The idea is “one who stands before” the people (proistēmi).

We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you. (1 Thessalonians 5:12)

Let the elders who rule [or govern] well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. (1 Timothy 5:17)

The third word is “overseer” (episkopos).

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to [shepherd] the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. (Acts 20:28)

An overseer, as God’s [household manager], must be above reproach. (Titus 1:7)

The fourth word, as we just saw, is “household manager” (oikonomos).

The Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager [of the household], whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time?” (Luke 12:42)

An overseer, as God’s [household manager], must be above reproach. (Titus 1:7)

The fifth word is “shepherd,” both as a verb (poimainein) and as a noun (poimēn).

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to [shepherd] the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. (Acts 20:28)

I exhort the elders among you . . . shepherd the flock of God that is among you. (1 Peter 5:1–2)

[Christ] gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers. (Ephesians 4:11)

The sixth word is “elder” (presbyteros).

They had appointed elders for them in every church. (Acts 14:23)

This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might . . . appoint elders in every town as I directed you. (Titus 1:5)

Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. (1 Timothy 5:17)

The seventh word is “teacher” (didaskalos).

[Christ] gave [to the church] the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers. (Ephesians 4:11)

An overseer must be . . . able to teach. (1 Timothy 3:2)

So, I conclude that it is God’s will that there be such leaders in all the churches. They go by different names to connote different emphases of their role:

“Leader,” connoting direction and guidance for the people.
“One who stands before,” connoting a chairman-like governance.
“Overseer,” connoting a watchful supervisory role.
“Household manager,” connoting administration, organization, stewardship.
“Shepherd,” connoting protecting, nourishing, guiding.
“Elder,” connoting mature, exemplary responsibility.
“Teacher,” connoting the impartation and explanation of truth.

I think it would be fair to say, to most of you in this room right now, “That’s who you are.” And therefore, the rest of this message should be of the highest relevance to you.

Step 2: Definition of Leadership

So, from those seven descriptions of leaders in the church, what can we infer about the nature or the definition of leadership? Three things.

First, when you see that these designations include guidance, governance, supervision, organization, modeling, and the application of truth to people’s lives, it’s obvious that the meaning of leadership is getting people from where they are to where God wants them to be. Moving toward a goal is implied in all these words. God does not put leaders in a group in order for them to aimlessly go in circles. He puts leaders in a group to take them from where they are to where he wants them to be — in their thinking, in their feeling, in their action, maybe in their geographic location. Leadership implies that there’s a goal and a movement of people toward a goal.

Second, when you see that these seven designations of leadership involve watchful supervision, governance, administration, organization, protection, nourishment, teaching, and being mature examples, it becomes obvious that God has certain ways, means, and methods for getting people to his goal. Christian leadership does not look mainly to the world for how to lead people. It looks mainly to God. What has God said? Not only “Where is he taking his people in faith and holiness and maturity and love and fruitfulness?” but also “What has he said about how leaders are to get them there? What are God’s methods for taking a people to his goal?”

Third, even though it is not explicit in any of these seven designations of leaders, there is a biblical banner flying in 1 Peter 4:11 over all Christian service — including leadership — which makes it explicit that Christian service is done in reliance upon God’s power, not our own.

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:10–11)

So, essential to Christian leadership is God’s gifted leader, God’s goal, God’s methods, and God’s power. And we really should add one more thing to those components that is obvious but unmentioned — namely, that there are followers.

“Effective Christian leadership speaks the word of God and lives the word of God.”

I am not a leader if I know where I want people to go and nobody’s following — nobody’s looking to me for guidance or finding help in my ministry. And I’m not a leader if everybody’s following me, and I don’t have a goal for where they should go. And I’m not a Christian leader if the place I want them to go is not where God wants them to go, or my methods of getting them there are not God’s methods, or the strength I depend on is not God’s strength.

So, here’s my definition of Christian leadership:

Christian leadership is knowing where God wants people to be and taking the initiative to use God’s gifts and God’s methods to get them there in reliance on God’s power through Christ, with God’s appointed people following.

Whatever God calls his people to be, you get out in front of them and take them there.

If God calls them to trust the promises of God in the best and worst of times, you get out in front and take them there.
If God calls them to have unshakable hope in the face of cultural collapse, you get out in front and take them there.
If God calls them to be radically God-centered and Christ-exalting and Bible-saturated, you get out in front and take them there.
If God calls them to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Christ, you get out in front and take them there.
If God calls them to be happy in all their suffering, you get out in front and take them there.
If God calls them to love their neighbors and make sacrifices for the needy, you get out in front and take them there.
If God calls them to be pure and holy and separate from the world, you get out in front and take them there.
If God calls them to be self-controlled and dignified and sober-minded, you get out in front and take them there.
If God calls them to be childlike and meek and gentle, you get out in front and take them there.
If God calls them to be as bold as a lion, you get out in front and take them there.
If God calls them to be generous and sacrificial in their giving, you get out in front and take them there.
If God calls them to be world Christians with a global mindset and a heart for unreached peoples, you get out in front and take them there.
If God calls them to lay down their lives for Christ, you get out in front and take them there.

Christian leadership in our churches is knowing where God wants people to be and taking the initiative to use God’s gifts and methods to get them there in reliance on God’s power through Christ, with God’s appointed people following. God’s gifted leader, God’s goal, God’s methods, God’s power, God’s appointed following.

Step 3: Cautions About Leadership

The first caution is about my own wording: “Get out in front and take them there.” “Get out in front” is a metaphor, not a geographical mandate. Because, in fact, the effective leader might be behind them, giving them a necessary push. Or he might be beside them, protecting them from assault on their flank. Or he might be underneath them, building foundations to hold them up. Or he might be hovering over them, saying, “Up here! Up here! Look up!” Or he might be smack-dab in the middle of them, suffering everything that they suffer. So, “get out in front,” means “embody the goal, and do whatever you have to do, and go wherever you have to go in God’s way, to get the people to where God wants them to be.”

The second caution comes from Jesus. He gives this warning more than once — namely, the warning not to use the position of leadership as a way to gratify the desire for self-exaltation. I’ll just mention one example:

A dispute also arose among [the apostles], as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest [the desire to be recognized as greater than others]. And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.” (Luke 22:24–27)

The unmistakable point of Jesus’s words is this: “Let the leader become as one who serves.” That is, the aim of the leader is the good of the people, not the glory of his own name. He’s not out to be “regarded” as great (verse 24) or to be “called” a benefactor (verse 25). He lives for the good of his people — the temporal good and especially the eternal good.

Paul gave his commentary on Jesus’s words “exercise lordship” (kyrieuousin, verse 25) in 2 Corinthians 1:24: “Not that we lord it over [kyrieuomen] your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.” Paul, the leader, has a goal: the joy of your faith! And Paul, the leader, has a God-appointed method. And it is not lording it over them, but taking the form of a servant and working with them for their joy.

But before I leave the cautions, let me give a caution about the cautions. Luke 22:26 (“Let the . . . leader [become] as one who serves”), which is meant to make leaders humble and loving, is sometimes used to make leaders fearful and silent. The “Me Too” movement, multiple pastoral abuses, the indiscriminate disparaging of all biblical headship as toxic masculinity — these forces in our time are turning servant leadership into all servant and no leadership. When Jesus bound himself with a towel and got down on his knees and washed the disciples’ feet — like a servant — nobody in that room doubted for an instant who the leader was.

If you are in a staff meeting, or a meeting with the elders, or a congregational meeting, and a controversial issue arises, and someone goes to the microphone and gives an argument, and the argument is based on factual mistakes, or incomplete information, or unbiblical assumptions, or illogical reasoning, or emotional manipulation, and the congregation is being swayed by this presentation, your silence, pastor, meek as it may seem, is not servanthood. It’s either a failure of discernment or it’s cowardice. It is not leadership.

Your job at that moment is to go to the microphone and say to the person, “These two parts of what you said are true, but here’s the problem with what you said.” And you set the record straight with facts, biblical truth, and clear thinking. You will feel the people shifting back from error to truth. Dozens of godly people out there who could smell the error but couldn’t name it will be thankful for you, because you rose to the occasion as a leader, and you named the error so that people could see it. You served them well.

If you sit there and think, “If I stand up and correct this person, they will very likely accuse me of shaming and abusing them,” and you let that fear cause you to be silent in the name of humble, caring, servant leadership, you have failed your flock and acted like a hireling. Jesus told us, “Blessed are you when others revile you . . . and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account” (Matthew 5:11). So, the caution about the caution is this: Don’t let the spirit of the age define leadership. Trust God and be biblical.

Step 4: Implementation of Leadership

How do leaders lead successfully? Let’s zero in on the heart of the matter. When you take the seven designations of New Testament leaders (leading, governing, overseeing, managing, shepherding, modeling, teaching), every one of them cries out for God to speak:

In leading, I need to know from God where he wants his people to be.
In governing, I need to know from God how to govern.
In overseeing, I need to know from God what I am watching for in my supervision.
In managing, I need to know from God what I am organizing this people for.
In shepherding, I need to know from God what I should feed my sheep and what I need to protect them from.
In modeling, I need to know from God what kind of example I am to set.
And in teaching, I need to know from God what I am to teach.

Which brings us to my main text, Hebrews 13:7:

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.

This author draws out two things about these leaders and holds them up for us to see and imitate. First, they spoke the word of God. “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God.”

Second, their way of life was such an exemplary walk of faith that its outcome was glorious and, therefore, worthy of imitation. “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life [which probably means that they stayed true to Christ all the way to the end and died well], and imitate their faith.”

So, my summary for us would be this: effective Christian leadership speaks the word of God and lives the word of God. Your calling as leader in the church is to speak the word of God and live the word of God.

And so, I turn finally to illustrate this leadership of speaking the word of God and living the word of God.

Step 5: Illustrations of Leadership

Let’s flesh out this way of leading with two practical implications for the pastor.

Knowing Ultimate Reality

First, if effective leadership speaks and lives the word of God, your lifelong, unwavering vocation, your lifelong priority, is to handle God’s word, the Bible, in such a way that you penetrate through its carefully construed sentences to the reality it is meant to communicate. The ultimate thing about the Bible is not that God spoke sentences and paragraphs (which he did), but that with sentences and paragraphs God revealed reality. Rightly understood propositions and narratives are a window onto reality, what really is.

And the main reality that the Bible reveals is God. “The Lord appeared . . . at Shiloh, for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord” (1 Samuel 3:21). Brothers, do you realize what a glorious calling you have? To spend all your life beholding ultimate reality, beholding God, through his word! Knowing God, knowing ultimate reality, through his word!

Or consider Ephesians 3:4: “When you read this [Paul’s letter], you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ.” When you move into the sentences of Ephesians and through them into ultimate reality, you perceive the mystery of Christ and how it relates to all things.

“If you know ultimate reality, you know the most important thing about all reality.”

Knowing the ultimate reality of God and Christ through the word of God, on the one hand, and being formed in your mind and emotions and actions by that reality, on the other hand, are not separate acts of the Christian leader. Why? Because you become what you behold. “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

And four verses later, Paul tells us where we behold this ultimate reality, this glory. Second Corinthians 4:4 says that, when satanic blindness is removed, we see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” We behold God in Christ in the gospel — that is, in the word of God. This is the lifelong vocation of the Christian leader: penetrating through the propositions and narratives of the Bible to ultimate reality — God in Christ, and how he relates to everything. Then speaking it and living it before your people. A glorious calling!

Applying Ultimate Reality

Second, we need to realize that what we know and become through this lifelong encounter with ultimate reality through God’s word is very limited in this life, yet it is without limit in its relevance and application to everything. What does that mean?

During my 33 years as a pastor, few things threatened to paralyze me in ministry like the endless stream of proposals for how I should do ministry. A constant stream of articles and seminars and lectures and courses and degrees and programs and books and videos and conferences, not even to mention the whole universe of knowledge of culture and politics and business and industry and education and philosophy and geography and anthropology and history and physics and chemistry and astronomy and sociology and psychology and literature and entertainment and medicine and and and . . .

Do you realize that, compared to what can be known, we don’t know anything? This is demoralizing and paralyzing for a leader whose job is to take his people where they’re supposed to go.

Except for this. And this is what kept me going for 33 years, and keeps me going today: Our encounter with ultimate reality through God’s word is without limit in its relevance and application to everything.

If you know God through his word and have insight into the mystery of Christ, then what you know and what you are becoming is without limit in its relevance to everything. Why is that?

Because ultimate reality relates to all reality. Ultimate reality is the most significant thing about all reality. Ultimate reality is the most important factor to know in relation to all reality. If you know ultimate reality, you know the most important thing about all reality. Which means you can walk into any conversation, anywhere in the world, about any topic in the world, and have the most important thing to say in that conversation.

They might be talking about the microscopic machinery inside the human cell. They might be talking about the mathematical calculations that enable you to land a rover on Mars with pinpoint accuracy. They might be talking about bizarre cultural customs of a tribe you’ve never heard of. Do you think you are a small player in those conversations?

If you have penetrated through the Bible into ultimate reality — to God and his creation and providence and Christ and redemption — you know the most important thing in every conversation on any topic anywhere in the world. Here’s what you can say:

God made this. He made it to reveal his glory. His aim is that it move you to worship him. If you don’t see it, it’s because you are blind in your sin. God has made a way so that this blindness can be forgiven and removed. Jesus Christ died and rose again for that. So, if you embrace him as your Savior and Lord and Treasure, you can know what these cells and equations and customs are ultimately about, which means your work can have ultimate meaning. You can turn your entire science and enterprise into an act of worship.

Take heart from this, glory in this, that what your people need from you is not that you know all reality, but that you know, and are formed by, ultimate reality — that you know what God has revealed about himself in his word, and that it has shaped your life. Your leadership is to speak that reality and live that reality — to speak the word of God and to live the word of God.

Spend your life this way, and someone will say of you someday, “Remember your leader, the one who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of his way of life, and imitate his faith.”

Why We Long for Revival

Most earnest Christians have a deep longing to see and experience a spiritual revival. Many regularly pray for it. But ask a hundred such Christians to describe what they’re longing and praying for, and you’re likely to get dozens of different answers, depending on how their cultural backgrounds, church traditions, theological paradigms, and personal experiences have formed their concept of what a revival is.

Some think of revivals primarily as large-scale historical events that result in many people converting to the Christian faith, leaving notable effects on the wider society (like the early chapters of Acts or the “Great Awakenings”).
Some think of revivals primarily as what happens when Christians in a local church or school experience renewed spiritual vitality and earnestness together (like what took place at Asbury University in early 2023).
Some think of revivals primarily as strategically designed and scheduled events that aim to evangelize unbelievers and/or exhort believers to pursue a deeper life of personal holiness and Christian service (like Billy Graham’s evangelistic crusades).
And some think of revivals primarily as what happens whenever an individual Christian experiences a transformative, renewing encounter with the Holy Spirit.

Now, apart from some debates over definitions (like what differentiates revival from renewal), most earnest Christians would agree that when the Holy Spirit moves in power to give new life to unregenerate people and renewed life to regenerate people, the results can look like all those descriptions — and certainly more.

But when earnest Christians long for revival, despite whatever concept and phenomena they associate with that term, they’re not really longing for that concept or those phenomena. If you were to ask those hypothetical hundred Christians to press deeper and describe what they most deeply long for when they long for revival, I believe the nature of their answers would be very similar.

‘It’s You’

To illustrate what I mean, let me describe a touching scene that occurs at the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third book C.S. Lewis wrote in his seven-part Chronicles of Narnia series. After another wonderful Narnian adventure, just before Aslan sends Lucy and Edmund back to our world, Lucy says,

“Please, Aslan, . . . before we go, will you tell us when we can come back to Narnia again? Please. And oh, do, do, do make it soon.”

“Dearest,” said Aslan very gently, “you and your brother will never come back to Narnia.”

“Oh, Aslan!” said Edmund and Lucy both together in despairing voices.

“You are too old, children,” said Aslan, “and you must begin to come close to your own world now.”

“It isn’t Narnia, you know,” sobbed Lucy. “It’s you. We shan’t meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?”

“But you shall meet me, dear one,” said Aslan.

“Are — are you there too, Sir?” said Edmund.

“I am,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name.” (247)

If you haven’t read the Narnia books, it’s important to understand that Lucy and Edmund hadn’t enjoyed merely a few childish, holiday-like adventures in Narnia. They, along with their two older siblings, had been Narnian kings and queens for decades. They had fought in fierce battles, and shed their blood and tears for its defense. They had loved and cared for its citizens. And their encounters with the great lion, Aslan, had transformed their lives. Narnia felt more like home to them than any place they’d ever been, and when they weren’t in Narnia, they longed to be there.

So, when Lucy says, “It isn’t Narnia, you know,” she’s saying something profound. There’s a deeper longing inside her than her longing for Narnia. It’s a longing that fuels her longing for Narnia. And she names it for Aslan in two words: “It’s you.”

Those two words reveal what makes everything about Narnia so wonderful to Lucy — in fact, makes Narnia Narnia for her: Aslan. Take Aslan out of Narnia, and would she still want to return? We can hear her answer when she says, “How can we live, never meeting you?” For Lucy, an Aslan-less Narnia is a lifeless Narnia.

It’s Him

The real reason earnest Christians long for revival is similar to the real reason Lucy longed to return to Narnia. Lucy longed to experience being close to Aslan; Christians long to experience being close to Jesus. It isn’t the manifestations of revival we most deeply long for, as wonderful as those manifestations might be. It’s the Source of revival we really want. We long for the Life that gives us life, sustains our life, and renews our life — that in Christ, by his Spirit, we might “be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). If Jesus were to ask us what it is about revival that we want, we might paraphrase Lucy in our reply: “It isn’t revival, you know. It’s you.”

In saying it’s Jesus we most deeply long for in revival, we mean that we desire a more profound experiential knowledge (Philippians 3:8) of his refreshing presence (Act 3:20), his incomprehensible love (Ephesians 3:19), his all-surpassing peace (Philippians 4:7), and his immeasurable power (Ephesians 1:19). We desire all that the triune God, “the fountain of life” (Psalm 36:9), promises to be for us in Jesus. For Jesus is our great Fountainhead. For us “to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21), because Christ himself is our life (John 1:4; 14:6).

And in saying it’s Jesus we most deeply long for in revival, we mean that we desire his kingdom to come (Matthew 6:10) and for all who are appointed to eternal life to believe (Acts 13:48) — all those whom Jesus had in mind when he said, “I must bring them also” (John 10:16).

That’s why our longings for revival are not focused on our personal experience. In Christ, we are members of a larger body (1 Corinthians 12:27) of whom Christ is the life-giving head (Ephesians 1:22). Our life is bound up with our fellow members of Christ’s body, and we will not experience the fullness of Christ apart from the other members (Ephesians 4:11–13). So, we can’t help but desire revival both in the conversions of others whom Jesus must bring and in the renewal of all believers (including us) whose spiritual strength has weakened and whose spiritual senses have dulled.

It isn’t our imagined revival that we desire most. It’s Jesus and all God promises to be for us in him. Take Christ out of the event of revival, even if it had all the amazing, adrenaline-inducing phenomena we might associate with it, and would we still want it? No, because a Christless revival is lifeless revival. And would we be content if we were the only revived Christian in our church or community? No, because “if one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Corinthians 12:26).

Echo of Jesus’s Desire

As Lucy and Edmund speak with Aslan, they realize they are near the border of Aslan’s country — a land they’ve only heard about, never seen, yet the one place in all the worlds, including Narnia, they most deeply long to be. But Aslan tells them that they can enter his country only from their own world (our world).

“What!” said Edmund. “Is there a way into [your] country from our world too?”

“There is a way into my country from all the worlds,” said [Aslan]. . . .

“Oh, Aslan,” said Lucy. “Will you tell us how to get into your country from our world?”

“I shall be telling you all the time,” said Aslan. “But I will not tell you how long or short the way will be; only that it lies across a river. But do not fear that, for I am the great Bridge Builder.” (246–47)

Reading this fictional conversation now, in my late fifties, stirs up the aching longing it did when I read it in my late childhood, nearly half a century ago. It was this painfully pleasurable longing that drew me back again and again to the Narnian chronicles as a boy (I don’t know how many times I read those books). I learned whom Aslan represented, and I wanted to meet him face to face. I shared Lucy and Edmund’s desire to actually be in his promised land and finally, as Lewis puts it in another book, to “find the place where all the beauty came from” (86). I still do.

So does everyone who encounters the real “Aslan” and comes to love and trust him. How can we not? For that deep longing is an echo in our souls of the deep longing Jesus has, which he expressed to his Father when he prayed,

Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)

It is this aching longing that fuels our recurring (we might say continual) desire to experience revival. But it’s not the mere experience of spiritual refreshment we desire; we long for the Place, the Person, where all the refreshment comes from. We long for what Jesus longs for: that we would be with him where he is, to see his glory.

To know that this is the core of our revival longings can help sustain our prayers for it. It can also protect us from disillusionment should we experience revival and all the confusing messiness that tends to accompany it. Because at the end of the day, it isn’t revival, you know. It’s Jesus.

Was Anyone More Alone? How Jesus Comforts the Lonely

I had read the account of the woman at the well countless times before, but never had it spoken so powerfully to a quiet pain I have often felt: loneliness.

I had always focused on the needs of the woman while reading John 4, but this time the needs of her Savior arrested my attention. In the familiar account, a weary and thirsty Jesus sits down beside the well of Sychar while his disciples, hungry after an exhausting journey, venture into the Samaritan town to buy food (John 4:6–8). In the next scene, a woman arrives to draw water from the well. Jesus asks her for a drink, and then he offers her a drink of another kind — a soul-satisfying draft of living water (John 4:13–14).

Presumably, Jesus drinks the water the Samaritan woman draws from the well, but after his disciples return with food, hungry as he almost certainly is, he does not eat. Instead, in another play on words, he tells his disciples, “I have food to eat that you do not know about” (John 4:32). The bewildered disciples conclude that someone else had given him food. Knowing their confusion, Jesus explains, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me” (John 4:34). Jesus had feasted on a spiritual harvest that day; so spiritually full was he that his physical hunger diminished.

Food for Lonely Hearts

Rereading this account was a hunger-diminishing experience for me. I was weary and thirsty from a journey of my own — another out-of-state move. If T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock “measured out [his] life with coffee spoons,” I could measure mine out with these moves, each one bringing fresh feelings of loneliness as I once again took on the identity of an outsider. I was hungry for friendship and belonging.

Jesus’s example at the well of Sychar gave me a plan for dealing with my loneliness-hunger. Jesus modeled the joyful obedience that suppresses lesser appetites. I learned that busying myself with the good works God had given me could fill me spiritually such that my hunger for belonging would recede into its proper place.

Just as Jesus experienced fullness through faithful obedience to God, I have learned to find joy and satisfaction in faithfully completing the work God gives me each day, whether preparing another meal, writing sample sentences for grammar class, responding to emails, arbitrating my children’s disputes, greeting a neighbor, sending up prayers of confession and pleas for help, or even cleaning a spill in the refrigerator. Each small act of faithfulness begins to fill my soul, much like the first bite each morning begins to fill my stomach.

Best and Dearest Friend

I am hardly alone in my loneliness. About one in four adults across the world suffers from a similar hunger. Bankrupt of any long-term solutions, the world suggests increased human interactions to alleviate the suffering. But for all our digital connectedness, the loneliness epidemic persists and grows.

Only in Jesus do we find a solution to the growing problem. He offers the hunger-suppressing plan of faithful obedience. But he also offers so much more. Jesus offers the presence of a sympathetic friend. If, as C.S. Lewis observes, friendship begins when one person says to another, “What! You too? I thought I was the only one” (The Four Loves, 78), then in Jesus we find the best and dearest friend. He fully “sympathize[s] with our weaknesses” and has experienced the pain of their accompanying temptations, “yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:14–16).

Acquainted with Loneliness

Jesus is a friend who, just like us, is intimately acquainted with hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and, yes, even loneliness.

Has anyone been more misunderstood than Jesus, whose divine proclamations of truth were met with ignorance and doubt? “We brought no bread” (Matthew 16:7). “He is out of his mind” (Mark 3:21). Who can forget the derision of his fellow Galileans after he authoritatively taught and powerfully performed miracles among them? “Is not this the carpenter’s son?” (Matthew 13:55). How about Peter’s brazen rebuke when Jesus revealed the wisdom of God’s salvation plan? “This shall never happen!” (Matthew 16:22).

Has anyone been more alone than Jesus, who “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51)? While his friends and brothers carried on with their lives, he single-mindedly pursued the task his Father had given him. He wasn’t granted the gift of human marriage or children or property, as so many others had been. Instead, his was the lonely path to Golgotha. Who has been more alone than the one who, in his greatest hour of need, fell on his face, prayed, wept, and bled, only to find those dearest to him sleeping, unable to help shoulder his burden? “Could you not watch with me [for] one hour”?! (Matthew 26:40).

Has anyone endured more hatred than Jesus, whose bloodied body and anguished cries from the cross provoked the jeering of the violent mob who had gathered to satisfy their bloodlust? There, Jesus endured the lonely lash of public mockery: “He saved others; he cannot save himself. . . . Let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God’” (Matthew 27:41–43).

Nor was Jesus a stranger to the loneliness of bereavement, likely having mourned his (adopted) father Joseph’s death. Matthew 14:13 also records his withdrawal “to a desolate place” after hearing the news of his cousin John’s beheading in prison. See his lament over the coming judgment on Jerusalem or his tears at the tomb of Lazarus (Matthew 23:37–24:2; John 11:33–36). Jesus knew and grieved the separation of death.

Misunderstood by family and friends, rejected by his countrymen, despised by the religious leaders, forsaken and betrayed by his disciples, Jesus understood loneliness. No one was more of an outsider, and no one could be more of a friend. To our own lonely hearts, the ever-present Jesus whispers the comforting words, “Me too. You are not alone.”

Glorious Through Loneliness

But more than offering the presence of a friend in loneliness, and more than offering a plan for alleviating the loneliness, Jesus offers purpose to the suffering of loneliness. If Jesus was perfected through suffering (Hebrews 2:10), will we not also be perfected through our own suffering? Loneliness is another of those “various trials” that may grieve us throughout our lives (1 Peter 1:6). But as we embrace the affliction, as we resist the temptations it brings, and as we pursue joy by faithfully doing the work God has given us, our faith is refined like gold, becoming more and more precious as the impurities melt away (1 Peter 1:7).

One of the purposes of loneliness — and indeed, one of the main purposes for every kind of suffering — is for God to make us glorious through it. And as we all in varying degrees share the sufferings of Jesus, so shall we also share in his glory.

Not Alone

Maybe yours is the loneliness of bereavement, or of being the outsider, or of being misunderstood or cynically judged. Maybe your life circumstances distinguish you, though not in the way you would prefer. Maybe you endure chronic snubbing in your neighborhood or chronic ridicule at school for being a Christian. Whatever the nature of your suffering, take heart, lonely soul! You are not alone. Jesus is with you.

Feast, as he did, on the “food” God has given you to eat. Be filled with “the peaceful fruit of righteousness” that enduring loneliness produces in this life (Hebrews 12:11). And wait in the company of your dearest friend for the coming glory, where his faithfulness has earned for you a share of his inheritance (Romans 8:17).

How Preachers Grow Graceless

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. Well, coming up soon — I believe on Wednesday of next week — as we read the Bible together, we read the first section of Matthew 23, where Jesus confronts the religious rulers of his day. And to anticipate that text — which is itself loaded with a full day’s worth of reflection — we have a cluster of thoughts and questions from a listener named Jim who lives just outside of Nashville.

“Pastor John, hello to you. I’m a bi-vocational elder and sometime preacher at my little church,” Jim writes. “I have always been drawn to Jesus’s words about the Pharisees in Matthew 23:1–5. The text is instructive to me about preaching and personal holiness. It seems to suggest at least four things.

“(1) Hypocrites can preach truth. Jesus says these Pharisees are truth-tellers; therefore, ‘observe whatever they tell you’ (verse 3). That line is startling. There’s an obligation to obey the truth of what they get right, even though they, the Pharisees, are hypocrites. Does that hold true today? Irrespective of whether we know a preacher is truly obedient in private, we receive the truth of their preached words. It also seems to apply to men who are later disqualified for sin, and people are left wondering about all the truth they learned from that preacher over the years.

“(2) It seems to speak to a preacher’s assurance. It suggests that preachers who preach truth well do not find in that homiletical skill the grounds of their personal assurance if their private life does not measure up. Is that true?

“(3) It speaks to the calling of pastors to preach holiness. In verse 4, it seems the calling of others into personal holiness and living out personal holiness go together for a preacher. Would this make a preacher hesitant to preach holiness because his life doesn’t measure up in private? How far does his life need to measure up until he’s a hypocrite? Do I repent for myself every time I call for holiness from the pulpit? These questions haunt me, a preacher with remaining sin within me.

“(4) It speaks to all our service. If we serve only so others see us serving, that service is rendered vain (verse 5).

“Many thoughts and questions intertwine for me over this text. What do I get right and wrong on Matthew 23:1–5?”

Well, first of all, I just commend Jim for reflecting so profoundly on this text.

Let me give quick, short answers to those four questions — especially the last one, I think, was more of a comment — and then step back and see how those words of Jesus are so relevant for all of us.

Woe to the Scribes and Pharisees

Here are the words from Jesus. Jesus said to his disciples,

The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by others. (Matthew 23:2–5)

1. Hypocrites’ Teaching

So, the first question Jim asks is, What should we do with the true teaching of hypocrites — preachers who preach true things and live a double life, denying by their private lives what they preach in public? There are three responses to that.

First, when duplicity is discovered in a pastor, the pastor should be removed from his service, according to the qualifications given for the elders in 1 Timothy 3:1–7 and Titus 1:5–16.

Second, truth is truth even if a donkey or a heretic or the devil himself speaks it, just as when the demons called out to Jesus, “[We] know who you are — the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24). Then Jesus wouldn’t let them talk, it says in Mark 1:34, “because they knew him.” They got part of the truth right, but they hated it. So, we must not make a preacher’s sins the only measuring rod of all that he teaches. He may say true things and hate them, and we should believe the true things and not hate them.

That doesn’t mean, by the way, that Jesus’s words about knowing them by their fruits (Matthew 7:20) are wrong, because there is always plenty about a false teacher that is false and misleading and needs to be recognized — even if many of his doctrinal sentences are true.

Third response to that first question: no, you do not have to assume that, when a pastor is discovered to be guilty of ministry-disqualifying sin, you need to reject all the truth that he’s taught you over the years. You don’t have to go back and say, “Well, I guess everything he taught me for all those years was false.” You don’t have to do that.

“Let us put to death immediately every temptation to love the praise of man.”

However, it will always be good to reassess that teaching in retrospect and see if there were omissions or imbalances in it — true as it was — that we can see in retrospect were owing to his hidden sin. He skipped things, he didn’t say certain things, and he rode this hobbyhorse all the time. And you see now in retrospect why he was skipping them, why he was riding his hobbyhorse.

That’s my response to his first question.

2. Oratory and Assurance

Second, he asks how the preaching gifts (the skills) of a pastor relate to his assurance. Now, part of the answer is that no public rhetorical skills can atone for private reprehensible sins. It is possible to be a great orator and a lost sinner. The blood of Jesus and its effect in our holiness is the source of our assurance, not our rhetorical skills. Which means, yes, that true, godly, humble, Christ-exalting preaching will be part of that holiness — and thus, in that sense, part of a pastor’s assurance.

3. Preaching Holiness

The third question Jim asks is, How holy do you have to be to preach holiness? That’s a good question. The way I would answer would be this: not perfect and not careless. Or to say it another way, humbly penitent for remaining failings but vigilant to gouge out your eye rather than sin and bring the gospel and your church into disrepute. According to 1 Timothy 4:15, your people need to see you passionate in your pursuit of holiness.

4. Serving for Praise

And the fourth question Jim asks is, If we serve to get the praise of man, is our service ruined before God? And the answer is yes, our service is ruined if we live for the praise of men.

So, those are my brief answers to the questions, but let’s step back and see how these words of Jesus relate to all of us.

Practice of Pharisees

I think it’s always helpful when you see a text like this to break it down into pieces, and then see how the pieces relate to each other. So, there are three steps that I see in Jesus’s exposure of the scribes and Pharisees.

One, they use the truth to cover their own sin. It says, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat” — that is, they teach what the truth of the law of God says — “so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice” (Matthew 23:2–3). So, they cover their non-practice with teaching Moses’s law. They use truth to cover sin.

Two, they do not accompany that teaching with any God-dependent doctrine of enabling grace. They don’t teach people how to avail themselves of God’s grace to help them obey. They just leave people with burdens — heavy, weighty, crushing burdens of God’s commands — to do with no help at all. They won’t lift a finger to help people obey. “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger” (Matthew 23:4). There’s no doctrine of sanctifying, enabling, empowering grace.

And the third step in exposing these rascals is that they love the praise of man more than God or his truth. That’s the deep, deep desire, pleasure, treasure of their lives. It’s the governing principle of their lives. “They do all their deeds to be seen by others” (Matthew 23:5).

Fruit from a Poisoned Root

Now, here’s the key question: How do those three indictments relate to each other? Here’s what I would suggest, and this is how they become so relevant for all of us. I’m going to go backward and show how they build.

Number one, Jesus has put his finger on the deep desire of their lives — the deep love of their lives. What do they love? What do they desire? What’s the passion and the treasure of their lives that’s driving their decisions, their behaviors? And the answer is the praise of man. They taste how delicious is the pleasure of self-exaltation that comes through other people’s praise. That’s number one.

Number two, now we move backward (or forward) toward the next effect of that. What is the effect of loving the praise of man on the doctrine of grace in living a godly life? And the answer is that it cancels grace. Grace that enables a person to obey God’s law means we don’t get the praise — God does. Grace does. Grace is a breaking gift; it’s a humbling gift. They cannot embrace God-exalting grace because it contradicts their self-exalting love of human praise. So, they load men with burdens of duty and tell them, in essence, “Be self-sufficient like us” — implying that you’ll get some praise for your moral achievement like we get praise for our moral achievement.

And then finally, if they love the praise of man, and that keeps them from embracing God’s enabling grace for obedience, what do they do with truth, the truth of Moses’s law, when they sit on Moses’s seat? And the answer is that they don’t love the truth; they use the truth. Bible words become a cloak for hidden sin. They turn Moses’s seat into a place where they get human praise.

That is a warning to all of us, not just pastors. Let us, all of us, put to death immediately every temptation to love the praise of man. Instead, let us love the Christ-exalting, self-humbling grace of God through Jesus Christ to help us do what we need to do, and then let us use truth to stoke the fires of love for God and love for people.

How Jesus Knew the Word: His Secret to Scripture Memory

Have you ever considered how Jesus came to know Scripture?

Anyone who reads the Gospels can see that Jesus clearly knew the Hebrew Bible well. He quotes Scripture over and over, and does so with the authority and freshness of someone who hasn’t only memorized God’s words but truly knows God’s heart. Jesus has profound insight into what the words of God mean, and so he is able to put Scripture to use in everyday life. He does not simply recite sentences he put to memory, but he is able to apply Scripture in various situations as he encounters them.

You might think, Well, of course Jesus knew Scripture! Jesus is God! He didn’t need to learn it, or work at it, like we do. But that suspicion betrays a significant misunderstanding in what it means for Jesus to be fully God and fully man in one person.

So, we have a little Christology to do here first. Jesus, as we encounter him in the Gospels — in human flesh and blood, walking this earth with human feet, speaking with a human tongue and mouth — this Jesus quotes and makes use of what Scriptures he has come to know with his human mind. The human Christ didn’t know Scripture simply because he was God. As genuinely human, he had to learn it. What he knew, and quoted, is what he had come to learn. Luke 2 tells us that “the [Christ] child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom,” and then a few verses later: “Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature” (Luke 2:40, 52). Born to us as human, Jesus grew not only in his human body but in his human mind.

Jesus is the universe’s unique two-natured person. He is fully God and fully man. Which means he has not only a human body but also a “reasoning soul,” that is, human emotions and a human will, and a human mind.

So, that’s our little Christology lesson. Now, in these few minutes together, let’s look at how Jesus knew Scripture so well.

Jesus’s Relationship with Scripture

In an earlier session this afternoon, we looked at Jesus’s habits of retreating and reentering, of withdrawing from society to commune with his Father and then returning to bless and teach and show compassion to others.

And the major piece we left out there, and now turn to in this session, is Jesus’s relationship with Scripture. It’s a remarkable theme to track in the Gospels. You might think, “Well, he’s God, so he just speaks, and whatever he says is God’s word” — which is true — “so he doesn’t really need to quote previous Scripture.” And then you observe how often, how strikingly often, Jesus says, over and over again, “It is written . . . It is written . . . It is written . . .” Scripture is central and pervasive in his ministry and teaching.

So, I’d like to do two things. First, let’s briefly see it in action and get a taste of the place of Scripture “in the days of his flesh” while among us (Hebrews 5:7). Then let’s address how Jesus knew the word so well. Very practically, how did Scripture come to have such a place in his life and ministry? And I hope that here, as we look at Jesus, you might catch a vision and find encouragement for how Scripture could come to have such a place in your own soul and ministry.

‘It Is Written’

First, then, the taste. Throughout the Gospels, we see in Jesus the evidence of a man utterly captivated by what is written in the text of Scripture.

At the outset of his public ministry, Jesus, led by the Spirit, retreats to the wilderness, and there, in the culminating temptations before the devil himself, he leans, not just once, but three times, on what is written (Matthew 4:4, 6–7, 10; Luke 4:4, 8, 10).

Then, returning from the wilderness to his hometown of Nazareth, Jesus stands up to read, takes the scroll of Isaiah, reads from 61:1–2, and announces, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). He identifies John the Baptist as “he of whom it is written” (Matthew 11:10; Luke 7:27). He rebukes the proud by quoting Scripture (Mark 7:6; Luke 20:17). And when he clears the temple of money-changers, he does so on the grounds of what is written in Isaiah 56:7 (Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46).

At every step on the way to Calvary, he knows that everything will happen, he says, “as it is written” (see especially the Gospel of John, 6:31, 45; 8:17; 10:34; 12:14, 16; 15:25). In Mark 14:21, he says, “The Son of Man goes as it is written of him.” Luke 18:31: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.”

His life and ministry turn on the word of God written in Scripture.

How Did Jesus Know the Word?

So, then, how does Jesus know the word so well? If Jesus isn’t simply drawing upon his divinity to quote texts and put to use concepts his human mind had never learned and considered, then how is it that Jesus knows Scripture so well?

The inspiration for this session came from reading Sinclair Ferguson’s chapter on “The Spirit of Christ” (in his book The Holy Spirit). There he addresses our question:

Jesus’s intimate acquaintance with Scripture did not come [magically from heaven] during the period of his public ministry; it was grounded no doubt on his early education, but nourished by long years of personal meditation. Later, in his public ministry, it becomes evident that he was intimately familiar with its contents . . . and also possessed in his human nature a knowledge of God by the Spirit which lent freshness, authority, and a sense of reality to his teaching. (44)

That’s what I want for you wherever God leads you: freshness, authority, and a sense of reality to your teaching.

Now, when Ferguson speaks here about Jesus’s “public ministry,” he implies an important relationship between public and private life: what Jesus says publicly in his three years of ministry reveals what he has learned and come to know in his three decades in private — and what he continues to feed and nurture in secret communion with his Father.

So, there are two parts here to Jesus’s private life, outside his public ministry. First, “his early education.” Before he could even speak, his mother and Joseph and others in Bethlehem, Egypt, and Nazareth would speak to him. Surely Mary quoted Scripture and sang Scripture to her son as he grew. This foundation, this “grounding,” of his early education, was important. Yet Ferguson rightly puts emphasis on the second and longer phase of Jesus’s private life.

He says that “Jesus’s intimate acquaintance with Scripture . . . [was] nourished by long years of personal meditation.” This is the secret to how Jesus knew Scripture so well: long years of personal meditation. Which is what I want to challenge you to this afternoon.

Lost Art of Meditation

What is meditation? It’s important to ask because we don’t do this very well today. This is countercultural. Biblical meditation is a lost art today. We’re not talking Eastern meditation, where you try to empty your mind and repeat a mantra, but biblical meditation, where you fill your mind with God’s words, and his truth, and slow down and seek to more fully understand the meaning of God’s words and feel their significance in your soul.

Biblical meditation pauses and ponders God’s words without hurry. It chews on the truth communicated by the words of God. It doesn’t just keep on reading at the breakneck speed at which our pixelated screens are teaching us to read (or better, skim). Meditation pauses and slows down and seeks to deeply ponder the truth of God’s word, and sense its weight upon the heart. That’s the kind of meditation that nourished “Jesus’s intimate acquaintance with Scripture.”

In other words, Jesus, like us, learned Scripture. He worked at it. Jesus knew Scripture so well, and quoted it so frequently, and spoke with such freshness and authority and a sense of reality because of his “long years of personal meditation.” His public ministry and teaching, with his seemingly effortless familiarity with God’s word, revealed years of personal, private enjoyment of God’s word.

Jesus knew Scripture so well not just because he was God, but because he dedicated his human mind and heart to daily, personal meditation on the word of God — and this even without having his own personal material copy of the Bible, like we do today. He had to remember and rehearse what he had been read and sung and taught. And so he did, to great effect.

Following Jesus into Scripture

I close with a threefold exhortation.

One, become the kind of person now, in God’s word, in private, that you hope to be someday in public ministry. Over time, who you have become in secret over your Bible will be revealed in public ministry.

Two, learn the power of memorizing God’s words. When you come across particular verses, or even phrases, or longer sections that feed and focus your soul in Christ-honoring ways, put them to memory. Try to build them into the folds of your brain, to put to use in sustaining your own soul and the souls of others.

And finally, three, go deeper still — deeper than mere reading, deeper even than mere memory. Make memory serve meditation. Memorize to meditate, and slow down to meditate as you memorize. And memorize, as a side effect, because you meditated. Set a course now for nourishing your “intimate acquaintance with Scripture” with long years of personal meditation, like Jesus, and with the help he purchased for you in the power of his Spirit.

Scroll to top