Audio Transcript

Many of you know I love to read books — so much so that I wrote a whole book about reading books. And I’m always encouraged to hear from readers who have put new emphasis on their own book reading because of the book I wrote. It’s a powerful discipline in the Christian life, as you know, Pastor John. I’m reminded of an episode we did this spring, about how “1 Percent of a Book Can Change Your Life.” That was the title of APJ 1910. Books have played a huge role in your development, and I know this, Pastor John, because every once in a while I get to study a book from your library.

Most recently, I looked through your copy of Mortimer Adler’s classic How to Read a Book, for another project in the works — a book about this podcast, actually. And being able to thumb through your own book was really instructive to see what sentences you underlined and what sections you marked and how you jotted down notes in the front and back of the book. Perhaps we can talk about how you mark up your books in the future. But this week — for these next two episodes — I want you to explain to us why you read books and whom you read: the why today, the whom on Thursday. So first, speaking from a macro perspective, what has been the impact of books on your life?

Well, what a wonderful question. It would be hard to overstate the life-shaping impact of books on my life. But I’m going to go back a little bit and lay a foundation.

The Bible Is a Book

Foundation number one is that the Bible is a book. The implications of that fact are simply staggering. When God contemplated all the possible ways that existed for him — as an infinite, omnipotent, all-wise God — to transmit and preserve his revelation to the world, he chose a book. And that’s simply astonishing. We have no other authoritative access to the knowledge of God, the way of salvation, and how to live a life pleasing to the Lord than through this book —either directly by reading it or indirectly from others who have read it.

“The Bible is a book. The implications of that fact are simply staggering.”

The book is absolutely unique. It’s inspired in all of its words, and that inspiration secures the sufficiency of the book in equipping us for every good deed. I mean, that very phrase in 2 Timothy 3:17 — “every good work” — is amazing to me. It’s an awesome claim that we are equipped, fitted out, by this book for every good deed that God expects of us. He won’t expect of us anything he doesn’t equip us to do through this book. So, it’s astonishing how unique and powerful this book is.

Meaning Through Reading

Then you add to that Ephesians 3:4, where Paul said, “When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ.” That’s breathtaking to me. The inspiration of the book and the reading of the book are the junctures between God and man, where saving truth is moved from the divine mind into the human mind and spirit. These are staggering implications of saying that reading is the way “you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ,” as Paul says.

Of course, this is not possible without the almighty agency of the Holy Spirit. It’s not merely an intellectual affair. But it’s not less than an intellectual affair, because God has ordained that his truth come through a book. Reading is a work of the mind.

And of course, it also doesn’t mean — and nothing I’ve said is intended to imply — that we can just go about this in our own little private cubicle without taking anybody else into account. The Bible is crystal clear that God has appointed pastors and teachers — people with spiritual gifts that include wisdom, knowledge, prophecy, teaching, and other ways that humans clarify, apply, and inspire us with the Scriptures.

So, even though God is giving us a book, he means for us to understand the book, apply the book, and be inspired by the book with the help of other people — some who are dead and left their insights in books, and some who are alive and teach us, preach, counsel, and converse with us.

Once the reality of God’s privileging the written word — with his choice of a book as the decisive means by which he would reveal and preserve the revelation of himself — has sunk in, you can never be indifferent to the reality of books. God has privileged the book, honored the book, elevated the book, and esteemed the book above all other means for his centuries-long preservation and explanation of his revelation.

Seven Reasons to Read

So, when I say it would be hard to overstate the life-shaping impact of books on my life, I think I’m saying something very much in line with God’s purposes for the world. All that to justify my first sentence. So, let me be specific and answer your question.

1. Books have shown me the glory, the greatness, the character, the attributes, and the beauties of God.

“Books have shown me the glory, the greatness, the character, the attributes, and the beauties of God.”

2. Books have convicted me of sin. In fact, most books convict me of sin one way or the other. There was an extended period of time in Germany when every Sunday evening I would read an extended portion of Edwards’s Religious Affections, and I found myself devastated — week in and week out — as he peeled away the layers of the self-exaltation of my heart.

3. Books have shown me the path of righteousness.

4. Books have given me inspiration and encouragement in some of my most difficult days — and I’m thinking here mainly of biography.

5. Books have shaped the way I think and the way I express myself. I’m thinking, of course, of C.S. Lewis here — razor-sharp logic and a deep belief in the reality of reason and logic, while never elevating it above the essential importance of the imagination and the affections. It’s not only his deep belief in exemplification — setting an example of logic — but the touchable, smellable, tasteable concreteness of his language. Oh, the power of the concrete over the abstract in helping people grasp the greatest things!

6. Books have cultivated deep convictions in me about things like the aims of reading. I think here of E.D. Hirsch in his book Validity in Interpretation, which profoundly persuaded me that the only objective grounds for any claim to validity in one’s interpretation is that we have found an author’s intention in writing. I think that’s right, and what a vast implication it has for how you read everything.

7. Finally, I would say books have clarified for me biblical concepts that I may never have gotten good clarity on by myself because of how extensive the scope of one’s grasp of Scripture needs to be in order to synthesize in the way books do. And I’m thinking here of George Ladd, for example — one of my professors — in A Theology of the New Testament or his book The Presence of the Future.

Join Me

So, that’s the tip of the iceberg. To the person who struggles with reading, I would simply say, “Join me.” Join limited, slow-reading John Piper. Admit your limitations. Lay down all resentments, anger, self-pity, and self-justification, and humbly accept your limitations. Admit them, and then do the best you can. Be thankful for every measure of reading you’re able to do.

What’s the point of it all? The inquiry does not relent. Resist it for a time — fill your days with noise, stare hard at the patch of life before you — but you cannot always avoid the silence, cannot always avoid looking up.

The question catches up to most of us halfway to the grave. What else is a midlife crisis? When nests begin to empty, the chirping quiets and memories take their place, her interrogation loudens. Contemplation stares from the corner of the room. We can hurry off to a new distraction, or stare back.

Midlife. Halfway to somewhere, but to where? Away. To death — and to more — to whatever lies beyond, to that “undiscovered country” that

puzzles the will,And makes us rather bear those ills we haveThan fly to others that we know not of. (Hamlet, 3.1.87–90)

Half of your life (at best) is gone. You map where you have been, where you are now, and the limits you can yet travel. You begin to feel the gravity of time. You look back. The distance behind is greater than the distance left ahead, and the rapids seem to quicken toward the falls. But to what end? Anxieties paw within, looking for an escape.

Young dreams have grown up. Some hopes, along with some friends, have died. Ideals have given way to reality. What ifs have cocooned into What was and What actually is. The butterfly, so perfect in the mind’s eye, is not as beautiful as expected. Regrets mingle with misplaced joys. The questions that youthful optimism brushed off will no longer be dismissed: What was the point of it all?

Unhappy Wisdom

Many today would call midlife reflections of this kind cynical, jaded. Some interpret their intrusion as signs that they haven’t found the spouse, the adventure, the career that they were truly made for. They try another. But the wisest man ever born of men, a man who touched the ends of the earth’s delights, called such contemplations wisdom. Wisdom that agitates our joy. A frustration at the futility we face in this fallen world.

In much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. (Ecclesiastes 1:18)

We might imagine a hypothetical alternative: one where Adam and Eve waited to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in God’s timing upon God’s invitation. But the unlawful bites into forbidden knowledge demanded God thrust futility and curse upon the world. We have knowledge of good and evil, but mostly evil.

“Life extends beyond the grave, as the ocean extends beyond the shore.”

So, from the ruins, we pluck the rose of wisdom, and feel her thorns and thistles. We enjoy wisdom, when we enjoy her, wincing. While she must be preferred above all alternatives (Proverbs 3:13–15), she casts a shadow for those inhabiting a world under the sun. She will not flatter us. She lives near reality — too near — and she is too honest. She clarifies and she saddens. She guides and she wounds. She points out many perplexities this side of eternity.

Perennial Pointlessness

What did wisdom reveal to turn the king into the unhappy philosopher we find in the book of Ecclesiastes? She shows him a world full of vanity. A world that cannot bear our deepest hopes, or satisfy our inmost longings, or gratify our great exertions.

A sampling from the first chapter.

Wisdom shows him a meaningless shore where generations come, and generations go, washing back and forth. Wisdom lifts his chin — the sun rises, falls, and hastens to rise again — for what? He begins to notice how the wind can’t make up its mind, blowing north then south only to return to the same place it started (Ecclesiastes 1:4–6). And for man, the hamster wheel spins until the hamster dies, and another scurries in his place. Perennial pointlessness.

He looks out at the calm waters and savors no peace:

All streams run to the sea,      but the sea is not full;to the place where the streams flow,      there they flow again. (Ecclesiastes 1:7)

Where will his soul find fullness? His eyes have seen great things. His ears have heard marvels. He tested his heart with all manner of delight (Ecclesiastes 2:1). He found pleasure in them for a season, yet in the end, he discovered his blisses were not loadbearing.

All things are full of weariness;      a man cannot utter it;the eye is not satisfied with seeing,      nor the ear filled with hearing. (Ecclesiastes 1:8)

What, then, is the point?

Sad Soliloquy

Through the spectacles of wisdom, he beholds a good world (with beauty and laughter and love), but a cursed world still. He longs for fruit from Eden, and cannot find the like below. As the richest king of Israel, he feasts on the delights we still chase today, yet without finding a way past the fiery sword guarding the tree of life now denied us (Genesis 3:24).

Days begin to blend; routine squeezes the zest from life; wisdom points past the momentary pleasure out into the fog, wondering where this is all going. The sad conclusions begin to mount.

Nothing is new; only hand-me-downs passed down the generations. What came before, came and went; what we know as the momentary now will pass, soon to be forgotten. The historic present falls with the consequence of a snowflake — dazzling, glittering, melting. Death comes for the wise and the foolish alike (Ecclesiastes 1:9–11). The walls were closing in.

“I hated life. . . . I hated all my labor,” the wise man sighs (see Ecclesiastes 2:17–18). His was a sad soliloquy. He turns to us, the audience of his one-man play,

A bird within a shallow cage,Ink written on a burning page,Calloused hands without a wage,The musing of a dying sage.

With eyes not to be satisfied,I saw all is absurdity.My heart was never gratified,For what could fill eternity?

Banquets of laughter, food, and drink,Feasts of different women’s thrills,Life caressing Canaan’s brink,Streams to seas that never fill.

At midlife (for some before, some after), we taste a piece of the Preacher’s grief. Vanity of vanities! An unhappy business. A striving after the wind. Life under the curse.

Recalculating Midlife

Demons hatch when good is god,When life is sought in tombs of men.When Joy is taught as a facade.And death is thought to be the end.

Midlife crisis, for anyone feeling its stress, is not really midlife at all. It lands us (should the Lord provide another half) mid-page in the mere preface of life. The first chapter of eternity has not yet begun. We are all immortal beings, babies even on our deathbeds.

Yet life after this life, in answer to the question of futility, does not render earth’s life span of little consequence. This life ripples into forever, and this truth returns to our Preacher some clarity, some sanity. He concludes,

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:13–14)

Life extends beyond the grave, as the ocean extends beyond the shore. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die” — and a time to rise again and face our God (Ecclesiastes 3:1–2).

Fly away to God

To the next world we go. To God we go. To Jesus Christ — a Savior, a Lord, a Judge. A God whose justice will publish our story’s destiny — eternal life or eternal death. Our whole duty in this life, is to fear him, obey him, and if we may add his greatest command, love him.

I wonder if the Preacher’s hundred perplexities would have been assuaged by testing his heart one more time with one true glimpse of Jesus Christ on the cross. Would the eternity in his heart not burst with praise? It did for Charles Spurgeon as he quotes:

The cords that bound my heart to earthAre broken by his hand;Before his cross I find myself,A stranger in the land.

My heart is with him on his throne,And ill can brook delay;Each moment listening for the voice,“Make haste, and come away.”(cited in Alas for Us, If Thou Were All)

“Our whole duty in this life, is to fear him, obey him, and if we may add his greatest command, love him.”

The Point of it All, our Wisdom, took on human flesh and dwelt with us under the sun — to live, to teach, and (beyond belief) to die, that he might redeem us from the curse by becoming a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). Labor, life, wisdom, death — the rising and setting of the sun — find their purpose in him. Where streams empty into our insatiable seas, he cries out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37).

Passing Shadows and Forever Beauty

While Christ is our all in all, our Bread of Life, our Joy eternal, we are still perplexed in seasons, even as believers (2 Corinthians 4:8). We “who have the firstfruits of the Spirit” still groan inwardly — but not nihilistically — since we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons. And creation still pants “in the pains of childbirth,” having been subjected to vanity, not willingly, but in hope by its Creator. We know that the bondage of corruption shall yet be finally broken when all becomes new, when the sons and daughters of God are revealed (Romans 8:18–25).

For those in Christ, all futility, all senseless wonder, all burdensome enigmas in a fallen world will be finally, utterly “swallowed up by life” in the resurrection and the coming of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:4). Until then, we may become distressed in our waiting, yet acknowledge with Samwise that “in the end the shadow was just a small and passing thing. There is light and high beauty forever beyond its reach” (The Return of the King, 186). Midlife is midway home.

It’s easy to romanticize physical suffering — especially when you’re not the one experiencing it.

Saints like Amy Carmichael, who spent over twenty years bedridden, and Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic who lives in constant pain, can evoke peaceful images of unbroken communion with God. We may imagine that it’s easier for them to endure pain and weakness than it is for the rest of us.

Yet the reality of physical suffering is that it’s insistent and intrusive. No one gets used to it. Pain demands our attention. Time slows to a crawl, particularly in the middle of the night, when we’re begging God for the relief of sleep. We feel alone and isolated. No one else can enter the prison that our bodies have become.

Pain Compiles

If that weren’t enough, physical pain rarely exists in isolation — it’s usually accompanied by loss, weakness, and dependence. Often, we require help with basic daily needs, and we worry about the burden we’re putting on others. We second-guess every request, not wanting to bother someone one more time. Will people get tired and think we’re “too much”? Do they resent their lack of freedom?

We longingly remember the carefree days before our physical struggles altered our lives, when we could do what we wanted. Now we measure our energy in teaspoons rather than buckets. We weigh every decision, every action. Saying yes to one activity means saying no to many others. It is hard not to envy those with fit bodies, who seem to have no cares.

Pain, loneliness, and longing can give way to depression and despair. We cry out to the Lord for relief, but relief doesn’t come. The cancer spreads. Sleep eludes us. The pain intensifies. The medicine stops working. The side effects multiply. Our caregivers grow weary. Our friends stop checking in. Our resources run dry.

Doubt Advances

The vibrant faith we once had begins to fade — which is exactly what Satan wants to happen as we suffer. He wants us to doubt and fall away from God, convinced that he is indifferent to our cries. Satan knows that we’re susceptible to discouragement when we’re physically depleted, so that’s when he attacks. As physical needs scream for attention, Satan whispers to us, “Does God even hear you, let alone really care for you? If he does, why isn’t he delivering you?”

“If God’s greatest blessing is himself, then perhaps sustenance is a more precious gift than deliverance.”

Insidious doubts slip in, making us question beliefs we once held rock-solid: Are we deeply loved by an all-powerful Father? As soon as we recognize the mental shift, we need to stop and cry out to God, asking him to meet us in our sorrow, to deliver us from our pain, and to show us evidence of his goodness and love. Are we fixating on all that we’ve lost, on how God hasn’t delivered us, on how hopeless we feel? Or do we recognize that God is with us, working for our good, and caring for us each moment?

What we think about in the moments of our deepest pain is critical. Our mindset will determine how we approach the questions that bombard us. Here are three common questions I’ve asked: (1) How can God be “for me” if I’m still suffering? (2) How can God use my weakness for good? and (3) What good can come in moments of overwhelming pain?

1. How can God be ‘for me’ if I’m still suffering?

Sometimes God miraculously delivers us when we plead for relief, like at the parting of the Red Sea. Other times he sustains us, as he did with manna in the wilderness. The Red Sea deliverance freed the Israelites, but their need for manna kept them dependent on God. In gathering manna, they had a harder time forgetting their reliance on God. And if God’s greatest blessing is himself, then perhaps sustenance is a more precious gift than deliverance, since it can keep us in constant communion with him.

Take the apostle Paul. He begged God for deliverance from his thorn in the flesh, but instead he received grace — grace to bear the thorn, grace to be content with weakness, grace that would carry him through other trials as well (2 Corinthians 12:7–10).

When we realize that we can depend on God in our weakness, we learn to trust him in everything. Anyone can thank God for quick deliverance from physical suffering, but we often forget him until the next crisis. Yet when he sustains us in our pain, we’re confident that he is with us always.

2. How can God use my physical weakness for good?

We may think our physical weakness is keeping us from maximum fruitfulness, but that’s impossible. Our weaknesses are a part of God’s plan for our lives; they are intertwined with our calling. Paul thought his thorn was hampering his ministry, but God knew that it was the key to his strength: it forced Paul to be wholly dependent on God. When we are depleted and exhausted, lacking any resources of our own — it is then that we fully rely on God.

And in that reliance, we discover the power of God flowing through us — the same power that raised Jesus from the dead (Ephesians 1:19–20). This power keeps us enduring when we want to give up; it showcases God’s glory and brings lasting change. Because Paul relied on God’s provision, he accomplished more for the kingdom with his thorn than he could have without it. His greatest strength lay in his submission to Christ.

Even Jesus’s greatest strength appeared in his greatest physical weakness. Throughout his ministry, Jesus impacted others by his actions. He calmed the storm with a word. He fed five thousand with a few loaves and fish. He cast out demons, healed the sick, and raised the dead. He turned the world upside down.

But at the end of his ministry, from the Last Supper on, Jesus allowed others to act upon him: he was led away, he was whipped and mocked, he was beaten and crucified. When he submitted to his captors, the crowds saw weakness rather than what was really there: Jesus’s strength and power.

Just before these horrific events, Jesus begged God to take the cup of suffering from him. But it was through Christ’s submission to the will of the Father — to torture and humiliation, to physical abuse and carrying his own cross — that God brought about the most astonishing display of his power and grace.

3. What good can come in moments of overwhelming pain?

Even when we’ve experienced God’s grace through our suffering, we may wonder how anything good could be happening as pain steamrolls us. Yet in some inexplicable way, this too can be part of our sacred calling. We can submit our pain to God even as we cry out to him, and we can plead for relief, as Jesus and Paul did, while offering up our pain as a sacrifice to the Lord.

“Perhaps the sacrifice of praise in our pain is the most exquisite gift we could ever offer him.”

Few people on earth will see the impact of our worship, and some will say that our physical suffering is a waste. Perhaps it is a waste — just as the woman with the alabaster flask was “wasteful” (Mark 14:4). She poured out her precious ointment as an extravagant act of worship, and its fragrance spread everywhere. There was no utilitarian purpose; nothing tangible was accomplished — but the impact of her seemingly wasteful sacrifice will echo through eternity, as saints recount her story forever.

Perhaps our offering to God, amid our agony and weakness, will have the same impact. Perhaps it is just as precious, maybe more so, in the sight of the Lord than all the work we or others do for him. Perhaps the sacrifice of praise in our pain is the most exquisite gift we could ever offer him.

Of this I am sure: no act of worship to Jesus will be wasted.

What is Look at the Book?

You look at a Bible text on the screen. You listen to John Piper. You watch his pen “draw out” meaning. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. And (we pray!) all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love.

Some Christians today might be surprised to learn that the apostles command us, five times, to “greet [each other] with a holy kiss” (Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; or “kiss of love,” 1 Peter 5:14). Really? How’s that supposed to work? When you arrive at church? When you cross paths during the week? And is it okay that many of us today, at least in my Christian circles, are not obeying this command? Or are we?

Previously, we surveyed a theology of kissing by tracing the theme across the Old Testament and identifying a key takeaway for the church age. We then turned to the two signature instances of kissing in the New Testament, both of them in the life of Christ: the holy kisses of one “woman of the city,” from a heart of love and worship (Luke 7:37–38), and the unholy kiss of betrayal from one of Jesus’s own disciples (Luke 22:47–48).

In this scriptural context, then, how do we understand the apostles’ charge about the holy kiss, and how might we apply it today across the stretches of our varying times and customs?

We Are Family

First and foremost, one of the main contributions of the survey was the familial (rather than romantic) nature of kissing in both ancient Israel and the early church. A massive and easily overlooked assumption beneath the apostles’ charge is the familial claim implicit in such instruction. Christ came to create a social reality that transcends that of blood relatives. He came to establish and build his church, as not only a people who receive his grace and salvation but as a family joined together to him, the elder brother, and through him, to the Father, by faith.

The holy-kiss charge communicates more than simply the implicit “we are family” as brothers and sisters in Christ, but we should not ignore this remarkable reality, nor a second truth which flows from it.

We Love Each Other

Not only are we, in Christ, family in fact, but we also are to be familial in affection. That is, we come to be like King David, not only in our words and acts but in our affections, when he says of fellow believers in Psalm 16:3,

As for the saints in the land,they are the excellent ones,in whom is all my delight.

As sinners ourselves, we often find fellow Christians to be some of the hardest people to love. But in our new selves, by the Spirit, the saints — our fellows in Christ, joined also to him — become our delight. However strange and quirky and annoying and difficult, however foolish and weak by the world’s standards (1 Corinthians 1:26–29), we learn to see our family members in Christ, despite their many flaws, as “excellent ones.”

We might then check ourselves with every “holy kiss,” whether a literal kiss (if acceptable still in some places) or in every kind word of greeting, expression of affection, handshake, or hug to a fellow Christian: Do I really manifest the new birth I have in Jesus, the heart that first loves God and also loves those who too have been born of him (1 John 5:1)? Are my demonstrations of affection toward other believers sincere expressions of love? Are my greetings holy, like that of the redeemed “woman of the city” in Luke 7? Or are they deceptive, even conniving, and unholy like the Judas kiss?

“The holy-kiss charge is a rebuke to any who claim Christ and yet nurse a hard heart toward his people.”

When affectionate ways of greeting one another in Christ become our norm, we may notice more readily emerging breaches in relationship. When we newly feel hesitant to embrace, say, some fellow believer (or extend a handshake, heartfelt word, or warm smile), that may indicate some unaddressed issue that needs attention and resolution (at least in our own hearts). Just as it’s hard to sincerely pray for someone while remaining angry at him, it would likewise be hard to give someone a “holy kiss” (or whatever culturally appropriate sign) while harboring bitterness.

Reticence to kiss between spouses may signal unresolved issues in a marriage. So too, in our churches, reticence to greet each other with manifest and unqualified warmth may signal a problem (and lead us to revisit Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 5:23–24). This leads to a third and final truth informing how we think of, and apply, the holy kiss today.

We Love with Sincerity

Surely, “the holy kiss” meant, at least, kissing without lust. But again, kissing in the ancient world (and in Scripture) was far more familial than romantic. And very likely, at the end of five New Testament Epistles, the emphasis is not as much on the charge to kiss, as if early believers were not greeting each other with kisses and needed to introduce this new act. Rather, the emphasis, given that the kiss of greeting was already common and assumed, was that early Christians do so, unlike Judas, with holiness. Greet each other, as family, and without sin.

In other words, express your affection with sincerity, not pretense. When you greet each other, in word or deed, mean it. Don’t flatter or deceive. But first and foremost, genuinely love one another from the heart, as family, brothers and sisters in Christ; then express it genuinely.

No Judas Kisses

Perhaps often overlooked, against the background of Scripture’s most infamous kiss, is the charge to holiness and sincerity in our demonstrations of affection to our fellows in Christ. Imagine how Judas’s unholy peck of betrayal would have freshly dominated the connotations of the kiss for early Christians.

The apostles’ charge for holy kisses means, at least, “Let there be no Judases among us.” Not in the church. Heaven, forbid it. May we never leverage the familial trust of our shared faith in Christ to deceive, use, trick, or exploit other Christians.

So, we resolve with every “holy kiss” not to betray or backstab each other, not to “bite and devour one another” (Galatians 5:15). Rather, we resolve to serve each other, be loyal to each other, love each other in ways that show the world, the flesh, and the devil what kisses are for — not to con or manipulate but to convey heartfelt affection. We greet each other, as family, with sincere love — and resolve to live consistently with our greetings.

Holy Kisses Today

Christians today, in our differing times and cultures, can feel the freedom not to greet each other with literal kisses. But some still may. And regardless, we are enjoined to greet each other — and not without holiness — whether with a hug, handshake, heartfelt word, or whatever similar expression. And perhaps our lingering today over the repeated holy-kiss charge will remind us how important it is to cultivate, and express, affection for our fellows in Christ, who are family, even deeper and more enduringly so than blood relatives.

The holy-kiss charge is a rebuke to any who would claim Christ and yet nurse a critical disposition toward his people. It exposes the folly of Christians who would claim to love our brother Jesus but find his other brothers and sisters merely annoying, or maddening, or to be flattered or exploited.

The holy kiss also reminds us of an important dynamic in corporate worship, to ready our hearts for each Sunday. Indeed, we gather to worship Jesus — and we gather that we might do so together.

Which might lead to an application almost as uncomfortable to modern people as a kiss of greeting: slowing down. What if we considered how hurried we are before and after worship — how late to arrive before the call to worship, and how quick to rush off to lunch or the next event?

We will hardly greet each other with sincere expressions of holy, familial affection without the time and space to greet each other at all.

What is Look at the Book?

You look at a Bible text on the screen. You listen to John Piper. You watch his pen “draw out” meaning. You see for yourself whether the meaning is really there. And (we pray!) all that God is for you in Christ explodes with faith, and joy, and love.

The scene was reminiscent of a scary movie. Julia walked out to the church parking lot and found an ominous note taped to her car window: “I SEE YOU!”

Though she thought I was hundreds of miles away, I was actually nearby, watching the entire scene unfold. When she began to nervously look around, I took that as my cue and drove up next to her. As she stared in shock, I asked in the smoothest way possible, “Wanna take a ride?” (Yes, I had rehearsed it many times.) She joyfully got in the car, and a few hours later, I got down on one knee and asked if she would marry me. She said yes.

The cryptic three-word message was actually not the way I intended to start the morning. I had crafted the perfect poem to start our engagement day, but it got lost somewhere between my hotel and the church. With only a few seconds to write something, “I SEE YOU!” was all I could come up with.

We used to think our engagement was perfect except for those hastily written three words. Ironically, after 22 years of marriage, that note has become one of our favorite parts of the day. In fact, one of our marriage goals is to regularly and intentionally communicate what first happened on accident: “I see you.” While many fantasize about falling in love at first sight, we’ve discovered a better dream: a marriage that furthers love with each additional sight.

God Saw

It took a few years of marriage before I realized the power of sight as a way to pursue Julia. Up to that point, I was focused on developing my listening skills. Then, right when I began to make progress on that, God revealed (in perfect Godlike fashion) a new need for development: looking skills. We get a glimpse of the power of sight in the way God describes Israel’s suffering in Egypt:

God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel — and God knew. (Exodus 2:24–25)

By developing our listening and looking skills, we unlock a powerful combination in our marriages. When we listen, we communicate that our wife has been heard. When we look, we communicate that she is known and understood.

Unfortunately, far too many wives are overwhelmed with a sense of loneliness. Day after day, they feel invisible to the man they love. When I reflect on my own marriage and the real reasons why I don’t actively bless my wife as God intends, I admit that one of my main obstacles is optical. I don’t actually see what’s happening around me because I’m not really looking.

Savior with Wide Eyes

My breakthrough started with a study on all that Jesus noticed. Our Savior walked through life with eyes wide open. Jesus noticed Nathaniel under a tree (John 1:48) and Zacchaeus up in a tree (Luke 19:5). He noticed John’s disciples following at a distance (John 1:38) and the touch of one desperate woman while the masses pressed around him (Luke 8:45). Jesus watched in moments we think you shouldn’t, such as when the poor widow put all she had into the offering treasury (Luke 21:1–4). He also watched in moments we know we couldn’t, such as when he himself was the offering.

Even as he hung on the cross in intense agony, his eyes looked beyond his own suffering and responded with love. He prayed for those who crucified him (Luke 23:34), comforted a criminal next to him (Luke 23:43), and cared for his loved ones there for him (John 19:26–27). And through it all, Jesus kept his eyes on the work of his Father (John 5:19–20). Simply put, Jesus’s entire life and ministry deliberately and compassionately communicated, “I see you.”

I don’t wake each day with the burden to perfect who Jesus is for my wife, but I do rise with the great privilege to reflect him.

Three Paths to Better Sight

Empowered by the truth that God keeps me as “the apple of [his] eye” (Psalm 17:8), I made the commitment to be a man who takes literally the command that “each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4). Over the years, I have landed on three practices that promote a marriage culture that sees: stop, scribe, and speak.

STOP

When Moses discovered a bush on fire yet not consumed, he stopped to see what was going on. What happens next is worth reading slowly: “When the Lord saw that [Moses] turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’” (Exodus 3:4). When Moses stopped to see, the Lord started to lead. I believe the same principle is true for each of us in our various relationships, whether with God, wife, or children. When we stop to see, the Lord may start to lead.

Apart from praying, I can’t think of a more effective use of my time than to stop what I’m doing and think about what I’m seeing in the life of my bride. These moments are always beneficial, and the main requirement is that I create the space with a curious spirit.

SCRIBE

After taking the time to stop, I embrace the mindset of a scribe, taking notes on what I’m seeing. My observations are usually focused under a few main categories:

What makes her happy or sad?
What are her consistent dreams or disappointments?
What relaxes her or increases her stress?
What has she mentioned that could be a great “just because” gift?

I’m both excited and embarrassed when I go to scribe. The excitement comes from the awareness that God is leading; I’m seeing things! The embarrassment comes from reading previous observations and recognizing how quickly and easily they slipped my mind. But at least I see them again, because I’m a scribe. I encourage you to write what you see, because there is power in the pen (Deuteronomy 17:18).

SPEAK

Last, after taking the time to stop and scribe what I see, I speak.

My first words are to God on Julia’s behalf. Genesis 25:21 tells us, “Isaac prayed to the Lord for his wife, because she was barren. And the Lord granted his prayer, and Rebekah his wife conceived.” I love the simple words “Isaac prayed . . . because she was . . .” As a prayer prompt, I will write these very words on a page and fill in the blank with as many things that come to mind: “Matty prayed . . . because Julia was . . .” Sentences like this give me a practical way to take all that I have seen and speak them to the One who cares for my wife most. Perhaps you don’t need a prompt like this to inspire you, but I sure do. I fear becoming the kind of husband of whom it could be written, “Matty did not pray for his wife, but she was . . .”

While the first words are spoken to God, additional words often come later. When I consistently stop to see, I find that my speech to Julia routinely lands with substance and strength. While I never assume the ability “to sustain with a word him who is weary” (Isaiah 50:4), I am keenly aware of where that ability comes from. Speaking such words begins with hearing (Isaiah 50:4), and hearing often begins with seeing (Exodus 3:4). This is the life-giving power that a husband kick-starts when he simply takes the time to see.

The part of the country we call home is adjacent to the Appalachian Trail, with some of the nation’s most beautiful viewpoints. Typically, the higher you go, the more clearly you see. For me, cultivating the simple yet consistent practice to stop, scribe, and speak is akin to walking up three giant steps that give me a higher, more breathtaking view of how good and generous God has been to me through my wife. It’s amazing what you can see when you are looking!

Audio Transcript

Today we look again at life when it’s at its darkest. Christians often go through dark seasons, sometimes long dark seasons. Maybe that’s you right now. Maybe this episode is providentially put into your life right now.

This is the context for today’s email from a young man named Joshua. Joshua lives with his dad in California. “Dear Pastor John, thank you for this podcast. Is there anything I can do to help God help my dad? We’re not in the best living situation, and though we’ve prayed, we haven’t found a new place to live. I am actively pursuing the Lord in my mornings, and I am trying to lead my dad here, yet he still struggles with his faith. Just last night he said he doesn’t feel God’s love for him as his son. Life is hard for him right now, and God feels distant. What can I say and how can I pray for a dad who does not feel God’s love?

Joshua, here’s what I would want my son to do for me if I were in a dark place like your dad is right now. And I could be there; I have been there. There’s no Christian who doesn’t experience seasons when God feels distant or when we don’t feel his love as sweetly as we would like to.

Meditate on the Cross

First, I would want you, my son, to speak the truth to me about the objective reality of the love of God in the historical act of the death of his Son. Even though your dad does not now feel the preciousness of the love of God in giving his only Son, he needs to hear it. “Faith comes [by] hearing” (Romans 10:17) — over and over, not just at the beginning.

Make the connection for him between the love of God and the death of Jesus, because that’s the rock-solid, objective foundation of our feelings of being loved. For example:

“While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — but God shows his love for us [he shows, he demonstrates his love for us] in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6–8).
“The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
And that precious, present-tense word loves in Revelation 1:5: “[He] loves us.” Not loved, as in most places. “[He] loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.”

That’s what we need to hear. That’s what I would need to hear and what your dad needs to hear. When our feelings don’t correspond to reality, we need rock-solid, objective, historical truth about the death of Jesus.

Treasure Signs of Life

If I were your dad, I would want to be reminded that the love of God for me was shown to me not only when Christ died, but also when he made me alive and gave me the mustard seed of faith that I’m struggling to hold on to. “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us . . . made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4–5). If I have any life in me at all, small as it feels right now, it is owing to the great love of God for me in making me alive.

Remind your father that when God made us his own by his great love, nothing can now separate us from him:

I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38–39)

Learn Gutsy Guilt

Surprise him with a passage he may never have thought about. I love this passage. I’ve called it gutsy guilt:

Rejoice not over me, O my enemy;     when I fall, I shall rise;when I sit in darkness,     the Lord will be a light to me.I will bear the indignation of the Lord     because I have sinned against him,until he pleads my cause     and executes judgment for me.He will bring me out to the light;     I shall look upon his vindication. (Micah 7:8–9)

Even when we sin our way into darkness, the child of God can speak with boldness to the darkness and say, “Darkness, you will not have the last word. Even the God who put me here in discipline, who made darkness cover me, he will bring me out. He will execute judgment for me, not against me.” That’s what I call gutsy guilt for the justified children of God.

Wait for the Morning

Remind him that even when darkness covers us, and wherever we go in our weariness and lack of feeling, God is there, and he is our light.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?     Or where shall I flee from your presence?If I ascend to heaven, you are there!     If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!If I take the wings of the morning     and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,even there your hand shall lead me,     and your right hand shall hold me.

And this is so relevant for his dad:

If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,     and the light about me be night,”even the darkness is not dark to you [O God];     the night is bright as the day,     for darkness is as light with you. (Psalm 139:7–12)

And then add this promise for a sweet application of that psalm:

Weeping may tarry for the night,     but joy comes with the morning. (Psalm 30:5)

Pray for Spiritual Strength

And finally, remind him that the apostle Paul knew that the struggle to feel the love of Christ would be part of the Christian warfare, so he taught us how to pray about it:

[I pray that you] may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:18–19)

The amazing thing about that prayer is that Paul shows us that it takes strength to comprehend the love of Christ. There is a kind of soul strength that God gives in answer to prayer that enables us to grasp and feel and enjoy the love of God in Christ for us personally.

So, I pray, Joshua, that you will be filled with peace and joy and hope as you share these things with your father. And you can tell him that our little APJ band here is praying for him.

The little years of parenting are a wonderful and sometimes unbearable wilderness.

Nighttime can be a series of uncivil wars — getting children fed and bathed (and sometimes re-bathed), then getting them into the right bed, at the right time, with the right bedtime story or song (only after finding that beloved stuffie), then keeping them in that bed until they fall asleep (and repeating all of the above when one wakes up at 1:00 or 2:00 or 3:00), and then frantically getting as much sleep as you can before the artillery and bloodshed begin again. What’s one of the first questions any of us thinks to ask a parent of babies or toddlers? How are you sleeping? Answers range from “Pretty well” to “What is sleep again?” The nights can be the hardest.

“Jesus can fully sympathize with weakness, with exhaustion, with spiritual warfare.”

And once they’re awake, a new series of predictable but unstoppable ambushes begins. While you’re feeding the baby his breakfast, the two-year-old decides to moisturize her face and arms and clothes with yogurt. While you’re still removing dairy from her hair, your four-year-old loudly announces he’s finished going potty and needs help. While you’re wiping another behind, your two-year-old now decides to remove all the clothes from her dresser. And while you’re refolding a dozen 2Ts, the baby starts screaming because he’s hungry. The days can be the hardest.

The wilderness — primitive, untamed, filled with life, fiercely beautiful — is a fitting picture for these little years with children.

Jesus Braved the Wilderness

As my wife and I wander through these years, I have taken some serious comfort from knowing that Jesus is acquainted with desolate places. “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1). Our Savior didn’t save us from a safe and heavenly distance, but stepped into the darkest, scariest corners of our fallen world and faced temptation head-on. He fully sympathizes with weakness, with exhaustion, with spiritual warfare.

While he was in the wilderness, he was tempted by Satan. Unlike Adam and Moses and David and me, Jesus never bit. You can imagine the devil growing increasingly disturbed, desperate, enraged. All the lies that had so easily felled millions before — giants and kings, mothers and soldiers, rich and poor, young and old, prostitutes and Pharisees — now fell flat and soft, like blazing arrows in an ocean.

By the time we’re brought into the skirmish, the forty days have ended, and the devil reaches back for three last frantic shots. He held these three for just this moment, when Jesus was his weakest. And while Jesus was not a father or mother, tired and stressed parents will recognize these lies all too well.

Lie 1: ‘You don’t have what you need.’

When Satan feels his forty-day war with Jesus coming to an end and his feeble chances of victory slipping away, where does he strike? Where do his malicious eyes see vulnerability?

After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” (Matthew 4:2–3)

Where does the devil take aim first? At the stomach. And why wouldn’t he, since it’s worked from the beginning? “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1). You don’t have to be hungry anymore, he whispers. I can give you what you really need. I will give you more than God will. You trusted him, and look where that’s gotten you.

Don’t parents hear the same whispers? We may not face physical hunger (although moms are known to go without meals). But parenting young children will consistently demand more than you think you have to give — physically, yes, but also emotionally and spiritually. You will sometimes lie down at night sincerely convinced you won’t have enough for another day. Parenting can make tomorrow feel like both an inevitability and an impossibility. You might begin to wish you could turn some stones into bread (or at least some dirty clothes into clean laundry).

We know Adam and Eve caved and took the bite, but how did Jesus respond? What did his moments of intense hunger sound like? He answered Satan, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’” (Matthew 4:4). Notice, he doesn’t say, “I don’t need bread.” He was every bit as human as any stay-at-home mom. But he knew he needed something more than he needed the next meal. He knew his physical and emotional needs were mere shadows of what he needed and had in God.

So, let your needs in the wilderness of parenting — for food, for sleep, for adult conversation, for getting other things done around the house — remind you that you need one thing more than you need anything else. And if you have that — fellowship with an almighty, all-satisfying God in his word — he can sustain you for another long day with kids.

Lie 2: ‘God won’t come through for you.’

When he couldn’t get him to reach for the cupboard, the devil applied vicious pressure to the promises holding Jesus up in the wilderness.

Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” (Matthew 4:5–6)

What’s the sinister whisper beneath this temptation? Sure, God got you through this, but you haven’t been in any real danger. Think about tomorrow. Deep down, you know he won’t come through for you then. It’s wickedly cunning, and on two levels. First, he belittles what God has done thus far (he just sustained Jesus alone in the wilderness for forty days without food). Second, he concocts imaginary circumstances to arouse unwarranted suspicion (“But what if you threw yourself off of the temple?”).

“Parenting can make tomorrow feel like both an inevitability and an impossibility.”

Even though it failed on Jesus, the devil fabricates the same illusions in our wilderness. He throws shadows over the stunning examples of God’s mercy and care for us, and then turns spotlights onto every conceivable fear about the future. He knows how to make the next 24 hours feel larger and heavier than years, or even decades, of God’s persistent faithfulness. And he knows parents of young children are more vulnerable than most, because the days are so long and unyielding.

As he stands on the temple and looks down, what makes Jesus feel as secure as ever? How does he beat back the siren songs of doubt? He says to Satan, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test’” (Matthew 4:7). Notice, Jesus doesn’t reach for a promise this time, but for a command. Promises aren’t our only weapons against temptation. Because he loves us and because he knows how Satan attacks, our heavenly Father also gives us warnings to heed and rules to follow. Jesus knew how Israel had tested God in their wilderness, with grumbling and disobedience (Exodus 17:7), and he knew how that test ended. He wasn’t going to befriend doubt. Even under intense pressure and pain, he trusted God’s good laws.

What commands might help keep you through the wilderness of parenting? “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Colossians 3:12). “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34). Can you, like Jesus, recite them when you need them?

Lie 3: ‘All of this can be yours.’

When Jesus wouldn’t bite on the first two lies, Satan tried to prey on a different kind of hunger.

The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” (Matthew 4:8–9)

If he couldn’t lure Jesus away through the pain of need, then he would bait his hook with worldly pleasure. He would hold out what so many fallen people crave: power, authority, glory. He appeals to a pervasive human longing to be seen, admired, and followed. Hearing him talk, it’s hard not to think of social media as a massive, global version of this insidious temptation. They will all look to you. All the eyes will be yours.

He whispers something similar to parents (and perhaps especially to mothers in our day). Look how much you’re giving up. Think about the opportunities waiting out there. No one even notices all you do. All good parents forfeit something of what Satan was offering that day. We invest an extraordinary amount of time, attention, and money, during our strongest and most energetic years, to change diapers and make snacks, to practice letters and reread simple books, to play catch and wipe tears. And Satan knows how to make all of that seem so, so, so small (and just about anything else seem so, so, so great).

So, how does Jesus see through the deception? He responds, “Be gone, Satan!” — we need that kind of aggression for the everyday spiritual battles of parenting — “For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve’” (Matthew 4:10). He reaches for another command, and (as with all of God’s commands) there’s a compelling reality wrapped inside. Jesus (even Jesus!) refused to seize glory, not only because the law said not to, but because he knew that the law was a script for his greatest possible joy.

God’s commands aren’t arbitrary or irrelevant to our hungers. One by one, they pave a pathway to the feast. The most satisfying lives are firmly anchored in and pointed at the glory of God. To focus on self, as a Savior or a parent, would be to forfeit everything. Jesus warns us later, “Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:25–26). Whoever loses his life for my sake — Christian parenting often feels like that kind of sacrifice, and it should. That is, if we want to find and experience life.

Whether you’re in a wilderness now or see one coming in the distance, arm yourself against temptation. Commit the words you need to memory, so that you can hear them even when you don’t have the strength or quiet to read them. Get as close as you can to the Son who has gone before you, and prevailed for you, and now walks with you. And then trust him for what you and your kids need tomorrow.

ABSTRACT: When John the Baptist appears in the wilderness, baptizing and “proclaiming a baptism of repentance” (Mark 1:4), his ministry may seem novel — and in some ways, it is. At the same time, however, almost every aspect of John’s ministry fulfills Old Testament expectations. His mission fulfills Malachi’s promise of a new Elijah. His call to repentance reaches back to the prophecy and new-covenant promise of Deuteronomy 30. And even his meeting place comes freighted with prophetic significance: by calling Israelites into the wilderness across the Jordan, he calls them to follow a new Joshua through the waters of a new exodus into a new covenant. Since John, baptism has marked a spiritual crossing of the Jordan River, as God’s people pass from the wilderness of exile into the promised land, now citizens of a new kingdom and a new King.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Colin Smothers (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), executive director of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, to explain the origins and meaning of John’s baptism.

When John the Baptist appears in the wilderness, baptizing and “proclaiming a baptism of repentance” (Mark 1:4), what is he doing? From where did John’s baptism come (Matthew 21:25)? And what does its origin mean for Christians today?

The thesis of this essay is that the meaning of John’s baptism relates to its inspired novelty: namely, John’s baptism prepares a new-covenant people of God for a new exodus and conquest — albeit with escalated and spiritualized aims. Through John’s baptism, a new-covenant people are prepared to follow a new Joshua, or Yeshua, across the River Jordan — very much like the people of Israel when they entered the promised land — as citizens of a new kingdom under a new King, a Son of David. Moreover, because Jesus, the Christ, receives John’s baptism at the inauguration of his ministry and continues the practice throughout his earthly ministry and beyond (John 3:22; 4:2; Matthew 28:19), the meaning of John’s baptism has implications for Christian baptism.

We will explore three aspects of John’s baptism under three headings: the message, the meeting place, and the meaning. Once we sound the meaning of John’s baptism, we will be prepared to comment on the meaning of New Testament baptism.

The Message of John’s Baptism

In the three Synoptic Gospels, John’s ministry of baptism is clearly tied to his proclamation of repentance and the nearness of the kingdom of God. Matthew directly quotes John the Baptist’s message in Matthew 3:2, where he says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matthew ties this message explicitly to Isaiah’s new-covenant prophecy by quoting from Isaiah 40:3: John is “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’” (Matthew 3:3). Matthew, a student of Scripture, knows John’s redemptive role. Isaiah 40 is a hinge that marks a turning from the former things under the old covenant to the new things under the new covenant. By hyperlinking, as it were, John’s ministry and message to Isaiah 40, Matthew announces for his readers that the new things have arrived with the arrival of John.

Instead of quoting John’s message, Mark summarizes it in Mark 1:4: “John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Repentance is central to John the Baptist’s message — a message that, as we will see, is central to the prophetic literature surrounding the “return” or “turn” from exile that initiates the new covenant. Significantly, Jesus himself takes up this message of repentance in his own preaching ministry in Mark 1:15: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (cf. Matthew 4:17).

Repentance and “returning” or “turning” are related concepts in the Old and New Testaments. For example, the word translated “repent” in John’s and Jesus’s message is metanoeō, which is used in LXX Isaiah 46:8 to translate the Hebrew word shuv, or “turn” — a word that we will see is extremely significant.

In Luke’s Gospel, we are given further background details to John the Baptist’s ministry, as Luke begins his Gospel with details surrounding John’s conception and birth. An angel is sent to John’s father, Zechariah, with a message about his unborn son’s ministry in Luke 1:16: “He will turn [epistrephō] many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God.” The word translated “turn” here in Luke 1:16 is used 298 times by the LXX to translate the Hebrew word shuv, “turn” or “return.”

John’s baptism is further substantiated as a message of “turning” and “repentance” when Luke summarizes John’s baptism as a “baptism of repentance” in Luke 3:3 and again in Acts 19:4. Luke goes on to connect John’s ministry to Isaiah with a quote from Isaiah 40 (Luke 3:4–6), just as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John do.

Message of Return in Deuteronomy 30

From these passages, it is clear that “repentance” or “turning” is a significant element to John’s message and ministry of baptism. What can we conclude from this? Significantly, this same language of “turning” and “return” is used in a prominent place in the book of Deuteronomy, in arguably the Torah’s most explicit new-covenant passage. In fact, the angel’s words to Zechariah in Luke 1:16 almost certainly echo Deuteronomy 30:2.

Luke 1:16: “He will turn [epistrepho + epi] many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God.”Deuteronomy 30:2: “Return [epistrepho + epi] to the Lord your God, you and your children.”

In Deuteronomy 30:1–10, the Hebrew word shuv — which the Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon glosses as “turn back, return” — occurs seven times.1 In context, Deuteronomy 30 is a record of Moses’s words to a new generation that has replaced the faithless wilderness generation. The book of Deuteronomy is a covenant renewal. But Moses predicts the dire future of this covenant in Deuteronomy 28–29: the people will enter the land, they will disobey the covenant, and they will be exiled.

Deuteronomy 28–29 becomes programmatic for the history of Israel in the land. All that Moses says will happen in these chapters comes true as Israel’s history unfolds. But Moses does not leave them without hope. In Deuteronomy 30, Moses says that “when all these things come upon you,” and the people call (shuv) these words to mind (verse 1), and the people and their children return (shuv) to the Lord (verse 2), then the Lord will restore (shuv) them and gather them again (shuv) from exile (verse 3). Then the people will again (shuv) obey the Lord and keep his commands (verse 8), and the Lord will again (shuv) delight in them (verse 9), when they turn (shuv) to the Lord with all their heart and soul (verse 10).

“John’s baptism prepares a new-covenant people of God for a new exodus and conquest.”

Significantly, it is in Deuteronomy 30:6, the heart of this passage, where we find the theme of heart renovation, or heart circumcision, which is a significant component of the new covenant: “The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” The prophet Jeremiah picks up this theme of heart renovation in his new-covenant prophecy in Jeremiah 31:33, which builds on Moses’s prophecy in Deuteronomy 30.

Message of Return in the Prophets

As I argue in my book In Your Mouth and In Your Heart,2 Deuteronomy 30 is a wellspring that later biblical authors return to again and again in their Spirit-inspired expositions and developments of new-covenant promises and messianic hopes. A few examples of this will have to suffice.

In the first chapter of the book of Isaiah, the prophet announces coming judgment against Israel because of their continual disobedience to the covenant. But as in Deuteronomy, this note of judgment comes with a promise of redemption. Though God will turn his hand against them, “Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent [shuv], by righteousness” (Isaiah 1:27). Who will announce this coming righteousness? The one who, according to Isaiah 40:3, cries out “in the wilderness” — or perhaps, according to some interpretations, “prepares a way in the wilderness” — for the Lord. And the Lord comes with a promise: “I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return [shuv] to me, for I have redeemed you” (Isaiah 44:22).

The theme of “turning” and “returning” is a major thread through the Minor Prophets, or the Book of the Twelve (see Hosea 6:1–2 as one example), which includes the following expectant words of Malachi the prophet before God’s special revelation goes dark for centuries — until, that is, the world sees a great Light:

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And he will turn [shuv] the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. (Malachi 4:5–6)

It is no coincidence, then, that the first word of John the Baptist’s message is “Repent!” “Turn!” And his baptism is a baptism of repentance. Why? For the new covenant has arrived; the kingdom of heaven is at hand — the King is here.

The Meeting Place of John’s Baptism

Almost as significant as John the Baptist’s message is his chosen meeting place. Where does John the Baptist choose to proclaim his message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and the announcement of the coming kingdom and King? He could have gone many places to find water. He could have stayed in the land of Israel, perhaps at the Sea of Galilee. But instead, John goes across the Jordan, outside the historical boundaries of the promised land, to the wilderness, much like some of the messianic pretenders of his day were doing.3

Why is John in the wilderness, baptizing in the Jordan River? The prophets are replete with possible reasons. Considered together, I believe these texts form a formidable rationale and theological explanation for John’s wilderness ministry of baptism. As we will see, they also have implications for Christian baptism.

The most obvious prophetic background to John the Baptist’s ministry comes from Isaiah 40, which, as we have already seen, every one of the Gospel writers notes. But the book of Isaiah contains several other textual backdrops to John’s baptismal ministry in the wilderness.

Right before Jesus preaches his message of repentance in Matthew 4:17, Matthew quotes Isaiah 9:1–2, saying, “The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles — the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light” (Matthew 4:15–16). This phrase in Isaiah 9:1, “the land beyond the Jordan,” is cited in relation to the land of Israel, which means it is the land opposite the promised land, in the wilderness, that “he has made glorious.” Significantly, John 1:28 uses the same language to describe where John was baptizing, “across the Jordan,” in the wilderness.

From the Wilderness to the Jordan

In fact, Isaiah’s entire new-covenant program seems predicated around a wilderness sojourn. We will pick up this thread in Isaiah 43. Many scholars have noted the new-covenant turn that Isaiah 40 and following takes — what Brevard Childs refers to as the “new things,” in contrast to the “old things” of chapters 1 through 39 — and chapter 43 is no exception.4

The whole chapter deserves quotation, but we must be selective. Isaiah 43 begins with a promise of God’s redemption in verse 1, and then a promise of God’s protection in verse 2: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.” Here we have latent baptismal language (cf. 1 Peter 3:21): God promises to be with his people when they are in the midst of the waters and to see them safely to the other side. Isaiah is clearly invoking exodus imagery, which itself is an echo of the waters of the salvation through judgment in Noah’s flood.5 God promises to be with his people just as he was when they passed through the midst of the Red Sea (Exodus 14). But the mention of rivers in Isaiah 43:2 suggests also Israel’s crossing the Jordan River (Joshua 3), a reference Isaiah amplifies a few verses later.

In Isaiah 43:5–7, God promises to bring his people from the east, the west, the north, and the end of the earth — “everyone who is called by my name.” In these verses, Isaiah describes Israel’s redemption as a return from exile, an ingathering from the nations, using the cardinal directions much as Psalm 107 does, which opens book 5 of the Psalter — the book sometimes called the “Book of Redemption.” The new covenant involves a new (re)turn.

Isaiah 43:16–17 picks up the exodus imagery and develops the theme of passing through the waters on the way of redemption or return. Then comes an explicit mention of the “new thing” God promises to do:

Remember not the former things,     nor consider the things of old.Behold, I am doing a new thing;     now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?I will make a way in the wilderness     and rivers in the desert.The wild beasts will honor me,     the jackals and the ostriches,for I give water in the wilderness,     rivers in the desert,to give drink to my chosen people,     the people whom I formed for myselfthat they might declare my praise. (verses 18–21)

The wilderness theme in Isaiah 43 is invoked in part due to the exilic imagery and the return journey of the people of God, through the deserts, on the way to the promised land. But the journey intentionally channels the one God’s people took in their exodus out of Egypt — a journey that brought them through the midst of the Red Sea into the wilderness, only to camp on the “other side of the Jordan” and await another crossing, another passing through the midst of waters, on their way to inherit the promised land.

Importantly, the Law and the Prophets are negative in their assessment of this first journey and inheritance: the people became undeserving and the land spit them out (cf. Leviticus 18:28; Deuteronomy 28:15–68; Jeremiah 25:11–12). But the Prophets also tell of a day when the people will once again inherit the land — a new kingdom — after a wilderness exile (Jeremiah 29:10–14; Isaiah 40:1–11; Daniel 9:24–27).

Is it not reasonable, then, to expect this new “return” to come with yet another crossing of the River Jordan from the wilderness?

New Exodus, New Return

This new wilderness sojourn as part of the beginning of a “return” to the promised land is reinforced in polyphonic harmony when we bring in other prophetic witnesses. In Ezekiel 20, the prophet speaks of the “return” or “restoration” of Israel that God has promised, even in spite of their current exilic judgment. In verses 33–35, Ezekiel says that this program will include a going out from their current dwelling places, a wilderness gathering, and a coronation with God as King:

As I live, declares the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out I will be king over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face.

This wilderness gathering is compared to the wilderness gathering of the exodus generation in verse 36, and it precedes a promise of a new covenant, “I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant” (verse 37), and a new entrance into the land, “You shall know that I am the Lord, when I bring you into the land of Israel, the country that I swore to give to your fathers” (verse 42).

Historically speaking, the Scriptures do not record a covenant renewal or covenant establishment “in the wilderness” in the generations that returned to the land during the ministries of Ezra and Nehemiah and after. Instead, the New Testament authors appear to assume that the foundation of this covenant promise is inaugurated with the new-covenant ministry of Jesus, whose way is prepared by the baptism of John “in the wilderness.”

A final prophetic witness provides one more reason to pay attention to the meeting place of John’s baptism in order to grasp its theological meaning. Hosea speaks of the Lord’s tenderness toward his unfaithful people in Hosea 2:14: “Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” Later in the book, in Hosea 6:1–2, the prophet issues a clear call to God’s people to “turn” that they might be healed in the midst of their sinfulness.

The meeting place of the Jordan River becomes especially intriguing when we consider the New Testament’s testimony that John the Baptist is the Elijah to come, as promised by the prophet Malachi (Malachi 4:5–6). Where in the Scriptures do we see Elijah at the Jordan River? In 2 Kings 2:6–8, Elijah “prepares the way” for Elisha by parting the waters of the Jordan to cross to the other side — something Elisha himself does on the way back, entering into the land of promise through the waters of the Jordan (2 Kings 2:13–14).

It would seem, then, that John’s baptismal ministry and message of “repentance” or “return” is not just an individual call — although it most certainly is that — but also a programmatic call that initiates a new exodus and new return under a new Joshua who is King of a new kingdom.

The Meaning of John’s Baptism

If the several canonical threads regarding the message and meeting place of John’s baptismal ministry have been sufficiently established, then we are ready to explore a few biblical-theological possibilities for the meaning of John’s baptism, which have implications for Christian baptism.

The apostle Paul clearly connects baptism to the exodus crossing of the Red Sea:

I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. (1 Corinthians 10:1–4)

But John comes baptizing not in the Red Sea, but in the River Jordan, proclaiming his preparatory prophetic message of repentance to God’s people, the same message given to Hosea and the other prophets: “Return to the Lord.” How are the people supposed to respond to John’s message? By leaving the promised land and joining him in the wilderness, they acted out a confession of their covenantal disobedience and unworthiness to be in the land — Ezekiel said God would enter into covenant with them in the wilderness — so that God’s people might return again to the land as citizens of the kingdom of God under a new and rightful king.

This is what John is doing, baptizing across the Jordan in the wilderness. He is preparing a people for a new exodus, or return, to the promised land under a new Joshua, crying out in the Spirit of Elijah, “Repent! (Return! Turn!) For the kingdom of God is at hand!” Where is this kingdom? Who is this king? He is the one called Yeshua, Salvation, who bears the name of another who parted the waters of the Jordan ahead of the people entering the promised land.

How does all of the foregoing relate to Christian baptism, especially the explicit teaching in Romans 6 that baptism symbolizes the Christian’s union with Christ? Romans 6:3–11 makes clear that Christian baptism has at its theological center our blessed union with Christ by faith in his death, burial, and resurrection. The very act of water immersion signifies a burial in the waters of God’s judgment, having died to sin and put to death the old man in Christ — these waters that are typified by the great flood and the Red Sea and even the Jordan River. And when the baptized emerges from these waters, this signifies his resurrection to new life — life as a new man, a new creation, in Christ by faith (2 Corinthians 5:17).

But when Jesus received John’s baptism at the Jordan River, it became Christian baptism, and he and his disciples continued the practice during Jesus’s earthly ministry and beyond (John 3:22; 4:2; Matthew 28:19; Acts 2:38). Those who did not receive this baptism as Christian baptism, but only as John’s baptism, had to receive the true sign of which the Holy Spirit is the seal (Acts 19:1–7).

In fact, when Paul encounters some disciples who had not heard of the Holy Spirit, he seems to fault them for not understanding John’s baptism, which they had received. In Acts 19:3, Paul asks them, “Into what then were you baptized?” They answer, “Into John’s baptism.” Paul’s response is instructive: “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, Jesus” (Acts 19:4). In other words, if John’s baptism is received as Christian baptism — baptism into Christ — then it is true baptism.

In this way, it seems proper to understand New Testament baptism as a continuation of what John began and Jesus received in the wilderness, beyond the Jordan River. I do not think it is a coincidence, then, that John 1:28 says, “These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.” Perhaps John chose this site intentionally, as the place where Israel would have camped and even crossed into Canaan as they prepared to enter the land, first coming to the city of Jericho, not far across the way from where John began his baptismal ministry.

With John in the Jordan

It has been tradition for many Baptist churches to have a mural of the River Jordan painted over their baptismal. If the texts and implications in this exploration hold together, this imagery rightly offers at least a partial understanding of the meaning and origins of both John’s baptism and Christian baptism.

We too have crossed the River Jordan, being put under the waters of judgment, following the new Joshua in a new exodus under a new covenant, and by faith in him we have at least begun to enter the promised land as citizens of a new kingdom and a new King. God has caused us to return, to repent, for the kingdom of God is near — indeed, it is at hand, and though we are sojourners, we are no longer in the wilderness. We are citizens of the kingdom of heaven.