Somewhere near the beginning of my Christian life, I started associating sleeplessness with godliness. And for understandable reasons.

The sluggard of Proverbs has long lived as a vivid character in my imagination — that buffoon who flops on his bed “as a door turns on its hinges” (Proverbs 26:14), who answers his mother’s fourth knock with a mumble: “A little sleep, a little slumber . . .” (Proverbs 6:10). Then, positively, I read of psalmists who prayed at midnight and woke before dawn (Psalm 119:62, 147) — and of a Savior who rose “very early” (Mark 1:35) and sometimes passed the night without a wink (Luke 6:12).

Stories from church history also cast a shadow over my bed. I read with wonder how Hudson Taylor sometimes rose at 2:00am to read and pray until 4:00am (Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, 243). George Whitefield, too, was known to begin his day well before dawn, sometimes finishing both his devotions and his first sermon by 6:00am (George Whitefield: God’s Anointed Servant, 196). And didn’t the Puritans get just a few hours of sleep a night? The post-Puritan William Law seemed to capture the spirit of the godliest saints when he spoke of “renouncing sleep” to redeem the time (When I Don’t Desire God, 160).

Under such influences, I tried many times to carve off minutes and sometimes hours from my nightly routine, attempting to find the smallest amount of sleep I could get without losing essential functions. I greeted many midnights and dark mornings. I experimented with elaborate alarm clocks. I traded my pillow for cups of coffee.

And all the while, I did not always take seriously all that God says about sleep. I did not realize that “sometimes,” as D.A. Carson puts it, “the godliest thing you can do in the universe is get a good night’s sleep” (Scandalous, 147).

Sleeping Saints

For all the biblical passages that hallow sleeplessness, perhaps just as many sanctify sleep. In Proverbs, the same father who warns his son about the dangers of “a little sleep” also assures him that wisdom gives good rest (Proverbs 3:24). Alongside the psalmists who praise God at midnight are others who praise him in the morning after a sound night of slumber (Psalm 3:5).

And in the Gospels, one of the more remarkable images of our Savior is of him in a storm-tossed, wave-battered boat, “asleep on the cushion” (Mark 4:37–38). He could stay up all night when needed, but he was not above taking a nap the next day.

“For those prone to productive self-reliance, the bed is a desk in God’s school of humility.”

Perhaps the most striking endorsement of sleep, however, comes from the simple fact that God made us this way. Scripture gives no indication that our need for nightly rest began in Genesis 3. And in fact, before the fruit was taken from the tree, before the weariness of sin weighed down the world, Adam slept (Genesis 2:21). Sleep, it seems, is no fallen necessity, nor merely a fleshly temptation, but a divine gift. Both then and now, God “gives to his beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2).

And therefore, though occasions come when we must renounce sleep for the sake of something greater, Scripture gives us a more positive default posture: in Christ, God teaches us to redeem sleep. He brings our beds back to Eden, where we learn to receive sleep as healer, teacher, giver, and servant.

Sleep as Healer

On nights when sleep seems like a great interruption, like an eight-hour paralysis on our plans, we may find help from imagining our beds as a balm for mind, body, and soul. For by God’s design, sleep halts us to heal us.

Until recently, sleep’s God-given powers of healing were a matter more of intuition than of empirical reality. But sleep scientists can now write volumes about the benefits of adequate rest for the brain and the body. Matthew Walker, director of the Center for Human Sleep Science, goes so far as to say, “Sleep is the universal health care provider: whatever the physical or mental ailment, sleep has a prescription it can dispense” (Why We Sleep, 108). While we lie unconscious, sleep solidifies our memories and nourishes our creativity; it boosts our energy and staves off sickness.

Which also means that sleep plays a modest but notable role in our spiritual health. As exercise can keep our bodies fit for service, and as nutrition can energize us for good works, so a healthy pattern of sleep can assist our love for God and neighbor — keeping us awake and alert for meditation and prayer, readying us to spend and be spent for others. More than that, good rest also guards us from sins that our sleep-deprived selves might indulge more easily: irritability and impatience, bitterness and lust, cynicism and grumbling.

When the miserable Elijah asked God to take his life, God’s remedy for the prophet’s despondency was first sleep, then food, then more sleep — and then finally words (1 Kings 19:4–6). John Piper, having learned Elijah’s lesson, mentions how he becomes “emotionally less resilient” on little sleep. Therefore, he writes, “For me, adequate sleep is not just a matter of staying healthy. It’s a matter of staying in the ministry — I’m tempted to say it’s a matter of persevering as a Christian” (When I Don’t Desire God, 205).

Nightly, the God who knit these brains and bodies stands beside our beds, ready to retie the day’s loose ends, patch our holes, and wake us up repaired, freshly ready to hear and respond to his words of life.

Sleep as Teacher

As sleep heals, it also teaches. And in a world preoccupied with productivity, sleep teaches lessons we might scarcely learn elsewhere: God, not we, upholds our life (Psalm 121:3–4); his initiative and action, not ours, decisively builds our homes and watches over our cities (Psalm 127:1–2). For those prone to productive self-reliance, the bed is a desk in God’s school of humility.

Like Israel’s weekly Sabbath, nighttime bids us to lay down our to-do lists and cease our striving, reminding us that God can keep our lives running while we lie unproductive. And like Israel’s Sabbath, the lesson is hard learned and easily forgotten. Many of us receive God’s rest reluctantly, even unwillingly, like people searching for manna on the seventh day (Exodus 16:27). Yet the teacher sleep returns again, each night repeating its lesson.

As if to reinforce the point, God tells us stories where he works wonders during our deepest slumber. In Eden, Adam falls asleep a bachelor and wakes to find a bride (Genesis 2:21–23). Later, a similar “deep sleep” falls on Abram, and in the darkness, God makes great and solemn promises, and seals his gracious covenant (Genesis 15:12–21). And then still later, as the disciples’ heavy lids close on their Savior’s anguish, Jesus wrestles and prays and wins the victory in Gethsemane alone (Mark 14:40–42).

To be sure, we ought not presume that God will fix our shoddy work while we sleep. In all likelihood, the weeds the sluggard should have pulled today will still be there tomorrow, a little taller for his negligence. But for those who are tempted to eat “the bread of anxious toil” (Psalm 127:2), these images of God’s tireless care, his sleepless provision, powerfully remind us that he can do far more in our sleeping than we can do in our waking.

Sleep as Giver

Of course, we may acknowledge sleep as healer and teacher yet still find ourselves lying down begrudgingly. Medicine and lessons may be necessary, but necessity rarely makes patients and pupils rejoice. Scripture, however, speaks of sleep not only as needed, but also, for God’s people, as “sweet” (Proverbs 3:24; Jeremiah 31:26).

Like food, sleep falls among those good gifts “to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth” (1 Timothy 4:3); it is one part of the “everything” that God “richly provides” for our enjoyment (1 Timothy 6:17). And therefore, we sleep Christianly when we not only humble ourselves to get the sleep we need, but also when, as Adrian Reynolds puts it, we “wake up after a good night, stretch and cry out, ‘Thank you, Lord, for the good gift of sleep’” (And So to Bed, 38). Sleep is a generous gift from a generous God.

Beyond bodily refreshment, however, God invites us to experience sleep as gift on a far deeper level. We catch a glimpse in Psalm 31:5, a common bedtime prayer in Jesus’s day: “Into your hand I commit my spirit.” At night, God gives us the privilege of giving to him our very selves, including all the cares that feel so vexing and troubling, so discouraging and distracting. There at our bedside he takes them — takes us — and safely keeps us while we sleep. And there is no sweeter place to sleep than in the sovereign hands of God.

“God can do far more in our sleeping than we can do in our waking.”

Jesus, who would pray Psalm 31:5 before his great and final sleep, enjoyed this gift every day during his three decades on earth. How else could he sleep through the storm? How else could he rest while surrounded by so much need, while threatened by so many foes? Only because he nightly handed his spirit into his Father’s care, and received from his Father a peace that surpassed the biggest troubles of today and tomorrow.

Sleep as Servant

Sleep as healer, sleep as teacher, sleep as giver — these three give us abundant reason to actively seek a good night’s rest. In light of them, many of us may need to acknowledge how much sleep we really need and to consider some basic tips for falling asleep and staying asleep, especially in our caffeinated, sedentary, digital world.

But the aim of Christian sleep goes further still. As followers of the Savior who sacrificed his sleep for us, we do not pursue a good night’s rest at all costs. We do not take this healer, teacher, giver and set it up also as master. Rather, we receive sleep with a soul that stands ready, at all times, to forsake sleep when love calls.

Perhaps a friend in need asks for a late-night phone call, or a small-group member needs an early-morning ride to the airport. Perhaps a child cries from down the hall, or a spouse just needs to talk. Perhaps hospitality ran late, or some crucial decision requires a midnight consultation with our Lord. Either way, in the face of such needs, we kindly thank sleep for its services and then dismiss it as the servant God made it to be.

When we leave our beds to walk in love, we do not leave our God. His help is stronger than sleep’s healing, his wisdom deeper than sleep’s teaching, his generosity greater than sleep’s giving. He can sustain us in our sleeplessness and, in his good time, give again to his beloved sleep.

When Bob and I spoke about a week and a half ago concerning the focus of this memorial message for Nancy, he said, “Well, along with all the good news that there is in Jesus Christ, one major focus should be on suffering.”

That may surprise some of you — not because you are unaware of Nancy’s lifelong suffering, but because you may wonder whether such a focus could prove to be both encouraging for those of us who are left behind and a fitting tribute to Nancy’s faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. But Bob, Nancy, and I have known each other for over forty years, and Bob knows the kind of things that I will say in response to the issue of suffering. This is not a gamble. God’s word is clear about many things, including some very important truths about suffering.

And I should make clear and explicit that I make no claim to speak on my own authority with regard to such a delicate and painful topic. That’s not the way Bob and I think about this. He is not asking me to bring some nice thoughts out of my own head. We would dare to speak about suffering in a setting like this only because God’s word, the Bible, has spoken to us about suffering, instructing us to see it in a certain way.

So, I invite you to come with me into the Scriptures as we focus on five aspects of suffering, especially as they relate to Nancy’s experience.

The Origin of Suffering: Genesis 3
The Duration of Suffering: Romans 8
The Mystery of Suffering: Genesis 50
The Death of Suffering: The Suffering of Christ
The Final Hours of Nancy’s Suffering: 2 Corinthians 4

What we’re trying to do, as we stand here on the brink of eternity, is see Nancy’s life in the light of the greatest realities. Nancy’s life began, at least in time, on September 30, 1952, and her life will last forever. Jesus said, again and again, “Whoever believes in [me] has eternal life” (John 3:36). That’s the life we’re talking about, and to see this life — Nancy’s life — in relationship to the greatest realities in the universe is very helpful. It brings deeply rooted stability for those of us who are left.

1. The Origin of Suffering

According to Scripture, God created the world, and there was no suffering in it. It’s in the first sentence of the Bible: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). The capstone of that creation was man in God’s own image: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). And when God had finished the work of creation, with man as male and female as the climax, the Scripture says, “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). There was no evil and no suffering in it.

Then in chapter 3 of Genesis, the moral catastrophe of sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, and it has been our unhappy birthright ever since. Sin is the inclination of the human heart to find God undesirable, to replace his authority with our own, and to prefer his creation to him.

There was one tree in all the luscious garden that God, in his bountiful goodness, said not to eat. Of that tree the woman and the man ate. They substituted their wisdom for God’s and said, “The tree is good for food, and a delight to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise,” and they ate (see Genesis 3:6).

“The suffering of God’s children dies in the suffering of God’s Son.”

And suffering entered the world. Peaceful relationship with God collapsed into fear and shame. The love relationship between the man and woman collapsed into selfishness and scapegoating. The unique spheres of each of their lives were shot through with pain. To the woman God said, “In pain you shall bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16), and to the man he said, “Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:17).

All of nature fell into the state of mixed horror and beauty that we see today: horrible train crashes in India, little plane crashes outside of Washington, a dam bursting in Ukraine, Nancy’s death, and millions of other sorrows. Every hour, 6,500 people die in the world. All of this pain traces back to the entrance of sin in the world. As the apostle Paul put it, “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, . . . so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

Don’t misunderstand. It’s not as though there is a one-to-one correspondence between every sin you commit and every suffering you experience. It doesn’t work that way. Some of the most righteous and loving people suffer the most in this world, and some of the most wicked people suffer the least in this world.

Our suffering in the world doesn’t identify particular sins in our lives. Suffering is the trumpet blast that there is such a thing as sin. The broken physical order of the world is a shout to the effect that there is a broken moral order in the world. Nancy’s suffering was not a statement about her particular sins. It was a wake-up call to all of us to seek reconciliation with God because of our sin.

2. The Duration of Suffering

For those who embrace reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ, suffering will have an end. In Romans 8:18–21, the apostle Paul reaches back to Genesis 3, to the time when the world was subjected to the curse of suffering, and then forward to the time when that curse will be lifted. He says,

I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

That is spectacular. Who are these children of God? Here’s the answer of Scripture:

When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son [Jesus Christ], born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. (Galatians 4:4–5)

[Jesus] came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:11–12)

The children of God are those who see Jesus Christ as the Son of God, our Redeemer, and receive him as the supreme treasure of their lives. For them, for those like Nancy Nelson, suffering has an end — and it ends in glory in the presence of God.

Another spectacular thing is that Paul tells us the whole fallen, futile, suffering creation is waiting for that day. For when our glorification is complete, “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). Suffering will have an end for the children of God.

3. The Mystery of Suffering

Do you recall the story of how Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, was sold into slavery by his brothers because of their jealousy? He is taken away from his home to Egypt, and for thirteen years things go from bad to worse in his life. He ends up in Pharaoh’s dungeon because of the slander of Potiphar’s wife, who accuses him of a sexual assault that he didn’t commit.

The tables turn when Joseph interprets a dream for Pharaoh. The outcome is that Joseph is made the second most powerful man in Egypt. Seven years of prosperity come to Egypt, and Joseph stores the grain because, according to the dream, seven years of famine will follow. Nine years pass, and finally Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt, pleading for relief from Joseph’s stores. Joseph was 17 years old when they sold him into slavery. Now he is 39. They don’t recognize him.

When the truth comes out, the question is, How will Joseph treat his brothers? They had caused him very great suffering. When the brothers fear the worst, Joseph says two astonishing things, and this is the mystery of suffering.

In Genesis 45:7–8, he says, “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God.” Then in Genesis 50:20, he says to his brothers, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”

“The last gasp of the children of God makes their experience of the coming glory greater.”

Here’s the mystery: He does not say, “You meant evil against me, but God used it for good.” He says, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” The mystery of suffering is that God is always accomplishing his purposes through man’s purposes, even when man’s purposes are evil and bring great suffering. God is not a helpless bystander in the world. He is sovereign over it, and his wisdom and justice and goodness hold sway in all that happens.

4. The Death of Suffering

How is it that God, who justly brings suffering on a sinful world, can suspend that justice, and forgive those who trust him and bring them into everlasting, pain-free joy? How does their suffering die without undermining the justice of God in not punishing God-belittling sin?

The answer is that the suffering of God’s children dies in the suffering of God’s Son. In his own suffering, Christ bore our just punishment. God did not suspend justice; he satisfied justice. Here is the way the prophet Isaiah put it seven hundred years before Christ:

He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned — every one — to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him [on Christ] the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5–6)

The suffering of God’s children dies in the suffering of God’s Son. It doesn’t come to an end in this age but in the resurrection, which brings us now to our final point about suffering.

5. The Final Hours of Nancy’s Suffering

One of the most difficult questions that Christians ask in the final hours of life is, Why so much suffering right up to the end? The reason the question is difficult is that there’s no time left in this life for a dying person to experience any growth or improvement through his suffering, so it all seems utterly pointless, wasted, without any purpose or design that could give it meaning — Nancy’s final suffering included. Does God speak to that question?

He does, in 2 Corinthians 4:16–18:

We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

If we look only at what is seen, Nancy’s final sufferings were meaningless. But if we look through the lens of God’s word at what is not seen, what we perceive is amazing. It’s found in verse 17: “this light momentary affliction” was “preparing” (katergazō, which means “bringing about, producing”) for Nancy “an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”

It does not say that her affliction will be followed by the weight of glory. It says that her affliction prepared a weight of glory, which means this: God wastes no suffering, right up to the end. The last gasp of the children of God makes their experience of the coming glory greater. Bob — her suffering, for a lifetime and to her last breath, was not meaningless. It was not wasted, not even at the end.

So, we should say with the apostle, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us,” the children of God (Romans 8:18).

Luke describes the rift that opened between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark in his typical understated way: “There arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other” (Acts 15:39). No elaboration, no circling back later in Acts to tell us how this story ended. We just watch Barnabas sail off to Cyprus with John Mark while Paul and Silas head to Syria and Cilicia.

Really? Paul and Barnabas? Friends whose names go together like David and Jonathan, or like Peter and John? These brothers who had spent a year together teaching the new Gentile converts in Antioch, and then risked life and limb together for the gospel on that first missionary journey? These colleagues who became the first missionary team at the special direction of the Holy Spirit himself (Acts 13:2)? And they couldn’t reconcile a disagreement over John Mark?

We can be left wondering, If Paul and Barnabas couldn’t stay together, what hope do we have when difficult and painful disagreements arise in our churches and between leaders we love and trust? These are times that try Christians’ souls. What are we left to think?

In a careful look at the story, we can see that the God of hope wants to fill us with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit we may abound in hope, even when sharp disagreements separate godly people (Romans 15:13).

Who Was Right?

Here we have two of the most trusted apostolic leaders in the early church, at an impasse over whether John Mark should join them on their second missionary tour, considering how he’d left them during their first (Acts 15:37–38). We’re not told why Mark left, only that Paul was convinced Mark wasn’t ready to give it another go, and that Barnabas was equally convinced he was.

Which apostle was right? Based on Luke’s sparse description, we aren’t sure. But since Scripture gives us a good sense for the quality of men that Barnabas and Paul were, we can consider how each man might have viewed the disagreement.

Barnabas: Gracious, Discerning Mentor

Barnabas’s name speaks volumes about him. His actual name was Joseph, but the apostles had dubbed him “Barnabas” (son of encouragement) because he was so gracious and encouraging (Acts 4:36). He seems to have had an extraordinary ability to discern the true spiritual quality in a person that others might not perceive. Arguably, the best example of this manifested in his discernment of Paul’s true spiritual quality.

Soon after Paul’s conversion, when most Christians were still terrified of him, who was willing to take the risk and advocate for Paul with the apostles? Barnabas (Acts 9:27). And when Gentiles started coming to Christ in Antioch, who did the apostles trust enough to go and assess the genuineness of their conversions? Barnabas (Acts 11:22). And when Barnabas discerned the Antioch revival was the Holy Spirit’s doing, who did he discern would be best at helping these new Gentile Christians understand the gospel? Paul, the former zealous, gospel-hating Pharisee (Acts 11:25–26). Given his track record, one would think Barnabas had earned the right to be trusted regarding his assessment of John Mark.

Paul: Experienced, Discerning Frontier Missionary

We all know that Paul, the great “Apostle to the Gentiles,” became the most trusted theologian, ecclesiologist, and missiologist in the early church. The Holy Spirit chose to preserve more of his epistles regarding those fields than any other single writer’s in the New Testament. That’s some serious credibility capital. And the content of his instruction and counsel wasn’t the result of quiet academic research and reflection, but of incredibly rigorous firsthand experiences of doing frontier evangelism and church planting in violently hostile environments.

According to Luke’s account, John Mark had left the first missionary team before things really heated up in Pisidia, Iconium, and Lystra — where Paul seems to have suffered the most violent persecution of the team (Acts 13:13–14). So, when assembling a team for a second tour, knowing from experience the kinds of adversity and danger they were likely to face, Paul’s refusal to further jeopardize the team’s effectiveness, safety, and morale (by including a member who’d already shown himself unreliable) seems eminently wise. Given his track record, one would think Paul had earned the right to be trusted regarding his assessment of John Mark.

What Are We Supposed to Learn?

To me, both these men seem to deserve the benefit of the doubt. It’s easy to simply assume Paul, not Barnabas, must have been right, since the historical narrative of Acts follows Paul, not Barnabas. But that’s an assumption from silence. It does appear that Silas was a very good choice for Paul. But later in Paul’s life, we hear him describe Mark as a “very useful” ministry colleague (2 Timothy 4:11), which tells us something happened to change Paul’s assessment of him. From what we know about Barnabas, it’s altogether possible that Mark’s regaining of Paul’s confidence was, at least in part, the result of the time he spent under Barnabas’s influence.

So, what are we supposed to learn from this “sharp disagreement” if Scripture is silent on whether one or both were at fault or whether they ever reconciled? Did Paul and Barnabas sinfully fail to “[bear] with one another in love” and “eager[ly] maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:2–3)? Or did they reach the righteous, God-glorifying conclusion that, given their situation, the wisest, most loving, unifying option for them was, paradoxically, to separate?

There is no definitive answer to these questions. In each case, we’d have to say, “It depends.” But Acts 15:36–41 will yield gold to those willing to dig for it. Here are five nuggets I’ve found.

1. When God seems silent, listen up.

The fact that God does not reveal to us if either or both apostles were right or wrong is one of the many biblical examples of God manifesting his wisdom through silence. I like to call God’s silence the “dark matter” of divine revelation. It’s never vacuous, but substantial. When he withholds details from us, he’s usually communicating something else. Think of the next four nuggets as examples.

2. The godliest of people can fail.

If this sharp disagreement involved some personal or leadership failure on the part of one or both men, which is possible, we shouldn’t be shocked. Neither was infallible and, like the rest of us, they “[stumbled] in many ways” (James 3:2). Just that possibility reminds us that the Bible doesn’t hide the weakness and failures of its godliest saints and that we and our leaders are weak and fail too.

3. Not all apparent failures are actual failures.

We need to have a category in our minds that it’s possible neither man was wrong. Perhaps Paul rightly discerned that John Mark wasn’t yet ready to participate in the trip Paul was about to take — and Barnabas rightly discerned that God wanted Mark to accompany him.

Perhaps Silas was ready to endure the dangers and rigors of Pauline ministry (Acts 9:16), while Mark was ready to train under Barnabas’s patient, encouraging leadership, contributing to his becoming “very useful” in Paul’s later ministry. That possibility can help guard us from jumping to conclusions when decisions look like failures to us. It may not be the case. Which is why Paul admonished Christians in 1 Corinthians 4:5 to “not pronounce judgment before the time.”

4. The foolishness of God is wiser than men.

If that was the case with Paul and Barnabas, couldn’t the Holy Spirit simply have made the truth clear to them in a way that prevented their sharp disagreement? The answer is yes. But how do we know if that would have yielded the most God-glorifying outcome? Isn’t it possible that God had ten thousand gospel-spreading and saint-sanctifying purposes in this event? We’re not privy to the millions of present and future, visible and invisible factors that go into God’s providential orchestrations of such things. Which is why Paul also admonished Christians in 1 Corinthians 1:25 that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

5. Get used to ‘unsearchable’ and ‘inscrutable.’

It’s good for us to remember that we’re all in our fallen conditions because of the tragic belief that we could, like God, manage the knowledge of good and evil ourselves. Therefore, when we encounter a providence that causes us pain and grief for reasons we don’t understand, we can, without sin, cry, “Why, O Lord?” (Psalm 10:1). But it is a sin to assume, in our grief, that “the Judge of all the earth” (Genesis 18:25) failed to do right just because his unfathomable knowledge and wisdom led him to make judgments we find unsearchable (Romans 11:33).

Pursue Faithful Disagreement

As a principle, the more distant we are from other Christians’ sharp disagreements, the less we know of the circumstances or details, the wiser we are to refrain from passing judgment on them.

But when it comes to sharp disagreements between Christian friends we know or within our own churches, let us take very seriously the counsel given us from one of the parties involved in the dispute over John Mark: “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18). No doubt, this counsel came from much hard-won experience.

Note the words “if possible.” These words carry the implication that, for all sorts of reasons, it’s not always possible for brothers and sisters to remain yoked together in ministry. But it is always possible to trust God’s sometimes mysterious, inscrutable purposes; to not pass judgment prematurely; to be quick to forgive others, “as God in Christ forgave [us]” (Ephesians 4:32); and to let love cover a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). For “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). Ministry partnerships sometimes must end, but “love never ends” (1 Corinthians 13:8).

It’s inevitable that disagreements will arise between Christians. Our call is to pursue faithfulness in disagreement, with love always being our aim. Given that the separation between Paul and Barnabas is an anomaly in what the Holy Spirit preserved in Scripture for our instruction, I think it’s safe to assume that most disagreements ought to be reconciled without separation. But when separation occurs, we can glean a lot from the little we know of Paul and Barnabas’s parting.

In the New Testament and across Christian tradition, baptism signals at least three realities:

Identification with Christ in his life, death, and resurrection (Romans 6:3–4; Colossians 2:12)
Purification from sin and its effects, which have separated us from our Maker (Acts 22:16)
Incorporation into the body of Christ, the church (Acts 2:41; 1 Corinthians 12:13)

Given these connotations, and given the assumption that Christian baptism is new with John the Baptist’s initiation — a baptism received by Christ at the beginning of his earthly ministry to signal its inauguration and association with the dawn of the new covenant — how does Christian baptism relate to Old Testament practices? Where did the idea of baptism come from? After overviewing the meaning of Christian baptism, this article seeks to briefly explore the connections between baptism and Old Testament ritual washings.

Buried and Raised with Christ

When considering the meaning of baptism, it is important to distinguish the word’s definitional meaning from its symbolic or metaphorical meaning. Literally, or definitionally, the word baptize means “to dip” or “to immerse.”1 But this definition does not exhaust the meaning of Christian baptism in the New Testament.

Paul gets to the heart of the meaning of Christian baptism in Romans 6:3–4:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

In this passage, Paul connects Christian baptism to union with Christ, especially in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection in the place of, and on behalf of, his people (see also Colossians 2:12). This connection explains why immersion was the normal baptismal practice of the early church, a practice that has continued in some traditions to the present day.2 Immersion in water, and the believer’s subsequent emersion from the water, symbolizes union with Christ and his work: Christ’s death and burial in our place, Christ’s resurrection on our behalf.

“Immersion in water, and the believer’s subsequent emersion from the water, symbolizes union with Christ and his work.”

In this way, baptism pictures the new birth, without which no one can “see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). By faith, the old man is “crucified with him” (Romans 6:6) and buried — represented by being submerged under the waters of judgment with Christ (Romans 6:3) — so that emerging, the newborn person might live in new life and resurrection hope in union with Christ. In this way, the act of baptism heralds the good news that Christ saves sinners from sin and death through identification with his life and holiness.

Circumcision and Baptism

Although identification with God in Christ is central to understanding baptism — hence why the Christian baptismal formula is “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” and why the New Testament speaks of being “baptized into Christ” (see Galatians 3:27) — other biblical-theological symbols can help us understand and appreciate the full meaning of Christian baptism. One, which we cannot explore at length in this short article, is baptism’s connection with the old covenant rite of circumcision.

Paedobaptist traditions often justify their practice of infant baptism by positing a strong continuity between the old and new covenants: as the (male) children of God’s old covenant people received the old covenant sign of circumcision on the eighth day, so today, children born to new covenant believers should receive the new covenant sign, baptism.

We should note that the connection between baptism and circumcision is biblically justified (see Colossians 2:11–12). But paedobaptists misidentify the point of connection. Yes, people are born into the new covenant community, but this is the new birth of which Jesus spoke, and the new covenant children are those who have the faith of their father Abraham (Romans 4:11). In other words, those who are newborn by faith into the new covenant community receive the new-covenant sign of baptism, thus being incorporated into Christ’s body, the church.

‘Wash Away Your Sins’

But what of Old Testament washings? Are these practices part of the symbolic furniture that can help fill out a New Testament understanding of Christian baptism? Acts 22:16 seems to indicate so.

In this passage, Paul recounts for the Jews gathered at the temple in Jerusalem his miraculous conversion and subsequent baptism. As Paul relays his testimony, he includes Ananias’s instructions after he supernaturally received back his sight (an event that is probably meant to symbolize the moment of Paul’s conversion). Ananias said to Paul, “Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16). In this verse, baptism is related to the washing away of sins. But how? Seeing baptism as the efficient cause of washing would be to overread the connection and to ignore the qualifying participle, “calling on his name.” But failing to see the symbolic connection between baptism and washing would be to underread this verse.

The apostle Peter makes a similar connection between baptism and washing, or purification, in 1 Peter 3:21. After he references Noah and his family’s safe passage through the flood on the ark, he writes, “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.”

This notoriously difficult verse has been used to justify a doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which teaches that the waters of baptism are an efficient cause of salvation. But as in Acts 22:16, the call to God in faith qualifies such an overreading. It is not the water-washing of baptism that saves, but what the water-washing symbolizes: “an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” And such an appeal can only be made by faith.

Old Testament Washings

Given the relationship Paul and Peter draw between Christian baptism and washing, what specific relation might baptism have to Old Testament washings?

“Baptism is an appeal to God and a symbol of the decisive act of the Holy Spirit, who washes, regenerates, and renews.”

While some rites of washing and purification were immediately related to physical hygiene and the spread of disease (see, for instance, laws regarding leprosy and bodily discharges in Leviticus 13–15), other ritual washings addressed the spiritual uncleanness that comes from living as sinners in a sinful world. For instance, in Exodus 19:10–11, Israel is told to wash before they meet God at Sinai. In Exodus 29:4, Aaron and his sons are to be washed with water to be consecrated as priests. Exodus 30:17–21 includes instructions for priests to wash their hands and feet before they enter the tabernacle.

As my colleague Randal Breland puts it, death, disease, and disorder, which the Bible teaches are all downstream from sin, make one unclean, or impure. And in order to relate to a holy God, we must be made clean. Old Testament ceremonial washings addressed this fallen reality in two ways: first by confronting sinners with their perpetual uncleanness — if they wash, they are tacitly acknowledging their uncleanness — and second by giving them a divinely ordained way to be made clean and so relate to God on his terms.

Cleansing the Heart

Even so, Scripture makes clear that ritual washings are not sufficient to deal with sin and its effects once and for all. In Luke 11:39–40, Jesus addresses the spiritual implications of ceremonial washing: “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also?”

Mark records Jesus in a similar context expanding this observation into a spiritual principle with implications for ritual washing: “Hear me, all of you, and understand: There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him” (Mark 7:14–15; see also Matthew 15:1–20). In other words, the deeper spiritual reality and meaning behind the act — not the washing itself — is most significant.

This spiritual significance of washing, and its relationship to baptism, seems to lie behind Jesus’s response to Peter in John 13:9, where Peter tells Jesus to wash not just his feet, but his head and his hands. Jesus responds to Peter that he has already been made clean: “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you” (John 13:10).

Significantly, Jesus tells Peter that he does not need to perpetually wash his head and his hands, as the priests of old did, in order to come to God. He has been made clean, once for all, by his faith-union with Christ, which is symbolized by the “bathing” of baptism in which Peter had been submerged — head, hands, and all. But notice: the twelve all had received baptism when they followed Christ, they all had “bathed” (see John 4:1–2), but only eleven were clean. Judas was baptized, but he was not clean.

True and Greater Washing

What then is the symbolic connection between Christian baptism and Old Testament washings? Just as Old Testament washings occurred in obedience to the command of God and symbolized purification from sin, so also baptism. But as in the Old Testament, the act itself does not effect the cleansing; God does. Baptism is an appeal to God and a symbol of the decisive act of the Holy Spirit, who washes, regenerates, and renews in his application of Christ’s work to our lives. As Paul writes in Titus 3:5, “[God] saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”

In this way, we leave behind the “various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation” (Hebrews 9:10), while also recognizing how they teach us of and point us to the true and greater washing by the blood of Christ (Hebrews 9:13–14) and the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, all of which is symbolized by baptism into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Therefore, let those of us who by faith have been baptized “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:22).

Audio Transcript

Monday, we looked at doubt. Can we ever hope to experience a deepening joy in God during recurring seasons of doubt? And your answer, Pastor John, was yes. We can experience deepening joy in God during recurring seasons of doubt. And you explained how. And in the Monday episode, one of the battles you briefly mentioned was the battle when thoughts enter our minds that make us wonder whether something the Bible teaches is really true. That’s one form of doubt that we face as believers. And today we drill down into Bible-doubt.

So, how do we fight off this inner skeptic in our Bible reading? The frank and honest question comes from a listener named Kristen. “Pastor John, I am ashamed to say that my Bible reading is often hijacked by a sense of doubt. It sometimes even feels more like a spiritual battle than an intellectual battle, and it scares me because it attacks my faith at the foundations — the truth of the Bible. Do you have any advice for attacking a spirit of doubt and cynicism when reading the Scriptures?”

Tony, I stop and I pray over every one of these questions as I try to answer them so that in the hundreds of things you could say, the Lord will help me choose the things that might be most helpful. And this one felt like I needed to pray more, because when she conceded that it’s a spiritual battle and not just an intellectual one, I felt that’s really true — and not just for her, but for all of us. The intellectual things that rise up that make the Bible seem problematic are often covering a satanic attack. The devil really hates the Bible. He hates truth. He’s a deceiver from the beginning, and he can make things look merely intellectual when in fact some pretty heavy, heavy spiritual stuff is going on.

I’ll just tell Kristen now that the answer is yes, I do have some advice, and I based every one of these six counsels on Scripture, and I’ll mention the Scripture. So, I’m praying for Kristen and lots of people who, when they read the Bible, find stumbling blocks that get in the way of their enjoyment and their belief. And one of these maybe, if not all of them, might prove from the Lord for her.

1. Pray for help.

Pray that God would help you — that he would fight your doubts and cynicism with you and for you. In other words, cry out to God, “Fight for me. Help me. Defeat these obstacles.” And we all know where that’s coming from — Mark 9:24. To the father of the child who had this epileptic fit that nobody could heal, Jesus said, “Do you want me to do anything here?” And the man said, “If you can” (Mark 9:22). And he said, “What’s this ‘if’ stuff?” And then the man cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). That’s a strange way to say it. Help your unbelief do what? Die, that’s what.

So, this means that Kristen and I need to preface our Bible reading every day with prayer. God, help me with my unbelief — that is, kill it, destroy it, get out whatever is causing it.

2. Long for a glimpse.

Seek in all your reading and praying in the Bible not just to know truth, but to see the glory of Christ. There is a spiritual light shining from Christ that is self-authenticating if you saw it. And I’m thinking here now of the doubting Thomas. I’m glad he exists and is in the Bible for Kristen and me. Remember, Thomas said, “Unless I . . . place my hand into his side, I will never believe” (John 20:25). And so, here, Jesus shows up and he says, “‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” (John 20:27–28). In other words, he did not touch him. He saw him.

“Seek in all your reading and praying in the Bible not just to know truth, but to see the glory of Christ.”

Something happened when he saw him. He thought that he would need to do more. He would need more evidence for a ghost — “He’s going to be a ghost. I’m going to be tricked.” And when Jesus showed up, he didn’t need any more. He didn’t have to push it to the limit of his evidential demands. And Jesus said, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). And I think that means, “Blessed are those who have not seen the way you’ve seen, but who have believed by the seeing that comes through the word.”

So, I’m saying to Kristen that when she reads, ask the Lord for this kind of not physical but spiritual discernment — a spiritual sight of Christ that is different than an argument from evidences drawn with inferences.

3. Meditate on Jesus’s kindness.

Think much about the patience and mercy of God to doubters. Peter said, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water” (Matthew 14:28). He’s going to walk on water. And Jesus said, “Come” (Matthew 14:29). So, Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water, and came to Jesus. And then it says, “But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me’” (Matthew 14:30). And Jesus did not say, “Tough, man. I don’t want to. What a jerk. I just told you that you could do this, and you were doing it.” No, that is not what Jesus said or did. “Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’” (Matthew 14:31).

So, meditate on the kindness and the patience of Jesus to doubters. Peter is doubting, and Jesus reaches out his hand. Maybe that’s what Kristen would feel as she reads this — he is reaching out his hand to me in my doubt.

4. Seek out the strong.

Seek out people of strong faith to read outside the Bible and to be around in person, and make them your heroes. “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:7–8). So, he explicitly wants us to look to people who are ahead of us in this battle of faith, and take heart from looking at the outcome of their faith. And here’s another one in Hebrews. Hebrews seems to be really big on this communal nature of fighting the fight of faith.

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving [you could say doubting] heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:12–13)

In other words, we need to be in groups where people fight with us and help us and direct us to things that will give strength to our faith rather than weaken it.

5. Know your need of others.

Remember that the body has many members, and some are scholars who have thought long and hard about things that puzzle you, and have solved many of them. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Corinthians 12:21). And vice versa. And it may be that, sometimes, those of us who are doing footwork at any given time might need to remember, “Hey, there are some heads.” (And don’t let this conflict with Jesus as the head.)

That’s what he says here in 1 Corinthians 12:21 — some are heads, and some are feet. And the feet should never say, “I don’t need you, head,” when the head has spent ten years solving the problem that you’re just stumbling over. No, no, no. The point of the body of Christ is that there’s an answer to our problems. God is a God of coherence; he’s not a God of contradiction. There are answers to the issues in the Bible and the issues of culture. And people have gone before us. And there’s a wealth of wisdom in books, and we should befriend those people.

6. Persevere.

Finally, don’t stop reading your Bible because of these doubts and because of a spirit of cynicism. One of Satan’s main aims in your doubt and your cynicism is to get you to stop reading, when, in fact, the Bible says, “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). And one last text:

Blessed is the man     who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,nor stands in the way of sinners,     nor sits in the seat of scoffers;but his delight is in the law of the Lord,     and on his law he meditates day and night.He is like a tree     planted by streams of waterthat yields its fruit in its season,     and its leaf does not wither.In all that he does, he prospers. (Psalm 1:1–3)

So, the seasons come, the dry desert winds blow, and those whose roots are not planted by the streams wither by cynicism and doubt. But the person whose roots have gone down, meditating day and night on the word of God, is like a tree that has roots way down by the water, so that they’re not killed by the droughts of doubt.

ABSTRACT: Throughout Charles Spurgeon’s decades of ministry, more than 14,000 people sought to join the church he pastored. Rather than rushing them into membership, however, Spurgeon and the other pastors at the Metropolitan Tabernacle patiently shepherded applicants through a five-part process. Along the way, Spurgeon engaged not only a plurality of pastors but also the congregation as a whole, seeking to discern the genuineness of an applicant’s profession. The final decision lay in the hands of the congregation, who voted to welcome new members to the church’s ordinances and other corporate means of grace. Such a patient, extended process enabled Spurgeon and his fellow pastors to care well for the applicants, even before they joined the church.

For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Geoff Chang, assistant professor of historical theology and the curator of the Spurgeon Library at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, to detail the membership process at Charles Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle.

Those familiar with nineteenth-century pastor Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) associate his ministry with legendary preaching, fruitful writing, and courageous controversy. Few, however, are aware of Spurgeon’s strong commitment to regenerate church membership. As a Baptist, Spurgeon believed that church membership should be reserved for those who had a credible profession of faith. Commenting on the New York Revival of 1858, Spurgeon declared,

If God should send us a great revival of religion, it will be our duty not to relax the bonds of discipline. Some churches, when they increase very largely, are apt to take people into their number by wholesale, without due and proper examination. We ought to be just as strict in the paroxysms of a revival as in the cooler times of a gradual increase. . . . Take care, ye that are officers in the church, when ye see the people stirred up, that ye exercise still a holy caution, lest the church become lowered in its standard of piety by the admission of persons not truly saved.1

Spurgeon’s commitment to regenerate church membership would be tested throughout his ministry, as more than 14,000 people sought to join his church during his 38 years as a pastor. Throughout those decades, Spurgeon maintained a rigorous membership process that kept the church from lowering its standards by admitting the unsaved. He never deviated from this process, even when it required him to change the leadership structure and how the church conducted congregational meetings.

Given the differences in context, churches today probably should not try to replicate Spurgeon’s process exactly. Still, what can we learn from the membership process at the Metropolitan Tabernacle?

Step 1: Elder Interview

In the February 1869 edition of The Sword & the Trowel (1865–97), Spurgeon provided a description of the membership process at the Tabernacle, beginning with an elder interview:

All persons anxious to join our church are requested to apply personally upon any Wednesday evening, between six and nine o’clock, to the elders, two or more of whom attend in rotation every week for the purpose of seeing enquirers. When satisfied, the case is entered by the elder in one of a set of books provided for the purpose, and a card is given bearing a corresponding number to the page of the book in which particulars of the candidate’s experience are recorded.2

Records of these membership interviews can still be found in the Testimony Books in the Metropolitan Tabernacle Archives in London. In examining these records, it becomes clear that the elders were looking for two qualities in those they interviewed: a clear understanding of the gospel and evidence of spiritual change.

For example, in an interview with James Melbourn, the elder records, “He has frequently heard Mr. Spurgeon and prefers his preaching to any he ever heard. I don’t think he has the faintest idea of the Gospel.” Though Melbourn is “sober, honest, industrious, and willing to join a church,” the elder is “astonished how any man could sit under our pastor’s ministry one Lord’s Day and be so entirely ignorant of his own ignorance of the Gospel.”3 Despite his evident moral life, the elder is not convinced that Melbourn understands the gospel. So, rather than rushing him through the membership process, the elder refers him to a Bible class, where he can study the Scriptures further and come to a saving knowledge of Christ.

But more than simply an intellectual understanding, conversion produces a change of life. In hearing testimonies, the elders also looked for evidence of genuine repentance and faith. For Emma Wilcox, the elder records how she previously was “fond of the gaieties of the world,” including “theatres, concerts, and driving out on Sundays.” But after one particular sermon, “a decided change has taken place. No Sunday rides, no ballroom, no playhouse now, old things have passed away, all things have become new. Wishes to show her love to Jesus by meeting with his people and desires to be baptized.”4 Here was evidence of both a turning away from worldliness and a turning to Christ in faith. And so, the elder happily gave her a card for the next step.

Takeaway 1: Be clear on the gospel and on conversion.

When examining candidates for membership, what matters is not political affiliation, cultural background, work, or other external factors — nor church background, giving, involvement, or other religious factors. What matters is whether the candidate has a credible profession of faith. Does he give evidence of being born again? To examine someone’s profession, of course, we ourselves must have a biblical understanding of the gospel and conversion.

Step 2: Pastor Interview

The second step of the process was an interview with the lead pastor himself: “Once a month, or oftener when required, the pastor appoints a day to see the persons thus approved of by the elders.”5

For approximately the first fifteen years of his ministry, Spurgeon interviewed every candidate for membership. By 1869, Spurgeon’s brother, James, had been called to be his co-pastor, and he largely took over this task for the remaining years. Even so, Spurgeon didn’t entirely drop this responsibility. Writing in 1884, he declared,

Oh, brothers, on that day on which I lately saw forty persons one by one, and listened to their experience and proposed them to the church, I felt as weary as ever a man did in reaping the heaviest harvest. I did not merely give them a few words as enquirers, but examined them as candidates with my best judgment.6

As busy as he was, Spurgeon did not leave the membership process entirely in his elders’ hands, but he felt a sense of responsibility as the lead pastor to meet briefly with each candidate personally.

Spurgeon trusted his elders’ judgments, and I have yet to come across a case where he went against an elder’s recommendation. Yet he did not hesitate to express his concerns and cautions. For one candidate, Spurgeon writes in the margin, “This young man’s moral character must be seen into with care. He is but a young man & I fear has many temptations. . . . I have no reason to suspect, but only advise.” For another candidate, he writes, “Another difficult case, requiring a diligent investigation. I think delay would be advisable.” At times, Spurgeon’s comments deal with the care of the candidate, as here: “Ought to have the Confession of Faith. Messenger to get her one.”7

Spurgeon understood that the membership interview was an opportunity to begin pastoring these candidates, even before they joined the church. Whatever their spiritual maturity, Spurgeon sought to assure fearful applicants:

So far from wishing to repel you, if you really do love the Savior, we shall be glad enough to welcome you. If we cannot see in you the evidence of a great change, we shall kindly point out to you our fears, and shall be thrice happy to point you to the Savior; but be sure of this, if you have really believed in Jesus, you shall not find the church terrible to you.8

Takeaway 2: Engage a plurality of elders.

This second step guaranteed that a plurality of elders would be engaged in the membership interview process. This practice helped overcome any mistakes or missed insights so that the elders might better know and care for those joining the church. So, consider engaging multiple elders in your membership process. If that is not possible, then look to involve a deacon or a mature church member. Rather than having the decision hang on one man, we will find wisdom in many counselors.

Step 3: Congregational Appointment of a Visitor

The next step is, perhaps, the most surprising: “If the pastor is satisfied, he nominates an elder or church member as visitor, and at the next church meeting asks the church to send him to enquire as to the moral character and repute of the candidate.”9 This practice of appointing visitors was not uncommon among Congregationalists and Baptists, though it was fading away. Spurgeon, however, maintained it throughout his ministry.

“Spurgeon understood that the church membership interview was an opportunity to begin pastoring candidates.”

If an applicant passed the first two steps, an elder would briefly introduce the applicant’s testimony at the next members’ meeting and then nominate a member of the church to be a visitor or messenger. The congregation would then vote to commission the visitor to go on behalf of the church and “enquire as to the moral character and repute of the candidate.”

This inquiry would involve visiting the candidate’s workplace, home, or neighborhood, and asking questions about the candidate, such as the following:

Do you know this applicant?
Did you know he is a Christian?
Did you know he was looking to be baptized and join the Metropolitan Tabernacle?
What do you know about his character?
What is he like at work?
How does he treat his family?

Questions such as these help us understand what Spurgeon refers to when he mentions “diligent investigation” and having the applicant’s moral character “seen into with care.” On one occasion, Spurgeon commented on a particularly confused applicant:

This man is a muddle. . . . I do not think he will be any great credit to us and should not be sorry if the messenger declines to recommend him. . . . It may turn out that he is a simple, silly but genuine man, however I beg the messenger to make a very diligent enquiry, for I fear he is weak in the head and not very sound in the heart. I cannot judge, character must decide.10

Most applicants were more straightforward. For some, however, the elders recognized that judging one’s profession of faith based on two interviews could prove difficult. This step allowed the church to get a sense of the person’s ongoing reputation in his community, and get further evidence of a credible profession of faith. And it undoubtedly created evangelistic opportunities for the applicant, as neighbors heard about his profession.

Takeaway 3: Recognize the public nature of church membership.

Though we might not appoint visitors to make inquiries in our day, there is still wisdom in helping applicants see that joining the church is not a private affair. Applying for church membership can become an opportunity to be more public with their profession of faith. For a youth joining the church, elders may want to talk to the parents about how the young person behaves at home. For someone coming from another gospel-preaching church in town, elders may want to talk to the previous pastor to make sure the applicant is leaving the church well. And if the applicant is going to be baptized, it certainly would be appropriate to encourage him to invite non-Christian family and friends to the service.

Step 4: Congregational Vote

Provided that all went well with the inquiry, the applicant would then attend the next members’ meeting with the visitor for the fourth step:

If the visitor be satisfied he requests the candidate to attend with him at the following or next convenient church meeting, to come before the church and reply to such questions as may be put from the chair, mainly with a view to elicit expressions of his trust in the Lord Jesus, and hope of salvation through his blood, and any such facts of his spiritual history as may convince the church of the genuineness of the case. . . . After the statement before the church, the candidate withdraws, the visitor gives in his report, and the vote of the church is taken.11

During the meeting, the visitor would give a report on the inquiry. Then the meeting chair, usually Spurgeon, would interview the candidate briefly, usually asking for some kind of statement about his trust in Christ, as well as highlighting parts of the testimony. Often, Spurgeon would also ask members of the church to speak — for example, a Sunday school teacher or the member who shared the gospel with the applicant — to give their affirmation of the applicant’s conversion. On one occasion, in the age before women’s suffrage, a student asked Spurgeon if it was advisable for women to speak in a church meeting. Spurgeon answered,

Suppose there is a candidate before the church, and I know that one of the female members can testify to his Christian character, I should not hesitate to say, “Our Sister Brown knows this young man; would she like to tell us anything about him?” I think it would be most seemly if she should reply, “Yes, dear friends, he is a very admirable young man; I am especially grateful to him for he has been the means of the conversion of my husband.” It would be a very great pity for anybody beside Mrs. Brown to give such a testimony as that.12

This step highlights the congregation’s involvement in church membership. An applicant’s joining the church involved not only the elders and the lead pastor but also the congregation, as they commissioned messengers, heard the applicant’s profession of faith, and then heard one another’s testimonies about the individual. This process would then culminate in a congregational vote to bring the person into membership, expressing not only the church’s approval but also their covenant commitment to the new member.

Takeaway 4: Commit to one another in church membership.

Joining the church is not merely about having names on a membership roll. Nor is it simply about who gets to vote in church meetings. Rather, church membership is a commitment by the congregation to live out God’s vision for the church in all the “one another” commands of the New Testament. When a church brings someone into membership, the members bear the stewardship and responsibility of walking with that individual until he joins another church or is taken into glory. Your church’s membership process should reflect that active commitment.

Step 5: Church Ordinances

In some ways, all the previous steps were preliminary, preparing for the final and most important step:

When the candidate has professed his faith by immersion, which is administered by the junior pastor after a week-day service, he is received by the pastor at the first monthly communion, when the right hand of fellowship is given to him in the name of the church, and his name is entered on the roll of members.13

“Amid all the practicalities and administration of a church-membership process, never lose the wonder of what it means.”

The ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper get to the heart of church membership, according to the New Testament. A church is composed of those who have been baptized upon their profession of faith and now give expression to an ongoing profession of faith through participation in the Lord’s Supper. In other words, membership in the church signifies the believer’s union with Christ and his people, as depicted in the ordinances of the church. By making baptism and the Lord’s Supper the final steps of the membership process, the church reminded these applicants that church membership is ultimately a theological matter.

Takeaway 5: Keep Christ and his body in view.

Amid all the practicalities and administration of a church-membership process, never lose the wonder of what it means: identification with the people of God and union with Christ, our Head. Make sure those going through the process understand this. And allow the joy of seeing people embrace Christ to motivate the church’s commitment to maintaining a disciplined membership process.

Shepherding from the Start

Spurgeon’s rigorous membership process reminds pastors of the importance of the membership interview. One of the most important pastoral functions we ever perform is discerning the genuineness of someone’s profession of faith as he seeks to join the church. For those who are repenting of their sins and trusting in Christ, we have the joy of affirming their profession and encouraging them to persevere. For the applicant who is confused about or living contrary to the gospel, we have the responsibility to warn and instruct him in the truth. To get this wrong could prove to be spiritually harmful to the individual and the church.

Of course, that’s not to say that any of us will ever perfectly discern everyone’s profession of faith. This is why Spurgeon’s example of engaging a plurality of elders and the congregation continues to be wise today. And this is why church discipline will always be relevant (an important topic for another essay!). Most of all, we depend on wisdom from God in prayer. In all of this, Spurgeon reminds us that the goal of the membership interview is shepherding. Before applicants ever join the church, we have an opportunity to pastor them and point them to the Savior.

Some have their fifteen minutes of fame. Henry Tanner had his forty days.

In the summer of 1880, the Minneapolis homeopath shocked the medical establishment by fasting on stage in Manhattan, under round-the-clock supervision. Tanner had something to prove, as journalist Steve Hendricks tells the story in his recent book The Oldest Cure in the World. Tanner believed in the “restorative biochemistry” of fasting — that going without food for extended periods could be “regenerative” or even “curative.” By depriving the system of food, and relieving the burden of digestion, the human body could turn its energy elsewhere. Give the gut a break for days, even weeks, and the body could “cure itself” from a number of conditions.

For Tanner, this was no mere theory. He claimed to have fasted for forty-two days in 1879 and been healed of several ailments. When his report was doubted, he offered to go forty days again, the following year, this time under full surveillance.

So, for forty days, Tanner ate no food and drank only water. Doctors claimed he would die in ten or twelve days. From Day 6 to 40, the New York Times and other major outlets reported on Tanner’s progress. In the end, Tanner succeeded both in accomplishing the feat and playing well to the crowds who came daily to the theater.

Thanks to a Little Fast

Fasting as a cure for disease has a long and varied history, though often at the civilizational margins. Hendricks writes,

Skip dinner tonight, and by the time you rise tomorrow, your body will have spent a few hours making the most intricate fixes to cellular components that were damaged during the day, and it will have recycled other parts too far gone to be fixed. Defects that might have turned into cancer or a stroke will have now, thanks to a little deprivation, been refashioned to yield a healthier cell. These processes occur in us every day when our only fast is from the midnight snack to breakfast at dawn, but they’re accelerated enormously when we extend the nightly fast, and fasting for multiple days supercharges them. (30)

“Who knew that giving our stomachs a break might actually do us some good?”

Who knew that giving our stomachs a break might actually do our bodies some good?

Yet in our age of abundance, even decadence, such claims can be unnerving to consider. Very likely, this was not your mother’s counsel. Have we long assumed not eating to be the path to sickness and disease, while slowly eating ourselves to death?

Eat God’s World

God made us to eat. And he created a wonderfully edible world.

The opening chapters of Genesis tell us that God made trees “pleasant to the sight and good for food” (Genesis 2:9), and he designed us to eat his world, both plants and animals (Genesis 1:29; 9:3). For millennia, humans did just that, until God led a special people out from Egyptian slavery and assigned them various dietary restrictions. From Moses until Jesus, under the terms of the old covenant, God taught his people — and the nations, through them — of their sin and need for him, and anticipated the coming of his Son.

With the coming of Christ came the fulfilling of the old covenant, bringing it to its appointed consummation. Jesus inaugurated a new covenant, for people from every nation. In the course of his ministry, Jesus “declared all foods clean” (Mark 7:19; also Romans 14:20), and yet his own approach to food was not simplistic, but varied and flexible — marked by the kind of resilience we might expect the “fearfully and wonderfully made” human body to be capable of (Psalm 139:14).

When You Feast

Some of us might be surprised to learn that Jesus feasted. But he was, after all, a first-century Jew. The nation’s collective life turned on annual feasts — and three in particular, which the Gospel of John mentions Jesus participating in (John 2:23; 7:2; 10:22; 13:1). Jesus attended nonnational feasts as well, like Levi’s “great feast” (Luke 5:29) and the famous wedding feast at Cana (John 2:8–9), where he blessed and enhanced the feast by turning water to wine. In his parables, Jesus compared his kingdom to such feasts (Matthew 22:2–9; 25:10; Luke 12:36). Unlike his cousin John, who was known for abstaining, Jesus came “eating and drinking,” and was slandered as “a glutton and a drunkard” (Luke 7:34).

Significantly, in Luke 14:13–14, Jesus assumes his followers will celebrate occasions of feasting: “When you give a feast,” he says — not if, but when — “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.” So too Christ’s apostles, without commanding any particular Christian feasts (Romans 14:4–6), assumed that Christians would, at times, feast (2 Peter 2:13; Jude 12). Feasting, in gratitude to our God and with delight in him, honors him as the all-sufficient Giver. We rejoice in him in and through the joy of food and drink, with friends and family.

Yet in all that commendation of feasting, those of us today, living in the breadbasket of modern abundance, will do well to hear the implicit warning our Lord leaves in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. He introduces the rich man, who we learn now to be in torment in Hades, as one “who feasted sumptuously every day” (Luke 16:19). The caution for us, among other aspects of the parable, is feasting every day — a temptation all too real in the modern world.

When You Fast

Of course, Jesus assumes not only that we will feast, but also that we will fast. In Matthew 6:16–17, he says to his disciples, “when you fast,” not if. And without explicitly commanding his followers to fast on specific occasions, he promises, in Matthew 9:15, “they will fast.” (We see the promise play out in Acts 13:2–3 and 14:23, when the early church, with her groom away, takes up the old practice now made new.)

As a Jew, Jesus himself observed the annual fast, that is, the Day of Atonement, with the whole nation. We might assume he also fasted on other spontaneous occasions, as modeled in the Old Testament. Most notably, Jesus fasted forty days in the wilderness, in preparation for his public ministry (Matthew 4:2; Luke 4:2). Significantly, the Gospels only mention his hunger and him not eating. Unlike the miraculous fast of Moses at Sinai (Exodus 34:28), no mention is made of Jesus going without water. Which likely means this was a natural, fully human fast — one like Henry Tanner would demonstrate humanity capable of.

God designed our bodies not only for food — to eat and enjoy his world — but also to be able to go long periods of time, longer than most of us are comfortable thinking about, in fasting. Fasting accompanies heartfelt prayer in expressing special longing for some particular divine provision or help, and going without such a basic comfort of daily life highlights God’s value beyond his blessings and focuses our affections afresh on him.

As with feasting, Jesus both models and commends fasting, and leaves us a caution. In the parable of the Pharisee and publican, he takes aim at “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt” (Luke 18:9). Among other boasts, the Pharisee declares, “I fast twice a week” (Luke 18:12). The publican, on the other hand, acknowledges himself a sinner and begs God for mercy. Jesus then comments, hauntingly, “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other” (Luke 18:14).

Jesus’s warning, reminiscent of the condemnations in Isaiah 58, reminds us that the act of fasting can be hollowed of its God-honoring meaning and made into an effort to twist his arm. Similarly, we find in the letters of Paul a handful of warnings against the misuse of fasting (Romans 14:3, 6; 1 Timothy 4:3; Colossians 2:16).

Whether You Eat, Fast, or Feast

While Jesus commends (and cautions) both feasting and fasting — and assumes his followers will do both — his model prayer for his disciples brings everyday moderation to the fore: “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11).

Far and away, most days are daily-bread days. They are occasions neither for feasting nor fasting, given neither to indulgence nor abstaining, but rather devoted to a virtue that can be one of the hardest of all in times of plenty and lack: self-control. The Christian’s day-in, day-out relationship to food is one we navigate in the fuzzy, though real, bounds of moderation, in between the punctuations of fasting and feasting. That is, we receive God’s regular provision of food with enjoyment, marked by thanksgiving and self-control (1 Timothy 4:4–5).

“Many of us today neither feast well, nor fast at all.”

Many of us today neither feast well, nor fast at all. Oh, we feast. We live with such abundance, much of it edible, that we can hardly keep from daily overindulgence, without pushing against the grain of our society. We feast often, and without even recognizing it. What used to be feasting is now just the “standard American diet” (SAD). Without some countercultural moxie, many find themselves drifting toward obesity unawares.

But if our assumptions and habits have conditioned us one way, then we do have hope for training our stomachs differently.

Here we again accent the amazing biology of the human body. Our bodies can be far more resilient than we’ve learned to expect, and with some thoughtful conditioning they can become even more so, ready to flex for both fasting and feasting, to both enjoy occasions of abundance and endure times of famine. We can train ourselves to go longer without food than we’re prone to think. As Jay Richards writes in Eat, Fast, Feast, “God fitted the human form to thrive in a host of different ecosystems and diets, as we would expect of a Creator who called us to multiply and fill the whole earth” (11).

Richards advocates what he calls a “fasting lifestyle” in which we condition ourselves, over time, to be “metabolically flexible.” With less thoughtless everyday feasting, and more regular fasts (beginning with a meal, then two, then working up to a few days), many of us (some medical conditions notwithstanding) can train our stomachs, and souls, to be like the apostle who testified,

I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:11–13)

Christians in general, and perhaps Protestants in particular, haven’t always excelled at such learning — which is not simply a learning of the mind but of the body. In our good and right emphasis on God’s astounding grace in Christ, have we undersold the astounding abilities of the God-designed human body? And have we failed to put our metabolic flexibility to spiritual use, through Christian fasting, not just intermittent fasting for bodily health?

Every Meal Holy

How fitting that Paul’s penetrating charge to consecrate our every action to God’s glory mentions such trivial (and massive) realities as eating and drinking: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). And not just to the God of monotheism, but the Christ of Christianity: “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).

In the end, we may discover all sorts of human wisdom in countercultural daily moderation, flanked by a learned metabolic flexibility primed for occasional feasts and fasts. Such seems far more enduringly human than our modern context of excess and overreaction. But as Christians, our goal isn’t merely to be more human looking backward (to Eden). We long to be more human looking upward, to the God-man, now risen and glorified, seated at his Father’s right hand. And we look forward, beyond the final conquest of sin and the curse, to the city that is to come, where we will, at last, fully enjoy God in the unencumbered humanity we were destined for. “The Lord Jesus Christ . . . will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:20–21).

We pray, with Jesus, for the daily bread of moderation. We hear his commendation, and see his example, of occasional feasting and fasting, and consider their God-glorifying potential. We hear his cautions about everyday feasting and about pharisaical fasting. And we again consecrate ourselves, and our stomachs, to him, “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” the one who strengthens us.

Awake, O sleeper,     and arise from the dead,and Christ will shine on you. (Ephesians 5:14)

With this poem, Paul grounds the often-quoted marriage instructions of Ephesians 5:22–33 in the transformative power of the gospel. The gospel rouses sleepers and quickens the dead. It calls those trapped in darkness into the shining light of Christ, where, for the first time, they can truly see and do what is good.

If the gospel can accomplish these feats, it can surely transform ordinary men into husbands who love their wives as Christ loved the church, and it can surely transform ordinary women into wives who respect and submit to their husbands’ leadership. But this transformation is not automatic, and it does not happen overnight. That’s why Paul offers this apostolic marriage advice: stay in the light (Ephesians 5:8–9).

While his advice applies to husbands and wives alike, this article addresses wives. Wives who want to see their marriages transformed must stay in the light, where Christ himself shines on them, revealing truths and exposing lies that shape their expectations for marriage. In particular, light-seeking wives embrace two foundational truths and reject two persistent lies about their marriages.

Truth #1: He is still a sinner.

The first expectation-shaping truth about marriage is that even though your husband is awake, alive, and in the light, he is still a sinner. And as a sinner, he will struggle in many ways common to humanity, some of which Paul warns us about in the rest of his letter to the Ephesians.

“God sees your husband’s faults more clearly than you do. His is the superior wisdom.”

At times, your husband may be proud, harsh, or impatient (Ephesians 4:2). His unique cocktail of deceitful desires will afflict him (Ephesians 4:22). He will stumble by not actively guarding his mind (Ephesians 4:25–32; 5:18). He may be tempted toward dishonesty, theft, laziness, destructive speech, resentment, selfishness, sexual immorality of various stripes, jealousies, greed, or substance abuse. In a word, he will falter in his charge to love you self-sacrificially.

As a native Texan, my mother-in-law strictly follows this rule: turn on the light during middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom. Failing to do so might mean a surprise encounter with a cockroach (at least in Texas).

When Christ shines on a marriage, his light exposes sins so that we can see them for the stealthy, invasive, dirty, creepy, darkness-loving, Texas-sized cockroaches that they are. The light protects us from surprise over our husband’s failures because our expectations are built on this foundational truth: he is still a sinner.

Truth #2: He is growing.

The light also trains us to shape our expectations around a second foundational truth: although your husband is still a sinner, he is growing. In the light, his sin is visible. And once seen, the way forward is clear.

In the case of a cockroach, a heavy-soled shoe is the clearest way forward, but sin requires a different kind of death — one of confession and turning and walking away, further and further from sleep’s darkness and the grave, and further into the light of Christ. The way forward may not be easy, but it is brightly lit.

If your husband is awake and alive, then Christ shines on him! He will increasingly see his sin, and he will know what to do about it. Equipped with more than a thick-soled shoe, he has everything he needs to crush the sins exposed by the light. (Ephesians 6:10–18 gives a full inventory of all the offensive and defensive weapons in his arsenal.)

These two foundational truths — your husband is a sinner, but he is growing — should shape your expectations about marriage, tempering your idealism with reality and your pessimism with hope.

Lie #1: ‘I’m more righteous than he is.’

Besides revealing two foundational truths for marriage, the light of Christ exposes two persistent lies in marriage. The first is the lie of superior righteousness. All of us indulge in pride from time to time, supposing ourselves better than our husbands. But if we stay in the light, we cannot escape the equalizing effect of the cross.

The light reminds us that we need the sin-cleansing blood of Jesus every bit as much as our husbands. Alongside them, we too must grow in detecting and killing sin. We must stand on guard against the temptations that hide behind our husband’s failures. Too often, we respond to their sin with sin of our own because the lie of superior righteousness tempts us to excuse our sin when it is provoked by theirs.

On this matter, Paul is far from silent: “Be angry and do not sin . . . and give no opportunity to the devil” (Ephesians 4:26–27). Sin hurts. Anger is a natural response to pain. But the light helps us see beyond those moments of hurt and anger to the true enemy lurking behind them. Our husbands are not the enemy, but behind their failures, the devil strains to reassert his dominance over our lives. He would use our anger against us, seducing us to react in sinful ways — perhaps by lashing out with hateful words, by giving quarter to arrogance or self-righteousness, by plotting revenge, by cynically despairing, or by withholding forgiveness.

But these reactions are from the shadows, lining the path back to the grave. The way of light and life is to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). We should expect to find sin crouching at the door of our marital disappointments, so we proactively guard our hearts against the snare of anger by continually confessing our own sins and by cultivating a heart of forgiveness toward our husbands.

Then, when they confess their sins, we can eagerly, though not painlessly, extend all the mercy and grace to them that God has freely given us. In this way, we defend ourselves against the lie of superior righteousness that stalks us from the shadows of our husband’s failures.

Lie #2: ‘I know what’s best for him.’

Be wary also of a second persistent lie lurking in the shadows: the lie of superior wisdom. Doubtless, if you were God, you would choose a different path for your husband’s transformation than the one he is currently on. But the light of Christ breaks into our blind spots, challenging even our expectations about how our husbands should grow.

Perhaps you’d prioritize his inattentiveness or his [fill in the blank], but God sees your husband’s faults more clearly than you do. His is the superior wisdom. He exposes sin according to his curriculum and his calendar.

He may not transform your husband into the most attentive partner, but he might stir his heart to give more generously at church. Your husband may not notice a sink full of dirty dishes as much as you’d like, but he might begin to exercise more oversight when it comes to your children’s Internet access. He may continue struggling to remember what you’ve asked him to do, but over time he may grow in contentedness at work, faithfully laboring at an unsatisfying job to provide for your household.

“Stay in the light, where lies are exposed and faulty expectations transformed.”

In Christ, your husband is growing whether or not he is walking the precise path you’d prescribe. If you do not see growth in an area that is particularly grievous to you, invite Christ’s light to shine on your expectations so that you can truly see and wisely assess them. Is this trait that irks you truly sin, or could it simply be a dispositional weakness? Are you expecting your husband to do something God does not require? Stay in the light, where lies are exposed and faulty expectations transformed.

If unaddressed sin persists in your husband’s life, remember Paul’s divinely given counsel from another of his letters: rather than nagging, shaming, or despairing, “rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer” (Romans 12:12). Before you go to your husband, go to God! Recognize that God, better than anyone, can see your husband’s sin, and in his superior wisdom knows precisely what to do with it. (Even so, recognize that some patterns of sin may require outside counsel or help, especially if the sin endangers you or others.)

Let There Be Light

Stay in the light, and it will transform your marriage. Reconfigure your expectations around the truth that your husband is a sinner, and the light will protect you from surprise or disillusionment over his failures. Shape your expectations around the truth that he is growing, and the light will fill you with hope as you increasingly see your husband the way God sees him — as a dearly loved son gradually being transformed into the likeness of Christ, the only perfect husband.

And “finally . . . put on the whole armor of God” (Ephesians 6:10–11), rejecting the lies of your own superior righteousness and wisdom. Then, hand in hand with your husband, grow up together into the image of your Savior.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back on this Monday, the final day of July. Last time, on Thursday, we looked at God’s joy, and how his joy becomes our joy by the Holy Spirit. It’s a really key episode: APJ 1962. This week, we continue on the joy theme, but we add another theme to it: the theme of doubt. In fact, can we struggle with doubt and experience joy in God? That’s today. And next time we look at how to fight off the inner skeptic when we have doubts about what we read in the Bible. That’s on Thursday.

So today, can we struggle with doubt and delight in God at the same time? That’s Steve’s question. He lives in Nashville. “Hello, Pastor John. My question for you is about how much joy I can hope to experience in the Christian life as someone who struggles seasonally with doubt. Sometimes I struggle with doubts about whether God exists or whether God is good, based on all the evil that I see on the news. Or I doubt whether God has a plan and purpose for my life. These doubts come and go. They’re seasonal. None of them extinguishes the smoldering flax that is my faith. The doubts do not stay long, and they do not overwhelm me. So, my question for you is this: Can I ever hope to have deepening joy in God in seasons when I also struggle with doubts like these? Or is joy in God simply impossible when doubts are present?”

I think the answer to that last question is no, it is not impossible to experience joy in God when doubts are present. And I think the answer to the question just before it is yes, you can hope to have deepening joy in God in seasons when you are also struggling with doubt. Those are my two answers. Now, let’s try to think biblically about this.

Intruding Doubts, Embattled Faith

First, a definition. Doubt comes in all sizes and shapes and durations and levels of seriousness. So, I’m going to call doubt of a Christian variety (that is, doubts that real born-again Christians have from time to time) thoughts that enter our minds from who knows where — they could be Satan’s fiery darts, desires of the flesh, a skeptical associate at work who mocks your religion, some new scientific argument, lack of sleep, dalliance with sin. There are all kinds of sources for how doubts rise or thoughts rise in our minds.

“Doubting is not a sign of no faith; it’s a sign of embattled faith.”

These doubts are thoughts that enter the mind that make us wonder whether something the Bible teaches is really true or whether we ourselves are as real as we thought we were. Those are the two kinds of doubts that I think a Christian wrestles with: Christian truth claims may not be true, or we may not be true.

Now, for the Christian, these thoughts are not conclusions; these are intrusions. They break in like a thief. They start moving around the house of your mind and knocking things over and making threats. This really does happen to Jesus’s followers. When Peter started to sink after walking a few steps on the water, Jesus said, “Why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31). When Jesus appeared after the resurrection, it says, “They worshiped him, but some doubted” (Matthew 28:17). Jude 22 says, “Have mercy” — this is in the church — “on those who doubt.”

In other words, such doubting is not a sign of no faith; it’s a sign of embattled faith. When Paul says we should “fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12), he included in his meaning, “When doubts intrude, fight them.”

Fight them with prayer. “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). That’s a prayer. Or fight them with the word. “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word” (Romans 10:17). That doesn’t just apply at the front end of the Christian life — that’s every day. We fight doubt by the word. Fight it by obedience. John 7:17 says, “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God.” Obedient people have fewer doubts than disobedient people.

Kept in the Storm

My answer to Steve’s question is that during that battle, during that season of doubt, it is possible to experience, alongside the anxiety of doubt, deepening joy in God. Now, why would I say that?

Doubt as Sorrow

First, because the anxieties of doubt are a kind of sorrow. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6:10 that Christians can have the experience of joy at the same time as experiencing sorrow: “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.” If sorrow and joy can mysteriously coexist in the same heart at the same time — and they can — then doubt and joy in God can coexist at the same time. Picture doubt as the troubled waters on the surface of the sea, and picture the new creation reality of faith as the deep, still waters of the ocean depths beneath.

Doubt as Perplexity

Second, I think in Paul’s mind perplexity is another way of talking about some kinds of doubt. He says in 2 Corinthians 4:8, “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair.” What is perplexity? Perplexity is a state of confusion or uncertainty. And what is uncertainty but a kind of doubt?

And yet, Paul admits to experiencing this kind of perplexity, doubt, but knowing full well he will not be destroyed by it: “perplexed, but not driven to despair.” That confidence beneath the perplexity can be experienced as a kind of deep joy in God’s keeping. Picture a child lost in the forest, but underneath that growing anxiety of the child and his growing doubts is deep confidence: “Daddy will find me. He said he would. He will find me. He promised to keep me.”

Doubt as Suffering

Third, consider Romans 5:3–4: “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces [approvedness], and [approvedness] produces hope.” Now, what that text teaches is that the reason we can rejoice in times of misery — suffering hurts; it’s misery — is that we have learned that enduring through experiences of misery has the effect of giving us a sense of authenticity. We made it. We’re real. We have been tested by fire and found to be approved. That, he says, produces hope, and hope is why we can rejoice. That’s the argument.

“Every season of doubt with triumph on the other side can bring a deepening sense that God is faithful.”

I think the very same process of testing and enduring and hope and joy can be experienced when the kind of suffering is not physical pain but psychological doubt. “We rejoice in our seasons of doubt, knowing that the suffering of doubt produces endurance, and endurance produces approvedness, and approvedness produces hope.” That’s the ground of our joy.

I would answer Steve’s question, that’s the ground of deepening joy. Can I experience deepening joy in these seasons? My answer is yes.

Paradoxical Calm

In fact, he said, these kinds of doubts are recurrent, seasonal. When that’s true, every season of doubt with triumph on the other side can bring a deepening sense that God is faithful. God will hold me fast. I can, in a sense, laugh at these intrusions on my peace. I can scorn the foam and the waves on the surface because, in the deep waters of my soul, I enjoy paradoxical calm because of Christ’s keeping promises.

So yes, Steve, you can hope to have deepening joy in God in these recurring seasons of doubt.

If I had to do what Bilbo Baggins did that day, I have wondered if I’d have had the strength and courage to do it. And I’m not talking about the fire-breathing dragon, or the gigantic, bloodthirsty spiders, or the caves filled with goblins. The demise of Smaug, it turns out, wasn’t the end (or even the peak) of Bilbo’s courage. No, the greatest challenge set before him would not make him confront an enemy, but a friend.

As Bilbo and his company of dwarves recover the lost and buried treasure from the fallen dragon, their leader, Thorin, will not rest until he finds one jewel in particular, the King’s jewel, the Arkenstone. As the hunt stretches over days, the mountain gives birth to the second, more dangerous threat.

Bilbo did not reckon with the power that gold has upon which a dragon has long brooded, nor with dwarfish hearts. Long hours in the past days Thorin had spent in the treasury, and the lust of it was heavy on him. Though he had hunted chiefly for the Arkenstone, yet he had an eye for many another wonderful thing that was lying there. (The Hobbit, 265)

This lust hardened Thorin’s heart and began to poison his mind. He soon refuses to deal with the elves and men (his potential allies) at his doorstep and foolishly lays the kindling for a great war. The hobbit senses the fierceness and perilousness of this greed, and so he takes a quietly brave step. He risks his friendship (and his life) to deliver the object of Thorin’s lust (which Bilbo had found and concealed) to the allies the dwarf was now treating as enemies. He sneaks from the camp and goes to the elves and men as they ready for war.

“This is the Arkenstone of Thrain,” said Bilbo, “the Heart of the Mountain; and it is also the heart of Thorin. He values it above a river of gold. I give it to you. It will aid you in your bargaining.” Then Bilbo, not without a shudder, not without a glance of longing, handed the marvelous stone to Bard. (273)

Bilbo’s most courageous act wasn’t creeping down into the dragon’s lair, but walking off alone to incense (and perhaps save) a friend who had gone astray. It wasn’t the big, scary enemy he had prepared for over miles and miles, but the sudden need that emerged in his own camp.

Benevolent Betrayal

Bilbo’s quiet midnight deed of bravery didn’t avert war altogether — goblins and wolves descended on the mountain shortly after, uniting dwarf, elf, man, and wizard. Nor did his actions go over smoothly with Thorin, who unraveled in rage and cast him out of the camp, warning him with violence to never show his face again.

As the Battle of the Five Armies comes to an end, though, and the eagles withdraw (evil having been soundly defeated again), Thorin lies seriously, fatally wounded. Before he dies, he calls for the hobbit.

There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. (290)

Bilbo had largely missed the great war, quickly vanishing behind his ring and then being knocked unconscious by a random, falling rock. With his parting words, Thorin wasn’t talking about fighting goblins and wolves; he was talking about a stone — about a benevolent betrayal. At the doorstep of death, he could now see just how free the hobbit was from the dwarf’s blinding lusts, and that he wisely prized what he could enjoy with others over anything he could have alone. After slaying his share of goblins and wolves, Thorin saw the wisdom and courage in a friend’s correction.

Yes, there may have been “more” at stake for Bilbo — dwarves and goblins and the fate of Middle Earth — but the lesson holds. Often the biggest, most dangerous dragons are the ones closer to home. The more unlikely courage is the courage to lovingly confront sin in those we love.

Wounds That Heal

Where do we see this kind of courageous confrontation in Scripture? We have striking examples of bold and loving correction — the apostle Paul confronting Peter, Nathan confronting King David, Jesus confronting his disciples. As I watched Bilbo hand over Thorin’s heart to the other side, though, my mind wandered to the apostle Paul’s second letter to a church whom he loved.

Despite his complicated and painful history with Corinth, we know Paul loved the believers there intensely. He says of them, “I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:2). As he watched some fall away from Christ, though, that intense love provoked an acute concern. Next verse: “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” This fear led him to write a more severe letter of rebuke and warning (that we do not have). This was their Arkenstone moment. Later he says of that lost letter,

Even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it — though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while. As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. (2 Corinthians 7:8–9)

“Whom do you love enough to confront when necessary, even if it pains them?”

The letter clearly hurt to read. Almost all correction does, at least at first. Paul’s willingness to wound them, however, was not from a desire to harm them, but from a desire to heal them. “I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you” (2 Corinthians 2:4). Who loves you like that? Whom do you love enough to confront when necessary, even if it pains them?

Food and Cheer and Song

While some were grieved into repenting by Paul’s letter, the last four chapters of 2 Corinthians are a hard word for those who continued to reject and rebel against his message and ministry. He has unusually harsh words for those who won’t repent of their quarreling, jealousy, anger, and gossip:

I warned those who sinned before and all the others, and I warn them now while absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come again I will not spare them. (2 Corinthians 12:20; 13:2)

Those who won’t turn from their sin will face discipline. A few verses later, he issues an even stronger warning:

I write these things while I am away from you, that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down. (2 Corinthians 13:10)

I don’t want to be severe, he says, but I will if I must. Because I love you, and want what’s best for you, I won’t tolerate sin in you. I’ll risk relational friction, and even separation, to rescue you from the fierce bonds of sin. What struck me recently, though, (and what echoes some of Thorin’s last words) are the very next verses:

Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. (2 Corinthians 13:11–13)

In other words, the purpose of all this severity is the felicity of fellowship — joy, restoration, comfort, unity, peace. Or in the kingly dwarf’s words, “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” Food and cheer and song represent countless things in life we enjoy together. The rewards of courageous confrontation, then, are the table of faith-filled fellowship, the laughter of serious joy, the glory of Christ-exalting worship.

The Greater Commendation

Now we can appreciate why Bilbo’s greatest courage was in carrying that rock and confronting a friend. Tolkien certainly seemed to think so, anyway. As Bilbo left the Arkenstone and began the long midnight walk back, not knowing yet whether he would lose his head for what he’d just done, “an old man, wrapped in a dark cloak” rose from his tent and stopped the hobbit.

“Well done! Mr. Baggins!” he said, clapping Bilbo on the back. “There is always more about you than anyone expects!” It was Gandalf. (274)

It’s at this point of the story — before the stubborn lust of Thorin, and not before the devastating fires of Smaug — where the hobbit receives his commendation.

Maybe God will call you to brave mountains and defy dragons in your lifetime. But he’ll almost certainly call you to give away an Arkenstone or two along the way — to boldly confront someone you love, to be willing to have hard, painful conversations behind the scenes, to call a wandering friend back into the joys of food and cheer and song again.

So, my fellow hobbit, is there a Thorin in your life right now who’s in grave need of your courage?