After six humid summers in Burma (now Myanmar), where temperatures topped 100 degrees, Adoniram Judson (1788–1850) hadn’t seen a single convert. Malaria, dysentery, and other diseases threatened the weary American and eventually took the lives of several members of his beloved family. Excruciating trials on top of terrible disappointments punctuated his 38 years of gospel labor.

What kept Judson going as he ran into hard circumstances and hard hearts? Judson explained to his dear friend Luther Rice, “An almighty and faithful God will perform his promises.” Judson rooted his hope in God’s ability and commitment to save sinners.

While the global landscape has changed dramatically since Judson’s day, the human heart has not. Today’s mission field requires men and women who, like Judson, stake everything on the fact that God alone can and will perform his saving promises.

Missionaries as Midwives

Only God can enliven dead hearts. The biblical doctrine of regeneration teaches that, in connection with hearing the gospel proclaimed (Romans 10:14), the Holy Spirit brings a sinner’s spiritually dead soul to life (Ephesians 2:1, 8–9). His quickening alone enables a sinner to repent and believe. In other words, regeneration by the Holy Spirit leads to saving faith. The Holy Spirit’s work does not merely make faith possible; it makes faith certain. No one whom the Holy Spirit regenerates fails to come to faith in Christ (Romans 8:30), and no one comes to faith in Christ apart from the Spirit first remaking his rebel heart.

Grasping this doctrine gives a missionary the privilege of proclaiming the gospel that brings new birth. It also relieves him of the burden of believing it’s up to him to produce conversions. A faithful missionary is like a midwife who supports the mother as she ushers her child into the world. While the missionary’s job is not to resurrect the dead, he does play a God-ordained role in a sinner’s rebirth. God graciously uses means to accomplish his salvation plan; therefore, missionaries help the helpless on their path to new and everlasting life by declaring the gospel.

On the mission field, knowing this difference between what a missionary does and doesn’t accomplish among the lost is essential — and the implications may be eternal.

Guarding the Gospel

Just as a missionary headed to a foreign land vaccinates against potential diseases, adopting a midwife mentality inoculates the missionary from both distorting the gospel message and deploying dangerous means toward noble ends. Missionaries long to see unreached people turn “from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven” (1 Thessalonians 1:9–10), but good intentions can go awry if left unguarded by sound doctrine.

It was the apostle Paul’s conviction that God alone can shine gospel light into dark hearts that kept him from surrendering to discouragement, tampering with God’s word, or doing ministry in “underhanded ways” (2 Corinthians 4:1–6). Because Paul understood that only God authors life, he committed himself to declaring the truth openly — no matter the cost (2 Corinthians 4:2). Paul didn’t distort the gospel message or use methods that dilute its truth because he was confident in God’s ability to revive dead hearts through his own word.

Today’s missionaries face threats of both gospel dilution and gospel distortion because an anemic doctrine of regeneration threatens gospel clarity. Some missionaries insist on rapid, contrived methods for converting people and for measuring that growth. Others baptize “converts” from Muslim backgrounds who do not confess or understand Jesus to be the Son of God. Syncretism fundamentally refuses to rely on the power of God for conversion. Rather than accept their role as midwives who have a front-row seat to God’s resurrection power, too many missionaries try to take over his position.

“The work of converting souls is God’s from beginning to end.”

A biblical view of regeneration also defends missionaries against pride. It frees us to labor in the humility that Jonah found only in the belly of the great fish, where he finally accepted that “salvation belongs to the Lord” (Jonah 2:9) — not to us. Though our enemy would have us think otherwise, we are God’s servants by grace, not by necessity. Midwives may be helpful, but they are not primary. Missionaries may walk alongside the person God saves, but missionaries don’t produce anyone’s salvation. The work of converting souls is God’s from beginning to end.
Embracing this truth destroys pride.

Empowering Faithfulness

A biblical perspective on regeneration does more than protect. It empowers missionaries to walk in faithfulness for the long haul. The midwife doesn’t run when the labor becomes difficult. When the birth pains intensify, her presence is most strategic and needed.

Rightly understanding regeneration equips missionaries with the discipline to be prayerfully patient — to persevere when persecution, or monotony, intensifies. What kept the great missionaries of history — like Amy Carmichael, David Livingstone, and William Carey — laboring in the hardest fields with patience? They knew that one person plants and another waters, but God gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6). His growing power encourages missionaries to play their part over months and years, trusting God will supply the advance in his time. Missionaries are not in charge of when God delivers on his promises any more than a midwife decides when a child will be born. Both balance expectation and patience as they wait.

Pragmatism is a great temptation on the field. A missionary’s dreams of converting the unreached can quickly melt into disappointments. God often makes his choice laborers more aware of setbacks than successes. In those times, missionaries must lean on what was true for Paul and Judson, because it’s still true for us. Despite his suffering, Paul knew that no disappointment, discouragement, or dark heart has ever prevented God’s power to shine forth “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). The supernatural reality that God authors life in deserts of death redirects our focus from the seen to the unseen.

Raising Expectations

In God’s kindness, a missionary’s hope isn’t denied; it’s just sometimes deferred. What we can’t see today will become clear in eternity. God’s sovereign work means that he alone determines the depth and breadth of a missionary’s ministry. Who knows if God has called you to till very hard soil today so that he might produce enduring, unimaginable fruit after many tomorrows? The biblical view of regeneration showers the missionary with the confidence to labor expectantly, knowing we serve a God who will vindicate himself and his servants by melting hearts of stone. We will see that vindication fully in the next life.

“Our responsibility is simply to proclaim the life that God alone can give.”

If the New Testament shows us that the normal Christian life is costly, how much more costly might the mission field prove? And yet, the same New Testament reveals that missionaries can persevere for the long haul — even when we sacrifice the comforts of our homes only to meet disappointments and dead hearts. For missionaries, God’s power to give life means that whether Jonah is caught in the belly of a fish or Paul is clinging to a plank in the sea (Acts 27:43–44), no circumstance or human heart lies beyond his sovereign directing.

If you feel alone on the mission field, or if the hard soil seems to mock your efforts, lean into your role as a spiritual midwife: as a missionary who comes alongside the work God is doing, knowing that he has been doing that work since long before you arrived on the scene. We can’t manufacture conversions, and we shouldn’t try — because the outcome is not on our shoulders. Our responsibility is simply to proclaim the life that God alone can give.

Suffering changes our vision.

Just as our natural eyes can’t see as well in the dark, in suffering we struggle to see beyond our pressing needs. Everything looks hazy — except our problems, which seem disproportionately clear and intense. It takes the eyes of faith to see past our present circumstances to the presence and provision of God.

Seeing with the eyes of faith requires us to be intentional about where we focus. I recently took a picture in portrait mode on my phone, and I noticed that what I focused on was remarkably vivid and sharp, while the surroundings were fuzzy and blurred. I could barely identify what was in the background. The same is true in suffering. Whatever we focus on will capture our attention, and everything else can fade into the background.

Looking Through Another Lens

When God first brought the Israelites to the edge of the promised land, Moses told them to spy out the country God had given them. The spies returned after forty days, acknowledging that the land was flowing with milk and honey, but focusing their attention on the giants who lived there (Numbers 13:31–33). God’s promises and provision faded into the background, and the people succumbed to fear.

“It takes the eyes of faith to see past our present circumstances to the presence and provision of God.”

Forty years later, Joshua led the Israelites to the border of the promised land with even more obstacles. The same giants inhabited the territory, but now they needed to cross the overflowing Jordan River and conquer a walled city. But this time, the people didn’t hesitate or mention turning back. They focused on God, taking courage that he was with them, and the hurdles disappeared into the background. Rather than looking through the lens of fear, they looked through the lens of faith, focusing on God’s presence, protection, and provision.

Faith allows us to see far beyond our natural vision, assuring us of what we hope for but cannot yet see with our physical eyes (Hebrews 11:1). This spiritual sight is a gift from God, and with it we see our lives through a different lens. But why do we need it? When God opens our eyes, what can we see?

Show Us Wonders

Scripture becomes alive with meaning when God illuminates it for us. The Bible is inspired by God, and we need his Spirit to understand it (1 Corinthians 2:14). We can research and analyze Scripture and even read the original in Hebrew and Greek, but if God doesn’t reveal the truth to us, we cannot see it.

“Even when we feel as though we’re lying in the dust, God’s word can revive us.”

One way to get that sight is to pray, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18). Just as the resurrected Jesus opened the disciples’ minds on the road to Emmaus to understand Scripture (Luke 24:45), God can do the same for us. The Bible moves from mere typewritten words on a page to Spirit-breathed words that change us — words that give life to our souls, give us wisdom and joy, and help us see the deep things of God. Even when we feel as though we’re lying in the dust, God’s word can revive us.

GOD’S PROTECTION

When God revives us, our spiritual eyes can see his protection as we look into the heavenly realms. Even though we may feel alone, outnumbered by our troubles and enemies, we can be certain that, in Christ, heaven’s armies are with us. When Elisha and his servant were surrounded by the Syrian army, Elisha prayed that the eyes of his servant would be opened. And when they were, the servant saw that the hills were filled with horses and chariots of fire. The heavenly realms surrounded them, and they both knew that there were more with them than against them (2 Kings 6:15–17).

Likewise, believing that the help of heaven is surrounding us can change how we face battles, whether we’re struggling against hostile people or alone in our rooms. Wherever we are, we are never truly alone.

GOD’S PROVISION

In addition to his protection, God opens our eyes to his provision right in front of us. When Hagar was sent away with her son Ishmael, she wept when their water supply ran out and feared Ishmael would die. Then God opened her eyes to see a well of water that would provide for them (Genesis 21:19), most likely reminding her of years earlier when she declared, “You are a God of seeing. . . . Truly here I have seen him who looks after me” (Genesis 16:13). Hagar understood that God provides for and looks after us, even when we have no resources. The ability to recognize God’s provision is a gift, so those who don’t trust in God may not see good even when it comes.

GOD’S PRESENCE

Perhaps the greatest gift of spiritual sight is to recognize God’s presence. Jacob wrestled with God, at first not knowing who he was, but eventually realizing he had seen God face to face (Genesis 32:30). This encounter changed Jacob forever — leaving him with a limp, but more importantly with a faith that never turned back. After seeing God, like Jacob, we will never be the same.

Even though we may intellectually know God is always with us, we need to pay attention to see him and be aware of his presence. Signs of his love are all around, but we need to connect them to him. It may be as simple as noticing the wisdom we have when we ask for it. Or the inexplicable comfort we receive when we cry out. Or the unexpected phone call after we pray. Connecting those gifts with God’s presence in our life can transform our suffering. Both Mary Magdalene at the tomb and the disciples on the road to Emmaus were dejected and discouraged until they recognized Jesus, and then they were filled with joy and peace. So it is with us. Knowing that God is with us, not just intellectually but experientially, can radically alter how we feel in our suffering.

Sight That Changes Suffering

When we turn to God, he opens our eyes and shows us hidden treasures of darkness that we might know him (Isaiah 45:3). But since our vision is limited in the dark, we need to be purposeful about where we focus. If we view life through the lens of pain and discouragement, we will focus on all that is wrong and difficult. We will see our problems more than God’s provision. We will see our loneliness more than God’s presence. We will fixate more on our fears than on God’s promises.

What lens are you viewing your life through? Are you asking God for supernatural sight as you focus on him? Are you looking at the obstacles in front of you, or are you beholding the God who can move mountains? Are you trusting in your ability to fix the situation, or are you entrusting yourself to the God who commands the dawn? Are you focusing on what you don’t have, or are you centered on the fact that our God owns the cattle on a thousand hills?

What we look at and focus on will change us. As we behold the Lord Jesus, he will transform us (2 Corinthians 3:18), but if we concentrate on our fears, they will consume us. If we put God’s steadfast love before our eyes (Psalm 26:3), then we will see his presence, protection, and provision more than we see our problems. He will delight us with Scripture even in our deepest affliction. We will rest in his protection, knowing he goes before us and will fight for us. We will see his marvelous provision, sending manna from heaven and water from a rock. We will know that he is with us, as our spiritual eyes will see our Teacher (Isaiah 30:20).

And as we walk by faith and not by sight, relying on what we know to be true rather than what we see, we will not be disappointed. “For 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” (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Audio Transcript

Good Monday. It’s a big week for us on the podcast, with two hot topics on the table. I’ll put them back to back because they’re related to one another. Both are very relevant for this season in church life, where social media plays a large role in our culture — or at least seems like it plays a large role in our culture.

On Thursday we will look at how to best speak of cultural sins, or how to not speak of cultural sins. Paul tells us some things are so wicked they are too “shameful even to speak of” (Ephesians 5:12). So what cultural sins should we not even talk about? What does Paul mean here, and why does it matter for us today? That’s next time, on Thursday.

But today we look at the sick love of controversy — or the “unhealthy craving for controversy,” as Paul calls it in 1 Timothy 6:4. The question is from a podcast listener named Brett. “Pastor John, hello! We live in an age of controversy. And that controversy-loving spirit has come into the church. The Apostle Paul clearly warns us against people in the church who have a ‘diseased’ (nosōn) or ‘unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.’ That’s 1 Timothy 6:4–5. I’m wondering if you can lay out principles for what this ‘diseased craving for controversy’ looks like in the church today.”

I’ll try to do that in just a moment — namely, lay out some principles to try to avoid what Paul’s denouncing in these verses. But first let me say a word about what Brett calls our “age of controversy.”

He’s right, of course, but we probably shouldn’t forget that even in our own country, the bygone centuries have been just as, if not more, given to vitriolic language and controversy. And the reason I say that is just because it’s on my front burner, because I’m reading biographies. In the last, say, six months, I’ve read biographies of John Marshall (the first Supreme Court justice), Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams. And what you can’t help but notice in these really detailed, excellent scholarly biographies is how outrageous the defamation of character was in the political writings of that time. I mean, the language is every bit as vitriolic and lewd as the language we might be appalled at today.

So, that’s the first thing to say. The age of controversy is not new.

Age of Unreality

What gives this age, our present age, a new flavor is, first, how ubiquitous social media is, so that we have immediate access to as much vitriol as we would like.

And second, the excesses of sexual sin in our day are, in American history, unprecedented and outrageous, like so-called “gay marriage” and so-called “transgenderism” and so-called “health care” as we cut our babies in pieces. And the reason I put the term so-called in front of those phrases is because they don’t really exist and we should not even dignify them, as Christians, with language that gives the impression they do exist. I get really worked up about this. Some of my good friends have caved on the language issue.

There’s no such thing as a marriage between two men or two women; it does not exist. There’s no such thing as a man becoming a woman or a woman becoming a man; it does not happen. There’s no such thing as health care that consists in killing unborn children. Those are simply not realities. Naming them “marriage,” “transgender,” “health care” does not make them what they aren’t. And these are just some of the kinds of sins that are rampant in our day — not to mention the love of money, which has probably sent more people to hell than all the sexual sins combined, and racial sins, and nationalistic and ethnocentric sins, and epidemics of the misuse of drugs, and on and on and on for our age.

So, every local church — I am getting to the issue of controversy in the church — needs to affirm its biblical stance over against these sins. For example, at our church, Bethlehem Baptist Church, the elders labored long and hard in recent years over two extended statements regarding race and regarding sexuality. And in my judgment, they produced two very helpful documents that our church and our school, Bethlehem College & Seminary, happily embraced as where we stand. In other words, the leadership of the church shouldn’t leave their people wondering, “Where does the church stand in regard to these controversial things in our day?”

Six Traits of Controversy Lovers

But now comes the rub that Brett is talking about. Within our churches — even the clearest and the most forthright churches that have driven a stake in the ground — people have different dispositions and different instincts and different personalities that incline them in different directions concerning how frequently and how fervently and how forcefully and how harshly and how crudely cultural issues should be talked about, should be foregrounded inside and outside the church.

“There is a love of controversy that needs to be rebuked and, if necessary, removed.”

Some of these differences are quite manageable, and we just need to have forbearance and patience and forgiveness in order to get along with each other in love. But Paul, in these verses, in 1 Timothy 6, says there’s a limit. There’s a limit to how you talk about these things. There is a love of controversy that needs to be rebuked and, if necessary, removed. Here’s what he says. This is 1 Timothy 6:4–5. The person he’s concerned about is

puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy [literally sick] craving for controversy and for quarrels about words [or word fights], which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions [or conjectures about other people], and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.

Now, what I think will be useful as a diagnostic tool — first for ourselves, lest we fall into this, and a diagnostic tool for others — is to take these traits that he just described of this controversy-loving person and state the positive alternatives. And in that way, we can have something to pray toward as well as something to run away from, and we may be able to see the problems of others and ourselves more clearly. So, let me do that just briefly.

It seems to me that there are six traits of this lover of controversy that we can name and strive to avoid.

Proud

He’s “puffed up with conceit,” Paul says. The positive alternative, of course, is humility — or more specifically, a readiness to confess our limitations of knowledge and our willingness to go on learning. If a person comes off as cocky and acting like he has infallibility (as if he never makes any mistakes), you know you’re going to have a problem.

“There are people who have a morbid need to fight in order to feel significant, to feel justified, to feel safe.”

We need to cultivate in the church the profound belief that a person can be rock solid, unwavering on matters of clear biblical truth and justice and purity, while maintaining a humble demeanor. There are people, a lot of people it seems today, who don’t believe that. They think the only way to be a person of backbone is to be brash. I don’t think that’s true.

Ignorant

The second trait of this lover of controversy is ignorance. Paul says he doesn’t understand anything. Now, I take that to mean that when our heart is infected with this sickness of the love of controversy and with pride, even the facts that we get right will be skewed in a damaging direction, so that it can be said we really don’t understand anything. We don’t get anything right. We turn everything in a harmful direction.

Unhealthy

Third, Paul says this person has a kind of sickness. The ESV translates it as an “unhealthy craving for controversy” and word fights. There are people who have a morbid need to fight in order to feel significant, to feel justified, to feel safe. We need discernment to recognize this kind of person. One way is to test whether there is as much praising and thanking and rejoicing as there is criticizing and complaining. Does the person love to see the beauties of God and Christ and salvation and heaven and speak of them with joy and marveling? Or does his need for a fight hinder all of that? If so, he’s not well; he’s just not spiritually well. He needs help.

Envy-Stirring

Fourth, this person stirs up envy. This can happen in different ways, but one way is that lovers of controversy like to show off their verbal prowess — clever put-downs, shrewd analyses of other persons’ stupidity, ready wit, and a nimble use of culturally hip allusions. All of this is with a view to showing off that tends to make other immature people wish they could do that. That’s called envy.

Careless

Fifth, this controversy-loving person is careless with the truth. Paul says he uses “slander, evil suspicions” (or conjectures). This usually means he’s ready to believe evil of others with very little evidence. His anger at a viewpoint, which may be totally justified, causes a bias that is so strong it ceases to need truth, but only needs to show the insanity of the viewpoint. In the process, holding one right position can easily be used to justify saying other things that are not true. We need to love the truth through and through, with great earnestness.

Money-Loving

And then finally, sixth, Paul says that this lover of controversy “imagines that godliness is a means of gain.” In other words, deep down he loves money, which Paul says later is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10) — which I take to mean that the heart that values this world, what money can buy, over Christ is the kind of heart from which all evils come. It is. Money is just the lever that such a heart pulls in order to get what it really wants, which is not supremely Christ.

I think if we mainly seek to be the opposite of this lover of controversy in these six ways, we will probably be in a good position both to recognize the error when we see it and to avoid it ourselves.

In the book of Romans, the apostle Paul gives a simple yet profound exhortation to Christians that illuminates our fight with sin:

Make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (Romans 13:14)

The exhortation suggests that not only do we sin by gratifying sinful desires, but we can actually create space for such indulgence. What does that mean, and how does it work?

Desires of the Flesh

Let’s begin with the fact that the flesh has ungodly desires. In Galatians 5:17, Paul insists that the desires of the flesh are contrary to the Spirit; literally, “the flesh desires against the Spirit.” To gratify a fleshly desire is to complete, indulge, and fulfill the desire, to go where the desire wants to take you. Such indulgence is called “the works of the flesh,” which Paul lays out in Galatians 5:19–21:

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

In Romans 13, Paul calls them “works of darkness,” and provides a similar list of examples:

The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. (Romans 13:12–13)

In these lists, we see sins related to our sexual life (sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality), sins related to our desires for food, drink, and refreshment (drunkenness), and sins related to our social life (enmity, strife, rivalries, jealousy, quarreling, fits of anger, divisions). We’re all familiar with these sins in our lives. But what does it mean to “make provision” for them?

How We Make Provision

“Making provision for the flesh” implies that we can choose to put ourselves in the path of temptation. We can make room and create space for sinful desires to be awakened, pursued, and gratified. Essentially, we can turn the Lord’s Prayer on its head and say, “Lead me into temptation so that I can give myself over to evil.”

At a practical level, we can subtly plan to be in an environment of temptation, knowing (or at least hoping) that temptations will come and will awaken our desires so that we can gratify them. It’s important to stress the subtlety, though. When we make provision for the flesh, our minds operate in such a way that we often rationalize and excuse our behavior, even to ourselves. Our minds are employed to serve fleshly desires, and then our minds are employed to excuse and justify our behavior. That’s what it means to make provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Consider, in particular, how our technology enables us to make provision for the flesh. We might choose to use apps or visit websites where we know that sexually explicit images will likely show up (whether through ads or posts). We weren’t blatantly looking for such images. But we were creating space for them to show up. We were making provision for them to awaken our desires. The flesh leads us there through sinful curiosity, but then our mind attempts to rationalize what happens: “I was just checking social media.”

Lust, Jealousy, Envy, and Anger

While sexual immorality is an obvious temptation in this area, the same dynamic is at work with other passions and desires. How often do we make provision for the flesh by visiting sites and using apps that regularly awaken our jealousy and envy? We create space for covetousness by frequenting sites that display an image of the life we wish we had. “Look at her house/family/clothes.” “Look at his opportunities/successes/blessings.”

Or if not envy, perhaps it’s anger and quarreling. We know that reading that article, or watching that news clip, or listening to that podcast, will awaken frustration, or anxiety, or fear, or fits of anger. And yet we make provision for those sins by putting ourselves in a position to be so awakened. We make provision by subjecting ourselves to knowledge that we will turn over in our minds with malice and bitterness (just as we might fondle a lust). And then we justify and rationalize it, saying, “I’m just keeping up with the news. It’s important to stay informed about what’s going on in the world.”

In each of these cases, we are creating room, giving space, and making provision for the flesh to lead us into temptation and sin.

Wake Up and Take a Walk

Thankfully, Paul doesn’t simply tell us what to avoid. He also tells us what to do.

First, we wake up.

You know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. (Romans 13:11–12)

In other words, we become aware of the way that our minds and our flesh work together to lead us into sin. Making provision for the flesh numbs and deadens us. Spiritually, we fall asleep. We follow our passions in a fog of desires, appetites, excuses, and rationalizations, swatting away the voice of our conscience and the Holy Spirit. So we must wake up.

Second, we change clothes. “So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light” (Romans 13:12). Later, he exhorts us to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14). Instead of using our minds to create space for the flesh and then rationalize our desires, we use our minds to count ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ (Romans 6:11). We consider who we are in the light of Christ’s work. This is a gracious mental effort to set our mind on things above, where Christ is (Colossians 3:1–4).

“It’s not enough to simply avoid sin and temptation; we must actively seek to kill our sin.”

And notice that changing clothes involves both casting off and putting on. “Casting off the works of darkness” involves putting to death what is earthly in us (Colossians 3:5). This implies that it’s not enough to simply avoid sin and temptation; we must actively seek to kill our sin. In other words, we refuse to allow sinful curiosity to take up residence in our hearts without making intentional efforts to put it to death. We don’t merely play defense; we also go on offense.

Finally, we go for a walk. “Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy” (Romans 13:13). We’re awake and alert; we’re properly clothed in Christ’s righteousness. And now we walk in a manner that fits our union with him.

What We Cannot Hide

Central to walking properly is recognizing that it is daytime. Having been brought from death and sin to life and righteousness, we have been brought from darkness to light. Put another way, we are seen.

“When making provision for the flesh, one of the lies we’re tempted to believe is that we can hide.”

When making provision for the flesh, one of the lies we’re tempted to believe is that we can hide. And while it is possible to hide from other people, we cannot hide from God. We never fool him with our excuses and subtleties. He sees us making space for our sinful appetites to run. Our rationalizations are empty before his omniscience. We are like the child tiptoeing to the kitchen at night to steal a cookie from the cupboard while his mother watches from the living room. Our attempts at stealth are folly before the brightness of his all-seeing gaze. As the book of Hebrews says, “No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13).

So Paul’s call is simple (even if the obedience is hard won). Wake up. Change your clothes. Put on the Lord Jesus and his armor. And then walk in a fitting way before him. Make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

We often think of creation — forests and oceans, tornados and earthquakes, lions, tigers, and bears — as wild and untamed compared with normal life. And we’re not wrong. When God placed Adam into the world he had made, even before that world fell into disorder through sin, he charged the man “to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Part of how humanity images God, then, is by bringing purpose and order to a feral world.

Look closer, however, or perhaps deeper, and we see that creation is not as wild as we typically imagine. Through the fall, Paul tells us, “the creation was subjected to futility” and suffers in “bondage to corruption” (Romans 8:20–21). It’s unfenced and yet now enslaved. It’s untamed and yet trapped. The wonders God has made are held back and smothered by sin. Even the deepest, most dangerous oceans are anchored and weighed down by the curse. Even the strongest, healthiest lions are weak and sick with judgment. Even the most brilliant sunsets are shadows of what they might be.

Of what they will be. One day soon, God will make all we know unmistakably new. Have you learned to long, and pray, for the wonders of a better world to come?

Country of ‘Not Good’

How many of us have reckoned with the glorious potential of a renewed creation — and with the devastating condition of the current one? When God made the world and called it all good, he wasn’t looking at the world as we know it. No, when mankind fell from glory, the oceans, mountains, and stars fell with us. Sin dragged continents of beauty and purity into the awful, nauseating swamp of the curse.

After Adam and Eve took and ate what was not theirs to eat, the consequences were felt far and deep and wide. “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,” God says to Adam, “and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you” (Genesis 3:17). Death and destruction, injury and disease, earthquakes and tornados, malice and treachery, droughts and floods, toil and trouble. Every inch of creation was warped and stained by sin. A cloud 25,000 miles wide fell over the earth, and centuries later it has not lifted. Were God to again survey the sun and the galaxies, the hills and seas, the trees and flowers, the birds and whales, the lions, tigers, and bears, he would no longer call it “good,” at least not in the same way.

Think about that. God meticulously (and effortlessly) painted a living, breathing mural of his creativity and worth, and then stepped back to admire and savor what he had made. It was breathtakingly beautiful. And yet before the first child was born, sin spilled oil over his masterpiece. Sin vandalized and leveled the dream home he had built for us. It was breathtakingly bleak. And that’s still our address today. We now walk and work and play on streets and corners of “Not good.”

We live in a wild and arresting world that’s been arrested by sin — for now. The creation violently treads water, thrashing and gasping for air, but only “until the time for restoring all the things” (Acts 3:21).

If Rocks Could Cry Out

When we think about that world to come, we may have an easy enough time imagining aspects of our new, glorified bodies. Eyes without glasses. Heads without aches. Joints without arthritis. Necks and backs without stiffness. Healthy blood pressures without pills. Organs without cancer. Never struggling to sleep. Never searching for a prescription. Never wondering what’s wrong.

The creation itself “waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19). If the rocks could cry out, they would go on and on about what God will make out of those who are in Christ, about the wonder of generations cured of sin, about how our holiness will reflect light and life into every corner of creation. Creation’s been let in on a secret about humanity that so many humans never learn: we won’t always be this broken, this tired, this opposed, this confused, this prone to wander. The glorious God will soon glorify us.

And creation’s not just waiting to see what we will be; Paul says it’s longing to see us — eyes fixed on the horizon, holding its breath, waiting for a glimpse of the sun. Why? Because when we become our new, immortal, glorified selves, “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). The glory of the new heavens and new earth will be our glory in Christ, to the glory of Christ.

What might a place like that be like? What will it be like to witness the regeneration, not just of souls, but of the whole universe? As easy as it may be to imagine some aspects of a glorified human body, we can have a harder time imagining God healing and renewing creation — but he will.

When the World Sheds the Curse

Imagine, for a moment, whatever you love about this world finally being set free and freshly charged with the glory of God.

What might the shores along O‘ahu look like glorified? What about the endless fields of tulips in the Netherlands? How beautifully might a choir of nightingales sing? Will we get to listen to rain fall and thunder roll without ever wondering what damage might be done? What might a Southern Californian orange taste like, right off the tree? How much sweeter will fresh strawberries be? Can you begin to smell the rose gardens, brighter than ever and stripped of their thorns? Can you see yourself canoeing glorified rivers, climbing glorified trails, biking through glorified fields, sitting beside glorified lakes? How soon will it all stop feeling like some wild, impossible dream?

Outside of Scripture, no one has whet my appetite for the new creation more than Randy Alcorn has. He says, “To get a picture of Heaven — which will one day be centered on the New Earth — you don’t need to look up at the clouds; you simply need to look around you and imagine what all this would be like without sin and death and suffering and corruption” (Heaven, 17). Do you ever do that? Few things are more lethal to worldliness than to imagine what this world might really be like when it sheds the curse, when God washes the oil spill from his painting and breathes it into new life.

And the light animating it all will be the nail-scarred, once-dead man on the throne. At the center will be the Lion of Judah, roaring over every mile and creature,the Lamb of God, slain to make it all possible and beautiful. John Piper writes,

We will never forget that every sight, every sound, every fragrance, every touch, and every taste in the new world was purchased by Christ for his undeserving people. This world — with all its joy — cost him his life. Every pleasure of every kind will intensify our thankfulness and love for Jesus. (Providence, 687)

Seeing the New Heavens Now

As stunning as that future day will be, what God will reveal about us then is actually already true. Listen closely: “The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19). We won’t become sons that day; we’ll finally get to see the fullness of our sonship. A few verses earlier, Paul writes,

All who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs. (Romans 8:14–17)

The new creation, with our new bodies, will be a worldwide, centuries-long parade of what God has already done in our hearts through faith. If you are in Christ, you are a new creation — right now (2 Corinthians 5:17). The apostle John saw this same reality:

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. . . . Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1–2)

Oh we will be changed, in the twinkling of the eye, at the last trumpet, but we won’t be born again again. If we are in Christ, the new heavens already live in us. And because his Spirit lives in us, everything that will make the new creation so captivating and satisfying is already ours in him.

What young men will be, in all probability, depends on what they are now. Young men seem to forget this.

I am a pastor, and my occupational duty requires me to read. So for the past 35 years, I have acquired literally tons of books. My office, my house, and even my bedroom are all inundated with books. Some I remember buying, and some I remember receiving as gifts. I don’t remember whether I received or bought J.C. Ryle’s Thoughts for Young Men, but I do know this: God used it to permanently change me.

I have read and reread this book over and over and over again. I have shared it over and over and over again. I love the whole book, but particularly a section titled “How Young Men Turn Out Depends Largely on What They are Now.” As a twentysomething who passionately desired to know and please God, what I read changed me.

Another reason I want to encourage you is this: what young men will be, in all probability, depends on what they are now. Young men seem to forget this. . . . Why do I say all this? I say it because habits are hard to break. . . . Habits have long roots. If sin is allowed to make its home in your heart, it will not be evicted at your command. Habit becomes second nature; and its chains are like “a threefold cord (which) is not quickly broken.” . . . Habits, like trees, are strengthened by age. A child can bend an oak when it is still a young sapling; but a hundred men cannot root it up when it is a full-grown tree. . . . Habits of good or habits of evil are growing stronger in your heart each day. Every day you are either getting nearer to God, or further away. Every year that you continue to be unrepentant, the wall of division between you and heaven becomes higher and thicker; the gulf to be crossed becomes deeper and broader. Be afraid of the hardening effect of lingering in sin day after day! Now is the time to do something about it. (Thoughts for Young Men, 15, 17–18)

Through Ryle’s pen, God inflamed two desires in me that grew into holy habits in my Christian walk — one desire was for a healthy fear of my sin, and the other was a longing to please God.

Flee Sinful Habits

Life is directional, and walking the wrong way leads to deeper and deeper entanglements into sin. Like a child fearful of getting lost, I feared yanking my hand away from my Father’s and drifting away from him into sin. God motivated me through Ryle’s admonition to develop the habits of shunning folly and seeking wisdom, which come from fearing God.

“Holy habits are means of grace that fan the flame of your love for God and keep his love for you before your eyes.”

By the grace of God, I developed real transparent relationships and friendships where accountability was expected and practiced. God stirred my heart to flee from my former sinful habits rather than to compromise with them. He led me to seek, find, and listen to counsel from older and wise believers.

If you are an older man or woman reading this, I encourage you to seek out young men and women and teach them this truth. The eternal well-being of our souls depends on fighting sin by God’s grace rather than yielding to it and assuming that with God there is sin-permitting grace (Romans 6:1–2; 1 Thessalonians 4:1–8). Satan hisses his lie in every young believer’s ear that God’s laws are too harsh and sin is too delightful to reject. Tell them the truth! Sin enslaves and leads to death, but knowing God through Christ will immeasurably satisfy us more than any worldly gain can (Philippians 3:8). Therefore, no one can be too radical in putting to death habits that lead to sin (Matthew 5:29–30; Colossians 3:5).

Build Holy Habits

God also used Ryle to teach me the sanctifying power of holy habits. We experience this dynamic in all our relationships. We grow closer to someone or move further away from them depending on the habits we practice. Holy habits are means of grace that fan the flame of your love for God and keep his love for you before your eyes. Simply put, God gave me a passionate desire to experience him through his sanctifying means of grace.

I developed a habit of praying as soon as I woke up each morning. I committed to reading the Bible no matter how busy my schedule became. So when big school projects were due, midterms came around, and finals arrived, you’d still find me in the library at lunchtime, reading my Bible. As weeks turned into months, and months into years, and now years into decades, my commitments turned into lifelong habits. Those holy habits enabled me, through God’s grace, to grow in the knowledge of my God and his love for me.

“I marvel at how easily Christians neglect making fellowship a pillar habit in their lives.”

In addition to Sunday-morning worship, I also committed to attending Sunday school and a midweek Bible study. There I learned how to study my Bible. I learned theology. I learned key books of the Bible. I learned practical theologies, like how to share the gospel and how to disciple or lead a small group. I marvel at how easily Christians neglect making fellowship a pillar habit in their lives.

Consider 2 Timothy 2:22: “Flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace.” On the one hand, Paul commands Timothy as a young man to flee youthful passion and to pursue godly virtues. And then he encourages him not to do that alone, but to do so “along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” You see the point. To fail to make fellowship with godly believers an uncompromising habit is to forfeit a powerful means of grace that will help you fight against sin and pursue godliness. Young readers, I pray that you will be wise and listen as I add my testimony to Ryle’s exhortation.

Learn from a Dead Man

What I am saying about these habits isn’t a profound insight. Why would we expect the means of grace that sanctify us to be too complicated for a babe in Christ to understand and apply? God deals with us as his children and feeds us accordingly so that we can grow. What Ryle encourages his young readers to do is what the Scripture says the earliest believers did, devoting “themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42).

When I first read his life-changing book, it had already been well over a hundred years since Ryle had gone to be with the Lord. That didn’t hinder God from using his keenly crafted words to disciple this newly saved urban kid sitting in secular classrooms at UCLA. If Christ tarries another hundred years, I’m sure there will be countless more young Bobby Scotts out there who, as young believers, need to be confronted and exhorted. I pray that you and I will be faithful to join him in calling young men to these holy habits.

I sometimes feel that I am living just as long as I have something great to work for.

My mother-in-law, Joni, lives with my wife and me. She’s in relatively good health for being 100 years old. She laughs. She cries. She jokes a bit. Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren love to visit. They’re intrigued by her stories from her youth.

Last week, she casually told me she had just completed a monthlong study of the book of Daniel. “Daniel!” I burst out in surprise. I’m not sure if, at 100, tackling that prophetic and apocalyptic book would be on my bucket list. But now, I see, perhaps it should be.

Yet Joni struggles with one particular question. It haunts her, especially on days when her outlook is low or her blood pressure is high. Why am I still here?

What Are You Living For?

Joni’s husband is gone. Her firstborn has passed. Her sister lived to 108 but left us last December. Her joints ache. She grieves over the dramatic moral collapse of our society. She’s ready to go home. So the question returns: “Why am I still here?”

Perhaps quiet sympathy under a sovereign God who always has his hidden reasons would be the best response. Yet in my mind, we have at least a partial answer.

In 1975, as a 20-year-old college student, I found one precious part of the answer. I read Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a biography of his life by his friend Eberhard Bethge. After a year in prison, and about a year before his execution by the Nazis, he confided to Eberhard, “I sometimes feel that I am living just as long as I have something great to work for” (136).

This I believe is as true for Joni today as it was for Bonhoeffer. I believe it for myself. I was so awestruck by this statement of faith that, 47 years after first reading it, the words still inspire and push me. “What are you living for, John? You only have so much time to contribute to the unfolding, ever-advancing Great Work of the gospel. Make the most of the opportunity!”

Best Use of Evil Days

Bonhoeffer was not arrested for plotting to kill Hitler. The plot and his role in it were unknown at the time. When the plot failed, the key instigator, Claus von Stauffenberg, was executed the next day. Others committed suicide so as not to reveal more names under torture.

Up to this time, Bonhoeffer’s work in the resistance effort was concealed by his pretense of being a rather naive pastor who loved his country and supported the government. He feigned ignorance of political matters and argued that he was improperly arrested. His calculation was that with the end of Hitler, he would be released — his role in the plot never investigated, let alone discovered. But the moment he heard that Hitler survived, he knew his ruse was played out and his life forfeited. His name was discovered in a diary of one of the chief plotters. As Russians stormed into Berlin, Bonhoeffer was hanged beside his brother and five other co-conspirators.

When Bonhoeffer spoke of living “just as long as I have something great to work for,” the context shows he was reflecting on Ephesians 5:15–16: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” That the times were evil was self-evident to him. The opportunity he saw was to use his time in prison to finish his book Ethics.

Works Reserved for You

Why has Bonhoeffer’s statement of faith made such an impact on me? For at least two great reasons. First, Bonhoeffer’s declaration captures what it looks like to believe and live out Ephesians 2:10, that we were all “created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

We each have some good works that God has reserved for us, that allow us to contribute to and advance his Great Work. His plan unfolds from creation to consummation. Bonhoeffer, Joni, you, and me — we all get to contribute our part to his global, unassailable work.

Bonhoeffer saw his book on ethics as something that, through many experiences and years of biblical meditation, God had prepared for him to write. With evil and death all around him, and restrained to a cell block, writing the book was the one thing he felt he had been spared to accomplish. And given the evil of the times, he felt — as we all should feel — an urgency to make the most of his opportunities while he could.

To Live Is Christ

Bonhoeffer was executed before he could finish what he thought God wanted him to accomplish. In Joni’s case, she’s outlived the time when active practical good works of service are possible. This leads me to my second reason for loving this particular line. To live for Christ himself — openly, daily, enduringly — is something great to work and live for. As the Bible says, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

Bonhoeffer did live long enough to do this. Joni also has something great to work for, even at 100: to show us what it is to live for Christ even as we grow so weak in body and very tired of this world.

Honestly, I am no great fan of Bonhoeffer’s books. I struggled through his unfinished Ethics. I also read The Cost of Discipleship, and while I appreciate it, I wonder if it would be in print today without one remarkably quality: Bonhoeffer himself really lived for Christ — openly, daily, enduringly — and showed us, by his life and death, “the cost of discipleship.”

It’s the man behind the book that makes a book like his worth reading. Living for Christ in such evil times and circumstances, and dying even as Nazism was being put to death — this was something great to live and work for.

Running with a Walker

Joni is still here because living for Christ at 100 is itself a great thing that glorifies God and advances his kingdom. She’s mostly blind to how merely living day to day for Christ up in her room, praying and reading her Bible, means anything to anyone else. She will accuse me of making much ado about nothing.

But I say that finishing a study on the book of Daniel at 100 years old is an attractive picture of what it means to seek the kingdom of God and long for the day of Christ’s appearing.

While she cannot travel these days, her testimony can. I’ve told her stories in China, Uganda, Cuba, and elsewhere. She needs a walker. But her story can still run. I sometimes feel she is living just so long as she is needed to woo the next generation to live for Christ. That is something great to work for.

Audio Transcript

How much should a pastor make? The pastor’s salary is a question we get often. The topic has actually factored into at least three episodes in the past that I can remember, back in APJ episodes 217, 472, and 912. But the pastor’s salary was only a subtheme in all three of those episodes. The time has come for a full episode to explore this question more fully, just because we get asked about it so often.

And to get into that discussion, here’s how a podcast listener named John asked the question. John lives in Los Angeles. “Pastor John, hello to you and thank you for this podcast! What are some guidelines a church should set in place in order to compensate pastors? Could you address the meaning of ‘double honor’ in 1 Timothy 5:17? And can you explain whether background, experience, and education should get factored into this decision too? Thank you!”

This passage in 1 Timothy 5:17 is one of three crucial passages about how gospel ministers are to be supported. I think it would be good to get all three of them in front of us and then draw some lessons.

Well-Earned Wages

Let’s start with Luke 10:1–7.

After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them on ahead of him, two by two, into every town and place where he himself was about to go. And he said . . . “Go your way; behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’ And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest upon him. But if not, it will return to you. And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages.”

Now, that statement at the end there, “the laborer deserves his wages,” is quoted by Paul in 1 Timothy 5:18 as a quote from Scripture. This is the only other place where this statement occurs in the Bible. (There’s something almost like it in Matthew 10:10.) So, it seems that Paul is already regarding the words of the Lord Jesus — preserved by his physician, Luke — as part of Scripture.

Now, I’ll come back to that quote when we talk about 1 Timothy 5:17 in just a minute. But it’s worth noting that even though we, in the way we read the Bible, might just kind of fly by that statement when reading the Gospels, Paul did not fly by that statement. He took it as a principle that would apply to the elders of the church. “The laborer deserves his wages.”

No Muzzled Oxen

Then I go to 1 Corinthians 9:6–14.

Is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?

Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain” [Deuteronomy 25:4]. Is it for oxen then that God is concerned? Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing the crop. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more? . . .

Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

“It should be normal for those who devote themselves full-time to gospel ministry to be paid full-time for gospel ministry.”

Wow. Now that’s amazing. It’s a strong statement, that tent-making pastors — pastors who have to work other moneymaking jobs in order to be a pastor — should be the exception, not the rule. Jesus said that it should be normal for those who devote themselves full-time to gospel ministry to be paid full-time for gospel ministry. It’s a biblical principle. In fact, in this text, it’s more than a principle; it’s a command. The Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. Now, that’s the second text.

Double Honor

So first Luke 10, then 1 Corinthians 9, and now, third, 1 Timothy 5:17: “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.” Now, why do I think “double honor” refers here to financial remuneration (which I do)? There are two reasons. One is that, just before this verse, Paul has been talking about honoring widows. So, “honor widows,” and now he says, “double honor to the elders.” “Honor widows who are truly widows” (1 Timothy 5:3).

Then the whole context of 1 Timothy 5:3–16 talks about financial care of widows. That’s the form that the honor should take. He’s talking about widows who don’t have families. That’s what he means about real widows. They don’t have any families to take care of them. They’re going to be destitute if we don’t step up. So there’s good reason to think Paul says, “Now, if that’s the way you honor and take care of your widows financially, do the same, even more — doubly more — for the pastors.”

Now, the other reason I think verse 17 is dealing with the pastors’ pay is that the next verse begins with for, which means it gives a reason or a ground for giving double honor to pastors. And here’s what it says: “For the Scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,’ and ‘The laborer deserves his wages’” (1 Timothy 5:18). So, Paul grounds his concern for paying pastors with double honor by quoting Deuteronomy 25:4 and Luke 10:7, calling them both Scripture. And both are clearly relating to the physical needs of the pastor.

Now, it might mean that pastors should be paid twice what the widows receive as their stipend from the church (in the order of widows that Paul had been talking about in the preceding verses). I doubt it. The term “double honor” in verse 17 probably doesn’t mean something that precise, because there’s no reference to a specific stipend for widows. We don’t know how the widows were cared for; they just were. Their needs were met. They had to be honored; they should be honored by their needs being met in the absence of a family.

“Don’t call a pastor who’s trying to get rich, and don’t be a church that’s trying to keep him poor.”

So I would say 1 Timothy 5:17 — “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching” — probably means, “Be doubly sure that the elders are honored and are paid enough to meet their needs, like the widows.” And the fact that he says, “especially those who labor in preaching and teaching” probably implies with the word labor that this is their job. They are giving themselves to the flock, and the flock should take care of them financially with a double sense of duty that they feel for the widows. Not that the elders are more valuable as human beings than the widows, but that, along with the value of the person, there’s the huge value of the ministry of the word — labor in preaching and teaching — on which the whole life of the community rests.

Basic Principle for Churches

So, my counsel to churches would be that the basic principle for pastoral remuneration would be something like this: Let it be a reflection of the honor you put on the ministry of the word of God. And let it be a commitment to lift financial burdens from the pastor so that he can give himself totally to prayer and to the word and to the flock.

And if it comes to mind that we need to safeguard against a pastor’s greed, the answer to that concern is that it should have been taken care of when the church assessed the elder’s or the pastor’s fitness for the office at the very beginning. Because 1 Timothy 3:3 says an overseer must not be “a lover of money.” You don’t even hire somebody who looks like he might be in it for the money. So, the summary, then, is this: don’t call a pastor who’s trying to get rich, and don’t be a church that’s trying to keep him poor.

As a younger man, I expected that leadership would mean responsibility, burden, and difficult decision-making. I didn’t know, however, that leadership would also mean a good deal of failure.

I don’t have in mind large-scale, shocking failures — the kind that disqualify a man from pastoral ministry, for example. No, I mainly have in mind more common trips and stumbles, sometimes sinful, sometimes not — the kind that leave the self-aware leader often looking back embarrassed, wishing he had done or said something different.

I have in mind sermons that come out flat and land even flatter. Bible-study discussions that whimper and die. Public jokes told unwisely; public judgments spoken hastily. New ministry initiatives that run, then stagger, then stumble, then fall. Decisions that, in hindsight, were dead wrong. Younger Christians who find more help somewhere else.

Stepping into leadership means stepping into mistakes, regrets, and many small but stinging failures. And surviving in leadership, I am learning, means stepping upward on those mistakes — owning them, learning from them, and having the stability in Christ to keep leading after them.

Leaders Fail

To some extent, of course, every fallen human is familiar with failure. Mistakes follow us from the womb; we learn regret alongside the alphabet. But for at least two reasons, leadership has a special way of drawing failure to the surface.

First, leadership provides a public platform for the kinds of mistakes we were already making. Surely Moses made blunders while building a family in Midian, and David while shepherding his father’s flocks, and Peter while fishing the Sea of Galilee. But their mistakes were more or less private — pebbles tossed into the pond, their ripples small and few.

But then Moses began building a nation, David began shepherding a kingdom, and Peter began fishing for men. And all of a sudden, their private failures became public and subject to greater scrutiny. We need not have a large leadership platform to experience the same kind of uncomfortable exposure. Once we failed behind closed curtains; now we stand upon the stage.

And then, second, leadership affords many more opportunities for failure than we had before. Among the family, among the sheep, among the fish, opportunities for failure were present but more limited. When leadership called Moses and David and Peter out of those worlds, worlds where they felt some semblance of success and control, their chances of failure multiplied.

Leadership, at its heart, involves public initiative and risk-taking. Leaders try new ventures; they aim, by God’s grace, to bring new realities into being; they call people to follow down paths not yet trod. And sometimes, the efforts of even the best leaders fall apart, and the risks return to smack them in the face.

Two Common Paths

A few failures and mistakes sting. A few dozen wound. And then, over time, as mistakes rise even higher, we may feel ourselves standing before a mini-mountain of regret — a monument, it may seem, to our incompetence. At this point, two paths may tempt a leader.

The first temptation is to protect ourselves from the vulnerability of leadership by wearing a cast-iron cloak. Criticism no longer reaches our skin. Failures no longer wound because we refuse to feel them. And slowly, the once-lowly son of Kish becomes proud King Saul, hard and high, safe from the sting of failure — and safe too from the grace of God.

The second and perhaps more common temptation is to run away. Ditch. Flee. Follow Peter back to Galilee, back to the fishing boat, back to some private sphere where no one is watching and I know what I’m doing (John 21:3). Or alternatively, keep “leading,” but stop trying so hard. Leave risks unattempted and hills untaken. Lead from the land of Safe.

“If every leader stung by failure stepped away, the church would have no leaders.”

Now, stepping away from leadership is not always wrong. Maybe, in the wake of some particularly jarring failure — or after a longer pattern of missteps — we really do need to step back for a season and find our identity again in unhurried communion with Christ. Maybe we’ll start leading again after a time. Or maybe, through much prayer and counsel, we’ll decide not to return to formal leadership. And in some cases, that would be okay. The body of Christ has many members, a handful of whom are leaders, all of whom are indispensable (1 Corinthians 12:22).

Nevertheless, if every leader stung by failure stepped away, the church would have no leaders. Somehow, then, we need another way, a way of treating mistakes like so many stairs upon which, over time, our Lord raises us into more faithful and fruitful leadership. We need grace to see not only how leaders make mistakes, but how mistakes can make leaders.

Every Failure a Stair

In his kindness, God filled his Scriptures with stories of leaders who failed but didn’t finish there, who crashed but didn’t burn. Yes, we read here of men like Saul and Judas and Demas, leaders whose failures made their graves. But we also read of men like Moses and David, Peter and the other disciples, whose maturity as leaders rose on a staircase made of failure.

“We need grace to see not only how leaders make mistakes, but how mistakes can make leaders.”

We may find help from Peter in particular. His three-part collapse may have been a bigger failure than the kind we have been considering, but his story still gives us categories for how we might step upward on our own failures, however large or small.

Own

The morning of Good Friday revealed more of Peter than Peter had ever seen. Just the night before, he swore he would die before he denied Jesus; then one, two, three: “I do not know him” (Luke 22:57). The rooster crowed. Jesus looked. And Peter, in that one swift moment, saw himself for who he was.

Instead of fleeing from such agonizing knowledge, though, he owned it. First, “he went out and wept bitterly” (Luke 22:60). Then he returned to his friends (Luke 24:10–12). And then, finally, on that early-morning Galilean shore, he offered no rationalization, no justification, no excuse (John 21:1–17). Failure had owned Peter on Good Friday — and here, standing before his gracious Lord, Peter owns his failure.

Sometimes, of course, our failures are matters more of weakness than of sin. Perhaps failure reveals not our guilt but our immaturity, our ignorance, our incompetence in certain areas. Either way, the process still uncovers parts of us we need to see, sometimes desperately. Therefore, fully owning our failures is still the path of humility and wisdom. Receive them. Embrace them. When others look around for someone responsible, let them see us raising our hand.

The strength for such a painful embrace comes, in large part, from the confidence that failure lies well within God’s sovereign plans for our good. Without failure, Peter would have remained self-confident and self-deceived; so would we. And so, in his sovereignty, Jesus sometimes allows his people to pass through the sift of failure (Luke 22:31–32). He does not, however, keep them there.

Learn

If we, with Peter, feel the sting and refuse to run, we will find a future beyond failure. We also will find that failures speak a thousand lessons to those who are willing to pause, look them in the face, and ask them to teach us.

Too often, I allow the pain of the present moment to keep me from learning from failure. Today, the failure hurts. Today, I feel embarrassed. Today, I would rather soothe or distract myself than take my mistakes by the hand. I forget that, in failure, God often has tomorrow in mind.

“When you have turned again,” Jesus tells Peter, “strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32). Jesus knew that when Peter turned again, hollowed and then healed, he would be a different Peter. Outside that dark courtyard, self-confidence drained from Peter like so many bitter tears. And on that Galilean shore, love for Jesus rose in Peter like a miraculous catch of fish. Failure today made Peter an apostle tomorrow — now so much stronger in Christ, now so much more wary of self. But only because he learned from failure.

Sometimes, replaying our failures leads only to a fresh sense of shame or condemnation. But what if we returned to the scene not alone and exposed, but alongside our forgiving Lord? And what if we asked him to help us review our failures with an eye toward tomorrow? We might find that errors become humility, mistakes become maturings, regrets become wisdom, self-inadequacy becomes Christ-sufficiency, and failures become reliable stairs.

Keep Leading

Having owned our mistakes and learned what we can from them, we might imagine Jesus lifting us up from the ground, looking us in the eye, and offering both a question and a call.

“Do you love me?” he asks Peter (John 21:15–17). Before the failure, Peter’s love was real but shallow; now, as his risen Redeemer restores him, his love is real and deep. Amazingly, failure can do the same for us — taking the love of Jesus from theory to reality, taking our love for Jesus from frail to strong.

The question also sets Peter, and us, on firmer ground. If leadership is mainly about us — our praise, our validation — then failures will either send us running away or wrapping that cast iron around our hearts. But if leadership is ultimately about Jesus — his worship, his worth — then we can make ourselves vulnerable again for him. Yes, we have failed. Yes, we may fail again, and feel again all the pain of falling on our face. But we love him. And love can risk being broken.

Finally, having asked us the question, he bids us to respond again to the call we heard so long ago: “Follow me” (John 21:19). Prepare the next sermon. Plan the next meeting. Chart the next course. And by a miracle of grace, keep leading.

The kind of man you hate reveals what kind of man you are. “But I hate him,” Ahab declared of Micaiah, God’s prophet.

Jehoshaphat, the righteous king of Judah, sat with Ahab, the wicked king of Israel, to deliberate one question: Should they go to war together against Syria? Peace had lasted three years with the pagan nation, but Ahab desired the strategic city of Ramoth-gilead for Israel. He questioned aloud to Jehoshaphat, “Do you know that Ramoth-gilead belongs to us, and we keep quiet and do not take it out of the hand of the king of Syria?” (1 Kings 22:3).

Jehoshaphat consents to fight with Ahab, but desires to hear first from the God of Israel. Ahab calls his four hundred prophets, who, with one voice, give their hearty Amen! “Go up,” they say, “for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king” (1 Kings 22:6).

The kind of men from whom you solicit counsel tells us what kind of man you are.

These men were no messengers of Yahweh, and King Jehoshaphat knew so. Diplomatically, he asks, “Is there not here another prophet of the Lord of whom we may inquire?” (1 Kings 22:7). To Jehoshaphat, four hundred counselors of any other god could not substitute for one man of Yahweh. There is one, Ahab reluctantly responds, Micaiah. “But I hate him,” Ahab gasps before discretion tutors the statement.

Why did Ahab hate the true prophet? “I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil” (1 Kings 22:8).

“The kind of man you hate can reveal what kind of man you are.”

Ahab loved the four hundred yes-men around him. He loved prophets feasting with him, prophesying pleasantries. He loved to hear his own positive thoughts returned to himself unaltered. He loved only affirming words, positive words — not the untamed and unpredictable words of God’s true prophet. The kind of man Ahab hated revealed the kind of man he was.

What Kind of Man Are You?

Now, to turn and see the story from Micaiah’s perspective (the point of this article): The kind of person who despises you also may tell you what kind of man you are. Ahab hated Micaiah because Ahab hated Micaiah’s God.

Wasn’t this because Ahab couldn’t comfortably untether the servant from his Master? Micaiah’s allegiance to the living God was not superficial — wasn’t a religious hobby to be picked up and put down. Ahab knew Micaiah didn’t serve the Lord just during office hours. His devotion went to the heart. Ahab would kill the prophet before he killed the prophet’s faith. Can the like be said of us?

This son of Imla was God’s man through and through. Whether talking to the false prophets or to the king himself, he was his Master’s man. Whether struck in the face and questioned by Zedekiah or thrown into jail by Ahab, he was his Master’s man. Whether Ahab invited him to feast at Jezebel’s table, or invited him for a wine-tasting from Naboth’s vineyard, or asked him about going to war with Syria — Ahab knew what he could expect from this lone prophet of the Lord: to deal with the Lord’s man. Ahab could expect God’s truth spoken through God’s messenger. And he hated him for it.

Confrontational Christlikeness?

So, we might then ask, do the right people dislike us?

What? you might think. If we are mature believers — truly humble and gentle and patient and loving and compassionate — will we really ever be disliked? Hatred and disgust may be reserved for those argumentative and obnoxious professors — but not us. Clanging cymbals, flies buzzing about the ear, hornets stinging any who disagree — these are rightly disliked. But we give the gentle answer. We listen and respect others.

Many Western Christians, it appears to me, are tempted with and indulgent in an agreeableness unknown to Micaiah. We stand ready to give the compassionate word, the soft encouragement, the positive uplift — but do not go on to ever risk anything that might displease. We are not disliked more because we do not say many things that are dislikable to the spirit of the age. Unbelievers at work or online or in our families feel free to parade their profanities and perversities before our ears and eyes without restraint, but it is ours, apparently, to keep quiet and let them perish out of politeness.

Nobody mistakes us for Jude, or Elijah, or Paul, or John the Baptist, or the Sons of Thunder. Or Jesus, for that matter. Zeal for our God and his house does not consume us. We avoid having to report, “the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me” (Psalm 69:9). Jesus, in such whip-making, temple-clearing aggression, is not our choice brand of Christlikeness. Indeed, confrontational Christlikeness seems to them no Christlikeness at all — despite the New Testament’s consistent testimony to it.

Hated for the Master

Now, we need our gentle and beloved Johns. But we need to also acknowledge that our gentle and beloved John was also persecuted and exiled for being uncompromising with his Master’s truth. He wrote his last letter as a brother and partner in the tribulation, banished to “the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 1:9). Polish as we may, we cannot smooth over the offense of the cross.

So what am I saying? If no one dislikes you on account of Christ, it’s probably not because you have become greater, more endearing, more friendly to the lost than Jesus, the apostles, or the lineage of persecuted Christians and martyrs throughout church history. If no one dislikes you on account of Christ, it is likely because you have been too quiet about Jesus, too lukewarm for him, or too much like the world for them to notice the difference.

Was this not part of Jesus’s message to the disciples in the upper room?

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: “A servant is not greater than his master.” If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. (John 15:19–21)

If we bear authentic witness to Jesus for long enough, the world will hate us. We don’t pursue their hatred, but we do prepare for it. Do you have a category for this? Do you expect pats on the head from those who would again nail your Master to a cross if they could? Should they treat us better than him? I have thought so — at least hoped so. My wrestlings in the quiet moment have been,

Must I be carried to the skiesOn flowery beds of ease,While others fought to win the prizeAnd sailed through bloody seas?

Are there no foes for me to face?Must I not stem the flood?Is this vile world a friend to grace,To help me on to God? (“Am I a Soldier of the Cross”)

“Woe to you,” Jesus taught, “when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets” (Luke 6:26). It is an ill omen for Ahab and his four hundred men to applaud. “What did I do wrong,” Socrates once asked, “that yonder villain praised me just now?” Spurgeon comments, “And so may the Christian say, ‘What, have I done wrong, that So-and-so spoke well of me, for if I had done right he would not; he has not the sense to praise goodness, he could only have applauded that which suited his own taste’” (“Citizenship in Heaven”).

The world’s hatred doesn’t always confirm our faithfulness to Christ. It may be owing to our own sin. But in this unruly world, we must consider, as Micaiah, that frowns, and even a jail cell, can be a better sign of fidelity than smiles and congratulations.

Love in a Hypersensitive Age

After a soft rebuke from Jehoshaphat, Ahab sends for the prophet of his disgust. When found, Ahab’s delegate preps Micaiah for the meeting: “Behold, the words of the prophets with one accord are favorable to the king. Let your word be like the word of one of them, and speak favorably” (1 Kings 22:13). Speak favorably, Micaiah. Mind your tongue. Don’t worry — everyone else is doing it. Micaiah responds,

As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak. (1 Kings 22:14)

As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak. Is that my motto? Is it yours? Even when it will cost us?

A word to fellow pastors: We love to comfort our people. We love to encourage them. We love to bring them glad tidings of great news of God’s grace. This we not only must do — we get to do. We labor with them for their joy (2 Corinthians 1:24). And yet, in an age hypersensitive to hard words, we still must warn, must correct, must rebuke sheep and wolves out of love — come what may.

“Some curses can be compliments — and more than compliments, blessings.”

Just as we can find too much Ahab in the culture (and even in the church), we also might find too little Micaiah in us. But as Christ lives, what our God says, that must we speak.

Sacred Fools

David Wells, in his classic No Place for Truth, gives us the picture of the pastor in the modern world as “the Sacred Fool.” Refusing to “lead by holding aloft moist fingers to sense the changes in the wind,” this man stands beholden to his Master. Wells explains,

So long as they cloaked their advice in humor, jesters were able to say things to kings and princes that might have been fatal for anyone else to say. Happy was the king who had a good fool. And happy are those churches whose ministers are likewise emancipated from the bonds of class interest and social expectation, freed to expose the follies of modernity in light of God’s truth. (250)

What kind of men are we? Are we sacred fools for Jesus who have been liberated from class interest and social expectation? Are we the King’s men? Curses can be compliments — and more than compliments, blessings. “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!” (Luke 6:22).

The kind of men who hate us will reveal what kind of men we are.