Church planting is one-half asking people for favors and one-half asking for money. I exaggerate, but not by much. Church planters are needy.

By God’s grace, Trinity Baptist Church of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, recently covenanted as a church. We’re up and running but still in startup mode. Ultimately, of course, we look to God to meet our needs. That’s one reason we have a weekly prayer meeting. And in his generosity, God has provided dozens of founding members who are eager to give and serve and sacrifice for the good of this new body.

But founding members are not the only ones who have played a vital role. In this article, I want to glorify God, and encourage and counsel church planters, by reflecting on ways we’ve benefited from partnerships with, and the generosity of, other local churches. I also hope to encourage pastors of established churches to consider ways they might support new gospel work in their area.

Here are seven ways we’ve benefited from the help of other churches in our town and region, along with some biblical principles that account for why these other churches have been so helpful to us.

1. Partner with Counsel

Kingdom-minded pastors don’t just care how their own churches are doing. They care about the progress of the gospel and the state of God’s churches throughout their region. Consider, for instance, how Paul and Barnabas set out on their second missionary journey not to evangelize an unreached area but to check on the state and soundness of the churches: “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are” (Acts 15:36). I benefited from pastors who modeled this kind of kingdom-minded concern for their whole region from the very beginning of my planting efforts.

When I first started thinking about planting a church in Chapel Hill, I called a handful of pastors I knew in the area. I asked them whether they thought Chapel Hill could use another faithful church and whether they thought I’d be a good person to lead it. Their responses were encouraging and affirming. If they hadn’t been, I would’ve taken that seriously. They also gave me their read on the area’s culture, spiritual needs, and other churches. If you’re a pastor who’s been ministering in a region for a decade or more, a little counsel from you can go a long way in helping a potential planter get his bearings.

2. Partner with Encouragement

There’s no need for church plants in the same area to develop a sibling rivalry. Instead, even young churches can be a model for and help to other churches. Consider how Paul commended the Thessalonians, who were barely out of their “planting” phase when he wrote to them: “You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia” (1 Thessalonians 1:6–7). Church planters working to establish new works near each other can generously share with each other what the Lord has done in and through them, along with what they’ve learned even in a short journey so far.

When planting in Chapel Hill was an idea still in the “maybe” phase, I got a call from Shane Shaddix, then one of the pastors of Imago Dei Church in Raleigh. He was also in the beginning stages of planting a church there, just a few steps ahead of us. Shane wanted to encourage me and help our efforts. Shortly after, on one of my first trips to the area, he and his fellow planter, Manny Prieto, bought me lunch and asked how they could help and encourage our work. They have consistently supported me and my fellow pastor, Michael Abraham, by texting us, praying for us privately and publicly, warmly welcoming founding members of ours for a season of attendance at their church, and in many other ways. Their church, Risen Christ Church, is a new faithful gospel witness in Chapel Hill. If you’re in the area, I would gladly encourage you to check them out.

Another local-church planter who’s been a huge help to us is Chase Jenkins. First Baptist Church of Durham recently sent out Chase and another FBC pastor, Wes Treadway, with about 72 (!) of their members to plant Parkside Baptist Church in South Durham. Chase has encouraged us relentlessly. He has been so affectionately invested in our work that I sometimes wonder if he cares more about our church’s success than his own!

3. Partner with Local Knowledge

Paul commended the Philippians for partnering with him from the very beginning of his gospel ministry: “You Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only” (Philippians 4:15). Many churches in our area have been eager and generous to partner with us in seemingly small but practically crucial ways — for instance, by sharing local knowledge, connections, and church-planting hacks.

Eric Gravelle, campus pastor of the Summit Church’s Chapel Hill campus, generously shared contacts in the school system and advice about meeting in a school. Travis Bodine, the pastor of Mount Olive Baptist Church west of downtown Chapel Hill, pooled local knowledge from his church members to generate all kinds of leads for us to chase down. And Manny and Shane of Risen Christ shared a detailed spreadsheet of possible meeting spaces. After Michael and I made dozens of inquiries, with a perfect fail rate of 100 percent, the venue that agreed to host us was from the list Risen Christ had given us. I was recently able to return the favor by sharing about a location we checked out that might prove to be a good fit for their next home. And both sets of these planting-pastor peers, from Risen Christ and Parkside, have given us advice about incorporation, nonprofit status, banking processes, and many more of the interminable logistics of planting a church.

“There’s no better way to encourage a church planter than by praying for him and his church, publicly, by name.”

On the last Sunday morning before we covenanted, I had the joy of worshiping with the saints at Parkside. Like we would soon, they baptized someone in a horse trough. (They at least got to bring the trough inside their building — our baptisms take place in a large outdoor patio next to our meeting space.) Long story short, Parkside offered us not only helpful equipment for pulling off a horse-trough baptism, but one of their deacons even assisted us with our first one the following Sunday. That’s more help than I even would have thought to ask for.

4. Partner with Local Connections

One of the ways Paul used his pastoral (or I should say, apostolic) capital to help churches take root and grow was by connecting them with, and commending to them, other leaders. For instance, Paul commends Timothy to the Philippians and urges them to trust him because of his proven character (Philippians 2:19–24).

Similarly, another way that local pastors have helped us is by connecting us to other local pastors in their relational networks. On another of my early trips down, Lawrence Yoo and Danny Castiglione of Waypoint Church generously bought me lunch and gave me their take on spiritual dynamics throughout the Triangle region. Lawrence then connected me with David Kwon, pastor of Journey Community Church, because he thought they might have space for us to rent. When Michael and I met with David, he emptied out his mental Rolodex of places we might consider for a meeting space and pastors we might consider connecting with. We wound up renting space from Journey for our Wednesday-night Bible studies.

5. Partner with Space

We know from Scripture that the church is a people, not a building (1 Corinthians 1:1–2). Some churches in the New Testament likely met in homes (Romans 16:5). Paul carried out evangelistic ministry in a rented hall (Acts 19:9). So we know that churches can gather wherever they have permission and room. But many of us (like me!) are so used to doing ministry in a well-appointed church building that planting can be a shock to the system.

I’m used to doing ministry in a 150-year-old city-center church with a large and well-maintained workhorse of a building. Having no building to take for granted is like learning to throw a baseball with my weak arm. Once a church plant hits a certain size, it will gather more people than can comfortably fit in someone’s home. Which means that for every meeting you’re either renting or asking for space.

On this front, the Lord has been generous to us through many different churches. Parkside is not the only local church to offer space for occasional meetings. Chapel Hill Bible Church graciously allowed us to host an early interest meeting in their chapel. And First Baptist Durham let us meet first in their fellowship hall and then in their sanctuary every Sunday night for the whole summer before we covenanted, for free. In addition to some key members’ homes and garages, our church essentially incubated in First Baptist. Your church might not have a large building or budget margin to give to a new church plant, but do you have enough spare space to incubate one for a season?

6. Partner with Prayer

Because the gospel advances through God’s gracious, sovereign work of saving sinners, the gospel advances through prayer. And because the gospel advances through prayer, church planting advances through prayer. So, not only should planters pray, but other churches can have an Epaphras-like ministry of wrestling in prayer on behalf of new plants: “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God” (Colossians 4:12).

Over a couple months’ worth of Sunday mornings leading up to our covenanting, my family and I visited just about every church we had founding members coming from, and a couple of others that wanted to partner with us. During at least three of those visits, the pastor or elder leading the pastoral prayer prayed for our work.

There’s no better way to demonstrate a spirit of catholicity than by leading your church to publicly pray for other churches. There’s no better way to say and show that we’re all on Jesus’s team. And there’s no better way to encourage a church planter than by praying for him and his church, publicly, by name.

7. Partner with Members

For the Great Commission to be fulfilled, some gatherings of Christians must support and encourage some of their members to scatter. It’s painful. It’s costly. It’s hard to part. But it comes with the territory of trying to establish new kingdom outposts. Sometimes God uses persecution to do it: “Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). But a more proactive way to scatter for the sake of the Great Commission is for pastors to encourage members to consider uprooting their membership and perhaps even their livelihoods for the sake of advancing new gospel works — and for churches to joyfully bear that cost.

Our main sending church, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, where I served as a pastor for seven years, was exemplary in this. Amid a difficult season of transition in which another long-term associate pastor was leaving to pastor elsewhere, along with several other elders doing the same, Mark Dever graciously gave public airtime to discussing our planting efforts in the church’s evening services and encouraged members to consider moving to join the work.

In similar fashion, First Baptist Church of Durham has demonstrated exemplary partnership with us in their willingness to joyfully give members away. Even amid planting their own sizeable, full-grown church, they have encouraged and supported their members who have considered joining our work. And in their service the Sunday before we covenanted, they commissioned those who were leaving FBC to join Trinity by bringing them onto the platform and praying for them. And Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Mebane did the same with the members they sent, a tremendously encouraging sign of their support and commitment to the work at cost to their own body.

Partners in the Greatest Cause

The apostle Paul knew what it was to be needy. Through Christ he learned the secret not only of abounding but of lacking (Philippians 4:11–13). And when Paul wrote those words to the Philippians, he lacked much more than a church building or office or staff. Yet Paul thanked God for the Philippians’ contribution to his needs, and he called their relationship a partnership (Philippians 1:5; 4:15). Partnership includes financial support, but as I can gratefully testify from experience, it goes well beyond money.

Church planter, your neediness is an opportunity for other Christians, pastors, and especially churches to forge new gospel partnerships. Pastor, a new church plant coming to town is not a competitor or an opponent, but a partner in the gospel. How can you lead your church to partner with them?

We’re just two weeks from Christmas. Presents are still being purchased, wrapped, and shipped. Christmas cards still need to be signed and mailed. Loose ends on travel details are getting sorted. Family event-planning is getting finalized. Perhaps you’re multitasking right now and gift-wrapping while you listen. We all feel the holiday pressures, of course, Pastor John, as we gear up for one of the busiest holidays in the world — and one of the most expensive. The average American adult will drop about $1,000 just on gifts during this season, leading to a question of great relevance this month, like in this email from a podcast listener named James.

“Pastor John, hello, and thank you for the podcast. Often, I hear that we are to love God for who he is, not for what he does for us — to love the Giver more than the gifts. How can we know that we are doing this, especially during this Christmas season? When I examine my own heart, so much of what I know about God seems to be in relation to what he has done for me, like the sending of his Son in the incarnation. How do I interact with him on the basis of him, and not simply on the basis of the gifts he has given me?”

First, I think it is absolutely crucial in pursuing that interaction with God in that way to get really clear in our mind and in our heart that there is a huge and important difference between enjoying a person who gives gifts and enjoying the gifts instead of the person or more than the person. And I think we need to clarify this and get it fixed in our minds, both from experience and from Scripture. Let me give you an example of what I mean from experience.

Key 1: Loving the Giver of the Gift

What if you give an engagement ring? You’ve been in love for two years, maybe, and now you’re going to move this thing decisively forward. You give a ring. (I’m assuming you’re a man, but gals, you apply it in an appropriate way.) You give your fiancée a beautiful diamond ring, and she spends the rest of the night and then the following weeks bragging about this gift, taking it and showing it to everybody. She never calls you. She never looks at you. She never takes you by the hand and looks you in the eye. She’s just thrilled with this diamond, and your intent in giving her that was totally missed.

“The goal of all God does for us is to make it possible for us to be with him and him to be with us.”

How would you feel about that? You wanted her to look at it. Oh, yes, you wanted her to love it. You wanted her to be thankful for it. You wanted her to enjoy it. And then you wanted her to put it on her hand, take your hands across the table, look you in the eye, and say, “I would love to spend the rest of my life with you. You are ten thousand times more precious to me than this beautiful ring.” We understand from our own experience what it means when gifts are loved more than the giver. We get that. There’s no excuse for not getting that. We get it in our experience.

Then we get it from the Bible when it comes to God, because it’s all over the place:

1 Peter 3:18: “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” That’s why he died: to “bring us to God.”
Or Romans 5:11 — after saying that “we rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2) and “we rejoice in [tribulation]” (Romans 5:3), then Paul adds this in Romans 5:11: “More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Or Psalm 16:11: “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
Or Psalm 73:25–26: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Or consider the story of the ten lepers healed by Jesus in Luke 17:11–37. Remember? All ten — no leprosy, awesome, healed, run away. One of them, a Samaritan, comes back praising God and falling down at Jesus’s feet. What’s the point? The point is that they missed it. They just missed it. This is about Jesus. This is about God. Leprosy deliverance was a means to that end.

So, we know from experience, we know from the Scriptures, that there’s a difference between enjoying a giver through his gifts and enjoying gifts instead of the giver. We know that. We get that. We know that the goal of all God does for us is designed to make it possible for us to be with him and him to be with us. He does everything for us to be with us as our all-satisfying treasure and Father and friend and Savior. Getting that clear is the key, I think, to experiencing God in and through all his gifts.

Key 2: Remembering the Gift of Jesus

Here’s one more key to help us experience God this way during the Christmas season. We should realize that every gift, every good thing that comes into our lives of any kind as a token of God’s everlasting kindness — all of it, all of it was bought by the sacrifice of Jesus, the blood of Jesus. Here’s the logic of Romans 8:32: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” So, “all things” are coming to us as believers because he didn’t spare his Son. Here’s the effect this has: All giving and getting, especially at Christmastime, becomes a reminder of the death of Jesus.

Now, what effect does that have? What effect does God intend for his Son’s death to have on us when we think this way? On the one hand, Christ is the Father’s indescribable gift (Romans 8:32; 2 Corinthians 9:15). And Christ is his own gift. Over and over, the New Testament says Christ gave himself, Christ gave himself, Christ gave himself (Mark 10:45; Galatians 1:4; Galatians 2:20; Ephesians 5:2, 25; 1 Timothy 2:6; Titus 2:14).

Think of it! If God gives his Son, and the Son gives himself for you and to you, it doesn’t even make sense to say we love the gift more than the Giver. The gift is the Giver. The Giver is the gift. So, since every gift shared at Christmastime is possible only because of the death of Christ for us, and thus directs our attention to the death of Christ, therefore every gift takes us through the cross to the gift who is the Giver.

“All giving and getting, especially at Christmastime, becomes a reminder of the death of Jesus.”

Here’s the other way of seeing it. In Romans 5:8, Paul says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” So, behind every gift that we get or give at Christmastime is the death of Christ. And that means that every gift is the overflow of the gift of God’s love, because that’s what he shows when Christ dies. When you think of God’s love, it is inseparable from himself. When John Piper talks about enjoying God, I don’t mean, “Oh, but you can’t enjoy his love.” In a sense, his love is not a gift. It is what he is. When real love binds two persons together, they don’t say, “Hey, where’s the gift?” They say, “You are the gift. You are the gift. You are my love. Your love is yourself given to me.”

So, it seems to me that Romans 8:32 is the key to Christmas God-centeredness in giving and getting gifts. Every good in our life as Christians is owing to the death of Jesus, according to the logic of Romans 8:32, and that death is the gift of God himself for our everlasting joy and the gift of God’s love, which is also the giving of himself to us.

O come, O Branch of Jesse’s stem,Unto your own and rescue them!From depths of hell your people save,And give them victory o’er the grave.

Rejoice! Rejoice! ImmanuelShall come to thee, O Israel.

“O come, O Branch of Jesse’s stem” is initially an unassuming, even underwhelming line. We might expect to hail the promised deliverer as “Cedar of Lebanon” or “Oak of Righteousness” or “Tree of Life,” not as “Branch” or “Sprout.” Such a nickname seems more fitting for a junior-varsity point guard than for the Savior of the world. Yet the old hymn draws our attention to a rich biblical theme of hope on the other side of calamity, renewal from the rubble, deliverance through devastation.

The “branch” or “root” of Jesse invokes a great Old Testament prophecy and its surprising fulfillment. Jesse the Bethlehemite is the grandson of Boaz and Ruth and the father of David, the giant slayer and great king of Israel. In 2 Samuel 7, Yahweh promises to set his love on this son of Jesse and to establish his descendant’s kingship forever. The Davidic dynasty continues for centuries, and most of these rulers are hardly men after God’s heart like David. When King Jehoiachin is banished to Babylon (2 Kings 24), David’s line is reduced to a lifeless stump.

The yawning chasm between the expectation of an enduring kingdom and the ruin of exile leads the faithful to pray, “Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?” (Psalm 89:49).

Evergreen Hope

Yet hope remains because of the prophetic promise. Seven centuries before Christ, Isaiah pens these hope-filled words:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. . . . In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples — of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious. (Isaiah 11:1–3, 10)

The prophet speaks of a shoot from the stump, new life emerging from destruction and death. This Spirit-endowed sovereign would “reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom” and inspire hope not just for Israel but for the nations as well. Only “the zeal of the Lord of hosts” could accomplish such a stunning reversal (Isaiah 9:7).

“Immanuel will come again, O Israel, O nations, to fell every foe and lead us safely home.”

Jesus Christ is the prophesied sprout from Jesse’s stock. The opening verse of the New Testament designates him as “the son of David” (Matthew 1:1), and his birth in Bethlehem and endowment with the divine Spirit fit the prophetic profile for the messianic king. Yet Jesus is born in a lowly manger, raised in backwoods Nazareth, and travels about with nowhere to lay his head — hardly a “glorious” royal resting place. Moreover, he is hailed as “King of the Jews” not by joyful subjects but by jeering adversaries as he is lifted up on a cross. Ironically, the Branch from Jesse’s stem is impaled on a life-taking tree.

The crucifixion looks like the death blow to these prophetic hopes for a forever king. Then, in the greatest reversal of all, the broken Branch bounds out of the tomb on the third day.

The Root’s Surprising Fruit

Revelation 5:5 triumphantly declares, “Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” This recalls Isaiah’s prophecy of David’s greater son who would rule with righteousness and faithfulness and strike down his foes. Yet when John turns to behold this lionlike King, he instead sees a Lamb. This apocalyptic vision reveals that the messianic king “conquers” in a most surprising fashion: not by crushing rebels but by dying in their stead and then standing victorious over the grave.

Only the zeal of the Lord of promise could bring forth from Jesse’s stump a righteous Ruler who would rescue the world. In the fullness of time, Jesus Christ — both Lion and Lamb — comes to a world condemned to rescue his people for a world renewed. Our King conquers through sacrificial death and resurrection life. This broken Branch from Jesse’s stem produces the sweetest fruit: life, healing, and hope.

O Christian, rejoice in this God of glory and grace whose arm is not too short to save, who overcomes all obstacles to keep his covenant commitments. Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel has come to you, O Israel, O nations. Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel will come again, O Israel, O nations, to fell every foe and lead us safely home.

There is no wrong time for world evangelization. And there is no wrong time for theological clarification. If you wait for the optimal time to become a missionary or to send a missionary, you won’t be one or send one. If you wait for the optimal time to get theological clarity about what the Bible really teaches, you won’t get it. There is no optimal time because sin, Satan, sickness, and sabotage have made certain that there is no optimal time to know or spread the truth. If knowing and spreading happen in your life, it will be because you looked sin, Satan, sickness, and sabotage in the face and said, “I’m going through you. In the name of Jesus, in the power of his Spirit, in the joy of the gospel, and for the glory of God, I’m going through you. And you will not stop me.”

I would like to motivate you — I pray that God will use me to motivate many of you — to give your life to world evangelization and theological clarification in the most inhospitable, unsuitable, uncongenial, forbidding times. If you wait for the ideal moment — personally, relationally, economically, globally — you won’t know what you ought to know, and you won’t go where you ought to go. There is only one kind of time for knowing and going, and it is always, at some level, inhospitable, unsuitable, uncongenial, forbidding.

So, the lesson that I want to draw out of the life of William Tyndale is that he carried out his theological clarification and his Bible translation in what most of us would consider impossible circumstances — the kind of circumstances that would surely justify putting theological study and Bible translation on hold while you just keep your nose above water. You just stay alive on the run.

Tyndale the Theologian

Tyndale’s incredibly productive twelve years (from the age of 30 to 42) working on theological clarification and Bible translation were spent in exile on the European continent. I’m including theological clarification because most people don’t know that Tyndale was a theologian — a theological Reformer — alongside his Bible translation. I have a three-volume set of Tyndale’s theological works, totaling over 1,200 pages. David Daniell wrote,

It is possible . . . to write about Tyndale as polemicist, as propagandist, as political reformer, as moralist, as theologian, as historian, as enemy of the institutions of the church: yet he first presents himself as a working translator of the Scriptures. It cannot be right to see him as being anything else more important than that. He translated two-thirds of the Bible so well that his translations endured until today, a labor so great that that list of secondary definitions must surely dwindle by comparison. (William Tyndale, 121)

Secondary, yes, but oh my — how significant those writings were in his own day. If Tyndale had never translated a page of the Bible, he would have been hunted down and killed by the Roman Catholic Church because of his writings in support of Luther’s teaching. Anthony Kenny wrote,

When he renounced the doctrine of transubstantiation, friars, noblemen, and bishops all turned against him, and the University which had sheltered him offered him a home no longer. (The Bible in English, 72–73)

Henry VIII was angry with Tyndale mainly for believing and promoting the theological clarification of Martin Luther’s Reformation teachings. In particular, he was angry because of Tyndale’s book Answer to Sir Thomas More, who had who helped Henry VIII write his repudiation of Luther called Defense of the Seven Sacraments. Thomas More was thoroughly Roman Catholic and radically anti-Reformation, anti-Luther, and anti-Tyndale. So, Tyndale had come under excoriating criticism by Thomas More. In fact, Daniell said Thomas Moore had a “near-rabid hatred” for Tyndale and published three long responses to him totaling nearly three-quarters of a million words. This was not mainly about Bible translation. This was about truth clarification. And remember, these are political leaders who at the snap of their fingers could kill Tyndale with impunity — if they could find him.

“There is no wrong time for world evangelization.”

This was all theological clarification — almost all of it written while he was in exile on the Continent, moving from place to place to avoid arrest. He had left England probably in April 1524 when he was 30 and never returned home till he was martyred at age 42 in 1536, just north of Brussels, after twelve years in exile and in hiding. The charge that sealed his execution was not Bible translation, though that might have sufficed, but heresy, not agreeing with the holy Roman Emperor — in a nutshell, following the teachings of Martin Luther.

Ministry on the Run

I don’t mean to downplay the achievement or the danger that Bible translation played in Tyndale’s life. It is almost incomprehensible to us how viciously opposed the Roman Catholic Church was to the translation of the Scriptures into English. In response to John Wycliffe’s work to put the Bible in English from the Latin, the Roman Catholic parliament passed the law de Haeretico Comburendo — “on the burning of heretics” — to make heresy punishable by burning people alive at the stake. The Bible translators were in view.

Then in 1408, the Constitutions of Oxford stated,

We therefore decree and ordain, that no man, hereafter, by his own authority translate any text of the Scripture into English or any other tongue . . . and that no man can read any such book . . . in part or in whole. (God’s Bestseller, xxii)

John Bale (1495–1563) “as a boy of 11 watched the burning of a young man in Norwich for possessing the Lord’s prayer in English. . . . John Foxe records . . . seven Lollards burned at Coventry in 1519 for teaching their children the Lord’s Prayer in English” (The Obedience of a Christian Man, 202).

Tyndale hoped to escape this condemnation by getting official authorization for his translation in 1524. But he found just the opposite and had to escape from London to the Continent for the rest of his life. He gives us some glimpse of those twelve years as a fugitive in Germany and the Netherlands (in one of the very few personal descriptions we have) in 1531. He refers to

. . . my pains . . . my poverty . . . my exile out of mine natural country, and bitter absence from my friends . . . my hunger, my thirst, my cold, the great danger wherewith I am everywhere encompassed, and finally . . . innumerable other hard and sharp fightings which I endure. (William Tyndale, 213)

All these sufferings came to a climax on May 21, 1535, in the midst of Tyndale’s great Old Testament translation labors, when he was betrayed in Antwerp by his supposed friend Henry Philips. He was taken to Vilvorde Castle six miles north of Brussels, where he stayed for eighteen months until his death.

No Hiatus from Holy Work

You might think that, imprisoned and waiting for your possible death, you would take a break from theological clarification and Bible translation and hope for a more optimal time, or think you’ve done enough. That didn’t happen. I think this letter is one of the most moving things I have ever read and captures what I mean by doing theological clarification and Bible translation in the most inhospitable circumstances. He wrote this to an unnamed officer of the castle. Here is a condensed version of Mozley’s translation of the Latin:

I beg your lordship, and that of the Lord Jesus, that if I am to remain here through the winter, you will request the commissary to have the kindness to send me, from the goods of mine which he has, a warmer cap; for I suffer greatly from cold in the head, and am afflicted by a perpetual catarrh, which is much increased in this cell; a warmer coat also, for this which I have is very thin; a piece of cloth too to patch my leggings. My overcoat is worn out; my shirts are also worn out. He has a woolen shirt, if he will be good enough to send it. I have also with him leggings of thicker cloth to put on above; he has also warmer night-caps. And I ask to be allowed to have a lamp in the evening; it is indeed wearisome sitting alone in the dark. But most of all I beg and beseech your clemency to be urgent with the commissary, that he will kindly permit me to have the Hebrew Bible, Hebrew grammar, and Hebrew dictionary, that I may pass the time in that study. In return may you obtain what you most desire, so only that it be for the salvation of your soul. But if any other decision has been taken concerning me, to be carried out before winter, I will be patient, abiding the will of God, to the glory of the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ: whose spirit (I pray) may ever direct your heart. Amen. W. Tindalus. (William Tyndale, 379)

So, the lesson I am taking away from Tyndale’s life is that his accomplishments in theological clarification and Bible translation are astonishing not only because of their faithfulness and excellence, but because they were achieved without waiting for the optimal moment. There wasn’t an optimal moment in his life.

Hindrances to World Evangelization

Let’s turn from Tyndale to the Bible and our own circumstances as we hear the call of world missions. Let Tyndale’s experience put fiber in your faith and stir you up not to wait for the optimal season of your life to be as engaged as God calls you to be in the task of theological clarification and Bible translation — or whatever dimension of world missions God calls you to.

Let me call your attention to some global crises that might make you think this is not an optimal time for doing world evangelization or Bible translation or even focused effort at theological clarification.

In the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the killed and wounded are approaching one million people. Israel is now fighting wars on two fronts, with Hamas and Hezbollah, with Iran about to intervene. China, for the first time in decades, several weeks ago launched an intercontinental ballistic missile. Boko Haram in Burkina Faso recently killed 26 Christians as they worshiped — and a hundred others. Over half of Sudan’s 46 million people suffer from acute hunger because of civil war. Civil wars rage in Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Haiti, and at least ten other nations. One hundred million people in the world have been forcibly displaced from their homes, including forty million refugees, 40 percent of which are under eighteen. On the home front, in the United States since 2017 there have been half a million opioid-related deaths. And the moral degeneracy embraced by our highest leaders and aspiring leaders is appalling.

I focus on those big, global, nonoptimal circumstances for two reasons. One is to draw attention to the fact that if every one of those crises were to go away tonight, the real-life, close-to-home reasons for not throwing yourself into world missions would be just as great. You are one heartbeat away from death every moment, and you have no control over God’s decision about how long you live (James 4:15). The pain in your chest might be a heart attack in the making. The ache in your hip might be bone cancer. The phone ringing might be the death of your children or parents — or worse, their divorce. The note you’re about to open might be that your twenty-year-old daughter has decided she is not a Christian and finds better community with her LGBTQ friends. Or you look in the mirror and say, “You are not fit to even consider Christian service.” Most of the hindrances to devoting ourselves to the nudgings of God’s Spirit in world missions do not come from world events; they come from the nonoptimal circumstances of our personal lives.

Hostility in the End Times

But the other reason I focused my list on global crises is that they describe the world in which the Great Commission is going to be finished. God is not going to make an era toward the end of history when the nations will be hospitable to the reception of the gospel. Most of the unreached peoples in our day live in cultures that are hostile to the gospel. They are not waiting with open arms. But that is the world in which the mission will be finished. Jesus said,

You will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:9–14)

Let this nonoptimal description of the world in which the gospel will reach the nations — leading up to the second coming of Christ — land on you with its proper force. Count them:

1. God’s emissaries will be hated by all nations.

2. Many Christians will fall away. They will deconvert, and we will call them nones — those who declare no religion.

3. Christians will betray one another and hate one another — and the strategy of Satan here is to cause other believers to say, “The faith is failing. It must not be real. If the Christians are betraying each other at home, what do I have to say to the world?” You need to know how the Bible describes the end if you are going to escape that temptation.

4. Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray — books, articles, podcasts, TikTok reels, and movies, giving voice to many false prophets. They will be causing people to think, “We’re not winning. We’re not winning.” Win what? The Christianization of the world? That’s not in the Bible — till Jesus comes! He will do it. And if you want to know how, read 2 Thessalonians 1.

5. Lawlessness is multiplied. The troops from Kenya in Haiti right now are outnumbered four hundred to fifteen thousand gang members. It is not hard to imagine urban centers in America being little Haitis. If you live there, will you stay true to your calling to the nations? Or will you say, “This is not an optimal time”?

6. The love of many will grow cold. You travel from church to church hoping to find warmth and zeal for world missions, but what you find is that love for the nations — indeed, for the Lord — has grown cold.

And when Jesus had spoken those six inhospitable circumstances for the completion of the Great Commission, the next words out of his mouth were, “And this gospel of the kingdom [this good news of the kingdom] will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).

He did not say that the gospel of the kingdom might be proclaimed throughout the whole world. He did not say there might be a testimony to all the nations. He did not say that this proclamation and testimony might usher in the end and the coming of Jesus. Matthew 24:14 is not the Great Commission. That comes four chapters later. This is the great promise, the great certainty, the great absolute.

“If you wait for the optimal time to get theological clarity about what the Bible really teaches, you won’t get it.”

The Great Commission is a test of our obedience (most explicitly). This is a test of our faith. Do we believe him? Do we believe that in spite of being hated by all nations, in spite of many Christians deconverting and falling away, in spite of Christians betraying one another and false prophets persuading millions, in spite of lawlessness being multiplied in cities and nations, and in spite of the spreading of Christian coldness, there will be churches and Christians and missionary senders and goers who are white-hot for Jesus, and who are torching the glacier that is spreading over the world, and who will finish the mission?

Sustained by the Gospel Proclaimed

They will be sustained by the very good news that they carry. That’s why William Tyndale was both a truth clarifier and a Bible translator. It was the reality of biblical truth — the gospel of the kingdom — that sustained him. You might think that, living in exile, driven from place to place, in danger of betrayal, working in nonoptimal circumstances, he would develop an austere demeanor and a burdensome view of the gospel. Here’s how he defined the gospel:

Evangelion (that we call the gospel) is a Greek word and signifieth good, merry, glad, and joyful tidings, that maketh a man’s heart glad and maketh him sing, dance, and leap for joy. (Selected Writings, 33)

That’s Tyndale writing in 1530 in exile at the age of 36. Tyndale was driven to put the Bible into the vernacular of every language because of the gospel. And yes, not just English, but every language. He wrote in the preface to his New Testament,

Christ wishes his mysteries to be published as widely as possible. . . . I wish that they might be read and known, not merely by the Scotch and the Irish, but even by the Turks and the Saracens. (William Tyndale, 67)

Without the Bible, there would be no pure, enduring gospel. And without the gospel, there is no escape from universal bondage of the will.

[No] creature can loose the bonds, save the blood of Christ only. . . . When the gospel is preached, [it] openeth our hearts and giveth us grace to believe, and putteth the spirit of Christ in us: and we know him as our Father most merciful, and consent to the law and love it. (Selected Writings, 37, 40)

William Tyndale was sustained in a life of theological clarification and Bible translation through unremitting, nonoptimal, inhospitable, forbidding circumstances, because he was thrilled by the power of the gospel to set people free from condemnation and make them glad in God. He lived on it and would say with the apostle, “In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy” (2 Corinthians 7:4).

So, I close where I began. If you wait for the optimal time to become a missionary, you won’t be one. If you wait for the optimal time to get theological clarity about what the Bible really teaches, you won’t get it. There is no optimal time for either. Circumstances will almost always say, “Not now.” And faith will say, “I’m going through you. In the name of Jesus, in the power of his Spirit, in the joy of the gospel, and for the glory of God, I’m going through you. And you will not stop me.”