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The End for Which God Created the World: A Reader’s Guide to a Christian Classic

Why would anyone exert the time and energy required to read Jonathan Edwards’s Concerning the End for Which God Created the World? This may be the most difficult and challenging text you will ever read. But after the Bible, it may be the most important piece of literature ever written. It really promises to change everything for you.

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) was a pastor, theologian, and philosopher in Colonial America. In 1755, he completed his dissertation after 35 years of development, which was then published posthumously in 1765. Looking back over the more than forty years since I first read it, I can say that this short book has profoundly and permanently affected me for good. As a result of reading End of Creation, I changed careers, earned a PhD, and took up teaching Edwards as a profession. You might wonder why this book upended my life (in the best sense possible). Because the God who Edwards showed me is breathtaking.

So, I believe the wisdom of Proverbs 2 applies to Edwards. When you read End of Creation, study it, “making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding [because] if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:2–5). With a pencil in your hand and prayers in your heart, pay close attention to what Edwards says. The work is worth it when you see the God he saw. Finally, bear in mind that no one has ever fully comprehended End of Creation his first time through.

Two Aims of the Essay

What makes this work so difficult? Edwards penned End of Creation with three goals in mind. Edwards’s first goal was to know God experientially because he saw that kind of knowledge described and promised in the Bible. As a pastor, this concern drove him to understand, explain, promote, guide, and defend a view of authentic Christian experience as a work of God. He connects that experience to God’s ultimate end in creation, and shows how God is ultimately motivated by his own “supreme self-regard.”

What does Edwards mean by “supreme self-regard”? God loves God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength. Far from making God supremely selfish, this self-regard flows from God’s intra-Trinitarian love. The Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, through the Holy Spirit. The triune God of the Bible is eternally and fully satisfied, possessing in himself alone all existence, beauty, power, knowledge, truth, goodness, and happiness (not a lighthearted cheerfulness, but a deep fulfillment and complete well-being).

“The triune God of the Bible is eternally and fully satisfied.”

Grasping this truth makes a big difference in understanding Edwards’s first goal of showing that genuine Christian experience is a gracious and free work of God. God delights in his own fullness and shares that fullness with his people. That reality affects how we understand faith and fuels our motivation to seek to know God.

Edwards’s second goal was to undermine the influence of a destructive and contrary view of religious experience by refuting the views of God’s end and motivation it presupposed and promoted. Edwards demonstrates that God’s ultimate end in creation cannot be something God lacks, nor can it be more valuable to God than God’s initial state without creation. To state the issue succinctly: if God creates for an ultimate end, which by definition implies that the person acting does not now possess what he seeks, how can God be absolutely self-sufficient (needing nothing)? Edwards tackled this problem head-on, claiming in his finished work,

[I]t has been particularly shewn already, that God’s making himself his end, in the manner that has been spoken of, argues no dependence; but is consistent with absolute independence and self-sufficience. (God’s Passion for His Glory, 180)

If you can keep these goals in mind, the exercise required to grasp Edwards’s tight reasoning becomes significantly easier.

Why Not Begin with Scripture?

Edwards’s dissertation comprises an introduction and two chapters. In chapter 1, Edwards considers “what Reason teaches” using deductive arguments that build on the assumptions and concepts developed in the Introduction. To readers today, this may seem like a strange way to begin a book. However, the expression “what Reason teaches” signifies a mindset and a way of discovering truth and settling disputes that had swept through Europe and America by mid-eighteenth century.

Beginning around 1594 and ending in 1734, a process occurred that altered the entire background against which Christian theologians, pastors, and philosophers debated about what to believe and how to live. The struggle during this process was over what would serve as the final arbiter or authority in matters of faith. Would it be tradition and authority, personal inspiration, Scripture, or reason?

“The heart of God’s purpose in creation lies in the heart of God himself as Trinity.”

It’s safe to say that by the mid-eighteenth century, reason had become the dictator of truth. It’s crucial to appreciate how thorough and widespread this reliance of reason was in the mid-eighteenth century. Reason was the battleground where the wars were being waged, and so, to achieve his goals, Edwards adopted two parallel — and complementary — ways of arguing: (1) from what reason teaches and (2) from what Scripture teaches.

Edwards continues in chapter 2 with an exposition of relevant Scripture because he believed that God’s word is “the surest guide” on these matters. And while both methods converge on the same answers regarding the end for which God created the world, the method of Scripture followed in chapter 2 yields more truth — truth inaccessible to reason alone. Thus, while he begins his argument in the rationalist discourse of the age, Edwards culminates his argument with Scripture, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to the rule of faith. Edwards believed what he wrote about reason’s “dictates,” but he insists that what reason dictates on the matter is at best incomplete.

Why Would God Create Anything?

A fair interpretation of Edwards, therefore, requires us to trace the steps in his argument according to reason and understand the harmony between God’s self-sufficiency and his acting for ends. However, since we can’t trace the full argument here, I’ll just whet your appetite with where Edwards ends. We might summarize his argument like this:

God’s “original ultimate end” in creating and sustaining the world is God’s Holy Spirit indwelling the redeemed, thereby enabling and empowering their experience of God’s own knowledge, love, and joy, so that their words, deeds, and emotions redound to the praise of his glory.

In short, Edwards argues that God created to share his Trinitarian fullness with creatures.

Edwards insists, “That which God had primarily in view in creating” — namely, God’s ultimate end — “must be constantly kept in view, and have a governing influence in all God’s works, or with respect to everything he does towards his creatures” (God’s Passion, 134). If, as Edwards claims, God’s end in creation determines all of his works toward his creatures, then this dissertation is among his most important works (if not the most important). In End of Creation, we not only have the proverbial “Big Picture”; we have the biggest picture. It applies to everything.

The heart of God’s purpose in creation lies in the heart of God himself as Trinity. As the apostle John reveals, the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father (John 17:23–26). This love that characterizes the Trinity is what God “communicates” to the redeemed in sending them the promised Holy Spirit. Edwards delights in the fact that God’s inclination to create and sustain the world derives from the pleasure God takes in his “internal glory” — that is, God’s self-knowledge, holiness, and happiness — eternally increasing in “a society of created beings” (149). Thus, “God in seeking his glory, therein seeks the good of his creatures,” and “God in seeking their glory and happiness, seeks himself” (176).

Rewards of Climbing the Mountain

Over decades of teaching, I have had the privilege of walking through End of Creation with hundreds of students. We worked our way line by line through this most difficult work of philosophical and biblical theology.

After that arduous journey, some students have reported that now they grasp just how safe they are in Christ. “He is faithful, not for anything I do, but because of God’s faithfulness to himself.” Some have found a liberating sense of personal value. “I see now that I am a product of God’s creational, providential, and redeeming action. My identity is a reflection of the attributes of God that are involved in God’s works. I really honor him and accentuate his role by taking refuge in him to be for us as he promises to be in his names.”

Others have gained a new appreciation for nature, seeing that all of it reflects who God is, like a divine performance. As works of performance art, each instance of God’s works of creation, providence, and redemption is valuable and valued by God solely in virtue of the value of God’s attributes that are jointly responsible for their coming to be. They often report how this heightened awareness has brought them to reframe all of life’s ambitions and questions in terms of God’s purposes for them. Not every student is affected in these ways. Some students are provoked (even shocked) into fully grasping the present-tense reality that God is acting. Some love the fact; others, as we would expect, reject the idea altogether.

Yet, even with the occasional outliers, I’ve seen the positive effects over and over again. Through studying Edwards by the illuminating grace of the Holy Spirit, most thoughtful readers come to a new and deeper sense of God’s greatness and gladly join the eternal choir singing, “Worthy is the Lamb” (Revelation 5:12).

The Way of Allurement

Finally, reading Edwards is an exercise in opposites. On the one hand, every time I read End of Creation, I feel a new anticipation for fresh vistas onto the greatness and love of God. On the other hand, his writing style and rational arguments can feel like wading through wet concrete. At times, his language begins to sound as if he is saying the same thing over and over again. To follow each step in the path of his thought is relentlessly demanding. And yet, like no other book (besides the Bible), all the hard work is worth it when the God whom Edwards loved gives you a glimpse of the God whom Edwards saw.

Elsewhere Edwards charges us, “Endeavor to promote spiritual appetites by laying yourself in the way of allurement. We are to avoid being in the way of temptation with respect to our carnal appetites. But we ought to take all opportunities to lay ourselves in the way of enticement with respect to our gracious inclinations” (Sermon on Canticles 5:1).

Working your way carefully through Concerning the End for Which God Created the World is certainly one way of laying ourselves in the way of allurement.

“The Old, Old Story” That Never Gets Old

For those in vocational ministry, there can be something unappealing about the basics. After all, many of us are educated, well-read, and (if only on our best days) reasonably thoughtful. We want to be able to demonstrate an advanced understanding of the material we’re preaching and teaching. People may begin to wonder why we are in the pulpit if we don’t offer some unique insight, some intriguing idea. Why should we need to tell them again and again what the text plainly says?

Wholesome Protestant Doctrine

God is not simply a big person, sharing our imperfections with us or exalting the supposed virtue of dependence, as if God is somehow glorified in His need. Rather, His divine life is marked by a completely different type of being—so much so, that it is more proper to call him the source, ground, or fount of being.

Readers of my column may remember that my eyes were first opened to the beauty of divine simplicity through the work of the Reformed Scholastic Francis Turretin. I had encountered the doctrine elsewhere, through both introductory and advanced systematic works, but Turretin explained the concept in a way that I could not only grasp but appreciate.[1] Turretin’s helpful explanation of divine simplicity, however, is far from elementary as there are numerous metaphysical terms employed throughout his exposition.
To master divine simplicity (if one could ever dream of doing so) would require mastering complex ideas such as pure act, Turretin’s understanding of formal conceptions, and the fine line between real, virtual, and eminent distinctions. Still, even though the Institutes of Elenctic Theology are full of these abstract and ethereal considerations, one repeating theme can help serve as the reader’s north star as they journey into this complex doctrine—the Creator/creature distinction.
The Dependent Creature
At its core, divine simplicity is a creature’s attempt at identifying what God is not—in this case, God is not made up of parts. Creatures, as opposed to their Creator, are made up of all sorts of physical and metaphysical parts. Creaturely composition necessitates that all creatures are marked with a deep seeded dependence, as everything composed must be assembled by another. Indeed, Kelly Kapic has noted that “using ‘dependent’ as an adjective for ‘creature’ is basically redundant—there are no creatures who are not, by their very nature, dependent beings.”[2]
Our physical limbs are knit together in our mothers’ wombs, our existence came about because of the choices of other people, and our souls (like everything we possess) are a gift from God. I did not assemble myself, nor could I sustain myself without the aid of other dependent creatures. In classical thought, then, the rejection of divine simplicity would necessitate a greater being than God capable of connecting the divine pieces together. In the same way that non-existent entities cannot create themselves, composite beings cannot eliminate their dependence on their parts.
The Independent Creator
God, however, is entirely independent. If God is in need of something for His existence or perfection, then His divinity must be called into question. Indeed, for Turretin, “Composition implies imperfection inasmuch as it supposes passive power, dependency and mutability.”[3] This brings us to an important aspect of divine simplicity, especially as the doctrine is articulated by the Reformed. Divine simplicity does not simply mean (pardon the pun) that God is free from all composition and division, but also is “incapable of composition and divisibility.”[4]
It is not enough to say that God *is not* made up of parts but that God *cannot* be made up of parts. The mere introduction of passivity, in which God would receive perfection from another, would place creaturely imperfection within divinity. “God is a most pure act,” writes Turretin, “having no passive admixture and therefore rejecting all composition (because in God there is nothing which needs to be made perfect or can receive perfection from any other…).”[5] At this point, the gulf between Creator and creature could not be wider.
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Lessons Learned from a Wolf Attack

Written by A.W. Workman |
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Wolves are inevitable as the gospel advances. Jesus had Judas, the believers in Ephesus had their own fierce wolves emerge after Paul was gone (Acts 20:29). Wise believers will seek to prepare for this common danger to the church—and act when the wolves are exposed.

Some of the most painful lessons of ministry are learned when a wolf in sheep’s clothing infiltrates your church. We had a wolf once, a local man I’ll call Ahab*, and it has taken me years to know how to write about it. The things we learned from exposing him, trying to counter him, and then responding to the carnage he caused have been forever branded on my soul. Wolf attacks leave scars, along with tragic losses among the true sheep. Pray that you never have to fight off a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but if you do, may these lessons we learned from dealing with Ahab help you to spot and deal with your own wolves with both wisdom and courage.
Wolves make excellent first impressions.
The first time Ahab and his family visited our new church plant, we were thrilled. Here was a local believing husband and wife who also had believing teenage children – a true rarity in our corner of Central Asia. They were veteran believers, having come to faith nine years previous at a house church I had attended with Adam*, and later were members of another church when they’d lived in a different city. Ahab presented as a humble, happy, and wise middle-aged man from a more traditional background. But the most encouraging thing of all was how well he knew his Bible. To this day I’m not sure I’ve met another local man as well-versed in the scriptures as Ahab is. In spiritual conversation, Ahab demonstrated a deep knowledge of the Word. He had a thoughtful, serious personality, but he was also very fatherly, especially with small children. Our kids adored him with his affectionate greetings and gifts of cookies and pomegranate flowers.
Ahab’s sheep costume was (almost) flawless. Wolves will indeed show up wearing very convincing disguises (Matt 7:15).
Wolves come with mixed reputations.
As soon as another missionary heard that Ahab and his family were attending our group, he warned us about him, telling us that Ahab and his wife had in previous years recanted their faith and returned to Islam, in order to receive financial gain. Apparently, there were pictures of them embracing a Qur’an next a smiling Islamic leader that proved this. This missionary also said that the family’s relationship with the Christians in their previous city had broken down completely and they had deceived and burned lots of people. The problem with this intel was that that generation of local believers was positively shot through with division and broken relationships and we also didn’t trust this missionary’s theological discernment. He had recently written off male-female roles in ministry as something that didn’t really matter, among other theological and ministry positions that felt so, well, “evangellyfish.” And we were newly partnering with another missionary who seemed to have more of a theological spine. He had been recently investing in Ahab’s family – and claiming to see evidence of true repentance and growth.
Our mistake here was assuming that a lack of theological likemindedness meant a lack of character discernment on the part of this other missionary – and that better alignment with our new partner meant he was correctly discerning Ahab’s character. These assumptions were dead wrong.
A wolf’s character cannot be hidden indefinitely. Their predatory heart will periodically emerge in predatory actions (Matt 7:16). This means that, like Ahab, wolves will tend to have a controversial past.
Wolves get deeply involved in the ministry and show great potential.
We confronted Ahab about these claims of past apostasy and you couldn’t ask for a more (seemingly) humble and genuinely repentant response than the one he gave us. He admitted that the apostasy was true, but short-lived, and claimed to have already repented to everyone of this dark season in their life, and that he was willing to do whatever it took to demonstrate that repentance to us. Given our biases about the missionaries involved, we took Ahab at his word and pressed forward, encouraged.
Ahab soon became deeply invested in our house church. His family were the most faithful and some of the most engaged attendees. They introduced Frank and Patty to our group and even led them to faith. We were so encouraged to finally have some local believers who were committed to gathering weekly with the saints. Ahab soon offered his own home for our house church services and we quickly took him up on his offer. Our team leader was on furlough and pushing us to get the church meetings out of our own homes and into locals’ as soon as possible. This was viewed as one key toward reproducibility. So, all parties involved were thrilled when we moved the weekly service into Ahab’s home. It didn’t take long for Ahab to begin helping us with leading the prayer time and for us to invite him to join our weekly sermon-prep study with Harry*, the other local brother showing leadership potential. This was a weekly gathering that served as a place to invest in men who could be future leaders of the church.
Wolves tend to have a solid season of deep investment in the local church. This is how they build trust and gain influence.
Wolves are unpredictably harsh and judgmental.
Every once in a while, Ahab would lash out in harsh and judgmental language when speaking of other local believers, pastors, or missionaries. These statements seemed inconsistent with his measured, wise speech that we typically observed. The tone of these outbursts seemed like it didn’t match the level of the offense nor the grace of the gospel that Ahab professed to be walking in. We took note of this, but viewed it as a discipleship issue that we’d need to help him with over time. In hindsight, it was evidence of secret sin brewing.
Like Judas lashing out at the woman’s gift of pure nard (John 12:5), wolves will sometimes let their true character show via harsh and surprisingly judgmental takes on other believers. This is evidence that there are some very bad things going on in their hearts.
Wolves are followed by lots of smoke, but expertly hide the fire.
Ahab and his family’s mixed reputation seemed to follow them like a cloud of gnats they could never quite get rid of. Regularly, we’d hear serious concerns expressed by other missionaries or local believers that just didn’t seem to match what we were seeing with our own eyes. Ahab was one of our promising leaders in training, and nothing that we had witnessed ourselves gave us any solid evidence for the claims being regularly made by those outside of our church plant. But the claims just kept on coming. Surely, Ahab couldn’t be deceiving us so effectively. It must be the other missionaries and believers from other local groups. After all, they were unclear and squishy when it came to the gospel, true conversion, and healthy church, so they must have been confused about Ahab also.
As the wisdom of our forbears says, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Wolves can’t hide all the smoke they generate, but for a time they can expertly conceal the fire from those that they are focused on deceiving. Wise gospel laborers will keep an eye on men whose lives generate an unusual amount of proverbial smoke.
Wolves secretly divide the flock and the leadership for personal gain.
“Is Ahab a good man?”
“Yes, he is a faithful member of our church. Why do you ask this?”
“Well, he approached me this week and told me to keep my distance from all you foreigners. He told me not to trust you, but to trust him. Listen, I left Islam to get away from this kind of petty division. If Christianity is no different, then I don’t think I want to be involved with you all.”
This conversation over dinner with a new believer was a turning point for me and my wife. We had been hearing of a lot of smoke, but here at last was something solid, and very concerning. Ahab had allegedly approached a promising new believer in secret and sought to sow division in the church. This new believer didn’t seem to have any advantage in mentioning this to us, but rather to be honestly asking about something that concerned him. Soon other evidence emerged that Ahab was secretly building personal loyalty with other new believers in the church, creating a faction of sorts. He seemed to be doing this by telling the new believers that we foreigners (and me in particular) were receiving fabulous amounts of money for baptisms and that we were withholding funds that were sent for local believers. He was making promises to the other locals that he knew how to get them access to ministry salaries, Christian conferences, and visas to Western countries.
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Optimistic Denominationalism

It is one of the realities of the Christian faith that people love to criticize—the reality that there are a host of different denominations and a multitude of different expressions of Christian worship. We hear it from skeptics: If Christianity is true and if it really changes people, then why can’t you get along? We hear it from Roman Catholics: If the Protestant faith is biblical, then why is it splintered while the Catholic Church remains unified? I do not deny that both skeptics and Catholics ask valid questions.
But while believers have become accustomed to responding to this criticism with a sense of shame, I choose to see it in a different light. I choose to see each tradition as highlighting different aspects of God’s purpose for his people. This is what I consider “optimistic denominationalism.” It admits that the church is, indeed, divided along many different lines. But it looks for the good in it. Instead of focusing on the matters that divide us, it focuses on what each tradition chooses to emphasize.
The various paedobaptist traditions, for example, emphasize welcoming children into the full life of the worshipping community as did our Old Testament forebears. “Let the children come,” they say, “and come all the way by being baptized and received.” The Baptist traditions, on the other hand, value the beauty of the children of believers being raised in the church, professing faith, and being baptized on the basis of it. Only one of the two traditions ultimately has it right and only eternity will finally resolve the debate. But today, rather than focusing on matters of disagreement, why not take the optimistic approach and appreciate what each emphasizes? Both do what they do to honor the Lord and celebrate his grace.
Some Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed traditions sing only Psalms in their church services. They are convinced that unless the New Testament explicitly prescribes an element of worship, they should avoid it. Most other traditions will gladly sing psalms, hymns, and “spiritual songs” (such as modern worship or choruses). They are convinced that we must avoid what the New Testament explicitly forbids, but otherwise have a measure of freedom. Only one can be right, but both can be fully seeking to honor God and each can show us something beautiful: Those who hold to a strict interpretation of the regulative principle can emphasize the beauty of allowing God to regulate our worship while those who hold to it in a looser sense can emphasize the many ways in which God is pleased to receive our worship. We can face the disagreement with optimism and appreciate what each tradition brings to our experience of Christian worship.
Brethren churches traditionally celebrate the Lord’s Supper each Sunday. Worship without the Lord’s Supper is hardly recognizable as worship, they insist, for they understand Jesus to command it and the early church to model it. Churches in several other traditions celebrate the Lord’s Supper on a monthly or quarterly basis, some even insisting it is so important an occasion that they must spend weeks in proper examination and preparation. In the former tradition, we see the desire to commune with the Lord briefly but regularly while in the latter the desire is to commune with the Lord at such depth and length that it must be done infrequently. Rather than criticizing those who take an opposite viewpoint, why not appreciate what they choose to emphasize and respect their reasoning? Though their convictions may lead them to different denominations, we can see that distinction with optimism rather than pessimism.
Instead of criticizing the differences, we can appreciate the varied emphases.Share
This applies to any number of matters for which Christians have varied understandings—using instruments in worship or singing a cappella, permitting female deacons or reserving the office for men, keeping young children in the service or providing age-appropriate programs for them. In all of these ways, we can look to other traditions as observers rather than critics, to appreciate that while others may differ from us in our convictions, they do so for the best of motives. And instead of criticizing the differences, we can appreciate the varied emphases.
Some time ago I reflected on all this and suggested that as a prism refracts the light and separates it into its component colors, the differing traditions refract the Bible’s varying commands and emphases. As long as those traditions and denominations love Jesus, honor the Bible, and preach the gospel, we can love and respect them, appreciating what they add to our understanding of Christian worship.

The Real Function of Third Way Rhetoric

Written by Aaron M. Renn |
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
So much of the teachings of the urban church flatter the sensibilities of the people in the pews rather than fundamentally challenging them about the way they are living their lives…The pedimental nature of third way rhetoric is very effective, and it’s easy to see why it appeals to the striver class people who populate evangelical urban churches.

“Third way” rhetoric that has been deployed by some evangelicals was once praised but is now often criticized. People are rejecting the idea that the truth is somewhere in the middle of left and right, or is some hybrid thereof. Today, even the evangelical proponents of third way rhetoric have adopted new language like “diagonalizaton” to suggest that the Christian truth is not simply somewhere in the middle but something else entirely. (I believe Christopher Watkin came up with this formulation).
I actually think that a third way approach can be valid in a lot of circumstances in describing truth. For example, Aristotle said that virtue was a mean between two extremes. Not that perfect virtue always was at the midpoint of the two, but that it lies somewhere in the middle.
Similarly, in a theological context, we could say that it’s possible to over-emphasize Christ’s humanity and end up falling into Arianism, or over-emphasize his divinity and end up in Docetism.
Very often in life there actually are ditches on both sides of the road. So in terms of conveying truth, I think talking about a third way can often be accurate.
The real function of third way rhetoric is not conveying a truth claim, however. It is to elevate the status or moral position of the person using it—and often that of his audience as well.
Third way rhetoric is a pedimental structure. I first encountered the idea of pedimental language in reading Mary Douglas’ wonderful book Leviticus as Literature.
A pediment is an architectural feature that looks like this.
While this public domain image has four columns, you often see it with just two. The left and right corners of the triangle serve to emphasize the corner that is elevated in the center.
When used in rhetoric, pedimental rhetoric functions similar to a chiasm in emphasizing the central point. We see this structure in Leviticus. Douglas argues that chapters 18 and 20 have a pair of repeated sexual regulations that emphasize the social justice regulations in Leviticus 19 (which I believe she argues is actually the central focus of the book).
Let’s apply this to contemporary evangelical rhetoric with a simplified example. If I get into a pulpit and say, “Christianity is conservative because it cares about sin, but it’s also liberal because it cares about the poor,” what is the function of this?
Factually, it conveys that true Christianity cares about both sin and helping the poor, which is true. But it also suggests that I am better than both liberals or conservatives, because I have the complete truth in contrast to their partial truths. And because you, my parishioners, are in my church, you are probably better than all those people too.
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Take Your Guilt and Sins to God

If we are honest, we know that sometimes our greatest pain comes from dealing with the consequences of unfaithfulness and sin—whether our own or that of someone close to us. And when we find ourselves there—and we will—Lamentations is our handbook.

As we wrap up our four-week series, Redeeming Trauma, we need to pay attention to the first chapter of the book of Lamentations, which guides in how to think about extreme suffering which may be part of God’s faithful discipline. The book of Lamentations is a testimony to the sovereign faithfulness of God in judgment and the enduring mercies of God in the face of extreme suffering.
Lamentations is a gift because it reveals in shocking language that sin does not deliver on its promises. Sin’s pleasure is only for a moment. Charles Swindoll writes, “[Lamentations] is a mute reminder that sin, in spite of all its allurement and excitement, carries with it heavy weights of sorrow, grief, misery, barrenness, and pain. It is the other side of the “eat, drink, and be merry coin.”
Jeremiah’s lament over the destruction of Jerusalem leads us on the painful path to God’s mercy. We, like Jeremiah, live with the temporary consequences of living in a sinful world. How do we deal with sin’s harm in us, among us, and around us? There are times we must see difficult circumstances as God’s discipline or training rather than the dealings of blind fate (Hebrews 12:5–11).
The three weeks we spent in Psalm 22 brought us near to the heart of God. They brought us near to the heart of the suffering Savior, who understands all our suffering—and can heal what hurts and restore what sin ruins. However, my role as a preacher and shepherd also requires me to warn us of the judgment that will come if we refuse to repent.
When we finally get serious about turning away from our sin and following God, the way might be difficult for a long time as the Holy Spirit exposes sin in our hearts. This is the reason we are ending this brief series by looking at the relationship of sin to extreme suffering.
Not All Personal Suffering Is Caused by Personal Sin
Please understand me! I am not saying that all personal suffering results from personal sin. If you’ve been a reader of this blog for any length of time, then you know that is not what I teach because that is not what Scripture teaches. We do not want to be like Job’s friends, who were called miserable counselors because their knee-jerk reaction to suffering was to blame the sufferer (Job 16:2).
However, we also don’t want to swing the pendulum to the other unbiblical extreme, which says, “Because God is loving and gracious and forgiving, he will prevent us from reaping what we have sown.” Extreme suffering can get complicated. Even if we are not the cause of it, we typically complicate it with our sinful response. So, suffering is often a muddy mixture.
Sometimes, God uses the natural consequences of our sin to humble us, and soften our hearts, so that we will be repent—and be restored to joyful obedience and peaceful fellowship with him. God is faithful to discipline those who belong to Him, and merciful to forgive and restore us when we repent.
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The Bible Says It, I Believe It

No matter the teaching, no matter the offense—if the Bible says it, we ought to believe it. Period. We should never apologize for what the Bible says. 

Society is saturated with apologizers. Every which way we turn, someone is apologizing for something because it offended someone. It’s a vicious cycle. And Christians are, in part, included in this mess. We may not necessarily say, “I’m sorry” for a particular doctrine or Bible verse, but we sometimes may try to downplay it in order to soften its blow. Don’t soften the blow.
Sometimes we don’t stand up for what we believe in. And, when we do, we then cave if there is pushback. We don’t want criticism thrown our way; we are afraid of any name-calling or slander. So, instead of planting our feet even further, we draw back. We backtrack. We apologize.
Christian, we should never apologize for what the Bible teaches.
Our attitude should be what the late R.C. Sproul spoke about:
I’ve mentioned many times my reaction to the Christian bumper sticker: “God says it. I believe it. That settles it.” Huh? God says it. I believe it. Now, it’s settled? No, if it’s going to be a Christian statement, you say, “God said it. That settles it.” It doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not. If it’s God’s Word, beloved, it’s settled, and this is what the psalmist understood, and he says, “It has been settled in heaven from eternity.”
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Don’t Confuse Secondary or Tertiary with Unimportant

We should think through tertiary and secondary matters and think carefully about what the scriptures say and how our approach to them will impact our churches. We may not write people out of the corpus if they land differently to us, but where we land may have implications that matter far more than we tend to think.

If you have been around the church any length of time, you will have probably come across people talking about primary and secondary issues. Primary issues are those essential gospel matters over which we cannot simply agree to disagree. Secondary matters were thought to be those matters that we can disagree over without writing each other out of the kingdom as a result. For many, primary meant important and secondary meant, effectively, unimportant.
Seeing some of the problems with that, theological triage advocates have seen something closer to a three tiered system of parsing issues. First order issues are those primary gospel matters the like of which, if they are denied, makes a person an unbeliever. Second order issues are those that don’t mean a person isn’t a believer but would make it hard for two people to sit comfortably together in the same church. Disagreements at the secondary level might not stop you doing gospel work together but might stop you belonging in membership to the same church. Third order issues are those matters that you might comfortably disagree on without thinking anyone outside the kingdom nor suggesting they couldn’t be part of your church.
These approaches to thinking about how to understand points of disagreement in the church is really important. We do need to know whether this particular disagreement is one that means a person is showing they don’t belong to Jesus at all or whether they just disagree with your particular perspective that is not a core part of belonging to a local church, let alone to the kingdom. If we are going to have any ability to live in community with people we will inevitably disagree with from time to time, and knowing we have to interact with believers from beyond the four walls of our own local church here and there, we do have to think carefully about how to judge these issues. But recognising that, we shouldn’t fall into the opposing ditch of suggesting secondary or even tertiary essentially mean unimportant.
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Precision Pastoring: Nourishing the Caregiver’s Soul

With their deep understanding of the brutal realities of my life and the potential dangers that lurk, my pastors do not “motivate” me; they shepherd me. Modeling “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Deuteronomy 8:3,  Matthew 4:4). They preach the whole counsel of God provided in the Scriptures.

“Are we serving you well?”
The unexpected question from two pastors caught me off guard, prompting a moment of reflection. As pastors of a large Nashville church, their humility in asking about their ministry’s impact on my life deeply touched me. Despite being one of several thousand members, their concern for my well-being amidst the challenges I faced as the sole caregiver for my wife with severe disabilities was both surprising and humbling.
The context, however, contained the impetus. As the sole caregiver for my wife with severe disabilities and a medical history that now spans forty years and 85+ operations, they recognized the strain on my life. They also knew that our circumstances would not get easier with age and that my wife’s broken body and amputated limbs would not be reversed this side of Heaven.
Reflecting on what they inquired, I answered them in a way that seemed to surprise them.
“I am in the congregation and listen to every one of your sermons—and you know my challenges. If your preaching and teaching don’t effectively help me better understand the Gospel and how it applies to my life as a caregiver, then what’s the point of the message?
As they listened intently, I explained, “My journey as a caregiver is all-encompassing and spans a lifetime. I know how to “care-give,” but do I know how to live? Do I understand the principles and precepts of scripture as they apply to me as someone who watches someone suffer daily? What do I do with fear, guilt, despair, and a host of other issues that caregivers feel?
While the men nodded with understanding, I concluded, “Your clear, concise, and precise teaching of the scriptures is what equips me to endure—this is how you are caring for me.”
Those pastors, whom I count as dear friends, still invest in my life even though I moved across the country several years back. With great clarity and sincerity, they spoke to the heart issue I bear—and that all caregivers carry: We struggle with a good and loving God who allows the suffering and misery we often see daily.
That conversation with those pastors remains a seminal moment in my understanding of effective pastoral care for hurting congregants. Despite a question that might have opened the door to criticism, their simple inquiry led to “precision pastoring.”
I’ve heard too many pulpits preach a message of “You’re going to get your breakthrough” or “Your challenges are a set-up to a step-up” style sermons. Bluntly speaking, those kinds of topical, motivational messages with a “Jesus” flair mean nothing to me—nor to the thousands of caregivers I’ve talked to over the years.
Jesus told Peter to “feed my sheep,” not entertain or inspire them.
Our friends who live near our home in Montana run a ranch filled with cattle, sheep, and goats. During the lambing season, I love to stop and watch the baby goats and lambs playfully hop, prance, and dance around while their cautious mothers watch them, ensuring they stay in line and safe from harm. During this vulnerable time, they remained protected from predators within an oversized pen. At the pen’s center lies a large circular feeder, where the ewes gather around to fuel themselves with ample hay deposits to meet their young’s demanding needs.
The new mothers require lots of sustenance to meet the extreme needs of nursing and protecting their babies. When the weather is cold, and the sheep are at their most vulnerable while giving birth, the watchful ranchers feed and protect them. In warmer weather, they move to pastures where they can live a little more independently.
Numerous accounts share how our savior referred to himself as the shepherd and us as the sheep. I can’t imagine the apostle Peter not understanding the context of raising sheep while listening to Jesus’ command.
Our rancher friends provide an up-close view of “precision shepherding.” Their ranch’s survival depends upon properly feeding the sheep quality food—particularly during harsh climates. If the power goes out, the water troughs can freeze—and during Montana’s often brutal winter climate, the ice requires breaking, a backup generator, or all sorts of other emergency tasks to ensure the livestock’s survival. During those vulnerable times, the ranchers don’t motivate the sheep; they intensely care for them. They only “motivate” them during the warm, relaxed time when they move them from pasture to pasture.
With their deep understanding of the brutal realities of my life and the potential dangers that lurk, my pastors do not “motivate” me; they shepherd me. Modeling “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Deuteronomy 8:3 & Matthew 4:4). They preach the whole counsel of God provided in the Scriptures.
They help me better understand (and anchor my life) in God’s sovereignty, provision, and faithfulness, strengthening my faith to trust Him with the daily grind of my life. They actively engaged, protected, fed, and nourished me with a profound understanding of the Gospel, providing the sustenance that has carried me through the most challenging times.
They still do.
Peter Rosenberger hosts the nationally syndicated radio program, Hope for the Caregiver. His newest book is A Minute for Caregivers—When Every Day Feels Like Monday. www.HopeforTheCaregiver.com
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