When a wife presses into the most difficult aspects of Christian obedience, her life will shout to her sons and daughters that Jesus is telling the truth. In the Christian life, spontaneously “feeling like” doing something is not a prerequisite for actually doing it — trusting God’s promises is. And his word assures us that self-sacrifice, as strenuous as it may be in the moment, is the mainstay of unshakable joy. How meaningful might the lesson be for children if they not only heard mom say it but watched mom live it?

Once there lived a young boy who struggled to obey his mother. Now, you may be thinking, What a boring story. That boy is just like every other child. And so he was — except that he disregarded his mother’s wishes for a very particular, well-formed reason: his mother was a teller, never a shower.
“Eat less sugar,” she would mumble to him, a half-chewed chocolate muffling her voice.
“Stop using the iPad,” she would say, without bothering to look up from her phone.
“Finish your homework,” she would tell him, all while the dirty dishes grew from pile to peak.
“Go and get some exercise,” she would call upstairs, never much mounting the steps herself.
“Drink water, not soda,” “Eat fruits and vegetables instead of junk food,” “Choose sleep over media,” “Give thanks rather than complaining,” “Listen before speaking” — he heard her commands. But he never saw them.
Though his mother reminded him (nearly every day, in fact) that her instructions were “good for him,” over time the boy came to believe that her rules must not have been very good at all. For if they were actually good, she would have done more than say them. She would have lived them.
Regrettably, I’m sometimes not so different from the boy’s mother, especially in one area: submission to authority.
Words to Live By
In the spirit of Ephesians, I often pray our son would embrace parenting as given by God for his good. “Children,” Paul writes, “obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” But for as much as I herald Ephesians 6:1, I find it harder to heed Ephesians 5:22: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.”
One moment, I’m calmly explaining to our toddler that obedience to me as his mom, imperfect as I am, honors God — and the next, I’m unnecessarily quarreling with his dad. As I do, disrespect runs across my face, annoyance through my voice, and unbelief in my heart.
I can’t choose to trust God’s will for children while rejecting his will for wives. He breathed the Bible’s every word into existence (2 Timothy 3:16), and he calls all people — toddlers, seniors, boys, girls, marrieds, singles, husbands, wives — to “live . . . by every word” (Matthew 4:4).
Not just know every word (which would be wise). Not just tell others to obey every word (which is called for). But, first and foremost, live by every word for ourselves. And for wives, submission to our husbands, as the God-appointed head of our household, is one word we are called to embrace with our lives.
To be clear, embracing submission does not mean remaining silent. A submissive wife still speaks up. She asks questions, expresses concern, disagrees. She isn’t afraid to share her heart’s longings or spirit’s burdens with her husband, nor is she afraid to tell others of marital abuse. But what she does fear is a wife’s millennia-old temptation to rule over him whom God has appointed as her head (Genesis 3:16; Ephesians 5:23).
In the wider world, God commands both men and women to submit (Hebrews 13:17; Romans 13:1). But in the home, the call primarily rests on the wife — and therefore on the mother.
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Truth Be Told is excellent for those grappling with anxiety about our culture’s loss of objectivity, refocusing our energy towards the real goal of living with integrity as people of truth. This is a welcome move away from handwringing about our generation’s “feelings over facts” tendencies and gives us something we can work on: our trust in God and growth in holiness. In an age of relativity, people will treasure their “truths”, just as we should treasure our own.

Truth be told, I’m terrible at reading Christian books. I read and listen to all sorts of things. But I have always struggled to get into Christian books.
I was particularly sceptical when I first researched Lionel Windsor’s Truth Be Told. Exploring truth in a post-truth world requires robust engagement with theology and culture, and seemed to me in great danger of being simplistic. A Christian book about “post-truth” could fall into merely critiquing our culture, without actually helping Christians learn to engage with it.
Truth be told? I was wrong.
Dog Whistles to Culture Warriors
Windsor is acutely aware his readers will disagree with him on various points (8). In our postmodern and post-truth world, words can act as dog whistles[1] and trigger people to action in unhelpful ways. Words such as “misinformation” and “cancel culture” seem to act as identity markers—revealing a person’s view on social issues like gender identity, climate change, medical science, and politics. I find myself wary (and weary) of these words as they can fail to convey complexity, compassion and grace whilst affirming the eternal truth of our holy and loving God. Windsor writes as one conscious of cultural minefields and carefully engages with the issues of our secular world.
A Biblical Treatment of Challenging Cultural Issues
Part 1 approaches many important issues with an accessible systematic theology, tackling fake news, digital technology, institutional corruption, relativism, and the cultural shift from post-modernism to post-truth. It concludes by pastorally addressing our propensity to falsehood, reminding us that we are not above it just because we are Christians.
It’s not just the besetting challenge of the postmodern zeitgeist. It’s all of those things but more. The problem is here, on the ground. It’s you and me. Truth is in trouble in our hearts. (66)
Instead of grinding out a token theology chapter to anchor his topical explorations, Windsor dedicates Part 2 of his book to a comprehensive exploration of what Scripture says about truth. This fresh way of tackling the “Bible bit” manages to slice the issue from different angles. He moves through the Old Testament, the Gospel of John, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, and 2 Corinthians, each chapter exploring themes with direct application for Christians living in a broken, complicated, post-truth world.
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Anger is right when we respond to the right things in the right way. It is the appropriate response to sin and injustice. What provokes Jesus’ outburst in Luke 11 is the hypocrisy of the religious leaders and the way they prevent other people coming to God. The climax of his tirade is: “Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering” (Luke 11:52). We begin to enjoy the anger of Jesus by understanding it as the flipside of his love.

Here’s a surprise. In preparation to write about how we relate to Jesus day by day in the here and now, I re-read the Gospels. I was looking out for how he related to people when he was on earth as pointers to how he relates to his people now from heaven. Much of what I found was what I expected. He cares, protects, energizes, touches, and intercedes for his people—then and now. But one thing took me by surprise: Jesus on earth was often angry.
His emotional state may not often be specified, but his words can be surprisingly sharp and his attitude shockingly abrasive. Consider what happens when he goes to the home of a Pharisee in Luke 11:37–54.
Jesus is angry at hypocrisy and injustice (Luke 11:37–54). Imagine the scene with me. Jesus enters a home. Instead of washing his hands, as custom dictated, he goes straight to the table and sits down. This is not a failure of personal hygiene—the Pharisees had extended the ceremonial cleanliness required of temple priests into everyday life. But Jesus deliberately ignores this expectation. Make no mistake: this is a provocative act.
A shocked hush descends, into which Jesus speaks, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.” These are the first words anyone speaks. This is not a discussion that turned into an argument that then got heated. Right from the start, Jesus is confrontational. “Woe to you . . .”, he says three times. It’s as if Jesus is firing off accusations from a verbal machine gun. An expert in the law intervenes. “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.” Big mistake. For Jesus then turns his fire on the experts in the law. They too get three “woes”—just like the Pharisees.
Then Jesus leaves. There’s no record of any food having been eaten! The religious leaders follow him out “to besiege him” with questions. It’s the language of violent assault, as if Jesus is a city under attack. Luke says they “began to oppose him fiercely.” We might say that things have turned ugly, but that would imply a preceding moment of calm!
This is the story told in Luke 11:37–54. But we see this confrontational posture throughout Luke’s Gospel. Here’s just a snapshot.

“Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort” (6:24–26).
“‘You hypocrites! . . .’ When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated.” (13:10–17).
“Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division” (12:51–53).
“When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling.” (19:45–46).

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Even though we wandered from God, He has made a way through Christ’s sacrifice and the Spirit’s indwelling for us to be fully restored to the Manufacturer’s original design. We will experience this through gradual, daily transformation in this life (and the more we cooperate, the greater will be that growth) and then one day we will be exactly like He is. 

God created men and women at the earliest dawn. We are the height of God’s creation, and He made us like no other being. The design of man and his purpose are summed up in one simple verse.
Let us make man in Our image and let him rule… over all the earth (Genesis 1:26)
We were made like no other creature, with a soul and a spirit, so that we might be just like God. And He designed us on purpose, with a purpose: that we might rule over the earth with Him.
Here is the foundational truth about us. Read the following sentence several times.
He made us like He is so we can do what He does!
John’s Testimony
The beloved Apostle, John, testifies in his first letter that God sent Jesus to restore us to God’s original design even though man fell and was separated from God. Christ’s payment for our sins on the cross and our trust in Him brought us back to God. And at the moment of our salvation, He comes to literally live in us through His Spirit. We can now fulfill God’s original purpose. He now says this about true followers of Christ.
“As He is, so also are we in this world.” (1 Jn. 4:17)
We are a “little lower than God,” the Psalmist said (Psalm 8:5), and in our redeemed condition, we have the capacity to rule over this world. Before we were restored to Christ, the world, the flesh, and the devil ruled over us. We were powerless to overcome them. But then, God saved us by His grace and came to indwell us. This transformed us, giving us what we needed to fulfill the original design.
We can allow the world, our flesh, and the devil to rule over us if we are not wise and cooperating with God.
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There is much that matters to the Christian life, but nothing more so than our willingness to see what lies ahead through the eyes of the one who made it from before the foundation of the world. Our call to not be anxious or worried about the circumstances of life is born out of our sure and certain hope in the King of all things. 

This past weekend we enjoyed another blessed time of rest and relaxation at our denomination’s camp and conference center, Bonclarken. There are moments where I like to think Paul’s words in Hebrews are speaking of our home in Flat Rock when he says, “But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” I joke, if only slightly.
Bonclarken was born from a contest in which Sallie Miller Brice of Chester, South Carolina submitted the winning name in 1921. It is a combination of two Latin and one Scots word which when placed together means Good, Clear, Vision. There is something to be said for each of those words in the Christian life. Individually taken they illustrate in their own way a part of the reason why we love Jesus. We love Him because He is good to us in more ways than we can count. We love Him because His word to us is clear, without blemish, and always true. We love Him because He provides to the church a purpose, a vision, through which we can awaken every day and know what our reason for being is and know what our future beholds. We are to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever, not merely for what He does for us, but for who He is.
This last one is a thing that we would be wise to take more time to consider. Especially as we face difficulties in the day-to-day. Having a bigger picture of the coming glory found alone in Jesus Christ can be a great help to shout down the attempts of the evil one to cause us to doubt God’s goodness, clarity, and ownership of that which is to come. For today’s prayer and worship help we are going to walk through some of the aspects of how we can change the way we look at things and move to having a certainty of hope in the eternal promises found in Christ.
Imagine if you will what vision means to persons like Simeon and Anna in Luke 2. As they waited for the coming of the Messiah they did so with no real outward benefit, until their was.
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Written by J. Warner Wallace |
Sunday, September 8, 2024
In my new book, God’s Crime Scene: A Cold-Case Detective Examines the Evidence for A Divinely Created Universe, I take this very approach. It’s reasonable to build a case for an extraordinary claim (the existence of God) with rather “ordinary” circumstantial evidence (particularly when this cosmological, biological, mental and moral evidence is cumulative in nature). In the end, all of us make a case for something extraordinary and incomprehensible from very ordinary evidence.

In 1981, there were approximately 24,159,000 people living in the state of California. That year, 3,143 people committed the crime of murder. Most people were law abiding, peace loving citizens; very few (only .01% of the population) were murderers. That’s an extraordinarily low number if you stop and think about it. One of these 1981 California murderers (representing only .000004 % of the population) killed his wife and claimed that she ran away from home, leaving her young children and abandoning her family. This killer was a beloved member of the victim’s family and they refused to believe he was responsible for her death, even as I prepared to take the case to trial. I can understand why they would feel this way. It was an extraordinary claim really: a gentle and friendly man, representing only .000004% of the entire population, without any history of violence and without any apparent motive, accused of committing the worst possible crime. The victim’s family repeatedly told me this was an extraordinary claim they simply could not accept, and even after showing them the evidence I gathered prior to trial, they refused to believe it.
The jury trial lasted about a month. Dateline (the NBC news program) was in the courtroom with us during the course of the trial and the correspondent for this show later interviewed me on camera. He was incredulous about the suspect’s involvement. The evidence was entirely circumstantial. That’s not unusual for my cases (all of them have been built on circumstantial evidence), but this one was particularly extraordinary. There wasn’t a single piece of physical evidence. In fact, we didn’t even have the victim’s body. There wasn’t even a crime scene; the case was worked as a “missing person” investigation back in 1981 and no one examined the home where the victim was killed.
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Wine can only be furnished in times of stability. Poignantly, wine then represents rest. Wine needs deep roots, hardy vines, and vats stored with the leisure to ferment. The Mosaic Law seems at first to overlook the wine offering, but as the promised Canaan rest drew near, wine took a more prominent role in the worship of God’s people.

When we think about the sacrifices and offerings in Moses’ Law we most likely jump to thinking about the bloody offering of a lamb. While this is certainly the most prominent offering found in the Law, it isn’t the only one. Like the great Storyteller He is, God hints at another kind of covenantal offering in Exodus 29:40, where wine is poured out along with the sacrificial lamb.
In the thorough sacrificial instructions in Leviticus this drink offering gets very little mention and scarcely any description of how it should be performed. That is until it’s mentioned in connection with the Feast of Weeks––what we would call Pentecost (Lev. 23:13).
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God did not redeem us by the blood of His Son in order for us to sit comfortably in our pew every week. The continuous shaping of the Sabbath equips, prepares, challenges, and changes us. Have patience in the work of Sabbath observance—in your own heart and in the response of the congregation. The Spirit is at work in these outward and ordinary means.

Whenever I get the opportunity to speak about worship in either a Sunday School series or an Inquirers class, I try to work in the following thought from Hart and Muether’s With Reverence and Awe:
“God’s intention was to bless his people through the constant and conscientious observation of the [Sabbath], week after week and year after year. Believers are sanctified through a lifetime of Sabbath observance. In other words, the Sabbath is designed to work slowly, quietly, seemingly imperceptively in reorienting believers’ appetites heavenward. It is not a quick fix, nor is it necessarily a spiritual high. It is an ‘outward and ordinary’ ordinance, part of the steady and healthy diet of the means of grace.”
In a world of quick fixes, easy steps, emotionalism, and intellectualism, Hart and Muether remind us of the slow and quiet work of the Spirit in congregational worship.
As the Westminster Shorter Catechism teaches in Q. 88:
Q. What are the outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption?
A. The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicates to us the benefits of redemption are, his ordinances, especially the Word, sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for salvation.
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Christians who display joy will bring something positive to the workplace that the world cannot provide. When we go through a trial and have confidence in God’s ability to work out all things for good, those who do not know him may ask us where this joy comes from. At that moment, we have earned the right to explain to our co-workers the reason for the hope we have in Christ (1 Peter 3:15).

In my Christian walk, I have observed several key truths about the Holy Spirit I would like to explore as we prepare for Pentecost Sunday. I discussed the first two in my recent article, and I will look at the third and fourth today.

The power of the indwelling Spirit enables Christians to do great things for Christ’s Kingdom.
We experience God’s presence through the Holy Spirit as he teaches us and reminds us of Jesus’s words.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit help us to find our purpose.
The fruit of the Spirit makes us like Christ.

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit
Here are the passages where the Apostle Paul provides a list of spiritual gifts for all believers: Romans 12:4-8, 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, and Ephesians 4:11-13. The Apostle Peter mentions them in 1 Peter 4:10-11.
To begin, let us go back to the book of Exodus, where we see a worker who yielded his talents to serve God. God selected a craftsman named Bezalel, one of the talented construction workers who he ordained to be in charge of building and furnishing his tabernacle. God tells Moses, “I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts” (Ex. 31:1-3).
I do not think that Bezalel suddenly developed these things overnight. To the contrary, he had already possessed these technical skills, aptitudes, and know-how because God had sovereignly developed them over the course of his entire life “for such a time as this.” The presence of the Spirit of God enabled him to do the job well, with the strength that God provided to accomplish this great work.
The spiritual gifts each Christian has were designed to be used in and out of the church, wherever we work. Paul indicated that this outworking of the Holy Spirit was “given for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7). Miroslav Volf writes, “As the firstfruits of salvation, the Spirit of Christ is not only active in the Christian fellowship but also desires to make an impact on the world through the fellowship.”
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Despite how common war is, we still experience it as abnormal. Sure, there is more than a bit of normalization that can occur after long periods of unrest and conflict, but the fact that we recoil at violence, resist war as much as we do, and strive for peace says something else as well. The world is not as it should be. In other words, humans, broken by sin, have broken a world intended by God for flourishing. 

According to reports, the Russia-Ukraine war recently entered a new phase. When the Ukrainian army moved into Russia, it became arguably the first time in history a nuclear-armed nation lost part of its core territory. At the same time, the situation in the Middle East continues to unravel. For months, western naval forces in the Red Sea have been battling Islamist rebels out of Yemen, and Israel continues its retaliation in Gaza for the Hamas massacres last October while also having to respond to Hezbollah in Lebanon. All this, as the potential grows of a wider conflict involving Israel, Iran, and possibly the United States. 
Meanwhile, Venezuelan incumbent Nicolás Maduro lost re-election but, to no one’s surprise, his Marxist regime has refused to yield power, sparking riots across the country. The Prime Minister of Bangladesh was recently forced from office, which has opened the door to Islamist attacks on the Hindu minority. In Africa, from Nigeria to Sudan, a combination of Muslim insurgents and Russian mercenaries are attempting to take power. And, of course, tensions between America and China have been escalating in the Pacific for a while now. 
Future historians may refer to our moment as “the early days of World War III,” but is this an extraordinary time of crisis? In one sense, we live in a remarkably peaceful time. There has not been a war between any of the Great Powers in generations. On the other hand, there have been plenty of wars, and peace has been maintained by a mutual threat of mass destruction.  
And there have been numerous close calls. In 1983, Soviet authorities nearly mistook a NATO exercise in Europe as a prelude to invasion. Twenty years earlier, there was the Cuban Missile Crisis. 
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