One of my favorite details about Easter Sunday, and Jesus’s resurrection body, is his scars. The victory of Easter is so great, the triumph of the risen Christ over sin and death is so resounding, that we might be prone to overlook, or quickly forget, an unexpected detail like this.

When Jesus first appeared to his disciples, “they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit” (Luke 24:37). So Jesus says to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:38–39). Then Luke comments, “And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet” — meaning, he showed them his scars (Luke 24:40).

In the Gospel of John, when Jesus finally appears to doubting Thomas after eight long days, he says to him, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe” (John 20:27).

That Jesus’s resurrected body would still show evidence of his wounds, that the scars of crucifixion could still be seen and touched, was both a confirmation and a surprise. The confirmation was that this was in fact him — and him risen. The same body that was killed on the cross rose from the grave. He was not a spirit or ghost. He was risen, fully alive, now in glorified humanity.

“Jesus’s scars are marks of his love. His scars tell the good news that he did not die for his own sins but for ours.”

The surprise is that we might expect a resurrected body not to have scars. That might seem like a defect. But it is not a defect. It is a feature. Because these scars, these rich wounds, are marks of his love. These scars tell the good news that he did not die for his own sins, but for ours. His wounds are invitations to sinners and assurances to his saints. His scars preach good news. They are marks of Easter glory, the very glory that makes the horrors of his death into what we now call “Good Friday.”

The Gospel in All Caps

And so on Easter Sunday, we come to the end of Galatians, and one of the last things Paul writes with his own hand is this: “I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17). Like Jesus, Paul also had gospel scars — scars which pointed not to his own work, but to Jesus’s work.

Just as sinners had struck and killed the Son of God, so too sinners had struck and scarred his messenger. In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul mentions some of what he has suffered for the sake of Christ: “. . . countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned” (2 Corinthians 11:23–25). Paul’s scars, “the marks of Jesus” he received from preaching the resurrection of Christ, are his final argument in Galatians. Before he closes in Galatians 6:18 with, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen,” he puts the final period in place with his own life — with what he has been willing to suffer in order to preach and defend the meaning of Good Friday and the news of Easter Sunday.

But not only is Paul’s final argument “the marks of Jesus” that he carries in his own body, but in this last section, he takes up the pen himself, relieving the secretary to whom he has dictated the rest of the letter. And so he says in Galatians 6:11, “See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.”

This is Paul’s way — here at the end, with so much on the line in Galatians — of shifting into bold font. This is the apostle Paul in all caps. So, these precious five sentences of Galatians 6:12–17 that will follow are direct and blood-earnest, with a power that is very fitting for Easter Sunday. And what we see is that this last flourish of Paul’s pen turns on the reality of boasting. Let’s look at these verses in that light, with Easter eyes, in three steps.

1. Humans are born to boast.

We are born boasters. You are a born boaster — in two senses. The first sense is that we are boasters by creation. God designed us, before sin entered in, with the capacity to boast. Indeed, he designed us with the calling to boast. And what I mean by boasting is rejoicing out loud in words.

God made humans not only to think and do, but to feel and to speak. He gave us hearts, and he gave us mouths. He created us in his image, meaning he created us to image him in this world, to represent him and remind others of him — both fellow humans and the watching angels.

And he not only gave us the ability to think and consider, but also to feel. He not only gave us bodies to move and work and do, but tongues to speak, giving meaning to our works with words. In other words, God made us to boast in him — that is, to not only know him with our minds, but rejoice in him in our hearts, and to not only live in obedience to him, but speak words out of our hearts that point others to him. God made us to boast in him.

Because of Sin

And as we know all too well, though, there is a second sense in which we are born to boast. We are born into sin, and so our natural inclination to boast often becomes sinful boasting. Instead of rejoicing out loud about God, we rejoice out loud about ourselves in all the various and complex forms this takes. We all know this. We all have lived this. And of course, we’re often far quicker to recognize it in others than in ourselves.

As a youth baseball coach, let me tell you that we don’t have to teach kids to boast. Rather, we try to help them not indulge their instinct to boast in the heat of the game. We say things like, “Let your play do the talking.”

What about your own soul? What are your boasts? What aspects of life — whether manifest gifts from God or seeming abilities and accomplishments — do you rejoice in most and feel most drawn to express in words? What are you so regularly excited about that you can’t help but talk about? What qualities, possessions, abilities, achievements, or relational connections make you look good when others hear about them?

“The question isn’t whether we will boast, but in what and in whom.”

When Paul takes up the pen for himself in Galatians 6:11, he puts boasting at the heart of his last push toward the Galatians. They, as well as the false teachers trying to influence them, and Paul himself, are all born boasters. We are born boasters. The question isn’t whether we will boast, but in what and in whom we will boast.

How Will You Boast?

First, Paul turns to what not to boast in:

It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. (Galatians 6:12–13)

I think this is the most direct and succinct summary of what motivates the troublemakers in Galatia. They are putting on a show to appease unbelieving Jews. They are play-acting. They themselves do not keep the whole Jewish law. They know they can’t, and they don’t want to, besides.

But what they do want to do is avoid persecution. This new movement of Christians, claiming that Jesus is the long-awaited Christ, is troubling Jewish leaders. And now the movement is spreading to Gentiles. Non-Christian Jews want to snuff this out. They begin persecuting Christians — like Paul himself had done, before the risen Christ appeared to him and turned his life upside down.

And so the false teachers are trying to avoid persecution. They want to appease non-Christian Jews by boasting to them that Gentile converts to Christ are coming under the Jewish law. The word here for “make a good showing” is literally “have a good face.” The false teachers themselves don’t keep the law, but they are trying to get Gentile Christians to receive circumcision so they can boast in their flesh and “have a good face” to avoid persecution.

And Paul says that however well-intentioned or naïve this may be, it is dead wrong, and it compromises the very heart of the Christian message that promises Jesus is enough for right standing with God.

So, we are born boasters — by God’s design, and also in our sin. And the false teachers, to save their own flesh (from persecution) want to be able to boast in the flesh (from circumcision) of these Gentile Christians in Galatia.

2. Jesus turns boasting upside down.

Second, Paul contrasts their sinful boast with his own holy boast, which he wants the Galatians, and us, to join him in. This is how he wants us to rejoice in words.

Paul does not say that becoming a Christian banishes all boasting. We still boast. Oh, do we! Worship is boasting. Preaching is boasting. Sharing the gospel is a holy and humble kind of boasting — rejoicing in words. But Christian boasting is not like the natural, sinful boasting into which we’re born. It is not boasting in the flesh. It is not boasting in outward appearance. It is not boasting in our own strength.

Christian boasting is boasting turned upside down because of the worth and beauty and power of Jesus Christ. Look at Galatians 6:14, which says: “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” So Paul does boast. But he boasts in the cross, of all things. The cross.

Christ on the Cross

Today, it’s easy for us to be all too familiar with the cross. We see them on steeples. We wear them on necklaces. We sing about the cross. And it’s easy to forget or to overlook what the cross meant in the first century.

Some might be familiar with the hymn “Old Rugged Cross,” which calls the cross “an emblem of suffering and shame.” The cross was horrific. It was reserved for the worst of rebels against the Roman empire, and it was designed to not only make death literally excruciating and lengthy, but also utterly shameful.

And Paul says, “May I never boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

What a turn, that the very thing — a crucified Messiah — that seemed so shameful, such a stumbling block to Jews, and such folly to Gentiles, would be not only a critical truth for Christians, but central. We talk about the cross every Sunday. We remember it at the Lord’s Table. We depict it in baptism. The cross — the public execution of the Son of God — is not just a barrier to overcome to embrace the Christian faith, but it is at the very heart of our faith. We celebrate it, and we draw attention to it. We boast in it.

Why is that? Because the wounds Jesus received at the cross were not for his own sins, but for ours. Isaiah 53:5 says,

He was pierced for our transgressions;     he was crushed for our iniquities;upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,     and with his wounds we are healed.

The eternal Son of God took on human flesh and blood and went to that rugged, offensive, horrific, shamefully public cross, as the spotless Lamb, to die for our sins. For our rebellion, for our countless sinful boasts in our own flesh, we were the ones who deserved to spill our own blood in violent death and be eternally separated from God.

But the wonder of Christianity, the heart of our faith, the very good news which we call “the gospel,” is that Jesus went to the cross for us — for all those who would take Paul’s invitation to turn our boasting upside down and rejoice in words, “Jesus is Lord.”

Our Suffering and Weakness

We see elsewhere in Paul how Jesus turns our boasting upside down. Instead of boasting in comfort and ease in this life, Paul says in Romans 5:3, “We boast in our sufferings.” If God works the greatest good through the greatest evil — that is, the crucifixion of the Son of God — then our sufferings in this life are turned upside down. We grieve them, yet even as we do, we rejoice in what God is doing in and through them.

And instead of boasting in our own strengths and abilities, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:30, “I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” And in 2 Corinthians 12:9 he says, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Jesus turns our boasting upside down. Instead of boasting in our comforts, we boast in our sufferings. Instead of boasting in our strengths, we boast in our weaknesses. Instead of boasting in natural human conceptions of glory and power, just like the world, we boast in the offense of the cross.

Cross-Conscious Boasting

But it’s Easter Sunday. What about the resurrection? When Paul says in Galatians 6:14, “May I never boast unless in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” how does Easter fit? If all Christian boasting is a boasting in and under the banner of the cross, what do we make of our Easter boast that he is risen?

The answer is that, yes, we boast in the resurrection, but it is a certain kind of boasting. It is a humbled boast. It is a God-magnifying boast. It is a Christ-treasuring boast. It is a cross-conscious boast. It is a boast in the surpassing power of God uniquely on display in and through human weakness, and suffering, and even death. It is the kind of boasting that comes on the other side of the grave, on the other side of crucifixion, on the other side of Christ turning the world, and us, upside down.

“We boast in the cross because the one who died there for our sins rose again Sunday morning to be our living Lord.”

And not only is the Easter boast permissible; it is essential. Paul’s boasting in the cross implies the Easter boast. If there is no Easter boast, there is no boasting in the cross. If Jesus stays dead, there is no glory in his cross. We boast in the cross, because the one who died there for our sins rose again Sunday morning to be our living, breathing, loving, reigning Lord. And our boasting in the resurrection is a certain kind of boasting because it is also a boasting in the cross.

3. Christians boast in the resurrection too.

Let’s see the resurrection for ourselves in Galatians 6:15–16, which begin with the word for and explain what Paul has just said Galatians 6:14. Galatians 6:15–16 says, “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.” The first and most obvious link to resurrection is “new creation.” New creation points to God’s action and initiative and power, not ours.

That’s the contrast between circumcision and new creation. In this context, circumcision would be an action the Galatians would take in an effort to make sure they’re in right standing with God. And remarkably, Paul says uncircumcision doesn’t count either. Neither taking that step in the flesh, or refusing to take that step, wins you God’s acceptance. You cannot, in your flesh, earn God’s full and final favor.

What counts is what he does. His work in Christ. His new creation. And the beginning of this new creation is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Easter Sunday is the great first and decisive initiative, the great burst of divine power that launches a new creation, beginning with Christ then coming to us, as God makes us new creatures in Christ, through faith, and then culminating someday with a new heavens and new earth. So “new creation” is the first glimpse of Easter.

Crucified with Christ

The second link to resurrection is the connection to Galatians 2:20, a connection which appears at the end of Galatians 6:14. Here Paul says that by the cross “the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” The other place in this letter where Paul talks about being crucified with Christ is Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Galatians 6:14 only mentions crucifixion, but what Galatians 2:20 makes plain is that crucifixion with Christ by faith means resurrection with him. Just as Christ was crucified and raised, so Paul’s old self — our old self — was crucified with Christ by faith, and we too have been raised to new life. We now live with a new heart, a new center, a new ultimate allegiance; we are new creatures, indwelt by God’s Spirit, even as we continue to battle and make headway against remaining sin.

And this reality of being a “new creation” in Christ is both personal and individual, as well as corporate. Not only did Christ very personally “love me and give himself for me” at the cross, but he loved us, his church, and made us a people together in him.

Galatians 6:16 says that “all who walk by this rule” — that is, all who own God’s work and power in making them new creatures — are God’s true people. He calls them “the Israel of God.” This is the church, the true Israel. “The Jerusalem above,” as he says in Galatians 4:36. Or like he says in Philippians 3:3, “We are the [true] circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and [boast] in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.”

There is a twist of irony here in response to the false teachers. Do you want to be God’s people? Do you want to be in “the Israel of God,” in contrast to the Israel of the flesh? Then leave behind the life of flesh, circumcision, and law, and live instead according to the Spirit and faith and love, as those who have been loved by God in Christ.

Scarred for Christ

Finally, we end with one last Easter connection to the resurrection: “the marks of Jesus.” Paul comes to the end of Galatians, takes the pen in his own hand to write Galatians 6:11–16, and then his one last word, before the concluding benediction, is one final boast. And it is a boast in the cross: “From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17).

In other words, Paul is saying, “Not only do I answer with this letter, but I answer with my life. My skin is scarred — from being beaten, and lashed, and stoned — because I have stood by this gospel with my own life.”

He is saying, “Rather than trying to tweak the message to avoid persecution, as the false teachers are doing, I have not been deterred by threats. Rather than seeking, under pressure, to make marks in other people’s flesh and boast in a head count of circumcisions, marks have been made in my flesh as I have preached and defended the truth that Jesus’s cross and resurrection, embraced by faith alone, are enough to get and keep us right with God.”

“And so I bear on my own body,” Paul says, “as faint echoes and pointers, the very ‘marks of Jesus’ that he bears on his resurrection body — marks that are no defect, but shine with glory.” Paul boasts in the cross and the resurrection. And so we boast, The Lord is risen. The Lord is risen indeed.

Commune with the Living Christ

As we come to the Lord’s Table on this Easter Sunday, we celebrate that the Jesus whom we remember here is alive. His resurrection not only makes good on God’s word, and not only vindicates his sinless life, and not only confirms that his cross-work was effective to cover our sins, and not only gives us access to that salvation by union with him, but the resurrection means he is alive, right now, in glorified humanity, scars and all, at God’s right hand, to know and enjoy forever.

We call this “Communion” not only because we commune with each other as we come together to his Table, but first and foremost because we commune with him — the risen, living Christ. As we eat in faith, we receive him afresh, by his Spirit, and commune with our risen, living Lord.

The world makes its quiet but furious war against death, groping to live forever. Plastic surgery, obsessive fitness, compulsive dieting, pouring billions into scientific research searching for the holy grail of immortality. The author of Hebrews describes the condition as a lifelong slavery to the fear of death (Hebrews 2:15).

Try as we may, Adam’s and Eve’s children cannot shake the ancient nightmare.

[God] drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:24)

Humanity, east of Eden, still reaches out in vain for that Tree of Life.

Curing Death

How would the world change overnight if all people everywhere heard that a man had cured death? How many ages would pass celebrating the discovery? But as it stands, these same people bypass the knowledge of a true eternity because it is not the eternity they invented.

“How would the world change overnight if all people everywhere heard that man had cured death?”

God has placed in us a sense that life continues after death: “[God] has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Yet most suppress this knowledge of their own immortality. But why?

Because they “did not see fit to acknowledge God” (Romans 1:28) — the God “who inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15). They disavow the truth their hearts would thrill to believe because they do not approve of any eternity with God. Better to steal happy moments from a broken and fleeting mortality, their dead hearts reason, than submerge in an endless existence with the God they disapprove.

Immortal Beings

All men, we know, shall live forever. We trust and love the eternal God, we believe in the resurrection from the dead, we believe Jesus’s promise of eternal life with him. And we know the everlasting fate of the wicked: “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).

Eternity exists, we believe, and all men are immortal. The souls we come in contact with at the ballgame, in the restaurant, walking the dog — shall be a million years from now. The mailman, the bus driver, the nosy neighbor — immortal beings. The most decrepit among us shall outlive the galaxy.

“The most decrepit among us shall outlive the galaxy.”

Even considering those who have gone before us — the deceased grandfather, the fallen child, the departed spouse — though hidden momentarily from our eyes, we know they are and shall be again. Death, we profess, is the Great Interruption, not the Great End.

Falling Leaf

While we say we believe in undying souls (a truth that the world would go delirious to acknowledge), do we give that momentous reality much thought? Does that eternal weight of glory hold much weight with us? Has it changed your week at all?

How many of us have believed upon eternity, as John Foster lamented, in vain?

The very consciousness that your minds have been capable of admitting and dismissing this subject [eternity] without a prolonged and serious emotion, ought to produce at last that seriousness, by means of wonder and alarm, which may well be awakened by the consideration how many years you have believed this truth in vain. (An Essay on the Improvement of Time, 150–151)

How many years have I believed in eternity without much effect? And not just any eternity, but eternity with the Blessed God? Eternity with Jesus Christ? How many of my waking moments of these short and numbered days have orbited around the ceaseless “day of eternity” (2 Peter 3:18)? If in Christ I have hope in this life only, do I really feel myself of all people most to be pitied (1 Corinthians 15:19)?

How this world deceives me. The sturdy tree and its branches I call “this life”; the falling leaf I call, “eternity.”

Forgotten Forever

With one glance of the mind, I realize my madness. Who at sea would give all his affection and thought to a day’s trip onboard, completely disregarding the inescapable land ahead? I forget that “Surely a man goes about as a shadow!” (Psalm 39:6) as a dream (Psalm 78:18–20), as a flower that fades, as grass that withers (Isaiah 40:6–8), as a mere mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes (James 4:14). This world, O my soul remember, “is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17).

I hope you have kept eternity closer at hand than I have.

Have you, Christian — possessor of the mightiest revelations, steward of sacred knowledge, keepers of the way of eternity — appropriated these truths for yourself and distributed them freely to a desperate and decaying world? Has forever bent down with you as you changed diapers? Has it drove with you to work? Has it laughed along while you had a game night with neighbors?

Has “everlasting” brought you low to plead in prayer for your children, your church, your city? Has that terrifying splendor, “immortality,” lifted your gaze from this painted and perishing kingdom to the one that cannot be shaken?

Has eternity provided you an anchor in suffering? Sent you along on a grand mission? Warned you against friendship with Here and Now? Bestowed solemnity to life? Brightened up gloomy days? Infused courage to venture on in Christ? Showed you the coming tsunami that will wash away all these splendid sandcastles? Endowed acquaintances with new significance? Lifted our eyes with abiding gratitude to God? Equipped us to drive a spear through sin?

Have you believed in eternity in vain?

Tree of Life

We must awake to the coming world without end. We are those who look “not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:18).

People all around us live and die for the seen, the felt, the tasted, the pleasurable, the transient. But God has left you and me here to speak, to reason, to plead with immortal souls that they be reconciled to God.

Through faith in Christ, we have reached our hands out to a Tree of Life on Golgotha’s hill, and we will taste of that fruit denied to our first parents:

To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. (Revelation 2:7)

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. (Revelation 22:14)

This tree is within reach because Jesus Christ — the Resurrection and the Life — has drawn near to us. He promises, “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die,” and asks the pertinent question, “Do you believe this?” (John 11:25–26).

God give us grace to believe, and to make sure our friends know, our families know, our children know, that eternity is only a short time away.

Many of us see and hear more information in a day than we can possibly manage. Over time, this consistent overload dulls our senses — in particular, our spiritual senses.

Numbness affects more than just our thumbs, which scroll endlessly past trends and trivialities. Our hearts grow cold. We come across a natural disaster or terrible tragedy in one post, only to scroll on to a new life hack for improving our health and wellness, before encountering someone’s commentary on politics or a hilarious video with kids or animals. The result? A blur. A noisy background filled with so much information and so little wisdom.

I give time to social media every day, probably too much sometimes. I also listen to a variety of podcasts that keep me informed of various trends or topics in theology, politics, and cultural analysis. I’m obviously not opposed to these media or channels. I’m grateful for the good I glean from them. But even when we look for what’s good on social media or subscribe to informative and educational podcasts — even when we look for what’s edifying — we still encounter challenges.

For instance, many of us are tempted to think we must always be up-to-date, tightly tethered to the “Listen Now” of our podcast feeds. We run relentlessly after the feeling of being caught up on the latest, or on the cutting edge of whatever’s happening online. We love being in the know. And our devotion to now comes with deep and subtle consequences.

Losing Our Appetite for God

Sometimes the desire to stay on top of online trends and issues leads us to devote too much attention to the present, at the expense of the past — or worse, the eternal. That’s why we do well to look below what’s happening right now, to the foundations of the faith that help us maintain clear perspective on the current debates and controversies of our time.

If we’re to be faithful, we cannot settle for simply skimming the surface of today’s breaking news or this week’s topic of conversation and debate. Faithfulness requires digging, returning to the bedrock of the faith so that we have somewhere to stand. We need roots that go deep so that we can stand tall like a tree, firmly rooted, no matter how hard the cultural winds blow. Without roots, we’re just debris, tossed by the wind, dizzied by swirling news and information.

“The church faces her biggest challenge not when new errors start to win, but when old truths no longer wow.”

In The Thrill of Orthodoxy, my goal is to awaken Christians to the exhilarating beauty of the historic Christian faith. The church faces her biggest challenge not when new errors start to win, but when old truths no longer wow. Our online habits often lead to a mind-numbing and heart-shriveling state in which the deep and rich truths of the Bible no longer startle us. We lose our appetite for the things of God because we’ve stuffed ourselves so full of information about whatever’s now.

Worn Paths to Shallow

We really do not need to stay on top of everything. It’s better to dig beneath the surface of current events and root ourselves in the great story of the world as it’s unfolded in the Scriptures. What do we believe? Why are we here? Where are we going? What is all this world about in the end? Without firm and constant reminders of the truth of Christianity and the ultimate glory of God, we’re likely to be shallow and double-minded, unstable in all our ways (James 1:8), without the wisdom necessary to discern the faithful path today.

The challenge of distraction is not new. Blaise Pascal once remarked on the problems of humanity that stem from our “inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” We seek out distraction and stimulation, and avoid both solitude and introspection. Christianity withers without the two. We regularly need enough space and focus to savor the truths of Scripture — to taste their sweetness, and find nourishment through their sustaining power.

Alongside the Scriptures, we also find joy and stability in a (perhaps) unlikely place: the historic creeds and confessions of the Christian church.

Creed over Podcast?

Three creeds in particular stand out: the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed. These statements describe who God is and what he has done, according to the Scriptures. They point to the Trinitarian core of Christianity. The historic confessions, many of which appeared during and after the Reformation, are beautifully crafted, detailed descriptions of more of the fullness of the faith. The creeds provide a superstructure, a blueprint, while the confessions fill in the details and give greater clarity to the Christian life.

Biblical and systematic theologies go even further, examining the truth about the world and our place in it, in thousands of pages of prose. Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15). All Christian theology is, in a sense, our attempt to answer that question with accuracy, to confess with confidence the identity of the One whose name we bear. Theology is about encountering God as he truly is and basking in the excellencies of his righteous character and saving acts.

Ancient creeds may seem a long way off from today’s online world — the endless debates on social media or the constant chatter of podcasts. But that’s exactly why the creeds matter. If they seem distant and dusty, that says more about us and our mindset than it does about the documents themselves. They describe the foundations of our faith. They are guardrails of orthodoxy. They give voice to the testimony of the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). They keep us stable through stormy seasons in every age.

Strategies Against the Noise

So, in light of all the noise, how do we cultivate wisdom in a digital age? We implement practices that guard us from the shallowness of “the now” and immerse us in the wells of what’s always been true.

“We seek out distraction and stimulation, and avoid both solitude and introspection.”

First, I urge believers to follow the “Scripture before phone” rule each morning. If you need to get an old-fashioned alarm clock (so that your phone is kept in another room), do it. Have your Bible or prayer guide ready to go somewhere close by. How different might your life be if you committed to spending time hearing from God before the world’s noise could intrude? (I often follow a structured prayer journey through the Psalms in 30 Days to aid me in this process.)

Second, I recommend turning certain technologies to your own advantage. Follow social media accounts that are edifying (voices steeped in the Scriptures, organizations grounded in creedal orthodoxy). Incorporate into your podcast feed some trustworthy men and women who care about church history or who seek to explore the great truths of Christianity.

Third, switch up scrolling for studying. You do this by setting limits on how much you will take in online, and then replacing some of that intake with more substantive theology. You can set your phone to alert you after you’ve been on an app for more than fifteen or twenty minutes in a day. And if you want to switch from a mindless habit to a mind-stretching one, commit to matching your social media time with reading time. Pick up a hefty book of theology, one that goes through the basics of Christian theology. Even the biggest systematic theology textbooks or books on church history can be read within a year if you read just two or three pages a day.

Fourth, don’t go it alone. Find friends in the faith who, like you, want to prioritize enduring truth over the latest news. The creeds are statements of what we believe, not what I believe on my own. Even the Apostles’ Creed, which starts with a statement of personal belief, developed as a baptismal ritual, and the whole church was present to celebrate the convert’s good confession.

Steady and Fruitful in the Storm

The answer to mindless scrolling is more mindful lingering. Studying the Scriptures and pondering the ancient creeds and confessions gives us the opportunity to grow in our knowledge and wisdom, so that we are better equipped to follow Jesus. In a world where people are tossed and turned by all the latest developments, it’s more important than ever to be rooted in something that can sustain us, something that can transform us, something that doesn’t change with the news.

May the Lord reawaken in us an appreciation for biblical and historic Christianity, so that we will be steady and fruitful in turbulent days to come.