Some people have written bestsellers documenting their entrance into heaven. They claim to have died and returned to tell us what they saw. Suffice it to say, their accounts rarely match accounts of similar events recorded in Scripture. Those taken into the throne room — like Isaiah, for example — do not tell us about seeing their favorite loved ones or eating their favorite snacks.

“In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne” (Isaiah 6:1), Isaiah begins. He details how the end of this King’s robe filled the entire temple. He documents mighty beings lit on fire, flying around the King’s throne, shouting, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of armies.” The foundations tremble at the sound of their thunderous voices (Isaiah 6:1–4).

Isaiah does not sigh with relief, or whistle for his long-lost dog. Eyes from the throne pierce him like sword thrusts. The prophet, in response, calls down a curse upon himself: “Woe is me! For I am lost” (Isaiah 6:5).

Isaiah unravels before the Holy One who knows him completely: every sin, every twisted motive, every secret deed. He throws the gavel down upon himself and immediately pleads guilty. Did he even know what sin was before this moment?

And as Isaiah sees what I take to be the preincarnate Son upon the throne (John 12:41), he smites himself for, of all things, the use of his tongue.

Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of armies! (Isaiah 6:5)

His eyes see the Holy King of Israel, the God of armies, and he does not run to sit on his lap, but falls to his face, confessing the evil, not only of his tongue, but of the tongues he lived among on earth. Here he did not lament that he dwelled among a people of sexual immorality, murder, or idolatry. What he said, and what the people said — their conversation — horrified him before the Righteous One.

The Sin of Careless Speech

If we each saw the Lord today, we would dread how unclean our mouths have been. Take inventory of yourself: hasty words, cursing words, violent words, lustful words, blaspheming words, false words, lying words, gossiping words, flattering words, harsh and belittling words. Just how many rats have proceeded from that sewer?

Paul, in bringing all humanity under condemnation before God, quotes the Psalms to indict us:

“Their throat is an open grave;     they use their tongues to deceive.”“The venom of asps is under their lips.”“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” (Romans 3:13–14)

But this is the Old Testament, we may think. Isaiah and the psalmists didn’t know Christ as we do. Their God, all lightning and thunder, had not yet fully revealed his merciful side.

Yet hear what Christ himself says:

I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. (Matthew 12:36–37)

“If we each saw the Lord today, we would dread how unclean our mouths have been.”

In confronting the Pharisees about blaspheming the Holy Spirit, Jesus, arguing from lesser to greater, adds a category to our dark speech: careless words. Even thoughtless words — not just blasphemies against the Holy Spirit — will be measured and weighed. People will give an account of every one. All of them. Millions and millions per mouth. Recorded. Remembered. Required at the judgment seat of Isaiah’s God.

Only Human After All

What exactly are careless words?

Careless words are idle, purposeless, lazy, and useless. The Greek word for “careless” (argos) is used to describe men who stand around in the marketplace when they should be working (Matthew 20:3–7), people who go from house to house wasting time and causing trouble (1 Timothy 5:13), Cretans who do not produce the good they ought (Titus 1:12). Idle words wander about unproductive, travel around causing trouble, refuse to bless as they ought. And we will give an account for every single one.

Perhaps you share my fallen response: That seems a little excessive. We’re only human, after all.

But as Isaiah found out firsthand, that excuse will not work. Whatever thoughts he had before he saw this God, they all changed the moment he stood before the throne. The prophet voiced the sentence of death against himself. When we are tempted to think this standard too harsh, John Calvin points us in the right direction:

Many look upon this [being judged for every careless word] as too severe; but if we consider the purpose for which our tongues were made, we will acknowledge, that those men are justly held guilty who unthinkingly devote them to trifling fooleries, and prostitute them to such a purpose.

Each will give an account for exactly the reason Calvin cites: our tongues were made for glorious purposes.

Fountain of Life

I am tempted to have low expectations of judgment because I have a low view of words — a view Jesus does not share. He will review our careless words with us because he expects our words to incline toward usefulness, to yield godly effect, to be seasoned with salt, to give grace to our hearers.

To avoid blasphemy, slander, and lying is too small an aim for a human mouth. Silly, careless words also stink as sinful words because all our words ought to be worth speaking. They should work for good, produce fruit, aim at others’ benefit, and stand in unflagging support of God’s glory. Each mouth, given power of life and death (Proverbs 18:21), should be overflowing with life — and with God’s words of eternal life, even if the hearers only hear death.

“To avoid blasphemy, slander, and lying is too small an aim for a human mouth.”

Redeemed hearts and new creatures alone will beget this kind of speech. All of humanity, like Satan himself, “speaks out of [their] own character” (John 8:44). After telling the Pharisees that they cannot speak good because they are evil, Jesus offers the contrast: “The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good” (Matthew 12:35). Good words originate from good hearts, which God gives in new birth.

Learning from Seraphs

Isaiah felt crushed by the weight of a world of wicked and worthless words pressing down upon him. Seeing God and hearing the flaming voices, singular in purpose of praise, exposed Isaiah’s own life of unclean speech. In that room, profane and purposeless talk held no place.

But this did not end his story. He judged himself worthy of death, but God had more grace to give, as he does with us. A flaming messenger brought to Isaiah’s lips coals from the sacrificial altar (upon which the King himself — the Lamb of God — would rest as Isaac’s ram, slain). And when the Lord asks whom heaven should send, Isaiah turns from cursing himself for his mouth to eagerly volunteering to go forth to speak as God’s ambassador. “Here I am! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8).

Forgiveness met him as it meets us, repurposing and commissioning the mouth of even the most foolish and idle talkers. What was once given over to darkness can now be used to praise God and bless mankind. Seeing the glory of Christ banishes small purposes for redeemed tongues. And amazing grace sends us forth as the seraphs to speak of Christ.

Pastor Kenny focused last week especially on Colossians 1:22–23, where Paul says (verse 22) that Christ has reconciled us in his body of flesh by his death in order to present us holy and blameless and above reproach before him. So the aim of the death of Christ is that we be brought to holiness and blamelessness, so that someday we would be presented — like a bride being presented to the bridegroom — before Jesus with no condemnation, but instead with purity and fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore.

So the entire bride of Christ, the church, and every one of us as believers will be presented to the risen Christ holy, blameless, eternally satisfied with the greatness and the beauty Jesus Christ, while he is eternally glorified in us. That’s what Jesus died to bring about.

Then Pastor Kenny dealt very sensitively with the weighty matter in verse 23, namely, that there is a condition for our being a part of that great destiny. You see the word “if” at beginning in verse 23 — we will be presented blameless and without condemnation before Christ, “if indeed we continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel.”

And Pastor Kenny emphasized that none of God’s elect, no true believer, will fail to meet that condition — none of the blood-bought people of God will fail to continue to the end in faith, because, we are “kept by the power of God” (1 Peter 1:5); and because “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ” (Philippians 1:6); and because he who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24).

So you have three actors in Colossians 1:22–23. Jesus acted by doing the decisive reconciling work when he died. We act as we continue in faith, not shifting our hope from Christ to this world. And God acts in us to enable us to continue in faith and hope. Three actors, all aiming at the same goal, namely, (verse 22) that we be presented holy and blameless before Jesus at the last day — no sin, no guilt, no condemnation, no pain, no sickness, no sadness, everlasting happiness with Christ.

Salvation Every Sunday

Now what Paul does in verses 24–29 is to say this: There’s one more actor fully engaged to help you, Colossians — you, Bethlehem — reach that goal, namely, me, Paul himself. Look with me at Colossians 1:28–29:

Him [Christ] we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, [and here’s the purpose, and it’s the same purpose as in verse 22] that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

Notice the word “present” in verse 28. It’s the same word as in verse 22 (same in English, same in Greek). Verse 22, Christ died “in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Jesus.” Verse 28, Paul proclaims and warns and teaches and toils and struggles in order to present you mature and complete (holy, blameless!) in Christ.

So the goal has remained the same from verse 22 to 29 — namely, to make sure that believers (as verse 23 put it) “continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel.” The goal remains the same: keep God’s elect from making shipwreck of their faith! To bring them to maturity, blameless on the day Christ’s coming. To put it simply, the goal is to get us home. The goal is to keep us saved.

“Salvation happens for the saints every Sunday, because eternal security is a community project.”

When I came to this church as pastor in 1980, after a while, someone asked me, “When are you going to preach a salvation sermon, pastor?” And I said, “That’s all I do. Every Sunday I am trying to save the saints, and the lost, and present us mature and holy before Christ at the last day. Salvation happens for the saints every Sunday, because eternal security is a community project.”

In last week’s text and today’s text,

The goal of the death of Christ is to present us blameless to Christ.
The goal of our continuing in faith is to stand blameless before Christ.
The goal of God’s faithfulness in holding onto us is to present is blameless to Christ.
And the goal of Paul’s proclamation and warning and teaching and toiling and struggling is to present us mature and blameless to Christ — holy and happy in him, glorifying him, forever.
And the goal of faithful preachers is to make all of that plain for the sake of your getting safely home — your standing before Christ holy and blameless and joyful on the last day — that’s the goal.

Paul Focuses on Himself

So, the goal of verses 24–29 (today’s text) is the same as verses 22 and 23. What has changed is the actor. In verses 24–29 the pervasive focus is on Paul himself. He’s the one laboring to present the Colossians (and us) complete in Christ. Verse 24, “I rejoice in my sufferings. . . . “In my flesh I fill up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. Verse 25, I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you.” Verse 28, “We proclaim, warn, teach; we present.” Verse 29, “I toil. I struggle with all the energy he works in me.”

There’s a lot of Paul in these verses: Paul’s joy. Paul’s suffering. Paul’s ministry. Paul’s stewardship. Paul’s proclaiming. Paul’s warning. Paul’s teaching. Paul’s toil. Paul’s struggle. So one of my questions is this: Paul, if your goal is to present the Colossians mature and blameless in Christ at the last day, why are you talking about yourself so much? Why so much attention to your suffering in your ministry and your stewardship in your toil in your struggle?

I think Paul is very sensitive to that question. You can see how aware he is of what he’s doing in Colossians 2:1–2, “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you. . . .” Why, Paul? He answers that question powerfully and profoundly. In fact, his answer is so amazing that I’m going to save it for the end as the climax of this message. So, instead of first answering the question why is Paul speaking of himself and his ministry, let’s first seek to answer the question how is he speaking? And once we get in front of us how he’s doing it, then will be in a position to answer why he’s doing it.

Since I think verse 24 goes to the heart of why Paul is talking this way, I will save that until the end. So, first, let’s look more closely at verses 25–29.

Minister of God’s Plan and Mystery

Verse 25, “ . . . of which [i.e., of Christ’s body, the church] I became a minister [a servant] according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known. . . .”

That word “stewardship” means “household plan” or “the administration (stewarding) of the household plan.” The picture is that there is a household, and the head or owner of the household has a way that he wants the household to be managed or stewarded or administered. And Paul is saying that when he was converted on the Damascus road by the risen Christ and called into Christ’s service as an apostle to the Gentiles, he was made a minister (or servant) or steward of God’s household plan, which refers to the overarching purposes and plans of God for how he will achieve salvation and accomplish his mission in the world.

To give you a sense of the scope of this household plan, listen to Ephesians 3:8–10 where he uses the same language:

To me… grace was given… to bring to light for everyone what is the plan (the stewardship, Greek oikonomia) of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

This is a massive household plan reaching from eternity to eternity, embracing the entire universe, including all the demonic powers of heaven and hell, and putting the infinite wisdom of God on display.

Now Paul says here in Colossians 1:25 that he became a minister, a servant, of the church in accord with that plan. So he has his place in that plan for the sake of the Gentiles, or more specifically, for the sake of the Colossians at this point. Let’s read it again. Verse 25, “I became a minister according to the stewardship [household plan] from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known.”

In other words, God called me into my place in the plan “for you.” My job as an apostle to the Gentiles is to proclaim and warn and teach and toil and struggle so that you Gentiles, you Colossians, you saints at Bethlehem, find your glorious place in this plan — especially mature and blameless before Christ at the last day.

Mystery Made Known

Then he explains specifically how his particular administration of this plan is going to unfold. At the end of verse 25 he says this: my job is to “make the word of God fully known.” Then in verse 26 he lasers in on the specific dimension of God’s word that he has been specifically charged to make known. Namely (v. 26a), “the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints.” That’s what Paul is supposed to make known to the Colossians and to us.

The word “mystery” in the New Testament does not mean something incomprehensible to humans. It means something that has been more or less concealed by God, but is now being brought to light. So, Paul is saying that at the heart of his gospel proclamation is the making known — the revealing — of something that in the Old Testament had not been made fully plain.

In verse 27, he tells us what the mystery is, “To them [the saints he had just referred to, believers in Christ] God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles [the non-Jewish nations] are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ [the Jewish Messiah] in you [non-Jews], the hope of glory.” The reason I give it that twist — Jewish Messiah indwelling pork-eating, uncircumcised, Sabbath-ignoring Gentiles — is because that’s the way Paul meant it. And we can see this focus in Ephesians 3:4–6:

When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ (as here in verse 27), which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs [with true Israel!], members of the same body, and partakers of the promise [of Abraham] in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

In Colossians 1:27b, “Christ in you the hope of glory” is the mystery of the gospel because it means the divine Jewish Messiah is now indwelling non-Jewish Gentiles, and thus embodying and guaranteeing the hope of everything promised to God’s people in the Old Testament. This was almost too good to be true — that all the unclean, Gentile castaways, who believe are part of the people of God. You, a Gentile Christian, are grafted into the covenant with Abraham and by union with the Messiah Jesus you become an heir of all the promises to God’s people. This is the hope of glory. Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Riches of Glory

Notice in verse 27 that Paul does not just say that Christ in us is the hope of glory in the future. He also says that right now this mystery of Christ in you is richly glorious beyond measure. Verse 27, “God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery” right now. Look down a few verses at Colossians 2:2b–3, where Paul refers to “the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

“When we have Christ dwelling in us, we can’t be any richer.”

In other words, when we have Christ dwelling in us — Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge — we can’t be any richer. His presence in us is the guarantee of future glory greater than anything this world can offer. And it is the foretaste now of all the treasures of everything that can be known.

Presenting the Saints

Now Paul says that to make all of that plain, and to help the Colossians and us feel the wonder of our inclusion in the glory of God — to make all of that real to us, he (vv. 28–29) proclaims, and warns and teaches with all wisdom, and toils and struggles. Because if he can be used by God to wake us up to the wonder of Christ in us, the hope of glory, and the presence of glory, then he will be able to present to Christ. In other words, we’ll make it home. We will get to the glory.

How do you fall short? Remember the condition of verse 23: You will stand blameless before Christ in glory “if you do not shift from the hope of the gospel.” And now he has just called it “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (verse 27b).

“The way people make shipwreck of their lives is by turning away from the all-satisfying hope of glory.”

The way people fall short and make shipwreck of their lives is by turning away from the all-satisfying hope of glory with Christ and falling in love with this world. “Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me” (2 Timothy 4:10). Will we hold fast to Christ in us, the hope of glory, or will we shift from the hope of the gospel and join Demas?

Why Say So Much About Himself?

Now I close where I said we would: why did Paul, in seeking to preserve the faith and hope of the Colossians — to get them home, bring them to glory — speak of himself and his ministry the way he did in this paragraph. Why not put all the focus on Christ, instead of speaking of his own suffering, his own ministry, his own stewardship, his proclaiming, his own warning, his own teaching, own toil and struggle? Why draw so much attention to your own suffering and toil?

I’ll give you Paul’s answer, and then show you two places where he says it. His answer is this: I speak of my sufferings for you Colossians, I speak of my toil for you, because what you see in my suffering and my toil is not merely mine but Christ’s suffering and Christ’s toil on your behalf. In other words, I want you to see my suffering and my toil as a flesh-and-blood embodiment of the invisible Christ suffering for you and toiling for you and loving you.

First, he says this in verse 24, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” To see what he means by “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions,” look with me at Philippians 2:29–30.

Epaphroditus had brought gifts to Paul from the Philippian church to where Paul was imprisoned in Rome — 800 miles by land and sea along bandit-infested roads. And after commending him to the church as he sends Epaphroditus back, Paul says (Philippians 2:29–30), “So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete [or fill up] what was lacking in your service to me.”

Now that’s the same language Paul used in Colossians 1:24 when he said that in his sufferings he is “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” So my suggestion is this: the Philippian church loved the apostle Paul, but their love was distant and unseen. Epaphroditus became the present, visible, flesh-and-blood embodiment of their love and service to Paul. He completes — he fills up — what was lacking, namely, a personal, flesh-and-blood presentation to Paul of their loving service.

And in the same way, Paul’s sufferings for the church are a personal, present, living, flesh-and-blood embodiment of Christ’s love and service to the Colossian believers, and to us, Bethlehem. Paul drew attention to himself and his sufferings because his sufferings were not merely his, they were actually the sufferings of Christ — the love of Christ in Paul. And Paul’s affections for the church were the very affections of Christ through Paul for the Colossians (cf. Philippians 1:8).

Christ Working Through Me

Finally, see this once more in verse 29. “For this I toil [to present you to Christ], struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” Do you think, dear Colossians, that my toil for you and my struggle for you are merely mine? Do you think that my drawing attention to them is drawing attention primarily to me? No. No, it’s not.

What’s happening when I toil and when I struggle for you is that Christ has done a miracle in me. Christ is working in me. Christ is working through me. This is Christ toiling. This is Christ struggling for you, in me. This is filling up what is lacking in Christ’s toil and struggle for you. Namely, present, living, flesh-and-blood embodiment of his toil and his struggle — his love for you.

Knowing Pastor Kenny and the Downtown elders the way I do, I do not hesitate to make this application: when they preach to you, and teach you, and pray for you, and lead you, and toil and suffer for you, know this: you are being loved by Jesus.

And, lest you think I overlooked the third word of our text (verse 24, “now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake”), I end with the word of exhortation to Pastor Kenny and all the pastors and elders: Embody the sufferings and the toil of Jesus for this church with joy. It is an amazing thing to be a steward of the mystery of Christ.

Audio Transcript

Happy Monday as we get back after it here on the podcast. Pastor John, I know one of the things you really enjoy is answering questions in front of students — open-floor Q and As. You’ve been doing this for over fifty years, and you’re still at it — currently investing in the lives of students at Bethlehem College & Seminary. This time with students is built into your schedule now. And recently, in that context with BCS students, you had a chance to walk through the theological battles you’ve fought over the decades. And I was wondering, looking back on those battles, if you could share with us here on APJ what you said in private. Rehearse those battles, decade by decade. And, if you could, tell us what points you were trying to make in rehearsing this history with the students.

As part of my happy responsibilities as chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary, I regularly participate in what we call TableTalk, where the students gather to eat their lunch and ask questions of the leaders — and I’m one of those — related to life, related to ministry, how it relates to the issues of our day. I generally begin those sessions with some thoughts off my front burner just to prime the pump of questions and throw it open to whatever the students want to talk about.

“The best way to prepare for faithful, obedient, fruitful ministry in the next fifty years is to know your Bible deeply, thoroughly, confidently, joyfully.”

A few weeks ago, I tried to make this point in my introductory comments. I said something like this, looking at the students: “Since the issues that you will be facing in ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years from now — you’ll be my age in fifty years — since those issues that you’ll be facing are utterly unpredictable, and in some cases unimaginable, your best preparation right now in your teens and twenties and thirties is to gain the spiritual and intellectual abilities to interpret God’s never-changing word in Scripture according to its true, God-intended meaning, which will never leave you speechless, never, but always provide the profoundest wisdom for every new challenge, none of which takes God off guard.”

That was my main point to try to get across to them. And then to drive the point home, I gave them a glimpse into the controversies of the last fifty years of my life and how precious the Bible has become as an absolutely sure compass for staying the course of truth and wisdom, and as an anchor to keep me from being driven about by every wind of doctrine, and as a treasure chest of holy joy that satisfies so deeply that I’m not sucked into the seductive pleasures that, on the surface, change from era to era. (They don’t really change, but the form changes.)

Decades of Controversies

Here’s part of the glimpse that I gave them into my fifty-year history of dealing with unexpected issues. But let me say at the outset that I’m not going to focus on race and abortion as one of those issues, because they’re just pervasive. I mean, for the last decades of my life, I have lived every decade with issues of race that need to be addressed and issues of abortion that need to be addressed. So, understand that those are huge issues, and the fact that I don’t mention them in the list doesn’t mean they’re absent. It means they’re everywhere.

1960s: History and Criticism

In the 1960s, I was coming to terms with the controversy surrounding fresh historical arguments for the factual resurrection of Jesus Christ. Daniel Fuller’s Easter Faith and History had been published in 1965. Wolfhart Pannenberg was making waves with his 1968 book Revelation as History, where he argued that the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth was a historical event as real as your getting out of bed this morning, which in German Bultmannian circles in the ’60s was absolutely radical. He was one of the teachers I had, by the way, at the University of Munich in the 1970s.

Hand in glove with the controversy was the whole issue of the modern methodology of critical biblical scholarship. In 1966, George Ladd published The New Testament and Criticism, where he tried to sort out what was usable in so-called higher criticism and what was contradictory to the inspired nature of Scripture. Those were crucial days for me, crucial like crux, like crossroads. How I thank God, in the ways I could have gone, that he held on to me for his glory and for his word.

1970s: Eschatology, Anthropology, and Bibliology

Then came the 1970s and three huge issues. In 1970, Hal Lindsey published The Late Great Planet Earth. By 1999, that book had sold 35 million copies. In it, he virtually predicted the second coming by 1988 — I don’t know how that book stays in print unless they adjusted it — and he popularized the pre-tribulational rapture view of the second coming. And I wrote a paper in response to this. It became very personal because my father and I locked horns over this. There’s nobody I loved more than my father, and I didn’t want to alienate him. We got along pretty well, although that book brought a lot of stuff to the fore.

In 1975, Paul Jewett published Man as Male and Female, in which he said that when Paul instructed only men to teach and have authority in the church, he simply made a mistake. Paul just made a mistake and allowed his rabbinical background to silence his radical Christian newness. From then on to this very day, I knew that’s an issue I’ll never be able to get away from, because there are more critical things going on there, more reasons to be concerned than just one.

In 1976, Harold Lindsell published The Battle for the Bible and brought to public awareness how many Christian institutions were sliding away from a commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture. In 1978, the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy produced “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy.” I wrote a review of Lindsell’s book, and I’m very happy with what happened in Chicago. I’m happy to sign on to the Chicago statement on inerrancy.

1980s: Sovereignty and Missions

In the 1980s, two controversies stand out. Professor of philosophy Thomas Talbott and I went back and forth with articles in Reformed Journal over the sovereignty of God in Romans 9. I think the titles were like, “How Does a Sovereign God Love?” I published a book on Romans 9 called The Justification of God, which focused on Romans 9:1–23. And so, the understanding of God’s sovereignty in history and in salvation dominated the early 1980s.

Near the end of the decade, the missiological controversy surrounding the new language of “unreached people groups” and whether that was a biblical way to think or not was a huge issue for me. Does the Great Commission focus on reaching as many individuals as possible, which is what I had thought, or on reaching all the ethnolinguistic groups in the world?

1990s: Open Theism

Then much of the 1990s was dominated by open theism. Does God have an exhaustive foreknowledge of the future? Open theism said no, he doesn’t. Its chief spokesman was and is right here in the Twin Cities as a pastor, and so he and I debated back and forth. We had lunch together. I wrote much, and other people wrote very good books. Thankfully, I think open theism was basically marginalized, though it hasn’t gone away.

2000s: Emergent Church

In the 2000s, the emergent church flourished for a season and then morphed into other things. I don’t think it’s entirely gone away, but it’s not the movement it was. I took two of those leaders out to lunch one time, just to give our folks a flavor of what we’re talking about with the emergent church. I said to them, “Talking to you guys is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall,” to which they responded, “That’s not what Jell-O is for.” That really gives a good flavor of how doctrinally amorphous that movement was.

2010s: Justification and Ecumenism

In the 2010s, the doctrine of justification was very controverted and prominent. I wrote a whole book, The Future of Justification, responding to N.T. Wright. On the same front, friends of mine were involved relationally in some very difficult conversations called Evangelicals and Catholics Together, which broke some hearts over how good Reformed brothers didn’t relate to Catholics in the same way.

2020s: The Swirling Decade

Which brings us then swirling into the last decade with the splintering of evangelicalism because of Trump, the realities of so-called “same-sex marriage,” the realities of so-called “gender transition,” vaccination mandates, critical race theory, systemic racism, cancel culture. None of these things can be ignored by a pastor — I think, indeed, by a thoughtful layperson — and I’ve written on virtually all of them.

Go Deep with God

But the point for that TableTalk — and maybe for this moment in Ask Pastor John — is this: if you live long enough, you will be confronted by issues and controversies that are so many and so diverse and sometimes so complex that you cannot possibly predict or specifically prepare for them. The best way for our students and our listeners to APJ to prepare for faithful, obedient, fruitful ministry in the next fifty years is to know your Bible deeply, thoroughly, confidently, joyfully.

Other studies are important, absolutely important. This study of the Bible is essential. If you have gone deep with God by means of a rigorous and accurate understanding of his word, you’ll always be relevant, and you’ll never be speechless.