God Doesn’t Need You to Do His PR
How could meaning and purpose fail to follow when we submit ourselves to the providence of God? He stands behind our sorrows, not as the one who is necessarily morally responsible for their causes—He compels no man to fire a gun and no woman to drive in a drunken state—but as the one who ultimately has power over all the circumstances of life and death.
A couple of weeks ago I read a story about Tesla. The reporter had written a long piece about the company’s declining share prices and what it might mean for its future. He had written about its eccentric founder and some of his perplexing public comments. At the end of the article he included a little note explaining that, though he had reached out to the company to request a comment, he had received none. He had received none because Tesla has no public relations or media relations department. There was no comment because there was no one to provide one. I thought this made a funny little ending to an otherwise serious story.
I have spent a good bit of time over the past few years thinking and writing about grief and that has led to me read and converse a lot about the subject. And one theme I have come across time and again is Christians who are committed to doing a bit of PR work on behalf of the Lord. Though God has no media relations department, these people feel inclined to volunteer for the position and to explain—or explain away—some of what God says or does. Like any PR representative, they stand between the “boss” and the world to explain what he really meant, what he really intended to communicate in his Word.
Most often they intend to remove any connection between the suffering or death of a human being and the sovereignty of God. “God did not wish for this to happen,” they might say. “This could never be God’s will.” Maybe they’ll even say something like, “Satan won this round.” They want to protect God from his own sovereignty, as if it does not extend to matters as consequential as sorrow, suffering, and death.
Yet the consistent testimony of the Bible and the consistent testimony of the historic Christian faith is that God is, indeed, sovereign over all things. He is sovereign over birth, he is sovereign over death, and he is sovereign over everything in between. This means he is sovereign over the means of death and even over any suffering that accompanies death. Yet, of course, never in such a way as to sin or to be morally responsible for sin.
This relationship between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility is difficult to understand. In fact, it may well be impossible to fully understand, at least on this side of eternity. And so we take it by faith as the clear testimony of God’s Word.
And as we take it by faith, it brings meaning and purpose to our times of difficulty, for how could meaning and purpose fail to follow when we submit ourselves to the providence of God? He stands behind our sorrows, not as the one who is necessarily morally responsible for their causes—he compels no man to fire a gun and no woman to drive in a drunken state—but as the one who ultimately has power over all the circumstances of life and death.
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Lord Shaftesbury: Evangelical Social Reformer
Written by Rev. Dr. Richard Turnbull |
Monday, October 17, 2022
While he believed that government had the responsibility to protect the most vulnerable, he always insisted that the voluntary principle was the ideal to spread the Christian faith and to act as the locus of social welfare. When in 1870 compulsory state education was introduced in England, Shaftesbury was incandescent. He was deeply skeptical of the march of state power.I want nothing but usefulness to God and my country.(Diaries, February 22, 1827)
When the funeral procession of Lord Shaftesbury progressed through the streets of London toward Westminster Abbey on October 8, 1885, thousands of people lined the streets, bands gathered to play Christian hymns, and hundreds of banners were held high with Bible verses. The representatives of more than 200 voluntary societies linked to Lord Shaftesbury attended. The Times, in its obituary, described Lord Shaftesbury as “the most eminent social reformer of the present century” and “one of the most honoured figures of our contemporary history.” Who was this extraordinary man remembered in the Anglican calendar on October 1?
Shaftesbury served in one house or the other of the English Parliament for nearly 60 years, from 1826 to 1885, with just one short break of 18 months. He was offered cabinet office by prime ministers of both major political parties of the day, three times in 1866 alone.
And yet he encapsulated the ideal of the Christian philanthropist and evangelist. In his view, religion and life should be united, not separated. He developed a quite remarkable evangelical Christian vision for society. He understood there was a proper function for the state, for government, in protecting the weakest and most vulnerable, especially children. Yet he also recognized that the role of the state was a limited one. Shaftesbury believed in the Christian mission of the conversion of the soul, but also that the Christian faith should shape and transform society. He believed that God had provided the most extraordinary instrument to achieve both these purposes—the Christian voluntary society. Through these societies, large and small, Shaftesbury set out to mobilize and motivate the Christians of Victorian England. He founded schools, chaired missionary societies, and established clubs and societies that provided micro-finance loans for the poor. The list could go on. A committed Tory, he viewed socialism as anathema. He often felt the world to be against him and suffered from an intense introspection that bordered on the depressive. But he was in all things motivated by his Christian beliefs, the centrality of Scripture, and, not least, the principle of faithful discipleship in the light of the second coming.
Anthony Ashley Cooper was born on April 28, 1801. He took the courtesy title of Lord Ashley when his own father succeeded to the earldom in 1811. He retained this designation until he became the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury on his father’s death in 1851. His early family life was difficult, and his relationship with his parents less than congenial. Ashley described his mother as a “dreadful woman.” His own later happy marriage (to Emily “Minny” Cowper) and family life was a significant contrast to what he experienced in childhood.
The really important influence in his early years was the family housekeeper, Maria Millis. She read the Bible to the young aristocrat and taught him to pray. Lord Ashley later looked back saying that under God it was to her that he owed the first thoughts of piety and actions of prayer. He also described in his journals how his eyes were finally “opened” by reading the evangelical writer Philip Doddridge and the impact of acquiring Thomas Scott’s commentary on the Bible. He was slowly embracing the evangelical faith that was to shape his life. As early as 1825 he sought to establish social policy based on the Scriptures.
We see this in his parliamentary campaigns on behalf of London’s climbing boys. Prior to mechanization in the later 19th century, children were used to climb the narrow chimney flues of both homes and factories. To navigate these narrow openings, the younger the child, the better. Sweeps employed children as young as five or six years of age to clean these chimneys, often bonded into the Master Sweep’s employ by poor and desperate parents.
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The First Works
Here is good news: The Lord is committed to guarding the rose. He has given us a new heart, a holy heart; and he has told us that he will watch over it with all of his heart. He has sealed it for himself. He has said, “I am a jealous God.” The triune God of the Bible has sworn: Though dark, secret loves beckon and entice my children and my Bride, they will not prevail.
But I have this against you: You have left your first love.So then: Remember the place from which you have fallen,and repent and do the first works.(Revelation 2:3-4)
This word arrived as a gut punch to the Ephesians. It can do the same when we read it today.
Before it hit, the Lord was all commendation, praising these busy Christians for their toil, endurance, and holy intolerance of evil. After it hit, he did the same, lauding them for their hatred of the lawless works of the Nicolaitans. But in between there came a stern and urgent reproof, flashing like dark lightning against a deep blue sky. What can account for it?
When I asked myself this question, a memorable poem by William Blake came to mind:
O Rose, thou are sick.The invisible wormThat flies in the night,In the howling storm,Hath found out thy bedOf crimson joy:And his dark secret loveDoth thy life destroy.
When people looked at the Ephesian rose, all seemed well. These believers were abounding in the work of the Lord. What’s more, to judge from the King’s commendations, they were doing their works in the Spirit and power of the Lord. This should give us pause: Though the Lord may be granting us fruitful labors, it also may be that a dark and dangerous love has begun to creep, worm-like, into our bed of crimson joy: into the life of love that was purchased for the Bride of Christ by his blood.
But what exactly was the nature of that invisible worm? And how was it enticing the Ephesians to leave their first love?
Perhaps we find our answers in a story about Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38ff). The Lord had come to town. Martha invited him into her home for dinner. Her sister Mary sat herself at the Lord’s feet, listening to his words. But Martha was distracted with her many preparations.
What’s more, she was angry. With an unholy boldness that shocks the reader, it is written that she came up to the Son of God himself and said, ““Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Tell her to help me!” But the Lord, wise and gentle, answered with firmness: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is truly necessary. I’m saying this because Mary has chosen the best part, and it will not be taken from her.”
Is this how it was with the Ephesians? Yes, their service was partly in the Spirit; but was it also partly in the flesh? Was it partly motivated by a sincere love for the Lord, but also by some “dark, secret love” that was creeping into the sacred space?
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What Pentecost Means for Our Work (Part 1)
The Apostle Paul taught that every follower of Jesus Christ is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). We are like “walking tabernacles” of God’s presence wherever we go, including the workplace. Just like the tabernacle, the portable temple where God’s presence resided that the Israelites carried through the wilderness for forty years until they entered the Promised Land, we too can experience the presence of God as we travel through the wilderness of our workplaces over our forty-year careers. He blesses our employers, coworkers, subordinates, and customers as he works with us, in us, and through us.
The Day of Pentecost has sometimes been overlooked in many churches I have attended, which is unfortunate. What happened with the early church in Jerusalem fifty days after the Passover clearly empowered them to do the work Jesus had called them to do, which radically changed the civilized world as we know it. The Holy Spirit’s power and presence continue to impact our workplaces today.
In my Christian walk, I have observed several key truths about the Holy Spirit I would like to explore. I’ll discuss the first two today and the third and fourth in my next article.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 Power of the Holy Spirit
The best place to start our discussion on the impact that the Day of Pentecost had on the work of Jesus’s disciples and with believers today is to unpack the power of the Holy Spirit. Before he ascended to heaven, Jesus told his disciples to stay in Jerusalem to “wait for the gift my Father promised” (Act. 1:4). Jesus said that they would “receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you” and that this gift would enable them to be his witnesses “to the ends of the earth” (Act. 1:8).
In Acts 2:1-41, the Holy Spirit did a mighty work among the ethnically diverse crowd gathered on the Day of Pentecost to expand the church to three thousand new believers. The Spirit worked in and through Peter as evidenced by his powerful preaching, where he moved in the hearts of the Gentiles who had heard the gospel of Jesus Christ in their own language and repented. The church continued to work in the power of the Holy Spirit as God’s coworkers to expand his church in Jerusalem on a global scale.
This power the apostles had enabled them to do the challenging work Jesus called them to do. This same power resides in us, giving us strength to obey God in order to live the Christian life. The Holy Spirit gives ordinary Christians the ability to work with a renewed mind and a higher purpose.
Tom Nelson, in Work Matters, heartily echoes this concept:
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