The church of Jesus, near and far, at home and abroad, is on a global mission against the gates of hell.

Under God, and by the power of our all-authoritative Christ (Matthew 28:18), we raid the “domain of darkness” and carry captives to safety (Colossians 1:13). We go to spiritual sleepwalkers and say, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you” (Ephesians 5:14). We break into the house of the strong man, still bound by the Stronger One, and “plunder his goods” (Mark 3:27).

You might imagine, given such a mission, that God would arm his church with some spectacular weapons. But surprisingly enough, we join Jesus in destroying the devil’s works not mainly by casting out demons, or working miracles, or engaging in power encounters, but by teaching the truth.

Go . . . and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. (Matthew 28:19–20)

Missions as a Teaching War

Teaching may seem like a weak weapon to wield against the devil. Do knights slay dragons by persuasion? But in God’s hands, faithful teaching undoes one of the devil’s favorite schemes, as old as Eden and as subtle as that ancient snake: false teaching.

As Andy Naselli observes in The Serpent and the Serpent Slayer, the devil acts sometimes with obvious, spectacular opposition, and other times with hidden, unspectacular craft. Or, he acts sometimes like a dragon, and sometimes like a serpent (Revelation 12:9). As dragon, he devours; as serpent, he deceives. As dragon, he persecutes and oppresses; as serpent, he seduces and ensnares. As dragon, he breathes fire; as serpent, he whispers falsehood.

And between the two, the serpent may be the deadlier. In Eden, Satan could have terrified Eve with his fangs; instead, he lured and lied with his tongue — with his teaching (Genesis 3:4–5). And so he still does (John 8:44). False teaching felled the world, and false teaching keeps it in oppression.

“At every stage of the kingdom’s advance, the lie of the garden dies by the truth of the gospel.”

So, at every stage of the kingdom’s advance — from Jesus to his apostles to the church — the lie of the garden dies by the truth of the gospel. Teaching wins back the world.

Teaching Launches the Kingdom

Jesus did more than teach during his ministry — he healed, worked wonders, and cast out legions of demons. He attacked the devil’s domain with both the right hand and the left. But teaching was the central assault.

Following his baptism and wilderness temptations, his public ministry began when he “came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God” (Mark 1:15). Indeed, the Spirit anointed him “to proclaim good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18), a mission that ever rested on the front of his mind: “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God . . . for I was sent for this purpose” (Luke 4:43). Preaching and teaching were “his custom” (Mark 10:1), what he did “throughout all the cities and villages” (Matthew 9:35). “You call me Teacher,” he told his disciples, “and you are right, for so I am” (John 13:13).

The healings, the wonders, the spiritual authority — these were all fingers pointing to his kingdom-heralding, gospel-giving words. In fact, without embracing his teaching, the souls of former demoniacs were merely emptied and swept, inviting worse darkness to enter (Matthew 12:45). Only “the truth will set you free” (John 8:31–32), Jesus told some would-be disciples. And so, he taught.

Teaching Spreads the Kingdom

The apostles were not confused about what it meant to carry on their risen Teacher’s mission. The book of Acts records many demons cast out, wonders worked, and diseases healed, but the emphasis again lands on teaching — or, in Luke’s broad vocabulary, proclaiming (Acts 4:2), preaching (Acts 8:4), disputing (Acts 9:29), speaking (Acts 16:13), reasoning (Acts 17:2), proving (Acts 17:3), persuading (Acts 18:4), explaining (Acts 18:26).

The apostles, like Jesus, demonstrated the kingdom in both word and deed, but they were clear that the deeds served the words (Acts 3:11–16). Ultimately, it was the apostles’ Spirit-empowered teaching that turned hearts, toppled idols, saved sinners, and founded churches. And so, it was to the devil’s shame, but the apostles’ glory, to hear the Jerusalem council complain, “You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching” (Acts 5:28).

And more than Jerusalem. By book’s end, the teaching had broken out of Judea, run through Samaria, and begun to reach “the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8), liberating captives all along the way. The last verse pictures Paul in Rome — doing what? “Teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:31).

Teaching Grows and Guards the Kingdom

As the age of the apostles ended, the mission against spiritual darkness did not. And unsurprisingly, the apostle Paul placed teaching at the center of the church’s ongoing advance. Not only did he charge Timothy, his spiritual son, to devote himself to teaching (1 Timothy 4:11, 13; 6:2; 2 Timothy 4:2), but he labored to create a legacy of teachers: “What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). Whatever happens, Timothy, make sure the church keeps teaching.

“Through teaching, God will grow and guard his kingdom in lands once ruled by lies.”

By teaching the truth, the elders of the church — and, under them, every member (Colossians 3:16) — proclaim the gospel and gather new believers; they also protect the gospel and guard believers from the ever-present threat of serpentine deception, including what Paul calls “teachings of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1). Such teachings are sometimes permissive, scratching ears and suiting passions (2 Timothy 4:3), and sometimes restrictive, banning marriage and forbidding foods (1 Timothy 4:3), but they are always false and always deadly.

And so, the church teaches and teaches and teaches — trusting that through teaching, God will grow and guard his kingdom in lands once ruled by lies.

God Empowers the Teaching

On the surface, Christian teaching may look unremarkable — as unremarkable as Jesus telling parables beside the sea, or Paul reasoning with some Thessalonian Jews, or Timothy unrolling the scroll to preach again. But through the ordinary words and phrases of faithful Christian teaching, God works wonders.

When the risen Lord Jesus told Paul to go teach, he also told him the effect his teaching would have:

I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. (Acts 26:17–18)

Through teaching, God works miracles greater than the multiplication of loaves, or the deliverance of demoniacs, or even the raising of Lazarus. He shatters our delusive darkness. He forgives our innumerable sins. And he frees his people from the power of Satan, that serpent of false teaching and forked tongue, and wins us back to himself.

So, in the church’s global mission against the gate of hell, words are our greatest weapons.

The Christian life is a lot like improv night at the local coffee shop. Let me explain.

When I was in seminary, there was this strange and wonderful little coffee shop near campus called City Coffee. In my first semester, I probably studied there every night. And every once in a while, the shop would host an improv night. Local “artists” would show up and do their thing. I’m actually not entirely sure I ever stayed around for it, though I do have a vague recollection of some very bad poetry. I certainly never participated. After all, I had homework to do — plus something called inhibition.

The Christian life is like improv night at City Coffee, only it’s improv night every day of the week.

Constant Word, Changing World

We might wish the Christian life were like karaoke night — in that case, you would at least have the words — but it’s not. It’s improv: the curtain opens, you’re on stage without a script, and somebody yells “Action!” after stuffing a prompt into your hand:

“What’s the Christian approach to TikTok?”
“Postmodernism”
“Post Malone” (Not to be confused with the “Mailman” Karl Malone, which would, of course, be a very different prompt.)

We know that we won’t find headings in our Bible like “Social Media” or “Paul & Public Schools” or “Jesus’s Sermon on MMA.” And we’ll search in vain for specific answers to questions like “Whom should I marry?” or “Where, how long, with whom, and in what specific ways should I engage in Jesus’s Great Commission?”

“God wants us to develop the skill needed to extend his never-changing word into our ever-changing world.”

Does the Bible have everything we need for life and godliness? Absolutely. But it doesn’t give us a line-by-line script. Instead, it asks us to improvise, to develop what theologian Kevin Vanhoozer calls “improvisatory reasoning” (The Drama of Doctrine, 336). That’s how God has designed the Christian life to work. He wants us to develop the skill needed to extend his never-changing word into our ever-changing world. He simply calls it wisdom, and, in one place — Proverbs 2 — he tells us not only where to get it but also why.

Let’s begin with why.

Learning the Good Life

Why learn to improvise? According to Proverbs 2:9, if you get wisdom — if you learn to reason improvisationally — “then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path.” Find wisdom, God says, and you’ll be able to identify and walk down “every good path.” It’s so important for us to hear this that God through Solomon says it again at the end of the chapter. Find wisdom, Solomon says, and “you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous” (Proverbs 2:20). In short: find wisdom, find the good life.

Now, of course, good doesn’t guarantee you’ll be healthy or wealthy or even trouble-free — at least not yet. (Remember Jesus and the suffering faithful in Hebrews 11?) But there is a correspondence between your idea of good and the Bible’s, which is why I feel perfectly comfortable defining good as “satisfying” or “joyful” or “fulfilling.”

That’s why we should get wisdom; what about where?

God’s Words of Wisdom

Solomon writes, “The Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding” (Proverbs 2:6). The wisdom we need — the wisdom we want — is something God gives.

Proverbs, in fact, says that God gives it to us “from his mouth.” Certainly this includes the wisdom God embedded in the world he created (and sustains) with his mouth: “In the beginning, God . . . said,” and the world was (Genesis 1; see Hebrews 1:2–3). Proverbs is full of just this sort of wisdom (see, for example, Proverbs 6:6–11). But this wisdom isn’t Solomon’s focus here. Creation isn’t the only thing breathed out by God; so too is every word of Holy Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16). And this wisdom is precisely what God has in mind here.

“The wisdom we need — the wisdom we want — is something God gives.”

Solomon makes this connection in verses 1 and 5. He says, “If you receive my words and treasure up my commandments within you . . . then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God” (Proverbs 2:1, 5). To receive Solomon’s words — to receive the Bible’s words — is, at the same time, to receive the understanding and knowledge — the wisdom — that comes from God.

Now, it’s one thing to know that Scripture teaches us wisdom; it’s still another to know where to look in the Bible to see it modeled. Here we move beyond Proverbs 2 and, as Vanhoozer reminds us, learn to “cultivate biblical wisdom by reading stories of how the prophets and apostles spoke and acted in concrete situations” (334). It’s from these stories, these canonical case studies, that we learn how to faithfully improvise.

Priceless Case Studies

Prompt: A church is struggling to believe the gospel. Presently, they’re being harassed by old friends questioning the Christian claim of a crucified messiah. (One report has it that these friends are calling that claim “foolish” and “scandalous” — another cynically wonders “how any moderately intelligent reader of the Scriptures could affirm something so implausible.”) And this is to say nothing of the bleak economic forecast facing the Christian community. Increased taxes, they suspect, might be only the front end of the bad news.

How’s that for a real and specific prompt? What if somebody gave it to you? What would you say?

In time, the prompt makes its way to the church’s pastor, who, with God’s help, traces the problem all the way to its roots — or, to borrow from Vanhoozer one more time, “sees and tastes everything about [the] situation that is theologically relevant” (334). And he responds with a brilliant and original piece of Christological reasoning drawn from the Old Testament, carefully and winsomely arguing his case using premises he knows his doubting friends can still very much affirm.

If you’re wondering, I’ve just summarized Hebrews. And it’s just one of dozens of case studies in our Bibles teaching us how to apply God’s never-changing word to our ever-changing world. You may not have thought about the apostles (or the prophets) like this before, but they are master improvisers. And we can — we must — learn from their example. It’s one of the reasons they’re in our Bibles.

Improv Discipleship

How do we learn to improvise? We attend to God’s word, not least to the model improvisers God has so generously given us. Attend, though, is probably too weak or, at the very least, insufficient. After all, Solomon uses half a dozen or so verbs, pleading with his son and with us to get wisdom. If you want it, Solomon says, you’ve got to “receive” it (Proverbs 2:1), “treasure [it] up” (Proverbs 2:1), “mak[e] your ear attentive” and “inclin[e] your heart” (Proverbs 2:2) to it. You need to “call out” and “raise your voice” (Proverbs 2:3) for it. (Ask for it and really mean it; see James 1:5–7.). “Seek” and “search for it,” Solomon says, “as for hidden treasures” (Proverbs 2:4).

Don’t you want this priceless treasure God offers you for your good? Don’t you want to get better at applying God’s never-changing word to our ever-changing world? Friends, you have to improvise. That’s how God has designed the Christian life to work. So don’t you want to get better at it? I know I do. It’s not too late, and it’s not beyond your reach. You don’t have to be super smart, creative, or outgoing to excel at it. You simply have to know where to look and go after it with all your heart.

I wouldn’t delay; I think the curtain’s about to open.

Here in Rome, Italy, near the heart of Roman Catholicism, it is not unusual to pass by one of the city’s countless Catholic churches and see people prostrate on the floor or on bended knee as the priest carries around the bread of the Eucharist.

This is a pinnacle moment in the life of Catholics. They claim to be worshiping the actual body and actual blood of Christ, which have taken over the elements of the bread. As The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) reads,

In the liturgy of the Mass we express our faith in the real presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine by . . . genuflecting or bowing deeply as a sign of adoration of the Lord. The Catholic Church has always offered and still offers to the sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration. (CCC, 1378)

In the Eucharist, they believe, Christ’s sacrificial work on the cross is made present, perpetuated, and reenacted. This understanding of the Eucharist depends on the Catholic Church’s teaching of transubstantiation, which has a central place in the Catholic faith.

What Is Transubstantiation?

The Catholic Church teaches that during the Eucharist, the body of Jesus Christ himself is truly eaten and his blood truly drunk. The bread becomes his actual body, and the wine his actual blood. The process of this change is called transubstantiation:

By the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation. (CCC, 1376)

To explain this phenomenon, Catholic theology presses Aristotelian philosophy into service. A distinction is made between substance and accidents. The substance of a thing is what that thing actually is, while accidents refer to incidental features that may have a certain appearance but can be withdrawn without altering the substance.

During the Eucharist, then, the substance of the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ, while the accidents remain the same. The bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ, it is claimed, but maintain the appearance, texture, smell, and taste of bread and wine. The Catholic Church does not claim that this is a magical transformation, but that it is instead a sacramental mystery that is administered by those who have received the sacrament of order.

Where Did Transubstantiation Come From?

Like many aspects of Roman Catholic theology and practice, it is difficult to point to one definitive person or event to explain how transubstantiation entered into Catholic Church. It was more of a gradual development that then reached a decisive moment at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, where the teaching and belief were officially affirmed. However, by the second century, the view that the bread and wine are in some unspecified way the actual body and blood of Jesus had already surfaced. This is evidenced, for example, in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch (died around AD 108) and Justin Martyr (died AD 165), though their references to the nature of the Eucharist are somewhat ambiguous.

It is also true, however, that the early church fathers were countering certain gnostic teachings that claimed that Jesus never had a real human body but was only divine in nature. It was not possible, said the critics, that his body was present during the Eucharist. In response, some early church fathers insisted on the real presence of Christ’s body and blood in the sacrament. Moreover, both Origen (185–254) and Cyprian (200–258) spoke of the sacrament as a eucharistic sacrifice, thus unhelpfully introducing sacrificial language into the Lord’s Supper. Ambrose of Milan (died 397) understood the Eucharist in these sacrificial terms, as did John Chrysostom (died 407). Jesus’s words in John 6:53–56 appeared to provide the biblical framework they needed to make their argument: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (verse 53).

Over the centuries, this belief developed until it eventually became official church dogma. It would not be without its challengers, however. Ratramnus (ninth century) and Berengarius (eleventh century) are notable examples of those who did not accept the claim that the substance of the bread and wine change in the Supper.

“To say that transubstantiation teaches that God is eaten is not an exaggeration or a misrepresentation.”

Transubstantiation would receive its greatest challenge in the sixteenth century from the Protestant Reformation. During the Council of Trent (1545–1563), which was the Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church renewed with great enthusiasm its commitment to the doctrine, and thus to the conviction that during the Eucharist, God incarnate is indeed eaten. Matteo Al-Kalak — a professor of modern history at the University of Modena-Reggio in Italy — affirms that this concept is still fully embraced in a recent book titled Mangiare Dio: Una storia dell’eucarestia — Eating God: A History of the Eucharist. To say that transubstantiation teaches that God is eaten is not, then, an exaggeration or a misrepresentation.

His Sacrifice Cannot Be Repeated

The Protestant Reformation rightly rejected the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. In the Old Testament, the priests entered the tabernacle repeatedly in order to offer blood sacrifices for the sins of God’s people. Christ, however, by means of his death and resurrection, entered into heaven and mediates on our behalf once and for all (Hebrews 7:27). His is not a sacrifice that needs to be or even can be repeated (Hebrews 9:11–28). It is sufficient. It is final (John 19:30). If, however, the bread and wine of the Eucharist indeed undergo a change of substance and become the real body and blood of Christ, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is neither sufficient nor final; instead, it is continually re-presented and made present. Thus, transubstantiation undermines the clear teachings of Scripture.

“Christ’s is not a sacrifice that needs to be or even can be repeated. It is sufficient. It is final.”

In response, Martin Luther (1483–1546) proposed a somewhat confused alternative with his doctrine of what came to be called consubstantiation. He taught that Christ’s body and blood are substantially present alongside the bread and wine. This was different from transubstantiation in that there was no change in the substance of the bread and wine itself. Luther’s theory, however, was susceptible to similar objections to those of transubstantiation. Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531), another Reformer and contemporary of Luther, promoted the idea that the Lord’s Supper is symbolic and is solely a memorial of Christ’s work on the cross. Zwingli’s view is widely accepted in many evangelical circles today.

Transubstantiation receives its most helpful answer and alternative, however, in the classic Reformed view of the Lord’s Supper, deriving from John Calvin (1509–1564). The Reformed view promotes the understanding that while there is no change of substance in the sacrament, Jesus Christ is nonetheless present in a real way by means of his Holy Spirit. In observing the Lord’s Supper, Christ does not come down to the faithful in his body and blood; instead, the faithful are lifted up to him in spirit by the Holy Spirit.

As truly as the faithful eat in faith the bread and drink the wine, so they spiritually feed on Christ. The physical and spiritual are not merged, as they are in transubstantiation, nor are they completely separated. Instead, they are distinct but at the same time, through the ministry of the Spirit and the exercise of genuine faith, inseparable.