I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to be enough for all of you. If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself. —Gandalf (The Hobbit)

This year, I finally returned with Bilbo to the Lonely Mountain. While many of the paths and perils were familiar, the whole adventure felt noticeably different. When I first read The Hobbit in my twenties, life felt more like the perilous journey — mountains to climb, places to discover, new friends to meet, dragons to face. Since then, I’ve added a wife, a house, and three small children. Now, I can relate more to the security and predictability of the Shire.

That is not to say that life with a wife and small children is all warm biscuits and second breakfasts. As any young family knows, some days at home feel an awful lot like the dark, goblin tunnels beneath the Misty Mountains. But the gravitational force of family life often draws us (by necessity, to some degree) away from risk and toward safer, more familiar rhythms of living. The Shire, notice, isn’t portrayed as a problem — until its comforts might keep a man from stepping out into the right battles.

The Hobbit resonates with us so deeply, all these years later, because the tension in Bilbo is a tension in all of us. We want to live for more than our little comfortable life, and yet we want to preserve the sense of security and control that a little comfortable life affords us. Then Jesus knocks and calls us out of our spiritual shires: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24–25).

Because I know you, like me, need unlikely courage to do whatever Jesus has called you to do, I want to briefly draw you back into Bilbo’s great journey.

More Than a Calling

We’ll begin where all journeys must: at the beginning. Where does this sudden “Tookishness” emerge in the hobbit? The Tooks, an unusually brave and adventurous brood of hobbits, were Bilbo’s ancestors on his mother’s side. And so, throughout the story, Tolkien names Bilbo’s newfound courage after this family line.

When the renowned wizard first darkens the door of Bilbo’s hole in the hill, with his tall pointed blue hat, grey cloak, silver scarf, and long white beard, he doesn’t find the brave hobbit we meet later in the tale. Gandalf announces he’s recruiting for an adventure, and Bilbo melts into a trembling puddle on the floor. The wizard bears with the flustered hobbit and eventually presses his mission:

“For your old grandfather Took’s sake, . . . I will give you what you asked for.”

“I beg your pardon, I haven’t asked for anything!”

“Yes, you have! Twice now. My pardon. I give it you. In fact I will go so far as to send you on this adventure. Very amusing for me, very good for you.” (8–9)

This call, it turns out, was more than an invitation. It began doing something in Bilbo. The fearful hobbit again refuses, but invites Gandalf back the next day. And Gandalf does return, but not before sending thirteen dwarves along first.

Awakening Tookishness

When all the dwarves and Gandalf had arrived, they did what dwarves love to do: they sang. They sang of mountains and caverns, of hoards and wars, of history and legacy, of dragons and of gold. And as they sang, something happened inside of Bilbo, a sudden spring broke over his long, cozy winter:

As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and a jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves. Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick. (18)

This isn’t a simple courage. It’s a courage ignited by curiosity and beauty, by evil and need, by love and longing. Isn’t that a lot what it was like when you first began to realize who Jesus is and what life with him might be like? If God is truly calling — by his Spirit, somewhere deep in our hearts — when the invitation comes, we sense the wonder of a whole new world, of mountains unseen and caves unexplored, of dangers to be faced and dragons to be slain, of gold to be uncovered.

Why else would words like these draw us? “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” No one signs up for a cross — unless there’s greater joy and beauty on the other side of that cross than there is on this one. Unless we were made for a fullness of life we’ll only find if we brave the forests and caves before us, the goblins and dragons set against us. Suddenly, the hobbit holes we’ve made for ourselves feel smaller, more cramped. We were made for mountains.

Without Bed and Breakfast

After Gandalf introduces Bilbo as his chosen burglar, the dwarves understandably doubt his judgment (especially after the hobbit faints while hearing about the adventure). Gloin openly questions whether he could handle the dangers of a dragon’s cave. Bilbo overhears him from the other room, and then (Tolkien tells us),

The Took side had won. He suddenly felt he would go without bed and breakfast to be thought fierce. (20)

He emerged from hiding and said to the dwarves, “Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert” (21). Bilbo barely recognized himself in the moment (and in later moments comes to regret this burst of courage), but Gandalf’s call had changed him. “If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes” (21–22).

“Any calling of God carries with it a sufficiency for the calling.”

So it is for those who’ve been called by God. “Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). This calling of God carries with it a sufficiency for the calling. When Christ effectively calls you to follow him, there is suddenly a lot more in you than others can see, and a deal more than you have any idea of yourself.

A Very Different Hobbit

Through mountains and forests, goblins and wolves, we do find a lot more in our hobbit than anyone could see at first. He spies on giant trolls (and nearly gets eaten), leaps over a jealous, murderous creature hunting him in the caves, takes on giant spiders in the dark forest of Mirkwood, rescues his friends from the Wood-elves prison, and then, most memorably of all, he braves Smaug’s cave alone.

He crept noiselessly down, down, down into the dark. He was trembling with fear, but his little face was set and grim. Already he was a very different hobbit from the one that had run out without a pocket-handkerchief from Bag-End long ago. He had not had a pocket-handkerchief for ages. He loosened his dagger in its sheath, tightened his belt, and went on.

If Gandalf had shown him at the start where he would end up, Bilbo would have never left his hole. But facing trolls, goblins, and dragons made him a very different hobbit. What has God called you to do that feels too uncomfortable, too costly, too unlike you? Who might you become if you trusted him and took the risk?

As Bilbo creeps down further, the fire begins to burn redder and redder before him and a deafening gurgling sound throbbed in his ears. All his senses confirmed what he wished wasn’t true.

It was at this point that Bilbo stopped. Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait.

The bravest thing he ever did was that first, quiet, resolute step. And isn’t it the same in so many of our battles — in conflict and crisis, in correction and confession, in evangelism and ministry, in marriage and family and so many of our relationships? What small, brave first step could you take, even today? You may be surprised what courage you stumble into.

Your Unlikely Courage

What might Jesus be calling you to do that feels too inconvenient or costly, at least right now? Where do you feel yourself too bound to the comforts and security of your routine? What could you step out and do for Jesus, whether large or small, that would take real, unlikely courage?

As I said at the beginning, the mountains and dragons often change from season to season. As a young father, I am learning that raising toddlers, with love and patience and a resolve to teach them Jesus, sometimes requires supernatural strength and courage. As one of my favorite parenting articles says,

There is a war on children, and we are all, in one way or another, playing some role in it. Every time we move forward as faithful parents, . . . we are wrestling demons — because there is little the demons hate more than little children.

“Often, the dragon within us will demand the most courage from us.”

And demons hate whatever good God has called you to do in his name — the difficult marriage that needs repairing and reviving, the workplace that desperately needs the light of Christ, the children who need a Sunday School teacher, the friendship that’s cooled and grown distant, the local food shelf looking for volunteers, the grieving widow who’s learning loneliness. And in and around all those callings, souls are dying, needing rescue before the flames fall. Our neighbors, co-workers, and friends live in the perils below the Lonely Mountain but imagine themselves in the safety of the Shire. Will we tell them?

The fiercest and most intimidating dragons, though, loom even larger and closer to home. Every day we wake up, we face temptations to overcome and sins to confess and kill. Will we leave behind our comforts and insecurities and fight, or will we quietly cuddle up with our secret sins — with lust, with bitterness, with envy, with anger, with pride? Often, the dragon within us will demand the most courage from us.

Every stage of life as a Christian, and every area of the persistently faithful Christian life, requires some unlikely courage. My nearly forty years now has taught me that Jesus will keep stubbornly calling us out of comfortable and familiar, because he loves us — and because we were made for mountains.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. Last Wednesday, we looked at the fact that God makes much of us, his children. He really does make much of us. Why does he make much of us? He makes much of us because he is glorifying himself by redeeming us. In APJ 1772, we looked at that point in detail.

But in that same sermon, we get another point added, a follow up, and one essential to the overall argument Pastor John is making. It’s worth reflecting on here on the podcast, because Pastor John knows that, for many people, to hear that they were saved so that God would glorify himself in us seems to take away some of the luster of that love. Pastor John will directly push back against that point a little later. He’ll answer that question and concern, and show clearly why it’s not less loving for God to love us for himself.

But before we get there, Pastor John wants to simply dwell on this previously stated fact: if you are God’s blood-bought child, God makes much of you. He does. He really does. In fact, he makes more of you and more of me than we could ever dare imagine. Here’s the biblical proof he was eager to share with his church, and this is what he told them.

So that’s what I meant when I said, “Why does the Bible relentlessly reveal the love of God for us in a way that constantly calls attention to the fact that it is done for his glory?” Because so many people, when they hear that, feel it as not loving. The point of those texts throughout the Bible, where God performs his love for us for his glory, is to show that he loves us in the greatest possible way.

Dwelling on God’s Love

Why? How does that show that it’s a greater love? How is it a greater love when he loves me for his glory than if he just loved me and it all terminated on me? Well, before I answer that question — and I will answer it — let me dwell with you on the truth that evidently some have assumed I denied in asking, “Do you feel more loved by God when he makes much of you, or do you feel more loved by God when he frees you at the cost of his Son to enjoy making much of him forever?”

It’s been assumed by some, “Oh, you don’t think he makes much of us.” Well, that’s a non sequitur; it doesn’t follow from what I said. But I don’t want to defend myself. Some have gotten that idea, and I would like to now fix it and keep fixing it. If I get things imbalanced, I’d like to get them back into balance.

Seven Ways God Makes Much of Us

So here we are trying to help those who heard it that way. The answer is yes, God makes more of you than you could ever imagine. And I will blow you away for the next five minutes. Put your seatbelt on if you have trouble with being made much of by God, because you might leave otherwise. I think I have seven of these, and they will go by quickly.

1. God is pleased with us.

God makes much of us by being pleased with us and commending our lives. Alan Jacobs wrote a great biography of C.S. Lewis, and he says in C.S. Lewis’s biography that the greatest sermon that C.S. Lewis ever preached was called “The Weight of Glory.” That is, believers will one day have a weight of glory that will be so heavy they will imagine, “I don’t know if I can bear this. It’s so good.”

What do you think the weight of glory was in that sermon? It was the words “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And here’s what Lewis said:

To please God . . . to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness . . . to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in his son — it seems impossible, a weight or a burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is. (39)

And he’s right. That’s number one. God makes much of us by being pleased with us, making us an ingredient in the divine happiness, like an artist with something he painted or like a father with a son.

2. God makes us fellow heirs with Christ.

God makes much of us by making us fellow heirs with his Son, who owns everything. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). I wonder if you believe that. I do. Mine! I don’t need it now, therefore. I don’t need it now. I don’t need to scrounge to get a piece of earth for about fifty years and then maybe lose everything.

I am very happy to belong to King Jesus — to be a fellow heir of Jesus Christ, who owns the universe, and get my globe at death (or maybe at the resurrection). And I won’t mind sharing it with you. And if that’s a problem, he’ll make another globe. In fact, he won’t have to make another globe. They’re out there. So you get Quasar 10, which is probably greener. “The promise to Abraham and his offspring [is] that he would be heir of the world” (Romans 4:13). Are you an heir of Abraham? You indeed are an heir. In Christ, we are Abraham’s offspring, and Abraham was promised the world.

“In Christ, we are Abraham’s offspring, and Abraham was promised the world.”

One more, 1 Corinthians 3:21–22 (this is the best of all, probably): “So let no one boast in men.” He’s trying to help Bethlehem not boast — boast in pastors, boast in elders, boast in buildings, boast in anything. “Let no one boast in men. For [here’s the argument] all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” What an argument. These ragtag Corinthians are being told, “Would you stop saying, ‘I’m of Paul,’ ‘I’m of Cephas,’ and realize you own everything?” It’s just a matter of time. A very short time.

3. God promises to serve us.

God makes much of us by having us sit at table when he returns, and serving us as though he were the slave and we are the masters. This is the parable of the second coming that is the most unbelievable. It’s Luke 12. I’ll just read you Luke 12:37. He’s describing the second coming, and he says, “Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have [us] recline at table, and he will come and serve [us].” What will it take to make you feel made much of? I used to think until I saw that parable that he did that on the earth: Last Supper, bound a towel, washed their feet — that’s an incarnation action. But now, name above every name, he’s coming on a white horse, sword out of his mouth, slaying his enemies, making everybody serve him at table.

And that’s not what it says. He will never cease to be our servant. We will tremble. We will say what Peter said: “You can’t wash my feet! Get your towel off. Sit down.” And he will say — no, he won’t. I want to say that he’ll say, “Get behind me, Satan.” But I think probably at that point, we will be sanctified enough that we won’t be satanic like Peter was. So there we are, sitting at table shortly, with Jesus serving us.

4. God appoints us to judge angels.

God makes much of us by appointing us to carry out judgment of angels. “Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” (1 Corinthians 6:3). You can take a deep breath and say, “Well, I don’t think I could do that.” You will. You will.

5. God rejoices over us.

God makes much of us by ascribing value to us and rejoicing over us as his treasured possession. Consider two verses.

Matthew 10:29–30: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father? Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” “I attend to the minutest detail of a sparrow’s life. You don’t compare. You are, I would say, infinitely more valuable than a bird. So don’t worry. I’ve got your back. I won’t let anything happen that’s not for your good. I love you. I value you. You’re coming home. I decided this before the foundation of the world.”

I said there were two verses there. I said, “values you and sings over you, rejoices over you.” This is Zephaniah 3:17: “The Lord your God . . . will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” You ever heard God sing? I haven’t. I suppose Jesus sang a hymn when he went out into the garden. When everybody else sang, he didn’t sit there quiet. But when God sings, universes come into being. God’s going to sing, and it’s going to be a sound like you’ve never heard over you, over the blood-bought bride of his Son. He will lead the song at the wedding feast.

6. God will make us shine like the sun.

God makes much of us by giving us a glorious body like Jesus’s resurrection body. “[He] will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:21). But here’s the one that has captured me for all the years since I saw it — in the parable in Matthew 13:43: “The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” Remember seeing Jesus in Revelation 1? Hair white like snow, girded with a brass belt of truth, just pillars for legs. And his face, it says, “was like the sun shining” (Revelation 1:16). And John was on his face. So will you.

We would not be able to look at each other in the resurrection unless God had given us new spiritual resurrection eyes. We will be so bright. No more wheelchairs, no more depression, no more fallen countenances, no more discouragement, no more disease, no more alienation — everything new, and your face shining like the sun. So, as C.S. Lewis said, we would be tempted to bow down and worship each other if God hadn’t given us eyes and a heart to know better.

7. God will rule the world through us.

Most amazingly, I think (maybe not), God makes much of us by granting us to sit with Christ on his throne. Revelation 3:21: “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.” I don’t know what to do with that.

“Everywhere the Father extends his rule in the universe, he will do it through you.”

So, I’ll try. Maybe Ephesians 1:23 helps: “[The church] is [Christ’s] body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” We’re going to sit on the throne of God with Jesus, because the thrones merge. We’re on Jesus’s throne; he sits on the Father’s throne; now we’re all on the same throne. God, the Son, and us sitting on the throne of the universe. If I put those two texts together, I think it means something like this: everywhere the Father extends his rule in the universe, he will do it through you.

God created the world, you, for a reason, and it isn’t to throw you away at the end. It’s so that you would fulfill what he gave you to do in the beginning — namely, to be a governor of the universe: subdue it, multiply, fill it, enjoy it, make something of it. “Now I’ve made you new, I’ll make the world new. Now get about it, and any place I stick my hand to rule, I’m ruling through people.” He’s going through people.

So, let it be known loud and clear: God makes much of us. God makes much of his Son’s bride. God loves his church with a kind of love that will make more of her because he makes much of her for his glory.

The kind of man you hate reveals what kind of man you are. “But I hate him,” Ahab declared of Micaiah, God’s prophet.

Jehoshaphat, the righteous king of Judah, sat with Ahab, the wicked king of Israel, to deliberate one question: Should they go to war together against Syria? Peace had lasted three years with the pagan nation, but Ahab desired the strategic city of Ramoth-gilead for Israel. He questioned aloud to Jehoshaphat, “Do you know that Ramoth-gilead belongs to us, and we keep quiet and do not take it out of the hand of the king of Syria?” (1 Kings 22:3).

Jehoshaphat consents to fight with Ahab, but desires to hear first from the God of Israel. Ahab calls his four hundred prophets, who, with one voice, give their hearty Amen! “Go up,” they say, “for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king” (1 Kings 22:6).

The kind of men from whom you solicit counsel tells us what kind of man you are.

These men were no messengers of Yahweh, and King Jehoshaphat knew so. Diplomatically, he asks, “Is there not here another prophet of the Lord of whom we may inquire?” (1 Kings 22:7). To Jehoshaphat, four hundred counselors of any other god could not substitute for one man of Yahweh. There is one, Ahab reluctantly responds, Micaiah. “But I hate him,” Ahab gasps before discretion tutors the statement.

Why did Ahab hate the true prophet? “I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil” (1 Kings 22:8).

“The kind of man you hate can reveal what kind of man you are.”

Ahab loved the four hundred yes-men around him. He loved prophets feasting with him, prophesying pleasantries. He loved to hear his own positive thoughts returned to himself unaltered. He loved only affirming words, positive words — not the untamed and unpredictable words of God’s true prophet. The kind of man Ahab hated revealed the kind of man he was.

What Kind of Man Are You?

Now, to turn and see the story from Micaiah’s perspective (the point of this article): The kind of person who despises you also may tell you what kind of man you are. Ahab hated Micaiah because Ahab hated Micaiah’s God.

Wasn’t this because Ahab couldn’t comfortably untether the servant from his Master? Micaiah’s allegiance to the living God was not superficial — wasn’t a religious hobby to be picked up and put down. Ahab knew Micaiah didn’t serve the Lord just during office hours. His devotion went to the heart. Ahab would kill the prophet before he killed the prophet’s faith. Can the like be said of us?

This son of Imla was God’s man through and through. Whether talking to the false prophets or to the king himself, he was his Master’s man. Whether struck in the face and questioned by Zedekiah or thrown into jail by Ahab, he was his Master’s man. Whether Ahab invited him to feast at Jezebel’s table, or invited him for a wine-tasting from Naboth’s vineyard, or asked him about going to war with Syria — Ahab knew what he could expect from this lone prophet of the Lord: to deal with the Lord’s man. Ahab could expect God’s truth spoken through God’s messenger. And he hated him for it.

Confrontational Christlikeness?

So, we might then ask, do the right people dislike us?

What? you might think. If we are mature believers — truly humble and gentle and patient and loving and compassionate — will we really ever be disliked? Hatred and disgust may be reserved for those argumentative and obnoxious professors — but not us. Clanging cymbals, flies buzzing about the ear, hornets stinging any who disagree — these are rightly disliked. But we give the gentle answer. We listen and respect others.

Many Western Christians, it appears to me, are tempted with and indulgent in an agreeableness unknown to Micaiah. We stand ready to give the compassionate word, the soft encouragement, the positive uplift — but do not go on to ever risk anything that might displease. We are not disliked more because we do not say many things that are dislikable to the spirit of the age. Unbelievers at work or online or in our families feel free to parade their profanities and perversities before our ears and eyes without restraint, but it is ours, apparently, to keep quiet and let them perish out of politeness.

Nobody mistakes us for Jude, or Elijah, or Paul, or John the Baptist, or the Sons of Thunder. Or Jesus, for that matter. Zeal for our God and his house does not consume us. We avoid having to report, “the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me” (Psalm 69:9). Jesus, in such whip-making, temple-clearing aggression, is not our choice brand of Christlikeness. Indeed, confrontational Christlikeness seems to them no Christlikeness at all — despite the New Testament’s consistent testimony to it.

Hated for the Master

Now, we need our gentle and beloved Johns. But we need to also acknowledge that our gentle and beloved John was also persecuted and exiled for being uncompromising with his Master’s truth. He wrote his last letter as a brother and partner in the tribulation, banished to “the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 1:9). Polish as we may, we cannot smooth over the offense of the cross.

So what am I saying? If no one dislikes you on account of Christ, it’s probably not because you have become greater, more endearing, more friendly to the lost than Jesus, the apostles, or the lineage of persecuted Christians and martyrs throughout church history. If no one dislikes you on account of Christ, it is likely because you have been too quiet about Jesus, too lukewarm for him, or too much like the world for them to notice the difference.

Was this not part of Jesus’s message to the disciples in the upper room?

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: “A servant is not greater than his master.” If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. (John 15:19–21)

If we bear authentic witness to Jesus for long enough, the world will hate us. We don’t pursue their hatred, but we do prepare for it. Do you have a category for this? Do you expect pats on the head from those who would again nail your Master to a cross if they could? Should they treat us better than him? I have thought so — at least hoped so. My wrestlings in the quiet moment have been,

Must I be carried to the skiesOn flowery beds of ease,While others fought to win the prizeAnd sailed through bloody seas?

Are there no foes for me to face?Must I not stem the flood?Is this vile world a friend to grace,To help me on to God? (“Am I a Soldier of the Cross”)

“Woe to you,” Jesus taught, “when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets” (Luke 6:26). It is an ill omen for Ahab and his four hundred men to applaud. “What did I do wrong,” Socrates once asked, “that yonder villain praised me just now?” Spurgeon comments, “And so may the Christian say, ‘What, have I done wrong, that So-and-so spoke well of me, for if I had done right he would not; he has not the sense to praise goodness, he could only have applauded that which suited his own taste’” (“Citizenship in Heaven”).

The world’s hatred doesn’t always confirm our faithfulness to Christ. It may be owing to our own sin. But in this unruly world, we must consider, as Micaiah, that frowns, and even a jail cell, can be a better sign of fidelity than smiles and congratulations.

Love in a Hypersensitive Age

After a soft rebuke from Jehoshaphat, Ahab sends for the prophet of his disgust. When found, Ahab’s delegate preps Micaiah for the meeting: “Behold, the words of the prophets with one accord are favorable to the king. Let your word be like the word of one of them, and speak favorably” (1 Kings 22:13). Speak favorably, Micaiah. Mind your tongue. Don’t worry — everyone else is doing it. Micaiah responds,

As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak. (1 Kings 22:14)

As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak. Is that my motto? Is it yours? Even when it will cost us?

A word to fellow pastors: We love to comfort our people. We love to encourage them. We love to bring them glad tidings of great news of God’s grace. This we not only must do — we get to do. We labor with them for their joy (2 Corinthians 1:24). And yet, in an age hypersensitive to hard words, we still must warn, must correct, must rebuke sheep and wolves out of love — come what may.

“Some curses can be compliments — and more than compliments, blessings.”

Just as we can find too much Ahab in the culture (and even in the church), we also might find too little Micaiah in us. But as Christ lives, what our God says, that must we speak.

Sacred Fools

David Wells, in his classic No Place for Truth, gives us the picture of the pastor in the modern world as “the Sacred Fool.” Refusing to “lead by holding aloft moist fingers to sense the changes in the wind,” this man stands beholden to his Master. Wells explains,

So long as they cloaked their advice in humor, jesters were able to say things to kings and princes that might have been fatal for anyone else to say. Happy was the king who had a good fool. And happy are those churches whose ministers are likewise emancipated from the bonds of class interest and social expectation, freed to expose the follies of modernity in light of God’s truth. (250)

What kind of men are we? Are we sacred fools for Jesus who have been liberated from class interest and social expectation? Are we the King’s men? Curses can be compliments — and more than compliments, blessings. “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!” (Luke 6:22).

The kind of men who hate us will reveal what kind of men we are.