During my first year in seminary, I stumbled across a sentence that would deeply shape my relationships with God, those closest to me, and the people I would counsel. It was a year when Scripture appeared to me as a series of fragments. They were all good fragments, but the pieces seemed to lack coherence — and that lack of coherence could sometimes feel painful. So I was always alert to books and ideas that could help me see one story in Scripture rather than an anthology of short stories.

I was reading J. Gresham Machen’s book The Christian View of Man with that in mind, and a comment caught my attention. It was something like this: as God is personal, so man is personal. Ah, here was a grand unifying principle for Machen; perhaps it would become one for me. Then I searched the book for how he defined personal, but I never quite found it. I did, however, file the observation away.

Around the same time, I read Biblical Theology by Geerhardus Vos. He wrote so well about Christ as the center of Scripture, which set me off in a direction that I am still on. As a result of that book, I would keep track of literature from Vos (and Catherine Vos’s children’s books), and that’s how I stumbled across the sentence. Vos gave me a perspective on God-as-personal that was both cognitively and spiritually satisfying.

To be a Christian is to live one’s life not merely in obedience to God, nor merely in dependence on God, nor even merely for the sake of God; it is to stand in conscious, reciprocal fellowship with God, to be identified with him in thought and purpose and work, to receive from him and give back to him in the ceaseless interplay of spiritual forces. (Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation, 186)

Back and Forth

All these years later, I still remember what it was like to read those lines.

“Our relationship with God depends on words in which the conversation is passed from one to the other.”

“To be a Christian is . . .” Vos is giving me his understanding of the heart of the Christian life. I’m all ears. “Not merely obedience . . . nor merely in dependence . . .” Where is he going? Had Vos drifted into heterodoxy, and I am the last to know? “To stand in conscious, reciprocal fellowship . . . to receive from him and give back to him in the ceaseless interplay of spiritual forces.” That is what Machen meant by personal. Something was unlocked.

Today, the sentence might appear in shorthand whenever I say or write the phrase “back and forth.” Our relationship with God depends on words in which the conversation is passed from one to the other.

God says, “Let’s talk” (Isaiah 1:18). The conversation can then begin with him or me.

God says, “What is on your heart? Tell me” (Psalm 62:8). Then I tell him, and he hears what I say. He responds with compassion, or he simply enjoys that his child talks about what is important to him, and he acts.

Then he continues to speak, through his word, by his Spirit, and I get to be affected and changed by what he says.

Back and forth. Reciprocal fellowship. The ceaseless interplay of spiritual beings.

Brought Near in Christ

Moses comes to mind. After the exodus from Egypt and the people’s immediate descent into idolatry, God speaks to Moses about the people “you brought up out of the land of Egypt” (Exodus 32:7). When Moses doesn’t protest, God speaks to Moses about how his consuming wrath may, indeed, be up ahead for the people. Then Moses understands that God is giving him room to respond, and he accepts the invitation. He appeals to God’s past promises to the people, his reputation before the nations, and the fact that they are “your servants . . . your offspring.” In response, the Lord “relented” (Exodus 32:14).

And the back-and-forth continues. The Lord says, “My angel shall go before you” (Exodus 32:34). In case Moses missed another invitation to speak, the Lord clarifies, “I will not go up among you” (Exodus 33:3). Moses, perhaps emboldened by the previous conversation, responds, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here” (Exodus 33:15). God’s response is again a simple one: “This very thing that you have spoken I will do” (Exodus 33:17). Back and forth. This series of conversations between God and Moses reaches its zenith when the Lord reveals that his steadfast love and faithfulness will now be expressed in forgiveness of sins (Exodus 34:6–7), which means that Moses might not be the only one who can engage God with confidence.

And then the Gospels come to mind. “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29), descends the ladder that separates heaven and earth, and his face is turned toward all of his people in the most intimate of ways. Jesus speaks, we listen and are reshaped by what he says, and then he invites us to speak, and he, God himself, is affected by our words to him. This is what God has accomplished in the gospel. In Christ, we have been brought near to God (1 Peter 3:18). Like Abraham, we now have been called friends (John 15:15), and we speak with each other.

Personal Overflow

God has now placed me among his people. This means that he brought me close to himself, and he invites me to speak — the more words the better — in a personal back-and-forth of knowing and being known. And he actually desires this personal closeness. Who would have thought it? When I look for how this has taken root in my heart, I notice that I am more eager to pray. I speak to God about the good and about the hard, often without any requests attached. I tell him more often that I love him. This, I think, has actually enhanced the fear of the Lord in my life rather than reframed prayer as though it were merely casual talk among friends.

“God has brought me close to himself and invites me to be personal with him, knowing and being known.”

This overflow has certainly affected my relationship with my wife. Until the ways of the personal God became part of me, I would invite my wife to share her heart, but I shared my own heart less — not because I was ashamed or she was reluctant to hear, but because I was more interested in hearing about her than I was in talking about myself. Now, each day, I prepare. What is on my heart today that I want to speak to Sheri? Then, of course, I aim to speak it to the Lord, who cares for me (1 Peter 5:7).

Each week this finds its way into my counseling. For example, after someone shares his or her heart with me, at some point I will say, “Let’s speak those things to the Lord.” With anxious people, God’s invitation to speak with him is the central message. Philippians 4:5–6 captures it: God is near, so don’t just be anxious and try to manage your world — talk with him. Collect your thoughts. Find words for your anxiety. And what are your worries saying? There is usually a message in them.

In my teaching, the Psalms appear more frequently. They are, after all, lessons in how to speak with God. I usually suggest that each psalm is a response to a question. “Tell me,” asks the Lord, “what is on your heart?” In my writing too, a recent book was titled Created to Draw Near. Vos was used to set me on this course decades ago.

Unending Exchange

As I observe the world around me, I find that this back-and-forth is so fundamental to the ways of God and his kingdom that it overflows throughout the world. For example, good friends share their hearts with each other. Spouses share their hearts with each other. That’s what you do with people close to you. Hold back and it feels like a betrayal.

All this is to say, here is a long sentence from a Dutch theologian that has touched my heart, and I pass it on to you. “To be a Christian is . . .” To obey? To depend on? To glorify? Yes, all these, but let your answer be reshaped by the personal God who created us in his image so that we can participate as no other creature can in the pleasure of an unending back-and-forth of words spoken in love.

Audio Transcript

Good Monday morning, and welcome to a new week on the podcast. Today we have a question from a listener, Scott, in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Here’s what he wants to know: “Dear Pastor John, hello and thank you for the Ask Pastor John podcast. My question is personal. A very close friend of mine, who has historically been strong in his Christian faith, has recently embraced a pop-theology in which God has no wrath, and there’s no hell for anyone.

“My friend now argues that the vengeful God of the Old Testament was a Jewish myth, not the real God, who is only found in Jesus. To him Jesus died mainly to demonstrate God’s patience with sinners. He now denies penal substitutionary atonement. In all these things, I have shown him his error from Scripture, but he will have none of it. Because he continues to claim to be a Christian, I have begun to treat him in accordance with 2 Thessalonians 3:14–15, not hanging out like we used to. Have I done the right thing? And should I tell him why?”

I think the answer is yes, you have done the right thing. And I think the answer is yes, you should tell him why. But let’s step back first for just a moment and get the bigger picture of the way the New Testament deals with those who claim to be Christian and have abandoned things essential to the Christian faith.

Warn a Brother

First, let’s clarify the verses in 2 Thessalonians that Scott refers to. The situation in Thessalonica is that some in the church have departed from Paul’s teaching about the second coming, and are so sure that it’s happening in the next weeks or months that they’ve stopped doing any work and are walking in idleness, he says, and mooching off of other believers instead of doing their work, because they think the Lord’s going to be there any minute.

So Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 3:6, “Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.” And then eight verses later, this is what Scott refers to:

If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. (2 Thessalonians 3:14–15)

Now, the problem with using these verses to guide Scott in the situation he describes with his friend is that the situation in 2 Thessalonians is not so serious that Paul considers the delinquent idlers as unbelievers. He tells the church to assume — for now, anyway — that they are brothers and that they should be won back as brothers by this temporary ostracism. “Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother,” he says.

Withdraw from a False Brother

Now, I don’t think that’s the case with Scott’s friend. He has reinvented another Jesus than the one in the Bible, and another Jesus can only offer another gospel. His errors go right to the heart of the gospel, so I don’t think Scott’s friend should be considered a Christian.

Paul has very harsh words for those who claim to be Christian and reject the biblical Christ and the biblical gospel. He says, for example, in Galatians 1:8–9,

Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

That’s the situation for Scott’s friend, as far as I can see, and that kind of false teaching in a person who claims to be a Christian cannot help but stir up serious divisions among professing believers. Claiming to be a Christian while rejecting Christ can only split Christ. So both the apostles’ Paul and John have strong words to tell us to withdraw our fellowship from such a person claiming to be a Christian and yet rejecting the biblical Christ:

2 John 1:9–10: “Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ [which is what Scott’s friend has done; he’s moved on to a new Christ that he’s inventing out of his own head] does not have God. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.”
Titus 3:10: “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him.”
Romans 16:17: “I appeal to you, brothers, watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.”
1 Corinthians 5:11: “Now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler — not even to eat with such a one.”

“Claiming to be a Christian while rejecting Christ can only split Christ.”

Now, that last list from 1 Corinthians 5 focuses mainly on blatant behavioral sins that we don’t repent of, but the reference to idolater in that list points to a much wider application than just a few behavioral sins — like creating a new Christ that is not the Christ of the Bible and claiming to worship that false Christ.

Make the Meaning Clear

So, from these seven passages that I just quoted, I would say that Scott has made the right choice in pulling back his fellowship from his friend who claims to be a Christian and has rejected the very heart of Christ’s saving work — namely, his taking our condemnation on himself on the cross, according to Romans 8:3. And I would say, Scott, that you most definitely should explain to your friend why you are pulling back. It won’t do any good otherwise; he won’t know what’s going on.

“It would not be loving to carry on as if his view of Christ were unimportant.”

Your hope is that your action will help him feel the seriousness of his walking away from biblical truth, and his reinventing his own Christ. You’ll tell him that you love him and that it would not be loving to carry on as if his view of Christ were unimportant, when in fact his soul hangs in the balance. You’ll promise to pray for him, and from time to time, you may communicate with him precious things about Christ that you pray will awaken a longing in him for the true biblical Christ.

Go to the Church

And I would say one more thing, Scott. Without going behind his back, you would say something to him about his church relationship, or you would ask him about his church relationship — I’m just assuming that if he claims to be Christian, he’s going to church somewhere, probably — and you would ask him if his pastor knows what he believes. And you might even offer to go with him to visit his pastor, and you would explain that it’s a matter of integrity.

If you belong to a church, it’s dishonest, it’s cowardly not to be upfront with the church leadership if you come to reject some of the central teachings of the church. And if he gets his back up maybe and says, “What? You want to get me kicked out of my church the way you’re kicking me out of my relationship with you?” — well, you might say to him, “You are the one who has changed — not me, not the church. You’re the one who has turned on Jesus and kicked him out of your life. You’re the one who has kicked out of your mind and heart what the church has believed about the Lord Jesus and the wrath of God and the atonement of Christ for two thousand years. I think you should own up to what you have done and stop pretending that you’re a Christian.”

Now, I don’t know, Scott, whether those words are appropriate for your friend or not. I know I’m putting words in your mouth, but it seemed to me that I ought at least make an effort to say the kinds of things that might be said. And I’ll pray for you that the Lord will give you love, give you wisdom, give you courage to speak the truth with your friend, and that he may receive it the way you mean it.

Audio Transcript

Our culture talks a lot about bucket lists: doing things, experiencing things, achieving things before the clock of life runs out. Mainly, it’s used to talk about travel, places to see, places to go. So, what about Christians talking about bucket lists?

That’s the question from a listener named Christine: “Pastor John, hello. Recently, you wrote this on Twitter: ‘Retirees pack in their bucket list quick before they die as if there is no glorious resurrection, no new earth, no wonders of the new world, no presence of Christ to sweeten every venture in eternity. It is a very strange way for Christians to act in a world of desperate need.’ That’s poignant.

“I feel this pressure as a twenty-year-old woman. All my friends have bucket lists, too, for places to see and travel to before they get married and have kids. I’ll admit I’m tempted here, to get all my adventuring in now. It’s not just a retiree temptation. Can you further unpack this point for me? It seems tied to your themes of not wasting our lives and ‘anti-retirement.’ But how do you balance this eternal hope for the next life while taking and enjoying vacations with your family in this life?”

Let me clarify at the outset that, yes, I am on a little crusade to motivate Christians over the age of 65 (and those who are planning to be over the age of 65 someday) not to waste their remaining healthy lives in bondage to the worldly mindset that earthly adventures are to be packed into our final years, as though on the other side of death, just a few years away, the adventures with Jesus will not be a thousand times better. Instead, they will probably be enhanced if we spend our final healthy years here serving other people rather than chasing earthly excitements.

I don’t know how you can read and believe the Bible and look at this pervasively broken, suffering world, this lost world, and think otherwise. I really don’t. Baby boomers, my generation — I’m the oldest baby boomer, just eleven days short (my birthday is January 11, 1946) — baby boomers own half of the nation’s $156 trillion in assets. Seventy-five million American boomers are expected to be retiring or to have retired seven years from now — all of us, more or less, retired by 2030.

And about 28 percent of those 75 million boomers call themselves evangelical Christians. That’s about 21 million people. If we had the will, we could finish the Great Commission before we were off the scene, both by hundreds of thousands of us going and by billions of dollars being given to send others to the least-reached peoples of the world.

So, maybe you can see why I am on a crusade to say to Christians, “Don’t waste your final two decades chasing earthly excitements when excitements a thousand times better await you just over the horizon of this life.” That would be like a person on the way to inherit a million dollars spending the last mile picking up shiny pennies. It seems to me that it would make a lot more sense to spend the last mile emptying your pockets for lost and needy people.

Focus on Mindset

Now, I know Christine did not ask me about what I’ve just talked about — namely, the retiree. She asked me about twentysomethings who have bucket lists of adventures to pack in before they get married. And then more generally, she asks about the relationship between eternal hope and family vacations.

“Death is not the end of your bucket list. It’s the beginning.”

The reason I have spent half my time now talking about the final twenty years of life is because I think if I could win over some of the Christian twentysomethings to this way of thinking about future decades, then it would inevitably have a powerful impact on their present decade. It would. The reason people waste the last decades of their lives is because the world has taught them to for the previous sixty years, including their twenties.

So, I would say the same thing about globe-trotting at age 25 as I do at age 65: Is the mindset governing this way of life a biblical mindset? That’s the question. “Is it a biblical mindset?” is a different question than whether it’s right to take a family vacation or whether it’s right to buy your rail pass and spend the summer after college visiting every country in Europe. Both of those decisions may be right. The question is, What’s your mindset? Is it biblical?

That’s a different question, because we can’t spend every hour of every day or every day of every year in focused, productive, valid work, whether in Christian ministry or some other vocation. It is biblical and wise to build respite, rest, from work into our lives, both for the sake of recreation and for the sake of legitimate enjoyment of God’s world. Those two impulses are very different from a worldly mindset that is oblivious to the needs of the world, the shortness of life, the joys of service, and the preciousness of the glory of Christ.

Not only is respite from work wise and biblical, so that vacations and days off are totally legitimate, but the adventures themselves — the ones you might do during those times when you’re not working — the adventures themselves need not be merely self-gratifying.

For radically Christ-exalting Christians, adventures (whether in your twenties or seventies) won’t be conceived merely as checking off earthly excitements before you marry or before you die. These adventures will be conceived as adventures with God — on the lookout for his handiwork and his glory, eager to build experiences into our lives for greater usefulness in Christ’s cause, eager to approach every amazement worshipfully, eager to cross paths with people providentially placed there for you to bless.

So, my main desire for twentysomethings and seventysomethings is that they think like the Bible and not like the world, that they think God’s thoughts more than man’s thoughts, that they look at the world through a biblical lens. This would include at least these seven perspectives, which I’ll just name.

Seven Ways to Think God’s Thoughts

1. God “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). Therefore, we are sojourners and exiles here.

2. This earth is not our home. “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20).

3. Life is a vapor, with many troubles here, and eternity is endless, with no trouble there — only joy (James 4:14; Psalm 16:11).

4. We are called to have a healthy, heavenly mindset, having our priorities and desires shaped by things that are above, things that are unseen, things that are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).

5. “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21) — far more gain than anything obtained on earth. Death is not a threat to happiness. You don’t need to squeeze happiness in here because death is coming. That’s ridiculous — I mean, ridiculous. Death is not a threat to happiness. It’s the door to happiness. It’s not the end of your bucket list. It’s the beginning. Come on, we’re Christians.

6. Many people are lost, broken, and more important to help than places are to visit (Galatians 6:10).

7. Finally, life exists, old and young, for the sake of Christ, to make him look supremely valuable (Philippians 1:20). “Only one life, ’twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”

I think if we embrace these seven biblical perspectives, God will show us how to use our earthly early and later years.