“Scotty, I understand. There was a time when the pressure I felt from church concerns was overwhelming and, unfortunately, daily. The stress was crushing — far beyond my ability to endure. I despaired of life. I assumed death wasn’t far off. The main attacks didn’t come from four-legged beasts in an arena, but two-legged ones roaming the world and church. I became so weak, and I burned within.”

I can’t overstate how much the honesty and vulnerability of “my friend” meant to me. The gift of “me too,” has been a vital part of my healing. His story gave me the needed permission to begin the process of diagnosis and care at a desperate point in my pastoral ministry. But why the quotation marks around the words “my friend”?

Some of you, no doubt, heard echoes from 2 Corinthians 1 and 11. In a most profound way, the apostle Paul became a very close friend of mine during my most disheartening, disillusioning, and despairing season of life and ministry. His second letter to the Corinthians became, and remains, a kiss from heaven and my GPS setting for gospel-sanity — an invaluable conduit of peace, healing, and hope. It’s an honor to be able to pass on his mercy and comfort to others in faith crises and heart depletion.

In 45 years of ordained ministry, I’ve never walked with as many weary leaders. So, what do you do when darkness begins to hide the lovely face, voice, and hand of Jesus? Here’s a bit of my story, and what I learned from Paul.

Severe Mercy Is Still Mercy

After experiencing eleven years of a church planter’s grandest dreams, bad dreams became more the norm, and then nightmares. Paul talked about “fighting wild beasts in Ephesus” (1 Corinthians 15:32) — gladiator imagery describing intense relational conflicts and spiritual warfare.

Since I love the ocean, I’ll use aquatic imagery. I never encountered what might be likened to a great white shark attack: a cataclysmic church blowup or full-bore assault of evil. Some of my friends have. My experience was more like an occasional moray eel chomping down on one of my limbs, and a steady stream of piranhas nibbling away at my heart, joy, peace, and sleep. The cumulative effect left me burned out, used up, and running on empty.

“Severe mercy is still mercy, and hard providence is still directed by the heart of our loving Father.”

I remember praying, “Father, ceasing to exist looks really attractive right now — heaven or no heaven. I just want to stop feeling this way. I want to stop feeling anything.” I never had “a plan,” and I never put myself in a position to “easily die.” The brevity of this article won’t allow for all the details, but thankfully, I found the help I needed. Sometimes we have to cry “Uncle” so that we can cry “Abba.” Severe mercy is still mercy, and hard providence is still directed by the heart of our loving Father.

Triage Care

Gleaning from different portions of 2 Corinthians, here’s what I learned, and the advice I now share with other weary leaders. There’s usually a need for both triage and long-term care.

1. Tell a good friend what hurts.

Don’t suffer in silence, isolation, or pride. Gather your friends, and get a proper diagnosis.

Paul gave us this important gift: “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia” (2 Corinthians 1:8). He let others know just how difficult his situation had become.

Who knows how bad you are hurting? Some of us fear being labeled “soft” or “whiny.” Some of us fear losing our jobs. Some of us are too proud to be known and seek help. Some of us are clueless about how dangerously ill we have become. I needed medical, emotional, and spiritual care. Start with your most trusted friends. My journey to health began with falling apart in front of a couple of old friends.

2. Be more honest about your pain.

Resist the temptation to minimize your suffering or discount your pain by reading Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, or by comparing your suffering to the suffering of others. The gospel makes us more human, not superhuman. Listen to Paul: “We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death” (2 Corinthians 1:8–9). If this sounds like your trauma, pain, and weariness speaking, take it seriously — period.

When I experienced burnout, our church was doing great. But I wasn’t aware of how much backed-up pain, emotional exhaustion, and spiritual depletion I was carrying. It’s not just our bodies, but also our hearts and minds that keep score.

3. Surrender any sense of self-sufficiency.

Take your turn on the mat, like the paralyzed man with mobile friends, and let others carry you to Jesus (Mark 2:1–5). Get over the myth and cult of self-sufficiency.

I love this. I needed this. “That was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us . . . [as you] help us by prayer” (2 Corinthians 1:9–11). No one better modeled an aversion to self-reliance, and a constant surrender to praying friends, than my spiritual father, Jack Miller. In time, I followed his example.

When in triage mode, there’s no need (or time) to start with the most gifted counselor. Who are your praying friends? Who’s in the gospel-posse you’re walking with? Get on the mat and let them carry you to Jesus. Humble yourself.

I was far better at caring for others than letting others care for me. That wasn’t nobility; it was stupidity. Self-reliance and the gospel are antithetical. Grace always runs downhill, and sometimes through unexpected means. “Our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn — fighting without and fear within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus” (2 Corinthians 7:5–6). Learn to receive comfort from whomever the Lord sends.

Long-Term Care

After my “bleeding” stopped, and I began walking again with the help of good counseling, mutual burden-bearing friendships, and the appropriate medical care, here are some of the long-term measures I put in place — disciplines and delights that remain with me today.

1. Spend more time looking at Jesus.

Spend more time than you ever have before beholding and contemplating the beauty of Jesus. Don’t just appreciate Paul’s spirituality; practice it. “We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Leading up to my burnout, I replaced abiding in Jesus with working for Jesus.

“Leading up to my burnout, I replaced abiding in Jesus with working for Jesus.”

Satan’s main goal is to rob us of intimacy with Jesus. “I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3). Communing with Jesus and adoring him must always take precedent over the demands of a job description, people’s expectations, and the tyranny of the urgent. This conviction led me to transition out of being lead pastor at least a decade before I had originally planned. I have zero regrets.

Jesus is true, good, and beautiful. Often, the convergence of prolonged spiritual attack, relational conflicts, and mental/emotional stress first robs us of Jesus’s beauty. Then we lose our sense of his goodness. Finally, we can begin to question the truth of the gospel, and the trustworthiness of Jesus.

2. Prepare yourself for the pain of the not-yet.

Develop a greater appreciation for the “already and not yet” of life and ministry between the resurrection and return of Jesus. Consider Paul’s wisdom: “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:8–10).

The ministry of the gospel, this side of life in the new heaven and new earth, will include incredible blessing, and unimaginable difficulty. If you stay in any church or ministry long enough, you will be both disappointed and disappointing. Because we enjoyed a nearly eleven-year gospel renewal when we planted Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee, I was naive to assume it would never be different.

3. Receive your weaknesses.

Learn to accept and delight in your weaknesses. Don’t wait for broken-downness to start living in gospel-brokenness. We matter, but we’re not the point.

We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. (2 Corinthians 4:7)

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

I have never been more aware of my weaknesses, brokenness, and limitations. Hallelujah! I now live and minister with much less stress, even though my schedule is just as full as when I was a young church planter. Your competency is not your sufficiency.

4. Visit the home to come.

Become a curious, childlike explorer of the hope of heaven, and the fullness of the new creation we will enjoy forever when Jesus returns.

Following Paul’s example, I have never spent as much time meditating on heaven and groaning for our coming life in the new heaven and new earth. “In this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. . . . He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. . . . If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:2, 5, 17; see also Revelation 21:1–22:6).

Nothing helped me overcome my spiritual depression, deep shame, and emotional pain of ministry more than connecting my head and heart with the glorious hope of heaven.

The Reformation didn’t “really say” there were five solas. If Wikipedia can be believed, the big five were not put forth as a slogan until 1965! Earlier Lutheran attempts at marketing only offered three: Scripture alone, grace alone, and faith alone. But even this construction isn’t that old. When Philip Schaff wrote his 1845 book The Principle of Protestantism, he only had two. Recently, some church historians have questioned whether sola Scriptura is even a Reformation expression at all!

Before we let this etymological iconoclasm run too wild, we should say that even if the two Latin terms sola and Scriptura don’t occur in immediate succession in the earlier sources in an obvious way, the concept of Scripture holding an exclusive position in matters of religious authority can certainly be found at the time of the Reformation.

In his famous book The Bondage of the Will, Martin Luther wrote, “We are willing to fight each other, not by appealing to the authority of any doctor, but by that of Scripture alone.” Similar references to “Scripture alone” or “only Scripture” can be found in Zwingli’s and Calvin’s writings, and longer articulations show up in most of the major confessional documents. So, there is something like sola Scriptura in the magisterial Reformers.

But one reason modern scholars are pushing back on the slogan is that, if taken purely in the abstract, the expression “Scripture alone” could lead to many misunderstandings.

Only Standard for What?

Christians somewhat regularly say, “The Scriptures are our only standard.” But our only standard for what? Is Scripture the only source of truth of any kind whatsoever, leaving no need for, say, physics textbooks or instruction manuals from IKEA? That kind of interpretation would be silly. And qualifying the statement by saying, “The Scriptures are our only authoritative standard” doesn’t really help. What kind of standard isn’t authoritative, at least in some sense?

“When the Reformers appealed to Scripture in this way, they were not debating science or mathematics or grammar.”

So, we need to explain what sola Scriptura is supposed to mean. This is where our nitpicky historians are helpful. Expressions like “Scripture alone” always showed up in particular contexts. When the Reformers appealed to Scripture in this way, they were not debating science or mathematics or grammar. They were having religious and doctrinal debates. That means that sola Scriptura does not apply to matters related to the natural world in and of itself. We can learn about butterflies from studying butterflies and reading books by people who have studied butterflies. The same is true for literature and even politics.

Sola Scriptura also did not rule out natural revelation about God. This is a more controversial claim, but the Reformation confessional documents are straightforward on this point. The Belgic Confession says, “We know God by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God” (article 2).

The confession goes on to cite the apostle Paul’s argument in Romans 1 that “what can be known about God is plain. . . . For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” (Romans 1:19–20). We could also add Psalm 19:2: “Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.”

Reason also leads to a kind of knowledge of God. For its part, the Westminster Confession of Faith appeals to “the light of nature” five times and “reason” or “common sense” at least three more. In its 21st chapter, it says, “The light of nature showeth that there is a God, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is good, and doth good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might.”

The Scriptures are not then our only source of knowledge, not even of knowledge about God. But what they are is a sufficient source of saving knowledge.

Our Need for Other Sources

Since this knowledge is sufficient, the Scriptures do not need additional knowledge from outside sources for man to know what is necessary to be saved. And so, the 39 Articles of the Church of England state,

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. (article 6)

Sola Scriptura could then be defined as the conviction that the Holy Scriptures are the only source of origin for those doctrines necessary to be believed for salvation.

Even this statement requires further explanation, however. There might be secondary sources for these necessary doctrines. Any Christian who accurately relayed the content of the biblical message would be such a source. Whether it’s Saint Augustine or Aunt Betsy from Sunday School, if they taught a biblical truth, their teaching could be good and helpful. But the confessional claim makes clear that all secondary sources are themselves dependent upon the first source, the Holy Scriptures, for their authority, and cannot appeal to other sources, whether they be kinds of direct spiritual experiences or oral traditions that were alleged to descend from the apostles.

No “new revelations of the Spirit” could establish necessary doctrine, nor could “traditions of men” (WCF 1.6). Every doctrine must be expounded from the Old and New Testaments.

Our Need for Interpretation

This statement also does not rule out the need for interpretation and rational argumentation. It is not saying that we may only repeat biblical verses. Rather, doctrines must be “proved by” the Scripture or “deduced . . . by good and necessary consequence” (WCF 1.6). And so the laws of logic and grammar are essential for sola Scriptura.

Christians are expected to be able to interpret biblical passages, combine various teachings, and make sound conclusions from them. Even Luther’s famous “Here I stand,” was preceded by, “Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason . . . I cannot recant.” Plain reason is not a competing source with Scripture but a necessary, and inescapable, means of interpreting and applying Scripture.

The business of interpreting Scripture is, of course, where most of the debate actually takes place. And interpreting some matters will be easier than others. Since the only interpreters will invariably be humans, mistakes will be made and people will disagree. If you put three theologians together in the same room, sometimes you’ll get five opinions. This means that church councils and synods are still necessary.

Our Need for Councils

None of the Reformers rejected the concept of church councils. Several hoped for a pan-Protestant ecumenical council to unify the various branches of the Reformation. Others were content with regional and national councils. But no one at the Reformation rejected the concept of drafting confessional statements.

“No one at the Reformation rejected the concept of drafting confessional statements.”

Still, the belief in sola Scriptura maintained that these interpretative bodies always had the possibility of being mistaken and so could not be made “the rule of faith” but only a “help” (WCF 31.1). This means that all human councils, even the most ancient and famous, carry derivative authority. They may not create new doctrine but only interpret the content of the Scriptures.

In terms of the ability to enforce a certain religious confession, this would always be after a temporal manner. Creeds and confessions can bind those under their jurisdiction (whether through the establishment churches of old Europe or the voluntary associations of American Christendom), but only in a stipulated, fallible, and mutable way. They can always be revised and must therefore themselves be judged by the higher standard, the rule of the Holy Scriptures.

God Gave Us a Guide

The proper understanding of sola Scriptura does not rule out other standards. There is a necessary place for natural wisdom, the role of reason, and even church history and ecclesiastical piety. But sola Scriptura says that all of these authorities are lesser authorities that are themselves judged by the Scriptures. Since the Scriptures are divinely inspired (2 Timothy 3:16), they are the only standard that can judge saving truth and righteousness without the possibility of being wrong. As such, the Scriptures judge all other standards and serve as our final measuring rod.

Not to be lost in the more technical aspect of this discussion is the very good news that God did indeed give us a sufficient guide to his will. His word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Psalm 119:105). All Christians can read their Bibles with the sure knowledge that its pages are absolutely true and its promises cannot fail. We have everything we need to know and please God, and we have the path to eternal salvation.

As discussion about women in the church lingers online and in the minds of congregants, I wonder if some sisters today feel that their churches debate their proper callings more than they delight in them as one of God’s best gifts. The conversations about what women can and cannot do in the context of the church are poignant in this particular moment. Can they preach, teach, or lead a co-ed Bible study? These conversations matter because the Scriptures speak to them. Yet the church’s public discourse about women, when healthy, is marked most of all by celebrations of women as faithful saints.

Women across continents and denominations report their local-church participation often leaves them feeling overlooked and undervalued. What a sad reality that our mothers and daughters often feel that Christ’s very own bride holds them at arm’s length, even if unintentionally.

We are right to aim for theological precision in all matters, including the callings of men and women in the church. But we would also do well to ask, Does the way we talk about women reflect the way the Scriptures celebrate them?

Introducing Eve

Recall man’s first words in Scripture. After God created the world and everything in it, the narrative sings with the rhythm, “And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). But then suddenly, God declares, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18). And so, God makes the woman — the helper fit for the man. And as a father would usher the bride to her expectant husband, so God “brought [the woman] to the man” (Genesis 2:22).

“Remarkably, the first words a woman heard from a man announced the joy he took in her being.”

What follows are the first recorded sentences from human lips in Scripture. Upon seeing the woman, Adam explodes with delight: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man” (Genesis 2:23). Remarkably, the first words a woman heard from a man announced the joy he took in her being.

At that moment, the woman hadn’t yet done anything except exist by the power of God. Yet her very existence leads Adam to rejoice. Without any further instruction, he understands that the woman is an extraordinary gift to him. He had known life in God’s world apart from her, and, once with her, he immediately loves her and knows how essential she is to God’s mandate that humans should take dominion and multiply (Genesis 1:28).

Without Eve, Adam cannot fulfill God’s calling. Without the woman, the story stops. In the very good beginning, God puts his wisdom on magnificent display in her creation. And as the story of the world progresses, God puts front and center the essential part women will play in his redemptive plan.

Book of Heroines

The Scriptures brim with narratives that underscore the essential and exalted place women hold in God’s economy. From Rebekah, whose Abraham-like faith compelled her to leave her home for a place and people she did not know (Genesis 24), to Ruth the Moabite widow, whose conversion to Yahweh led her to become part of the Messianic line, the Bible’s story cannot be told apart from the lives of faithful women.

In the ancient world, women were far more vulnerable than today, in part because they did not enjoy the same legal rights as men. Yet in that very context, Scripture celebrates women by repeatedly placing them in the stream of God’s redemptive plan, where their fidelity to God often throws into relief the disobedience of fallen men. We know many of their names: Sarah, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Esther, Elizabeth, and Priscilla. Four women even appear in Christ’s genealogy, including Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary (Matthew 1:5–16).

“The Bible’s story cannot be told apart from the lives of faithful women.”

Yet there are many others whose names are known only to God: women who received back their dead by resurrection (Hebrews 11:35); the widow of Zarepath, whose son was raised (1 Kings 17:17–24); the industrious godly woman extolled in Proverbs 31; the widow who offered everything (Mark 12:41–44); the sinful woman whose lavish care for Jesus in washing his feet with tears exposed the hypocrisy of the religious elite (Luke 7:36–50); and the Canaanite woman whose faith was answered with her daughter’s healing (Matthew 15:21–28).

Great Commission Women

Unbridled faith in God marks all of these accounts, and continues to encourage believers today. You can’t read your Bible without discerning the honored role God assigns women at every point in his story. Just as God gave Adam a mandate to multiply on the earth, so God gave the church a mission to multiply disciples. And so, just as Adam marveled at God’s creation of the woman, so the Bible teaches us to glorify God for the incredible gift of women who are in Christ.

Our sisters have been wonderfully indispensable to the church’s work of bearing witness to Christ and making disciples. God used Priscilla to sharpen and instruct the preacher Apollos in the way of God (Acts 18:24–26). Apart from the fervent prayers and godly life of Monica, the church may not enjoy the treasures of her son, Augustine.

Who can know how much eternal fruit the sacrificial labors of Lottie Moon and Gladys Aylward bore through their long ministries in China? Or through Amy Carmichael’s lifelong ministry in India?

Of course, we don’t just praise the Christian sisters whom we know by name. There are countless names we have not yet heard whom we will honor in the age to come. They are steadfast mothers and wives who pray down heaven while giving themselves to their family from dawn to dusk and even through the darkest nights. They are single women who joyfully content themselves in God while the world constantly tempts them to believe their faith is folly. My own experience living overseas testifies to the truth that far more young unmarried women cross oceans and borders for the sake of the gospel than men.

Honoring the Women Among Us

In the church, as in the garden, it is not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18). In a day in which popular culture has muddled the lines between men and women, Christian men today have an opportunity to give fresh evidence for how much we admire women and value womanhood. Created in God’s wisdom and by his power, the church’s mothers and daughters are not second-class citizens in the church.

God presented the first woman to the first man as a gift, and he continues giving women as blessings to his church today. And just as the woman knew the man’s joy in her immediately, so too it would be fitting for Christian women to regularly hear how much of an asset they are to the church, both locally and globally. Adam could not multiply and take dominion without the woman (Genesis 1:28). And without Christian women, we the church will not be able to fulfill our mission to bear witness and make disciples (Matthew 28:18–20). The whole of the Scriptures and church history bear witness to this fact.

Every day, women advance the mission of the church by demonstrating the matchless worth of Christ. We cannot afford to overlook these sisters in Christ — neither the God of history nor God-in-the-flesh overlooks them.