A dear and discouraged friend lamented to me recently, “How do we minister in this climate?” He wasn’t talking about the humid subtropical weather pattern of the Carolinas (which is generally quite pleasant). He was referring to the ministry environment of the younger generation in the early 2020s.

A few conflicting responses arose within me.

Feeling the Pain

My first response was, essentially, I feel your pain.

The ministry I work with, Campus Outreach, focuses on life-on-life evangelism and discipleship. In my two-plus decades in campus ministry, I have not encountered a moment quite as challenging as this one. I believe that a conflation of cultural factors (COVID, technology, and modern philosophies, to name a few) has brought us to this place. While every individual and subculture is distinct, I have an educated hunch that most ministers in the Western world are experiencing many (if not all) of the following challenges on some level.

1. Fear of the Social Unknown

For the past two years, I haven’t witnessed much direct fear of COVID from young people. I have witnessed, however, their sheer terror in the face of new social situations. The trend was alarming in the years immediately preceding COVID (though I think it may have been more akin to FOMO in the 2010s), but it’s off the charts now.

The fear of being seen and known, of connecting with and building close relationships with others, while not remotely a new fear, has been given fresh license in the sanctioned isolation of the last two years. So, an invitation to any organic, communal platform for relationship — a retreat, a conference, even an ultimate frisbee game — is met with more reluctance than I have ever previously encountered.

2. Isolation in Public

To quote Tony Reinke, “The smartphone is causing a social reversal: the desire to be alone in public and never alone in private” (12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You, 124). There have been venues where this reversal was already coming to fruition, even as far back as twenty years ago: the gym and the airplane, for example. But the social acceptability of a screen in hand (and eyes on it) means that gaining access to a person’s eyes implies interruption. The screen (and headphones!) is a social stiff-arm, a means of saying, “Don’t talk to me!” without having to be rude.

The wide world, therefore, becomes an extension of the living room, where risks have been minimized and the channels of communication are tightly controlled. Few truly experience what Bilbo spoke to Frodo about in The Fellowship of the Ring: “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” It’s a wonderful quote, but it may have been rendered moot. If we can find a way to bring our recliners with us, the transformation will be complete. And the living room has always felt too personal to invade.

3. Loss of the Moral High Ground

Historically, my evangelistic interactions, whether with strangers or friends, have elicited a “should” factor from the recipients of the gospel. Their resistance to Jesus was often met with a counterbalancing sense that Christianity was nevertheless the right way. The moral way. But the current zeitgeist associates Christianity with ignorance, bigotry, and oppression. So now, we aren’t simply trying to convince people that life surrendered to Jesus is better than whatever the world of sex and money and power offers; we are trying to convince them that Christians aren’t inherently racist, sexist, and abusive.

4. Loss of the ‘Villain’ Category

In recent years, you may have noticed the preponderance of films, especially in the Disney canon, that tell the backstory of a classical villain (Maleficent, Cruella, Joker, to name a few). In each of the stories, the villain is portrayed as misunderstood and deeply wounded. To be fair, generational sin in a broken world is complex. But the contrast between the portrayal of Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty and in the more recent film where she is the titular character is striking.

Therapeutic language, with all of its benefits and drawbacks, has won over our society in a comprehensive way (I heartily recommend Carl Trueman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self for a thorough treatment of this trend). Twenty years ago, some pastors and theologians were vigorously countering the gospel of self-esteem. Today, many are rightly acknowledging and resisting previously overlooked abuses, but I am afraid that, in the process, the old self-esteem has entered through the back door.

A pastor I admire once presented the alliteration “Villain, Victim, Victor” to capture the categories in which all followers of Christ simultaneously find themselves. We are perpetrators of sin against God and others (villains), recipients of the sins of others (victims), and overcomers of sin through the finished work of Christ on the cross and the daily work of the Holy Spirit within (victors).

“The only doorway to the kingdom of Christ is through acknowledgment of personal villainy.”

In my experience, the personal category of villain has been largely erased. The category of victim is assumed, and affirmation of victory, even in the context of failure, is a given (“We’re all winners!”). But the only doorway to the kingdom of Christ is through acknowledgment of personal villainy. When there are widely accepted philosophical defenses to keep us from darkening that doorway, ministry is significantly more challenging.

5. Endless Buffet of Distractions

Life-on-life discipleship takes hours, days, months, and even years of commitment. It requires sustained scriptural focus. It takes single-mindedness and intentional relationships — qualities more easily attained without a constant barrage of stimuli, whether for entertainment (Netflix, YouTube, TikTok), human connection (Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook), or information (podcasts, TED talks, articles — yes, I see the irony). Those distractions have drastically diminished the felt need for true community, for the discipline of silence and solitude, and for a true Paul to one’s Timothy.

Spoiled to Inflated Expectations

So, my first response was, I feel your pain. But then my second response was this: we have been spoiled.

American gospel ministry in the last half-century, especially on the college campus, has been nearly unparalleled in its fruitfulness. I sat in a room of more than seven hundred Campus Outreach staff in 2013, and the meeting host asked all who had come to faith in college through the ministry to stand. Some three-fourths of the room left their seats.

These staff had mostly attended college in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when ministry numbers were booming. As a student, I was part of a ministry that comprised nearly 10 percent of the entire enrollment of a “secular” college. The harvest of millennials was ripe on America’s campuses. Meanwhile, across the world, faithful missionaries were battling to translate the Scriptures, learn cultures, and hopefully see a convert or a few over years of ministry. They still are.

“We need to recapture the wonder of a single heart made new.”

With a background in such manifest fruitfulness, I have found, at least for myself, that I need to recapture a healthy theology of the cross, whereby we are poured out, sometimes agonizingly, for the formation of disciples (Galatians 4:19). We need to recapture the wonder of a single heart made new (Ezekiel 36:26). We need to recall the counterintuitive contentment that comes from seemingly fruitless ministry (1 Corinthians 15:58), and even the strange joy of suffering shame for the name of Christ (Acts 5:41). Which leads to my third and final response.

Hasn’t It Always Been Tough?

From feeling the pain, to needing to recalibrate assumptions, I also asked, Hasn’t it always been this way in some form or another?

In other words, is it possible that hitting the panic button during any given cultural moment is a bit reactionary? Our commitment to biblical Christianity requires us to believe that the Scriptures are sufficient to equip us to address the challenges of modern life and ministry (2 Timothy 3:16–17). It can only follow that they are timeless, implying that both the human condition in the twenty-first century and the cultural challenges of our day have not strayed too far from those in biblical times. I find it incredibly helpful to recall timeless spiritual realities when ministry moments seem bleak.

All still have the hardwired inclination to exchange the truth of God for a lie in order to worship and serve the creature (or the self) rather than the Creator (Romans 1:24–25). Christ crucified is still the stench of death to those who don’t have the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 2:15–16). And the ministers themselves still flag at times, struggling to continue to speak the aromatic gospel of Christ, always needing renewed faith, hope, and love.

People back then had a God-shaped void in their hearts. They were made for intimacy with God and with their fellow man, even as they suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. They longed to know and be known and were simultaneously terrified of that intimacy.

So, to quote Ellis in No Country for Old Men, “What you got ain’t nothing new.” In a foundational sense, in the ways that matter most, the resistance was exactly the same in AD 50 as it is in 2022. Daunting indeed.

But if the resistance is fundamentally the same, so too is the Spirit who indwells us with divine power. The word of the cross has never ceased being folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it has never stopped being the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18). He has never stopped using foolish things to shame the wise, jars of clay to carry treasure (1 Corinthians 1:27; 2 Corinthians 4:7). And if that is true, then there will be a multitude that no one can count from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation who surround the throne of the Lamb (Revelation 7:9).

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). So, no matter the spiritual climate, we offer him to the world with hope.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15960599/who-is-the-man-of-lawlessness

Audio Transcript

On Friday we looked at the return of Christ. It has not happened yet; it’s yet to come in the future. When? Today we talk about timing; namely, we are going to look at one of the clear pieces of evidence that Christ’s return is drawing near. Here’s the question from a listener to the podcast named Alex. “Hello, Pastor John! I have a question about what Jesus said in Matthew 24:12, where he said of the end times that ‘lawlessness will be increased’ and that ‘the love of many will grow cold.’ What does Jesus mean when he says love will grow cold? Where will this be evidenced? What is ‘cold love’? And how can we prevent this in our own lives?”

Yes, that last question is the nub of the matter, isn’t it? So, let’s set the stage from Matthew 24, where the quote comes from in verse 12.

Beginning of Birth Pangs

Jesus had just looked at the temple in Jerusalem and said, “Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Matthew 24:2). And then the disciples asked him, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3).

Now, that phrase “end of the age” refers to the phase of history that we are in, ending with the coming of Christ in judgment, separating the sheep and the goats, raising the dead. We know that because of the way the phrase is used in Matthew 13:39–43, where Jesus interprets the parable of the weeds like this:

The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

The disciples had heard Jesus talk about this. They had heard this description of the end of the age, and they were asking about the end of this period of history marked by that amazing final judgment. They didn’t know how that related to the destruction of the temple, when all the stones would be thrown down. They were asking about both. Jesus answers by describing the kinds of things that will mark this age leading up to the end of this age. For example,

Many will come in my name, saying, “I am the Christ,” and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. (Matthew 24:5–6)

“Hate is the final outcome of hypocritical love — just the shell of love where the warmth has gone out.”

So, he says, “The end is not yet.” He has the end in view, but he warns them that there’s going to be some time lapse here. It’s not the very end yet. The end is not yet. These things will be happening on the way to the end. This will be your experience leading up to the end. Then he adds, “All these are but the beginning of the birth pains” (Matthew 24:8), to make clear that there is some time lapse before the end. This is the beginning of the birth pangs. They will last for some unspecified time, and then there will be the end of the birth pangs as the new order is brought to birth.

Four Observations on ‘Cold Love’

He goes on:

And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:10–14)

Now, here are four observations.

1. Cold love is the opposite of warm familial affection.

For example, in Genesis 43:30, when Joseph was about to reveal his identity to his brothers, it says, “Joseph hurried out, for his compassion grew warm for his brother, and he sought a place to weep.” We see the same thing in Hosea 11:8. God says to Israel, “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? . . . My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.”

So, cold love is the shell of love that has lost its inner familial warmth.

2. Cold love betrays.

The effect of this coldness is that brother betrays brother. Matthew 24:10, “Then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another.” That hate is the final outcome of hypocritical love — just the shell of love where the warmth has gone out, and ice has come in, and the upshot is no longer just hypocritical love but rather hate that betrays brother to brother.

3. Cold love results from lawlessness.

Jesus says that the reason for this upsurge of cold, hypocritical love that eventually betrays a brother is owing to the increase of lawlessness. Matthew 24:12, “Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” That’s worth thinking about, because you might want to turn it around like this: “Because love grew cold, there’s a lot of lawlessness.” The root of this growing coldness of love in the church toward each other is a deep hostility to authority. That’s my interpretation of lawlessness: a deep hostility to authority, especially God’s authority. That’s what lawlessness is at root. “I will not submit to law from outside my sovereign self. I’m not going to yield to authority anymore.”

Now, to use the language of Paul, the church becomes infected with “the mind of the flesh” rather than “the mind of the Spirit”:

The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. [That’s lawlessness.] Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:7–8)

The upsurge of lawlessness is the upsurge of self, the mind of the flesh over God, the insubordinate, “I will not submit,” stiff-necked self. And Paul speaks directly to this lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians 2 in relation to the second coming. He says that a great apostasy must come before the end, along with “the man of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:3). Make that connection between Matthew 24 and 2 Thessalonians 2.

The mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. (2 Thessalonians 2:7–8)

So, just when anti-authoritarian lawlessness inside and outside the church seems to be reaching its fevered peak in history, Jesus will step forward and return on the clouds, and there will be a great reversal.

4. Cold love must be combatted.

Finally, a fourth observation to Alex’s question about how we can prevent coldness of love from taking over our own hearts. Since cold love, Jesus says, comes from the increase of lawlessness, we must fight upstream, so to speak, from the river of love. We’ve got to get up there to the springs. We must fight against arrogance and pride and self-sufficiency — that is, against the spirit of lawlessness in our hearts that says, “I will not submit. I don’t like people telling me what to do, least of all an omnipotent God.”

“The root of growing coldness of love in the church toward each other is a deep hostility to authority.”

Lawlessness means we want to be our own law. We don’t want anybody — especially an infallible, omnipotent God — telling us what to do. We want to create our own meaning, create our own identity, create our own rules. And when this happens, we have cut ourselves off from Christ and from the Holy Spirit — and therefore from love.

Let me end with the way Hebrews 10:24–25 exhorts us in view of the second coming:

Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.