http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15325647/the-setting-of-1-thessalonians
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The Joy of Christian Duty
We Christian Hedonists have a complicated relationship with duty. On the one hand, with our emphasis on the centrality of affections and desire in glorifying God, we are at war with duty-driven approaches to the Christian life that regard the affections as optional add-ons. To do a righteous act purely from a sense of obligation — because it is the right thing to do — is not morally superior to performing the same act with a deep sense of desire and gladness. Desire does not ruin the moral worth of good actions. Indeed, the right kind of desire establishes the true moral worth of our actions.
On the other hand, we Christian Hedonists, far from setting duty and desire at odds, instead bring them together by insisting that we are obligated to delight in God. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). We are called and commanded to desire God, to treasure God, to want God, to find our highest joy in God.
So again, we have a complicated relationship with duty. And as such, it’s worth taking a few moments to consider this relationship more carefully. The question is this: Is there a good, wise, and Christian Hedonistic way of celebrating the value of duty in the Christian life?
What Is Duty Anyway?
To answer this question, let’s first untangle a potential ambiguity. What do we mean by duty? On the one hand, duty might simply be a synonym for obligation. Anytime we use the word ought, we are dealing with duty. In this sense, duty and delight, far from being at odds, coincide. We ought to delight in God. We ought to love him with all of our heart. Included in all of our obligations is the duty to find our highest satisfaction in God. Thus, if we equate duty and obligation, then Christian Hedonists clearly value duty. That’s why we talk about “the dangerous duty of delight.”
“Duty refers to fulfilling one’s obligations in the face of obstacles.”
But duty often has a more particular and narrower meaning. Often, duty refers not merely to obligations, but to obligations that we find difficult to fulfill for one reason or another. In this sense, duty refers to fulfilling one’s obligations in the face of obstacles. When obligation meets impediments, then we talk about duty. Put another way, duty (in this narrower sense) is when the want to and the ought to don’t match.
That’s why duty has so often been praised as a virtue. To do the right thing in the face of the various obstacles that hinder us, to persevere in willing the good even when it’s hard, even when we lack the spontaneous delight that would make doing the right thing enjoyable — these have led many to praise duty as not merely virtuous, but as the pinnacle of virtue. The moral effort involved in overcoming impediments seems to give duty a beauty and luster and value that unimpeded, spontaneous goodness seems to lack.
What do we, as Christian Hedonists, make of this seeming superiority of arduous moral effort that overcomes all obstacles to doing good?
Impediments of Various Kinds
First, let’s understand what we mean by impediments. It seems to me that impediments might be either natural or moral, and either internal or external. Natural, external impediments are the high mountains and long distances we endure to fulfill our obligations. The time it takes, the monotonous repetition of our obligations, the heavy loads we must carry, and the inconveniences we undergo — all of these lie outside of us and are simply features of living in a finite (and fallen) world.
Natural, internal impediments are those bound up with our finitude and embodiment. Any impediment flowing from bodily weakness and natural aversion to pain and suffering would be included here. Sometimes duties are heavy, not because the obligation is so heavy, but because we are so weak. To do the right thing when we are tired or hungry or sick, or when the consequences of doing the right thing will be pain, discomfort, and even the possibility of death — this is what it means to do our duty in the face of natural, internal impediments.
Moral, external impediments include the evil that we must overcome in others. Loving my neighbor who is kind and pleasant is easy. Loving my neighbor who is quarrelsome, bitter, envious, and ungrateful is harder. Their ingratitude and bitterness are impediments that I overcome to fulfill my obligation. The same is true of the mockery, scorn, and rejection by others that sometimes occur when we do the right thing and maintain our integrity. So also with the obstacles posed by dark spiritual powers, which seek to undermine our obedience (though frequently the obstacles they erect take the form of the other kinds of impediments).
“Even the simplest of obligations can feel impossible in the face of our own pride, anger, sloth, and fear.”
Finally, we have the moral impediments that lie within us. Our besetting sins and disruptive passions — these are the impediments that we most frequently have to overcome. Even the simplest of obligations can feel impossible in the face of our own pride, anger, sloth, and fear. Or we might consider how our desires for other good things turn our obligation to love others into arduous exertions. The love of money (and all the desires it could fulfill) kept the rich young ruler from doing the one thing Christ called him to do. That inordinate love was his greatest impediment, and he went away sad (Mark 10:22).
In our daily lives, these impediments are almost always mingled. Making a time-consuming meal for a bitter neighbor when you are tired after a full day’s work brings three of the impediments together in one major obstacle (and no doubt presses on our own abiding sinfulness, thus bringing all types of impediments together). So we must not artificially divide the kinds of obstacles that we face.
What, then, do Christian Hedonists say about duty in the narrow sense in the face of these kinds of impediments?
1. Duty exists to be transcended.
The narrow sense of duty is owing to the various natural and moral impediments that we face, and these are owing to our pilgrim condition in a fallen world. Someday, most of these impediments — at least the moral ones and the natural, internal ones — will pass away. It seems possible to me that natural, external impediments may still have a place even in the new heavens and new earth; heaven may have its ardors and exertions, its severities and steep ascents. However, in our glorified condition, our natural limitations will not in any way hinder our joy in doing good; indeed, they will increase our joy.
When that day comes, goodness will flow from us spontaneously, like songs from a lark and water from a fountain. Unhindered delight in doing what we ought will be the crowning bloom on our moral actions.
2. Humans have levels of will.
In the meantime, in our pilgrim condition, we embrace the worth and value of overcoming impediments in our efforts to do good. That worth and value will be embraced rightly if we recognize the different levels of “willing” that we are capable of as humans.
We see these two levels in Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane: “Not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42). “Not my will” — this means that, at some level, the race set before Jesus was an unpleasant one, filled with various impediments: a long distance up Calvary’s road, a heavy cross upon his back, the natural weaknesses of a beaten body, the hatred, scorn, and mockery of wicked men, his abandonment by his friends, and the surety of an excruciating death. Jesus beheld all of these impediments to his calling to love his people and, at one level, said, “I don’t want to.”
But only at one level. At another, deeper level, his human will embraced the divine will. “Yours be done.” Despite all of the impediments in his way, Christ still fundamentally desired to do the will of his Father. And thus he did what he ought in the face of the external and internal obstacles in his way.
What can we say about this deeper willing and desiring that Christ displayed? First, it was animated by joy: “For the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2). Second, his experience of joy while enduring the cross differed markedly from his experience after his ascent to God’s right hand. The sufferings were neither pleasant nor enjoyable; they were horrific and painful. Nevertheless, we all know that there is a kind of satisfaction in doing one’s duty in the face of obstacles and in the midst of great pain, by looking forward to the reward (Hebrews 11:6, 26).
3. Even duties can become joys.
The two levels of our willing enable us to speak truly about the value of the narrow sense of duty. At one level, the want to and ought to don’t match; thus, we can talk about duty. But at another, deeper (or higher) level, they do match, because we actually persevere in doing the good, despite the lack of want to at the first level. Our desire or commitment to doing what’s right overcomes all external hindrances and internal reluctances.
This desire is what enables us to “count it all joy . . . when [we] meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:2). The fact that we have to “count it” joy highlights the gap that we are exploring. We don’t have to count pleasant experiences as joy; they just are joy because we enjoy them at both levels. It is the trials, the unpleasant moments, the impediments that must be counted as joy because we know what the testing is producing for us — steadfastness, maturity, and completeness (James 1:3–4).
4. Some impediments require repentance.
Recognizing the different types of obstacles that the narrow sense of duty overcomes enables us to evaluate them rightly. When facing natural impediments or the moral evil in others, we need not feel guilt for the struggle. We can lament our bodily weaknesses and grieve over the evil done to us by other people, but we need feel no moral responsibility or conviction for having to overcome such obstacles.
When facing our own inner, moral obstacles, however, such as the passions that hinder our pursuit of godliness, we must both lament and repent for our remaining sinfulness. In such cases, we do our duty with a humble brokenheartedness because the gap between the ought to and the want to is owing to our own abiding corruption.
5. Doing our duty strengthens our will.
We labor to strengthen the deeper level of willing by cultivating habitual holy affections at this level. Seeking to do our duty in the broader sense (i.e., fulfilling our obligation to delight in God above all things) is what strengthens our ability to do our duty in the narrower sense (when the want to and ought to don’t align at every level). We want the fundamental inclinations of our will to be enduring, stable, and strong enough to overcome the temporary disruptions of our passions in the face of external impediments.
So, we Christian Hedonists do not disparage duty. Instead, we put it in its proper place. It is a crutch in our pilgrim condition, a deep and abiding resolve to overcome the various obstacles that keep us from fully rejoicing in doing good with joy unhindered. In this sense, doing our duty in the face of impediments is a crucial expression of our deep and enduring satisfaction in all that God is for us in Christ.
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Should We Despise the Vile — or Love Them?
Audio Transcript
Good Monday morning to you. Maybe you’re listening on your way to class or to work. Monday, for many of us, is a day to re-enter the complexities of life as God’s redeemed children, living out our faith in a world that is hostile to our heavenly Father. And that raises questions like this: Should the world like us, or should the world hate us? Which result shows us to be most faithful? It’s a huge question — one for another day. We’ll get to it in two Fridays.
Today’s question, Pastor John, is about the sinfully vile in this world. Should we despise them, or should we love them? Here’s the question: “My name is Parker. I’m 14. Psalm 15:4 says, speaking of a blameless man, that ‘in [their] eyes a vile person is despised.’ How can we both despise the vile, and yet also love our enemies?” And the same question came from a listener named Peter. “Hello to you, Pastor John. David says in Psalm 15:1–2, 4, ‘O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly and does what is right . . . in whose eyes a vile person is despised.’ But Jesus says in Matthew 5:44, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.’ These categories of (1) vile people and (2) enemies and persecutors are not entirely overlapping, but I think it’s safe to say that there’s at least some overlap between them. I suspect David had his enemies in mind in Psalm 15 when he was talking about vile people. Do you agree? If you do, how are we to simultaneously despise and love the sinfully vile?”
“It is indeed possible to love someone you despise.”
The short answer is that it is indeed possible to love someone you despise. In fact, it is not just possible but necessary, because the psalm says that one of the marks of the person who dwells with God, who enjoys God’s fellowship, is that “in [his] eyes a vile person is despised.” That’s a mark of being welcomed into God favor. In fact, we don’t even need to jump from the psalm to Jesus in order to see what love requires toward a vile person.
Who Shall Dwell on Your Hill?
Let me read Psalm 15:1–5, because the whole thing is remarkable in this regard. I’ll just pause and mark the key parts as we go along. “O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent?” That’s the question. Who gets to enjoy fellowship with God? “Who shall dwell on your holy hill?” (Psalm 15:1). In other words, what are the marks of a person who can enjoy the presence and the fellowship of God? And here comes the answer: “He who walks blamelessly and does what is right” (Psalm 15:2). So he’s not free. This person who qualifies to be with God is not free to call just anything right. He does what is right — namely, what God calls right.
Now, continuing, “And [he] speaks truth in his heart; who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor” (Psalm 15:2–3). Now that’s very crucial, because it comes just before the word about despising. Paul said in Romans 13:10, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” So when the psalmist says, “[He] does no evil to his neighbor,” he is saying, “I must love my neighbor. I may not wrong him.”
And then the text continues, “. . . nor takes up a reproach against his friend; in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord; who swears to his own hurt and does not change” (Psalm 15:3–4). That means he keeps his promises even when it hurts him. “Who does not put out his money at interest” — which means he doesn’t take advantage of anyone financially — “and does not take a bribe against the innocent” (Psalm 15:5). So he won’t let himself be lured by money to treat anyone unjustly. And then, “He who does these things shall never be moved.” End of psalm.
Posture of the Heart
So, what do we make of this? Here’s David (a psalm of David), the man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). And he says that the person who can dwell with God and enjoy God’s fellowship (1) does what is right, (2) does not slander anyone, (3) does no evil to his neighbor, (4) doesn’t charge interest to gouge anyone, and (5) doesn’t let bribery pervert justice in his hands.
In other words, this is not a careless moment for David, in which he’s on some kind of hate tirade against evildoers. This is a thoughtful listing of beautiful traits of the person God delights to have near him. And right after saying, “[He] does no evil to his neighbor,” one phrase later, he says that in this godly man’s eyes a vile person is despised and one who fears the Lord is honored (Psalm 15:3–4).
So, we take Paul’s definition of love from Romans 13:10 (“Love does no wrong to a neighbor”), and then David who is saying, “The man whom God welcomes loves his neighbor and despises him if he’s vile.” Notice the two halves of Psalm 15:4. We call this kind of poetic parallelism “antithetical.” That means the two halves express opposites. Here’s what he says in verse 4: “In whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors [which is the opposite of despised] those who fear the Lord [which is the opposite of vile].” What David is drawing attention to in the godly person’s heart is not how they act, not how they treat people. That’s not the point of verse 4. That’s the point of verse 3: you do no wrong to a neighbor. But the point of verse 4 is what they feel about the character of a person — what they admire in their hearts or don’t admire, what they praise, glorify, honor.
The godly person does not glorify the vile person. He glorifies the one who fears the Lord. The godly person does not admire, or venerate, or want to be like the vile person. He admires, he wants to be near and be like the person who fears the Lord. In other words, to despise in Psalm 15 does not mean you desire to destroy a person, or to see a person come to ruin. To despise means you regard the person’s character — not their body — as ugly, dishonorable, shameful, disgraceful, unworthy of praise. There are people like that, and it would be ungodly not to despise them.
And David is saying, “If you have the kind of heart that enjoys being around vile people who don’t fear God, if you admire and esteem vile people, you’re not fit for the presence of God.” That’s what he’s saying.
Despise the Vile
What David meant and what Jesus meant by loving our neighbor is not that we should admire their wickedness. We should despise their wickedness. And I know there’s someone who’s saying, “But you shouldn’t say it like that.” If you think I should be saying here, “Despise the sin and not the sinner” (that’s what some of you are thinking), that would be true if despising meant feeling desires for their ruin, but the problem with that traditional way of expressing love — love for the sinner, not the sin — is that it is precisely the person who is vile. That’s what it says.
And there are vile people. The vileness is not an alien intruder into a good person. Sin is not the only thing that’s vile; people are vile. People produce sins; sins don’t produce people. “Evil comes from the heart,” Jesus said (see Matthew 15:18). It doesn’t come from outside and contaminate the innocent heart. It’s people who will be judged for being vile, not just their vileness. Vileness doesn’t go to hell; people go to hell.
Love Your Enemies
So let me say it again. What David meant and what Jesus meant by loving our neighbor is not that we admire their wickedness. We should despise their wickedness. And that includes despising the kind of person that loves and does wickedness. And we should love them and be willing to lay down our lives for them. Jesus prayed on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). He was praying for people whom just days before he had said were fools, whitewashed tombs, full of wickedness and greed (Matthew 23:27), and who on Pentecost, fifty days later, would be saved. His prayer would be answered. Three thousand came to Jesus, including many priests (see Acts 2:41; 6:7).
“It is a godly trait to feel that vileness is repulsive and despicable. To admire it would be sin.”
Now besides Jesus himself, the clearest example in the New Testament of loving someone we despise is the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans are chosen in this parable because they despised each other. (Look at John 4:9, and numerous other texts.) And so Jesus illustrated what neighbor love involves by portraying a Samaritan stopping to help a wounded Jew. There’s not a word in this parable about his liking him or admiring him as a Jew — only that he had compassion on him in his misery and took practical steps to relieve his suffering.
So my answer to Parker and Peter’s question is that it is a godly trait to feel that vileness is repulsive and despicable. To admire it would be sin. Admiration belongs to the fear of the Lord; despising belongs to despicable vileness. But the radical call on our lives as Christians is to love even those we despise and join Jesus in saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
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Your Spouse Is God’s Creation: Celebrating Differences in Marriage
My dear wife, Luella, and I recently celebrated fifty years of marriage. It is mind-boggling to think that a girl from Cuba and a boy from Ohio would end up in the same lunch line, at the same college in South Carolina, on the same day, at the same time.
When I first noticed her in the cafeteria, I was captured right away. For me, it was, without a doubt, love at first sight. For Luella — it was just first sight! As the weeks progressed, and I got to know her more, I became convinced that I loved Luella. I had never felt this way toward anyone before. So I began looking for an opportunity to say those amazing, life-altering words: “I love you.”
I wanted the moment and the location to be just right. I knew this was an important moment, and I didn’t want to blow it. I finally found what I thought was the perfect moment, and I ventured out and said what I had wanted and waited to speak. I looked into Luella’s eyes and said, “Luella, I love you.”
I thought I would hear birds sing and violins play. Instead, Luella’s response was swift and pointed. She said, “You love me? What do you know about love? Don’t ever say that to me again!” I heard birds dying and violins breaking. I couldn’t believe it! After all my waiting and planning, she had thrown the words right back at me. But she was right. That 17-year-old Paul Tripp didn’t have a clue about the nature of love.
Fifty years later, it should be evident that she eventually responded in kind and said, “Paul, I love you.” Things have never been the same since. We reminisce on those early days and joke and laugh and celebrate. But we also worship. The only reason we bumped into each other in the lunch line in college is because a God of awesome sovereignty was weaving together our life stories.
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, . . . determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. (Acts 17:24, 26)
In this aspect of our marriage, we find it easy to worship our sovereign Lord and his choice to bring our lives together. But when it comes to another area of our relationship and celebrating and worshiping God’s choices, I know that I have struggled. I would imagine you have too.
Celebrating What God Has Made
A healthy, flourishing marriage requires this essential spiritual discipline: worshiping God as Creator and celebrating his choices. Scripture repeatedly calls us to worship God as we stand in awe of his created world, but how often do we remember to celebrate his creative decisions in our spouse?
“A healthy, flourishing marriage requires worshiping God as Creator and celebrating his choices.”
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are certain aspects of you that God has created in which you didn’t have a choice. He determined how tall you would be, whether you would tend to gain weight, your natural degree of physicality or athleticism, the color of your eyes, the tone of your skin, the texture of your hair, the shape of your nose, and the size of your hands. All those qualities are choices of the Creator. How can you look at another human being, as vastly different as we are from one another, and not see the glory of God?
Here’s a fun activity that I would encourage you to do (but be subtle about it!). Take notice of all the different noses you see today. A weird ask, I know, but of all the billions and billions of noses he created, God has yet to repeat a single model. I’m not an ear, nose, and throat doctor, but how incredible is the nose as an aspect of our physicality? Think about everything it can do. Imagine if your nose were upside down. Not only would that look very weird, but you couldn’t go out in the rain.
Although some Westerners are obsessed with the shape and size of our noses and seek to alter them, I don’t think many Christian marriages fall into conflict because of this specific body part. However, the same is not true for many other aspects of our created person (and I’m not talking about body parts).
Who Designed Your Spouse?
God created every aspect of your spouse’s personhood. He administrated every choice of hardwiring, tone of voice, innate personality, natural gifts, and whether he or she is mechanical, analytical, or relational. Neither you nor your spouse chose any of these qualities. You didn’t wake up at six months and say, “I think I’ll grow up to be a mechanical guy,” and your spouse didn’t determine at 5 years old, “I’m going to have a natural inclination for intellectual pursuits.”
All these choices were made by the divine Artist, who has infinite creativity. But there are moments in our selfishness — when that other person is in the way of what we want — that we all wish we could rise to the throne of the Creator and re-create our husband or wife into our image (or at least into someone who would be easier for us to live with). The way to fight against this selfishness is to return to the essential spiritual discipline of worshiping God as Creator and celebrating his choices. When we forget to do that, here’s what tends to happen: the very differences that attracted us to our spouse in courtship now irritate us in marriage.
I once was counseling a husband and wife, and the woman was an academic type. She loved books, learning, and discussing high-level intellectual and philosophical theories. Her husband was a mechanical man. He liked books, too; he just wanted to prop things up with them! This woman was convinced that her husband was less than her because he didn’t enjoy reading. Now, is reading a beneficial activity? Of course it is, but this woman was so obsessed with trying to re-create her husband in her image — with her personality, giftings, inclinations, and preferences — that she was suffocating her husband and causing tremendous conflict in their relationship.
Before You Were Even Born
We cite verses that celebrate God’s choice in creating us in his image from before birth, but often in marriage, in subtle and not so subtle ways, we question the Creator and thus dishonor and disrespect our husband or wife. We end up criticizing the other for choices he or she didn’t make.
Consider these Scripture passages the next time you are tempted to ask your spouse to change in areas where change is simply not possible:
You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. (Psalm 139:13)
Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb: “I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself.” (Isaiah 44:24)
“When we celebrate God as Creator in our marriage, we can begin to look at one another with wonder and joy.”
When we celebrate God as Creator in our marriage, we can begin to look at one another with wonder and joy. When you look at your spouse and see the Creator’s glory, you feel blessed by how he or she is different. You are amazed and respectful of the experiences and perspectives that your spouse has brought into your life, which you never would have had without this person. And you look for ways to communicate your appreciation and gratitude.
Where in your marriage are you grumbling against the Creator and telling yourself you would have been a better creator in designing your spouse? When are you criticizing your husband or wife for choices that God made? This type of attitude never results in the esteem and honor of your spouse; it never results in unity, understanding, and love.
God’s Beautiful, Uncomfortable Plan
First Corinthians 12 talks about the variety of spiritual gifts and the need for a diverse body of Christ, but the same principle can apply in your marriage. God’s goal in marriage is not uniformity; his goal is unity. Unity is what you pursue in the face of difference. God’s good and beautiful plan is to put someone next to you in marriage who is different from you and doesn’t see the world the way you see it. That’s a good thing that God does to mature you and create dependence on him.
When dealing with differences and the creative choices God has determined in your spouse from before he or she was born, treat your husband or wife with appreciation and grace. Don’t demean and criticize for choices the other did not make. When you forget to worship God as Creator and celebrate his artistry, the sinful nature defaults to cursing the Creator’s work. If you think you would have been a better creator than the Creator, you will never treat your spouse with esteem and respect, forming a marriage of unity, understanding, and love.
But when you celebrate the creativity of God and how he formed your spouse and brought you both together for his glory and your good, you quit being irritated by the differences and start celebrating how they have enhanced your life. As a result, you will not only give room to your spouse’s unique giftings and perspectives, but you will honor him or her in what you do and say, even (and especially) in the moments when you’re confronted with your differences.