One of my favorite details about Easter Sunday, and Jesus’s resurrection body, is his scars. The victory of Easter is so great, the triumph of the risen Christ over sin and death is so resounding, that we might be prone to overlook, or quickly forget, an unexpected detail like this.

When Jesus first appeared to his disciples, “they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit” (Luke 24:37). So Jesus says to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:38–39). Then Luke comments, “And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet” — meaning, he showed them his scars (Luke 24:40).

In the Gospel of John, when Jesus finally appears to doubting Thomas after eight long days, he says to him, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe” (John 20:27).

That Jesus’s resurrected body would still show evidence of his wounds, that the scars of crucifixion could still be seen and touched, was both a confirmation and a surprise. The confirmation was that this was in fact him — and him risen. The same body that was killed on the cross rose from the grave. He was not a spirit or ghost. He was risen, fully alive, now in glorified humanity.

“Jesus’s scars are marks of his love. His scars tell the good news that he did not die for his own sins but for ours.”

The surprise is that we might expect a resurrected body not to have scars. That might seem like a defect. But it is not a defect. It is a feature. Because these scars, these rich wounds, are marks of his love. These scars tell the good news that he did not die for his own sins, but for ours. His wounds are invitations to sinners and assurances to his saints. His scars preach good news. They are marks of Easter glory, the very glory that makes the horrors of his death into what we now call “Good Friday.”

The Gospel in All Caps

And so on Easter Sunday, we come to the end of Galatians, and one of the last things Paul writes with his own hand is this: “I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17). Like Jesus, Paul also had gospel scars — scars which pointed not to his own work, but to Jesus’s work.

Just as sinners had struck and killed the Son of God, so too sinners had struck and scarred his messenger. In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul mentions some of what he has suffered for the sake of Christ: “. . . countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned” (2 Corinthians 11:23–25). Paul’s scars, “the marks of Jesus” he received from preaching the resurrection of Christ, are his final argument in Galatians. Before he closes in Galatians 6:18 with, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen,” he puts the final period in place with his own life — with what he has been willing to suffer in order to preach and defend the meaning of Good Friday and the news of Easter Sunday.

But not only is Paul’s final argument “the marks of Jesus” that he carries in his own body, but in this last section, he takes up the pen himself, relieving the secretary to whom he has dictated the rest of the letter. And so he says in Galatians 6:11, “See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand.”

This is Paul’s way — here at the end, with so much on the line in Galatians — of shifting into bold font. This is the apostle Paul in all caps. So, these precious five sentences of Galatians 6:12–17 that will follow are direct and blood-earnest, with a power that is very fitting for Easter Sunday. And what we see is that this last flourish of Paul’s pen turns on the reality of boasting. Let’s look at these verses in that light, with Easter eyes, in three steps.

1. Humans are born to boast.

We are born boasters. You are a born boaster — in two senses. The first sense is that we are boasters by creation. God designed us, before sin entered in, with the capacity to boast. Indeed, he designed us with the calling to boast. And what I mean by boasting is rejoicing out loud in words.

God made humans not only to think and do, but to feel and to speak. He gave us hearts, and he gave us mouths. He created us in his image, meaning he created us to image him in this world, to represent him and remind others of him — both fellow humans and the watching angels.

And he not only gave us the ability to think and consider, but also to feel. He not only gave us bodies to move and work and do, but tongues to speak, giving meaning to our works with words. In other words, God made us to boast in him — that is, to not only know him with our minds, but rejoice in him in our hearts, and to not only live in obedience to him, but speak words out of our hearts that point others to him. God made us to boast in him.

Because of Sin

And as we know all too well, though, there is a second sense in which we are born to boast. We are born into sin, and so our natural inclination to boast often becomes sinful boasting. Instead of rejoicing out loud about God, we rejoice out loud about ourselves in all the various and complex forms this takes. We all know this. We all have lived this. And of course, we’re often far quicker to recognize it in others than in ourselves.

As a youth baseball coach, let me tell you that we don’t have to teach kids to boast. Rather, we try to help them not indulge their instinct to boast in the heat of the game. We say things like, “Let your play do the talking.”

What about your own soul? What are your boasts? What aspects of life — whether manifest gifts from God or seeming abilities and accomplishments — do you rejoice in most and feel most drawn to express in words? What are you so regularly excited about that you can’t help but talk about? What qualities, possessions, abilities, achievements, or relational connections make you look good when others hear about them?

“The question isn’t whether we will boast, but in what and in whom.”

When Paul takes up the pen for himself in Galatians 6:11, he puts boasting at the heart of his last push toward the Galatians. They, as well as the false teachers trying to influence them, and Paul himself, are all born boasters. We are born boasters. The question isn’t whether we will boast, but in what and in whom we will boast.

How Will You Boast?

First, Paul turns to what not to boast in:

It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. (Galatians 6:12–13)

I think this is the most direct and succinct summary of what motivates the troublemakers in Galatia. They are putting on a show to appease unbelieving Jews. They are play-acting. They themselves do not keep the whole Jewish law. They know they can’t, and they don’t want to, besides.

But what they do want to do is avoid persecution. This new movement of Christians, claiming that Jesus is the long-awaited Christ, is troubling Jewish leaders. And now the movement is spreading to Gentiles. Non-Christian Jews want to snuff this out. They begin persecuting Christians — like Paul himself had done, before the risen Christ appeared to him and turned his life upside down.

And so the false teachers are trying to avoid persecution. They want to appease non-Christian Jews by boasting to them that Gentile converts to Christ are coming under the Jewish law. The word here for “make a good showing” is literally “have a good face.” The false teachers themselves don’t keep the law, but they are trying to get Gentile Christians to receive circumcision so they can boast in their flesh and “have a good face” to avoid persecution.

And Paul says that however well-intentioned or naïve this may be, it is dead wrong, and it compromises the very heart of the Christian message that promises Jesus is enough for right standing with God.

So, we are born boasters — by God’s design, and also in our sin. And the false teachers, to save their own flesh (from persecution) want to be able to boast in the flesh (from circumcision) of these Gentile Christians in Galatia.

2. Jesus turns boasting upside down.

Second, Paul contrasts their sinful boast with his own holy boast, which he wants the Galatians, and us, to join him in. This is how he wants us to rejoice in words.

Paul does not say that becoming a Christian banishes all boasting. We still boast. Oh, do we! Worship is boasting. Preaching is boasting. Sharing the gospel is a holy and humble kind of boasting — rejoicing in words. But Christian boasting is not like the natural, sinful boasting into which we’re born. It is not boasting in the flesh. It is not boasting in outward appearance. It is not boasting in our own strength.

Christian boasting is boasting turned upside down because of the worth and beauty and power of Jesus Christ. Look at Galatians 6:14, which says: “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” So Paul does boast. But he boasts in the cross, of all things. The cross.

Christ on the Cross

Today, it’s easy for us to be all too familiar with the cross. We see them on steeples. We wear them on necklaces. We sing about the cross. And it’s easy to forget or to overlook what the cross meant in the first century.

Some might be familiar with the hymn “Old Rugged Cross,” which calls the cross “an emblem of suffering and shame.” The cross was horrific. It was reserved for the worst of rebels against the Roman empire, and it was designed to not only make death literally excruciating and lengthy, but also utterly shameful.

And Paul says, “May I never boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

What a turn, that the very thing — a crucified Messiah — that seemed so shameful, such a stumbling block to Jews, and such folly to Gentiles, would be not only a critical truth for Christians, but central. We talk about the cross every Sunday. We remember it at the Lord’s Table. We depict it in baptism. The cross — the public execution of the Son of God — is not just a barrier to overcome to embrace the Christian faith, but it is at the very heart of our faith. We celebrate it, and we draw attention to it. We boast in it.

Why is that? Because the wounds Jesus received at the cross were not for his own sins, but for ours. Isaiah 53:5 says,

He was pierced for our transgressions;     he was crushed for our iniquities;upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,     and with his wounds we are healed.

The eternal Son of God took on human flesh and blood and went to that rugged, offensive, horrific, shamefully public cross, as the spotless Lamb, to die for our sins. For our rebellion, for our countless sinful boasts in our own flesh, we were the ones who deserved to spill our own blood in violent death and be eternally separated from God.

But the wonder of Christianity, the heart of our faith, the very good news which we call “the gospel,” is that Jesus went to the cross for us — for all those who would take Paul’s invitation to turn our boasting upside down and rejoice in words, “Jesus is Lord.”

Our Suffering and Weakness

We see elsewhere in Paul how Jesus turns our boasting upside down. Instead of boasting in comfort and ease in this life, Paul says in Romans 5:3, “We boast in our sufferings.” If God works the greatest good through the greatest evil — that is, the crucifixion of the Son of God — then our sufferings in this life are turned upside down. We grieve them, yet even as we do, we rejoice in what God is doing in and through them.

And instead of boasting in our own strengths and abilities, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:30, “I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” And in 2 Corinthians 12:9 he says, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Jesus turns our boasting upside down. Instead of boasting in our comforts, we boast in our sufferings. Instead of boasting in our strengths, we boast in our weaknesses. Instead of boasting in natural human conceptions of glory and power, just like the world, we boast in the offense of the cross.

Cross-Conscious Boasting

But it’s Easter Sunday. What about the resurrection? When Paul says in Galatians 6:14, “May I never boast unless in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” how does Easter fit? If all Christian boasting is a boasting in and under the banner of the cross, what do we make of our Easter boast that he is risen?

The answer is that, yes, we boast in the resurrection, but it is a certain kind of boasting. It is a humbled boast. It is a God-magnifying boast. It is a Christ-treasuring boast. It is a cross-conscious boast. It is a boast in the surpassing power of God uniquely on display in and through human weakness, and suffering, and even death. It is the kind of boasting that comes on the other side of the grave, on the other side of crucifixion, on the other side of Christ turning the world, and us, upside down.

“We boast in the cross because the one who died there for our sins rose again Sunday morning to be our living Lord.”

And not only is the Easter boast permissible; it is essential. Paul’s boasting in the cross implies the Easter boast. If there is no Easter boast, there is no boasting in the cross. If Jesus stays dead, there is no glory in his cross. We boast in the cross, because the one who died there for our sins rose again Sunday morning to be our living, breathing, loving, reigning Lord. And our boasting in the resurrection is a certain kind of boasting because it is also a boasting in the cross.

3. Christians boast in the resurrection too.

Let’s see the resurrection for ourselves in Galatians 6:15–16, which begin with the word for and explain what Paul has just said Galatians 6:14. Galatians 6:15–16 says, “For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.” The first and most obvious link to resurrection is “new creation.” New creation points to God’s action and initiative and power, not ours.

That’s the contrast between circumcision and new creation. In this context, circumcision would be an action the Galatians would take in an effort to make sure they’re in right standing with God. And remarkably, Paul says uncircumcision doesn’t count either. Neither taking that step in the flesh, or refusing to take that step, wins you God’s acceptance. You cannot, in your flesh, earn God’s full and final favor.

What counts is what he does. His work in Christ. His new creation. And the beginning of this new creation is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Easter Sunday is the great first and decisive initiative, the great burst of divine power that launches a new creation, beginning with Christ then coming to us, as God makes us new creatures in Christ, through faith, and then culminating someday with a new heavens and new earth. So “new creation” is the first glimpse of Easter.

Crucified with Christ

The second link to resurrection is the connection to Galatians 2:20, a connection which appears at the end of Galatians 6:14. Here Paul says that by the cross “the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” The other place in this letter where Paul talks about being crucified with Christ is Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Galatians 6:14 only mentions crucifixion, but what Galatians 2:20 makes plain is that crucifixion with Christ by faith means resurrection with him. Just as Christ was crucified and raised, so Paul’s old self — our old self — was crucified with Christ by faith, and we too have been raised to new life. We now live with a new heart, a new center, a new ultimate allegiance; we are new creatures, indwelt by God’s Spirit, even as we continue to battle and make headway against remaining sin.

And this reality of being a “new creation” in Christ is both personal and individual, as well as corporate. Not only did Christ very personally “love me and give himself for me” at the cross, but he loved us, his church, and made us a people together in him.

Galatians 6:16 says that “all who walk by this rule” — that is, all who own God’s work and power in making them new creatures — are God’s true people. He calls them “the Israel of God.” This is the church, the true Israel. “The Jerusalem above,” as he says in Galatians 4:36. Or like he says in Philippians 3:3, “We are the [true] circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and [boast] in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.”

There is a twist of irony here in response to the false teachers. Do you want to be God’s people? Do you want to be in “the Israel of God,” in contrast to the Israel of the flesh? Then leave behind the life of flesh, circumcision, and law, and live instead according to the Spirit and faith and love, as those who have been loved by God in Christ.

Scarred for Christ

Finally, we end with one last Easter connection to the resurrection: “the marks of Jesus.” Paul comes to the end of Galatians, takes the pen in his own hand to write Galatians 6:11–16, and then his one last word, before the concluding benediction, is one final boast. And it is a boast in the cross: “From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17).

In other words, Paul is saying, “Not only do I answer with this letter, but I answer with my life. My skin is scarred — from being beaten, and lashed, and stoned — because I have stood by this gospel with my own life.”

He is saying, “Rather than trying to tweak the message to avoid persecution, as the false teachers are doing, I have not been deterred by threats. Rather than seeking, under pressure, to make marks in other people’s flesh and boast in a head count of circumcisions, marks have been made in my flesh as I have preached and defended the truth that Jesus’s cross and resurrection, embraced by faith alone, are enough to get and keep us right with God.”

“And so I bear on my own body,” Paul says, “as faint echoes and pointers, the very ‘marks of Jesus’ that he bears on his resurrection body — marks that are no defect, but shine with glory.” Paul boasts in the cross and the resurrection. And so we boast, The Lord is risen. The Lord is risen indeed.

Commune with the Living Christ

As we come to the Lord’s Table on this Easter Sunday, we celebrate that the Jesus whom we remember here is alive. His resurrection not only makes good on God’s word, and not only vindicates his sinless life, and not only confirms that his cross-work was effective to cover our sins, and not only gives us access to that salvation by union with him, but the resurrection means he is alive, right now, in glorified humanity, scars and all, at God’s right hand, to know and enjoy forever.

We call this “Communion” not only because we commune with each other as we come together to his Table, but first and foremost because we commune with him — the risen, living Christ. As we eat in faith, we receive him afresh, by his Spirit, and commune with our risen, living Lord.

Whoever you are, wherever you live, in whatever age you live, you either live to please man or you live to please God. And if you think it’s possible to serve both, you’re likely living to please the former, not the latter.

God is rightly and lovingly jealous for our first and fullest devotion. And every meaningful relationship we have will vie, whether overtly or subtly, to dethrone him. That’s why Jesus says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). Sin has a way of making the love and approval of people seem more thrilling and fulfilling than the love and approval of God.

The apostle Paul knew the seduction of the fear of man, and he had learned that no man could serve two masters.

Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:10)

“If we live to have the praise, approval, and acceptance of others, we cannot belong to Jesus.”

The dichotomy is as striking as it is frightening: we cannot strive to please people and still serve Christ. Now, of course, even Paul himself can say, “I try to please everyone in everything I do” (1 Corinthians 10:33), but only because that love is an expression of his greater allegiance to pleasing God (1 Corinthians 10:31, 33). If we, however, live to have the praise, approval, and acceptance of others, we cannot belong to Jesus.

So do we recognize this deadly temptation in our relationships? Have we, like Paul, died to the approval of man? His letter to the Galatians gives us a tour of the battlefield and some weapons for the fight.

Well-Acquainted with People-Pleasing

Paul can talk personally and intimately about the fear of man because he had once pursued the approval of others. These are the confessions of a former people-pleaser:

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. . . . For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. (Galatians 1:10, 13–14)

His former life illustrates just how destructive the fear of man can be. As he persecuted the church violently — mocking, attacking, imprisoning, even killing believers in Jesus — he garnered a little more attention, a little more approval, a little more praise than his peers. Of course, he would have said he was only striving to please God, and he maybe even thought he was striving to please God, but he sees his hidden motivations more clearly in hindsight.

When Paul says, “If I were still trying to please man. . . ,” the still really matters. He had served the god of people-pleasing, for years and years, and he found him to be a cruel master, a stealer of life and love and joy, a dead end. And in Galatians, he writes to a church tempted to serve the same god.

God of Looking Good

How specifically was people-pleasing infiltrating the church in Galatia? False teachers had crept in, teaching the Gentile believers that they needed to practice the Jewish laws to be saved. We learn, however, that their real concern was not for the church, but for themselves.

They wanted to avoid the Jewish persecution that might come if the Galatians confessed Christ but refused to practice circumcision, dietary regulations, and other distinctly Jewish laws. They also wanted the recognition and praise of the Jewish authorities for converting Gentiles to Judaism. In other words, they feared the rejection and hostility of certain people, and craved their approval and applause. Paul explains,

It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. (Galatians 6:12–13)

Their duplicity is evident. They don’t even keep the law themselves, but they require it of others, because the compliance of others makes them look good. And looking good is their real god.

First Trap: Flattery

Knowing the temptations firsthand, the apostle recognized the influences that were corrupting and undoing the church in Galatia. The false teachers, who were themselves enslaved to the fear of man, were now preying on the Galatians’ desire for acceptance and affirmation. Watch carefully as Paul describes their strategies, because they’re the primary strategies of an awful lot of what we see and hear in the world today.

They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. (Galatians 4:17)

They begin with flattery, an effective tactic in persuading people-pleasers. As warm as flattery may sound and feel at first, though, flattery is always selfish and always destructive. It distorts reality, erodes trust, and indulges itself at the expense of someone else (Proverbs 26:28). “They make much of you, but for no good purpose.” They sweeten their words to win you without any real concern for you and your good.

The gospel says, “You are worse than you realize, but God’s grace is greater than your sin.” Flattery says, “You’re better than you think, and you’re certainly better than those other people.” If we live for the approval of man rather than God, we make ourselves all the more vulnerable to flattery. People will be able to influence and manipulate us by gratifying our thirst for affirmation.

One way to discern this danger in our personal relationships might be to ask, Do the people who affirm me also regularly challenge me? If they are eager to praise me, are they also willing to correct me?

Second Trap: Rejection

The false teachers used two very different strategies to prey on the Galatians’ fear of man (which reveals how subtle and complex this war can be). Both strategies seize on insecurity, but in opposite ways.

Yes, the Judaizers fawned over these Christians with flattery, but notice how they also threatened to exclude those who didn’t comply. They tried to convince these new believers that they had to adopt certain Jewish laws to be in God’s inner circle. “They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them” (Galatians 4:17). They’re trying to establish a special and exclusive group of “true” believers. They lure you in by making you feel left out. Did we think cancel culture was new with us? Satan knows that as much as people-pleasers crave the approval of others, they often fear their disapproval even more.

So where are we vulnerable to this fear of exclusion? One way to test ourselves would be to ask, What Christian beliefs are we tempted to hide — about abortion, about sex and sexuality, about ethnicity, about whatever — to fit in with the crowd whose approval we crave? (Note: This could be a crowd in the world or a crowd in the church.) Does our desire for acceptance make us ashamed of anything God says in his word?

Flattery preys on our craving to be admired. This second pressure preys on our fear of being excluded, of being left behind — ultimately, of being alone.

The World Died to Me

So how do we escape these twin traps that the fear of man lays? Having broken free himself, Paul charts a course for those similarly tempted. Freedom from unhealthy people-pleasing requires two great deaths:

[The false teachers] desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:13–14)

First, the world must die to me. What does that mean? When Paul was converted, and left behind his people-pleasing ways, nothing changed in the world. All the same pressures tried to intimidate him into conformity. All the same social expectations rose up around him. All the same risks threatened to isolate and afflict him (or worse). And yet he can still say that one day he met Jesus and the world died before his eyes. The world — all the worldly opinions, desires, applause, and criticism of mere humans — suddenly lost its power over Paul. It was if everything that once controlled him had been nailed to a cross and left there to die.

“For the world to lose its power over us, we have to surrender our craving to please the world.”

How does the world lose that kind of power over us? Through a second, more painful death: I must die to the world. For the world to lose its power over us, we have to surrender our craving to please the world. To follow the crucified Son, we have to crucify our former master (whatever sin had its hold on us). To experience the joy of life in Christ, Paul had to first die to being admired and praised by his peers. He couldn’t enjoy both. “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” So he refused the master that bred fear while stealing life, that increased guilt while decreasing peace, that amplified insecurity while muting love. He chose the better master.

Choosing to live for the approval of God, and not of man, will be costly in this life. Paul was hunted, beaten, robbed, imprisoned, and stoned nearly to death for his choice. And yet he could say, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). Not worth comparing. That is the key to overcoming the fear of man. We will die to the comforts of people-pleasing when we realize, with Paul, just how much more satisfying it is to suffer for pleasing God.

A man in your small group asks you for counsel. For the last few weeks, he has suffered from debilitating back pain. He knows a broken body is an inescapable part of this fallen world, but he also wonders whether God is disciplining him for something. What does he need — a careful probing of the heart for sin, or an assurance that his suffering, though mysterious, is not in vain?

In your accountability group, a brother confesses to looking at pornography again. He says he’s struggling and fighting. He also seems ashamed. But he has seemed ashamed before, with little change. What does he need — a loving but firm warning, or another reminder that there is no condemnation in Christ?

A young woman you know has felt a gathering darkness over heart and mind. In her depression, she has begun to drift from Christian fellowship and other means of grace. She wonders aloud to you if she’s really a Christian. What does she need — an encouragement that God is with her, an exhortation to return to the church, a referral to a medical doctor, or all three?

“Admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak,” the apostle Paul tells us (1 Thessalonians 5:14). But sometimes the fainthearted seem idle and the idle seem fainthearted; sometimes the weak look willful and the willful look weak. If only people came with a sign on the forehead: “Admonishment needed”; “Encouragement, please”; “A little help will do.”

But they don’t. Instead, people come to us just as we come to others: compound and complex, confused and confusing. People are seas, with hearts hidden deep. And God calls us to be divers.

Water from the Deepest Sea

God really does call us, all of us, to discern the deep-down hearts of our brothers and sisters. No, we are not all pastors or professional counselors. But heart work and soul care do not belong to pastors and counselors alone. Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians 5:14 to the whole church, not just its leaders. Which means God calls all of us to admonish, to encourage, to help — and to discern when to do which. He calls all of us to counsel.

And if he calls us to counsel, he calls us to grow in counseling, which often begins with noticing our tendencies to counsel not so well. Perhaps you can relate to a few common faults I fall prey to, at least when left to myself.

Left to myself, I counsel quickly. I may give a show of good listening as you talk, but often I have already finished your sentences and am crafting my response. “Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak,” James writes (James 1:19). But why should I slow my speech when I already know what to say? So I nod with polite impatience, forgo follow-up questions, and give the answer already waiting on my lips.

Left to myself, I also counsel superficially. “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water,” the wise man tells us (Proverbs 20:5), but my natural plumb line is short. Too often, I counsel in the shallows — addressing this behavior, developing a plan for that habit, while the heart still hides in the deeps.

And left to myself, I counsel lopsidedly. Comfort comes easily to my tongue; not so with correction. No doubt, our churches know some who correct others all too easily. Like Eliphaz the Temanite, they struggle to let words for the wind blow away (Job 6:26), but seize them, fix upon them, and fashion their rebuke. They speak confidently. They speak courageously. But like Eliphaz, they do not always speak “what is right” (Job 42:7).

But I usually fall off on the other side. The Puritan John Owen warned of counselors like me at my worst — counselors who “have good words in readiness for all comers,” no matter who the comer may be. We affirm; we encourage; we assure and console and uplift. We reflect a Jesus ever tender, rarely (or never) tough. Owen’s assessment of such counsel was not hopeful: “seldom useful, ofttimes pernicious” (Works of John Owen, 6:568).

So, we seek to grow. We seek to replace our common follies with the slow, deep, well-rounded wisdom of the Spirit. But how?

1. Learn from the Wonderful Counselor.

Isaiah 50:4 gives us a long-term aim and a daily practice. Isaiah speaks most immediately of the Lord’s servant, the Lord’s Christ, but his pattern gives shape to our own.

The Lord God has given me     the tongue of those who are taught,that I may know how to sustain with a word     him who is weary.Morning by morning he awakens;     he awakens my ear     to hear as those who are taught.

The wisest counselors speak with “the tongue of those who are taught.” They can fill weary spirits with courage; they can correct and restore straying hearts. And all by simply opening their mouth. In dim reflection of God’s own speech, they bring light and life “with a word.” To have such a tongue is our long-term aim.

We won’t attain that aim, however, without daily listening — and listening not first to others, but to God. He himself is the “Wonderful Counselor” (Isaiah 9:6), and “morning by morning,” he awakens our ear to learn more of his wonderful ways — his wonderful, surprising ways.

Consider the counseling of our Lord Jesus himself, the one with the perfectly God-taught tongue. Who among us would have told the rich young ruler to go sell all he had (Mark 10:21)? Or who would have known when to gently chide Peter, when to ignore him, and when to address him as Satan (Matthew 14:31; 16:23; 17:4–5)? Or who would have warned the healed paralytic to “sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you” (John 5:14)? Or who would have restored a fallen disciple without reproof (John 21:15–19)?

To be sure, we do not have the depth of insight that Jesus did. But as we listen to him — and to the words of God throughout the rest of Scripture — we start to gain fresh instincts. We see new sides to old problems. We find new keys to old locks. We realize that our spiritual medicine cabinet has only one or two shelves, while God’s is a walk-in. And so, slowly, we become more like the Balm of Gilead himself, who holds ten thousand balms.

To those who want to be taught, Bible reading and meditation offers a daily tutelage under our Wonderful Counselor, giving us words as deep as human hearts.

2. Listen — really listen — to others.

Then, in time, counseling opportunities arise. We sit across the table from a small-group member, or drive alongside an accountability partner, or talk on the phone with a friend in need. And before we venture to speak, we find ourselves faced with a task that can often feel harder than opening our mouths: keeping them closed. So, we listen. We really listen.

True listening can easily elude us, even after we have lingered silently in God’s presence. James counsels quick hearing and slow speech because we often reverse the speeds (James 1:19). So, we may feel an inner itch to offer counsel now, before we’ve really heard. We may want to interrupt impulsively. We may focus so intently on our coming response that another’s words become muffled, lost somewhere between their mouth and our ears. And hearing, we don’t hear.

Two resolves may help to open our ears. First, we can resolve to not finish another’s sentences — either in mind or in mouth. Sentence-finishing can take many shapes. Rehearsing an answer while another still speaks; assuming we know where a story is headed; allowing thoughts to wander because we think we’ve got the gist — all these can be subtle ways of finishing sentences we haven’t yet heard. And they take us dangerously close to the unwisdom of Proverbs 18:13: “If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame.”

Second, we can resolve to ask questions. Questions are speed bumps for quick tongues. They slow us down, forcing us to clarify rather than assume, allowing others the dignity of both finishing and explaining their own sentences. Asked wisely, questions also guide us toward the hidden deep-sea heart, as we learn to plumb below the surface of behavior and ponder darker depths. And slowly, as we swim in this sea of words, we begin to grasp a pearl. Hearing, we hear.

Whatever other strategies we may use to listen well, wise counselors enter a conversation ready to be surprised, confronted, and drawn in by another’s complex humanity.

3. Pray, discern, respond.

The process so far may look somewhat passive, but the true listener is anything but. Beneath the questions and calm demeanor is a spirit of prayer. He tries fitting pieces together. He “ponders how to answer” in the conversation’s pauses (Proverbs 15:28). And he discerns. He begins to trace an idler’s sluggishness coming to light; he sees a faintness of the heart appearing; he touches upon some profound weakness.

We will not always discern rightly, of course. Our listening and our questions may reveal the heart, but they cannot read the heart. And if even the apostles could misjudge the hearts of men (Acts 8:13, 20–23; 2 Timothy 4:10), surely we will do the same.

But we can grow. And we will know we are growing, in part, when we find ourselves surprised by what we say. In addressing a certain struggle, we had always spoken comfort; now we hear ourselves exhorting. In addressing a certain person, we usually corrected; now we find ourselves offering practical help. Increasingly, our words, like the people in front of us, gain depth. We respond to complexity with wisdom and creativity. We reflect, in some small measure, what David Powlison calls “our Redeemer’s skillful love” (The Pastor as Counselor, 15).

And when in doubt — when unsure of what to say, when perplexed and tongue-tied — we can still simply recite God’s own words, knowing that every syllable, rightly handled, holds spiritual power. Yes, caring for each other can be complex, but not so complex that ordinary believers cannot deeply minister to one another through humble Scripture-quoting and earnest prayer. The Bible’s words, not ours, are God-breathed, and sometimes the best counsel is a simple breathing of his breath.

But whether we speak God-shaped words or God’s own words, the more we grow in wisdom, the more often we will see the proverb come to pass: “To make an apt answer is a joy to a man, and a word in season, how good it is!” (Proverbs 15:23). How good indeed to feel the heart lovingly plumbed, kindly searched, and then skillfully addressed with our Counselor’s wonderful wisdom.