We all have our levels of discomfort we seem willing to bear and our levels of discomfort, what we even find uncomfortable, differs from person to person and all of us, at some level, will allow that lure of an easy life to overtake. When Jesus calls us to take up our cross and follow him, this is precisely what I think he is calling us to put to death. For the sake of the gospel, we must die to our comfort. Those of us who won’t will end up killing the church.

I have long been convinced that one of the biggest enemies of the gospel is our own personal comfort. There are simply some lines that we seemingly are unwilling to cross. Some of our lines may differ, there are levels to which we are willing to tolerate some discomfort but even our discomfort is largely within the bounds of what we are comfortable being uncomfortable with (if that makes sense?) But if we are serious about the cause of the gospel, we are going to have to get a bit uncomfortable.
I am reminded of the missionaries who told me that there seems to be some sort of common belief that they must just be people who love snakes in their beds or civil unrest. It’s alright for them – they probably love the adventure – but it’s not really for me. Whilst I’m sure there are some who relish the adventure, I am sure many more are less enamoured with dangerous animals and less than sanitary conditions and are, instead, motivated by the belief that somebody needs to take the gospel where nobody is willing to go. They chose to be uncomfortable for the sake of Christ.
It is very similar to the kind of noise those of us in deprived communities often hear. It’s alright for people like you, but it isn’t for me. I’m never quite sure what they mean by that in my case. Not least, most who insist it’s alright for people like me because I’m more like the people here than they are usually also want to tell me how middle class my upbringing was and I definitely am. You can’t really have that both ways. But even if they have some other reason – and I know unquestionably middle class people who have gone to deprived places who have heard similar things – the line remains largely the same: that would be a level of discomfort too far for me. But, of course, because we know it isn’t the “spiritual” thing to say, we dress up our discomfort by insisting that the people who do go must just love living next door to drug addicts on council estates or serving in areas where racial tension runs high.
But of course, we have the same problem the closer to home we get too. Forget being asked to move anywhere, we hear these comments from people being asked to share the gospel in the nicer areas they have decided to live in. Churches with evangelists, or any people committed to evangelism, will often point to such people and say ‘it’s alright for you.’ I have been in middle class churches where any evangelistic endeavour or people of a more evangelistic bent are just viewed as loving being gauche, weirdos who must just love awkward conversations about Jesus or people who have no concern about whether they keep their jobs or not. It’s alright for them, but it’s not for me. It’s all a level of discomfort too far.
Then there are the lads who perhaps are a bit worried about evangelism but they’re at least willing to sit and talk with members of the church and help them grow. But meeting up for half an hour, in a lunch break, that’s a bit of a pain. Easier just to not do that. Then there are evenings out, but that’s all a hassle too. There is a level of discomfort even here that stop us from bothering engaging in discipleship and giving up almost any of our time for the sake of building the kingdom.
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There is a shocking truth that escapes the notice of most Christians: when we go to heaven, we won’t stop working. We were made for work and in heaven we will get to experience work in the fulfilling and meaningful way God intended. Heaven isn’t (just!) a picnic, either. We don’t know exactly what this work will look like.

The Garden of Eden was no picnic. When God created Adam and Eve, he placed them in the Garden, not to vacation but to work. Before sin ever entered the picture, God formed Adan and Eve in his image and called them to exercise dominion in the Garden of Eve.
We are called to create order from disorder, to cultivate, and till, and build. Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden not just to sip Mai Tais and binge on Netflix (not that there is anything wrong with that!); they were put there for the sake of dominion. God wanted caretakers who would craft, build, and create order.
We were made for work. We were made for dominion.
There are some interesting studies that reveal the impact of not working. It has been well documented that there are significant negative mental and emotional outcomes for those who are unemployed.[i] Anxiety rises and self-confidence drops which leads to an increase in substance abuse and violence against self and others.[ii] Consider, for instance, the unhealthy of the lives of those whose profession is to be famous, like the Kardashians.
We were made to work.
There is a 75-year longitudinal Harvard study that followed people to discover what factors made adults successful and healthy.[iii] When they looked back at the lives of these several hundred adults, they determined that one of the most significant determining factors for those who were successful was whether their parents had them do chores as kids.
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Written by Robert A. J. Gagnon |
Monday, February 5, 2024
Begg ignores the scriptural counsel regarding stumbling others, in addition to ignoring scriptural counsel against being present at an event at which God forbids attendance. The Christian attending the “gay” or “trans” so-called wedding would need to notify publicly all present at the gathering, not just the family member getting married, that he or she regards the wedding as an unholy alliance abhorrent to God. This fits Paul’s description at the end of 1 Cor 10 of what to do when a believer is at the home of an unbeliever and the host announces that the meat being served is “sacred sacrificial meat” coming from the temple. One must stop eating, for the sake both of Gentile unbelievers who might construe from your eating that you honor the god, and for the sake of any “weak” Christians or non-Christian Jews at the table whose conscience indicates that the eating of idol meat constitutes idol worship.

Rev. Alistair Begg has doubled down on his recommendation to a grandmother that she attend her grandchild’s “gay” or “trans” wedding (so long as the grandchild getting “married” knows of her disagreement).* “They want me to repent? … I’m not ready to repent of this. I don’t have to.”
*Note that in the Sept. broadcast he referred to a grandmother’s “grandson”; here he refers to a grandmother’s “granddaughter.” Which is it?
1. Begg’s Ad Hominem Attack of Critics
While completely (and I mean completely) ignoring the array of scriptural arguments against his position, Begg compares all his critics to Pharisaic “separatists” who refuse to eat with sinners or have any association with them at all. He likens them to the self-righteous older brother who doesn’t understand grace in the parable of the prodigal (lost) son, and to the priest and Levite who pass by the man lying half-dead by the side of the road in the parable of the good Samaritan.
Yet none of his chief critics from the academy are advocating complete separation from those engaged in serial, unrepentant egregious sin. In my chapter on Jesus in *The Bible and Homosexual Practice* I talk at length about Jesus’ positive example of an aggressive outreach to the lost. But there is no line (straight or crooked) from that example provided by Jesus to what Begg is recommending.
He attacks all those who criticize him as the “product of American fundamentalism,” which he distinguishes proudly from his own pedigree as a “product of British evangelicalism.” Unlike them, “I come from a world in which it is possible for people to grasp the fact that there are actually nuances in things.” He does all this in a fatherly voice, but the ad hominem content is quite offensive, and it is designed to distract from the fact that it is ironically Begg himself who cannot see the nuances of Jesus’ ministry.
2. Begg’s Ironic Lack of Nuance in Describing Jesus’ Outreach to Sinners
What kind of nuance am I talking about? The failure to recognize that there is a world of difference between Jesus fraternizing with sexual sinners and exploitative tax collectors who expressed interest in his message, on the one hand, and Jesus attending a ritual celebration either of a tax collectors’ economic exploitation or of a sexual sinner’s grossly immoral and unnatural sexual union, who express no interest in his message, on the other hand.
There is no way that Jesus would have attended such ritualized celebrations of abominations to God, or encouraged his followers to do so, irrespective of whether his disciples alerted those to whom the ritual was directed of their disapproval. That Begg is incapable of such a nuanced scriptural understanding is certainly concerning.
3. Begg’s Misapplication of the Parable of the Prodigal Son
Begg’s proof text in his radio talk for justifying his advice to go to a “gay” or “trans” wedding was Luke 15, with a focus on the parable of the prodigal (lost) son. Begg appears confused in his application of this text. The older son refused to attend a celebration of the younger brother’s penitent return from a dissolute and immoral life. That was the problem with the older brother, not that refused to a attend a ritual celebration of a permanent commitment to a dissolute and immoral life. There is a huge difference between the two types of celebration (here again, nuance). 
Moreover, while the father ran out to greet his returning penitent son (return in Jewish and Christian thought is a metaphor for repentance), he certainly wouldn’t have attended a ritual celebration memorializing his son’s commitment to continue to live lifelong in wastefulness and immorality.
A better text that Begg might have chosen than the lost son parable is the Aqedah (“Binding”) of Isaac in Genesis 22, where God taught Abraham not to make an idol even of his “only son,” the son of the promise. We can’t make holding on to a family member who is memorializing what the writers of Scripture (and Jesus) deem to be egregious immorality the most important thing, even if we couch it in terms of staying in evangelistic contact.
4. Begg’s Narrow, Myopic Perspective
Begg says about the advice that he gave the grandmother: “All I was thinking about was, How can I help this grandmother not lose her granddaughter?”
He should have been thinking other things, like:
How can I help this grandmother not to offend God by being present at such a ritual celebration of an evil that God finds particularly detestable? How can I prevent her from violating the united witness and counsel of Scripture?
How can I persuade her, by her actions, not to speak affirmation to behavior that can get her grandchild excluded from God’s kingdom? Am I recommending that she do something that will stumble others by her actions, leading them to affirm such immorality?
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