Join us at For the Church Orlando for a timely conversation on the state of preaching in the SBC.
Learn MoreGospel-Centered Resources from Midwestern Seminary
It’s time to say goodbye to our Assistant Director of Ministry Policeman. Raise a bottle of Irn Bru in the air to toast our irrascible, Christian movie-loving co-host, Ross Ferguson, as he shares more about his new ministry assignment, offers some words of wisdom on life and ministry in reflection, and the guys walk down a bit of the podcast memory lane, sharing some favorite famous (and infamous) moments from their 125 episodes together.
Ftc.co asks Mat Alexander ‘What hardships have shaped your ministry?’.
Before I became the lead pastor of my church, I stumbled onto an idea that quietly reshaped my approach to ministry. It came from two very different voices: Bill Gates and Michael Reeves.
Gates, the tech giant, famously takes one or two weeks a year to retreat to his secluded cabin on a lake and read as much as possible — no phone, no meetings, no distractions, just a towering stack of books.
Reeves, the theologian, once shared his rhythm of deep reading: one hour a week, one day a month, one week a year. Both men, in their own fields, had seen the fruit of setting aside time for slow, undistracted, focused reading.
That vision stuck with me.
So now, as a pastor, I take what I cautiously call “reading dayz” each year — usually two to three weeks in the summer. It’s not a formal sabbatical, and I try to communicate that clearly to both my family and my church. But it is carved out, protected time to read deeply, think theologically and let the Lord recalibrate my heart through uninterrupted, aggressive study.
The Shape of the Days
Each year, I choose one doctrine or theological theme — justification, the Holy Spirit, Lloyd-Jones’ sermons on Ephesians, etc. — and build a reading plan three to six months in advance. My days typically follow a rhythm: intermediate-level material in the morning, heavier or more intensive works over lunch into the afternoon and conclude the day with beginner-level material.
During those reading days, I cancel or delegate my usual pastoral responsibilities, including counseling, sermon prep, formal and informal meetings, adult Sunday school and even preaching. Trusted men from within our church step into the pulpit. I still lead the liturgical elements of the service, but I’m not carrying the sermon. I work 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., either in my office or in a quiet space at a friend’s house. Evenings are reserved for family, journaling, the gym or phone calls with friends.
Thanks to the generosity of a friend, my family and I usually schedule a one- to three-day retreat in the middle of my overall reading days period. We’ll stay at someone’s home, where I keep reading during the day while the rest of the family rests and plays. In the evenings, we regroup for dinner, do bedtime with the kids and enjoy late-night gospel conversations with friends. It’s both restful and rich.
The Fruit It Bears
These reading days sharpen me, but more than that, they shape our church. Hopefully, over time, the congregation will see that the study of theology isn’t just for the pastor’s time in seminary or for the professor in an ivory tower. It’s for both pastors and the church today. It’s certainly helpful for preaching. But it’s also for life, like in sports, where athletes devote weeks of intense practice, drills and workouts before entering the stretch of a long season.
Reading days remind our members that a pastor should be theologically sharp, biblically astute and spiritually renewed. It creates space for other men to teach and grow as they preach. It gives me a break from preaching — but not from ministry. If anything, it deepens my commitment to it.
Most importantly, it fills me with gratitude — grateful to the God I’m reading about, and grateful for the people I’m reading for. I’m thankful for a church that values study and depth, my elders who champion and defend the time, and a wife who believes it’s good. I’m thankful for a rhythm that keeps me from running on fumes. And I’m grateful for a God who forms pastors not only through preaching, but also in the quiet corners of a study.
What It’s Not
These aren’t vacation days. I gently remind my wife (and myself) that when I hole up with Edwards or Kuyper or Smeaton, I’m not “off.” Our church has entrusted me with time to work differently — but still diligently.
And I don’t read for anyone but my church. I’m not building a platform, prepping for publishing or expanding my ministry. I get to read as a pastor of my local church — for the people I know, love and shepherd week after week.
Final Word
You don’t need an official policy to start dedicated reading days. Just start small. Block out a few days. Or a week. Or even one afternoon. If there’s no one else yet in your church to take the pulpit, swap with a like-minded brother across town. Find a space. Make a plan. And open the books.
Deep reading isn’t a detour from ministry — it serves to sustain it. Reading days may not be flashy, but they are fruitful. They can be a hidden yet profound way God uses to make your calling more thoughtful and joyful.
“Give yourself unto reading. … You need to read.”
— Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, “The Minister’s Self-Watch”
This week’s episode of the FTC Podcast begins an occasional feature where we talk to an expert on different books of the Bible. In this first Bible book episode, Jared Wilson talks with Dr. Patrick Schreiner, Assoc. Prof. of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Midwestern Seminary, about the book of Acts, Luke’s chronicle of the early church after Christ’s resurrection. What are the major themes? What do we make of some tricky texts? And what is the importance of this book for the average local church?
Ftc.co asks John Marc Kohl ‘How have hardships shaped your ministry?’.
Editor’s note: Recently, Midwestern Seminary & Spurgeon College hosted a chapel panel discussion on the topic, “Why We are Southern Baptist.” This article by Jason Duesing expands upon his comments during the chapel session and is based on his course lectures and essays written over the last two decades. Watch the full panel here.
__________
By: Jason G. Duesing
Why am I a Southern Baptist?
This is one question I ask students taking the required Baptist history class I teach. I ask it because every generation of Baptist seminary students asks it, or will ask it, or needs to ask it, and I want them to know how I answer it and have arrived at my answer with cheerful conviction.
While it is true that there are many Protestant and Evangelical churches who are like-minded and share the same core convictions about doctrine and missions as the Baptists, for those preparing to serve and lead Baptist churches, my course is designed to help them understand, develop, and defend their convictions about the ecclesial tradition to which their church is connected.1
A High View of a Low and Free Church
Like a coin with two sides, the Baptist tradition is a story that must be told in both history and theology. To look only at the historical development minimizes the theological foundation of important pre-Baptist influences. To look only at theological connections minimizes the actual events and people in history who referred to themselves as Baptist by name. As such, it is right to see the theological start of Baptist churches as rooted in the Protestant Reformation, even while the chronicling of churches named Baptist does not appear in history until a century later in England.2
Keeping both history and theology in view is what I call a “symphonious approach” to assessing movements in history.3 Just like with a symphony of music, history and theology represent diverse and complementary components; each play an overlapping part that, when examined together, produces a comprehensive piece. For example, while it is helpful to determine who were the first people in history to name something or start something, it is also necessary to understand what thoughts influenced their actions and how those thoughts fit into the development of those people and those around them.
In the same way, where it is helpful to examine why churches first adopted the practice of believer’s baptism—what they were thinking and how they made their theological argument—it is needed to understand who these people were, how they arrived at their conclusions, and the cultural circumstances that influenced their thinking and actions. A symphonious approach allows the movements of both history and theology to play together and presents both well-ordered history and well-reasoned theology without the distractions of prioritized chronology or doctrine separated from people and churches.
As my class tracks the symphony of both Baptist theology and history, I summarize the theological distinctives that grew throughout the history of the Baptist tradition this way:
(1) A people of the Bible who preach the gospel and have found it helpful to summarize what the Bible says about the Christian life in confessions of faith. (2) The practice of believer’s baptism by immersion as the entrance to a (3) believer’s church that is (4) free and separate from the state and thus advocates religious freedom for all in society while (5) seeking to share the gospel with all in society and to the ends of the earth in an intentional and organized Great Commission focus on evangelism and missions, all done through (6) biblical cooperation among churches.4
I like to condense all these distinctives into the two categories of church health and religious liberty, advocated by and from the Gospel. Or to put it another way, Baptists have a high view of a low and free church.
Why Baptists first became Baptist
Next in my class, I pair this understanding of what Baptists believe with how they developed those beliefs in history. The Baptist Tradition’s connection to the Reformation is like that of a tree to its roots. What connects later Baptist churches in England to 16th century doctrinal renewal in Europe is rooted in the Reformation’s recovery of the Gospel as expressed in the five solas: Scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. Later Baptists demonstrate this connection through their confessions of faith, which sought to maintain connectivity both to the core doctrines of the Christian tradition, as well as those renewed during the Reformation. The doctrine of the church is where they branched from those roots, following the path started by the Anabaptists—a pre-Baptist wing of the Reformation who championed the separation of church and state as marked by the practice of believer’s baptism.5
The story of Baptist cooperation in England in the 17th century is one of survival. Rooted in the English Reformation, these early Baptists were the heirs of a renewal movement that was fueled by access to the Bible in English. This led them to pursue their convictions to form separate self-governed churches. Yet, this early movement was illegal, and their existence was threatened by the state Church of England that forbade participation in other worship services.
At this point in my class, I tell my students that I love evangelical Anglicans and the wider evangelical tradition. I’ve been helped theologically and in my own spiritual formation by the Puritans, C. S. Lewis, and J. I. Packer. In fact, as all believers who read the Bible in English are, in some sense, heirs of the English Reformation, it is my favorite era in church history to teach.6
Yet, though a friend of evangelical Anglicans, like the earliest Baptists, I do not hold to their doctrine of the church. As I grew up in the Episcopalian-Anglican church, I was asked years ago to write an essay in which I aimed to evaluate Anglican ecclesiology historically and theologically.7 Here are my conclusions:
First, even though Anglicanism is officially separate from Roman Catholicism politically and otherwise, there remains an inherent connection through their polity and specifically through their continued use of the hierarchical system of church leadership. As Anglican historian Diarmaid MacCulloch states, “[T]he story of Anglicanism, and the story of the discomfiture of Elizabeth’s first bishops, is the result of the fact that this tension between Catholic structure and Protestant theology was never resolved.”8 Without this connection there would not be the reoccurring talks of the Church of England returning to the “Mother Church.”9 A cousin once removed from Roman Catholicism, the Church of England still bears a family resemblance.
Second, in the history of the Church of England there are very few who attempt to make a biblical case for their offices of church leadership. Even if one appeals to the secondary nature of these doctrines, the New Testament is not silent about the matter and the biblical evidence leans strongly in favor of the argument that the terms for bishop and elder are used interchangeably.10
Third, while an appeal to Scripture is lacking, the overwhelming reliance upon tradition is the very thing that causes the complexity and confusion within the Anglican Communion when seeking to understand church leadership. The use of tradition is a helpful tool but in the end, remains a record of the activities and constructions of failed men and women. Tradition is needed and helpful, but it is not Scripture.11
To tie everything together in my class, I underscore that the Baptist movement began in England as small groups of men and women met to establish themselves in churches, separated from the state Church of England, and then sought fellowship with other churches around common beliefs and practice. This early confessional cooperation grew out of, and centered around, the Reformation program of doctrinal renewal which led to the recovery of the biblical Gospel message. Baptists, then, first became Baptist following this pattern and emerged from the study of what they understood the Bible to say about the local church.
A Fleet Sailing Together
As these Baptist churches gained strength, they crossed to the New World and grew into a fleet of churches sailing together, united in doctrine and headed in Great Commission direction. By the start of the 19th century, Baptist churches determined that the primary reason for cooperating as a national denomination of churches was simple: global missions.
The picture of churches as ships sailing is fitting for understanding where one fits in relationship to Southern Baptist churches as it conveys, first, that they are not the only ships at sea. There are many churches, of course, but not all have set sail, and not all are headed in the direction of global evangelism. Thus, it is helpful for believers, and believers together in churches, to find partners who not only agree with their design and beliefs, but also with their shared trajectory. Not all churches aiming to fulfill the Great Commission are Baptist churches, and wherever possible Baptist churches can and should sail with those with whom they can unite in evangelism and missions. Likewise, as Baptist churches seek to start new churches to add to their fleet, they will find safe harbor and maximized mission when they work with other Baptist churches who not only are sailing in the same direction, but also are united on what kinds of churches they are seeking to fund and start together at the ends of the earth.
Second, the picture conveys that these ships do need to tend to their own vessels to maximize speed and stay on course. To stay afloat in the world for Gospel proclamation, Baptist churches have found the need to prioritize their own doctrinal and congregational health. These ships will, no doubt, encounter storms without and conflict within. A church who has lost its first love may also lose the Spirit’s enabling wind-power behind it. Baptist churches at sea need to minimize any hindrance that would pull them off course.
Third, this picture conveys that individuals can serve and live on one ship at a time. While circumstance may dictate the need for believers to change churches, for most the norm is continuing to serve on the ship where one is placed. When a sailor is counting on the buoyancy of his ship for his life and safe travel, he is far more likely to look after the health and heading of the ship. It is a picture of foolishness to see sailors lounging on the top deck complaining about their ship, or envying another ship nearby, when their own is languishing due to their lack of effort. Thus, Baptist churches are more likely to be strengthened, revitalized, and steered back on course when their members are focused on thankfulness for the ship on which they have been placed, the fleet in which they are a part, and using their gifts to help keep that ship, and fleet, on course.
Why I am a Southern Baptist
When I complete my lectures on Baptist church history in seminary classes, I end by reminding them that the Baptist cooperative fleet of ships is not alone. There are many other ships from other corners of the Christian tradition committed to the Gospel and sailing in a Great Commission direction. What I mean to acknowledge is that no one is required to be a Southern Baptist to be a faithful Christian.
So, then, why am I committed to the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention?
I remind the students that for me, as much as it is a matter of joyful conviction about what I understand as biblical ecclesiology, it is also a matter of personal stewardship and testimony. I share with them how God, in his kindness during my college years, called out and saved a spiritually lost, Christian-in-name-only-Episcopalian and placed me in a Baptist church sailing with other churches in the Southern Baptist Convention. On that ship, I was discipled, baptized, and loved by a genuine New Testament community of believers.
Over time, that church recognized God’s work in my life and sent me to seminary. They, along with thousands of other churches, gave sacrificially in cooperative effort to fund my theological education and, more than that, ensured that the seminary they funded maintained doctrinal integrity. Through that same inter-congregational cooperative work, I have visited the mission fields of the world and have seen and contributed to the work of these churches at the ends of the earth. Seeing the end goal of the Great Commission bearing fruit as the result of churches working together has long been what has made me thankful for the Southern Baptist ship on which I first set sail.
To be consistent with my students, I am honest about the sins, faults, and distractions that have beset this Convention of churches and hindered their progress at various points in history. However, I gladly tell them that the end goal is still worthy of pursuit and worth the effort to help all the ships of churches sail in that Great Commission direction. From small groups in 17th century England, Baptist churches have persevered to hold inter-congregational cooperation in doctrinal confession and missionary endeavor as a key distinctive. As I love to tell my students, this story is worthy of retelling to inspire ongoing renewal of Baptist churches of the present and future as they carry out the same mission.
In every sense, I hope my students see that I am like the earliest Baptists: thankful for where I have been placed and what I have received, now serving with joy in confessional cooperation, joining with others in Southern Baptist churches to reach the nations for Christ and for the glory of God.
Footnotes:
1 For more on how these theological distinctives formed in history and an expanded version of this article see my chapter “Cooperation in Baptist Beginnings, 1609-1845” in A Unity of Purpose, Tony Wolfe and W. Madison Grace II, eds. (B&H, 2025).
2 Baptist historians have long debated Baptist beginnings. For a survey of views see James M. Stayer, Werner Packull, and Klaus Deppermann, “From Monogenesis to Polygenesis: The Historical Discussion of Anabaptist Origins,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 49:2 (Apr 1975): 83-121; William H. Brackney, A Genetic History of Baptist Thought (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004); Timothy George, “Dogma Beyond Anathema: Historical Theology in Service of the Church,” in Review and Expositor 84:4 (Fall 1987): 691-713.
3 Jason G. Duesing, “Pre-beginnings,” in John D. Massey, Mike Morris, and W. Madison Grace II, Make Disciples of All Nations: A History of Southern Baptist International Missions (Kregel Academic, 2021),37.
4 Jason G. Duesing, “Baptist Contributions to the Christian Tradition,” in Christopher W. Morgan, Matthew Y. Emerson, R. Lucas Stamps, eds., Baptists and the Christian Tradition (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2020), 339.
5 For more see my article, “Preaching Against the State: The Persecution of the Anabaptists as an Example for 21st Century Evangelicals,” 14:2 (2015):54-82.
6 A portion of this appreciation can be seen in this essay I wrote for Themelios that surveys 500 years of evangelical preaching in Oxford. “Beacons from the Spire: Evangelical Theology and History in Oxford’s University Church,” (2024).
7 See my chapter “A Wrinkle on Catholicism: The Anglican Understanding of Church Government,” in Thomas R. Schreiner and Benjamin L. Merkle, eds. Shepherding God’s Flock: Church Leadership in the New Testament and Beyond (Kregel, 2014).
8 Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Later Reformation in England, 1547-1603 (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 29.
9 Madeleine Teagan, “Historic Mass celebrated by papal nuncio at Anglican cathedral in rare event,” Catholic News Agency, July 9, 2025.
10 See Gregg R. Allison, Sojourners and Strangers: The Doctrine of the Church (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 260, and Benjamin L. Merkle, The Elder and Overseer: One Office in the Early Church (New York: Peter Lang, 2003).
11 For more on the role of tradition see my chapter “Baptist Contributions to the Christian Tradition,” in Christopher W. Morgan, Matthew Y. Emerson, R. Lucas Stamps, eds., Baptist and the Christian Tradition (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2020).
Pastor Appreciation Month is coming soon, and Jared and Ross want to get you in the right mindset to make a difference in your pastors’ hearts and minds. Why do pastors need so much encouragement anyway? And where should we start? The guys discuss the “double honor” ways of encouraging our churches’ shepherds.
Ftc.co asks Mark Vroegop ‘What about ministry gives you joy?’.
What do you want your life to represent? This is an important question to ask on multiple levels. We all want to leave a legacy—to contribute something meaningful and enduring with our lives—and this existential desire prompts us toward clarity about what we hope that legacy will become. A more basic level of this question has to do with the way we want others to think about us.
It seems like everyone today is talking about “identity” and discovering Who am I? Discovering your identity helps you know what you want your life to represent. It gives you direction for decision-making and helps you find a like-minded community of people who share your values and purpose. But most of these conversations about identity overlook the foundation of who we are: our humanity. How in the world can we answer Who am I? if we never answer What am I? Understanding our identity as human beings is foundational for understanding our identity as individuals. That’s why I’ve written this book: I want to help you discover what it means that you are created in the image of God so you can live an iconic life that represents him faithfully in your world.
It’s easy to curate your social media profile to make yourself look however you want, even if it’s not an honest representation of who you really are. A selfie here, a collaboration there, and carefully selecting your likes can portray you to be whomever you want to be. You get to craft your own image. But that only changes people’s perception of you, not your actual identity. This is why so many of your peers look like they’re living their best lives even though they’re struggling with insecurity or loneliness or fear. They are so focused on how they appear that they don’t really know who they are.
The Bible tells us that God created people in his image. The Greek word that’s used for image in the New Testament is the word eikon, which is where we get the English word icon. People are living “icons” of God in this world. That leads us to a helpful and understandable way to think about what it means to be created in the image of God: We are iconic of God. We are living icons, pointing to the greater reality of who God is and what he’s like. This book will lead you through Scripture to explore and apply what that means for you and me.
In short, the question this book seeks to address is this: What does it mean to live as icons of Christ in this world?
What Is the Image of God Anyway?
The Bible teaches that God created people “in the image of God.” Genesis 1:26–27 says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.’ . . . So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
One of the most foundational ways we bear God’s image is through the attributes we share with him. We are like God in many ways. God is the Creator, and so we create. God exists in eternal community within himself, and we crave community with one another. Chapter 8 will explore the “communicable attributes” in further detail. They are traits that every person shares, to some degree, with God: love, knowledge, wisdom, goodness, etc. In this way, we bear God’s image within our humanity, even though many take these traits for granted as evolutionary survival skills. In this regard, bearing God’s image means that every person is actually like God because he created us with some of his own attributes embedded into our human nature. This God-given dignity has led some to believe people are divine themselves, with no need for God at all. As ironic as that is, even this false view of humanity displays that the innate glory and honor God has given to his image-bearers is obvious to all, even those who may deny his existence. In this sense, we don’t simply bear God’s image—we are his image in this world.1 This is an irremovable characteristic of what it means to be human.
The book of Genesis was originally written in Hebrew. Two Hebrew words in Genesis 1:26–27 point to two sides of the same truth about how and why God created humanity: tzelem, meaning “image” and demuth, meaning “likeness.” A tzelem was a physical representation that a king would set up to remind people about his power and authority (see Daniel 3:1). Being made in God’s image and likeness means men and women were created as God’s representatives to uniquely carry out his ongoing work in creation. Our very existence is a living reminder of God’s reign and glory and provision.
Every person bears the image of God. The “image of God” is both what we are and what we do. It’s embedded within what it means to be a human being. God created us to be and to bear his image in a way that lifts others’ eyes to behold his character and goodness in us. Sin has affected our ability to do this, but it hasn’t removed the God-given dignity he wove into our humanity. The worst sinner remains God’s tzelem in this world, in the sense that what they are is a living reminder of his divine nature and goodness in this world. Everyone bears God’s image, but sin has corrupted the way we bear it, so we seek our own glory and build our own kingdoms. Through the gospel, God’s image-bearers are forgiven of their sin and conformed into the image of God through faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Christians bear God’s glory according to God’s good design in order that all creation would see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16).
Why the Image of God Matters for You
Nearly every controversial issue in our culture today finds its resolution in the image of God. If the Bible’s message is true and God created humans in his image, then it radically transforms the way Christians approach issues like racism, gender and sexuality, abortion, mental health, injustice, disability, and euthanasia, among others. This biblical foundation shifts the conversation away from a matter of opinion and toward what human flourishing (for individuals and cultures to be healthy and full of joy) looks like according to our Creator’s good design. For example, racism is sinful and wrong because of the way it fundamentally undermines what it means to be a human being, not merely because of the harm it causes to individuals. The same principle applies to gender identity and abortion and a host of other issues. This isn’t an attempt to provide a simplistic answer to complicated issues. But without understanding the biblical message about men and women as image-bearers, we’re left without a firm foundation for these important issues.
Understanding the image of God is the missing link in the many conversations about identity. It’s like we’re trying to figure out our individual stories without realizing that we’re characters in a bigger story that’s being told. God’s story for humanity begins in creation, has important chapters throughout that helps us understand what’s gone wrong, and it gives us hope to endure because the story ends in glory. God created people to enjoy perfect intimacy with him and with one another as his image-bearers in this world.
Sin has twisted us so we’re divided—against God and one another—and tempts us to take the glory of God’s image and claim it as our own, trying to exert our power to establish our own kingdoms. But instead of giving up on us or abandoning us, God promised a Savior who came to restore the intimacy between God and people so that we would bear God’s image well and be restored into relationship with each other too. One day, sin and the corruption it has introduced into the world will be wiped away, and we will live for all eternity in God’s presence with perfect intimacy as his image-bearers. This is the bigger story that your identity fits into. Without it, you’re left on your own to define your own reality and to choose your own adventure. Although this might sound like freedom, this mindset confines you to a life that’s limited by your own wisdom, whereas embracing your God-given calling leads you into a life that is filled with God’s steadfast love.
It’s common to hear people talk about how iconic superstars like LeBron James or Taylor Swift represent the best in their respective fields. We, as God’s image-bearers, are living icons of God in this world. People are God’s living tzelem in his kingdom. We are living displays of God’s glory and reign in his creation. This is why God commanded Israel, “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them” (Exodus 20:4–5).2 Israel didn’t need to create an image for God to remind them of his glory and presence because God had already placed his image among them!
It’s so common to talk about identity in terms of Who am I?, but I want to encourage you to consider the question of identity through the question What am I? Until we ask that question, we’ll continue to struggle to understand our identity. So many of the challenges we face today, as individuals and as a broader culture, flow from the reality that we’ve forgotten what it means to be a human being. The image of God doesn’t merely inform how we are to act and treat others; it’s an aspect of what we are as humans. As men and women who were created in God’s image, you and I have God-given dignity and value that has nothing to do with what we do. Our dignity and value isn’t determined by our GPA or resume; it’s built into us as icons of the living God who is King over creation. The way God created us as his image-bearers has a direct impact on our relationships.
Questions for Reflection
Footnotes
1For more on this emphasis, see Carmen Joy Imes, Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters (InterVarsity, 2023).
2A different Hebrew word is used in this passage for image because it’s a specific word for an idol (an image that you worship).
Excerpted from Iconic: Being God’s Image in Your World © 2025 by Mike McGarry. Used with permission of New Growth Press. May not be reproduced without prior written permission.
There was a season when my spiritual life felt suspended between routine and emptiness. I read my Bible faithfully, yet the words felt flat; I prayed, but my voice seemed swallowed by silence. The rhythms of grace remained, yet the fire of transformation felt distant.
Nothing was broken, and yet it seemed as if nothing was growing.
But in time, I began to see the stillness not as absence but as preparation. Beneath the quiet surface, a hidden work was unfolding. It is the work that only God perceives, the silent shaping of the soul.
This is how God often moves: slowly, patiently, invisibly, crafting growth while our eyes are elsewhere. Until, one day, we realize we have grown.
The Bible is filled with stories of faithful waiting and unseen growth.
Moses shepherded sheep in Midian for decades before leading God’s people. David tended flocks in obscurity long before the throne. Ruth gleaned quietly in foreign fields before redemption found her. And Jesus Himself lived thirty years in hidden obedience before stepping into public ministry.
These are not mere backstories. They are the very foundation of God’s redemptive pattern—a divine preference for depth over speed.
Charles Spurgeon captured this well when he wrote, “By perseverance the snail reached the ark.” The pace may be slow, but the promise remains sure.
Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like a seed growing silently (Mark 4:26–29), sprouting even when no one watches, blooming in God’s perfect timing. There is grace in this quiet process—growth we cannot force but only trust.
Perhaps you find yourself in such a season now. Where the disciplines of faith feel heavy. Where you show up to prayer and Scripture, wondering if your efforts mean anything.
Know this: You are not behind. You are not forgotten. You are being formed in ways that matter most.
God calls us to faithfulness, not flashiness. Paul speaks of transformation “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18)—a steady, sacred progression.
Robert Murray M’Cheyne reminds us, “It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus.” Often, this likeness is sewn in the quiet moments unseen by others.
Growth in Christ is rarely glamorous, but it is always good.
The patient work of God in the hidden places points to a greater purpose: His glory and our good. Every quiet season, every moment of waiting, contributes to a story far larger than immediate circumstances.
As Philippians 1:6 assures, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.” The unseen shaping of character and faith is a testament to God’s steadfast love and power.
This truth invites us to trust not in fleeting feelings or rapid results, but in the eternal promises of the One who holds time and growth in His hands. The slow, steady work of grace is God’s faithful artistry, creating beauty for His glory and our deepest flourishing.
