For the Church

Episode 262: Awesome Moms of the Bible

In an episode in anticipation of Mother’s Day, Jared and Ross talk about their favorite biblical moms.

25 Quotes from The Storied Life

My new book The Storied Life: Christian Writing as Art and Worship is now available from Zondervan Reflective. This book is for both experienced and aspiring writers — whether you write stories or sermons or even just social media posts or daily journal entries — and is designed to equip you with some nuts and bolts practicalities for better writing and to see your writing as a reflection of the One who is “writing” you!

Here are some quotes from the book to whet your creative appetite.

1. “To get to the glory, you have to go through the chaos.” (xvi)

2. “One key to powerful Christian writing is not in our trying to say something new but in our saying something old in a new way.” (17)

3. “It is one thing to say in my preaching that ‘Jesus is glorious.’ That is definitely true and it must be said. But it is another thing to preach Jesus in such a way that the hearer is led to declare in response, ‘Oh, Jesus is glorious!'” (23)

4. “It’s not always explicit gospel content that makes writing Christian, but often the worldview of the writer and, most importantly, the way the writing reflects a sense of the Divine Author’s story of the world. The content is not incidental, and there are certainly worldly ways to tell ostensibly Christian stories. But for writing to be well thought of as Christian, it must reflect The Story.” (29)

5. “Christian writers will find that to write in a way that is true, they must also give space for the incursion of the world into the attempt to subdue it. Parted waters recede. Manna spoils. Weeds shoot back up. We do not have to yield to the reality of the curse, but to write what is true, we must be honest about it. The worst Christian writing glosses over the dirt in the garden of cultivation.” (38)

6. “The story that God is telling in the world is beautiful, but it’s not always pretty.” (67)

7. “It is in the creation of art, perhaps, that image bearers most closely reflect their status as image bearers. To contemplate a blank page or a blank canvas or a lump of clay and turn that void into something articulate, resonant, to make of it something that was not there before, is akin to creation ex nihilo. When we create, we image the Creator.” (74-75)

8. “All artistic creations are innately spiritual acts.” (76)

9. “Training to read and write well is not simply about improving one’s skills. Reading and writing are formational for our improvement as persons.” (79)

10. “Whether I’m staring out the window or looking at Van Gogh’s paintings of cypresses or reading Leif Enger or John Milton or Thomas Hardy, I want to tune my internal narration to the God who has given us all of this vision and these visionaries. I realize the right disciplines can make me good, but it’s the right dreaming that can make me great.” (83)

11. “The Christian writer’s first audience is the one who has gifted him.” (87)

12. “You must see reading not just as an imperative for becoming a better writer, but for becoming the kind of writer whose life is shaped by story (and The Story).” (99)

13. “Your voice is somewhere deep in the uncharted jungle of the writing life. You must hack your way sweaty and weary to get to it.” (105)

14. “It’s never too soon to start writing, but the writer you are when you start is not the writer you will be later.” (105)

15. “For the Christian artist, finding one’s voice is not about building some Babel tower of personal distinguishment but about contributing your voice to the music of the spheres, which exists to glorify the truly distinguished Creator of all.” (111)

16. “There is a way to write about Christian doctrine that doesn’t sound very Christian at all. You could go to your local bookseller and find the books marketed to evangelicals and discover a whole range of options that read like appliance manuals. The theologian may be the smartest guy in the room, but his book is as dry as old toast. The inspirational influencer may be the peppiest gal on Instagram, but her book book reads like it was spit out by an A.I. program. It probably was.” (129-130)

17. “The writer is to love his neighbor as himself.” (132)

18. “People who say they’ve always wanted to write a book typically mean they’ve always wanted to have written a book.” (138)

19. “Nonwriters do not understand. They want the magic spell, the magic beans. But there are none. You have to put the words down on a page.” (139)

20. “Even if you do achieve amazing success, you need to remember that The Story is not about your fame, but Christ’s.” (150)

21. “Platform is a stewardship from God.” (152)

22. “One of the worst things we can do in the face of [writer’s] block is to give up. We are going to have to fight it in some way.” (161)

23. “The words don’t show up if you don’t.” (164)

24. “The stuff of our everyday lives isn’t meant to be oriented around the idol of our creativity. Rather, our creativity is meant to flavor our everyday life.” (169)

25. “The call to write is a call to see as many ways as possible that God is telling stories in the world. The call to write is a call to press deeper into The Story. And when we do, we find that we are not just being called to ‘make stuff,’ but to be made. God’s calling is in fact a storying of us.” (191)

Order The Storied Life from Zondervan or from any of your favorite book retailers.

Visible Grace in Disagreements: Willingness to Confront vs. Eagerness for Controversy

By Michaela Classen / May 6

Editor’s Note: This post is excerpted from Visible Grace: Seeing the Church the Way Jesus Does by Caleb Batchelor. The book is available now from 10Publishing.

Paul wasn’t afraid to address sin. Just ask the Corinthians. But what first grabbed Paul’s attention when he thought about that rowdy, discriminatory congregation in Corinth? God’s visible grace (1 Cor. 1:4–9). He was willing to confront, but he was not eager for controversy. There’s a difference.

It’s all about your posture. Do you find yourself on the edge of your seat, ready to engage in the latest controversy? Or is your preference to celebrate God’s grace, ready to confront only when necessary (Prov. 15:18; 17:19)?

Jude had a preference:

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).

He wanted to agree, celebrating God’s grace in their “common salvation.” But he needed to confront those “who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4).[1]

Like Jude, we shouldn’t prefer controversy—especially when it’s simply to be entertained.

I feel contempt for those who attended the gladiator games, where another’s ruin was their entertainment, where a father’s wounds were their source of glee. But then I remember a talk I heard in middle school, where the speaker compared our fascination with others’ suffering to the ancient appeal of the gladiator games. It’s convicting to think of how many times I’ve laughed about another’s sin, joked about a pastor’s blunder, and made sport of a church’s questionable ministry practice. As I scroll down my Twitter feed, I descend the steps of a modern coliseum, where another’s moral ruin is my entertainment, where a father’s spiritual wounds are my source of glee.

If you want to be countercultural today, don’t let a pastor’s moral failing or a stupid controversy fascinate you (1 Cor. 13:6; 2 Tim. 2:23). Pray. Grieve. Ask for grace. Confront when necessary. But don’t feed your curiosity with others’ sins. As the Puritan Richard Sibbes so helpfully points out, “Men must not be too curious into prying into the weaknesses of others. We should labour rather to see what they have that is for eternity, to incline our heart to love them, than unto that weakness which the Spirit of God will in time consume.”[2]

Aren’t you glad that Jesus feels burdened by your indwelling sin, rather than entertained by it? I’m thankful that my weaknesses elicit his warm compassion, not a witty Tweet.[3] Don’t you want more of that heart toward your brothers and sisters in Christ? When they disagree with you, do you “welcome [them] as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God” (Rom. 15:7; cf. Rom. 14:1–4)? When they walk in and everyone moves to the other side of the lunchroom, do you sit down next to them? When they don’t deserve love, do you show them grace?

Since you have the Spirit of Christ, you already have that inclination. The Spirit of your gentle and lowly Savior abides in you. And the result is gentleness.

__________

Citations

[1] Gavin Ortlund, Finding the Right Hills to Die On (Minneapolis: The Gospel Coalition, 2020), p. 94.

[2] Richard Sibbes, Works, 1:57.

[3] Dane Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2020), pp. 69, 71.

A Word of Hope: Reflecting on Luther’s Lectures on Genesis

By Michaela Classen / May 1

I teach church history as part of my profession. In doing so, I’ve discovered it to be exactly what my teachers described—a wonderful means of keeping the faith. Of the figures from our past who have helped me, Martin Luther stands at the top of the list, as he continually points me away from myself and onto Christ and his word of promise.

Luther’s Lectures on Genesis[1], begun arguably in 1535, serve as a window into what Luther devoted his life to—teaching the Scriptures that provided no shortage of opportunities for faith. What follows is a brief reflection on Luther’s work and the work of God recorded in Genesis.

Hope in a Paradise Lost

The cursing of Genesis 3 is a devastating read. Not knowing the rest of the story, one could easily think all is lost. Especially considering what was lost. Eden. Paradise. Perfection. It was all so right, until it all went so very wrong. The serpent had done his work.

But his work isn’t the last word. Even in the midst of their sentencing, Adam and Eve aren’t without hope. That’s the remarkable thing we learn about God only three chapters into the Bible. God punishes this man and woman. Justifiably—sin has to pay its wages. Yet, as Martin Luther reminds us, God’s words are “fatherly” words. Yes, the wonderful gift of childbirth will now be painful. The relationship between husband and wife won’t be what it once was. Now the ground is cursed. Up come the thistles and thorns, and down goes man. Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes. Death has walked through the door sin opened.

But in this new paradise-lost world, Eve still has Adam, and Adam still has Eve. Humanity still has a future. The possibility of procreation remains, shameful and painful though it may be. There is still work to be done. There is still life for the living. In other words, there’s hope in the midst of judgment. After all, God doesn’t approach Adam and Eve like he does the serpent. No fatherly approach for the father of lies. There’s no kind questioning, no “where?” Or “who?” Or “why?” There’s only judgement and condemnation.

With man and woman, God clothes their shame. Adam doesn’t forsake his wife but names her “Eve.” As Luther teaches us, the naming and name is an act of prophetic hope. This woman shall be the “mother of all living.” More life and lives are to come.

Words that Promise Life

It’s easy to miss all the good that remains in the midst of the bad. The curses overwhelm. But the fact is, God doesn’t take everything, does he? Fallen world that it is, it’s still a world that’s within its Maker’s control. Beyond the fatherly kindness of keeping this marriage together, God provides the most wonderful thing of all—a promise.

In the midst of the curse, God declares, “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen 3:15, CSB). Though Adam fell, God’s pronouncement remains, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Though Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit, she still has good fruit to bear. Through the act of childbearing, God promises to put an end to the serpent’s schemes.

It’s a promise God gives to Adam and Eve. And in that promise lies hope. These are words of life, words that say the serpent’s word isn’t the last word, and words that remind us that the serpent’s promises can never deliver like the Lord’s. As Adam and Eve find themselves in a new, fallen reality, they don’t find themselves bereft of blessing. In this world of death, they find the promise of life.

Luther’s Word of Hope

God’s word is true, Genesis reminds us. Eating the forbidden tree does bring death. Deceived into disbelief by the serpent, Adam and Eve gave birth to the sad biblical refrain, “And he died.” But God doesn’t leave this man and woman abandoned. He gives them a promise to hold, a confidence to sustain, that just as God made all things so shall he deliver them. In a word, God gives his people hope. Hear Luther—

“God’s power makes nothing out of that which is everything, just as it makes all things out of that which is nothing. Look at Adam and Eve. They are full of sin and death. And yet, because they hear the promise concerning the Seed who will crush the serpent’s head, they have the same hope we have, namely, that death will be taken away, that sin will be abolished, and that righteousness will be restored.”[2]

Adam and Eve’s world is our world, but even more, their hope is our hope, a hope whose name we know. Jesus. “He is the Lord of the issue of death,” Luther reminds us, in that “He frees those who are overwhelmed by death, and transports them into eternal life.” Yes, we have to tell the truth. There’s death in this world. However, “even the midst of death, the hope of life is kept, since the Word so teaches, direct, and promises.”[3]

In a fallen world of judgment and condemnation, God’s word comes near to us and says, “Not all is lost. Yes, this world is broken. But it’s still my world, created by my Word. And that Word remains. And in that Word, you shall find hope.”

__________

[1] All citations from Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, vol.1, in Luther’s Works, American Edition (St. Louis: Concordia, 1955-76). Hereafter LW.

[2] LW 1:197.

[3] LW 1:197.

Author’s Note: Special thanks to Dr. Jason G. Duesing for his editorial insights and encouragement.

Episode 261: Books That Changed Our Minds

By ddickerson / May 1

On this episode of the FTC Podcast, Jared Wilson and Ross Ferguson talk about the books that changed their minds about things big and little.

Three Key Questions to Ask Your Mormon Friends

By Michaela Classen / Apr 29

I have a lot of friends who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints (LDS). One I see regularly is the bishop of his ward; he regularly emphasizes, as do my other LDS friends, how we both worship Jesus, how we have a lot in common, and how we’re on the same team.

On the one hand, he has a point: we share traditionally conservative views on sexuality, we think the nuclear family is normative, and we think Sunday worship is vital to human flourishing, among other things. He’s an upstanding citizen, a kind and considerate husband, and a thoughtful father. I like him. From a purely socio-political perspective, if more people were like him, our culture might be less troubled.

On the other hand, he couldn’t be more wrong. There are dozens of significant disagreements between our worldviews.

I want to fairly call balls and strikes. The LDS church gets a lot right, but the most important things it gets wrong. Here are my three go-to questions that get to the heart of our most important differences.

1. Is Jesus a creature?

The LDS church teaches that Jesus is a created being. Analogous to Arius the 4th century heretic who taught that “there was [a time] when the Son was not,” the LDS church teaches that Jesus was the spirit child of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother [1], and was the firstborn of many spirit children, of whom he was the mightiest [2].

For the LDS church, all humans have a premortal existence and Heavenly Father brought Jesus into existence in a similar manner to how all humans were created. LDS theologian James Talmage writes, “Human beings generally were similarly existent in spirit state prior to their embodiment in the flesh… There is no impropriety, therefore, in speaking of Jesus Christ as the Elder Brother of the rest of mankind” [3].

This means that LDS people commit idolatry when they worship Jesus, because the version of Jesus they serve is “creature rather than Creator” (Romans 1:25). In their view, Jesus became a god in history; he wasn’t eternally God. They call him God, but he is a demigod. [4] The LDS church’s view of Jesus is far different than what the Bible teaches.

We believe what the Nicene Creed teaches: Jesus is eternally God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father; “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

2. Is Jesus’ salvation “by grace after all that you can do”?

Ephesians 2:8 says, “By grace you have been saved through faith; this is not your own doing.” 2 Nephi 25:23 says, “It is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” Who among us can with a clear conscience say that we have done all that we can do? Salvation is actually impossible under actual LDS doctrine; it requires maximum effort all the time.

In addition to the weight of justification by good works, this doctrine adds the crushing reality of salvation by good effort.

This yields us an altogether different worldview and story, but it is congruent with the larger story that the LDS church teaches. The LDS church teaches that the entirety of our mortal existence, even the creation of the earth, was Heavenly Father giving us the chance to “prove ourselves” to him [5] and, and “if we passed our tests, we would receive the fulness of joy” [6].

The true good news is that Jesus saves sinners; sinners do not save themselves.

3. Was Jesus wrong when he said, “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it”?

If you meet with LDS missionaries, the first lesson they’ll tell you is about “the restoration of the gospel.” They’ll tell you about how the true gospel left the earth after the Apostles died until Joseph Smith restored it in the 1800s. [7]

This is quite different from what Jesus said in Matthew 16:18: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Did the gates of hell prevail against the church for 1700+ years? Did Jesus fail to deposit the faith into his church? Or did the church fail to deport the true faith into the next generation?

No, the faith was successfully “once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).

Same Words, Different Dictionary

Our LDS friends use a lot of the same vocabulary as evangelicals, like gospel, Jesus, salvation, sin, and heaven, but their understanding of those words and what they mean for us are remarkably different. Our LDS neighbors might be allies to Evangelicals in many respects, but with regard to the good news of Jesus, we are miles apart.

—–

Citations

[1] LDS Church, Gospel Topics Essays, Mother In Heaven

[2] James Talmage, Articles of Faith, Chapter 2

[3] James Talmage, Jesus the Christ, Chapter 2

[4] Gospel Principles, Exaltation

[5] Gospel Principles, Our Heavenly Family

[6] Ibid, (See also D&C 93:30–34)

[7] True To The Faith, Restoration of the Gospel

The Mission of God

By Brett Fredenberg / Apr 25

Mission is all about God. At Midwestern, we emphasize the study of who God is (theology) and what God does (mission). Good theology is crucial to missiology because the mission begins and ends with God.[1] The one true God has one unified mission, and each person of the Triune God distinctively carries out this mission as it unfolds in history. God the Father is the author, planning and initiating the mission. God the Son is the agent, executing and fulfilling the mission. The Holy Spirit is the administrator, applying and empowering the mission.[2] The object and ultimate end of the mission is God’s own glory.[3]

God’s perfection, holiness, and glory far surpass all human conceptions. Because God’s eternal nature is self-revealing, communicative, and loving, He put into motion a plan to manifest His glory to the whole universe. Theologians call this cosmic plan and action of God the missio Dei, the mission of God. Mission is not primarily about human efforts, but God’s own work in history to glorify Himself. God invites us—and yes, commands us—to participate in His mission.[4]

In the remainder of this article, we will unpack the glory of God’s mission by considering the God of the mission, the place of love in God’s mission, God’s mission in creation and redemption, and the scope of God’s mission.

The God of the Mission
A vibrant missiology begins with an accurate and grand vision of God as revealed in the Bible. The God of the Bible is not a weak, needy, or changing deity. Nor is God an isolated, abstract, absolute monad. Instead, the Bible presents God as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three divine persons who are united as one divine being. The doctrine of the Trinity bears directly on missiology in that it reveals God as more awesome and glorious (and more mysterious) than humans can imagine, and therefore infinitely worthy of worldwide worship. As John Piper says, “Worship is the fuel and goal of missions.”[5]

Love and Mission
Love sits at the heart of God’s mission. The doctrine of the Trinity helps explain the words “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). In a few scattered verses, Scripture gives a tantalizing glimpse into what God was doing for all eternity, quite apart from time and space.

One of those verses is John 17:24, which is part of a prayer that Jesus addressed to God the Father. Jesus said, “You loved Me before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). This verse indicates that God the Father has been forever loving the Son. God has eternally existed in perfect love between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Meditating on the mystery of the Trinity, Augustine of Hippo suggested that God the Father is the lover, God the Son is the beloved, and the Holy Spirit is the love that exists between them.[6] Similarly, Thomas Aquinas writes, “The Father and the Son love each other and us by the Holy Spirit.”[7]

The missionary enterprise starts with the eternal love of God and then moves toward humanity through the gospel. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). Thus, through the gospel, believers experience God’s love, which provokes in them a response of love for God. “We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Then, as believers receive the love of God, it bubbles up and spills out on others.[8] The Apostle Paul expressed his love for the believers in Thessalonica this way: “We had a fond affection for you and were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thess 2:8; cf. 2 Cor 5:14–15; Rom 10:1).

The two Great Commandments, to love God and to love others, mutually reinforce each other. As Ray Ortlund says, “The kind of God we really believe in is revealed in how we treat one another.”[9] The Apostle John puts the matter bluntly, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). The Great Commandments should arouse a great commitment to the Great Commission, and the church’s obedience to the Great Commandments will determine the church’s effectiveness at fulfilling the Great Commission.

While the mission of God refers to God’s broad purposes to glorify Himself in all that He does, the Great Commission specifies the mission of the church and missionaries, namely, to go, and make disciples of all the nations, to baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and to teach them to follow all that Jesus commanded (Matt 28:19–20). Disciple- making, and its precursor evangelism, are the chief occupation of missionaries because these activities glorify God by proclaiming the gospel and impelling those far from Him to see and savor His majesty.

Love motivates missionaries. The gospel does not rely on a sense of guilt, fear, or duty to propel missionaries across geographic, cultural, or linguistic boundaries. No, a sense of love drives them—first, a love for God and then a love for those who have never heard the gospel. The awareness that millions of people have no access to the love, joy, and peace that comes through the gospel should weigh heavily on the hearts of believers, pushing them out of their comfort zone and toward involvement in God’s mission.

This gospel-shaped love is active, always seeking to express itself in concrete ways, such as meeting physical needs, speaking truth, being a good listener, or giving hugs. However, the most loving thing a believer can do for another person is to give that person the gospel. Charitable deeds adorn the gospel, but they are not the gospel (Titus 2:10).

The gospel, according to the Apostle Paul, is the life-giving message “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared…” (1 Cor 15:3– 5). Through faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit unites believers to Him, who brings them into fellowship with God the Father. The gospel alone meets humanity’s greatest problem (alienation from God) and allows them to experience the greatest of all blessings (union with God).

God’s Mission in Creation and Redemption
God’s act of creation is one aspect of God’s mission to manifest His glory and to put His character on display (Ps 19:16; Rom 1:20). Because God is love in Himself, God did not create humans because He needed someone to love Him, fulfill a deficiency, or to satisfy loneliness. Instead, God created out of the generous overflow of His love—the eternal love that God has always expressed, known, and enjoyed among the Trinity.[10]

The plan of redemption reveals another aspect of the missio Dei. Like creation, the plan of redemption comes from the overflow of God’s gracious and merciful love. When God’s image bearers, Adam and Eve, rebelled against Him, God’s mission did not change. God’s mission to manifest His glory remained constant, but accomplishing that mission now involved redeeming people from every tribe, nation, people group, and tongue (Rev 5:9; 7:9). Noted New Testament scholar Andreas Köstenberger writes, “God’s saving plan for the whole world forms a grand frame around the entire story of Scripture. The missio Dei is bound up with his salvation, which is like a colorful rainbow that spans from creation to new creation. Its focus is on God’s gracious movement to save a desperately needy world that is in rebellion against him and stands under his righteous judgement.”[11]

The Scope of God’s Mission
God’s glory is of such magnificence and worth that He deserves nothing less than global worship. God’s glory is not like localized pagan deities, worthy of little more than the worship of a small band of devotees. Indeed, to say the scope of God’s mission is merely global is inadequate; His mission is cosmic.

Paul writes that God’s plan involves making known the “manifold wisdom of God … through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph 3:10). The church is God’s vehicle for putting His glory on display, not only to the nations, but also to “rulers and authorities in the heavenly places,” a heavenly audience beyond the terrestrial sphere.

Summary

The glorious truth that God is a God of mission is on every page of our Bibles. The very fact that we exist and are contemplating the reality of God is proof that God is fulfilling His mission, a mission that is an overflow of eternal, triune love.

[1] Zane Pratt, Vice President of Assessment/Deployment and Training, International Mission Board, SBC, writes, “The doctrine of God affects every aspect of our understanding of missions. Because God is infinitely glorious, absolute in his Being, creator of everything, and transcendent over all he has made, the mission of his people is about him. The glory of God and the advance of his agenda in the world are the focus of the church’s mission. It is not about us, and it is not ultimately about the lost among the nations. Because God is who he is, he is the center of everything, and everything must be done under his direction and for his glory. God’s plan is to fill the earth with the knowledge of his glory as the waters cover the sea. Our mission, under his sovereign rule, must advance the knowledge and worship of God using the means he has prescribed so that both the end and the means glorify him.” https://www.mbts.edu/2021/10/how-theology-drives-missions/.

[2]Each Person of God participates and coinheres in the mission of the other Persons so that there is only one mission of God. The interlocking of participation by the three Persons of God encompasses the whole mission so that the distinctions neither erase the unity nor does the unity erase the distinctions.

[3]According to Patrick Schreiner, Associate Professor of New Testament and Biblical Theology at Midwestern, “It is the mission of God to confront us with the reality of Himself (His glory).” Patrick Schreiner, The Mission of the Triune God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2022), 154.

[4] Paul distinguishes the work of God who causes the growth, from servants who plant or water (1 Cor 3:5–9). God designates His chosen servants as “fellow workers” (ESV) or “co-workers” (NIV).

[5] John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad!: The Supremacy of God in Missions (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022), 7.

[6] Augustine, The Trinity, 2^nd ed., trans. Edmund Hill, O.P., ed. John E. Rotelle, O.S.A. (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2015). 9.1.

[7] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 5 vol., trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province (Westminster: Christian Classics, 1981), Ia.37.2.

[8] Lesslie Newbigin writes, “Anyone who knows Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior must desire ardently that others should share that knowledge and must rejoice when the number of those who do is multiplied.” Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 142.

[9] Ray Ortlund, “‘One Another’s’ I Can’t Find in the New Testament,” The Gospel Coalition, January 4, 2022, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/ray-ortlund/one-anothers-i- cant-find-in-the-new-testament-2/.

[10] Jonathan Edwards writes, “The emanation of God’s glory is in itself worthy and excellent, and so God delights in it; and this delight is implied in His love to His own fullness; because that is the fountain, the sum and comprehension of everything that is excellent.” Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 1.IV.4, Accessed online at https://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/works1.iv.iii.iv.html. The word “overflow” is a modern way of expressing the ancient Christian idea of God’s fullness, plenitude, bounty, or fecundity. John of Damascus, for example, calls God, “The fountain of being.” John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 1.8. John Owen, in his discussion of 1 John 4:8, writes, “[God’s love] is the fountain and prototype of all love, as being eternal and necessary…. All love in the creation was introduced from this fountain, to give a shadow and resemblance of it.” John Owen, Christologia (Grand Rapids: Generic NL Freebook Publisher, 1999), 111–12, eBook. Creation comes as the fruit of divine love, not divine need. God’s eternal love is expressed in creation ex nihilo (out of nothing). British theologian Michael Reeves says, “There is something gratuitous about creation, an unnecessary abundance of beauty, and through its blossoms and pleasures we can revel in the sheer largesse of the Father.” Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 57.

[11] Andreas Köstenberger, Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission, New Studies in Biblical Theology 53 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2020), 254.

Episode 260: FTC Mailbag

By ddickerson / Apr 24

A new mailbag installment of the FTC Pod is upon us! In this episode, Jared Wilson and Ross Ferguson answer your submitted questions and topics, including: when should pastors refer members to professional Christian counselors?, are church dress codes for those “on stage” reasonable?, preparing a small town church ready for city growth, when does a church plant become a “real” church?, is the age of accountability in the Bible?, what’s the best thing about the American Church?, best resources for training church leaders in gospel-centrality, and opinions about the streaming show The Chosen. You can submit a question or topic for the Mailbag any time via social media or via email at [email protected]

Unsearchable Riches: 100 Facets to the Diamond of Christ

By Brett Fredenberg / Apr 23

He is inexhaustible. Unsearchably rich (Eph 3:8). Bottomless. We receive him, thinking he’s a pond, only to discover over time he’s an ocean. In him there is surprise after surprise. Endless discovery. Startling wonders around each bend.
He’s ruling and reigning over the entire cosmos such that the top headline of both FoxNews and CNN and everything in between should read, every day, in all caps: GOOD NEWS: JESUS CHRIST STILL ON THRONE: EVERYONE FREE TO CALM DOWN.
His rule extends to every atom, every molecule, the exact angle of the flutter of a leaf as it falls gently to the ground.
He is a genius. His teaching reflects the deepest genius of any teacher, ever. Read Pete Williams’ new book The Surprising Genius of Jesus, on the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, and see just one example of Jesus Christ’s genius.
When we talk about him, we say “He is a genius,” not “was.” He is living today.
The same One who caused John to fall down as if dead in Revelation 1 swept up little kids in his arms in Mark 10.
His life gives us a rich and noble picture of what true human flourishing, real wisdom, perfect love, looks like.
Far better, after giving us that perfect example, he went to a cross to suffer and die for anyone who admits they don’t follow it.
His forgiveness gets down underneath not just our conscious, willful sins, but everything that is broken within us.
The Son of God’s lunch appointments were with prostitutes and tax collectors—in modern terms, adult entertainers and the mafia. In other words, sinners like you and me.
He said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev 3). He ate with sinners 2,000 yrs ago. He offers that friendship and fellowship to you and me today.
Discipleship to him does not involve attaining a minimum level of competency. No resume is needed. The one thing that qualifies you is knowing you don’t qualify.
As Hebrews teaches us, he never, ever asks his friends to walk through a trial that he has not himself, in an even more profound way, gone through himself.
His sinlessness does not encourage him to be aloof from us sinners, holding us at arms’ length, but makes him the perfect substitute for us—and he substitutes himself for us willingly, eagerly.
Unlike the laws of ritual cleanliness in Leviticus, Jesus Christ’s touch of messy humans like me does not contaminate him. It cleanses me. In the OT, clean + unclean = unclean. With Jesus, clean + unclean = clean (Mark 1:41).
His mercy to sinners is not calculating, scale-weighing, cautious. It is lavish, outrageous, unfettered.
His atoning death means he is free not to scrutinize. He needs not. All has been wiped clean. Faults remain, not just in our past but in our present. But the whole atmosphere in which we live has been transformed from one of scrutiny into one of welcome. “Welcome one another as X has welcomed you” (Rom 15:7).
He no longer calls us servants, but friends, and he is the friend of sinners. He has not only atoned for our sins; he has befriended us sinners.
He is not an idea or a force or a philosophy or a theory or a framework or even a doctrine. He’s a Person. He can be related to, talked to. He delights in that.
He said he came “not to call the righteous but sinners” (Mark 2:17). The admissions committee for heaven has declared by unanimous decision all moral resumes inadmissible.
He said “Whoever believes in me, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). If you have Jesus, you are carrying around inside you a nuclear powerplant, spiritually speaking.
He said, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (John 15:9). Consider the perfect, overflowing love of God the Father for God the Son; that’s God the Son’s love for you.
He said, “Take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). If you have Jesus, the looming darkness in your life is not going to overwhelm you; He is going to overwhelm it. He says he already has.
He said to Zacchaeus (Luke 19:10), “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” He is a seeker, a hunter—and the thing he’s hunting for is “the lost.” Not the best; the lost.
Jesus was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s Servant of the Lord, who operates like this: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench” (Matt 12:20 quoting Isa 42:3). When you’re low, he doesn’t pile on. He deals tenderly.
He cried. He cried over Jerusalem. He cried when his friend Lazarus died. That he is perfect, doesn’t make him unfeeling. That he is perfect, means he is perfectly feeling.
He doesn’t resent me (or you), though we’ve given him many reasons to. He welcomes us again, and again, and again.
In all our stumbling and failing, he has not yet said, ‘Enough is enough. I’m out.’
His life and death means that if we have Jesus, our sin can only accelerate his grace. Where sin abounds, grace hyper-abounds (Rom 5:20).
He is incapable of disgust over his sisters and brothers, even his sinning sisters and brothers.
He gives rest. As Hebrews 3-4 teach, He is that of which the sabbath is a shadow; Jesus is the shadow-caster. He doesn’t just forgive our sins; he lets the frenetic RPMs of the heart slow down into calmness, serenity, sanity, whatever is happening all around us circumstantially.
The one place in all four Gospels where he opens up to tell us about his own heart—the only place—he says he is “gentle and lowly in heart” (Matt 11:29). Burrow down into the very core of what makes the God-Man tick, the one who wove his own whip to drive the enterprising capitalists from the temple (John 2:15), and you find: gentleness.
At the same time, he’s not, as Lewis put it, a tame lion. He is not domesticate-able, predictable, boring, vanilla. He cannot be caged or controlled. Who would want to try?
And yet as Revelation 5 shows us, he is not only a lion (Rev. 5:5) but also a lamb (Rev 5:6). Magnificent ferocity; supreme, approachable tenderness, even to the point of fatal sacrifice—just like a lamb.
He withdrew to pray and be alone at times. Communion with the Father is more important than sleep. And through his own work on the cross Jesus has opened wide the door for this communion.
His brilliant resplendence will, one day soon, make every impenitent Hollywood star and ESPN-headlining athlete, every president and prime minister, look small and silly—as the glory of overlooked, ordinary Christians erupts in beauty for all the universe to see.
His death and resurrection means that if I trust him, I am justified. By faith alone, I am clothed in the perfect righteousness of Jesus himself. He takes all my sin, and he gives me all his righteousness, never to be taken away.
He not only justifies me, he reconciles me to God. A state of friendliness, of restored relationship, is given to me, purely of his gracious will.
He not only provides for my justification and my reconciliation but also my adoption. Legal acquittal; restored friendship; familial love and inheritance.
His grace is both outside me and inside me. Freely accounted righteousness-grace, through the Son, is credited to me from the outside; freely given godliness-grace, through the Spirit, is worked in me on the inside
At the same time, he does not give us grace. He gives us himself. He is grace. He is the life, the light, the vitality, that we desperately, even hauntingly, long for.
He is not averse to messy, complicated, up-and-down, failures. He is averse to messy, complicated, up-and-down, failures who deny they are messy, complicated, up-and-down, failures.
He found you. He found me. As a mentor said to me once, “Remember, Dane, you’ve already been discovered.” We don’t need to be noticed by anyone else, ever again. If we have his attention, we need no one else’s.
When the religious leaders “saw the boldness of Peter and John” in Acts 4:13, “they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” Simply spending time with Jesus Christ creates a boldness, a brightness, a distinguishable trait visible to others.
His coming into this diseased world means that, as Gandalf told Sam, “everything sad is going to come untrue.”
There was nothing physically attractive about him (Isa 53:2). He would never have appeared on the cover of Men’s Health. He came as a normal man to comfort normal people.
This normal man was sinless, but he was a sinless man, not a sinless Superman. He woke up with bed-head. He went through puberty. Maybe he was a snorer. He’s not Zeus.
Taking on our humanity meant taking on all our human limitations. He has a specific fingerprint. A certain blood-type.
Speaking of his blood—he let it all out, while suffocating to death, naked, on a Roman cross, when I was the criminal deserving it. That sure was nice of him.
He didn’t come to give a pep talk. He’s not a coach. He came to do, in our place, what every pep talk is trying to get us impossibly unmotivated people to do.
His family thought he was nuts (Mark 3:21). Maybe your family thinks you are too. He doesn’t. He cherishes you (Eph 5:29).
He not only cherishes you, he nourishes you (Eph 5:29). He is feeding life into you by the Spirit moment by moment, sustaining you, preserving you, protecting you.
He knows what it is to be alone, thirsty, hungry, hated, rejected, taunted, shamed, abandoned, stabbed, tortured, killed. Your pain is not lost on him.
He lost every earthly friend he had while he lived, so that we can have him whatever earthly friends we lose.
We cannot get underneath his mercy. We can dig and dig and dig with our shovel of sin. But no matter how deep we go, we never hit rock bottom on his mercy.
We can never outrun his love, any more than we can outrun our shadow. No matter how fast Wily Coyote ran, the Roadrunner just ran faster. “Goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life” (Ps 23). Jesus is that goodness and mercy.
Thinking of Ps 23… that psalm says the Lord is a Shepherd who makes us lie down in green pastures. Jesus said “I am the Good Shepherd” (John 10). It is in Jesus that we lie down in green pastures. Jesus leads us beside still waters. Jesus restores our soul. Our weary, discouraged souls.
And not only Psalm 23. Jesus fulfills every psalm (Luke 24:44). Every agony, anguish, loneliness, the full range of human pain expressed in the Psalms—he experienced it more deeply than we do, and he bears us up now as we experiences these pains. And the guilt and sins confessed in the Psalms, Jesus never personally experienced, but he bore the penalty for them all upon that
The whole Psalter is an arrow pointing to Jesus.
He never misunderstands you. Never misjudges your motives. He knows us better than we know ourselves.
He likes you. Not just loves. Likes. That’s not a compromise of the depth of our wretched sinfulness. Whatever else “friend” means, doesn’t it at least mean that?
He not only teaches, and not only atones, and not only befriends—he brings us into union with himself. We cannot get any closer to him. We’re closer to him, now, than John was, when he was “leaning on Jesus” (John 13).
And that union cannot be threatened, even by ongoing failures. It was God, not me, who united me to him in the first place. It is God, not me, who is alone capable of un-uniting me from him. And because justice has been satisfied, God never will. Jesus would have to be pulled down out of heaven and put back in the tomb in order for me to be dis-united from him.
Those in union with him are promised that the more darkness and hell we experience in this life, to that degree we will enjoy resplendence and radiance in the next (Rom 8:17–18). All the haunted brokenness that infects everything— every relationship, every conversation, every family, every email, every job, every vacation—everything—will one day be rewound and reversed.
He makes me human again. He didn’t come to make us a superspiritual being who only prays and praises in a disembodied state. He has angels for that. He came to give me back my humanity. He’s not disappointed that I need sleep, food, and the bathroom. He himself experienced all the same things.
He does not bring pain into my life to coldly punish but to graciously help. He brings pain to clear away the static in my communion with him. He was punished so that all my pain is not punishing but brotherly.
When I am prayerless, he is not. He intercedes for me. McCheyne: “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies.”
And his prayers are answered. Since in Gethsemane his prayer went unanswered (“Remove this cup”), every prayer he makes now on my behalf is answered.
I cannot experience a temptation he has not (Heb. 2:18).
The whole Bible is his, and about him (Luke 24:27, 44; John 5:39, 46). The Bible is not a manual for life, not a guidebook, not a rulebook, not sage suggestions. At its heart, and cover to cover, the Bible is the Word of God about the grace of God in the Son of God for the people of God to the glory of God. When I open the Book, I get him.
He is the final answer to the OT. Jesus gathers up all the various threads of promise and hope and rescue and longing that cover the landscape of the Old Testament and snowball down through the centuries. The virtue of every OT saint is filled out in him, and the failure of every OT saint heightens the longing for him.
Not only Scripture, either: Every heart-stabbing poem, every story of redemption, every novel or film that evokes longings and makes the tears flow—it all points to him. He is the closure for every human longing.
He is the perfect and final Priest, representing the people to God.
He is the perfect and final King, representing God to the people.
He is the perfect and final Prophet, speaking truth with laser-like accuracy.
He is the perfect and final Sage, or wise man, depicting wisdom in both his life and his words. He is the book of Proverbs walking around on two legs.
He is the perfect and final Judge—utterly fair, and all-knowing. Every verdict will be just right. We do not need to take justice into our own hands.
His promised second coming means that I will give an account for every word spoken against others, and others will give an account for every word spoken against me. All will be put right.
His blazing wrath upon the impenitent is matched by his gentle embrace of the penitent. Neither dilutes the other. He is not a one-dimensional Christ.
He was born in Bethlehem. Out of the way, backwoods Bethlehem. We are freed to live and serve in obscurity. We don’t need the spotlight. He didn’t.
The incarnation of God among us means that ultimate reality is not cold, dark, space, but love. The Son of God came to us as the overflow of intratrinitarian love.
He said, on the cross, with nail-pierced arms outstretched, “It is finished.” We exhausted sinners are free to rest in his exhaustive work.
He has put that nail-scarred arm around us as we stumble toward heaven, and he will never loosen his grip.
His first miracle in Jn 2 (John makes point of calling it his “chief/beginning” miracle) is turning water to wine at a wedding party. Then at the end of Rev we see a wedding party between Jesus and his bride, you and me. Every wedding is a pointer to THE Wedding that will explode onto the scene of world history very soon, and last forever.
‘And they all left him and fled’ (Mark 14:50). Had he lived today, every last Twitter follower would have un-followed him. The maximum number of friends you can have on FB is 5,000. Well, he fed 5,000. I bet all 5,000 would have accepted his FB friend request. And all 5,000 would have eventually un-friended and blocked him. So that he could be your and my ever-present friend, saying (Heb 13:5): ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you’ (Heb. 13:5).
Not only forsaken by his friends, but by God. He knows what it is to feel forsaken by God, because he knows what it is to be forsaken by God (“My God, my God…”). So that you and I are never actually forsaken, even when we feel forsaken.
He loves weakness. He works with weakness. That qualifies me for his grace. You feel the same way.
That grace is (2 Cor 12) sufficient. It needs no me-generated supplement. All he requires is need. Nothing more, nothing less. The bar of divine grace is low, so low that the proud cannot get under it.
He will never disappoint us or underwhelm us. As much as we leverage our longings onto him, he will fulfill them, and more than fulfill them.
His death means our death is a beginning, not an end. A door, not a wall. An entrance, not an exit.
His resurrection means my body will one day be restored to me and this time will not run down. We will be ageless. Both youthful immaturities, and geriatric wrinkles/balding/stiffness/aches, will be gone forever.
He is the “firstfruits” of a single harvest (1 Cor 15:20, 23). The final resurrection of the dead has already begun. The first instance is already among us.
And that body that he had, and that we will get, was both fully physical (he told Thomas to touch his scarred hands) and invincibly different from our current bodies (he appeared in locked rooms more than once and was hard to recognize more than once). When we look at Christ’s risen body, we are looking at our future.
When he walked out of the grave, Eden 2.0 dawned. Against OT expectation, the old age continued steamrolling right alongside the dawning new age. This is why this world can feel like heaven one day and hell the next. But our basic citizenship is now in that new Eden that has begun.
This overlap of the two ages also means there is still time, still a chance, for any who recognizes he has been born into the old, hellish age to lay down his arms and be swept up into the dawning sunrise of the new age.
He has so deeply identified with us that when he ascended to heaven, he didn’t leave his body behind. He took his body. He’ll always have a body. He is now one of us, while remaining divine.
And while in heaven, he is our advocate (1 John 2:1). He is speaking up on our behalf. We don’t need to self-advocate. He’s doing it for us.
He’s coming back some day, not in disguise as the first time, but without disguise, thundering with the armies of heaven (Rev 19), with a robe dipped in blood, his eyes like a flame of fire, with a tattoo on his thigh that says “King of Kings and Lord of Lords”, and he will “tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty”—and every unbelieving person will be perfectly brought to account.
We will see him face to face” (Rev 22:4). You and I, one day, are going to look into the eyes of a risen Galilean carpenter. What a moment that will be. And all will be well.
When we look upon him, we will know: We are home. As God said in Zechariah 10:10, “I will bring them home.” We will pass through the wardrobe into Narnia. We will weep with relief.
All because he refused the glory he rightly deserved to enter the hell and mud of our world to grab us and pull us into the new order, the new world of shalom and flourishing and sun and calm and uproarious laughter. All of sheer grace. All to be simply received. Available to anyone who refuses to pay for it.

This article was published with permission from Naperville Presbyterian Church. To listen to the sermon by Dane Ortlund from which the article was drawn, visit https://www.npchurch.org/sermons/sermon/2024-04-14/ephesians-3:8.

Episode 10: Not a New Convert

By ddickerson / Apr 18

It doesn’t matter how you start; it’s how you finish that makes the difference. In the season finale of The Heart of Pastoring Podcast, Jared and Ronnie discuss the “why” behind the qualification that pastors not be recent converts, what happens when they are recent converts, and the residual effect on ministers and their churches when there is too much rush of untested men into positions of leadership. Our hosts also take a little stock of their own lives and ministries from their mid-life vantage points and explore what it means to pursue a long track record of faithfulness, a reliable pattern of predictability in ministry, and a good ol’ “veteran-ship” in the faith.