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Jared Wilson and Ronni Kurtz dive back into that bag of indeterminate color, the FTC Mailbag! Answering your submitted questions and topics, the guys discuss age gaps between staff pastors, baptizing nonverbal churchfolk, how to share concerns with a pastor, what to do if your pastor is having AI write his sermons, and more. You can always send us a question or topic via [email protected]
I once heard a pastor say, “The enemy of your soul hates you.” You probably hear sermons and social media clips about how much God loves you—and rightly so, for He does indeed love you. Yet it is also important to hear about the other side of the coin: the devil hates you.
There are two key reasons why we should be continuously aware that the devil opposes us. First, we are told in Scripture to be vigilant: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). Unless we are watchful and thinking clearly, we risk allowing the devil to attack us unprepared, making us easy prey.
Second, Scripture urges us to “resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (Jas. 4:7). Unless we are aware that we need to resist the devil, we might misinterpret spiritual opposition or some negative events in our lives as coming from God rather than recognizing them as attacks from the devil. We may also be prone to sin because we do not take seriously that the enemy is trying to destroy our lives.
Now that we understand why awareness of the devil’s hatred is important, let us now look at what the devil resents about us.
The devil despises what we have been given through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ. In Christ, God has given us His righteousness: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21). In Christ, God has given us His peace: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” (John 14:27). In Christ, God has given us power, love, and a sound mind: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Tim. 1:7). In Christ, God gave Himself for us: “And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
The enemy hates these gifts and that they were given not because of what we have done, but because of what Christ did for us.
Because of what we have been given in Christ, others benefit through our witness and example. Sometimes this is done directly: Our presence radiates God’s peace. Other times it is indirect: When you tell others about Christ, they receive His righteousness when they accept Him into their lives.
Because God’s Spirit lives in us, when we live by the Spirit, we display the fruits of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control” (Gal. 5:22). When people hear the gospel and believe in Christ, the Spirit produces these same fruits in their lives—and the devil hates our role in this. He would much rather see rudeness, unfaithfulness, and impatience in place of Christ’s love and goodness.
As the adage goes, you give what you have. And the devil does not like what we have. Because the “Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11), our words and example manifest Christ’s work. The enemy opposes this, but he cannot overcome Christ’s victorious work done in us and through us.
The devil also despises what we believe. He resents that we believe in God as the Creator of the world, infusing our lives with beauty, meaning, and purpose. He would much rather that we feel continually demoralized. He opposes our confidence in God’s promise: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). He would much rather that we believe we are continually condemned. He hates that we believe in a God that has “borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isa. 53:4). He would much rather that we believe we must carry our griefs and sorrows on our own.
As important as it is to remember that God loves us, it is also important to remember that the devil hates us and is working against us. Ultimately, the devil’s mission is our ruin and destruction—“to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:10). Yet he will not be able to ruin us, and instead, “Christ who lives in” us (Gal. 2:20) will ruin him even as He has secured our victory.
Remember, you are not fighting alone. The Spirit works in and through you to bless others, and Christ has already triumphed. Stand vigilant, resist the enemy, and rejoice in His victory which He has given us.
“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” This is simply a way of saying: What’s good for one person ought to be enough for another. Such is a running theme of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus told His disciples, on more than one occasion, that they would be tried, tested, hated, and persecuted for their faith—perhaps even to the point of death. In Matthew 13 and 14, we see two examples of this reality in the ministries of Jesus and John the Baptist. These stories remind us, pastors: What’s good for Jesus is good for us.
Nazareth was a small town—the kind of town where everybody knows everybody. This familiarity will be the reason Jesus is rejected in Nazareth. These people know Jesus, His family, and social standing (Matt. 13:55–56). So they question His prowess, “When did Jesus become so smart?” “Where did He get his theological training?” “When did He become so learned?” They did not know—nor did they want to know—Jesus as the authoritative Messiah. As a result, Jesus left Nazareth having received no honor, even in his hometown (13:57–58).
Around the same time Jesus was rejected in Nazareth, Herod heard about Him and began to worry that Jesus was John the Baptist raised from the dead (14:2). Matthew takes this opportunity to recount John the Baptist’s death. John had been preaching against Herod’s unlawful marriage to Herodias, which got him arrested (14:4). His life ended when Herodias’ daughter asked for his head on a platter (14:8). The final moments of the great John the Baptist were a terrifying and gruesome death at the hands of a corrupt ruler. He preached that the Lord Jesus was the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world, but John would not get the opportunity to see the Lamb slain for sinners. Even in death, John pointed to Christ, preparing His path.
Jesus and John were both rejected—one by His hometown, the other by the state. Most pastors may never face such extreme forms of rejection and persecution. Of course, some brothers over the course of their ministries have faced extraordinary persecution. Yet in one form or another, you and I will all face rejection in some form.
I do not say this to give you fuel to preach at troubling members who give you a hard time. And I don’t mean to present a hopeless, nihilistic view of ministry that shrugs and says, “You just need to get over it.” Ministry is hard. I don’t particularly enjoy being taken to the woodshed by members of my church. I do not like my ideas being shot down. I am terribly grieved by members who fall away in the same manner week after week.
I am not telling you simply to get over it, but I am telling you that what was true for our Lord is often true for His servants. We can take comfort knowing that our Lord and our ministry heroes, like John, have faced what we face—even persecution unto death. This is good news for us because suffering does not signal failure; it places us in the company of our Lord.
Herod regretted putting John the Baptist to death. He feared that Jesus of Nazareth was John the Baptist raised from the dead. But Herod was mistaken. Jesus is not merely John the Baptist—Jesus is a prophet like John. Yet He is more than just a prophet. Jesus has disciples like John, yet He is more than just a teacher. Jesus was a wanderer like John, yet He was more than just a wanderer. Jesus would even suffer a similar fate to John, condemned by earthly authorities. But unlike John, He would not remain in the grave.
That is the great irony of Herod’s predicament. Soon they would kill the Lord Jesus, place His body in a tomb, and seal it shut. Yet on the third day, His body would not be there. The carpenter’s son would rise from the dead as the vindication that His sacrifice for sinners had been accepted.
Pastors, the hope that steadies us in rejection is this: Jesus truly is the Lamb slain for our sins. We follow Him into ministry goals that fall short, sheep that bite us, and church events that do not go as planned because Jesus walked the road first. He calls us to walk paths He Himself has already cleared: to take up a cross like His, be rejected like Him, and die like Him. That isn’t just a call to rejection, but also resurrection. We will be rejected in ministry and resurrected in eternity because Christ has gone before us.
Our call is to endure—not because we must simply grit our teeth and bear it, but because we look forward to the day when we will bear it no longer. Brothers, our lives and ministries have such great hope because even if the worst possible thing could happen to us, we await a more glorious life with our risen Christ. That is a message of gospel hope—the hope that we may indeed be rejected with Him, but we will surely be resurrected with Him. This gives us fuel for the hard days of ministry, because what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Rejection is not the final word. Resurrection is.
Christians are a singing people! But what songs should we sing? And how should we sing them? In this episode, Jared Wilson and Ronni Kurtz discuss the content and attitudes of Christian worship music.
At least seven times in the pastoral epistles, Paul directly charges Timothy and Titus to “avoid” and to “have nothing to do with” ideas and people who pose a threat to their flock. This is jarring since one of the main purposes for these letters is to encourage Timothy and Titus to engage false teaching and teachers. Yet here is where the paradox emerges: Paul teaches a pastoral virtue of avoidance—showing that sometimes the wisest form of engagement is careful restraint.
So, what is going on here? Given that Paul clearly wants false teaching and teachers dealt with and also wants these pastors to avoid certain discourse and people, the question arises: What is Paul prohibiting here and what does it mean for pastors today?
Paul applies this virtue to two broad categories: words and people. Five of the seven times Paul commands Timothy and Titus to “avoid/having nothing to do with,” it is regarding “irreverent silly myths” (1 Tim. 4:7), “irreverent babble” (1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 2:16), “foolish [ignorant] controversies” (2 Tim. 2:23; Titus 3:9). In the two other instances, he tells them to avoid or have nothing to do with certain people (2 Tim. 3:5; Titus 3:10). But what is it they are not to engage in?
It is difficult to come up with any real difference between myths, babble, and controversies—especially when you consider that in each place Paul attaches a similar negative adjective such as “foolish,” “silly,” “irreverent,” “ignorant.” In each case, Paul has in mind a certain kind of speech that Timothy and Titus are not to engage in. The specifics of the speech might differ case by case, but they are all of a similar pointless, ungodly, and muddled nature which renders it unworthy of these pastors’ time and attention. But why does Paul want them to avoid it?
This point is clearer as Paul gives reasoning for his command of avoidance:
In 2 Timothy 2:16–18, Paul gives the most insightful reasoning. Here we get the content of the “babble”: The resurrection has already happened. Paul wants Timothy to avoid this idea because it spreads like gangrene, leads “people into more and more ungodliness,” and upsets their faith. The principle is that sometimes the way to stop a disease from spreading is to avoid the disease rather than fight it head-on. It’s a virus rather than a cancer.
This is somewhat bewildering as we think about the pastor’s role to protect the flock from “fierce wolves” who will not “spare the flock” (Acts 20:28–29). It is also contrary to what most of us feel internally and would amount to what some would deem an abdication of our responsibility as leaders. So, what are pastors today supposed to take from these commands?
The outworking of this command will differ depending on the immediate context we pastor in. Here are six principles and suggestions that arise from this virtue that apply universally (in no particular order).
Given that Paul wants Timothy and Titus to engage certain false teaching and teachers, it seems that he has a kind of refusal to be “drawn in” in mind. The avoidance he commands does involve interaction and providing reasons, but it stops short of aggression, lashing out, fighting, “sinking to the level,” or becoming obsessed with defeating them. We must avoid without neglecting to protect.
In order to avoid, you need to know what does or does not need time and attention. Pastors should be devoted to cultivating godliness rather than tearing down the ungodliness of others. Rather than using most of our limited time to engage with “irreverent babble,” we ought to focus on worthwhile things (Phil. 4:8).
The more informed you are, the more you are able to know what proportion of time to give or not give certain ideas. Pastors, by nature, are more informed than the flock. They understand doctrine, implications of certain ideas, when cultural issues shift from tier 3 to tier 2, and so on. Through training and the Spirit’s guidance, they discern what and when to avoid.
Warn them once, then twice, then remove them from the fellowship of your body, having nothing to do with them until they repent (Titus 3:10). Rather than tolerance, avoidance may look like an active decision to “cut out” infected tissue so that it does not spoil the rest of the body (2 Tim. 2:16–17).
Social media is truly an endless chasm of debating ideas and worldviews. Think of it as a video game server that is constantly live and filled with everyone from the entire world. You could literally spend all your time there. Don’t. Join the server in appropriate proportions and be strategic as to how you engage. Spend most of your time and energy logged in to the server of your immediate context.
A quarrelsome man has lost his senses. He feels threatened and offended. He is annoyed and angry. He bites the bait of the fool. He can’t walk away or let the issue rest. He can’t simply say, “No more,” but has to win and get the upper hand. Everything is a “hill to die on” to him. So, in time, he will die on every hill, and it will be for the wrong things. Sober-mindedness allows a pastor to discern when engage, when to step back, and when to protect the flock without overacting.
In a day and culture where many assume the virtuous thing to do is always to enter fully into every debate and squabble, Paul’s pastoral virtue of avoidance forces us to ask ourselves, “Is this something I should be engaging with? If so, how, and to what extent?” Because pastoral malpractice is not only possible by cowardly holding back, but by impassioned rushing in as well.
“I know I’m preaching to the choir now!”
Pastors will say this for a few reasons. First, they don’t want to sound patronizing: “I know you already know and agree with this!” Second, they’re feeling insecure about saying something that feels obvious, and they don’t want to seem “un-insightful.” So it has the effect, “Please don’t tune out! I know you’ve heard this before.” Third, they appropriately want the listeners to feel like insiders: “People like us believe and do things like this.”
We often use the phrase “the choir” not in reference to the literal choir (which most churches don’t have anymore), but in reference to the committed, regular attendees of the church who do, in effect, address one another in songs, hymns, and spiritual songs.
I’m sympathetic to all those reasons and have made use of similar pastoral contextualizations and caveats. However, they reveal a fatal assumption that pastors cannot buy into: that the majority of the regular church attendees agree with the Scriptures on most issues at both an intellectual and emotional level.
Instead, preachers must, and should, feel free to “preach to the choir” without shame or apology for three reasons: the choir needs preaching, the choir contains heretics, and the choir is often shaped by worldly ethics.
“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it / Prone to leave the God I love!” sings the choir. They know this, we know this. It isn’t patronizing to remind people of what they’ve already experienced but are prone to forget. This is both kind and realistic.
My favorite kind of Sundays are when I’m preaching. My second favorite kind of Sundays are when I’m not preaching. I get to sit under the heralded, treasured, exposited, and applied Word of God! Rarely do I “learn something new,” but every time I’m inspired to see Jesus as good, true, and beautiful, and am therefore moved to treasure him afresh and follow him more relentlessly. I need preaching like a worker bee needs pollen. When I’m in the choir, preach to me and the rest of us frail but committed saints!
There are two types of heretics: accidental and intentional. Most heretics in our churches are accidental heretics. They’ve got bad theology, don’t know the Scriptures, and are worldly in their assumptions about humanity, God, and the purpose of life.
The 2025 Ligonier and Lifeway report on the State of Theology of self-identified evangelicals should make pastors sweat:[1]
This is awesomely and impressively awful. These are the people who frequent our churches. They may not be your covenant members or core people in the church—although, they might be—but they’re in and around our local churches.
What makes this especially striking is that the same people who were surveyed agreed at 100% that “The Bible is the highest authority for what I believe.” They say they believe the Bible and want to submit to the Scriptures—they just need to be taught what the Bible says!
Basic biblical teaching about basic biblical concepts is needed more than ever. Preach to the choir!
Orthodoxy is important; orthopraxy is also important. The same 2025 report showed that evangelicals are weak in their moral and ethical reasoning:[2]
In the 2024 Pew Religious Landscape Survey, we find even more troublesome tendencies:[3]
Yes, those statistics are better than every other group surveyed, but they are still not good. In a church with 1000 congregants, would a pastor be happy if 360 of them thought homosexuality and abortion were public goods? That choir needs to be preached to!
It is foolish and fatal to assume that the people who go to your church agree with the Bible on ethics. We cannot get so caught up with critiquing those outside of the church that we neglect to form those within in basic matters of ethics and fidelity.
Your people are shaped by many voices beyond your own. Some of that is excellent; we don’t aspire to be cult leaders. Some of that is terrible; there are a lot of godless fools on the internet who are bent on normalizing what is abnormal and unholy. We need to explicitly and proactively combat the chorus of voices that scream at our people through mainstream and social media.
“I’ve been doing Bible Study Fellowship for thirty years, and I’ve never thought about that before.”
A sweet woman who is newer to my church told me this recently. She’s in the choir. Her heart’s in the right place. She just hadn’t learned basic evangelical theology and ethics yet, despite having read so much Bible. Bible study is good, but preaching that courageously and faithfully includes synthesis into doctrine and application in ethics is also necessary.
The sheep needs sound, holistic, and grace-saturated preaching—so let’s feed them.
[1] “The State of Theology,” accessed March 30, 2026, https://thestateoftheology.com/.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Gregory A. Smith et al., “Religion and Views on LGBTQ Issues and Abortion,” Pew Research Center, February 26, 2025, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/religion-and-views-on-lgbtq-issues-and-abortion/.
Many years ago, author and professor Carl Trueman wrote—by his own admission—one of his most read and well-known works, an article titled What Can Miserable Christians Sing? In it, Trueman argues for the necessity of including songs of lament (especially from the Psalter) in a church’s corporate worship. He writes, in part: “A diet of unremittingly jolly choruses and hymns inevitably creates an unrealistic horizon of expectation which sees the normative Christian life as one long triumphalist street party—a theologically incorrect and a pastorally disastrous scenario in a world of broken individuals.”[1]
What Trueman says rings true. Life in a fallen world is full of hardship and struggle, and the normative Christian life is decidedly not one long triumphalist street party. The Bible is not shy about this. Life is often painful. Within this reality, what responsibility does the pastor bear in the liturgy and teaching of the church?
The fact is, pastor, your people will suffer. This is not breaking news. When and how they suffer, only the Lord in His sovereignty knows. While we will inevitably minister to people in the midst of suffering—and after suffering has already come—we must also prepare them for suffering beforehand.
In other words, we ought not wait for suffering to happen before teaching about it. We must equip our people ahead of time so that, when the inevitable struggle comes, they are not without language or categories for faith.
Mark Vroegop reflects on this well. Looking back on a particular season of grief for him and his wife, he writes, “I can now see that the missing element in our grief was a familiarity with lament—heartfelt and honest talking to God through the struggles of life.”[2]
We must be equipped—and equip our people—to know that lament is both appropriate and helpful when suffering comes.
Here are three ways pastors can, and should, incorporate lament into the life of the church so that God’s people have words when sorrow and suffering befall them.
A brief listen to popular Christian radio or a glance at the CCLI Top 100 reveals that most songs sung on a given Lord’s Day in America are upbeat. Fair enough—the gospel brings joy and announces good news. And yet, as Trueman observes, the human condition remains profoundly broken.
It is not wrong to sing joyful songs. But if joy is all we sing, we risk offering a truncated view of life in a fallen world. Jesus’ own hymnbook was the Psalter, and its most frequent genre is lament.
Trueman again notes,
The psalms, the Bible’s own hymnbook, have almost entirely dropped from view in the contemporary Western evangelical scene. I am not certain about why this should be, but I have an instinctive feel that it has more than a little to do with the fact that a high proportion of the psalter is taken up with lamentation, with feeling sad, unhappy, tormented, and broken. In modern Western culture, these are simply not emotions which have much credibility: sure, people still feel these things, but to admit that they are a normal part of one’s everyday life is tantamount to admitting that one has failed in today’s health, wealth, and happiness society.[3]
Including songs of lament in the church’s liturgy does something profound: it gives people words to sing when life is hard. Those words sink deep, equipping believers to sing through pain rather than fall silent in it.
I pastor a local church, and we intentionally include songs of lament, particularly when we preach selected Psalms each summer. When my dear son Ambrose was stillborn this past July, I drew comfort from songs like Lord, From Sorrows Deep I Call, Psalm 13, and He Will Hold Me Fast. Songs of triumph did not match my sorrow—but songs of lament did. They gave me language to sing through tears and ministered to my soul.
Include songs of lament in your liturgy, and your people will have words to draw from even when it is hard to sing.
A similar effect occurs when lament is taught and preached. As noted above, we preach the Psalms every summer and intentionally include Psalms of lament. There are also books like Job, Habakkuk, and Lamentations in which saints are honest about how they feel.
Teaching these texts shows your people that lament is not abnormal. It gives them words to pray when they find themselves in grief, confusion, or loss. It teaches them that honesty before God is not irreverence, and that the God who hears can handle our cries. When they lack words, they can open the Psalter and pray what God has already given them.
Finally, pastors should point to saints—past and present—who have suffered with honesty and faith. This can be done through sermon illustrations, pastoral writing, social media posts, and other teaching. Show how mighty saints through the ages have suffered, written down their honest feelings, and handed their works down to us.
Consider Augustine writing in Confessions grieving the loss of his mother, John Calvin writing to a friend when his wife died, or Martin Luther lamenting the death of his beloved daughter. These saints show us that it is possible to be faithful and sorrowful, trusting and confused, joyful and mourning—all at once.
Your people will suffer. This is an unavoidable reality of life in a fallen world between the Advents. Let us be honest about that with them. Let us equip them beforehand with language for prayer and song, so that even in sorrow they can turn toward God with hope—looking ahead to the day when every sad thing comes untrue.
[1] Carl Trueman, “What Can Miserable Christians Sing?” IX Marks, https://www.9marks.org/article/what-can-miserable-christians-sing.
[2] Mark Vroegop, “Strong Churches Speak the Language of Lament,” The Gospel Coalition, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/strong-churches-lanuage-lament/.
[3] Carl Trueman, “What Can Miserable Christians Sing?” IX Marks, https://www.9marks.org/article/what-can-miserable-christians-sing.
In the latest installment of our occasional Grab Bag feature, Jared Wilson and Ronni Kurtz ask each other surprise questions. This time Ronni comes with a bonus question, so there’s a bit more bang for your buck.
Jonah 4 provides a striking picture. God appoints a plant to give Jonah shade, and Jonah greatly enjoys its comfort. But the next day, God appoints a worm to destroy the plant. Deprived of its shade, Jonah becomes furious and cries out, “It is better for me to die than to live” (Jon. 4:8).
Jonah’s reaction may seem overreactive or even embarrassing. But before we turn him into a caricature, we should pause and ask an uncomfortable question: If we were in Jonah’s place, how would we respond?
When God removes what we cherish, how do we think about Him? What do we learn about who He is and who we are? While these questions could be answered in many ways, Scripture presses two lessons on us in moments like this.
The first lesson Scripture presses upon us is this: God Himself is infinitely greater than the gifts He graciously places in our lives. However precious those gifts may be, they are never meant to rival the Giver.
Few figures embody this truth more clearly than Job. Scripture introduces him as “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1). When Job loses all his wealth, his servants, and even his seven sons and three daughters, his response is astonishing: “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21).
Job does not deny his grief; he tears his robe and shaves his head. Yet he recognizes a deeper reality: everything he possessed was a gift, not a right. God, the Giver, remained worthy of worship even when the gifts were removed.
Abraham learned the same lesson through an even more painful test. In Genesis 22, God commands him to offer Isaac, his beloved son, the child of promise, as a sacrifice (Gen. 22:1).
Humanly speaking, Abraham could have protested. He could have questioned God’s goodness or consistency. Instead, he rose early and obeyed. When God finally stopped him, He declared, “…for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me” (Gen. 22:12).
The test was never about Isaac alone. It was about whether Abraham loved the gift more than the Giver. Mature faith learns that God is never merely a means to something else—He is the ultimate treasure, the ultimate gift.
This truth became painfully real to me in August 2019. One late evening, I received one of the most devastating phone calls of my life from my dad: my oldest sister had been hospitalized with dengue fever, and doctors gave her only a two percent chance of survival. She was not only my sister but had also supported my education for seven years.
That night, my wife and I pleaded with God through tears, fully believing He could intervene. But God chose not to heal her permanently. Within the week, He took her home.
In that loss, God taught me a difficult but freeing truth: God owns what He gives. My sister belonged to Him before she was ever my sister. Accepting this did not erase the pain, but it brought clarity and freedom. There is a strange peace that comes when we stop pretending that God’s gifts are ours to control.
The second lesson may be even more searching: the Bible is often more concerned with why we worship God than with why we suffer.
Many people approach the book of Job seeking answers to suffering. But Job never receives a full explanation for his pain. Instead, the book answers a different question: Why is Job righteous? Satan accuses Job of serving God only because God has blessed him. Remove the blessings, Satan argues, and Job’s faith will collapse. But Job proves him wrong again and again. Even when his health is destroyed and his wife urges him to curse God, Job responds: “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10).
Job’s righteousness is not transactional. He does not serve God for benefits. He serves God because God is God. He worships God because God is God.
We must be honest as we answer questions like: Why do we worship? Why do we fear God? Why do we give? Why do we obey? Why do we call ourselves followers of Christ? Is it because God is worthy, or because we expect something in return?
The prosperity gospel offers a dangerously shallow answer, promising health, wealth, and comfort as guarantees of faith. Scripture offers something far deeper and costlier: the call to take up the cross and follow Christ, even when obedience leads through suffering. God is everything—He is the greatest gift ever.
When God takes away what we love, He is not being cruel. He is revealing what or whom we truly treasure. The greatest gift God has ever given is not health, wealth, or security. The greatest gift is God Himself. He gave Himself to us in the incarnation, and He gave Himself fully on the cross. He is to be loved above all. He alone is worthy of worship.
If we have God, we ultimately have everything—even in loss. If we have everything, but not God, we have nothing.
Yes, we will grieve. Yes, we will be discouraged. But even in sorrow, faith teaches us to turn toward Him rather than away from Him. When we look to the cross and see the depth of God’s love, self-pity gives way to trust. God is greater than every gift He gives and He is enough—even when those gifts are taken away.
[1] I owe this reflection and understanding to John H. Walton, Job: The NIV Application First edition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012).
In almost seven years as a lead pastor, I have stood beside graves almost thirty-five times.
Some were expected. A saint in her nineties whose Bible had nearly fallen apart before her body did. An older husband who slowly forgot names but never forgot the Lord’s Prayer. Or a sick child only twenty weeks in the womb. Those funerals carry tears, but also a quiet gratitude. You feel like you are escorting a pilgrim to the finish.
Others were not like that.
I have preached for a young man whose friends cannot delete his number from their phones. I have preached for parents who had to walk behind a child-sized casket. I have stood in a hospital room where there was no casket at all—only a silence heavier than wood could hold.
When my wife miscarried several times, we buried the tiny bodies next to our house and planted tulips above them. The spring flowers make us smile, but there is a peculiar grief in the makeshift burial of someone you never heard cry. A grief made sharper by the strange fact that your memories are not events, but expectations—no birthdays, no food fights, no prom dates. An unwrapped future.
I write this especially to younger pastors and seminarians, because no class will truly prepare you for what funerals will ask of you.
In seminary, I had a pastoral ministry professor who taught the basics—funerals, weddings, counseling, administration, baptism. I remember thinking he had more to say than I could possibly absorb. He was excellent, and I still keep the notes from that class. Yet more than a decade later, I realized something else: Though he put me on a good trajectory, funerals would ask more of my heart and focus than any classroom could cover.
I think there’s a danger hidden within all the great advice you can receive from seasoned pastors. For pastors, in all of this, there is danger in repetition.
You will eventually know the routine. How long to preach, when to stand, where to sit, and how to dismiss the crowd. You will coordinate meals with the kitchen team, contact a deacon for flowers, arrange slides and music, and you will know the cemetery undertaker by name.
And if you are not careful, this repetition can produce callousness.
A friend of mine owns a funeral home in town. One day, I jokingly asked if he had been busy lately. He said he had directed eighteen funerals that month—but did not consider it busy. That stunned me. That is roughly two hundred funerals a year.
For you, it might be the fifth funeral this year. For the family, it’s chaos.
It is the worst day of their lives. The room you have stood in many times is completely new territory for them. They will probably not hear any of what is said. They will have watched the slideshow a hundred times while preparing it. They are exhausted, disoriented, and fragile.
You are not managing an event but shepherding wounded people. You may be the primary speaker, but you are mostly a presence.
Sometimes the most pastoral thing you will do is sit quietly. Sometimes it’s offering a short prayer. Sometimes it’s helping them choose hymns because they cannot think clearly. Sometimes it’s gently telling them it is okay not to have an open mic or an open casket.
Your calm and confidence become borrowed stability.
Even when the deceased is elderly, the loss is not small. A ninety-year-old mother can leave behind a sixty-five-year-old child who now feels like an orphan. Even when a baby dies in the womb, another baby may never come to the younger parents.
Every funeral is catastrophic for someone.
I once heard a seasoned minister say he preferred funerals to weddings because people are more ready to hear the gospel when facing a casket than when looking at a bride. I understand what he meant and do not entirely disagree.
But I still hate funerals.
After nearly thirty-five funerals before personally turning forty years old, I would gladly never do another. I do not like leaving a hospital knowing that was my final conversation. I do not like late-night messages from a young couple saying they lost the baby. I do not like sitting in a cold, stale office holding my wife’s shaking hand while we wait for another ultrasound to hear “no heartbeat.”
I hate it—because death is not right.
Genesis 3 explains every cemetery. Hebrews 9 reminds us death is tied to judgment. John 11 shows us that Jesus wept at Lazarus’s tomb.
Yet this is exactly where pastors are called.
Part of our calling is to stand where people most need a shepherd. We are called to confidently stand at hospital bedsides, in living rooms, and beside open graves just as confidently as we stand behind the pulpit. We will say words no one else in the room knows how to say.
Basil Manly, Jr. wrote in a hymn, “we meet to part, but part to meet.” Funerals place a pastor in that doorway of grief—but always with the hope of reunion.
A funeral is not merely therapeutic—it is truthful. The most loving thing you can do is speak honestly about death and clearly about Christ.
First Corinthians 15 must become familiar territory. Paul says the body is sown perishable and raised imperishable, sown in weakness and raised in power. Christianity does not merely promise that souls survive—it promises resurrection.
The empty tomb of Jesus is not only His victory, but the believer’s future. We hold this in faith now, trusting it will one day become sight.
The woman confined to a wheelchair for years—will she run? The middle-aged mother whose cancer reduced her to frailty—will she be restored with strength and color? The children my wife and I buried—will they know us?
Scripture gives certainty without exhaustive detail. Enough to anchor hope, not enough to eliminate faith.
Your task is not to solve every mystery. Your task is to point people to Christ.
You will never enjoy coordinating funerals. You will schedule volunteers, organize meals, contact the funeral home, arrange music, and confirm seating. Much of it will feel administrative.
But do not miss what you are actually doing. You are honoring the sending off of an image bearer.
For most of church history, Christians buried their own near the church’s building. Believers worshiped within sight of tombstones because they believed in bodily resurrection. Even mowing grass between graves becomes a quiet confession that death is temporary.
This is one of the most honorable acts of pastoral care you will ever perform.
You accompany someone to the final step of earthly discipleship and publicly entrust them to the promises of Christ. You help a family grieve with hope. You stand where theology becomes tangible—you get to be the messenger of that message.
Paul says Christians grieve differently. Our tears have a destination. Because Christ has been raised, death is not a wall but a used doorway. One day God will wipe away these tears—not metaphorically, but personally.
And even with all this, I am still waiting for another funeral.
My dad has stage four cancer.
My parents are members of my church. It amazes me that I get to be my dad’s final pastor, since he was the first to tell me about Christ’s gospel. Though I dread the impending day of his funeral, I am grateful to speak when it comes.
I will walk my mom down the aisle and seat my wife and my sister’s family. Then I will go to the pulpit and preach—an honor I never expected a decade ago, but a delight I know my dad has as the day approaches. Because we all know that moment, and all of grief’s moments, are temporary.
Because Jesus Christ died, was buried, and rose again, I can stand beside any grave and say something true. I’ll never forget my seminary professor’s words: “When you’re at that pulpit, at that funeral, you point at that casket and say to everyone ‘this is not the end for this person.’”
Remember that every funeral is a loss for someone and a sacred moment entrusted to you. You are caring for souls at their most fragile moment and commending a believer to the promises of God.
Few acts in ministry are heavier. Few feel more holy.
And one day, faith will become sight.
Until then, we testify—one funeral at a time.
