Gospel-Centered Resources from Midwestern Seminary
It’s that time of year again. Kids are a mix of excited and sad. Parents are a mix of excited and sad! In this episode of the pod, Jared Wilson and Ronni Kurtz discuss the back to school experience, why it always comes with a mix of emotions, and offer some counsel for students (and for parents) in making the best of their new season of studies.
One of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn’t start reading sooner. Charles Spurgeon is said to have read the Puritans at just 9 or 10 years old. Imagine what you were doing at 9 or 10! Proverbs 11:14 states, “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” Reading is like consulting “an abundance of counselors.” When you want to learn how to do something, you look at the instruction manual. When you are new to a craft, you learn from an expert. When you do not want to make a mistake, you ask for advice (or, at least, you should). Authors and publishers work hard to produce books for readers to glean from.
While not every book contains advice on Christian living or biblical wisdom, it is helpful to consider reading as an act of wisdom for the Christian life. Through books, we learn from disciples of Jesus Christ who have gone before us—their successes and their failures.
Here are three reasons why you should consider reading more.
Authors are passionate enough about a topic to spend hundreds of hours thinking and writing their thoughts out. They have pondered the topic, learned from personal life experiences, and offer thoughtful conclusions to their readers. Take Jason Allen’s three-volume series Letters to My Students, for example.[1] In the spirit of Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students, Allen saw it fit to give his advice to pastors-in-training. Reflecting on his decades of ministry experience and current experience in higher education leadership, Allen’s books are a gold mine for pastors-in-training who desire to learn from a ministry leader who has gone before them and learned lessons about the Christian life and ministry.
The Lord told the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations” (Jer. 1:5). The Lord sovereignly ordained Jeremiah’s life and calling within a specific moment in history to serve the people of God. Similarly, you and I did not choose when we were born. What is clear, however, is that people have lived before us. When we pick up books such as Letters to My Students by Charles Spurgeon or The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we are learning from disciples of Christ who lived before us in history with different contextual struggles. In other words, we should ask ourselves, “What did they learn about the Christian life that I can learn for my benefit today?” We can save ourselves time and avoid unnecessary mistakes by learning from those who lived before us.
I want to be clear: Scripture is sufficient for the Christian life (2 Tim. 3:16–17). By strengthening your faith, I mean that reading can help you glean wisdom from multiple authors about how to live the Christian life more faithfully. You may not agree with everything an author writes, but reading their books sharpens your thinking and helps you better understand why you believe what you believe. Read and study Scripture, then supplement your Bible study by consulting other disciples’ reflections on the Christian life.
In his popular book Teaching to Change Lives, Howard Hendricks writes, “The two factors that will influence you the most in the years ahead are the books you read and the people you’re around.”[2] Choose your books wisely. The authors are your counselors. In the end, books are a matter of wisdom. Scripture is sufficient, and God has provided everything you and I need for life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3). We should not walk the Christian life alone, though (Prov. 27:17), and that includes not ignoring our counselors in written form. Save yourself some time by learning from others: Pick up a book, glean wisdom from the author, and strengthen your faith—all under the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. Reading is wisdom for the Christian life.
[1] Jason K. Allen, Letters to My Students, 3 vols. (Nashville, TN: B&H Books), 2025.
[2] Howard Hendricks, Teaching to Change Lives: Seven Proven Ways to Make Your Teaching Come Alive (New York, NY: Multnomah, 1987), 27.
“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” – Mark 11:24
Brethren, do you believe in prayer? I know you pray because you are God’s people; but do you believe in the power of prayer? There are a great many Christians that do not, they think it is a good thing, and they believe that sometimes it does wonders; but they do not think that prayer, real prayer, is always successful. They think that its effect depends upon many other things, but that it has not any essential quality or power in itself.
Now, my own soul’s conviction is, that prayer is the grandest power in the entire universe, that it has a more omnipotent force than electricity, attraction, gravitation, or any other of those secret forces which men have called by names, but which they do not understand. Prayer has as palpable, as true, as sure, as invariable an influence over the entire universe as any of the laws of matter. When a man really prays, it is not a question whether God will hear him or not. He must hear him, not because there is any compulsion in the prayer, but there is a sweet and blessed compulsion in the promise. God has promised to hear prayer, and he will perform his promise. As he is the most high and true God, he cannot deny himself. Oh! to think of this; that you a puny man may stand here and speak to God, and through God may move all the worlds. Yet when your prayer is heard, creation will not be disturbed, though the grandest ends be answered, providence will not be disarranged for a single moment. Not a leaf will fall earlier from the tree, not a star will stay in its course, nor one drop of water trickle more slowly from its fount, all will go on the same, and yet your prayer will have effected everything. It will speak to the decrees and purposes of God, as they are being daily fulfilled; and they will all shout to your prayer, and cry, “You are our brother; we are decrees, and you a prayer; but you are yourself a decree, as old, as sure, as ancient as we are.”
Our prayers are God’s decrees in another shape. The prayers of God’s people are but God’s promises breathed out of living hearts, and those promises are the decrees, only put into another form and fashion. Do not say, “How can my prayers affect the decrees?” They cannot, except in so much that your prayers are decrees, and that as they come out, every prayer that is inspired of the Holy Ghost unto your soul is as omnipotent and as eternal as that decree which said, “Let there be light, and there was light” (Genesis 1:3), or as that decree which chose his people, and ordained their redemption by the precious blood of Christ. You have power in prayer, and you stand today among the most potent ministers in the universe that God has made. You have power over angels, they will fly at your will. You have power over fire, and water, and the elements of earth. You have power to make your voice heard beyond the stars; where the thunders die out in silence, your voice shall wake the echoes of eternity. The ear of God himself shall listen and the hand of God himself shall yield to your will. He bids you cry, “Your will be done” (Matthew 6:10) and your will shall be done. When you can plead his promise, then your will is his will. It seems, my dear friends, an awful thing to have such a power in one’s hands as to be able to pray! You have heard sometimes of men who pretended to have a weird and mystic might, by which they could call up spirits from the vast deep, by which they could make showers of rain, or stop the sun. It was all a figment of the fancy, but were it true the Christian is a greater magician still. If he has but faith in God, there is nothing impossible to him. He shall be delivered out of the deepest waters—he shall be rescued out of the sorest troubles—in famine he shall be fed—in pestilence he shall go unscathed—amid calamity he shall walk firm and strong—in war he shall be ever shielded—and in the day of battle he shall lift up his head, if he can but believe the promise, and hold it up before God’s eyes and plead it with the spell of unfaltering reliance.
There is nothing, I repeat it, there is no force so tremendous, no energy so marvelous, as the energy with which God has endowed every man, who like Jacob can wrestle, like Israel can prevail with him in prayer. But we must have faith in this; we must believe prayer to be what it is, or else it is not what it should be. Unless I believe my prayer to be effectual, it will not be, for on my faith will it to a great extent depend. God may give me the mercy even when I have not faith; that will be his own sovereign grace, but he has not promised to do it. But when I have faith and can plead the promise with earnest desire, it is no longer a probability as to whether I shall get the blessing, or whether my will shall be done. Unless the Eternal will swerve from his Word, unless the oath which he has given shall be revoked, and he himself shall cease to be what he is, “We know that we have the requests we have asked of him” (1 John 5:15).
Editor’s Note: Excerpted from Breath of the Soul: Devotions for Powerful Prayer©2026 by Charles H. Spurgeon, edited by Geoff Chang. Used with permission of New Growth Press. May not be reproduced without prior written permission. To purchase this and other helpful resources, please visit newgrowthpress.com.
Sometimes the people who are supposed to know the most about God know Him the least. Perhaps this sounds counterintuitive, but this has consistently been the case throughout history. The past is littered with examples of men and women who have been raised to believe in God, who have been trained in theology, and who spent their whole lives studying Him but did not truly know Him. Martin Luther is a perfect example of this. Prior to his rediscovery of the gospel during the Reformation, Martin Luther claimed to hate God.[1] Yet, as a monk he studied Scripture, fasted regularly, and did all sorts of devotional duties. Luther knew many things about God, but he did not know God.
This phenomenon—knowing lots about God yet hating Him—is present in the Bible as well. The Pharisees constantly challenged by Jesus because of this. Just like Martin Luther, these men were required to know the Bible and studied the things of God to a degree beyond many of us. Yet, they too were guilty of not truly knowing God. Jesus makes this abundantly clear when He exclaims, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others” (Matt. 23:23). They failed—just like Luther once did—to grasp the purpose behind all their diligent study.
Both of these examples demonstrate something that is extremely important when dealing with the topic of belief in God. There is a big difference between saying, “I believe in God” and “I believe in God.” The first highlights that someone can have a lot of knowledge about God, can read all the right things about God, can do all the prayers and rituals without ever truly believing in God. For them, belief is merely intellectual assent to an idea. Saying “I believe in God,” under this rubric, is no different than saying “I believe that the earth revolves around the sun.” It is a mere fact.
This is why not everyone who claims to believe in God will enjoy eternal life, because they do not truly know God. They believe in the wrong way—a way that failed to produce life. As the late J.I. Packer says in Knowing God, “A little knowledge of God is worth more than a great deal of knowledge about him.”[2]
However, when a Christian says, “I believe in God,” they are not using this phrase to show their intellectual assent to an idea, but to reflect their trust in the God of the Bible. Belief, faith, and knowledge of God are primarily relational categories. “Christians don’t just believe—we believe in someone.”[3] Obviously, this means knowing things about God. A person cannot claim to be in a healthy relationship with someone if they know nothing about that person. But it also means much more than simple intellectual assent.
So why do Christians think of belief in this way? Why is it that they focus on the relational instead of only focusing on the intellectual? The answer to this can be found in the book of Genesis and the life of Abraham. Abraham was called by God to leave his family and travel to a new land. God was going to take him and make him into a great nation. But there was just one problem, Abraham did not have an heir. So God appears to Abraham and tells him, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them . . . So shall your offspring be” (Gen. 15:5). Abraham responds to this in a rather unique way; “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6; cf. Rom 4:3).
Abraham believes God, takes Him at His word, and trusts that He will do what He says He will do. This faith is credited to him as righteousness. He is not commended by God for his great theological skills. He is not exalted because he can list the attributes of God without needing to reference a theology textbook. No! He is considered righteous because he believes in God. He puts his hope in the word of the Lord that is addressed to him. He has faith, and as Herman Bavinck beautifully says, “only by faith does a promise become our possession.”[4] It is trust in the Lord that is highlighted when the Christian exclaims, “I believe in God!” It is relationship, not mere knowledge, that is proclaimed by the Christian.
Martin Luther, the Augustinian monk who once declared his hatred for God, eventually came to understand this for himself. He did not have any grand vision or a cathartic experience, but he came to believe in God through “study in the tower of the Augustinian monastery.”[5] There, Luther would have a similar experience to Abraham’s. Rather than looking to his own merits, he would learn to take God at His word and trust Christ. This so changed his life that he could write, “What man is there whose heart, upon hearing these things, will not rejoice to its depth, and when receiving such comfort will not grow tender so that he will love Christ as he never could by any means of any laws or works?”[6] Martin Luther’s recognition of these things not only allowed him to say “I believe in God,” but sparked a movement against the cold, dead intellectualism of his day and has since allowed millions of people to proclaim “I believe in God” with him.
None of this is meant to sound anti-intellectual. Learning about God, studying theology, and knowing the Bible are all really good things. Yet, Christian faith cannot end with the intellect. To say “I believe in God” is to proclaim that you have entered into a relationship with Him by taking God at His word. It is, as Herman Bavinck says, “not a matter of knowing a number of doctrinal truths” but consists “in the soul’s union with the person of Christ according to the Scriptures and with Scripture as the word of Christ.”[7] It is a relationship, not knowledge of facts.
[1] Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: The Life of Martin Luther (New York: Meridian, 1955), 44.
[2] J.I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1975), 26.
[3] Alister McGrath, I Believe: Exploring the Apostles’ Creed (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 20.
[4] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 565.
[5] Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand, 47.
[6] Martin Luther, “The Freedom of a Christian,” 66.
[7] Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena, 573.
In this installment of the regular Mailbag feature, Jared Wilson and Ronni Kurtz discuss your submitted questions and topics, including: “blank slate” student ministry, questions for pastoral search teams, premarital counseling, unrepentant friends in church, the dynamic between elders and deacons, and what exactly Luke meant when he said Satan “took” Jesus. As always, you can submit a question or topic for the Mailbag any time by emailing [email protected]
There are moments in church life when a man feels both the weight of the task before him and the weight of his own inadequacy.
I know those moments well because I experience them often.
I know what it’s like to stand off to the side before a service begins, Bible in hand, heart pounding, hands shaking, while asking God for help because I don’t feel capable enough to give what the task before me requires. I know what it’s like to want Christ to be honored and yet to feel deeply aware of my inadequacies. There are even times when I want to run away, pretend I’m sick, and let someone else lead.
But lately I’ve begun to embrace this apparent tension.
In his book, The Clay Pot Conspiracy, Dave Harvey says, “Pastoring is where an imperfect person leads imperfect people in an imperfect church to reach an imperfect world.”[1]
Though Harvey is writing about pastors, I think his point applies to anyone who serves in the church. Earlier he writes that when our weakness meets God’s power, the result is resilient ministry.
Leading in the church isn’t about looking capable. It’s about leaning on God because I know I’m not.
I remember as a kid—and even through my teenage years—I couldn’t speak to a group of any size without my hands shaking and it ending in tears. Because of this, I concluded that I wasn’t a leader and that if God wanted me to lead anyone, He would need to provide a miracle.
But He gave me more opportunities—starting with my own family.
I found myself assuming that, over time, the work of standing before God’s people would eventually feel natural or effortless. But that has not been my experience. Instead, it has often felt like being a boat tossed by the storms of the sea.
One temptation in leadership is believing that what the church—or even our families—need most is a great appearance, clarity of speech, or confidence and humor that attracts people. But the gathered church doesn’t need a man who appears put together. Indeed, neither do my wife and children.
The church needs to be helped to see God. Not me. That’s the real mission.
When the church gathers, the great need is not that leaders be impressive, but that Christ be visible, the Word of God be clear, distractions removed, hearts lifted, and the people of God drawn again to reverence, faith, repentance, and hope.
We want people to see Christ and cling to Him as their only treasure.
That happens through the Spirit’s work. Often, it comes through ordinary acts of service, preparation, removing distractions, and helping God’s people fix their attention on Christ rather than the man standing in front of them.
I don’t think of leadership mainly as bringing strength before the body. I think of it as bringing my weakness honestly before God and the body and asking Him not to let me get in the way.
Now, weakness can be damaging if it causes a man to turn inward like it did with me for so many years—and still does at times. It can make you timid, self-absorbed, and fearful. But I’ve learned that there is another kind of weakness. The kind that strips a man of self-trust and drives him to prayer, makes him cling to Christ, and teaches him that he cannot live on gifting or personality alone. It teaches him that he must ask for help.
More often than not, my prayers sound something like this:
Lord, help me.
Lord, keep me from being a distraction.
Lord, let Christ be seen.
Lord, please use me.
These are the prayers of a man who knows he is not the point. And perhaps, at times, they are also a defense against wanting to be the point. They are the prayers of one who remembers that God has always delighted to place His treasure in jars of clay, so that the surpassing power might plainly be His and not ours. The Lord has never been embarrassed to use weak men. He has only ever been glorified through them. This is something that took years for me to learn, and I still struggle to believe it.
This is good news for a man like me who feels ordinary and for the man who feels too aware of himself. It’s good news for the man who steps forward to lead while inwardly pleading for grace. It’s good news for the man who loves Christ, loves the church, and still feels, at times, too strange and small for the work set before him.
Such feelings do not necessarily disqualify a man from leading. They may, in fact, reveal that he understands the task better than the man who thinks he has mastered it.
Christian leadership is not a great presence, strong communication, or the art of appearing untroubled. It is the humble work of trusting God, speaking His truth, and serving His people while knowing full well that, apart from grace, you are inadequate for all of it.
I know what it’s like to feel too weak to lead. It rarely feels comfortable. But I am beginning to think that this discomfort has been one of God’s greater kindnesses to me. It has exposed the vanity and pride of my heart. It has reminded me that the church does not need my put-togetherness. It has driven me back to a life of clinging to Christ.
And perhaps that is where a man becomes most useful. It’s not when he finally feels strong enough to lead, but when he has been taught, again and again, to seek help from the One who leads him.
Perhaps feeling unfit to lead is not always what keeps a man from serving. Sometimes it is what teaches him how. Keep clinging to Christ.
[1] Dave Harvey, The Clay Pot Conspiracy: God’s Plan to Use Weakness in Leaders (Greensboro: New Growth Press, 2025).
Fortitude simply refers to the ability to endure difficulties and sufferings well for the sake of the good. The church father Ambrose spoke of fortitude as “courage of the mind when a man conquers himself, restrains his anger, yields and gives way to no allurements, is not put out by misfortunes, nor gets elated by good success, and does not get carried away by every varying change by some chance wind.”[2] Fortitude is the habit of mind and action of those who are united to Christ to readily bear all things for the sake of the good, even in light of difficulties and sufferings of self and world.
Fortitude is possible, fitting, and necessary.[3] It is possible because, by virtue of Christ’s imputed righteousness, we are brought to life and our soul’s faculties are made new. Fortitude is fitting because the blessed vision of God awaiting us is our source and strength for building our capacity to resist evil and face fear. Fortitude is necessary because, though we have been transferred from darkness to light, that blessed vision awaiting us is not yet realized in full possession.
Importantly, fortitude is determined by its knowledge of and the quality of the good, and thus requires the individual to know what the good is (i.e., God Himself). Particularly, fortitude follows the knowledge of reality that we receive in union with Christ. In other words, courage follows right reason because action follows being; united to the resurrected Christ, we act in that resurrected power. In faith, we are able to be brave for the good. Fortitude is not aimless or haphazard bravery, which is only foolish. Fortitude is not determined by the extent of strength; rather, like the rest of the virtues, its exercise is determined by the object pursued.
2 Corinthians 4:8–12 demonstrates that the power of fortitude comes from the sufferings of Christ and His resurrection power. The life of Jesus was one of suffering, for His gaze was set on those whom the Father had given Him. Christ’s endurance of suffering, even to death, was not only to fulfill the righteous requirements of the law, but to, in unfathomable grace, pour out that righteousness onto His bride so that she would be restored and brought home with Him.
The power of God is powerfully displayed in weakness. It’s when we are afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not abandoned, and struck down but not destroyed, that the life of Jesus is manifested in our weakness, frailty, and dependence. Richard Sibbes notes here that the spiritual person is courageous and strong precisely in the face of opposition: “The more opposition, the more courage he has . . . the more [the early Christians] were opposed, the more they grew . . . The spirit of liberty gives boldness, strength, and courage against opposition.”[4] Fortitude, then, is found where the light of life brings the new covenant’s resurrection power for our communion with Christ. Only here do we persevere in holiness and endure death’s affliction such that thanksgiving increases, all for God’s glory (2 Cor. 4:1–2, 8–12, 14–16).
The virtue of fortitude plays a unique role in pastoral ministry. Particularly, it is seen in the ministry of Word and prayer. As the pastor shepherds the flock entrusted to him, his mode of shepherding is administering God’s Word to sinners and sufferers as he intercedes on their behalf. In other words, not only does the virtue of fortitude aid the pastor in his ability to keenly comfort the afflicted and patiently admonish the wayward, but in doing so, those brothers and sisters are equipped to endure on their pilgrimage.
Colombe artistically depicts Lady Fortitude as battling a dragon invading the castle. In literature, dragons and monsters typically represent our own wickedness through the indwelling presence of sin.[5] For Colombe, Lady Fortitude’s dragon is the constant war we all wage against ourselves: “To protect the castle of the soul, we must have the courage to wrangle and destroy our dragons of vice . . . she [Lady Fortitude] reminds us to have the courage to pluck out the dragons lurking in the castle of our hearts.”[6]
This, of course, is how the Apostle Paul depicts the nature of the Christian life in Ephesians 6. It is a battle each and every day. The courageous person therefore must look to God in Christ for help in daily help through training and discipline. This is why Colombe’s sculpture depicts Lady Fortitude wearing protective armor as she leans back on a sturdy pillar. She is clothed with the armor of God (Eph 6:10–17), and “relies on God’s towering strength and power to accomplish her deed.”[7]
This sort of ministry, administering true reality to sinners and suffers, is a most glorious ministry. Pastors have the privilege of administering the truth that Christ’s death removes the evil one’s power and Christ’s resurrection empowers endurance in suffering. Through His sin-bearing death, Christ has accomplished victory over Satan, and the propitiation for sins. Of course, Satan still roams about taunting and mocking. Yet, his (borrowed) power of destruction, God’s wrath, has been removed in Christ’s sin-bearing death. God’s mercy in Christ is our shield, and Satan cannot succeed against it. The divine peace that comes through Christ’s decisive defeat of Satan, achieving and imputing righteousness, and pouring out resurrection power to us creates in us fortitude.
It’s true: sin and suffering remain until Christ’s second advent, which means we have to endure the assaults of hell for a little while longer. But we confess with Peter to Christ: “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” What other source of power is needed to live the virtue of fortitude? While fear of death, indwelling sin, and the assault of hell are the primary obstacles to being courageous, the victory achieved by Christ’s death and resurrection has put those obstacles to an end.
Augustine notes: “whoever follows after what is inferior to himself, becomes himself inferior… For if happiness consists in the enjoyment of a good than which there is nothing better, which we call the chief good, how can a man be properly called happy who has not yet attained to his chief good?”[8] While there are several ways to describe the act of preaching, this statement captures the admonishing fervor of a preacher as he heralds to the congregation not to follow self but Christ who is their chief good and happiness.
Following self results in many wounds and casualties. One result is strife which can be conceived as a deficiency of loving peace. Those caught in the vicious circularity of strife have disregarded the chief good, God Himself, and are trapped in their own self-enclosure. In other words, the pastor’s heralding to follow Christ and not self has corporate effects.
The practice of forbearance, closely linked with the virtue of fortitude, lays out the moral responsibility of those loved in Christ to bear with and exhibit long-suffering for our brothers and sisters when they irritate, frustrate, or annoy us, hurt our feelings, or make life more difficult than it already is (Eph. 4:2; Col. 3:13). While forbearance is a command by Christ, it is also a virtue that we cultivate as we endure and live with those around us under the rule of Christ’s peace. Thus, the virtue of fortitude looks like the long-suffering practice of bearing with those who we may want to quarrel with in anger or disregard in strife.
The vice of discord is the deficiency of peace wherein charity is destroyed and self-regard is perpetrated. Gregory says: “let those who sow strife consider the extent to which they sin. For when they perpetrate this particular sin, they also eradicate every virtue that they may have in their heart . . .whoever destroys the charity of his neighbor by sowing strife acts as though he were in the service of God’s enemy.”[9]
In order to practice forbearance, it requires us not to be so easily offended. Proverbs 18:19 notes that those easily offended are more unyielding than a strong city. In contrast, it is those of good sense who find glory in overlooking an offense (Prov. 19:11), and love, by definition, does not keep a record of wrongs (1 Cor. 13:5). In other words, those who exhibit fortitude, by following Christ and not self, are those who are not riddled with fear, distrust, and worry. Since the life of virtue is in accordance with reality, “we should bear all things rather than forsake God.”[10]
[1] This is an edited excerpt from Every Perfect Gift: Classical Virtues for Christian Formation.
[2] Ambrose, De officiis I.36.181. Cited in Webster, God Without Measure, vol. 2, 91.
[3] Webster, God Without Measure, vol. 2, 88–89.
[4] Richard Sibbes, “Excellency of the Gospel Above the Law,” in The Works of Richard Sibbes, vol. 4 (Banner of Truth, 2023), 232.
[5] “Dante’s threeheaded, monstrous Satan is a mirror of our own capacity for evil. Frankenstein’s monster is a mirror of the society who treats him poorly. Odysseus meets a series of monsters that teach him something about his own vices and virtues.” Davis, Beholding by Becoming, 165, n33.
[6] Davis, Beholding by Becoming, 165.
[7] Ibid., 165.
[8] Augustine, Morals, 47–48.
[9] Gregory the Great, Book of Pastoral Rule, 155.
[10] Augustine, Morals, 22.41
In the summer of 2019, I served as a short-term missionary in the Philippines, helping bring the gospel to an unreached island of 20,000 people with fewer than 50 believers. During our training, the leaders didn’t just teach us cultural context and evangelism methods—they were honest about the oncoming suffering. Through it, the flesh and the Enemy attempted to convince us of the same lie: This suffering isn’t worth it. I’m done. Why didn’t I stay home to do my own thing?
My own team faced many types of suffering firsthand. We argued over evangelistic methods. One teammate’s mother was deathly ill with cancer before the trip began, nearly keeping him off the trip. Another grumbled against the team leader, causing an undercurrent of strife. One village resisted our presence and caused us to leave quicker than we wanted. Time and time again, something rose up to make us doubt whether giving up our summer to be there had been the right decision at all.
I often asked, “Why is this happening to me?”
I imagine Job felt similarly. Job is introduced as a “blameless and upright” man, “one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1). Then, Satan accuses God, claiming Job’s devotion is nothing more than a byproduct of His blessing. God permits him to test this claim, and Satan strips Job of his wealth, health, and children in rapid succession. It gets to the point where his own wife urges him to curse God and be done with it. When Job resists, his friends spend nearly 27 chapters insisting he repent of a sin he never committed to alleviate his suffering.
Job’s suffering provided every reason to say, “This suffering isn’t worth it. God, I’m done with you. I’m going to do my own thing.” But he didn’t. He suffered faithfully, never cursing the Lord or turning his own way.
There is much that those of us called to ministry can learn from Job, because there will be many times when we trek through suffering and consider saying, “I’m done. It’s not worth it.”
We need reminders for why faithful suffering is worth it in ministry.
God was not surprised when Satan challenged Him about the earnestness of Job’s devotion—He offered up Job himself. This was no arbitrary act, but one that was sovereignly ordained so that God could show His glory through Job’s suffering.
The same is true for us. If God has called you to ministry leadership, He is sovereign over that calling so that He can display His power through us. He places us where he wants us so that they may seek and find God (Acts 17:27). God’s calling isn’t haphazard. This includes our suffering. 1 Peter 4:19 says, “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.” We can suffer according to the will of God, refuse to reject him, and trust him—even without fully understanding.
Despite all the hardship we faced as we ministered that summer in the Philippines, we trusted that God had sent us there for a specific reason to proclaim His glory, even amidst obstacles.
Job does not explicitly express any joy in the book, but there are shadows of rejoicing. God blessed Job, and he died “an old man and full of days” (Job 42:17). He ends his life living in the blessedness of God, reminding us that true joy is ultimately found in God Himself (Ps. 16:11).
The New Testament reminds us that our suffering is never pointless. James tells us to count it all joy when we suffer because our testing leads to endurance toward mature holiness (Jas. 1:2-4). Peter and John leap for joy because they were “counted worthy to suffer dishonor” for Christ (Acts 5:41).
Faithful suffering is worth it because endurance produces maturity that allows us to experience the joy of the Lord. We know that God works everything together for the good of those who love him (Rom. 8:28). This includes the joy of faithful obedience through suffering to God.
We continued laboring for the Lord that summer despite our issues. We suffered and ministered with Him, participated in His joy, saw people receive the gospel, and recognized that we were being obedient just like our missionary heroes—including C.T. Studd, who said, “If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice is too great for me to make for him.”[1]
Job carries missional implications. Job lived in the land of Uz—meaning he was a Gentile. Yet, he knew God personally. Amidst his children and servants, he influenced many people. Job’s faithful suffering led him to pray for his friends, and all his brothers, sisters, and everyone who had known him before came to visit him and show sympathy and comfort after his suffering (42:11). His faithfulness gave him a great opportunity to tell them what the Lord had done for him, and to show how worthy he was to faithfully suffer for Him.
When we faithfully suffer in ministry, we show the Lord’s worth and display our faith in the gospel. Your suffering can be used to proclaim the gospel. God may be calling you to a position or place that is difficult. You may be like Adoniram Judson, laboring for years before you see any fruit. You may be like Elisabeth Elliot, laboring in a place that reminds you of a great tragedy that has caused you great suffering. But it is all worth it for the proclamation of the gospel to all creation.
We finished that summer through all the hardship and suffering. Since we returned, many short-term teams and long-term nationals have gone to that same island to continue ministering. This year—seven years after our initial trip—they finally built a small building to house the church, after many had been baptized. While we cannot take any credit, we see that our short-term faithful suffering led to the continued advance of the gospel.
Minister, continue to faithfully suffer for the Lord. It is under his sovereign will, for your joy, and for the advancement of the gospel.
[1] Grubb, Norman. C. T. Studd: Cricketer & Pioneer. Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2003, 144.
Every day the Mississippi River pours forth a confounding 7.7 billion gallons of water into the Gulf of Mexico. It boasts a stunning array of seven thousand tributaries comprised of all manner of rivers, creeks, and waterways that fan out like fingers and tentacles across the continental United States. From an aerial vantage point, the Mississippi stretches in every direction. It reaches into thirty-one states and holds significant ecological sway on approximately 40 percent of the United States.[1]
Proverbs, as a literary composition, is a bit like the mighty Mississippi River. Proverbs stretches in every direction with one all-encompassing theme—the two ways theme. This theme works through Proverbs much like the Mississippi River branches out into minor rivers and streams. All the medium and small themes feed into the larger theme of the two ways.
The two ways theme teaches us that life comes at us as a series of decisions between two ways: the fear of the Lord or the fear of man or self. All day long we are choosing between fearing the Lord (honoring God as our Creator and choosing to listen to him and follow him) or preferring our own way (disregarding and ignoring God and doing what we think will be best for us). Every person to ever walk the planet follows one or the other of these contrasting paths.
During the coming lessons, you will encounter important subthemes in Proverbs. We’ll look at the heart as decision center, wisdom versus foolishness, and the fear of the Lord versus the fear of man/self. These are important tributaries, and all flow into the main river of the two ways theme.
Stemming from those subthemes are smaller streams of wisdom. These include the many and various individual proverbs found in Proverbs 10–29 and the sayings and poems found in Proverbs 30–31. To stick with the Mississippi River analogy, every word, saying, and proverb has a place; they all come in intentional sequence and surge forth as the cumulative equivalent of 7.7 billion gallons of wisdom and fear of the Lord—all there for the drinking!
God is good to us in giving us the gift of Proverbs. He wants to save us from going our own way and wasting our lives. Proverbs helps us by reminding us to take life one decision at a time—a thought here, a purchase there, a word spoken today. These decisions all present a fork in the road.
Every decision we make, every penny spent or saved, every relationship cultivated or shattered, all sexual encounters whether righteous or evil, and every single thought pondered is a decision between two ways. Proverbs tells us that nothing is neutral. We are revealing whether we fear and love the Lord or fear people and live for ourselves.
The two ways are diverging paths that end in different locations. One fork leads toward life and light and pleasures forevermore, while the other fork leads toward pain, loneliness, death, and alienation from God and people. Praise God that we do not have to make these choices all by ourselves. As redeemed Christians, the Holy Spirit indwells us and serves as our guide to carry us into all truth (John 16:13). Because the Holy Spirit has given us new life and works actively in our lives, we can rely on him to both know the right thing to do and to empower us to be able to do it. Since we have been born again, both the once-for-all choice to follow Jesus (conversion) and each individual choice (sanctification) are empowered by God’s own Spirit.
If you are at all reflective, thinking of your life as a series of choices that leads toward either life or death can be discouraging. We can remember from our past, and even yesterday, times when we chose to go our own way and not God’s way. But the gospel brings us hope.
Jesus is the true and final Solomonic Son, the perfect Son who always listened and obeyed his Father’s voice. Jesus is the Son who did not follow the paths of folly but heard and heeded his Father’s voice. As a young boy, Jesus’s frantic parents found him in the temple. When they demanded an explanation, he simply said, “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know that it was necessary for me to be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49 CSB). As Jesus grew in favor with God and man, he always chose to follow his Father. Then he gave his life for all our wrong choices. When we put our faith in Jesus, his wisdom, kingdom, birthright, and Spirit are ours.
With this in mind, we can read Proverbs with hope. We can be confident that the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is alive in us and helping us to follow in Jesus’s footsteps, listening to our heavenly Father and choosing life over death each day. And when we fail (as we will), we have an advocate with the Father who ever lives to intercede for us and who helps us in our time of need (Hebrews 4:14–16).
Excerpted from Proverbs: Walking in the Way of Christ ©2026 by Samuel Levi Bierig. Used with permission of New Growth Press. May not be reproduced without prior written permission. To purchase this and other helpful resources, please visit newgrowthpress.com.
[1] Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley, The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today (National Geographic Books, 2002), 9.
A podcast you’re going to listen to or watch via the Internet warns about voices on the Internet. Not all cultural and theological pundits are helpful to your growth in Christ. Jared Wilson and Ronni Kurtz discuss the strange phenomenon of being “discipled by the Internet.” What does it look like? Why can it be harmful? And how do we recognize the dangers in order to be more wise in our consumption of online media?
