For the Church

What Should Churches Do for the Fourth of July?

What should churches do on the Sunday of the Fourth of July? The Fourth of July can be one of the most perplexing dates of the year for many pastors. Unlike Easter and Christmas, the Fourth is neither a universal, nor a specifically Christian occasion. It’s only celebrated by Americans, and non-Christians can enjoy the day as readily as Christians can. Nevertheless, there’s a long tradition of observing American independence in church. Pastors often have members who expect them to recognize America’s birthday. Doing so is part of what scholars call “American civil religion.”

I’ve attended enough churches in my life to have seen a wide variety of Fourth of July celebrations. At one church in Texas, a Fourth of July service featured patriotic songs extolling America, the pastor wearing his old military uniform, and an honor guard carrying flags and guns down the center aisle. (I don’t think the guns were loaded!) At the other extreme, a church service we visited in Michigan said literally nothing about the Fourth of July, except at the last second. When dismissing the congregation, the worship leader bid us farewell by saying “happy holiday!” But the holiday in question was never named.

Some critics would suggest that the blending of American patriotism with Christian worship is a distraction at best, and a distortion of the gospel at worst. Although it’s not just an American phenomenon, Americans do seem to have created an unusually religious version of their patriotism. Maybe this religious patriotism is a product of Christianity’s success in America. By the time of the Second Great Awakening in the early 1800s, an unusually high percentage of Americans were affiliated with churches, and that high level of adherence persisted at least until the 1960s. The Cold War of the mid- to late twentieth century also taught many Americans to think in terms of a Christian America fighting against the officially atheistic power of the Soviet bloc. By the 1960s, Americans had become used to viewing themselves as a Christian nation. Why not celebrate the nation’s birthday in church?

Baptists have always been a little wary about blending Christianity with the state, however. Our Baptist forefathers warned us about the danger of corrupting the church by entangling it with government. But in the twentieth and the twenty-first century, many Southern Baptists became among the most zealous celebrants of “God and country” days on the Fourth of July. This zeal has endured even though signs everywhere suggest that America is becoming a post-Christian nation.

What, then, should pastors do this Fourth of July? Much of this dilemma is a matter of conscience and of cultural context. What makes sense to do in suburban Dallas probably won’t work in downtown Seattle. Pastors will also tend to find that older people in a congregation – the children of the Cold War – will be more comfortable with civil religion than younger attendees are.

Acknowledging the Fourth of July does not require devoting the whole service to it. Pastors might consider setting aside a special time of prayer for the nation and its leaders, in accordance with I Timothy 2:1-2. Pastors can thank God for the indisputably good aspects of the American tradition, such as our nation’s heritage of religious liberty, and the principle that “all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” as the Declaration of Independence put it.

One of the most useful exercises when thinking about the Fourth of July at church is imagining that you have Christians in attendance from a foreign country. Of course, many pastors will not have to imagine this at all. Many churches in urban settings, or in college or border towns, undoubtedly will have people in attendance who are foreign-born and are perhaps non-citizens. Americans, like citizens of all nations, have a natural fondness for the land of their birth. But Christians know that our ultimate citizenship is in heaven. In that sense, American believers have more eternally in common with a brother or sister from Nigeria, China, or Brazil than we do with our unregenerate neighbor next door.

Therefore, churches should do nothing that would give our global brothers or sisters reason to feel like they don’t belong in our Fourth of July service. Such things could include the indiscriminate blending of worship songs with patriotic anthems, making it unclear whether we’re supposed to praise God or the American nation. Another would be to suggest that America is a nation uniquely favored by God, as if it is the latter-day biblical Israel.

By all means, let’s thank God for the good things he’s given us in American history. Foremost among those things is the freedom to practice our faith in accord with biblical truth. Let’s pray for our leaders to possess and employ godly wisdom, so that the people of God may be allowed to live a “quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.” (I Timothy 2:2) But even on the Fourth of July, let’s remember that America is not a believer’s eternal home.

The Whole Gospel of Mark in a Single Verse

By Brett Fredenberg / May 30

Editor’s Note: This post is excerpted from A Ransom for Many by John J.R. Lee and Daniel Brueske (Lexham Press, 2023). This book is now available for purchase.

On the evening of Thursday, February 28, 1889, Charles Haddon Spurgeon ascended the steps of the Metropolitan Tabernacle pulpit in London, England, to preach a sermon that would come to be titled, “The Whole Gospel in a Single Verse.” Spurgeon’s text was 1 Timothy 1:15. In this verse, Spurgeon sees “the great truths of the gospel … pressed together by a hydraulic ram,” and he goes so far as to claim, “[T]his text contains the gospel in brief, and yet I may say that it contains the gospel in full.”¹ We believe something similar could be said about the place of Mark 10:45 within the narrative of the Second Gospel. Mark 10:45 is not just one verse among many; it is a key verse for understanding Mark. It summarizes Mark’s thematic emphases in brief, and yet we may say that it contains the core of Mark’s message in full. As a result, Mark 10:45 carries implications for how we read and interpret Mark’s Gospel as a whole.

But there is a problem. Even though many scholars recognize the importance of Mark 10:45, not much discussion exists as to why or in what sense this verse is so crucial. There are brief remarks here and there, but most offer no more than a few lines, mentioning the matter almost in passing and then quickly moving on to other issues. The significance of Mark 10:45 is, thus, usually assumed rather than explained. In this study, we aim to move from simply presuming and asserting the significance of Mark 10:45 to demonstrating it and, ultimately, to considering how proper attention to this verse should guide our reading and interpretation of the rest of Mark’s narrative. Such a task must include a careful examination of the verse and its context. Moreover, a careful reading of Mark 10:45, integrated as it is within the Second Gospel, requires some understanding of the setting and intention behind the book’s composition. No writing exists in a vacuum, and Mark’s Gospel is no exception.

Therefore, in what follows, we will explore both the occasion (chapter 2) and the purpose (chapter 3) that gave rise to the Second Gospel. There is little consensus regarding the specific occasion for Mark’s Gospel, but we believe some details about the audience are more plausible than others. Given the uncertainty of Mark’s occasion, our argument for his purpose will be built primarily on the narrative itself. Nevertheless, reading Mark’s Gospel with some regard for its historical setting helps us imagine how Mark’s message would likely have been received by his earliest audience. We will argue that a composition in the middle to late 60s CE, though not certain, is more plausible than alternative suggestions. We will also contend that Mark’s earliest audience was likely facing either the prospect or the reality of suffering for their faith in Jesus of Nazareth.

In exploring the author’s purpose for writing (chapter 3), we will survey the entire narrative of the Second Gospel for indications of the author’s concerns and goals. Unlike Luke (1:4) and John (20:30–31), Mark contains no explicit statement regarding his compositional intention. Therefore, careful consideration of the total narrative is prudent, especially given the strategic placement of Mark 10:45 within the structure of Mark’s Gospel (a point we will advance in chapter 5). We will give particular attention to the Evangelist’s competence as an author, which is implied by various details found throughout the narrative at both the macro and micro levels. If Mark were rather careless in his composition, then determining his purpose would be a presumptuous goal. However, Mark’s thoughtful and deliberate handling of his material justifies our pursuit of his purpose and, ultimately, the pursuit of our target verse’s meaning and significance based upon both its content and its location within the narrative. Readers will not be surprised to find that Mark’s narrative focuses on the person and work of Jesus from its opening to its close. Who Jesus is (his identity) and what he has done (his mission) comprise the content of this gospel. However, Mark’s narration of this Jesus story is not meant simply to offer historical data or theological beliefs about Jesus. Mark is persuading his audience to remain faithful to Jesus even in the face of suffering and trials.

Following the discussion of Mark’s purpose, we will proceed to the interpretation of Mark 10:45 itself (chapter 4). We will offer observations about the narrative context of Mark 10:45 and then move on to a phrase-by-phrase analysis of the verse. Through our investigation, we will note that Jesus directs the attention of his disciples toward the supreme model of honor and splendor, that of the “one like a son of man” from Daniel 7:13–14. And we will see that even this glorious Son of Man is not too exalted to serve others and to suffer shame and abuse in order to “give his life as a ransom for many.”

Chapter 5 will then highlight this verse’s critical function within Mark’s narrative and its contribution to our interpretation and appreciation of the Second Gospel. We will explore the strategic placement of Mark 10:45 at the conclusion of the carefully crafted threefold cycle of passion and resurrection predictions (8:27–10:45). This arrangement situates our verse at the climax within the Journey section (8:22–10:52) and also enables it to set the tone for the subsequent Jerusalem section (Mark 11:1–16:8), especially the narration of the Messiah’s passion (Mark 14–15). In addition to the strategic location of 10:45 within Mark’s narrative sequence, we will also discuss the value of this verse as it relates to the purpose of Jesus’s mission and the meaning of his death. We will then consider several implications of this verse’s crucial role within Mark’s narrative, giving particular attention to the prominence of Jesus’s atoning death and the inseparable link between his passion and the necessity of servanthood among those who follow him. We will also consider other ramifications, such as the significance of Mark’s literary characteristics for its proper interpretation. Finally, we will close with a reflection on how today’s readers can and should apply the message of Mark 10:45 here and now.

¹ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. 39 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1893), 134.

Small Groups Are Hard—and So Worth It

By Lucas Hahn / May 25

I’ve been on a long journey with community groups and have arrived at a strong conviction:

Community groups are the best place for us—as relational beings—to become mature disciples of Christ.

I have spent fifteen years leading and hosting community groups, including seven years of serving as a community pastor at Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, Kentucky and now five-plus years as the lead pastor of Trinity Community Church in Columbia, Missouri. I’ve been to numerous small group conferences, listened to podcasts and interviews, and at one point, gathered a few interns to read and summarize every single book on small groups ever written. (Don’t be impressed: It’s only about 40 books.) After all this, I am more convinced than ever of this truth:

There is simply no substitute for people to grow in Christ-likeness together than the trenches of a local church’s small groups.

But consider your own experience: Perhaps my statement rings a bit hollow for you. How many community groups have you been a part of that were truly life-giving? How many times have you left thinking, “I am so blessed to have these people in my life”? Many of us have been in different forms of small groups and Bible studies throughout life, and if we’re honest, we have walked away more acquainted with their challenges than their life-changing power.

Why are Community Groups So Hard?

Community groups are hard. Let me count the ways:

1. COMPLEXITY: People are complex, of course, so it’s not surprising that organizing and leading a small group of people could pose some difficulty.

2. PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS: Most believers have participated in some type of small group—whether in the church, at school, or in the marketplace—and bring some preconceived notions of how the group should operate.

3. HIGH STAKES: The stakes are even higher for new church plants. If groups are going well, the church is almost sure to succeed; if your groups are struggling, then the church will likely fail to thrive.

4. CATCH-ALL MENTALITY: In most young churches, community groups expand to become a “catch all” for everything the church wants to do—discipleship, leader development, counseling, theological growth, and local mission. Doing just one is hard enough! Doing them all is a prescription for overwhelmed leaders.

5. BURN-OUT: When leaders are also hosting the group in their homes, the commitment also includes hospitality and possibly meal preparation. Thus, the burnout rate of leaders is understandably higher than other volunteer ministries.

6. MULTIPLICATION: Even when a group is successful and grows to the capacity of the host home, a new challenge emerges: How do we multiply this group without damaging the types of relationships we’ve spent months encouraging, stewarding, and loving?

7. NEW RESPONSIBILITIES: Similarly, when a church grows to about five to eight community groups, the lead pastor can no longer adequately provide oversight of each group, so another layer of leadership must be introduced, typically pulling some of the best group leaders out of their role into a new responsibility—leading leaders.

8. LACK OF TRAINING: Pastors are typically ill-equipped in small group ministry. Despite the high prevalence of groups across American churches, pastors can spend years in seminary and not hear a single lecture—let alone a whole course—on small groups.

Finally, with the blessings of growth come a new set of questions:

Should we pay for childcare so parents can attend?
Should we do sermon discussion or develop content?
How do we integrate mercy and local mission into our groups?
How much should groups provide for benevolence needs in their midst?
How do we respond to chronically absent members?
When do we hire “a groups guy”?
What do we do with teenagers?

This list isn’t exhaustive, but we have enough complications to make the point: Community is messy.

Are Community Groups Worth It?

The challenges raise a logical question: Are community groups still worth it today? Discouragement around community groups is common.

Although I can’t authenticate the original use, Tim Keller has reportedly said: “Small groups don’t work at all, and we’re totally committed to them!”

That’s exactly how I feel. Despite the challenges, I believe, now more than ever, that the thesis that I wrote several years ago in Life-Giving Groups: How to Grow Healthy, Multiplying Community Groups.

Community groups are the best place for us—as relational beings—to become mature disciples of Christ.

Over a series of articles, I want to call you to a biblical view of community and to refresh your vision for discipleship in groups. I want to plead with pastors, leaders, and ordinary believers: Pour your hearts and souls into your community groups.

If you are a pastor: You will not regret a minute spent in prayer, reflection, or planning for your groups. If you can cultivate healthy, multiplying groups in your congregation, you will reap decades of spiritual transformation and church health.

If you are a small group leader: You’re doing hard but incredible work! Continue to prayerfully, intentionally shepherd your group toward maturity in Christ. I hope these articles are encouraging and helpful.

If you are an ordinary church member and group participant: I want to compel you to see your group as an essential (not optional add-on) part of your life, calling, and spiritual growth. No, being part of a group isn’t easy. But with the right perspective and a whole lot of stick-to-it-iveness, it can be a conduit of God’s amazing grace in your life—not to mention the source of lifelong friendships and community.

Let me say it again: Your investment in community groups will pay off exponentially in the souls of your people and the culture of your church. Community groups cannot be an afterthought.

Over these articles, I want to help cultivate (or, perhaps, restore) your hope for biblical community and your heart for local church small groups ministry.

Dear friends, community groups are hard. But they are also so, so worth it!

*This article is Part 1 of an eight-part series on community groups and their importance that will run this summer.

What is the Eternity of God?

By Brett Fredenberg / May 24

Editor’s Note: The Theology in the Everyday series seeks to introduce and explain theological concepts in 500 words or less, with a 200-word section helping explain the doctrine to kids. At For The Church, we believe that theology should not be designated to the academy alone but lived out by faith in everyday life. We hope this series will present theology in such a way as to make it enjoyable, connecting theological ideas to everyday experience and encouraging believers to study theology for the glory of God and the good of the Church. This week, the eternity of God.

All of humanity shares a common shackle: time. Every morning our alarms go off, we’re reminded of our ever-pressing schedules. We clock in to work. We’re late to appointments. We are creatures bound by time. But how does God relate to time? Scripture, preachers, and theologians often teach of our Triune God’s eternity. As the supreme Artist, God has not only created time but is altogether uncontained by it. He is no distant deity but intimate and fully present in all time simultaneously. But what is God’s eternity? In 500 words or less, here’s how I would explain the eternity of God.

Thomas Aquinas illustrates God’s eternity like “one who is perched on top of a watchtower, seeing at once the whole transit of travelers passing by.”[1] Since God is unchangeable, He cannot be restricted to individual moments (Ps 90:4). God’s eternity is His “possession of endless life whole and perfect in a single moment.”[2]

Depicting God’s creative authorship, C.S. Lewis clarifies that, “His life is not dribbled out moment by moment – with Him it is still 1920 and already 1960.”[3] The eternal Christ is as present in your daily responsibilities as He is in the creation account!

We see God’s eternity all throughout Scripture. In their desert wandering, Moses reminded the Israelites that “the eternal God is your dwelling place” (Deut. 33:29). Job beheld God’s infinite timelessness by declaring, “the number of his years are unsearchable” (Job 36:26). As Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, God’s eternal character emphasizes His authority to provide for His church (Rev. 1:8, 22:13). As the eternally begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Christ defines eternal life as knowing “the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

When morning alarms rattle our slumber, it can be difficult to glimpse God’s eternity in the ordinary. The seeming urgency of our schedules blind us from God’s eternal character – our present and abiding rest. To participate in eternity, we must know Christ and Him crucified, the exact imprint of the Father. The extent of our investment in knowing God, His Word, and the care of souls demonstrates our participation in eternity.

When the accuser impresses guilt of former sins upon our hearts, reminders of Christ’s past and complete justification renews the soul. When we struggle to remain present with friends, family, and ministry appointments, Christ’s present intercession grounds our restless thinking. As we worry over career paths, pondering our next moves, the river of God’s future provision is the saint’s sweetest delight!

Our eternal Christ timelessly knows us better than we know ourselves. Only He can “teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Ps 90:12). God’s eternal character satisfies us in the morning with steadfast love, reconciling our relationship with time (Ps 90:14). “What might have been and what has been point to one end,” writes Eliot, “which is always the present.”[4] Dear Christian, abide in the eternal presence and character of your God.

For the Kids:

Hey kids! Did you know that God has no beginning and no end?? He has always existed! This is what it means when we say that God is eternal. A picture of God’s eternity can be seen through a parade of floats. Who’s been to a parade before?? Me too! What do you do at a parade? That’s right! You sit and watch all the floats go by. As we sit on the sidelines, we only see a small part of the long line of floats that go by one at a time. But God is so big that He sees all the floats in the parade at once! And He delights in each one of them all at the same time! This is how time works too. We can only see a small portion of time at a time. But God sees all of time at the same time!

Since we’ve been created by God, we know time as past, present, and future. In the past, Christ has forgiven us by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8)! In the present, He is praying for and helping us (Heb. 7:25)! In the future, God will provide exactly what we need (Phil. 4:19)! God’s eternity reminds us that it is always God’s loving plan to save His people through Jesus (Eph. 1:3-14). God’s other attributes are made bigger by their connection to His eternal character! He is always exactly who He is! Just as He sees the entire parade at once, He planned the way it would move and how He could keep it from disaster. God’s eternity is good news! (Though a deep well of transcendent truth, God’s eternity is not too lofty for children!)

[1] Thomas Aquinas, Compendium of Theology, Entry 133, Page 105.

[2] Boethius, Book V, VI. Mint 147.

[3] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, HarperCollins, 168.

[4] T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets.

Episode 212: Drew Dyck on Christian Publishing, Part 2

By jredd / May 24

On this episode of the FTC Podcast, author and Moody Publishers editor Drew Dyck returns to talk about the ins and outs of Christian publishing, including plagiarism, ghostwriting, and more.

Cynicism Isn’t a Spiritual Gift

By Lucas Hahn / May 23

One of my favorite verses in the New Testament is a bit of an odd one. James, writing about prayer and dependence on God, makes this statement: Elijah was a man like us (James 5:17).

Now, I’ve gone to church my whole life and have learned a lot about Elijah. He’s the wild wilderness dude who called out a wicked king in Israel, Ahab, and his equally wicked wife, Jezebel. Think about this. To this day, in 2023, Jezebel is a euphemism for wickedness. There is even a trashy magazine with this name!

Not only did Elijah have the courage to call out wicked rulers—at a time when doing so usually meant you would die—but he challenged the false religious leaders of his day to a special kind of duel. He called down fire from heaven on Mount Carmel in an epic display of God’s power. As a kid this was always a favorite story in Sunday school and vacation Bible school and summer camp. Elijah was an example of boldness and courage, almost like a Bible superhero. He even made flannel graph exciting.¹

So, when James says, “Yeah, Elijah was like us,” I do a double take. I’ve built a nice bonfire in my back yard, but I’ve never called down fire from heaven. I’ve written some pretty snarky social media posts, but I’ve never stood in the court of a king who could cut my head off and told him he was wrong. I had to walk half a mile to the showers at camp, but I never lived in the wilderness like Elijah. I’ve prayed that it wouldn’t rain, especially when we lived in Nashville, where rain is its own season, but I’ve never prayed a prayer that stopped all precipitation for three and a half years. So how is Elijah like me?

Well, to see the humanity of this superhero, we have to go to a passage of 1 Kings that is usually left off the flannel graph. Here, Elijah kind of does look like us. He’s burned out. He’s tired. And he’s pretty cynical about the people of God.

You might say that if he had social media, he’d be complaining about being the one person standing for truth. Or he might be the person who stays home on Sunday because “no church is preaching the gospel right.” Or he might be the guy at the office who grew up in church and now says that Christians are a bunch of hypocrites.

Elijah, in one chapter, has turned from prophet to cynic. Fresh off an epic battle where he called out the false prophets and God sent rain again after a famine, Elijah fled to the wilderness because Jezebel still wouldn’t repent.

God’s messenger is discouraged and defeated. He’s weak and vulnerable. His heart is crusted over with layers of suspicion and contempt. “I’m the only one,” Elijah complains to God. “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too” (1 Kings 19:14).

What’s strange about Elijah here is that he has just come off a spiritual victory where he witnessed the power of God to move the hearts of Israel from idolatry to true worship. And yet all he can see is the one person in Israel who refuses to worship God: Jezebel.

Elijah was a prophet of God. Prophets are often called to do hard things, to stir up the people of God away from sin and toward righteousness. It’s often a lonely task to say hard things. We need prophets in our day, gifted and godly men and women willing to say things that are hard to be said, to call out wickedness.

And yet there is a difference between being prophetic and being cynical. Prophets wrap hard words in hope. If you read Isaiah and Jeremiah and John the Baptist and Micah and others, you’ll read rebukes, but you will also read words of hope and comfort, a path forward from sin to salvation. Cynics aren’t interested in salvation or transformation. They’re only interested in an endless self-loathing ministry of doom.

A prophet speaks to people he loves with tears. A cynic disdains the people he is called to confront. A prophet’s desire is to see transformation. A cynic’s desire is to bring attention to himself.

Today, cynicism is contagious. It has become a movement, a niche lifestyle, a way of being.

God’s words to Elijah are sobering. “Seven thousand men have not bowed the knee to Baal” (v. 17). In other words, “Elijah, you are not the only one doing the right thing.” In plain English, God is telling his servant to get over himself. What’s more, God tells Elijah to get up and prepare to meet his successor. What a humbling moment.

God is telling this prophet that not only is he not the only one following Yahweh but also someone will come after him who will carry on his ministry. Elijah, by yielding to cynicism, lost his voice.

And so do we. We think we are telling it like it is to other Christians. We get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and see a spiritual hero. But God’s word to Elijah and to us is this: “You are not the only one following the right path. I have many others. This is not about you.”

Nonprophet Ministry

God’s word to Elijah wasn’t that God’s people don’t need prophetic voices. Throughout Scripture, we see the Lord raise up leaders to speak hard words to stir God’s people away from sin and lethargy. In the Old Testament, the words of the prophets to wayward Israel are words we should read today and take to heart. And in the New Testament, Jesus and the apostles were unsparing in their denunciations of sin and calls to repentance.

And yet there is a way that prophetic words should be delivered. They are words designed to build up and not destroy and are to be delivered not with glee but with humility. Consider the way Paul urges young Timothy to engage the church with hard words. In the midst of his urging Timothy to be bold against the incursion of false doctrine and sin in the church (1 Tim. 1:3–11, 18–20), he is transparent about his own fallenness. Paul remembers that before he was the apostle who wrote much of the New Testament, planted churches around the world, and was persecuted for his faith, he was “once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man.” But “I was shown mercy,” he writes of his conversion, “and the grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly” (vv. 12–13).

Paul’s prophetic ministry was born of his brokenness, of his love for the people of God. He wasn’t coming in hot, trying to score rhetorical points or speak hard words for the sake of speaking hard words. Paul resisted the urge to make himself the center of things. Writing to the church at Corinth, which was steeped in carnality and sensuality, Paul’s spirit was of a humble, almost reluctant prophet: “And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling” (1 Cor. 2:1–5).

The apostle wasn’t spoiling for a fight. His aim wasn’t more notoriety but repentance and the building up of the people of God. Paul saw the church the way Jesus sees the church, as the bride of Christ. So even as he penned tearful letters of rebuke, he wrote from a place of love.

Today, loathing seems more in vogue than love. Some prophets are worth listening to, but I find much critical commentary on the church today to be dripping with disdain. And the digital algorithms on social media reward this negativity.

In my experience, when I write something positive about the church or about a local church, I get negative feedback. But if I write something critical about the church, especially a wide, sweeping condemnation (I am writing fewer of these lately), it almost always goes viral.

Ironically, I find that the Christians who fight each other the most in public seem to share a cynical outlook. Either these would-be Elijahs see themselves as mighty warriors for justice, rooting out racism and sexism and every other bad ism from among deplorable Christians, or they see themselves as righteous guardians of orthodoxy, more courageous than those soft compromisers. In their minds, the church is either drifting toward heresy or embracing injustice.

How easy it is for us to lament, whether in our online discussions or in our conversations with fellow Christians, “the state of the church” than to talk about the good things God might be doing among his people. It’s easier to think that every church in town is weak or doesn’t preach the gospel or doesn’t do enough in the community than to roll up our sleeves and get involved and to lift our eyes to see the Spirit at work.

There is little market for the reality that the church is both messy and beautiful, sinful and sanctified, wonderful and wayward. Pastor Jon Tyson said it best recently: “There is a fine line between the prophetic and the cynical. One brings needed critique, the other brings unneeded criticism.” ²

^{1 – Read the complete epic story in 1 Kings 18:16–46.}
^{2 – Jon Tyson (@JonTyson), “There is a fine line,” Twitter, March 12, 2022, twitter.com/JonTyson/status/1502743230537994247.}

This excerpt reprinted with permission from Agents of Grace: How to Bridge Divides and Love as Jesus Loves. Pick up your copy using the link below.

Thousands of Happy, Unwitting Plagiarists: The Shaping Legacy of Tim Keller

By Jared Wilson / May 22

I had not heard of Tim Keller at the point of my “gospel wakefulness.” It was sometime in 2005 when the Lord broke through my depression and thoughts of suicide and arrested my attention to the glory of Jesus in a way I’d never experienced before. Everything changed for me, but it was not the result of someone pointing me to a gospelly website or taking me to a gospelly conference. Those things didn’t really exist yet.

But they would soon enough, and as I was trying, like Bambi on the ice, to get my feet under me with a “new” paradigm for life and ministry, someone down the road said, “You have to listen to Tim Keller.”

I’m pretty sure it was Steve McCoy. This was in the heyday of the blogosphere, which was a smallish pond back then, with a few of us splashing around in it quite dramatically. A couple of years out of my grace awakening, I was leading a young adult ministry at an attractional megachurch west of Nashville, Tennessee and by God’s kind providence had connected online with a handful of fellow Gen-Xer’s also trying to figure out how to do “this gospel stuff” in pragmatic, consumeristic, or otherwise “traditional” church spaces. We weren’t buying what the emergent church was selling. Steve had a page on his blog compiling all kinds of resources, written and audio from this Presbyterian guy in New York City. If you wanted to be “gospel-centered,” Tim Keller was Yoda.

Despite being a prolific blogger, I was (and am) a techno-moron, so I didn’t know how to listen to podcasts or other online audio on an iPod or anything like that. Somebody — my brother? my friend Bill? I’m not sure — burned me a CD of Keller’s talk at the inaugural Gospel Coalition Conference (2007) called “What is Gospel-Centered Ministry?” A couple of different edits of this talk have appeared online over the last 16 years, and there was not video available back when I first heard it. The version I listened to included the introduction of Keller, in which it was said he was becoming “a household name.” In response, in his opening remarks, Keller made some kind of dad-joke about a husband and wife being in the kitchen and things being mentioned like “salt . . . cumin . . . Tim Keller.” (That bit has been excised from the existing audio now available.)

It was a lame joke but showed his awkwardness with the idea of “celebrity,” I think. And this was 2007. He was not even close to the celebrity he would become.

I wore that CD out. I still revisit that talk, probably every 18 months or so. In 2007 it was like the opposite effect Pandora’s Box for ministry. You opened it up, and a million blessings were unleashed into the world. Jonathan Edwards and preaching to the heart? It’s in that talk. Law and gospel distinction? It’s in that talk. Idolatry as the root of every sin? It’s in that talk. The pastoral counseling application of the gospel “on audio” but not “on video?” It’s in that talk.

The now-famous “Jesus is the true and better . . .?” It’s in that talk.

That conference talk became a kind of Rosetta stone for me, and I’m sure I ripped off at least a dozen quotables from it for my own work. More importantly, it gave me a framework for gospel-centered ministry that nobody had given me. I grew up in a vanilla SBC church, later cutting my ministry teeth in the “contemporary service” climate and finding what little training anybody thought to offer in the midst of the seeker church phenomenon. I had come to Reformed soteriology before that, independent of my church, thanks to the influence of some Christian friends, but my ecclesiology was terrible, my hermeneutic was self-centered, and my philosophy of ministry was shallow. With the rising influence of the gospel-centered ecosystem, that was beginning to change.

I read a lot of Keller white papers on gospel ministry and church planting. I must admit that in the planting of a church in Nashville, I was heavily influenced by “the vibe” of Mark Driscoll, but all the stuff that had hand-holds came from Keller. When the man himself came to Nashville to speak one evening at Christ Presbyterian Church, a few of us from the church planting team were in attendance. And we made the drive to Chicago in 2009 for the second Gospel Coalition Conference.

In that same year, I moved from suburban Nashville to rural Vermont, assuming the pastorate of a 200-plus year old church in a very little town. By that time, I was neck deep in Kellerisms. The Prodigal God had recently released, and having personally experienced the “prodigal grace” of Christ in my own life, I was further inspired to ladle grace on thick with my new congregation.

We used his Gospel in Life study in our small groups. When The Reason for God came out, some in my flock were really excited. Christians are a distinct minority in irreligious Vermont, and my people had friends who were not only unbelievers, but in some respects hostile to the exclusivist ideas of Christian theism. Several of us read the book. I bought the video series and we used it in a small group. We watched weekly as Keller sat with a small group of his own made up of skeptics and non-Christians, listening to their questions and navigating their doubts and criticisms. What did it teach us about Keller’s approach to evangelism and apologetics? First, to listen as one who’s genuinely interested in the soul of another person. Secondly, to always bring your response back to Jesus.

As the years went on, I noticed as more and more of my gospelly tribesmen seemed to grow disillusioned with the stuff. Scandal after scandal might do that to you. A waning interest among publishers and marketers might do that too. Just getting older can do that too. We lose the energy of our youth and its attendant infatuations. I would probably be among them if it weren’t for what happened to me in that Nashville guest bedroom in 2005.

So I kept on keepin’ on. And what I discovered is that those who also kept in step with the truth of gospel-centrality tended to be those who had not just adopted it as a ministry paradigm or a cultural movement but who had been in some sense hijacked by it before they knew about paradigms or movements! Keller’s “conversion” to gospel-centrality was similar. So while some of the other leading voices gradually changed their tunes, shifting emphases with the shifting times, he was still holding the line for grace over law. There is almost nothing in that 2007 talk that he wasn’t emphasizing ten years prior and that he wasn’t emphasizing til the day he died.

I only got to meet Keller two or three times. The only meeting of any substance was a few years ago in Memphis where we were speaking at the same event. Mark Dever and a couple of others were there too. We’d each been given ten minutes or so to give a talk on an assigned topic. The stage was arranged for us to sit on a couple of couches during the other presentations, and Keller and I shared a couch. As he got up to speak — without notes, intelligently, with authority and great insight — I sat behind him and thought, “I can’t believe I’m here.” If you had told me in 2007 I’d be sharing a stage with Yoda, I wouldn’t have believed you. It was humbling. And terrifying. Because I still had to take my turn.

There’s a great photo someone took of my standing at the lectern giving my talk, Keller seated on the couch behind me, staring at the side of my head with a look of . . . what? It’s hard to say. It’s amusement, I think. My read on the image is that it was yet another moment, among many in his life, I’m sure, where Keller had to listen to someone regurgitate several years’ worth of his own material. He might have been seated on a couch behind me, but I was standing on his shoulders.

He may have entered into his reward, but I’ll still be standing on his shoulders, riding his gospelly coattails, and recycling all his best stuff forever and ever, Amen.

Earlier at the event I had lunch in a break room with Keller and a couple of men who had traveled with him. It wasn’t a deep conversation. He asked me about my role at Midwestern Seminary and about my family. It wasn’t a long conversation. A little later, we found ourselves standing in a darkened hallway outside the room, I think preparing for mic checks or something. I don’t remember all the details about that conversation either, but I do remember he asked me about why people online are so mean. I’m sure he asked it in a more intelligent way, but that was the gist of it. (This actually isn’t the first time an elder statesman in the gospel-centered tribe has asked me this question.) I don’t know exactly what I said in response, but it amounted to “I don’t know.” And that was basically it.

I had nothing of substance to offer the man who had given me over many years nothing but substance!

I’m sure whatever answers he had come up with to the question would be better than mine anyway. And when I find out what they are, I’ll rip those off too. I don’t think he’ll mind. I imagine him now looking down from that big couch in the sky with a pleasant bemusement on his face. The Kellerisms have reached the bloodstream, for heaven’s sake.

What the man has crafted for so many of us is a framework and a vocabulary, a translatable Reformation theology that fits any context. Like Tolkien’s Elvish, he created a language for us to speak, and not just for kicks, but to give real expression to the real work of grace in our real lives.

In some ways, the real measure of a great leader’s legacy is not in his production of books and sermons or in the planting of a big church or the building of some great organizations or of anything like that. It’s likely in the way the impression of him, the influence of him shapes those left behind. What I mean is, plenty of people like The Prodigal God or The Reason for God, but plenty more are saying things like “The gospel isn’t the ABC’s of the Christian life, but the A to Z” without even knowing they’re quoting Tim Keller. And there are multiple dozen more quotables just like that now just existing in the evangelical aether. Because of Keller. He has left behind great works, yes, but he’s also left behind thousands of happy, unwitting plagiarists, and as a man who cared more about the gospel than his own reputation, I think he’d be perfectly fine with that.

What is the Spirituality of God?

By Brett Fredenberg / May 17

How often do you think of the spirituality of God? After all, Jesus upheld God’s spirituality when he told the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well that “God is spirit” (John 4:24). But do we know what that means? For many, the term ‘spirituality’ has become a vague and perhaps fearsome notion used by new-agey folk to describe their ever-elusive conception of God or ‘the divine’. Others hear the word and recall the famous (though just as vague) phrase, “I’m spiritual but not religious.” All the while, the biblical and time-tested doctrine of God’s spirituality fades into the fog of misconception, leaving us in desperate need of what Lewis called ‘the clean sea breeze of the centuries’1 to blow through our minds and re-awaken us to the beauty of this doctrine.

One strong sea breeze, called the Westminster Confession of Faith, upholds God’s spirituality in this way: “There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions. . .” (2.1.). Notice the logic: the spirituality of God—His being a ‘most pure spirit’—necessitates that He is ‘invisible’ and ‘without body, parts, or passions’. The former characteristic is somewhat easier to grasp, for it lines up well with our everyday experience of faith in Christ: “Though you have not seen him, you love him… and believe in him” (1 Pet 1:8). The latter are slightly more dicult to grasp, for they beckon us beyond human experience by reminding us that God is not confined to such tiny things as space and time and physicality. Instead, God “exceeds all in the nature of being… [having] nothing gross, heavy or material in his essence.”2 Thus, to uphold the spirituality of God is to bask in wonder at His infinite perfections and eternal glory. To deny God’s spirituality is to “exchange the truth about God for a lie, and to worship and serve what has been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever” (Rom 1:25).

The spirituality of God reminds us that we—created, physical, and finite beings—must continually remember two things as we ponder His majesty. First, we must let our thoughts of the One who is an infinite and eternal spirit rise above all that we can see, taste, touch, hear, and smell. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, we must never grow dull to the reality that this same infinite, invisible, and immaterial God “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

For the Kids

Hey kids! The spirituality of God is another way of talking about the invisible bigness of God. As part of God’s creation, you and I are small and fragile and made up of (rather funny!) things like arms and legs and fingers and toes. We even get mad and upset and angry from time to time. Thankfully, God is not like us.

Since God is the Creator and not a creature, there was never a time in the beginning when someone said, “Let there be God!” As amazing as it sounds, God already was, and since He already was, He is not made up of anything in the whole world. This is why God tells Moses, “I am who I am” (Ex 3:14). There’s simply nobody like our invisible, big God!

So, when we say that God is ‘a spiritual Being’ we are saying that God is [kind of] like the wind. Think about it: you can feel the wind on your skin; you can hear the wind in your ears; and you can see the effects of the wind on things like trees, leaves, and dirty dusty streets! But at the end of the day, you can’t actually see the wind, can you?

The same is true of God. We can’t see Him with our eyes, and we can’t hear Him with our ears. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t know God with our minds or feel God in our hearts or see God at work in the world around us! In fact, because God is a spiritual Being, He can be anywhere He wants to be and do anything He wants to do, whenever and wherever He wants. Our God simply has no limits!

So, kiddo, the next time you go outside and feel the wind blowing all around you, remember: you worship an amazing, invisible God!

1. C.S. Lewis, On the Incarnation.
2. Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Vol. I), 271.

Five Reasons Why Pastors Should Share Their Pulpit

By Lucas Hahn / May 17

Every bad church story happens either at a business meeting or a deacon’s meeting. This was a deacon’s meeting—circa, Spring of 2011. I was a 25-year-old youth leader who desperately want to learn and grow as a pastor—particularly in preaching. Our church just lost its pastor and hired an interim—Pastor Don. God bless him. Pastor Don (at the time) was 82 years old. He’d been serving the Lord for many years, and he wasn’t too fond of me wanting to preach. In fact, in the deacon’s meeting, he looked at me and said, “Brandon, it’s not your job to preach. That’s not why the church hired you.” I won’t lie. Those words hurt. But they also helped me, because in that moment, I determined that if I ever had the opportunity to preach regularly, I would share my pulpit with up-and-coming preachers.

Pastors may be hesitant to do this for several reasons.

They’re worried about what the congregation will think. In small churches, especially, people think the main pastor should be preaching every week. That’s why they pay him. The pastor, then, is afraid to let another person preach (unless he’s on vacation), because he doesn’t want to make people mad.
He’s worried the younger preacher be better than him. This shouldn’t happen, but it does. Pastors can be some of the most insecure people in the world. They certainly don’t want a young man making them look bad.
The young man is inexperienced. Preachers who haven’t preached much are, by definition, inexperienced. This discourages the main pastor from putting him into the pulpit too quickly.

But pastors should not hesitate to train young preachers despite the challenges. Here are five reasons why.

Training preachers is biblical. Paul told Timothy: “what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2nd Timothy 2:2). Paul trained Timothy. Timothy was to train the next generation of Bible teachers who could then train more Bible teachers. That’s four generations of preachers.
Training preachers is a ministry in itself. Every church should do this, but if you’re in a normative size church (75-250), and perhaps you’re being tactically patient in terms of how fast you change things, finding a young preacher to train is very rewarding work. You don’t need leadership or congregational approval to disciple someone. Plus, the impact you could make in this man’s life, who will then impact others, is immeasurable.
Training preachers encourages the congregation in a unique way. When a young man preaches, even if he’s not very good, godly saints will be encouraged. You can even encourage this encouragement by saying things like, “Isn’t it nice to see a young person training for the ministry.” Trust me. Senior saints love that.
Training preachers proves the pastor is humble and fearless. As stated before, a lot of pastors won’t allow another preacher in their pulpit because they’re insecure. When you train preachers, you show that your teaching ministry is not about you, and you’re not afraid. Who cares if he’s better. You should hope he is! Do we not need more great preachers?
Training preachers creates more preachers. Good preaching begets good preachers. John Piper wanted to be a doctor. But then he got sick and laid idle in a hospital bed. That’s when he heard a compelling sermon that made him say, “I want to do that with my life.” Only God can call his preachers, but he often does it through preaching. Give guys opportunities and you will create a culture of training men for ministry.

Pastor, don’t be afraid to share your pulpit. It’s your job to train the next generation of preachers and shepherds. In doing so, you will not only be blessed yourself, but you will also encourage your church, show you aren’t afraid and raise up more preachers for the ministry.

Episode 211: Books Every Christian Should Own

By jredd / May 17

Get a pen and paper handy! You’ll want to write these recommendations down. On this episode of the FTC Podcast, Jared Wilson and Ross Ferguson discuss what ought to be included on every Christian family bookshelf.