Be Victorious! The One Who Conquers

By / Jan 23

In Revelation, one of John’s favorite roles for the believer to embrace is the role of conqueror, often expressed by the English word ‘victor.’ John’s language should shape how we view God, our local churches, and ourselves. Grant R. Osborne notes, “One of the most important messages of the book is the challenge to be a ‘conqueror.’” 

Conquerors in Every Church

Jesus describes the role of the conqueror formulaically in his messages to the churches in Revelation 2-3. At the conclusion of each letter, Jesus addresses those who heed his message in the church as the conqueror (Rev 2:7, 11, 17, 26, 3:5, 12, 21). In each verse, Jesus promises a personal reward to the conqueror. These uses of the term shape the literary structure of their respective letters and cast an ideological frame for the Revelation as a whole. Jesus calls believers in every church to embrace the role of conqueror by remaining faithful to him despite earthly temptation and opposition.

Jesus’s call for believers in local churches to take up the role of conqueror should shape how we view ourselves and our brothers and sisters in our local churches. Our refusal to compromise doctrinal and moral integrity is an act of conquering the spiritual forces that oppose us.

The Conqueror and Eternal Rewards

What might motivate those taking up the dangerous role of the conqueror to be faithful to Jesus despite opposition and even the threat of death? In the letters to the churches, Rev 15:2, and Rev 21:7, John promises rewards for those who conqueror. In John’s vision of the heavenly throne room in Revelation 15, he sees the souls of those victorious over the beast standing on the sea of glass gathered around the throne to praise God. Language and imagery from Revelation 4-5 and 6:9-11 (the fifth seal) punctuate John’s vision in Revelation 15 and contribute to the narrative framework of the book. Those who conquer the beast and his image (Rev 15:2) do so because the slain Lamb also stands to show that he has been victorious over death and redeemed them (Rev 5:6-10). In Rev 15:2, John portrays how the followers of the conquering Lamb themselves conquer the beast and his image. John writes parallel phrases emphasizing the spatial separation between the conquerors and the demonic forces opposing them—those who conqueror won the victory from the beast and from his image. The conquerors are those who have separated themselves from demonic influence through Jesus’s victory for them. The conqueror is free because of his flight from Satan’s domain.  

John’s vision reflects other New Testament passages that portray separation from demonic influence as an act of spiritual victory. James told his readers that if they resisted the devil, the devil would flee from them; if they drew near to God, God would draw near to them (Jas 4:7-8). Peter concluded his first epistle by urging his readers to be sober and alert because the devil was prowling around, seeking to devour them. They needed to resist the devil, firm in the faith, aware that the trials they endured were common to all believers (1 Pet 5:8-9). In the broader discourse of Revelation, apocalyptic imagery tells a story of God’s victory for his people and their victory for him as they endure Satan’s temptations and show Satan to be inferior to God. The reference to the conquerors in Rev 15:2 recalls the repeated reference to the victorious ones in the concluding lines of the letters to the seven churches. Having been presented with the costly role of the conqueror, John’s readers may have been asking, Will victory be worth the sacrifice (sometimes unto death) required to resist Satan and earthly forces? John’s vision of heavenly community and reward reported in Revelation 15 answers in the affirmative.

In Revelation 21, John describes the new creation. John uses apocalyptic imagery to build his narrative to this point. Along the way, he describes his visions and sets out God’s promises of reward to those who remain faithful to God. Throughout Revelation, John frames the promise of reward in relational terms as God comes to dwell with his people in the new creation. In Rev 21:7-8, John contrasts all of humanity, placing them into one of two categories. He uses the term conqueror as the heading for the faithful ones, writing, “The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son” (Rev 21:7, CSB). The one in the role of the conqueror is the one who has remained faithful, participating in the victory of the One on the throne and the Lamb. The human victor referenced in Rev 21:7 has been victorious over Satan and the worldly forces under Satan’s delegated authority. God promises to reward the conqueror in two ways: by (1) giving him a share of rule and dominion over the new creation, and (2) designating him as a son in terms previously ascribed to Solomon, son of David and fulfilled in Jesus (see 2 Sam 7:14).

Conclusion

Wherever you are in your spiritual development, John’s portrayal of the believer in Revelation will encourage you. In Revelation, John esteems those who conquer. John describes the conqueror as an actor who, despite opposition, overcomes the temptation to compromise fidelity to God and is rewarded. The victory and reward derive from standing with the Lamb who was slain and who redeems men from every nation for God. So stand firm, resist the devil, and cling to the Lamb who will return and will establish you as conqueror.

¹ This is the second entry in a series of FTC blog posts noting how John uses a particular grammatical form, the articular substantival participle, for specific words in Revelation that resemble a playwright’s roles in a script.

² νικάω in Rev 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21; 15:2; and 21:7.

³ Revelation, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 122.

⁴ G.K. Beale comments that John’s language is “a compressed expression for ‘the ones coming off victorious [by separating themselves] from’” (The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 790). 

⁵ What is promised to the king in David’s line is generalized to apply also to those who identify with him in faith and obedience” (Buist Fanning, Revelation, ZECNT [Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2020], 536).



Take Up and Read, Take Up and Listen!

By / Jan 22

I have been a pastor for twenty-five years. That’s a lot of Bible reading and hearing. And I can’t wait for the next time my church gathers so we can read and hear the word together. I am fascinated by John’s emphasis on Revelation as Scripture and how he describes reading and hearing Scripture in Revelation. John establishes formal roles of reading and hearing Revelation, the final book of Scripture, so the word of God will forever guide the church.

The One Who Reads God’s Word

John begins Revelation by noting two streams of communication. What he is writing has come from God through Jesus through an angel to John. John’s words are the very words of God. The first communication stream in Rev 1:1–2 could be labeled spatially as a descending communication stream. The second stream is horizontal, described in Rev 1:3. John’s grammatical choices portray reading, hearing, and following (what was heard in the reading) like roles believers should embrace as a part of their Christian life. 

The link between Rev 1:2 and 3 is a text, words on some material form. John wrote, and he envisions believers embracing the role of the public reader. The public reading of Scripture that John expects pre-dates the synagogue communities and churches of his day, finding its early precedent in Moses’s reading of the law to Israel as they prepared to cross the Jordan River in Deuteronomy 27–32. After the exiles returned to Jerusalem, they gathered to hear the law read publicly (see Nehemiah 8). When the synagogue communities in Palestine and throughout the Mediterranean region gathered, reading Scripture was a part of their agenda (Luke 4:16-21; Acts 13:13-15, 27, 42-44; 15:21). Paul exhorted Timothy to devote himself to the public reading of Scripture (1 Tim 4:13) and told the Colossians to exchange letters with the Laodiceans so that both letters could be read in both churches (Col 4:16).

The one taking up the role of reading Scripture was not only blessed, he was a blessing. Not simply a blessing, but he was even necessary since the vast majority of the ancient world could not read. Therefore, those who read Scripture to the community enabled God’s people to hear his word and be blessed in the hearing.

The One Who Hears God’s Word

Those faithful in the role of hearing God’s word read to them, John notes in Rev 1:3, are indeed blessed. The proverbial predicate nominative “blessed” recalls many points in the storyline of Scripture, including Psalm 1 and Jesus’s Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:3–12) and Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20–22). The faithful enjoy God’s blessing for many activities—including hearing Scripture.

The role of hearing John’s prophecy—the culmination of Scripture—is not to be a one-off endeavor. Those who hear God’s word and enjoy its blessing do not stand on the stage once but repeatedly—with the company of hearers. The axiomatic portrait of hearing and blessing in Rev 1:3 is carried not only by the use of blessed as the predicate nominative but also through John’s grammatical choice describing those who hear, and hear, and hear. “Play it again!” John envisions hearers of Revelation exclaiming. John describes a crowded stage of actors that includes a reader and many hearers who respond to what they have heard by keeping their testimony of Christ to the end despite danger and opposition that will come upon them precisely because they are hearing and heeding John’s prophetic message. 

And at the end of Revelation, John returns to the role of those hearing God’s word. In Rev 22:17, he writes, “Both the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ Let anyone who hears, say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires take the water of life freely” (CSB). The one who hears is the first of three roles that John would have his readers embrace. The placement of the role of hearing in Rev 22:17 is noteworthy for two reasons. First, at the broader discourse level of Revelation, it returns us to Rev 1:3 and further accentuates the communicative string John describes in Rev 1:1-3. Anyone who has heard the apocalypse has heard God’s revelation through Jesus, an angel, and John. Second, at the micro discourse level of Rev 22:17, the one who hears is the first of three roles, including desiring and thirsting. That hearing is listed first in this string of roles implies that hearing what John has written stimulates the hearer’s senses to seek God. 

John portrays the role of hearing such that those embracing God’s word as it is read would undertake two specific tasks. First, they would long for John’s message to be actualized. The hearer is to say, “Come!” John likely has in mind that those hearing his prophecy of Jesus’s victorious return in Rev 19:11–21 would long to see the rider on the white horse arrive to conquer evil and consummate his kingdom. Second, in Rev 22:18, John states, “I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book,” John admonishes those hearing his prophecy that they are stewards of God’s word. Because John has truthfully written what the angelic messengers revealed to him from Jesus from God, again recalling the authoritative communicative string outlined in Rev 1:1–3, those in the role of hearing John’s prophecy must maintain God’s word to the next generation unchanged. They must heed it faithfully, adding or subtracting nothing.

Feeling the Weight of the Word

All of this is serious business. If we read Scripture in public, we should attend to our words. Sometimes, we should read faster. For instance, a passage like Isaiah 40 is a long thought, and it would be good to pick up the pace so that the hearers sense the crescendo of Isaiah’s argument about God’s faithfulness. Sometimes, we need to read more slowly. Don’t hustle through John 1:1-18. We should familiarize ourselves with the words of a text so that when we read it, we can emphasize repeated words or phrases, pause without interrupting ideas, and give hearers a sense of the wholeness of Scripture. 

And when we hear the word, let’s airplane mode our devices and turn off all notifications. Prioritize the printed page so that as you listen and follow along, even in a different translation, you can follow the broader flow of thought surrounding that portion of Scripture. Be blessed in the reading and hearing of God’s word! 

 

¹ This is the first entry in a series on FTC noting how John uses a particular grammatical form, the articular substantival participle, for specific words in Revelation that resemble a playwright’s roles in a script.

² ἀναγινώσκω in Rev 1:3.

³ “Although the ‘scripturalization’ of Christian worship certainly became more formalized and regularized across time, both the importance and the impact of corporate reading of Scripture writings are evident from the outset of the Jesus-movement” (Larry W. Hurtado, Destroyer of the gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World [Waco: Baylor University Press, 2016], 108).

⁴ See especially Harry J. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven: Yale, 1995). 

⁵ ἀκούω in Rev 1:3; 22:17, 18.

₆ This is the first of seven beatitudes that John writes in Revelation (see also, 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14).

⁷ If, as David E. Aune states, “ancient authors not only chose words to convey the meanings they intended but also chose words whose sounds effectively communicated those meanings” (Revelation 1-5, WBC 52A [Dallas: Word, 1997], 21, italics original), we would expect no less concerning the final installment of Holy Scripture. 



Digital Detox, Intentional Ignorance, and the Proximity Principle

By / Jan 18

For Christians to thrive in the modern era, there are two spiritual disciplines we must adopt: Digital Detox (fasting from screens) and Intentional Ignorance (fasting from information).

The rapid growth of digital technology has implications for our spiritual formation. The form of connectivity that comes with smartphones and watches is fundamentally new in human history; this isn’t necessarily good or bad, but it is certainly different. Thus, the countercultural spiritual disciplines that serve our growth ought to be different as well.

Spiritual formation and the purposeful means of formation (spiritual disciplines, habits, and practices) are always contextual; the dehumanizing forces of our idols express themselves differently in different cultures. Our culture is the first culture that is radically digital.

Deformative Power of Digitization

Being chronically connected to the internet tempts us to be “like God” in fresh and terrifying ways. We have never before been as tempted to pursue omnipresence and omniscience as we presently are.

When we have 5G internet in our pockets and on our wrists, we are networked into the entire developed world. We can instantaneously observe, communicate, and be interrupted by people on the other side of the planet who are on their phones more easily than our neighbors down the street who are grilling in their backyard or playing in their front yards.

We are more interrupted than ever; our interactions with our closest loved ones and neighbors are more vulnerable to being hijacked by the wants or needs of someone far away as our own attention spans have been truncated by our notification settings.

Information used to be a hot commodity; now it is ubiquitous. With “googling” as the new verb and “GPTing” something right around the corner, access to information is instant. Will we forget what not knowing something for more than 30 seconds feels like?

Omnipresence is one of the characteristics of God. When technology makes us hyper-present, not only can our nervous systems not handle it, but our close friends and loved ones go unloved because we are aloof, distracted, and preoccupied.

Omniscience is also one of the characteristics of God. God can handle knowing all things, we cannot. We are limited, bound, and local by virtue of being embodied. From simple trivia to current events, it is good for us to not know things.

Part of the reason we are so mentally unhealthy as a society is that we are flirting with omnipresence and omniscience. We know too much and know about it, so we are anxious and depressed.

The Power of the Proximity Principle

Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30ff) in response to the question, “who is my neighbor?” In the story, a man is harmed on a road and in need of help. Later, two people travel on the same road, see the man, and then pass by him. But a Good Samaritan travels by where he is lying harmed, sees him, has compassion, and then acts.

The first two stand condemned not simply because they didn’t help, but because they were right there, up-close-in-the-flesh, and able to help, but still didn’t help.

The basic ethical principle here: proximity and ability create responsibility.

Many are plagued by a low-grade sense of chronic guilt and anxiety because our nervous systems are not designed to handle all of the information we have access to in our digital age. Young people, in particular, are plagued with over-responsibility that leads to paralysis and depression.

We end up functioning like the Levite and the Priest in Luke 10:31-32 who are unable or unwilling to love the people right in front of them because we are preoccupied with all of the information, problems, and suffering far away from us.

If we look through the lenses of proximity and ability, some of our info-induced anxiety will dissipate and we’ll have a clearer conscience as we love those who are in the “place” God has placed us (like the Good Samaritan).

Only God can handle omniscience (knowing everything) and omnipresence (being everywhere), and we should repent of our desire to be like God in this way.

The Christian tradition has long practiced the discipline of fasting. Most basically, fasting is depriving oneself of a good thing for the purposes of prayer and growth. Our new context requires two new forms of fasting: fasting from digital devices and fasting from information.

How to Practice Digital Detox

A digital detox is a fast from digital devices, especially your smartphone, smartwatch, or tablet. The digital detox helps us repent of omnipresence. It is a break from being tethered to your electrical umbilical cord and your dopamine pacifier. Here is what I try to make this look like for me:

  • Daily: When I walk in the door from work, I leave my phone on a shelf by the door for at least thirty minutes while I play with my kids and reconnect with my wife.
  • Daily: I dock my phone at a table on the other side of my bedroom a minimum of 40 minutes before I go to bed and don’t look at it for 20 minutes after I wake up (except to stop my alarm)
  • Weekly: A 12-hour Digital Detox that includes going to the park, going on a walk, or going to the gym without my phone.
  • Monthly: A 48-hour social media, email, and texting Digital Detox.
  • Twice Monthly: Leave my phone at home when I go on a date with my wife.
  • Annually: Once per year, a 3-day personal Spiritual Retreat that includes a Digital Detox among other forms of traditional fasting and prayer while I focus on being present to the Lord.
  • Annually: Once per year while on vacation, a 5-day total Digital Detox where my phone and computer are all the way off, and I focus on being present to my family.

How to Practice Intentional Ignorance

If it is true that ignorance is bliss, then that explains a lot of our current mental health crisis. The information we are asked to carry and steward is too much for our non-Divine minds.

Intentional Ignorance is the radically countercultural choice to embrace not knowing everything you could know. Here is what I try to make this look like for me:

  • Less Updates: I don’t watch Instagram or Facebook stories. I don’t want to know what people are up to all the time.
  • Less Breaking News: I unfollow almost all news accounts, especially those that do BREAKING NEWS.
  • Less Answered Questions: At least once per day, I let a question go unanswered. What is the actual difference in diameter between the NBA ball and the WNBA ball? I’m going to choose just not to get my phone out and Google that. What happened with that rocket in North Korea yesterday? I choose not to find out the answer to that. In doing so, I pray, “Lord, you are the Omniscient One; because I trust you and your approval I don’t need to know that.” The feeling of enduring ignorance is foreign to us but serves our formation.

Many of these practices are aspirational for me; too often I’m embarrassed at the unhealthy patterns of my own device use. I recommend these habits as someone who knows his own.

Humans are called to have dominion over creation, but too often our own creations have dominion over us. The dual practices of Digital Detox and Intentional Ignorance will help us right the balance of power that our devices have over us as we seek congruence with and fidelity to the Spirit of Christ.



Episode 246: What Happened to the Gospel-Centered Movement?

By / Jan 17

Is the gospel-centered movement dead? Are the young Reformed these days restless? What happened to gospel-centrality and why does it matter? Jared Wilson and Ross Ferguson discuss these questions and more on this week’s episode of the FTC Podcast.



Why the World Needs Augustinian Friendships

By / Jan 16

When you think of Augustine, you may picture a withdrawn theologian in a darkish study—deep in thought, putting pen to parchment, face bathed in dancing candlelight. Perhaps such a picture is not entirely unwarranted. It can be argued that no theologian has impacted Christianity more than the good bishop of Hippo. This no doubt required long hours in solitude.

But in his Confessions—the winding, autobiographical prayer written in the middle of his life—we see that Augustine very much thought of himself as a man formed by friendship. He even admits, “I cannot be happy without friends.” Therefore, to think of Augustine as he would want to be thought of, we shouldn’t imagine him as some lone-wolf in an ivory tower, but as a soul profoundly marked by his friends.

When it came to friendship, Augustine was originally influenced by the philosopher and statesman Cicero. In fact, he adopted Cicero’s definition of friendship as his own. “Friendship,” said Cicero, “is nothing other than agreement on all things divine and human, along with good will and affection.” This is how Augustine understood friendship before his conversion as well as in the early years after.

But as Augustine matured in faith, so did his definition of friendship. We see this in his correspondence with Martianus, a friend from his youth. Some time after writing Confessions, Augustine learned that Martianus had begun to embrace Christianity and was contemplating baptism. Augustine, though busy with study and writing, hastened to address this companion from his past, who he now rejoiced to hear was on the threshold of becoming his companion in the faith.

Though there had been genuine affection between Augustine and Martianus earlier in life, their relationship fell short of what Augustine had by this time come to understand as true friendship. In their coming of age, the two had agreed as far as Cicero’s definition of friendship was concerned. Their unregenerate hearts were unanimous in the pursuit of illicit interests. Augustine recounts this in Confessions.

Young Augustine spent his nights keeping company with a band of delinquents. Their antics included stealing fruit from a neighbor’s orchard. He did this, he admits, because at the time he delighted in evildoing. But years later, deeper questions still haunt him. From whence this delight in evildoing? Would Augustine have done the same had he been alone?

Looking back, he muses, “I would not have stolen alone; my pleasure was not in what I stole but that I stole.” With these words, Augustine is touching upon the gravitational pull of being with others in the act. He knew it was much more than the fruit that animated him. His hunger to belong extracted from his soul that which would have remained latent had he been isolated.

This is why, in his letter to Martianus, Augustine observes, “But you, my dearest friend, at one time agreed with me on things human, when I desired to enjoy them in the manner of the crowd, and you set your course to aid me to obtain those things, over which I now repent.” This is no blame-shift. Augustine is not avoiding responsibility for his sin. Rather this is his honest recognition about the nature of fraternity, even among those who look no further than Cicero. It is common grace that desires should form in the heart and be fleshed out in the presence of those called ‘friend,’ even when those desires tend toward wrong ends.

But for Augustine as Christian theologian, friendship required that agreement on things divine be reframed and refined in light of what he had come to believe. Common grace was not enough for his now-seasoned perspective. Thus in his letter to Martianus, he adds to Cicero’s definition, saying, “For now we have an agreement on things human and divine along with good will and love in Christ Jesus, our Lord, our truest peace.”

With this modified definition in mind, Augustine reasons there is only one basis upon which he and Martianus can ever call one another ‘friend’ in the greatest sense of the word. If love for the triune God be absent from our hearts, then our love for friends will in some way be corrupted and malformed by our sinful nature. This is why Augustine urges Martianus toward baptism. He wishes to gain him as a friend in Christ. It’s by a shared union with Jesus alone that the highest level of friendship can be experienced between two souls.

If you trace the development of Augustine’s life more broadly, this was his discernible trajectory. One author notes that “more than ten of his childhood friends became bishops. The bishops and theologians in North African ecclesiastical debates against the Donatists, Pelagians, and others resembled the roll call. . . .of Augustine and his classmates.” To the praise of His glorious grace, God transfigured a band of delinquents to become a house of friendship whose business it was to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Augustine eventually formalized his desire for such a house as the Rule of Augustine, a longstanding monastic order in the Roman Catholic Church. Note well that it’s from this Rule that one German monk would emerge to spark a Reformation. Of course, adherents of that Reformation do not embrace monastic life. But we do belong to local churches where our lives have been graced by lasting friendships centered on Christ.

This is a means by which Christ continues to build his church from generation to generation. Just think: Luther is downstream from Augustine and his friends, and in Christ we are downstream from them all. Who might be downstream from us? What future graces will be borne out of the friendships that are quietly forming in our congregations today? Of course, this is not ours to know. Augustine would want us to bear in mind that the secret things belong to the Lord our God.

But what has been revealed to us is that the world needs Augustinian friendships. It needs churches that model through Word and Sacrament the true significance of agreeing on matters both human and divine along with the kind of good will and affection that are found in Christ and nowhere else. Such is the way God carries on His work of building a community of fraternal love where the baptized lock arms and travel toward heaven together. Reaching our destination by grace alone, we will gather with saints from every age, Augustine included, to exult in a love that cannot be surpassed—the love of our Redeemer who laid down His life for His friends.



Episode 245: Resourcing Your Church

By / Jan 10

On this episode of the FTC Podcast, Jared Wilson visits with Jonathan Carswell, CEO of 10 of Those, to talk about the unique ministry of effectively resourcing the church, the state of Christian readership, the importance of physical media, what one thing to look for in a Christian book, and how Christian leaders can better equip their own churches for quality reading.



13: How Jesus Transforms or Annuls
Some Old Testament Law

By / Jan 10

“The Coastlands Wait for His Law” (Isa 42:4)

The previous post provided two examples of how Moses’s law can apply to new-covenant members through Christ and for Christ. There, we saw that Christ’s work can maintain the law with or without extension. This post considers how Christ’s coming transforms or annuls old-covenant instruction.

Case Study #3: The Law Transformed

Considering the Sabbath command in Deuteronomy 5:12–15 will show us how important it is to consider Christ’s fulfillment, which in this instance fully transforms the law and guides those strong in faith in the path of love.

Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor but the seventh days is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day..

Table 1. Deuteronomy 5:12–15

1. Establish the Original Meaning and Application of Deuteronomy 5:12–15

In Deuteronomy’s version of the Ten Commandments (or Ten Words), discourse features create five groupings of long and short commands that highlight the centrality of the Sabbath within the old covenant:

Word 1 Have no other gods Deut 5:5-10 Commanding Grouping #1: Long
Word 2 Bear Yahweh’s name Deut 5:11 Commanding Grouping #2: Short
Word 3 Observe the Sabbath Deut 5:12-15 Commanding Grouping #3: Long
Word 4 Honor parents Deut 5:16 Commanding Grouping #4: Short
Word 5 Love neighbor Deut 5:17-21 Commanding Grouping #5: Long

Table 2. The Centrality of the Sabbath in the Decalogue

At the center of Israel’s identity was the Sabbath, which stood as the old covenant’s “sign” (Exod 31:13, 17). Michael Fox notes three functions of OT signs:

  1. Proof signs demonstrated the truth of something.
  2. Symbol signs represented a future reality by virtue of resemblance or association.
  3. Cognition signs aroused knowledge of something by identifying or reminding.

The Sabbath served first as a cognition sign and then as a symbol sign, symbolically identifying Israel and reminding it of its calling as the agent through whom God’s sovereignty would be celebrated on a global scale (ultimately through its Messiah).

The entirety of the old covenant was symbolized in the Sabbath, and its importance is highlighted by the fact that breaking it was a criminal offense (Num 15:32–36). While Sabbath was part of criminal law, its symbolism (like that of the dietary laws addressed in the next case study) suggests that it was also ceremonial law.

2. Determine the Theological Importance of Deuteronomy 5:12–15

The Sabbath command teaches us many things about God: (1) Yahweh shows no partiality. (2) Yahweh gives his people opportunities to test their trust and to develop their dependence. (3) Yahweh is passionate to display right order in his world, wherein he is exalted as Sovereign over all things.

Considering how Christ fulfills the Sabbath, we recall that Jesus saw himself as the source of ultimate rest: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). Directly after this assertion, Jesus allows his disciples to pluck grain on the Sabbath and then declares himself “lord of the Sabbath” (12:8). Jesus’s redeeming work fulfilled Israel’s global Sabbath mission and inaugurated the end-times Sabbath rest for the world.

The love principle standing behind Deuteronomy 5:12–15 is this: Loving God and neighbor required carrying out the 6 + 1 pattern of life as a witness to the kingdom hope of ultimate rest.

3. Summarize the Lasting Significance of Deuteronomy 5:12–15

Until the final judgment, God will retain his commitment to his people, even those the world considers “least.” As we look out for the marginalized among his people, we serve King Jesus (Matt 25:31–40). Furthermore, the Sabbath command reminds us of our own need to rest, by which God graciously counters workaholism and nurtures deeper levels of trust in him (Ps 127:2).

Additionally, we must maintain a pattern of corporate worship (Heb 10:25), and Sunday is a natural time for this (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2) due to its end-times significance as the day on which God ignited his new creation (Rom 6:4; 1 Cor 15:20; Rev 14:4). But corporate worship on another day of the week is not sin, nor is it wrong to weed your garden, study for an exam, or engage in sports on a Sunday—so long as you don’t replace grace (1 Cor 15:10; Phil 2:12–13; Col 3:17, 23). Through Christ, God has transformed the Sabbath in a way that believers now enjoy his sovereign rest seven days a week.

Case Study #4: The Law Annulled

This final illustration of applying OT law to Christians addresses a command that Christ’s coming annuls—yet in such a way that we can still benefit from it.

You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. You shall be holdy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.

Table 3. Leviticus 20:25–26

1. Establish the Original Meaning and Application of Leviticus 20:25–26

Pre-fall, God’s prohibition of eating from a certain tree supplied a context for humankind to mature in wisdom (Gen 2:17; cf. 3:5). The first couple disobeyed, and the result was that God cursed the world and marked certain creatures as unclean (7:2–3). Originally, the clean-unclean distinction appears to have only guided sacrifices (8:20; 9:3–4). However, it eventually served to distinguish God’s people from the nations (Lev 20:25–26). Either way, it was vital within Israel’s religious life (10:10).

Unclean creatures shared some commonality with the serpent’s curse or death-causing activities. Because Israel’s neighbors were the serpent’s offspring (see Gen 3:15), the meaning Israel associated with unclean animals paralleled God’s perspective of the nations. Accordingly, Yahweh’s prohibition against eating unclean animals symbolically distinguished Israel from its neighbors. It also allowed Israel to point the world to Yahweh as the only Savior who could overcome curse with blessing (Gen 12:3; 22:18).

2. Determine the Theological Importance of Leviticus 20:25–26

God is holy, and all should see and celebrate this. John Hartley notes that, within the old covenant, dietary restrictions “made the Israelites conscious at every meal that they were to order their lives to honor the holy God with whom they were in covenant.” So, for example, the prohibition against eating pork served to heighten the Israelites’ awe of Yahweh and to distinguish them from those outside the covenant.

With the progression of salvation history, however, Jesus has declared “all foods clean” (Mark 7:19). Accordingly, it is not what goes into peoples’ mouths but what comes out of their hearts that defiles them (7:18–23). Similarly, the Lord gave Peter a vision of unclean animals, commanded him to “kill and eat,” and then asserted, “What God has made clean, do not call common” (Acts 10:10–15). This instruction proved to Peter that God was now welcoming any from the nations who would fear and obey him (10:34–35).

Within the original OT context, then, loving one’s neighbor by not eating unclean food means that Israel was to display God’s holy animosity toward sin and the curse even in their diet.

3. Summarize the Lasting Significance of Leviticus 20:25–26

When considering how eating today relates to loving our neighbors, we must view it from two angles. First, love of neighbor means that those who are strong in faith and who feel free to eat anything must be careful not to cause those who are weaker in faith and who choose to abstain from certain foods to stumble. As Paul writes, “Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak” (1 Cor 8:8–9; cf. Rom 14:2, 13–15).

Second, love of neighbor means that we will not stop proclaiming that Christ has triumphed on our behalf, opening the door for all peoples to stand reconciled to him. One way we can do this is by eating creatures God once prohibited. Whereas old-covenant believers abstained from these foods to proclaim and mirror God’s holiness, new-covenant believers today can partake of them for the same purposes (1 Cor 10:31). Within this framework, bacon is victory food!

A Note on the Hebrew Roots Movement

For centuries, many Jewish followers of Christ have chosen to follow Jewish customs like eating kosher food, worshiping on Saturday, and welcoming the Sabbath with a traditional ceremony and meal. They recognize this as a free choice, not as an obligation to Moses’s law or rabbinic tradition. And Paul would bless this practice, especially if the intent is to see more Jews saved (see 1 Cor 9:20).

However, there is a growing “Hebrew Roots” movement whose primarily Gentile devotees claim Jesus’s followers need to return to their Messiah’s roots by keeping as much of the OT law as possible without the temple. While they verbally affirm that justification before God is by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus alone, they teach that all believers are still bound to keep the Mosaic law.

Reflecting on this movement in light of Scripture, we can say that Hebrew Roots advocates are, at best, passing undue judgment on fellow believers (Rom 14:3) and, at worst, failing to appreciate the changes that Christ brought in salvation history (Gal 3:1–5). Whether dealing with food (2:11–14), holy days (4:10), or circumcision (5:2), all who require obedience to the law as if Christ has not come are seeking to “submit again to a yoke of slavery” (5:1). We cannot keep the whole law (5:3), so we must trust Christ, who has fulfilled the law for and through his elect as we live lives of love by the Spirit (Rom 5:18; 8:3–4; 13:8–10).

 

¹Michael V. Fox, “The Sign of the Covenant: Circumcision in the Light of Priestly ’ôt Etiologies, Revue biblique 81 (1974): 562–63.

²J. E. Hartley, “Holy and Holiness, Clean and Unclean,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003), 429.

This blog series summarizes Jason S. DeRouchie’s forthcoming book, Delighting in the Old Testament: Through Christ and for Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024). You can pre-order your copy here.



Leaving Christianity: How an Old Man Helped Save My Faith

By / Jan 8

When I was in 10th grade, the Power Team came to my church.  They were a group of powerlifting Christians who went around from mega-church to mega-church, lifting weights and smashing bricks in order to bring “glory to Jesus.” I was excited to see them “perform/preach,” but I was mostly excited that my friends and I got to work out with the Power Team at Gold’s Gym one day between their nightly sessions. One of the members, Eddie “The Gripper” Dalcour, gave me some tips on which whey protein to drink after workouts. The highlight of the week came that night when Eddie “The Gripper” ripped not one but two phonebooks in half and everyone said, “Wow, how amazing!” Of course, the theme verse of the Power Team was Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

This world of white, suburban, prosperity-gospel-lite, Ronald-Reagan loving evangelicalism was the world I grew up in. I could do anything through Christ who gave me strength. I knew I could do anything because God knew the plans that He had for me and they were plans to prosper me and not to harm me; they were to give me a hope and a future. Besides, even if something bad did happen, I knew that God worked all things together for good for those who loved Him and for those who were called according to His purpose.

What I most wanted to do at that time was play college football for a big SEC school. My dad had played college football for Auburn University and he was my hero. I wanted to be just like him. He hadn’t just been a great athlete, either. He was a great dad, a great husband and a great man, and he was the pastor of our church.  The church had grown rapidly under his leadership, and it seemed like he had been able to do “all things through Christ.” He really didn’t have any weaknesses. So that is what I was going to do – I was going to be just like him. I was going to trust God, get tips from “The Gripper,” work hard, and I was confident that good things would happen and that, one day, I would be able to play college football in order to follow in my dad’s footsteps.

Between 10th and 11th grade, I got a lot faster, bigger, and stronger, and my dream of playing college football was beginning to become a reality. I played tight end on offense and middle linebacker on defense, and seven games into my junior season I was leading the whole city of Huntsville, Alabama in tackles. Schools from all over the country started calling and sending letters.  In the eighth game of the season, I was chasing down a running back on a regular pitch play. In the midst of the tackle, I tore my right ACL and some meniscus cartilage in that knee. It was a big blow, but I knew the Lord had good plans for me. My faith was strong, and I knew God was going to use this bad thing for good. I had surgery on that knee, repairing the ACL and cartilage, and I immediately got back to work. Only this time I was working even harder than I had before. Fortunately, there was enough game film and enough on the stat sheet to keep the recruiting buzz high. Letters poured in that spring and schools began inviting me to visit them during spring games and to attend their summer camps. My rehab was going great, and I was bigger and stronger than ever.  My dream of playing football in the SEC was becoming a reality.

But that May, another blow came. I was lifting weights one day and felt a strange sensation in my head, a “release” of pressure, as I was trying to push out one more rep. I asked my coach if you could tear an artery in your brain and he told me, “That’s called an aneurism and if that would have happened you would be dead.”

For the next few days I had a major headache but obviously wasn’t dead, so I just toughened up and went on with my life. Two days later, on a Friday, I was back in the weight room. After my first exercise, I blacked out and was overcome with pain from my head. After this, my coach told me to go home to see a doctor. That day, I went to my primary care doctor who immediately encouraged me to see a neurologist who did some tests and told me to come back on Monday for an MRI. I got a lot of rest that weekend and was really feeling better by Monday. I went in for the MRI, excited to get it done, finish up the day at school, and join my friends that afternoon for an end of school year pool party over at Katie Flynn’s house. As I was leaving the doctor’s office, they told me to come back later to get the results. This would make me a little late for the pool party, but I hoped it wouldn’t take too long.

When I went back to the doctor’s office, I learned that it wouldn’t be a short trip. The doctor had called both my parents and told us we had to go immediately to the hospital for one more test. The doctor saw something abnormal in the MRI. By this time ,I really was feeling fine – five days after the initial head pain – and I was a little annoyed that they were being so cautious. We went to Huntsville Hospital and, after a painstakingly long arteriogram, the doctors came out shaking their heads saying, “We can’t believe you walked in here today.”

They explained that I had a 2.5 inch tear in the basil artery of my brain. Arteries have two layers and, somehow, the interior layer of the artery had torn and the exterior layer was still intact. At first, I had no idea what this meant and my first question was, “When can I start training for football again?” One of the doctors told me that I would never play football again, and that he was worried I could have a full-blown aneurism or stroke. He told me I had to go on blood thinners immediately and that I couldn’t strain myself in any way. No walking faster than three miles per hour, no lifting more than ten pounds, and certainly no football.

Obviously, I was devastated. Those were the worst words I had ever heard, but I was a part of a loving community and somehow my faith was strong. I believed that “all things worked together for good” and I believed that “God had plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me a hope and a future.” My coaches, friends, and family members were incredibly supportive and kind to me during this season, and I persisted. I also learned a lot about prayer during this time as it seems like everyone I came in contact with that summer was praying for me.

Mine was such a rare case that the doctors didn’t really know what would happen, so the following September, I went back to the doctor to get another opinion to see if the tear had progressed. They did another arteriogram and this time, the doctors came out with huge smiles. My head was okay, there was no tear – whatever had happened was gone. I don’t know exactly what happened that summer, but I walked out of that doctor’s office believing that God had answered prayers and had given me a clean bill of health. I was going to be able to live a healthy and normal life.

Even though I was healthy, that injury ended my football dreams. All the schools that had been recruiting me stopped the recruiting process when they heard about my head injury and, because of the injury, I wasn’t able to finish the rehab on my knee. I was also in really bad shape. When you are used to eating 5,000 calories a day and suddenly stop all activity, it’s not a good combination. But I was grateful.

One dream had died, but I knew others would come.

In fact, the following spring, I was able to get back in shape, and I was thinking about walking on to play football at Auburn. My strength was back and my speed was slowly returning. But then, in a simple game of Ultimate Frisbee after church one Sunday, I tore my ACL again in the same knee. I was even wearing my brace which actually made the tear worse. I knew what happened as soon as it happened because it was the same pain I had felt 18 months before, but I didn’t have the heart to tell my parents. I was just about to go on a graduation trip to Colorado, so I hid the swelling and pushed through it. A few weeks later, I graduated high school and went out to Colorado for a week of mountain biking, rock climbing, river rafting and mountaineering.

It was a great trip. On the last day, I called home and got the sense from my mom that something was wrong at the house. After I pressed her, she finally put my father on the phone. Remember, my dad was my hero; he led me to Christ, he discipled me, he was my pastor and model in all things. But on the phone that night, he admitted to me that for the past several months, he had been having an affair and that he was going to have to resign from the church. In that moment, it would have been easier if someone would have told me that he was dead. I was so crushed, so hurt. He was the greatest guy I knew and now he had done this evil thing to my mother, to his church, to us, and to God. That night in Colorado was one of the worst and longest of my life. My family was in worse shape than my torn up knee, but somehow my faith survived.

Somehow I kept believing that God had good plans for me, that God would work out all things together for good.

Though my football dreams had been taken away and my family was collapsing, I went off to Auburn University with a sense of hope. God was going to do something through this. I had been the SGA president of my high school and I thought, “I will run for SGA president at Auburn and make an impact on this campus for the Lord.” If playing football or being a preacher’s kid wasn’t a secure platform, maybe campus involvement was. So, I joined a fraternity and a bunch of campus groups. Everything was looking up. My parents were working things out, my dad, who was repentant, was eventually able to pastor another church, I had another knee surgery to fix things, and it seemed that all of this was God’s plan.

My junior year rolled around and I announced that I was running for SGA president. I had a great little team of frat guys and sorority girls to help me. On the last day to announce your candidacy, a guy named Jonathan McConnell announced he was also running for SGA president. McConnell hadn’t been involved in SGA, so I really never saw this coming. At first I remember thinking, “Oh this guy is a no name on campus. He will be easy to beat,” until I realized that his dad was the president of the Republican Party in the state of Alabama. His dad had helped the governor at the time, Bob Riley, get elected just a few years before. Coincidentally, Jonathan (the son) ran for US Senate in 2016 and made it an interesting race against longstanding Alabama senator Richard Shelby. By this point you might have guessed, as sophisticated as my team of frat guys and sorority girls were, our little campaign had nothing on McConnell’s and I lost. But my faith was strong!

I believed that God knew the plans He had for me and that He was going to give me a hope and a future. I knew all things work together for good for those who love God and who are called according to His purpose.

I went on with my life. That summer I began dating a girl I had met. I remember thinking maybe this is what the Lord had in mind; maybe all of this happened so I could get connected with this great girl. Maybe this is the plan He had for me? About halfway through the next school year, she broke up with me. And in the spring of my senior year of college, as I was facing graduation not really knowing where my life was going and having had so many of my plans spoiled, my faith that had once been so secure began to shake.

I remember praying, “I thought you had good plans for me? I thought you were supposed to prosper me? I thought you weren’t going to harm me? I thought all things were supposed to work for good? Well, none of this feels good.”  For the first time in my life, I felt far way from God. It seemed like I was laying my heart out on the line every time and coming up empty handed. I didn’t vocally reject Christianity or turn to drugs and alcohol, but I did just kind of feel numb to the things of God.  If He was so good and so kind, why, despite my greatest efforts and consistent faith, was nothing working out?  I was the kid who always kept his nose clean, had his act together, and tried to do the right thing.

Why wasn’t I prospering?

During that same spring semester in Auburn, I met an old pastor named Peter Doyle. He was retired, but he really enjoyed hanging out at coffee shops with college students and talking to them about Jesus. A buddy of mine and I started meeting with him and, as the Lord would have it, my attendance was a lot more consistent than my friend’s. It was on these days, when it was just Dr. Doyle and me, that I would tell him about my hurt and even about my numbing faith. The only thing he did in these moments was continue to teach me about Jesus. We were studying 1 John together, but Dr. Doyle just used the book as a spring board to the whole Bible. Through the weeks of meeting for coffee or burritos that spring, Dr. Doyle helped me see that my dreams were too small and my horizons too short. I had small dreams – playing college football and becoming the SGA president. Dr. Doyle helped me believe that God had dreams for me that were so much greater. He really did have good plans for me, and He really was going to work out all of these things for good, but I was reminded that none of that may happen in this life.

As we studied the Bible together, I realized that sometimes followers of God get notoriety and riches, but a lot of times they get dragged outside of the city and are stoned to death. As we studied God’s Word together, I started to really believe that things seem so hard in this world because none of us were meant for this world.  My dreams had been too small and my horizons were far too short. God was and is working out all things together for good, but it may take ten thousand years for me to understand all of that.

I’m grateful for Christianity, I’m grateful for the church I grew up in, I am grateful for Christian music and good sermons, and good books and all that Christianity has produced. But that spring, a shift happened in my life. While I believe I was a Christian before, that spring I looked to Christianity less as something that would serve my dreams and desires, and I started looking more toward Christ. I started to see his power, goodness, and beauty more and more, and that he really was the same yesterday, today, and forever. That spring I took a step away from following Christianity and a step towards following Christ.

I wish I could tell you that since that time that faith has been simple and that fighting sin and doubt have been easy, but that is not the case. I can tell you, though, since that time I really have grown more and more to understand the story that God is trying to tell, and it is not my story, it’s His. I guess I could have told you that before that spring in Auburn, but it took disappointment and pain for me to really understand it. Since then, I’ve experience some pain, but to be honest, my life has been full of a lot of joy, too, and the Lord has given me kind gifts. I have an amazing wife and three beautiful children and, since the fall of that year that I met with Dr. Doyle, I have been pastoring churches, a job that brings me so much joy.

Epilogue:

I originally wrote this article in the fall of 2017 on the eve of planting a church, Christ Covenant, in Atlanta, Georgia. Since that time the church has done very well, and we have seen hundreds of people come to faith and many more grow in their love for the Lord. I often think about Dr. Doyle and his impact on my life and how I want to be a kind of Dr. Doyle to others. In fact, minutes before sitting down to write this epilogue I was on the phone with a young man who was struggling with his faith trying to ease his heart and mind by pointing him to the Word of God and prayer. Dr. Doyle went home to be with the Lord last week at the wonderful age of 93. He leaves behind many disciples, many men and women, to whom he displayed patience and kindness as he pointed them ever faithfully to follow the Lord. Dr. Doyle has now finished the race and he not only kept the faith, he helped others to do the same. The ministry of Dr. Doyle now lives on through them, and I am forever grateful to be counted in that number. I now understand all the more the lessons that Dr. Doyle taught me as a college student more than 20 years ago, and I know I will understand his lessons even better when I see him again one day face to face with joy in the presence of our Lord.



Episode 244: The Problem with Resolutions

By / Jan 3

On this episode of the FTC Podcast, Jared Wilson and Ross Ferguson discuss the problems we run into when we make New Year’s resolutions — or resolutions of any kind — and how to best handle new commitments and new habits in the Christian life.



How to Start the Year Strong: An Actionable Plan

By / Jan 1

Your Days Matter

Here’s a sobering truth: the wasted life is possible. It is a lurking enemy we must be aware of. Talents can be buried, time can be squandered, opportunities can be missed. You will not drift towards the vision of life God has for you. Seriously, let that sink in. You will not accidentally end up building an excellent life. We can spin our wheels, put out fires, run in circles, fill up our calendars, and yet still be missing what God has.

But there is a better way.

There is a way of clarity, wisdom, and action that God holds out to us. God wants to give us fruitful and faithful lives filled with joy and purpose. He wants more for us than being pulled in a thousand directions. He wants our lives to be built into something strong, beautiful, and lasting. After reflecting on the shortness of life, the Psalmist says, “Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts” (Psalm 90:12). This is what you want. Not a frantic life, a lazy life, or a reactive life. You want a life lived with wisdom. You have a limited number of days and each one matters. The life of wisdom is one of careful focus and intentionality, it considers each year an opportunity to steward, and plans accordingly.

And, here’s an encouraging truth: whatever the last year has looked like for you, you can start a new year strong. You can do this by considering how you will number your days next year using the process of “Connection, Reflection, Direction, and Intention.”

Connection – Spend time with God

You don’t want to begin making plans without first bringing your life and heart to God. Consider this last year and pour your heart out to God.

  1. Adoration
    • Who have I seen God to be last year that I can worship him for?
    • What themes or passages in the Bible has he continually shown me?
  2. Confession
    • What patterns of sin have been present in me this year?
    • Where is God convicting me? What or to whom do I need to confess?
  3. Thanksgiving
    • What can I thank God for in what he has done in me?
    • What can I thank God for in what he has done through me?
    • What can I thank God for what he has done around me?
  4. Supplication
    • Ask God to open your heart, lead you, and guide the rest of this process.
    • Submit your plans to him, and tell him you trust him.

Reflection – Where am I right now?

It’s hard to move forward if you don’t know where you are. Prayerfully consider and write an honest reflection of where you are.

  1. Make a quick assessment of your health and satisfaction in various life areas, rating them from 1-10.
    • Faith, Marriage, Parenting, Vocation, Community, Church, Other Family, Physical Health, Financial Health and Generosity, Ministry, Rest and Joy.
  2. Present condition
    • How is my relationship with God?
      • Consider: what fruit of the Spirit is present/lacking, passion, love for God, obedience, prayer life, awareness of God’s love and grace, truth being alive and real, maturity, contentment.
    • How are my relationships with others?
      • Consider: Spouse, kids, friendships, extended family, church.
    • Am I stewarding life well?
      • Consider: finances, time, health, work, energy, rest, distractions, good works, mission, disciple-making.

Direction – Where is God leading me?

Now that you have a better understanding of where you currently are, take time to consider where God is leading you.

  1. Consider each of the main roles (Christian, Spouse, Parent, Vocation, etc.) in your life. For each of them answer these questions:
    • What is my vision/God’s vision?
    • Where am I seeing God already at work?
    • What are the obstacles getting in the way of the vision?
  2. Summarize where God is leading you:
    • What are the top three areas of growth?
    • What are the top three things I am going to accomplish?
    • What are the top three areas I need to learn?

Intention – What do I intend to do to get there?

You have a clear picture of where you are and where God is leading you. Now you need to plan on what you will do to get there.

Revisit your main roles (Christian, Spouse, Parent, Vocation, etc.) and summarized goals. Considering each area answer this:

  • What do I need to stop?
  • What specific actions do I need to take?
  • What disciplines and rhythms do I need to develop?
  • What is my ideal weekly schedule to build this life?
  • What tools will I use to manage my priorities and disciplines?

Enter items into your calendar and your task management system

Don’t just desire a better life

What could happen in your life and the lives of those around you if you lived with greater intentionality? Proverbs says, “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied” (Proverbs 13:4). Think about your desires. What do you want? A better marriage? More fulfilling career? Financial freedom? More time with your kids? To make a difference? Desire alone will never produce change. We need diligence.

Don’t just hope 2024 is better. Don’t just hope that things will change. Start the year strong by being diligent in numbering your days, wisely reflecting on your life, and making a plan. Life may be short but it can be lived well. It can be lived with a heart full of wisdom. You won’t drift to where God is leading you but you can intentionally walk with him there. Let’s start the year this way and let’s live the life God has entrusted us in this way, every day.

<sup>*If you want an extended version of this process see here.</em>