Meaningful Membership at Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle

By / Oct 26

In 1854, when Charles Spurgeon began pastoring at the New Park Street Chapel, he had a handful of deacons assisting him and a membership of 313. In just twelve weeks, they outgrew their space and began making plans to enlarge their building. As soon as that was done, they found themselves immediately in need of more space, and so began making plans to build a new building, which would eventually be the Metropolitan Tabernacle.

Spurgeon found himself caring for a congregation that was beyond his capacity to shepherd.

This mattered to Spurgeon because of his ecclesiological commitments. He was not an itinerant preacher. His church was not merely a preaching station. Rather, as a committed Baptist, Spurgeon’s ministry was rooted in his congregation of baptized believers. For all of his evangelistic preaching, Spurgeon refused to separate his call to the gospel with a call to be committed and accountable to a local church. In his careful practice of membership and discipline, Spurgeon once stated that “He would rather give up his pastorate than admit any man to the Church who was not obedient to his Lord’s command; and such a course would certainly promote the downfall of any Church that practiced it.”

For Spurgeon, this was not an idle commitment. In the first 6 1/2 years of his ministry at the New Park Street Chapel, the church took in 1,442 new members. That’s 1,442 membership interviews by a deacon, 1,442 meetings with Spurgeon, 1,442 membership visitations, 1,442 testimonies before the congregation, and 1,442 approvals by the congregation (not to mention over a thousand baptisms, as most of these were new converts). And once they were settled in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, these numbers would only increase.

Throughout his ministry, Charles Spurgeon pursued meaningful, regenerate church membership. In doing so, his church became an engine for gospel-ministry all around the world.

How did he do this? Here are five ways:

1.) A Careful Membership Process

In the February 1869 edition of the Sword and the Trowel, Spurgeon provides this six-step description of their membership process:

  1. An enquirer meets with one of the elders on a Wednesday evening and shares with them their testimony.
  2. When satisfied, the elder records their stories in the Testimony Books of the church and scheduled to meet with the pastor for an interview.
  3. If the pastor is satisfied, at a congregational meeting, he will nominate an elder or church member as a visitor, “to enquire as to the moral character and repute of the candidate.”
  4. If the visitor is satisfied, he will invite the candidate to attend with him at the next convenient congregational meeting to come before the church, answer any questions that may be put from the church.
  5. After the statement before the church, the candidate withdraws, and the visitor gives his report. The church then takes a vote to receive him into membership.
  6. The person is publicly given the right-hand of fellowship after being baptized and participating in the next communion service of the church.

With so many applying for membership, Spurgeon refined and made this process more efficient over the years, but never in a way that compromised the thorough and careful consideration of every person coming into membership.

2.) Working for Meaningful Membership

In bringing people into membership, Spurgeon was concerned not simply to have people on the church rolls, but making sure that these people were continuing in their profession of faith. In his last sermon to the Pastors’ College, Spurgeon urged his students,

Let us not keep names on our books when they are only names. Certain of the good old people like to keep them there, and cannot bear to have them removed; but when you do not know where individuals are, nor what they are, how can you count them? They are gone to America, or Australia, or to heaven, but as far as your roll is concerned they are with you still. Is this a right thing? It may not be possible to be absolutely accurate, but let us aim at it… Keep your church real and effective, or make no report. A merely nominal church is a lie. Let it be what it professes to be.

Spurgeon was persistent at regualarly tracking those who came to the Lord’s Table. Upon joining the church, members were given a communion card, divided by perforation into twelve numbered parts, one of which was to be delivered every month at the communion. These tickets would checked by the elders and if any member was “absent more than three months. This enabled the church to work towards meaningful membership by providing better care and discipleship, or by removing those members from the membership.

3.) Congregational Meetings as Discipleship

Because each candidate needed to appear before the congregation and be approved by the congregation, congregational meetings became an essential part of the life of the church. With the exception of the annual meeting in January, congregational meetings at the Tabernacle were almost entirely devoted to membership matters. And these meetings could last a long time. In the church minute books, on May 18th 1860, we see recorded a congregational meeting in which 42 candidates appeared before the church, each giving testimony to their conversion. This meeting began at 2PM, and according to Spurgeon’s notes in the margin, “This most blessed meeting lasted till a late hour at night. Bless the Lord.”

However, these congregational meetings were not merely about church business. No, these meetings were meant to be edifying. They were an important part of the discipleship of the church, complementing the Word ministry of the church. In the telling of their conversions, the congregation heard not only stories of people who were converted under Spurgeon’s preaching, but also of those who were saved through other ministries of the church; because a member invited them to church, shared the gospel with them, or faithfully prayed for them for decades. In those meetings, the congregation gained a vision for the power of God to save and of their role in bringing the gospel to the lost.

4.) Calling Elders

When Spurgeon first began at the New Park Street Chapel, the church only recognized the offices of pastor and deacons. However, as the church grew, the work of caring for the spiritual and temporal needs of the congregation became too much for the deacons to handle alone. And so, in 1859 at a January congregational meeting, Spurgeon made a biblical case for the office of elder, dedicated to the spiritual care of the church.

These elders would go on to labour alongside Spurgeon. The February 1869 edition of the S&T describes the work of their elders like this:

The seeing of enquirers, the visiting of candidates for church membership, the seeking out of absentees, the caring for the sick and troubled, the conducting of prayer-meetings, catechumen and Bible-classes for the young men – these and other needed offices our brethren the Elders discharge for the church. One Elder is maintained by the church for the especial purpose of visiting our sick poor, and looking after the church-roll, that this may be done regularly and efficiently.

Spurgeon lamented that most of the Baptist churches of his day did not have the office of elder implemented and encouraged them to follow the NT pattern in this way.

5.) Cultivating a Working Church

An accurate membership roll is not a goal in and of itself. Rather, Spurgeon understood that a congregation full of people who genuinely loved Jesus and believed the gospel was an army that could shake the world. And so he constantly called his people to do something for God’s kingdom.

Oh to get a working church! The German churches, when our dear friend Mr. Oncken was alive always carried out the rule of asking every member, “What are you going to do for Christ?” and they put the answer down in a book. The one thing that was required of every member was that he should continue doing something for the Savior. If he ceased to do anything, it was a matter for church discipline, for he was an idle professor, and could not be allowed to remain in the church like a drone in a hive of working bees. He must do or go.

Out of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, over a hundred of churches were planted, hundreds of pastors and missionaries were trained and sent out, dozens upon dozens of charitable organizations were begun, publications and tracts and pamphlets were distributed throughout the world, and the impact of this church continues to be felt today.

Not every church will be a Metropolitan Tabernacle and not every pastor will be a Spurgeon. This is never the goal. The goal is for every church and every pastor is to be faithful; faithful in doctrinal purity, faithful in guarding the membership, faithful in active gospel ministry. In this, Spurgeon and the Metropolitan Tabernacle remains a model for pastors and churches today.

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared at Spurgeon.org, the internet home of the Spurgeon Library.



Dhati Lewis on Exhaustion and Today’s Evangelical Discourse

By / Oct 26

FTC.co asks Dhati Lewis, lead pastor at Blueprint Church in Atlanta, Georgia, “What advice would you give to Christians who feel exhausted by today’s discourse in evangelicalism?”



What Spooks You?

By / Oct 25

Across the street from our new home is the holiday house. You probably have one in your neighborhood. They go all out for every holiday. On Saturday, cars stacked up on the main road leading into the neighborhood as families drove by slowly, taking in the massive display that must have cost the owners tens of thousands of dollars.

Last week I drove by a home whose Halloween decorations weren’t nearly as massive or ostentatious, but the lawn display was certainly the eeriest I’ve ever seen. A life-like severed head hung from a tree limb. A decapitated corpse with a visible spinal cord jutting out between slumped shoulders sat underneath. Swaying gently on a swing in a nearby tree was a ghoulish young lady. The scene spooked me, but I couldn’t look away.

Horror movies have increased in popularity in the past few decades. Horror movies are well known to have one of the best rates of return for investors. Our culture can’t seem to get enough scary. In our dopamine-addicted world, horror movies offer some of the biggest dopamine hits out there. They toy with our anxieties and spin out our fears.

Surprisingly, Jesus wasn’t averse to utilizing the power of spook in his ministry.

The difference is, Jesus doesn’t spin fictional fears to create a reaction. Jesus, rather, points his audience to what they truly ought to be afraid of: not imagined fears, but fears that will come to pass.

Three times in his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus invokes hell. He says, “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell” (Matt 5:29). Pause for a second and take in the gory image Jesus just painted. Like the author of a grisly horror movie, Jesus describes an eye being pulled out of its socket and thrown to the ground. He paints the disturbing picture and then says that that macabre scene is far better than what hell will be.

I love Eugene Peterson’s lively (and rhyming) paraphrase of the end of Jesus’ warning in The Message: “Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump.”

Later, Jesus warns of the severe ramifications of giving in to sin. He explains that hell is “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. For everyone will be salted with fire” (Mark 9:48-49). Salted with fire!? Tortured worms unable to die? What a shocking picture of hell.

Why would Jesus provoke this kind of fear in his audience? Because of his love. Jesus, the Eternal Son​, knows the horrifying fate of those who reject him and he cries out, “Repent! Turn away!” He is us watching the horror movie yelling to the actors, “Don’t go in that room!”

Our world loves the dopamine hit of a good scare on Halloween. In contrast, some Christians paint the gospel and the world in Thomas Kinkade pastels, expunging all fear from it. Both are wrong. If we do not know Christ, there is something we ought to be afraid of. But it isn’t the ghoulish creatures of our horror films. It is life without God: damnation. Hell looms, more frightening than anything we can conjure up with our earthly imagination.

Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis’s secretary, once commented to the great Christian writer about a clever inscription engraved on an atheist’s tombstone: “Here lies an atheist. All dressed up with no place to go.” Not bemused, Lewis quipped: “That atheist probably wishes now that were true.”

If your security is not in Christ, you do have something to be afraid of this Halloween. Turn to the one who offers the warning and put your trust in him.



Links For The Church (10/25)

By / Oct 25

Sing When You’re Losing

“True godly joy and true godly sorrow are always experienced together to some extent.”

A Key Sign You are Maturing as a Preacher

Seminary is helpful for training preachers to speak with accuracy and clarity, but sometimes this is not enough. Michael Kruger writes of one sign that shows maturity in a preacher.

A Leaf Surrendered

In this piece, the author shares what Fall can teach us about trusting God and being a living sacrifice.

5 Reasons We Don’t Pray

Keith Evans writes, “None of us feel as though we have “arrived” when it comes to prayerful communion with our heavenly Father—but few of us do the searching work of pondering why that is.”

Sister, God Sees You

Women can struggle with various kinds of loneliness, loss, and alienation. Wendy Alsup shares an encouraging word for women in this piece.



The Happy Dilemma of a Growing Preacher

By / Oct 22

I am preaching through the book of Ephesians. This past week, however, I chose to pause my study until the new year and preach something that directly pointed to Christmas.

Seeing it was the staff’s last week in the office before the holidays, I decided to pull of file and preach an old sermon.

I landed on a Christmas message that I preached five years ago. It was a seven-page manuscript. At this point, I labor to keep my manuscripts between five to six full pages. So all I had to edit the sermon down one page, set it to memory, and pray myself hot for preaching.

Or so I thought.

The more I read the manuscript during the week, the more uncomfortable I was with it. I reread several commentaries. I thought through new insights. I sought clearer ways to make my points. With Sunday fast approaching, I had spent as much time with this sermon as one I produce from scratch.

I tried to ditch the sermon altogether but could not. So I wrestled with a manuscript I preached five years ago. The exegesis did not change. I used the same outline. My theology was the same. But something was different.

It wasn’t until Sunday night – after struggling through the sermon twice – that I figured out what changed. Me!

My biblical convictions have only grown harder over the years. But the way I explain, apply, and illustrate has definitely changed. As I grow older – and grow up, I hope – certain aspects of my preaching style are inevitably changing with me.

The fact that I can’t just grab any sermon from years past and take it to the pulpit makes preparation more difficult. But it is a happy dilemma.

A growing child has to get new clothes. And so do growing preachers.

Editor’s Note: This originally published at HBCharlesJr.com



Dune: A Reflection

By / Oct 21

Over the past year and a half, readers have been scouring dusty used book stores for a copy of an almost-forgotten piece of science fiction: Frank Herbert’s Dune. In anticipation of the Fall 2021 movie, readers are eager to prepare themselves by digging into the 800-page masterpiece. I stand guilty of such an undertaking myself – I am currently on page 535. In an effort to keep from spoiling the book (or the movie, whichever you see first), I write this in the midst of experiencing an unexpectedly emotional novel. 

Whether you like science fiction or not (I do not, usually), Dune has a way of translating the complexity of a different universe, different thought patterns, different struggles and motivations, and pulling the reader into the thoughts of the characters. While the book is filled with sand worms, spaceships, body shields, and awesome weapons that only the dedicated can pronounce, what Dune has taught me most thus far is the internal battle that rages inside of each character. Herbert employs a writing style that bounces back and forth between the internal thoughts and cares of characters within their personal conversations. This matters, because the reader of Dune witnesses the reactionary thoughts of each character to the words of those around them. We know when they are confused, despairing, hating, and most importantly when they are attempting to numb their fear. Dune is filled with fear. On a planet covered in sand with very little water available to its inhabitants, the reader gets a window into the internal ‘survival of the fittest’ thoughts rampant in every chapter. What I’ve noticed most though – and the impetus of this article – is that very often a phrase is repeated in order to numb, suppress, and overcome fear. Characters cite their scriptures: 

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

After reminding themselves of this axiom, they move forward with the will to face their situation. What bothers me as I read this science-fiction with Christian eyes is that God has given us emotions not to be suppressed, but to be used and redeemed for his glory. Of course, this is not to nitpick the brilliance of the novel or the purpose for Herbert inserting it into the narrative, but how hopeful I get when I turn away from reading and remember that God is ok with me experiencing fear and does not command me to get myself under control. Actually, God commands me to fear Him and out of that emotional reality, obey him. Does God delight in us being crippled by fear? Absolutely not! God is not a God of anxiety and is deeply saddened by his children who are overcome by fear. He hears our concerns and speaks into them (Ps. 94:19). He calms our fear out of care for us (1 Peter 5:6-7). And what’s more, He has given us the emotion of fear to protect us from danger, identify what we value when it is threatened, and to humble us. When we fear, we see our neediness. When we fear, we sense something is wrong around or inside of us. When we fear, we turn to something or someone for help. It’s actually a huge grace for God to allow his children to experience fear – otherwise we might be overwhelmingly passionless, stupidly courageous, proud, and arrogant. 

So one way of dealing with this in a scary world covered in sand with very little water is to never address or acknowledge the emotional reaction to your circumstances (several times the main character Paul curses himself for reacting with emotion). What this effectively does (and you see this play out in the book) is makes the individual the Savior. It also makes self-preservation the goal. Re-read the quote: “…Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration…Only I will remain.” There is some truth to the fact that anxiety weighs a heart down (Prov. 12:25), but this is the wrong motivation to put away fear. Jesus never tells his disciples (and us) to not fear so that we can survive. He never gives fear the credit or power to be able to obliterate us. Instead, God looks at fear for what it is: an emotion given to us for a purpose. Then, he teaches us how to handle it, direct it, respond to it, and live despite it. He calls us to cast not only our fears on him, but all of our cares. Every care we have he asks to take off of our shoulders and carry for us, to help us face. Jesus is perfect in his love for us. What does this mean? It means that he deals perfectly with our overwhelming fear, anxiety, and distress because he loves us (1 John 4:18). Far too often, we do not clue him in to what is overwhelming us. Too often, we act like the characters in this book who slap themselves for being afraid. And still, we neglect our fear-calming Savior who died to release us from our fears.

If you are overwhelmed by dread, fear, anxiety, tension, or nerves, and find that you are responding to these emotions like the characters I’ve mentioned in Dune, you will be for yourself a poor Savior. But Jesus has grace for you, and desires that you are not the only one remaining when fear leaves you. He wants to be standing next to you, protecting you, and telling you truths about who you are to Him and how he has done a perfect work to give you redemption and victory over fear.



A Brief History of How Friendships Like Yours Can Change the World

By / Oct 21

Every Christian wants to make a difference. But few of us know how to turn that desire into action. We look around at all the needs and opportunities, and we think to ourselves, “So . . . what do I already have that can make actually a difference?”

There are countless ways to answer that question. But here’s one easy answer that’s usually overlooked: “Your friends!” Let me explain.

Wilberforce’s Clapham Society

In the late 18th century, a group of influential friends coalesced around the personality and vision of William Wilberforce, the charismatic MP for Yorkshire who successfully led a decades-long abolitionist campaign in Britain. Though Wilberforce the man united the group, it was his cause \ that drew this eclectic collective together. They’re known to history as the Clapham Society (or the Clapham Sect), and they draw their name from a well-known district in south London where many members lived and met together. Apart from Wilberforce, the Clapham Society included Hannah More, John Newton, John Venn, Henry Thornton, Thomas Clarkson, and several others.

In his excellent biography of Wilberforce, William Hauge describes this extraordinary network of friendships. He writes,

Wholly relaxed in each other’s company, they observed no restrictions in wandering into each other’s homes and gardens, discussing any great cause or biblical text that came to mind. . . . The intimacy they developed was remarkable, it being their custom “to consider every member of that coterie as forming part of a large united family, who should behave to each other with the same simplicity and absence of formality, which, in the usual way, characterises intercourse only among the nearest of relatives.”[1]

Almost all of the members of the Clapham Society were evangelical Anglicans. Motivated by a clear biblical vision and distinctly Christian goals, they initiated a program of public reform that effectively reshaped British national and religious life. They partnered together to plant churches, publish books and tracts, agitate for political reform, pioneer ministries, and promote a host of philanthropic causes. The total list of their collective achievements is simply extraordinary.[2]

Nearly 200 years later, it’s worth asking the question, “What made this group of saints so successful?” In God’s providence, we can point to intimate Christian friendship, strategically leveraged for kingdom enterprise. They supported one another, reinforced one another, and gave one another the strength to carry on, especially when things looked bleak. Like many saints before and after them, the Clapham Society understood a fundamental principle of Christian experience: God gives us friendships because we’re more fruitful serving him together rather than alone.

Of course, God sometimes raises up lonely voices that cry in the wilderness. He uses men and women in relatively isolated spheres. I think of the subtitle of Iain Murray’s J. C. Ryle biography: Prepared to Stand Alone.[3]

History

But God usually supplies his people with friendships to create the context for God-honoring cooperation. We see this story over and over throughout history.

Consider the English Baptist Missionary Society, born out of the friendships between Andrew Fuller, William Carey, John Ryland, and John Sutcliffe. God used the mutual bonds between these men to sustain extraordinary efforts for God’s glory. David Calhoun has written of the intimate network of friends that worked together to make Princeton Seminary such a success throughout the nineteenth century.[4] John Newton, the dissolute slave-trader-turned-evangelical-pastor, and William Cowper, the troubled but brilliant poet, partnered together to co-pastor a church and to write a hymn book. In the preface to Olney Hymns, Newton wrote that in addition to promoting the evangelical faith, the hymn book served a second purpose: “It was likewise intended as a monument to perpetuate the remembrance of an intimate and endeared friendship.”[5]

Church history is full of Christian friends who have said, “We both love Christ, his church, and one another. Let’s do something for God’s glory together!”

Today

We see this happening in our own day, too. Well-known ministries were born of friendship, such as The Gospel Coalition and the Together for the Gospel conference. How many churches, missions efforts, seminaries, schools, non-profits, and benevolent ministries have been started through strategic friendships? It’s simply remarkable what Christian friends can accomplish when they work together.

The Bible recognizes the sanctified synergy of friendship. Consider the memorable language of Ecclesiastes:

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken. (Ecc. 4:9–12)

What if more Christians began to view their friendships as stewardships from God? We should all actively look for opportunities to leverage our friendships for practical, kingdom-minded endeavors.

Lessons for Us

Take stock of your closest friendships. Who has God placed in your life? Are there other Christians in your orbit with whom you share substantial like-mindedness and mutual affection? Now ask the questions: What holy burdens do you share? What ministries are you both passionate about? What needs keep you up at night? What gifts has God given you and your friends? Do they complement one another? What might God be pleased to do within the circle of your own friendships?

I warmly encourage you to consider these questions. Perhaps you can do so with some close friends.

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared at the 9Marks blog and is used with permission.

Footnotes:

[1] William Hague, William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner (Orlando, FL: Harcourt), 219.

[2] Ibid., 220–21.

[3] Iain Murray, J. C. Ryle: Prepared to Stand Alone (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2016).

[4] David B. Calhoun, Princeton Seminary, Vol I: Faith and Learning, 1812–1868 and Princeton Seminary, Vol II: The Majestic Testimony, 1869–1929 (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1994).

[5] John Newton and William Cowper, Olney Hymns: In Three Books on Select Texts of Scripture, on Occasional Subjects, On the Progress and Changes of Spiritual Life (London: J. Nisbet and Co., 1799), iii.



Ben Mandrell on Advice for Pastors on the Verge of Burnout

By / Oct 21

FTC.co asks Ben Mandrell, president of Lifeway Christian Resources, “What advice would you give to a pastor who is on the verge of burnout?”



What If Beauty Doesn’t Last Forever?

By / Oct 20

There was a tree in the front yard of our first house in Texas. It was, at least in my memory, a very tall tree with branches I could climb. At my eye level, the trunk had a hole big enough to be home to fairies and magical creatures. I would pull the bark off the tree and any pieces of bark that I liked, I would put in the hole. Other small objects were hidden in this hole, and I was certain no one knew about it – it was my version of a secret wardrobe to Narnia. 

Thirteen years after we moved out of this house, I was back in my old neighborhood and drove by this house to see if the tree was still there. It was, but it was smaller than I remember and less magnificent. 

The tree in our front yard was the first non-human part of creation I remember loving. Beautiful things, whether they be inanimate or human, flood my early childhood memory. When I got my first camera (it was disposable, but still thrilling to me), my first few pictures were of flowers. As a kid, if I was given a blank canvas to draw, the picture would always be of a tree, bike, sun, birds, and flowers. My interest and love for Creation preceded my love for Christ. 

Now, almost 20 years after this tree became part of my memory, I see that even as a child, dead in her sins and longing for a Savior she would one day find, God was already wooing me with His beauty. 

“For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made” (Romans 1:20).

All beautiful things find their origin at the end of God’s fingertips.

He is ultimate beauty and no part of him grows wrinkles through the years. But how do I reconcile when beautiful things become hurtful and painful things? Where is God in that? 

Beauty and tragedy, on whatever scale, seem to be far too familiar with one another. From a tiny flower that is flattened by the heel of a shoe, to a bird that falls to his grave because the windows are too clean, to human tribes that slaughter one another over varied beliefs. 

Earthly beauty doesn’t last forever, though God will restore the Earth to perfect once again. For now, the dirt groans. 

I found a grasshopper after we moved from the house with the cherished tree, to a house in Georgia with no front-yard tree. Following one of my first explorations of this new home, I discovered a grasshopper that became my friend. Hoppy wouldn’t hop away, he would stay near me on the concrete porch and seemed to enjoy the little bug home I made for him, with grass and everything. In the warm sun, I watched as his black beady eyes and captivating form moved about the world we made together. One day, my sister rode her tricycle across our front porch. With no warning, she turned the front tire as she sped along and killed Hoppy. I wept. 

I wept for the grasshopper, yes. But what I didn’t know at the time was my own deep-rooted fears and insecurities that this tragedy illumined. Hoppy was a symbol of my loneliness in this new town. My first friend was taken from me with unwarranted violence. I was distraught. I didn’t know how to reconcile this loss.

In an instant, the objects where we behold the most beauty become a tender bruise on our soft bodies. We’re the most woundable creatures, and some of the deepest wounds come from one another. 

Aren’t the most beautiful relationships able to be the most hurtful? In an instant, the person you find the most beautiful can ask a question that cuts right to your bone to form a gaping wound. Our tongues are master beauty-slayers. We condemn. We manipulate. We lie. We let the rudder of our bodies steer the whole course of a relationship into the blackest parts of the sea. 

Right before I left my home in Georgia, I heard words that still reign in my memory as if they were spoken to me only seconds ago. My preparations to move by myself to the mysterious land of Missouri for a program where I would spend a semester overseas were overwhelming. Those who love me affirmed my call to go overseas. One of those who love me used words as a weapon when I wasn’t putting up a fight. My summer was consumed with paperwork for school, buying clothing for a winter where it actually snowed, and fundraising for the mission trip. One day, all this felt like too much to handle. The one with the word-weapons let their tongue be their god.

The words hurt me. The person behind them hurt me more. Those words were hard to shake. The words left a big bruise, and I kept bumping into furniture and feeling pain all over again. 

It’s hard to trust beautiful things with tragedy lurking around the corner. What if it dies? What if it leaves? What if it’s not what I thought it was?

We could live paralyzed lives with questions like those, yet the questions are valid. What happens when it does die? What happens when it does leave? What if it isn’t what you thought it was? 

Where do we look, then? We could look at trees, see their height, and feel comfort under their strong branches. We could look at a grasshopper, see his faithfulness, and feel seen even by a tiny creature. We could look to a person, see the trust built up over many years, and feel secure in our relationship. Is it worth the risk to look to any of these?

No, we cannot risk it. We cannot turn to lesser things for comfort, companionship, or security. The tree will always be too small, the grasshopper will always die, and the person will always fail. This calls for cynicism. Let us now build up a great wall around our personal kingdom, and let us use nails to hang the “No Trespassing” signs on all four walls, so that none are without excuse if they attempt a breach. 

Or we could look somewhere better. We could look at God. We could get out of our one square foot of kingdom and look up. Is it worth the risk to look to Him?

Yes. In fact, there is no risk. God’s beauty can never hurt us. God’s beauty is perfect, never too small, never able to die, never betrays our trust. 

How could we possibly deserve this kind of perfect beauty? 

Creator God who formed mountains by opening his lips stepped into the earth with a salvation plan in mind. From a whimpering baby, helpless yet sustaining the world, to a rejected man, misunderstood and hated by the very world he sustains, he lived for us. And then on two pieces of wood two thousand years ago, the skin of Jesus was broken and buried so God’s perfect beauty could be ours. When the same breath used to form the earth filled Jesus’ lungs again, the tragedy-laden creation had its savior. 

All the beautiful-yet-broken things of the earth will become more glorious, bright, and alive when the Resurrected King claims the earth for himself once and for all.

Editor’s Note: This originally written for a writing mentorship program and is being reused here.



Episode 140: Making the Most of Your Bible Study

By / Oct 20

On this episode of the FTC Podcast, Jared Wilson and Ronni Kurtz offer some pastoral counsel for the Christian’s daily time in God’s word, reflections on their own Bible study practices past and present, and encouragement for those struggling with daily devotions.