A Year of Biblical Womanhood: A Review

There are several reasons why I decided to read and review Rachel Held Evans’ forthcoming book A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband "Master" (Thomas Nelson; October 30, 2012).

I certainly am not writing this review out of any sense of convenience and comfort. Here’s why I did:

First, as a Christian woman who adheres to Reformed doctrine, I believe the Bible to be the inerrant word of God, written by men, inspired by God, infallible in all that it teaches, sufficient for all of life and doctrine, and the very words of God, words from God. And this new book from Evans is a recent example of how this essential truth is lost.

Second, I write this review because I have something of a relational history with the author. I have had the pleasure of corresponding with her over emails and have enjoyed our brief interactions.

Third, and even more centrally, I write this review out of a love for my fellow sisters in the church who are trying to walk with integrity as women, as I am, before God.

Finally, I write this review out of a love for the lost who are searching for answers about God and the Bible and will read this book and sadly be misled.

Before I begin the review, let me say that I find this book to be most troubling because of Evans’ handling of Scripture. As much as I hoped to be pleasantly surprised, as I read my heart became heavy. And yet, for all its weaknesses, this book is sure to draw a lot of attention in the coming weeks.

Evans embarked on a yearlong mission to explore the Scripture references to women, following and practicing what they say as literally as possible. Her adventures take her through various Jewish traditions, she interviews polygamists, she camps outside, she spends the night in a monastery.

Each month, for one year, she tackled a new challenge or virtue such as gentleness, domesticity, obedience, and submission. At the end of each chapter, she features a specific woman in the Bible writing out a historical profile and her thoughts.

She interviews a wide range of people from a variety of faiths and traditions. Her book does not draw from purely an evangelical, or even distinctly Christian, perspective. Many of her rituals are from the Jewish tradition, and she quotes several Rabbis.

As I read the book, it became increasingly clear to me of one theme: God’s word was on trial. It was the court of Rachel Held Evans. She was the prosecution, judge, and jury. The verdict was out. And with authority and confidence, she would have the final word on womanhood.

Evans makes it clear that although she holds the Bible in high esteem as a historical document, she would warn us to be careful in attempting to use it as a guide for living out the Christian faith. A few quotes explain her stance.

Despite what some may claim, the Bible’s not the best place to look for traditional family values as we understand them today. (48)

I kept digging, and as it turns out, Peter and Paul were putting a Christian spin on what their readers would have immediately recognized as the popular Greco-Roman “household codes.” (216)

Evans also quotes Sharyn Dowd saying, “The apostles advocated this system not because God had revealed it as the divine will for Christian homes, but because it was the only stable and respectable system anyone knew about. It was the best the culture had to offer” (217).

The Bible is a sacred collection of letters and laws, poetry and proverbs, philosophy and prophecies, written and assembled over thousands of years in cultures and contexts very different from our own, that tells the complex, ever-unfolding story of God’s interaction with humanity. (293)

And you see it most clearly in Evans' conclusion.

For those who count the Bible as sacred, the question when interpreting and applying the Bible to our lives is not, will we pick and choose? But rather how will we pick and choose? We are all selective in our reading of Scripture, and so the question we have to ask ourselves is this: Are we reading with the prejudice of love or are we reading with the prejudices of judgment and power, self-interest and greed? (295)

And later:

This is why there are times when the most instructive question to bring to the text is not, what does it say? But what am I looking for? I suspect Jesus knew this when he said, “ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (295)

Throughout A Year of Biblical Womanhood, Evans works to prove that the Bible is not without error and therefore cannot be applied literally — and in some cases cannot be trusted (as we see by the implications of Paul’s and Peter’s motives, she says, to keep their culture in the Scriptures). Furthermore, the Scriptures are called sacred but never inspired by God, never the very words of God.

This notion is applied to every text, except in the chapter on justice where she unequivocally determines that God got it right: “Justice is one of the most consistent and clear teachings of Scripture, and traditionally, a crucial function of the Church” (228).

Evans selects various Old Testament laws regarding women and discusses the horror of such laws, yet she never rises to the place where the purpose of these laws are made sense of. And yet she never introduces the redemptive history of Scripture. This point could take up an entire lengthy blog post of its own. Evans will not allow redemptive history into her courtroom.

This is not to say that Evans is a poor writer. She’s talented, engaging, funny, and at times I found myself wrapped in her story, pretending to grip a walkie-talkie for her as she described sleeping alone in her tent in the front yard during her monthly cycle (see Leviticus 15:19–33). While the living-biblically-for-a-year theme is not original to her, she wrote this book quite creatively.

But while the book is engaging, her methods and her conclusions on womanhood are confusing at best. And this is largely because she selectively decides which Scriptures apply to women and which ones do not. She spoke with men and women from a full range of backgrounds and faiths and then attempted to apply them to evangelical Bible-believing Christianity. The majority of her quotes and references from complementarians aim to show complementarianism as foolish and dated. Strangely she more often cites authors with a more traditionalist orientation (and less truly complementarian) and only one or two of the more biblical moderates.

Evans claims to be caught between conservative and liberal theology. She believes in the physical resurrection of Christ, and she believes in evolution. But in seeking to bridge conservative and liberal theology in this book, she invests so much time explaining what she does not believe, that readers will be left wondering exactly what she does believe.

Part of this comes down to widely differing worldviews. To understand womanhood, Evans blends Eastern practices and mysticism, with a few selected Scripture quotes. For me to properly understand biblical womanhood, I can only finally return to God’s sufficient word, which is living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). Our worldviews split over whether the Bible is inerrant and sufficient. And when the Bible is determined to be insufficient to guide our faith and life, or to define womanhood according to God’s design, the temptation is to run to various methods, various faiths, and to synchronize selected doctrines — which is precisely what Evans does in this book.

Through this book it seems Evans is trying to “reach” women like me, who take the Bible seriously and believe God is honored through his design for complementary roles in marriage and the church. But I fear she will actually have the greatest impact on those who are already sympathetic to her undermining of the truthfulness and sufficiency and relevance of the Bible, those who are already suspicious of Christianity, and who are already prone to deny that God has designed a special and beautiful role for women in marriage. This is a book that will reinforce the views of non-Christian men and women who seek validation for thinking Christians are foolish for following the Bible closely.

In this book Evans is trying to build a bridge, but I wonder if it is not rather a comfortable bridge for shaky evangelicals to find their way into theological liberalism. This book is not ultimately about manhood and womanhood, headship and submission, or the complementarian and egalitarian debate. At its root this book questions the validity of the Bible. And denying the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture is a denial that will ultimately erode the gospel of our Savior.

Beautiful Submission

It's easy to tell a woman to submit, or to tell a husband to love his wife as Christ loves the church, but it can be excruciating to live out. It's easy to throw these Bible verses around like the rock in David's sling hoping to knock down that Goliath of 'My Way.'

In a marriage, there's a lot of submission and a lot of loving that's supposed to be going on. But who wants to serve, who wants to sacrifice, who wants to lay down their life for another? Who wants to humble themselves for the good of another human?

The answer: Jesus Christ.

I remember when submission was first presented to me as something I must do in order to be obedient and godly. I kicked against it. Because it wasn’t taught to me through the gospel, all I could see was subjugation. I had all kinds of arguments to throw against it; you just couldn't talk to me about submission.

How can you talk to a person about submission when they don't have a good grasp of the Godhead and are hazy minded about who God is?

We can't fully comprehend the beauty of headship and submission until we have a sober understanding of who God is: the true God, the Triune God . . . Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It is never wise to start with what is required of man. We must start with who God is, proceed to what he has done and only then can we coherently speak to what is required of us. It is at these junctures where we find out just how important it is for us all to understand the doctrine of the trinity.

What brought me to faithful submission to my husband was not a “how to be a better wife” book. It was an understanding of the person and cross work of Christ. It was the gospel being pressed into every corner of my being.

Romans 8:29 says, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.” If I am to be conformed to the image of Christ I need to know what his characteristics are so that through abiding in him and walking in the Spirit I can approximate the image of Christ in this life. If I am to live in relationship to others, I need to know how Christ lives within the trinity and among men.

One of the things Christ says about himself is, “take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29). Paul writes in Philippians 2:5–8,

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Who is Christ? He is God the Son.

What is he like? Gentle, humble in heart, equal with God, in human form.

What did he do? He did not grasp for his equality but instead humbled himself to become obedient to the point of death on a cross.

Who was he obedient to? God the Father with whom he had, and has, equality.

How does this instruct me as I seek to live my life like Christ?

Kathy Keller says in The Meaning of Marriage, “Both women and men get to 'play the Jesus role' in marriage — Jesus in his sacrificial authority, Jesus in his sacrificial submission.”

As a wife I see my role in relationship to Christ in the words of the Apostle Paul: “I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” (1 Corinthians 11:3).

As a woman I already have a Jesus role — the sacrificial gifting of my submission to my husband. Should I try to “grasp” for his “Jesus role?” Should I try to swap my Jesus role for his? To what end? If Jesus being equal with God did not grasp for his equality but instead submitted himself to the plan and will of the Father, should I as my husband's equal “grasp” for mine? How can that possibly transform me into the image of Christ?

To understand any of our roles we first have to understand the Godhead. Only then will any of this stuff make sense. Only then will it be shown that these roles are not cultural or social constructs but part of the warp and weft of objective reality.

 

Biblical Womanhood and the Problem of the Old Testament

As explained in my review of A Year of Biblical Womanhood, much of Rachel Held Evans’ book could be summed up, sadly, as an attempt to discount the validity of Scripture. I am hopeful that she does not intend for this to happen, but it is unfortunately what happens when she repeatedly speaks of the Bible as being outdated, useless in parts, and at times downright horrific — including at one point describing having a terrifying nightmare as she contemplated the texts (62). Tragically, that is her claim.

Evans is troubled by many things in the Old Testament, but especially by the harsh consequences in the law that follow from sexual sin — consequences that often required the death of men and women. In explaining why these same codes do not apply today — why adulterers are not stoned to death — she can only say, “Most Jews and Christians have long abandoned the practices associated with hard patriarchy” (51). But is it that simple — and that shallow?

She suggests this is because Jesus ignored certain Old Testament laws. He was a revolutionary who used “selective literalism” and who broke these anti-adultery laws when he urged compassion on the adulterous woman (53). But before we charge Jesus with breaking the law, we should give this question some serious thought.

Actually, we are faced with two questions. First, how should we handle the abuse of women recorded in the Old Testament? And second, how should we properly evaluate the ongoing value of the Old Testament law?

In one chapter, Evans sets out to find groups “committed to preserving as much of the patriarchal structure of Old Testament law as possible,” including polygamists. In polygamy, “the man’s consequent procreative prowess is listed by writers of Scripture as one of his most worthy virtues” (51, 58). That is a bold claim, but she provides no biblical citations to back it up.

In her thoughts on polygamy, Evans claims the Bible never condemns it. Yet monogamous marriage seems to be the norm in the Old Testament (Genesis 2:24, Malachi 2:13–15), and especially so in the New Testament (1 Timothy 3:12; Titus 1:6). Nowhere do we read the Bible sanctioning polygamy.

The abuse of women recorded in the Old Testament is one reason Evans reevaluated biblical womanhood and rejected complementary roles in marriage today. She notes that at one point she had confidence in the biblical view of submission. “When Dan and I got married back in 2003, we began our marriage with the assumption that I would submit to him because the Bible told me to, that while I had a voice in our decisions as a couple, Dan held the reins,” he writes. “Dan would bring home the bacon, and I would fry it” (204).

But during the early years of her marriage, Evans and her husband found that they needed to run two businesses, and as she put it “tasks tend to get assigned based on efficiency rather than gender” (204). As life continued to get busier, they realized that they functioned “best as a team of equal partners” (204). Why complementarian marriage cannot be defined as a team of equal partners (with differing roles), is not clear. In fact her chapter on submission (pages 201–220) leaves me with many unanswered questions. I’m sure other reviews will ask many of the same questions in the coming weeks.

Chillingly, Evans now claims that what she reads in the Bible is a nightmare of oppression for women. She calls upon Christian women to remember the dark stories.

Those who seek to glorify biblical womanhood have forgotten the dark stories. They have forgotten that the concubine of Bethlehem, the raped princess of David's house, the daughter of Jephthah, and the countless unnamed women who lived and died between the lines of Scripture exploited, neglected, ravaged, and crushed at the hand of patriarchy are as much a part of our shared narrative as Deborah, Esther, Rebekah, and Ruth. We may not have a ceremony through which to grieve them, but it is our responsibility as women of faith to guard the dark stories for our own daughters, and when they are old enough, to hold their faces between our hands and make them promise to remember. (66)

The sinful abuse of women in the Old Testament is troubling, but as troubling as it is, those sins are not determinative of new-covenant ethics for the church today, and they do not dismiss male headship either.

In writing this post, Tony Reinke passed along some helpful research suggestions as I processed what I was reading. On this point he sent the following quote from Margaret Köstenberger's book Jesus and the Feminists, where she writes:

It is true that the historical narrative books of the Hebrew Scriptures witness to numerous abuses of this abiding principle of male headship in the Old Testament period, such as arbitrary divorce (Deuteronomy 24:1–2), the intermittent practice of polygamy, adultery, rape, incest, and so on. Scripture does not condone these behaviors and attitudes. At the same time, the New Testament does not abrogate the principle of male headship even subsequent to redemption in Christ. Thus, Paul still can call Christian wives to submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22–24), and Peter similarly enjoins wives even of unbelieving husbands to submit to them (1 Peter 3:1–6). (34)

In fact, for all of her concerns about the Old Testament laws and polygamy and rape and abuse towards women in old-covenant times, Evans ultimately misses a fundamental truth. For Jesus and Paul and for the Church, sexual and marriage ethics (and biblical womanhood) are not based on the historical sins against women that are recorded in the Old Testament, but from the pre-fall monogamous union of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. From reading Evans’ book, you would think this was not the case.

In the first marriage, in this pre-fall union, we find the norm for all human sexual ethics, for marriage, for male and female equality, and for the distinctives to biblical manhood and biblical womanhood. When Evans addresses Eve in particular (which is very early in the book, pages xx–xxii), she fails to notice that Eve was taken out of Adam and created, not to be a helper like him, but to be Adam’s perfectly adapted helper for him (Genesis 2:18, 1 Corinthians 11:8–10). By missing this foundational point — by missing the very genesis of biblical womanhood — the remainder of the book was certain to be unclear.

Which brings me to my second point. On top of polygamy, there is female slavery, the presence of concubines, death prescribed for sexual sins, separation from the community during a monthly cycle, widows forced to marry the brother of their late husbands, arranged marriages, pagan women slaughtered in battles, and so on (48–51). Without distinction, Evans blends what is prescribed in the law and what is described in narratives, making it all normative for “biblical womanhood.”

In her view, for womanhood to be considered biblical, everything in the Bible must be followed, what is prescribed and what is described. That isn’t possible, she says, therefore biblical womanhood is a myth (294). So we must select what we want to obey and what we don’t want to obey (a troubling theme of the book that I addressed in my original review).

Evans claims that this is what Jesus did, after all, when he refused to stone the adulterous woman (John 8:3–11). According to the law, adulterous women are to be stoned (Leviticus 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:22). Jesus refused to.

Evans writes:

Jesus once said that his mission was not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. And in this instance, fulfilling the law meant letting it go. It may serve as little comfort to those who have suffered abuse at the hand of Bible-wielding literalists, but the disturbing laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy lose just a bit of their potency when God himself breaks them. (54)

Evans’ language for why Jesus did not stone the adulterous woman is confusing and misleading.

Jesus is sinless (Hebrews 4:15). It’s doubtful that breaking the law would be the best way to describe it. Ignoring the uncomfortable parts of the law certainly does not seem accurate either. Jesus does not abolish the law, not one little comma in it (Matthew 5:17).

The religious leaders sought to corner and discount Jesus’ entire mission (John 8:5–6). If Jesus would not stone the adulterer, then he must be a law-breaker — and Evans comes right out and says it.

In his commentary on the Gospel of John, D. A. Carson suggests that when Jesus says, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7), he was specifically referencing the sin of adultery in the accusing men themselves! The men bringing the accusation were also adulterers. “When it comes to sexual sins, the woman was much more likely to be in legal and social jeopardy than her paramour,” Carson writes. “The man could lead a ‘respectable’ life while masking the same sexual sins with a knowing wink. Jesus’ simple condition, without calling into question the Mosaic code, cuts through the double standard and drives hard to reach the conscience.”

In this story Jesus is not breaking the law or shrugging off the Old Testament law. Rather, Jesus is calling these men out on their double-standard, thinking the law applied more to adulterous woman than to adulterous men.

It is through the high standards of the Old Testament law that we see the beauty of our Savior shine, not in his ignoring of the law, but in his fulfillment of it, not in lessening of the holy demands of God, but in seeing them in all their divine righteousness.

Take these few examples:

In Leviticus 1:9, the offering of a whole sacrifice to God prefigures Christ’s giving of his whole self (Hebrews 10:5–14).
In Leviticus 6:13, the unceasing flame of the altar reveals the insufficiency of repeated sacrifices in contrast to the sufficiency of Christ’s once for all sacrifice (Hebrews 10:1–10).
In Leviticus 11:45, separation from uncleanness symbolizes separation from sin in order to be intimate with God. It prefigures Christ’s work bringing holiness (Hebrews 7:26, 10:16).
In Leviticus 18:5, we read that God requires perfect obedience that can only be found in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). Sinners like us cannot keep the law (Romans 10:5, Galatians 3:12–14).

These few brief references barely scratch the surface for the number of references and parallels to Christ’s coming and sacrifice found in the Old Testament.

And so, yes, women can look to the Old Testament law passages to be reminded of God's holiness in texts like Leviticus 15:19–33. These texts may make women uneasy, but they also remind us that God is holy and majestic. He is separate from all sin — male and female. His ways are not our ways; they are perfect in every way, and we are hopeless without a perfect Substitute.

In passages like Leviticus 15:19–33, women today are reminded that “regulations for the body” were imposed only “until the time of reformation” (Hebrews 9:10). That is, the Old Testament purification codes point to the arrival of Christ, the “high priest of the good things that have come” (Hebrews 9:11).

Any woman who practices purity regulations with her body is revealing her theology. It is a sad missing of how our Savior fulfills these specific regulations in his substitutionary death. It is tragically easy for all of us to minimize the significance of our sinless Savior’s life, death and resurrection from the dead.

The gospel reminds us that the world is fallen and sinful. Men sin against women. Women sin against men. Women sin against women. Women are not innocent, but sinners. Male and female, we all are each part of the problem. When we read of sin in the Old Testament, we are reminded of the sin that resides in our own hearts.

But the gospel reminds us that we can look at the Old Testament law without horror or terror. There in the purity codes we see a glimpse of the beauty and sufficiency of our Savior. We see the law that he came to fulfill. And in him we are saved from the greatest terror of all — an eternity separated from God.

And yet when the gospel is clouded, things go terribly wrong in our theology. Unless the veil is lifted (2 Corinthians 3:12–18), we cannot make sense of the Old Testament law in God’s redemptive plan. We cannot understand the hope and joy of biblical womanhood. And biblical womanhood, divorced from the gospel, becomes a very dangerous thing.

Brothers, We Are Not Professors

It has been said by one great Reformed theologian that we are living in the most anti-intellectual age in the church’s history. We are the TV generation, making way for the Internet generation. Images tickle our eyes, and sound-bites massage our brains. We are, compared to our Puritan fathers, ignorant shepherds leading sensate sheep in a dry and dusty land. Surely what we need then is more thought, more scholarship, more earnest hours spent pouring over the ancients in our studies. Right?

We are worldly when we, like the world around us, give ourselves to an entertainment mentality, when we amuse ourselves to death. We are still worldly, however, when we rightly reject the eye candy and froth of pop culture and then conclude that our problems are intellectual, and our solutions more learning. It was the enlightenment, not the Light of the World, that gave us education as its high and holy sacrament. What Jesus calls us to is to repent and believe the gospel. It is more important to us and our sheep that we would learn to believe more, than that we would find more to believe.

That means first that when we prepare to serve in the ministry, we have to prepare to serve in the ministry. Our seminaries, if we must have them, should more reflect a training hospital than a university. Divinity is not a body of knowledge to be mastered like geology. The Bible is not a book to be dissected like Moby Dick. We go there, if we must go there, not to study the Word, but to begin to learn to have the Word study us. We go to pursue not advanced degrees but the fruit of the Spirit. We go to lose our reputations, not to gain them. We go not to be thought wise, but to learn what fools we are.

That means next that when we are called to the ministry, that we minister. Our pulpits, sadly, are filled with men who started as seminarians eager to shepherd a flock. There they were introduced to a dynamic, likely godly professor, and suddenly the student determines he will pursue still more degrees, that he might follow in the footsteps of his hero. As seminary comes to a close growing debts, a growing family, and a growing urge to go and teach derail the plan to become a professor. Instead the young pastor determines to take a church that his flock can become his student body, and His Body, a tiny little seminary. He will lecture then during Sunday School, and regale them through each sermon. The Shepherd, however, calls us to feed His Sheep. We are not to give our wisdom, our insights, the fruits of our scholarship. Rather, like Paul before us, we serve up our weakness, our frailty, our need. That’s how the Word breaks through, where the power comes from.

Brothers, your flock may need some more information. What they need more, however, is someone to lead them, to show them the Way. They need to see you repenting. They need to see you wrestling with your sins. They need to see you preaching the gospel to yourself, not because you like the sound of your voice, but because you hate the sin that yet remains, and you need grace. They need to see you rejoicing in the fullness of His promises, and mourning both sin and its fruit, the last enemy, death.

No man needs advanced degrees, and arcane letters after his name in order to follow Jesus. Which means that no man needs these things to lead others in following Jesus. If you follow Him, they will follow you. If, however, you merely tickle their brains, they will soon go off in pursuit of someone who seems smarter than you. If they are taught to hear your voice, they won’t discern the voice of the Master.

When our days of ministry come to an end, our labors will either be dust, or they will be dust. No matter how many downloads our wisdom garners, no matter how many journals publish our insights, these will all one day decay. Our scholars’ hoods and robes, pulpits and libraries will become mere chaff.  If, however, we spend our days as shepherds, pasturing the flock, our labors will last forever. For we minister to dust, to men into whom the Spirit breathed twice. We minister to dust that is, through faithful, pastoral preaching, being burnished into the image of the Pearl of Great Price. Brothers, we are not doctors, but the sick, not scholars but fools. Let us then be fools for Christ. Preach.

Don’t Hide God’s Word from the Little Ones

It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin. –Luke 17:2

It may long be remembered as the night Sinclair Ferguson went rogue.

The date was June 28, 2009. During the congregational singing, he felt an unusually strong impression to preach something altogether different — both text and topic — from the manuscript he was holding in his hand for the exposition he had prepared on Romans 6:6–14.

Here’s how he explained himself on the fly in abandoning the announced topic:

There are rare occasions when during the course of a service there is such an impression made upon one’s spirit and soul that one feels compelled to preach on something different from what has been announced. And feeling that compulsion earlier on in the service — those of you who were sitting in the gallery wondering why at points I was scribbling on a piece of paper will now realize that what I was doing was earnestly praying that if the Lord wanted me to preach on something different tonight he would at least give me an outline.

And provide an outline God indeed did. Instead of Romans 6, Ferguson took up 2 Timothy 3:14–15 and preached earnestly that his hearers not withhold the Scriptures from the little ones. Here’s the outline:

1. The value of children knowing the Scriptures from their infancy?
2. The vital importance of parental faithfulness in difficult circumstances?
3. The possibility of great usefulness for the most ordinary of Christians?
4. The wonder of what our children can become, despite all the obstacles

In particular, the point on which Ferguson wanted to challenge his congregation was this: “What kind of instrument are you? I’m thinking particularly this evening about what kind of instrument are you in relationship to young people?”

This is an especially sobering warning from the veteran pastor to a young father like myself: “If you hide the Scriptures from your children, it may be better that a millstone be hung around your neck and you be cast into the midst of the sea than that you should ever imagine that you're behaving like a Christian parent.”

The sermon is well worth the listen for young Christian parents — and everyone else. The preaching is raw and powerful — and Ferguson’s rich Scottish accent is icing on the cake.

Don’t Miss the Subtle, Ironic Poetry of God

When it comes to God, you must always keep your eyes open. If you don’t pay attention you’ll miss jaw-dropping glory.

Take the book of Esther, for example. If you’re not careful, you’ll only see a Hollywood-like story of a beautiful young orphan girl who against all odds becomes queen of Persia and, with a little help, recognizes her moment of destiny and courageously faces down a Persian Hitler.

And you would miss the real story.

The real story is not Esther’s inspiring courage or her beauty or Mordecai’s sage wisdom. This story is about what’s really going on behind the machinations of power.

Haman thinks he’s taking super-sized revenge on Mordecai for dissing him by orchestrating a kingdom-wide ethnic cleansing of the Jews. But all he really is is just the devil’s pawn.

Ahasuerus thinks he’s searching for a royal goddess-queen by culling “all the beautiful young virgins” (Esther 2:3) from the 127 provinces in his kingdom and hosting the world’s largest personal beauty contest. He has no clue that he’s God’s pawn to checkmate the devil. Oh, and, by the way, after all that work he “chooses” a Jewish orphan who lives down the street.

The book of Esther is the subtle, ironic living poetry of God where he chooses “what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27) and shouts his total sovereignty over cosmic powers (Ephesians 6:12), raging nations (Psalm 2:1), and the course of human lives without ever mentioning himself once. Nor the devil.

One thing I love about John Piper is that he doesn’t miss the poetry and he helps us see it too. In fact, it stirs the poet in him, which is why he wrote a narrative poem-story based on the book of Esther, now published by Crossway and beautifully illustrated by Glenn Harrington. It has two movements. In the first, 12 year-old Esther asks her uncle, Mordecai, how she came to be an orphan. In the second, 35 year-old Esther tells her own child how she came to be queen.

Often we are helped to see glory by looking at biblical truth through someone else’s lenses. We see different facets by looking from different perspectives. That’s the value of this book. It will help you see more than you might on your own.

And it will remind you to keep your eyes open as you watch God’s living poetry going on around you right now. The real story is often not what is most visible.

 

Give the Priceless Gift of Corrective Lenses

Jesus died for me. What a treasure I must be!

I can think of a number of times over the years when I’ve heard people say something like this. And typically they were people I knew read the Bible frequently. But this idea isn’t in the Bible. Jesus didn’t die to purchase treasures. He died to ransom (Mark 10:45) enemies (Romans 5:10). We’re not the Pearl of Great Price (Matthew 13:46); Jesus is. So where did they get this idea from?

Faulty lenses.

Somewhere along the way their subjective experience and/or bad teaching caused them to look at the cross, see Jesus hanging on the cursed tree, and see a statement of their self-worth rather than amazing grace that saves wretches.

Lenses are extraordinarily powerful things. We interpret reality depending on the way we see it. If something is wrong with our seeing — our lenses — we won’t see reality. We will see a distortion.

And this is far more important when it comes to spiritual sight than it is with physical sight. Here’s how Jesus said it:

Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. (Luke 11:34–35)

The degree to which our spiritual eyes are bad is the degree to which our understanding is dark.

The truth is we all have bad eyes that need corrective lenses to let more light in. And the corrective lenses that Jesus provides us with are his Word and the gift of teaching in the church (Ephesians 4:11). When teachers “rightly [handle] the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15), people receive corrected sight and their “eyes” become more healthy and their soul more full of light.

And there is nothing more important for people to see clearly than why Jesus came to die. That’s why John Piper wrote the book, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die. At 122 pages and only two pages per chapter, this is a great book to give away. It’s something people will read. And if you want to give a lot away, we’ll let you have them by the case (48 copies) for $1.65 per copy.

Right handling of Jesus’s word is about the greatest gift we can give anyone else. Because through it they may receive a healthy eye and lighted soul.

God Created Food and Sex for Believers

Sexual pleasure is too earthy. Enjoying delicious food is too unspiritual.

That’s a two-point outline for a demonic sermon that has no place in any church — so Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 4:1–5.

In fact, in a paradoxical twist of reality, the apostle says that sex and food were created by God with the intent that these gifts be received with thanksgiving. Positively, this means that marriage and food are properly used according to God’s design when believers accept these gifts with Godward thanksgiving. Negatively, this means unbelievers who are not thankful to God for these gifts have no right, in God’s economy, to food or to sex.

Or to say it even stronger: Unbelieving sex and unbelieving eating are a prostituting of God’s created gifts from their divine intent (1 Timothy 4:3).

Now hold that provocative thought for one moment, because it is also true that God sends rain upon the just and the unjust — although mostly on the just, as novelist Cormac McCarthy writes, because the unjust stole the just’s umbrella!

Seriously though, God’s rain falls, and the crops grow, so there is nourishment for all creatures, even rebels against God.

But in God’s kindness in giving rains and food and pleasure, he gives these gifts in order to lead sinners to repentance (Acts 14:14–18). The gifts are given as witnesses of his presence and power and gracious forbearance.

So back to the main point. In an ultimate sense, God gives sex and food for believers. This is how John Piper said it in his 1981 sermon “Sex and the Single Person”:

“God created these things to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe” [1 Timothy 4:3]. By its very design it can only be for believers, because it is designed as an occasion for thanksgiving. But those who do not “know the truth” — the truth, namely, that God is the giver of all good gifts and worthy to be glorified and thanked — those who hold down this truth (Romans 1:18, 25) and do not trust in God cannot satisfy their sexual desires according to the design of God. All their sexual behavior is sin because it does not spring from faith in God (Romans 14:23) and does not result in thanks to God.

Sexual pleasure belongs rightfully only to believers. All others are thieves and robbers. Don’t ever let the world deceive you into thinking that we Christians are trying to borrow and purify a limited amount of the world’s pleasure. God created sexual pleasure for his subjects alone, and the world has rebelled against him and stolen his gifts and corrupted them and debased them and turned them into weapons of destruction and laughed at those who remain faithful to the King and use his gifts according to his Word. But we will not be deceived. The gift is ours, and we will consecrate it, that is, we will keep it pure, as Paul says in verse 5, “by the word of God and prayer.”

John Calvin said it equally forcefully in his comments on the passage.

…[S]trictly speaking, God has destined the world and all that is in it for his children alone; for this reason it is said that they shall inherit the earth [Matthew 5:5]. In the beginning, Adam himself was given dominion over all things on condition that he remained obedient to God. Therefore, when he rose in rebellion against God, he deprived himself and his posterity of this right which was conferred upon him. So, it follows that we are restored to our original dignity only by the benefit we receive from Christ to whom all things are under subjection: and this we receive by faith. Therefore, whatever men without faith get hold of, they rob or steal from others.*

Clearly, believers are not called to legislate or govern food intake, or to criminalize non-Christian sexuality. That’s not the point. The point is that this world, though fallen, is filled with delights and experiences and marriage and food and sunshine and beauty. And none of it is the permanent possession of the ungodly. These experiences and delights were invented by God and distributed to us by him with the original intent of blessing his children and stirring our hearts toward thankfulness.

If that is true now in our daily lives, how much more will the new creation be our experience of God’s ceaseless outpouring of gracious gifts, given to us as we thank and worship him forever!

To further study this theme in 1 Timothy 4:3, see John Piper's book, When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy (Crossway, 2004), and especially chapter 11: "How to Wield the World in the Fight for Joy: Using All Five Senses to See the Glory of God."

* Joseph Haroutunian and Louise Pettibone Smith, Calvin: Commentaries (Westminster Press, 1958), 347–348.

Hope for Chronic Suffering

If I were asked to put my finger on Scripture’s most poignant passage about chronic suffering, near the very top of my list would be Psalm 88.

The psalms have been called “the prayer book of the Bible.” And, indeed, the better we know them, the more we see how they help us talk with God in every circumstance and mood. Psalm 88 is a plea for God to stop hiding his face from the suffering psalmist. It opens with the psalmist crying out continuously to the God of his salvation (verses 1–2) and it ends the same way (verses 13–14).

As with most of what are now known as the psalms of lament, the psalmist doesn’t say exactly what his trouble is, although he does say that he has been afflicted and close to death from his youth and that his affliction has been so deep that he is helpless, having lost all his strength (verses 4, 15).

We who have suffered some crippling disability can easily place ourselves alongside the psalmist and utter the same cries. And those who care for the deeply disabled should have no difficulty turning this psalm into a prayer to be prayed for them.

Psalm 88 is the only psalm that ends without any expression of hope. It expresses only unrelieved suffering. This may make it seem to be a psalm that we would want to steer clear of, especially as its startling claims begin to sink home. Why would we want to be reminded that sometimes God seems to be distant over someone’s entire lifetime? Why would we want to hear that someone can become so sick that everyone shuns him because he has become a horror to them? Does it seem right for the psalmist to claim that God’s wrath lies heavy upon him and that he is suffering God’s terrors?

Yet, as I shall urge in my talk at November’s Desiring God conference on disability, we ought not to steer clear of any part of Scripture, for every part of it ultimately comes from the mouth of God for our instruction and for our good. In fact, Scripture insists that God always ultimately brings good to his people through their suffering, no matter how difficult that suffering may be.

Psalm 88 (and the other psalms of lament) teach us at least two lessons that help us to breathe when we are feeling suffocated by suffering.

First, they teach us that when we have a complaint with God, we are to take it directly to him. The psalmists never complain about God; they always complain to him.

And, secondly, they teach us to be honest. All of the psalmists, exactly like the unknown psalmist who penned Psalm 88, model transparency, expressing their complaints to God as frankly as they can.

Both of these lessons are, so to speak, part of the psalmists’ exhaling, of their crying out, pleading, and complaining to God by breathing out to him what it would be harmful for them to try to withhold from him.

What we learn, when we go on to study all of the other psalms of lament, is that the psalmists always went on to inhale, to deliberately breathe in truths about God’s character, about his promises, about his previous wondrous acts for Israel, and about his record of individualized care for them. Breathing in these truths gave them hope, which is often what we most need when we are dealing with disability.

How I Forgot the Gospel

I forget the gospel. It’s one of the most maddening things about living with a truth-distorting sin nature. Let me give you a recent example.

A few weeks ago I said to my wife, “I’m feeling gospel fatigue. I’m tired of hearing ‘gospel’ in just about everything.” She looked at me funny. I explained that I was probably just feeling jaded by the commercialization of the gospel or how it seems like a trendy bandwagon. She didn’t buy that. She knows me well. She suggested I probe deeper. She was right, as usual.

So I asked myself what this “gospel fatigue” is. Am I really weary of hearing that Jesus became sin for me (2 Corinthians 5:21), cancelled my full sin debt (Colossians 2:14), and has promised me an eternal life of increasing love and joy in knowing God (John 17:3)?

No, that’s not it.

Have I gorged on the “gospel” so that, like not wanting another bite of turkey on Thanksgiving afternoon, my appetite is sated?

No, that’s not it either.

Here’s what I found when I probed: being so privileged to hear frequent exhortations to apply the gospel, the term’s meaning has begun to switch from resting fully on the grace of God to something else I have to learn to do better. I need to be a more gospel-driven husband, a more gospel-driven parent, a more gospel-driven neighbor, a more gospel-driven employee and boss. I need to do gospel-driven evangelism, lead gospel-driven small groups, and on and on.

See the irony? My “gospel” to-do list is getting long. So when another book comes out on how to apply the gospel to ___ it taps into guilt-induced discouragement that there’s another area in which I’m not gospel-driven enough.

Oh good grief! Jon, are you really turning the gospel into law? Have you forgotten (again) that the gospel is not something you need to do better, but a Person you need to know better — a Person whose grace is completely sufficient for you (2 Corinthians 12:9)?

When I saw this, the first book I reached for was God Is the Gospel. It’s far and away my favorite extra-biblical book on the gospel because it reminds me what the very core of it is. The best news in the universe for failing sinners like me is that “Christ… suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Because of Jesus, I get God in all his fullness forever! The best gift of the cross is not forgiveness, but God. And God is not something to do better; he’s someone who promises to provide all I need “according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

I share this with you because we all forget the gospel in different ways, and God is the Gospel is such a cool, refreshing glass of grace-water. In fact, we want churches and groups and schools to be able to get it cheap so they can give it to their folks. If you’re interested, click here to purchase cases (64 copies) for $129 ($2 ea.).

If you’re feeling “gospel fatigue,” it means the gospel is ceasing to mean the gospel. I highly recommend this book as an antidote.

How the Battle Against Evil Is Transformed

Joy changes everything, including our battle against evil.

Christian Hedonism changes our combat with evil. Jeremiah 2:13 — the Christian Hedonist definition of evil — "for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water."

What's evil? The suicidal preference of empty wells over the river of delights flowing from heaven. That's evil!

So the battle against evil is not to constantly say "No, no, no. Bad, bad, bad." There's no power in that. The power of the flesh is coming at you, the power of the devil is coming at you, and you're going to [muster] up your willpower and make that the victory? You're not. You're not.

One thing will give you the victory: Faith is the victory that overcomes the world. And faith is a being satisfied in all that God is for us in Jesus Christ. You've got to stoke that engine every morning so that the evils that are clawing at you lose its fangs. You can't have me, I've seen Jesus this morning. Lust, you can't have me. Greed, you can't have me. Fear of man, you can't have me. Bitterness and anger, you can't have me. I've seen Jesus this morning.

The battle against evil is totally transformed by Christian Hedonism.

How to Share a Believable Gospel

When the gospel is communicated in preachy, impersonal, intolerant, know-it-all ways, people find it hard to believe. Typically, this style of evangelism is reduced to information. We content ourselves with “name-dropping” Jesus or telling people doctrine, but rarely do we draw near enough to people to know how the gospel applies to their actual lives. People want to know why the gospel is worth believing. In the information age, people are used to seeing through words. Most evangelism offers a sound bite gospel, which is easily screened, distrusted, and dismissed. In order for people to see something of substance in our words, our gospel communication needs depth.

When I met Ben I was immediately confronted with the need for depth. Ben had been through hell and back as an addict and he was worn out, at the end of his rope, and ready for a new start. Name-dropping Jesus wouldn’t cut it. First, he needed to see and feel the gospel. I desperately wanted to embody the love of Christ and I prayed he would feel and see it. Instead of correcting his life choices, I needed to understand his choices.

Sitting at rehab with him, I asked him questions: “What was your childhood like? When the church rejected you, did you experience rejection from your parents also? How did that make you feel? What was your drug community like? What were you looking for in this journey?” I asked these questions because I cared for Ben. This wasn’t an evangelistic formula; it was a budding relationship with a man in the image of God. He was an addict who was struggling to make sense of his life. I expressed empathy, concern, and compassion. He shared that he was adopted by good parents but struggled with a sense of loneliness and rejection. He began using drugs at age nine. Eventually we got down to the heart of the matter. “Ben, what have you been searching for?” He talked about loneliness and disappointment. I asked him how he thought God could figure into his longings. He wasn’t sure.

There was a strong sense that he was tired of the old life. He wanted to escape the broken, cemetery life. He wanted a new start. He wanted to know that a brighter future was possible. I thought: “What gospel metaphor is most appropriate for Ben’s current challenges?” Ben wasn’t yearning for justification by faith but he was dying to hear the gospel of new creation. Discerning some of his longings, I knew the promise of new creation could make the gospel a little more believable. He needed to know that there was a grace that could run deeper than all his failures and remake him from the inside out.

Understandably, a cloud of skepticism still hung over him. At the risk of rejection, I told him something like: “Ben, I know you’re tired and worn out. I know this isn’t what you hoped for your life and I want you to know that God loves you. He wants to make you new. He wants to exile the old life and give you a new life in Jesus. Jesus died to give you this life, to forgive you and shower you with his grace. He wants you to come back home to enjoy his love, acceptance and peace. Instead of trusting in the escape of drugs and the fleeting acceptance of a drug community, he wants you to trust in Christ to become a new creation, to be remade from the inside out.”

He needed to know that his old man could be exiled and a new man could emerge (1 Corinthians 5:17–18; cf. Colossians 3:9–10; Ephesians 4:20–24; Galatians 6:15). If nothing else, I knew the hope of new creation would be desirable and, most of all, I knew it was true. We talked about his struggle to believe it, to believe in God and to trust the person of Christ. I asked if he would be willing to talk to God about it. He said yes. We got him a Bible and prayed.

A shallow gospel wouldn’t cut it with Ben, not with what he’d been through. His addiction ran deep and he needed a deep gospel. Hearing the information of Jesus’s death on the cross would be screened and dismissed. He needed to know how Jesus’s life and death is good news in his life. He needed a believable gospel.

Two years later, Ben stood up in one of our Sunday church gatherings. Healthy, calm, and composed, he kicked the doors off of his private struggles and shared the story of his addiction and recovery. You could hear a pin drop. When asked, “How has God’s grace been generous to you?” Ben responded: “Just being able to start new.” New creation! For Ben, God’s grace equals being new, liberated from the old life to experience an entirely new life in Christ. The old man exiled; the new man arrived! Belief in the gospel of new creation has made Ben new. The hope of new creation resonated with his longings; it pulled him towards Jesus.

There are struggles and hopes, fears and dreams that sit on the surface of people’s stories. If we listen well, with dependence on the Holy Spirit, we can discern which gospel metaphors people need to hear most. We can communicate a believable gospel. Using the gospel for how we share the gospel, we commend five ways forward for believable evangelism:

To those searching for acceptance in all the wrong places, we can point them to perfect acceptance in the gospel of justification. To those searching for fulfilling relationships, we can point them to profound, personal union with Christ. To those who struggle with tolerance, we can show them the uniqueness of Christ in the gospel of redemption. To those who fear disapproval or demand the applause of others, we can share the gospel of adoption, which offers an enduring approval and produces humble confidence. To anyone longing for a new start, there is the hope of new creation.

People need to know how the gospel is good news to them. Will you continue to recite canned presentations and avoid listening? Or will you love people enough to offer them a believable gospel?

I Am Going to Vote

Having read several articles by people who don’t plan to vote in the presidential election, my conclusion is: I’m going to vote.

It seems to me that the good that can be done, presumably by the protest of not voting, is mainly done by talking about not voting rather than by not voting. Then it also seems that this same good would be accomplished if those who thought they would not vote did all that talking, but then voted.

This wouldn’t be duplicitous if the main point of the talk is not mainly, “I am not going to vote,” but is mainly that the system or the parties or the platforms or the candidates or the views are so flawed. So why not let the blogs roll down like rivers against the defects of it all, and then take a few minutes to vote anyway? Do the right talking and the risky walking.

Here's my reasoning. Barring catastrophe, Obama or Romney will be president (yes, I know you may see it as a catastrophe even if either does get elected). The likelihood that both presidencies will be identical in the good and evil they do is infinitesimal. One will very probably do more good amid the bad, even if only a little.

We can be part of that guess, or sit it out. God promises wisdom to those who seek it. So the likelihood that prayed-up, Bible-shaped Christians will tip the scales toward the incrementally worse regime is small. Therefore, the likelihood that we will waste our time voting seems small.

Not a very inspiring rationale. I just find it compelling in a fallen world that is not my home.

So my suggestion to all who wonder if they should vote is: Tell as many people as you can the good reasons why you are disaffected with the whole thing; then go to the polls and take a burden-bearing, pro-active risk rather than staying home and taking a burden-dropping, reactive risk.

Related resources from John Piper:

If Your Church Is Not All You Want It to Be

Chances are your church gathering isn't all you want it to be. . . This or that should be different, so and so should talk less, he and she should be on time — and why can't we just get some better aesthetics in here?

Actually, though, this mode of critcism says more about our hearts than it does our local church. Perhaps we've forgotten what the church is. Perhaps we've mistaken it to be just another social club. Or maybe we've confused this gathering to be just another event on the calendar. Or, quite possibly, we've assumed the worship of the Triune God is supposed to meet our consumer wants rather than our greatest needs.

Let Dietrich Bonhoeffer have a word:

If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.

This applies in a special way to the complaints often heard from pastors and zealous members about their congregations. A pastor should never complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men.

. . . let [the pastor or zealous member] nevertheless guard against ever becoming an accuser of the congregation before God. Let him rather accuse himself for his unbelief. Let him pray God for an understanding of his own failure and his particular sin, and pray that he may not wrong his brethren. Let him, in the consciousness of his own guilt, make intercession for his brethren. Let him do what he is committed to do, and thank God.

Life Together, trans. John W. Doberstein, (New York: HarperOne, 1954), 29, paragraphing mine.

Jesus Gives Us Reasons to Obey

It’s puzzling. When I speak on living by faith I often ask, "How many of you know that Jesus calls us to love our enemies?" Everyone nods and says they know this.

Then I ask, "How many of you know the reason Jesus gives for why we should love our enemies?" Almost always the response is the same — very few know the reason.

Why don’t we know the reason?

Are we so good at loving our enemies that we don’t need Jesus’ reason? Um — no. I’m not so good at loving my enemies. And I’m pretty sure we all need help in this. And yet we remember only the command — but not the reason Jesus gives to help us obey the command.

What is the reason?

Here’s what Jesus taught in Luke 6:35, "But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great." Jesus motivates our love for enemies with the promise of reward — more of his heart-satisfying presence.

Here’s how this works: When we know that Christ has secured for us the joy of his presence forever — and that loving our enemies will bring us even more of that joy — we will be freed and motivated to love our enemies. So — if we aren’t very good at loving our enemies — and this reason would help us love our enemies — why don’t we remember the reason? It’s strange.

Imagine someone said “Walk three miles down to the Bank — and you will receive three billion dollars.” Notice there’s a command — and there’s a reason to help you obey the command. So, while you are walking to the Bank, is it possible you might forget the reason? Not a chance.

And yet — when Jesus urges us to love our enemies because of a reward infinitely better than three billion dollars — we remember the command but can’t think of the reason. [Stunned silence.]

Can you feel how wrong that is? So why do we do that? Here are my thoughts:

If this is what we’ve heard then we’ll assume rewards aren’t supposed to motivate us or that they are not very important, and we’ll forget them.

But over and over again God does motivate us with promises of reward. So they must be important.

See, gratitude does not replace reward. Gratitude reminds us of God’s past faithfulness so we trust his promise of future reward. So nurture gratitude and be motivated by God’s promise of reward.

This shows a misunderstanding of rewards. Biblical rewards are not something apart from God. Every reward involves more of God.

Like Matthew 5:8, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

So God is enough motivation — he is the reward.

It’s tragic that people obey God in order to get health or wealth. But that’s not how Jesus motivates us. Jesus motivates us with the promise of himself — like in John 14:23, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."

Why keep Jesus’s word? Because if I do, I will experience more of the Father and Son’s all-satisfying presence. So the alternative to the health-and-wealth gospel is not don’t pursue rewards. It is pursue God as your reward.

What do we do when we struggle to love our enemies?

What Jesus wants us to do is open our Bibles, find the reasons he gives to empower love for enemies, and pray over those reasons until the Holy Spirit changes our hearts.

But too often that’s not what we do. Too often we just rely on our own will-power, grit our teeth, and try harder. Which shows that we think we have the will-power to obey Jesus. But we don’t. Which is why he gives reasons which the Spirit will use to empower obedience.

Three miles is a long walk. I’m getting tired. I’m not sure I want to do this. I’d rather turn left and head to the beach.

Wait. 

What reason did he give me for walking to the Bank?  Oh, that’s right. There’s three billion dollars waiting for me!

Suddenly I’m no longer tired. I want to get to the Bank. Forget the beach.

That’s how reasons help us obey.

So learn the reasons in Scripture — and use the reasons in Scripture.

See you at the Bank.

Jesus Says to Rome

You have heard that it was said to those of old, “Pray to Mary, and petition the Saints.” But I say to you that there is only one mediator between God and men (1 Timothy 2:5). You need no other go-between than me. Do you not know that you already have an advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1)? Do you not know that I am the way, and the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6)? So, when you pray, ask in my name, that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John 14:13).

You have heard that it was said, “Kneel before the consecrated host, and worship the one sacrificed in the mass.” But I say to you that when I had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, I sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until my enemies should be made a footstool for my feet. For by a single offering I have perfected for all time those who are being sanctified (Hebrews 10:12–14). And have you not heard that where there is forgiveness of sins, there is no longer any offering for sin (Hebrews 10:18)? I meant it when I said on the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

You have heard that it was said, “Honor the pope.” But I say to you that this is a sadly misguided understanding of the role my disciple Peter played and the reality of succession in the church. The Rock on which I have built my church (Matthew 16:18) for two millennia is not Peter alone, but the band of the apostles together (Ephesians 2:20). All my specially appointed apostles, not just Peter, are my expressly commissioned authoritative spokesmen for my church (John 14:26; 15:26–27; 16:13). Their authority is not their own, but mine. I am the one who has authority (Matthew 7:29), not your ecclesiastical scribes. And when I ascended, it was my apostles together, not Peter alone, who served as my authoritative on-the-ground spokesmen in the first generation of the church. At my word, it was the apostles’ spoken and written words that served as the early church’s final authority — and when the apostles had passed, it was their preserved writings that have carried my voice as the church’s final authority these two thousand years, not the accumulated traditions of the church.

Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, “Priests are prohibited to marry.” But I say to you, I appreciate that you’re listening to 1 Corinthians 7, but what about the other things I have to say through my inspired spokesmen? I say twice that a presbuteros must be the husband of one wife (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:6) — without, in any way, excluding the celibate (like me, and Paul) from church office, but also emphatically not excluding the married. Why do you exclude them from your priesthood, except upon special exception? Celibacy is a special calling, not to be coerced with church law. Have I not been equally clear that it is better to marry than to burn with passion (1 Corinthians 7:9)?

You have heard that it was said, “Your acceptance with God is not based solely on another’s goodness, but also on your own.” But I say to you, do not rob me of my full glory in your full acceptance before God. Let me be honored as the one who alone forgives your sins (Mark 2:10), and the one who alone provides the perfect righteousness you need to be accepted by God (Philippians 3:9). It is true that you get involved in your ongoing holiness as my righteousness is imparted to you after you have been fully accepted (Romans 6:12–14). But don’t jump the gun by thinking you could ever muster holiness enough to earn your acceptance with the thrice-holy God. It is not the godly that my Father justifies, but the ungodly (Romans 4:6). Do you not know how profoundly sinful you are (Romans 3:23), that it is impossible for those in the flesh to please God (Romans 8:8), that no mere human effort can ever justify you in my Father’s sight (Romans 3:20)? You need Another’s work to count for you — the perfect life and death of the one God-man who came to earth to achieve for you the acceptance with God that you could not achieve for yourself.

You have heard that it was said, “The Scriptures are the product of the Church. The authorized tradition sits alongside the Scriptures as your final authority.” But I say to you, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God (Matthew 15:6). In my new-covenant marriage with my bride, the Groom speaks the authoritative final word, not the Bride. It is my voice the sheep hear and follow (John 10:3–4, 27), not the voice of the church.

It was the unique, irreplaceable apostles whom I specially trained for over three years and specially appointed as my authoritative spokesmen. The old-covenant prophets and new-covenant apostles have spoken for me and about me (John 5:39, 46; Luke 24:25–27, 44–45; Ephesians 3:5; 2 Peter 3:1–2). It is my voice in their recorded words that is your final authority for doctrine and practice. When I say your final authority is Scripture alone — sola Scriptura — I mean the writings of the apostles and prophets (Ephesians 2:20). And when I say the apostles and prophets, I mean that I myself am the Word (John 1:1), God’s final say (Hebrews 1:2). I am the Church’s final authority, and the way that I have appointed to mediate that authority to you is not through ongoing church tradition, but through the apostolic and prophetic word alone.

By setting your accumulated traditions alongside the Scriptures, you have emptied my word of its power (Matthew 15:6). You have been taken captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ (Colossians 2:8). Putting the traditions of men on par with the words of God means losing the words of God. No matter how hard you try to hold divine revelation equal to human tradition as your final authority, the words of man will inevitably distort and diminish the words of God.

Jesus Understands Loneliness

“He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” (Isaiah 53:3)

Sometimes we feel alone in the world. Jesus understands this feeling. In a very human sense, he was alone.  

Imagine what living in this world was like for Jesus. He was without sin (Hebrews 4:15). That might sound like a pleasant problem to deal with. I don’t think so. I think it was tormenting. Peter described sinful Lot’s experience in Sodom as being tormented day after day by the “lawless deeds that he saw and heard” (2 Peter 2:8). How much worse was it for sinless Jesus living in a world of sin?

Imagine what his childhood was like. He would have been odd, sticking out morally like a sore thumb, never quite fitting in with any group, even his own family.

Even his loving parents wouldn’t have fully understood him. Nor would they have been able to protect him from others’ stinging remarks and maybe cruel mocking over his unsullied strangeness.

I wonder how much came from his siblings? His brothers and sisters (Matthew 13:55–56) would have grown increasingly self-conscious around him, aware of their own sinful, self-obsessed motives and behavior, while noting that Jesus didn’t seem to exhibit any himself. What resentments accrued? All was not harmonious because Jesus’s own brothers didn’t believe in him (John 7:5), possibly until after his resurrection (Acts 1:14).

Jesus was a sinless person living with sinful parents, sinful siblings, sinful extended relatives and sinful neighbors. No one on earth could identify with him. No human being could put an arm around him as he sat in tears and say, “I know exactly what you’re going through.” His sorrow and grief (Isaiah 53:3) began way before Gethsemane.

But Jesus’s loneliness reached its apex the moment he became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21) on the cross and was “forsaken” by his Father (Matthew 27:46). First he was estranged by sinlessness and then from being sin. Jesus knew supreme rejection and loneliness.

Which makes him perfectly suited to understand yours. He is a high priest who can sympathize with this weakness (Hebrews 4:15).

But Jesus doesn’t just understand your loneliness; he’s destroying it. Because he died on your behalf, you are no longer truly a stranger or alien, but you are a fellow citizen with the saints and a member of God’s family (Ephesians 2:19). Because Jesus was alienated from God and man, you will enjoy the full family fellowship of God and all of his redeemed saints forever.

Child of God, your loneliness is passing away. The day is nearing when you will know as you have been fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12). And the fading loneliness you still feel Jesus understands.

So “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that [you] may receive mercy and find grace to help” with every lonely need (Hebrews 4:16).  

New Publications Relating to C. S. Lewis

Joel Heck, Professor of Theology at Concordia University, Texas, has served us again by publishing rare materials relating to C. S. Lewis. In 2008 he published The Personal Heresy: A Controversy. And now he has published the Socratic Digest (Concordia University Press, 2012), a digest of the biannual publication of the meetings of the Socratic Club at Oxford from 1943 to 1952. Lewis was a regular part of this club and seven of his essays are included, plus other Lewis-related interactions.

Here is an excerpt from the preface to help you know what you will find.

With the reprinting of the Socratic Digest, one more major document in Lewisiana becomes available to the general public. . . .

For those, especially, who want to read the actual essay that Elizabeth Anscombe presented in response to Chapter 3 of C. S. Lewis’ 1947 book Miracles or who want to understand better the context in which Lewis wrote seven of his essays, some of which appear in different format than as they were later published, the Socratic Digest will provide that. For those who want to read the response of Unitarian Nicol Cross to Lewis’ chapter in Mere Christianity, “The Shocking Alternative,” this Digest provides that response. For those who want to know the issues of the day in Oxford during the 1940s, particularly for the Christian faith, the Socratic Digest is the answer. For those who want to read the notes taken on Charles Williams’ argument in the first issue that free love is neither free nor love, the Socratic Digest provides it. For those who want to enjoy the give-and-take between H. H. Price and C. S. Lewis on the topic of a minimal religion or the importance of theism, this is where one will find that argument, and in the reading one will see the same Lewis who later proposed similar arguments in Miracles. Those who want to anticipate Lewis’ inaugural lecture at Cambridge will enjoy his statement, “Almost I’d sooner be a pagan suckled in a creed outworn” (164), or this one, “When grave persons express their fear that England is relapsing into Paganism, I am tempted to reply, ‘Would that she were’” (229).

Thanks are to Joel Heck for the kind of scholarly work that continues to fill the widening reservoir of “Lewisana.”

Remember to Breathe

One of the worst aspects of suffering is the way it tends to isolate. When great storms of suffering overtake us, our sense of loneliness can become overwhelming. As the clouds close in, we may lose sight of everything but our suffering, making it loom larger and larger. With profound suffering, we may think that no one else has ever suffered as much.

I have been partially paraplegic since I was 17, with very limited use of my legs. I’m now 62. A few years ago when my walking worsened, my doctor suggested that I see a physical therapist for the first time in almost forty years. Often, when she has just asked me to do something difficult and I’m straining really hard to do it, she’ll say, “Breathe!”

Of course, I’m not the only one who needs to hear that (women in labor and athletes must be urged to breathe). But sufferers often need the same reminder.

Losing perspective in suffering is stifling; it is like forgetting to breathe. More particularly, we Christians can forget that we are never alone, no matter what we are undergoing, because God is with us, just as he was with those saints who have been in similar straits before. Sometimes we are especially prone to forget when we are dealing with some chronic disability of our own or of one of our loved ones that seems to just be going on and on, with no end in sight. We need then, especially, to be reminded to breathe in the word that God has breathed out for us (2 Timothy 3:16–17).

The Scriptures record a lot of suffering because God’s people have never been free of it, not even from the kinds and degrees that can overwhelm God’s most stalwart saints. Indeed, when Job’s suffering seemed to him to be neverending, he actually accused God of keeping him from catching his breath (see Job 9:18, NLT). Yet his story finally conveys that, as awful as his situation was, much of what he needed to hear was something like this: “Breathe! Don’t panic! Slow yourself down! Don’t take everything to be as it seems. And don’t irrationally conclude that things will never get better.”

In other words, even one of the Old Testament’s greatest believers needed some breathing lessons.

The Crux of History

Human history swings on the hinge of a Palestinian Jew. They can call it “Common Era” if they wish, but every event known to man is recorded as occurring (approximately) before or after the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

And no single event in recorded history is more influential than his execution. Because of Jesus’s death nearly 2,000 years ago, over 2 billion people now call themselves Christians. Most statisticians agree that over 100,000 are killed every year because they take that name.

Why? Why is Jesus’s death so influential? And why are a million people killed in a decade because Jesus was killed?

Why is precisely the right question to ask. Everything hangs on why Jesus died.

The world thinks he died because he threatened the political establishment. But that is not what Jesus believed. When Pilate flexed his governing muscles, Jesus was unimpressed, saying, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11). Here’s what Jesus believed:

I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. (John 10:17–18)

But why did he believe he had to lay his life down? His answer: "I lay down my life for the sheep" (John 10:15). What does that mean? That’s the most important question to ask about the most influential event in human history.

And the most clear, concise, concentrated Biblical answers to that question (that I’m aware of) are collected in John Piper’s 122 page book, Fifty Reasons Jesus Came to Die. This is one of those rare books that can be read as a devotional by Christians of all maturity levels, and given to non-Christians as a clear explanation of the gospel. Each chapter is only two pages long, but meditation on each could go on for days. The book could be a small group study for a year, or a lunch hour office study for a month. Numerous churches give it to visitors on Sunday mornings and many folks have given them as gifts to family and friends at Christmas.

Because the content of this book is so important, we want to help you read it and give it away. You can purchase it or read it free here, or if you want to give a bunch away, go here to purchase cases (48 copies) inexpensively ($1.65 per copy).

Humans are reconciled to God by Jesus’s death (Romans 5:10) or not at all. That’s why his death is so influential and why it is so violently opposed.

The cross is the crux of history because it’s the crux of the gospel.

The Deeper You Walk, the Hungrier You Get

When you take your stand on the finished work of God in Christ, and begin to drink at the River of Life and eat the Bread of Heaven, and know that you have found the end of all your longings, you only get hungrier for God. The more satisfaction you experience from God, while still in this world, the greater your desire for the next. For, as C. S. Lewis said, "Our best havings are wantings."

The more deeply you walk with Christ, the hungrier you get for Christ . . . the more homesick you get for heaven . . . the more you want "all the fullness of God" . . . the more you want to be done with sin . . . the more you want the Bridegroom to come again . . . the more you want the Church revived and purified with the beauty of Jesus . . . the more you want a great awakening to God's reality in the cities . . . the more you want to see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ penetrate the darkness of all the unreached peoples of the world . . . the more you want to see false worldviews yield to the force of Truth . . . the more you want to see pain relieved and tears wiped away and death destroyed . . . the more you long for every wrong to be made right and the justice and grace of God to fill the earth like the waters cover the sea.

If you don't feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great. God did not create you for this. There is an appetite for God. And it can be awakened. . . . (A Hunger for God, 23)

The Great Story and the Single Verse

In my neck of the Christian woods, words like narrative, meta-narrative, story, storyline, biblical theology, and big picture abound. I would like to sound a note that may encourage some who, like me, may wonder how this language works to build faith in the human heart.

First, I affirm the common-sense hermeneutical principle that in any message, or essay or poem or novel or scene from a movie or conversation or psalm or gospel or epistle or chapter or verse, it is the parts that give existence to the whole, and the whole that gives meaning to the parts. 

The word “boy,” does not have much meaning. “The boy in the corner,” has more meaning. “Feed the boy in the corner,” has even more. “Feed the boy in the corner with the word of God,” makes the meaning clearer. Without this “whole” (sentence) the meaning of the “part” (feed) would not be clear. And yet it is parts that create the whole. Both parts and whole are crucial for meaning to be transferred from one mind to another.

So I rejoice at every effort to see the big picture of the Bible. The whole story. The narrative from creation to consummation. The clearer the whole, the clearer the parts. And the more clearly we see the parts, the more accurately we will construe the whole.

But here’s the note I want to sound. Not only should the particulars of the Bible be seen in relation to the larger storyline of the Bible, but we should also realize that the story exists to reveal the particulars of God and his ways. And those particular glories of God are seen and enjoyed not mainly by gazing over the whole dazzling landscape of redemptive history, but by focusing on some particular thing God did or said inside the story.

For example, Isaiah 41:10 is a particular promise that has sustained me hundreds of times. (“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”) I would argue that the whole of Isaiah exists so that I might have that kind of faith-sustaining personal encounter with its particular parts.

Yes, Isaiah is a magnificent whole, and, yes, it fits magnificently into redemptive history for the sake of Christ and his kingdom. But if its particulars do not stun us and gladden us and strengthen our faith and increase our hope and intensify our worship, the big picture will have been in vain. I think, in God’s design, the prophecy of Isaiah exists as a whole, and in its relation to the history of redemption so that its particular promises might be known and loved and trusted by me a Gentile, because of the mystery of Christ.

In profound ways, the whole Bible — the whole of redemptive history — exists to create a place and time and meaning where particular, individual, finite humans can encounter its stunning parts. The parts make up the whole, and so serve the whole. They would have no meaning and no beauty without the whole. But it is just as important to say that the whole exists to give place and time and meaning to the parts so that the parts can be known and experienced and enjoyed.

Most of us simply cannot hold the “whole” — the whole Bible, the whole book, or even the whole chapter — in our minds fully enough or steadily enough to feel our joy rising from its fullness. We read it. We gaze on the grand landscape. But it is this particular promise, this particular act of God, this particular warning, this particular turn of providence, that penetrates most deeply and awakens faith and joy and hope.

A beatitude, a line from Romans 12, a promise in Psalm 23, a warning in Hebrews 3, a miracle in Mark 1 — these are the places where our hearts are broken with contrition or leap with joy.

I recognize that people differ in which aspects of God’s glory move them. Some can hold in their minds a large, sweeping terrain of wonder. I don’t have that gift. Jesus manifests himself to me in the particulars. Granted, these particulars would have no wonder or glory if they were not part of something vastly greater. But it is this particular promise at this particular point in history, this particular time in this particular place that does its Christ-exalting work.

One implication of this for pastors would be that we love both. The big picture and the small brushstrokes. And as we open the whole counsel of God, and the whole story of redemption, let us glory in the brightness of the whole, and make the parts glow like a white-hot filament in a light bulb.

The Greatest Enemy of Our Hunger for God

Christian fasting is not only the spontaneous effect of a superior satisfaction in God; it is also a chosen weapon against every force in the world that would take that satisfaction away.

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18-20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.

Jesus said some people hear the word of God, and a desire for God is awakened in their hearts. But then, "as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life" (Luke 8:14). In another place he said, "The desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful"(Mark 4:19). "The pleasures of this life" and "the desires for other things"—these are not evil in themselves. These are not vices. These are gifts of God. They are your basic meat and potatoes and coffee and gardening and reading and decorating and traveling and investing and TV-watching and Internet-surfing and shopping and exercising and collecting and talking. And all of them can become deadly substitutes for God. (A Hunger for God, Crossway, 1997)

On November 2–3 in Minneapolis John Piper will be leading a seminar on A Hunger for God. This is a free event and we'd love to have you join us!

What Happened at Vatican II (And How to Pray 50 Years Later)

It was fifty years ago today that Roman Catholicism launched what many consider to be the most ambitious of its 21 ecumenical councils. Called the Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II, the three-plus-year series of gatherings began under Pope John XXIII on October 11, 1962, and concluded under Pope Paul VI on December 8, 1965. Half a century later, Vatican II remains the most recent of Catholicism’s official worldwide councils.

For those of us younger than 50, all we’ve experienced of Roman Catholicism, whether from within or without, comes to us through the lens and practices of Vatican II. It’s an important reality to be aware of as we try to make sense of the (appropriately) deep rift between Protestants and Catholics on many central issues, and as we learn to get over our chronological snobbery and become aware of the full history of the church in her first fifteen centuries, and her unusual last half millennium.

In October 1958, Italian cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was elected pope at the age of 77. Ascending to the papacy at such an old age, he was expected to be a mere caretaker and bridge the short gap to the next ecclesiastical head. But less than three months into office, in January of 1959, he surprised many by calling for the convening of an ecumenical council. Over two years of formal preparations went into launching the meetings on October 11, 1962. It was the first council to be called in almost a century (Vatican I ended in 1870), and only the third since the Reformation (the Council of Trent spanned 1545 to 1563).

Many have summarized the core purpose of the council as adapting Roman Catholicism to the modern world. Summoning and beginning the council proved to be John XXIII’s most significant work as pope, as he died midway through the council on June 3, 1963.

Vatican II brought some major changes to the Roman church. Most obvious were changes in the mass, which had been said in Latin, with priest facing away from the congregation, often speaking quietly (even mumbling). It was impersonal at best, and for most, not understandable.

After the council, the feel of the mass changed drastically. It now was to be conducted in the language of the people, and participation was encouraged in new ways, with new possibilities granted for music and singing, and women allowed into upfront roles as readers, lectors, and Eucharistic ministers, as well as altar servers in some places (though some bishops and priests still discourage it). The sweeping reforms also included no longer forbidding Catholic attendance at Protestant services or reading from a Protestant Bible.

Another major course correction was Catholicism’s orientation on the Jewish people and non-Catholics. According to Catholic author Greg Tobin, this was

one of the most important theological and global breakthroughs, in terms of what came out of Vatican II. The church radically changed its position on the teaching about Jews, and really opened up to dialogue with the Jewish community; and encouraged — and demanded — that Catholics not consider the Jews as “other” or enemy but in fact, as brothers and sisters under the same God. And it was a monumental shift in the position of the church, and in the teachings of the church. So it was a sea change, in terms of the Catholic Church.

Vatican II aimed to produce not only a very different experience of the mass, but also a repositioning of the church in relation to the modern world. But many have wondered, despite all the felt flashpoints of change, whether it hasn’t proved to be much more than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Evangelicals should be careful to not assume that Vatican II changed more than it did. Shortly after the release of the council’s official documents (which you can read for yourself here), Reformed theologian and author Loraine Boettner, who lived through Vatican II and watched it with a careful eye, provided his perspective on the council’s effects (and lack thereof) in the preface of his book Roman Catholicism. Vatican II, he said,

repeated the claim that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church, although it did recognize that other churches contain some elements of truth. . . . Pope John XXIII, who called the first session, and Pope Paul VI, who presided over the later sessions (as well as several prominent cardinals and theologians), took care to emphasize that no changes would be made in the doctrinal structure of the Church. However, Pope Paul did promulgate one new doctrine, which asserts that “Mary is the Mother of the Church.” The primary purpose of the Council was to update the liturgy and administrative practices and so to make the Church more efficient and more acceptable to the 20th century world.

Note the added italics: “no changes . . . in the doctrinal structure of the Church.” Boettner continues,

On previous occasions, Rome has changed her tactics when old methods became ineffective, but she has never changed her nature. In any religious organization, doctrine is the most basic and important part of its structure, since what people believe determines what they do. An official document, “The Constitution on the Church” prepared by the Council and approved by the Pope, reaffirms basic Catholic doctrine precisely as it stood before the Council met. . . . .

[I]f the Roman Catholic Church were reformed according to scripture, it would have to be abandoned. But the gross errors concerning salvation still remain. Moreover, the Council did nothing toward removing the more than 100 anathemas or curses pronounced by the Council of Trent on the Protestant churches and belief.

Boettner concluded that Vatican II

makes it abundantly clear that Rome has no intention of revising any of her basic doctrine, but only of updating her methods and techniques for more efficient administration and to present a more attractive appearance. This is designed to make it easier for the Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Protestant churches to return to her fold. There is no indication that she has any intentions of entering into genuine give-and-take church unity negotiations. Her purpose is not union, but absorption. Church union with Rome is strictly a one-way street. The age-old danger that Protestantism has faced from the Roman Church has not diminished; in fact, it may well have increased. For through this less offensive posture and this superficial ecumenicism, Rome is much better situated to carry out her program of eliminating opposition and moving into a position of world dominance. An infallible church simply cannot repent.

Strong words, but a helpful perspective from a thoughtful evangelical contemporary of the council. Whether you consider Boettner’s concerns to be warranted or overstated, they should give today's evangelicals some pause about being too optimistic about what happened in the reforms of Vatican II.

While Boettner may be wise to caution us about the increased danger facing the Protestant cause, in some sense, because of Vatican II, here are a couple other takeaways, from a more hopeful angle, for evangelical thankfulness and prayer.

First, we can be thankful that Vatican II finally freed Catholicism from the tyranny of Latin. It is tremendously sad to think of centuries of non-Latin-speaking Catholics sitting through a lifetime of masses, in which the Christian Scriptures were being read, but were not able to be understood, even at a surface level, in one’s own language. By and large (despite the apocryphal additions), the Catholic Church has the Christian Scriptures and reads from them in the mass.

Also, Vatican II has produced a heightened emphasis on Catholics reading the Scriptures for themselves. Despite the church’s official doctrine and formal teaching, many Catholics have been born again through the hearing of the gospel through the public and private reading of the Scriptures. It is no small thing that the Scriptures are now read in the language of the people, rather than the traditional Latin. It’s bittersweet, but this is something we evangelical Protestants can be thankful for.

Finally, here’s one way, among many, to pray for Catholics. Pray that God would be pleased to use this hearing and reading of the Scriptures to give new birth in the pews and among the cloth. It is a powerful thing to have the word of God, and to read it in the language of the people, and commend it for further study. May God be pleased to use even the needle of truth in a haystack of error, to draw to his Son all sorts of ecclesiastically baptized unbelievers, whether formally Catholic or Protestant, or none of the above.

Let’s not only consider what Jesus might say to Rome, but also pray for the church in general, and especially the particular Catholics we know. It's amazing what God often chooses to do through prayed-up, gracious, gospel-pointing conversations.