Marriage in the Cosmic Plan of God

How easy is it to detach our marriages from the finished work of Christ?

Very easy.

Tragically easy.

This may be due to living in a society where marriage is ever pressed into molds defined by the increasing unbelief around us, rather than biblical revelation. The very definition of marriage in our day has increasingly taken the feel of Play-Doh, all squishy and moldable in political debates and water-cooler conversations.

But no redefinition of marriage can touch the ultimate reality of God’s design. God has chosen to weave marriages — our marriages — into the most profound theological realities this universe has ever seen. To enter into a Christian marriage is to enter into the drama of Christ’s cosmos-altering victory.

But do our marriages reflect this? Does my own marriage reflect this?

We ask these questions because there’s nothing automatic about living out biblical priorities. As a Christian husband, I evaluate my role as a leader by asking two very important questions:

How am I called to lead in my marriage in a way only possible because Jesus Christ died on the cross for me, was raised from the dead for me, and now lives in me? How does my role as a husband reflect the cosmic-altering work of Christ?

These incredibly important questions force me to think seriously about the way truly Christian theology shapes my marriage. And those questions force me back into the book of Ephesians, where Paul embroiders marriage onto the tapestry of the perfect work of Christ, a King whose resurrection marks the beginning of the reunion of the sin-splintered cosmos (Ephesians 1:10).

In Ephesians, we discover Christ’s restorative power at four levels:

Christ defeated the cosmic powers of evil to become the focal point of everything.Christ inaugurated a new creation.Christ is now restoring first-creation patterns.Christ is now restoring the relational harmony unraveled by the chaos and discord of sin.

This is how Ephesians trains us to think of the finished, cosmic-altering scope of Christ’s work.

But there’s good reason to think Paul converges all of these themes when the topic of marriage emerges in Ephesians 5:22–33. Let me explain it with four corresponding points, each loaded with a summation of what I see in Ephesians:

Because Christ bled and defeated evil, and because he has become the cosmic center of all things, it is now possible for a husband and wife to live out a harmonious, self-giving, complementarian marriage under the Lordship of Christ.Because Christ bled, he has inaugurated the new creation, and a husband and wife who live out a harmonious complementarian marriage are now a microcosm of the Spirit-filled life and a unity of the new-creation people of God.Because Christ bled, he is restoring first-creation patterns, and a husband and wife who live out a harmonious complementarian marriage are a living illustration of the restorative power of the Second Adam in redeeming God’s original design for marriage.Because Christ bled, he is restoring relational harmony and enabling unity, and a husband and wife who live out a harmonious complementarian marriage are a living microcosm of the gospel’s power to unify a sin-splintered humanity.

In the gospel, our marriages find their proper cosmic context.

Now, it will take more than a few moments reading a post like this to actually shape our perspective of marriage. It will require careful meditation as we prayerfully read the entire book of Ephesians and it will require the help of the Holy Spirit.

But the potential payoff is big.

As men and women who live out God-given roles, we discover Christ’s cosmic work is reflected inside our homes. This God-honoring marriage then shines like a light in our neighborhoods to announce to the rulers and principalities the victory of Christ. Christ-honoring marriages are a living proof of the cosmic victory of Christ.

So it becomes critically important for every Christian husband and every Christian wife to think about these connections. This is theology for our homes. It’s not enough to ask what biblical husbandhood and biblical wifehood is supposed to look like, as though we can abstract these roles from Christ. Merely addressing a husband’s role (headship) and a wife’s role (submission) is not enough, because Ephesians will never allow us to live in marriages abstracted from the cosmic-altering gospel.

In moving forward on these topics, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done in my own life and marriage, and I suspect you may feel the same. So today on the blog we are setting aside some space to address this topic from multiple angles.

First, to more closely connect our own Christian marriages to the finished work of Christ, and particularly to see the connection in the flow of Ephesians, I wrote the article “Marriage in the Cosmic Plan of God.” It was published in The Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood 17/2 (Fall, 2012). In this post, I can only briefly introduce the theme, but you can download the entire 8,500-word article for free here (PDF). It provides much more detail.

Second, Gloria Furman is thinking along these lines as a wife, and she writes about it in a post titled “A Wife’s Submission in the Cosmic Plan of Christ,” which will be published on the blog at noon.

And finally, we cap the day with a new episode of the Authors on the Line podcast: “How Christ’s Cosmic Victory Guides Our Marriages: An Interview with Bible Scholar G. K. Beale.” Dr. Beale has been thinking along these lines for many years, and he recently articulated the connections between Christ’s cosmic work and marriage in his book A New Testament Biblical Theology (Baker Academic, 2011).

These resources are all attempts to address the underlying issues in the complementarian/egalitarian debate through a Christ-centered cosmic worldview, the very worldview too often lost and forgotten in debates like this one.

But even more importantly, we pray these resources will help Christian men and women embrace roles of leadership and submission that push us far beyond our natural skills and abilities, that require us to depend on the power of the Holy Spirit, to display the selflessness of the Savior, and to reflect his cosmic victory over sin.

To this end, Christian husbands and Christian wives continue to press.

This post is part of a larger study of marriage in light of Christ’s finished work. Here's the entire series —

MLK’s Dream and the Nightmare of Black Genocide

Black genocide.

That’s Clenard Childress’s term for abortion in America and its pervasive effects in the last generation, especially in the Black community. The statistics are outrageous. One in four African Americans conceived in the last forty years have been cut down by the “black genocide” of legal abortion.

A decade ago Childress founded a website by and for African Americans (blackgenocide.org) “to expose the disproportionate amount of Black babies destroyed by the abortion industry. For every two African American women that get pregnant, one will choose to abort.”

The site laments that “a Black baby is 5 times more likely to be killed in the womb than a White Baby.” Childress says, “The most dangerous place for an African American to be is in the womb of their African American mother.”

For Childress and a growing number, the point is clear: Abortion in America is a race issue.

King Today, Roe Tomorrow

It’s not unfitting to highlight such an atrocity on the day the United States remembers the man who gave his life for the African American right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thirty years ago, in 1983, president Ronald Reagan signed into law the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. on the third Monday of January. January 21 is the latest the day falls — as it does this year — which puts the day back to back with the January 22 anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

King was assassinated in 1968. It was only five years later, in 1973 — forty years ago tomorrow — that the Roe case made abortion legal in the United States. And as Childress and others have sought to highlight, abortion has not been an equal opportunity killer in the last generation.

Again, roughly one in four African Americans, who otherwise might be alive today, have been consumed in the holocaust of legal abortion. Because of the disproportionate number of Blacks who have been aborted, it’s difficult not to make the connection between King’s dream and the nightmare of abortion, and ask, Have not the last 40 years of Roe significantly undermined the cause that King so tirelessly gave himself to until 1968?

And is it not a terrible irony and tragedy that in the very pinnacle of realizing King’s dream — Obama being the first Black president — we have an administration actively perpetuating the industry that has claimed the lives of one in four African Americans since King? As one Black man says in the 3801 Lancaster documentary, “Everything that was ever gained during the Civil Rights Movement is worth nothing to a dead Black child,” and as one Black woman proclaims, “Make no mistake, abortion is a civil rights issue.”

Linking Lynching and Abortion

In January of 2007, John Piper sought to make the point in a sermon. Here’s Piper’s full disclosure from the beginning of that message, entitled “When Is Abortion Racism?”:

Let me tell you one of my main aims in this message: In the name of Jesus Christ and rooted in the gospel of his death and resurrection for sinners (including abortionists and pastors), my aim is to stigmatize abortion by associating it with racism. I would like you to link abortion and race the same way you link lynching and race. . . .

Racism might — and often did — result in the killing of innocent humans; in our history, it often did. But abortion always results in the killing of innocent humans. Between 1882 and 1968, 3,446 Black people were lynched in America. Today more Black babies are killed by white abortionists every three days than all who were lynched in those years.

King’s Dream to End Abortion

But it’s not just Childress and Piper making the connection between King’s dream and the nightmare of abortion. King’s own niece, Dr. Alveda C. King, has captured the irony — and tragedy — as articulately as anyone. She loves the dream her uncle had, and has her own as well.

We have been fueled by the fire of “women’s rights,” so long that we have become deaf to the outcry of the real victims whose rights are being trampled upon, the babies and the mothers. . . .

What about the rights of each baby who is artificially breached before coming to term in his or her mother’s womb, only to have her skull punctured, and feel, yes agonizingly “feel” the life run out of her before she takes her first breath of freedom. What about the rights of these women who have been called to pioneer the new frontiers of the new millennium only to have their lives snuffed out before the calendar even turns?

Oh, God, what would Martin Luther King, Jr., who dreamed of having his children judged by the content of their characters do if he’d lived to see the contents of thousands of children’s skulls emptied into the bottomless caverns of the abortionists pits?

It is time for America, perhaps the most blessed nation on earth to lead the world in repentance, and in restoration of life! . . . Abortion is at the forefront of our destruction.

How Can the Dream Survive?

King continues,

[Martin Luther] King [Jr.] once said, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.” How can the “Dream” survive if we murder the children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. . . . If the Dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is to live, our babies must live. Our mothers must choose life. If we refuse to answer the cry of mercy from the unborn, and ignore the suffering of the mothers, then we are signing our own death warrants.

I too, like Martin Luther King, Jr., have a dream. I have a dream that the men and women, the boys and girls of America will come to our senses, and humble ourselves before God Almighty and pray for mercy, and receive His healing grace. I pray that this is the day, the hour of our deliverance. May God have mercy on us all.

A Prayer for Life Among the Minorities

Piper closes his sermon with this final plea, and then (in italics below) this final prayer. Please join with us in this prayer today and tomorrow as King’s day and the 40th anniversary of Roe happen back to back.

Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in America. They were founded by Margaret Sanger whose “Negro Project” in the 1930s was designed to reduce the births of black children . . . . Today 78% of Planned Parenthood clinics are in minority communities. . . . Every day 1,300 black babies are killed in America. Seven hundred Hispanic babies die every day from abortion.

Call this what you will — when the slaughter has an ethnic face and the percentages are double that of the white community and the killers are almost all white, something is going on here that ought to make the lovers of racial equality and racial harmony wake up. . . .

O that the murderous effect of abortion in the Black and Latino communities, destroying tens of thousands at the hands of white abortionists, would explode with the same reprehensible reputation as lynching. May the Lord raise up from the African-American churches and the Hispanic-American churches a passion to seize the moral high ground against the slaughter of the little ones. Such leadership would sweep the field, and the white pro-choice establishment would fall before it. May it happen in the name of Christ and for his glory and for the good of all people until the Lord of glory comes. Amen.

Presidential Inaugurations and the Providence of God

At his second inauguration, Abraham Lincoln stood before a nation in civil war, deeply divided over great moral and political issues.

Citizens of both North and South feared God and thought they were in the right, but God had not yet given victory to either side. Rather, the war raged on at great cost to both.

What would Lincoln say to this polarized nation in the midst of such sorrow, anger, and confusion?

At the Outset of Lincoln’s Second

Rather than use his address to muster nationalistic pride, commend himself, or boast in his plans for the future, Lincoln turned his mind, and those of his hearers, to the will of God.

“The Almighty has His own purposes,” Lincoln said. Then, quoting Matthew 18:7, he considered the sovereignty of God over the long-time offense of American slavery and the present woe of the Civil War:

“Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him?

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

Lincoln saw no contradiction between the goodness of God and the terrors of the American Civil War. Rather, he surmised that the Civil War was a direct expression of God’s goodness, the carrying out of his justice upon a nation that had long denied justice to a great number of her people.

The sovereign and good judgments of God were a guide to Lincoln, a “true and righteous” rock in the midst of a tragic and turbulent time. And as president of the United States, he offered this same comfort and hope to his fellow citizens.

At the Outset of Obama’s Second

As President Barack Obama has just undergone his second inauguration, America stands at a similar place as in Lincoln’s day. We are a nation deeply divided over great moral and political issues, and, though not in civil war, a variety of other crises surround us: economic instability, political gridlock, the social evils of abortion and widespread sexual immorality, the dangers of terrorism, and more. What is your soul’s response to this situation? Are you afraid, indignant, angry, confused, despairing, or doubting?

The greatness of Lincoln’s speech is that, in pointing to God, it is timelessly applicable. Just as the providence and goodness of our Maker were a comfort and a surety to Lincoln, so too can we be comforted, encouraged, and controlled by the truths of God today, whether our politicians or fellow citizens acknowledge them or not.

President Obama and everyone who is in power, whether in the U.S. or abroad, have been instituted by God as the agents through whom he will do his good and perfect will (Romans 13:1). It is for us to rest in this knowledge and to pray for these leaders, that through them God would enable peace so that the gospel may spread and many more come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:1–4).

And as appreciative as we are to be citizens of such a great nation as the United States, it is ours to celebrate even more that we are citizens of God’s heavenly Kingdom, that Jesus is our eternal King, reigning in love and righteousness, and that his Kingdom is forever.

Raise Your Hand If You Agree

I have no good memories of third-grade math.

To be honest, I don’t remember most of my elementary school days, but math in Mrs. Smith’s classroom is strangely familiar. Maybe it is because that’s where a school subject first became hard for me, or because the homework was such a drag. Or, actually, it may be because third-grade math was the first time I realized I was a crock.

It happened like this. Soon I noticed my friends were picking up math quicker than I was. I can’t recall the exact lessons — just that I wasn’t good at them. And everyday, during that math hour, Mrs. Smith would have students step up front and rehearse homework problems on the board. My classmates would write out the problem and swiftly solve it. They would carry numbers here and make a few notes there, and voila! — the answer.

But what seared this exercise into my memory was that after every answer was offered, Mrs. Smith would ask the rest of the class if they had the same answer. “Raise your hand,” she would say. “Raise your hand if you agree.”

I don’t know that my real answer ever lined up, and to me it didn’t matter. When she asked for the class consensus, I would simply swallow the knot in my throat and scan the arms in the air around me. If there were enough hands held high, and the key kids were in (you know, the smart ones), I’d stick my hand up too. I didn’t really know what I was doing, or what I really thought, but I passed as if I did. It was a hollow agreement, a conviction by association. It was the same problem I fear persists today with many Christians who call themselves pro-life.

According to the statistics, 1.2 million abortions are performed each year in the United States. But we should not assume that 1.2 million abortions mean that all 1.2 million women are pro-choice. The numbers showing the racial inequality that exists in the abortion industry are outrageous. Most abortions occur with women who are minorities (66%), economically disadvantaged (69%), and live below the poverty line (42%). But none of these are 100%. Of course, abortions also occur with white women (34%), and those who are not economically disadvantaged (31%), and those who actually identify themselves as born-again Christians (13%).

Thirteen percent equals 156,000 women a year. Which means, there are quite a few girls who probably come from evangelical families, attend an evangelical church, say they are pro-life, and still have abortions.

To be clear, the point here is not to overdo the demographics behind abortion. I hate abortion of every kind, and I want it to end everywhere. I don’t intend to draw attention to the fact that self-attested Christians have abortions, as if that’s the epidemic upon which we should focus. The point I want to make, the epidemic of which I lament, is that our pro-life convictions too often prove too shallow.

Hopefully the above numbers get our attention and overturn the thinking that assumes the problem is “out there.” Hopefully these numbers make us realize that more than a few folks sitting next to us on Sunday mornings are just like me in third-grade math. They raise their hand because that’s what everyone else in the room does. They pass by (and even vote) like they have a conviction. But they really don’t. They — you? — have a conviction by association, a conviction that flakes the first moment the issue gets real for them. Ignorance is still a problem, even among those who are supposed to know. For not all who are identified as pro-life belong to pro-life. And I believe it would make a difference if all who said they were really were, like deeply and truly really were.

So then what do we do?

Let's deepen our conviction. We should be better at resourcing than rhetoric. It can do some good to hold up signs and state the stats, but all slogan and no substance won’t last. We may get attention from outside the church, but we won’t help the reluctant inside. As one pro-life apologist points out, “for too long the pro-life movement has been shouting conclusions rather than establishing facts.” We need to be clear about the humanity of the unborn and the inhumanity of abortion. One means to do this is the wise use of abortion pictures1, along with several other resources, whether specific ministries, important books2, or corporate study material. Our churches should have these and run the gamut in their use, from just making them available to starting regular reading groups. The hope is to really know and believe the truth, such as when life begins and why it matters.

Let’s have the conversations, which involves life outside of formal settings. The rights of unborn children should be a familiar topic among our friends. We shouldn’t assume that every Christian we know has a robust view on life, or even that our own stance is fully matured. We should talk about it. Bring it up. Make this an injustice that you expressively feel and want to influence others in. Brainstorm ways you can help in your communities and mobilize a team to make something happen, as small as it may seem.

Let's love, truly love, single mothers, which means stepping up in tangible ways for women who find themselves unexpectedly expecting. This means partnering with pregnancy support centers, building real friendships, mentoring, and more. This can be a complex issue, especially when some fear that support for such pregnancies condone the fornication behind them. To be sure, sometimes it can. But it doesn’t have to, and it shouldn’t. Believing fornication is sin and that every life matters doesn’t form two opposing truths, despite their causality relationship. We must love single mothers without a stigma on their situation. The church must be clear on what sin is, but scarlet letters are not in the gospel’s alphabet. This plea has even greater urgency in some Christian subcultures, like the Belt where I grew up. It would not have been voiced, but the silent consensus suggested that the guilt of abortion is preferred over the shame of unwed parenting. Loving single mothers means the stigma must go. Love is not plausible words, but power.

And power is what we need. Power is what we need if our conviction is real, and not just raising hands.

1For a realistic look at abortion, see abortionNO.org (Gregg Cunningham) and thecaseforlife.com (Scott Klusendorf).

2Justin Taylor recommends three books, organized by beginner level to advanced: 1) Stand for Life: A Student's Guide for Making the Case and Saving Lives, by John Ensor and Scott Klusendorf (Hendrickson, 2012); 2) The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture, by Scott Klusendorf (Crossway, 2009); 3) Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case against Abortion Choice, by Francis Beckwith (Oxford University Press, 2007).

Retreat or Risk?

Retreat or risk?

Throughout redemptive history, that question has confronted God's people. As John Piper references in the pages of the new book Risk Is Right (Crossway, 2013), it was the decision facing the Israelites on a crucial day at Kadesh Barnea. Standing on the brink of the Promised Land, with the guarantee of God within their grasp, they ran from risk and chose to retreat. Instead of staking their lives on the faithfulness of God, they recoiled in fear. The cost was great, and the Lord left an entire generation to waste away in a wilderness until they died.

Fast-forward a few thousand years, and you come to the people of God standing in a similar moment. We live in a world where half the population is living on less than two dollars a day, and over a billion people dwell in desperate poverty. Such physical need is only surpassed by spiritual poverty. Billions of people are engrossed in the worship of false gods, and approximately two billion of those people are still unreached with the gospel, meaning that they have little chance of even hearing about the sacrifice of Christ for their sins before they die. Most of the unreached live in hard-to-reach areas of the world that are hostile to Christians — areas of the world where our brothers and sisters are presently being persecuted, imprisoned, and killed.

Though the challenges facing the church are great, the commission Christ has given is clear: make disciples of all the nations. Spend your lives spreading the gospel of God for the glory of God to the ends of the earth. As you go, trust in his sovereign authority, depend on his indwelling presence, and experience his incomparable joy.

As we stand at our Kadesh Barnea, we have a choice. We, too, can retreat into a wilderness of wasted opportunity. We can rest content in casual, convenient, cozy, comfortable Christian lives as we cling to the safety and security this world offers. We can coast through a cultural landscape marked by materialism, characterized by consumerism, and engulfed in individualism. We can assent to the spirit of this age and choose to spend our lives seeking worldly pleasures, acquiring worldly possessions, and pursuing worldly ambitions — all under the banner of cultural Christianity.

Or we can decide that Jesus is worth more than this. We can recognize that he has created us, saved us, and called us for a much greater purpose than anything this world could ever offer us. We can die to ourselves, our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions, our priorities, and our plans. We can do all of this because we believe that the person and the plan of Christ bring reward that makes any risk more than worth it.

In Matthew 13:44 Jesus tells his disciples, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

I love this picture. Imagine walking in a field and stumbling upon a treasure that is more valuable than anything else you could work for or find in this life. It is more valuable than all you have now or will ever have in the future. You look around and notice that no one else realizes the treasure is here, so you cover it up quickly and walk away, pretending you haven't seen anything. You go into town and begin to sell off all your possessions to have enough money to buy that field. The world thinks you're crazy.

“What are you thinking?” your friends and family ask you.

You tell them, “I'm buying that field over there.”

They look at you in disbelief. “That's foolish,” they say. “Why are you giving away everything you have to buy that field?”

You respond, “I have a hunch,” and you smile to yourself as you walk away. You smile because you know that in the end any risk that others perceive is nothing compared to the reward you will receive. So with joy — with joy! — you sell it all. Why? Because you have found something worth losing everything else for.

This is the picture of Jesus in the gospel. He is something — someone — worth losing everything for. When we really believe this, then risking everything we are and everything we have, to know and obey Christ is no longer a matter of sacrifice. It's just common sense. To let go of the pursuits, possessions, pleasures, safety, and security of this world in order to follow Jesus wherever he leads, no matter what it costs, is not sacrificial as much as it is smart. In the words of Jim Elliot, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

I praise God for John Piper and the way he has shown me and countless others the supremacy of Christ. I was in college when I heard my first Piper sermon, entitled “Christ Died for God.” I was compelled by a captivating, biblical vision of a God-centered God, and I began to realize in a fresh way that the ultimate reason for my existence is God's exaltation. Moreover, I began to recognize that my greatest joy is indeed found in God's greatest glory, and Christ is clearly a treasure worth losing and letting go of everything for. This is a central theme (maybe the central theme) of Scripture and is the predominant truth that pervades John Piper's ministry, which is why this book by him on risk makes so much sense.

I pray that God will use it, along with a host of other things, to raise up an army of pastors, missionaries, church leaders, and church members who are fearless in the face of risk because they realize that in Christ, even death is reward. In view of God's great glory above us and in light of the world's great need around us, retreat is unquestionably wrong. For the good of our souls and for the glory of our Savior, risk is most assuredly right.

Staying Faithful When Things Get Worse

Genesis chapters 37–41 only tell the low and high points of Joseph’s Egyptian slavery and imprisonment. But he spent at least 12 years there before he suddenly became the Egyptian Prime Minister. And during that terribly lonely, desolate time, things seemed to go from bad to worse. Imagine what Joseph might have experienced at about year nine into his sojourn.

Darkness had swallowed the light again. Joseph dreaded the night in this foul Egyptian hellhole. It was hard to fight off the relentless hopelessness as he waited the escape of sleep.

Day after monotonous day passed with no sign of change. The familiar desperation surged hot in his chest. His youth was seeping out the cracks of his cage. He was pacing in his soul. Joseph wanted to scream.

Fists to his forehead he pleaded again with God in the dark for deliverance.

And he remembered. It was the remembering that kept his hope alive and bitterness at bay.

He rehearsed the stories of God that had filled him with awe as a child. God had promised Great-grandfather Abraham, a child by his barren wife. But he made them wait an agonizing 25 years before giving them Grandfather Isaac. And God had promised Grandmother Rebekah that her older twin, Uncle Esau, would serve the younger twin, Father Jacob. But God had mysteriously woven human deception and immorality into his plan to make that happen.

Jacob’s smile filled Joseph’s mind. Oh Father! He covered his mouth to choke back his sobs. It had been nine years since he last saw that dear face. Would he ever see it again? Was Father still alive?

He felt something crawl across his leg. Leaping up, he brushed himself off. He shook out the mat. A shiver ran down his spine. Joseph hated spiders.

Lying back down, he remembered how Father Jacob had been caught in his Uncle Laban’s manipulative web for 20 long years. Yet God was faithful to his word and eventually delivered Jacob and brought him back to the Promised Land a wealthy man.

And then there were those strange dreams he had had. They had been unusually powerful, unlike any other dreams before or since. He felt ambivalent about them. They likely were the reason he was now in an Egyptian jail. His brothers’ envy of his father’s favor turned homicidal when he inferred that he had God’s favor as well.

Distant screams let Joseph know another fight had broken out in the barracks. It made him grateful for his private cell, the favor bestowed on the chief scribe to the warden.

He smiled at the irony of this “favor.” Favor in a prison. His brothers would love this if they only knew. He seemed about as far away from what those dreams foretold as he could be.

Yet, as foolish as it seemed right now, Joseph could not shake the deep conviction that God meant to bring those dreams to pass. And he could not deny the strange pattern he saw in God’s dealings with his forebears. God made stunning promises and then ordained time and circumstances to work in such ways as to make the promises seem impossible to fulfill. And then God moved.

The common thread Joseph traced through all the stories, the one thing God seemed to honor and bless more than anything else, was faith. Great-grandfather Abraham believed God’s word. Grandfather Isaac believed God’s word. Grandmother Rebekah believed God’s word. Father Jacob believed God’s word. They all believed even when it didn’t look like God’s word was going to come true. And all of them ultimately saw God’s faithfulness to his promises, despite circumstances and their own failings.

Faith-fueled peace doused the anxious fire in Joseph’s chest. “I believe you, my God,” he whispered. “Like my forefathers, I will wait for you. I have no idea what my being in an Egyptian prison has to do with your purposes. But I will keep honoring you here where you have placed me. Bring your word to pass as it seems best to you. I am yours. Use me!”

In the biblical account it’s tempting to only see Joseph’s heroic character and achievements. But God does not want us to miss the largely silent, desperate years Joseph endured.

Imagine the pain of his brothers’ betrayal, the separation from his father, the horror of slavery, the seduction and false accusation by Potiphar’s wife, and the desperation he felt as his youth passed away in prison.

Sometimes faithfulness to God and his word sets us on a course where circumstances get worse, not better. It is then that knowing God’s promises and his ways are crucial. Faith in God’s future grace for us is what sustains us in those desperate moments.

We all love the fairytale ending of Joseph’s story. And we should, because Joseph’s life is a foreshadowing of a heavenly reality. God sent his Son to die and be raised in order to set his children “free indeed” (John 8:36). There is coming a day when those who are faithful, even to death (Revelation 2:10) will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21).

Our current circumstances, however dismal or successful, are not our story’s end. They are chapters in a much larger story that really does have a happily ever after.

This meditation is included in the forthcoming book Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith (Crossway, April 30, 2013).

The Irony of the Epiphany

January 6 has long been the date the Western church has observed the Feast of the Epiphany. From the Greek for “appearance” or “manifestation” (epiphaneia), Epiphany celebrates the appearance of the Son of God among us as one of us — both fully divine and fully human — and marks the end of “the twelve days of Christmas” that begin December 25.

In particular, Epiphany has become identified with the arrival of the magi, those pagan astrologers who make their surprising appearance in Matthew 2 to worship baby Jesus.

It is not only striking in Matthew 2 that the religiously uncouth magi are seeking to worship the newborn Jewish king, but that the religious leaders of the day are not. The pagan astrologers bow their knee (verses 10–11), but the Jerusalem religious bow their back (verses 3–8). This is the great irony in the Epiphany.

Herod’s wickedness is apparent. Insecure, disturbed, deceitful, murderous — of course, he does not really intend to honor the child but to kill him. But the subtle sin of the religious leaders is perhaps just as sinister, if not more.

Verse 4 says that Herod assembled “all the chief priests [Sadducees] and scribes [Pharisees] of the people, [and] he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.” Here are the trained theologians of the day. They know the biblical jargon. They’ve read and re-read and re-re-read the Hebrew Scriptures — and memorized them. “Where is the Messiah to be born?” It’s a piece-of-cake answer for these guys: Bethlehem. Check Micah.

This is so tragic. They know the answer, but none of them acts on it. None of the trained theologians go to Bethlehem. Dirty shepherds leave their flocks and go to the manger. Pagan astrologers traverse far, hundreds of miles and months on the road. Meanwhile, the religious leaders, full of insider jargon and Bible knowledge and pat answers, don’t bother to make the relatively short five-mile journey to Bethlehem to actually see this baby for which all their theological classes should have prepared them.

Commentator David Turner calls it “the strange indifference” of these theological-answer-guys who have amassed loads of biblical knowledge but don’t act on it. Their heads are filled with verses, doctrines, and religious facts, but their hearts reject the very Messiah to which their training should have pointed them.

Is the warning here not obvious for those of us who have taken class after class and read Christian book after Christian book? Many of us are all too familiar with the church jargon. We can say all the right things to appear pious. We’ve memorized some Scriptures. We know how to sound Christian in our repeated use of precious theological terms and concepts. But biblical training does not guarantee that our hearts are inclined toward worshiping the true king. Religious language and learning can cloak the kingdom of self.

Note the contrast between the pagan astrologers and the religious establishment. The magi don’t know much, but they rejoice exceedingly with great joy (verse 10) at the true revelation from God they have received, while the religious leaders with all the answers and books about books about books are disturbed along with Herod and refuse to submit to the long-awaited king.

“The religious leaders,” writes Turner, “replete with scriptural knowledge, react with apathy here and with antipathy later [when they crucify Jesus]. The magi, whose knowledge is quite limited, nevertheless offer genuine worship to the born-king of the Jews” (page 87).

Note this from the African Bible Commentary:

The successors of these [religious] experts would be at odds with the adult Jesus, and in the end they would conspire to put him to death. The most knowledgeable church people often include those who take Jesus for granted. It is a dangerous situation to be in. It is no less a sin than the outright hatred of Herod, for in the end it leads to the same destiny (where Herod failed to kill the baby Jesus, the chief priests succeeded). Our pride in our knowledge of Christ, the Bible, and the church may turn out to be a snare in the end. (page 1111)

So today, on this Feast of the Epiphany, here’s a reminder to the modern-day chief priests and scribes, the religious establishment, the well churched: Bible knowledge from all the classes and all the books can be precious fuel for worshiping the true Jesus, or a scary excuse for keeping Jesus at arm’s length. Increased knowledge doesn’t necessarily translate into increased worship.

And here’s an invitation for those more like the magi, the non-churched “pagan” and de-churched disenfranchised: You may not have any Christian background (or you did and rejected it, maybe because of the religious). You may not know the Christian jargon. You don’t fit nicely into the church-goer box, and yet you’re being drawn to Jesus. And the whole Christian scene may feel really foreign, but we want you with us. We want the magi. Please don’t let imperfect Christians scare you away from the perfect Christ. Let the astrologers come to Jesus, and do not forbid them, for such is the kingdom of heaven.