TV: TRIVIAL VEGGING
The Boob Tube
In the early days of its life, TV was known as the “boob tube.” This had nothing to do with what television showed (nudity was unthinkable territory in those days) and everything to do with what television did. Too much TV turned you into a boob of the old-school variety: a fool, a dunce, an idiot, an imbecile.
“All things in moderation,” we demur, as we get on with our immoderate amounts of viewing. Even in the age of the Internet, the typical American still watches an average of 5 hours of TV per day—which is really hard to do Monday through Friday, so we must be making up for it on the weekends.
That works out to an average of 35 hours of TV per week—almost a full time job. And this doesn’t include how many hours we spend on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. That’s a lot of entertainment!
Addicted to Amusement
Most of us already know about how much TV we watch. We don’t have a knowledge problem; we have an addiction problem. And it may be worse than we realize.
Hanging out with friends and there’s a lull in the conversation? How quickly we grab our phones…
Is that pile of assignments staring bleakly at you? Where’s that remote…
Is your professor uninteresting? Just log onto Facebook…
Are you bored and have “nothing to do”? I heard there’s a new show on Netflix this month…
When entertainment becomes your means of escape from virtually any inconvenience in life, it has moved from harmless amusement to harmful addiction. It is our “drug of choice” when we want to drown our guilt over sin, tune out the “still small voice” of God, forget the friction in our relationships, or escape (for a moment) from the anxiety of work.
To be sure, entertainment as a category is not the problem. The capacity for pleasure is part of the wonder of God’s world and the need for leisure is part of the way God has made us. To speak plainly, the TV isn’t the issue—we are. Our theological view of TV is fine; our viewing habits are anything but.
One Slave’s Story
The never-ending “need” for entertainment is a form of self-enslavement. I’m speaking from experience. In college I played more than 60 hours of video games per week, in addition to watching TV shows and movies with friends. I nearly failed out of school one semester. I gained more than 50 pounds. I lost contact with several friends.
And I was deeply, deeply unhappy.
I was restless in spite of all my leisurely activities. The difficulties of life I tried to dodge were still waiting for me when the screen turned off. I only felt momentary relief while I was engaged in these entertaining distractions—but I knew nothing of the joy that lasts through sorrow and pain.
Entertainment had over-promised and under-delivered. It beckoned me with its offers of “fun” and relaxation, but it never gave me rest or joy or peace.
Freedom from TV: Trivial Vegging
In truth, I think that entertainment can only be pursued rightly by those who already have joy and peace because they know the Source of joy and peace himself. He breaks the enslaving power of our addiction to entertainment with several key ingredients. (Note: They are “ingredients” and not “steps” because, like a cake, they all need to be present for the finished product to turn out alright.)
The first ingredient is admitting you have a problem. You’ll never seek help if you don’t think you need it. TV, videogames, social media—these truly are all fine in moderation. But are you really using them in moderation? If not, confession is first ingredient for freedom.
The second ingredient is remembering that God is the ultimate source of gratification. “At his right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). He is not trying to kill your joy; he is trying to fulfill it (John 15:11). So when this God calls us to trust him, obey him, and die daily to ourselves, he is not ruining our lives—he is saving them.
The third ingredient is taking time to immerse yourselves in the Scriptures even when you don’t feel like it. How else can you learn to trust God, obey God, or live for God if you do not know who he is, what he has done for you in Christ, or how he asks you to live in return?
The fourth ingredient is belonging to a church that preaches the gospel and shows how it’s the key to change. For Jesus is Lord, and his saving rule extends over every aspect of our lives. There is no stone left unturned, no practice left untouched. The gospel changes everything.
The final ingredient is to think more often about your death. As pastor John Piper often says, “You have one life. That’s all. You were made for God. Don’t waste it.” Remembering all that shouldn’t cut out TV entirely, but it should absolutely cut back our trivial vegging! Remembering the brevity of life and the gravity of eternity has a way of setting us free from the tyranny of the moment by pointing us to the reality of the future. For no one will say on their deathbed, “I wish that I’d watched a little more Netflix.”
Doug Ponder is one of the founding pastors of Remnant Church in Richmond, VA, where he serves in many of the church’s teaching ministries. He has contributed to several published works and is a regular contributor to RE|SOURCE. His interests include the intersection of theology, ethics, and the Christian life. Follow him on Twitter @dougponder.
GOOD, BAD, GOOD, GOOD
Bad News before Good News?
It’s common for Christians to say things like, “You have to know the bad news about sin before you can know the good news about salvation.”
I truly thank God for those Christians who are earnest in evangelism and committed to the “hard truths” of Scripture about topics like sin, judgment, and hell. But when it comes to that sort of presentation of the gospel, I think they’re starting in the wrong place.
Certainly it’s true that you cannot know the good news apart from the bad news—you cannot know what it means to be saved if you do not know what you are being saved from. But you also can’t know the bad news apart from the good news that precedes it!
In other words, presentations of the gospel that most faithfully represent the story of Scripture don’t start with the bad news that you’re a sinner.
A Not-So-Hypothetical Example
Suppose a stranger came up to you and said:
Do you know the Ten Commandments? Have you kept all of them?
(No, of course not.)
And what do you call someone who tells a lie?
(A liar.)
You ever stolen anything—even something really small? What does that make you?
(A thief.)
You ever looked at a woman with lust? You ever used God’s name in vain? Did you always obey your parents?
(Again, of course not.)
So that makes you a liar, a thief, an adulterer, a blasphemer, and a disobedient rebel. Do you think people like that should get into heaven?
Now if you answer, “Yes” or anything to that effect, the stranger will then say: Well, God is righteous. He must punish sin or he is not just. That means you are going to hell unless you receive forgiveness in Jesus.
Every bit of what the stranger told you is true. God says, “Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). And he says, “All have sinned and for short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). And again he says, “The wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23). God says all these things, but this is not where God starts when he speaks to us.
Starting in the Wrong Place
It is incredibly significant that the Bible itself does not begin with the bad news of sin; it begins with the good news of a Creator who made everyone and everything with love, wisdom, purpose, and goodness (Genesis 1 – 2).
By starting with the bad news of sin and judgment, we create three significant problems.
1. Putting Humanity at the Center
“I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake” (1 John 2:12). The Bible repeatedly says that the first and greatest reason God saves us is to showcase his goodness and power and wisdom and love—his glory, in other words. This is the chief reason we were rescued is so that “we may proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:10). By starting with the sinfulness of humanity, we make salvation firstly about us instead of being firstly about God. This is tragically ironic, since the very essence of sin involves a man-centered preoccupation with the self! Instead, the gospel must begin with the good news about God. Because God is the gospel, as one author rightly says—so there is no better gift he can give than himself.
2. Overemphasizing God’s Holiness
Beginning with the bad news of sin make it seem like the most important aspect of God’s nature is that he is our judge. This overemphasizes the holiness of God to the neglect of his goodness or love. Put another way, starting with the sinfulness of humanity overlooks why God wanted to create us in the first place. It paints God as a predominantly angry deity, a nitpicker who can’t stand to have his rules broken. Instead, the gospel should begin with the good news that ‘the God who is there’ is the one seen in the face of Jesus Christ (John 1:18; 2 Cor. 4:6; Heb. 1:1-3), who is the source of everything good, beautiful and true, at whose right hand are pleasures forevermore (Ps. 16:11). The reason he is righteously angry against sin, therefore, is rooted in the goodness of who he is. God is for what is good, and therefore against what is evil.
3. Reducing Sin to Law-Breaking
The last problem with starting a presentation of the gospel with the bad news of sin is that it tends to limit sin to law-breaking, instead of showing that sin is law-breaking and life-destroying—both morally wrong and effectively bad. For example, life is not only taken away as a punishment for sin (Romans 6:23); life is also forfeited as a consequence of turning away from the only source of life and light and joy that there is. This is the argument Paul makes in Romans 1 concerning the effects of idolatry in our lives, and this is what sets the stage for the “full” good news of Romans 8. For salvation is more than forgiveness alone, and so the good news of the gospel must include more than heaven and forgiveness. Jesus has come to set right all that we set wrong (Eph. 1:10; Acts 3:21; Col. 1:20; Rev. 21:5). He has came to make his blessings flow “far as the curse is found” (Rom. 8:19-23). It is “in this hope we are saved,” Paul says (Rom. 8:24a).
Good, Bad, Good, Good
The rhythm of the gospel, therefore, isn’t bad news → good news. It’s good news → bad news → good news → good news.
It starts with the good news of creation and the glorious Creator who made us for himself, apart from whom no good thing ever was, or is, or will be.
It continues with the bad news of our ancestor’s fall and the continued rebellion of every one us today. “Each of us has turned to our own way” (Isa 53:6).
It highlights the good news of God’s grace in the face of our sin, pointing to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection to forgive us, revive us, and reconcile us to the Creator we have betrayed and abandoned.
And it concludes with even more good news about the return of Jesus to renew all things, restoring all that was lost, binding up all that was broken, and setting right all that we put wrong.
If we lose sight of the biblical rhythm of the gospel, the message which is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16) functionally loses some of its potency. For while the “bad news first” presentation of the gospel is still good news, it’s not as nearly good as it could be!
Doug Ponder is one of the founding pastors of Remnant Church in Richmond, VA, where he serves in many of the church’s teaching ministries. He has contributed to several published works and is a regular contributor to RE|SOURCE. His interests include the intersection of theology, ethics, and the Christian life. Follow him on Twitter @dougponder.
DISARMING THE DARKNESS
Disarming the Darkness
The death and resurrection of Jesus was a package deal, accomplishing even more than the unspeakably wonderful gift of forgiveness and reconciliation to God. For not only was the atonement a vicarious substitution for sinners—Jesus’ life and death in the place of ours—it was also a victorious battle against Satan and the forces of darkness.
Here is how the apostle Paul describes it:
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive together with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the record of debt that stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And he disarmed the powers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Colossians 2:13-15)
Or as pastor and author Eugene Peterson paraphrases in The Message:
When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.
The Forces of Darkness
When Paul references the “powers and authorities,” he’s talking about every evil force that arrays itself against God’s people, from Satan and his demons to humans who do their bidding (whether knowingly or not).
And what Paul says Jesus did to those forces of darkness is this: he disarmed them.
When we think of disarming an attacker, perhaps images of martial arts masters pop into our minds. But Jesus did not disarm the forces by twisting his opponents arms until they dropped their weapons. Far more powerfully than that, Jesus exhausted their strength and rendered them powerless by letting them do their very worst to him. His body absorbed every bullet for us, rising in his victory to leave behind an enemy with an empty gun.
Specifically, Jesus disarmed the darkness by triumphing over their weapons of fear, guilt, and shame.
Disarming the Weapon of Fear
Fear is the first (and maybe the greatest) of the enemy’s weapons—and for good reason: fear of death, pain, or even difficult circumstances drives so much of what so many do. It’s what made our first parents hide from God when they committed the first acts of sin (Genesis 3:8-10). It’s why the most repeated command in the Bible is “Do not be afraid.” And it’s one the main reasons why Jesus “shared in [our] humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15).
The good news, as the author of Hebrews announces, is that Jesus has set us free from our slavery to fear by transforming the most terminal of threats into an instrument that does his bidding. For the enemy of death will one day be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:54-55, but in the meantime Jesus turned it into a taxi to carry God’s people home (2 Corinthians 5:8). Hence Jesus says, “Do not be afraid of those who can only kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matt 10:28).
As for any “fate worse than death” (whatever we might imagine those to be), Jesus has an answer for them too. His resurrection power is the anti-curse, death going in reverse. He is making all things new, and the glory of that newness will make every sad thing come untrue (Revelation 21:1-5). The enemy has been disarmed. Jesus wins!
Disarming the Weapon of Guilt
The second weapon of the enemy is guilt. The weapon of guilt does not refer to the fact of having done something wrong but to the feeling of being condemned when we no longer are.
There was a time when we truly stood condemned under God’s righteous judgment of sin. “For whoever keeps the whole Law but fails in one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). Being the totally fair and completely just God that he is, the Lord must deal with us as the lawbreakers that we are. This is real guilt, and it’s not a weapon of the enemy. It’s just a fact of our sinful condition.
Like a parasite the enemy feeds on the fact of our guilt and turns it into a feeling of unending guiltiness. It is no accident that Satan’s name means “the slanderer” or “the accuser.” He is forever berating God’s people with reminders of the sins we have committed, threatening us with condemnation for our crimes. But this is not the whole story. In Jesus our guilt has been atoned for: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). There used to be condemnation for all of us, but now there is no condemnation for all who are in Christ. The just judgment for sins fell on Jesus so that forgiveness could fall on us.
All this means that the enemy’s reminders of our unworthiness and wretchedness and fallenness become like sermons that point to Christ! For when Satan says, “You are a sinner,” he is cutting off the branch on which he sits. For in calling us a sinner, he merely reminds us that Jesus died for sinners—which means he died for us. And when we believe that in Jesus the fact of our guilt has been atoned for, we will see the feeling of guiltiness is just an empty gun.
Disarming the Weapon of Shame
The final weapon of the enemy is shame. Whereas guilt makes us feel “guilty,” shame makes us feel makes us feel worthless and unwanted and unclean. Guilt says, “You know what you did was wrong.” Shame says, “You’re a screw-up. Nobody likes you. You’ll never amount to anything.”
Shame makes us feel unlovely and unlovable, unwanted and unaccepted, ridiculed and rejected. The enemy uses shame to keep us from running to Jesus, which is exactly the opposite of what we should do (of course). For the truth is that Jesus knows us even better than we know ourselves—and he loves us!
Because of Jesus, God accepts us warmly (not with gritted teeth). “Do I have to love this guy” is something that God will never say about us. He loves us and accepts us because of Jesus. Because of Jesus, we are not dirty anymore. He has made us holy and clean, and he will give us a robe of pure white to wear for eternity. Everyone will wear white on the church’s wedding day.
And Jesus doesn’t just cover our shame, like a tablecloth over a scratched up table. Jesus actually shames the shamers—he “put them to open shame” (Colossians 2:15)— while the formerly shame-filled are ashamed no more in him.
Doug Ponder is one of the founding pastors of Remnant Church in Richmond, VA, where he serves in many of the church’s teaching ministries. He has contributed to several published works and is a regular contributor to RE|SOURCE. His interests include the intersection of theology, ethics, and the Christian life. Follow him on Twitter @dougponder.
THE GIVER AND HIS GIFTS
Christmas Time Is Here
For the past several years, our blog has featured a Christmastime reflection on the nature of the holiday, the birth of God’s Son, the gifts, the singing, and all the other ways we celebrate Christmas.
First it was the ever-cliché-but-still-true Reason for the Season. Because while everyone knows that Jesus is the occasion for the celebration, not everyone celebrates with joy over what Jesus has done.
Next we wrote about the dangers of Robbing God’s Love, which is probably the least Christmassy title ever (but at least the graphic makes up for it). Since Christmas is about the gift of Jesus given in love, we must be careful of two tendencies in our hearts that threaten to rob God’s gift of its power in our lives.
After that came Merry Xmas on the true “war on Christmas,” which is quite different and much more dangerous than many suppose it be.
Then last December we published How the Grinch Stole Steals Christmas (preset tense). For grinchy spirits still tug at us on both sides, dragging us into one ditch or the other.
This year’s reflection is a follow-up to the Grinch post. Here’s a relevant snippet to refresh your memory:
Certainly know how to sin with ‘stuff.’ We overindulge. We run up our credit cards. We buy things hoping they’ll bring lasting happiness, only to feel emptier than boxes the day after Christmas…
[But] we are just capable of sinning without stuff, too. We sin by shunning the “stuff” of God’s world, degrading the existence that he gave us. We act as if the physical is bad or at least unnecessary, and the “true spirit of Christmas” is some ethereal, intangible thing. But the resurrected body of Jesus begs to differ. The whole world is being redeemed, the physical along with the spiritual. Jesus is Lord of both.
The Problem of Idolatry
Every sin at its core is an act of idolatry. Idolatry literally means “idol worship,” an devotion to some created thing. In gift terminology, idolatry is loving the gift more than the giver. It is a way of saying, “I love this or that more than I love the God who gave it to me.”
Suppose on Christmas morning this year you rise to meet the same annual traditions. The sausage casserole, the pull-apart “monkey bread,” the champagne and orange juice, the freshly ground coffee—all present and accounted for. As you dig into these dishes, you never think to thank whoever made them. It does not occur you—as silly as it seems—that these items did not “magically appear.” (Or, if you are the one making the delciousness, perhaps you forget that the ingredients you used were all things you did not sow, or tend, or harvest, or transport.)
Now suppose you get down to business with the presents under the tree. You open one without reading the “to / from” tag. Who cares where it comes from; it’s all about the gift! Or worse: suppose you know exactly who it’s from, and you say to them, “I love this gift! I love it more than you, in fact.”
It is absurd to imagine someone saying anything like that. But this is what every sin actually is. Sin is a way of saying to God, “I like what you give me more than I like you.” It is a way of wanting stuff from God without wanting him, the love of creation over the Creator (Rom 1:25).
The Problem of Religion
The way to fight idolatry is not, as some have suggested, to dispense with gifts altogether. That simply creates a different problem. The world is filled to the brim with the grace of God. It flows down like so much gravy on mashed potatoes already loaded with butter and cream cheese—grace upon grace. God delights in giving his varied grace to us, and we do not honor the Giver by rejecting his gifts or acting like we have no place for them in our lives.
I’ve read a few blog articles this year defending the practice of not giving gifts to your family. Most of them take the angle of “we already have more than we need,” which is for most of us absolutely true. But it also misses the point of gifts altogether. Gifts are about grace. The whole point is to give (and receive) from the overflow, the excess, the just-because-I-love-you type of presents. For Jesus doesn’t just barely meet our needs and then move on; he continues to give for all eternity. Every day another gift and another and another. Blessings of grace, with ten thousand beside!
So we do ourselves no favors by snubbing gifts or gift-giving. Instead we diminish our grasp of grace, replacing it with a bare-bones asceticism that has only the appearance of wisdom, but is actually a self-imposed religious restriction (Col 2:21-23).
The Giver and His Gifts
So we can’t get rid of gifts and gift-giving without losing our grasp of grace. But we can’t give and receive gifts without the danger of idolatry always lurking in our hearts. What is the way forward, then?
The only solution, again and again, is to connect the gifts to the Giver and to realize the Giver is always better than the gifts. We must first say, “God, I thank you for ____,” as we learn to see that all good gifts come from his hand (James 1:17). But then we must press on to recognize that God is the ultimate Gift himself, the promised “reward” for all those who seek him (Hebrews 11:6). The Giver is always greater than this gifts, and his gifts are pretty darn amazing. So what does that tell us about him, then?
Thanking “Santa Claus”
I can do no better than concluding with G. K. Chesterton, so I’ll leave you with his words:
Instead of dwindling to a point, ‘Santa Claus’ has grown larger and larger in my life until he fills almost the whole of it. It happened in this way.
As a child I was faced with a phenomenon requiring explanation. I hung up at the end of my bed an empty stocking, which in the morning became a full stocking. I had done nothing to produce the things that filled it. I had not worked for them, or made them or helped to make them. I had not even been good—far from it. And the explanation was that a certain being whom people called Santa Claus was benevolently disposed toward me. . . .
What we believed was that a certain benevolent agency did give us those toys for nothing. And, as I say, I believe it still. I have merely extended the idea. Then I only wondered who put the toys in the stocking; now I wonder who put the stocking by the bed, and the bed in the room, and the room in the house, and the house on the planet, and the great planet in the void.
Once I only thanked ‘Santa Claus’ for a few dollars and crackers. Now, I thank him for stars and street faces, and wine and the great sea. Once I thought it delightful and astonishing to find a present so big that it only went halfway into the stocking. Now I am delighted and astonished every morning to find a present so big that it takes two stockings to hold it, and then leaves a great deal outside; it is the large and preposterous present of myself, as to the origin of which I can offer no suggestion except that ‘Santa Claus’ gave it to me in a fit of peculiarly fantastic goodwill.
Merry Christmas, friends.
Doug Ponder is one of the founding pastors of Remnant Church in Richmond, VA, where he serves in the church’s teaching ministries. He has contributed to several published works and is a regular contributor to RE|SOURCE. His interests include the intersection of theology, ethics, and the Christian life. Follow him on Twitter @dougponder.
A FISH OUT OF WATER ISN’T FREE
Does Christianity Make You Free?
Christianity is commonly criticized as being “oppressive” or “regressive” because it places limits on our freedom to believe or behave as we like. “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” “Thou shalt not steal,” “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” and so on. If we have to obey, then are we really free?
Past cultures generally understood that boundaries and limitations were intrinsic to all ways of life. (Even if they disagreed about which restrictions and constraints were good.) Yet today, the freedom to determine ‘what is right or wrong for me’ is considered one of the most basic human “rights” in our society. And that means Christianity seems like a straightjacket.
In our cultural climate any command seems like an imposition of unwanted authority. Part of the problem, of course, is that sinners like us never like being told what to do. Some things never change. But what has changed is the (problematic) way we now think about freedom.
Freedom Is Different Than You Think
Simply put, we tend to think that freedom is the absence of restrictions or boundaries. However, this is not an accurate or helpful definition. In fact, many times restrictions and boundaries are found on the path to freedom from various kinds of slavery.
For example, a person in the deepest throes of alcoholism or addiction to hard drugs has lost any meaningful sense of freedom to say “no” to another drink or another high. The freedom or power to say “no” only begins to reemerge for them when they live under new boundaries, restrictions, and constraints—even if placed on them against their will (e.g., court appointed rehab).
Or consider another example. Suppose that two people are falling from a plane. One is wearing a parachute, with all its straps and buckles and belts, while the other is free falling without a parachute of any kind. Sensing the weight of the parachute and the tightness of the straps, the first person will feel more constrained than the second. Meanwhile the second person, unencumbered by a heavy parachute pack, will feel freer than the first. But the second person is actually much less free: he is a slave to gravity, and he is at the mercy of the ground when his body slams into it.
One last example. A fish is made for the water, having gills that absorb oxygen from water and not from the air. This means a fish is only free (to eat, to swim, to live) if he remains inside the boundaries of his watery home. A fish out of water isn’t free—it’s dead.
All these examples make the same point: true freedom is not the absence of restrictions, boundaries, or constraints. In fact, restrictions, boundaries, and constraints actually work to preserve our humanity when they work in accordance with our nature.
Where to Go from Here
The crucial question is: which boundaries, restrictions, and constraints are good and right and true? The Christian answer is “the love of Christ constrains us” (2 Corinthians 5:14).
God loves and then commands. Or, working back from the law to the love of God, he commands because he loves. Just as any good parent must tell their child “no” for the child’s own safety and development, God’s laws, commands, and designs are intended “for our good always” (Deuteronomy 6:24). They are a gift to help us know right from wrong, to keep societies in check, and to illuminate our unceasing need for his love and forgiveness. (For when we fail to keep God’s commands, as we all do on a daily basis, the need for his saving grace is never clearer.)
Two Ways to Miss God’s Love
There are then two critical mistakes people make at this point. The first is to ignore God’s laws and commands because they challenge your authority and place boundaries on your freedom. But trying to live against the grain of God’s world never works well for anyone, since we really are made by God and for God. Rebellion against the wisdom and love of our Creator is thus an act of futility and a recipe for frustration, dejection, and death. A fish out of water isn’t free—it’s dead. We were made for the waters of God’s love. We cannot find true life apart from him.
The other critical mistake some people is thinking that since God’s laws are given in love, keeping them is the way to receive God’s love. But Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey my commandments” (John 14:15). He did not say, “If you want me to love you, then you better keep my commandments.” That’s because the love of God for us is not based on anything we are or do. It is based purely and entirely on who God is and what he has done for us in Jesus. His love flows freely from the cross to meet lawbreakers of every kind, offering forgiveness for all wrongs and freedom from slavery to sinful desires.
And this freedom is found, counterintuitively, in becoming a “slave of Christ.” Which is just another away of saying that we thought we were free when we did as we pleased, but we were actually slaves to our deadly desires. But now, by the power of the gospel of grace, we have been set free to follow Jesus. We obey him because we love him. And we love him because he first loved us. “For the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for also that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died and was raised for their sake” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).
Doug Ponder is one of the founding pastors of Remnant Church in Richmond, VA, where he serves in many of the church’s teaching ministries. He has contributed to several published works and is the author of Rethink Marriage & Family. His interests include the intersection of theology, ethics, and the Christian life. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter.
THE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT
The Blind Men and the Elephant
If you spend a few hours in a university coffee shop or even a few moments in the hellish lower realms of an Internet article’s comment section, you are likely to overhear the story of the blind men and the elephant.
It is an old parable that originated in India and has been retold many times. The English poet John Godfrey Saxe popularized the story in the West with his poem in the mid-1800s. Lillian Quigley later made the story into a children’s book of the same name. And now, thanks to the wonders of the YouTube, you can even hear a jazzy song about it.
Here’s the gist of the story:
Six blind men stumble upon an elephant, each laying hands on a different part as he tries to discern what the elephant is like. The first touched the smooth side of the elephant. “An elephant is like a wall,” he said. The second blind man grabbed the elephant’s trunk, saying, “No, an elephant is like a snake.” The third touched the point of the elephant’s tusk. “No, an elephant is like a spear,” he said. The fourth blind man wrapped his arms around one of the elephant’s legs. “No, an elephant is like a tree,” he said. The fifth felt the wide ear of the elephant and said, “No, and elephant is like a fan.” The sixth blind man laid hold of the elephant’s tail. “No, an elephant is like a rope,” he concluded.
The blind men soon begin to argue about which of them were right, waking up the king who was sleeping nearby. Seeking to end the commotion, the king says, “An elephant is a large animal, and each of you has touched only one part. You must put all the parts together to find out what an elephant is like.” Enlightened by the king’s wisdom, the blind men agree that each of them had been only partially right. “Each of us knows only a part. To discover the whole truth, we must put all the parts together.”
The ‘Moral’ of the Story
The parable of the blind men and the elephant is usually used to claim that ‘every person has their own perspective, and no one has the whole truth.’ When we disagree with someone, in other words, we may both we right about whatever part of the truth we see. #everyonewins
At another level the story is often used to claim that each religion is only partially right (and thus partially wrong), since each has only one part of the whole truth. If we want to understand spiritual reality, the reasoning goes, we must learn from all world religions.
Why the Story Fails
One of my favorite authors, Lesslie Newbigin, often encountered this story during his time as a missionary in India in the middle 20th century. His critique of the story is now famous.
The entire story is told from the point of view of the king, who is not blind and who therefore can see the whole elephant that the blind men are only guessing about. But if the king were also blind, there would be no story. In other words, if everyone really only “saw spiritual reality in incomplete pieces,” then even the storyteller’s parable would be just one piece of the puzzle! Arrogantly, the parable claims to know what spiritual reality is truly like while suggesting that everyone else has only a partial picture. The parable assumes the sight of the king while casting everyone else as blind men.
Pastor Tim Keller summarizes the critique this way: “How could you know that each blind man only sees part of the elephant unless you claim to be able to see the whole elephant? … How could you possibly know that no religion can see the whole truth unless you yourself have the superior, comprehensive knowledge of spiritual reality you just claimed that none of the religions have?” (Keller, The Reason for God, 9).
The King Who Speaks
The message of Christianity has never been, “Everyone is blind to the truth about God except for us!” That would be ridiculously self-righteous. Rather, Christianity believes that there is a king who can see the whole “elephant,” and he told everyone about it. That king, of course, is Jesus.
God revealed himself through the life of Jesus so that all of us might come to know him, his world, and even ourselves. This revelation from God has not left us to blindly search for pieces of the puzzle. Jesus is the whole puzzle, showing us what God is like and what God has done for us.
This, then, is the most ironic aspect of the parable of the blind men and the elephant (which is actually a very good picture of how sin distorts human perception when it is reinterpreted in the light of Christ). For we actually are blind men apart from God’s revelation, groping hopelessly in the dark for a touch of reality. But in Christ, light has dawned. The king has spoken. The nature of the “elephant” has been revealed for all who are willing to listen to only one who sees. And he says to us all, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).
Doug Ponder is one of the founding pastors of Remnant Church in Richmond, VA, where he serves in the church’s teaching ministries. He has contributed to several published works and is a regular contributor to RE|SOURCE. His interests include the intersection of theology, ethics, and the Christian life. Follow him on Twitter @dougponder.
MORE SINFUL, MORE LOVED
Becoming Worse Since Becoming a Christian?
I recently met with a friend who was worried about some trends he had noticed in his life. Since coming to faith in Jesus several months ago, he has often felt like he is even more sinful today than he was before. How could that be? he asked. Does this mean that God hasn’t accepted me? hasn’t forgiven me? Am I even a Christian? If so, why would I feel worse today than before I met Jesus?
I know the feeling. I think most Christians do. There is a paradoxical tension between the sins we see so clearly and our expectations that the gospel would lead us to freedom from these things.
Some people try to relieve the tension by suggesting that the gospel has “noting to do with our behavior, only our beliefs.” But that isn’t quite right. It’s true that salvation is not a reward for our good behavior, but salvation is a gift that changes our behavior. It’s the message that brings a change of mind and change of heart that lead to a change in action (that’s what “repentance” is, and it’s why Jesus calls us to continually repent and believe). The gospel, in other words, is about “more than heaves and forgiveness.” It is the total good news about all that God has done for us and will do in us, which includes renewing his sons and daughters in his image (Rom 8:29; Col 3:9-10; 2 Cor 3:18).
Then why did my friend not see or feel this renewal going on?
He wondered, perhaps, if this meant he had not been sincere enough in his apology or strong enough in his faith. Maybe he wasn’t really a Christian after all. Maybe. But I don’t think that is true of my friend. I have as much confidence as anyone can have that he understands the gospel and trusts in Jesus with saving faith. Everyone who knows him testifies to the same.
So what gives? How do we explain his feeling of being even worse today than he was several months or even years ago, before he came to faith in Christ?
We Are More Sinful Than We Ever Realized
I think the answer is this: We are more sinful and flawed than we ever dared to admit, even to ourselves.
When you have lived your entire life in the pitch-black dark, it takes a while for your eyes to adjust to that “marvelous light” that called you out of darkness (1 Pet 2:9). Or, to speak plainly, we were (and still are, to a great degree) simply unaware of the extent of our own sinfulness. Apart from Jesus, we see only the “big sins” in our lives (even if we did not call them sins).
But the longer we spend in the light, the more our eyes adjust to life in God’s kingdom. And the more our eyes adjust, the more we see the stains on our shirt. They’ve been there all along, of course, but now we see them. We once were blind, but now we see. And what we see clearly now is not just Jesus, but a new awareness of our sinfulness.
This explains why many Christians feel worse off many months and years after coming to faith in Jesus. This is why many Christians wonder if they have made any progress in sanctification or growth in holiness at all. The truth is that you are almost certainly not more overtly sinful today than you were before you came to trust and treasure the costly grace of Jesus; you are probably just more aware of how bad off you really were—and still are—apart from Christ.
We Are More Loved Than We Ever Hoped
Alas, too many Christians stop with the last paragraph. Exiting the train one station too soon, they begin to live as if their new mission in life is to exclaim to the world how bad off everyone really is. Thus the good news of the gospel nearly gets swallowed up by the bad news of our sin. But it ought not be this way. For while it’s true that we are far more sinful and flawed than we ever realized or dared admit, we are also more loved and accepted in Jesus than we ever dared to hope.
That truth, first expressed by Elyse Fitzpatrick and later made popular by Tim Keller (in its many variations), wonderfully summarizes the heart of the gospel. We are more far sinful than we thought, yet we are more loved in Jesus than we can possibly know. We are more messed up than we ever realized, yet God is more gracious in Jesus than we ever dreamed. “There is more mercy in Christ than sin is us,” as Richard Sibbes said. And considering how much sin there is still in me, that can only mean there is a lot of mercy still in Christ.
My closing encouragement to my friend (and to you, if you have ever found yourself in a place like he did), was not to beat himself up for the sins Jesus already took a beating for. When you come to a fresh realization of the depth of your sin, there will always be the temptation to think that maybe you should have tried a little harder, believed a little more strongly, or done something to somehow offset sins such as serious as yours. But when Jesus died for you, he already knew the depths of sin you are just now discovering—and he still died for you anyway. So don’t worry about the fact that you are more sinful than you ever realized, for this also means that you are even more loved in Christ than you once realized too.
Doug Ponder is one of the founding pastors of Remnant Church in Richmond, VA, where he serves in the church’s teaching ministries. He has contributed to several published works and is a regular contributor to RE|SOURCE. His interests include the intersection of theology, ethics, and the Christian life. Follow him on Twitter @dougponder.
GRATITUDE AND THE GOSPEL OF GRACE
A Culture of Thanksgiving
As I pointed out recently, “Thank you” is among the first phrases we teach our children, a discipline that becomes so deeply ingrained that we come to say “thank you” habitually, often without awareness, and, ironically, even without gratitude. Prayers of thanks are offered before meals. Grateful appreciation is expressed for civic freedoms and for the soldiers who have fought to secure them. In acceptance speeches for receiving public awards, almost every actor or musician offers ‘a big thanks to everyone who made this possible.’ Books too, typically begin with words of gratitude. And now comes the “30-day thankfulness challenge,” which naturally coincides with the month that includes our national holiday for giving thanks.
When we find a near universal behavior or belief in humanity, it is always worth asking why it is the case. Why do all worship, unless there something about our nature that inclines us this way? Why do all have a sense of right and wrong—even those who attempt to deny such categories? Likewise, why does almost everyone feel the urge to give thanks such that thanksgiving becomes a natural—even unavoidable—part of human culture?
If we follow the logic of Paul in Romans 1, the ubiquitous desire to express thanks is not a mystery; it is the fruit of a dormant longing, an inner inclination toward an outward expression, a feeling rooted in the fact of creation: we were made to glorify God by giving thanks to him (Romans 1:21). Thus virtually everyone feels the urge to express gratitude in some form or another, even if they do understand what they are doing or why they are doing so. This is because sin has not completely eradicated the inclination to give thanks, but it has significantly distorted it in one of two ways. The first distortion of gratitude is sentimentalism. The second is cynicism.
Two Cultural Distortions
Sentimentalism has the form of gratitude but denies its power. It’s all sap and no substance. It is a vague expression of “thankfulness” that takes pains to identify what we are thankful for without so much as a passing mention of the God to whom we should be thankful. Sentimentalism is a subtle self-centeredness hidden behind words of thanks. For if we say that we are thankful for something, absent any actual gratitude to the Giver of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17), all that we can mean is “I am glad that I have this thing in my life.” Yet who could not say the same? Such a sentiment is often a shallow happiness over the thing possessed. In this way sentimental gratitude, even if unintentional, is an attempt to enjoy God’s gifts apart from a joyful admiration of God as Giver.
Cynicism is the second distortion of gratitude. While cynicism does not technically deny the goodness of giving thanks “on paper,” in practice it finds little to be thankful for. Whereas a sentimental distortion of gratitude is a separation of gift from Giver, the cynical distortion of gratitude fails to see all good things as gracious gifts. Thus the scornful pessimism of the cynical outlook is a form of self-righteousness. This is because cynicism, at its core, is a failure to grasp the immeasurable grace we have been shown, from the rains that fall on the righteous and the unrighteous to the Indescribable Gift himself (2 Corinthians 9:15). It is the tragic result of living as if all good things in our lives were the products of our own effort. Instead of thanksgiving there is griping—a self-righteous lament over things not had that are thought to be “deserved.”
Gratitude and the Gospel of Grace
Though sin doubly distorts God’s design for human gratitude, the gospel is the solution for both distortions. First the gospel reconnects what sentimentalists separate, uniting the gifts for which they are thankful to the gracious God to whom all thanks are due. As Paul rhetorically asked, “What do you have that God hasn’t given you?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). This subverts our self-centeredness, compelling us to consider the God who gives. Thus the biblical language of thanksgiving is not a vague notion of gladness for having nice things; it is “I give thanks to God for ____” (cf. 1 Thessalonians 1:2; 3:9; 2 Thessalonians 1:3; 2:13; 2 Corinthians 9:15). This is because whole world is God’s gift, including our capacity for experiencing the goodness of creation. There is nothing good we possess that cannot be traced back to the hand of God, whether directly or indirectly (James 1:17). “For from him, through him, and to him are all things” (Romans 11:36). To him be the glory—and the gratitude—forever!
The gospel also reminds cynics that everything they have flows from grace upon grace. For when we consider what we actually deserve as continual rebels against our Father’s will, we cannot fail to see the extent of the grace we have been shown. In this way the gospel subverts our self-righteousness, reminding us that every good gift—from salvation to sunshine to sweet potato pie—is sheer grace, ‘and if by grace then they cannot be based on earning; otherwise grace would no longer be grace’ (Romans 11:6). In the light of the gospel there is nothing to be cynical about! For the grace of Jesus means the hard things are just for now (Romans 8:18), the good things will last forever (1 Corinthians 3:14), and the best things are yet to come (1 Corinthians 2:9). And that gives us a lot to be thankful for (Ephesians 5:20).
Doug Ponder is one of the founding pastors of Remnant Church in Richmond, VA, where he serves in the church’s teaching ministries. He has contributed to several published works and is a regular contributor to RE|SOURCE. His interests include the intersection of theology, ethics, and the Christian life. Follow him on Twitter @dougponder.
FACTS AND FEELINGS
Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings
“Facts don’t care about your feelings.” That’s what one infamously controversial political columnist / cultural commentator has pinned to the top of his Twitter profile. What he says is true, but—ironically—that doesn’t mean people like it. And it’s important to point out, as obvious as it may seem, that “Facts don’t care about your feelings” is still true even if we don’t like the statement! “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it,” as author Flannery O’Connor rightly says.
Consider the following example: Two plus two equals four, even if I think it doesn’t. Two plus two equals four even if I don’t know math or can’t read numbers. Two plus two equals four even if I “feel very strongly” that it equals something else. Two plus two equals four for men and women, for old and for young, for Whites, Blacks, Asians, and Latinos. Two plus two equals four even if the person who taught me math was a hypocritical jerk. Two plus two equals four because it’s true—no matter what I think, feel, or want to be true.
Or take a more recent example: Donald Trump is now my president even though I did not vote for him, and even though I very strongly wish that he (and Hillary too) had lost by a landslide. Donald Trump is the president now matter how much I hate this fact, and no hashtag can change this reality. #NotMyPresident is still my president. It stinks. I don’t like it. But it’s still true (and the truth doesn’t change according to my ability to stomach it).
Truth Is True and Reality Is Real
All of this matters, because we live in a time when people are increasingly confused about what is real.
“Your version of truth is determined by your perspective.”
“There is no truth; there is only perception.”
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is perspective, not the truth.”
“Your truth and my truth may not be the same.”
These statements—and thousands others like them—have the appearance of wisdom, but they only pass in places like the Internet and freshman philosophy papers. Because facts exist. Truth is really real—even if I’m wrong about it, don’t know about it, or lack the capacity to know it altogether. If a man who could not taste, touch, see, hear or smell tried to walk through my office, he would bump into several cold hard facts of reality (in the shape of a chair, a couch, and a computer desk). The world is there; things exist outside of us and apart from us, and facts are true whether we see them, believe in them, or like them.
So facts are fixed realities that do not change according to our belief or our behavior or our agreement with them. Which means that truth is true irrespective of my knowledge of the truth. Reality is real regardless of my thoughts or feelings about reality.
Why This Matters Every Day
All this means that if the God of the Bible exists, then he exists whether I believe in him or not. My belief doesn’t make God real, just as someone else’s disbelief doesn’t make God unreal. Furthermore, if the God of the Bible exists, then sin would be wrong even if I like it or don’t think it’s all that bad. The rightness of an action, attitude, idea, or practice would be rooted in God’s vision for flourishing as spelled out in the pages of the Scriptures.
The realness of reality and the irrelevance of feelings in relation to facts also means that my identity is rooted in who God made me, not in my own self-identification. If I felt like a woman born in a man’s body, my DNA would say otherwise. Or I if felt like men and women are identical in every respect, these differences between men and women would still persist (even in a culture that attempts to downplay, diminish, or deny those differences). Or I may feel that I’m the most awesome person alive, but that doesn’t make it true. Or I may think that I am a piece of trash or worthless nobody, but the God of the universe says otherwise. He made me, and he loves me!
Finally, understanding that feelings don’t change facts has tremendous import for grasping the gospel as well. It means that how I feel about God has nothing to do with how he feels about me. I may feel incredibly guilty or even condemned, for example, but in Christ I am truly free from guilt and condemnation. It also means that God’s goodness toward me is a reality at all times, even when I have trouble seeing it or remembering it. The truth of the gospel is true—it’s really real—even on days when I have trouble believing it. For the ground of my assurance is the fact of Jesus’ death and resurrection for me, not my feelings about them from day to day. Or as theologian Don Carson rightly says, “It is not the intensity of our faith [a feeling] but the object of our faith [Jesus] that saves us.”
Doug Ponder is one of the founding pastors of Remnant Church in Richmond, VA, where he serves in many of the church’s teaching ministries. He has contributed to several published works and is a regular contributor to RE|SOURCE. His interests include the intersection of theology, ethics, and the Christian life. Follow him on Twitter @dougponder.
DON’T BE AFRAID
A World Fueled by Fear
Fear and worry and anxiety run deep in us all. We’re afraid of being alone, of being unloved, of being abandoned. We’re afraid of looking dumb. Some are afraid of losing; others are afraid of success. We’re afraid of taking chances, but we’re also afraid of missing that “once in a lifetime” opportunity. The wealthy are often afraid of economic hardship—yet their fear doesn’t go away no matter how high the dollars stack. We’re afraid of hurting others, and we’re afraid of being hurt. Singles are afraid they will never marry; married couples are afraid their spouse won’t stay forever. We’re afraid of growing older; we’re afraid of dying young.
These fears say something about us, but that’s another post for another time. This post is about the fact of fear, and the only solution that there is. For no one really likes fear, but it’s the air we all keep breathing. The world is fueled by it. Whole industries exist to profit from our fears. Politicians practically depend on fear to run their campaigns, and the candidate who taps into our deepest fears almost always wins the election.
“People are sacred,” as Donald Trump repeatedly said in his campaign speeches. And he used that fear to forge a path to victory, stirring up powerful emotions in many, appealing to their deep-seated fears before offering himself as the only solution. “I’m scared,” a 12-year old said to Trump at one of his rallies this year. “You know what, darling?” Trump replied. “You’re not going to be scared anymore. They’re going to be scared.”
Now that Trump has won, fear has multiplied. At the time of writing, there have been five consecutive days of anti-Trump protests across more than a dozen cities in the country (including Richmond). The people in these protests—whatever you might think of their aim or effectiveness—routinely indicate that they are extremely worried and fearful of what Trump may do in office.
My neighborhood held a “group hug” session in the park for anyone who was scared and upset and worried at the outcome of the election. (From the looks of it, lots of people attended.) One of my neighbors is completely deleting her social media presence to “go underground” and “live off the grid” until the next election. There are widely circulating reports of colleges canceling classes and businesses shutting down for a day because so many literally ‘can’t even.’
It is tempting for some to laugh at these reactions to Trump’s victory as the consequence of a spineless liberalism built on pure sentimentality. But I know of a few conservative churches down the road where men in the congregation helped one another build bunkers and stockpile them with food and ammo—just in case the election had gone the other way. Fear is bipartisan, it would seem.
I confess that I was afraid, too. I was deeply worried that the 81% of white evangelical Christians who voted for Trump would give Jesus such bad press that the kingdom of God might be hindered in America for decades or more. Don’t get me wrong: a victory for Hillary would have been a disaster of a different kind, but the Confessing Church endured the persecution of Hitler with grace and courage, while the churches who supported him faded into worthlessness and blasphemy. (Let the reader understand.)
Do Not Be Afraid
All this helps us appreciate the surprising fact that the most frequent command in the Bible is “do not be afraid.” It is repeated almost one hundred times! More than “be holy as I am holy.” More than “do good.” More than “love your neighbor.” More than “treat others as you want to be treated.” More than “don’t sin / don’t do evil.”
To Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob God said, “Do not be afraid” when he made and confirmed his covenant with them (Gen 15:1; 26:24; 46:3).
As the Egyptian army was riding to slaughter the Israelites, God spoke through Moses to say, “Do not be afraid” (Ex 14:12-14).
When Moses descended with the Ten Commandments he said, “Do not be afraid” (Ex 20:20).
As God’s people observed the strength of the pagan tribes in the promised land, God said, “Do not be afraid of them” (Deut 3:22).
When Moses died and the leadership of a nation fell to Joshua, God comforted him by saying, “Do not be afraid” (Josh 1:9).
When the cowardly Gideon was chosen to lead God’s people into battle, the angel of the Lord told him, “Do not be afraid” (Judg 6:23).
When the prophet Elijah was called to preach the truth to a wicked king, God said, “Do not be afraid of him” (2 Kings 1:15).
As his people were surrounded by enemies and about to be taken into captivity, God said, “Do not tremble; do not be afraid” (Isa 44:8).
To the virgin Mary who had just discovered she was miraculously pregnant, the angel said, “Do not be afraid” (Luke 1:30).
As Joseph contemplated breaking it off with Mary, whom he feared was unfaithful, the angel said, “Do not be afraid” (Matt 1:20).
To the shepherds who saw an angelic host fill the sky with thunderous singing and blinding light, the heavenly chorus sang, “Do not be afraid” (Luke 2:10).
And again and again throughout his ministry Jesus kept on saying, “Do not be afraid, little flock” (Luke 12:32).
When he spoke of his imminent departure, Jesus told his disciples about the coming Comforter and he said to them, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid” (John 14:27).
After he was crucified and buried the resurrected Jesus appeared to his frightened disciples with an important Easter announcement: “Do not be afraid” (Mat 28:10).
And to the church who would face tumultuous times filled with persecution and difficulty of every kind, the risen Jesus still says, “Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer… Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown.” (Rev 2:10)
Fear Not—OK, But How?
No one wants to be afraid. But it turns out that we have a harder time obeying “do not be afraid” than almost all of God’s other commandments. So how can we move beyond such near-universal fear?
The biblical answer is faith—not blind faith (which is absurd and technically impossible), but faith in the God who raised Jesus from the dead. And this is not just “faith” in the sense of agreeing that some fact is true; it’s faith in the sense of reliance.
The apostle Paul once spoke about a horrendously dark time in his life when he was so scared and depressed that he “despaired of life itself” (2 Cor 1:8). Paul sounds almost suicidal as he writes this, but he goes on to say that all the tragedies had resulted in one critical conclusion: “that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Cor 1:9).
You see, believing that God raised Jesus from the dead is more than just a doctrinal box to check off the list. It means truly trusting that things will turn out alright—in the very end—because the love of God will make it so. “Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).
Yet living by this kind of faith (rather than fear) takes learning. It doesn’t come naturally to sinful people, even Christians. We must strive to continually live in step with the truths about Jesus that we first believed when we became a Christian (Gal 2:14). We must remind ourselves of the good news of the resurrection of Jesus, again and again, until it becomes the “air we breathe” instead of the fear that comes so naturally to us.
And it means we must see that Jesus wasn’t lying when he said, “Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matt 10:28). For if Jesus is raised from the dead, and you belong to Jesus, then what is the worst that can happen to you now? If you lost everything and everyone you cared about—but still have life in Jesus—you will live to see “every sad thing come untrue.” In the light of eternity with Jesus, and the weight of glory there, even the hardest life on earth will one day seem like just a bad night’s stay in a run-down motel (Rom 8:18).
Christians face a rare and important opportunity in the coming days and months. Our nation is gripped by fear—both the fear that elected Trump and the fear that is reeling at his having been elected. We have the providential opportunity to live as people without fear, not because we are above tragedy or difficulty or persecution, but because we know the God who raised Jesus from the dead will make everything right in the end. So let us join with the angels, as Christmas fast approaches, and say to the world: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10).
Doug Ponder is one of the founding pastors of Remnant Church in Richmond, VA, where he serves in many of the church’s teaching ministries. He has contributed to several published works and is a regular contributor to RE|SOURCE. His interests include the intersection of theology, ethics, and the Christian life. Follow him on Twitter @dougponder.
POSTPARTUM CONFESSION
Postpartum Confession
This ain’t my first rodeo, but having a baby still scares the crap out of me! I have two toddlers with two very different personalities (and two very different pregnancies), and just last week I gave birth to my third little boy. Motherhood is wonderful, and pregnancy is awe-inspiring, but I was anything but “glowing” by the end of my third trimester. I just waddled around the house, chasing after my two-year-old, trying not to look like an overheated dog. I checked my pregnancy app daily, wincing as baby surpassed melon-sized status.
The period after pregnancy hasn’t been a cakewalk either. My postpartum experiences with each of my boys have been some of the most beautiful and the darkest times of my life. And I’ve talked with enough ladies to know that I’m not alone in this; the postpartum period (the so-called “fourth trimester”) is excruciatingly difficult for almost every woman.
My first time through the gauntlet caught me totally unprepared: sleepless nights, cluster feedings, regular pumping, lack of sleep, anxiety, postpartum hormones, and adjusting to a new person whose claimed your heart, house, and body all at the same time.
I think many times most moms think that if they feel like they have nothing left—no energy, no strength, no will power—that they must doing something wrong. I’ve been there! (I had such a romanticized view of what having a baby would be like, one that somehow didn’t include spit up, or explosive poop, or ugly-crying on my back porch loud enough for my neighbors to hear.) But the truth is, being a new mom is just difficult. It’s hard even when you’re doing a fine job with everything.
I mean, you just finished doing one of the hardest things in all of life. On top of that, you now have to learn the ways of a new person who can’t communicate (except by screaming) and who doesn’t give you time off. They demand your attention with a cry that doesn’t cease until they get what they need—and even then, sometimes, they still cry. So there is nothing easy or romantic about newborn life—it is beautiful, to be sure, but it’s also crazy hard and super messy and totally raw.
Lean on Grace
One of the most freeing things that my husband ever said to me was that I didn’t have to be excited about 2am feedings. In my photo-shopped newborn land, I felt I wasn’t a good mother if I wasn’t gleeful about the difficulty of newborn life. But that simply isn’t true. His comment freed me to sacrificially serve my babies without feeling guilty that I wasn’t thrilled about midnight cluster feedings or 5 am wake up calls or mastitis.
In short, my husband gave me the space to struggle, the freedom to get things wrong, and the encouragement to ask for help. And he did all this because he knows that God’s grace covers everything. God’s grace means we do not have to be “perfect” for our children; we just need to trust the One who is. So amidst all the sleeplessness and all the crying and all the joy, here is the one thing every mom should do: lean on God’s grace.
Leaning on God’s grace starts with relishing the fact that we are His children. For in the midst of the early years of motherhood, it is wonderfully comforting to know that I am Someone Else’s eternal child. God cradles and shepherds us in the weakest of times, much like we care for our newborns in a time when they are weakest. Lean on this: “My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in your weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).
I’ve felt the most desperate and intense need for Jesus after the birth of my babies. Praise God that we are His children and He longs to lavish us with grace and mercy every day, whether it starts at 1 am or 3 am or 8 am. God gives us the strength to keep going. He allows us to serve past our own capacity. I know because I’ve been there twice already—and I’m in the throes of it now—and I’ve also seen many women before me love and serve their children through this time. It really is a beautiful to see God’s supernatural power at work in our weakness. Lean on his grace!
Lean into Community
When it comes to raising children, people are fond of saying, “takes a village.” I think it’s true, and that village is the church. The people of God are wonderful, and I’ve been carried along in the faith on the shoulders of many close friends during my darkest times. After I’ve had a baby, when I’m still in the midst of the fog and emotionalism, I often lack the strength simply to remind myself of what’s true. It’s then that I’m so thankful for all the people in my life who remind me that God is good, that children are a gift, and that He has promised to carry and sustain us through difficult seasons.
Instead of letting the postpartum period isolate you, I encourage every new mom to lean into community. After all, one of the greatest gifts that God has given us is his body, the church. That means moms should reach out to others for help, ask questions of moms that have been there before, ask for prayer, talk with friends, spouses, or community group members on hard days, asking them to remind you of what is true. As Hebrews 3:13 says, we must “encourage one another daily.”
The real trick to leaning into community is putting yourself in the where community is found. I know going anywhere with kiddos is tough and schedules can complicate things; however, I also know that it’s totally worth the tears, the third outfit change after a blow-out, and the juggling act of getting toddlers into their car seats in order to be around the people of God. I’ve often been encouraged after a sleepless night by just listening to other moms tell their stories and enjoying their encouragement and company in the mother’s lounge on a Sunday than from taking a nap. Rest isn’t bad, of course—we need rest! But while rest can help our bodies heal, only the gospel can replenish our souls. It takes commitment to lean into community post-baby, but God’s gift to us is His people, and they are a blessing indeed.
Fight the Good Fight
Finally, I think every new mom needs to fight the good fight. After birth, I can’t trust my thoughts and feelings for several months. What I feel is true versus what is actually real are simply at odds for a long, long time. Fighting the fight doesn’t mean trying to eradicate all your feelings (which is impossible); it means standing on the promises of God. It means trusting that what He says about life, Himself, and ourselves is more reliable than how we feel or think in the moment.
God is constant even though I’m being tossed around a sea of emotional confusion. He is a perfect Father when we feel like struggling mothers. His grace is enough for us. His mercies are new every day. He will renew our strength. He is our anchor in trying storms. He is the giver of good gifts, including children. He has promised to never leave us or forsake us. He loves us with an everlasting love. He gathers all of our tears and cradles us in His embrace. He restores our soul. He orders our steps. He gives us new life through Jesus. He empowers us to live daily. He has given us victory over sin. He promises, enables and delivers a life full of joy—including the early months and years of motherhood. He intercedes for us. He is faithful. He is just. He is good.
I could go on for pages about this, but I don’t need to, because other people already have: in the Scriptures, in other good books, in devotional apps, in hymns. Right now I have a few books and Scripture-reading plans in a personal “truth arsenal” for my postpartum period. I plan to read when I feel like quitting or when I feel especially confused. Whatever you have to do to keep God’s promises in the forefront of your mind, do it! We are not helpless in this fight, dear sisters. God has given us what we need to fight against postpartum depression, the “baby blues,” or whatever you want to call the crazy hardships of a new mom’s life. We have a perfect Father who loves us, the good news about what Jesus has done for us, the Holy Spirit inside us, and the people of God all around us. And there’s no combination more powerful than that! (But a little chocolate never hurt things, either.)
Jessica Ponder is a wife and mother to three (so far). She loves reading, singing, baking, and urban walking. In her dreams she is a piano player with time to practice, a gardener whose plants don’t die, and someone who could hang out with the entire world at the same time, all the time. Follow her on Twitter @MrsJessPonder.
EDUCATING YOUR CHILDREN
THE DESIRE FOR EDUCATION
Few things seem to matter as much today as education. What else do people move across the country for, go into great debt to obtain, restructure their family’s schedule and living situation around, argue about at every political level, and even measure people’s worth or intelligence or giftedness by? Education is clearly essential.
There’s a great reason for this, even if people don’t realize it: We value education because we are knowers by nature, having been created by God to know him, know ourselves, and know his world. Yet we aren’t born with such knowledge already in us, like a computer preloaded with software. In order to know God and his world, we have to learn about them. And that means education. Like everything else in God’s world, therefore, education is something that can (and must!) be undertaken to the glory of God.
Usually when thinking about education for their children, parents often start with the question: Where?—as in homeschool? public school? private school? Ironically, this is probably the least helpful question to start with! For you can’t answer Where? unless you first know the who, what, and why of education.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
The Scriptures make it clear that God holds parents accountable for the education their children receive, for parents are the guardians of their children’s hearts and minds. In the most specific place, God tells fathers to ‘bring up their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord’ (Eph 6:4). That includes so much more than Bible stories before bedtime or prayers before meals, because “the instruction of the Lord” is so much more than the gospel and the Ten Commandments. God calls parents to teach their children think well about everything, which means giving them the tools they will need to grow as lifelong learners to the glory of God.
Now this doesn’t mean that parents are the only ones who teach their children. Pastors, community group leaders, schoolteachers, and other adults may all be part of the process. But even when parents invite someone else to help educate their children—whether a pastor on Sunday or a schoolteacher on Monday—the parents are still the ones who must make sure their child’s education is sound. A child may have many teachers, but he has only two parents whom God holds accountable for the education (whether good or bad).
WHAT IS A GOOD EDUCATION?
Jesus is Lord over everything, including math and science and literature and art. As the psalmist says, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Ps 24:1; 1 Cor 10:26). That means God’s world is not divided into “sacred” and “secular” spheres, as if the gospel changes how we think about philosophy but has no impact on biology or math. All subjects should be part of a child’s education, but we must ensure they are not learned as if Jesus were irrelevant to the subject matter. For example, are numbers arbitrary constructs of human ingenuity and convenience, or are they representative realities of the inherent order of creation? The difference between these two frameworks cuts the core of what we think knowledge is for.
Furthermore, the Christian vision of life and learning has a specific starting place. Put another way, the foundation for a Christian education is the Bible because God has spoken, we can trust him, and his Word works to shape our minds and hearts to engage his world rightly as we discover and cultivate and create. This differs from the foundation (or starting point) of secular philosophies of education, which begin with what man can discover for himself, unaided by divine revelation. This approach, which masquerades under the guise of neutrality, is actually loaded with assumptions about humanity (that we are able to discover truth on our own), about what counts as truth (that only what can be seen, measured, or recorded is true), and about whether virtues, morals, and religious beliefs have any positive role in the holistic formation of a student (hint: they do).
WHY DOES EDUCATION MATTER?
Every education philosophy has specific goal or purpose, the “so what” of education. For many people education is purely pragmatic: you get an education to get a job to make money to live life. Certainly those are all important, but if that’s all that education is good for, you will have a difficult time convincing an 8 year-old boy why he should care about spelling today when the consequences you are talking about are still more than a decade away.
Meanwhile, the Christian vision of education includes the exciting realization that every aspect of learning—down to the smallest detail—is an opportunity to learn more about God and his world. The ultimate telos, or end goal, of Christian education therefore is worship. We educate our children in the hopes that they would grow to know and love God. And this includes teaching them about math and science and history and everything else. Math and chemistry study God’s orderliness and consistency. Science studies of God’s creativity and in creation. History is the story of world events, full of the sins of men and the redeeming providence of God. Spelling studies the wonder of human language, and the capacity for humans to read and write (unlike any other animal). Far from being random facts, these subjects pour the fuel of knowledge onto the fire of worship, engaging our minds and exciting our hearts with thoughts of the God who creates and redeems.
WHERE SHOULD I EDUCATE MY CHILDREN?
None of what we have said necessarily directs parents to an exclusive course of action when it comes to the well-worn debates about public school vs. private school vs. homeschooling. Simply put, there is no “thou shalt homeschool” from the Lord, and Christian parents have the freedom to utilize any of educational context. At the same time, this doesn’t mean every institution is equally good at educating your children with a comprehensively Christian education. This fact seems equally undeniable.
The question parents must ask is this: Is where my child receives his or her education the kind of institution that will instill in them a true vision of life and learning? If it is not, parents must be prepared to equip their children with what is lacking in such contexts. This may mean parents provide supplemental lessons, or at the very least, parents make it a habit to sort through all the material their children are learning at school, correcting what is erroneous and connecting what is good to Christ and his Word. This goes for public school, private school, and even homeschool. Every parent is called by God to help their children learn what is good, right, and true Monday through Sunday.
Doug Ponder is one of the founding pastors of Remnant Church in Richmond, VA, where he serves in many of the church’s teaching ministries. He has contributed to several published works by various authors. His interests include the intersection of theology, ethics, and the Christian life. Follow him on Twitter @dougponder.