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Psalm 46 is a beloved passage in which the psalmist declared that no matter what was happening around him, God was his refuge and strength. Safe in the assurance that he is God, we can wait on him even amid chaos. He is still on his throne. You may not be in prison, but you may be infertile or inactive or in limbo or in between jobs or in search of health, help, a house, or a spouse. Are you in God’s waiting room? If so, here is what you need to know: while you wait, God works. “My Father is always at his work,” Jesus said (John 5:17). God never twiddles his thumbs. He never stops. He takes no vacations. He rested on the seventh day of creation but got back to work on the eighth and hasn’t stopped since. Joseph’s story appeared to stall out in Genesis 40. Our hero was in shackles. The train was off the tracks. History was in a holding pattern. But while Joseph was waiting, God was working. He assembled the characters. God placed the butler in Joseph’s care. He stirred the sleep of the king with odd dreams. He confused Pharaoh’s counselors. And at just the right time, God called Joseph to duty. He’s working for you as well. “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalms 46:10) reads the sign on God’s waiting room wall. You can be glad because God is good. You can be still because he is active. You can rest because he is busy. Remember God’s word through Moses to the Israelites? “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today . . . The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still” (Exodus 14:13–14). The Israelites saw the Red Sea ahead of them and heard the Egyptian soldiers thundering after them. Death on both sides. Stand still? Are you kidding? But what the former slaves couldn’t see was the hand of God at the bottom of the water, creating a path, and his breath from heaven, separating the waters. God was working for them. God worked for Mary, the mother of Jesus. The angel told her that she would become pregnant. The announcement stirred a torrent of questions in her heart. How would she become pregnant? What would people think? What would Joseph say? Yet God was working for her. He sent a message to Joseph, her fiancé. God prompted Caesar to declare a census. God led the family to Bethlehem. “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28). You’ll get through this waiting room season. Pay careful note, and you will detect the most wonderful surprise. The doctor will step out of his office and take the seat next to yours. “Just thought I’d keep you company while you are waiting.” Not every physician will do that, but yours will. After all, he is the Great Physician. Application Are you in a season of waiting? Can’t see God working in your life? Get still before the Lord and journal a prayer telling him how you feel. Ask him to help you trust that he’s working on your behalf. By Max Lucado from the NIV Lucado Encouraging Word Bible.

Women as Image Bearers You can barely open your computer, watch Netflix, go to a movie, or follow popular music without encountering our culture’s objectification, negation, and sexual exploitation of women. Our society attaches a woman’s worth to her beauty or views them only as objects for sexual pleasure; the degrading of female image bearers is all around us. Why are female pop stars pressured to dress provocatively? Why are fashions designed not to cover the woman’s body but to expose it? Why do countless women find the workplace to be sexually threatening? Why are a woman’s breasts often more esteemed than her brain? Popular media oppresses women with norms of beauty that literally take surgery to obtain. How far away have we fallen from the dignity of women as image bearers of God himself? When it comes to the value, dignity, significance, and uniqueness of the imprint of the image of God, men and women are equals. Hear these words again: “So God created man in his own image, / in the image of God he created him, / male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). To reduce a woman down to the shape of her body, to dishonor, denigrate, or objectify her, or to negate the value of her gifts and her God-given contribution as one of his image-bearing resident managers, dishonors not only her but God himself. I wish I could say that the issue of devaluing the image-bearing giftedness of women is an issue only outside the church, but I cannot. Now, I do believe that God has designed different roles for men and women in his church. I think Scripture is quite clear that the role of pastor/ elder is, by God’s design, for men. But I also am convinced that we have undervalued and underutilized the God-given and essential gifts of women. The Bible does not teach that the primary role for women is in the home. The Bible does not teach that a woman’s spirituality comes through her husband. The Bible does not teach that a woman’s life will only be complete if she is married. The Bible does not forbid a woman from being highly educated and having a successful career. The Bible does not prohibit women from leading men in political, education, and business situations. Valuing Women’s Gifts Let me give you two examples of how these truths connect to the life and health of the body of Christ. One woman in the church where we are members is a professor of black history at a local college. She is not only a historian, but she is a theologian whom God has used to help our church think through and navigate issues of race. Because her gifts are valued, she has been an essential contributor to the health of our church in tumultuous times. Her combination of historical expertise and gospel literacy is a gift of God to our church, but it is important to note that giftedness had to be recognized by leadership and given a voice in order for our congregation to be helped and blessed by it. Years ago I was one of the pastor/elders of a church in the Philadelphia suburbs. Once a year we would go away for an elders’ retreat with our wives. We would eat together and do activities together. But when it came time to discuss the church, the men would go into one room for those talks while the women went to another room to share parenting stories and recipes. Luella, my dear wife, found it both strange and uncomfortable. She reminded me that each of these wise and godly ladies had a different experience of the church than the elders did, and it might be helpful to hear from them. She wasn’t asking for women elders but for the gifts and experiences of women to be valued and given expression. So one Saturday morning after breakfast the women joined the men in a discussion about church. It was one of the most important and eye-opening conversations the elders had ever had. We learned things about ourselves and the life, culture, and ministry of our church that we would have never known any other way. As the women lovingly shared with us, some of our weaknesses and failures were exposed. We began to see these women as not only wives and mothers but also as God’s gifted image bearers, built by him to be essential contributors to the life and health of his church. We scheduled a time for our wives to be part of the conversation at every retreat after that. A woman who comes to her pastor with a concern about issues in the church, questions about a sermon, or concerns about leadership attitudes or decisions should not be brushed off, wrongly criticized, dismissed, or silenced. A woman who has not gotten married or who has pursued a career should not be judged. Married women should not be viewed as attachments to their husbands but rather as God-called and God-gifted contributing members of the body of Christ who happen to be married. Women do not experience the body of Christ as men do. Women see things that men don’t see. Women communicate truth differently than men. A body of Christ is healthiest when women are esteemed and their gifts highly valued, not just in the home but also in the church. The church needs highly trained women theologians. The church needs to give voices to gifted gospel-communicating women. We need to encourage gospel-wise women to write. To do anything less fails to treat women with the honor that was stamped on them at creation. One of the ways to build a culture that values the essentiality of the gifts of women in the body of Christ is to highlight the robust role that women had in God’s unfolding plan of redemption in Scripture. As you walk your way through biblical history, it becomes clear that the work of God is not solely a man’s domain; it is the ambassadorial calling of men and women alike. Sarah, Rebekah, Miriam, Rahab, Deborah, Ruth, Hannah, Esther, Anna, Mary, Elizabeth, Mary Magdalene, and Phoebe are just a few of the women God used to move along his plan of redemption. Men and women are called to be Christ’s disciples, his instruments, his representatives, and his messengers. We should teach this history to our boys and girls. We want boys to grow into men who value the presence and gifts of women in the body of Christ, and we want girls to be clear about their calling and the need to hone the gifts God has given them. The theology of the image of God in all people should radically influence the way we view and respond to women, co-image bearers by God’s design. This theology calls us away from denigrating and objectifying women and calls us to honor them as those who bear the very likeness of God himself. It calls us to honor their gifts, to give their unique experience a voice, and to train them for work as God’s agents in the world and as essential members of his church. Hear Spurgeon: We cannot say to the women, “Go home, there is nothing for you to do in the service of the Lord.” Far from it, we entreat Martha and Mary, Lydia and Dorcas and all the elect sisterhood, young and old, rich and poor, to instruct others as God instructs them. Young men and maidens, old men and matrons, yes—and boys and girls who love the Lord—should speak well of Jesus and make known His salvation from day to day. The theology of the image of God in all people should radically influence the way we view and respond to women, co-image bearers by God’s design. This article is adapted from Do You Believe?: 12 Historic Doctrines to Change Your Everyday Life by Paul David Tripp.

Throughout John 15, we read about the way in which God deals with three different kinds of branches. First, we read about what God does with unproductive branches, and if truth be told, it sounds a little harsh: “He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit” (John 15:2). Hmm … well, that doesn’t sound encouraging. That sounds like if we aren’t good enough, if we don’t produce enough, God cuts us off. He moves on without us. If what that sounds like is what actually happens, then none of us stand a chance at experiencing a life of connection with the Vine. But if the Gardener simply cuts off every branch that bears no fruit, then it seems contradictory to what Jesus will go on to teach about the vine and the branches. Jesus promises that if we remain in him and stay connected with him, we will bear fruit (John 15:5). So how can Jesus say that God “cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit”? He seems to suggest that it’s possible to be connected with the vine without bearing fruit and that if you’re not bearing fruit, God has no use for you. Is that how our relationship with God works? Does he cut off everyone who hasn’t earned a certain number of gold stars? Does he tolerate us as long as our production numbers are up and to the right, but if we begin to wither and don’t bear enough fruit, he “cuts us off”? Cut off or Picked Up In Greek, the word for “cut off” is airo. It is a relatively common word in the New Testament, and it generally means something along the lines of “remove” or “lift up.” So it’s reasonable to conclude, as the NIV does, that Jesus is talking about a gardener cutting off or “removing” the dying branches. If that’s an accurate translation, then perhaps it’s because God as Gardener is removing branches that have died but have yet to fall from the vine—like cutting down a tree that is dead but hasn’t yet fallen. At the same time, an equally valid translation is that God “picks up” or “lifts up” the dying branches. The word airo appears twenty-six times in the gospel of John. Check out how it’s used in John 5:8, where Jesus says to a paralyzed man, “Pick up your mat and walk.” We see it again in John 8:59 where the religious leaders, who are furious with Jesus, “picked up stones to stone him.” Yes, it can refer to taking something away, but it can also refer to picking something up. So Jesus might be saying that God the Gardener “cuts off” dead branches, but he might also be saying that God “picks up” dying branches. Those are vastly different interpretations with two very different implications. How we understand and define airo will determine how we connect with God when our way isn’t working. When we become too much trouble or are too high-maintenance, when we ignore what he has clearly said and disobey what he has told us, when we wither and struggle to produce good fruit, is God the kind of gardener who picks us up or cuts us off? Many of us have lived lives of disconnection and have been resistant to seek reconnection with Jesus because we have a “cut you off” theology. We know what we have done and what we haven’t done. We know a lot of gold stars are missing from our chart in heaven. If we were God, we know deep down what we would do with us. And so we assume rejection and keep our distance. I wonder how often we’ve disconnected with God. We wrongly think we’ve been cut off and that he’s done with us. We feel rejected and discarded, so we stop coming to church and we give up on praying. What’s the point if God isn’t going to respond to our messages? We assume we did something wrong or maybe we just didn’t earn enough gold stars, but we convince ourselves that we’ve been cut off. The Bible makes it clear. God is “slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6; Psalm 103:8) and will never leave us nor forsake us (Deuteronomy 31:6; Hebrews 13:5). But when we think about what we have done or have not done, we tend to assume that God is a vengeful gardener with a machete in hand, ready to lop off any branch that isn’t producing enough fruit. We try to be good enough to keep God from snapping, but we’re not sure what the standard for “good enough” is. Thus we spend our lives oscillating between self-righteousness (because we think we’ve met the standard) and shame (because we’re certain that we’ve fallen short). I truly believe that God loves me, forgives me, and has saved me from my sin. I know that those things are true, but if I’m honest, I sometimes feel that God is frustrated with me. I feel like he barely tolerates me and if I don’t start producing some serious fruit, he’s going to cut me off. You’ve felt that too? This subtle but malignant misunderstanding of God probably stems from a different place for every person. It could be your hometown preacher who shouted about God’s truth and whispered about God’s grace. It could be your ex who snuck out of the picture as soon as your personality became problematic, leaving you to feel as though loving you is a burden that no one is able to carry. It could be that when you ran out of gas on the side of the road, you knew you had better not call your dad because when he shows up, he’s going to be furious. It could be the series of tragedies that plagued your life, causing you to question whether God was punishing you for not being good enough. Ultimately, the real source of this is an enemy who wants to convince you that you have been ghosted by God and that he is going to cut you off. A Visit to a Local Vineyard Which is it? Cut off or picked up? One of my favorites passages of Scripture is Romans 8:38–39. Here the apostle Paul pushes back against the feeling that God has rejected us: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. I am not sure if Paul could state any more clearly that the love of God for us is unchangeable. Nothing can alter it. Not your wasted time, not your apathetic indifference, not your passive disobedience, not your divorce, not your addiction, not your affair, not your procrastination, not your bad habits, not your short temper, not your harsh words, not your biggest regret, not your blank gold-star-sticker chart—nothing can separate you from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The definition of airo became even clearer to me when I spent some time one day walking with the owner of a local vineyard. I asked him questions about how he cared for the branches. Listening to him, and more importantly watching him, gave me a clearer picture of God as the gardener. He sees a branch that is connected with the vine but has no fruit on it. This branch is in the dirt, surrounded by weeds that are growing up around it. It’s withered and is struggling, but it’s still connected with the vine. As long as it’s connected with the vine, there is hope. So what does the gardener do? He gently picks it up and untangles it from the weeds. He cleans it off and tenderly intertwines it with some of the other branches so that it can be held up and restored. The gardener’s goal is to airo withering branches so that their connection can be strengthened and fruit can begin to grow. When it’s clear that your way hasn’t worked for you and you find yourself covered in dirt and surrounded by weeds, there is a gardener with a graceful heart and gentle hands who longs to pick you up. As a once-withered branch myself, I’m immensely grateful for the kind of gardener God is. He saw me in the dirt, gently picked me up with graceful hands, cleaned me off, and placed me where I could grow and experience life once again. A Branch in the Dirt I was speaking at an event where I had the opportunity to meet a man I’ll call Adam. Adam shared with me that a number of years ago, he had spent some time in prison. He didn’t say what he had been convicted of, and I didn’t ask. When he went into prison, he was illiterate, unable to read or write. But another inmate, who was a Christian, offered to teach Adam to read by using the Bible. This inmate spent hours and hours teaching Adam to read. Eventually, Adam not only learned to read about Jesus, but he became a follower of Jesus. Adam said that when he was released, he tried to get connected with a church in the small town where he lived. But people in the church found out about his background, and a number of them felt uncomfortable with him being there. They didn’t think he belonged with the “healthy branches.” One prominent family—longtime members of the church who to all appearances had produced all kinds of fruit—finally told the pastor he would need to ask Adam to go or they were going to leave. In their minds, it was time for Adam to officially be cut off. The pastor explained to this family that Jesus had come for people like Adam. The family ended up leaving, and others threatened to follow. Adam started thinking that maybe he had made too much of a mess of his life and that he ought to disconnect from God and the church. One Sunday night after the sermon, the pastor asked Adam to come up front. Adam immediately knew what was going to happen. He was sure the pastor had found out about his crimes and was going to tell everyone—and then cut him off. He made his way to the front with his head down. He was so ashamed over what was about to happen. Some of the church members present at the service wanted Adam to leave, but they wished the pastor would just remove him quietly. It’d be less awkward that way. When Adam reached the front, the pastor said he needed to talk to the church about a decision he had made. He explained that since being released, Adam had not been able to find work. The pastor said, “I brought Adam up here because I wanted to offer him a job. Adam, I’d like to hire you to help take care of the church facilities.” And then the pastor put his hand in his pocket and pulled out an extra set of church keys and told Adam the keys were for him so he could open and close the church on Sundays. As Adam is telling me his story, tears are running down his cheeks. He told me he had never had a key to anything his entire life. He felt loved and accepted. He felt picked up and connected. By the way, I should mention where I met Adam. I wasn’t speaking at a prison; I was speaking at a pastors conference. Adam had been handed the keys to the church six years earlier, and he’s now a pastor at that church. I don’t know what you would do with you or what others would do with you, but I know what God wants to do with you. No matter how spiritually dry or dead you might feel, no matter how unproductive your life has been, no matter how long you’ve been lying in the dirt and caught up in the weeds, God the gracious gardener wants to gently pick you up and clean you off. Adapted from When Your Way Isn’t Working: Finding Purpose and Contentment through Deep Connection with Jesus by Kyle Idleman.

Jesus's Countercultural View of Women The place of women in the first-century Roman world and in Judaism has been well-documented and set forth in several recent books. Most frequently, women were regarded as second-class citizens. Jesus’s regard for women was much different from that of his contemporaries. Evans terms Jesus’s approach to women as “revolutionary” for his era. But was his treatment of women out of character with Old Testament revelation, or with later New Testament practice? Other chapters in this volume will show that it was not. Disciples Come in Two Sexes, Male and Female For Christ, women have an intrinsic value equal to that of men. Jesus said, “. . . at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female’” (Matt. 19:4; cf. Gen. 1:27). Women are created in the image of God just as men are. Like men, they have self-awareness, personal freedom, a measure of self-determination, and personal responsibility for their actions. Scanzoni and Hardesty point out that “Jesus came to earth not primarily as a male but as a person. He treated women not primarily as females but as human beings.” Jesus recognized women as fellow human beings. Disciples come in two sexes, male and female. Females are seen by Jesus as genuine persons, not simply as the objects of male desire. Hurley believes “the foundation-stone of Jesus’s attitude toward women was his vision of them as persons to whom and for whom he had come. He did not perceive them primarily in terms of their sex, age, or marital status; he seems to have considered them in terms of their relation (or lack of one) to God.” Three Clear Examples Examples of this even-handed treatment of women by Jesus are found in the four Gospels. First, Jesus regularly addressed women directly while in public. This was unusual for a man to do (John 4:27). The disciples were amazed to see Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar (John 4:7-26). He also spoke freely with the woman taken in adultery (John 8:10–11). Luke, who gives ample attention to women in his Gospel, notes that Jesus spoke publicly with the widow of Nain (Luke 7:12–13), the woman with the bleeding disorder (Luke 8:48; cf. Matt. 9:22; Mark 5:34), and a woman who called to him from a crowd (Luke 11:27–28). Similarly, Jesus addressed a woman bent over for eighteen years (Luke 13:12) and a group of women on the route to the cross (Luke 23:27-31). A second aspect of Jesus’s regard for the full intrinsic value of women is seen in how he spoke to the women he addressed. He spoke in a thoughtful, caring manner. Each synoptic writer records Jesus addressing the woman with the bleeding disorder tenderly as “daughter” (references above) and referring to the bent woman as a “daughter of Abraham” (Luke 13:16). Bloesch infers that “Jesus called the Jewish women ‘daughters of Abraham’ (Luke 13:16), thereby according them a spiritual status equal to that of men.” Third, Jesus did not gloss over sin in the lives of the women he met. He held women personally responsible for their own sin as seen in his dealings with the woman at the well (John 4:16–18), the woman taken in adultery (John 8:10–11), and the sinful woman who anointed his feet (Luke 7:44–50). Their sin was not condoned, but confronted. Each had the personal freedom and a measure of self-determination to deal with the issues of sin, repentance, and forgiveness. Jesus's Valuation of Women Today Even though clear role distinction is seen in Christ’s choice of the apostles and in the exclusive type of work they were given to perform, no barriers need exist between a believer and the Lord Jesus Christ, regardless of gender. Jesus demonstrated only the highest regard for women, in both his life and teaching. He recognized the intrinsic equality of men and women, and continually showed the worth and dignity of women as persons. Jesus valued their fellowship, prayers, service, financial support, testimony and witness. He honored women, taught women, and ministered to women in thoughtful ways. As a result, women responded warmly to Jesus’s ministry. Have things changed too drastically today for us to see this same Jesus? Not at all. Modern women can find the same rich fulfillment in serving Christ as did the Marys and Marthas of Judea, or the Joannas and Susannas of Galilee. For Christ, women have an intrinsic value equal to that of men. This article is adapted from Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism by James A. Borland, edited by John Piper and Wayne Grudem.

A Belated Announcement I once heard a pastor say that we are the belated announcement of what we have been thinking about for the past thirty days. I have never forgotten it. I can see now that his words rang true because they were a paraphrase of the tenth word. In a list of clear prohibitions, the tenth word is unexpected. For all the other nine, our neighbor could hold us to account fairly simply by gathering witnesses to testify to our compliance or lack thereof. But here, at the end of the list, we find a sin of a different nature. Idol-making, Sabbath-breaking, dishonoring authority, murder, theft, adultery, and slander can all be identified by an onlooker, but not so covetousness. Covetousness hides in the heart. The Ten Words progress from “Don’t do it” to “Don’t say it” to “Don’t even think about it.” Jesus has drawn for us a connection to the underlying sin of contempt in his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. And here, the tenth word acknowledges the truth of his teaching, for no one ever set out to sin against God or neighbor without first desiring something out of bounds. Covetousness and contempt hold hands, for no one ever sought to take from God or neighbor without first desiring to diminish them. Covetousness is a personal offense. We have seen it in the story of Adam and Eve, who covet what is God’s alone. We have seen it in the subsequent story of Cain, who covets what is his brother’s. In both of those stories, no human witnesses could be raised to testify to the sins of desire that preceded the sins of action. But there was one who bore witness. The God who sees bears witness to every sinful desire. The tenth word reminds us at the conclusion of what we understood at the outset: there are no gods before God. It is God who bears witness to our compliance to the tenth word. Long before our covetous desires take the visible shape of words or deeds, Yahweh bears witness against us. If we were to remember this, more readily confessing our sin at the point of desire, perhaps the words of James would not prove so prophetic in our lives: “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:14–15). Desire is a living thing, conceived in the secret place and seeking to grow to maturity. Our words and actions are the birth cry of our mature desires. They are the belated announcement of what we have been thinking about for the past week, month, decade—an unholy and gruesome birth, gestated in our hearts, a confession of a crooked course we committed to some time ago. The tenth word is warning us about promiscuity of thought, and of the heart as a fertile womb. The grammarian in me does not love a mixed metaphor, but when it emerges from the biblical text, I put to death the grammarian in me. The heart is a place where sin gestates. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. The tenth word is also unexpected because, like the Sabbath command and the stealing command, it anticipates wealth before Israel has it. The itemizing of house, spouse, servants, and animals paints a portrait of wealth. Only a wealthy neighbor would have such an inventory of covet-worthy status symbols. A nation of recently freed slaves has little to covet. In the earliest years of their freedom, there would have been little stratification of wealth or situation. Yet God prepares them in advance for the social and emotional complexities that would come their way as wealth increased among the children of God. Just as he decreed rest before any might be tempted to profit off the constant labor of another, God forbids coveting before any might have reason to do so. What a mercy that God sees the end from the beginning. He engraves good boundaries for us even before we know we need them. Be Content For certainly we need the tenth word, today as much as then. Stated in the positive, “Do not covet” becomes “Be content.” Covetousness hurts the community because it keeps close company with stinginess. The less content we are with our own possessions, relationships, or circumstances, the less inclined we will be toward the generosity that helps the community flourish. It is contentment we see thriving in the early church in Acts, where everything was shared as any had need (Acts 2:42–47). We do not share with a neighbor when we perceive our own needs to be paramount. Covetousness whispers that we deserve that which has been given to our neighbor. Contentment states plainly that God has given what is good. Once we connect contentment to covetousness, we can take steps to combat our ungodly desire for the good others have been given. It turns out that contentment is not something that drops from the heavens like manna. It turns out that the route to contentment is open to us if we look for it. Paul gives us the spectacles to see it, in one of the most familiar passages in the New Testament: I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned( in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned* the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Phil. 4:10–13) If contentment has been a losing battle for you, if coveting comfort or cash or companions has been your common state, let the good news sink in: contentment is learned. It is learned according to the typical pattern of sanctification: through experience, by the power of him who strengthens us. Paul assures us it can be done, and done beyond the bare minimum. He says we can learn contentment in all things. But where do we start? If we determine to learn contentment and unlearn coveting, we must start by becoming good students of what fuels our desires. Note how the progression from house to people to status symbols and “anything that belongs to your neighbor” instructs us in three key areas of coveting: stuff, relationships, circumstances. Coveting what someone else has is always a function of a wrong expectation. It is predicated on the idea that we deserve what others have. It feeds on comparison, that old thief of joy, which explains why the covetous person leads a joyless existence of dissatisfaction and contempt. We compare our own situation to that of someone else and allow our expectation to take shape accordingly. The gap between our expectation and our reality is where discontentment and covetousness thrive. As long as our expectations exceed our current reality, we will be particularly prone to break the tenth word. It is not wrong to have expectations for our stuff, our relationships, and our circumstances—it is just wrong to have unrealistic expectations. As the tenth word points out, we are deeply concerned with keeping up with the Joneses. We want to have a kitchen like their kitchen, a marriage like their marriage, vacations and cars like theirs, smart and athletic children like theirs, flexible work arrangements like theirs. Whatever they’ve got, we would like—only slightly better, as long as we’re making an adjustment to the balance sheets. Why do we want it? We illustrate the wisdom of the French proverb: “What makes us discontented with our condition is the absurdly exaggerated idea we have of the happiness of others.” When we look at our neighbor and covet his stuff, relationships, or circumstances, we commit the grave error of assuming that his stuff, relationships, or circumstances have made him happier than we are. We are actually ridiculous enough to think that if we had what he had, we would be happy. On Earth as in Heaven What is more exhausting than covetousness? What is more wearying than comparing to confirm a suspicion that someone else has it better than we do? What is more like Satan than to want what belongs to another? In the new heavens and earth, we will cease our coveting. We will not be tied to comparison, at last gazing unhindered on the one without compare. We will have obtained fully the pearl of great price. We will have unearthed completely the treasure hidden in a field. We will be free of the suspicion that someone else has it better than we do. We will know beyond a doubt that the greatest possession, the purest relationship, the highest circumstance is ours for eternity. We will enjoy in full the great gain of godliness with contentment. But godliness with contentment is great gain here and now. Why wait until then to live as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven? When we reject covetousness and embrace the tenth word, we pray “Thy kingdom come.” We fix our eyes heavenward, and we open our hearts to seek the well-being of our neighbor, free from envy. What is more like Christ than to want the good of our neighbor? What better way to spend this life than in the laying down of pointless comparison and the taking up of comparison to Christ? This is the here-and-now abundant life offered to us through the words of the tenth commandment, the life that holy desire alone can bring forth. The gap between our expectation and our reality is where discontentment and covetousness thrive. This article is adapted from Ten Words to Live By: Delighting in and Doing What God Commands by Jen Wilkin.

Dreaming has an essential role in developing your faith and helping you become the kind of person God has always intended you to be. There is an important connection between dreaming and believing, between your imagination and your growth. Without a dream, you get stuck. But with God-inspired dreams, you have almost limitless possibilities. Before you took your first breath, God had already placed the gift of imagination into your brain. God hardwired creativity into every cell of your body. The Bible says you were created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26). Part of what is included in being made in God’s image is the ability to dream and create something out of nothing. This ability to dream of something you have not yet experienced is a God-given capacity that sets humans apart from the rest of God’s creation. Fish can’t imagine flying or even living out of water. Birds can’t imagine living underwater. But humans have dreamed of both of these, and so much more, for ages. Dreaming is an important part of what makes you human. People dream great dreams. They imagine creating and doing things often years before those things become reality. Everything that humanity has accomplished in history started as a dream. Napoleon once said, “Imagination rules the world!” Your dreams profoundly shape your identity, your happiness, your achievements, and your fulfillment. But God-inspired dreaming is far more important than just these benefits. Dreaming has eternal implications too. Dreaming is always the first step God uses in his process to change your life for the better. Everything starts as a dream. God dreams. Just look around! Everything in the universe is something God dreamed up. You can’t get past the first phrase of the first verse of the first chapter of the Bible without coming face-to-face with God’s creativity. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created.” God imagined and spoke everything into existence. It all began in the mind of God. The Bible says, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind” (John 1:3-4). Just by looking at nature, we can learn a lot about God. We can see that God is powerful. We can see that God loves beauty. We can see that God cares about details. We can see that God is organized. He has created all kinds of coordinated systems that interrelate—in the galaxies, in our environment, in our bodies, and in many other ways. Science continues to uncover new relationships between systems that we were previously unaware of. Most of all, we see God’s creativity in nature. Our Creator is extravagantly creative. Just think of all the plants and animals that fill our planet. He dreamed up the millions of variations in creatures and vegetation—and then he created you. He gave you the ability to create too, by giving you the capacity to dream, imagine, and plan. Children are naturally creative dreamers. We learn by playing make-believe. You dreamed of doing things in your mind long before you actually did them. Yes, children are instinctively creative dreamers who imagine all kinds of things that adults know are “impossible.” What happens to all that joyful creativity and dreaming? It gets crushed, stuffed, suppressed, stifled, and destroyed by others over time. It’s tragic but true. Typically, the older we get, the less we imagine and create. What does all of this have to do with your spiritual development? Everything! Most people are unaware of the important connection between dreaming and faith. But men and women of deep faith have always been great dreamers. They didn’t stop dreaming after childhood. The Bible is filled with examples of adult dreamers: Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Ruth, Esther, and many more. Instead of settling for the way things are in the world, people with strong faith imagine the possibilities of what could happen if they just trusted God a little bit more. Great faith inspires great dreams. Great dreams require great faith. In many ways, a great dream is a statement of faith. Certainly, announcing your dream publicly requires faith because other people are likely to reject it. To courageously imagine or dream of a better future for yourself, for your family, or for others is an act of faith. You are saying, “I believe that things can change and can be different, and I believe that God will enable me to accomplish it!” Trusting God always makes God happy. The Bible says, “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). I believe God is pleased that you are reading this right now. You matter to God, and he is not finished with your life. This is the beginning of something wonderful. Adapted from Created to Dream: The 6 Phases God Uses to Grow Your Faith by Rick Warren.

Make Disciples If I were to ask you what is the best, most practical, most helpful parenting passage in all the Bible, what would you answer? Most biblically literate Christian parents would answer, “Ephesians 6:1–4.” That is a wonderfully helpful passage, but I want to take you to one that is even more fundamental. I think my choice will surprise you. And I think I know why. You probably don’t need me to tell you this, but I will: Your Bible is not arranged by topic. I know that frustrates some of you. You kind of wish it were arranged by topic, with little tabs on the end of the page that would direct you to your topic of need or interest. Well, the Bible isn’t arranged that way. It’s not arranged as it is because God made a massive editorial error. The Bible is arranged the way it’s arranged because of wise divine intention. Your Bible is essentially a grand redemptive story. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that your Bible is a carefully theologically annotated story. It’s a redemptive story with God’s essential explanatory notes. This means you can’t approach your Bible topically and get the best that it has to offer you, because the Bible wasn’t designed to operate that way. For example, if all you do to understand parenting is go to the passages that have that word in them or seem to address that topic, you will miss the majority of the information the Bible has for you as a parent. Rather, your Bible works this way: to the degree that every passage tells you something about God, something about yourself, something about the disaster of sin, something about life in this fallen world, something about what God has called you to, and something about the operation of grace, to that degree every passage tells you about every area of your life. That’s how your Bible works. So I want to take you to a passage that almost is never mentioned in the context of parenting, but has in it everything you need to know and understand in order to experience the rest and courage of heart that fuels good, godly, perseverant parenting. I want to take you to one of the final, and surely the best known, of Jesus’s commands to his disciples. This passage is popularly known as the Great Commission, and because of that has been most often applied to the formal evangelistic mission of the church. But I am deeply persuaded that its call is much wider than that and because it is, it offers real hope and help to every Christian parent. It captures with clarity what God has called you to and what he has promised you as you take on this hugely important and life-long task. As we near the end of this book, I thought it would be helpful to consider its implications and encouragements. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:18–20) A Christian Parent’s Call I cannot think of any directive from the mouth of Jesus that is a more appropriate call to every Christian parent than this one. If someone were to ask you what the ultimate job of a parent is, what would you answer? Well, the answer is here. Your job is to do everything within your power, as an instrument in the hands of the Redeemer who has employed you, to woo, encourage, call, and train your children to willingly and joyfully live as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is more important than how they do in school, or how positively they contribute to the reputation of your family, or how well they set themselves up for a future career, or how well they do in sports and the arts, or how well they are liked by adults and peers. These things aren’t unimportant, but we must not let them rise to the importance of this one thing. Your children must come to learn early that their lives don’t belong to them. They must understand early that they have been given life and breath for the purpose of serving the glory of another. They must learn that they do not have the right to follow their own rules or write their own laws. They must surrender to the fact that their lives are meant to be shaped, not by what they want, but by what God has chosen. They need to know early that they are worshipers whose capacity to worship is meant to be owned by the One who created them with this capacity. Here’s the core mission of parents: to raise up children who approach everything in their lives as the disciples of Jesus. Now, let’s be honest here; this way of living is not natural for anyone. It’s natural for our children (and us) to live as if they are the owners of their own lives. So they don’t just need to learn that this is not true, but they need to admit their need of the grace of divine rescue, forgiveness, and empowerment. If you are going to raise willing disciples of Jesus, you need to patiently communicate the story of his amazing grace to your children again and again. You see, God’s law has no power to turn your children into disciples, but his grace does. Are you working to be used of God to make disciples of your children? This leads us to the second part of the call of Jesus. As a parent you are called to teach your children to observe everything that Jesus has commanded. It is awesome to think that God’s will extends to every single area of your children’s lives. He has a plan for their thoughts, their desires, their choices, their words, their decisions, their relationships, what they do with their bodies, what they do with their money, what they do with their worship, how they invest their time, how they conduct themselves in relationships, how they relate to authority, their relationship to the church, the way they steward their physical possessions, and what they allow to occupy their minds and capture their hearts. Our children must learn to look at life through the lens of the will and plan of their Creator. What we are talking about is helping them to develop a comprehensive biblical worldview that is a way of looking at life that is distinctively God-centered and biblically driven. Not only is this not natural, but it is also important to remember that your children will be bombarded by the seductive and attractive voices of many other competing worldviews. They will be hit again and again with other ways of thinking about who they are and the purpose of life. They will be challenged by those who don’t believe in God and who will tend to mock the faith of those who do. A Deeper Goal It’s not enough to tell your children what to do and what not to do. This passage calls every parent to a deeper goal. You must teach your children how to think about everything in a way that is pointedly God-centered. Now, if our children are ever going to think about themselves and life this way, they need to be willing to submit to the wisdom of someone greater. Let’s again admit that this is not only not natural for our children, it’s not natural for us. It’s natural for our children to think that they are right and that they know what’s best. It’s natural for our children to resist recognizing and surrendering to a greater wisdom. So once more, we are confronted with the fact that as parents, we have no power to turn our children into the thinking and living disciples of Jesus Christ. They will become his disciples only as they are rescued by his grace. As parents, we are called every day to faithfully participate in what is impossible for us to produce. And if sadly we fall into thinking that we have the power to produce it, we will invariably end up doing bad things. This is precisely where the promises of this passage are so encouraging. Perhaps you’re thinking, “How can I get up every morning to do what is impossible to do and not end up exhausted and discouraged?” The rest of the passage answers that question. Our passage makes it very clear that Jesus would not ever call you to this huge parenting task without also blessing you with his mind-blowing promises as well. If you understand and embrace his promises, then you can give yourself to participate in what is impossible for you to produce and not have discouraging or even paralyzing anxiety in your heart. In fact, good, loving, faithful, grace-driven parents only ever grow in the soil of a heart at rest. Jesus’s promises are not so much promises, but reminders of the unshakable identity of every one of his children. The two promises here are meant to remind you of what the great heavenly Father has become for you by grace. These promises define for you not only who God is, but who you are as his child. You see, your rest as a parent will never be found in the success of what you are doing or the success of what your children are doing, because there will always be some degree of struggle, weakness, and failure there. No, rest in found in the One who sent you and in what he wills always to do for each of the ones he sends to represent him. Here’s the core mission of parents: to raise up children who approach everything in their lives as the disciples of Jesus. This article is adapted from Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles That Can Radically Change Your Family by Paul David Tripp.

Misguided Advice Twenty years ago, Anna Quindlen—a writer for the New York Times, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and a recipient of prestigious honorary degrees—gave this advice to a group of graduating seniors: Each of you is as different as your fingertips. Why should you march to any lockstep? Our love of lockstep is our greatest curse, the source of all that bedevils us. It is the source of homophobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism, terrorism, bigotry of every variety and hue because it tells us that there is one right way to do things, to look, to behave, to feel, when the only right way is to feel your heart hammering inside you and to listen to what its timpani is saying. That’s fairly typical commencement counsel: “Follow your dreams. March to the beat of your own drummer. Be true to yourself.” I’d like to offer different advice: “Do not follow your dreams. Do not march to the beat of your own drummer. And whatever you do, do not be true to yourself.” If you think I’m being a little hyperbolic, you’re right. I’ll provide some nuance to this advice at the end. But I believe it’s important to state the matter provocatively because our world screams at us in thousands of commercials, movies, and songs that the best way to live, the only authentic way to live, is for you to be you, for you to live out your truth, for you to find your true self and then have the courage to live accordingly. Deceived by Desires The Bible, on the other hand, tells us, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death” (Prov. 14:12). Think of the story of Esau who sold his birthright for a pot of stew. “Let me eat some of that red stew,” he said, “for I am exhausted. I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” (Gen. 25:30, 32). Esau was consumed with his desires. Esau was defined by his desires, and they deceived him. Esau is depicted as an animal. You can see this more clearly in the original Hebrew. All he can think of is the red stuff, the red stuff (ha-adom, ha-adom). He exaggerates the extent of his need. He wasn’t literally going to die. (Like kids saying when dinner is a half hour late, “I’m starving!”). Esau is emotional and impulsive. He is fainting, gasping, gulping. You can almost see him wiping off his mouth, throwing down a napkin, and letting out a loud belch as he walks away from his meal of stew. He was not made nobler for satisfying his desires. He was made lower. He became like an animal. That’s what the text wants us to see. Esau the skillful hunter was prey to his own appetites. He had a better identity as the firstborn of Isaac, but he gave that away. He became a profane man, treating what was sacred with irreverence and disrespect. The world tells us that our identity is found in what we desire. So to deny the fulfillment of what you desire is to deny your truest identity. We are all awash in what Carl Trueman calls “expressive individualism.” The idea is that you are what you feel, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I’m sure you remember Elsa’s anthem “Let It Go” from Frozen. With its emphasis on testing the limits and breaking through, it’s no wonder the song and the character Elsa have become a favorite in the LGTBQ+ community. No right, no wrong, no rules for me I’m free. What could be more indicative of the spirit of the age? A Philosophy for Our Times Throughout most of history, philosophers and theologians have distinguished between affections (which are motions of the will) and passions (which sweep over us unbidden). That’s why the Westminster Confession says God is without parts and passions. The Westminster divines were using “passion” not as we do to mean intense zeal. They were saying, God does not have an emotional life like we do. He is Pure Act; nothing happens to him. He is never rendered passive. Consequently, the Western tradition, especially in the Christian tradition, has insisted that the lower appetites must be constrained by reason and the grace of God working within us. In fact, the Reformed tradition goes one step further and reminds us that we can be misled by all our faculties. That’s what we mean by the phrase “totally depraved”—our passions are broken, our reason is not entirely reliable, and our wills, apart from Christ, are bound to sin. Most people you will encounter in life—and maybe you, reading this today—operate with an unspoken assumption that shapes and defines every argument, every instinct, and the way you look at the world and look at yourself. The assumption is this: is equals ought. Importantly, the is here is no longer about your body. It’s not about some physical givenness. “My body tells me something true about myself even when I don’t feel that it is true.” That mindset is no longer assumed. Now it is assumed that what you feel about yourself, or believe about yourself, or perceive about yourself tells you who you are and how you should behave. Is equals ought conditions us to believe: “This is what I feel like, so this is what I should do; and if you tell me I can’t do that, or that I should be something or someone other than I feel myself to be, you are attacking the very heart of my personhood.” What’s wrong with this philosophical assumption? Besides being devoid of any objective, empirical, scientific facts, the assumption is entirely at odds with Christian anthropology. The only way is equals ought can work is if there is no doctrine of the fall—if our instincts are never self-deceived, if our desires are never self-centered, and if our dreams are never self-destructive. The salvation we all know we need is not to be found by looking within ourselves but by looking for grace outside ourselves. G. K. Chesterton said it so well: That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners. Like most heresies, the is equals ought heresy is partially true. It grasps something we want to affirm; namely, that ethics must be rooted in ontology. That’s just a fancy way of saying identity does shape obligation. Is does equal ought, if you have a doctrine of sin, regeneration, union with Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The great theologian of our age, Lady Gaga, was right: you were born that way. The good news of Jesus Christ is that you can be born again another way. The salvation we all know we need is not to be found by looking within ourselves but by looking for grace outside ourselves. This article is adapted from Do Not Be True to Yourself: Countercultural Advice for the Rest of Your Life by Kevin DeYoung.

The book of Ecclesiastes takes a hard look at the human experience and offers wise advice on how to live meaningfully, purposefully and joyfully. The author reflects on the experience of life and sees a busy human anthill in mad pursuit of many things, trying now this, now that, laboring away as if by dint of effort humans could master the world, lay bare its deepest secrets, change its fundamental structures, burst through the bounds of human limitations to control their destiny and achieve a state of secure and lasting happiness. In short, he sees people laboring at life with an overblown conception of human powers and consequently pursuing unrealistic hopes and aspirations. Through his reflections, the author concludes that human life is “meaningless”, its efforts all futile. And yet, what begins with “Meaningless! Meaningless!” (Ecclesiastes 1:2) ends with “Remember your Creator” (12:1) and “Fear God and keep his commandments” (12:13) by the end of the book. The author offers up much wisdom along the way. Wisdom About the Human Endeavor 1 – Humans cannot by all their striving achieve anything of ultimate or enduring significance. Nothing appears to be going anywhere (1:5–11), and people cannot by all their efforts break out of this caged treadmill (1:2–4; 2:1–11). They cannot fundamentally change anything (1:12–15; 6:10; 7:13) and hence, they often toil foolishly (4:4,7–8; 5:10–17; 6:7–9). All their striving “under the sun” (1:3) after unreal goals leads only to disillusionment. 2 – Wisdom is better than folly (2:13–14; 7:1–6,11–12,19; 8:1,5; 9:17–18; 10:1–3,12–15; 12:11). It is God’s gift to those who please him (2:26). But it is unwarranted to expect too much even from such wisdom—to expect that human wisdom is capable of solving all problems (1:16–18) or of securing for itself enduring rewards or advantages (2:12–17; 4:13–16; 9:13–16). 3 – Experience confronts humans with many apparent disharmonies and anomalies that wisdom cannot unravel. Of these the greatest of all is this: Human life comes to the same end as that of the animals—death (2:15; 3:16–17; 7:15; 8:14; 9:1–3; 10:5–7). 4 – Although God made humankind upright, people have gone in search of manyfor getting ahead by taking advantage of others (see 7:29). So even humans are a disappointment (7:24–29). 5 – People cannot know or control what will come after them, or even what lies in the more immediate future. Therefore, all their efforts remain balanced on the razor’s edge of uncertainty (2:18; 6:12; 7:14; 9:2). 6 – God keeps humans in their place (3:16–22). 7 – God has ordered all things (3:1–15; 5:19; 6:1–6; 9:1) and a human being cannot change God’s appointments or fully understand them or anticipate them (3:1; 7; 11:1–6). But the world is not fundamentally chaotic or irrational. It is ordered by God, and it is for humans to accept matters as they are by God’s appointments, including their own limitations. Everything has its “time” and is good in its time (chapter 3). Practical Counsel for Wise Living 1 – Accept the human state as it is, shaped by God’s appointments, and enjoy the life you have been given as fully as you can. 2 – Don’t trouble yourself with unrealistic goals—know the measure and limitations of human capabilities. 3 – Be prudent in all your ways—follow wisdom’s leading. 4 – “Fear God and keep his commandments” (12:13), beginning already in your youth before the fleeting days of life’s enjoyments are gone and “the days of trouble” (12:1) come when the infirmities of advanced age vex you and hinder you from tasting, seeing and feeling the good things of life. Ecclesiastes provides instruction on how to live meaningfully, purposefully and joyfully under the reign of God. This is done primarily by placing God at the center of one’s life, work and activities. And, by contentedly accepting one’s divinely appointed lot in life, reverently trusting in and obeying the Creator-King. (Note particularly 2:24–26; 3:11–14,22; 5:18–20; 8:15; 9:7–10; 11:7—12:1; 12:9–14.) The Author of Ecclesiastes The narrator presents the Teacher as Solomon (1:1,12), but many scholars now think that the Teacher was not actually Solomon but one whom we are to imagine as like Solomon with his wisdom and power. We know from 12:9 – 10 that the Teacher was a wisdom teacher who carefully gathered and arranged his material as he taught the people. We do not know the identity of the narrator who presents the Teacher’s sayings, and so overall the author of Ecclesiastes is unknown. To understand Ecclesiastes, however, it is important to note that the narrator, whose voice is heard in 1:1; 7:27 and in the epilogue (12:9 – 14), presents the Teacher’s journey and teachings in the context of his introduction, conclusion, and note in 7:27. When Ecclesiastes Was Written A variety of dates have been proposed for Ecclesiastes. Some argue that its type of Hebrew and the presence of Persian loanwords confirm that it was not written in Solomon’s time, but this could just mean that a much earlier book was updated at a later time. Ecclesiastes’ skepticism could show awareness of Greek philosophical influence, but evidence for such skepticism is also found much earlier. If the Persian loanwords and Greek influence do indicate the date of writing, then Ecclesiastes was most likely written in the postexilic period, probably in the fourth century BC. At that time it would have appeared to many, in what was left of Israel, as if God’s purposes with them had run aground, thereby giving rise to the sort of questions the teacher struggles with. However, we cannot be sure of the date when Ecclesiastes was written. Literary Genre and Structure The argument found in Ecclesiastes does not flow smoothly. It meanders, with jumps and starts through the general messiness of human experience, to which it is a response. There is also an intermingling of poetry and prose. The announced theme of “meaninglessness” (futility) provides a literary frame around the whole (1:2; 12:8). And the movement from the unrelieved disillusionment of (chapters 1–2) to the more serene tone and sober instructions for life (chapters 11–12) marks a development in matured wisdom’s coming to terms with the human situation. A striking feature of the book is its frequent use of key words and phrases: e.g., “meaningless”, “work / labor / toil”, “good / better”, “gift / give”, “under the sun”, and “chasing after the wind”. The enjoyment of life as God gives it is also a key concept in the book (see 2:24–26; 3:12–13,22; 5:18–20; 7:14; 8:15; 9:7–9; and 11:8–9). Summary The author of Ecclesiastes ultimately affirms life and joy but only as the end result of a struggle with the brokenness of life in a fallen world. With a wisdom matured by many years, the author takes the measure of human beings, examining their limits and their lot. He attempts to see what human wisdom can do (1:13,16–18; 7:24; 8:16) and shares he has discovered that human wisdom,­ even when it has its beginning in “the fear of the Lord”, has limits to its powers when it attempts to go it alone—limits that circumscribe its perspectives and relativize its counsel. Most significantly, it cannot find out the larger purposes of God or the ultimate meaning of human existence. With respect to these, it can only pose questions. Content drawn from the NIV Study Bible, Fully Revised Edition and the NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible.

Inadequacy of Isolated Words For a long time, I have been troubled by the inadequacy of the words faith and belief and trust (or any other single words) to make clear what is required in order to be saved. One might object, “But those are the very words that Scripture uses to describe how to be saved. ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved’ (Acts 16:31). Are you saying that God doesn’t know how best to communicate the way of salvation?” No, I am not saying that. I am saying that in the Scriptures these words are not isolated. They are bricks embedded in the beautiful building of God-inspired truth. Words by themselves cannot carry the reality they are intended to carry unless we see the design that the skillful brick masons were creating when they put the bricks together the way they did. Or to say it more prosaically, we will not know what faith and belief and trust mean unless we press into the way they are used in the most illuminating biblical Even our own experience impels us to probe into those contexts for more depth and precision. Experience teaches us to probe for distinctions. We know there are different kinds of faith and different ways of trusting. For example, experience teaches us that it is possible, even necessary at times, to trust a person with our lives whom we neither love, nor admire, nor even want to be around. Which of these two would we trust for our brain surgery: a foulmouthed, dishonest, lustful, highly skilled, highly effective surgeon at the top of his profession, or a kind, honest, chaste young surgeon with little actual experience? We would trust the lecher with our life. Which means what? Something Has Been Assumed The traditional way of describing saving faith has always assumed something. For centuries, theologians have assumed that saving faith includes more than the confidence that Christ is competent, like the lecherous surgeon. When the three traditional descriptions of faith were used, there was an assumption that the word fiducia (cordial trust) alongside notitia (knowledge) and assensus (mental assent) included more than trusting Jesus as an ignominious but effective rescuer from hell. None of those who used the word fiducia (trust) to describe the heart of saving faith intended a kind of trust that views Jesus as disliked, unadmirable, undesired, distasteful, repugnant. They would have said, “Saving faith does not experience Christ that way.” Theologians and pastors and thoughtful laypeople have always known that the isolated words faith and believe contain ambiguities that need clarification. And they have endeavored to see these words embedded in the biblical texts designed by God to clarify and fill up their meaning. I will try to show from some of these texts that part of that fullness is the affectional dimension of saving faith. Treasuring Is Not Just One Thing I use the term treasuring Christ as my default summary expression of the affectional nature of saving faith. I take the verb treasure to be a fitting experiential counterpart to the noun treasure. I argue that Christ is the essence of the treasure in texts like Matthew 13:44, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field”; and 2 Corinthians 4:7, “We have this treasure in jars of clay.” When I say that treasuring Christ is my summary expression of the affectional nature of saving faith, I mean to imply that there are diverse affections in the nature of saving faith, not just one. The heart experiences treasuring Christ differently as it embraces different aspects of Christ’s greatness and beauty and worth. There is joyful treasuring, because we taste the substance of the joy set before us (Heb. 11:1; 12:2). There is treasuring like the satisfying of hunger, because Christ is the bread of life (John 6:35, 51). There is treasuring like the pleasure of quenched thirst, because Christ is the fountain of living water (John 4:10–11). There is treasuring like the love of light after darkness, because Christ is the radiance of divine glory (John 1:14; 3:19). There is treasuring like the love of truth, because Christ in the gospel is the preciousness of true reality (2 Thess. 2:10–12). And this list could be extended as far as there are glories of Christ to be known. Saving faith treasures them all, as each is known. All are precious. All are treasured. But the affectional experience is not the same in each case. So it is in the way Christ is received by saving faith. Christ Treasured in All His Excellencies Perhaps I should clarify an important implication lest I be misunderstood in speaking of Jesus as our treasure. In calling Jesus a treasure, I do not mean that he is a treasure alongside other roles or excellencies. I mean that he is a treasure in all his roles and excellencies. We may speak loosely about receiving Christ as Lord and Savior and treasure. I regularly use that way of speaking. But I do not mean that his worth is like a third role he plays alongside Lord and Savior. Rather, when we focus on Jesus as our treasure, we include all that he is: treasured Savior, treasured Lord, treasured wisdom, treasured righteousness, treasured friend, treasured living water, treasured bread of heaven, and more. Christ as a treasure is not a slice of Christ. It is every dimension of Christ—all of Christ—making up the totality of his infinite value. Supreme Treasure? Saving faith has in it the affectional dimension of treasuring Christ. Where Christ is not received as treasure, he is being used. This is not saving faith. It is tragic that many think it is. Saving faith always views Christ as having supreme value. That is how he is received. To embrace Christ as a second- or third-tier treasure is not saving faith. It is an affront. Jesus told a story to illustrate how it offends him when we fail to treasure him above the things of this world: A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, “Come, for everything is now ready.” But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, “I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.” And another said, “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.” And another said, “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.” So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry. (Luke 14:16–21) Real estate. Possessions. Family. To prefer these over the treasure of Christ makes him angry. It is an affront to him and destruction to us. Of course, the story doesn’t end there. It gets better and worse. The anger of the host is transposed into the compassion of the Great Commission. If my people will not treasure what I offer, “Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame. . . . Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled” (Luke 14:21, 23). But for those who would not treasure the Master, judgment falls: “I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet” (Luke 14:24). Saving faith receives Christ as a treasure, but not as second to lands, oxen, or spouses. He is valued above them. Or he is rejected. Embracing him as one among many useful treasures is worse than useless. It is worse because it gives the impression that he is willing to be used. He is not. He will be received as our supreme treasure, or not at all. Saving faith always views Christ as having supreme value. This article is adapted from What Is Saving Faith?: Reflections on Receiving Christ as a Treasure by John Piper.

Acts 5:1–11 - 1. But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, 2. and with his wife’s knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles’ feet. 3. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? 4. While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.” 5. When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. 6. The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him. 7. After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8. And Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.” And she said, “Yes, for so much.” 9. But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” 10. Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11. And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things. New Covenant Context The account of Ananias and Sapphira causes understandable trouble for readers. Some believe their punishment to be “harsh,” exceeding the principle of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” (Matt. 5:38; cf. Ex. 21:24; Lev. 24:20; Deut. 19:21). However, we should read this account in the context of the description of the believing community that begins at Acts 4:32. This community is living proof of the Spirit’s indwelling in fulfillment of new covenant promises. The believers are living for one another in unity, voluntarily sharing what they have, devoted to prayer, and committed to the apostles. Barnabas provides an example of the kind of other-focused ethos that prevails among the Jerusalem Christians. Ananias and Sapphira, in contrast, sell a field and secretly keep back some of the money but bring their gift as though it was all of the proceeds. It was their field and money, and they could do with it as they pleased. They were under no compulsion to sell it, nor to bring all of the proceeds, as Peter makes clear (Acts 5:4). But Sapphira’s lies are a clear indication that the couple intends to mislead Peter and the rest of the community (Acts 5:8). Instead of prayer and praise to God, the couple engages in falsehood (Acts 5:3–4). Instead of being filled with the Spirit, they are “filled” with Satan (Acts 5:3). There is more involved here than telling a lie. The new covenant context is key to understanding this text. The Spirit dwells in the community: God is present in and with them. Thus in the apostles and community we see the true people of God. The place and role of the temple and of the Jewish leaders are eclipsed by the church—they are not replacing but fulfilling national Israel, through faith in Israel’s Messiah and in fulfillment of Israel’s Scripture according to the plan and foreknowledge of Israel’s God. God now dwells not in a building made by human hands, as Stephen puts it later (Acts 7), but with his people. Lying to the community and the apostles is, thus, lying to God himself (Acts 5:4). The community itself, as Wright puts it, is sacred. Once again we see a narrative description of truths taught in propositional form in the Epistles. Some years later Peter writes to believers, citing OT texts such as Psalm 118 (cf. Acts 4:11), and says: As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Pet. 2:4–10) The Jerusalem Christians are a living example of Peter’s description of the church. It is in this context that Ananias and Sapphira sin. Like the OT examples of Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10), Achan (Joshua 7), and King Uzziah (2 Chronicles 26), in which people are punished for sins related to both temple and community, so Ananias and Sapphira are punished for bringing sin into the new covenant sanctuary. Another new covenant aspect involves the issue of lying specifically. Zechariah prophesied a time in which God would turn to do good to Judea and Jerusalem (Zech. 8:6–8), a time of eschatological blessing in which “many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord” (Zech. 8:22). It is in this prophetic context that God commands the people, “Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace; do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the Lord” (Zech. 8:16–17). Truth telling is a characteristic of the new covenant and of the relationships its members are to have with one another. Thus Paul tells the Ephesians, while encouraging them to renewal and spiritual vitality, “Having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another” (Eph. 4:25). Ananias and Sapphira bring falsehood to a place in which there should be only truth, and their particular form of lying at this place and time witnesses to the fact that they are not truly a part of the new community. Furthermore, Luke’s ongoing emphasis on the Spirit’s filling of believers, making it clear that their actions are Spirit-driven, stands in contrast to Peter’s statement that Satan, the Father of Lies (John 8:44), filled Ananias to lie (Acts 5:3). Spirit-filled prayer, praise, and gospel declaration come from the mouths of the believers, but Satan-filled lies come from this couple. Instead of living waters flowing from their hearts, in fulfillment of the promise of the Spirit (John 7:38), evil deception flows instead. These are not believers punished for lying but unbelievers filled with Satan and bringing wickedness into the covenant setting as a satanic attack. The contrast between the Spirit and Satan leads to the conclusion that Ananias and Sapphira are not lapsed believers, nor do they lose their salvation. They are like Judas, deceived by Satan and in rebellion against God. And like Judas, they meet with a decisive, fatal end (Acts 5:5, 10). Thus Luke is not first and foremost describing how to deal with lying in the church. Ananias and Sapphira are not church members disciplined for their sin. Their sin, against the overwhelming Spirit-filled context, points to their unbelief. They betray the community and show their true nature. Lying to God Furthermore, just as the miracles and boldness of the apostles is a manifestation of God’s working through them, so here the judgment of death originates not with Peter or the community but with God. Peter is merely the agent and messenger of God’s verdict over the couple. Peter tells Ananias that he has lied to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3) and then repeats the idea with a slight but important change: “You have not lied to man but to God” (Acts 5:4). Thus lying to the Holy Spirit is the same as lying to God—which implies that the Spirit is God. The divinity of the Spirit is also alluded to in Peter’s words to Sapphira: he asks her why she and Ananias “agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord” (Acts 5:9). This language is reminiscent of OT texts concerning Israel’s testing of God (e.g., Ex. 17:2; Num. 14:22; Deut. 6:16; Pss. 95:9; 106:14). Peter either believes the Spirit is divine or is not being careful or mindful of what he is saying. The second option seems impossible, to say the least. The deaths of Ananias and Sapphira provide more evidence of the shift from the old covenant to the new. Judgment is carried out not on the temple grounds or in the council of Israel’s leaders but in the community of believers led by the apostle Peter. He is the one with the authority to speak on God’s behalf, and through him comes God’s judgment for unfaithfulness. God is with the believers in both salvation and judgment. The word “fear” appears after both deaths (Acts 5:5, 11) and connotes the healthy fear of the Lord that comes from knowing who he is and recognizing what he is able to do. This fear now grows in the company of believers, apart from the temple and those who rejected Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Truth telling is a characteristic of the new covenant and of the relationships its members are to have with one another. This article is by Brian Vickers and is adapted from the ESV Expository Commentary: John–Acts (Volume 9) edited by Iain M. Duguid, James M. Hamilton Jr., and Jay Sklar.

This article is part of the Unpacking Culture series in which we examine a well-known axiom and weigh any true or positive aspects of it against any negative or misleading connotations of the phrase. The Age of Authenticity The slang phrase “you do you” may seem innocuous enough. Picture a large group of twenty-somethings sharing a dinner at a pizza restaurant, trying to decide whether to place one order of pizzas to share or let each individual order separately. Even if a quorum lands on a couple of pizzas that sound good to everyone, invariably a dissenter or two will protest, preferring something else on the menu. Rather than reason together to achieve full consensus (a possibly arduous, painfully long process—they’re hungry!), they simply release the dissenter to order separately: Suit yourself, man. You do you! We’ve all been there—whether in placing dinner orders or deciding how to spend free time on a family vacation. Consensus is hard, especially in an individualistic culture where “have it your way” consumerism is the air we breathe. Sometimes it’s just easier to say, You do you, I’ll do me, and let each person go their separate way, like the modern family whose every member sits at the dinner table glued to their own personal device. They’re alone together; sharing the same space but living in different worlds. Beyond these situational contexts, however, “you do you” has taken on a bigger cultural meaning. Defined in various places as “the act of doing what one believes is the right decision, being oneself” (Urban Dictionary) or as a phrase “used to say that someone should do what they think is best, what they enjoy most, or what suits their personality" (Cambridge Dictionary), “You do you” has become a symbolic phrase that perfectly captures the spirit of what Charles Taylor calls the “Age of Authenticity.” If on the surface it evokes the “virtues” of rugged individualism and personal empowerment, the deeper implications of “you do you” are rather foreboding. For in a fallen world where the “heart is deceitful, above all things, and desperately sick” (Jer. 17:9), do we really want to encourage one another to just do whatever we think is best? Whatever is “right in our own eyes”? Read the book of Judges—or countless other historical accounts of self-made morality—and you’ll quickly see this never ends well. Biblical wisdom exposes many problematic dimensions of the “you do you” mentality, but here are just three. 1. “You do you” weakens community and fosters foolishness. As the pizza-restaurant-ordering example above illustrates, community can be complicated. In an age when convenience and efficiency are high values, community can feel like an inconvenience that slows you down. “You do you” is an anthem of liberation from the constraints of community. The old saying is wise: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.” But in today’s world, going fast trumps going far. Thus, “you do you” prevails over “let’s do this together.” This is to our detriment. Community is not only a gift for our sustainability (“going far”), but it’s also a gift for our survival, both in a literal sense—what infant would long survive without its family?—and in a spiritual sense. Whether we’re deciding on a college to attend or a job offer to take, a person to marry or a financial decision to make, we “go it alone” to our folly. We should want people in our lives to speak hard truths when necessary, redirect our errant paths, and grab us from the brink of self-imposed disaster. God puts people into our lives not to rubber stamp our every whim and fancy, but to point us to truth and offer wise advice—not to shrug and say “you do you” while we walk off a ledge, but to boldly say, “you should do,” even if it’s hard for us to hear. “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,” declares Proverbs 12:15, “but a wise man listens to advice.” Indeed, a “you do you” world perpetuates the foolishness that comes when we downplay the collective wisdom of community and champion the autonomy of individuals to do what is right in their own eyes. 2. “You do you” provides cover for sin. Big problems arise when a culture’s “you do you” value is applied to morality. When we’ve moved past the antiquated “shoulds” and “shall nots” of ethics based on a transcendent source, all that’s left is “you do you”—to each their own. But that spells trouble. If “you do you” is as much as we can muster as a moral metric, we set society up to excuse all manner of sin under the banner of “being oneself.” The novelist Colson Whitehead, writing about “you do you” for the New York Times (“How ‘You Do You’ Perfectly Captures Our Narcissistic Culture”), reflects on the problem of “you do you” as a hall pass for bad behavior: “You do you,” taken to its extreme, provides justification for every global bad actor. The invasion of Ukraine is Putin being Putin, Iran’s nuclear ambitions Khamenei being Khamenei. Even if we’re not talking about warmongering dictators, “you do you” provides cover for sins closer to home. A married man and father of young children says his authentic self demands he divorce his wife so that he can be with another lover. A teenage girl feels she is a boy and seeks hormone treatments and “top surgery” without her parents’ knowledge. A college student engages in habitual use of psychedelic mushrooms because it “makes her happy.” On what grounds could a “you do you” world protest any of these actions? Far from liberating, “you do you” as a moral framework is cruel. By nature we struggle to make wise decisions in isolation from others. Paul speaks for all of us when he writes in Romans 7:15: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” For natural born sinners like us—prone to wander, self-deceive, and self-destruct—“you do you” is terrible advice. 3. “You do you” leads to loneliness and despair. Proverbs 26:12 captures why “you do you” leads not to fulfillment, but hopelessness: “Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” Why? Because we are made to grow in interdependent community, sharpened by and accountable to others, not in isolation. We are created to flourish within our Creator’s laws and design, not to make our own rules and re-create ourselves as we wish. As I write in The Wisdom Pyramid, the relativistic posture of “you do you” / “your truth” not only weakens community and cultivates moral chaos, but it also puts an incredible, self-justifying burden on the individual: If we are all self-made projects whose destinies are wholly ours to discover and implement, life becomes a rat race of performative individuality. “Live your truth” autonomy is thus as exhausting as it is incoherent… “Your truth” autonomy invariably leads to loneliness. It erroneously suggests we can live unencumbered and uninfluenced by the various structures that surround us (families, churches, cultures, biology, etc.). But it becomes impossible to form community when everyone is their own island, with no necessary reliance upon larger truths or embeddedness within a bigger story. Within societies, “you do you” creates hyper-fragmented atomization where consensus and coalitions of every sort become impossible. Within families, “you do you” fosters tension, infighting, and inevitable fracture. Within the church, “you do you” undermines discipleship (which calls every individual not to be “authentic” to themselves, but to become more like Jesus). For sinful man, “you do you” sounds nice. We naturally want to do what we want, to have it our way, to live “our truth.” But this is actually the path to loneliness, grief, and ultimately destruction. Better Than “You Do You” Biblical wisdom calls us to a far better mantra than “you do you,” and Proverbs 3:5–7 captures it well: Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. Instead of “you do you” (leaning on your own understanding and being wise in your own eyes), which is the path to foolishness and pain, we should trust in God. Our way will lead to wandering. His way will make our path straight. So love your friends, families, and neighbors by avoiding the tepid “you do you” response when you see them making poor choices. Instead of sanctioning their subjective whims, point them to the objective, higher wisdom of God. Remind them that it might at first feel like a constraint, but in the end God’s wisdom will bring “healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones” (Prov. 3:8). We are made to grow in interdependent community, sharpened by and accountable to others, not in isolation. Brett McCracken is the author of The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World.