A Word in Favor of Mature, Not-So-Restless Reformers

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson





The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "Ripe Fruit," a sermon preached on Sunday morning, 14 August 1870, at the Met Tab in London.





he church wants mature Christians very greatly, and especially when there are many fresh converts added to it. New converts furnish impetus to the church, but her backbone and substance must, under God, lie with the mature members.

We want mature Christians in the army of Christ, to play the part of veterans, to inspire the rest with coolness, courage, and steadfastness; for if the whole army is made up of raw recruits the tendency will be for them to waver when the onslaught is fiercer than usual. The old guard, the men who have breathed smoke and eaten fire before, do not waver when the battle rages like a tempest; they can die but they cannot surrender. When they hear the cry of "Forward," they may not rush to the front so nimbly as the younger soldiers, but they drag up the heavy artillery, and their advance once made is secure. They do not reel when the shots fly thick, but still hold their own, for they remember former fights when Jehovah covered their heads.

The church wants in these days of flimsiness and timeserving, more decided, thorough-going, well-instructed, and confirmed believers. We are assailed by all sorts of new doctrines. The old faith is attacked by so-called reformers, who would reform it all away. I expect to hear tidings of some new doctrine once a week.

So often as the moon changes, some prophet or other is moved to propound a new theory, and believe me, he will contend more valiantly for his novelty than ever he did for the gospel. The discoverer thinks himself a modern Luther, and of his doctrine he thinks as much as David of Goliath's sword, "There is none like it."

As Martin Luther said of certain in his day, these inventors of new doctrines stare at their discoveries like a cow at a new gate, as if there were nothing else in all the world but the one thing for them to stare at.

We are all expected to go mad for their fashions, and march to their piping. To whom we give place; no, not for an hour. They may muster a troop of raw recruits, and lead them whither they would, but for confirmed believers they sound their bugles in vain. Children run after every new toy; any little performance in the street, and the boys are all agog, gaping at it; but their fathers have work to do abroad, and their mothers have other matters at home; your drum and whistle will not draw them out.

For the solidity of the church, for her steadfastness in the faith, for her defense against the constantly recurring attacks of heretics and infidels, and for her permanent advance and the seizing of fresh provinces for Christ, we want not only your young, hot blood, which may God always send to us, for it is of immense service, and we cannot do without it, but we need also the cool, steady, well-disciplined, deeply-experienced hearts of men who know by experience the truth of God, and hold fast what they have learned in the school of Christ.

May the Lord our God therefore send us many such; they are wanted.

---

"Baby Man" — a sad sermon illustration come to life, then death

by Dan Phillips

[Here's an edited reprint from my blog, June of 2005. I spent all I could of the weekend trying to finish the last fine-tooth-comb editing of my Proverbs manuscript before zapping it off to the publisher. FAIL. Unexpected interruptions. Worked almost without a break from like 4am to night-time yesterday... still, fail. Snif. About 80 pages or so to go. I'm really excited about the book, really invested in what's in it. Want it to be just right, as perfect as I can make it. So... you get this! I actually use this story in the book, so it's fresh in my mind.]

When I would preach on Christian growth, and particularly Hebrews 5:11-14, I'd often use an illustration. (Yes, the same one; yes, all preachers do it; yes, even the Lord re-used parables.) Here is the passage:

About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull [Greek says lazy] of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

In my sermon, I would say that one expects a baby to do — well, not much. Hard job, really: all he has to do is sit there and be cute! Now he giggles and coos, now he cries. He's either taking in food, processing it, or disposing of it. Sometimes all those things in combination.

Expectations are low, delivery is high.

It's absolutely adorable — in a tiny little tot of 6 days, 6 weeks, 6 months.

And we love our little toddlers, wobbling around in their huge diapers, everything new and interesting to them, emotions on their sleeves. They're really actually learning at an astonishing rate, but it doesn't look like it: they just teeter and totter, explore, make demands, and bless the house simply by being there.

Now, I say in my sermons, picture a twelve-year-old, still in the same state. Or an eighteen, twenty, thirty year old: still in diapers, still helpless and dependent, still in infancy.

Well, of course (I preach) we'd all immediately know something was severely, seriously, terribly wrong. But then (I go on to say) suppose you were to find out that, no, there was nothing wrong with that man's brain. Perfectly healthy. No injuries, no diseases; nothing physically wrong whatever.

He'd just decided not to grow up.

And then I point out that what would alarm us horribly in a marketplace apparently doesn't cause the slightest stir in church.

How so? How many people think they've been Christians for five, ten, twenty, thirty years, and yet have not managed to read the whole Bible through even once? They're perfectly literate, they read novels and magazines and web sites... but not the Bible. How many could not name the books of the New Testament in order, let alone the whole Bible? In fact, how many could not even name the four Gospels in order?

(Aside: a fellow in the last church I pastored informally surveyed several dozens of professed Christians. He asked them just to name the four Gospels. Just that. Either none could, or only one could. And these were long-time Christians, including leaders within their churches. As an added bonus, how do you think they responded, when they found they could not even name the first four books of the New Testament? Were they embarrassed at their own astonishing ignorance? Humbled? Not at all. Instead, they were offended at him for asking.)

Poll after poll reveals those who claim to be born-again Christians to be stunningly ignorant of the Bible, or rebellious against its contents. On Biblical teachings as basic as the deity and bodily resurrection of Christ, the reality of the Devil, salvation by grace alone through Christ alone, low numbers recur over and over again, consistently.

And even among those checking the right doctrinal boxes, if you ask them to demonstrate their faith (on which they claim to base their lives) from the Bible, even if only by one or two apposite verses, you're likelier to be disappointed than not.

Churches aim to palliate, entertain, mollify, tranquilize. I feel the pain of folks searching earnestly for a church home. You feel like you aren't asking too much: just a sound church that believes the Word, preaches it emphatically and passionately, sings some decent songs, and tries to practice it. Yet you just can't find it. Everybody's stuck in past fads, or chasing after current ones, or hearing voices. Or all three by turns.

How can this be? No age, and no country, has had more abundant access to the Bible than ours. No age, and no country, has had available the helps for Bible study that ours has. None has had greater freedom to use and exploit that access.

Yet I daresay that, for all the impact the Bible has on the average professor, the Bible might as well still be in Latin and chained to the pulpit at the local Roman Catholic Church.

We have churches filled with folks who, if their spiritual condition could be seen, are fully grown adults lolling about in diapers, trading off one "binky" for another. It's a horror, but it's a horror we live with without being horrified.

I tell this as an illustration.

Enter "baby man."

"Baby man" is the flesh-and-blood embodiment of my illustration. He is a 54-year-old man who "sleeps in a crib, eats in a high chair and does it in his diaper — by choice." Click on the link, look at the pictures, let your jaw drop in revulsion...

...and next time you excuse yourself for not reading your Bible, not studying, not memorizing, not going to rigorously Bible-preaching churches, not knowing what the Bible teaches as well as you know your favorite hobby, not growing, not bearing fruit, not being one who could teach others instead of standing in daily need of having the basics repeated to you, demanding that God give you whispers and feelings and experiences rather than contenting yourself with His finished, completed, inerrant, sufficient Word, in spite of your decades of professed Christian faith — next time you find yourself doing that, I say, think of Hebrews 5:11-14.

And think of William Windsor. Think of "baby man."

Because that's you.

UPDATE: since I wrote that article, "Baby Man" died. Sad life, sad death. I could not find it on a more mainstream news site, only on a cynical alternative-type site. It does link to more information about this wrecked soul and his sad, wasted life. Inherited a truckload of money, had been married, devoted himself to living like a baby. Sad, sad sad. There are other images of him... but I don't think they'd be uplifting.

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Peanut-butter Passion

by Phil Johnson

'm a passionate person. People who know me will affirm that. I think Christians ought to be passionate about truth, passionate in our love for God and for one another, and (above all) passionate about the glory of God.

But raw passion is not the point. Passion is valid and edifies only when it's the right kind of passion, based on legitimate affections for the right things. I'm concerned about the unbridled passions frequently turned loose by people whose only religious affections were cultivated in evangelical youth groups. (And if I can speak freely: that includes a lot of of our so-called young, restless, and Reformed frends.) Everything seems to unleash stadium-style passions. I've even seen people scream, whistle, stomp, and cheer at baptisms, as if they were celebrating a touchdown. Many Christians glorify passion for passion's sake—as if raw passion per se were something praiseworthy and deeply spiritual. It's not. And this has become a serious problem in today's post-pentecostal, post-evangelical, anything-goes era.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that so many Christians imitate all the world's passions. Christian leaders invent gimmicks to try to win worldly people by appealing to their worldly passions. All of us devote energy and emotion to things that are not even worthy of our attention. And then we bring our addiction to raw passion into our corporate gatherings. We do things to stir artificial passions—which is a form of false worship, no better than idolatry, really.

Our passions should not need to be artificially stirred up by spiritual cheerleaders and team chants. We shouldn't have to be worked into an emotional state by melodrama and musical manipulation. If we can get pumped to a fever pitch by some preacher's antics rather than by the truth of the biblical message, then whatever we are feeling isn't even a legitimate passion in the first place.

And sometimes it gets even worse than that.

Someone a few months ago sent me this article about a youth leader who likes to provoke his students to a state of screaming enthusiasm with gross-out games. (Warning: the article itself and the other links in the following paragraph are extremely gross. Home-school moms might want to look away.) The article describes how this youth leader had a teenager with hairy armpits smear gobs of peanut butter on his underarms; then the youth pastor asked for volunteers to lick it clean and swallow the peanut butter. The youth leader uses skits like that to "shock and astound." (Those are his exact words.) He told that secular reporter that he does things like that all the time to get the students excited, so that they will talk about the church. He says he wants to start "a buzz that [will] go viral, [so] that teens [will] text and Twitter about [it]." And notice what the youth leader said about his strategy: "The idea is to get students here to meet our Savior. They are getting all this crazy stuff out there in the world all the time. We are trying to show them that God is cooler."

You may think that's an extreme, one-of-a-kind example, but that type of thing is far more common than you think. It illustrates rather vividly the foolishness of trying to stir artificial passions by making God seem "cool" rather than simply uplifting His glory and letting the grandeur and majesty of our God move people's hearts to more legitimate expressions of deep passion.



That sort of artificial enthusiasm actually hinders (and in some cases totally nullifies) the message we're supposed to be proclaiming. With so many churches merely trying to entertain people, or lull them into a state of self-satisfaction, or simply gross them out, it's no wonder the world is not being won to Christ but actually becoming steadily more hostile to Christianity.

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Great Things He Has Done

by Frank Turk

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

You know: many of you are enthusiastic followers of Mike Horton and his cohorts on the White Horse Inn. And let's face it: good on ya. There's a lot more good than harm eminating from their call for a modern reformation, and I myself am capitaved by their little chats.

I've been listening to the 14 June 2009 podcast all summer, which is titled "God's Story vs. Our Stories". And if I had to sum it up in one sentence, I'd say that podcast is seeking to make the point that the most important story in the Christian life is God's story.

I mean: fair enough, right? That's what Paul is saying here to Titus to a large degree: The grace of God has appeared bringing salavation, giving us the blessed hope of the return of Jesus, and who purified us by redeeming us from lawlessness. The message is Jesus; it is not, "I cleaned up my life and now God loves me," or any other such twaddle. Our purification is because Christ died for us, not because we do better now.

There's a parallelism, btw, with our sin state here: we are not made sinners by our sinning, but in fact we are sinning now because we have the nature of sinners. It is our state as being in love with sin which makes us do sinful things, and our sinfulness is what makes us revolt against God. Because we are not pure, we do unpure things. Out of the overflow of the heart, as they say, the mouth speaks.

But it is exactly that parallelism which puts me off what our friends at WHI said in that podcast. In Mike Horton's view -- and in the view of his cohorts there -- somehow the consequence of "purified by redemption" doesn't have the necessary implication "his own possession who are zealous for good works".

Here's what Prof. Horton said:

Now when you run into "emergent", what's called the "emergent churches", even the "emerging churches" which is a broader category, often what you hear is, "well, now we what to see people live it, and enough creeds: it's time for deeds." And "really, the thing that's keeping Christianity from being taken seriously in our culture is that people really aren't living it." Don't you think that this -- first of all, there's nothing new or post-modern about that; I grew up with that, my grandmother grew up with that --do you think that that actually undermines the Gospel? that is it actually the very opposite because the Gospel, the Scriptures say, is the power of God unto salvation, not my living the Gospel. There's one person that lived the law, and that is the Gospel.

Yes: that is the Gospel. He is right that the active and passive obedience of Christ, his life and his death, followed by His resurrection as God's sign that He will keep His promise, is the Gospel.

But there are two things here which the White Horse Inn-mates (it's a joke; relax) are overlooking, and almost tragically so.

The first is that the Gospel is for someone. The Gospel is not just a spectacle but a gift, a grace which God gives to someone -- namely, His people who have faith. It is done, but it is for us. cf. last week's post on this passage: that's why it ought to be proclaimed -- to call out those for whom it is given.

But the second point is at least as important: It is not either deeds or creeds, but deed and creeds, or better still deeds as a necessary consequence of what the creeds say and mean. The creeds are not a law unto themselves; they are an enumeration of in whom we have faith and what He has done. They are not the faith but a limited description of the faith. And in that, if we believe what they say, we will live, as Paul says to Titus, as his own possession who are zealous for good works.



I love my wife, y'all. Without overstating this theologically, I love her because she loves me first. It's easy for me to go the extra mile for her when I have to because the name of Mrs. Centuri0n is "lovingkindness".

Now, that's sweet of me to bring it up, I know. I mention it because it is true. But what if you followed me around for a few days, and I was acting like Jon Gosselin -- or worse, that I was constantly calling her and checking up on her, making sure she wasn't cheating on me or leaving the kids unattended? Would my confession that Mrs. Cent is a wife of lovingkindness make any sense, or carry any credibility? Would my actions adorn the doctrine of Mrs. Cent?

Or would my actions prove I don't believe a word of it?

See: the doctrine of Mrs. Cent can be true objectively, but as Rod Rosenblatt points out so cunningly, maybe nobody believes it. Maybe nobody believes the good news of Mrs. Cent -- particularly her husband for whom she has done all these great things.

Here to Titus, Paul makes the equally demanding point that it is not enough to merely declare that truth that Christ is a Savior who has done great things; we must be a people for whom great things He has done. A people for whom great things have been done will not be an unchanged people. And in the same way that our sinners' nature has caused us to sin, our savior's redemption and purification will cause us to love what is good, and do it.

And you, dear pastor reader, must preach this. You must teach this. And you must live this. Your people will not be perfect, but they are purified. Teach them to live because that is true.

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Wanted: Mature Christians

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from "Ripe Fruit," a sermon preached 14 August 1870 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London.

he church wants mature Christians very greatly, and especially when there are many fresh converts added to it. New converts furnish impetus to the church, but her backbone and substance must, under God, lie with the mature members.

We want mature Christians in the army of Christ, to play the part of veterans, to inspire the rest with coolness, courage, and steadfastness; for if the whole army is made up of raw recruits the tendency will be for them to waver when the onslaught is fiercer than usual. The old guard, the men who have breathed smoke and eaten fire before, do not waver when the battle rages like a tempest, they can die but they cannot surrender. When they hear the cry of "Forward," they may not rush to the front so nimbly as the younger soldiers, but they drag up the heavy artillery, and their advance once made is secure. They do not reel when the shots fly thick, but still hold their own, for they remember former fights when Jehovah covered their heads.

The church wants in these days of flimsiness and timeserving, more decided, thoroughgoing, well-instructed, and confirmed believers.

We are assailed by all sorts of new doctrines. The old faith is attacked by so-called reformers, who would reform it all away. I expect to hear tidings of some new doctrine once a week. So often as the, moon changes, some prophet or other is moved to propound a now theory, and believe me, he will contend more valiantly for his novelty than ever he did for the gospel.

The discoverer thinks himself a modern Luther, and of his doctrine he thinks as much as David of Goliath's sword, "There is none like it." As Martin Luther said of certain in his day, these inventors of new doctrines stare at their discoveries like a cow at a new gate, as if there were nothing else in all the world but the one thing for them to stare at.

We are all expected to go mad for their fashions, and march to their piping. To whom we give place; no, not for an hour.

They may muster a troop of raw recruits, and lead them whither they would, but for confirmed believers they sound their bugles in vain. Children run after every new toy; any little performance in the street, and the boys are all agog, gaping at it; but their fathers have work to do abroad, and their mothers have other matters at home; your drum and whistle will not, draw them out. For the solidity of the church, for her steadfastness in the faith, for her defense against the constantly recurring attacks of heretics and infidels, and for her permanent advance and the seizing of fresh provinces for Christ, we want not only your young, hot blood, which may God always send to us, for it is of immense service, and we cannot do without it, but we need also the cool, steady, well-disciplined, deeply-experienced. hearts of men who know by experience the truth of God, and hold fast what they have learned in the school of Christ.

May the Lord our God therefore send us many such; they are wanted.

---

Thinking like a slave

by Dan Phillips

Offensive title, eh? What do you figure this post will be about? About racism? About how we shouldn't still see ourselves as slaves of sin, but as free men? About how slaves get into a slave-mindset that's hard to break, like men who've been in prison for decades?

Actually, it's about going to church — and many other things.

In Why you need to be in a church this Sunday, I laid out an inductive, cumulative case for why anyone and everyone who names Jesus as his Lord must involve himself, in person, in a "local assembly of believers where pastors lead, the Word is preached, the ordinances are observed, and discipline is carried out."

Much of the response was positive, personal, heartfelt. Then there were scattered demurrals. Two had in common that they refused to interact with the Biblical content of the post — which is to say, with just about all of the post. Both hate Biblical teaching about authority and submission. As I showed, that means they hate the institution of God, and reject Him (Romans 13:1-7). Thus there really isn't much to discuss, beyond pleading with them either to repent or toss off the false name of "Christian."

I might summarize the other "But's" and critiques in that meta and elsewhere — many of which were doubtless well-meant — thus:

• But I've had bad church-experiences (accompanied by many and varied details and stories)!
• But it's hard to find a good church!
• But it's hard for me to be with people!
• But churches sometimes aren't friendly and welcoming!
• But I've had really, really bad church-experiences (accompanied by many and varied details and stories)!
• But I've known bad and abusive and lame and inept and unfit pastors!
• But that's just barking out commands and duty, not explaining how it's really good for me!
• But God just hasn't led me to a church; just to the internet!
• But the churches around here aren't all that good!

Now, I'll be candid with you, shall I? At first scan, that looks like a fairly diverse list of eight or nine different reasons, doesn't it? And you're thinking, "Yikes, if he responds to every one, this is going to be a long, long post."

But no. I can roll them all together, and deal with them all in one. Every one of these excuses, though presented in great deal and with great conviction, shares the very same fatal flaw.

Every one of them views
the Christian life
as a process of
negotiation.

That is, among the demurrals, there wasn't one serious and honest attempt to counter the Biblical case. It was tacitly accepted by most that the Bible indeed does paint us into that corner: God says that He expects us to be involved, in-person, in a local assembly. God said it, yes... but!

Now this sort of thinking is perfectly appropriate, if God and we are peers.

But it is wholly inappropriate if God is our Lord, and we are His slaves.

What is the tenor of our relationship, as depicted in Scripture?

"If you love Me" — what? "If you love Me, you will give Me a shot at convincing you that My way is in your best interests?" Is that how you read? Or is it not, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:15)?

"This is love for God that we" — what? Is it "that we wait until we feel led, and find it easy and stress-free and effortless, to give the nod to His suggestions"? Or is it not "that we keep His commandments" (1 John 5:3)?

Is the person called to Christ as a freeman Christ's peer, His debating opponent? Or is he not Christ's slave (1 Corinthians 7:22).

Are we to keep the parts of our body as our own, to use at our convenience and according to our preferences? Or are not rather we to present them all as "slaves to righteousness, which results in sanctification" (Romans 6:19) — which would include getting them to church, whether it was convenient and easy or not?

And if it be countered that we are not merely slaves, but also sons, I'd have more questions. Is a son his father's peer? Or does a son not owe his father honor and obedience (Deuteronomy 21:18; Malachi 1:6; Colossians 3:20)? If so with our earthly fathers, is it not much more the case with our heavenly Father (Hebrews 12:9)?

Look, this is a crucial point, whether we're talking about church attendance, or doctrine, or marriage, or any other area of Christian living. When we respond to Divine commandments with a "But" or a series of excuses, we echo the Serpent, and treat God as our peer — or our inferior.

This is not thinking like a slave. And make no mistake: if we are not slaves of God, then we are slaves of sin (Romans 6:15-23). But we are slaves!

So here's where the rubber meets the road: what do you do when faced with a clear commandment, with clear teaching of Scripture, that crosses your will? Today, it just happens to be the fact that you need to be involved in church, learning and growing, serving and submitting and accountable.

Tomorrow it will be how you treat your spouse, or whether you keep your pants/dress on, or whether you keep your hand out of that guy's pocket, or whether you keep your fingers from around his throat, or whether you deny or fudge that unfashionable doctrine.

You see? It's all one. Jesus is Lord, or we are. If we are, He isn't; if He is, we aren't.

You and I need to think like a slave; and not only a slave, but a crucified slave, who has died to his old master, and come to life for another.

Then you and I take our truckload of excuses and rationales and dodges and rationalizations, we say "Yep, I'm going to need help," we take them and ourselves to the Cross, we count ourselves dead to them, we plead for the enabling grace of God...
...and we obey.

Here's the practical key, then: move the "but."
Until now, it has been: "God says to obey, but I have these excuses/challenges/difficulties." And so you don't start. The issue is still whether to obey. This thinking ill-befits a slave, much less a son.

From now on, it must be "I have these excuses/challenges/difficulties, but God says to obey." And then you start. Now, the issue is not whether, but how. This is thinking like a slave, and thinking like a son.

Move that "but."

Then move yours.

So whoever knows the right thing to do
and fails to do it,
for him it is sin
(James 4:17)

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Facts, understanding, faith, and discipleship

by Dan Phillips

Ladies and gentlemen, consider if you will Mark 8:14-21 —

They had forgotten to take bread and had only one loaf with them in the boat.

15 Then he commanded them: "Watch out! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod."

16 They were discussing among themselves that they did not have any bread.

17 Aware of this, He said to them, "Why are you discussing that you do not have any bread? Do you not yet understand or comprehend? Is your heart hardened? 18 Do you have eyes, and not see, and do you have ears, and not hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the 5,000, how many baskets full of pieces of bread did you collect?"

"Twelve," they told Him.

20 "When I broke the seven loaves for the 4,000, how many large baskets full of pieces of bread did you collect?"

"Seven," they said.

21 And He said to them, "Don't you understand yet?"

Now, reflect:

First, did they lack information? No; the disciples had all the facts they needed to have both understanding and faith.

Second, what was the problem? The problem was that they did not remember nor reflect on the facts in evidence, the information they all possessed.

Third, what was the result? The result of the disciples' failure to make use of the information they had was that they had neither understanding nor faith. In fact, they were about as dim as one of Mr. Edison's original bulbs would be, today.

Fourth, what do we learn of Jesus? A couple of things. For one, in dealing with them, Jesus did not give up on them. They were dim, dense, and dumb; but they had not rebelled and rejected. They were still enrolled; and He still taught.

But also note: Jesus did not spoon-feed them. He did not baby them, nor coddle them. Rather, He challenged them. He poked them. He jabbed at their thinking, by a series of brief, terse, pointed, rather confrontive questions.

He was not the feminized Jesus of popular, religious sentiment. He did not say in effect, "Oh, my precious 'iddle oojie-goojies! Is 'ums puzzled? Aww, let Uncle Jesus make it better!" Far from it. He did not hand them the answer. He forced them to bring out the facts and do something with them; He rebuked them; and He left them with a challenge.

Our Lord's attitude would be better captured by "Boys — you've got to grow up!" (We'll later see the same reflected in Apoll... er, the author of Hebrews, 5:11-14.)

Now, ask yourself this:

• Might this cast any light on how Jesus has dealt with you, in your Christian walk?
• Does it give any instruction for how we should deal with ourselves, as we strive to grow in Christ?
  
• Does it give any instruction as to how we might deal with others whom we disciple?
  

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