Are you sure you want a husband who...?

by Dan Phillips

...leads?

I was a young(er), inexperienced pastor, and befriended two church members. Both were long-timers, very active, seemed like good folks.

As I got to know them better, I got the message very clearly from "Suzy": she was really frustrated with "Bill," because Bill just wouldn't lead. Suzy made this known in many ways, over and over. Bill was not leading, Suzy really wanted him to, she was really bitter and angry and frustrated over it.

Well I was youngish and green, and my dutiful goal was clear to me: I needed to work with Bill, help him become a leader in that marriage. So I spent time with Bill, worked with him, made suggestions. Bill was initially a bit leery but not unwilling.  In fact, he became very cooperative.

The result? Bill became an effective leader, Suzy was radiantly happy, both praised and honored God, both loved me, and they remain dear friends to this day.

...

That sound you just heard, in that pause? It was 97% of the pastors reading this, laughing bitterly and saying "Riiiight!"

Those pastors can tell you what really came next. Suzy was not happy with Bill or with me, and both ended up hating me. Why? I'm sure many of you will assume I did things wrong, and I won't disagree with you. But the bottom-line was that Suzy did not want a leader for a husband, and Bill's reticence was a form of self-protection forged from that conflict.

Bill's shortcomings gave Suzy what she really wanted. She really wanted something to complain about in her husband. She wanted a tale to tell on him in gatherings. She wanted something to bring her sympathy and commiseration, to make her look martyred and longsuffering. It fed into her self-image. And she wanted to stay in charge.

Take away from that, and she lost something dear to her. See, everyone does what (s)he does because (s)he believes it will bring happiness. So this poor woman was batting away what she needed by the very things she did in pursuit of what she wanted. And I was sap enough to come between her and it, in kind of a Proverbs 26:17 no-win situation.

Ladies, does any of that strike any chord within you, any "ouchy" chord? Look, it's just you and me, nobody's watching. You can be candid. You grouse about your poor schlub of a husband who doesn't initiate this and doesn't pursue that and doesn't decide for himself and do the other thing. Maybe your pastor and girlfriends know how frustrated you are. Maybe your pastor knows. Worst of all, maybe your children even know.

Let me ask you just two questions, as I've asked many more elsewhere.

First question: have you possibly contributed to his abdication?

Note the careful wording. Every man's sin is his own, as is every woman's. But God gave you to him to help him (Genesis 1:26); so you do have a crucial, God-given role in his life. He needs this from you. Are you giving it?

Proverbs 14:1 says, "Feminine wisdom builds her house, but feminine denseness tears it down with her own hands" (my translation). I've often thought "hands" could also be "tongue." God has given you a very powerful tongue, which you can use for good, to make him feel like a king (Proverbs 12:4a), or for evil, to eat out the very bones from within him (Proverbs 12:4b). But if you're wise, you will commit yourself to do your husband nothing but good, ever, whether with hands or tongue (Proverbs 31:11-12).


So how does he feel about leading you? Does his heart sing at the prospect? Or does he wince and cringe and groan, because he knows every decision will be faulted, criticized, found wanting, and countered; every mistake will noted, analyzed, and commented on; and every success will be minimized or credited elsewhere? Were I to ask your husband who his most loyal admirer and supporter was, would your name leap to his smiling lips? Should it?


Your husband listens to you better than you think he does, very possibly better than you listen to yourself. He hears you. What you say has an impact. If he's off in a corner somewhere rolled up into a ball, it may say all sorts of horrible things about him. But I'm not talking to him right now. I'm talking to you. And I'm asking you — have you played any part in that?


Second question: do you really want him to become a leader?

You see, the thing about a leader is he leads. That doesn't mean that he always demands his way, untouched by others' input. That's a fool, not a leader (Proverbs 12:15; 13:10; 15:22; 20:18). But it does mean that he will lead, that he will make the final decision. And it means that you must follow, and that not in a formal, outward, dotted-i-but-resentful-hearted way; you should follow respectfully and from the heart. At least, that's what God says (Ephesians 5:22f.; 1 Peter 3:1-6 [remember this post?]).

Now it is possible that you'd have 40, 50, 75 years of married bliss in which every notion your husband has just happens to be exactly what you'd have thought of yourself. Meanwhile, here on Planet Earth, odds are in the other direction. And what do you do in that case? Undergird, or undermine? Embrace or embitter?

Another thing is you may have to doff the martyr-cap, stop blaming your unhappiness on your husband, and deal seriously with the Lord. Maybe you have issues with being a woman, as God defines femininity. Lot of that going around, and sadly it has a lot of "cover" from the spirit of the age and creampuff "evangelicals." But anytime we think we have a better idea than God, we're back in Eden doing the Eve-thing that (after her husband's compliance) got us into this mess in the first place.

Remember, too: "leading" does not mean "doing what you want him to do without your having to tell him."

If any of this hits anywhere near where you live, sister, you need to do some serious work. It's important, it matters. You need to start with the premise that God's "dumbest" idea about womanhood is light-years better than your "brightest" idea. You need to start there, and work it out. Yourself, before God. You take up your cross, to die to your personal ideas of femininity in order that you might rise to God's ideas of femininity. That isn't your pastor's job or your husband's job. It's your job.

Otherwise, you really truly need to revisit the whole core of what it means to be a Christian. I am not saying you aren't a Christian; I am suggesting that maybe you have forgotten for a moment what it means, in practical terms, to be a Christian.

Much more could be said, but maybe this is enough to think over, for one short post in a blog.

But in parting I will try to sum it all up in one final pointed question: are you the sort of wife you would want to lead, if you were in your husband's shoes?

---

"Like Passions"?

by Phil Johnson



"Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are."

et's take a minute and dissect that expression from James 5:17. In a series of posts on Elijah a couple of years ago, I cited that verse and noted that James was stressing Elijah's ordinariness. He wasn't anything superhuman. He was unexceptional. The modern versions mostly say: "He was a man with a nature like ours." That's the main idea.

But it's more than that. The Greek term is homoiopathes—literally, "like passions." And indeed, Elijah's human passions are prominent throughout his life story. If anything, Elijah wore his passions on his sleeve. His affections and his zeal are more pronounced and more clearly visible than most of us. Even his famous ups and downs were driven to the highest of heights and the lowest of lows by his passions. He was not only a man of passions—he was a man of strong passions.

But James's central point is simply that Elijah was "a man"—and he was every bit a man. The ruggedness of his masculinity is one of the most prominent and endearing features of his character. He was a man of strong passions—but don't get the idea he was always emoting. His passions weren't the sniveling or effeminate kind. He wasn't a wimp. His manliness is always as evident as his emotions, even at the emotional low point in his life. That came at the end of a long fast, during which he had run nearly the full length of the nation of Israel from north to south. That one episode of discouragement was also the exception to a life and ministry distinguished by remarkable courage and stamina.

Elijah was a guy's guy. He seems to have been a bit crude. For months he ate food that was brought to him by ravens—scavenger birds. I don't know many people who wouldn't cringe at such a diet. It suited Elijah just fine.

And listen to the Bible's physical description of Elijah from 2 Kings 1:8: "He was an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins." So his physical appearance was dominated by hair and leather. I wonder how people would look at him if he walked into the typical evangelical church today.

And in that episode where he lapsed into discouragement, Scripture says he slept under a juniper tree. The Hebrew word signifies a kind of broom plant that flourishes in desert climates. They are scratchy. They grow low to the ground. And they don't make enough shade to shield a grown man. Underneath one of them would make a spectacularly uncomfortable sleeping place.

But Elijah was that sort of crude, earthy character whom the Lord delights to use. I find this refreshing. Time and time again, both in Scripture and in church history, God employs men who smash the stereotypical notions of piety. John the Baptist was exactly like Elijah, living in the desert and eating bugs and honey for his meals. Christ's closest disciples were fishermen instead of sanctimonious Pharisees. Christ himself grew up in a carpenter's home rather than the more sheltered environment of a scribe or cultured clergyman. Again and again, God uses that which is uncultured, unsophisticated, and contemptible in the eyes of refined society. I don't know about you, but I find that wonderfully liberating and encouraging.

Think about it, and you'll realize that the Bible's standard of true holiness is about as far as you can get from the cloistered existence most people imagine when they think of a life of devotion to God. But what good is the kind of righteousness that can only be lived out in behind the walls of a monastery or convent? What good is any kind of piety that cannot survive in the real world?

I'll take the robust, manly faith of Elijah any day over the weak and effeminate attitude of the typical professional clergyman (or woman) who thinks he (or she) is being devout because (s)he pretends (s)he has attained a higher level of social refinement than (s)he really has.



Elijah was the kind of person who tends to offend the sensibilities of cultured clergypeople. He was a passionate, plain-spoken man of decisive action. He could be harsh and even viciously sarcastic, especially when he was defending the truth against its enemies. He wasn't known for diplomacy. He was no friend of the enemies of God. He had a clear-cut sense of right and wrong, truth and error, and he had little patience with anyone who might want to blur or obscure the line between them.

He was not a man who would fit in well among modern evangelicals. The biggest fear of most evangelical pastors today is that they might offend people. They are convinced they will never win the world unless they are as subtle and indirect as possible with the truth—especially those truths that go against the spirit of our age. They think the only way to attract people to the truth is by accommodating worldly appetites as much as possible—especially in matters of style and form. Political correctness is their standard of truth.

Elijah was at the opposite end of the spectrum. He was abut as non-subtle and non-compromising and politically incorrect as it is possible to be. His style would not be warmly welcomed in the typical 20th-Century clergyperson's convention.

But he had a faith that was well-suited for the real world. His passion for truth was stronger than his love of comfort. His convictions were so unshakable that he never wavered, even when he thought he was literally the last man alive who believed the truth. Most people are tempted to decide truth by majority vote. Most of us would probably be tempted to adjust our world-view if we thought the entire world had abandoned the faith and we were the last Christians left. But not Elijah. It's true that he begged to be allowed to die, but he never once entertained the thought of abandoning the faith or softening the truth just to make his life easier.

Elijah's culture was remarkably like ours. The parallels between his time and ours are striking. Elijah's life is a textbook example of what real faith looks like when it's unleashed in a hostile world. If your prototype for Christian piety has always been the quiet ascetic who sits with his hands folded, reading devotional material, it's time to adjust your thinking—especially since we live in a culture where passion and plainspokenness are commonly deemed inappropriate modes of communication when we're proclaiming the truth of Scripture to a hostile culture.

I think if you seriously contemplate the example of Elijah, you'll come away with a different perspective on what real passion for the truth looks like. And I hope you'll be persuaded to pray for a double portion of Elijah's spirit.

---

How To Be a Popular Pastor When Truth Is Unfashionable

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 "The Questionable Ingredient of Popularity," a short item Spurgeon wrote in the May 1884 issue of The Sword and the Trowel.

"
NE-THIRD voice and personal presence, one-third selection of sensational topics, and one-third heresy," according to the Boston Journal, are the ingredients for making "a popular preacher." We are very much afraid that this is true in certain regions; and we are quite sure that some young preachers think so.

The last third is the easiest ingredient to obtain, and so they make it secure. Any pretender can be heterodox: you need neither study, nor think, nor pray in order to surpass all others in this line.

Notoriety can be gained at once by just being singular, and setting up to know better than those around you. Everybody will talk about you at once, and you can impress yourself upon their memories by saying something very cutting and impudent, and as nearly blasphemous as you dare to make it. But is this a noble ambition? Can this be the course of a man of God?

We think not. Perish the popularity which comes by any doctrine but the truth, or by any means but that of solemn, earnest well-doing! Empty sensationalism perishes like the green herb, and heresy dies like a noxious weed; but the faithful preacher of the word shall be had in everlasting remembrance.

---

Dennis Prager nails it — and misses it, at the same time

by Dan Phillips

I am neither a Dennis Prager fan, nor am I a hater. He's a sharp guy, but there are only so many uses of the first-person singular pronoun that can be borne in any 5-10 minutes span, and Prager easily exceeds that limit every time I happen across his show or writings.

Yet Prager isolates and nails something very important in his recent essay, Nothing Sacred. His focus is political, but the point he makes is far broader, as he himself alludes. Prager is diagnosing and describing the mental malady of liberalism. Prager begins by quoting prominent liberals who were alarmed at the reading of the US Constitution in the House of Representatives, and he asks what it was that was so troubling to them.

Prager's response:

The answer is that for leftism — though not necessarily for every individual who considers himself a leftist — there are no sacred texts. The two major examples are the Constitution and the Bible. One cannot understand the Left without understanding this. The demotion of the sacred in general and of sacred texts specifically is at the center of leftist thinking.

Prager brings in the Bible, and we're going to leave politics (except as illustrative) and focus on the mindset of liberalism in its stance towards God's verbal self-revelation.

Prager absolutely correctly observes that "elevating any standard, any religion, any text to the level of the sacred means that it is above any individual," and thus is authoritative to that individual. Whether a politician being told he must rein in his cravings for power under the authority of the Constitution, or a man or woman being told that he is under the external, objective judgment of God's Word, the issue is at root the same.

And so, Prager says that to a leftist, "what is right and wrong is determined by every individual’s feelings, not by anything above the individual." Then Prager says that

This is a major reason why the Left, since Karl Marx, has been so opposed to Judeo-Christian religion. For Judaism and Christianity, God and the Bible are above the self. Indeed, Western civilization was built on the idea that the individual and society are morally accountable to God and to the moral demands of that book. That was the view, incidentally, of every one of the Founders, including deists such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

Moreover,

Morality is then no longer a God-given objective fact; it becomes a human-created subjective opinion. And one no longer needs to consult an external source to know right and wrong, only one’s heart. We are then no longer accountable to God for transgressions, only to ourselves.

We could go on; it actually is a very thoughtful and well-written article. Also, we're blessed with so many sharp readers that I doubt you much need me to make the application you're all already making (and the ironies you're noting) in your own mind.

But hey, if I'm going to put my byline on it, I'd better write something beyond "what he said!", hadn't I? So here it is.

Prager's analysis is delightfully sharp and on-target, yet it falls short in ways that literally make all the difference in the world. Prager is himself an apostate Jew, by which I mean that he — while often and sincerely expressing admiration and affection for Christianity — is still among those who have rejected the Prophet like Moses, who came and spoke Yahweh's words. Prager is still among those whose stance toward Messiah is "We do not want this man to reign over us" (Luke 19:14).

And as I developed at greater length elsewhere, this means that Prager has had to deal loosely with Scripture himself. He could in no way be said to be under the authority of the Torah, as God spoke it; but rather Prager  is in some fashion under the rules and traditions of men (cf. Mark 7:1-13). The objective text of the Torah, in all its edgy and offensive power, is not Prager's philosophical nor moral pou sto.

Here is what the Torah would add to Prager's analysis. All of this started in the Garden, and we as a race are still stuck in exactly the same place. God had presented His worldview. It was comprehensive, exhaustive, and utterly authoritative. Everything Adam and Eve needed to know was included.

Yet Eve found herself in the one place in all the universe where she had no business being, listening to the one entity in all the universe to whom she had no business listening (Genesis 3:1ff.). Satan's fundamental proposition to Eve was a simple one: God's word is not necessarily binding on you; you must decide for yourself what is true and what is false, what is right and what is wrong. Thus you shall be as gods — or, possible, as God.

And so "God's ape" perverted God's design in a literally hellacious manner. Of course God's design from the start was that mankind be "as God," in a spiritual and moral resemblance knowable only through the holy and whole submission of faith. This was a pervert's likeness, a likeness that attempts (insanely!) to wrestle God's Godhood from Him, and claim it as my own.

And so each of us is at heart a "liberal" or a "leftist," in Prager's sense, in that each of us is born with a hot hatred for any external authority that challenges our own. That is why

God looks down from heaven
on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,
who seek after God.

3 They have all fallen away;
together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one. (Psalm 53:2-3).

That is why the thoughts of man's heart are naturally only wicked all day (Genesis 6:5). That is why all of us naturally do what is right in our own eyes (Judges 17:6; 21:25). That is why we all suppress God's truth (Romans 1:18). That is why we have all gone aside, we do not seek God, we are bereft of that necessary foundation for all knowledge: the fear of God (Romans 3:9-18).

That all just scratches the surface. Sin has vitiated the way each of us looks at the universe. Prager's prescription doesn't go nearly far enough, because his diagnosis doesn't go nearly far enough — and because he leaves himself out. We don't need merely to be more respectful of the Constitution (though I think that would be good), or of the Bible.

What we need is a complete overhaul. We need a complete paradigm shift.

We need what the rejected "Prophet like Moses" tells Dennis Prager and you and me that we all need: we need

• to repent (Matthew 4:17); and
• to be born again (John 3:1ff.)

A teacher in Israel really should know this (John 3:9-10).

It appears Prager doesn't.

Do you?

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Real Passion vs. Artificial Enthusiasm

by Phil Johnson



hen we consider Christ as the very incarnation of divine glory, it ought to put all our other passions in proper perspective. It ought to make us ashamed that our focus is so far off and we are not really passionate about the one thing that ought to excite us the most.

We imitate all the world's passions. We invent gimmicks to try to win worldly people by appealing to whatever mania has captured our culture's attention at the moment. We devote our energies and our emotions to things that are not even worthy of our attention. We do things to stir artificial passion—which is an especially sinister form of false worship.

Our passions should not need to be whipped up by spiritual cheerleaders and stadium chants. We shouldn't have to be worked into an emotional state by hype and melodrama and musical manipulation. If we can get pumped to a fever pitch by some rock-star pastor'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.

How many youth leaders purposely provoke their students to a state of screaming enthusiasm with gross-out games? Remember the peanut-butter-in-the-armpit performance? (Sadly, I've been unable to forget it.) Note that pastor's rationale: he say he does stuff like that frequently to "shock and astound." (Those are his exact words.) He said he did the armpit schtick because he hoped to start "a buzz that would go viral, that teens would text and Twitter about." And here's how he justified 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."

Now, that's obviously an extreme example, but 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.

Ersatz enthusiasm and crass tomfoolery actually contradict 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.

By the way, the passions stirred by a clear vision of God's glory aren't necessarily warm and comforting. It's not always a good feeling. In fact, it is much more likely that the first time someone catches a glimpse of God's glory, the result will be intense fear. "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (Psalm 111:10). Do a study on this in Scripture and take note of how people usually respond when they first see God for who He is. They fall on their faces in sheer terror. Almost every time.

God's glory also provokes profound amazement and wonder. Sometimes it's delight and rejoicing. (Peter fell on his face and confessed his sin when he first began to realize who Jesus was. But he sounded almost giddy when he saw Christ's glory unveiled on the Mount of Transfiguration.) All of those are legitimate emotions, and if they are real, they will make a lasting difference in us—something more than an impressive display of arm-raising and swaying with closed eyes during the song service; and something more credible than the pseudo-drunken behavior that has become such a plague in recent years.



Artificial religious enthusiasm is the bane of our age, and it's a powerful detriment to the church's testimony. There is perhaps no more reprehensible variey of raw hypocrisy.

On the other hand, if we really grasped and meditated on how the glory of God is revealed to us in Christ, we would never need any artificial gimmicks to stir our passions, and we certainly would never dream that we needed to try to make God seem "cooler" or more appealing than He actually is.

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Open Letter to Pat Robertson

by Frank Turk

Dear Pat Robertson,

In 2007, Pat, you predicted that a massive attack ("not nuclear") would destroy a major US City. In 2008, you put on display what you said God told you to say and to predict -- and I have to admit that you came pretty close then, predicting a stock market crash and high oil prices. You weren't the only one predicting that, but one has to give credit where credit is due.

Then in 2009 you also made your predictions as communicated to you by God:



Somehow we averted hyperinflation, a collapse into socialism, and gold at $1900 an ounce that year, but you were not abashed. And of course, because this is an annual event, you provided your notes from your tea time with God for 2011 just last week (I could't find the 2010 footage):



Let me say frankly that these videos speak for themselves. You've been doing this for a long time, and it has made you a lot of money.

Now, what really bothers me about this isn't the money-making because a brother has to eat. If you and your conscience can spend your time doing this sort of thing, and people will pay you for it, it's a free country and people make money all kinds of ways.

But it does bother me that you leverage this aspect of your career to do other things as well. See: unlike Benny Hinn who just claims to be God's special Jedi, and we should get some of his anointing by sending him money, you encourage a horrible image of what faith in Christ looks like because your view of salvation is tied to how things look right now.

For example, in your book the people of Haiti were ravaged by disaster because they have made a "pact with the devil". Now, whether or not the folk religion of Haiti is idolatry (and it is), I think there's a problem with matching one-to-one their idolatry with their suffering.

On the one hand, it seems to say that other forms of idolatry aren't as bad. You know: the idolatry of celebrity which is evident on CBN doesn't seem to catch God's umbrage -- rather, next year will be another good year for CBN and its affiliated parachurch businesses. The idolatry of statism -- albeit conservative statism -- from preachers like yourself who put political victory over Gospel clarity and sincerity somehow slips under God's wrath's radar. And somehow the idolatry of speaking for God when God hath not said also seems to be outside the scope of natural disaster, as the videos above and the track record of those predictions plainly demonstrate.

And on the other hand, what about those actually suffering for the sake of Christ? This is the issue which I think cuts a little deeper -- because today there are Christians dying for their faith, but in your predictions only people in league with the Devil will suffer. I mean: we can expect as much from careless people who think the Devil is a sort of schtick we can use when we use religious language, but you're allegedly a godly man. You're allegedly someone with a deep faith. Is it your view that Christians who suffer are outside the will of God? It can't be that -- you wouldn't shame martyrs with that sort of nonchalant caricature of what it means to live in God's good graces. Would you?

So here are my suggestions for you in 2011, and you can take them for whatever they are worth to you:

1. Repent of your false prophecies.

This is an easy one as it wouldn't take 10 minutes to start and it would only require you to eliminate this 15-minute segment from your network each New Year. Just come out and say it: "For years I have claimed to be speaking for God, and I have not been speaking for God. I have been speaking from my own intentions and biases and thoughts, and I was wrong to assign those to God's will, and God's Word. I have sinned against God, and against my fellow believers, and I ask God's mercy and their forgiveness." You could do it -- and a giant swath of Christians would breathe a sigh of relief that you are not actually crazy or delusional but rather concerned that Jesus finally be glorified.

2. Reconsider the Gospel.

Here's what I'm thinking: rather than use your life's work network to promote every new fad and spiritual quack who will say the name "Jesus" or put a Bible verse on his product, schedule some prime time to the historical fact that Jesus lived a real life, and that his intention was to die for the sake of the sins of those who would believe in him. Jesus didn't die to make us sooth-sayers, or Congressmen, or influential entertainment executives: He died because we are all distracted from God by being sooth-sayers, and Congressmen, and influential executives, and so on. Reconsider that the Gospel did not make Paul rich but rather abjectly poor -- and he evangelized the Roman world without so much as a blog or a decent pair of shoes. Reconsider that the Gospel changes what prosperity looks like. And then repent of what you have made out of the Gospel.

3. Get serious about the actual Word of God.

I am sure you have read it -- the Bible. You have read the Bible. The problem is that you have not read it for what it says. You have spent most of your public life parsing prophecies so that you can make political points and cause your viewers to panic because the end is near. But it's funny that you are not in a panic that the end is near: you're storing up riches in storehouses, and still scaring others with prophecies of economic and political disaster. You know: the one time Jesus stood before someone of political power, he said, "My kingdom is not of this earth;" and when Paul stood before Festus and Agrippa, he didn't lecture them on the legitimacy of Roman policies -- he preached to him the Gospel in order that Agrippa would be changed, and saved. You are not like those founders of this faith, Pat. You would do better to be like them, and I call you to repent about your attitude toward the word of God.

I hope this note finds you in God's good graces so that you will be inclined by His conviction and Spirit to make your life right. It's not too late, and you will bless many by your change.

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What did Jesus (not) say about... God's desire for us? (full post)

by Dan Phillips

"God wants you to have your best life right now."

The perspective I'm reading into the phrase is that of the old Schlitz commercial: "You only go around once in life so you've got to grab for all the gusto you can." On religious lips, the intent is not to deny an afterlife nor celestial blessings — just to sideline them by focusing everything on the here and now. "Best life now" means good health, good loving, good money, good house, good goodies, good success in my endeavors. It means success and prosperity on my terms, here and now.

Does Jesus say that's God's priority for us? It has to stand as a singular perversity that this meaning is extracted from John 10:10b — "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." That someone could read this verse and immediately connect "life" with material prosperity, or success in pursuing my goals, is very revealing. And not in a good way.

Is that what God sees, when He looks down on mankind? "Ah Me; if only they had more things! If only they had their way more often! If only they were more free of all suffering and trial!" Is that what God thinks?

Now here comes The Thing about Christianity that too many don't seem to "get": we needn't and mustn't guess. God has already told us what He thinks when He looks at us.


      God looks down from heaven
      on the children of man
                  to see if there are any who understand,
      who seek after God.

            3      They have all fallen away;
      together they have become corrupt;
                  there is none who does good,
      not even one. (Psalm 53:2-3)

So God primarily sees and assesses the human condition in relationship to Himself. Are men primarily rightly related to Him? is the question He asks. No, is the answer.

This makes perfect sense with what Jesus says, in so many words, when asked to single out the most important thing in all life.  The form of the question as posed was "which is the great commandment in the Law?" (Matthew 22:36). But as we know from Jesus' well-known and well-understood worldview, the commandments of the Law were revelations of the mind and will of God. Therefore, to single out the most important of these was to single out what was foremost to God and, therefore, what is foremost in the universe.

How did Jesus reply?

 "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:37-40)

Neither commandment had anything to do with getting my way for myself to make me happy. Neither sends me back plummeting into the trackless vortex of my passions and cravings and demands. No, the commands send me out of myself in outward-seeking love, first to God Himself, then to the image of God in my neighbor.

That, you might say, is our great, ultimate and consuming destination. Ah, but how do I get there from here? That's the problem; that's my problem. Here, I am chained to a heart that is a laboratory of sin, Jesus says (Matthew 15:19). I am flesh, born of flesh, and of myself I can never aspire to be more than flesh (John 3:6a). More, I am a natural-born citizen and denizen of a world that hates God and His truth, and I fit in just fine with it (John 7:7; 15:18-19).

What is the answer? Jesus gave it. I need Him to pay the ransom-price in my stead, to free me from the guilt and power of my sin (Matthew 20:28). I need to be born again by the Spirit of God, to change my nature from without (John 3:1-8). I need to pass from death to life through faith in Christ (John 5:24).

And then what is life to me?

Life is a life where I am on my way, on a trip, just passing through. This world is not my home — not now, anyway, and not this world. This world hated my Lord, and it will hate me (Matthew 10:24-25; John 15:18). In it, I should expect to suffer. I will be poor in spirit, will mourn, must be meek, will hunger and thirst for righteousness, will be persecuted for righteousness' sake, will be reviled and persecuted and accused of all kinds of evil against you falsely on Christ's account (Matthew 5:1-11). I will expect — not to climb into a Rolls Royce, but — to take up a cross as the means of my own execution, and learn to say "No" to my self, daily (Luke 9:23).

But in all this (and more!), I must rejoice and be glad — not expecting God to send me a diamond ring or a mansion in Bermuda, but assuredly expecting something far better.

I will expect to see God in His glory. I will expect to see His kingdom (Matthew 5:3). I will expect the rewards infinitely to outweigh the sorrows (Matthew 5:12; cf. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18). And that expectation constantly spills over into the present, and gives me reason for hope and joy and rejoicing and gladness (Matthew 5:12; Luke 6:23; cf. Romans 5:2).

This world is a gymnasium, a war theater, a testing-ground.

"Best life now"?

Hardly.

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The Bizarre Passions of Worldly Culture, and Why They are Incompatible with a True Passion for God's Glory

by Phil Johnson



here's plenty of passion in the world today. Unfortunately, a lot of it is evil passion—lust, anger, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, self-love, and so on. Even whatever good feelings there are in this world are misspent—squandered on trivial things: sports, entertainment, recreation, and the pursuit of personal happiness. We're expected to be deliriously excited about things like that; and we're generally discouraged from taking serious things seriously.

In fact, it's one of the supreme ironies of our culture that raw passion per se (even if it's utterly irrational) is deemed perfectly acceptible, but devotion to God is generally seen as a sign of serious imbalance.

It's true. An earnest worshiper of God is likely to be regarded by our society as a deranged person—especially if he declares his faith. Meanwhile, young girls are practically expected to scream till they faint in the presence of boy-band celebrities. Men can be as fanatical as they like about their favorite sports team. Students can thoroughly immerse themselves in some mindless fantasy game. Anyone of any age can be wholly obsessed with some celebrity or pop star they have never even met. No one bats an eye at those things.



Celebrity worship is the real religion of our culture. In fact, certain dead celebrities have achieved the very same status in our culture as the mythological Greek gods who filled the pantheon of Rome in the first century.

So there's no shortage of passion in modern society. It's just the wrong kind of passion, and passion for all the wrong things.

If there's one thing we ought to be passionate about, it's the glory of God. There is no greater reality in all the universe. There is nothing more worthy of our deepest, most heartfelt emotion. God's glory is the very end for which we were created: to relish the glory of God, to reflect that glory, and to rejoice in the privilege of basking in and declaring that glory to the world. The very first answer in the Westminster Shorter Catechism says it like this: "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever."

The glory of God, of course, is one of the central themes of Scripture. God's glory features prominently in all the major eras of Old Testament history. You have the visible Shekinah cloud that led the Israelites in the wilderness for forty years. You have the visible reflection of God's glory that made Moses' face shine when he came down from Sinai. You have the vivid descriptions of divine glory around the heavenly throne in Isaiah 6, and then again in Ezekiel 1 and 10.

All those passages in the Old Testament mention the visible, palpable splendor of God's glory. And of course, the beauty of divine glory is not conducive to verbal descriptions. It is indescribable, unimaginable, and mysterious. Ezekiel's account in particular (see Ezekiel 10:9-22) is a breathless narrative about bright lights, amazing angelic creatures, lightning flashes, intricate, interconnected wheels with countless eyes and sparkling facets like awesome crystal and colorful gemstones. It was a stunning vision, and (speaking of passion) it provoked terror, astonishment, unspeakable awe, great affection, and deep humility in Ezekiel.

As we read Ezekiel 1 and Ezekiel 10 without actually seeing what Ezekiel saw, it's impossible to envision the spectacle. The most popular New-Age theory is that Ezekiel was describing a massive UFO, like a scene out of "Close Encounters" or something. And of course, that's nonsense. I don't think any amount of special effects wizardry could accurately portray the majesty of what Ezekiel saw. The verbal description gives us only the barest hint of it. All that really comes through clearly is a sense of indescribable grandeur, beauty far beyond the reach of any human explanation, unfathomable radiance, and infinite brilliance. It's a vision we cannot perceive from mere words, but between you and me if you can read Ezekiel's account of it and not have a passionate longing to see it with your own eyes, you must have a heart of stone.

It's clear from the Old Testament alone that passion for the glory of God is one of the key evidences of authentic faith. In fact, a yearning to see and perceive God's glory is perhaps the truest expression of saving faith and genuine love for God.



Personally, I can't wait to see the full display of God's glory with my own eyes. The thought of it frightens and intimidates me, but I want it more than anything in this world. That's the deepest hope of every true believer who thinks carefully about all that awaits us in heaven.

And that has always been the hope of true believers. Moses desperately wanted to see God's face. Even though he knew an unhindered look at the radiance of God would be fatal to him as a fallen creature, Moses did get to see some of the glory of God through a shielded view from behind. Only as that glory receded did Moses get a small glimpse, and the splendor of that little peek reflected with such a glow off Moses' face that the people of Israel were frightened for their lives when they saw how Moses' face shone. They begged him to cover it up with a veil.

David likewise longed to see God's glory face to face, and in Psalm 17:15, he said that was the one thing he knew would ultimately satisfy him. All his desires, all his longings, and the object of his every passion lay in that one goal: he wanted an unhindered vision of the glory of God.

Man was created to enjoy and to reflect God's glory. Our race was supposed to be the perfect vehicle for God's likeness. We were designed to be living lanterns through which God's own glory would shine. That's what Scripture means when it says in Genesis 1:27: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him"

Sin marred the image of God in man and left us with a deep longing for what Adam lost. It's a longing that can only be satisfied by God's glory. That is another reason God's glory is the one thing in the universe that ought to enflame our deepest passions more than any other.

In other words, not only is God's glory inherently worthy of all our affections, it's the very thing our affections were created for in the first place—and it's also the only thing that can ultimately satisfy our most basic urges and longings.

A lot of this life's sins and frustrations would be eliminated if we could just bear that in mind.

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Don't Fear the Militant Skeptics

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 "The Dream of the Bakery Cake," a sermon preached Sunday morning, 22 November 1885 at the Met Tab in London.




ehold the host of doubters, and heretics, and revilers, who, at the present time, have come up into the inheritance of Israel, hungry from their deserts of rationalism and atheism! They are eating up all the corn of the land. They cast a doubt upon all the verities of our faith.

But we need not fear them; for if we heard their secret counsels, we should perceive that they are afraid of us. Their loud blusterings and their constant sneers are the index of real fear. Those who preach the cross of our Lord Jesus are the terror of modern thinkers. In their heart of hearts they dread the preaching of the old-fashioned gospel, and they hate what they dread. On their beds they dream of the coming of some evangelist into their neighborhood. What the name of Richard was to the Saracens, that is the name of Moody to these boastful intellects. They wish they could stop those Calvinistic fellows and those evangelical old fogies.

Brethren, so long as the plain gospel is preached in England there will always be hope that these brigands will yet be scattered, and the church be rid of their intrusion. Rationalism, Socinianism, Ritualism, and Universalism will soon take to their legs, if the clear, decided cry of "the Sword of the Lord and of Gideon" be once more heard.

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That there cover: thanks, thoughts, and a survey version (si puedes)

by Dan Phillips

I'll enumerate, for the sake of brevity and concisitude:

1. My sincere and heartfelt thanks to all of you who took the time to share explain your opinions. What a great bunch you are, and how blessed I am to share you with my betters here as readers.
2. I am humbled and encouraged and amazed almost beyond my capacity to believe or feel it at how many of you express your plan, content-unseen, to buy the book. That's incredibly humbling. Just... thank you so much.
3. It's been fun learning more about you.
4. Isn't it interesting how a group of broadly like-minded people can come down so differently and so emphatically on something like this?
5. HSAT, beloved reader ThreeGirlDad has done what I wish I'd thought to do at the start, and created an online survey. If you feel like adding that, it would help us count up the specifics and break down the demographics. But I know you're busy, it's the weekend, so that's up to you.
6. Pick one of the two, please. If you hate them both, note that in the comments.
7. Thanks!

Find the survey here

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Dear readers: time to play Pick That Cover

by Dan Phillips

Howdy, gang. Phil's welcoming a day off, so I get to ask you to help me on something. (Of course, I hope Phil and Frank pitch in, too.)

My manuscript has been edited and submitted to Kregel and... well, I'm not sure just where it is. But meanwhile, I've been working with Kregel's Cat Hoort on other aspects of publication. Cat is Kregel's marketing manager who is overseeing the new release campaign for my book, The World-Tilting Gospel.

It's been a fun process, exciting and scary by turns. Cat's been very helpful, and great to work with. We have formalized the title (as you'll see), have worked on audience, presenting the book, and various forms of my bio for differing uses.

Now we get to pick the cover, and Cat suggested that I invite your input.  Fun, eh? Ever do this before? Me either!

First, here are the two main candidates, presented in random order:

Cover A

Cover B

Second: your job is simply to say which you find more eye-catching and, if you don't mind, briefly explain why.

Now I realize that, at this point, you don't know a whole lot about what's inside the book. Actually, that's the point. Kregel wants to know: Which of those books look like anything you might pick up, flip over to read the back cover, and then maybe page through?

Two more things, both optional — well, the whole thing's optional, but I digress:

1. If you don't mind, would you either give your age, or age range (i.e. 20-25, 95-100, whatever)? Be truthful, now.
2. Do you have any position in a church — pastor, secretary, Sunday School teacher, Bible study leader, etc.? Share.

Thanks, I really do appreciate it, and hope it's some kind of fun for you, as this one was.

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"Compassion"? A parable

by Dan Phillips

A Visitor's Center one day was manned by twin brothers Nick and Knack. A car pulled into the parking lot, disgorging a breathlessly eager visitor.

"May we help you?" offered Nick genially.

"Yes, thank you!" bubbled the newcomer. "All my life I've been longing to travel Route 49! Can you show me the most direct way?"

Nick paled.

"Oh, I'm very sorry, but you don't want to go Route 49."

"But I do!" insisted the visitor.

"Let me rephrase myself," amended Nick. "You may want to, but you really mustn't.  The road goes along nicely at first, but then you'll see a bunch of roadblocks and obstacles laid across it, slowing you down and warning you off. These impediments aren't really a problem; they're actually a good thing...."

"How can they be a good thing," the visitor cuts in angrily. "This is my dream! I want to zoom, not be slowed down."

"I was going to say," continued Nick, "they're a good thing because otherwise you'll shoot straight off the stub of a broken bridge and plummet 800 feet to your death on the rocky rapids below."

"Oh," said the visitor, turning a bit white himself.

"He says," observed Knack, leaning forward, putting down his latte and stroking his soul-patch.

"The map says," countered Nick.

"Map?" asked the visitor.

"Yep, right here," replied Nick, spreading out the item itself on the counter. "See that red X there? It means bridge out."

"You say it means that," snarked Knack. "I say it means 'X marks the spot.'"

"Oh, come on," retorted Nick. "There's a legend at the bottom of the map, for crying out loud! See? 'Bridge out!' It isn't rocket science."

"Scholars now realize that 'X' means many different things in different cultures. Besides, you're talking as if that's the only map," drawled Knack. "This one shows a clear, delightful road right where our visitor wants to go. See?"

"That's in crayon!" exploded Nick.

"You got something against crayon?" inquired Knack.

"No," Nick shot back. "I have something against people destroying themselves."

"Psh," Knack sneered. "You just want safety in rules. The visitor's a daring seeker. He should seek. The journey is what matters, not the destination."

"Seek death?" Nick replied. "I think he'll care plenty about the destination when his car shoots off into space."

There was an angry silence, broken by a sob. It was the visitor, who has tears running down his cheeks.

"All I know is I've yearned to go down Route 49 as long as I remember. Some kids mocked me, others ridiculed me and were mean to me, but the desire has always been there. I can't conceive of not wanting to go down Route 49. It's what my heart tells me to do, and I have to be true to my heart, don't I? I can't lie. It defines me. You can't separate this desire from me. I can't imagine not wanting to go that way. It fills my dreams. I even have a T-shirt. See?" He pulled open his blazer and displayed the garment.

"I understand," crooned Knack. "There is nothing wrong with you or with what you want. And there's nothing wrong with going that way. For you, it is the only way. And in fact, I want to help you. I will personally go ahead of you and remove all the blocks, chains, signs, speed bumps, and ropes that have been stretched across the road. I will mount a parade for you — a Route 49 Pride parade. I will lobby to prohibit people from speaking against traveling Route 49. I will side with you against all the harsh, rule-happy Route 49 nay-sayers. In fact, I will get my brother here fired, because he made you feel bad about wanting to go Route 49. He doesn't care about your feelings, as I do. He doesn't have any love or compassion for you, and I've got buckets of both. Nick's all about rules and maps and shutting you out and playing it safe; I'm all about love and compassion and justice and being bold and daring. Nick is shallow, reactionary and not helpful. I'm deep and thoughtful and helpful. So you just get in your car, and you go go go!"

As the visitor beamed, Nick sprang to block the door. "Whoa whoa whoa, not so fast! Look, friend — how you feel about Route 49 doesn't change the facts: the bridge is out! My feelings aren't the map, your feelings aren't the map. Go that way, and you will die! I don't want you to die. I don't think it's loving or compassionate to give you bad information that means your death. The people who put up those signs and those obstacles knew what they were doing, and they did it because they care about people like you. It shouldn't be easy an comfortable to go down that road. It wouldn't be compassionate of me to focus on giving you a smooth ride to your own destruction, and it isn't "bold" and "daring" to head off to certain doom. Enabling you isn't really helping you. And look, I can show you other ways to go, or I can try to find other ways to help — but don't go that way! It'd be the end of you."

Silence fell again for a moment, then:

"We could call a five-year moratorium on this," offered Knack.

"But I want to go that way now," countered the visitor.

"The map says what it says now, and it isn't unclear," said Nick. "It's said that for a long time, and nothing's changed. Nothing's going to change in five years."

The visitor looked back and forth between the brothers, confused. He knew which brother's advice he liked best, which brother told him what he wanted to hear, but... was that the wisest way to decide?

PREMISE: the bridge was indeed out, and the map was indeed accurate.

QUESTION: which brother actually showed love and compassion?

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