How To Make Your Small Group Bible Study 1000x Better: The Art of Being Stupid

By Kendra Kammer

Photo by Alexis Brown

I have had so many people tell me over the years that their small group Bible study feels shallow, insincere, and stuffy. Have you ever had that experience?

Sometimes in these small groups it seems like everyone is trying to outdo everyone else with their spiritual knowledge. Someone launches into a political tirade. Questions that are designed to lead to healthy personal conviction lead to culture-bashing instead. And everyone walks away feeling a little more self-righteous than when they arrived.

It’s no wonder that the friends we bring don’t want to come back. It’s no wonder that we don’t want to go back!

But don’t be discouraged! I’m here to bring you hope!

I have determined never to be part of such a Bible Study again. But instead of quitting, I’ve changed my groups from the inside, and it all started with me.

Maybe the change for your small group problem needs to start with you.

Here is my list of Four Tips to Make Your Bible Study 1000x Better. (Also called The Art of Being Stupid in Bible Study.)

Be Thoughtfully Stupid to Make Bible Study Better

Ask the Stupid Questions

If you’ve been around church for a while, you know what the answers are supposed to be. The problem is that we have trained ourselves not to ask the questions. We don’t want to look stupid and besides, often we already know what people are going to tell us. But we need to ask those questions that linger, for our sake and for the sake of others.

We need to ask those questions that linger, for our sake and for the sake of others.

For example, if I ask, “How can I know that God loves me?” I know others will tell me, “Because it says so in the Bible.” But if I push and ask again, “Can you show me where? Maybe we can look up some passages together,” then suddenly this easy question has moved us into a lively practice of Bible-searching. And someone who needed to hear those encouraging verses gets to breathe a little easier.

So sometimes we should ask the questions even when we know the answer to invigorate discussion and to encourage that person who was afraid that her questions would be too stupid.

And sometimes we ask the questions because we have to admit that the church answer hasn’t satisfied our soul. Take, as an example, questions like “Why does God allow children to die?” We may know full well that the answer lies somewhere along the lines of “because God’s ways are beyond our understanding,” but wouldn’t it be helpful to take the time in Bible study to discuss it? We might not have time to finish a complete analysis of the question at hand, but we will acknowledge some hard truths, search the Scriptures, and encourage someone who thought that they were the only one who wondered about that.

Share your Stupid Sin

As the discussion in Bible study turns to our sin and our need for a Savior we often find ourselves wanting to put up a wall. We want to leave the discussion to the “sin over there” because the sin right here is harder to talk about.

So we start to talk about the sin that those other people do these days. Or we talk about the sin we used to do.

For the sake of letting the Scriptures do its work on our hearts, let’s stop when we hear ourselves talking about the far-off sin and let’s take that step to bring it back to our neighborhood. Admit your most frustrating sins to the group. This is SO HARD when you are the first one, but you will be rewarded when the others also begin to open up. Your small group will become a sisterhood or brotherhood that shares the most beautiful kind of Christian fellowship.

Your small group will become a place that shares the most beautiful kind of Christian fellowship.

But for the sake of the Gospel, never let it stop there. Every time you admit your sins in the group, make sure you bring it back around to the Gospel. Remember that our God knows that we constantly turn our eyes to worthless things. He knows that we sin but he loves us perfectly and inexplicably, and arranged for us to be with him by the death of his Son. He knows. He loves. He forgives. Praise God!

Bring Buckets of Grace for Your Stupid Friends

With that in mind, that our God loves and forgives us, we can bring buckets of grace for the others in the group. Is there someone who drives you nuts? Is there someone who derails the conversation? Or who seems to look down on you when you ask those stupid questions?

Take a breath and remember that they are still in process just the same as you are. Pray for them. Ask God to help you love them. God loves that prayer! Let him work on your heart.

Follow Some Stupid Rabbit Trails

And finally, the last tip to make your small group Bible Study better is to let your group follow some of those rabbit trails. Watch the people in your group, and use their behavior and words as a guide for how you focus your time together. If, for example, Susan has been sitting, unusually silently throughout the Bible study, and just as you are discussing the dimensions of Noah’s ark, she says, “Sometimes my husband makes me so mad,” it is time to follow that rabbit trail.

Always put the relationships with the group members over the content of the study. Trust me. People in the study won’t be able to engage with the content if they don’t feel like they can trust the group. But a group with strong relationships that studies the Bible together will see exponential spiritual growth.

So there you have it!

But trust me friends, it is not enough just to agree that this is how Bible study should go. It all starts with you. Be uncomfortable. Be stupid. Receive the strange looks from your confused friends when you ask the questions that “Christians should know” and push through to the other side. I promise that it will be worth it!

Kendra Kammer is an active mom of 3 boys. She and her husband, Steve, have been involved in ministry for over 25 years. Kendra especially loves bringing Gods truth alive for others by sharing what God has been teaching her. Check out her blog at CandidlyKendraK.com. (This post was originally posted here.)

Sabbath for Overachievers

By Caroline Stoltzfus

As my husband and I prepare to welcome our first kiddo next month, I wonder if I can keep one of the Ten Commandments in this new season. Is it the first, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3)? Not so much, as I’m well aware I break that one daily. How about the eighth, “You shall not steal”(Exodus 20:15)? No, I don’t see the lack of sleep bringing about a new money laundering habit. 

The commandment that has me concerned is one I’ve cultivated over the past year for the first time. It’s the longest commandment by word and verse count, profoundly affects how we structure our time, work, and relationships, and provides a concrete way to reflect God's image, so it must be important. God speaks in Exodus 20:8-11, saying,

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” 

Well, that sounds nice if you don’t live in America, where our rat race idols tend to get in the way of God’s good pattern for our lives. 

For the more affluent, overextended careers, youth sports tournaments, brunch plans, Trader Joe’s runs, and landscaping all call to us on the weekends as we work to do more and be more for the sake of status. For those living paycheck to paycheck, if you have the day off, Sunday might be the one day to complete critical errands. Whatever your station, society demands that we not only treat the Sabbath as any other task-oriented day but that we require that others support our checklist—quite the opposite of what Commandment Eight instructs us. 

What would it look like to radically reorder our individual, family, and corporate lives so that the Sabbath became the true blessing God intended it to be? How can we come to see observing the Sabbath as a choice to accept our limitations in order to honor our good God?

Overcoming Momentum

If you’re like me, you have a planner that you visit daily to keep track of your appointments and tasks. Perhaps you also have a family calendar, a grocery list on your fridge, shared virtual notes with your spouse, and an iPhone Reminders list just in case all of those other triggers fail you. We are constantly prompted to add to and check in with our checklist and are primed to do this from a young age. 

My own teenage and college experience demonstrates this training. I wanted to be the best scholar-athlete in my class. My parents gave me every opportunity they could to pursue this goal, including post-practice training, driving me and my sisters around from the time they got off of work to 8:30 p.m., and spending weekends traveling for academic and sporting events. I liked the hustle because people liked me when I succeeded. And when I sat down to “rest,” it was more like crashing in front of a TV marathon.

This full plate didn’t leave any time for an intentional Sabbath, and that mindset carried well into adulthood. Track practice and homework became social overcommitment and freelancing on nights and weekends. I swapped my cable TV channel crashes for Netflix binging. Not keeping a Sabbath felt normal (no one else in my life practiced or even talked about the practice) and convinced me that if I could fit more tasks into my 168-hour week, I was limitless.

Choosing Delight Over Delusion

But believing you’re limitless is quite delusional and not the point of the Christian life. John Mark Comer shares in his lessons on The Sabbath Practice, “The Sabbath is a 24-hour time period set aside to stop, rest, delight, and worship. It is the best day of the week. In our era of chronic exhaustion, emotional unhealth, and spiritual stagnation, few things are more necessary than the recovery of this ancient practice.” 

Do you feel that endless tiredness alongside a disconnection from your emotions and God the Father? Do you answer the question, “How are you?” with, “I’m so busy!” as if busy were an emotion? Do you put unrealistic expectations on your next long weekend in the mountains or yearly beach vacation? So many of us live in this state and keep hoping that if we work hard enough, we can magically create the time and money that will finally allow us to have a Sabbath. 

This dream is a farce. Beyond our cognitive limitations and physical needs, we have spiritual needs that our own works cannot meet. Paul writes in Romans, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” Scripture repeatedly reminds us of our limitations. God is not surprised that I haven’t found time to get a law degree, let alone that I cannot perfectly please him and earn salvation through my efforts. 

If I cannot achieve salvation on my own or self-actualize in the approximately 4,000 weeks I have on this earth, why would I reject the beautiful weekly gift of Sabbath that God gives me complete permission to enjoy? Why wouldn’t I prune my calendar, knowing that he is already pleased with me in Christ, to protect the best day of the week? The more I lean into God’s kindness toward me and my limitations, the more I’m able to rest from the world’s expectations and give not just Sundays but all my days to trusting he loves me, not how many items I’ve crossed off my checklist. 

My limitations allow me to better honor a sovereign God who deserves the worship of my time. Sabbath patterns set us apart from the world in a shocking way—start practicing it and see how your believing and unbelieving friends and family react! Through a day set aside to worship and witness, we reflect our creator’s image and give him the glory he is due. But how do we begin?

Discovering Sabbath

The Bible provides basic intentions for our Sabbath practice, and while theologians and secular authors differ on the impetus and goal of Sabbath practice, both recognize the benefits and provide insight into discovering this for ourselves. What that looks like practically in your life could take many shapes in many different seasons. I doubt my infant will respect the uninterrupted hours of sipping coffee, conversing, and reading outdoors that my husband and I enjoyed since we began our new Sunday rhythm about a year ago. Though, I believe we can always ask these questions to help us cultivate a day set aside to “stop, rest, delight, and worship.”

1. Does my Monday through Saturday calendar foster a full day of rest? What’s likely to overflow into my Sabbath?

2. Am I prioritizing too many relationships in a way that leaves my calendar too full and lacking intimacy? How can I prioritize the most important relationships on the Sabbath?

3. What expectations from the world am I placing on myself, even though they aren’t a value or interest to me? For example, having a weed-free garden or participating in club sports. 

4. How can I allow others to rest on the Sabbath? Can I grocery shop on a different day of the week or make it a rule not to dine out on Sundays?

5. Where am I seeking rest in technology, TV, and social media? What would happen if I practiced a tech-free Sabbath?

I encourage you to find people in your community who already practice Sabbath and ask them how it’s changed their lives and their relationship with their true Savior. Invite your closest relationships into trying to practice Sabbath together. This discipline is meant to be done and better done with others. You might not enjoy it at first, but I bet you’ll soon find you can’t imagine life before honoring this good gift from our good God. One of my favorite thinkers, Andy Crouch, is known to say, “When you practice Sabbath, you always know you’re never more than six days away from a day of rest with a God who loves you and provides for you.”

Caroline and her husband Cole have been members at g+p since 2020. She enjoys deep chats, emerging ideas, trail runs, podcasts, and baked goods. Find her writing at homecomingcreative.com and on LinkedIn.

It All Hinges on the Resurrection

By Jonathan Clark

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I’m a pastor to college-aged young adults. One of the best parts of my job is meeting with 20-somethings to process life and faith. These are sacred, vulnerable, and exciting chats, often in campus common areas with luke-warm coffee, or on Palmer Park trails, or over Chipotle burritos. One of my favorite parts of this is that I never know what a student is going to bring up. We might just “talk shop” about weights, or class, or sports, or we might get into weeds of faith and life. Anything is on the table: from science and faith, to sexuality, to canonicity, to relationship drama, to roommate conflict, and more. 

As exciting as these topics are, it’s a constant challenge to steer the conversation toward that on which everything else hinges: the resurrection of Jesus.

The Hinge of the Christian Faith

 Our world is becoming increasingly diverse, and Christians may feel the social pressure or personal expectation to defend and explain the Christian life in all areas, from race, to politics, to economics, to school choice, to ecology, to parenting, to…well you get the picture. One hack I’m learning to use when these topics come up is Paul’s words in 1 Cor 2:2, “I decided to know nothing among you, except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

Later in 1 Cor 15:3-7, Paul says he delivered to the church the most important message of the faith: Christ died for our sins, and was raised, all according to the scriptures, and then he appeared again alive to hundreds of eyewitnesses. This is the core claim of the Christian faith. And in this, all Christians have the hack which cuts through the smoke and mirrors of secular society and religious life. 

If the claim of the resurrection is not true, then Christianity is either the worst lie to deceive humanity (“we are found to be misrepresenting God,” v. 15) or a pitiful delusion (“we are of all people most to be pitied,” v. 18). (C.S. Lewis lovers will detect the Lord, Liar, Lunatic argument here.) Yet if it is true, then Christianity is the only and best Good News that can redeem our world and your life. Those are the stakes. And it all hinges on the resurrection. 

Event and Meaning

To help the young adults I pastor understand the profound importance of the resurrection, I explain that there are two basic components: the event and its meaning. The event is the historical, in-space-and-time fact of the resurrection. A man named Jesus living in rural Palestine in the first century was also God-in-flesh. He died and then came back to life three days later on a certain day in a certain place. Hundreds of people saw him alive again, providing such compelling evidence that no one could successfully refute or deny it. And unlike a Tolkien or Clancy novel, it has real historical grounds.

This historical event also has meaning. Some events don’t have cosmic meaning. We eat our respective dinners nightly. I put clothes on each day. These are time-and-place events, but generally with low “meaning,” or import beyond even our lives, let alone the human race or the whole cosmos. In contrast, an “event with meaning” could be the Signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. That event meant the birth of the United States. 

The “meaning” of the resurrection event, according to the apostolic witness (or scripture), is “for our sins” and is twice mentioned “according to the scriptures” (v. 3). Here’s what that means: the God-man’s redemption-rescue of his own elect; the defeat the Prince of Darkness and his chief weapon, Death; the purchase for himself a people from every nation; the fulfillment all the Covenant promises of the Messiah; the accomplishment of all the law’s demands substitutionally. In short, the resurrection means the reconciliation of all things to Jesus, for the glory of the Triune God, forever. That’s a lot of meaning! And, if it is true, it demands either our assent or rejection. The aroma of Christ is to life or death (2 Cor. 2:15). 

Here’s the hack, though. When students want to start with their questions, their fears, and their criticisms of the church about things like sexuality, money, politics, or whatever, I can say, “This all hinges on the first claim of the faith: Was Jesus who he claimed to be, and did he do what the Bible claims he did, namely die and rise? If so, he’s our savior and our king, and the rest of our lives is the process of following him and submitting to him in every area. But if not, none of this matters, and we can just eat, drink, and be merry (1 Cor. 15:32), because we are stuck down here ‘til the worms finally get us or the sun burns out.”

A Conversation “Hack”

I’ve found the rub for people often comes to the major cultural friction point for the Christian faith in our world today: sexuality. Often in my conversations I will hear, “I can’t be a Christian because I’m gay.” I respond with something like, “Can we sideline the sexuality question, and just consider the plausibility and meaning of the resurrection first? Once we deal with that claim, then we can circle back to the other questions.” It cools down the emotional temperature of the room, it gets to the core question of the faith, and it builds trust. I’m telling you, it’s a real hack. 

Yes, the Faith once delivered should be teased into every area of human experience. We should indeed take every thought captive (2 Cor. 10:5). In the end, though, all stands or falls on the resurrection and the incredible grace of God on full display on that meaning-ful, event-ful day. 

Jonathan Clark is a Presbyterian minister (PCA) and serves as the campus minister with Reformed University Fellowship in Colorado Springs, Colo. He holds an MDiv from Covenant Theological Seminary and a BA in politics, philosophy, and economics from The King's College. He is married to Caroline, a graphic designer, and together they have one daughter. His interests include Christian missions in a secular culture, Enlightenment philosophy and politics, and cycling whenever it's warm outside.

What is Love?

By Jonathan Wilcox

Love is in the air...

Culture dedicates February to the topic of love. Every convenience and big box store is filled with hearts in various shades of pink and red, alongside rows of cheap chocolate and cards full of sappy poetry. This commercial emphasis can leave one feeling that to have love, you must have that mooshy-gooshy feeling toward a romantic partner.

For anyone who has been married any length of time, it is evident that this approach to love is insufficient. Basing marriage commitment solely on warm feelings is a recipe for disaster. Furthermore, marriage is not the only way we see love expressed. A great example is Jonathan and David, who shared the love that comes from being the best of friends.

Thankfully, we are not left to cultural feelings or commercialized platitudes to give us a basis or direction for our love. One of the main themes in Scripture is love. Not only does God give us numerous examples and instructions on love, but he also models it for us in Christ and empowers us to love through His Spirit.

Love is a command

When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus goes back to the Pentateuch to cite two verses. First, Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and second, Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

These two commands, along with the explanatory parable of the good Samaritan, are truly humbling. They demand a radical commitment with the whole person that is counter to our sinful, self-centered way of operating. To best understand these commands, we must consider them in terms of covenant. In the context of these commands, God was delineating the terms of His covenant with Israel. As such, the term love implies affection, allegiance, and action. Let me explore each in turn.

There is a passion involved in the commands to love God and neighbor. This passion is much deeper than the gooey feeling that modern culture teaches us to expect. Rather, it is much more akin to zeal. Our heart is to be consumed with God and the welfare of our neighbor.

Our passion for God and our affections in our covenant relationships with other people are not to be fleeting based on how we feel. Instead, they are to be constant. Our only allegiance should be to God, who we commune with in the vertical relationship, while we should be appropriately loyal to our horizontal covenant commitments toward other people. For example, my covenant commitment to my wife trumps every other human relationship, whether a job, immediate family, or another good friend.

God takes covenant loyalty very seriously. In fact, the sins of adultery and idolatry are very closely tied together, especially in the prophets, and both sins are emphatically denounced and have severe repercussions, such as exile.

The last covenantal component of love is action. Our zeal and commitment to God should invariably result in wholehearted obedience to not only the letter of the law but also be in accordance with the spirit of the law. Likewise, since we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, we ought to do the things that promote our neighbors' welfare. This is where the parable of the good Samaritan hits home; it forces us to ask ourselves, “To what lengths will I go to pursue the good of my neighbor?”. If you are anything like me, you are squirming in your seat, realizing how far short of this command we fall. Thanks be to God that this love has been demonstrated to us in the person of Christ and enlivened our hearts through the gift of the Spirit.

Love is a gift of God

The commands to love God and our neighbor are not arbitrary rules that God made up just to taunt us or make us to toe the line. They flow out of His character and are part of His very essence (1 John 4:7-8). God’s love is so deep towards us that He sent His son to live among us as a perfect example of what love looks like and to die on our behalf to restore the relationship that we broke in Eden.

During His ministry here on earth, Christ demonstrated what perfect affection, allegiance, and action look like. His zeal for God is evidenced by his passionate exchanges with the Pharisees and his clearing of the temple. His deep compassion for people’s emotional and physical welfare is plentiful. One instance was the raising of the widow’s son at Nain (Luke 7:10-17). Before performing the miracle, Jesus looks at the woman in distress and has compassion for her. Likewise, He weeps at Lazarus’s death alongside Martha and Mary before raising him to life. Christ demonstrates his allegiance and action toward His Father and His people best in the events leading up to the crucifixion. In the high priestly prayer (John 17), Jesus talks about how He has completed the work the Father gave Him and prays for His people (vs. 4-9). Additionally, Matthew recounts Christ’s complete submission to the Father’s will (Matthew 26:39).

Not only did Jesus fully demonstrate God’s love toward us, but He also gave us the gift of His Spirit to powerfully grow that same love within us (1 John 4:13). It is the Spirit within us that enables us to put to death our self-centeredness and begin to live passionately for God and sacrificially for others.

Tim Keller, in his book Meaning of Marriage, attributes the ability to sacrificially commit to one’s spouse to the radical work of the Spirit in their lives. I thank God that the Spirit effects change in my inner being. Left to my own resources, I often give in to the temptation to accept the status quo, and pick what is easy rather than zealously pursue my covenant commitments.

So, if you also struggle to manifest perfect love towards God or the people God has placed in your life, be encouraged to boldly go before the throne of grace, knowing that His love for you is deeper than you can imagine.

Have a blessed Valentine's Day.

Jon Wilcox has been a participant in g+p from the beginning. He is married to Karin Wilcox and loves reading philosophy and theology. Jon, an insurance agent by trade, loves connecting with others. He blogs at Theology in the Trenches. You can follow him on social media here.

Golden Rule for your Email Inbox

By Caroline Stoltzfus

Note: This article was originally published on The Gospel Coalition. Visit it here.

The average professional receives approximately 120 emails in her work inbox daily, on top of the emails in her personal inboxes and social media DMs. Interspersed among notes from colleagues and friends is a deluge of deals and newsletters asking us to read, buy, share, and be more.

This makes us feel anxious and has led to a host of advice columns on how to tame your inbox. But when optimization is one of society’s highest values, fear of the notification icon can tempt us to neglect the calling of the Golden Rule.

How can we love and serve our fellow emailers without spending too much time in our inboxes?

Inbox Zero?

Nearly two decades ago, productivity expert Merlin Mann popularized the inbox zero method of ruthlessly eliminating or delegating your inbox down to nothing. In recent years, counteractive approaches such as inbox infinity (letting your inbox grow without addressing or even reviewing the majority of your mail) encourage users to respond to the emails they happen to see and to burden others with following up on critical matters.

Today, dozens of AI email assistants promise to free us up for more important duties by responding on our behalf. Ellie will learn your writing style and craft replies in your voice. Missive can automatically inject whimsy into your emails using template prompts like “End email with a random philosophical quote.” However well intentioned and genuinely helpful these ideas are, each one leads us to obsess over productivity instead of presence.

Love Your Neighbor

Michael Sacasas, executive director of the Christian Study Center in Gainesville, Florida, captured the human frustration of receiving an autoresponse through sharing a universal experience: calling a credit card company’s customer service line. After running through multiple service departments and automated menus, Sacasas reached someone who genuinely explored the issue with him.

“Efficiency and speed and optimization and profitability . . . increasingly dictate how we act and interact in many if not most of the social spaces we inhabit,” he wrote. “It can be startling, if also invigorating and life-giving, to encounter someone who will break the script and deal with you as a person in [the] fullest sense—by taking the time to regard you with kindness and respect, by offering a simple gesture of help or courtesy born out of deliberate attentiveness, by conveying care through the words they speak to us and how they are delivered.”

While walking among us, Christ always met people in the fullest sense, even those asking inane or complex questions. Matthew 22:15–46 contains a series of bitter inquiries from the temple leaders that Jesus makes time and space to answer. Amid their questioning, he summarizes the first and second greatest commandments:

“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.” (vv. 37–39)

What does it look like to love your neighbor as yourself? Jesus models one way in his posture toward the Pharisees and Sadducees. Rather than dismissing their questions or giving trite responses, he loved these men by considering their unique status, intentions, and needs. He took the time to communicate clearly and patiently. He wanted them to understand his message.

I’m not saying your email to a colleague is as life-giving or critical as Jesus’s conversation with the Pharisees. But if we take care to see our emails less as tasks and more as interactions with real people, our written words can become a small conduit for the grace of Christ.

Instead of trying to reply in as few words as possible (or ignoring the message altogether), try writing a helpful and kind message. If you have a choice between a short response and a longer one that would serve or teach better, choose the more thorough explanation. When frustrated by someone’s phrasing, assume positive intent. Believe he’s doing his best as you craft your response.

The Golden Rule cannot be automated. Relationships cannot be optimized. AI cannot respond in love the way you can.

Steward Your Time

You might be wondering, Who has time for that? If we craft kind, thoughtful emails to everyone in our inbox, that would take hours.

Stewarding your inbox while honoring others requires the humility of knowing your unique temptations and limitations. To achieve a pace that allows you to engage more deeply than widely, consider implementing the following practices:

• Lovingly let your friends and family know your current priorities and expectations for digital communication.

• Unsubscribe from e-commerce emails and newsletters that distract you and entice you to overconsume.

• Set up a system to ensure messages or tasks don’t slip past you, whether it’s reading through emails at the end of each day, using folders to remind yourself of tasks, or clearing your inbox at the end of each week.

• Practice the final fruit of the Spirit: self-control. Break your email addiction by turning off notifications and closing your inbox. Set a reminder to check your email a few times a day rather than the average professional’s habit of 11 times an hour.

• Consider whether a loving reply for this specific person would require more or fewer words.

• When you don’t have the answer or the time to respond, connect senders to someone who can assist with their inquiry instead of ignoring them.

Using these ideas to redirect your energy toward caring for others will allow you to find a new purpose in a seemingly endless and isolated task.

As Christians, our goal for email shouldn’t look like everyone else’s. Instead of searching for ways to expand our own productivity at the expense of someone else’s, we should be looking to serve. Instead of wasting time with endless email checks or chaotic inboxes, we should create good boundaries that acknowledge our human limitations.

And instead of bemoaning or battling email, we should see it as it is—a communication gift that needs to be brought under the lordship of Christ.

Caroline and her husband Cole have been members at g+p for nearly three years. She enjoys deep chats, emerging ideas, trail runs, podcasts, and baked goods. Find her writing at homecomingcreative.com and on LinkedIn.

Why We Sing

By Lesa Brown

I was 11 years old; it was 1984. With Eye of the Tiger rising up from the record player, I pulled up my leg warmers and roller skated over to my best friend’s house. Like most days, MTV was already on and waiting for me. 

Fast forward two years. I predictably became the quintessential 80’s teen, with sprayed up bangs, popped collar, Walkman, and all. Perhaps not so normal was that every Sunday morning you could find me singing from a Presbyterian hymnal and every Sunday evening at church youth choir rehearsal. 

When I recently reconnected with that same bff, she reminded me that back in the 5th grade I had tried to teach her to sing. I have always believed – even from childhood – that everyone should sing. But we’ve all heard the age-old story: Johnny’s music teacher in 4th grade told him he couldn’t sing, and he hasn’t sung a note since. 

Is Johnny still supposed to sing in church if he isn't comfortable with it?

I eventually followed in my musical parents’ footsteps and pursued singing on a more serious level. Almost every day of my adult life I have sung, played, taught, conducted, written, led, and listened to music. Music is so central in my thoughts that, at any given moment, triggered by any random word, I promise you- I will break into song! 

As I’ve stood in front of congregations singing, nearly every week I see people wholeheartedly singing praises to God standing alongside the mute and seemingly sullen. The latter are not just visitors, but people whom I personally know love God. What happened to those silent saints? Did they all have horrible 4th grade music teachers? A pre-church argument in the car with their spouse? Too much Def Leppard in the 80’s? 

Does God even care if we sing in church? 

For decades I’ve searched for answers to questions like these, but simultaneously I’ve been afraid that I’m the wrong person to present my findings. For a life-long singer like me to tell a non-singer that they should be singing in church just feels, well, tone-deaf! (Pun definitely intended!) 

However, since this subject is so important to discuss, I hope to unpack my findings over four blog posts. Here’s what they will focus on:

1. Perspectives on social singing learned from my Maasai friends in Kenya 

2. The physical and emotional components of singing and how they impact our relationship with God

3. What the Bible says about singing praises to God and the spiritual significance of singing together

4. Worship at Grace + Peace: The “why” behind our musical decisions 

Part 1: Perspectives from the Maasai 

During our seven years in Africa, we developed a deep relationship with a Maasai village. The music of their church is totally non-Western. A woman typically leads call and response songs, backed up by a choir adorned with jewelry on every limb that jingles as they dance. Another woman plays a single drum, keeping beat while the whole church erupts in joyful celebration.

Maasai worship music mirrors their community celebrations. At weddings, funerals, social events, and at church, no one worries about whether they “can sing” or not. They all just sing loudly in lots of stacked-up harmonies. Their singing is part of their tradition from infancy. And without TV and movies, it is also their entertainment. 

In Maasai-land, I witnessed that worship was an important moment for the whole church to join together and focus on God. It wasn't entirely spontaneous, as you might suspect; the music leaders had practiced and had a clear plan. When the church responded, they sang loud, they danced, and they cried.

Why is the singing in our worship services generally so unenthused in comparison?

Obviously, there are many cultural differences to consider, but there are a few things about ourselves that we can learn by observing our Maasai brothers and sisters:

• Singing with others in harmonies is beautiful and just plain fun. With the advent of projectors in church, we did away with hymnals. Congregational harmonies are no longer common practice in most Western churches. Even when we do sing harmonies, loud sound systems keep us from hearing our neighbors. 

• Singing is just what they do when they are together. We still sing Happy Birthday and the National Anthem, but beyond that, we don't sing together much. (Remember the “You better watch out, you better not cry” part in the movie Elf?) We have lost the norm and thus the joy of social singing in our everyday lives. This makes singing in church alongside others feel strange. 

• Singing expresses their culture’s value of community over the individual. Music in our culture has shifted from being a social activity to a personal experience. This highlights our expressive individualism: “Does it feel good to me?” “How can I find the most powerful experience for me?” “Where will I best fit in with my personal preferences and style?” In every area of Maasai culture, the community comes before the individual. This feels very backward to our Western way of viewing the world. 

• They sing loudly because they feel no shame. The Maasai (at least in their pre-electricity years when we were there) didn't have recorded music. Therefore, they couldn’t compare themselves to pop artists or worry about being judged by anyone. Our contemporary Christian music scene and digital on-demand music have affected the church’s singing in the developed world more than we've realized. Since the invention of the phonograph, we've been the collective frog slowly boiling in the pot of water, gradually losing our confidence and joy of singing aloud. We’ve increasingly become aware of our vocal inadequacies in light of the unrealistic perfection of the recording artist's voice.

So, should we sing like the Maasai? No, that would be impossible and false to who we are. However, we always learn about God and ourselves by looking at other cultures. Based on the lack of technology alone, we can surmise that the worship in biblical times was more similar to the Maasai’s music than to our own. We know from Scripture that it was loud, communal, joyful, and unabashed. We can also see in God’s Word that we are called to sing together to Him.

“Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!” - Psalm‬ 95‬:1‬-2‬ ESV‬‬

 “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” - Colossians‬ 3‬:16‬ ESV‬‬

Social singing was around in recent history in Western culture (bar songs are the first thing that come to my mind!). So, why did we stop? Yes, discouraging music teachers and our upbringing made a difference, along with technology and albums playing on repeat. And of course, there’s the relentless emphasis on the individual. However, we know from a scientific standpoint that singing is an important part of transmitting cultural stories. Singing the Christian story, in addition to teaching it, expands the impact and reach of the gospel to the next generation and to our neighbors. 

Are we irreparably boiled in the pot? Can we ever regain the joy of singing together? At g+p, we’re working on making church a safe place for everyone to sing out with joy. You can work on it, too: push your threshold a tiny bit and see if anything terrible happens! Next week at church, try singing if you tend to refrain from it. Or, try singing a bit louder! Better yet, try smiling as you sing… find that joy! Pay attention to the words and mean them. Listen to the voices of those around you, and let those voices lift your soul to God and surround you with the security of belonging to one another. Allow your own voice (however imperfect) to do the same for those around you! 

“It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High;”-Psalm‬ 92‬:1‬

Lesa has been directing choirs, theatre, and church music since 1991 and teaching in the arts since 1997. She is passionate about creating a safe and joyful environment in the church where God’s people can musically worship Him in spirit and truth. She has always been fascinated by the intersection of faith and the arts. Lately her life’s focus has come to fruition in Awaken Creative Institute, the non-profit she started in 2020, which creates materials and tools on important themes and issues for arts companies to engage their communities.

The Other “F” Word

By Scott Olson

Father. What does this word evoke within you? Perhaps particular memories, images or emotions arise within you, whether fond or deeply painful. Or maybe it represents what you’ve longed and hoped for but have yet to know from experience. You would not be alone. In our culture, roughly 1 in 4 children live without a biological, step, or adoptive father in the home. The other “F” word can be controversial, complex, emotionally evocative, politically charged, even scandalous.

I must confess that every time I hear the word “Father” in relation to God, a variety of complex emotions begin to swirl around within me like a tempest. I was raised by a workaholic, perfectionistic, alcoholic, angry, absent, abusive and wounded step-father who was kicked out when I was 17 years old. He told me that he loved me once: the day he left. And I've neither seen nor heard from him since. Because of this, my closest emotional association with my step-father was a different "F" word.

And yet, God reveals himself as “Father” throughout Scripture.

In the Old Testament, God is referenced as “Father” only 15 times. In a particularly heartbreaking instance, the prophet Jeremiah, in chapter 3 verse 19, records God’s impassioned rebuke of Israel, “...I thought you would call me, ‘My Father’, and would not turn from following me.” Here we see a Father who longs for relationship with his children (Israel), but who’s been utterly forsaken by them.

However, in the New Testament, we see God’s continued pursuit of his people through his Son, Jesus. The gospel of John sets the scene in chapter 1 verses 11-12, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” In a dramatic plot twist, John declares a stunning reality: it’s through Israel’s rejection of Jesus that anyone, both Jews AND Gentiles (non-Jews), can become a child of God by receiving and believing in Jesus, the one who calls God his Father, who is one with the Father, and who reveals the Father to us (Matthew 11:27, John 10:30).

In the gospels alone, Jesus refers to God as “Father” more than 175 times. In roughly 150 of these instances, he calls God his “Father” (beginning at the age of 12). It’s here that this Father-Son relationship becomes front and center. In John 17, Jesus repeatedly calls out to his “Father” in prayer just before being arrested, tried, sentenced and crucified. In verse 24, He reveals that his Father loved and glorified him “before the foundation of the world.” Here we get a small glimpse into the eternal, selfless, self-giving love shared between the Father and Son.

In a similar scene (Mark 14:36), Jesus uses a particular Aramaic word that has profound implications for us, “Abba” (always followed by the Greek word translated “Father”). This word is only used once by Jesus and twice by Paul in the New Testament. But what exactly does this word mean? Though it's a term associated with relational intimacy between a father and his child(ren), it has the larger connotation of a solemn, responsible, adult address to a father. And it’s with this fullness of meaning that Jesus addresses his Father during his prayerful petition at Gethsemane, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” It’s here that we discover a Son who did not forsake his Father, but was faithful even unto death.

Paul clearly has this scene in mind when he writes, in Galatians 4:4-7, that we’ve received adoption as children (heirs), through Christ’s redemptive work. Therefore, we’ve received the Spirit into our hearts crying “Abba! Father!” And more than five years later, Paul expands upon this line of thought in Romans 8. Beginning in verse 15, he similarly writes that we've received the Spirit of adoption as children by whom we cry “Abba, Father.” Then, in verse 17, he uses two conditions of certainty, “and if children (which we are), then heirs - heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him (which we will) in order that we may be glorified with him.” And Paul continues this thread throughout the rest of the chapter, applying this suffering and coming glory to the redemption of all things. So, when we examine the full progression of these two passages, we see a clear picture of the Trinity’s (Father, Son, and Spirit) participation in our redemption, adoption, suffering, glorification, inheritance and the renewal of all things to come!

I entered into this beautiful, participatory reality at the age of 20. Upon being rescued by Jesus and reconciled to my heavenly Father, I began praying for reconciliation with my biological father. You see, my parents divorced when I was 3 years old due to a highly dysfunctional, abusive relationship. So, my father had been absent for the vast majority of my upbringing. However, he'd come to know Jesus as a middle-aged man, and the love of God had begun reshaping him. Without my knowledge, he’d been following my life from a distance and praying for an opportunity to be reconciled with me. And just before my 21st birthday, God answered our prayers. We reunited. And with Jesus’ forgiveness as our foundation, we were able, over time, to forgive each other and work toward a healthy, adult, father-son relationship. Over the next twenty years, I grew to love, respect and admire my father until his death around ten years ago.

My relationship with each of my earthly fathers has both strengthened and warped my understanding of God as “Father.” And from a different perspective, having been adopted twice and having adopted twice has also contributed to the incredible amount of baggage I’ve needed to unload, unpack and sort through regarding fatherhood. In my worst moments, I wallow in self-pity, depression, loneliness, anger and shame. In my best moments, I continually fight to reframe my understanding of who I am as a beloved, adopted child of God and who God is as my loving Father so that my mind and heart would be in alignment with the Scriptures. And I desire that these truths would transform my identity, perspective, responses, reactions, emotions, and actions.

My prayer is that those of you who, like me, have struggled with the other “F” word, would be able to declare (with increasing confidence), “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” (1 John 3:1)

Questions for Reflection

1. How has your relationship (or lack thereof) with your earthly father(s) impacted your understanding of your relationship with God as Father?

2. What is one step that you can take to intentionally reframe your understanding of God as Father to be in accordance with the Scriptures?

Dr. Scott Olson has been married to the same, amazing woman, Anna, for more than 28 years. They have 2 adult sons, a daughter-in-law, and a grandson. He’s passionate about awakening kingdom dreams in people, equipping the church for service, developing & shepherding leaders, theological & cultural engagement, and multiplying apprentices of Jesus through movemental, missional practices. Scott’s served in a missional context for more than 26 years, having planted/replanted 5 churches, shepherded 3 other churches, and served as the Program Manager for My Father House family shelter (Portland, OR). He’s received a MAPS (Church Planting), M.Div. Equivalence (Trinitarian Theology), D.Min. (Missional Leadership) from Multnomah Biblical Seminary. Scott currently serves as a Faculty Mentor for Redemption Seminary and web consultant for Fidelis International Seminary.

Begrudging Grace

By Jonathan Clark

In the Parable of the Vineyard in Matthew 20, Jesus tells us a parable which has offended my heart for the last 6 months. When the disgruntled 12-hour shift laborers complain about the same payment for the 1-hour laborers, Jesus, through the vineyard owner says, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?” (v. 15). Behind these two questions is a convicting truth I am realizing I need more and more. It is all too possible for each of us, even and especially us “grace-centered” people, to become the legalists we claim to renounce. 

            This is not a new truth, but it is one that even our particular tradition of reformed Presbyterianism can forget. In The Whole Christ, Sinclair Ferguson tells the story of an obscure theological scuffle in early-1700s England, but one which taps into the gospel nerves of every time, culture, and human heart. The occasion was “The Marrow Controversy.” It began as a simple theology question to a pastor candidate, but quickly fanned into a large-scale theological debate. In 2023 terms, the theology question was essentially, “Does repentance precede our acceptance of Christ as savior?” Or, “Does a person need to repent of their sin before they entrust their lives to Christ?” The seminary student initially said yes…  and then later no, pointing to a pseudonymous systematic theology book entitled, The Marrow of Modern Divinity. The Marrow, as it was called, argued that both scripture and the reformed tradition teach that no one can bring any meritorious work into their salvation, including repentance. Rather, Marrow argued, God lavishes undeserved favor, or grace, without prior conditions from believers. Even repentance cannot qualify a person for faith or grace but instead follows it. Ferguson writes, “Repentance [and conviction] do not constitute grounds on which Christ is offered to us. They may constitute the way in which the Spirit works as the gospel makes its impact on us. But they never form the warrant for repentance and faith” (58). 

In response, the Presbytery argued The Marrow was antinomian (“against law” in Greek), since it denied the law in our lives for holiness and salvation. The Marrow Men insisted that was the whole point not just of the historic Calvinist creed but of the entire Christian faith! That we do nothing to merit any part of our salvation has always been the “offense of the gospel.” 

            So what? Why does an obscure theology debate in 18th century Scotland matter? Because it reveals the ever-human reality that every person, every culture, every church is capable of, in Jesus’ words, “begrudging the generosity” of the vineyard master. We begrudge the vineyard master’s generosity when we say one person deserves reward more or less than another and when we attach conditions to our personal faith. We begrudge his generosity when we internally or externally demand that the vineyard owner use his resources as we see fit, not as he designs. One of the major themes of the Bible, and the starting place of the reformed understanding of salvation, is that humans are not saved or accepted or justified by God because of any condition, character, or merit in them. God does not save us because we deserve it. In the parable, he does not pay more for long days and less for short days. He does not even save us because of foreseen faith. We are saved (elected, justified, adopted, sanctified, and glorified) because of God’s sovereign choice. It’s not fair, just like a 12-hour shift receiving the same pay as a 1-hour shift. The life-long Christian, baptized as a child, attending church every week for 90 years, devoted to acts of justice, mercy, evangelism, and piety, is just as saved as the death-bed convert. The playing field is completely leveled, and this offends our meritorious sensibilities. 

            The problem is that all of us are experts at smuggling in personal and cultural conditions of merit into our daily theology. For the 18th century Presbyterians, they wanted to say that some repentance was necessary for salvation. But we do the same thing today. For some of us, it is a particular ethical behavior. For others it is a social or political issue, or perhaps theological precision. Because the impulse of the sinful human heart is to seek reconciliation with God on our terms, we constantly generate new and novel proofs that “I am not that bad! I can surely bring something to my salvation.” And then- God have mercy- we do begrudge the landlord’s generosity.

           What challenged me so acutely about the Marrow Controversy is that the debate occurred at the high point of reformed theological discussion in Scotland, the birthplace of Scottish Presbyterianism, among some of the best reformed pastors ever. If anyone should have discerned “salvation by grace alone,” it was these men. And yet, the Marrow controversy was a hot debate.

         The same could be said for Jesus’ main opponents, the Pharisees. They were experts in the law, in covenant theology, and in morality. They had Deuteronomy 7:7 drilled into their minds: “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you…but because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers.” The Rich Young Ruler, who set the occasion for the Parable of the Vineyard, likewise knew the law (Mt. 19:16-22). Yet they all missed the grace! The sharp reality (and this unnerves me to the core as a pastor) is that sometimes it is the most theologically learned among us who can be the most confused or deceived about the basic tenets of the faith: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost (1 Tim. 1:15).” 

            What do we do with this? We must humble ourselves anew, as communities and individuals. We must ferret out the dark parts of our hearts and communities which still question and reject solo gratia, by grace alone. None of us moves beyond the basics of our faith, that of sin, repentance, Jesus, and undeserved grace. Paul confessed in Philippians 3 that his former life as a Pharisee was complete rubbish. Do I account my labors as a husband and father and pastor and friend and citizen as worthless next to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ by faith and only faith? I’m not there yet. I must attend closely to “guard the deposit” of “God who saved us and called us, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace” (2 Tim 1:9, 14). 

The key to understanding the Parable of the Vineyard is found Jesus’ unsettling reminder in verse 16: “The last will be first, and the first last.” The Marrow controversy showed this again. Our modern-day controversies over merit show this again, too, even those that play out in the secret places of our hearts. I pray we learn from those who have gone before.

Jonathan Clark is a Presbyterian minister (PCA) and serves as the campus minister with Reformed University Fellowship in Colorado Springs, Colo. He holds an MDiv from Covenant Theological Seminary and a BA in politics, philosophy, and economics from The King's College. He is married to Caroline, a graphic designer, and together they have one daughter. His interests include Christian missions in a secular culture, Enlightenment philosophy and politics, and cycling whenever it's warm outside.

Metavangelism: Sharing the Gospel with Remote Co-Workers

By Caroline Stoltzfus

Like millions of other Americans, I work from home thanks to the permanent workplace changes brought on by 2020. I began that year commuting to a locally-focused Ohio nonprofit and ended it working remotely in Colorado for a marketing agency based in Tennessee. Now over three years removed from the day we packed up our laptops and office plants, conversations about the future of work and where it takes place still dominate news cycles and news feeds. 

As companies hash out how to manage a remote workforce, the Church must consciously wrestle with how we share the Gospel with virtual coworkers. Research from Stanford University in February 2023 discovered that 12% of full-time employees work from home daily, while 28% are in a hybrid arrangement. Many employees are happy to punch in and out from their spare bedrooms, as evidenced by the number of petitions and refusals to return to the office after demands from high-profile leaders. Whether you’re amongst the crowd that would never trade your work-from-home situation or (like me) you wish you had an office to return to, digital working relationships are here to stay. And the call to go into all the world and share the Gospel demands that Christians develop a theological framework for practicing evangelism in the metaverse.

Monday in Mind 

Traditional evangelistic training focuses on contextual, local relationships. In-person can, should, and always will be the most meaningful way to get to know and care for another. New Testament churches sprung up and grew because of the radical example of generosity and hospitality shared with their communities. While we should always endeavor to know and practically serve our physical neighbors, a growing number of us must consider the internal and external influence of the 40-plus hours a week spent in a home office. We must define and practice creative ways to communicate Christ between screens. 

The pandemic accelerated WFH adoption and closed some opportunities for evangelism in the workplace—water cooler conversations, the lunch table, small talk between meetings, etc. Now, after years of isolation and uncertainty, society has become more receptive to spirituality. Barna Group research conducted in October 2022 found that three out of four adults want to grow spiritually, and nearly half say they are more open to God than before the pandemic. At the same time, the backlash to media campaigns such as He Gets Us and continuous reporting on church abuse scandals point to the reality that while Jesus might not have a PR problem, Christians do (as many other authors before me have stated). David Kinnaman, Barna CEO, writes, “The challenge facing the Church and parachurch ministries is whether they are ready and able to meet the spiritually open—where they are, as they are. Our data show the Church has real work to do to bridge the trust gap for people who are spiritual but not religious.”

At Grace + Peace, one of our values is Discipleship with Monday in Mind., which stems from Colossians 3:17: “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Jesus saves us not so that we can go to church on Sunday but to live in and share His grace on Monday. As our website states, “The Christian life is holistic: bringing his kingdom of love and justice into every facet of every day.” And now, “every day” includes the not-so-perfect pixelated conversations we have with coworkers who live states away. 

Laying Foundations in the Metaverse

Prayer, biblical knowledge, kindness, and excellence in our duties are all core components of evangelism that translate to the remote office. Unfortunately, the digital world creates roadblocks to established methods of the evangelism process, such as practical service, shared meals, and daily relationships. What imperfect practices can we exercise as launchpads for Gospel conversations in the metaverse?

Practice digital hospitality. “Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” — 1 Peter 4:9-10

Hospitality requires sacrificing time and resources as you welcome people into your space. You cannot invite virtual coworkers to your home or church, but you can save space on your calendar to schedule a regular virtual coffee meetup. You cannot bring in a birthday cake, but you can offer to prepare the next agenda. 

Most of us want to clock in and clock out as quickly as possible to get on with our “real lives.”  What would it look like to spend an extra 20 minutes a week and generously open the door to the real lives in front of us across the screen?

Find common ground in the questions. “Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.” — 1 Peter 3:14–15.

The work environment might have changed, but the world hasn’t. Our teammates still experience the shock and hopelessness brought on by the daily news cycle. If you’re struggling to cope with the challenges of racism, family, violence, social media, and mental health, odds are your coworker is too. Pay attention to their countenance. Follow up on that passing comment. Have a live conversation in reaction to a difficult headline. If you own a meeting, build five minutes into the agenda for catching up. Measure your questions based on your relationship with this person and develop depth over time. You might be surprised at how open someone becomes when you acknowledge the difficulties of life and ask, “How are you coping with all of that? What gets you through the day?”

Your audio might cut out, and you won’t be able to share a hug, but you can be present to someone who might not have the full attention of anyone else in their life that day. Prayerfully, in that vulnerable space, you’ll have the opportunity to share the reason for the hope in you.

Connect co-workers to a local church. “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth… According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” — 1 Corinthians 3:5-11

The planting seeds metaphor that comes out of 1 Corinthians can become an excuse for passive demonstrations of the Gospel rather than clear proclamation of the Gospel. I’ve certainly operated the vast majority of my witness in this way. At some point, in some pointed way, you must share the Gospel with your words. Foundations can be laid in the metaverse. If we are blessed to see acceptance or curiosity, the next step is connecting seekers to a local church—praise God! Search for and share some options near their neighborhood. If you have a believing friend in that city, ask for recommendations and make the introduction. Virtual relationships have significant limitations, and it’s imperative that an embodied church water the seed you planted. Thankfully, we can trust God to grow those he began a good work in.

Sharing the Gospel might look different than on your college campus or pre-2020 office environment. However, we know that Paul’s words were powerful and effective to people and places he had never visited, such as Colossae. He boldly declared the truth to people who felt the tug of empty spiritualism in their cultural context. Your coworkers need to hear about the beauty of a relationship with Christ. While you might not experience the fullness of living in a church community with them, you can still be the Church to them. Lord willing, you’ll see each other face-to-face in eternal glory.

Caroline and her husband Cole have been members at g+p for nearly three years. She enjoys deep chats, emerging ideas, trail runs, podcasts, and baked goods. Find her writing at homecomingcreative.com and on LinkedIn.

When Sovereignty Hurts

This is the second of a series on God’s sovereignty by Jonathan Wilcox.

It was the middle of the morning on April 20, 1999 when shots rang out at Columbine High School in Littleton, CO. I was in my sophomore year on the west coast when I heard the news of the tragedy. Since I was also attending a large high school, the news was quite shocking. Since that time, there seem to be regular instances of public violence, not to mention all manner of natural evils such as major disasters and sicknesses.  There’s also been the disability that has significantly impacted my own life for the past 12 years.

In response to the outworkings of human sinfulness and the pain of the curse, there is only one rational question: WHY!!?

How can a good, sovereign God (as demonstrated in Everyday Sovereignty) allow these atrocities?

As a fellow sufferer, with a long term, progressive disability, I am constantly having to wrestle with this challenge to my faith. In order for us to find peace and rest in God in spite of this dilemma, we need to look at what our king has to say

There are two responses in Scripture to the question, “How can a just God allow injustice?”

1. Job ch. 38-41

2. The passion of Jesus Christ (recounted in all four gospels)

Job 38-41

The entire book of Job seems to set the stage for this question. “Job… was blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil” (Job 1:1). Yet, in the space of a few weeks his world fell apart. He goes from abundant riches to abject poverty, good health to agonizing afflictions. On top of this, his friends and even his wife turn on him. Furthermore, after declaring himself righteous (Job 31) he gets told off by a young hothead named Elihu who audaciously claims to speak for God (Job 32-37). In a very lofty and arrogant tone, Elihu essentially tells Job that because God is absolutely powerful and just, Job must be getting his just deserts for some wrongdoing. In short, he provides a classic example of the pompous religious response to suffering which has done much harm to people over the centuries.

All throughout Job’s story, we see that our human responses to explain away evil fall short and don’t get at the heart of the issue. When God finally answers Job, it comes in the form of rhetorical questions meant to shift Job’s entire perspective on the mystery of God’s sovereignty.  It ultimately leads him to worship, saying, “I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. … Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. … I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You; therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:2–6 (NASB95)

Along with Job, we ought to humble ourselves and repent when we get to know God’s sovereignty first hand. God revealed Himself to Job in a mighty storm, and although this was impressive, as an Old Testament saint Job did not get to see God’s full redemptive revelation of himself. However, we do have God’s full revelation of Himself to us in His Son.

The passion of Christ

Just like Job and his friends, we seek answers and resolution to the difficulty. But, as in the case of Job’s story, all human arguments fall short in explaining how a good, sovereign God can allow evil, suffering, and death. Instead, we only get a full picture when God himself shows up. In the death and resurrection of Christ we get God with us in a special way. In fact, the cross of Jesus is God’s perfect response to all the injustice and pain in the world. In His wisdom, God overcame our sin-induced suffering by coming down from His throne and enduring the ultimate curse for us. God used the ultimate act of injustice- the murder of the only truly righteous man- to defeat death itself and injustice with it. 

Because God has ultimately revealed Himself in Jesus, we can have peace and rest under the rule of a sovereign king who is intimately acquainted with our suffering as one who descended into hell for us, walked out of the grave, and ascended into heaven where He now intercedes for us. If you want a fuller analysis of this topic, check out Evil and the Cross.

How do we, as sinful broken people who have an innate urge for self-preservation and pain avoidance, cling to a God who tells us He is a good king in the midst this painful world of death and decay? We surely can’t just try harder to have more faith. The failure rate using that methodology is 100%! We must turn again to the trinitarian God who empowers us by his Spirit so that while we groan with the rest of creation under the curse, we also are able in our hearts to cry “Abba, father!” (Rom. 8:15).

Each of us has a legitimate choice every minute of every day: do we trust God’s ultimate control, authority, and presence or do we reject it in favor of our own wisdom and might to determine what is right? I live constantly in this tension due to my ever present disability, and I am by no means perfect or even consistent in my outlook. Yet through the finished work of Christ and the powerful gift of the indwelling of the Spirit, we can declare with the psalmist,

In peace I will both lie down and sleep;

For you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.

-Psalm 4:8

Everyday Sovereignty

By Jonathan Wilcox

Being a theology nerd, I regularly get into spicy conversations about the Bible’s teaching on various topics. One of the most frequently recurring topics is the relationship between God’s sovereignty and our free will. This controversy has plagued the church from its beginning and has turned many spicy conversations bitter.

Over the centuries, this discussion has become laden with philosophical baggage and technical jargon for the sake of setting the two positions in opposition. The reality is that the issue is clouded by the human sinful desire to set our will over and against God’s. However, if we let God inform our perspective, we will find freedom in abundance. 

Although I can and have argued the finer points of this debate till I am blue in the face, I have discovered that doing so is rarely productive and hardly ever practical to our Monday through Saturday lives in the world. Furthermore, it does not answer questions like,

“How do I make good decisions?”

OR 

“Why is the world so full of evil?”

I will wrestle with the first question here as we explore the lives of God’s people in exile through the book of Daniel. I will tackle the specific questions of evil and suffering in part II,  When Sovereignty Hurts, so stay tuned.

In order to understand how to exercise our freedom rightly, we need to understand what God’s sovereignty means for us practically. I have often heard of God’s sovereignty referred to using the analogy of God as a master puppeteer, pulling the strings of our fate while we have no say. This analogy doesn’t actually help us live in a world  where we are responsible to make decisions in light of God’s ultimate control. A much more useful analogy is God as king. Seeing God’s control and authority over us as that of a king drives us to action as we live in relationship to Him.

In western democratic republics like the U.S. we value an individualistic, almost absolute, kind of freedom. This value has resulted in us creating a system of government that allows for the easy overturn of leaders we don’t like.

In essence, we have shifted the locus of ultimate authority to ourselves so that we have lost touch with what it means to be accountable to a king. Up until the 17th century, the king had absolute control, and if someone tried to set up a competing kingdom he was quickly put in his place.

Daniel 4 tells the story of how Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful pagan king of his era, learns to humble himself and declares that God is the greatest king over all kings. He says:

“How great are His signs

And how mighty are His wonders!

His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom

And His dominion is from generation to generation.”

-Daniel 4:3 (NASB95)

This hymn of praise summarizes the lesson that Nebuchadnezzar learns: the Most High God is in control over people, nature, and the future. The rest of the chapter details how he gets to this conclusion.

While Nebuchadnezzar is congratulating himself on what great self-made king he is, God suddenly causes him to become insane, eating grass like an ox. In essence, God knocks him down a notch and makes it evident to everyone that Nebuchadnezzar is still a creature (Dan. 4:28-33). Not only does God humble Nebuchadnezzar in judgment by stripping away his kingdom; He also mercifully feeds him on the grass of the field and the dew of heaven and keeps his kingdom intact, waiting for the day when he would be restored. In these acts, God demonstrates very clearly His sovereignty over both people and nature.

In this episode, God also demonstrates His lordship over time (Dan. 4:4-27) by warning Nebuchadnezzer in a dream well in advance of the actual event. Nebuchadnezzar clearly recognizes this as evidenced by his reference to an “everlasting kingdom” in his hymn of praise.

The fascinating aspect of Nebuchadnezzar’s story is that God does not exercise his control and authority from afar like some puppeteer, but rather is present and active both in judgment and mercy, even with a pagan king.

So, God is king. How does this impact daily life?

Since God’s kingship entails control, authority, and presence in a comprehensive way, we are free to engage the world both in humility and confidence.

As Nebuchadnezzar learned the hard way, he was not the ultimate author nor sustainer of his success. God raised him up and God brought him low. We should also take this lesson to heart. Whatever situation you find yourself in, whether it is climbing the corporate ladder, running a marathon, or just getting out of bed on Monday for work, you are not the ultimate source of either your success or failure.

This truth is very sobering but it can also be a source of great comfort and joy for God’s children. If we were in the hands of fate, random chance, or even a far off puppeteer, we would have every reason to fear since an impersonal force has no relationship with us and therefore cannot have our best interest in mind. 

However, we are in the sovereign hands of a king who is present with us, and has bound himself to us His people through a covenant. He has made good on that covenant through His son Jesus. Paul writes, “For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes” (2 Cor 1:20).

I personally draw great joy knowing that I do not have to ensure my future. I can work faithfully at what God has given me to do and direct my efforts toward the growth of His kingdom rather than my own, knowing that He is in control of my future.

Since our king is Lord over everything, including the future, we have beautiful freedom as His citizens. How are you living with your freedom?

Jon Wilcox has been a participant in g+p from the beginning. He is married to Karin Wilcox and loves reading philosophy and theology. Jon, an insurance agent by trade, loves connecting with others. He blogs at Theology in the Trenches. You can follow him on social media here.

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