They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, though commended through their faith . . .” (Heb 11:37–39)

Jesus made it plain that all his followers must take up their cross and follow him (Mark 8:34). He made it plain that if people called Jesus “Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household” (Matt 10:25). “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20).

For those who devote their lives to spreading the gospel, the Bible promises even more suffering. For example, Jesus told Ananias to tell Paul, “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16). This suffering is strategic. It has a gracious design. It is meant to reveal the love of Christ to the world.

Paul explains that design like this: “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Col 1:24). We know from Phil 2:30 that “filling up what is lacking” does not mean add to what is there, but carry what is there to those for whom it is meant.

So for the Philippians, that meant Epaphroditus would carry their love to Paul in the form of gifts. Here in Colossians 1:24, it means that Paul will carry “Christ’s afflictions” to the world in his own “sufferings.” The design of Paul’s suffering is to embody and display Christ’s suffering. When the world sees a missionary suffer in the act of bringing them Christ, they are seeing the love Christ had for them on the cross.

The world does not deserve the gift of Christian suffering. But God gives it anyway. Heb 11:27-38 describes some of this Christian suffering and how the world does not deserve it. “They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated — of whom the world was not worthy.” These last words mean that the world does not deserve the gift of these suffering Christians. But God keeps on giving them.

How are these suffering saints a gift to the world? The answer lies in their faith. These all were “commended through their faith” (v. 39). That is, they were approved by God. Their suffering was not owing to lack of faith. Rather, the worth of their suffering lay precisely in their faith. How so?

Notice in Hebrews 11 that sometimes God works miracles of rescue through suffering (Heb 11:27-35a). And sometimes he gives the faith to endure misery and death (Heb 11:35b-39). The common denominator in the faith that escapes and the faith that endures is that in both God is treasured above liberty and life. The one who escapes says, “Jesus is better than what I gain.” The one who dies says, “Jesus is better than what I lose.” That is the essence of faith: Jesus trusted and valued above all.

That is why these suffering Christians—especially suffering missionaries—are a gift to the world. Their Jesus-sustained suffering embodies the gospel-truth that Jesus is more valuable than all that life can give and all that death can take. What a vivid proclamation of the cross! This truth is the most precious gift that a Christian can give to the world.

The world does not deserve it. “Of whom the world was not worthy.” But we give it anyway. I pray that you will have an all-satisfying faith in Jesus when the time comes to give the gift of suffering to the world. Prepare for this by knowing Jesus deeply.

Preparing with you to give,

Pastor John

But every banana reminds you, then every fruit, then every man’s shaved face. You give up bananas entirely. You turn away cringing when you see others even touch a banana. Then your mind sees razor blades in other fruit: apples, pears, peaches. Before long your life seems utterly dominated by the fear of razor blades and you can scarcely move lest you get cut.
Most of us have been spared the destructive intensity of these kinds of fixations. But we have all tasted them in part.

The most frustrating thing is how to get out, or how to help a person out. It seems so hopeless because any direct approach to healing seems counter-productive. When a person really suffers from the irrational fear that there is a razor in his banana, he is not helped by arguments about the law of probability. Irrational fears do not yield to rational evidences.

So it seems that all direct approaches are doomed to failure. The urgent need is for him to forget about razor blades and eat the banana without even thinking such a grisly thought. But all direct efforts to counsel him out of the fear only serve to remind him of what he must forget.

What can we do? When I was twenty years old, I was a compulsive critic. I used to sit in the dining hall at Wheaton and have negative, belittling thoughts of every other person who walked through the line. My conscience condemned me, but I couldn’t keep the critical thoughts and ugly feelings out. All direct assaults on my slavery to sin seemed futile. But over the next two years I changed. I had not seen the change happening. I simply realized one day that I was not feeling very negative toward people; my thoughts were not captured by criticism.

The battle had not been won by direct assaults. The enemy had died through neglect due to higher, stronger, better things that began to fill my life. The secret seems to be what Thomas Chalmers called “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.” I fell in love with Noël; I fell in love with Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Herbert, Gray, and Dickinson; I fell in love with Romans; I fell in love with front campus in the spring; and I fell in love with God. And without my even knowing it, the cheap, ugly, base feelings of ill-will were pushed out. And when I became conscious of what had happened, the old ways really looked and felt foolish and undesirable.

From all this I have learned that the most valuable thing we can do to free people from slavish sins and irrational fears is to circle around behind the front lines and begin to fill their lives with big and powerful realities. Most of us suffer from all-consuming puny problems because we are not enthralled by a great God or swept up in any magnificent cause.

So don’t tell him the razor isn’t there. Take him for a walk around the lake. Show him the squirrels chasing, the robins working, the fuzzy tassels on the elm. Recite to him some splendid poem that blew away the clouds for you today. Exult with him in some promise…“The hand of our God is for good upon them that seek him” (Ezra 8:22). God may grant in a year or two that he realize there are bananas on his cereal—and have been for months!

Under a new Affection,

Pastor John

JBMW (Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood) Spring 2012

 ”Give Them Jesus: Parenting with the Gospel”

A Review of Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson  (Foreword by Tullian Tchividjian)
Wheaton: Crossway, 2011.

Andrew David Naselli

Research Manager for D. A. Carson; Administrator of Themelios

Moore, South Carolina

Jennifer J. Naselli

Homemaker, Moore, South Carolina

We’re parents of two young children with a third on the way. Andy is the second of seven chil­dren, and Jenni is the first of three. We’re cautious about parenting books because they often end up being a craze that either accommodates our culture or pontificates about how a specific method is the one and only right way based largely on anecdotal evidence that it worked for them.

Give Them Grace?

To begin with, we weren’t sure what this book’s title means: Give Them Grace. Does that mean “Give them a break, and don’t discipline your children so much” or “Lighten up: chuck the rules, and let the kids do what they want”? The subtitle clarifies that it means, “Give your kids grace by dazzling them with the love of Jesus.” But what exactly does that look like?

Elyse Fitzpatrick and her daughter, Jessica Thompson, explain in the book that giving your children “grace” means to “explain again the beau­tiful story of Christ’s perfect keeping of [the law] for them” (36). “Give this grace to your children: tell them who they really are, tell them what they need to do, and then tell them to taste and see that the Lord is good” (50). “Give grace to your children today by speaking of sin and mercy” (73). The book could be titled Give Them the Gospel or Give Them Jesus.

Tracing the Argument

The burden of the book is that Jesus is every­thing and that the good news about Jesus should permeate the whole parenting process. Many Christian parents desperately want to rear good kids—kids who almost always obey immediately, completely, respectfully, and joyfully. They want kids who don’t embarrass them, who make them look good, who aren’t losers. And if that’s the goal, then the typical means to reach it often work. But that’s the wrong goal, argue Fitzpatrick and Thompson, and those typical means are often counterproduc­tive to the right goal.

Here’s a one-sentence summary of each of the book’s ten chapters:

(1) From Sinai to Calvary: Parents should require initial, social, civic, and religious obedience from their children, and they should also give God’s law to them but only to drive them to Christ and give them grace.

(2) How to Raise Good Kids: “You can­not raise good kids, because you’re not a good parent” (50); the only hope for your kids is Jesus’ perfect obedience.

(3) This Is the Work of God: Parents often assume that good parenting results in good children, but only God can pro­duce good children because salvation is of the Lord.

(4) Jesus Loves All His Little Prodigals and Pharisees: Parents should teach their children that “Jesus Christ loves both rule breakers and rule keepers” (74), especially by specifically confessing their own pro­pensity to live like one or the other.

(5) Grace That Trains: “Of the Lord” parenting involves applying the gospel to management, nurturing, training, correc­tion, and rehearsing gospel promises.

(6) Wisdom Greater Than Solomon’s: Proverbs teaches that parents should appropriately and lovingly discipline their children with physical force, but it “must come in the context of the Wise Son who took blows meant for fools” (100–01).

(7) The One Good Story: When mak­ing decisions about controversial issues like media and modesty and hanging out with non-Christian friends, parents must connect those to the gospel story.

(8) Go and Tell Your Father: While “your child’s salvation does not depend on your faithfulness in prayer” (130), the role of prayer in parenting is very important.

(9) Weak Parents and Their Strong Sav­ior: Parents are desperately weak, but their Savior is strong and gives all-suffi­cient grace.

(10) Resting in Grace: Parents can’t “manufacture their child’s ultimate suc­cess by sheer force of will” (160); they must rest in God’s grace.

Weaknesses

We commend the book as a whole, but we’ll highlight just two weaknesses before we highlight strengths in the following two sections.

The first is how the authors define law. The words “law” or “laws” occur 178 times in the book (we searched a PDF; we didn’t count them man­ually!), and it’s one of the book’s main themes. Unfortunately, the authors never justify how they define “law.” The issue of law in the whole conti­nuity-discontinuity debate and especially in Pau­line studies is massive, and the authors seem to assume a Lutheran view.1 For example, they assert, “Everything that isn’t gospel is law” (36). Their functional definition of law with reference to par­enting is “every way we try to make our kids good” (36). These are not standard theological or biblical-theological definitions of law.

The second is how the authors understand the phrase “of the Lord” in Eph 6:4. They assume that “of the Lord” is an objective genitive (i.e., “nurtur­ing, correcting, and training them in the truth of or about Jesus Christ,” p. 85), but some of the finest commentators argue instead for a subjective geni­tive2 or genitive of quality.3

Yes, Grace, but . . .

Tullian Tchividjian’s foreword highlights the most controversial aspect of Give Them Grace:

The biggest lie about grace that Satan wants Christian parents to buy is the idea that grace is dangerous and there­fore needs to be “kept in check.” By believing this, we not only prove we don’t understand grace, but we violate gospel advancement in the lives of our children. A “yes, grace, but …” disposition is the kind of fearful posture that keeps mor­alism swirling around in their hearts. And if there’s anything God hates, it’s moralism!…

[A]ll too often I have (wrongly) con­cluded that the only way to keep licen­tious hearts in line is to give more rules. The fact is, however, that the only time licentious people start to obey is when they get a taste of God’s radical, uncon­ditional acceptance of sinners.

The irony of gospel-based sanctifica­tion is that those who end up obeying more are those who increasingly real­ize that their standing with God is not based on their obedience but on Christ’s. In other words, the children who actu­ally end up performing better are those who understand that their relationship with God doesn’t depend on their per­formance for Jesus but on Jesus’s perfor­mance for them.

With the right mixture of fear and guilt, I can get my three children to obey in the short term. But my desire is not that they obey for five minutes or even for five days. My desire is that they obey for fifty years! And that will take some­thing bigger and brighter than fear and guilt….

Any obedience not grounded in or moti­vated by the gospel is unsustainable (11–12).

Give Them Grace is radical. It’s so radical that it constantly leads the reader to conclude, “Yes, grace, but . . . isn’t that dangerous? If we give grace like that, then our kids will abuse grace.”

So does that make Give Them Grace a danger­ous book? No. To the contrary, if a book on parent­ing doesn’t lead the reader to that conclusion, then that book is dangerous. Not vice versa.

Let us explain.

Paul uses the phrase mē genoito as a stand alone reply thirteen times (Rom 3:4, 6, 31; 6:2, 15; 7:7, 13; 9:14; 11:1, 11; 1 Cor 6:15, Gal 2:17; 3:21; cf. 6:14). Translations render it in various ways:

• May it never be! (NASB)

• By no means! (usually ESV, sometimes NIV)

• Certainly not! (sometimes ESV and NIV)

• Not at all! (sometimes NIV)

• Absolutely not! (HCSB, usually NET, sometimes NIV and NLT)

• Of course not! (usually NLT)

• Never! (sometimes ESV, NIV, NET, and NLT)

• God forbid. (KJV)

Here’s how Paul uses that phrase: (1) he asserts a truth; (2) he raises a question about or objection to that truth by stating a logical implication; and then (3) he says mē genoito, which essentially implies, “Right premise but outrageous conclusion!”

For example, in Rom 9:6–13, Paul argues that God unconditionally elects individuals. That raises one of the most common objections that people have to that truth: “But that’s not fair!” The objec­tion is that it is not fair for God to select individu­als for salvation without any preconditions. Paul responds to the objection with mē genoito (v. 14) and proceeds to argue that God alone has the pre­rogative to show mercy and compassion to whom­ever he desires. Our point here isn’t to argue for unconditional election. Our point is that if your view of God’s election doesn’t logically lead to the objection in v. 14—“Is God unjust?” (NIV)—then your view of election isn’t Paul’s view.

Similarly—and making the very point that Give Them Grace makes—Paul says earlier in the same letter, “you are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom 6:14). “But Paul,” you might ask, “don’t you realize the implications of that statement?” Yes, Paul knows. That’s why he writes this in the very next verse: “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!” (Rom 6:15 NIV). So if your view of grace isn’t so radical that it logically leads to the question “Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace?”, then your view of grace isn’t Paul’s view.

It’s obvious, then, how this connects to views on parenting. Does a view on parenting present God’s grace in such a way that it logically leads to the objection of Rom 6:15? If not, then it doesn’t pass what we call “the God-forbid test.” Give Them Grace passes the test. It logically leads precisely to that sort of objection. That’s good.

A_ _M_o_m_’s_ _P_e_r_s_p_e_c_t_i_v_e_ _

Andy asked me (Jenni) to share my perspec­tive on the book as a mom.

“I thought parenting was going to portray my strengths,” reflects Dave Harvey, “never realizing that God had ordained it to reveal my weaknesses” (quoted on p. 143). For as long as I can remem­ber, I have wanted to be a mother. That was my only dream as a little girl, teenager, young adult, and young wife. When I was a child, I had twin dolls that I named, carried around, and fed on a set schedule for years. As a teenager, I spent almost all of my free time babysitting for several fami­lies and would often secretly pretend to be their mother. When I chose a major in college, I chose early childhood education so that someday I could homeschool my kids. After graduating, I taught preschool and kindergarten for four years. During those years, I carefully observed the parents of the children in my care, noting things that I admired and filing them away to use someday. When we learned in 2007 that we were expecting Kara Marie, I was beside myself with excitement. I read every book I could get my hands on, asked lots of ques­tions, over-analyzed all of my friends with children, and even had a typed-up feeding schedule on my computer before we left for the hospital. More than anything else in my life, I wanted to do this right.

But my heart was proud, arrogant, and idol­atrous. I hadn’t just spent those years dreaming about snuggling and loving a baby. I’d spent many hours criticizing parents around me, ignoring their advice if I deemed it unworthy, noting their faults and shortcomings, and making mental notes to do it better. I’d read book after book until I became extremely opinionated and overconfident. By the time I left for the hospital on that bright Sunday morning in June, my mindset was “This is the most important thing I will ever do in life, and I’m going to do it right.”

But God graciously and kindly began to expose my heart to me, starting with that very first week in the hospital. God knew my self-reliant heart and my idolatrous view of “successful” moth­ering, and he wisely gave me an infant I could not control. Kara was eventually diagnosed with severe infant reflux and had to be medicated. She devel­oped multiple food allergies and even a sleeping disorder. On top of all of that, she was an extremely intense and volatile baby who would turn blue from screaming for hours. Everything that I had planned to go so smoothly fell into shattered pieces around me that I could not control. I have vivid memories (pre-Kara) of arrogantly telling my mother, “Hon­estly, if a parent can’t get their own child to go to sleep, then they can’t have any other control over their lives!” God graciously took away all of the control that I thought I had.

At the same time, God was kindly teaching me more about the gospel. I began to see the gospel as central to all of life, not just as “step one” in the Christian life. I began to see my own desire for self-justification as idolatrous and robbing God of his glory. I began to understand that I needed God’s grace, too, even though I wasn’t an outwardly rebel­lious child.

As I grew in this understanding, I also grew uncomfortable with my approach to discipline with my child. By this time, Kara was headed full steam into the terrible two’s. I became dissatisfied with my routine exhortations and exclamations:

• You just need to obey God.

• When you sin, you’re making God sad.

• Good girl!

• You’re pleasing God when you obey like that!

I began to feel that I was instilling self-justification into her heart—the very sin I was finding so perva­sive in my own. But I really wanted to help Kara understand from the beginning that God is her final authority and that disobedience is ultimately against him alone. I was stumped and frustrated by this seeming incongruity between what I was learn­ing and what I wanted to be teaching my child.

Then I picked up Give Them Grace. As I read it I kept exclaiming to Andy, “It’s like she is inside my head, answering all of my questions!” I was fas­cinated and intrigued, but I had to keep putting the book down and mulling over the concepts that were so diametrically opposed to how I was accustomed to thinking about my role as a parent. During each chapter, I would be brimming with excitement, but then I would wait for almost a week before begin­ning the next chapter as I absorbed and thought carefully about the new concepts.

Here are four themes that have been incred­ibly enlightening for me:

(1) We cannot ever hope to raise good chil­dren (chs. 2–3). Only God can make us good. I began to see that I idolized being perceived by oth­ers as a model mother with model, obedient chil­dren. I’ve been both convicted and encouraged by the thought that only God can change my children and make them truly, inwardly good.

(2) Both little Pharisees and little prodigals need God’s grace (ch. 4). I had been so consumed with not raising a prodigal that I was quickly encouraging the development of a little Pharisee. I’ve been alarmed by how quick I am to moralize and have been working to more clearly explain our sinful hearts, which motivate both bad and out­wardly “good” behavior.

(3) Parenting involves specifically applying the gospel to everyday situations. Chapters 5–7 flesh out for me what this kind of parenting should look like. I began to see how the authors would talk naturally about the gospel with their children and how I could do the same thing. I’ve read some reviews that criticize their long, drawn-out gospel explanations. Some of their scripted responses are so long and complex that they may leave parents wondering, “There’s no way I’m clever enough to remember to make all these connections when dealing with my child, and I’m skeptical that it will actually work out that way in real life.”4 But for me, the examples are welcome opportunities to think through new ways to explain these glorious truths. I wouldn’t say all of those things to my three-year-old in one sitting, but listening in to those con­versations gave me helpful “hooks” and ideas about how to explain and apply the gospel to real-life situations that I deal with daily.

(4) Parents need God’s grace, too. Chapters 8–10 were the most gracious parts of the book to me. Without those chapters, this book could easily become “the next thing I need to master: gospel-centered parenting.” These chapters clarify that I am totally incapable of mothering my small chil­dren without God’s grace, and they assure me that any good that we ever accomplish has always been and will always be because of God’s grace. The last chapter in the book, “Resting in Grace,” addresses my idolatrous heart. I cannot ever be the kind of mother that I have always wanted to be. I will never have the perfect children I idolize. But God is so great and so kind. He is at work in my heart and in the hearts of my children. By his grace, I’m learning to trust him to work in their little hearts. He knows what they need so much more than we do.

Conclusion

How does Give Them Grace compare to other recent parenting books? Despite the similar sound­ing titles, its argument differs completely from Tim Kimmel’s Grace-Based Parenting. The argument is basically the same but clearer and more practical than Bill Farley’s Gospel-Powered Parenting, and it’s more foundational than Ted Tripp’s Shepherding a Child’s Heart.

A book on parenting is an excellent place to teach theology and demonstrate how important and practical it is. Fitzpatrick and Thompson keep the main thing the main thing by explaining the gospel to parents and insightfully showing how it applies to shepherding children.

ENDNOTES

1Helpful works on the law include Douglas J. Moo, “The Law of Moses or the Law of Christ,” in Continuity and Discontinuity: Per­spectives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments: Essays in Honor of S. Lewis Johnson Jr. (ed. John S. Feinberg; West­chester, IL: Crossway, 1988), 203–18, 373–76; Greg L. Bahnsen, et al., Five Views on Law and Gospel (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999); Thomas R. Schreiner, 40 Questions about Christians and Bib­lical Law (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2010).

2Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 798–99: “the training and admonition come from the Lord or are prescribed by the Lord through fathers.” Cf. Frank Thielman, Ephesians (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010), 402.

3Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Ephesians (Pillar New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 447: “the training and instruction is in the sphere of the Lord or has him as its refer­ence point. In other words, it is truly Christian instruction.” This view is much closer to Fitzpatrick and Thompson than the subjec­tive genitive.

4Cf. Kevin DeYoung’s humorous post “Parenting 001,” May 10, 2011, http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/ 2011/05/10/parenting-001/.

I confess that I had been impatient with the tardy workers and stubborn dogs. I responded to this situation in a sinfully foolish manner. While I was cleaning up the mess, I knew a fried computer was what I deserved. I hadn’t loved my neighbor nor the Lord as I should have. I had quickly fallen into self-righteousness and pride: “I’m never late!” “These dogs should obey!” “Stacking all this stuff on my computer might be foolish for some people, but I can handle it!” A fried computer was undoubtedly what I had earned.

Don’t misunderstand. As I walked through the next few hours and the real possibility of having ruined my computer, I didn’t question whether God had stopped loving me. I thought that He was lovingly using my sin to teach me a lesson. I knew that I deserved a slap on the hand and I thought He had given me one. It was time for me to pay the price for my sin – not the ultimate price, of course, no, not the atonement.  Just a little hand slapping from a loving God who knew what I needed.

But then, something amazing happened. I received unexpected news of answered prayer.  I was delighted and stunned. I had assumed that this day would be a day of hand slapping. I thought I knew what I needed: a lesson about the follies of impatience and pride. But this surprising answered prayer wasn’t a slap. No, it was a kiss on the cheek. And then, the next morning…another kiss. My computer was limping back to life. I didn’t lose all my data. What did I deserve? A slap. What did I get? A kiss.

For most of my Christian life I would have been very comfortable with saying that the Lord disciplines me for my sin (a slap on the hand), but would have struggled terribly with thinking the Lord blesses me in the face of my sin (a kiss on the cheek). Is there room in our very-serious-about-the-sinfulness-of-sin theology to say that sometimes, (many times?), the Lord woos us into obedience through kisses rather than slaps?

Although I know and love the gospel, I frequently find myself functioning in that quid-pro-quo, “God as Vending Machine,” world. I fight sin and fulfill my spiritual duties and expect God’s blessing or at least protection from fried computers. Conversely, when I don’t fight sin or when I neglect prayer, I assume God will discipline me. Don’t misunderstand — I recognize that both blessings and discipline are functions of His Fatherly love for me. It’s just that I think I know how He should motivate me to obey. But He uses both slaps and kisses.

Now, here’s where the gospel turns everything we know about how we grow in obedience on its head. It speaks of kisses of betrayal given to our Faithful Friend (Luke 22:48). It tells me that He was slapped for me and punished for my rebellion. I read that “…the guards received Him with blows” (Mark 14:6). He got kisses and slaps…for me. And because He has endured all that, He’s free to bless me and woo me and speak tenderly to me and surprise me with little kisses on the cheek when I least expect it… when I’m expecting the slap. His kindness is meant to lead me to repentance. His kisses draw me near. And now, instead of thinking about my guilt and punishment, I’m spending my day thinking of His kindness and it frees me to love him in return.

Am I saying that’s all He ever does? No, of course not. Discipline, as Hebrews tells us, is painful rather than pleasant. But, then again, haven’t there been times when you know you deserve a slap and suddenly He dazzles you with a sweet kiss on the cheek?  Is there room in our theology for a God who kisses His dear foolish children and draws them with cords of love? Do we really believe that it is the “grace of God” that saves us and trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and makes us zealous for good works? (Titus 2:11-14)

Film director Mike Nichols talks in a recent interview about fleeing Nazi Germany as a child. German Jews were not allowed to leave the country, but Nichols’s family had Russian papers so they exploited the loophole. His father, a doctor, had gone ahead and begun a medical practice in New York City. When the rest of the family arrived, Nichols says he was struck by the Jewish businesses proliferating. He was surprised to see a sign for a delicatessen, in Hebrew. “They can do that here?” he remembers asking his dad.

When people come into our churches with no church background or, like so many, with a painful church background, they are typically on guard. Their teeth are clenched, their eyes are scanning, their breath is held — perhaps not physically, but in their psyche. They are taking much more in than just the musical style and the sermon’s listenability. Those things matter a lot, but they aren’t usually dealbreakers.

I remind myself and my church often that a message of grace may attract people, but a culture of grace will keep them. They want to know — we want to know, the Lord wants to know — that what is being preached has sunk down through the hardness of our skulls and entered the bloodstream. That we are not puffed up with our spiritual knowledge but humbled by it and animated by it. Have we taken the message of the grace of God in Jesus Christ and taken it to heart?

And when they catch glimpses, the surprise is telling. Is it too good to be true? As more people testify to the kindness of God in their lives, drop the pretense of righteousness by moral turpitude, as sins are confessed and greeted with love, as pastors and laymen alike humble themselves and serve and exemplify with their hands and eyes what they preach with their mouths, the aroma of freedom wafts through the place. Messy people own their stuff. “They can do that here?” Sinners repent into the safety of the gospel. “They can do that here?” People have the freedom to question leaders, disagree with the pastor, hold opposing views with each other without distrust or rancor. “They can do that here?”

A culture of grace oxygenates the air. Watch people stand a little taller, breathe more deeply, feel free to be more themselves. My friend Ray Ortlund says, “I’ve never met a man who felt too forgiven, too free.” Grace is that kind of welcome. It’s the run-to-the-prodigal-while-he’s-still-far-off kind of welcome. It’s “The Inhabitants of Highways and Hedges are Welcome” kind of welcome. It’s the “come to Me, all you who are tired and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” kind of welcome. It’s the space to be broken kind of welcome. It’s the “we love you as you are, but we love you too much to want you to stay there” kind of welcome.

This scares people who believe God has delegated his sovereignty to them. But it honors the gospel of Jesus, in whom there is no condemnation and through whom we are being built together — as we welcome each other — as a place of welcome for the Spirit of the living God. In the kingdom to which the church is meant to bear witness, people flourish and become at the same time more like their real selves and more like Jesus Christ. Paul in the passage above is urging generosity in giving; let this be but one application of the generosity of grace.

Jared C. Wilson is the pastor of Middletown Springs Community Church in Middletown Springs, Vermont. He is an award-winning author whose articles and short stories have appeared in a number of periodicals, and has written the popular books Your Jesus Is Too Safe and Gospel Wakefulness, as well as the curriculum Abide. Wilson lives in Vermont with his wife and two daughters, and blogs daily at:

www.GospelDrivenChurch.com.

1) There is a general consensus that the apostles founded the church at Jerusalem by preaching the resurrection of Jesus. But it would have been impossible for the apostles to have preached such a message even for an hour if the rulers in Jerusalem, who had every reason to silence this message, could have pointed to the occupied tomb of Jesus.

But the fact is that the Christian church did originate in Jerusalem through the preaching of the resurrection. To be sure, the Jewish leaders tried to silence the message but there is no evidence at all that they produced the dead body of Jesus. Instead, they started the rumor that the disciples had come at night and stolen the body (Matt 28:11-15 and Justin Martyr Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 108). But nobody today takes this rumor seriously because it suffers the total objection that the apostles would be preaching at the risk of their lives what they knew to be a fraud. The apostles had been ready to call it quits after the death of Jesus (Luke 24:21). Their hopes had been dashed. Then, in a few weeks, all of them, with unbounded joy and conviction, were risking their lives preaching what they knew to be false, or they suffered from profound and life-long illusions, or the church arose right next to the occupied tomb.

But all of these alternatives are very improbable. It is not probable that they risked their lives with zeal and love for a hoax they just invented. Nor is it probable that 500 people hallucinated at the same time (1 Cor 15:6). And the preaching of the resurrection could not have lasted one hour beside the occupied tomb of Jesus. Therefore, the evidence that Jesus rose from the dead is very strong. There are other sorts of evidence that would confirm this conclusion and I would refer you to several books for a fuller treatment: Frank Morison, Who Moved the Stone?; J. N. D. Anderson, The Evidence for the Resurrection; and Daniel Fuller, Easter Faith and History (pp. 145-262).

2) A second kind of evidence is more subjective but no less real and no less true to life. According to John 17:20, Jesus knew that after he was gone many people would come to believe on him through the word of the apostles. So the verification of Jesus’ resurrection is really a problem of crediting witnesses. Peter and Paul and Matthew and John claimed to be witnesses of the risen Christ. Now how shall we decide if they are deluded or deceptive or trustworthy?

Skeptics may say there is no way to decide, and throw in the towel. But too much is at stake to give up with the skeptics. Granted, the assurance of faith is not the same as the certainties of mathematical logic; but too much is at stake to shoot in the dark. We must weigh the evidences and decide. Almost all of life is like that—from hiring baby-sitters to driving cars. We live by probabilities and we bank our life on people every day.

Critics may say that the Biblical witnesses discredit themselves with bias and contradictions. But surely you can’t rule out a witness for the resurrection because he believes in it. That’s like deciding the issue before you have heard the evidence, since more than likely those who did see it would believe it. As for the charge of contradictions, it may be that apparent discrepancies (like one angel vs. two angels at the tomb, Mk 16:15; Luke 24:4) are owing to different but not disparate ways of reporting the same perceived reality. But even if we admitted minor discrepancies in detail a witness is not discredited for that, especially if his testimony is largely corroborated by others.

So how shall we credit these witnesses? Persons win our trust by the beauty of their character. When all we have is their writings (and that is all we have) then we must try to perceive the spirit and the purpose of the writer in his message. If we detect a spirit of humility and integrity and sobriety and a purpose of love and truth then we will give credence to the author. If we detect a conniving, duplicitous, self-seeking attitude, we will tend to discredit what he said.

Yes, this is subjective. But it is not entirely arbitrary and it is open to correction. This is the way we make many decisions. We form judgments about people’s character and then we venture something on their word.

In my life with Peter, Paul, Matthew and John they have won my respect with their deep and perceptive assessments of the human condition, their pursuit of truth, their submission to the Creator and their ethic of love. I find it morally impossible to discredit their testimony to the resurrection as delusion or deception.

Resting in the Easter evidences,

Pastor John

It barely touched the rim, missing by a mile. Incensed, Brown immediately called Bynum to the bench and put in a substitute. Bynum did go back into the game after a stretch, but the benching was clearly punishment for a shot the sanity of which the play-by-play announcers questioned during its flight. So far, this is uninteresting. Anyone who’s ever played basketball has probably been pulled out of a game by a frustrated coach, and moreover, everyone who’s ever played basketball has probably, at one point or another, deserved it. It’s what Bynum said to reporters after the game that has raised eyebrows.

“I don’t know what was bench-worthy about the shot, to be honest with you,” said the Lakers’ big man. “I made one [Sunday], and I wanted to make another one. That’s it. I guess he took offense to it, so he put me on the bench.”
What did I do?

“I’m good,” Bynum said. “I guess it’s ‘Don’t take threes’ is the message, but I’m going to take another one and I’m going to take some more, so I just hope it’s not the same result. Hopefully, I make it.”

So there you have it: message received, and message ignored. People think that punishment will correct behavior. Andrew Bynum’s postgame comments illustrate a competing (though more accurate) truth:punishment incites rebellion. The law (e.g. don’t shoot three-pointers if you don’t have a reasonable expectation of making them) asks for a certain behavior. Bynum got the request right: Don’t take threes

When it doesn’t get what it’s looking for, the law inflicts punishment, hoping that a program of reeducation will produce better results the next time. Unfortunately, as Christian theologians have always noted, the law is much better at asking for a result than it is at achieving it.

Martin Luther likened the relationship of the law to results to a lion held down by steel bands. The lion fights against the bands…and the tighter the bands become, the more viciously the lion fights. We fear freeing the lion because of the ferocity with which it strains, forgetting that all the while the lion is fighting the bands, not us. Released, the lion has nothing to struggle against, and will likely cease its struggling.

In the world of competitive basketball, of course, sitting a player on the bench for long enough may well break him of a bad habit. But so far, it’s having the reverse effect. Bynum is planning on launching more shots from long range, not fewer. As our view lengthens, though, and our scope expands, we might well note that even if Bynum is eventually benched enough to force him to stop shooting threes, won’t he consider his coach a ruthless tyrant and undermine him in other ways?

Won’t he be much more likely to find another team in free agency (or at least threaten to do so unless Brown is fired)? Is the tightening of the bands on Andrew Bynum (though it might work on the surface) worth the damage it will surely cause to his fragile (i.e human) psyche?

Aren’t we all happier free, and isn’t it true that grace (e.g. the freedom to shoot) can provide the space to realize what it is we’re really good at, and allow us to settle into the behavior, by choice, that the law was asking for in the first place?

When Sawyer was with ABC’s 20/20, she did an exposé on “Prostitution in America: Working Girls Speak.” It was one of the saddest television programs I’ve ever watched. I couldn’t watch everything. (Remote controls are not sacramental, but I’m convinced they are a means of grace.) What I could watch told the heart-breaking stories of several young women trapped in “the world’s oldest profession.” Why would beautiful and intelligent young women throw away their lives this way? “Glamour” and “money brings happiness” were prominent answers. Promises of glamour and happiness—the Devil’s counterfeits for holiness and joy—lured these young women into a lifestyle of emptiness and untimely death. Most prostitutes die by the age of 34.
Reflecting on the program, I first thought of Harvie Conn, who gave the early years of his ministry to serve as an Orthodox Presbyterian missionary to Korea. There he preached the gospel to prostitutes. It was a difficult and dangerous ministry. He angered pimps, but he rescued girls. Conn rescued them from abuse and early death; Jesus rescued them from sin and guilt. Souls were saved. Lives were rebuilt. Christ was glorified. “Lord, give us more, many more Harvie Conns.”

I then thought about Augustine. It wasn’t his immoral lifestyle (he lived with a woman prior to his conversion) that made me think of him; it was his theft of pears. As a teenager, Augustine had crept into an orchard under the cover of darkness and stolen some pears. Why? He confessed:

It was not the pears that my unhappy soul desired. I had plenty of my own, better than those, and I only picked them so that I might steal. For no sooner had I picked them than I threw them away, and tasted nothing in them but my own sin, which I relished and enjoyed. If any part of one of those pears passed my lips, it was the sin that gave it flavor (Confessions, 2.6).

Had Diane Sawyer interviewed Augustine, his face blurred on the television screen but clear to the eyes of God, he would have said, “It’s not about pears.”

Desperately Sick

So if it’s not about sex and it’s not about pears, what is it about? To answer this question we must consult Conn and Augustine’s mentor, the apostle Paul, and Paul’s mentor, the prophet Jeremiah. First, the prophet. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it” (Jer. 17:9)? When the john admitted that sex wasn’t the ultimate reason he hired his companion, he also confessed that he didn’t really know the reason. He could get sex. He had a girlfriend. He was afraid of losing her. He didn’t want others to know what he had done. He didn’t understand his own actions. Ignorance of motivation does not lessen his guilt, but it does reveal the depth of his deceitful and desperately sick heart, the sinful heart we all possess.

The apostle explains this doctrine of indwelling sin. “If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness” (Rom. 7:7-8a). The law of God says, “Thou shalt not covet. Thou shalt not hire prostitutes. Thou shalt not steal pears.” But the sin of idolatry lies deep in my heart. This sin deifies my supposed independence. I want to be God. I want to set my own rules for living and terms for happiness. Sin transforms God’s holy “Thou shalt not” into my stubborn “I will.”

Great Risk

Young women become prostitutes for many reasons. Most were abused as children. But the pursuit of glamour and the desire for money reveal the thrones where they worship. Men visit prostitutes for many reasons, known and unknown, but at the heart of them all lies the resolve to cast off God’s law. Men take great risks when they hire prostitutes. They risk their health, possibly their lives, their families, their public offices. But they calculate it’s worth the risk to be in charge. It’s the very same reason boys risk climbing orchard fences to steal pears.

By God’s grace I’ve never hired a prostitute, and I don’t remember ever stealing pears, but I want to be God. The problem is that God consistently refuses to share his glory with me (Isa. 42:8).

So, Diane, it’s not about sex, or pears, or money, or glamour, or happiness—it’s about God. I, a man, want to be God. He, in his righteous jealousy, will not allow it. But in his gracious love, God became a man to rescue me from myself.

Rhett Dodson is the pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Hudson, Ohio. He served as an associate pastor and seminary professor prior to coming to Grace in July 2010. He is also the author of two forthcoming books on the Psalms of Ascents entitled This Brief Journey and To Be a Pilgrim. Rhett and his wife, Theresa, make their home in Hudson.

The gospel is all the rage these days in Christian circles. It’s trendy to frequently drop the phrase ‘gospel-centeredness’ in our conversations as we sip on our skinny no-foam latte while peering over our cool glasses that we don’t really need to wear. There are many great books surfacing on the gospel and its efficacy in the lives of believers, stimulating fruitful conversations on the blogosphere regarding the gospel and sanctification.

While the average Christian understands the bare facts of the incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for sin, many of us do not know how to articulate the implications of the gospel of grace for our own lives. Dane Ortlund’s, Defiant Grace: The Surprising Message and Mission of Jesus, written for “fellow everyday believers” may be the means of refreshing grace that they are seeking. Ortlund states boldly:

“It’s time to enjoy grace anew—not the decaffeinated grace that pats us on the hand, ignores our deepest rebellions and doesn’t change us, but the high-octane grace that takes our conscience by the scruff of the neck and breathes new life into us with a pardon so scandalous that we cannot help but be changed” (p. 13).

Ortlund’s creative and seemingly effortless use of vivid, metaphorical language in and of itself, makes the book a pleasurable read.

Surprised by Grace

Ortlund presumes that our understanding of who Jesus is needs repeated tweaking, so he takes us on a journey through the four gospels in search of the surprising message and mission of Jesus. His premise is that Jesus is surprising and grace is shocking. The surprises he shares may seem scandalous and counterintuitive to our law-addicted hearts, so Ortlund anchors his summary statements for each gospel narrative in portions of Scripture from that same gospel. He adeptly uses these anchors to give evidence for the unanticipated, astounding message or mission of Jesus as well as show its thematic continuity within the book as a whole.

Matthew

Chapter 1 begins with Matthew where we see the surprise of disobedient obedience. The main point of this chapter answers the question of qualification for the Kingdom of God. Using Matthew 18-20, Ortlund shows that Peter, the Pharisees, and the rich young ruler all ask the same question that many others have asked through the ages, “What is the least that I must do to get God off my back?”

Treating obedience as something that earns points and qualifies us for the Kingdom, we deny the “inadequacy of our own moral resources (as a result of our sin) and the adequacy of God’s divine provision (on account of Christ’s work).” As a result of these false beliefs, our rule-keeping can be evil, our obedience disobedience. In the end, only those who realize their disqualification, manifested in rule-breaking and rule-keeping, are truly qualified to receive Christ’s grace.

Mark

In Mark, we see the surprise of the King undergoing the fate of a criminal, underscoring triumphant brokenness. Christ the King came to die. Masterfully using Jesus’ dealings with James and John and blind Bartimaeus from Mark 8-10, Ortlund unpacks our spiritual and moral blindness, evidenced in our natural, prideful grasping for glory in ourselves. We, like blind Bartimaeus, need mercy from the King who died the death of a criminal to secure mercy and glory for those who admit their blindness and cling to Christ.

Luke

In Luke, we see the surprise of the insiders becoming outsiders and the outsiders becoming insiders as Jesus reveals the stunning reality of those included in his community. Luke highlights the radical social inversion of the gospel call: Jesus came for sinners and social outcasts. Those who believed themselves to be on the outside were welcomed, and those who believed themselves to be on the inside were excluded.

“Hell is filled with people who believe they deserve to be outside hell and inside heaven. Heaven is filled with people who believe they deserve to be outside heaven and inside hell. Such grace defies our sense of fair play” (p. 92).

Those invited into community with Christ are those who grasp the truth that the ultimate insider became the outcast to secure inclusion for outsiders to be brought in.

John

In John, we see the surprise of the Creator of the universe becoming one of His own creatures, emphasizing the shocking identity of Jesus. Through consideration of the magnitude of the incarnation account in John 1, Ortlund draws attention to the uniqueness of Christianity in the weighty reality that the transcendent, holy God came to us, as us.

Scandalous to the deeply held beliefs of both Jews and Greeks regarding the nature of God is this notion that God became man. “This is the surprise of John. The Creator became a creature so that we creatures can be restored to our Creator. Such grace defies our categories” (p. 105).

Wonder to Worship

By the end of the book, the reader is left freshly stunned by Jesus and His radical grace, marveling at His counter-intuitive message, amazed at His counter-cultural mission. These surprising realities make quick application for the reader, forcing us to think about the motivations of our obedience and giving insight into the desires of our heart and our need for mercy.

They navigate us towards the broken and marginalized, reminding us of the beauty and grandeur of the welcome and acceptance of gospel grace. Dane Ortlund invites and impels worship of the Giver of grace, gratitude because of the receiving of it, and a deep desire to be transformed into the image of this One who would come to give such radical, defiant grace! The only weakness found in Ortlund’s book is its brevity. The 119 pages whet the appetite for grace and leaves you wanting more!

Keri Seavey

Keri has served as a pastor’s wife, women’s Bible study leader, and biblical counselor for a dozen years at
Living Water Community Church in Vancouver, WA. Keri has been equipped to counsel mainly through
coursework with…

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