Dunamis Fellowship and Sovereign Grace Fellowship are pleased to begin a new weekly Bible study, each Tuesday evening at 7 eastern. All are welcome to attend at our home. You can even come early (6:15) and we’ll feed you a meal. You can also watch on Facebook Live, RC-Lisa Sproul. We hope you join us as we consider together the Lord’s Prayer.
Everybody loves Jesus. Marxists love Jesus, because He was such a radical revolutionary. Unitarians love Jesus, because He befriended the social outcasts. Liberals love Jesus because, well, because He was liberal. Even some conservatives love Jesus, because He was so conservative. It was Mark Twain who quipped that God made man in His own image, and ever since man has been returning the favor. The same is true with respect to God the Son. We make Him out to be just like us, only, nearly everyone will concede, slightly better. Jesus, in short, is universally loved because He, just like us, is deemed to be such an upstanding man.
Which is true enough. Jesus was in fact an upstanding man. His moral character was impeccable. He was, as it is still safe to say, a great moral teacher. This even garners Him some minimal level of authority. Quoting Jesus will score you at least as many points as quoting Confucius, at least if you choose the right quotes. There is, however, a profound chasm that separates a “great moral teacher” from a perfectly obedient man. It is one thing to believe Jesus was better than we are, another to affirm that He kept the law of God perfectly. The cultural restraint that keeps those friends of Jesus from making such a claim for Jesus, however, isn’t that they don’t want to praise Jesus too much, that they harbor some internal fear that somewhere along the line He might not have measured up, but that they don’t want to recognize a law, any law. To the Greeks the cross was foolishness. To the Jews it was a stumbling block. To the post-modern, however, the problem isn’t the cross, but what preceded it, the obedient life.
Theological liberalism, which is short-hand for worldly thinking about God and other stuff the Bible sometimes talks about, can handle the cross. The purpose of the cross, according to those who think Jesus stayed dead, was simply to set an example for us, to show us how far we ought to go to love our neighbor. There is, in this thinking, no atonement. There is no atonement, however, not because such would be too much for Jesus, but because it would mean we have sins that need to be covered. It would mean that outside of Christ, we are under the wrath of God. To think in terms of atonement, we would have to think about the unthinkable.
The righteousness of Christ, however, is a little more difficult for the world to squeeze into its self-righteous wineskins. You can’t easily turn that into something sweet, sticky, and easy to swallow. It burns as it goes down. Which is why the world speaks not of the life of Christ, but of His teachings. His teachings can be made abstract, amorphous enough that with just a pinch of intellectual dishonesty, and a smidgen of deconstructionism, we can turn them into our own teachings. But we cannot turn His absolute obedience to the law of God into our own, at least, without conceding that God has a law, conceding that we don’t keep it, and, well, without trusting in His complete work and actually becoming a Christian.
This is, however, the dilemma of the postmoderns. Without a standard, how can one distinguish between a great moral teacher and a reprehensible moral cretin? Without a moral measuring stick, Jesus and Osama Bin Laden are not only on the same moral plane, but they are on the same moral plane with all of us, because there is only one plane. If there is no target, no one is closer to it than anyone else. Therein is the offense of the Gospel in our age. Postmodernism’s very reason for existence is to escape a transcendent moral law. It is a philosophy that was created not to remove the guilt of sin, but to remove the stigma of sin. We who profess Christ are wrong, because we profess that there is a right, even as we confess that only one Man ever attained it.
What separates our peculiar age from that which Paul faced isn’t, however, the different offenses that the world takes to the gospel message. Rather it is the response of the church. It was the Cross that offended the Greeks and scandalized the Jews. But it was the Cross that Paul preached. In our day the obedience of Christ offends, and so we never speak of it. The church in our day seeks to hide the offense, and in so doing, puts its light under a bushel. Jesus the hero upon the cross is just fine. Jesus the obedient Son must never see the light of day.
The Scripture calls us the first born of many brethren. In a show of the depth of the grace of God, we are told that Jesus is not only the husband of the church, but our elder brother as well. If, in fact, we belong to Him, we must profess Him. We must declare not only the glory of the cross, but the glory that led to the cross. We must profess His obedience, His righteousness that by faith is ours. We must remember that He was not crucified because He was a great moral teacher. Rather, He was crucified because He obeyed His heavenly Father. They hung Him because they could convict Him of nothing. And because He is the firstborn of many brethren, we must in turn see the cross not only as the only atonement for our sins, but also as our example.
Has getting COVID shifted your thinking on vaccines?
No. The experience has not been a pleasant one, though the worst of it lasted only a week or so for me. Before contracting COVID and going back to the beginning of the pandemic I have been quick to boldly proclaim my ignorance on matters both scientific and statistical. I have, by His grace, managed to stay mostly above the fray.
There are however a few areas where I have some level of expertise that overlap the vaccine questions that divide us. I serve as a professor of ethics and for decades now have made a study of the legitimate role of the state. Both of which have made me not a rabid anti-vaxxer but a deeply committed anti-mandate man. It is precisely because I’m not an expert on medicine, contagious diseases, genetics, immunology that I feel no need whatever to try to reach a conclusion on the vaccine, nor to argue in defense of said conclusion. I’m more than willing to leave this to scientists to hash out.
I would ask, however, that both scientists and politicians, demanding that we all “follow the science,” recognize their own relative ignorance in my field. I’d ask them to “Follow the ethics.” When a scientist says “You ought to receive the vaccine” they have ceased to speak as scientists and have begun to speak as ethicists. They are, however, so utterly ethically ignorant that they don’t even know it. They are, in fact, guilty of misinformation. Science deals in is. Ethics deals in ought. I don’t mind if a scientist says, “If you don’t get the vaccine, you will get COVID and die” even though I don’t agree. I don’t mind if a scientist says, “If less than 95% of you don’t get vaccinated millions will die,” even though I don’t believe it. Both of these are hypotheses that can be tested.
“You ought to get the vaccine,” or worse still, “You should be punished for not getting the vaccine” is no longer science. It is not testable. No one ever looked in a microscope and saw an ought. Here is an ethical statement, “Most of us should not be arguing the health benefits or disadvantages of getting the shot, but instead all of us should recognize that scientists and politicians are ill-equipped to be laying down health imperatives. As a professional ethicist, I stand by that statement. I welcome all arguments.
Let me give this advance warning. Arguments built on “If you don’t do X then bad thing y will almost certainly happen” have no weight with me whatsoever. We don’t actually know the future. We don’t actually know what outcome would be best. We do know this. Forcing someone against his or her will to have injected into his or her body something they don’t want injected into their body is Mengele level evil. My unpleasant experience of having COVID has zero impact on that moral fact. If you want to get vaccinated, by all means, help yourself. Maybe it will spare you what I’ve been through. If you don’t want to get vaccinated, I pray you will be free of any state requirement to get one. In both circumstances I pray you can see the absolute wickedness of making people get the shot.
I have been caught between a desire to be open about hardships we are going through and the desire to not do too much in the midst of the hardships. (My hope is that daily posts and podcasts will resume on Monday). Almost four weeks ago the entire Sproul household came down with COVID. We don’t know from where and aren’t much concerned about that. Our boys barely noticed. Lisa has been significantly hindered and in my case, Covid brought along a plus one, pneumonia. In the midst of all this we were likewise coming face to face with significant financial challenges. In both cases we have been blessed by others.
On the COVID side a family reached out to us that has been actively involved in doing and publishing research on the impact of vitamin D on COVID. These men and their insights swiftly reduced our symptoms and are hastening our healing. Better still, they have been a great spiritual encouragement to us. They were such an answer to prayer that we couldn’t help but sense God’s nearness and grace. These men have called often to check on us, have prayed for us, have been the hands and feet of Jesus to us.
Yet another dear friend, in response to our financial challenges, graciously set up a gofundme campaign asking the body of Christ to help us deal with unexpected medical expenses as well as much needed and long delayed car repairs as well as bills we are behind on. She did not have to do this, but was yet another example of the being the body of Christ.
On the health front we are doing well though we are not yet all the way home. We are grateful neither of us required an overnight hospital stay. Today Lisa and I took a healthy dose of Vitamin D by walking outside, logging a little over a mile. Our coughing is still present but diminishing daily. Our strength is slowly beginning to come back. We are well out of the woods and praise God for it.
On the financial front we are still asking our friends to consider giving which you can do here, to be in prayer during this time of active job searching and perhaps even to keep me in mind for any opportunities you are aware of. We are enormously grateful for the sacrificial giving of many of you. We are well aware these are not times of great prosperity for anyone.
These hardships are hard. What we have experienced, however, is just what God’s Word promises us. God draws near as we cry out to Him in our need. Openness and vulnerability are part and parcel of the Christian life. A facade may hide a crumbling foundation but will only cause collapse all the more quickly. We have learned, in a time when the devil wishes us to believe that we are all alone, that we have friends in the body who care for us, and that is a great encouragement. We remain grateful to live in the midst of this glorious truth- Jesus changes everything.
“It is one thing to confess that you’re a sinner; it is another thing altogether to confess your sins…People love it when preachers or Christian leaders say they are fallen just like the rest of us, until that preacher or Christian leader does something the rest of us fallen people do. When that happens, the love and admiration quickly turn to disgust, disillusionment, and, all too often, social exclusion.”
I made the decision to withhold the source of this nugget of wisdom until after you had read it because otherwise you might have missed the wisdom. These words appear in my book, Growing Up (With) RC, in the foreword I’d asked my friend, Tullian Tchividjian to write. Some have publicly complained that I chose Tullian to write the foreword, making his point and mine.
This problem, however goes beyond our sin problems to all our problems. We all grumble about the facades we feel we must put up as Christians. We bemoan our corporate lack of vulnerability, grumble about our superficiality, demand greater authenticity. Until someone answers the call by dropping something ugly in the middle of the living room floor of our a small group meeting. We want people to be open about their needs. We just don’t want to be troubled with thinking about them or dealing with them.
In my circumstance my past sin problems and current hardship problems are related. I’ve sought to be open about my most spectacular sin, the night nearly five years ago that I drove drunk with my sons in the car. I’ve been blessed with the utter inability to hide that sin by virtue of it becoming juicy news in the Christian world. I’ve sought, in taking every opportunity to celebrate God’s grace, to steward well my failure. It is a painful truth knowing that every time I am introduced the first thought that comes is DUI. It is my hope that the next thought is, “God saves sinners.”
It is sound enough that while our sins are forgiven in Christ, we do not always escape the temporal consequences that come with them. One of the consequences I have faced is the challenge of finding employment. I told my literary agent and precious friend Robert Wolgemuth, after my arrest, “The only things I know how to do are speak and write. And no one has any interest in listening to me or reading me.” I’ve been blessed with some opportunities to put my writing and editing skills to work. But not enough to support my family. I have been blessed with some opportunities to teach in the secular realm as an adjunct professor. But not enough to support my family. I have, for years, while seeking to grow Dunamis Fellowship and the Jesus Changes Everything podcast, sought out full-time work in the secular realm. Ironically, sometimes the problem is I’m overqualified. Other times it’s the DUI.
The result? The ugly, vulnerable, authentic truth is I am struggling to provide for my family. Then COVID hit not just the broader world but our own home. All four of us are recovering from COVID, including me coming back from pneumonia as a result. We have medical bills. We have car repairs. We have power bills. We have mortgage payments. We are behind. A dear friend, in the midst of our COVID battles, set up a gofundme to help us- gofundme. We are deeply grateful for those who have contributed.
Here is what I am asking. Would you please pray for us? Pray for me to find a job to provide for my family. Pray for our continued recovery from COVID. Pray that the body of Christ would come alongside us in this time of need. Would you also consider giving to the fund? And would you consider sharing a link to this piece and to the fund? These things are profoundly difficult for me to write. It is, however, all part of stewarding our failures well.
Sensitive Internal Memo
To: Adam Glom, Executive VP Reaching the World Marketing Corporation
From: Simon Magi, VP Mid-East Client Acquisitions RWMC
RE: Report on market potential for Joshua Davidson
Sir,
As requested I have been following the work of Joshua Davidson in anticipation that we might reach out to him as a potential client. Without our help, or presumably any other outside marketing, he has managed to amass quite a following. I’m not surprised given what I’ve seen and heard. This man has thousands eating right out of his hand. His followers actually follow him from place to place to hear his latest messages. People are being healed and there are even rumors one of his friends was raised from the dead. I confess I’m incredibly excited about the prospect of signing this man.
First, his skill set is like nothing I have ever seen. Second, his market awareness is utterly abysmal. When I think of how far we, I mean, how far he could go with just a few tweaks to his message and method, it’s staggering. It’s like he desperately needs us and the wisdom and insight we can bring to the table.
My suggestion, when you meet with him, is that in laying out the benefits we can offer him you provide him with some examples of improvements he could easily make. This man is no dummy. He’s got a cadre of a dozen close friends, none of whom are in our data base and with them, well, it’s just about all anyone here ever talks about. Remember that desert prophet who would have nothing to do with us? His visibility crashed and burned. Davidson is greater still.
He needs, however, to learn to appeal to the powerful. He has this amazing connection with the downtrodden. The power brokers, however, seem to always get his goat. If he could just get over this barrier there’s no telling how far he could go. He’ll need, as well, to choose his followers more carefully. Some of the people with the worst reputations in town have flocked to him, which of course turns others off. It’s weird that he seems unable to see how backwards he has things. I spoke with his family, off the record of course, and they said he’s always been a little out there.
Let him know that we would also want to adjust, just a smidge, his message a bit. He needs to learn to sell the sizzle and stop talking about the stake. His fundraising skills are abysmal. I watched when this deep pocketed young man approached seeking his counsel. First, Joshua insulted the man, and then for good measure, way over asked. The kid is green I tell you, but the raw talent is something to see. Then there was the time he blew the use of his loss leader. He’d been feeding these crowds with cheap bread, and all he had to do was pass the hat. Instead he started talking all weird about eating his flesh. The crowd, as you’d expect, left.
I’ll leave this in your hands. I’m sure you can close them. For all his foolishness he seems like he’s no dummy. With him by our side boss, I think we could change the world.
It is true enough that by and large the evangelical church is not known for intellectual rigor. We’re not considered the sharpest knives in the drawer. It is true as well that we are called to love God with all of our minds, that we of all people have the blessing of studying not just the wonders of the cosmos, but the wonders of the One who spoke the cosmos into existence. We are called to make diligent use of every gift He has given us that we might more clearly see and delight in the Giver of those gifts. That said, there is within the evangelical church, usually found in the Reformed corner, a cadre of soldiers fighting the good fight for robust doctrine, careful thought, theological precision. For that I give thanks, and a warning.
When I was a younger man I struggled with my ambition. Jesus warned us that the first would be last, that we ought not to be jockeying for position. I brought my struggle to a wise man, my father, and he told me, “Son, it is not a bad thing to want to do great things for the kingdom.” As per usual, he was right. The danger, however, is that there is the thinnest and faintest of lines between wanting to do great things for the kingdom and wanting to be great in the kingdom. In like manner there is a rather thin line between wanting to think great thoughts and being thought great.
There are multiple scandals of the evangelical mind. First, we are intellectually lazy. But second, we long to be thought intellectually respectable. To the outside world we are considered troglodytes, to mix a metaphor, knuckle dragging intellectual backwaters. Because of our pride, that stings. We then, rather than embracing the scandal of the cross, which is at the root of our reputation with the world, seek to cover the scandal, and recoup our reputations. We baptize our pride by reasoning that in order to have a hearing for the gospel we must first attain standing, establish our intellectual bona fides.
It is, according to the Word of God, however, the unbelieving world that is populated by fools (Psalm 14:1). They have built a fantasy world on a fantasy foundation that begins with the denial of the world and its foundation. Their holy creed, their most sacred truth is that there is no truth. They may reign, but they are naked. And we are fools if we think we will gain a hearing by taking off our own clothes. The cross is foolishness to the Greeks. What fools we are to think we can jettison our reputation for folly while holding on to the cross.
The gospel requires of us that we sacrifice our reputations, both moral and intellectual. We enter in confessing we were so wicked, and so foolish that we were dead. He made us alive. His Spirit gave us sight. We brought nothing to the table except our own cadavers. Having been made alive, we return to death when we boast of our attainments. The great scandal of the evangelical mind isn’t that we aren’t smart. The great scandal is that we think being thought smart matters a lick. We began in humility, not about His truth, but about ourselves. So let us continue.
