Tag: Gospel

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5 Lessons on Friendship from the Life of Jesus

Jesus never married, but he had a ton of friends. He saw relationships as important, and He nourished His need for companionship through friendship. That should make us take a second look at the importance of friendship, and there is no better place to do that than considering the friendships Jesus Himself had and what He said about them. Here are five lessons on friendship from the life of Jesus.

First, friendship has to be about something. Jesus took an interest in bigger things. He cared about the kingdom of God. So, He built friendships around this interest in God and His work in the world. C.S. Lewis captured this idea well:

The very condition of having friends is that we should want something else besides friends. Where the truthful answer to the question, Do you see the same truth? would be “I see nothing and I don’t care about the truth; I only want a friend,” no friendship can arise—though affection of course may. There would be nothing for the friendship to be about; and friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers (emphasis mine).

You don’t get friends by going around saying, “Will you be my friend?” You get friends by working on things together with other people. You have to have interests.

Second, friendship takes time. Jesus spent a ton of time with His disciples. Jesus chose twelve men in particular “to be with him and [that] he might send them out to preach” (Mark 3:14). This friendship grew over time.

This growth often involes overcoming challenges and experiencing suffering. Going through some difficult together can even accelerate the process of friendship building. You can hear the affection in Jesus’ voice at the Last Supper, “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials . . .” (Luke 22:28). Going through these trials and staying together is what builds the strongest friendships.

Third, friendships become one of the deepest relationships. Friendships begin with common interests, but they often develop some of the greatest affections and closest connections. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). This is often seen in the context of war, where soldiers develop an intense and deep commitment to their camarades in arms, but it is true whenever deep friendships develop. There is no “greater love” than the sacrificial love of a friend for another. This deep affection is so profound that Jesus used it to explain His own death on the cross for His people.

Fourth, friendships are an amazing resource. Friendships take time. The payoff is not always immediate. But for those who have built such friendships, they become a remarkable resource. Jesus said, “the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). Jesus shared what He was up to and what was going on in His life with His friends. That’s what friendship is and can be for us. We don’t have to just keep things in. We have people with whom we can share them! When we share our burdens, they feel lighter. This is the resource of friendship.

Fifth, Jesus wants more friends. He could have had servants. Everyone is below Jesus. But He wanted friends. “I call you friends,” He told His disciples. And Jesus wants more friends. He wants you to be His friend. How? He wants to get you involved in what He’s doing in turning this world into the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of darkness. He wants you to fish for people. He wants you to be with Him, be like Him, and do what He did, as John Mark Comer puts it in his recent book about being a follower of Jesus.

That’s really amazing news. The God of the universe became a human being to connect with us and make us His friends. Why would we refuse such an amazing offer? Why would He not engage in the actitivies He says are the best things we can do? Why would we not want such a friend?

But if we do, how do we do it? How do we develop a friendship with Jesus? The disciples lived with Him and walked around with Him physically. We cannot do that. So, how can we become friends with Jesus? That’s what I will explain in my next post.

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5 Reasons Churches Should Talk a Lot More About Leadership

Leadership is extremely important. Few things happen in this world without it. We all recognize this. For example, when our favorite sports team is not doing well, who do we blame? The coach. Then, the team ends up hiring a new coach. People are excited . . . or worried. Why? Because leadership matters.

So, if the church is concerned about making people better and making this world a better place to the glory of God, then it should teach on leadership. However, I’ve seen mixed reactions to instruction on leadership. Here are a few of the objections/comments I have received to teaching on leadership. I put my answer next to it and then the positive reason for teaching on leadership in the church.

Reason # 1: Leadership is an inescapable part of the human way of life created by God.

1. Objection: Leadership is a secular topic. Answer: I do not call secular that which belongs to normal human life. It is part of God’s created order. Just as work, marriage, and education are part of life, so leadership is part of life. All of these are part of God’s creation. Faith in God and His Word reorients our way of thinking about all of life, including leadership. If God exists and created this world in which leadership matters so much, then we would expect that He would have something to say about it.

Reason # 2: We all do have and should have people we want to lead to a better place.

2. Objection: I’m not a leader. Answer: people often think of leadership in terms of a leadership position such as a boss, teacher, or pastor. However, leadership is a broader concept than that. We are leading someone whenever we want to influence people to move to a place where they could and should be. Anytime we are concerned about people’s behavior or character and want to see it changed, this involves leadership. Anytime we are concerned about a community, group, or individual, this is an opportunity for leadership. In addition, we not only are already seeking to lead, but we ought to have concern about the people around us and want to see them in a better place. This is our just duty. Continue reading “5 Reasons Churches Should Talk a Lot More About Leadership”

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Emotions, Spirituality, and the Gospel

Emotions drive our lives. They can drive us forward to accomplish great things, or they can drive us into a ditch. But they are the drivers. So, as we seek to live a life that connects to God and serve Him, we cannot neglect this important aspect of our lives.

Rafael Pardo’s book Emociones, Espiritualidad, y Evangelio helps us integrate our emotional life into our spiritual life. Pardo’s first goal is to help Christians embrace emotions as a positive force in the Christian spiritual life. He contends that they have often been neglected or downplayed. A simple example of this is the book of Job in the common Christian consciousness. Job’s famous statement is often remembered: “The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Viewed in abstraction, this phrase might seem to downplay the emotions associated with loss. However, the rest of the book of Job is all about his emotional struggles processing his great loss! The former is remembered. The latter is forgotten. Pardo wants to remind us of all the emotional struggles in the Bible, including those of Job and Jesus!

Emotions, according to Pardo, help us adapt to our environment. They begin with a cognitive evaluation of something as pleasurable or unpleasurable and move us toward the former and away from the latter.

The problem with emotions is that our cognitive evaluations are often wrong or irrational. Examples of irrational beliefs are “I cannot live without you,” “I should never make a mistake,” “no one should ever criticize me,” “everyone should like me,” etc. These irrational beliefs give us emotions that move us away from things that we should embrace or accept and toward things that we should move away from. Continue reading “Emotions, Spirituality, and the Gospel”

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In the Bible, Anxiety Is the Occasion of Sin

In the Bible, anxiety is the occasion for sin. Anxiety is not in itself sin, but it is the occasion that tempts us to sin. Thus, there is nothing wrong with seeing a threat, difficulty, or challenge. The question is, what do we do with it?

I believe that this is a true analysis of sin in our life based on several considerations. I was surprised, though, at how explicit this is in the Bible as I reviewed its various stories of sin. Here are just a few examples that demonstrate the connection between anxiety and sin. Continue reading “In the Bible, Anxiety Is the Occasion of Sin”

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Manhood & Rudyard Kipling’s Poem “If”

Every time I recite Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If,” I feel inspired and encouraged to work and keep going forward. Many people feel the same. It is a widely praised, quoted, and printed poem.

I was so inspired by it that I decided that I would try and do a “Bible” study on the poem in our church. No, I don’t think the poem is part of the Bible. Rather, I thought it would be worth considering what Kipling is saying and seeing how it fits into the Bible’s picture of manhood.

Here’s how we did it. We would take a line or two from the poem and ask four questions:

  • What is Kipling saying?
  • Is it biblical?
  • What would it look like to implement it in our lives?
  • How does the Gospel empower us to move toward the ideal in the poem?

It all turned out quite well. We had a lot of good discussion about what it meant for us to live as men of God in this world.

Here’s a few things we discovered.

There are many parallels to Ecclesiastes and particularly Ecclesiastes 7 in the poem. For example:

  • The caution against anger (7:9)
  • Not getting stuck longing for the past (7:10)
  • Accepting conditions as they are without judging them (7:13)
  • Accepting good days as well as bad days with equanimity (7:14)
  • Not being too righteous (7:16)
  • Not getting upset by slander or what people say (7:21-22)

We learned something about the power of poetry. You can say, for example, “use your time well,” but it’s much more powerful to say, “if you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run . . .” Writing a poem of moral imperative is difficult, but Kipling makes it work by his continual use of the word “if.”

The poem challenged us to work through the things of the past and keep pressing forward to the future. This is in line with what the Apostle Paul said, “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward” (Phil. 3:13-14).

The poem encouraged us not to get bogged down with the wrongs people do to us and to keep loving and honoring people no matter what. In other words, pay attention to your duty toward others rather than fretting over how they respond. We found this aspect of the poem in line with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere.

While we did not reject outright any of the “ifs” of the poem, we did have questions about some of the statements and how they might be taken. For example, is it good to make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss, and is Kipling advocating this? Is the idea of neither foes nor loving friends hurting you consistent with the Bible’s view of grief? Would the idea of filling the “unforgiving minute” with “running” lead to frantic lives?

We also considered how the Gospel would encourage us to implement these things. The hope of the future that the Gospel provides can help us to move forward in the face of loss or past hurts. Trust in God’s justice can help us let go of the wrongs that others commit. Trust in God’s strength can empower us to do right in the face of pressure. We found many other encouragements. The Bible continually presents God’s power, promises, and presence when it encourages us to do our duty.

Finally, how does all this help us become “a man”? The promise at the end of the poem is, “you’ll be a man, my son.” The definition of manhood is complicated and controversial. In my view, the male orientation is fundamentally outward. The female is inward or home-oriented. I do not mean this to be an ethical prescription. It is a description of what actually happens. If you take maleness as that outward orientation, then you can see how this poem helps. These prescriptions help you move forward and move outward to do and act in the world in the face of the most common difficulties and entanglements that keep us from doing so. If we can keep ourselves moving forward in the face of loss, failures, enemies, and temptations, then we will really be able to do things that bless ourselves and others and glorify God. More importantly, we will live as we were meant to live. In that sense, we will find satisfaction in simply being “a man, my son.”

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