Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.
The colossal calling of parenthood is made up of zillions of seemingly insignificant events. Often it feels as if one blurry moment, phase, or season flows into the next before we can even make sense of it. My husband and I make rules and set boundaries and try to enforce them consistently. We try to remember that our aim is to orient our children’s hearts to be Christ-centered, rather than just seeking outward behavioral changes. But then time passes, and we see no fruit whatsoever. When obedience does occur, it often feels like our children are simply trying to avoid the consequences of misbehaving.
Are our efforts making a difference? Are the heartfelt talks, Scripture memorizations, and family devotions penetrating the hearts and souls of our little ones—or are we merely going through the motions? Well something happened recently that reminded me of what I am called to do as a mother and how the habits we create in our homes can—by God’s grace—make a life-changing impact on the hearts of our little ones.
One of Those Sunday Mornings
Attending church together as a family is something I look forward to every Sunday. But one week I could tell it was going to be one of those Sunday mornings. In the few hours between waking up and leaving for church, it felt like my husband and I had run a marathon—getting breakfast on the table, showering and dressing three small children, refereeing arguments, correcting bad attitudes.
By the time we settled into our pew, I had already snapped at the kids, rushed them out the door, and was short with my husband. If there was ever a Sunday I needed to hear God’s word, it was that Sunday, but I just couldn’t focus. My children seemed to have made a pact that they were going to be the neediest children on earth that day. There were bathroom breaks, endless requests, and my personal favorite—good old-fashioned whining.
I thought, why am I even here? I haven’t heard two consecutive lines of the sermon. My kids aren’t hearing a thing. Nothing is sinking in for any of us. I should have just stayed home and watched the Food Network. I looked around at all of the other children sitting through the service with their halos on, and I was discouraged. Obviously, I was doing something wrong and failing my children. I left church that day feeling incredibly irritated with my children and myself.
The Power of Ritual and Habit
But God, in all of his goodness, decided to open my eyes the following Sunday. We had made it (alive) through the service, and it was time for the Lord’s Supper. Holding my cup of wine, I noticed that my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter had filled the lid to her water bottle with water and was eagerly awaiting the moment when we would all partake together. It was the cutest thing I had ever seen. At her age she couldn’t fully understand what Communion is, but she wanted to partake in the ritual she had seen performed every Sunday since she was born.
In that moment, I was able to connect the dots. Our children won’t always understand what we are doing for them—or with them—the first, second, third, or maybe ten-thousandth time we do it. But it doesn’t mean that nothing is happening. There is power in ritual and habit.
Shaping Hearts and Minds to God’s Glory
The fact is that taking our children to church each Sunday to worship the living God—rain or shine, good attitudes or bad—is shaping their hearts and minds about what is important. Maybe we hear the whole sermon or only a couple of lines. Either way, God blesses us for our obedience to him. Our kids absorb things, even subconsciously, that God can use in their lives.
So, I just want to encourage all of you parents. We may not see the fruit of our labors today, but we serve an all-powerful God who often uses very ordinary means to accomplish his work. Continue to be steadfast in your efforts to point the hearts and lives of your children toward him. What an amazing opportunity we have as parents to help shape the habits of our little ones while they are still under our care.
This article was originally published on December 5, 2017.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.
My congregation lives within an 80 x 60 x 50 kilometre triangle, an area larger than the Principality of Liechtenstein. So I drive a lot. I don’t enjoy a view of the Swiss Alps, but I do get to listen to podcasts.
One word to describe Surprising Rebirth? Refreshing. Brierley is smart, informed, nuanced, and confident in the truth. He has a beautiful turn of phrase and oozes positivity. Listening to him I get the same kind of feeling as when I read C.S. Lewis’s Surprised by Joy, or J.I. Packer’s Knowing God.
The thesis of the series is in the title.
In the mid-2000s the so-called “Four Horsemen” of the New Atheist movement—Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and their (somewhat) fearless leader Richard Dawkins—scooped up millions of sales with books like The End of Faith (2005), The God Delusion (2006), God is Not Great (2007), and other vaunted takedowns of mainstream religion.
As sarcastic as Voltaire, as certain as Senator McCarthy, as pompous as Sir Humphrey Appleby, and as populistic as Abba, they made a lot of God-suppressors feel more snug in their idolatry.
Dawkins even fronted a bus campaign: “There is Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life.” Despite the lame hedging of the word “Probably,” it went down well in the burbs of Oxford. Not sure what famine-wracked Somalians would have made of it. Or incarcerated Uighurs.
But the devil has been cursed to only ever kick own goals.
The Four Horsemen’s arguments earned C-minuses all round from real philosophers—theists and atheists alike. Their arguments had all been raised and answered countless times across the past two millennia. Moreover, they failed to offer even a postage stamp of terra firma on which to build a life of meaning and purpose, but instead revelled in a universe that has, “at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.” Yet they failed, as Nietzsche and Camus did not fail, to follow through with their nihilist suppositions, persisting that basic human ethics—strangely reminiscent of the ethics of the Second Table—could still be derived from their god-free milieu.
People learned inductively that atheism was rather like an egg left too long in the sun—smooth on the outside, an agglomeration of stinky gas and nothingness within. Moreover, the Horsemen whipped up millions to begin talking again about the target of their attacks—God. Oscar Wilde said it: “There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
Twenty years later it turns out that the New Atheists, rather like Pharaoh’s foremen but without their reasonableness, cause millions to lift up their heads to the possibility of something better—that there might in fact be real substance to the claims of Christian theism.
Justin Brierley tells the story in sixty-to-ninety-minute podcasts, thirty of which have appeared so far. I will engage with a few of the more remarkable of these and make some observations about the oeuvre as a whole.
In “The Rise and Fall of New Atheism” (Ep. 1), Brierley storms the beach with a bracing retelling of the rise of Dawkins et al. They flowed with Matthew Arnold’s “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar” of the Sea of Faith. They had the wind in their sails. Yet how brittle it was. “Elevatorgate: How the Culture Wars Killed New Atheism” (Ep. 2) shows how the movement ripped itself apart over sexism, LGBT and trans rights, and other highly charged public debates. Yes, their impact lingered, but not in the way they hoped.
In “Thank God for Richard Dawkins” (Ep. 3), Brierley interviews a number of public intellectuals who turned to theism, and even to Christian faith, after the undergraduate naïveté of the Horsemen’s books opened their eyes to the better arguments of Christianity. An interview with prominent YouTube atheist Alex O’Connor (Ep. 4) is a case study of this.
“The Jordan Peterson Phenomenon” (Ep. 5) is one of the most exciting episodes, tracing the rise to popularity in 2018 of a gifted but unknown psychology professor at the University of Toronto. Peterson was the doctor’s hammer that tapped all kinds of reflexive tendons. First when he stood against state laws forcing people to use preferred pronouns as an attack on free speech, which Peterson argues is an attack on thought itself. Second for his 2018 Twelve Rules for Life, which has sold over ten million copies and urges people to take responsibility for their lives—young men in particular.
Then Peterson began to lecture on the Bible. Gifted pastor-preachers with half-empty churches were treated to the sight of thousands of predominantly young men paying up to a hundred dollars to pack out large lecture theatres to hear Peterson’s passionate, rambling, and often emotional reflections on Genesis. Reading the text through the prism of Jungian archetypes and symbols, he fails to understand it. Yet millions of people were now hearing from the weeping prophet of Canada all about God and the Bible and a God-given purpose and destiny for life.
In Episode 6, “The Meaning Crisis: Why we’re all religious deep down,” Brierley builds on the idea of the innate sense of meaning and purpose that Peterson was tapping into. He works backwards from the funeral for Elizabeth II, when “a latent spirituality surfaced.” Having been reared on a diet of “you can be whatever we want to be”—what Charles Taylor called “expressive individualism”—and having rejected theocentrism for anthropocentrism, young occidentals were unmoored. And terribly unhappy.
The great bonus of listening to Brierley is that you will discover, through his adroit choice of interlocutors, all manner of wonderful Christian communicators. In Episode 6 you will meet Graham Tomlin, a C of E bishop and author of the superbly titled Why Being Yourself is a Bad Idea (2020). Our anthropocentrism has meant that we are looking in the wrong place for meaning. Social media’s smashing of community has exacerbated this. Refusing to enter “the story of our society,” we have failed in our attempt to invent our own. Sociologist Max Weber described the “disenchantment” of the industrial West. But nature abhors a vacuum and we’ve learnt to worship other entities: ourselves primarily. This is not working well for anyone.
Interviews with Australian historian Sarah Irving-Stonebraker, who converted to Christianity from atheism, and social-psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who has catalogued the catastrophic increase in levels of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide since 2010—when a new generation was being shaped by smartphones and social media—trace the modern mental health crisis to an existential crisis, which itself derives from an identity crisis which is, at its heart, a spiritual crisis. Brierley sums it all up: “If we are made to live in a story that is bigger than us, then I don’t think we can simply play-act a part in something we know is ultimately just a fiction.”
At the moment New Atheism imploded, new voices began to be heard.
“The New Thinkers: A new conversation on God” (Ep. 7) introduces four highly prominent and well-regarded public intellectuals who are all making positive noises about Christianity: Douglas Murray, Tom Holland, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Louise Perry. Of the four, the human rights campaigner Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the only one who has come to belief in Christian theism (Ep. 8). She is a friend of Richard Dawkins, who has publicly expressed his disappointment in Ali’s conversion; though even Dawkins has recently called himself “a cultural Christian.” We should ask: “From whence that culture, Prof. Dawkins?” Ex nihilo nihil fit.
In “Paul Kingsnorth & Martin Shaw: A poet and mythologist convert” (Ep. 9), Brierley introduces two recent converts. Shaw is an academic and mythologist who read the Gospels and “found Christ disturbing.” He takes the same kind of line as C.S. Lewis, who was also deeply conversant in pagan mythology, that the echoes of truth heard in the stories of the gods came to be fully realized in the history of Jesus. Shaw finds that the church does best when it is “outnumbered and outgunned,” and that after generations of hostility and marginalization it is beginning to find its feet again in a time of unexpected opportunity.
“History Maker: Why Tom Holland changed his mind about Christ” (Ep. 10) focuses on the extraordinarily popular classicist and historian Tom Holland, author of Rubicon (2003) and Dominion (2019). Holland has done for history what Jamie Oliver did for cooking. I find his books a little sensationalist, but he has done a remarkable service in showing that so many of the ethical principles that we hold dear, and especially that of caring for the weak and downtrodden, can only be traced to the Bible and Christian history. Holland contends that the West is saturated in the Christian worldview and ethics, even if we have distorted our inheritance in strange ways. Even our atheists are Christian atheists: it is the God of the Bible that they suppress. (Brierley follows up on Holland in Episode 17, “Live In London: Tom Holland & Justin Brierley in conversation.”)
“The Sexual Revolution: Why Louise Perry changed her mind” (Ep. 11) is one of the highlights of the series. Perry is a journalist, anti-pornography campaigner, and author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution (2022). She is a fiercely articulate thinker who had bought into the mores of the sexual revolution until she began working at a rape crisis centre. She is today a non-believer “emotionally and intellectually drawn to Christianity,” who argues that the message that “God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong” brought about hitherto unheard of emancipation, dignity, and protection to women and children: “To point out the vulnerability of women, children, the poor, the enslaved, and the disabled is to argue in favour of their protection, not their persecution.”
Perry draws on the work of classicist Kyle Harper, who describes a “first sexual revolution” in the fourth to seventh centuries with the irruption of a Christian sexual ethic that steadily de-sanctioned the rights of powerful Roman men to sexually penetrate all and sunder in their households: whether male or female, slaves or children. The evil of rape, which hitherto was only prosecuted against the violation of high-status male-protected women, now included the violation of any person. The first sexual revolution tamed men and was good for maintaining strong families and care for women and children. For it is women who get pregnant and who bear the greatest burden of childcare. They cannot, like men, simply walk away from their progeny to build new lives, careers, and romances in other places.
Fascinatingly, both Harper and Perry analyse our society’s antipathy toward Christian sexual mores as antipathy toward Christianity tout court. Harper writes, “In our secular age, just as in the early years of Christianity, differences in sexual morality are really about the clash between different pictures of the universe and the place of the individual within it,”[1] and Perry, “When pro-life and pro-choice advocates fight about the nitty-gritty of abortion policy, what they are really fighting about is whether our society ought to remain Christian.”[2]
This begins to answer a nagging question: Why do so many secular organizations, who have no inherent interest in homosexual practice, fly the rainbow flag? Is it not because LGBT rights have become the cause célèbre of secularism? That the rainbow flag has become the battle standard of godlessness?
The fact that Jordan Peterson, Tom Holland, Louise Perry, and Douglas Murray do not claim to be Christian believers has arguably given them a greater hearing and influence in contemporary intellectual discourse than they might otherwise have had. I will be fascinated to see where they and our culture land in the coming decade or two.
“The Christian Revolution: Why the cross changed the world” (Ep. 12) goes over very familiar ground for Christians. We have long understood that crucifixion was intended to inflict maximum protracted agony and public humiliation and degradation upon the victim. It was designed to terrorize the subjects of the Roman Empire into meek submission. The pax Romana was established, paradoxically, in large measure upon such placards of intemperate violence. Brierley does a very good job of showing how the Gospel of the Crucified Saviour fundamentally inverted human values. Human success must not be measured by the triumphs of the highborn and powerful over the lowborn and weak, the intellectual over the simple, the beautiful over the plain, the popular over the despised. The Cross teaches us to value the humiliation and subjugation of self for the benefit of the other, to prize the amelioration of the weak rather than their exploitation.
That is why Christians, when they are repentant and trusting and in tune with their Master, have given their time, talents, education, privileges, and wealth to the service of the most vulnerable—widows and orphans, the unborn and abandoned, the sick and enslaved—rather than to self-service.
“Did The Resurrection Really Happen? A classicist discovers the living Christ” (Ep. 16) presents a fresh recapitulation of the arguments for why the resurrection of Jesus is an historical event that truly has been proven beyond reasonable doubt. It focuses on the remarkable conversion story of twenty-first century Oxford scholar James Orr. But Brierley’s interview with John Dickson is one of the highlights of this episode; there are in fact numerous synergies between Brierley’s Surprising Rebirth and Dickson’s own really excellent Undeceptions podcast. It is no surprise that these two public Christian intellectuals have found each other.
In episodes 18 to 20 Brierley moves away from the historical evidence for the truth of Christianity to engage with natural theology, to how the natural sciences support belief in the God of the Bible. The desperately lazy idea that science and faith are opposed, or are at best mutually exclusive, is quickly swept away. Biblical faith—notwithstanding Kierkegaard’s false re-casting of the idea—is never described as believing in the illogical, unproven, or otherwise unbelievable (which is credulity), but as entrusting ourselves to God on the grounds of Spirit-awakened convictions in statements of truth.
Scientia is knowledge. Christians and scientists face in the same direction, wanting to know the truth about things. It is entirely natural that the modern scientific enterprise of discovering truth by rigorous observation and experimentation, the results of which are critically tested and systematized into general principles, arose (most notably) in the seventeenth century among European Christians who hungered for the truth and who believed that a God-created universe was of such a complexity, design, and rational order that truth could be discovered.
“A Goldilocks Universe: The surprising science pointing to God” (Ep. 19) is a very enjoyable exploration of the concept of fine tuning. It is a myth to suppose that scientists are drawing ever closer to fundamental explanations of things, as though the world is like a complicated watch that may be pulled apart into simple components that can be simply explained—end of story. On the contrary, every newly discovered component proves to be in itself a bewilderingly complex entity that must itself be disassembled into its constituent components, and so on, “world without end.” Thus, whereas nineteenth-century biologists saw single cells as quite simple inchoate blobs, molecular biology shows us that every single cell is like a city, teaming with complex machines and processes. Each part of the machine is itself a Tardis of extraordinary order and complexity, within which are untold other Tardis-like components. Furthermore, the matter of the universe exists within scores of physical constructs and forces that must function within extraordinarily miniscule tolerances. Adjust even one of these constructs by an infinitesimal degree and the cosmos as we know it ceases to exist. It looks a little bit like the universe might have been designed.
“The Logos Behind Life: The dissident scientists discovering a mind beyond matter” (Ep. 20) shows that scientists are discovering more and more that living cells exist and replicate according to vast banks of inbuilt information. Information, of course, can derive only from a mind. And although scientists have been able to describe in part how life replicates, they have not even begun to explain how life itself got going in the first place (or indeed why anything exists.) Every new discovery only adds to the complexity and only makes it more difficult to find such explanations. The trajectory of science is toward a mind, a Great Intelligence, lying behind the universe and its elements.
Brierley’s podcast is a brilliant exposé of evidence. But there is never a suggestion that conversion is merely an intellectual affair. His accounts of “surprising conversions” invariably describe people coming to faith within the context of community. Human beings are not just brains on legs. Our thinking develops, for better or for worse, within a communal environment. Many new converts describe how they learned about Christianity within the context of seeing others live out what they were learning, and of experiencing the love of the Christian community. We preach and teach the truth within community: and the richer and more loving that community is the better.
The series reminds us of the importance of other subjective factors too. No amount of evidence will budge an idolater, whose heart is “dead in sin and transgression.” A supernatural intervention is necessary. It is true that the Spirit enlivens the hearts of the spiritually dead by the true and powerful Gospel, by “demolishing strongholds” of lies, by persuading people of the truth with as much reason as we can master, and by loving Christian fellowship. But we must never forget that it is the Spirit who enlivens. A well-equipped smithy with hammer and tongs and bellows is a good thing. But not a single horseshoe will be made without the Blacksmith himself.
Surprising Rebirth is beautifully produced. Each episode is a journey: an important question about the truth of Christianity is posed, then various expert witnesses are heard both for and against. Brierley holds to the “steel man” principle of hearing only the best forms of opposing arguments put by its brightest and best proponents. Then conclusions are drawn, gentle but strong, and always with the sense that “this matter deserves serious consideration.” The production quality echoes the quality of the content: everything is beautifully clear and the whole is adorned with original music inspired by the Baroque, Southern Blues, and, I jest not, the Spaghetti Western.
Justin Brierley has produced a remarkable work and recently finished his first season of thirty episodes. I have been freely and confidently sharing episodes with both Christian and non-Christian friends, knowing that the material is of the highest intellectual and aesthetic quality.
What should we make, finally, of Brierley’s idée fixe, that there seems to be a change in the air, that there is a new wave of serious interest in Christian belief among public intellectuals and opinion-shapers?
We must always take the long view. Movements come and go. The New Atheism has waned, and so will any surprising rebirth of interest. I have been encouraged and even energized by Brierley’s work. He has equipped us with fresh evidence of the Christian faith, with a vigorous recasting of old evidence, and a renewed confidence in the intellectual and logical rigor of Christianity. He has given us a fund of podcasts to share with others on their journey. But we must always remember that Jesus has conquered sin and the curse at its root—“It is finished!”—and that he made a promise: “I will build my church.” Truth is like the great granite monoliths standing sentinel in Greens Pool and other southern beaches of West Australia. Winds, waves, and tides may obscure these mighty monuments for a moment, but they are solid and immoveable and must reappear to sight before too long.
If waves of opposition and enthusiasm come and go, the truth of Christ’s death and resurrection remains untouched. Our greatest need, and our greatest gift to others, is every day to plant our feet upon that Rock, and there to stand.
This article is adapted from “The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God,” which was originally published at AP, the National Journal of the Presbyterian Church of Australia (PCA).
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.
A while ago I engaged in a light Twitter exchange with a few atheists after I posted the following tweet:
A few self-described atheists didn’t think this statement sounded too loving. One suggested that I needed to “open my heart.” Another said that “Christian love” is a joke over which no one is laughing anymore.
My point in the tweet was to highlight the truth that the Christian worldview, when truly embraced, enables a person to love those with whom they disagree. For example, as a Christian I believe the biblical doctrines about God, humanity, Christ, heaven, hell, and salvation to be true. Because of this, I do not accept worldviews like atheism, agnosticism, Buddhism, Hindusim, and Islam, to name a few, because these belief systems are contrary to biblical Christianity and therefore not true. Yet the Christian worldview, while simultaneously requiring me to reject contrary worldviews as false, enables me to love atheists and those who adhere to other religions for two basic reasons.
All men and women are made in the image of God.
First, the one with whom I disagree is made in the image of God. Even though adherents of other religions reject the God of the Bible, they are, nevertheless, God’s image bearers (Gen. 1:26). For this reason they are worthy of love and dignity. I can treat them respectfully by listening to their position and making sure that I can articulate their beliefs in a way they would find satisfying.
And despite our vast differences in worldview, Christ calls me to love my neighbor, to feed my enemy, to do good to those who hate me, and gently correct those who oppose the truth of the gospel (Matt. 22:39; Rom. 12:20; Luke 6:27; 2 Tim. 2:24-26). Now, if you’re not a Christian, you may not like that last statement. To say that your opposition to Christianity needs correcting is to imply that your worldview is wrong, an implication you may take as tantamount to rejecting you as a person. But the two actions (rejecting your worldview and rejecting you as a person) are not the same. But more on this point in a moment.
Salvation is all of grace.
The second reason the Christian worldview enables believers to love others is because it teaches us that our ability to embrace Christ is not the fruit of any moral or intellectual superiority. In fact, the Bible teaches that Christians are Christians entirely because of God’s grace. For no reason other than sovereign love and kindness, God has opened the eyes of believers to behold the glorious reality of Jesus Christ. When Christians are living consistently within a biblical worldview, they will sense a deep compassion and love for those with whom they disagree because they know it is only grace that makes them differ (1 Cor. 4:6-7).
I suspect, however, that one reason we have come to equate the rejection of our worldview with personal rejection is because our contemporary intellectual climate has disabled us from withstanding and responding to rigorous debate and disagreement. Frankly, our feelings are easily hurt, and when people disagree with us, point out our inconsistencies, or tell us—gasp—that we’re wrong about something, we take their opposition to our ideas as a personal attack.
But Scripture gives us insight into the real root of the problem.
The natural and predominant motion of the human heart is to hide itself from God.
Ever since Adam and Eve’s first sin, mankind has been hiding from God. Due to their real and perceived guilt, their failed attempt at self-atonement to cleanse the conscience, and the fear of impending judgment, the first man and woman sought refuge among the trees. They hid from God because they knew they were worthy of death. And Adam and Eve’s progeny are still hiding.
The natural and predominant motion of the human heart is to hide itself from God. When confronted with the reality of God’s majesty and holiness and the reality of our condemnation, we hide, and for good reason: we, like Adam, deserve death. But, unlike Adam, we no longer hide among the trees. Rather, we find refuge in sophisticated philosophical arguments, religious duties, outright denial of our sin, good works, or a combination of all of these. We will do anything we can to cover our shame and keep God from discovering our sin.
But God has provided a refuge infinitely better than trees and philosophical arguments or good works. On the cross, Jesus Christ bore the punishment and death that we deserve and now calls out to all men to hide in him. And Jesus is ready and willing to accept the worst of sinners if they will turn from their sin and trust in him.
Christians hold the line because they love people.
Like my tweet implied, in order for a Christian to truly love others, we cannot accept worldviews that are contrary to Scripture. Why? Because we believe that a person’s eternal destiny is dependent upon whether or not they embrace the truth about Jesus Christ and what he has done on behalf of sinners. To yield to worldviews that oppose biblical truth is not loving or open-hearted or kind, but hateful. Christians hold the line on biblical truth, not because they love opposition, but because they love people and want them to understand the gospel. Allowing the lines to blur between Christianity and other worldviews only promotes confusion and obstructs people from beholding the good news.
To reject your worldview, therefore, is not the same as rejecting you as a person. How can this be? Because rejecting your worldview may be the means by which I am able to introduce true knowledge to your heart and mind. Indeed, rejecting your worldview may be one of the most profound ways I can express my love to you, for I am willing to oppose what is eternally harmful to your soul and tell you the best news in the universe. If that's not true love, I don't know what is.
Thisarticlewas originally published atfromthestudy.comand was first featured at Beautiful Christian Life on April 1, 2028.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.
Unless we live a totally self-sufficient existence where we produce everything we need, we will likely need money at some point.
Money is a medium of exchange for trading goods and services. By trading our goods and services for money, we can then use that money to purchase necessities and wants from other people and businesses.
Money isn’t the root of all kinds of evils; rather it’s the love of money that springs forth into evil (1 Tim. 6:10).
Those who love money will never be fully satisfied by their pursuit of wealth.
He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity. (Eccles. 5:10)
The author of Hebrews connects the love of money with a spirit of discontentment:
Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Heb. 13:5).
Now it’s easy to see why people would have a love for money. With money we can buy beautiful and safe homes, good health care, quality food, attractive clothing, and many conveniences of life. Yet, most of us either know or have heard of wealthy people who are miserable. The rich deal with the same relationship conflicts and self-worth struggles that others face, and their wealth can actually make matters worse in a multitude of ways.
Money is difficult to obtain and easy to lose.
Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. (Prov. 13:11)
Something that has been around for a long time and is not going away until the Lord’s return is get-rich-quick schemes. People who know a lot about money or are master-manipulators can easily take advantage of people who are ignorant or naive about money.
Many people work hard to earn money and then fall prey to online or in-real-life scammers who entice them with seemingly easy ways to build wealth quickly. These predators especially like to target vulnerable people, such as the elderly and lonely. They may even show romantic affection for their targets in order to take advantage of them. As the old adage goes, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Even people who have a decent knowledge of how to manage money can be tempted against their better judgement where the heart is involved via greed or romance. We must guard ourselves and our families against our own foolish judgment and not let the crafty take advantage of and defraud us.
With money comes power and responsibility.
As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. (1 Tim. 6:17-19)
We can use money for good or for evil. Many wealthy people have done much good for others and society in general by using their financial resources to help their fellow human beings and animals, for the building and running of hospitals, schools, shelters, food banks, and arts programs, protecting the environment, and supporting various noble social causes. Yet, the wealthy have also harmed people and society in general by using money to oppress others and promote people and organizations that are at enmity with the Word of God.
Since money is such an integral part of life, it’s good for God’s people to learn how to handle money wisely. Just because someone is a popular finance influencer on social media doesn’t mean he or she is giving sound financial advice. Weigh carefully the credentials and experience of the people you follow on the topic of finances. If you know people who have managed their money well over the years, consider asking them for some suggestions on how to become better educated on earning, investing, and spending money well.
We are to love God and our neighbor, not money.
Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed. (Prov. 19:17)
How are we to use our money to be a blessing to God and others? This requires wisdom. Sometimes giving money to people in need will only exacerbate the problem if they are struggling with a drug or alcohol addiction, a general lifestyle of irresponsibility, or some ongoing sinful behavior. Some charitable programs with honorable goals are run inefficiently or even line the pockets of the people running the charity.
There will certainly be times when we give our money, time, or other resources to help an individual, group, or organization only to discover later we were misinformed or deceived about the true nature of the circumstances. At least we can know our hearts were in the right place, but it is far better to wisely steward our resources to help the truly needy who will benefit the most from our assistance.
No amount of money is more important than Jesus.
A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold. (Prov. 22:1)
The money we earn or inherit is God’s gift to us, and we are to steward it to his glory in all things. There is no amount of money that is worth compromising our standards, conscience, or our Christian faith in any way.
Money should never be more important to us than our Savior Jesus. This was the challenge Jesus put forth to the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16-22. It wasn’t that his money was evil but rather that the young ruler wasn’t willing to put Christ first over his riches. And if our riches keeps us from trusting in Jesus for our salvation, then it is better to walk away from our wealth than perish in hell.
When our heart’s desire is to love God and our neighbor, we are positioned to use our money to lay up treasures in heaven.
Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death. (Prov. 11:4)
Death is the great equalizer. We can’t take our money with us, and no amount of money can save us from God’s judgment. Our only hope is the righteousness of Christ Jesus counted to us by faith in him alone.
When our hearts have a godly perspective on money, then we’re positioned to use our money to lay up treasures in heaven. It is good and honorable to work hard and invest to earn money to provide for ourselves, our families, and others in need. Yet, money itself is not the end goal; rather, it’s a tool God has given us to love him and our neighbor. May we be wise and humble stewards of all material possessions God entrusts to our care.
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt. 6:19-21)
This article is adapted from “Using Money Wisely” from Beautiful Christian Life’s August 2024 newsletter.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.
For most of my conscious life I have listened to other Americans complain about having to drive across Nebraska on I-80. As soon I tell non-Nebraskans that I am a Cornhusker they have two comments: 1) Your football team isn’t what it used to be; and 2) I-80 is the most boring part of their drive across the country.
Okay, I-80 across Nebraska is a little plain, pun intended. The Eisenhower administration didn’t want exciting interstates. They were as much for winning the Cold War (and landing bombers, if it came to that) as they were about your trip to grandma’s house. I-80 follows the Platte River, and it is flat. People will often contrast their experience of the mountains with the prairies. As a plainsman I appreciate the mountains (who doesn’t?), but I think the Christian life is more like Nebraska than it is like Colorado.
For many believers the Christian life is the quest for intense, mountain-top, emotional experiences. The assumption is that these sublime experiences are the norm and that those less-exciting periods of life are abnormal, inferior, disappointing, and perhaps a sign of some spiritual failure. When people say, “we really worshipped today,” what they are sometimes saying is, “We had an intense emotional experience during worship.”
North American Christians have come to expect an intense emotional experience in worship.
Since the First Great Awakening (18th century) and particularly since Charles Finney’s (1792–1875) practice of and lectures on revival, North American Christians have come to expect the unexpected, an intense emotional experience in worship. That’s what many congregations seem to mean by “revival.” That’s why, in so many services, congregations sing carefully coordinated songs designed to produce a certain affect and effect. Christians sometimes become addicted to the experience of euphoria produced by such use of worship music. When people say, “God seems to have left me,” what they may be saying is, “I’m not having the sort of intense experiences I expect a Christian to experience.”
We search for sublime religious experiences in other ways too. That is part of the allure of conferences. There’s nothing wrong with a good conference, but a well-organized conference with outstanding speakers and highly skilled, practiced musicians and/or singers is, by definition, unusual. It’s not the norm. A conference is like an all-star team in comparison to your hometown ball team. The all-star shortstop never misses a grounder. He always makes the double play. Your hometown shortstop, however, has lost a step (or maybe he never had it), and he’s in an uncomfortably long hitting slump. The all-star team is only temporary. It’s not meant to be permanent. Sic transit gloria mundi.
The clearest New Testament instruction about the nature of the Christian life is, in fact, rather ordinary.
The issue isn’t really music and conferences but our dissatisfaction with the ordinary. Does the New Testament promise us that the Christian life is a series of extraordinary emotional experiences? I don’t see it. Yes, there are extraordinary, objective miraculous acts of the Spirit (e.g., in Acts) and there is clear witness to the supernatural work of the Spirit in the apostolic congregations (e.g., 1 Corinthians). But it’s not obvious that we’re supposed to experience the same thing today or that those acts by the Spirit, in the church, had a lot to do with emotional experience.
I understand that’s a matter of considerable debate, but the idea that the New Testament phenomena are unique is not a revolutionary view in the history of the church. The clearest New Testament instruction about the nature of the Christian life, which seemed to have the post-apostolic life of the church in view, is, in fact, rather ordinary. Christians are to love God and their neighbors, honor and pray for the king, fulfill their vocations in this world quietly, and pursue godliness. I suppose when Christians do those things there’s a sense in which it is extraordinary, but now we’re using the word in a different sense.
I don’t mean to say that our Christian life must be relentlessly boring.
Our expectation that the Christian life is a series of intense emotional experiences has much more to do with the 19th century than it does with the New Testament, Patristic Christianity, medieval Christianity, Reformation, or post-Reformation Reformed orthodoxy. In most of those periods, our best writers weren’t generally counseling believers to seek the unusual or the extraordinary. There are exceptions, to be sure, but that’s just it. They were exceptions.
I don’t mean to say that our Christian life must be relentlessly boring. It doesn’t, but I do think that we probably need to recalibrate our meters. There is beauty along I-80 in Nebraska. If you look carefully, among the trees between the road and the Platte River you will see deer. If you look carefully enough, at the right time of day, you might see quite a few. Deer are beautiful—unless, of course, they run in front of your moving vehicle. I enjoy watching the old barns, Aermotor windmills, and cattle as we go by. The song of the Western Meadowlark has a remarkable way of cutting through the wind and the sound of tires on the pavement.
The Christian life is mostly ordinary, and that’s fine.
It used to be that near Grand Island one might see a bald eagle. It’s not the dramatic beauty of the Rockies (the mountains, not the ball club) but it is beauty. There are striking scenes among the buttes along Nebraska highway 71 between Colorado and Scottsbluff. There are great vistas of canyons, hills, and prairies along US 136 and US 34 in southern Nebraska, just above the Kansas line. It’s there, but one has to know where to look for it.
The mountains are breathtaking and memorable, but they are more the exception than the rule. The Christian life is more like a quiet state highway on the plains interrupted by quiet small towns, a few stop lights, followed by more highway. It’s occasionally striking, but mostly it’s ordinary and that’s fine. Ordinary is all right.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.
What is your favorite verse or passage when you are going through a difficult season? When you are in a trial or are afflicted with some kind of suffering, to what biblical truths do you turn? For many believers, Romans 8:28 is a favorite verse:
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
In the midst of our heartache, we often cling to the truth that good will come from it. But what is that good we hope for? Sometimes, we think of the good in terms of the physical, earthly, here-and-now kind of good, such as: Maybe the job I lost will result in an even better job. Maybe this broken dream will pave the way to an even better dream. Maybe this relationship fell apart because there’s a better one waiting for me.
The fruits of affliction are not always material or tangible.
While there are times in our life when we look back on a trial and see how it paved the way to something better in the here and now, there are other good things that result from affliction—and they aren’t material or tangible. They aren’t things we can see with the naked eye. They are internal and spiritual. As such, they have eternal significance.
John Newton is well known for penning the much-loved hymn Amazing Grace, but he also wrote numerous letters during his lifetime. Many of these letters are still published today. His letters point to the grace of God in the life of the believer.
In one letter, he writes about the fruits of affliction in the believer’s life:
Though afflictions in themselves are not joyous, but grievous, yet in due season they yield the peaceful fruits of righteousness. Various and blessed are the fruits they produce. [1]
There are numerous fruits of affliction in the Christian life.
What are those fruits? Newton mentions a number of them:
1. Prayer: “By affliction prayer is quickened, for our prayers are very apt to grow languid and formal in a time of ease.” How true is this! When we are in a season of suffering, we are more likely to turn to the Lord in prayer than we are in times when things are going well. In my own life, I find my prayer life deepens and flourishes during times of hardship, for the trial reminds me how dependent I am upon God’s grace.
2. Scripture: Newton says that afflictions help us understand the Scriptures, particularly God’s promises to us. Many of God’s promises in Scripture have to do with his help to us in times of trouble, and unless we are in a season of affliction, we will not know those promises firsthand. “We cannot so well know their fullness, sweetness, and certainty, as when we have been in the situation to which they are suited, have been enabled to trust and plead them, and found them fulfilled in our own case.” Trials show us more of who God is in his wisdom, power, and faithfulness.
3. Testimony: Our afflictions provide the opportunity to testify to others of God’s grace. When people see how God has brought us through a trial, God is glorified. Our lives then become living testimonies of God’s mercy and grace and give us an opportunity to share the reason for our hope.
4. Strength: Newton says that some graces are only revealed through affliction, such as resignation, patience, meekness, and long-suffering. Just as the practice of lifting weights develops our muscles, so too does affliction develop characteristics in us that can’t grow apart from the work of affliction in our lives. “Activity and strength of grace is not ordinarily acquired by those who sit still and live at ease, but by those who frequently meet with something which requires a full exertion of what power the Lord has given them.”
5. Compassion: Newton also says that affliction helps us have compassion for others who suffer. While we can have sympathy for others in affliction without experiencing such suffering ourselves, it is not as strong as when we have experienced it ourselves. Likewise, suffering helps us know more of the sufferings of Christ.
6. Humility: Lastly, Newton says that trials and suffering help us see the true content of our hearts. Affliction awakens sins in our hearts we didn’t realize were there. “This discovery is indeed very distressing; yet till it is made, we are prone to think ourselves much less vile than we really are, and cannot so heartily abhor ourselves and repent in dust and ashes.” Seeing the truth about ourselves produces the fruit of humility.
Romans 8:28 promises good to come through our trials and afflictions. Though the trials are not good in and of themselves—far from it!—God uses them for our good. Newton’s letter points to some of those good things as being the fruit of affliction’s work in our lives. Have you seen any of this fruit in your own life?
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.
In Ephesians 4:20-24, the apostle Paul writes:
But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
What is Paul saying about the “old self” and the “new self” and how is this passage connected to a believer’s new life in Christ?
All Christians should strive both to mortify sin in their lives and to grow in godliness.
The Christian life is one of mortifying our sinful desires (also known as the mortification of the flesh) and living unto God by keeping his commandments (also known as vivification).
The Heidelberg Catechism, first published in 1563, is a highly regarded summary of the Christian faith and has the following to say about a believer’s conversion:
Q. What is the true repentance or conversion of man?
A. It is to grieve with heartfelt sorrow that we have offended God by our sin, and more and more to hate it and flee from it. — The Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 89.
Q. What is the coming to life of the new nature?
A. It is a heartfelt joy in God through Christ, and a love and delight to live according to the will of God in all good works. — The Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 90.
All who are in Christ have the benefits of justification and sanctification.
Our justification does not come some day in the undetermined future, based on our own works. Every true believer is declared righteous in Christ and has both legal and relational standing as God’s children. All believers are coheirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17).
Christians not only have the benefit of being justified in Christ, but they also have the benefit of sanctification. The Holy Spirit indwells every believer and is at work conforming them to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29).
Even the thief on the cross, who had but a very short time left to live, showed his repentance (his confession of his unworthiness) and his faith in God’s promises (his request for Jesus to remember him):
But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 20:40-43)
Where there is true faith, there is also mortification and vivification, signs of the Spirit’s work in a person’s life.
Christians should be diligent to “put off the old self” (Eph. 4:22) by mortifying sin, and “put on the new self” (Eph. 4:24), by striving to live unto God. And, as the apostle Paul encourages God’s children, every believer can be confident “that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).
This article was originally published under the title “Putting Off the Old Self and Putting On the New Self — Ephesians 4:20-24” on August 8, 2022.
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