Providence: How and Why God Acts

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. (Psalm 115:3)

Consider natural disasters and what we think of as the normal processes of nature:

  • A tsunami strikes Sumatra with overwhelming force, killing 250,000 people.
  • The sun rises every morning – indeed, the sun is always rising somewhere in this world.
  • Grass, trees, and crops grow.

Scripture tells us that God controls such events:

  • the wind and waves obey Jesus (Luke 8:22-25)
  • God makes the sun to rise (Matthew 5:45)
  • He causes plants to grow (Psalm 104:14)

Think of key points in biblical history:

  • Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery in Egypt.
  • Pharaoh refuses to let the people of Israel go.
  • Satan enters into Judas.
  • Pilate releases Barabbas and turns Jesus over to be crucified.

According to Scripture, in all these events, God is working out His perfect plan:

  • Joseph’s brothers act sinfully, but God intends that action for good – even their own good (Genesis 50:20)
  • God hardens Pharaoh’s heart so that he will not let the people go (Exodus 7:2-5, 11:10)
  • Though Satan enters Judas (Luke 22:2-3) and Pilate acts according to his perception of his self-interest (Matthew 27:15-26), the crucifixion and its surround events happen exactly according to God’s plan (Acts 4:24-28).

Or consider the acts of nations and individuals today:

  • Joe Biden becomes president of the United States and signs dozens of executive orders.
  • China incarcerates more than a million Uighurs in concentration camps and violates its treaty with Britain in cracking down on pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong.
  • An elderly atheist who has ridiculed Jesus for decades comes to faith.
  • You and I are breathing right now.

Scripture tells us that God is in control even of such events:

  • “The Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will” (Daniel 4:25)
  • “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1)
  • God “has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. (Romans 9:18)
  • God gives us “life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25)

Such Scriptures paint a picture of a sovereign God ruling all events, moving all creation forward to His appointed end.

This raises a multitude of questions: What is God’s goal in all this? How is this sovereignty related to our responsibility for our actions? How is that sovereignty related to His commands to us – and our obeying or disobeying those commands? Does God’s control extend even to evil acts of evil men and all natural events? Does He providentially control all things?

These are not questions that we should leave for theologians to ponder. For we all face death, disease, and tragedy; we sin and others sin against us; and the world often looks to be spiraling out of control. We need to take to heart the assurances of Scripture that God is working all things together for His good and wise purposes. But if those assurances are to play their intended role, we need to understand what the Scriptures promise, and what they do not. We need to understand how and why God acts as He does.

I invite you to consider these questions together over the next several months. Over about twenty weekly lessons via Zoom, we will search the Scriptures to see if and how these things are true. Each week we will examine a passage or two in depth, studying the goal, nature, and extent of God’s providence. While we will use John Piper’s excellent new book, Providence, as a resource (with a portion assigned to read each week after you have studied the relevant Scriptures), this is a Bible study, not a book study. Indeed, we will assign only about half of Providence as required reading.

The Apostle Paul tells us not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed through the renewal of our minds (Romans 12:2). Our society, our schools, our media, our government, and (sadly) even many of our churches minimize the role of God’s providence in our lives if they speak of it at all. We need to have our minds shaped by God’s Word on this issue, so that every day, whether we encounter victory or defeat, health or disease, joy or sorrow, prosperity or devastation, we can follow our Savior with confidence, trusting that He will use us for His glory, bring us safely to His heavenly kingdom, and fulfill His perfect plan for this world.

We meet Thursday evenings via Zoom, 7:30 to 8:30pm, beginning March 4. The study guide for the first week is available (Word file, pdf). Speak to me directly or fill out the DGCC Contact Form to express interest in the study. Anyone who is willing to prepare each week is welcome to join us. You can see the Table of Contents and read the first chapter of Providence here. Desiring God has partnered with WTSBooks to offer a pre-publication discount of 50%, with a copy of the ebook available for download immediately at no extra charge. Physical copies of the book should ship shortly.

 

 

2021 Is About Jesus

What are you anticipating in this New Year?

  • The end of lockdowns, mask-wearing, and social distancing?
  • A less rancorous political climate?
  • The birth of a child or grandchild?
  • Marriage?
  • A new job?
  • Professional advancement?
  • Beginning college?
  • Achieving personal goals – for reading, for exercise, for healthy eating?
  • Becoming a better person?
  • Healing relationships?

At the turn of the year, we do well to look forward with eagerness to what is ahead, and to discipline ourselves to work towards and pray for goals and events such as these.

But of even greater importance, we must remind ourselves as the calendar turns of the story in which we play a part.

Philosopher Alasdair Macintyre writes, “I can only answer the question, ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question, ‘Of what story . . . do I find myself a part?’”

In the Bible, God reveals to us the Great Story – the story of His creation of a good world in which He placed the first man and the first woman; the story of their arrogant rebellion against Him, and the consequent corruption of themselves and creation; the story of His great plan, implemented over millennia, to redeem a people for His own possession from among fallen humanity, as He worked through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and the prophets, promising to bless all nations, to establish an eternal, righteous kingdom, and to send a suffering servant to take on Himself the punishment His people deserve; the story of the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of that Promised One, the Lord Jesus; the story of the partial fulfillment of  those promises at the cross and in the expansion of the church across ethnicities; the story of what is still to come: the fulfillment of every promise through the return of the Lord Jesus, God the Father summing up all things in Him, His people living for all eternity in the joy of their Master as they see Him face to face.

This is the story in which we play a part. Our goals, our marriages, our careers, our health – as real, important, and valuable as they are – all should aim at fulfilling our role in that one Great Story. Jesus is the center. Jesus is the goal. Jesus is the One carrying all creation towards its designated end. This year of 2021 is all about Jesus.

We must remind ourselves of this story daily – for the world around us proposes dozens of alternate stories: Stories with wealth at the center, or a political leader at the center, or societal reform at the center, or fame and accomplishment at the center, or despair and hopelessness at the center. Apart from constant reminders, we will drift into stories completely contrary to the One True Story.

How do we build such reminders into our lives?

God chose to reveal Himself to us through a Story. We must learn it.

Summaries of the Great Story are helpful. But nothing is more important in this regard than reading the Story itself.

For twenty consecutive years, I have read through all of Scripture annually, following a reading plan that takes me through this Great Story chronologically, while including daily readings from both Testaments. From “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” on January 1 to “Amen! Come Lord Jesus!” on December 31, the Story rings out repeatedly, year after year, decade after decade, shaping my thoughts, reminding me that Jesus is at the center, and that my role – as one worthy of condemnation but by His love and grace part of His Bride – is to display Him, to thank Him, to honor Him, to magnify Him.

Take this journey with me in 2021. Download the reading plan through this link, or pick up a printed copy on Sunday. For this year – as every year – is all about Jesus. Fight the false stories by reminding yourself daily of the True Story. He reigns in 2021 – and He will reign forever and ever. Make sure you are reminded of that truth every day.

 

Reflections Growing Out of the Recent Epidemic by Francis Grimke

[Born into slavery on a South Carolina plantation in 1850, Grimke served as a pastor for 50 years, primarily at Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington DC. This devotion is taken from a sermon he preached November 3, 1918, when churches were allowed once again to meet after several weeks of closure because of the Spanish Flu epidemic. The entire sermon – more than twice as long – is available here.]

We know now … the meaning of the terms pestilence, plague, epidemic, since we have been passing through this terrible scourge of Spanish influenza, with its enormous death rate and its consequent wretchedness and misery. Every part of the land has felt its deadly touch…. Over the whole land it has thrown a gloom, and has stricken down such large numbers that it has been difficult to care for them properly, overcrowding all of our hospitals…. Our own beautiful city has suffered terribly from it, making it necessary, as a precautionary measure, to close the schools, theaters, churches, and to forbid all public gathering within doors as well as outdoors. At last, however, the scourge has been stayed, and we are permitted again to resume the public worship of God, and to open again the schools of our city.

Now that the worst is over, I have been thinking … of these calamitous weeks through which we have been passing—thinking of the large numbers that have been sick— the large numbers that have died, the many, many homes that have been made desolate—the many, many bleeding, sorrowing hearts that have been left behind, and I have been asking myself the question, what is the meaning of it all? What ought it to mean to us? Is it to come and go and we be no wiser, or better for it? Surely God had a purpose in it, and it is our duty to find out, as far as we may, what that purpose is, and try to profit by it.

Among the things which stand out in my own mind … are these:

(1) I have been impressed with the ease with which large portions of the population may be wiped out in spite of the skill of man, of all the resources of science.… How easy it would be for God to wipe out the whole human race … if he wanted to; for these terrible epidemics, plagues, the mighty forces of nature, all are at his command, all are his agents. At any moment, if he willed it, in this way, vast populations or portions of populations could be destroyed.

(2) I have had also this question come into my mind, why of those who took the disease some recovered and others did not? The reason may be found, in one sense, in purely natural causes— some were physically better prepared to resist the disease, were stronger in vital power, and so pulled through. Others, not having sufficient vitality, went down under the strain; but I believe there is also another reason, and is to be found in the will of God.… Some day we have all got to go, but how, or when, or where, we do not know; that is with God alone. In Job 12:10, we read:

In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.

We speak of accidental deaths, … but there are no accidents with God. All things are within the scope of his providence….

(3) Another question similar to the above kept also constantly going through my mind, why are some taken with the disease and others not? … The ultimate explanation must be found in the sovereign will of God. It must be because He wills it.

(4) Another thing that has impressed me, in connection with this epidemic, is the fact that conditions may arise in a community which justify the extraordinary exercise of powers that would not be tolerated under ordinary circumstances. This extraordinary exercise of power was resorted to by the Commissioners in closing up the theaters, schools, churches, in forbidding all gatherings of any considerable number of people indoors and outdoors, and in restricting the numbers who should be present even at funerals. The ground of the exercise of this extraordinary power was found in the imperative duty of the officials to safeguard, as far as possible, the health of the community by preventing the spread of the disease from which we were suffering….

And so, anxious as I have been to resume work, I have waited patiently until the order was lifted.…

(5) Another thing that has impressed me in connection with this epidemic is how completely it has shattered the theory, so dear to the heart of the white man in this country, that a white skin entitles its possessor to better treatment than one who possesses a dark skin.…

In this terrible epidemic, which has afflicted not only this city but the whole country, there is a great lesson for the white man to learn. It is the folly of his stupid color prejudice. It calls attention to the fact that he is acting on a principle that God utterly repudiates, as he has shown during this epidemic scourge, and, as he will show him when He comes to deal with him in the judgment of the great day of solemn account….

(6) Another thing has impressed me during this epidemic. It has brought out in a way that is very gratifying, the high estimation in which the Christian church is held in the community—the large place which it really occupies in the thought of the people. The fact that for several weeks we have been shut out from the privileges of the sanctuary has brought home to us as never before what the church has really meant to us. We hadn’t thought, perhaps, very much of the privilege while it lasted, but the moment it was taken away we saw at once how much it meant to us….

(7) There is another thing connected with this epidemic that is also worthy of note. While it lasted, it kept the thought of death and of eternity constantly before the people. As the papers came out, day after day, among the first things that everyone looked for, or asked about, was as to the number of deaths. And so the thought of death was never allowed to stay very long out of the consciousness of the living. And with the thought of death, the great thought also of eternity, for it is through death that the gates of eternity swing open…. The grim messenger is God’s summons to us to render up our account. That there is an account to be rendered up we are inclined to lose sight of, to forget; but it is to be rendered all the same. The books are to be opened, and we are to be judged out of the books. During the weeks of this epidemic—in the long list of deaths, in the large number of new-made graves, in the unusual number of funeral processions along our streets, God has been reminding us of this account which we must soon render up; He has been projecting before us in a way to startle us, the thought of eternity.

You who are not Christians, who have not yet repented of your sins, who have not yet surrendered yourselves to the guidance of Jesus Christ, if you allow these repeated warnings that you have had, day by day, week by week, to go unheeded—if you still go on in your sins, should God suddenly cut you off in your sins, you will have no one to blame but yourselves…. God has opened the way for your salvation, through the gift of His only begotten Son, who died that you might have the opportunity of making your peace with God…. Before you go out of this house make up your minds to do the right thing—the wise thing—the only sensible thing. You have come out of this epidemic alive, while thousands have perished. Are you going to spend the rest of your days in the service of sin and Satan, or in the service of God? You know what you ought to do; you know what you will do, if you consult your best interest—if you do the right thing.

(8) There is only one other thought that has come to me in connection with this epidemic; it is of the blessedness … of the sense of security which a true, living, working faith in the Lord Jesus Christ gives one in the midst of life’s perils. I felt … the blessedness of a firm grip upon Jesus Christ—the blessedness of a realizing sense of being anchored in God and in His precious promises. While the plague was raging, while thousands were dying, what a comfort it was to feel that we were in the hands of a loving Father who was looking out for us, who had given us the great assurance that all things should work together for our good. And, therefore, that come what would—whether we were smitten with the epidemic or not, or whether being smitten, we survived or perished, we knew it would be well with us, that there was no reason to be alarmed. Even if death came, we knew it was all right. The apostle says, “it is gain for me to die.” Death had no terrors for him….

In the presence of such a faith, in the realization of God’s love, as revealed in Jesus Christ, in the consciousness of fellowship with him, what are epidemics, what are scourges, what are all of life’s trials, sufferings, disappointments? They only tend to work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. But, of course, if faith is to help us; if it is to put its great strong arms under us; if we are to feel its sustaining power under such distressing circumstances, it must be a real, living faith in God …—a faith that works, that works by love, and that purifies the heart. Any other faith is of absolutely no value to us in the midst of the great crises of life…. [Now] is a good time for those of us who are Christians to examine ourselves to see exactly how it is with us, … whether our faith is really resting upon Christ, the solid Rock, or not….

If, as the result of such examination, we find that we did not get out of our religion very much help, in bracing us up under the strain through which we have been passing, then we know that there is something wrong: either we have no faith at all, or it is very weak…. Or, if we find that we were helped, that our fears were allayed as we thought of our relations to God and to his Son Jesus Christ, then we have an additional reason why we should cling all the closer to him, and why we should be all the more earnest in our efforts to serve him. We ought to come out of this epidemic more determined than ever to run with patience the race that is set before us; more determined than ever to make heaven our home….

Let us all draw near to God in simple faith. Let us re-consecrate ourselves, all of us, to him….

 

Enter God’s Rest

“If we have been swayed from the place of resting in your grace today – swayed by shame, by error, by vanity, by pride, or by love of the praise of people, act, O Holy Spirit!

“Reveal our error, convict conscience, and bring us to quick repentance. Rekindle our affections, restoring them again to their one worthy object, who is Christ, and who alone holds the words of eternal life.”

Douglas McKelvey, Every Moment Holy (Rabbit Room Press, 2017), p. 7.

Thanks to Beth who read this to our small group as we were discussing the command to strive to enter God’s rest (Hebrews 4:11).

Reading God’s Word in 2017

Jesus Christ is the hinge of history. All history prior to His birth points toward Him; all history afterwards looks back at His life, and forward to His second coming. The story of this world is the story of the glory of God, as God redeems fallen man and, indeed, all of creation to the praise of His glorious grace.

At this hinge, at the first Christmas, God became man, Immanuel, God with us; Jesus then lived the only perfect life, a life in which He loved God the Father with all His heart, all His soul, all His mind, and all His strength every minute of every day, and always loved His neighbor as Himself; Jesus suffered and died, taking upon Himself all the sins of all of God’s people of all time; God raised Him from the dead, proving that the penalty was sufficient, the price was paid. He will return to overcome all opposition, to exercise perfect justice, to wipe every tear from the eyes of His people, and to establish His eternal Kingdom of righteousness and peace.

This is the storyline of the Bible, the plotline of God’s work in this creation. Do you know it? Do you see and understand how God has worked through the centuries to fulfill His plan to sum up all things in Christ?

One excellent way to gain that understanding and thereby impact your daily life is by following a Bible reading plan that will help you to make these connections.

In 1984 I first read through the entire Bible following a plan that guided me chronologically through the events recorded in Scripture. I saw God’s plan in a new light; I saw the centrality of Christ in a fresh way; I saw how all Scripture held together, from God’s work through the people of Israel, their apostasy, the destruction of the temple, the exile and the return from exile, the coming of Christ, the crucifixion and resurrection, the spread of the church, and Jesus’ second coming. Passages like Leviticus and Ezekiel, which I had struggled to read before, now I saw in a new light; the familiar gospels and epistles took on new meaning as I read the story of God’s glory in sequence.

A chronological plan does have a weakness, however: For almost 10 months, all of one’s devotional reading is in the Old Testament. While this is fine for one year, as a pattern to follow again and again, it is not healthy. Therefore, fifteen years ago I developed the Bible Unity Reading Plan. Like the plan I had followed in 1984, the Bible Unity Reading Plan takes the reader through the entirety of the Bible over the course of a year. The difference is that the Unity Plan organizes about two-thirds of the Scriptures into a chronological track, but assigns a reading from the other Testament every day. This achieves the benefits of seeing God’s storyline, while drawing our attention every day to both Old and New Testament truth. I have followed this plan or a minor variant every year since.

The Shorter Bible Unity Reading Plan similarly has two tracks every day, a chronological track and a reading from the other Testament. The only difference is that the shorter plan covers only a bit more than half of the Old Testament while taking the reader through the entirety of the New. 

As D.A. Carson says, “At their best, Christians have saturated themselves in the Bible. They say with Job, ‘I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread’ (Job 23:12).’” Will you saturate yourself with the Bible in 2017? I encourage you: Commit yourself to following the plotline of the Bible consistently through the coming year. Come to next Christmastime with a deeper understanding of how the birth of Christ is the hinge of history, so that you might be that much more in awe of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, rejoicing in His sovereign mercy and being steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, confident that He will indeed sum up all things in Christ to the glory of His Name and the good of His people.

[We’ll have copies of the Bible Unity Reading Plan and the Shorter Bible Unity Reading Plan on the foyer table at our services this Sunday. You can also download them at the links. In addition, there is an Android app available that takes you through the plan.]

Cancer Cannot Separate Us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus

After preaching Sunday on Romans 8:35-39, I learned via Facebook that Anjel French has melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer that has spread to other parts of her body. Anjel is married to Jason French, former worship leader at one of the campuses of Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis and the author of some of the songs we sing at DGCC. In Jason’s post on Sunday evening, he discusses how the very truths we sang about and heard about that morning are life-giving and spirit-feeding in the midst of such serious trials. An excerpt:

Cancer is not God. It is created. It is creation. It is not self-existing. It is not autonomous. It does not have a will of its own such that it can live and move, expand or shrink, or even die apart from the will of the Creator of the entire Cosmos whom we are so privileged to call “Father,” because we have been adopted into his family through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of his beloved Son, Jesus, and are now sealed with the promise of and indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

So, cancer does not have the final say. Cancer must obey God. God has the final say and for his children, this will is always for us. It can never, ever be against us. If God commands the cancer to go, it will and must go. If God in Christ commands the cancer to remain, or grow, or shrink, or stay the same, it bends to the will of him who holds as things together—even cancer—by the word of his power. And if he wills the cancer stays, we know and believe he hides a smile behind the frowning providence, for he has written down all of our days in his book when as yet there were none of them (Psalm 139:14). Our days will not be cut short, nor prolonged. This is not fatalism. This is faith in our Father, Lord of heaven and earth.

Do pray for Anjel and Jason. And do read the whole post.

Should We Have Heroes?

Should we have heroes? Should we look to people as examples, to show us what is possible and to spur us on to what we can become?

There are arguments on both sides.

On the one hand, honoring heroes can be dangerous. Some Sunday School curricula are based around highlighting certain biblical characters as heroes, as examples that we should emulate. Such curricula – whether by intent or not – can distort the story of the Bible, transforming it from a story of God and His acts to a story of great men and women. Think of Abraham, of Moses, of Samuel, of David; think of Peter, of Paul, of John, of Paul. Scripture tells us of their weaknesses, their sins, and their flaws. They achieve greatness by God’s grace in spite of who they are as persons. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit is the hero in their stories.

We easily slip into similar errors when we make heroes of men and women in history: Stories of human achievement, of overcoming all odds, of tremendous sacrifice, and of devotion to country can idolize the person, overlook human sin, and minimize the role of God.

On the other hand, rightly told, stories of men and women like us who attain greatness can lead us to raise our vision above the commonplace, and help us to become what God intends us to be.

In a new book, If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty, Eric Metaxas argues that our tendency in the US over the last fifty years to debunk national heroes is one of several developments that have put our republic at risk. The concept of a country united not by ethnicity and language but by the idea of freedom was strange, foreign, and new at time of this nation’s birth. If “all men are created equal and . . . are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” then those of all classes, all incomes, and all religions are to participate in government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” What does such government look like? How can it continue to exist? What keeps us together as a people from generation to generation? Metaxas argues that one important element is the telling and retelling of the stories of the great men and women who have exemplified the ideals of America and sacrificed for the furtherance of those ideals.

He contends:

We are more than political ideas. We are a people who live those ideas out in common. Knowing those ideas is a vital first step, but part of how we know them is knowing how they came into being and how they were subsequently lived out in history. So by pushing away these common stories of our heroes, we have allowed ourselves to be drained of our very common identity as Americans. Our emotions must be as engaged in “keeping” the republic as our minds are engaged in it. It is the real stories of heroes like Washington and Nathan Hale and others that help us to properly feel the power of the ideas behind them. . . . By deciding that every potential hero is too flawed to celebrate and venerate, or that such stories are somehow corny, we have done a grave disservice to several generations and to the country. (p. 131)

So Metaxas includes stories of great men to illustrate his point: Americans George Washington, Nathan Hale, Benjamin Franklin, and Paul Revere, as well as Englishmen George Whitefield and William Wilberforce. Washington in particular “lives in a world in which virtue and honor are accepted as vital to the life they all wish to lead” – something we have lost as a country in the intervening years (p. 165).

Metaxas agrees with the point above about the danger of idolizing heroes. He is careful to argue that we must be open about the flaws of our heroes as well as the flaws in our country’s history:

Heroism and ignominy both are part of our history. The only question is whether, having seen both, we can repent of the one and rejoice and be inspired by the other. Or whether we will let one of them tempt us so far away from the other that we have a deeply distorted view. (p. 227)

So he says we should be inspired, even as we acknowledge the weaknesses and sins that come out in every country, and in all men and women.

So should we have heroes? How should we judge this biblically?

Heroes are a lot like parents. We parents must raise our children well; we must set an example for them; we must teach them Scriptural truths and live out those truths before them. We will fail. We will sin, against others and against them. We are flawed. But nevertheless, in a God-centered family, the children should be able to look at their parents, model themselves after the good aspects of their parents’ lives, and learn from their parents’ flaws.

Just so with heroes from past generations. We can and should look to a George Washington and learn from his devotion to others, his sacrifice for the common good, his wise leadership, and his critical stepping away from power after two terms. We can and should honor him, use him as a model, and be encouraged by his example of what God chooses to do through men. At the same time, we can see his limitations, how his view of slavery was shaped by his culture, how his view of God, similarly shaped by his society, was not entirely biblical, and be careful not to fall into similar errors.

Jesus is our only hero without flaws. We must look to Him above all. But we also need to see examples of other sinners, others stained like us, who through dependence on God, through turning away from themselves and giving up their own goals and comforts, glorify Him and serve their fellow men. Our role likely will be less prominent than theirs; our accomplishments likely won’t result in recognition now and biographies in the future. But as we follow Christ – and as we learn from and are spurred on by others who have followed Christ – we too can play key roles in God’s plan to fill the earth with the knowledge of His glory as the waters cover the sea.

So praise God for heroes. May we learn from their flaws, be inspired by their lives, living to God’s glory – and so become heroes ourselves.

What is T4T?

What is T4T?

If you are a part of Desiring God Church for long, you will hear the phrase “reproducing discipleship,” and the acronym, “T4T.” You may also be aware of debates within the wider evangelical church about whether T4T and church planting movements are biblical.

The name “T4T” stands for “Training for Trainers.” The name was coined by a missionary in southeastern China, Ying Kai, as he tried to describe a discipleship and church planting movement in which those who come to faith are trained immediately to share their faith with unbelievers in their circle of relationships. The movement that developed subsequently saw at least a couple of million people come to faith and gather in multiplying house churches in a short period of time. In this movement, all new believers were taught one way to share the Gospel, and one introductory set of Bible stories.

Praise God for that movement to Christ. But that history of the term “T4T” has led to misconceptions about its core principles. So let’s begin by making four “Not Statements” about T4T.

  • First, T4T does not consist of using a particular Gospel presentation, or a particular set of discipleship materials.
  • Second, T4T does not contend that if we follow the right program, many people will come to faith and many churches will be planted quickly. Indeed, T4T is not really about the number or speed of conversions.
  • Third, T4T is not contending that the church gathering in worship is unimportant, or that preaching is unimportant.
  • Fourth, T4T is not contending that house churches are better than churches that meet in church buildings.

Yes, some practitioners of T4T at times have spoken as if one or another of those “Not Statements” is true. But T4T does not imply any of them.

Instead, T4T begins with these five biblical foundations. We all should begin with these same foundations whenever we consider our role as God’s agents of change in the world:

  • First, we start with the Word of God. The Word and only the Word is authoritative; the Word is able to make us wise unto salvation; the Word will guide us, instruct us, rebuke us, train us, and correct us so that we are equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:15-17).
  • Second, all nations must hear the Gospel. We must take God’s message to every people group – not only to those like ourselves, but to every tribe and tongue and people and nation. For “This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). Thus, whatever evangelism, discipleship, and church planting strategy we devise must at least have the potential to reach every people group.
  • Third, there is no other name than Jesus Christ by which men must be saved (Acts 4:12). Specifically, no program, no formula, no technique has ever saved anyone.
  • Fourth: God the Holy Spirit is the agent of change, miraculously shining the light of His glory in our hearts, thus giving us new life by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). God converts people, not us. We bear witness. We testify. We must do so. But only a miracle brings people to faith.
  • So, fifth: We must pray diligently, persistently, unceasingly for God to do that great work. Even the Apostle Paul tells others they must help him by prayer (2 Corinthians 1:11).

T4T rightly emphasizes those five truths, which are common to all biblically solid evangelism and missions. Always interpret missionary accounts of church planting movements and techniques used in light of those biblical truths.

But in addition to those five truths, the proponents of T4T emphasize four additional biblical truths, arguing that these have often been overlooked in the church.

First: “Go!” not “Come!” Our Lord tells us in the Great Commission:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20a).

Too often our churches have thought of evangelism in terms of inviting unbelievers to an evangelistic service, or to an evangelist’s crusade. Praise God, some come to faith through such events. But our estimates in Charlotte are that somewhere between 40% and 60% of the population – including 100% of some people groups – will never come to an evangelistic event. Our Lord tells us to go to them, and we must do so. An evangelism and church planting strategy for a city does not even have the potential to reach all people groups unless it includes our going.

Second: “Disciples” not “converts.” Jesus tells us to make disciples. We are to teach new believers not only all that Jesus commands, but how to obey all that He commands. This implies practice and repetition; this implies looking at Scripture and asking how to obey it, then after a period of time looking back, being accountable, and seeing if I did obey. This also implies continuing in relationship with the person who has come to faith through my witness, helping him or her to become self-feeding from the Word, and day by day to become a more obedient follower of Jesus.

Third: Disciples make disciples. If that new believer is to learn to obey all that Jesus commands, he must learn how to make disciples of all nations – for Jesus commands that! So the new believer must learn to share the Gospel, to share the story of what great things God has done for him, and to lead others to share the Gospel and their story. So T4T emphasizes helping brand new believers to learn and practice a simple Gospel presentation, and then to learn and practice how to lead others in the same steps of discipleship they themselves have gone through.

The New Testament tells us of brand new believers whom God uses as evangelists, such as the woman at the well (John 4:1-42) and the man who had had a legion of demons (Mark 5:1-20). In the latter case, just hours after his healing, Jesus tells the man not to accompany Him. Instead He commands him: “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you” (Mark 5:19).

Many in our churches think they are not gifted in evangelism, and use that as an excuse for not sharing. T4T rightly emphasizes that we all share in the privilege and responsibility of sharing the Gospel – even while we value those with evangelistic gifts. A gifted evangelist may know 100 ways to share Gospel. He or she can adjust the presentation, respond to questions, and switch method depending on the listener’s response. A new believer, on the other hand, is probably better off knowing only one Gospel presentation. But he needs to know that one well.

Fourth and finally: Disciples gather into churches. As people come to faith, as they are taught to obey all that Jesus commands, they must become part of a church. Many of us in the American church have assumed that when someone local comes to faith, that new believer should become part of the same church as the one who spoke the Gospel to him. But that’s an extra-biblical assumption. Instead, T4T emphasizes that we should ponder the question: What should church look like for this new believer? And part of the answer to that question is: What church structure will help this new believer to continue to grow in obeying all that Jesus commands – including the command to go and make disciples? That is: What will keep the reproduction process going? If this new believer immediately shares the Gospel with friends and relatives who also come to faith, one possibility to consider is the beginning of a house church – with the initial evangelist continuing to invest in building up this new believer in understanding what a church is biblically, and being able to teach and share with those he has brought to faith.

Some are disturbed by the notion that a new believer could lead a church. But consider Acts 14. Paul and Barnabas spend a little time in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. People come to faith, but opponents become stirred up also, and they drive out the apostles. But then – perhaps only a few weeks later, at most a few months – Paul and Barnabas return, and appoint elders for them in every church (Acts 14:23). They appoint as elders men who had not been believers for more than a few months.

So the reproducing discipleship process called T4T is built on foundational principles common to all biblical evangelism. T4T emphasizes four other biblical principles which also should characterize our disciplemaking. I encourage you, like the faithful Bereans, to search the Scriptures and see if these things are true (Acts 17:11) – and then to go, make disciples who make disciples, and gather them into disciple-making churches.

(For a book-length examination of the biblical foundations of T4T and church planting movements, see Steve Addison, What Jesus Started: Joining the Movement, Changing the World.)

Seeing the Truth of Scripture

How does a person come to believe in the truth and authority of the Bible?

John Piper’s most recent book, A Peculiar Glory: How the Christian Scriptures Reveal Their Complete Truthfulness, addresses this question. The answer: We see its glory rather than infer its truth.

Seeing is central because saving knowledge is more than intellectual acknowledgment of truth claims. Saving knowledge includes loving God, treasuring Jesus, and staking your life on the Gospel. These don’t result from research that simply leads to inferences that the Bible is probably accurate. Furthermore, Scripture makes clear that such saving knowledge is available to all mankind, to the educated and uneducated, to the adult and the child, and not only to those with analytical minds and ability in historical research. So Piper writes:

The pathway that leads to sight may involve much empirical observation, and historical awareness, and rational thought. . . . But the end we are seeking is not a probable inference from historical reasoning but a full assurance that we have seen the glory of God. Thus, at the end of all human means, the simplest preliterate person and the most educated scholar come to a saving knowledge of the truth of Scripture in the same way: by a sight of its glory. (p. 15)

Does this even make sense? Note that this is the way Scripture speaks of salvation: Satan has “blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). But God is the One who creates light! He “has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). Furthermore, if “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17), then the saving sight of God’s glory comes to us through the Word – through Scripture. There thus must be a similar shining of God’s light in our hearts to come to trust the revealed Word.

Piper argues that although seeing the glory of Scripture may sound strange to our ears, there are other times when we must see truth rather than infer it. In Chapter 9 he presents several analogies to help us have some idea of what that seeing by divine illumination consists of. Here we will look at two of them.

First, as C.S. Lewis writes, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” That is, “In Your light do we see light” (Psalm 36:9). Piper writes:

Ordinarily when we seek to have a well-grounded conviction about some claim to truth in this world, we bring all our experience to bear on the claim and try to make sense out of it. . . . Does it cohere with what we know to be true? Does it make sense in the light of what we already know? What we know from experience is the standard, the arbiter, the measure of truth.

But what happens when we encounter a claim that says, “I am the Standard, the Arbiter, the Truth”? This claim is unique. It is not like other claims to truth in this world. When the ultimate Measure of all reality speaks, you don’t subject this Measure to the measure of your mind or your experience of the world. He created all that. When the ultimate Standard of all truth and beauty appears, he is not put in the dock to be judged by the prior perceptions of truth and beauty that we bring to the courtroom. The eternal, absolute original is seen as true and beautiful not because he coheres with what we know but because all the truth and beauty we know coheres in him. It is measured by him, and it is seen flowing from him. (p. 158)

Now, think: Jesus is “the true light, which gives light to everyone” (John 1:9). He is the standard. He is the measure. And He is the One who is the source of all knowledge:

He is one who can be known and the one who makes all knowing possible. He is a point of light—a point of truth and knowledge—that enters our minds, and he is the light by which we see all points of light. Thus we know him to be true, not because our light shows him to be so, but because his divine light shines with its own, all-enlightening, all-explaining glory. (p. 160)

And this provides us with an analogy for Scripture:

We know the Scriptures to be true, not because our light shows them to be so, but because their divine light shines with its own unique, all-enlightening, all-explaining glory.

The second analogy we will consider concerns Peter and Judas. Both lived with Jesus for about three years. Both saw Him, heard Him, spoke with Him, ate with Him. Jesus sent them both out to preach and to heal. Both are called disciples. Both are called apostles. Yet Peter saw Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Judas betrayed Him for a few thousand dollars.

What led to the difference between these two men? Why did one see, and the other did not?

Jesus Himself tells Peter, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17). Peter would not have seen apart from the revelation of God.

However, Piper argues that it would be wrong to say Judas did not see because it was not revealed to him. He did not see because he was a liar, a thief, a covetous person.

Consider John 3:19-20 in this regard:

Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

Commenting on these verses, Piper writes:

The root of our blindness is not that we are victims of darkness, but lovers of darkness. The root of our blindness is not that we are hindered from the light, but that we are haters of the light. We love the darkness of doing things our way, and we hate the light of the surpassing beauty of the all-authoritative, all-satisfying, sovereign Christ. And, therefore, our blindness is blameworthy—not, as the lawyers say, exculpatory. It does not remove our guilt. It is our guilt.

In this analogy, Judas represents people who approach the Christian Scriptures with a mind and a heart that are so out of tune with the music of its meaning that they cannot hear it for what it is. There is such a dissonance that the heart repels the revelation of God as undesirable and untrue. Peter represents the people who come to the Scriptures with a mind and a heart humbled by the Holy Spirit and open to the beauty and truth of God’s glory shining through the meaning of the text. What the analogy brings to light is that two people can be looking at the very same person (Jesus Christ) or the very same book (the Bible) and miss what is really there.

So the Scriptures are like Jesus in His essence  – the Light by which all is seen – and like Jesus in His humanity – the One who divides humanity into those who see His glory and delight in it, and those who are blinded by their own sin.

In our fallen state, we must see this glory – and our very fallenness blinds us to this glory.

Thus, there is no way we can have such sight unless we humble ourselves before God and His Word, unless we seek Truth from Him rather than establish ourselves as the arbiters of Truth. So may we approach God’s Word as supplicants, as needy people, as those thirsting in a desert – and may He satisfy us with His Truth, His Beauty, His Glory.

[The pdf version of the book is available as a free download at Desiring God. My approach to arguing for the authority of Scripture – as well as my personal story of coming to trust that authority – can be found in these blog posts from 2013: first, second, third.]

Christ the Door: The Secret of Access to God

[Lilias Trotter (1853-1928) was an accomplished English artist who spent the last forty years of her life as a missionary to Muslims in what is now Algeria. Beth and I saw a new film about her, Many Beautiful Things, Thursday night. The following is taken from the third chapter of The Way of the Sevenfold Secret (1926). Trotter wrote this book (originally in Arabic) to reach out to those involved in a mystical branch of Islam, Sufism. Note particularly the clear presentation of the Gospel and the uniqueness of Christ, all the while showing respect for her readers. We can learn much from her – Coty]

We have considered . . . the words of our Lord the Christ, — “I am the Light of the world.” Now . . . there comes through Him by the light the revelation of another wonderful secret: the secret of access to God. This access is the next step to that union with Him which is eternal blessedness. . . .

In the words of Christ [“Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep” (John 10:7)], we have the step of drawing near to God set forth to us by the symbol of a door— the door into a sheepfold.

Now a sheepfold is a place of safety in the midst of danger: the wilderness may be all around, and wild beasts may be heard growling only a stone’s throw off, but the sheep in the fold are as safe as if no enemies were there. They have entered in and they are saved.

So, in this new secret, God makes known to us that there is a place where even now in the wilderness of this world with evil prowling all around we may rest in safety as sheep within the fold. There is a place of nearness to God where the devil dares not venture that he may snatch the soul away; there is a salvation that is here and now.

We know, our brothers, that this is to you a new thought. Your belief is that no one can tell with certainty that he is saved until the day of account. You feel yourselves like sheep that may at any moment become a prey. Listen, for Christ speaks of a sheepfold right here in the wilderness, and of a door whereby we may enter in.

Now the symbol of a door of access to God is also to you a new thought. You think of man as separated from Him by the seventy thousand veils; and you hold that of these, ten thousand are abolished at each stage of the road: so that the state of access will only be bestowed by God’s grace when you have accomplished the long journey.

But the door is something different: it implies an entrance that needs but a single step, as we all know in daily life. No one thinks of a gradual progression in entering by a door: one moment he is without — the next he is within.

There is another great difference in the two symbols. Your thought in the veils is that it is the ignorance and imperfection of man that separates him from God. But the idea of a door implies a wall, and we find in the teaching of the Holy Book, that man is separated from God, not so much by his ignorance and infirmity, as by his sin: as it is spoken by the mouth of the prophet Isaiah: “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.” [Isaiah 59:2]

This wall has arisen, not as a veil under which we were born, but by our own building. It is true that the foundation of the wall between man and God rests on the sin of our father Adam, but it has been raised by the million sins of his race. The foundation of our sinfulness lies buried, so to speak, in the sinful nature that is our heritage, but since our childhood the wall has been built up by stone after stone of personal sins, great and small, that are uncounted by us, but counted by God. . . .

If indeed any ray of light has come to you, my brother, from Him who is the Light of the world, then you will see this wall of your sins to be great and high. What then is to be done to find the way of access? Man may go round the wall that he has built, seeking entrance, but he finds none. He may seek, as it were, to loosen the stones, that is, he may think that he throws down a stone from the wall of his sin when he performs a good action, but in truth he only replaces one stone by another, for even our good deeds are full of sin before God, and our very repentance needs to be repented of. [Like Paul in Acts 17:28, Trotter here is quoting a saying of the people she is writing to.] He says in the Holy Book, “In all your doings your sins do appear.” [Ezekiel 21:24]

Man’s repentance cannot undo his sin, and even the intercession of the saints and prophets is unavailing in this, for they shared our sinful estate. Neither our own repentance nor the intercession of others will move the wall, and the sin that has built it must be taken away if we are to find entrance.

You cannot get to God till you have found someone who can take away those sins, just as you cannot get through a wall except by finding some means of taking away that with which it was built

This brings us back again to the symbol of a door, . . . a door broken through in a wall that stands strong and high. If the wall is of brick, you must take away the bricks; if the wall is of stone, you must take away the stones. If the wall is of sin, a means must be found by which sin can be taken away.

Now Islam, my brother, shows no way by which these stones of sin can be removed: there is no revelation set forth in it showing a ransom whereby sin can be put away.

So this is the next of these seven secrets: God has found a way in Jesus Christ for the taking away of sin. It is said of Him,— “Now once, in the end of the world, hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” [Hebrews 9:26] He could do this, for He was of another nature from us, one with God, pure and sinless. “Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.” [1 Peter 3:18] “He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin”. [1 John 3:5]

The way in which this was accomplished was foretold in prophecy by the prophet Isaiah, when he said, —”All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid upon Him (that is, on the Christ) the iniquity of us all.” [Isaiah 53:] This word was fulfilled, and Christ gathered the sin of the world on Himself, though its touch must have been agony to Him, and “His own self bare our sins in His own Body on the tree”. [1 Peter 2:24] He bore them six hours till their burden and their darkness shut Him away from the Presence of God, and at last His Heart broke, and death came, when He could say, “It is finished.” [John 19:30]

In those hours God identified Him with our sin in His sight, as it is written.—”He hath made Him to be sin for us Who knew no sin”. [2 Corinthians 5:21]  And so when He went out of the world by death, with His Heart broken, the sin of the world was borne away from before God, and the door was left. [John 1:29] Christ Himself by gathering our sin on Himself and taking it away, has become the Door. Praise be to His Name.

Now see the words that follow: “I am the Door, by me if any man enter in He shall be saved.” [John 10:9] This does not mean only that he shall enter heaven after death. . . . These words mean that the man who takes Christ as his Door can pass here and now from the state of danger, shut out from God and a prey to Satan, into a state of shelter and rest as of sheep within the fold.

This is the rest and the nearness for which you long. You have wearied yourself to find the door by many efforts, by prayers and meditations and fastings. . . . But this new secret is that nearness may be yours to-day. If you have come to see that your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and that you need a Mediator who is not of this earth, then you are on the threshold. Take one step more and trust yourself to Christ in faith that His death for you has broken down every barrier, and that He brings you into reconciliation with God, here and now.

Fear not, for the word “if any man enter in” must mean you, for no exception is made of race, or creed, or state: you cannot be outside that number. It is not over-boldness when we enter in, just as we are, through this wonderful door. The overboldness would [be] seeking for some way other than the way God has appointed.

There is no other way: the sheepfold has only one door. You may go round about it, and you will find but the one opening. Christ says not “I am a Door,” but, “I am the Door.” God has but one door to the fold and that door is Christ.

Make haste to enter, my brother, for whilst you are yet outside, even on the threshold, you are still within reach of Satan, who “as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”. [1 Peter 5:8] Dare to “enter in.”

With one more word from that same verse we end this chapter. The verse ends,— “He shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture.” [John 10:9]

For when we have come to this state of salvation, we can, if we are under the guidance of the Good Shepherd, go back with Him, so to speak, into the world, to help those who are still outside the fold, and to find in this our joy. He does not mean our lives to be spent in idleness when we are saved or even in reading and meditation, but in seeking that we may follow His steps “Who went about doing good.” [Acts 10:38]