Note: If my thoughts on Psalm 2 feel sermonic, it’s because it is based on a series of sermons on each Psalm. They are chanted and sung congregationally throughout, then explained. Much of this material is edited to fit a larger audience. This series aims to stir our people at Providence Church (CREC) to love the song and the promise in each of God’s inspired lyrics. This is the second in the series. You can find the essay on Psalm 1 here. All quotations are used from the New King James Version—the official translation of our congregation in Pensacola, FL.

Unprecedented Times: Right?

Everyone has learned, in the last five years, to say, “We live in unprecedented times.” It’s become a modern refrain everywhere in the media. But it is better to say, “We live in times where people no longer look to precedents.” The Scriptures have already given us precedents for what our society considers unprecedented. Of course, it is true that a nation undergoes cycles or turnings, but there is nothing novel in God’s revelation.

Remember that scene from The Wizard of Oz where the wizard desperately declares, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” The wizard is like a man trying to hide from God or trying to hide behind new theories to explain or justify his actions. God sees it all. There is no new ethic for America in 2026; there is only God’s ethic for the Christian. There is no unprecedented way of being; there are only the virtues or fruits of the Spirit. We cannot reinvent ourselves because the times change. Whether we are in a positive, neutral, or negative world, there is only one thing that transcends all others: God’s Word.

In the beginning of Psalm 2, David is shocked by the boldness of the ungodly. Perhaps they thought they would catch God off guard with an unprecedented move. Yes, the ungodly can be subtle at times, but in Psalm 2, they are rather blatant about their strategy to destroy God’s people.

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Remember Psalm 1, where David speaks of the counsel of the ungodly. They think they can rule over us in judgment. Psalm 2 begins with David’s astonishment at their attempts—“Why do the heathen rage?” Why do they invade our churches and scream on a Sunday morning in Minneapolis (see video below), trying to interrupt the assembly of God’s people? They want attention, and they sincerely believe they can cause enough tumult to disrupt God's people. But David says it is “a vain thing.” The church will only grow stronger as a result.

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The crisis here is real. Many men simply should not enter the pastorate; others may need a season of careful reflection on the nature of the pastoral calling. They may need deeper confirmation of that calling, both externally and internally. If we are to cultivate a new generation of pastors, we will need a new generation of shepherds whose love for books is surpassed only by their love for the people of God.

I read recently a charge that John Murray offered at a pastoral ordination in 1960. It’s simple and to the point, and something worth considering for all those pursuing pastoral ministry:

Notice the tenderness required of ministers; and also note that the absence of a pastoral love for the people will be “offensive to all discerning people.” The old adage that people can forgive a bad sermon, but they will not forgive a bad pastor is relatively accurate. But I think a more fruitful way of saying this is that good pastors rarely preach bad sermons. They know their people, and the text is shaped by their pastoral affection for them.

I have written elsewhere about the significance of sermon manuscripts, and in some small measure, I believe that sermons are theological manuscripting through our people’s lives, questions, and concerns. We theologize on the basis of our pastoral labors among them. We don’t theologize in the absence of God’s people; we theology in their midst. Theology is the application of the Holy Scriptures fleshed out in the ecclesial life.

For the church to rebuild a wealthy reservoir of pastoral candidates in the future, we need to cultivate a sense of calling to ministry among our young men. In our attempts to desacralize the pastoral call and place it on equal footing with every other vocation, we have inadvertently diminished the noble work of shepherding God’s people and disincentivized the pursuit of serious theological and pastoral training. This is not to denigrate other callings (shoemakers are good) but to recover a proper esteem for the pastoral office with its weighty responsibilities, costly demands, and profound privilege.

I firmly believe the church should once again encourage qualified young men to consider whether God may be calling them to give their lives to preaching the Word, administering the sacraments, and caring for the souls of his people. The Church needs a new generation of sons of God who will go forth to war for the sake of the kingdom with bread and wine and Word

Nuntium

We have just returned from Moscow, ID. Apart from a host of CREC meetings and a fruitful NSA Board meeting, we also bid a temporary adieu to my favorite daughter. My first-born is now in the northenest region of the north; on the south side of Canada; in the great Palouse. While tears were shed, hopefulness prevails. It’s hard to imagine a more glorious place of Christian life and festivity, and an abundance of scholars who treasure the life of the body and who instruct for the sake of the greater good of their students.

Notations

The Influence of Postmillennialism

As recently as thirty years ago, postmillennialists were often dismissed as an obscure sect of utopian theologians. There may have been a scattering of Reconstructionists and the occasional Puritan remnant, a minority within a minority.

Today, postmillennial convictions are helping to shape denominations such as the CREC, institutions such as NSA and ACCS, and families through the homeschooling movement and the development of Christian curricula.

The postmillennial hope is not utopian fantasy; it is confidence in the creational pattern by which Christ, through his gospel, sanctifies peoples, cultures, and societies

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Nota Bene

No name quite stands out in the crime-solving world as that of Sherlock Holmes. Over the span of nine books, Arthur Conan Doyle managed to write Sherlock Holmes, along with his partner, Dr. Watson and his nemesis, James Moriarty, into the hearts of Western civilization. Since then, a constant stream of approved novels and shows has continued to expand his reputation. One of these shows is called Young Sherlock.

Directed by Guy Ritchie, known for his normally fast-paced films, but also his ability to slow down at times [films of his include Snatch (2000), The Covenant (2023), and the live-action Aladdin (2019)], paired with a brilliant cast, this TV series stood out in my mind for a few reasons.

First, the plot was genuinely intriguing and at times unpredictable. It follows a young Sherlock Holmes (played by Hero Tiffin) through a crime/murder solving spree. Starting at the prestigious University of Oxford, where his brother Mycroft Holmes (Max Irons) managed to get him a job as a scout (something like a college servant) after he fell out of favor with the law, he quickly became friends with James Moriarty (Donal Finn). Interestingly, as already mentioned, in the books this is Sherlock’s arch-nemesis, a genius without a soul, as Doyle puts it, but in this show, Moriarty plays the role of refining Sherlock’s wit.

Sherlock Holmes, along with James Moriarty, are unsurprisingly caught up in the deaths of multiple professors, a veritable murder mystery. Along the way, a Chinese princess, Holmes’s mother (residing in a mental institution), his father, and a plethora of other characters are introduced, coming together to weave a wonderfully interesting narrative.

Second, the script is simply delightful. Interactions between Sherlock and his brother Mycroft ought to be studied and emulated, and even the general level of dialogue is high above what I am used to finding in most, if not every movie or TV show I have watched. This was undoubtedly one of my favorite aspects, and it was where I thought this show completely triumphed. I have no other words to describe it, except to say that I loved the script.

Third, the supporting actors were phenomenal, particularly Donal Finn as Moriarty. He has been called a “show-stealer” by many critics, and I completely agree. I also personally enjoyed the character Mycroft Holmes (played by Max Irons). He longs for advancement in the British Bureaucracy, but his family comes first. In the first count, he is his father; in the second, his mother. He is stable throughout the show and demonstrates the remarkable first-child tendencies; he really is his mother’s boy. Those two are all I’ll mention for the sake of word count, but there were many more that provided just as much depth.

And this brings me to number four. The villain. And in the case of this show, the understood villain. Let me do a little explaining.

In my mind, the most common theme among villains is writers making them misunderstood in an effort to understand them. A little bit paradoxical if you ask me. And for this reason, it just doesn’t resonate. It is off. It tries to shift responsibility and to make the audience feel pity for a character who was/is otherwise meant to be deplorable. But in Young Sherlock, the villain, the mastermind, is unrepentingly a Darwinist. There is no misunderstanding. It is survival of the fittest drawn to its logical conclusion, then put into a person. For this person, ethics have no meaning; dog eats dog. What has to be done to secure your status will be done; analytical and domineering opportunists and plotters take the stage, oftentimes with a little too much Machiavellian principles in them for my taste. After all, isn’t it better to be feared than to be loved? And in the show, Sherlock comes to understand this, albeit after he unravels a web of lies that had ensnared him. But what a relief this is.

There is only relational pity for the villain. The villain’s greed is his driver, the world his stage, and the people his puppets. But if you have too many strings to control, one will eventually escape your grasp.

Interestingly enough, seeing atheism and Darwinism drawn to their conclusion is quite pitiable; I experienced the same frustration when watching the Marvel film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The main character has moments when her atheistic beliefs are on display and she says that her desires, her wants, are all that matter, everything else be damned. I digress; they just don’t seem to understand that you can never be the top dog. And in most cases, the man who is loved and who has a foundation that supports him, rather than one built on lies, will be their undoing. And so I present a significant achievement, in my mind at least, of the TV series Young Sherlock: the understood, and the understandable villain.

A little rehash: four things that stood out to me. The intriguing plotline, the delightful script, the thrilling supporting actors, and the emergence of a well-defined villain. In short, I loved this show. Sitting down in the evening to watch it with the older contingent of my family was the highlight of my week or so. But I probably would suggest 14 and up for Young Sherlock.

Now, I am no professional critic; I find most of them to be nitpicky. So I decided to present the things I enjoyed about the show, because it was enjoyable and worth my while. And I sincerely encourage you to also make time to watch Young Sherlock. I think that you will find yourself both charmed and entertained.

Preaching is not simply conveying data without thought to rhetoric. Healthy preaching develops a rhetorical framework through which ideas can be appropriately communicated and received by the people. It seeks to understand the ecclesial context before proclaiming the ecclesial word.

Much of this comes with time and trust in the pulpit. Each minister will develop a particular flavor that will communicate more astutely to their listeners. But the problem is that while we may communicate well to our particular people, we may not train them to listen well. It is possible to learn from poor communicators, but it is not ideal.

For this reason, ministers need to train themselves in preaching, considering their style and adjusting it as needed. I have written about ten questions to ask before each sermon here.

The danger of poorly articulated ideas is that they leave parishioners vulnerable to more seductive forms of learning. Preachers are imaginative creatures proclaiming a heavenly revelation that changes the thinking and structures of human understanding.

Paul chastises sophistry (I Cor. 2) but does not chastise proper rhetorical pursuits or persuasion (Acts 19:8). The minister brings the kingdom of God to full display in the preached word. He is not simply conveying data but a biblical dramatizer of the Word.

A Shout, Not a Whimper

The Bible is a book of stories. Every story whispers his name. True enough. But then again, we should believe that every story also shouts his name. Christ is there in the defeat of fat Eglon when the sword pierces his body, revealing that he is a man of dung. That was no mere whisper. It was there when Jael drove a tent peg through Sisera’s skull. That was no mere whisper.

Examples like these could be multiplied with little ease. This is more than a whisper; it’s a hallelujah ringing loud and clear. Jesus is the defeater of fat and evil kings and drives tent pegs through the skulls of his enemies, fulfilling the promise of Genesis 3:15.

Far from shyness, Christians should rejoice at such raucous occasions through sacred scriptures. Wherever our Lord goes, he produces disciples unto life or disciples unto death. There is no neutrality. There is no whisper but a loud shout of praise for the Lord our God, omnipotent, who reigneth over all his enemies (I Cor. 15:24-26).

C.S. Lewis’ Reading Advice

C.S. Lewis’ Introduction to “On the Incarnation” by Saint Athanasius is a lovely and fatherly overview of Christian reading habits. He warns against reading only modern books in favor of a first-hand account from the lips of Augustine or Calvin himself, for instance. He notes that modern portrayals of ancient authors give the false impression that reading current books satisfies the nature of ancient literature. Thus, he warns against the dangers of an “exclusive contemporary diet” (10). He sets the good rule of reading “at least one old book for every three new ones (10).

Two Categories of People to Avoid in Leadership

The more public a work/ministry becomes, the more careful one has to be with two categories of people:

Flatterers: I have often differentiated flattery from praise by stating that flattery is consistent and generic, whereas praise is timely and specific. Something similar to what the poet Anne Bradstreet noted when she wrote, “Sweet words are like honey, a little may refresh, but too much gluts the stomach.” Or some variation of the multiplication of words principle (Prov. 10:19). A leader must learn to despise flatterers by dismissing their comments and giving them little attention.

He needs to see that their intentions may not always be to gain favor with your role, but are often to gain something from the association. Flatterers rarely serve, but they are generally charismatic. They watch from afar and come close only when suitable and advantageous for them.

Anonymous Naysayers: These will pose on social media as genuine interlocutors, but ultimately, they are only here to cause distractions and function as detractors. They will find a hundred reasons to parse a jot or tittle. They will take issue with virtually everything you say, hoping you will engage with their words and give them a spotlight. But they are not seeking genuine interaction. They are pursuing a monological moment in which they can speak from angst, hoping you will absorb their frustration and respond to their grief.

I recommend avoiding these: blocking them quickly and limiting your online interactions only to those with a disposition toward knowledge.

I have said, humorously, to my congregation and in other contexts that every parent should pray that their children share a boring testimony as they age. And of course, I mean it facetiously to get their attention. In other words, they should be content and thrilled that their offspring never experience the bitter taste of unbelief; the unsavory feast of unrighteousness, and the fellowship of demons. Their testimony should be that Jesus is good, life is good, and fellowship in the community of Jesus is good. No history of drunkenness. Drugs. Multiple sexual partners. Just ordinary faithfulness and ordinariness in the house of the Lord.

We should undoubtedly rejoice in the kindness of God in bringing satan-bound sinners to the foot of Jesus; to the Father’s house. But Luke 15 should not be treated as a statistical paradigm guaranteeing that those who abandon Christ will eventually return. Instead, they show a redemptive historical reality of God’s people finding refuge in his fatherly care after their exile and wilderness wanderings. And again, at a personal level, they do serve to comfort the grieving parent whose child has been excommunicated, but it should not be seen as the norm.

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Evangelical culture loves a dramatic story. It has romanticized the prodigal, turning him into a hero who squanders his inheritance only to return home triumphantly. Revivalistic religion prioritizes the testimony of the alcoholic, the four-times-married individual, the drug-addict who comes to Jesus, because such stories make good headlines.

But the covenant child who was baptized at First Presbyterian, catechized from his earliest days, killed the dragon, got the girl, raised a tribe of little hobbits, and now serves quietly as a deacon in his local church receives no red-carpet entrance. His story has little dramatic appeal and attracts no front-page attention. I am not saying that it should. I am saying that the steady life of ordinary faithfulness is often minimized in favor of the spectacular. The ordinary is set aside for the extraordinary, even though the ordinary is itself an extraordinary work of grace.

Blessing the Ordinary, Non-Prodigal Life

Recently, we had one of those stories of a prodigal coming home. It was splendid. There was much rejoicing. Believe it or not, a Reformed congregation cheered out loud at the occasion! We brought out our inner Pentecostal and rejoiced that a sinner who was lost was now found. Thanks be to God.

But on the other hand, the repentant covenantal member who lives, moves, and has his being in God needs also to be encouraged by the regularity of feasting at his Father’s house. The prodigal returns to a great feast, but the son who never leaves should receive the regularity of the good life. He too needs to be exhorted to live faithfully before God and man—to continue the good fight of faith towards the upward prize. He needs to be urged to action and godly ambition.

The nature of such steadiness needs three additional encouragements:

First, they need the well-done remarks from older saints. They need to be reminded often to continue in the path of righteousness, and to pursue and delight in the ordinary. They need resources, wisdom, and affection from those whose lives may not have seen the ordinary, but instead came through the eye of the needle. Those who have suffered violence to enter the kingdom of heaven should urge the sons and daughters of God to avoid that tumultuous route.

Second, pastors should be aware of such testimonies of loyalty among their young men. Not only should they be cultivated, but also urged towards diaconal functions in the church. The young married man may be too young to become a deacon, but he is not too young to be a diaconal assistant in various duties. Put him in positions where his faithfulness is harvested as an example among all.

Finally, encourage them to urge others in the goodness of the Christian life. Remind them of the blessings of hospitality, songs, worship, fellowship, festivities, Church Calendar, liturgies of the morning and the evening, obedience, and benedictions. Make the ordinary heavenly and the heavenly life to be the ordinary life.

While we all rejoice when the prodigal comes home from the den of pigs, there is even much more to rejoice in the ordinariness of a Christian life—the faithful and true baptismal life.

Such experiences ought to be the norm. We should not hope to see extensive cases of apostasy within the church. We should not have to experience the pain of an excommunication as a regular feature of the Church’s life. Instead, we should expect that from the font to the table and to the grave our children grow in the wisdom and knowledge of God all their days. So that, looking back over their lives, they cannot remember a day when they did not know God’s fatherly care.

Notations

As I walked the beach in Outer Banks this past week, I did something I rarely do: listen to an entire funeral service. In this case, it was the funeral of the late Glen Hansard. I had delved into Glen’s canon after wandering happily into Falling Slowly, which I still think is one of the finest ballads ever written.

The service was a mix of Catholic liturgy and Ireland’s greatest artists (including Bono). I cannot tell you how moved I was by the service and the vast eulogies. The song composed by his older brother, Gary (I Can See God), was an emotional masterpiece.

In these last seven days since Hansard's death, I have worked my way through most of his albums and found a wild collection of gems, including The Song of Good Hope, which I have listened to liturgically. All of this leads me to the interview below, recorded three months before Glen’s motorcycle accident in Dublin. The interview is warm and almost like a living-room setting, with Glen speaking candidly about his writing process, growing up with a broken father, his collaborative work with blues icons, and the appearance of his little boy, Christy, on the screen. I was handling the interview with intellectual strength until his little one showed up. At that moment, the agony of knowing that the little lad would grow up without his father really hit me.

Anyway, here’s Glen; a man I never met, but a man I hope to meet.

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The plane landed around midday on Monday in Norfolk, Virginia, and then we drove a couple of hours across the border to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. My first talk was that first evening, and I had not yet tasted sleep since 3 am. Suffice to say, the mind was not as pristine. But after six talks, three Q&As, and a host of incredibly pleasant interactions throughout our time, I can honestly say that I have spent the entire week lecturing in the company of some truly delightful humans, all of whom were alert, aware, and self-assured about the good news in their lives. To my knowledge, no one fell asleep, and these lectures were up to an hour on a few occasions.

My goal was to use my talks to engage these young adults, who are already productive members of their local churches (CREC, PCA, and others) in hospitality, work, and submission. It’s been some time since I addressed young adults exclusively. Poiema was a terrific example of the healthy environments we are providing for our young, single adults to talk about objective things from a place of present experience rather than expectation. After all, some of them own businesses and are already engaged in many serious aspects of life while making consequential decisions. May God provide them with faithful spouses and steady godly communities.

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I wish to briefly address what must take place within the body of Christ so that such incidents are avoided or, at the very least, learned from. There is too much at stake, and the unrelenting attacks on manhood in our day will compel this misery unless God, by the power of the Spirit, reorients our attention to a renewed brotherhood.

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II. Modern culture has adopted this same serpentine rhetoric. It has divorced the couple even before they are married by whispering to them that eating the fruit of deception will make everything easy. Our society says that just as Eve went on her individualistic journey in the garden, so too can two individuals pursue their own separate agendas and journeys. This is the dogma of the false gods.

III. After Genesis three, Adam and Eve learned that marriage is dangerous and that it takes a new family working together to ensure that Satan’s lies are no longer accepted. A godly marriage needs to reassert to the world that the fall did not destroy God’s purposes; that the fall was no surprise for God’s ultimate intentions for a husband and wife.

IV. Marriage is dangerous, but it is a danger you should joyfully embrace. Marriage is dangerous; it is as dangerous as the gospel of grace. Just as the gospel does, marriage accomplishes its purpose in the world. Marriage is dangerous, but it is a risk you must be willing to embrace for the life of the world. And by embracing this risk, your marriage is a part of the re-creating of the world after the image of the Triune God. It has cultural and cosmic implications. So as you embrace this holy calling, know that your marriage becomes a symbol of the gospel.

V. Marriage is fundamentally a metaphor. In Ephesians five, Paul says, “This is a mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.” It is not as if God created marriage and then afterward said: “You know, this would actually make a pretty good picture of the relationship I have with my people.” It is the other way around. God intended to unite Himself to His people, to join Himself to His people, to marry His people, and then He created human marriage between husbands and wives to show and reveal and to symbolize that to us. In Ephesians five, it is Christ’s marriage to the Church that is foundational. Our marriages are derivative; they are the copy. Marriage is a metaphor of Christ and the Church. It is a parable of the gospel. It is a replica; a model of Christ’s relationship to the Church. The first thing you must understand is that marriage is not really about marriage; it is about Christ and the Church, and if you do not understand this, you will never understand the glorious danger of marriage. The symbolism is not added on top of marriage; the symbolism is the root and foundation of marriage. The greatness of marriage is found in what it symbolizes.

VI. Marriage is dangerous because selfishness dies and selflessness becomes the living premise of this new family. In a wedding ceremony, death is a necessary part of this journey. And by dying, you symbolize to the world that marriage has responsibilities. You are not two individuals pursuing different agendas under the same roof; rather, you are two individuals who are dying to individualism and embracing a new identity. This marks the end of an old world and the embrace of a new one. But as you are united to one another, you are also declaring that the relationships and marital paradigms of the world are dead without Christ. What makes your death so glorious is that it is a death united to the crucified Lord. And it is precisely because of the necessity of your deaths that God proclaims the purpose of marriage to be one of feasting and resurrection.

VII. Marriage is the most joyous and celebratory event in the sight of man. It is the last bastion of formality in an age of informality, the last ritual in a culture barren of ritual.^[1] The reason modern culture seeks to destroy it is because of its inescapable parallel to the marriage victory of Christ and His Bride in time and history. In a wedding ceremony, you are tasting what it means to be in the tomb of death and out of the tomb in resurrection. In marriage, you are declaring to the world that Jesus has fundamentally changed the sadness and sorrow of death to the ever-growing abundance of resurrection life.

VIII. Marriage is dangerous, but it is a danger worth embracing; a danger which the Son embraced when he came to dwell among us. So, when you begin to experience the natural difficulties of marriage, remember that Jesus has gone before us.

^[1] Quoted from A Great Mystery by Peter Leithart, pg. 2.

Notations

C.S. Lewis would have been appalled by modern contemplations of heaven found in Christian bookstores. Some see John’s measure in the end of Revelation and assume that the author is interested in conveying an exact dimension. Liberals, on the other hand, despise and mock any version of heaven since the literal descriptions thereof have more in common with fairy tales than an actual place.

Though these perspectives may differ slightly, they all suffer from a similar problem: literalism. No Biblical thinker will deny the legitimacy of a real heaven, where real people will walk in real places. However, the danger in interpretation is that genres are often overlooked. Take, for example, the apocalyptic dimensions of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Anyone familiar with such language will immediately assume that it is rarely, if ever, used literally.

According to Lewis, we cannot take these literally; they are symbolic. To assume that these descriptions were literal betrays a fundamental principle of hermeneutic. The early fathers understood this, and so did the Reformers. Lewis has a few words for those who attempt to make the text the unthinkable:

People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, He meant that we were to lay eggs (Mere Christianity, 123).

Nuntium

I am headed to Virginia this Monday to speak at Poiema. My traveling has been about 40% lighter than 24-25. It’s been refreshing, but I confess it is always a pleasure to meet new folks, teach, and enjoy the festivities of different communities around the country.

But the applause of the age is a poor shelter from accountability. Today, the same man, once surrounded by cameras and celebrity praise, now sits before a Senate committee, invoking the Fifth Amendment and declining to answer questions. Rand Paul wasted no time placing Fauci in his deserved place.

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I have been writing sermons in manuscript form for as long as I can remember. I even think the first sermon I ever preached in 1999 on Deuteronomy 8 was manuscripted. I loved the confidence it gave me. It was the answer to the imperative “Show me the money!” Well, here it is. In Times New Roman and 14-point font.

I loved the art of choosing words carefully to fit the context. I remember thinking that a turn of phrase or a phrase that turns will stick with the general parishioner more so than a lengthy exposition of Hebrews 6:5. I love myself some exegesis, but I just find that the standard exegetical sermon belongs much more behind a lectern than the pulpit. I understand the impetus of Puritans in an age of illiteracy, but I cannot understand 75-minute Puritan preaching in an age of excessive and available literacy.

Writing manuscripts and developing the argument line by line removes the temptation to stray into strange sermonic territories. Now, as I have gotten older and mastered certain topics, it is far easier to offer expositions on them without a manuscript. But I don’t think I would ever dare to do so with newer topics and texts. And while the pastor sometimes recycles material, he is constantly refreshing his repertoire. I have witnessed non-manuscript pastors fall into the temptation to drift into the wilderness, which can leave the speaker and the listener stuck at Mt. Carmel, fighting Baalites, when they need to move on to the Promised Land—a metaphor for the end of a sermon, if you’re following my drift.

I remember reading Annie Dillard’s delightful little book The Writing Life where she notes that to write is to “make the path boldly and follow it fearfully.”(3) It’s unfortunate that many pastors can make the path boldly, but then linger unfearfully along the way, never arriving at home.

Now, I still think that preaching is the power of God through personality. And I wouldn’t want a manuscript to take that away. Yes, it’s divine revelation; holy truth, piercing asunder, and more, but ultimately it’s still a human speaking—delivering a message from God using his style, his mannerisms, and cadence. Yes, all these things can be trained. It should be trained. No one should be content with his style, since no preacher has attained excellence. Like anything, preaching is an art. But still, at the end of the day, you still have a man…weak, sometimes sleepless, and sometimes offering the very last of his energy in the theater of God’s glory.

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That said, I still advocate for the manuscript through the personality of a given man. It will make the servant of God a better writer, a better word-selector, and a fuller thinker, able to transition people from one thought to another without confusion or mixture (let the reader understand).

I don’t want to talk here about rhetoric, of which I have at other occasions, but simply to argue for the manuscript as the preacher’s raw canvas at the beginning of the week. Yes, the ol’ fashioned manuscript from which we have derived famous sermons in history, from which we have gained glorious pieces of ever-living history. It’s simply a good habit; a good practice; a good way of learning your way through the vast domain of communication.

And that’s what writing is—communication. Of course, one can be a bad writer for a host of reasons. He doesn’t read. He only consumes media. Manuscript writers who are not good readers will eventually fall into mechanical writing, which entails a lot of words and little to grasp. Or, they will fall into repetitive writers, which entails regurgitating the same ideas with little creativity.

But the manuscript writer who works hard at his craft will learn three things:

I. The art of editing. He will develop an ability to say things creatively without being pedantic. He will be able to say what needs to be said concisely, rather than abruptly. And the difference is important. The concise communicator has worked through his manuscript and realized he has already said too much, and that much of it is too much to consume. The abrupt writer says things too flippantly and carelessly without regard for the listener and reader. He comes across as obtuse for his lack of compassion in communication. And thus, he is understood by a few and overlooked by the many.

II. The art of explaining. He will develop an ability to say things understandably. This means that he will be able to illustrate his ideas in a way that doesn’t belittle the text nor the listener. He won’t be overly explanatory, nor will he be simplistic. He will learn his congregation and therefore know the necessary word count and the time required to achieve the desired goal.

III. The art of ending. He will develop an ability to reach his intended goal. Everyone has had an experience where a minister simply couldn’t figure out where to end or when to end. A manuscript could help you end well, instead of killing us softly with this song. Ending a sermon is one of the greatest gifts to a congregation; a flat or tiresome end leaves the listeners incomplete, but a clear ending takes them to where they need to be.

Of course, I haven’t dealt with how best to articulate a manuscript. There are manuscript readers who put the listener and the listener’s children to sleep. I may touch on it another time, but for now, remember that manuscript helps you to become a better editor, a more gifted explainer, and someone who knows when the Spirit has done his task through you.

Movie Review

I may start writing movie reviews again. They were usually part of my Saturday morning Facebook posts, where I briefly reviewed an older movie for the modern world.

I’d like to add a few words to the lovely 1949 film The Forbidden Street Britannia Mews. The movie is based on the best-selling novel by Margery Sharp, and it was not recommended for children at the time. Why—because there were a few kisses and the discussion of various mature themes. It’s hard to imagine the movie industry's decline today.

The lovely Maureen O’Hara plays Adelaide, a privileged young woman who defies her family by marrying an impoverished artist. Some will remember her from Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Adelaide pushes the envelope of social acceptability in her London context and decides to marry an artist whose reputation as a womanizer and drunk comes into play quickly in their marriage. Her failure to heed the cultural environment (Christianized London) where integrity and the honor of her parents are honored thrust her into Britannia Mews, a place known for its degradation. Her husband lacks the ambition to provide for her in the art world, but has a gift for making puppets, which Adelaide thinks unfortunate.

The rest of the movie is a form of romantic and dramatic redemption for Adelaide, who is now entangled with the bribery and bullying of an old “witch” in the community and is now navigating a new life in Britannia Mews. The story carries a lovely series of providences that bring Adelaide to a happy ending, and resurrects the puppets for a new life. Meanwhile, she plays within the confines of 1950’s London, and the integrity of marriage that the society requires.

I’d give it a 6 Britos!

a) Forming strong bonds among leaders. Invest in them with encouragement and lots of good food and drink. Most institutions are not broken from the bottom but from the top.

b) Emphasize unity with fervency. Make it central to the church’s life, but don’t water down unity to a bare minimum. Build unity on the essentials primarily and the distinctives of the flock secondarily.

c) Locate the strong men in the church and give them assignments that will equip them for future diaconal or eldership calling. Preparing future officers is an absolute necessity for bringing coherence to the life of the body.

d) Meet with those wishing to make tertiary issues into primary, even if you find those issues appealing. Do not allow them to build a following that exalts the odd. Warn them of the social and ecclesial consequences of fracturing the body. These individuals need to be shepherded into catholicity, not away from it.

e) Sing together a lot. At church. At home. At gatherings. A church that sings together stays together. Every institution needs its songs of lament in times of trial. We sing them now in times of peace to be tuned for times of grief and division.

Update: a dear parishioner asked a follow-up to this:

Brief California Reflections

It’s been a full week for me in Santa Clarita and in the stunning Ojai Mountains. Seeing the CREC expressed across the country and around the world is an experience I will never forget.

While I traveled quite a bit before my election as PMoC in 2023, I have undoubtedly doubled my traveling since then. It’s been an incredibly rewarding experience for me and my family who joined me for most of those journeys. While you accumulate some flying perks along the way, the trips have become more and more difficult as I get older. Nonetheless, it has been an honor to form new friendships everywhere, teach and preach the Word of God, and emphasize the importance of our distinctives as a denomination.

My week in California was splendid. Early-morning walks in the 60s gave me a taste of glory. Long conversations and witnessing the Gospel being passed down to future generations were also enthusiastic parts of being both a participant and an observer. The saints here, led by Andrew Richardson and his associate Aaron Fudge, are hospitable and embody the kind of CREC ethos that leaves you full in body and soul.

The last time I was here was in 2021, and the climate and culture of Los Angeles were much more oppressive then. It was COVID-hysteria x 100 in the Newsom reign. While some things don’t change and the political channels continue to be polluted by an endless perversion, no place on earth matches the splendor of California's weather. It’s mid-July, and there was dancing, eating, and playing—all of it outside with the delicious breeze. It felt repetitive to note the pleasantness of the weather, but I did so several times, with “thanks be to God” ringing in my ears each time.

I have uttered on numerous occasions how I wished I had something like a Summer Sanctus in my early teens. While God preserved me during my teen years, I know that I could have benefited much more from the joyful psalmnody of the church. I could have gained much from the solid Reformational heritage, and so on. Yet, I recognize that the story written for me was one where I prepared the way for my offspring to absorb these things deep in their souls. As for me, I had to undergo theological maturation through reading, writing, and deep reflection on a host of issues. I had to be undone so that my children could be beneficiaries of all these things. I don’t look back with regret. God was writing the perfect story.

Note: If my thoughts on Psalm 1 feel sermonic, it’s because it is based on a series of sermons on each Psalm. They are chanted and congregationally sung throughout. Much of this material is edited to fit a larger audience. This series aims to stir our people at Providence Church (CREC) to love the song and the promise in each of God’s inspired lyrics. This is the first in the series.

The Way of the Blessed Man

We have always placed a great emphasis on the Psalms. One of my important goals is to ensure that the Church leaves behind at least one singable tune for each psalm.

But there is something else we must cultivate when it comes to the Psalms, and that is an understanding of their breadth and depth. In other words, the Psalms are not merely devotional piety; they are exegetical treasures, weapons for taking down strongholds.

Now, we may sing them, but the ideal is to sing them understandingly—to sing them with wisdom and insight.

From the earliest days of the Church, we have been a psalm-singing people. So, it seems good that we dive into a few psalms, beginning with the genesis of the Psalter, Psalm 1.

I use the word genesis intentionally because Psalm 1 closely aligns with and indeed replays several key themes we see in the Garden of Eden. But we will return to this at the end.

There is a great deal of movement in this opening psalm: there is walking, standing, and sitting. The psalms are sung liturgies; they inform us not only how to pray but also what our posture, mood, and disposition should be in the presence of God. And it’s very clear from the beginning that the liturgy of the church involves the whole body.

Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

Worship is not meant to be a spectator sport. When we come into the presence of God in worship, we move, and live, and have our being in Him. It would be strange to treat these movements as mere spiritual matters. The Pietist would read Psalm 1 and say, “These are spiritual movements.” They would say, “Follow these postures in your heart.” But as Douglas Wilson says, “Theology comes out of your fingertips.” The Psalms are flesh-and-blood. They are tangible movements, which is why we don’t individualize them to how I feel; in worship, we all move and live together as one body under one Lord.

So, when the congregation kneels, everyone kneels. When the congregation lifts up holy hands, everyone does the same. Worship is not the place for expressive individualism. Worship is the place where individualism goes to die.

But not only is the psalmist interested in ways of being, ways of acting; he also sings about a particular culture—one marked by bodily engagement. He begins with a list of benedictions. Psalm 1 functions as the Old Testament counterpart to the Beatitudes: “Blessed is the man!” Or, as another translation renders it, “Oh, happy is Adam.” Blessed is the image-bearer—who does what?

First, “he walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.” The ungodly seek an audience with him. “Let’s go for a walk,” they say. And what do the wicked want? They want to include you in their agenda; they want to persuade you that your view of life is flawed. But the wicked will not always be blunt about it. Often, they operate with artistic subtlety—through sitcoms, by introducing a sympathetic gay character when you least expect it, or by articulating a vision of paradise where everyone shares everything equally in New York City. Evil is often subtle in its marketing department.

There are many sad examples of young Christians whose thinking shifts after prolonged exposure to the counsel of the ungodly. Someone may begin by observing how kind unbelieving classmates are, only to find that her perspective on the Christian faith soon changes dramatically. She may go from delighting in God’s people to enjoying the company of the ungodly. Eventually, she may concede that she no longer wants the God of the Bible and abandon the faith.

This is a lesson in the dangers of walking in the counsel of the ungodly. Remember, saints: watch not only where you walk, but with whom you walk; watch where you stand, and with whom you stand; watch where you sit, and with whom you sit.

The New King James Version, Psalm 1:

Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful.

These are ways of being, moving, and living that all end in the same place, the place of unblessedness, of unhappiness.

Planted, Fruitful, and Unmoved

The contrast in verses 2–3 is rich. If you avoid these movements, these paths, and these voices, and instead delight in the law of God—meditating on it as a rhythm of life—you will be known as someone steady and immovable. If you go about chanting, humming, singing the psalms, storing the Ten Commandments in your heart, you will not fall prey to online or campus deception. You will walk peacefully with your husband or wife and with your children. You will walk in peace in the church and your community.

Psalm 1 is the kind of psalm that must be memorized, cherished, sung, and revisited again and again. It gauges your habits.

Does this psalm describe you? Does it describe the direction and trajectory of your movements at school, at home, on campus, and at church?

When people think of you, do they say: “That’s a young lady not prone to foolishness and gossip”? “That’s a young man who could one day serve as an officer in the Church”? “That’s someone who draws others toward love, joy, and peace.” “Their disposition is cheerful;” “He’s not quarrelsome.”

The Psalmist uses the language of stability: planted, fruitful, not withering, prospering. That is the blessed life. That is the good life—not a million followers on X, nor necessarily wealth, but a long obedience in the right direction; thousands of habits of grace; millions of words of encouragement; faith upon faith; grace upon grace; cuddling moments with children; coffee with friends; Bible studies; psalm-roars. That is the true Gospel of prosperity.

The New King James Version, Psalm 1:

The ungodly are not so,
But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

There is a different composition to the ungodly. “They are not so,” that is, they are altogether different. They don’t share the Christian worldview. They pursue different goals. Their agenda is not the glory of Yahweh but self-fulfillment. And this leaves a legacy of selfishness to their offspring.

The Psalmist says that “the wind drives them away.” The word for wind is the same word for Spirit—ruach. In Scripture, the Spirit is the cleanser of history. He hovers over creation, removing uncleanness, making all things new. As he did in Genesis, he continues to do today in our world. In the case of the ungodly (those who scheme against God’s people), the Spirit ensures that their labors are in vain. The ungodly do not endure. He drives them away. He separates them, whether by excommunication or keeping the church pure from corruption; the Spirit drives the ungodly out of the camp.

The New King James Version, Psalm 1:

Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

Again, notice the movements. The Christian sits, stands, and walks in the congregation of the righteous. He moves for the sake of true justice, knowing that he will stand before the great Judge Himself. When the Psalmist says the ungodly “shall not stand in the judgment,” he means they will not stand in judgment over God or over us in the congregation. They will not set our agenda as Christians, nor will they dictate how we raise our children, how many children we have, where we worship, how we worship, or with whom we worship.

The unrighteous will not dictate how the Church is ordered, because they despise the judgment of the Church. They hate what is good. They turn away from holy principles, preaching, and psalms.

Indeed, the ungodly are not so. They may rule for a time, but the principle stands: as the way of the righteous prospers, the ungodly perish. Yahweh knows our ways, because He knows our thoughts and our movements.

Christ, the True and Blessed Adam

So, now, let’s return to that Genesis theme and answer a question which the Psalmist assumes, which is, Who is the “blessed man” of Psalm 1? The answer is obvious, but it must be remembered that Psalm 1 is a reinstatement of the opening chapters of Genesis. Who walked, stood, and sat in the counsel of the ungodly? Adam did. Rather than delighting perpetually in the counsel of God, Adam heeded the voice of the serpent. He should have interrupted that dialogue and protected his wife from the scornful.

Instead of remaining planted as a tree, uncorrupted by false voices, he partook of the tree of death. God had called Adam to trust Him and to wait upon Him, but he chose the counsel of the wicked.

How did our Lord respond to the failure of Adam?

Jesus enters the scene in the first century and is immediately thrust into warfare with the Devil and his ambassadors. Yet He does not walk with them, nor stand or sit with them. He rebukes them with the Word of the Lord. He delights to do the will of the Father, day and night. He meditates on, quotes, and embodies the law of God.

He plants Himself by rivers of water. Indeed, He becomes the fountain of living water for all who thirst. He becomes the tree of everlasting life by giving His body on a tree for the life of the world. Yes, whatever He does prospers. Whomever He touches is healed. Whatever tree He curses withers. Those He rebukes fall. Those He blesses prosper.

Psalm 1 does not end by asking us to admire the blessed man from a distance, but to follow Him. In Christ, the true Adam, the blessed life has been given to us before it is ever demanded of us. He has walked where we failed, stood firm where we wavered, and sat enthroned where we could not. And now, united to Him, the Spirit plants us by living waters and teaches us how to walk, where to stand, and where to sit.

So go from this place unafraid of faithfulness, unashamed of holiness, and unmoved by the counsel of the ungodly. Delight in the law of the Lord. Sing the Psalms with understanding. Raise your children in wisdom. Love the Church. Trust the slow work of God. For the way of the righteous is known by the Lord, and in Christ, that way leads not to chaff and scattering, but to life, fruitfulness, and everlasting joy.

Notations

• If you are an old soul like me, this interview with Billy Joel was iconic in every way—beginning with the discussion about the role of classical music in shaping his own, the influences of the Beatles, and the musicality of vowels. The whole thing was splendid!

• I had never heard of the Spanish journalist Itxu Díaz over at the American Spectator, but I shall familiarize myself with him after this ode to the West. And it comes right as I begin to delve into the Iliad. So, extra timely gem. Here’s his closing paragraph:

  No. Not all cultures are of equal value. Not all ideas deserve equal respect. Not all the barbarism found in the non-Western world can be explained away by the injustices suffered by those who commit it. The West, too, could have become its worst self. It could have remained trapped in Nazi barbarism, embraced bloody revolutions, or failed to resist the Muslim invasions. Instead, it chose to strive for its best self. Others did not. Other cultures, like the one Zohran Mamdani admires, struggle every day to return to their worst. That is why the following statement is neither arrogant nor provocative, but calm and firm: the West is better. And we should be proud enough to defend it to the end, just as our ancestors did.

• On Households:

What in the world would you expect from a third-place match? Both teams entered the arena with devastating memories. The hopes of what could have been are now replaced by many who believe it is a consolation match; an opportunity for young players to get their minutes and fulfill their dreams of playing in the World Cup. Well, the story ends with England defeating France. But the story itself is quite astonishing.

Remember that many had dismissed it as a meaningless match—perhaps even the players themselves.

England made a host of changes to their starting eleven, but when Declan Rice scored the opening goal after only a couple of minutes, everyone sensed that there might be something special about the occasion.

But I doubt the 65,000 present expected England to score four goals in the first half. It was a dominant performance. Tuchel looked proud. It’s as if his deadly move to play defense against the Argentinian superstars was going to be undone in a game of a lifetime.

As the teams headed down the tunnel with England leading 4–0, cries of France’s apocalyptic collapse rang out. The contest appeared to be over. Duchamp’s last game with the French squad would end in tragedy. Even I had 2014 Brazil/Germany vibes.

Then something remarkable happened.

France emerged for the second half transformed. A response had been expected, but they exceeded every expectation. They played with urgency and confidence, gradually putting themselves in a position to complete a legendary comeback from a four-goal deficit—a feat never before achieved in World Cup history (happy to be corrected here). And with tremendous precision, they scored magnificent and well-crafted goals.

England responded by introducing several of their regular starters, including Jude Bellingham. Even so, the momentum remained unmistakably with France. With the score at 4–3, a French equalizer seemed almost inevitable.

Then England won a clear penalty.

Bellingham took hold of the ball, and everyone assumed that England’s brightest star was about to seize the moment and stun the world once again. He stood over the penalty spot with the ball in his hands, but, at the last second, he turned and gave it to Bukayo Saka.

Saka had already scored twice. If he converted the penalty, he would become only the fourth Englishman to score a hat-trick at a World Cup. It was an extraordinary gesture from Bellingham, who surrendered the chance to score in order to place his close friend in English football history.

Saka made no mistake. He calmly dispatched the penalty, completed his hat-trick and restored England’s two-goal advantage: 5–3.

France, however, still had one more gift to offer—the gift of Ousmane Dembélé. The Ballon d’Or winner carried the ball confidently into the penalty area, produced his trademark shift onto his left foot and guided his finish into the same corner he had found so effectively three times against Norway only a couple of weeks earlier.

At 5–4, surely that was the final act.

It was not.

There was still one last piece of magic waiting in Bellingham’s hat. He drove forward with the ball, dribbled past two defenders and, with the composure of England’s greatest goalscorers, placed his shot into the back of the net.

England 6, France 4. This time, the game truly was over.

Kylian Mbappé finished the night as the leading goalscorer in World Cup history—assuming Lionel Messi does not put his cape on again tomorrow—while England departed with their heads held high after a victory filled with courage, generosity and moments of extraordinary individual brilliance.

Undoubtedly, it was one of the finest matches in World Cup history. Que jogo bonito!

It’s an important note to affirm that the Bible does address drinking (Eph. 5:18, I Tim. 5:23), dancing (Jer. 31:4), and playing (Zech. 8:5). All these things are good in and of themselves, but can also be abused. But for these authority structures with whom I spent my early years, all these things could only lead to our demise.

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Some men have justified their lack of godly ambition for piety—or worse, accepted passivity as the defining mark of modern manhood. However, Scripture presents a very different vision. Right from the beginning, Adam was placed in the garden “to work it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15). Man was created to cultivate, guard, build, and exercise responsible dominion under God. Passivity is not humility. It’s not some mystical quietism; neither is neglect a rationale for biblical meekness. Instead, a refusal to act is often a refusal to embrace the responsibilities God has assigned.

But faithful men act. They build, pursue, lead, learn, and take responsibility. The book of Proverbs repeatedly contrasts the diligent man with the sluggard. “The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor” (Prov. 12:24). Paul likewise exhorts believers to be “not slothful in zeal” but “fervent in spirit” as they serve the Lord (Rom. 12:11). Biblical faithfulness is neither frantic activity nor selfish ambition, but disciplined obedience directed toward the glory of God. Or, as I often put it, a long obedience in the right direction.

Time, Disposition, and Curiosity

To do that well, men need three things: time, disposition, and curiosity. I am certain that other elements can be added, but these seem to be crucial in the formation of fruitful men in the kingdom of God:

a) Make time. Making time means refusing to live perpetually at the mercy of distraction. A passive man says he does not have time when he has often simply failed to govern the time God has given him. He drifts from obligation to entertainment, from one notification to another, and then wonders why nothing substantial has been accomplished. Faithful men learn to order their days, protect their priorities, and give sustained attention to the duties before them. Paul commands Christians to walk carefully, “making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15–16). Time is not merely something we possess; it is something entrusted to us. It’s something men must steward.

b) Cultivate the right disposition. Disposition matters because ambition without character becomes vanity, aggression, or self-promotion. The right disposition is marked by humility, courage, gratitude, and a willingness to be corrected. It is not enough for a man to be active; he must be active in the right direction and for the right reasons. As I have written over these last few years, there are active men pursuing wretched causes. In their cases, they are running productively towards their own destruction.

But Christian ambition seeks the glory of God, the good of one’s household, and the strengthening of the church and community. “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men” (Col. 3:23). The Christian man does not work merely to be seen, praised, or promoted, but because his labor is rendered before the face of God. And that is sufficient encouragement towards fruitfulness.

c) Stay curious. Curiosity keeps a man from becoming stagnant. A curious man asks questions, learns new skills, studies the world God has made, and seeks wisdom from men who have gone before him. He meets with other men to learn from them and to be inspired by them. He doesn’t assume that ignorance is a virtue or that competence belongs only to specialists. He is a happy generalist. He reads, listens, observes, experiments, and grows. Curiosity turns obstacles into problems to be solved rather than excuses for remaining still. Solomon says, “Let the wise hear and increase in learning” (Prov. 1:5). Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord, but it does not end in intellectual lethargy. It produces a lifelong desire to understand God’s Word, God’s world, and one’s vocation.

Cheerful Responsibility Before God

This kind of godly action will look different from man to man. Not every faithful man will start a business, lead an institution, or occupy a prominent office. But every man has been given people to love, duties to fulfill, sins to mortify, and good works to pursue. The parable of the talents teaches that servants are not judged by whether they received identical gifts, but by whether they faithfully used what the master entrusted to them (Matt. 25:14–30). Again, the issue is not prominence, but stewardship.

But the opposite of passivity is not holding online celebrity status or being constantly active. This is not a game for most airline mileage. It is cheerful responsibility before God, before his wife, children, or father and mother. A faithful man does not need to be the loudest man in the room, but he should be ready to bear burdens, protect the vulnerable, provide for those entrusted to him, and take initiative when action is needed. He’s the individual setting up the sanctuary before the service and putting things away afterward. He should aspire, as Paul says, “to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands” (1 Thess. 4:11). Biblical masculinity combines quiet faithfulness with energetic obedience.

Men must also recognize that passivity is rarely overcome by inspiration or pep talks alone. It’s not the kind of thing stirred by YouTube influencers. It is overcome through repentance, discipline, brotherhood, and repeated acts of obedience. Fathers must train their sons to take responsibility. Older men must teach younger men what is good. Pastors must call men not merely to avoid scandalous sins, but to reject laziness, indecision, cowardice, and neglect. “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Cor. 16:13–14).

Make time. Cultivate the right disposition. Stay curious.

Then get to work.

The pursuit of theology must be accessible to the people of God without using the complicated language of textbooks and lengthy systematic theologies—except when essential. Most of you will never read through John Calvin’s Institutes or John Frame’s 1,219-page Systematic Theology unless you are predisposed to reading that type of literature.

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Now, is it helpful to read Frame and Calvin after eight long work hours in your spare time? Do I want you to read these stellar thinkers instead of spending Saturday at the beach or watching your favorite TV show? Yes and No. There is a time for everything.

Some years ago, I spent some time thinking about the best way to categorize people in the pew and came up with two categories. The two categories are practitioners and poets.

Practitioners and Poets in the Pew

What kind of questions do practitioners ask? They ask questions like: “Pastor, tell me how I am supposed to live?” “Tell me how I am supposed to apply the sermon you just preached?” “Tell me how I should train my son or daughter.” “Tell me how to handle my boss, who drives me insane every day?” These are the questions practitioners ask.

What kind of questions do poets ask? They ask or say things like: “Pastor, how do I better interpret the text?” “That connection you made with II Kings 9 was fantastic.” “I love the poetry of the Bible.” “How does Christology shape New Testament hermeneutics?”

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A quick story to make the point.

During my doctoral studies, I sat in a class at RTS with several pastors, some of whom were well-published and recognized in the Reformed tradition. We had to post our names in front of our seats. While this was several years after the Federal Vision controversy, some people were still happy to relive 2002 again and again and again. The pastors in that class knew who I was and were even privately sympathetic to the objectivity of the covenant—a central thesis of the FV controversy.

As everyone began to take their seats, a particular figure, renowned for his opposition to Federal Vision and even serving as an itinerant traveler to Presbytery courts across the country, functioning as a prosecutor of all things FV—which he believed was polluting NAPARC congregations—sat down across from me.

Once he glanced at my name and I took a peek at his, it was apparent we had heard of each other. He had read some of my articles and was keenly aware of my affiliations and associations. I had read plenty about him to determine that certain human beings don’t deserve my attention, and he was a frontrunner for that title.

Face-to-Face

I watched his demeanor closely during class. The class was an overview of Puritan practices. At one time, a poem by a great Puritan was read, and he was moved emotionally. Despite his effort to condemn virtually all my friends, he was humanized in my eyes.

When the lunch break came, I immediately went towards him. I shook his hand, and my first words to him were: “How about lunch tomorrow after class?” It’s as if we both knew instantly it needed to happen.

I don’t need to go into details, but our lunch was extraordinary. We asked each other forgiveness for things that were said behind the scenes and even publicly in writing. He had already been going through some transitions in his thinking and realized that much of his disdain for the FV/CREC was eating him up inside and damaging his soul.

Ever since, we have exchanged thoughts and notes, read each other’s doctoral theses, and shared meals together here in Pensacola when he visited.

The idea that relational lines are set on social media and that friendships must be ruined makes no sense. There is a clear reason the Apostle John writes that he prefers to see you face-to-face rather than write in ink. He knew that warnings are received more persuasively through fleshly interactions.

Remember these things.

Notations

Malcolm and I never met, though we had planned to do so when we were both speaking at different conferences in Lancaster, PA. Unfortunately, a flight change derailed that happy gathering. Still, I have been a fan of his labors and his charming display of hobbitness; his weaving of gospel benedictions everywhere. This book (which I have been reading and listening to) is a fabulous display of Arthurian magic through poetic magic. I am neither a poet nor the son of a poet, but if there is a poet worth engaging, Guite is it.

Nuntium

I will be in Los Angeles in a couple of weeks speaking at Christ Church, Santa Clarita, and then doing a series of talks on virtue for a host of Bible-saturated teenagers at their Summer Sanctus, L.A. edition.

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We have a government that clearly acknowledges the mercies of God. The culture has dramatically changed. We are somewhere in a negative-positive world. However the math turns out, it’s a good thing to be in this country. It’s a good thing to be in this country far more than any other. The abundance. The freedom...to worship, to serve, to protest, to overcome.

This is unmistakably the greatest nation on earth. Nothing comes close to it. The world only complains about America because it is too hot (literally) to be at ease and build; because it is too undisciplined to start institutions; too lazy to navigate the turmoil among its leaders; too overcome by religious liberalism to seek an ounce of grace from the true God. They have to live in the glories of cathedrals built centuries ago, but America lives off its past, present, and future glory.

And even when America limps, she limps with resources other nations can only dream of possessing. She sins loudly, but she also repents publicly. She produces fools, but also men of uncommon courage. She births chaos, but also churches, schools, families, businesses, and institutions that outlive the cultural spasms of the moment. Her critics feed on her freedoms while denouncing the soil that grew them.

You may assume that I am just your run-of-the-mill theocrat boasting of its Christian legacy and advocating for Christian ideals in 2026. Well, that’s quite a generous compliment. I will take it, but I’ll add one more caveat: I am also a committed realist, eagerly advocating the glories of a country that is unmatched in beauty, natural beauty, vigor, divine vigor. We are a propositional people, but we also are a people with hearty propositions.

And because I am a realist, I do not need to pretend that America is sinless in order to say that she is glorious. I do not need to baptize every act of her rulers in order to give thanks for her founding mercies. God is perfect, but he is not a perfectionist (DW). I do not need to deny her blemishes in order to celebrate her blessings. Gratitude is not blindness. Patriotism is not propaganda. To love a nation rightly is to see both her wounds and her wonders, and to insist that the God who gave her such abundance still summons her to repentance, worship, and greatness.

So, yes, I will celebrate her. I will toast her today as I rejoice with my congregation. I will teach my children to honor her in songs and play. I will give thanks that of all the places God could have planted my life, he brought me here. And I will pray that this country, with all her wealth, beauty, discipline, madness, mercy, and might, would bend her knee more fully to the King from whom all nations receive their breath.

So, it came as a tremendous shock when one day I realized that there were Christians who thought differently about a host of things and to take it a step further, I realized that these other Christians were actually faithful Christians who were sincere and loved the Lord Jesus Christ. These saints loved the same Bible I loved, but they did things differently. They took some liberties I was not comfortable taking at the time.

The Corinthian Question: Meat Offered to Idols

The question of Christian liberty is one the Apostle Paul tackles head-on in I Corinthians 8. In that chapter, Paul addresses concerns the saints have about food offered to idols. Remember that in Corinth, the local pagan temples were where you went to socialize, meet important people, and eat meat. There were no Christian or neutral restaurants in Corinth; no Chick-Fil-A, only pagan temples with pagan priests who prepared the meat for your meal.

What would you do? Would you go to an explicitly pagan temple to eat meat offered to Zeus, Apollo, Poseidon, Artemis? Would you become a vegetarian for the sake of the kingdom? Or would you eat meat and say, “These gods don’t really exist! Only the true God exists, so I can eat my prime rib rare, which is the way Jesus intended.”

That’s what the older Christians were saying at the Church, and Paul says, “Yes, you can eat that meat because the One True God created all animals and made them delicious to consume.”

Liberty with a Caveat

But Paul adds a caveat to the conversation. He says that there are new believers in the Corinthian Church, whom Paul says are weak in their faith; still taking baby steps in their Christian walk. In fact, they have just come out of pagan worship and are confused and perhaps they may stumble if they see more mature Christians eating at the temple.

They may say, “We were there worshipping the false gods, eating their meat; we ran away from that world, and now ya’ll are going to eat at that same temple?!” Some of them were confused by that reaction. Paul talks about it in verse 10:

When Knowledge Puffs Up

For Paul, the issue is not whether you have the liberty to do so. He says, “Yes, as a Christian you can go to the temple and eat there because God created all things and all things exist for Him.”

But when there is a weaker brother who is confused and does not understand why someone would eat food offered to a false god when that false god was his god not long ago, Paul adds some qualifications. It’s as if he is asking the question: “Is it better to have your way just to make a point? Is it better to show off your Christian liberty just because you think you can?”

This is the kind of knowledge that puffs up. To put it in simple terms, “Is that piece of steak at the temple more important than the soul of your fellow Christian brother or sister? Should we exercise our Christian liberty just because we can, or should love trump liberty?”

Of course, for the Apostle Paul, knowledge needs to be accompanied by love and there will be times when we will have to say no to things because we love our brother more than those things. Our liberties should never be more important than a fellow image-bearer for whom Christ died.

Sinning Against the Brethren

Paul concludes with the application of knowledge in the community in verses 12-13:

Are you prepared to go this far? If you are not, you are sinning against Christ. Think about Paul’s language of “conscience.” When we talk about our conscience, all sorts of ideas emerge. Paul says we can wound their conscience when it is weak. In other words, we can damage their ability to grow in the faith when we act without regard to our neighbor. Why? Because he is still learning and growing.

Learning to Love the Weak

Some years ago we had a new believer visit our church and he came to me afterward and said, “Pastor, I don’t think I even understood your sermon title. What does ‘sanctification’ mean?” “What does justification mean”? The things we take for granted are sometimes new ideas and concepts for new Christians.

So, Paul, for the sake of the Church, says, “You know what, if you know a young Christian who just came out of paganism, don’t say to him, “Hey, join me at the temple party.”

Paul is so deeply concerned about his brother or sister's well-being that he would stop eating meat to keep his brother from falling. He would defer to those who are weak; to those who are new to the faith.

How Shall We Then Live?

For Paul, there are more important things than eating meat, like the well-being of a brother or sister. The bottom line here is that you need to put others’ needs ahead of your own desires. What would you be willing to give up for a brother? Were you living in that first-century environment, would you become a vegetarian for him; would you allow love to trump your liberty?

Not Every Offense Is a Stumbling Block

Paul is not saying: “Hey, anytime a brother is offended by something you should do everything within your power not to offend him.” This would be a misapplication because the Pharisees were offended by all sorts of things and Jesus went out of his way to offend them even more so.

This passage sometimes has been understood to say that it is always wrong to cause offense. So, if you have a friend who is a teetotaler, someone who believes alcohol is of the devil, then they see this text as proof that we should never drink because it might cause an offense to someone who doesn’t.

But you can’t be—you are not allowed to be—offended by something the Bible explicitly affirms. The Bible says that drunkenness is a sin, not drinking. I think you need to be respectful of those who don’t drink but to drink in front of someone who doesn’t drink is not wrong if that person has no interest in drinking.

Let’s not confuse a tender conscience with false scruples. You are not held hostage to the false scruples of weak Christians.

Let’s say you meet a Christian who doesn’t believe you ought to watch any rated R movies as an adult because of language or violence. Should we only watch in secret for fear of offending him, or of him eventually hearing about it and being offended? No. Not at all. You can have your convictions for you and your family, but not the right to hold others hostage to them.

The Bible does not specifically condemn these things. You can apply that to food and a host of other topics. This is not what Paul has in mind. The context is not one we can relate to since the meat we eat has no associations with idols and there are thousands of options for eating and drinking and socializing that have nothing to do with pagan worship. Our Lord declared all foods clean.

The Modern Version of Meat Offered to Idols

The principle, however, is very applicable to us. The problem lies when you are around someone who has just abandoned a profound addiction; that’s the modern version of meat offered to idols. Someone who has taken a gift of God and abused it.

Let’s take alcoholism, for example. You need to respect someone’s weakness. You shouldn’t say to him, “Hey, it’s not a big deal. You’re a Christian. You have the Spirit within you. What’s a little drink going to do? Let’s try this new homebrewed beer I made.”

Don’t flaunt your liberty. The principle is: If you are aware of someone’s weakness, don’t flaunt your liberty. Don’t invite him nor tempt him. Or, assume you are made aware that your friend works all the time and is constantly away from his family. Don’t tempt him to go out with the boys at night when you know he needs to be with his family. Or, someone who just came out of a cult; don’t tempt her to go back and visit just out of curiosity.

Liberty for the Sake of the Body

Or, you can go around flaunting your liberty without any regard to the needs or temptations of others. It’s one thing to say, “I am grateful for this liberty.” It’s another thing to say, “Hey, look, I can do whatever I want because I am a baptized Christian.”

I really hope you can see the difference I am making because I think this is very important in our community, especially if God continues to increase our numbers. If we are doing our work, we are going to draw all sorts of new believers who come with weaknesses.

The freedoms we have in Christ are great. I love the Reformed perspective on the Bible because it allows us to use our discernment rather than simply dictating what’s right and what’s wrong. We can participate in cultural settings. We can go to parades, movies, read books written by pagan philosophers, drink the best wine, eat the best meat, but Paul shows us that we are not to be overly confident in a way that would mislead other members of the body.

Love is more important than our liberties. There is a bad use of knowledge which concerns itself mainly with my needs. There is a use of knowledge in the community that reminds us that we are using our liberties for the sake of the body, and there is a right application of knowledge that shows our weaker brothers, new converts, that we care much more about the unity of the Church and the well-being of the saints than our liberties as Christians.

Notations

Excellent stuff from Roman Roads on Singing, Feasting, and Dancing: The Glory of the Good Life.

Of course, no one is a racist! But whoever claims not to be sure spends a plentiful time breathing the same air as those who thrive in racial disinformation. As Doug Wilson is fond of saying,

True conservatives get accused of this stuff. True conservatives don’t care. But true conservatives are also interested in making sure the slander remains a slander.

As I have thought through this over the years, I’ve realized that various forms of racial and ethnic animosity are a common thread in a disenchanted world. It is far easier to find massive scapegoats to absolve our people of their political and social sins, or even our own. And whatever amount of energy spent in negating is often a mere attempt at disenchanting oneself slowly, but surely.

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