Ben Sansburn

(The following article was adapted from the first sermon in our series Prayer in Four Dimensions - "Upward: Intimacy & Awe"). 

When we talk about growing in communion with God through prayer, it’s easy to feel like we have to do something big. We make grand plans. We consider radical overhauls. We set our alarm early, imagining long stretches of uninterrupted devotion. And while those desires are often sincere, they can also become the very thing that keeps us from actually praying.

Instead, if we want real change, real growth, here are five simple practices to consider:
 
1. Start Small.
Many of us want spiritual growth to be epic. “Tomorrow I’ll wake up at 4:30 am and pray for two and a half hours!” But for most of us, that kind of plan lasts about a day.

Instead, what about starting with five minutes?

Seriously. What if each day began with just five minutes set aside to come to your Father—to praise him, re-center your heart, and lift your eyes upward before they’re pulled in a hundred other directions? Over time, that kind of faithfulness shapes us more deeply than a burst of intensity ever could.

If five minutes is already part of your rhythm, what might it look like to grow to ten? Or fifteen? Or twenty? The goal isn’t perfection—it’s consistency. Start small. God delights to use it.

2. Let the Psalms Shape Your Prayers
One reason prayer often feels hard is simply this: we don’t know what to say.

The Psalms are a gift here. God has given us 150 prayers—words formed by faith, suffering, joy, doubt, repentance, and hope. You don’t have to invent something new every morning. You’re invited to step into a long tradition of God’s people learning how to speak to him.

In our day and age, we often feel the need for everything to be spontaneous, authentic, and heartfelt in the moment - or we assume it isn’t “real”. But Christians throughout history have known that borrowed words can become deeply personal words. The Psalms train our hearts and give language to what we’re feeling, even when we can’t yet name it ourselves.

Try this: during that five-minute window, open a Psalm. Read it slowly. Then turn what you read upward in prayer.

3. Connect What You Ask to What You Know
Another helpful practice is learning to anchor your requests in who God is. Before you ask God for anything, name something that’s true about him. When we do this, God’s character begins to shape not only what we ask for, but how we ask.

Here’s what that can sound like in practice:

“Father, I know your heart—that you desire that none would perish, but that all would come to know you. I know you so loved the world that you gave your only Son. I know your Spirit brings life where there is death. So would you do what only you can do? Would you work in this person’s heart even now?”

Let what you know of God guide what you ask from God.

4. Remember: Your Prayer Life Is Your Life
Prayer isn’t limited to a quiet room and a cup of coffee. Communion with God happens in ordinary moments—on the drive to work, in the classroom, on the court, between meetings, in the middle of a busy afternoon.

At the word Father, you are welcomed into the throne room.

One simple way to cultivate this kind of awareness is to build reminders into your day. We all carry phones in our pockets—why not let them serve this purpose? Set a daily alarm. Or two. Or three. When it goes off, pause for even a minute or two. Pray the Lord’s Prayer. Or simply say, “Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” Let your heart re-orient upward.

5. Don’t Go It Alone
Finally, remember this: Jesus taught us to pray “Our Father,” not “My Father.” Prayer is deeply personal, but it’s never meant to be solitary. The more you can pray with others, the more it will spur on your own personal prayer life.
 
Make it a habit not just to promise to pray for someone, but to actually pray for them - right then and there. Allow your conversations with other Christians to flow naturally into prayer as you talk about things that are joyful, hard, uncertain, or frustrating. Let conversation with others extend into conversation with your heavenly Father - together.
 
We’re better together. And our prayer lives are better together.

So start small. Pray upward. And trust that as you seek communion with God, he will meet you there.

DR. RICHARD HANNULA

Martin Bucer isn’t a household name for many Christians today, but his life is a compelling reminder that the Lord often works through faithful, steady servants—especially in hard times. Bucer’s story is full of pastoral wisdom, courageous conviction, and a deep desire for the unity and health of Christ’s church. Here are nine things we can learn from the life of Martin Bucer:

In 1518, when Luther met Martin Bucer for dinner in Heidelberg, it was not a strategic—or even seemingly wise—use of Luther’s time. Many officials of church and state were declaring him a heretic and calling for his execution. There were influential men at the Heidelberg meeting who could have proved helpful to Luther, like bishops, abbots, and princes. Instead of networking with the powerful, Luther chose to spend an evening with a young, unknown monk from a rival monastic order. The Lord used it to save Bucer’s soul and launch him into a great ministry for the Evangelical church. So we never know how the Lord might use a conversation we have about the faith with anyone.

The important witness of Martin and Elizabeth Bucer’s marriage should remind us of the witness that faithful Christian marriages can be. It should prod us to be in prayer for our own marriages, and especially for the marriages of our ministers.

When reading his book about Christian ministry, Concerning the True Care of Souls, I was struck by a warning that Bucer gives to ministers in his book. After describing the privileges and responsibilities of being an under-shepherd of the Lord, he wrote: “There is no ministry more subject to ingratitude and rebellion than that of the care of souls.” That was a stark reminder of how difficult the work of Christian pastors can be, and how important it is for us as church members to be faithful to pray for, thank, and encourage our ministers in their difficult work.

Bucer urged his people to pray that they might worship the Lord with thoughtfulness, reverence, and joy. As creatures of habit, it’s so easy for us to participate in worship with very little thought and very little prayer. We are an informal and casual culture. But in the Scriptures, coming into the presence of God is never casual. Bucer urged his congregation to pray for the Spirit’s help—to be engaged in mind and heart—before they sing a hymn, hear the Word of God read and preached, or come to the Lord’s Supper. You can go online and read some of his thoughtful prayers for worship services. His Strasbourg Liturgy of 1539 is a good example.

Martin Bucer is best known for his striving for Christian unity. His advice—that we major on the fundamentals of the faith and not on secondary issues or trivial side concerns—is important for us to remember. He took seriously Christ’s prayer that believers might be unified with one another as He is with His heavenly Father. We should pray for the Spirit’s help to be people who encourage and build up the bonds of peace, not those who sow discord.

We live in an age that is not unlike the Reformation—an age when Christians who disagree with one another can be full of vitriol, quick to put the worst construction on the words of others, and eager to engage in personal attacks, especially online. Bucer is a wonderful example of following in the footsteps of Christ: turning the other cheek, and when reviled, not reviling in return.

Martin Bucer mentored young pastors. He helped to start a seminary, and he found ministry opportunities for young men. Think of the abundant fruit that came from his patient mentoring of the young John Calvin. It should encourage older Christians to make themselves available to guide younger believers. It should also serve as an example for congregations to make it a priority to encourage young men in ministry and create mentoring or internship opportunities for them.

Bucer was a great advocate for private and family worship. Many of us have often floundered in this area. Let me suggest a devotional book that has been a great help to me in approaching the Lord with reverence and joy in my private worship in the last few years: Be Thou My Vision by Jonathan Gibson. It is a book of 31 days of devotional prayers of praise, thanksgiving, confession, intercession, and more. The prayers come from all of church history and include some from Bucer, Luther, Zwingli, and the 1552 Book of Common Prayer that Bucer influenced. It also has readings from the great creeds and confessions of the church, and short pieces of sung praise like the Gloria Patri.

Finally, Martin Bucer is a fine example of pressing on in the Christian life in the midst of great disappointments and heartaches—including the death of his wife and children, enduring years of significant health problems, seeing many of his efforts bear little visible fruit, and being driven from his home and ministry. But through it all, he continued to serve the Lord until his dying day. And we should seek to do the same.

BEN SANSBURN

Last week we wrapped up an eight-week journey through the book of Ecclesiastes. It was a rich and stretching two months - full of hard questions, honest reflection, and gospel hope. Yet, as deep as we went, we barely scratched the surface of this remarkable book.

If you want to keep exploring Ecclesiastes on your own, here are a handful of books and resources to help you on the road. Each of these has been shaping for me in different ways through this series.

If you pick up any of these, I’d love to hear what stands out to you!

1. NIV Application Commentary, Iain Provan 
Provan's commentary was the most helpful resource for understanding the text itself. Though the NIV Application Commentary series leans 'less-technical' than others, Provan's exegetical work is sharp, careful, and full of insight. If you want one commentary that balances accessibility with depth, this is a great place to begin.

2. Hearing the Message of Ecclesiastes, Christopher Wright 
Chris Wright's commentary is shorter and more streamlined than Provan's, but does an excellent job in tracing the flow of the book and highlighting its major themes. Wright's clarity and pastoral sensitivity makes this a great book to study by yourself or in a small group.

1. Everything Is Never Enough, Bobby Jamieson 
If I could put just one book in your hands on Ecclesiastes, this would be it. Jamieson's writing is as beautiful as it is helpful. He brings out the rich layers of the text and presses its challenges and comforts into the reader's heart.

2. Living Life Backward, David Gibson 
Gibson builds his book on a simple but profound question: What if we learned to live life now in light of the end? With warmth and gentleness, he shows how keeping our mortality in view changes the way we work, rejoice, love and trust God in the present.

1. Christianity for Modern Pagans, Peter Kreeft 
Kreeft's abridgment and commentary on Blaise Pascal's Pensées is the most accessible way to engage  Pascal's brilliant, meandering reflections on the human condition. Kreeft helps draw out Pascal's relevance for the modern world - and his resonance with Ecclesiastes.

2. The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus 
Camus' famous essay wrestles honestly with meaning in a world he assumes has none. In many ways, it's the atheist-existentialist mirror to The Preacher's observations. If you enjoy philosophy, this is a fascinating read - and a sharp contrast to the hope Ecclesiastes holds out.

If this list still leaves you hungry for more - I'd encourage you to check out any of the other books in my 'study-stack' in the picture above.

BEN SANSBURN

Ecclesiastes is a challenging book. In preparing to preach through it, I’ve been incredibly grateful for the wealth of rich, Christ-centered resources available. One of the most insightful has been Bobby Jamieson’s book, Everything Is Never Enough.¹

One of Jamieson’s most helpful insights is his metaphor that Ecclesiastes is “like the view from a three-story building.”

“You and Qohelet enter the building on the ground floor. This is where he stays for most of the book. Looking out from a floor-to-ceiling window, Qohelet’s far-seeing eyes take in the whole of human life from its own level. He weighs the merits of work, sex, food and drink, wealth, power, and many other possible sources of meaning and satisfaction. He finds them all wanting and pronounces them all ‘absurd’ - hevel. Qohelet sounds embittered and defeated, even depressed. At one point he tells us that he hates his life and that he gave his heart up to despair.”

This “ground floor” is the view most of us feel when reading Ecclesiastes. We wonder what to do with Qohelet’s perspective. Is it a view we should adopt or reject? Is it hopeless or simply honest? Should we reinterpret Qohelet’s words this side of Christ?

Jamieson suggests that the right approach is actually to see that Qohelet speaks from more than one frame of reference.

“… at several points in the book Qohelet climbs up a set of stairs to the second story. From up here, he surveys the same territory, considering many of the same subjects - work, wealth, food and drink - and he pronounces them good. He sees rich opportunities for enjoyment and tells us to get busy enjoying them with statements such as:

• “There is nothing better” (2:24, 3:12, 3:22)
• “What I have seen to be good and fitting” (5:18)
• “And I commend joy” (8:15)
• “Go, eat your bread with joy” (9:7)
• So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all.” (11:8)

In these seven passages, Qohelet surveys the same territory but sees something astonishingly different. He sees the same subjects yet comes to the opposite conclusion. Here on the second floor he says that everything is a gift."

Jamieson argues that making sense of the tension between Qohelet’s first and second floor viewpoints is the key to interpreting the book. On the ground floor, Qohelet observes life through the senses. He “operates empirically.” He “investigates through observation, experience, and reflection… and draws conclusions based on what he sees and does and suffers.”

But there’s a different approach Qohelet takes from the second floor. There, his conclusions don’t come as much from what he observes on the surface, but what he discerns underneath it. “He concludes that life is good, that life is a gift, and that the threads that compose the fabric of our lives are each themselves gifts.”

“The key difference between the first floor and the second floor,” Jamieson writes, “is that, on the second floor, Qohelet brings God to bear. Specifically, he considers all of life through the lends of its being created by God and sustained by God.”

It’s this difference between how our lived experiences feel on the surface, and how they are lived Coram Deo (superintended by a good and sovereign God), that makes the difference between despair and delight. Yet, it also creates a paradox. All things are both absurd and a gift. “Neither one cancels or erases the other.” Both those truths sit side by side in the life and experience of Qohelet, and in our lives as well. We live in the tension between Genesis 1 and Genesis 3, where the world is good but fallen, beautiful and broken.

But there’s still a third floor. Qohelet doesn’t visit it often, but when he does, the view matters.

“Qohelet only stays long enough [on the third floor] to point out two crucial reference points: one, fear God because, two, he is going to judge all that you do and all that everyone ever does.”

This is the climactic conclusion at the end of the book:

“The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (12:13-14).

Only when we live from that third floor perspective, can we rightly enjoy the second floor gifts, and accept the first floor frustrations. All three views are true and in tension. Jamieson’s argument is that they are all needed and work together to help us make sense of the landscape of life and live into it with purpose and wisdom.

¹ Jamieson, Bobby. Everything Is Never Enough: Ecclesiastes' Surprising Path to Resilient Happiness. Waterbrook, 2025.

BEN SANSBURN
May 24, 2022

A couple of weeks ago in our Apostles Creed series we covered what I called the 'J-Curve' of Christ's redemptive work. His descent, resurrection, and ascension. The Creed puts it this way:

"He descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again. He ascended to heaven where he is seated at the right hand of the Father almighty."

The first movement of that 'J-Curve' stirs the most controversy. What does it mean the Christ 'descended to the dead'? Or the way some forms of the Creed phrase it, 'he descended to hell'? If you haven't listened to the sermon yet, be sure to check it out here. Below are some common questions I've received since. Hopefully these answers bring clarity and encourage you - which is what this doctrine is meant to do. If you still have questions, don't hesitate to reach out to us!

What does the Bible say about Sheol / Hades?
Sheol (Hebrew) and Hades (Greek) are the biblical terms uses to describe the place of the dead. When a person died their physical body descended to the grave, while their soul descended spiritually to Sheol. In the Old Testament, Sheol is where all departed souls go to await the resurrection.

The Psalms in particular, use the language of Sheol to describe where a person goes in death:

Psalm 18:5 - "The cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me."
Psalm 89:48 - "What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol?"
Psalm 88:3 - "For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol."

It's important to note that in the Old Testament, Sheol is the postmortem destination for both the righteous and the unrighteous. Psalm 49 speaks to this:

"Like sheep they ("those who have foolish confidence" - v. 13) are appointed for Sheol; death shall be their shepherd, and the upright shall rule over them in the morning. Their form shall be consumed in Sheol, with no place to dwell. But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me." 
Psalm 49:14-15

While Sheol is the destination for both the righteous and the unrighteous, the ancient Hebrew worldview was that Sheol consisted of different ‘compartments’ for the faithful and unfaithful.

This way of seeing things is hinted at in Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. Lazarus dies and is carried to “Abraham’s bosom,” a term synonymous with the righteous compartment of Hades. The rich man, however, is in ‘torment’ in Hades, a much different experience. Though there seems to be communication between these two compartments, there is no passing between them. A person cannot go from one place to the other.

The New Testament portrays Jesus’ death and descent as a conquering of Sheol/Hades. In Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, he quotes the words of David in Psalm 16 in reference to Jesus’ work, that Jesus was “not abandoned to Hades,” but instead was raised up out of death. In Ephesians 4, Paul sees a relationship between Jesus’ ascent and his descent into the grave. Both happened in order that “he might fill all things” (Eph. 4:10). Finally, Jesus says of himself in Revelation 1:17-18:

“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.”

Through his death, descent and resurrection, Jesus now possesses authority over Sheol/Hades and will one day destroy death forever (1 Cor. 15:26).

Is Sheol like purgatory?
No. The Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory is not the same as the biblical concept of Sheol. In Roman Catholic teaching, purgatory is where the souls of believers go to be further purified from sin until they are ready to be admitted into heaven. The sufferings of purgatory are part of how sins are atoned for. This is unlike Sheol, which is simply the place of the righteous and unrighteous dead. A place that no longer holds any power for those who have trusted in Christ (see below).

Where did Jesus go in his descent to Sheol?
Though the Scriptures seem to speak to Jesus' descent to Sheol/Hades, nowhere does the Bible insinuate that Jesus experienced torment or sufferings there. It seems best then to say Jesus descended to the 'righteous compartment' of Sheol.

What happened to Sheol through Jesus’ death, descent and resurrection? If Jesus conquered Sheol and has authority over it, what does that mean for faithful Old Testament saints who were there?
The Bible isn’t completely clear on these questions. What is clear when you read through the New Testament is that Old Testament saints are no longer in Sheol, but in the presence of God enjoying his goodness. Hebrews says that we who are alive are now surrounded by a "great cloud of witnesses" (Heb. 12:1), and that the new covenant is marked by "the souls of the righteous made perfect" (Heb. 12:23). Revelation pictures the gathering of all God's people before his throne (Rev. 7:9). But how did things move from the Old Testament postmortem reality of Sheol to the New Covenant blessing of paradise?

There are three main positions on what happened to Sheol for this change to occur:

1. Transformation: Jesus’ descent to the ‘righteous compartment’ of Sheol transformed it into paradise. The righteous compartment of Sheol is now the place of God’s presence and blessing.
2. Release: Jesus’ descent conquered Sheol/Hades and broke its power. It released Old Testament saints from the captivity of Sheol/Hades and transferred them into heaven, where they are in God’s presence. Ephesians 4 may hint at this in Paul's quotation from Psalm 68: "When he ascended on high he led a host of captives" (Eph. 4:8a).
3. Does it matter? The geography of whether Old Testament saints ‘went up’ or ‘stayed down’ doesn’t matter. These terms use physical language to capture what are spiritual realities. What matters is that they are now in paradise. It doesn't matter 'where' that is, what matters is that it is the place of God’s presence. 

What happened to the unrighteous in Sheol?
The Bible is clear that the unrighteous who rejected God remain separated from his blessings and goodness in the ‘unrighteous compartment’ of Sheol. There they wait for the final resurrection and judgment.

Do Christians today go to Sheol?
When a Christian dies, their soul is separated from their body, and that immaterial part of them is immediately brought into the presence of God. This is a conscious experience! This is part of the good news of Jesus’ death, descent and resurrection. Sheol is conquered! For the Christian, to be "away from the body" is to be "at home with the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:6). Jesus' promise to the thief on the cross was that he would that day "be with [him] in paradise" (Luke 23:43). Though this paradise is not our final destiny (we still await the resurrection and restoration of our bodies in a physical new creation), nonetheless we enter a place of joy and gladness as we wait. The theological term for this is the ‘intermediate state’.

What is the ultimate final state for Christians?
The ultimate final state for believers in Jesus will be consummated finally when Jesus returns. There will be a final resurrection where our souls will reunify with our physical bodies. God will both judge and remake this world into what it was originally meant to be and we will live forever with him in a physical new heavens and earth (Rev. 21:1-4; 1 Pet. 3:13; Rom. 8:19-25).

What about those who die rejecting Jesus? Where do they go now? Where do they go ultimately?
The souls of those who die rejecting Jesus will descend to Sheol, apart from the presence and blessing of God. There they will await the final judgment. When Jesus returns, they will also be raised and reunited with their bodies, after which they will spend eternity separated from God and his goodness in hell (Matt. 25:41-46; Rev. 20:11-15). The horrible reality of hell should compel us to share the good news of the gospel with our friends, family and neighbors.

What other places in Scripture teach or relate to Jesus' descent?

1. 1 Peter 3:18-20 - This text is very difficult to interpret, so we should approach it with incredible humility. At the very least however, it shows us that Jesus did something after his death that demonstrated his victory through the cross. 
2. Hosea 13:14 - Paul quotes from this passage in 1 Corinthians 15 showing how Jesus' resurrection fulfilled the promises made through Hosea.
3. Matthew 12:39-40 - Jesus discusses what he calls "the sign of Jonah". That sign is that "just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." In Jonah chapter 2, the language of Jonah's deliverance song echoes language of descending to Sheol.
4. The Psalms are full of references to Sheol that are worth re-reading with the framework of Jesus' descent and victory over Sheol. (Psalm 6:5, 9:17, 30:3, 31:17, 86:1`3, 116:3) 
5. Other worthwhile passages to check out (Prov. 7:27; Ecc. 9:10; Is. 38:10, 18).

Remember that the details of this doctrine are not 'first-order' issues. Faithful followers of Jesus who love the Scriptures can come to different conclusions on what the Bible teaches about the descent. This doesn't mean that it is unimportant, just much less important than the clarity of doctrines like Jesus' death and resurrection. 

Other resources to check out:
If you want to learn more, check out the following articles.
Charles Hill, "He Descended Into Hell" 
Gavin Ortlund, "Death Has Been Swallowed Up By Death" 
Matt Emerson, "Christ's Descent to the Dead"
 
If you really want to bite off more, Matt Emerson's recently released book on the topic is excellent:
Matt Emerson, He Descended to the Dead: An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday 

BEN SANSBURN

This past Sunday in the opening sermon in our Galatians series, I quoted at length from Richard Lovelace's book Dynamics of Spiritual Life. Lovelace was a professor at Gordon-Conwell seminary in Boston, MA, and Dynamics of Spiritual Life is chock-full of insight into how gospel-rooted transformation and renewal happen in the life of God's people. I wanted to post the entire quote below, as well as a couple of other paragraphs from the book. I hope they are as much help and encouragement to you as they were to me.


Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. Many have so light an apprehension of God’s holiness and of the extent and guilt of their sin that consciously they see little need for justification, although below the surface of their lives they are deeply guilt-ridden and insecure. Many others have a theoretical commitment to this doctrine, but in their day-to-day existence, they rely on their sanctification for their justification … drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance, the relative infrequency of their conscious, willful disobedience. Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.

In order for a pure and lasting work of spiritual renewal to take place within the church, multitudes within it must be led to build their lives on this foundation. This means that they must be conducted into the light of a full conscious awareness of God's holiness, the depth of their sin and the sufficiency of the atoning work of Christ for their acceptance with God, not just at the outset of their Christian lives but in every succeeding day (pp. 101-102).


We all automatically gravitate toward the assumption that we are justified by our level of sanctification, and when this posture is adopted it inevitably focuses our attention not on Christ but on the adequacy of our own obedience. We start each day with our personal security resting not on the accepting love of God and the sacrifice of Christ but on our present feelings or recent achievements in the Christian life. Since these arguments will not quiet the human conscience, we are inevitably moved either to discouragement and apathy or to a self-righteousness which falsifies the record to achieve a sense of peace. 

Much that we have interpreted as a defect of sanctification in church people is really an outgrowth of their loss of bearing with respect to justification. Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons - much less secure than non-Christians, because they have too much light to rest easily under the constant bulletins they receive from their Christian environment about the holiness of God and the righteousness they are supposed to have.... (pp. 211-12).

ISAAC MCPHEE

In our last blog we looked at God's gracious provision of a shelter for Jonah in the book's final chapter. In this article we will see God very quickly reverse the comfort of the plant by "appointing" a worm and and east wind. Like the plant, these images evoke significance than the objects themselves. They are tied to a thread in the biblical story that says something significant about God's plan for Israel and for his people as a whole.

THE WORM
In our last article we saw God's promised provision of a "branch" in Isaiah chapter 4. Remarkably, in neither Jonah’s story nor Israel’s story in Isaiah 4, does the prophetic promise end on the positive note of God’s provision. While in both instances the recipient of God’s mercy ought to have received God’s help with glad, thankful, and repentant hearts, instead they showed themselves unchanged by His generosity.

Isaiah immediately follows the passage about God providing a booth and shelter with the damning prophecies of chapter 5, wherein God looks down at His people – at His “vineyard on a very fertile hill” (Isa. 5:1) – and depicts Himself as the owner of the vineyard at harvest time, “and He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes” (5:2).

And now I will tell you
   what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
   and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
   and it shall be trampled down.
I will make it a waste;
   it shall not be pruned or hoed,
   and briers and thorns shall grow up;
I will also command the clouds
   that they rain no rain upon it.
For the vineyard of Yahweh of hosts
   is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah
   are his pleasant planting;
and he looked for justice,
   but behold, bloodshed;
for righteousness,
   but behold, an outcry! (Isaiah 5:5-7)

The prophetic imagery, both within Isaiah and typologically within Jonah, is complex, reminding us that these images are rarely as simple as “this means that.”

Through Jesus, God has once again tasked his people with His original call to Abraham (as we see most explicitly in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:16-20) – a mission carried out first by the twelve apostles (as sort of “torch bearers,” representing the tribes of Israel). While that message is delivered through Christ and His apostles with obedience and success, Israel herself remains remarkably unchanged.
 
Rather than destroying Israel for rejecting His work among the nations, God responds to Israel’s lack of humility and lack of humanity by removing His blessing from them, by allowing their hardness to lead to political rebellion and their eventual destruction at the hands of the Roman armies. This is the “worm” that destroys Israel’s shelter.

Jesus, for His part, did not rejoice over the coming judgment against Israel, but maintained a steady, but delicately balanced course, both weeping over Jerusalem’s hardness (Matt. 23:37) and crying out a message of imminent judgment (Matt. 23:38-39; 24:1-25:46). Both of these elements reach back directly to the Old Testament prophets, who likewise viewed the fate of Israel with a mixture of mourning and vindication.
 
THE EAST WIND
To Jonah, it is bad enough that the plant miraculously provided by God has died (at the “hands” of a tiny worm, also “appointed” by God), but God follows this up by making him truly understand what it feels like to be outside of God’s blessing. Just as God first “hurled” a great wind of judgment upon Jonah while running toward Tarshish (1:4), now God “appoints” another wind, this one from the “east” (Jon. 4:8), originating from the arid deserts of the Arabian Peninsula.

Because anything coming “from the east” is coming, symbolically, from places outside of God’s Presence (this is a common theme in Biblical theology), there is a deeply antagonistic undercurrent to this wind, which is used symbolically throughout the Bible to indicate hostile or painful forces. It was the “east wind” that that once brought about seven years of famine (Gen. 41:6; 23; 27), and it was the “east wind” that brought the hail of locusts upon the Egyptians by the hand of Moses (Exo. 10:13). The east wind is connected with famine, death, destruction, and judgment (Ezek. 17:10; 19:12; 27:26).
 
Ultimately, the east wind becomes symbolic of God’s judgment upon Israel in particular: “Like the east wind I will scatter them before the enemy. I will show them my back, not my face, in the day of their calamity” (Jer. 18:17). Of particular note is Hosea’s prophecy, coming not long after Jonah’s ministry in the northern kingdom: “Ephraim,” the prophet declares (meaning the northern kingdom of Israel), “feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long; they multiply falsehoods and violence; they make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried to Egypt” (Hos. 12:1).

Israel, Hosea warns, has come to rely far too heavily on Assyria (with Nineveh as its capitol); they have sought this empire, along with Egypt, for help and for sustenance. Even though this “east wind” blows hot and furious, the people have chosen it over relying on Yahweh alone for refuge.
In this final chapter of Jonah, the prophet (and the reader) is bombarded by symbol after symbol of God’s promises and providences. He built his own shelter, forgetting that God promised to always provide shelter. So God removed the shade and made Jonah taste the brunt of what life looked like outside of His blessing.

Jonah failed to understand God’s message. May we fully embrace the shelter of our God, and may we long to see that shelter extended over all people.

ISAAC MCPHEE

As we read the story of Jonah – and particularly the fourth and final chapter of Jonah – we might find ourselves actively rooting against God’s prophet. He is rebellious, defiant, narcissistic, and blind to anyone outside of his national bubble. That he would argue with God – going so far as to beg God to kill him – after God showed mercy to Nineveh marks the nadir of his story. Maybe God should just kill him!

God, however, doesn’t strike Jonah down. God reasons with Him, taking a surprisingly gentle approach that expresses the very nature of God Jonah despises. In fact, God even provides Jonah with a miraculous plant that springs up to provide shade, leading Jonah, at least for a brief moment, to be “greatly pleased” (4:6).

This is an easily overlooked detail in the story, but one that carries far more weight and significance than we might first imagine.

God’s provision of a shelter for Jonah comes only after Jonah attempts to do the same for himself. When Jonah first leaves Nineveh, he “sat to the east of the city and made a booth (shelter) for himself there” (4:5). As he sits uncomfortably in the shelter of his own making, God takes the initiative to offer a reminder that for an Israelite to make his own shelter is like the son of a cobbler trying to fashion his own shoes.

God has always offered Himself to Israel as a God of shelter, which, in the Bible’s ancient Near Eastern context, was inextricably linked to geography and climate.

In that hot, arid region the sun, rather than being a pleasant force that causes plants to grow, was easy to see as a malevolent and dangerous force. Its heat could be oppressive, its rays strong enough to burn the skin, and, if not respected, it could easily kill.

This is the imagery that we ought to have in our minds as the Psalmists describe Yahweh.

• “He will hide me in His shelter in the day of trouble; He will conceal me under the cover of His tent...” (Psa. 27:5)
• “Let me dwell in  your tent forever! Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings!” (Ps. 61:4); 
• “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty” (Ps. 91:1); 
• “The Lord is your keeper, the Lord is your shade on your right hand (Ps. 121:5).

Throughout the Old Testament in particular God’s provision is depicted as a tent, a tree, a source of shade, a windbreak. Neither the forces of nature nor the forces of man can harm Israel while under the protection of her God.

Israel, like Jonah, had been accused by God of either neglecting or refusing His offer of shelter. With the oppressive heat of international conflict beating down on them, they were accused of taking shelter in the shade of foreign nations, through treaties and covenants, rather than in their true defender and true shelter.

“Ah, stubborn children,” declares Yahweh,
“who carry out a plan, but not mine,
and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit,
    that they may add sin to sin;
who set out to go down to Egypt,
    without asking for my direction,
to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh
    and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!” 
(Isaiah 30:1-2; cf. Jer. 2:18)

Ultimately, this image of Yahweh as a source of shelter would evolve in the prophets to point to a future hope. There is a strong Messianic thread that begins to grow clearer as the prophetic narrative unfolds. As God causes a plant to grow and provide shade over Jonah, the Israelites must have been reminded of how Isaiah envisioned the promised Messiah, who would Himself become the branch that would grow up and provide shade and shelter:

"In that day the branch of Yahweh shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be the pride and honor of the survivors of Israel. And he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem, when Yahweh shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning. Then Yahweh will create over the whole site of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory there will be a canopy. There will be a booth for shade by day from the heat, and for a refuge and a shelter from the storm and rain." (Isaiah 4:2-6)

This same reality is depicted as consummated in John’s Revelation, wherein he sees the people of God serving as priests within the heavenly temple. These New Covenant priests are depicted as standing “…before the throne of God,” serving Him “day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His Presence” (Rev. 7:15).

God had long promised to do for all Israel just as He did here for Jonah, and through the prophets He promised to do the same for all the saints. Though Israel would continue to attempt their own makeshift shelters (as we still do), Yahweh Himself would continue to provide them with a shelter that was far better and far more lasting. Like Jonah, those who find themselves under His shelter would be “greatly pleased.” But unlike Jonah, the shelter we have in Christ is one that will never be destroyed.

In our next blog, we will look at two other significant images from Jonah chapter four: the worm and the east wind. 

ISAAC MCPHEE

Do we respond like Jonah, cursing God for His excessive mercy toward the undeserving? Or do we balk at the very suggestion that God might possibly “change His mind” and renege on His promises?

The first response betrays our own hypocrisy, and is at the heart of God’s response to Jonah in chapter 4. The second response, however, requires some clarification. Even though God is certainly a God who does relent and turn from His anger in response to repentance (Jon. 3:10), He is not a God who changes. He is a God who remains consistently true to His revealed character – and it is that character that moves God to extend mercy.

When the King of Nineveh urges his people to respond to Jonah’s preaching by turning from their evil and embrace repentance (3:7-8), he is right in his motives, but wrong in his theology.
If the king had known the character of the God of Israel, he would have known that this was a God who longed to relent of judgment; a God who sent his prophets to preach these messages in order to bring about repentance and restoration, not judgment.

Jonah may not have explicitly included any opportunity for repentance in his preaching – he certainly did not follow the lead of Abraham, who pled for God’s mercy toward wicked Sodom in the event that some measure of goodness could be found in the city (Gen. 18:22-33) – but the very nature of God’s goodness implies that a message of impending judgment must include the opportunity to turn. This promise can be drawn from a number of places in Scripture, but Jeremiah 18 is perhaps the most famous. Speaking to the people of Israel about His own authority to overthrow or to lift up a people based on their response to His Word, God asserts the role of prophets as more than just “announcers of the inevitable”:

If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it. (Jer. 18:7-10)

The king of Nineveh is right in holding out hope that his actions might have a real effect on God’s decision. God may, indeed, respond to just such an action. The only thing wrong about the king’s response is his uncertainty (“Who knows…?” [Jon. 3:9]).

Both the response of the Ninevites to this pronouncement of impending judgment, as well as God’s response to their repentance, bear strong echoes of the events of Exodus 32.

After the famous incident with the golden calf, God’s anger at Israel’s sin is revealed to Moses: “Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them…” (Exod. 32:10). Because of Israel’s status as a “holy nation” set aside as God’s own inheritance (Deut. 32:9), their failures are magnified by God’s high standards. God does not immediately reveal His mercy, just as He does not immediately reveal His mercy toward the Ninevites in His message of judgment. In both stories the response of the people under judgment is the same (“When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on ornaments…” [Exod. 32:4]). The posture of both the Israelites at Sinai and the Ninevites here is one of abject humility in the face of threatened judgment. There is no indication in either story that the recognition of sin is false or contrived, or that the humility is anything less than genuine. And in both stories, the response of Yahweh is, mercifully, the same.

In Nineveh’s case, “God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—so God relented from the disaster he had threatened. And he did not do it” (3:10). God had not announced His offer of mercy toward Nineveh, but the offer was present all the same, just as it had been in the golden calf incident. God is a God who longs to see repentance. He longs to relent.

There should be no difficult questions here regarding either the sovereignty or consistency of God, though it is easy to foist difficulties upon the text based on our own preconceptions. God does, indeed “relent” in this and in countless other situations, and that is precisely what reveals His character most clearly. God’s mercy is expressed in His willingness to turn away from His justified wrath; to extend kindness or hardness upon whomever He wills (Rom. 9:18), not based on an arbitrary distinction, but based (as Jeremiah 18 – a verse quoted at length by Paul in Romans 9 – makes clear) upon their faithful response to His call.

God’s promises, in other words, are always genuine. He moves and responds and works with and through His human agents, so that the response of men to the warnings and promises are always real, and always reap the response promised by God, whether through specific prophetic oracles or through the promises baked directly into the Covenant. There is no reason that we need to question how God “never changes” (Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29), and yet “changes” His mind (the events of Exodus 32-34 are a prime example, but by no means the only one). We don’t need to dwell on this “difficult” question because it is a question based on false assumptions. God declares: I will do this because of the sin of this city; but when the city repents, He stays His hand. He relents. Once the guilty have addressed (even if temporarily) the issue, God is not beholden to His declaration of judgment because by His very nature He will emphasize mercy over judgment.

There is nothing unjust or even difficult about God’s response to the Ninevites (though this is not how Jonah sees it). God’s response should be seen as extraordinarily Good News to anyone with the self-awareness to recognize the reality of their own sin; or, in Jonah’s case, to recognize the sins of his own people. Jonah had no problem with God sparing Israel over and over again; he appreciated God’s mercy as long as it was directed toward the “right” people. Though Israel was deserving dozens of times in their history of being wiped out, God proved His devotion to mercy by continually relenting, not because they did anything to earn His forgiveness, but because He is gracious and compassionate; He is marked by hesed, which means that He will remain unfailingly loyal to His promises.

It can only be given to the undeserving – those lost and rebellious sheep whom God will send to the ends of the earth to bring back. Thank God for that.

ISAAC MCPHEE

In our last blog post we looked at what Jonah’s experience in the fish would have meant to the original audience reading his story. The ancient Israelites reading Jonah’s story would have experience great hope that though they had been swallowed up by the nations, they weren’t doomed to die there. In this post we’ll look at the end of Jonah’s experience - being ‘vomited out’ on dry land.

Jonah chapter two ends with a verse that parallels the final verse of chapter 1. Where, after the episode with the storm and the sailors, “Yahweh appointed a great fish…” (1:17), after Jonah’s prayer, Yahweh completes His saving work, commanding the fish to “vomit” Jonah onto dry land.

With God’s hand clearly seen at work on either end of this episode, the second scene of this book has come full circle. The fish was an agent of God, serving His purpose and fulfilling its role dutifully. Both the swallowing and the vomiting came in God’s timing and by God’s will, which only reinforces Jonah’s earlier statement to the sailors that Yahweh was “The God of the heavens, who made the sea and the dry land” (1:9), controlling even the sea monsters.

Though the Hebrew word here (koh) occurs only eight times in the Old Testament, half of these uses occur in the book of Leviticus, where God speaks, first, of the Canaanites having been “vomited” out of the land because of their iniquity (Lev. 18:25), followed by a warning to Israel: “But you shall keep my statues and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you” (Lev. 18:26-28).

But just as the “vomiting” of Jonah was actually a salvific act, bringing him, at last, out of the sea and onto the dry ground, so when God threatened to “vomit” Israel from the land due to their disobedience, the threat came coupled with a  promise of salvation.

Israel, from a foreign nation, would be called to wake up from her spiritual slumber, and to remember Yahweh (Deut. 30:1). It was coupled with a call to turn back to God and be restored, “you and your children, and obey His voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, then Yahweh your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and He will gather you again from all the people where Yahweh your God has scattered you… And Yahweh your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers” (Deut. 30:2-5).

In Jonah’s case, as with Israel, the sin and the rebellion are not forgotten, despite Jonah’s renewed status as one saved by the mercy of God. The same call remains on both the man and the nation, and now they have the duty, once again, to turn to Yahweh and to obey. And it would not be any easier the second time.

ISAAC MCPHEE

In the midst of Jonah’s larger-than-life elements, we might easily miss something: this story follows a common biblical plot line. Jonah is more than just a ‘fish story.’ It’s a story of sin, death, and resurrection.

When we read the Scriptures, the first question we must always as is, “What would this have meant to the original audience.” Instead of beginning with the question of what a book or passage means to us, we ought to start with the question of what it would have meant for them.

We don’t know exactly when the book of Jonah was written, but there are reasons to believe that the book was probably first given to the people of the southern kingdom (Judah) either during their exile in Babylon or not long thereafter.

This context is absolutely crucial! As the Israelites were introduced to the story of Jonah, it was very much with their own situation in mind.

Israel maintained a measure of hope stored away, even as they were being carried away into the death of exile, in the words handed down by the prophets. God’s messengers had spoken of the coming tribulation and difficulty, but also of the promise of salvation and reconciliation and of a great “Day of Yahweh”, when the wicked would be judged and the righteous would be made alive again.

This same measure of hope is established in the beginning of the second section of Jonah (which begins with the final verse of chapter 1). Here, as Jonah found himself facing certain death, God brought salvation – in the strangest possible way. A fish.

SWALLOWED UP
This fish that swallowed Jonah is far more than it seems. It is both a living creature and it is also an extraordinary symbol.

The sea, as we have heard several times in this sermon series, carried an astonishing depth of meaning in the ancient world; and this meaning was almost universally negative. The sea was a place of chaos, danger, uncertainty, and death. This is why, as Jonah poetically describes his brief time in the sea, he does so in the language of death. The water was his grave.

Deeply woven into this symbolism of the sea was not just the ominous threat of a sudden storm or of becoming hopelessly lost and set adrift, but the danger of what might lurk in its mysterious depths. The sea was home, both in ancient mythology and in reality, to any number of great, mysterious, and dangerous creatures. This was the place of the Leviathan (Job 3:8; 41; Psa. 74:14; Psa. 104:26; Isa. 27:1), as well as the sea monster Rahab (Job 26:12; Psa. 89:10; Isa. 30:7; 51:9).
 
Rather than trying to figure out what known sea animals (or to ancient dinosaurs) these creatures were, we ought to see Leviathan and Rahab for what they were: sea monsters. They were beasts used to represent the unknown dangers of the sea – the “fish stories” told by ancient mariners. They represented the adversarial nature of the unseeable depths. And in Jonah’s story, remarkably, we find God using this symbol of danger and death for the purposes of salvation. We are meant to be stunned by the tremendous irony of it, and to marvel at the parallels to the story of Israel as a nation.
 
If we put ourselves in the shoes of an ancient Israelite, living in the shadow of exile, then the full weight of the symbol is made evident. When Israel, in her waning years, was being besieged by the hostile forces of the “sea” (the surrounding enemy nations), she saw the wind and the waves as forces leading to certain death. Indeed, she had been thrown violently into the sea, her cities conquered, her people carried off into captivity and exile, and her homeland “sunk” to the depths. It had meant, so it seemed, certain death for the people of Yahweh.
 
At last, in Jonah chapter two, Israel would have seen a sudden glimmer of hope. Just as Jonah found salvation in the fish, the people of Israel have not been utterly destroyed by their invaders; they have been taken by them. They have been, so to speak, swallowed up. Jonah is giving life to a common prophetic theme.
 
Because Scripture describes the nations as a roiling, dangerous sea, it is only natural that the villainous forces within those nations be portrayed as monsters threatening to swallow Israel.
 
Jeremiah, prophesying before the fall of Judah, looks back upon the siege of Jerusalem as if it were a past event: “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me; he has made me an empty vessel; he has swallowed me like a sea monster; he has filled his stomach with my delicacies; he has rinsed me out” (Jer. 51:34).
 
After the fall of Jerusalem, the author of Lamentations cries out, “All your enemies rail against you; they hiss, they gnash their teeth, they cry: ‘We have swallowed her! Ah, this is the day we longed for; now we have seen it; we see it!” (Lam. 2:16; cf. 2:2, 2:5; cf. Psa 124:3).
 
The prophet Hosea (a near contemporary of the historical Jonah) wrote of the coming judgment of the northern kingdom (Israel) due to their apostasy, threatening: “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no head; its hall yield no flour; if it were to yield, strangers would devour it. Israel is swallowed up; already they are among the nations as a useless vessel” (Hos. 8:7-8).
 
Because Jonah rebelled, refusing to obey the Word of Yahweh, he was cast into a literal sea, where he was swallowed by a literal monster of the deep. In reading this book Israel was meant to reflect humbly on their own circumstances, but they were also meant to catch that obvious glimmer of hope. Jonah does not meet his death in the belly of the fish. That much is made clear even before the story continues – he is actually rescued by the fish, where he remains for an appointed time. This would inspire tremendous hope for the Jew in exile.

In our next blog post we'll look at the end of Jonah's fish experience - when he is 'vomited up.' 

ISAAC MCPHEE

The Bible leaves no doubt that there are deep connections between the story of Jonah and the story of Jesus, but it is easy to get caught up by Jonah’s story and not recognize them. Twice Jesus explicitly points to the Jews of His day back to the story of Jonah (Matt. 12:39-42; 16:4), indicating that this story of a wayward, disobedient prophet was, somehow, also the story of Him – the perfect, divine God-man.

How in the world does this work? Of all the Old Testament characters for Jesus to model His life and ministry around, why Jonah?

The reason, in short, is the same reason that Jesus’ life and ministry so often paralleled the story of Israel as a whole: These Old Testament stories were marked by sin, disobedience, and defiance. In taking these roles upon Himself, Jesus (and the authors of the Gospels) are demonstrating just the opposite in Him. Where Israel and Jonah failed, Jesus succeeded. Where they sinned, Jesus demonstrated radical righteousness. Where they rebelled, Jesus obeyed.
Jesus is not just “another Jonah” – He is a perfect Jonah. “Behold,” Jesus Himself declared, “something greater than Jonah is here” (Matt. 12:41; cf. Luke 11:32).

This is only the beginning of the story, though. The connections between Jesus and Jonah are actually far more substantial than these two specific incidents in the life of Jesus. It is not only what Jesus said that connects these stories, but also what He did.

There are two incidents, both found within the first half of Jonah, that point in remarkable ways to the life of Jesus. There is, first, the story of the storm, and then there is the story of Jonah being tossed overboard.

The Storm
Jonah, we know, fully missed the onset of the terrible storm sent by God to get his attention, as he was fast asleep in the bottom of the ship. If we are paying attention and have read the Gospels, this episode ought to be remarkably familiar.

On that day, when evening had come, Jesus said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as He was. And other boats were with him.  And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And He awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” 
- Mark 4:35-40

There can be little doubt that this famous story from the life of Jesus is intended to draw the reader back to this moment from the story of Jonah. But what are we to make of this connection? Why is this a story that would demand to be relived, particularly in the life of Jesus? In the case of Jonah, the act of descending into the hold of the ship, asleep and ignorant until being awakened by the ship’s captain, served to reveal both his own sin and the sin of the nation of Israel (who had been sleeping through their own storms) – but what of Jesus? While it’s clear that many of the story beats are the same, the motives, as well as the outcome, are radically different. And this difference is precisely why it is meaningful.

For Jesus the story of sleeping during the storm is obviously not a story of rebellion, nor of ambivalence or apathy. It was not a lack of concern for His disciples that led Jesus to continue sleeping even as the storm rocked the boat and terrified those aboard. Where Jonah did indeed later acknowledge God as ruler over the sea, and thus the one responsible for the storm (1:9), he fundamentally failed the test that God gave him by refusing to repent of his rebellion and to acknowledge that his own sin had led to the calamity.

When, in the Gospels, Jesus is in the ship reliving the story of Jonah, it is the disciples who are being tested. If they only knew, if they only understood, just who it was asleep in the hold of the ship, then they might not have come to Him in such terror, crying out “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38) But

Jesus’ purpose was not only to test, but to teach. He was laying bare the disciples’ preconceptions of who He was. As Jesus played the role (so to speak) of Jonah, He was asking the disciples to play the role of the sailors. Who would they cry out to when the storm threatened the boat? If they recognized Him for who He was, then they would not cry out to various gods, but to Him. He was causing them to question their entire perception of Him by performing a feat that, in all of Scripture, had only ever been performed a single time, and that by God, in Jonah 1. This same God to whom the pagan sailors would turn after His power over the storm was revealed (v. 16), was the “teacher” who now shared a boat with them.

Jesus, then, played not only the role of Jonah, but also the role of God! He is both the true and faithful prophet of God and He is God Himself!

Tossed Overboard
Jesus saw his coming death through the lens of the most famous incident in the story of Jonah.

“For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” - Matt. 12:40

Jesus, like Jonah, would be “swallowed up” by death – He would descend into the “belly” of His tomb before His miraculous deliverance by the power of God. This would be a sign, Jesus told the Pharisees, that was far more dramatic and compelling than any of their old stories – it ought to more than enough to lead them to repentance.

This event obviously does come to pass in the life of Christ, but in a way that bears even more connections with the story of Jonah. This becomes particularly evident as the sailors, hesitant to throw Jonah overboard, cry out to God, “O LORD, let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood…” (Jon. 1:14). This is a cry that foreshadows the words of Pontius Pilate – yet another sympathetic pagan character, who would also prove reluctant to sacrifice a life in order to quell a storm:

“So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, ‘I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves.’ And all the people answered, ‘His blood be on us and our children!’ Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered Him to be crucified” - Matt. 27:24-26

This connection is remarkable. Both Pilate and the sailors (who ought to have been the villains of the stories) are resistant to see a man killed; but both see a storm around them threatening to do far more harm, and so both act in a way that even they find deplorable. In both cases, they capitulate and throw the men to the storm (in the case of Jesus, to the Jewish mob), and in both cases the result is death (though for Jonah the death is symbolic). After this, in both cases, the men are “swallowed up” for a time, culminating in a sort of resurrection (for Jesus the resurrection is literal, for Jonah it is figurative).
 
The extent of these connections is certainly no accident, and therefore we should not be surprised. Jesus can look back on the story of Jonah’s “death” and “resurrection” as a type of His own story because it is really a type of the whole story of the Bible!

The many stories that make up the Scriptures work together to tell one larger story – the story of man’s exile from the Garden (a type of death), and God’s work to bring about reconciliation (resurrection). It is the story lived out by Israel as a nation, and Jonah as a person – and it is a story that finds its ultimate fulfillment and meaning in the life and work of Christ.

ISAAC MCPHEE

To think of Jonah as little more than a simple morality story – or, worse still, as a straightforward retelling of an historical event – is to risk missing some of the most important points of the book. It is much more than a simple story meant for the enjoyment of children, nor is it a chapter in a history textbook. Instead, Jonah is theological – its purpose is to teach us about God. It is also a detailed, complex piece of prophetic narrative, and when we take the time to read it for what it is, we find that it works on a number of levels (often all at once).

Two elements to the book of Jonah that are easy to miss at first glance are its peculiar narrative structure and its clear use of hyperbole.

A Story Twice Told – The Structure of Jonah

We don’t know who the author of the book is, or when it was written, but the structure of the book helps to inform us that the purpose of the book is not just to fill in gaps in the historical record, but to teach. Some amount of license has clearly been taken in the telling of the story (did Jonah really take the time to compose classical Hebrew poetry while in the belly of a fish?), indicating that the book was carefully composed with a clear purpose and intent.

Jonah is a book with two clear and easily divided halves, and these two halves work together in close parallel. The first part of the book begins with a prophetic call (“Now the word of Yahweh came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it…’” [1:1-2]), and the second part of the book begins with another, nearly identical call (“Then the word of Yahweh came to Jonah the second time, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you…’” [3:1-2]).

These two callings of Jonah initiate two distinct stories, each with its own setting, its own cast of characters, and its own unique complications, but in many ways we are meant to see that Jonah is living through the same story twice. In the first half Jonah encounters pagan sailors and a pagan ship captain; in the second half Jonah encounters a pagan city with a pagan king. In the first half God sends a “great wind” (1:4), in the second, it is a “scorching east wind” (4:8). In the first half God sends a great fish (1:17), in the second half He sends a tiny worm (4:7).

The book’s overall structure revolves around these two nearly identical calls, urging Jonah to “arise,” and “go,” but the outcomes of the two calls could hardly be more different.

If we take a great step back in order to gain a much broader look, the Bible as a whole works in much the same way. In Scripture we find the same story (the story of Israel), being broadly told twice, first in the Old Testament, and then again in the New Testament. The first story sees God raising up a “chosen people” and calling them to a certain mission and a certain purpose: to reveal God a lost people. This first story really ends up being a chronicling of failure, marked at the end by the people being “swallowed up” by foreign nations, and sent into exile, only to return, injured and uncertain about where the story will go next.

The second story sees God calling a new people – centered on the calling of a new “Chosen One”. In this “retelling” the purpose of the call is the same – blessed to be a blessing – but the outcome is far different! In the second call the message to those outside of the original call are indeed brought in and delivered from judgment, even as the one originally called (Israel) looks on in disgust.

This, broadly speaking, is the Bible’s “metanarrative” – and it just so happens to be the story being told in Jonah, as well, but on a smaller scale. The fact that Jonah is divided into these two halves is a clue that the book is much more than a simple morality story, akin to Aesop’s Fables. It shows us that Jonah is, among other things, a prophetic description of the work of God, in and through Israel.

The Great Prophet – Jonah and Hyperbole

The other element revealed at the beginning of the book that should help to guide our reading of Jonah is the liberal use of hyperbole. This is a book that never makes any attempt at subtlety, but ensures that every element is exceptionally large or extreme, whether big (such as the fish) or tiny (such as the worm).

The superlative description of the city of Nineveh as “that great city” in 1:3 is but a herald of things to come. Jonah is a book packed full of extreme language. Everything Jonah encounters, every emotion felt by the characters, it seems, is larger than life. There is the “great city” of Nineveh, of course (1:2, 3:2, 3:3, 4:11), then there is a “great wind” (1:4), a “great tempest” (1:12), and a “great fish” (1:17). It even occurs in several places that are not obvious in some translations. The Hebrew word for “great” (gadol) occurs again and again in the story, even in places that it may be hidden to non-Hebrew readers. When the sailors are described as “exceedingly afraid”, they are really filled with “great fear” (gadol yare [1:10 and 1:16]). When Jonah’s true feelings are made known in chapter 4, he sees God’s mercy as a “great evil” (4:1), but after God shows similar mercy to Jonah by providing him shelter, Jonah’s mood changes and he is filled, instead, with “great gladness” (4:6).

The author of Jonah makes no attempt to infuse his account with subtlety or realism. It is big and bold and brash and mostly explicit in its messaging. In this way it seems to serve a purpose similar to modern day political satire, taking well known characters or tropes and then putting them into a situation that either exposes their obvious hypocrisy (as with Jonah) or in which their behavior represents a reversal of the reader’s expectations (as with the faithful responses of the sailors and the Ninevites). It wears its message on its sleeve, drawing you in with its captivating story, but then striking you with its obvious implications to your own life and the life (particularly for an Israelite) of your people.

BEN SANSBURN

The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God’s love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends us His ears. So it is His work that we do for our brother when we learn to listen to him. Christians, especially ministers, so often think they must always contribute something when they are in the company of others, that this is the one service they have to render. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.

Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking when they should be listening. But he who no longer listens to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God either.

He will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God too. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there is nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in pious words. One who cannot listen long and patiently will presently be talking beside the point and be never really speaking to others, albeit he be not conscious of it. Anyone who thinks that his time is too valuable to spend keeping quiet will eventually have no time for God and his brother, but only for himself and his own follies.

Brotherly pastoral care is essentially distinguished from preaching by the fact that, added to the task of speaking the Word, there is the obligation of listening. There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person. This is no fulfillment of our obligation, and it is certain that here too our attitude toward our brother only reflects our relationship to God. It is little wonder that we are no longer capable of the greatest service of listening that God has committed to us, that of hearing our brother’s confession, if we refuse to give ear to our brother on lesser subjects. Secular education today is aware that often a person can be helped merely by having someone who will listen to him seriously, and upon this insight it has constructed its own soul therapy, which has attracted great numbers of people, including Christians. But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.

BEN SANSBURN

There’s a legendary story about a village in Southern India that was being terrorized by a troop of small monkeys.

To catch the pests, the villagers came up with an ingenious plan. They took several hollowed out coconuts and chained them to a stake. Inside the coconuts they placed a small amount of rice that could be seen through a hole in the top. The hole was just large enough for a monkey to insert their out-stretched hand, but not large enough for them to remove a fist gripped around a ball of rice. Do you see where this is going?

The monkeys, pulled in by the delicious rice, would reach into the coconut and grab it. But consumed by their own greed, they were unable to let go and their desire to hold onto the rice made it impossible to pull out their hand. They were trapped. The very thing they were gripping had gripped them.

It’s not hard to see the connection between the village monkeys and us. When we cling to what we think is ‘ours’, we end up mastered by the very things we thought we were master over.

In his little book The Pursuit of God, AW Tozer highlights how our money and possessions can grab hold of us. In the chapter “The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing,” Tozer writes:  

There can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is one of the most harmful habits in the life. Because it is so natural it is rarely recognized for the evil that it is; but its outworkings are tragic.

We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety…. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save.

Tozer’s quote is profound. We so easily grab and protect and guard our treasure, and yet it’s when it’s gripped in our hands that our possessions, and we ourselves, are most vulnerable. For our good, God invites us to open our hands to him; not just with our treasure but with all of life.

Hear Tozer:

Our gifts and talents should also be turned over to Him. They should be recognized for what they are, God's loan to us, and should never be considered in any sense our own. We have no more right to claim credit for special abilities than for blue eyes or strong muscles. "For what do you have that you did not receive?"

This is our problem, ultimately. We see ourselves as owners, not stewards. But what do we do about it? This is where Tozer exhorts us. He helps us see the pathway for how to deal with what he calls our “possession malady”…

The Christian who is alive enough to know himself even slightly will recognize the symptoms of this possession malady, and will grieve to find them in his own heart. If the longing after God is strong enough within him he will want to do something about the matter. Now, what should he do?

First of all he should put away all defense and make no attempt to excuse himself either in his own eyes or before the Lord. Whoever defends himself will have himself for his defense, and he will have no other; but let him come defenseless before the Lord and he will have for his defender no less than God Himself. Let the inquiring Christian trample under foot every slippery trick of his deceitful heart and insist upon frank and open relations with the Lord.

Then he should remember that this is holy business. No careless or casual dealings will suffice…. Let him insist that God…. take things out of his heart and Himself reign there in power. It may be he will need to become specific, to name things and people [he is grasping] by their names one by one…..

If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy we must go this way of renunciation.

It’s in opening our hands that we find true freedom. Whether it’s our time, our talent, or our treasure, let’s together unclench our fists and be open-handed conduits of God’s goodness to the world around us.

God, we cling to money.
Our knuckles are white.
We don’t want to loosen our grip.
But we know it’s temporary
And that its value is so limited in comparison to who you are, with what you give.
Help us open our hands.
Show us Jesus, who though he was rich became poor. 
Give us confidence in you, our eternal treasure.
That we might give as you gave. And love as you loved.
For your glory alone, Amen.

- Adapted from The Book of Giving, Pierce Taylor Hibbs

BEN SANSBURN

In my teenage years, I don’t think anything that brought on more anxiety than a basketball team tryout.

I would wake up the morning of tryout with butterflies in my stomach. I’d slept fitfully, probably fighting worst-case-scenario nightmares of what the day would hold. Barely able to keep down a bowl of cereal, I would make my way over to the gym. And that’s when the real nerves would kick in. 

A gym full of teenage boys, all fighting for 12 spots on a select team that might dictate their basketball future, isn’t exactly a recipe for personal, existential flourishing. 

Inevitably, the first fifteen minutes of tryouts would be a mutual exercise in ‘sizing one-another up.’ As a basketball player, there’s an observational checklist you work through. Height is at the top of the list (it is basketball, of course). Shooting form, handles, jumping ability all factor in. But as much as any of those physical tools, checking out the other players’ gear matters too. Shoes, shorts, swag… all that impacts how you feel about your chances. Where you think you’ll fit in the ‘pecking order.’

It’s these questions that are the root of the anxiety: How do your talents compare with others? Where do you fit? Will you even make the cut? Do you measure up?

Sadly, as much as any basketball tryout, the church can sometimes produce this kind of anxiety. We enter a new church community and we have the same questions. Where do we fit? How do our gifts compare with the gifts of others? Will we make the cut?
But church isn’t meant to be a tryout. Paul helps us see that in Romans 12. In fact, in just a few verses he gives us a portrait of Christian community that counters the ‘performance’ and ‘comparison’ culture we so easily slide into.

Consider Yourself
First, Paul exhorts us to think of ourselves through the right lens. We must be careful about thinking of ourselves “more highly than [we] ought” (Rom. 12:3), but we also must be cautious of thinking we don’t measure up or that there isn’t a place for us in the community. God has designed each of us to use our gifts to help the body function. In his first letter to the Corinthians Paul reminds us that every part of the body is “indispensable” and deserving of honor (1 Cor. 12:22). Both over-confidence and under-confidence are forms of pride we need to fight.

Instead, Paul’s prescription is that we think of ourselves “with sober judgment… according to the measure of faith that God assigned” (Rom. 12:3). In other words, we are to consider ourselves honestly before the Lord. We each have gifts, we should embrace and use those gifts with humble gratitude. That often means looking to ourselves less and to God more. It is in light of his glory that we best understand the gifts and calling he’s given us.

Consider Your Community
Second, we must see our church community through the right lens. Our brothers and sisters are not competitors, but co-laborers. God has given his church a diversity of gifts in order that together we might fulfill our mission. This is why Paul uses the analogy of the body. The church is made up of many parts operating in sync with one another.

The body needs diversity. We need “gifts that differ” (Rom. 12:6).

A church where members are posturing for influence, clamoring for the spotlight, or over-sensitive of their gifts being recognized will become toxic quickly. Competition kills community. But when each person embraces and uses their gifts joyfully, whether it is prophecy, or service, or teaching, or exhortation, or generosity, or leadership, or acts of mercy (Rom. 12:7-8), the body functions with health and purpose.

Love Genuinely
Paul then helps us see the key to this kind of community of healthy, humble servants. It is rooted in love.

Without love, any human community will devolve into comparison and competition. But real love creates life. It wants the best for others and for the community. 

Paul emphasizes some specific ways that love gets demonstrated. It “abhors what is evil, and holds fast to what is good.” It is marked by “brotherly affection,” and “outdoes [others] in showing honor.” This kind of loving community is the environment in which each member’s gifts can flourish. Imagine a community where we were constantly letting others know the ways their gifts have blessed us. Where we were tripping over each other to honor our brothers and sisters. It’s that kind of loving community, Paul is saying, that expresses that very heart of God.

Stewarding our own gifts can never be separated from stewarding the gifts given to us as a community. The church is a team, not a tryout. And that reality frees us to run with gladness in the unique gifts and calling God has given us.

For Others:
Gifts are discovered in the context of a humble, mutually honoring community. Consider taking two steps this week:

• Ask a close Christian friend to honestly share with you where they see your gifts. How have they seen God work through you in their life or the lives of others?

• Write a note this week to another person in our community whose gifts have blessed you. Honor them by sharing the ways you see God’s grace at work in their life and encouraging them to continue exercising the gifts God has given them.

O My Lord,
Forgive me for serving you in sinful ways -
By glorying in my own strength
By forcing myself to minister through necessity,
By accepting the applause of others,

Help me to see
That it is faith stirred by grace that does the deed
That faith brings a man nearer to you,
That faith centers in you as God all-sufficient,
Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

It is my duty to set you above all others in mind and eye;
But it is my sin that I place myself above you.

Keep me in a faith that works by love, and serves by grace.

BEN SANSBURN

In the spring of 2020 we expanded our backyard vegetable garden. It was our big "COVID-quarantine" project. (Apparently it was everyone else's too).

We added two more 4’ x 8’ garden boxes. We installed an automated watering system. We planted raspberries (undoubtedly the best part of the garden, in my opinion). But the part of the project that took the most effort was building two 7’ high trellises on the side of each of our two large garden boxes. It was also the part of the project that was the most fruitful.

You see, gardens can get unwieldy quick. Vine plants like beans, tomatoes, zucchini - those don’t do well if they’re left to just try and find their way along the ground in and amongst other plants. They don’t have space to grow. They don’t get the sun they need. And in a cramped garden, they’ll get choked out. But if you tend them, and give them space and a structure to grow on, they’ll give you a harvest.

Our lives are a lot like that. Without space and structure, without a trellis to grow on, our lives will have a difficult time flourishing. They’ll feel scattered and tangled, crowded with busyness and hurry. But with the right trellis the vine of our lives has room to stretch out. A support structure gives us what we need to grow and expand and bear fruit.

In ancient monastic communities that structure was called a “rule of life.” An ordered rhythm to the days and weeks that gave consistency and prioritized what leads to spiritual health. Others have called these rhythms and practices “spiritual disciplines,” or “rhythms of grace.” It really doesn’t matter the term you use, what we’re talking about are the consistent, stable habits that facilitate spiritual vitality in your everyday life. Some of those things might be obviously ‘spiritual’ like Bible reading, prayer, and gathering with God’s people. Others we might think of as less ‘spiritual,’ but are no less important. Physical exercise, good sleep, and intentional family time come to mind. Each of these, and other practices, form a stable trellis we can grow and bear fruit on.

For some of us, that trellis is already in place. Others need some repairs. And for some of us it’s never been built. There can be a challenge if your life isn’t growing up the trellis. Getting there may require some pruning. Cutting some parts out of the tangled, cramped confines of the garden bed, in order to train the vine up the trellis. That pruning may be painful, but it’s needed. In fact, all of us would benefit through considering what needs to be cut out of our lives so the rest of the vine thrives.

But the trellis is key. John Mark Comer, in his book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry puts it starkly:

Let’s not wait until the next COVID quarantine to work on the gardens of our lives. Instead, as 2022 begins we can put in place solid trellises that will enable all kinds of life to sprout up everywhere we look.

Living deeply embedded in the life of the church needs to be a significant part of each of our trellises. And in a increasingly disconnected, digital, self-centered world, we need what life in God’s community can do to us.

In his helpful book The Wisdom Pyramid, Brett McCracken says this:

HEAVENLY FATHER,
Thou hast placed me in the church
which thy Son purchased by his own blood.
Add grace to grace that I may live worthy of my vocation.

I am a voyager across life’s ocean;
Safe in heaven’s ark, Mary I pass through a troubled world
into the harbor of eternal rest.

I am a tree of the vineyard thou hast planted.
Grant me not to be barren, with worthless leaves and wild grapes;
Prune me of useless branches;
Water me with dews of blessing.
I am part of the Lamb’s bride, the church. 
Help me to be true, faithful, chaste, loving, pure, devoted;
Let no strong affection wantonly dally with the world.
May I live high above a love of things temporal,
sanctified, cleansed, unblemished, hallowed by grace,
thy love my fullness,
thy glory my joy,
thy precepts my resting place.
My heart is not always a flame of adoring love,
But, resting in thy Son’s redemption,
I look forward to the days of heaven,
              where no languor shall oppress,
no iniquities chill,
no mists of unbelief dim the eye,
no zeal ever tires.
Father, these thoughts are the stay, prop, and comfort of my soul.

Ben Sansburn

The images and events of January 6, 2021 will live on in history books for a long time. Like many, I watched with a mixture of grief and anger the unfolding scenes yesterday at the US Capitol. Scenes I never thought I would see. Sure, over the past several weeks there had been warnings of the potential for violence, but it seemed those were certainly overblown. The reality that ended up playing out in front of a watching world was more surreal and saddening than we could have imagined.

While I grieve the breakdown of democracy in America, the increasing polarization of our culture, and the continued effort to challenge the Constitution by the sitting president of the United States, what is especially troubling, and should be troubling for all Christians, is the way the language and emblems of Christianity have been tied to all of this. As rioters stormed the Capitol, flying alongside Trump and Confederate flags were “Jesus Saves” banners, Christian flags, and “Jesus 2020” placards. And that wasn’t just the case in DC. Outside the Michigan capitol, in a similar though less violent protest, protesters erected a cross on the grounds outside the capitol building.

This is nothing less than idolatry. Over the past four years, much of the Evangelical church in America has tied its fate to the leadership of Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Brothers and sisters in Christ have sold their birthright for a bowl of stew. Out of fear of the progressive left, allegiance to Jesus and his kingdom have been traded for political power, Supreme Court justices and the promised protection of religious liberty; the only true inheritance exchanged for the preservation of a mythical “Christian” America. We can rationalize it any way we want, but as members of the American church we have to come to grips with the blatant and blasphemous religious syncretism we have slid into. 

Fifty years ago, philosopher and theologian Francis Schaeffer issued a prophetic warning that is strikingly relevant for the church in our political and cultural moment. In The Church at the End of the 20th Century, Schaeffer cautioned against the tendency of God’s people to run to political allegiances that promise safety and affluence. Doing so is risky business:

“… at first, an establishment elite [Schaeffer’s language for conservative politics and parties] will be less harsh on the church than a left-wing elite if that should come to power. But that is a danger. The church will tend to make peace with the establishment and identify itself with it. It will seem better at first, but not in the end if the church is identified with the establishment in the minds of young people…. I believe the church will be greatly hindered.”

Schaeffer was identifying a massive risk for Christians in connecting ourselves with any political movement. We may tie our cart to what promises safety and security and power now, but in the end it will cost us. It will cost us in our prophetic witness to an onlooking world, and it will cost us our witness to a younger, onlooking generation in the church.

But it’s not just tying ourselves to the “establishment elite” that concerns Schaeffer. Any conflation of our allegiance to God’s kingdom with an allegiance to the kingdoms of this world is dangerous. If we think our allegiance to Jesus and our allegiance to America go hand in hand, we’ve got serious problems.

“These are not two equal loyalties…. It must be taught that patriotic loyalty must not be identified with Christianity. As Christians we are responsible, under the Lordship of Christ in all of life, to carry the Christian principles into our relationship to the state. But we must not make our country and Christianity to be synonymous.”

What Schaeffer was warning against is Christian Nationalism - the idea that “God and country” are two equal, or even close to equal allegiances. Christian Nationalism has a long history and I won’t take time here to unpack it. (See Thomas Kidd’s brief article for a helpful synopsis). What Schaeffer would say, and what I am saying here unequivocally, is that Christian Nationalism is not real Christianity. But alarmingly, this false gospel has taken deep root in the American church. The images on the Capitol steps are another example that makes this sadly clear.

As Donald Trump’s presidency comes to a disgraceful end and we begin a new chapter under a new president, American Christians have the opportunity to do some serious self-examination. And make no mistake, we must. With hearts full of grief and repentance, we must ask ourselves honestly where our allegiance lies. And where the Lord graciously puts his finger on idolatry, we must seek deep repentance. What have we got to lose? For in losing every other hope for power and prosperity, in losing every competing allegiance, in losing every other kingdom, we gain the one that will last far after America itself is a mere footnote on the pages of history.

JOSH BREFFLE

This prayer is from our November 1st Sunday gathering and reflects our heart for God to strengthen us and cause us to shine brightly in the midst of a polarized and charged election week.

Father in heaven, we come to you this morning in anticipation of a week ahead of us that looms large in the hearts and minds of your people.

We come before you, knowing you hear our voice and our pleas for grace and mercy. You are a gracious and righteous God. Nothing can sway your good and mighty hand. Great is your steadfast love towards us… Your faithfulness endures forever.

Lord, you are sovereign, nothing comes to us that has not passed through your loving, merciful hand. You are our strength and our song. You are in the heavens and do all that pleases you. Righteousness and justice are the foundations of your character.

As we praise you and reflect on your character and nature, we are drawn to see the sinfulness in our own hearts and the hearts of our nation. We repent of our tendency to put our hope in political systems. We confess that we have given undue trust in human authority to provide freedoms and safeguards that come from you alone.

We confess that we have believed the lie that the church, your bride needs the protection of human governments to flourish. Forgive us for thinking that you would allow anyone or anything to come between you and your bride.

We confess that as a nation have not sought to protect the sanctity of human life…life created in your image… from the womb to the tomb. Forgive us for not protecting the lives of defenseless babies. Forgive us for not supporting single moms. Forgive us for not adopting more children. Forgive us for not welcoming the immigrant and foreigner.

As we confess the sins of our nation, as your people, we recognize there is a mixture of that same sin in our own heart, but we trust that you are faithful and just and will forgive us of our sin, by the blood of Jesus, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

We thank you God that we live in a free democratic nation where we go out Tuesday with a voice, electing the leaders of this nation. We thank you for the human authority structures you have given us as citizens of this country, and we are grateful for the safety and freedom that brings.
Jesus, we thank you that you promised that you are building your church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. We thank you that you are the Lord of lords and the King over all kings. No matter what happens Tuesday, no matter who sits in the white house, they sit under the heavenly authority of the risen, ruling, reigning King Jesus!

We thank you Lord, that no matter what happens Tuesday, we can be confident that you are working it together for the good of those called according to your purposes.

Father, we come to you, asking for you to be with us this week. May the bride of your Son shine like a diamond in the darkness of a polarized, contentious culture. May the words of our mouths be tender and life-giving, may our acts of service reach beyond partisan lines, may we be quick to hear, slow to speak, and abounding in grace for one another.  We ask that we would be so marked with love that a watching world would see that we are Jesus’ disciples.

We ask that the results of Tuesday’s election be quick and decisive, and that peace would rule the land. We pray against any violence, we pray against any riots, and we ask that you protect your people. We ask that you help us commit to pray for and support whoever wins the presidential election Tuesday. Help us recognize that whoever is in the oval office is placed by you and therefore worthy of our respect and submission.

Lord, we need your help. None of these things can be accomplished on our own, yet what is impossible for man is possible for you. Send your Holy Spirit and empower us to honor you in all we do. Be glorified as we seek to live peaceable among all people and use us to accomplish your will on the earth.

We love you and praise you O God, it’s in the name above all names, the Lord Jesus Christ that we pray, Amen.

DAVID WELLS

You will be appalled by the story I am about to relate to you. Appalled, that is, if you have any kind of social conscience.

A poor, black woman, living on Chicago's South Side, sought to have her apartment properly heated during the frigid winter months. Despite city law that demanded it, her unscrupulous landlord refused. The woman was a widow, desperately poor, and ignorant of the legal system; but she took the case to court on her own behalf. Justice, she declared, ought to be done. It was her ill fortune, however, to appear repeatedly before the same judge who, as it turned out, was an atheist and a bigot. The only principle by which he lived was, as he put it, that "blacks should be kept in their place." The possibilities of a ruling favorable to the widow were, therefore, bleak. They became even bleaker as she realized she lacked the indispensable ingredient necessary for favorable rulings in cases like these—namely, a satisfactory bribe. Nevertheless, she persisted.

At first, the judge did not so much as even look up from reading the novel on his lap before dismissing her. But then he began to notice her. Just another black, he thought, stupid enough to think she could get justice. Then her persistence made him self-conscious. This turned to guilt and anger. Finally, raging and embarrassed, he granted her petition and enforced the case. Here was a massive victory over "the system"—at least as it functioned in his corrupted courtroom.

In putting the matter like this I have not, of course, been quite honest. For this never really happened in Chicago (as far as I know), nor is it even my "story." It is a parable told by Jesus (Luke 18:1-8) to illustrate the nature of petitionary prayer. The parallel Jesus drew was obviously not between God and the corrupt judge, but between the widow and the judge. This parallel has two aspects. First, the widow refused to accept her unjust situation, just as the Christian should refuse to resign himself or herself to the world in its fallen state. Second, despite discouragement, the widow persisted with her case as should the Christian with his or hers. The first aspect has to do with prayer's nature and second with its practice.

I want to argue that our feeble and irregular prayer, especially in its petitionary aspect, is too frequently addressed in the wrong way. When confronting this failing, we are inclined to beat ourselves for our weak wills, our insipid desires, our ineffective technique, and our wandering minds. We keep thinking that somehow our practice is awry, and we rack our brains to see if we can discover where. I suggest that the problem lies in a misunderstanding of prayer's nature. Our practice will never have that widow's persistence until our outlook has her clarity.

What then, is the nature of petitionary prayer? It is, in essence, rebellion— rebellion against the world in its fallenness, the absolute and undying refusal to accept as normal what is pervasively abnormal. It is, in this its negative aspect, the refusal of every agenda, every scheme, every interpretation that is at odds with the norm as originally established by God. As such, it is itself an expression of the unbridgeable chasm that separates Good from Evil, the declaration that Evil is not a variation on Good but its antithesis.

Or, to put it the other way around, to come to an acceptance of life "as it is," to accept it on its own terms—which means acknowledging the inevitability of the way it is—is to surrender a Christian view of God. This resignation to what is abnormal has within it the hidden and unrecognized assumption that the power of God to change the world, to overcome Evil by Good, will not be actualized.

Nothing destroys petitionary prayer (and with it, a Christian view of God) as quickly as resignation. "At all times," Jesus declared, "we should pray" and not "lose heart," thereby acquiescing to what is (Luke 18:1).

The dissipation of petitionary prayer in the presence of resignation has an interesting historical pedigree. Those religions that stress quietistic acquiescence always disparage petitionary prayer. This was true of the Stoics who claimed that such prayer showed that one was unwilling to accept the existent world as an expression of God's will. One was trying to escape from it by having it modified. That, they said, was bad. A similar argument is found in Buddhism. And the same result, although arrived at by a different process of reasoning, is commonly encountered in our secular culture.

Secularism is that attitude that sees life as an end in itself. Life, it is thought, is severed from any relationship to God. Consequently the only norm or "given" in life, whether for meaning or for morals, is the world as it is. With this, it is argued, we must come to terms; to seek some other reference point around which to structure our lives is futile and "escapist." It is not only that God, the object of petitionary prayer, has often become indistinct, but that His relationship to the world is seen in a new way. And it is a way that does not violate secular assumption. God may be "present" and "active" in the world, but not a presence and an activity that changes anything or makes any difference.

Against all of this, it must be asserted that petitionary prayer only flourishes where there is a twofold belief: first, that God's name is hallowed too irregularly, His kingdom has come too little, and His will is done too infrequently; second, that God Himself can change this situation. Petitionary prayer, therefore, is the expression of the hope that life as we meet it, on the one hand, can be otherwise and, on the other hand, that it ought to be otherwise. It is therefore impossible to seek to live in God's world on His terms, doing His work in a way that is consistent with who He is, without engaging in regular prayer.

To pray declares that God and His world are at cross-purposes; to "sleep," or "faint," or "lose heart" is to act as if they are not. Why, then, do we pray so little for our local church? Is it really that our technique is bad, our wills weak, or our minds listless? I don't believe so. There is plenty of strong-willed and lively discussion—which in part or in whole may be justified—about the mediocrity of the preaching, the emptiness of the worship, the superficiality of the fellowship, and the ineffectiveness of the evangelism. So, why, then, don't we pray as persistently as we talk? The answer, quite simply, is that we don't believe it will make any difference. We accept, however despairingly, that the situation is unchangeable— what we see will always be. This is not a problem about the practice of prayer, but rather about its nature. Or, more precisely, it is about the nature of God and his relationship to the world.

Unlike the widow in the parable, we find it is easy to come to terms with the unjust and fallen world around us—even when it intrudes into Christian institutions. It is not always that we are unaware of what is happening, but simply that we feel completely impotent to change anything. That impotence leads us, however unwillingly, to strike a truce with what is wrong.

In other words, we have lost our anger, both at the level of social witness and before God in prayer. Fortunately, He has not lost His; for the wrath of God is His opposition to what is wrong, the means by which truth is put forever on the throne and error forever on the scaffold. Without God's wrath, there would be no reason to live morally in the world and every reason not to. So the wrath of God, in this sense, is intimately connected with petitionary prayer that also seeks the ascendancy of truth in all instances and the corresponding banishment of evil.

The framework Jesus gave us for thinking about this was the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is that sphere where the King's sovereignty is recognized. And, because of the nature of our King, that sovereignty is exercised supernaturally. In Jesus, the long-awaited "age to come" arrived; in Him and through Him, the Messianic incursion into the world has happened. Being a Christian, then, is not a matter of simply having had the right religious experience but rather of starting to live in the Spirit. Evangelism is not successful because our technique is "right," but because this "age" breaks the lives of sinful people. And this "age to come," which is already dawning, is not the possession of any one people or culture. God's "age," the "age" of his crucified Son, is dawning in the whole world. Our praying, therefore, should look beyond the concerns of our private lives to include the wide horizon of all human life in which God is concerned. If the Gospel is for everyone, prayer cannot restrict itself to being local.

It is not beside the point, therefore, to see the world as a courtroom in which a "case" can still be made against what is wrong and for what is right. Our feebleness in prayer happens because we have lost sight of this, and until we regain it, we will not persist in our role as litigants. But there is every reason why we should regain our vision and utilize our opportunity, for the Judge before whom we appear is neither an atheist nor corrupt, but the glorious God and Father, our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you really think, then, that He will fail to "bring about justice for His chosen ones who cry to Him night and day? Will He keep putting them off?" "I tell you," our Lord declares, "He will see that they get justice, and quickly" (Luke 18:7-8).

JOSH BREFFLE

These have been extremely trying times. The last week and a half have been some of the hardest days our generation has seen. Like so many of you, we have walked through the hours and days of the last week with great tears and broken hearts.

Things are not how they ought to be. We grieve not only what we see happening throughout our country right now, but we grieve the numerous ways that the evangelical church has not stepped in and stepped up to champion the love and protection of all our brothers and sisters.

Therefore, on behalf of all your pastors, I want our African-American brothers and sisters to know that we see you, we stand with you, and we so value every one of you. That goes for every single person of color that has had to endure prejudice, racism, or bigotry. We see you, we stand with you, and we value you.

Genesis 1:27 says:

That means that every single human being carries with them the image and likeness, they reflect the character and nature, they carry the blessing of God on them, because they are human. Every. Single. Person. No matter what color their skin is. No matter how old they are. No matter their net worth. No matter their ability to contribute to society. Every single human being has innate value, worth, and dignity, and as God’s people, we will fight for, and stand up against anyone, or anything that tries to say otherwise. This is what we mean by the sanctity of all human life.

Racism and systemic injustice are antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We long for the day when the throne of God will be populated with those from every nation, every tribe, and every tongue, worshipping the risen, ruling, and reigning King Jesus. But until that day, we will speak against racism, we will fight for justice, and we will doggedly pursue peace.

Seven times in 11 verses Paul mentions Jesus Christ.  This means something for the church of Philippi. And if you are a Christian, this means something for you too. What can we learn from these references that is basic to the Christian life?

Paul and Timothy are “servants of Christ Jesus” (v. 1). They belong to him. Paul understood himself to be a slave/servant of Jesus Christ.  He and Timothy belonged to Jesus Christ.  For Paul, this meant that he didn’t belong to himself. It meant that he was now devoted to the business and interests of his master.  It meant that his life was dedicated to the purposes of his master/owner. Christian, this is true of you as well. You belong to Jesus. Your life will find its deepest sense of meaning and purpose and flourishing when you live for the will of your master.  You belong to him.

The saints in Philippi are all “in Christ Jesus” (v. 1).  You not only belong to him, but you have also been joined to him.  All that was yours—sin, misery, suffering—became his, and all that is his—righteousness, purity, peace and power—is now yours.  Your life is “in him” like a branch that finds life and nourishment from the vine it is connected to.  You are not joined to him because of anything you ever did that was good or righteous, but because of the grace of God alone through your limping and sometimes little faith.  You are united to Jesus Christ. His death was your death. His resurrection life is already evidenced in your faith.  You are united to Jesus.  

The church in Philippi will experience grace and peace “from . . . the Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 2) through Paul’s writing.  We all want to experience grace and peace from the Lord Jesus but we often forget that it comes through the apostolic writings along with the rest of the Bible.  You can receive grace and peace from the present and ruling “Lord” Jesus through the inspired writings of Scripture.  Five hundred years ago John Calvin wrote, “There is an inseparable link between faith and the Word; they can no more be separated than rays of light from the sun.” One of the primary means of grace and peace from the Lord Jesus are through the word. Don’t hide yourself from the light and warmth of this sun.  

Paul prays that this church will be filled with fruit “that comes through Jesus Christ” (v. 11). We belong to Jesus. We are united to Jesus. And because of that union we not only receive grace and peace through the word of God but we also experience a kind of present filling from the him.  This filling looks like fruitfulness.  In v. 11 this is either the fruit that comes from our righteous status having been joined to Jesus by faith or the fruit is simply characterized as righteous in character.  It’s biblical and fair to say that both are true.  We become fruitful through our faith union with Jesus and this fruit is all the kinds of righteousness that reflect his character.  We become more loving, more joyful, more at peace, more patient, more kind, more faithful, more gentle, more self-controlled as we experience a present filling through our union with Jesus. Christian, bear fruit through Jesus.  

Paul yearns for these people in Philippi with “the affection of Christ Jesus” (v. 8).  Paul’s love for this church and every good pastor’s love for the church is an overflow and a shadow of “the affection of Christ Jesus.”  Did you know that? If you have ever experienced the patient, loving, care of a shepherd through the gospel, you have tasted “the affection of Christ Jesus.”  We under-shepherds are no replacement for the Chief Shepherd himself, but even broken clocks are right twice a day. And when we get it right, when we love and long for and communicate appropriate and fervent affection for the church, it becomes for the church, for you, a conduit of the affection of Jesus himself.  He loves you. It is his almighty heart that loves us with an everlasting love. It’s his heart that bursts with affection for weak and wavering sinners like you and me.  It’s his heart that is gentle and lowly toward all who would but come to him for rest.  The Lord Jesus loves you. The unfaithful pastor cannot diminish the affection Jesus feels for you. The faithful pastor merely displays it.  

The good work that God began in the church won’t be finished until “the day of Jesus Christ” (v. 6).  Also, Paul prays that this church would be marked by a purity and blamelessness “for the day of Christ” (v. 10). Your growth and sanctification are leading to a cosmic wedding ceremony where the church, the bride, will be presented in beauty and splendor to the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ.  Wait for Jesus. Aim for that day. Plan for that day.  Suffer hard things in light of that day. Everything in your life is leading to the return of Jesus, the “day” of Jesus.  Every hard thing you face is preparing you for a day when faith will become sight, tears will be wiped away, sad things will become untrue, and lost things will be found.  Paul writes in Romans 8:18:

It will be a day of joy of such magnitude that the sufferings we face now won’t even move the scale by weight and comparison.  Can you believe that?

RYAN BEARDSLEY

This Sunday we're going to be starting a new sermon series in the book of Philippians called "Gospel Joy in Troubled Times." Through his letter to the church in Philippi, Paul teaches us what it looks like to hold onto joy in the midst of the hardest circumstances. This letter is incredibly relevant for us in this moment and we're excited to receive from God's Word together!

BEN SANSBURN

There are multiple layers to the impact COVID-19 (coronavirus) is having on every one of our lives. Staying at home - from our jobs, from our activities, even from gathering as the church - is something none of us have ever experienced before. But beyond the very real anxieties over how long this will last and who will be affected, this moment offers an incredible opportunity for families to press into each other and worship Jesus together.

Martin Luther, the great reformer, often talked about families as the "little flock," the church in miniature form. And dads, in a unique way, have been given the high calling of serving as shepherd and pastor their flock. Of course this is true when there isn't a global pandemic, but when the church can't gather on Sunday and many dads are at home more than they ever been, how much more is this needed? So what does it look like in this moment to pastor our little flocks? Here are a few thoughts.

Shepherding never happens by accident. Even with more time to spare, meaningful conversations and time together isn't something that will spontaneously generate in our families. We're too easily distracted. None of us wants to end up at the end of the coronavirus crisis, look back and realize we missed an opportunity. That means we need to put thought, prayer and planning into ways we can turn the hope,  trust and worship of our families hearts toward Jesus.

"Go big or go home," is all too often my motto when it comes to leading my family spiritually. I want family worship to be this time when it feels like the heavens have opened. More often than not though, shepherding our homes doesn't happen through the epic, but through the mundane. It requires integrating consistent, simple rhythms in the ordinary stuff of life. So bring your expectations down a notch. Lead simply and faithfully. Don't stretch your kids past what they can handle in terms of content and time. Start small and grow from there.

At this time in history there is such an abundance of good resources available that it's not hard to get some ideas on where to start. Here are a handful connected to our life together at Summit.

New City Catechism 
We've been using the New City Catechism curriculum in our Summit Kids program over the last few months. The Catechism uses 52 questions and answers to teach the basics of the Christian faith. This type of question-answer format has been used since the early church to teach young hearts. The curriculum also includes catchy songs for each of the questions and answers to help kids memorize them. You can access the content through our Summit app or at newcitycatechism.com.

Bible Reading
There is no replacement for simply reading the Bible together as a family. There's no need for long explanation, just soaking in the language and content of the Scripture over time can make a tremendous difference in the lives of your kids. If you're starting for the first time, try working through the gospel of Matthew.

Prayer
Praying together and teaching your children to pray is worth it. Part of our 7@7 prayer initiative was designed with families in mind. Gather at 7pm with your kids each night and pray through the points and people in that email. If you haven't signed up yet, get signed up here.

Plan for Sundays
Gathering intentionally as a family to worship is as valuable as anything you can do during this season. We are planning our Sunday online services to be shorter specifically so families can watch and participate together, even with smaller children. You'll want to think through the best way to do this for your family depending on the age of your children. We're going to make space each Sunday to give instruction on taking the Lord's Supper. Consider how you might do this with your family. If you have kids that can engage with the teaching content, consider downloading our Sermon Notes PDF for them to use.

Getty Family Hymn Sing
Every Tuesday at 5:15pm, Keith and Kristyn Getty and their young daughters have a live family hymns sing on Facebook. They sing 4-5 songs over 20-25 minutes. Our family participated this past Tuesday and it was a lot of fun!

Spotify Playlist for Kids

The Gospel of Matthew is filled with stories of Jesus’ miracles, each of which is intended to teach us something important about both His identity and His purpose (which are really one in the same thing) – but these little details are often easy to miss or overlook in favor of the miracle itself.

When Jesus heals a leper, gives sight to the blind, or tells a lame man to walk, we see the miracle itself (rightly) as a sign of Jesus’ power and of His Lordship. Jesus is again and again demonstrating His power as one in the same with the creator God.

There is certainly nothing wrong with seeing the miracles in this way, but it is often clear that the Gospel writers want us to see much more than that, as well. They want us to see these miracles as the fulfillment of a long history of expectation; they want us to see that Jesus is not just God come to rescue us from damnation, but God come to heal the world, to usher in a new creation, to make life more abundant for all who would find their rest in Him.

The story of the healing of the centurion’s servant in Matthew 8 is one of those stories that it is easy to read past too quickly, and in so doing we miss the many little details that make the story so much more than just “another miracle”. Here, however, I want to focus on just one of these details (but by no means not the only one), as it provides just a bit more nuance as to what Jesus is actually accomplishing in this encounter.

When we see a Roman centurion coming to a Jewish teacher in a remarkable expression of faith, we are meant to note, first, that he is a Gentile. In fact, he is not only a Gentile, but a symbol of Roman authority. He is not only a non-Jew, he is part of the subjugation of Israel. He is the enemy. It is a bold step by Jesus (so it seems) outside of the realm of Jewish orthodoxy.

But Jesus’ willingness to serve and heal those outside of Israel shouldn’t have come as a surprise to the Jews of Jesus’ day. Those in Israel who devoutly sought guidance from the scriptures would have recognized the promise now being fulfilled in Jesus’ miracles.

Among the most consistent themes woven into the prophecies of the Old Testament was the future blessing to and conversion of the nations. Haggai writes of a future temple as a place so glorious that by it, God would “shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts” (Hag. 2:6-7).

Isaiah also wrote of thus future reality in numerous locations, including in the opening chapters of the book, where God declared:

It shall come to pass in the latter days
    that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
    and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
   and many peoples shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
    and that we may walk in his paths.”
Isaiah 2:2-3

In fact, the origin of this promise goes all the way back to the very beginning of Scripture. It is the reality underlying creation itself. It is the hope that undergirds God’s command to Adam that He “fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28). The duty of Adam and Eve was to take the glory and splendor of the Garden and carry it outward, bringing the glory and blessing of God – and, consequently, His blessings – to the farthest reaches.

While Adam and Eve failed to carry out this purpose, God reaffirmed his goal in renewing the Covenant with Noah (Gen. 9:1), and with Abraham, to whom God promised not just to make his family great, but to make them a blessing to “all the families of the earth” (Gen. 12:3).

This was always to be the driving purpose of God’s people in the world. God’s intention was never to make Israel great for its own sake, but so they would be a reflection of God in the world, extending His blessings to all people and drawing them in.

Here, then, as Jesus reaches outside of Israel to heal the centurion’s servant, He is not just paying homage to the promises God had made to Israel – He is actively fulfilling them and making them come true. This is good news, certainly, but there is a practical component as well for every Christian.

Later in His ministry Jesus declares that these same promises continue to come true through us. “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink… Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37-38). This is the same “living water” that was prophesied in Ezekiel 47, flowing out of the temple of God and bringing life to dead places, and it is the same river that John later sees flowing out of the church, beside which grows the “tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit…” with leaves that are “for the healing of the nations” (Rev. 22:2).

This is the reality demonstrated by Christ in His healing of the centurion’s servant (along with other miracles), and it is the reality still being lived out by the Church today, and it is a reality that has only been made possible through the work of Christ.