What Does Job 31:13-15 Tell Us About the Unborn?

by Jared C. Wilson

“If I have rejected the cause of my manservant or my maidservant, when they brought a complaint against me, what then shall I do when God rises up? When he makes inquiry, what shall I answer him? Did not he who made me in the womb make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb?” — Job 31:13-15

This passage tells us at least three things about the unborn, and thus about abortion:

1. The foundation of civil equality is traced to the womb.

Really, it is traced to God’s having made mankind in his image, but the well-to-do Job is asserting an equality of personhood with his servants based on their equal status as unborn children. Therefore, the unborn are persons with civil rights. This makes abortion a dehumanizing injustice.

2. The development of the unborn is a work of God.

Job says he and his servants were made in the womb, fashioned in the womb. Coupled with Psalm 139’s words on God’s creative work in the womb, we learn that abortion is therefore tearing apart what God has joined together.

3. The treatment of persons as non-persons is something for which we will give an account.

“What shall I do when God rises up?” Job asks about unjust treatment of his servants. And what will we say? Injustice of this kind will be reckoned with. We will have to give an account to our holy God for the murder of millions of unborn persons he is forming in his image.

No law can be just if its justice for one is predicated on injustice to another.

Jared C. Wilson

Jared C. Wilson is the Director of Content Strategy for Midwestern Seminary, Assistant Professor of Pastoral Ministry at Spurgeon College, Director of the Pastoral Training Center at Liberty Baptist Church, and author of numerous books, including Gospel Wakefulness, The Pastor’s Justification, The Prodigal Church, The Imperfect Disciple, Supernatural Power for Everyday People, and The Gospel-Driven Church. A frequent preacher and speaker at churches and conferences, you can visit him online at jaredcwilson.com or follow him on Twitter.

Posted at: https://ftc.co//resource-library/blog-entries/what-does-job-31-13-15-tell-us-about-the-unborn

THE BITTER CUP: GOD'S GRACE IN DEPRESSION

Lauren Bowerman 

How do you tell people who look to you as a "strong Christian woman" that only weeks before you lay curled on your bathroom floor, barely able to breathe, except to utter the words to God or whoever might be listening, "Why don't you love me?"

Two years ago, I was introduced to depression for the first time in my life.

It was bewildering. I was a strong believer, newly engaged, serving at my local church, living with some of my best friends... yet a deep weariness seemed to cling to me to day after day. A dark cloud—one that wouldn’t lift—hung over me for days that stretched into months.

I shouldn't be feeling this way, should I? I thought. I should be happy, right?

WHEN THE DARKNESS DOESN’T LIFT

I discovered that my depression was caused by a medication I was on, and praise God, the dark cloud lifted when I changed medication. But then my fiancé (now my husband) had his first panic attack. One attack turned into two, which turned into three.

The frequency of the attacks continued to increase, and what followed was months and months of unexplainable depression and anxiety. I found myself just a few weeks into marriage, holding my husband as he shook with yet another panic attack.

Day after day panic attacks and depression racked through our little family of two. I would try to remember a time before the darkness, try to make myself believe that the darkness would lift.

But what if it didn't?

“HOW COULD A GOOD GOD ALLOW THIS?”

I felt helpless and alone. I would be fine one day, but the next day my husband would have a depressive spell, and I would find myself spiraling down with him. I was hopeless.

“I couldn’t see God through the darkness.

I couldn't see God through the darkness.

I had walked with God for years. I had gone to seminary to develop a theological foundation. I had done studies on the character of God. And yet I found myself wondering, "How could a good God walk his children through something so desperately painful and difficult?

They say that hindsight is 20/20. That it's easier to see the meaning of a season when you have a bigger perspective. But even though we've had more light days than dark in the last few months, I know our battle with this darkness is not over.

QUESTIONING MY SUFFERING

Sometimes I feel like I'm gaining perspective. On the lighter days, it's often easier for me to choose joy and feel hopeful and trust God. But sometimes—even on a good day—I look back at those dark days (or look forward to the inevitable dark days to come) and wonder . . .

Does all this suffering even mean anything?

I know I'm not the only one who asks this question. I've heard the question from friends wrestling with the repercussions of childhood trauma, from family members questioning why innocent children die, from women suffering daily from chronic illness, from couples struggling with infertility.

“Does all this suffering even mean anything?

You've probably heard the question echo around your own mind as you wade through the brokenness of the world. It's a haunting and heavy question: Does all this suffering even mean anything?

Over the last year, in this combination of dark and light days, days of hopelessness contrasted with hopefulness, seasons of fear and seasons of deep trust, God has been gracious to give me some perspective. Maybe not 20/20, but at least some growth in understanding. I pray what I’m learning meets you in the midst of your darkness.

SUFFERING IS TO BE EXPECTED

I'm not sure where we got the notion that as Christians our lives should be comfortable. Nowhere in Scripture does God promise a life of ease and happiness on this side of heaven; and if he did, that promise of ease would not be a kindness to us.

“God promises—even amidst inevitable suffering—that we will experience a deep, abiding peace and joy in Christ.

No, we’re not promised comfort. But, as Peter writes, we are promised suffering: "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you" (1 Pet. 4:12).

Suffering is not all we’re promised, however. Peter goes on to write, “But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Pet. 4:13). God promises—even amidst inevitable suffering—that we will experience a deep, abiding peace and joy in Christ.

Suffering, then, is not a mark of failure or weakness. It's not a sign of God's disappointment in you. Suffering is a means of grace. Here are three reasons why.

SUFFERING SHOWS US THAT GOD LOVES US

When you love someone, you often try to show them your love through acts of kindness, through words of encouragement, through gifts that make them feel loved and cared for, through hugs and kisses and sweet gestures. But God's love is sometimes very unlike man's love.

Sometimes I feel that the way God is acting towards me—to put me through some hard thing, to walk me through a dark and difficult season—sometimes I feel it reflects a lack of love towards me. I feel like God doesn’t love me in those times . . .

But I must remember: God's love is steadfast and sure (Ps. 36:7; Isa. 54:10; Heb. 6:19-20). It is continual and comprehensive (Ps. 107; Isa. 54:8; Rom. 8:39). God's love is unchanging, no matter what darkness he walks me through.

In fact—and this might sound crazy, but bear with me—oftentimes, God's love for me is magnified when he walks me through darkness. Charles Spurgeon writes,

"So far as personal sorrows are concerned, it would be a very sharp and trying experience to me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me, that the bitter cup was never filled by His hand, that my trials were never measured out by Him, nor sent to me by His arrangement of their weight and quantity.

Oh, that would be bitterness indeed! But, on the contrary . . .

May we see that our heavenly Father fills the cup with loving tenderness, and holds it out, and says, ‘Drink, my child; bitter as it is, it is a love-potion which is meant to do thee permanent good.’"

God is good even when he gives me a bitter cup to drink. 

SUFFERING POINTS US TO SOMETHING BETTER

Sometimes the depth of suffering is indescribable. People ask how you are, but how do you describe the deep and continual loneliness you feel? How do you explain the spiral of utter hopelessness and darkness you're trapped in? How do you tell someone about the weight that you constantly feel in your gut?

Suffering is deep and painful.

But it is expressly in these moments of suffering that we must remember the outcome of enduring it:

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God. . . . Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” —Rom. 5:1, 3-4

Suffering—if we let it—points us to hope. And that hope is rooted in Jesus.

No matter what you’re going through, look to Jesus.

“God is good even when he gives me a bitter cup to drink.

When things are good, look to Jesus.

When you’re shuddering from a panic attack, look to Jesus.

When you can't get up from your puddle of tears on the bathroom floor, look to Jesus.

SUFFERING PRODUCES IN US SOMETHING THAT’S WORTH EVERYTHING

Oftentimes the growth produced in suffering isn't seen quickly. Sometimes you can’t see the growth for weeks, months, or even years.

It’s in these seasons though that, unbeknownst to us, God is growing in us long-suffering, patience, and deep trust.

“God draws us near in the discomfort and the dissatisfaction.

It's uncomfortable. It's frustrating. It's scary. But somehow, suffering serves to sanctify us. Suffering exposes our sin, grows our trust, and deepens our love of God.

When we're comfortable, we can easily become blind to the sanctifying work the Lord needs to do in our hearts. We think we're okay, that we've got a hold on our faith, that we’re fully trusting the Lord in every area.

But it seems that God grows our faith and trust in him more when we are uncomfortable and dissatisfied with our circumstances. It seems that he draws us near in the discomfort and the dissatisfaction.

It’s in those seasons of suffering that—if we look to Jesus—we experience an intimacy with the Lord unlike anything else.

PRAISE GOD FOR SUFFERING

Therefore we can praise God for suffering. We can confidently face yet another trial, whether it's depression, conflict, illness, infertility, poverty, loneliness, darkness, or death. We can even thank God for such trials, because we know that there is no greater growth than that which comes from the depths of darkness. There is no prayer more genuine than the prayer that flows before the tears have dried.

“The “better thing” is not our earthly comforts, but nearness to God.

The "better thing" is not our earthly comforts, but nearness to God, which he has been gracious to offer us in the depths of our despair and brokenness.

Because isn't Christ's graciously-extended hand made more glorious by the fact that it’s extended to wretched, dead, and wayward sinners? Isn't his love magnified by the fact that we are so utterly unlovable?

It's all grace.

Salvation. Suffering. Sanctification.

All of it is grace.

GOD’S GRACE IN YOUR SUFFERING

In whatever painful season you're currently walking through, praise God for this hard path, because it is precisely this difficult thing that is growing you more into God's likeness.

Remind yourself of the unchanging goodness of God.

Remind yourself of his kindness to you, even in giving you—especially in giving you—this difficult thing.

It’s grace.

It's all grace.

Lauren Bowerman lives just outside of Denver, CO but has been privileged to call many cities, states, countries, and continents home. Her transient life has cultivated in her a deep love for diverse cultures and people. As a writer and a pastor’s wife, she is passionate about encouraging God’s people through writing on her blog and through discipleship.

posted at: https://gcdiscipleship.com/article-feed/2019/5/20/the-bitter-cup-gods-grace-in-depression

Four Reasons You Should Pray Daily for your Pastor

Jason K Allen

As a pastor, few things warmed my heart more than church members telling me they prayed for me daily. Their simple act of prayer both encouraged and reassured me. It encouraged me to know they were standing in the gap for me spiritually, and it reassured me to know they loved my family, the church, and me enough to do so.

Now that I a member of a local church, God has been impressing upon my heart the importance of praying regularly for my pastors. They are men called by God to serve his flock, and they regularly bless my family and me. The least I can do is pray for them faithfully. There are many Biblical reasons why we should pray for our pastors, but let us consider just these four.

First, pastors face a higher judgment. The ministry of the Word is a rewarding but dangerous calling. In fact, James cautioned that not many should become teachers because they will face a stricter judgment.[1]  In addition to the ministry of the Word, the pastor is also responsible for the souls of his flock. This is a daunting responsibility, for which they will give an account.[2]  If these realities were not sobering enough, pastors also steward God’s glory in the church and before the community. Their character is to be sterling, and their reputation unblemished. God expects much of his ministers, and we should be much for them in prayer.

Second, pastors face more intense temptation. Peter tells us that Satan roams about as a roaring lion seeking those he may devour; and there is no one he enjoys devouring more than a Christian minister, especially an erstwhile faithful one.[3] When he does, he not only ruins a pastor and his ministry, he also destroy a family, disrupts a church, and sullies God’s glory in that community. There simply is no sin like the sin of a clergyman, and there is no one Satan desires to bring down more than those whom God is using most fruitfully.

Third, pastors face unique pressures. There are days pastors carry the weight of the world, and for reasons of confidentiality, all they can do is bottle it up. Whether it is a piercing word of criticism, a church member’s scandalous sin, a draining counseling session, a rigorous day of sermon preparation, or just the operational challenges of most congregations, all of these burdens—and more—can mount up to make the strains of ministry seem at times nearly unbearable.

Fourth, pastors will bless you more. This final point may seem odd, if not altogether self-serving, but it is true. Over the years I have noticed the more I pray for my pastor, and especially his preaching ministry, the more I get fed from the pulpit. Perhaps it is God answering my prayer for my pastor, or perhaps my heart is better prepared to receive the Word after praying for the preacher, but time and again I have seen a direct correlation between the two. The surest way to be personally blessed is to pray more fervently for the preacher and the preaching of God’s Word.

Any man can take the title pastor, and too many men have. Only those called of God can rightly shepherd his flock. If God has given you such a man, you have been blessed indeed. Make sure and bless him—and yourself—by praying for him daily. Pastor appreciation Sunday comes around one week a year. Why don’t you show your appreciation daily by praying for God’s man?

_____________________________________________________

[1] James 3:1.

 [2] Hebrews 13:7.

 [3] I Peter 1:8.

Jason K. Allen

Jason K. Allen is the President of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminaryin Kansas City, Missouri. In addition to his seminary duties, Allen has served as pastor and interim pastor of several Southern Baptist churches. Dr. Allen holds a Bachelor of Science from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, as well as M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees from Southern Seminary. Currently, in addition to his responsibilities as president of Midwestern Seminary, he serves the church more broadly through writing and preaching ministries.

Posted at: https://ftc.co/resource-library/blog-entries/4-reasons-you-should-pray-for-your-pastor-daily

Three Marks of Every Man and Woman of God

Colin Smith

In a previous article, I wrote that without Christ you were a lost and helpless and hopeless sinner. But now in Christ you are a new creation. God’s Spirit lives in you! 

You are God’s man, God’s woman. Be who you are. 

In this article, I want to give you three distinguishing marks of every man and woman of God. These were God’s words through Paul to Timothy, and so they apply to us today.

Three Distinguishing Marks of Every Man and Woman of God 

1. You have made a confession. 

Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. (1 Timothy 6:11-12)

Paul is pointing to a specific time, remembered by many people, when Timothy confessed faith in Jesus Christ. It seems most likely that this would have been his baptism. 

Since the day of Pentecost, Christian believers have confessed faith in Jesus through baptism, which is a sign and seal of our union with Christ. Scripture says: 

If you confess with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9) 

From the earliest times people made this confession at baptism: “Jesus is Lord.” Timothy had made this confession, and a large crowd of people had heard it. 

A Christian is a person who has reached a conclusion about Jesus Christ. Christians are in process about many things. We are in the process over holiness, repentance, spiritual growth, overcoming temptation, and prayer. 

But we are not in process over who Jesus is. We stand with Peter when he said to Jesus, “You are the Christ” (Matthew 16:16). We stand with Thomas when he bowed before Jesus and said, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28). And, we stand with the whole church in every place and every age, confessing that “Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:11).

If you are God’s man or God’s woman, you don’t start each day wondering who you are, why you are here, or who you belong to. You are Christ’s, united with him in his death and resurrection. You have made a confession. 

Have you made this confession? If you have, remember who you are: God’s man, God’s woman.  

2. You have embraced a calling. 

In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus… I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame… (1 Timothy 6:13-14) 

The command that Paul is referring to seems to be in verses 11 and 12: “There is character to pursue, a battle to fight, and a life to gain… But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.” 

a. Character to pursue 

John Stott says that: “Endurance is patience in difficult circumstances. Gentleness is patience with difficult people.” [4] 

b. A battle to fight 

Fight the good fight of the faith (1 TImothy 6:12). 

The world will always reject Christ, and those who proclaim that “Christ is Lord” will always be in conflict with the unbelieving world. 

c. A life to gain 

Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses… (1 Timothy 6:12) 

Notice the language—pursue, fight, take hold. The Christian life will be a struggle. Calvin says that: 

Self indulgence springs from [the Christian’s] desire to serve Christ… as if it were a mere leisure activity. Christ calls [his servants]… to wage a war.[5] 

Where do you find the energy for this struggle? Sometimes it is hard to keep going—too many disappointments, too many unanswered prayers, too many failures. You feel run down and you get weary in the struggle. 

How do you find the strength to sustain the rigors and the demands of this Christian life? When Paul gives Timothy this charge, he says “in the sight of God, who gives life to everything” (v13). 

God will give you the energy you need for this. He gives you life. He sustains your life. And, he will give you strength for each day. Pursue your calling in the sight of the God who gives life. He will quicken you by His Spirit. As your days are, so shall your strength be. 

3. You anticipate Christ’s coming. 

Keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ… (1 Timothy 6:14) 

One day we are going to see Jesus Christ. He will appear. God will bring that day about “in his own time” (1 Timothy 6:15, NIV). The day will come when your faith will be turned to sight. This is an amazing promise. 

Then Paul reminds us that “God… lives in unapproachable light” (1 Timothy 6:16). God is not hidden in unapproachable darkness, but in unapproachable light. We are not alienated from God because He is obscured in darkness, but because he is inaccessible in light. 

Our problem is not that we can’t find God. It is that we couldn’t come near him if we did! All through the Bible, we find that man at his best is unable to stand in the presence of God: 

When Isaiah, the holiest man of his time, saw God’s glory fill the temple, he cried “Woe to me… I am ruined” (Isaiah 6:5). When John the Apostle saw the glory of the risen Christ, he “fell at his feet as though dead…” (Revelation 1:17). 

If the best of men in the Old and New Testaments are on their faces in the presence of God, how do you think it will be for us when the Son of God comes in his glory and all his holy angels with him? 

Thomas Blinney explains how we can abide in Christ’s presence when he comes:  

There is a way for man to rise   
To that sublime abode:  
An offering and a sacrifice,  
A Holy Spirit’s energies,  
An Advocate with God: 

He points to: 

• An offering: The Son of God loved us and gave Himself for us 

• A sacrifice: Christ bore our sins in His body on the tree 

• The Holy Spirit: uniting us with Christ through the bond of faith 

• The risen Christ: advocating for us in the presence of the Father 

Who We Are  

This is the life that we share together in the church: We share the same confession of Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord. We share the same calling to pursue a holy life, to fight the good fight of faith, and to lay hold of the eternal life to which we have been called. We live in the same anticipation of Christ’s appearing and our entry into the glory of His presence 

Whatever you are facing in your life right now, here’s what you need to know. You are God’s man, God’s woman, bought by the precious blood of Christ, called to the blessing of life under the rule of God: The King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who alone is immortal, who lives in unapproachable light, to whom be glory and might forever. Amen. 

Colin Smith is the senior pastor of The Orchard Evangelical Free Church in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. He has authored a number of books, including Heaven, How I Got Here and Heaven, So Near - So Far. Colin is the president and teacher for Unlocking the Bible. Follow him on Twitter.

Posted at: https://unlockingthebible.org/2019/05/three-marks-every-man-woman-god/

Characteristics of a Godly Leader

by Rick Thomas

When you think about the characteristics of a good leader, what comes to mind? I suspect many of us would think about a pastor or a boss in the workplace, or perhaps a husband or father. Those roles would be worth your time to consider since they are all “impactful positions” where a person’s demeanor, attitudes, words, and actions can shape their spheres of influence for a lifetime.

I aim to take your thoughts about leadership and expand them while making a case that every Christian is a leader regardless of where they stand within any hierarchical structure. For example, a husband is a leader, as you already know, but so is his wife.

And a parent, child, church member, employee, and a friend are all leaders. “Are you a leader” is one of those questions you don’t need to ask a believer. If you’re a Christian, you are a Christian leader. And though no leader has perfected the skill of leadership, all good Christian leaders are progressively changing into the best version of a leader that they can be.

When assessing your unique leadership qualities, it’s vital not to look for the perfection of any trait, but discern whether or not you have the presence of a characteristic. The critical questions are, what kind of leader are you? And how are you maturing into Christlikeness, our perfect leader?

Stratification and Similarity

There are different kinds of leaders, which is why you want to understand the roles of each person within a stratification structure. Meaning, a wife may be subordinate in some ways to her husband, but her role does not mean she can’t be a leader.

A wife can walk in humble submission to her husband and be an astonishing leader within her calling to be a wife to her husband and a friend to others. A son or daughter can function fantastically well in their dual roles as “subordinate children and leaders” within their spheres of influence, including how they help their parents to be better individuals. All church members have similar opportunities of submission to and leadership of their pastors (Hebrews 13:17, 10:25).

Jesus functioned this way when He lived among us. He was a humble and confident leader of multitudes while humbly submitted to the authority of His Father (John 6:38). Following and leading should not be self-negating roles.

The real question circles around the quality of your leadership style rather than if you are a leader, which brings us back to the traits that make a competent leader? If you want to see what a perfected model of leadership looks like, Jesus is an excellent example for us to observe. Specifically, I want to zero on the events just before His crucifixion. You can read it in Matthew 21:1-17.

Humility: He Is Not What You Think

And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds said, “This is the prophet, Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee. – Matthew 21:10-11

One of the characteristics of an excellent leader is that he breaks down poor stereotypes and horrible preconceived notions about leadership. He can wipe away any bad experiences that you may have had with an ineffective leader.

The people of Jesus’ day knew what leadership looked like—via the Pharisees—and it was not how Jesus did it. To be with Jesus, you have to think other-worldly, which is also how we experience the gospel. (Read 1 Corinthians 1:18-25). God’s ways and our ways can be opposed to each other (Isaiah 55:8-9).

Jesus came to Jerusalem on a donkey, not a warhorse. Humility is the first and most essential characteristic of a Christian leader. Without a humbled heart before the Lord (and others), everything else that pours out of a leader will eventually collapse.

• What evidence would others say that describe you as a humble leader?

• Does your humility catch people off guard, as you deconstruct poor leadership models?

Authority: He Is a Courageous Leader

And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. – Matthew 21:12

After stepping off His donkey, He went into the temple to give it a cleanse. It was His way of staking claim to His Kingship. That was an unusual “next move” on His part because it seemed to fly in the face of humility.

Humility and authority should not be antagonistic to each other because they need each other. A humility that resembles a doormat is not humility at all. That’s fear. Humility unhooks the soul from fearful self-awareness while releasing it to do God’s will—whatever that may be (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Authority without humility creates a devil whose two main interests are selfish ambition and a glorified reputation. Jesus was freed from both of these sins because the condition of His heart was humility. Humility does not negate speaking the truth, exhibiting courage, or being authoritative. Be who God wants you to be, but be that way with humility.

• Does your humility create an environment in which your authority is rightly understood and accepted?

• Or does your authority spring from a heart of selfish ambition and craving for reputation?

Approachable: He Is Attractive to the Humble

And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. – Matthew 21:14

Jesus entered the temple humbly, did not hold back from being authoritarian, and He was an approachable servant. (Also see Mark 10:45) The self-exalted, self-pronounced, self-appointed vital people in the temple that day were angry at what Jesus was doing, but the blind and lame people were not interested in the religious leader’s reputations or self-importance. They recognized Jesus for who He was, and they wanted to be with Him.

Humility receives humble leadership. And vice versa. The humble folks received Christ, but proud ones resisted His humble leadership. Pride and humility are like oil and water.

If the leader is humble and the followers are too, there will be sweet communal harmony between both of them. The blind and lame were not afraid of His authoritative leadership style because they experienced it in the context of His humility.

Though Jesus (and all excellent leaders) had more characteristics than humility, courage, and approachability, these three stood out just before He was put to death, which is another unusual characteristic of a competent leader: He will die for you.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. – John 15:13-14

Call to Action

1. Will you ask a close friend if they perceive you as a humble person? (It takes humility to ask such a question, and you will do it if you’re not into reputation management.)

2. Does your authority flow out of your humility? How do you know? Will you ask someone about this to see if they agree with you?

3. Do people approach you with their most vulnerable, humbling, and transparent questions? If not, why not?

Posted at: https://rickthomas.net/three-characteristics-wonderful-leader/?fbclid=IwAR3bTdVMVA4peYLL4iwlHkfjHf03ChVGANzWp7ZeyChAej5KfKULyIZimNk

7 Truths About Hell

J. D. Greear  

Concerning hell, C. S. Lewis once wrote, “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power.” In many ways, I agree with him. No one, Christians included, should like the idea of hell. Those of us who believe in hell aren’t sadists who enjoy the idea of eternal suffering. In fact, the thought of people I know who are outside of Christ spending eternity in hell is heartbreaking. As a young Christian, when I began to learn about hell and its implications, I almost lost my faith. It was that disturbing.

Hell is a difficult reality, but it is something that the Bible teaches, and we can’t fully understand God and his world unless we grapple with it. These seven truths should frame our discussion of hell.

1. Hell is what hell is because God is who God is. People speak glibly about “seeing God,” as if seeing God face-to-face would be a warm and fuzzy experience. But the Bible explains that God’s holiness and perfections are so complete that if anyone were to see him, he would die (Ex. 33:20). Even the slightest sin in his presence leads to immediate annihilation. When Isaiah, the prophet of God, saw God upon his throne, he fell upon his face, terrified and sure that he was about to die (Is. 6:5).

The doctrine of hell has fallen out of favor among many. But it’s there for a reason. God tells us about hell to demonstrate to us the magnitude of his holiness. Hell is what hell is because the holiness of God is what it is. Hell is not one degree hotter than our sin demands that it be. Hell should make our mouths stand agape at the righteous and just holiness of God. It should make us tremble before his majesty and grandeur.

Ironically, in doing away with hell, you do away with the very resources that show God’s justice. When a person goes through rape or child abuse, she needs to know that there is a God of such holiness and beauty that his reign can tolerate no evil.

2. Jesus spoke about hell more than anyone else in Scripture. Some people try to avoid the idea of hell by saying, “That was the Old Testament God, back when he was in his junior high years and all cranky. But when God matured in the New Testament with Jesus—meek and mild Jesus—he was all about love and compassion.”

The problem with this view is that when you start reading the Gospels, you find that Jesus speaks about hell more than anyone else. In fact, if you count up the verses, Jesus spoke more about hell than he did about heaven. One of the most famous skeptics in history, Bertrand Russell, said in his book Why I’m Not a Christian that Jesus’s teaching on hell is “the one profound defect in Christ’s character.” If we want to avoid the idea of hell, we can’t ignore the problem by just focusing on “meek and mild Jesus.”

3. Hell shows us the extent of God’s love in saving us. Why did Jesus speak about hell more than anyone else in the Bible? Because he wanted us to see what he was going to endure on the cross on our behalf. On the cross, Jesus’s punishment was scarcely describable: this bloodied, disfigured remnant of a man was given a cross that was perhaps recycled, likely covered in the blood, feces, and urine of other men who had used it previously. Hanging there in immense pain, he slowly suffocated to death.

The worst part was the separation from the Father that Jesus felt, a separation that was hell itself. “My God, my God,” he cried out, “Why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46). In all of this, Jesus was taking the hell of our sin into his body.

People often feel that hell is some great blemish on God’s love. The Bible presents it as the opposite. Hell magnifies for us the love of God by showing us how far God went, and how much he went through, to save us.

4. People are eternal. C. S. Lewis once noted that hell is a necessary conclusion from the Christian belief that human beings were created to live forever. As he put it:

Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live forever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only 70 years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live forever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse—so gradually that the increase in 70 years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be.

Elsewhere, Lewis wrote:

Hell . . . begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps criticizing it. . . . Ye can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood, nor even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine.

5. In one sense, God doesn’t send anyone to hell; we send ourselves. Hell is the culmination of telling God to “get out.” You keep telling God to leave you alone, and finally God says, “Okay.” That’s why the Bible describes it as darkness: God is light; his absence is darkness. On earth we experience light and things like love, friendship, and the beauty of creation. These are all remnants of the light of God’s presence. But when you tell God you don’t want him as the Lord and center of your life, eventually you get your wish, and with God go all of his gifts.

We have two options: live with God, or live without God. If you say, “I don’t want God’s authority. I would rather live for myself,” that’s hell. In The Great Divorce and The Problem of Pain, Lewis put it this way:

In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell is itself a question: “What are you asking God to do?” . . . To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what he does. . . . In the end, there are only two kinds of people—those who say to God “thy will be done” and those to whom God says in the end “thy will be done.”

6. In another sense, God does send people to hell, and all his ways are true and righteous altogether. We may be tempted to rage at God and to correct him. But how can we find fault with God? As Paul says in Romans 9, who are we—as mere lumps of clay—to answer back to the divine potter?

We are not more merciful than God. Isaiah reminds us that all who are currently “incensed against God” will come before him in the last day and be ashamed, not vindicated (Is. 45:24), because they will then realize just how perfect God’s ways are. Every time God is compared with a human in Scripture, God is the more merciful of the pair.

When we look back on our lives from eternity, we’ll stand amazed not by the severity of his justice, but by the magnanimity of his mercy.

7. It’s not enough for God to take us out of hell; he must take hell out of us. Some people see a problem in using hell as a way of coercing people to submit to Christianity. It’s as if God is saying, “Serve me or else!” And that seems manipulative. It may surprise you, but God agrees.

If people are converted to God simply because they are scared, or because God has done some great, miraculous sign (cf. Luke 16:31), they might submit, but it wouldn’t change their heart attitude toward God. If you accept Jesus just to “get out of hell,” then you’d hate being in heaven, because only those who love and trust God will enjoy heaven. If you don’t love the Father, then living in the Father’s house feels like slavery. It would be like forcing you to marry someone you didn’t want to marry. The only way you’ll enjoy heaven is when you learn to love and trust God.

Only an experience of the love of God can rearrange the fundamental structure of your heart to create a love and trust of God. It’s not enough for God to take us out of hell; he must take hell out of us.

J. D. Greear is the lead pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. He is the author of Gospel (B&H, 2011), Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart (B&H, 2013), and Jesus, Continued(Zondervan, 2014).

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/7-truths-about-hell/

What Our Anger Is Telling Us

Article by Jonathan Parnell

Pastor, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Anger is not good for you, at least not in its typical form.

New studies argue that regular feelings of anger increase the likelihood for heart disease, and that within two hours of an outburst, the chances of a heart attack or stroke skyrocket. Which means all you angry folks better watch out; it’s a dangerous foible.

But wait. Anger is more than a problem for “you angry people.” It is actually a problem for all of us — that includes you and me.

Traditionally, the anger issue has been divided up between those who get angry and those who don’t. Some personalities tend toward red-faced eruptions; others are unflappably relaxed and easygoing. But the truth is, everyone gets angry — it’s just expressed in different ways. In her article “Why Anger Is Bad For You,” neurophysiologist Nerina Ramlakham says, “Now we separate people differently into those who hold rage in and those who express it out.” The question, then, isn’t who gets angry, but why we all get angry.

And why we get angry has to do with love.

The Love Behind Anger

Anger doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s not an original emotion. In one degree or another, anger is our response to whatever endangers something we love. “In its uncorrupted origin,” says Tim Keller, “anger is actually a form of love” (“The Healing of Anger”). Anger is love in motion to deal with a threat to someone or something we truly care about. And in many ways, it can be right.

“The question isn’t who gets angry, but why we all get angry.”

It is right that we get angry with the delivery guy who speeds down our street when our kids are playing in the front yard. That makes sense. The delivery guy puts our children in danger. It also would be right that we get angry about Boko Haram’s hideous evil in Nigeria. It is unbelievably horrible.

But if we’re honest, as much as there are right instances for our anger, most of our anger isn’t connected to the incidental dangers surrounding our children or the wicked injustices happening across the world. As much as we love our children and care about innocent victims, our anger typically points to other loves — disordered loves, as Keller calls them.

Those Inordinate Affections

Disordered loves, or “inordinate affections,” as Augustine called them, are part of the age-old problem of taking good things and making them ultimate. It’s the slippery terrain that goes from really loving our children to finding our identity in them, to thinking that our lives are pointless without the prosperity of our posterity. It’s that insidious shift that turns blessings into idols. And when our loves get disordered, our anger goes haywire.

We’ll find ourselves getting annoyed at the simplest, most harmless things — the things that really shouldn’t make us mad. Keller explains,

There’s nothing wrong with being ticked — getting angry to a degree — if somebody slights your reputation, but why are you ten times — a hundred times — more angry about it than some horrible violent injustice being done to people in another part of the world?

“If we find ourselves angry about getting snubbed, the problem might be that we love ourselves too much.”

Do you know why? . . . Because . . . if what you’re really looking to for your significance and security is people’s approval or a good reputation or status or something like that, then when anything gets between you and the thing you have to have, you become implacably angry. You have to have it. You’re over the top. You can’t shrug it off.

If we find ourselves angry about getting snubbed in social media, or being cut off in traffic, or going unrecognized for work, or having an idea shut down, or feeling underappreciated by our spouse — the problem might be that we love ourselves too much.

Three Steps Out

So, what do we do? If anger is everyone’s problem, and if it often exposes our disordered loves, how do we break free from its claws? Here are three steps out.

1. Analyze the anger.

We must get into the details of anger and understand its source. It means that when we find ourselves getting angry — when those emotions start to rise up — we stop and ask: “What is this big thing that’s so important to me that I get this defensive?” What am I loving so much right now that my heart is moved to feel angry?

“If you ask that question,” says Keller, “if you do this analysis, more often than not you’ll immediately be embarrassed, because many, many times the thing you’re defending is your ego, your pride, your self-esteem.”

2. Feel sorrow for our sin.

We may feel embarrassed after asking these questions, or worse. Nothing is more ugly than opening the lid of our hearts to find this kind of corruption. But as rancid as it might be, we can face the fright with a bold sorrow. We are bold because the corruption, present though it is, cannot condemn us, or defeat us. Jesus has paid the price for that disordered love. He bore the wrath we deserved, freeing us from sin’s guilt. He rose from the dead, empowering us over sin’s dominion.

“We can face our corruption with a bold sorrow. Jesus has paid the price for that disordered love.”

And then there is sorrow. We are rightfully sad for how slow our souls are in receiving God’s grace. We are sad that we find ourselves more perturbed by our wounded ego than we are by the abortions that take place downtown, that we shake our fists at rude media more than we lift our hands to heal the broken, that we inwardly mock those who disagree with us more than we publicly defend the rights of the voiceless. We are sad about that in our depths with a kind of serious sadness that isn’t content to leave it there. We are grieved into repentance (2 Corinthians 7:9–10). We turn and we say, No more, Lord. Please, no more.

3. Remember the love of Jesus.

The obvious solution to disordered love is ordered love. But we can’t flip a switch for that. We can’t just stop loving one object wrongly to start loving the most lovable object rightly — that is, unless we’re strengthened by the Spirit to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:14–19).

When our eyes are opened to see and savor Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:6), when we’re overcome by his grace (2 Corinthians 8:8–9), then we’re led to love him more than anything — and so increasingly care about the things that matter, and grow in not becoming angry when we shouldn’t be.

Jonathan Parnell (@jonathanparnell) is the lead pastor of Cities Church in Minneapolis–St. Paul, where he lives with his wife, Melissa, and their seven children. He is the author of Never Settle for Normal: The Proven Path to Significance and Happiness.

Reclaiming Friendship in the Social Media Age

By Brad Merchant

Augustine once wrote that there are two things essential to existence in this world: life and friendship. Yet, as Drew Hunter insightfully points out in his book on friendship, “Friendship is, for many of us, one of the most important but least thought about aspects of life.” Most people feel the tension of knowing friendship is valuable while living as though it isn’t.

Social media hasn’t helped.

Sure, it’s nice to keep up with friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, new and old, from all over the world. It’s nice to learn from a wide variety of voices and countless resources that fill our feeds. But social media is also distorting our view of friendship.

Friendship and Pseudo-Friendship

As we scroll through our feeds, full of pictures and updates from hundreds of people we haven’t talked to in years, we rightly ask, “Are these people really my friends?”

The paradox of social media is that we know many people while not feeling known by anyone.

Stephen Marche captures this well: “It’s a lonely business, wandering the labyrinths of our friends’ and pseudo-friends’ projected identities, trying to figure out what part of ourselves we ought to project, who will listen, and what they will hear.”

A 2018 Cigna study found that people aged 18 to 22 experienced loneliness significantly more than people 72 and older. That is not a coincidence. In a recent University of Pennsylvania study, psychologist Melissa G. Hunt concluded that there is an inevitable link between loneliness and social media use by 18- to 22-year-olds.

“It is a little ironic that reducing your use of social media actually makes you feel less lonely,” she says. “Using less social media than you normally would leads to significant decreases in both depression and loneliness.”

Social media promises social connectedness, but it often delivers social isolation.

Social media promises social connectedness, but it often delivers social isolation.

Four Ways to Reclaim Friendship

Social media’s distortion of genuine friendship and community presents Christians with a great opportunity to reclaim and reemphasize the priority of friendship. Here are four ways we can redeem the distortion of friendship in a social media age.

1. Prioritize Face-to-Face Friendships

About a year ago I made the decision to prioritize a smaller number of friends I lived in close proximity with instead of spending so much time keeping up with many distant acquaintances online. I scheduled biweekly meetings with these friends. Whenever I wanted to know how one was doing, I called them instead of checking their social feeds. Over time, I found that trading tweets and Facebook updates for real-time conversations strengthened my friendships and filled me with joy.

2. Value Deep Friendships

For the first time in our lives, we can objectively assess popularity. Social media has given us the ability to know exactly how many pseudo-friends we have. This silent contest often reorients our value systems. Many of us would rather have 5,000 followers than five deep friendships—all because we’ve wrongly attached our self-worth to a follower count.

Many of us would rather have 5,000 followers than five deep friendships.

But Christians should tip the scales in the opposite direction, valuing the few deep over the many shallow. We should seek friends who know our greatest joys and deepest sorrows, not just the superficial tidbits of our lives we post on Instagram.

3. Create New Social Media Habits

The FOMO effect is real. Fearful of missing out on social events and updates, we feel enslaved to social media. This constant fear, and the dopamine rush we get with every new notification, causes us to constantly check our feeds for the latest news or viral whatever we might be missing—all the while interrupting time with family, friends, and God. When endless streams of information are available at any moment, they tend to invade every moment. How do we get free? In his excellent book The Tech-Wise Family, Andy Crouch suggests we take planned sabbaticals from our screens: one hour a day, one day a week, one week a year. Choosing to say “no” to social media frees us to recenter on God and enjoy the people he puts in front of us—even if we miss out on a few things online.

When endless streams of information are available at any moment, they tend to invade every moment.

4. Rest in Jesus, Our Ever-Faithful Friend

Jesus stands in the face of social media’s claim for authentic friendship, declaring: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). The ultimate Friend does not come to us through a screen, but in a body. He wraps himself in flesh and adorns himself with our weakness so that he can say, “No longer do I call you servants . . . I have called you friends.” (John 15:15). Jesus reminds us we are embodied people, meant to live joyful, sacrificial lives for the good of others and the glory of God.

Our worth is not found in the number of followers we have, but in the fact that Jesus calls us his friend. When we rest in this glorious truth, we are freed from enslavement to social media’s definition of friendship and worth.

Brad Merchant is the Pastor of Leadership Development at College Park Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is the author of Mentoring Like Jesus and blogs regularly. You can follow him on Twitter.

Posted at: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/reclaiming-friendship-social-media-age/

7 Ways Parents Unfairly Provoke Their Children

by Tim Challies

Parents, do not provoke your children to anger lest they become discouraged, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” This single sentence combines the New Testament’s two most prominent passages on parenting and, as I said yesterday (see Fathers (and Mothers), Do Not Provoke Your Children!), offers a significant warning to parents: We can parent our children in such a way that we provoke them to anger and discouragement. There are times when we so provoke our children that anger is the fitting and inevitable response. Today I want to offer a few ways that we, as parents, may provoke our children to that kind of anger and discouragement.

Goodness instead of holiness. We may provoke our children to anger and discouragement when we teach them to be good instead of holy, when we care more for their good behavior than their holy hearts. We can too easily content ourselves with outwardly moral children instead of children who are inwardly holy. We can focus on bad behavior instead of the sinful heart that causes and enjoys that bad behavior. This will eventually provoke our children to anger and discouragement because they will see that we are calling them to a standard of behavior that is impossible, a standard they cannot reach until their hearts are first transformed. Not only that, but they will see the gap between what the Bible teaches and what we promote, and they will sink into angry despair. Parents, don’t content yourself with good kids but pray for holy kids, for children whose good behavior flows out of a transformed heart. Shepherd them with and to the gospel instead of badgering them with unfair and impossible demands.

We need to live before our children in such a way that we can say not only “Do what I say” but “Do what I do.”

Hypocrisy instead of authenticity. We can provoke our children to anger and discouragement when we live with hypocrisy instead of authenticity, when we hold ourselves to one standard but hold them to another one. When we allow this, our children will see that we have no firm standard and they will come to believe that the Christian faith only calls for change in the eyes of other people, not in the eyes of God. Yet God calls us to discipline and instruct our children by explanation and demonstration, by explaining with words and demonstrating with our lives. We need to live before our children in such a way that we can say not only “Do what I say” but “Do what I do.” We need to take our cues from the apostle Paul who could boldly tell others, “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). (See The Humblest Words.)

Doubt instead of confidence. We can provoke our children when we live in great doubt instead of great confidence in God’s desire to save them. There are all sorts of good things we want for our children, but nothing more than their salvation. Parents can live with crippling fear that God will not save our children, and this fear has consequences: We can become heavy-handed, demanding our children turn to Christ, or we can become manipulative, constantly begging or pleading with them to make a profession. Our children may then grow angry and discouraged because they will see their parents professing faith in a God who is sovereign and good but then acting as if God is neither one. God’s instruction to parents is to discipline and instruct our children with confidence that God loves to save the lost and that he saves them through the appointed means—the gospel. (See 1 Timothy 2:4 and What Gives God Pleasure.) As we expose our children to the gospel through our discipline and instruction, we can expect that the gospel will do its work. We need to raise our children to hear the gospel proclaimed and to see it lived out. All the while we need to trust that God will work through his gospel.

We need to wisely protect our children, but without fearfully sheltering them.

Fear instead of boldness. We may provoke our children when we raise them in fear instead of boldness. It is wise parenting to protect our children by holding back evil influences until they have developed and matured. But it is unwise parenting to so shelter our children that they never see and experience sin and its ugly consequences. Many parents make decisions about relationships or church or education or family involvement based on fear. But fear-based parenting provokes children because we create a fictional world, a bubble that does not reflect reality. Not only that, but we hide from our children the experience of seeing sin and its consequences, the undeniable reality that sin promises joy and life but brings sadness and death. While we need to boldly raise our children to be in but not of the world, we cannot do this by sheltering them entirely from the world. We need to wisely protect our children, but without fearfully sheltering them.

Anger instead of patience. We may provoke our children to anger and lead to their discouragement if we raise them with anger instead of patience. So many can testify that their parents used anger or the threat of anger as a means of correction and punishment. Discipline was not delivered with calmness and self-control but with angry slaps or cutting words. And of course this leads to anger. A parent’s anger leads to their child’s anger. How couldn’t it? But in this case the parent’s anger is unjust while the child’s anger is just. God expects that we will discipline and instruct our children with patience and kindness. This involves modeling the very actions, attitudes, and words we want them to display.

Aloofness instead of involvement. We may provoke our children when we raise them with aloofness instead of involvement. Too often we are involved in our kids’ lives only when there are problems. We have little real relationship with our children, but then come rushing in during times of danger, disobedience, or difficulty. The parents I most want to imitate are the ones who deliberately build friendships with their children, who have a vision of their grown children being their friends and Christian brothers or sisters, and who then work deliberately toward those goals. These parents give time and attention to their children while they are young, they raise them with kindness and discipline, and they do this by holding in mind the future relationship they long to have. Parents, we need to pursue and befriend our children. (See An Unexpected Blessing of Parenting.)

Pride instead of humility. We will undoubtedly provoke our children to anger and discouragement if we raise them in pride instead of humility. Every generation of Christians seems to have to rediscover the ugliness of pride and the beauty of humility. Every parent needs to discover it as well. Parental pride manifests itself in a hundred different ways, but perhaps never more clearly than in an unwillingness to seek our children’s forgiveness. Pride convinces us that apologizing to our children displays weakness, that it gives them power over us. Nothing could be further from the truth! Humility convinces us that apologizing to our children displays the greatest strength, that it models the very character of Christ. We will inevitably sin against our children so we need to humbly seek their forgiveness, trusting that while God opposes the proud he gives great grace to the humble (see James 4:6).

There are undoubtedly many more ways that we can sinfully, unjustly provoke our children. There are undoubtedly many more ways that we actually do. So we honor God and love our children by examining ourselves and our parenting to find our particular temptations. Where we find them we must confess and repent. And all the while we can have confidence that God chooses to display his strength through our weakness, his power through our inadequacy.

Posted at: https://www.challies.com/articles/7-ways-parents-unfairly-provoke-our-children/

Fathers (and Mothers), Do Not Provoke Your Children

By Tim Challies

It’s a word, it’s an idea, that I have wanted to explore for some time. Within the New Testament there are two clear instructions to parents and this word features prominently in both of them. It is the word provoke. Ephesians 6:4 says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” while Colossians 3:21 echoes “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” Risking the wrath of expositors everywhere, I created a mash-up of the two that reads like this: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger lest they become discouraged, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” I’d like to suggest a number of ways that we, as parents, may sinfully, unjustly provoke our children. But before we do that, let’s walk through these two passages together.

Fathers. The first word in both passages is Fathers. While it is fathers who are addressed here, most commentators acknowledge that it is fair to see these instructions as being written to both parents. Greek society was patriarchal so Paul addressed the mothers through the fathers. We are on good ground allowing the verse to speak equally to both parents.

Do not provoke … to anger. Both passages contain the same exhortation: Do not provoke, though Ephesians adds to anger. Provoke is the kind of word you might use when you kindle a fire into flame—you begin with something small and provoke it into a roaring fire. Or from another angle, it is the kind of word you might use when you are getting your children all excited, chasing them around and tickling them until you provoke them to being all wound up. Here, of course, Paul is using it in a negative sense of stirring, exasperating, or irritating them toward anger or bitterness. Parents must not provoke their children to anger.

There are times when we so provoke our children, we so exasperate them, that anger is the fitting response.

I want to make an important application: Parents can cause their children to become angry and bitter. I’m sure you know this and I can assure you that they know this. But I think we can go even a step further to say there are times when our children are justified in their anger toward us. There are times when we so provoke our children, we so exasperate them, that anger is the fitting response. It may even be the right response if that anger is expressed in righteous ways. There may be times when your children’s anger toward you is more righteous than your actions or attitude toward them.

Next we read, lest they become discouraged. A discouraged child is one who has lost heart. He is so beaten down that he has lost hope, he has lost motivation, he doesn’t care anymore. One Bible translates it, “lest he get discouraged and quit trying.” The idea here is that you can so beat down your children that they stop trying to please you. Maybe your demands are arbitrary or unfair, maybe you never praise your children and take joy in them, maybe you live hypocritically before them with higher expectations for them than for yourself. Whatever the case, they eventually stop caring and stop trying. Douglas Moo says, “Paul does not want to see the children of Christian families disciplined to such an extent that they ‘lose heart’ and simply give up trying to please their parents.”

Putting it all together, God exhorts parents in this way: Parents, do not provoke your children to anger lest they become discouraged. On the heels of that exhortation he offers a solution: “But bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Do not beat down, but raise up. Do not provoke with impatience and injustice, but instead shepherd with nurture and tenderness, and do this through discipline and instruction.

These two words are key: discipline and instruction. Between them they offer words of training and correction, words of admonition and rebuke, words that express both the positive and the negative sides of leadership. You need to correct your children, sometimes with a look, sometimes with a word, sometimes with a timeout, and sometimes with a spank. That is the negative side of parenting. But positively, you also need to teach them, explaining to them what is right, demonstrating how they are to live. This little pair of words covers both the positive and the negative sides of learning and growing, helping our children go from folly to wisdom, from childishness to maturity, from self-centeredness to loving others, and, we trust, from sin to salvation.

Parents, do not provoke your children to anger lest they become discouraged, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. With all of this in place, we are prepared to look at how parents may sinfully, unjustly provoke their children to anger and discouragement. We will turn to that tomorrow. (See 7 Ways Parents Provoke Our Children)

Posted at: https://www.challies.com/articles/fathers-and-mothers-do-not-provoke-your-children/?fbclid=IwAR2z7znpbgEOamOoOEX46jfcvkdeohi_m0LebPOWvlUKGIIYS8ACi3c0Y1g