Conformity is an important word for Christians. As redeemed worshipers, we are called to reject conformity to the world as we pursue transformation through the renewal of our minds in Christ (Rom 12:1-2). However, in striking parallel to the Nirvana shirt phenomenon, some efforts at non-conformity are disguised versions of conformity.

Non-conformity for the sake of non-conformity is conformity. Attempting to be different just to be different makes you just like everyone else. When Paul writes that we should not be conformed to this world, he is advocating that we reject the fallen values of this world system in favor of the cruciform ways of Christ. Within this fallen world system, non-conformity serves as a method to stand apart from the masses as an individual. Motivated by pride, the non-conformist seeks attention and approval for going his or her own way. Paul doesn’t want non-conformists; he wants Christ-conformists. Non-conformity is only a good when it leads to conformity to Christ. In other words, obedience to Romans 12:1-2 requires rejection of the pride that pursues non-conformity as its own end.

What does this look like in practice? Consider homeschool culture. For the record, I have homeschooled, currently teach in homeschool co-ops, and encourage parents, when possible, to embrace the challenging but rewarding endeavor. However, I’ve seen this troubling dynamic arise among well-intentioned homeschooling families. In their efforts to resist conformity to the world in educating their children, a posture emerges of rejoicing that “I am not like other men” (Luke 9:11). Homeschool families often become insular, cultivating a spirit of superiority toward those who choose different educational options. Thus, under the cover of not being conformed to this world in education, they conform to this world’s spirit of prideful vanity and self-conceit. The goal of Christ-conformity gets lost underneath the prideful pursuit of non-conformity.

Or consider one other example. We are currently experiencing a revival of muscular Christianity. The proponents of this vision offer a needed corrective to a version of Christianity that’s afraid of offending anyone. Just as Christ offended in pursuit of truth, we must be willing to do the same. The word of the cross, after all, is folly to those who are perishing (1 Cor 1:18). We must not mute that offense for the sake of gaining respect from the world. We need to resist blunting the serrated edge of God’s truth.

I resonate deeply with this message. We are currently living in a therapeutic moment that redefines the unpardonable sin as telling anyone they’re wrong. But as I see people enthusiastically embrace offensive Christianity, I worry that some are turning offense into an end instead of allowing it to be the unintended consequence of the compassionate proclamation of the gospel. We don’t score points by offending people. Offending people is not a goal we should strive for. Winsomeness in uncompromised truth-telling seems to match the apostolic example better than lobbing truth bombs on social media intentionally worded for maximum shock value. 1 Corinthians 1 does not legitimize acting like a jerk in Jesus’ name.

Ironically, some proponents of offensive Christianity take their cues from partisan political culture, particularly the echo chambers of podcast bros who drum up support by increasingly amping up manufactured outrage. It’s a proven formula to gain followers. However, following that script doesn’t make you a non-conformist in the biblical sense. As a matter of fact, seeking to offend people proves you’re just like everyone else. You’re not submitting to truth; you’re using it to make a name for yourself, and that’s about as conformist as it gets.

Non-conformity is not a virtue. Christ-conformity is. Let’s not settle for the t-shirt version of following Christ.

I’ve noticed a similar dynamic in pastoral counseling. Multiple times in my counseling ministry, I’ve reached the conclusion that my counseling was having the opposite effect of what I intended. My efforts to make things better were really making things worse. Because I believe my experience is not uncommon, I want to share what I’ve learned about how this dynamic occurs and how counselors can avoid it.

In short, I begin to suspect that my counseling is hurting more than helping whenever I sense that the person I’m counseling might be viewing our meetings as therapy sessions. While therapy helps many people, I’m not qualified to serve in that role. Further, therapy and counseling have different goals, and confusing the two leads to false expectations that may severely limit counseling’s potential.

We live in a therapeutic culture in which the technical language of therapy commonly spills over into everyday language and shapes the way people interpret their lives. Terms like trauma and abuse are commonly used by nonprofessionals to describe mundane situations. Ads for therapy proliferate on podcasts and television, broadcasting a dominant message that therapy is normal for everyone and perhaps even necessary for thriving in this world.

In such a context, the role of pastoral counseling often gets confused with the role of the therapist. These two things, however, are not the same. Therapy involves working with a professional to explore emotions, thoughts, and behaviors toward the goal of overcoming trauma or managing depression and anxiety. Pastoral counseling, on the other hand, involves working with a pastor or biblical counselor to apply God’s word toward the goal of growth in faith and obedience. It requires regeneration through Christ and reliance on his Spirit.

In therapy, a long-term relationship of trust and dependence is fostered between the patient and the therapist. Often, the two work together indefinitely, and in many situations, the meetings go on regularly for years and even decades. Pastoral counseling, however, has a clear goal in sight. The counselor works to reach a point when meetings are no longer necessary because the problem that initiated the meetings has been resolved or at least improved enough to rely on the church’s regular rhythms and means of grace for continued accountability.

In therapy, the conversation is often the point. The therapist works to get the patient to “open up” about repressed emotions in hopes of achieving a breakthrough. In pastoral counseling, however, what happens after and between meetings is the point. The counselor seeks to lead Spirit-indwelt believers to “be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving [them]selves” (James 1:22).

What are the signs that counseling might be hurting more than helping? I suspect this problematic dynamic whenever someone insists on meeting but doesn’t do the homework I assign, whenever someone wants to continue meeting beyond the specified endpoint, or whenever meetings continue with no discernible progress in spiritual fruit. In any of these scenarios, I wonder if my counseling is hurting more than helping.

How does the pastoral counselor avoid such confusion? I’m still learning how to answer this question. Here’s a few things I’ve begun doing.

First, I clearly define the goals of our meetings and explicitly distinguish it from therapy. In the first meeting, I usually read a passage like James 1:22 to indicate that application of truth is the point.

Second, after the first meeting, I set a specific date for the conclusion of our meetings. My goal is to lead to an encounter with Christ through his word that results in faith and obedience. Our church provides several different options for regular discipleship and accountability. My role is short-term. I want to bring God’s word to bear upon a specific problem. That process usually only takes a few weeks. Sometimes, I commit to a longer course when I’m trying to assist in habit-formation.

Third, I require homework. In fact, I’m so serious about homework that I won’t meet again until homework has been completed. The counselee bears the responsibility for change, and his willingness to do the assigned homework signals the degree to which he understands that. Insisting on completed homework communicates that the conversation with me isn’t the main point; following the Lord in faith and obedience is.

I make a terrible therapist, but I’m striving every day to be a better a pastoral counselor. I can only genuinely help a person when they realize the limited scope of my work and see meetings with me as opportunities to conform their lives to the Savior who died to save them.

For example, Joy Marie Clarkson articulates the dominance of the machine metaphor in everyday conversation: “We describe ourselves processing something like a hard drive whirring away. . . we need to update each other about life events like new software. We adjust to new circumstances like a car whose tires need to be rotated; people push our buttons; we need to power down so we can recharge. When we don’t understand something, we might say it does not compute. When someone has been influenced to think or behave in a certain way, we say that they were programmed to trust authority. We might describe ourselves as a slow processor. This metaphor can even be a compliment: of someone who is particularly productive we often say they are a machine.”

Good metaphors can help us; bad ones may harm us. Rather than opening up life’s full potential, the wrong metaphor may instead zap life of its meaning and satisfaction.

The Bible provides us with many life-giving metaphors to live by. We are branches on the vine of Christ. Life is a war, a race, and a journey. We exist as members of the body of Christ, called to serve as salt and light in the world. We must remember that our citizenship is in heaven, not on earth. Metaphorical living isn’t optional; faithfulness depends on connecting our imaginations to the right ones.

Recently, I realized that three metaphors have shaped me profoundly at various times in my life. As I meditated on the meaning of each one, I further realized that all three use different images to communicate nearly identical concepts.

In university studies, I first encountered the allegory of Plato’s cave. The philosopher Plato described men chained within a cave, facing a wall and unable to turn their heads to see behind them. However, behind them real people exist in front of a fire, projecting shadows onto the wall. Only able to see shadows, the chained prisoners adapt their perception of reality to what they can see, attributing the sounds they hear to the shadows on the wall. They live in a world of shadows, cut off from the real world outside the cave.

Sometime later I read C. S. Lewis’s “The Weight of Glory” sermon where he described human beings as “half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.” In Lewis’s analogy, the child settles for the amusements of slum life because he’s unaware of anything better.

Finally, the late novelist David Foster Wallace once began a college commencement address with the following thought experiment: “There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys, how’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’” Fish, confined to the ocean, can’t imagine anything existing outside of it. In fact, devoid of contrast, they don’t notice the water that makes their lives possible.

These three metaphors have stuck with me because they each powerfully open the possibility of a better future. In Plato’s case, he wanted to inspire his readers to look beyond the forms of appearances into deeper realities often obscured by what our eyes see. Lewis believed that we often settle for less because we can’t imagine the full extent of pleasure God invites his creatures to enjoy in Christ. He believed we are “far too easily pleased.” Wallace wanted to wake graduating students up to reality beyond the assumptions of their culture. What we notice doesn’t exhaust what’s there. The world of our conception often limits us from seeing the greater potential within the world.

What about you? Do you ever feel stuck? Does life sometimes seem like an enclosed system devoid of meaning and significance? Do you feel like you exist in a world of shadows? Have you settled for slum life when God invites you to vacation on the coast? Are you so accustomed to the closed system of the ocean that you can’t imagine anything outside it?

We often respond to these feelings by attempting to escape. We falsely believe that changing our circumstances will fill the meaning void. However, without a more substantive internal change, we will carry the same assumptions into our new circumstances. What if, instead of escaping, we determined to see what’s right in front of us with new eyes? What if we asked God to help us see the same old realities with new assumptions? What if you’re not stuck in your marriage, your job, or your life? What if Christ would rather change your perspective than your circumstances?

“So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor 4:18).

I’m 44 now and still have those cards. I’ve passed many of them down to my three boys and still relish ripping open a fresh pack occasionally. But imagine a scenario with me. Imagine that, at the age of 44, my relationship with baseball cards remains the same as it was when I was a boy throwing a tantrum at the Piggly Wiggly. Imagine I still spend every dime on new cards and, rather than spend time with my wife and kids, I devote every waking moment to organizing and studying them.

If that was true, I hope that someone who cares about me would confront me. If I still harbored an eight-year-old’s relationship to baseball cards as a 44-year-old married man with five kids, I hope that my pastors, friends, and family would rebuke me. I hope they would tell me that my loves are disordered.

Theologians used to talk about the priority of ordered loves, and it’s a concept we should resurrect for the contemporary church. Rather than oversimplifying life’s activities merely as allowed or forbidden, we should train ourselves to think more deeply about what we love and to what degree.

C. S. Lewis defined ordered loves as “the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it.” Augustine wrote, “A just and holy life requires one to . . . love things . . . in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally.”

We use the language of love to describe our relationship with all kinds of things. We say things like “I love tacos” or “I love books” or “I love sunsets.” We also tell our spouses that we love them and our grandparents that we love them. Since we don’t have different words for love in English, we rely on context to communicate what kind of love we’re talking about. There’s nothing wrong with loving tacos or dogs as long as it’s clear that that kind of love has a lesser quality than the kind we give to wife and grandmother.

As I’ve been preaching through Proverbs, I believe that the book equates the life of wisdom with a life of ordered loves. According to Proverbs, the wise person is a person who loves all things in proper proportion, beginning with the love of God. Proverbs is bookended with the proclamation that “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge/wisdom” (1:7; 9:10). To fear God is to know, honor, trust, and love God. Fear captures the kind of love appropriate to God. While we struggle to imagine a positive use of fear, the Bible doesn’t share our difficulty: “But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared” (Psalm 130:4).

The fear of God is the magnetic North for our lives. When our relationship with him is right, our relationships with other aspects of his creation line up as a result. When we find ultimate satisfaction in the love of Christ, we no longer need satisfaction from things incapable of providing it. We can then love freely without demanding fulfillment. I can only love my wife appropriately when I don’t expect her to satisfy me ultimately. Since Christ satisfies me, I can love her appropriately. I can give to her from the abundance of God’s love for me.

Consider Proverbs 4:23: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” The heart in Proverbs represents the control center of a person. A person’s heart is where you find their innermost desires or loves. To keep the heart is to guard or protect it. The requirement of vigilance insinuates the need for constant attention. To call us to keep the heart is to call us to order our loves. We need to make sure we are loving everything in right proportion, for the order of our loves will determine the kind of life we live.

It took me awhile to grasp the profundity of her point. In fact, it’s taken my whole life so far, and I’m still not sure I fully get it.

The Bible is full of instruction about money. Randy Alcorn often points out that Jesus taught on the topic more than he did on heaven and hell combined. The human relationship to wealth is important to God because God wants the full devotion of our hearts and money is one of his primary competitors.

To better grasp my wife’s point, consider Paul’s warning to Timothy: “But those who desire to be rich fall into a temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (1 Tim 6:9-10).

Paul uses a variety of terms to describe a harmful disposition toward wealth—desire, love, craving. Money itself is a neutral tool that can be used for many good purposes, including but not limited to procuring the necessities of life. The danger lies in our sinful hearts. We see money as power in tangible form. It becomes a means for us to rise above our creaturely limitations, to live life without friction. In our sin, we are susceptible to these false promises of salvation. When we fall for them, our harmless desire for enough morphs into an insatiable craving for more. That’s when our souls enter the danger zone. That’s when money replaces Christ in the order of our loves.

Knowing the danger, it’s interesting that the Bible never steers us away from wealth altogether. Scripture does not construct an electric fence around money with a “Do not touch” sign. As in other areas of temptation, the problem is not in the object but in the relationship of our hearts to the object. We are tempted to lust but never instructed to avoid marital sex. We are tempted to overindulge but must not avoid food. In fact, the Bible encourages us to enjoy both sex and food. Similarly, the propensity to love money should not lead us to shun it. Before the fall, God declared creation good. Through Christ, we can live according to God’s good design again. We can steward the earth’s resources toward the aim of God’s glory.

God promises us wealth. Consider Proverbs 3:9-10: “Honor the LORD with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.” Dangerous and exploitative in the hands of prosperity preachers, this verse often embarrasses the rest of us. We don’t know what to do with it. For the longest time, I got around its absoluteness by classifying it as wisdom literature. It’s generally true, I argued, but not universal. In this fallen world, some people will honor the LORD with all their produce and not see the overstocked barns and bursting wine vats.

I’ve changed my mind about the absoluteness of such promises. God will fulfill it universally for his people. The interpretive puzzle, however, is not solved by the rules of wisdom literature; it’s answered in Christ: “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:20-21). God’s people—those who treasure Christ above all—will inherit great wealth even if we never see it in this life.

In eternal perspective, the Christian relationship to wealth is paradoxical. If you pursue it as your ultimate aim in life, you end up eternally poor. However, if you pursue Christ as your greatest treasure in life, you end up eternally wealthy. Pursue wealth, get poverty. Pursue Christ, get more wealth than you could ever imagine—eventually.

When Christ is our greatest treasure, our hearts rest content in him. Satisfied in him, the allure of wealth does not appeal to us as something to crave. By loving Christ above all, our other loves become appropriately ordered. Wealth becomes a mere tool in service to his will.

God may choose to make you wealthy in this life, or he may not. If he doesn’t, thank him for protecting and preserving your heart and look forward to an eternal state of wealth enjoyed in the full light of his glorious presence.

We have these kinds of conversations frequently. In fact, all leaders probably resonate with this line of questioning. My wife and I have had similar conversations regarding parenting. Hindsight is 20/20, they say. If we knew then what we know now, we probably would have done things differently.

The problem, of course, is that we never know the outcome while we are in the trenches making decisions. That information is not available to us. Only God knows how a situation will turn out. Only he knows the full consequences of a human decision, and he does not typically let us in on that secret. Good leadership, therefore, must be process-focused leadership. Since the leader can never guarantee any outcome, wise leadership focuses on improving the process so that good outcomes are most likely.

In other words, since we cannot always produce the exact outcomes we prefer, we should at least make sure we are pursuing truth, acting virtuously, following wise habits, and prioritizing faithfulness to God along the way. If our process is righteous, we can rest in the knowledge that the outcome resides in the loving hands of God.

We see Paul model this approach in Acts 20:26 when he declares to the Ephesian elders, “I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” In other words, Paul rests in the rightness of his process—he declared the whole counsel of God. He did what he was supposed to do. Since he was faithful in the process, the outcome, whatever it turned out to be, would not be his responsibility.

I think that’s a liberating model for leaders to follow. We can’t control the outcome, but we are responsible for the process. God doesn’t hold leaders accountable for outcomes; he will, however, call us to account for the process.

Sometimes self-evaluation will reveal errors in our process. When that happens, we ought to respond with humility by admitting our role in the bad outcome and fixing what’s broken in the process. Our new and improved process still won’t guarantee good outcomes, but the experience of learning from our failures will make us better leaders going forward. Bad outcomes always provide opportunities for growth, but only if we’re humble and willing to admit our own failures before God and the people we lead.

Before Tim Keller died, Collin Hansen asked the gifted pastor and author why he never wrote a book with his wife, Kathy, about parenting, especially since the couple had written a very successful marriage book. Keller responded that, even though their three boys had turned out well as adults (outcome), they didn’t necessarily feel like they had been the best parents (process). In fact, they perceived that friends of theirs had been better parents than them (process) without enjoying good outcomes. The Kellers hesitated to write a parenting book because they could not guarantee the outcome that so many parents want.

I love Keller’s humble wisdom. He refused to take credit for the success of his adult children because he recognized his own parenting failures. In fact, that’s another mark of wise leadership—just as the wise leader can’t always be blamed for bad outcomes, he never takes credit for good ones. God brings about good outcomes despite the leader’s flaws.

However, I think Keller also missed something important here. He wrongly assumed that good leadership advice guarantees good outcomes. However, as we’ve seen, good leadership advice focuses on the process, not the outcome. The Bible is full of wisdom about parenting, and all that material should inform our process. Our inability to guarantee good outcomes should not lead us to ignore all that God has revealed about formulating a good parenting process.

Of course, our inability to guarantee preferable results should not cause us to ignore outcomes. In fact, to create a faithful process, you must orient that process toward viable goals. When Paul preached the whole counsel of God, he did so in hopes that his hearers would respond in repentance and faith. When parents map out a plan for leading teenagers, they ought to orient that plan toward the goal of producing mature and responsible adults who love Christ. The preferable goal informs the wise process, but the wise process does not guarantee the preferable goal.

In conclusion, a good leader rests in the understanding that we are powerless to guarantee outcomes. If we believe we can bring about the outcomes we desire, we will blame ourselves when those outcomes don’t actualize. God doesn’t need us to bring about good outcomes. He’s got that part. He calls us to pursue faithfulness. That’s something that, by his grace, we can handle.

A few weeks ago, during all the hubbub over ICE and immigration in Minneapolis, John Piper posted a Bible verse on Twitter. In the post, he quoted Leviticus 19:34 with a one-sentence commentary: “‘You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.’ Christians know the miserable bondage we were all in.”

The following post, from a well-known Christian worship leader, illustrates the radioactive criticism Piper received in response: “Never imagined a theologian I once looked up to would have become so unbelievably WOKE while weaponizing scripture to justify the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation.”

As you can plainly see, Piper never addressed immigration policy or attempted to justify illegal immigration. He probably intentionally timed his post to remind Christians that, whatever we believe about such hotly contested policies, we have an obligation to love the stranger among us because we were once in a similar position when God rescued us from our own miserable bondage. Piper’s post represented an attempt by a wise pastor to remind God’s people that every issue has significance beyond political debates. In other words, Piper wasn’t choosing sides in a contentious culture war; he was doing the work of a pastor.

Follow me in a simple thought experiment. Imagine that every person in the world views the world through a pair of tinted glasses. Some choose green, while others choose red or blue or yellow. Whichever color gets chosen, that’s the color that shades everything viewed in the world. Each person’s world is green, red, blue, or yellow, depending on the tint of their shades.

Christ calls his people to see the world through the lens of Christ. I think this is what Paul is getting at when he says, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). In Christ, all reality looks different. Trials now prove redemptive. I can rejoice in suffering. The opinion of man is not ultimate because God has already spoken. I can forgive and love my enemy because I’ve been forgiven and loved as God’s former enemy. When I look out at the world, I take “every thought captive in obedience to Christ” (2 Cor 10:5).

I participate in politics, but I don’t get sucked up in the narratives the media is spinning. I see things from the vantage point of cross and resurrection. Christ has already won. My loyalty to the resurrected King means I can never pledge absolute loyalty to any other cause.

Unfortunately, it seems as if many professing Christians are doing the opposite. They’re not seeing American politics through the lens of Christ; instead, they’ve chosen a different set of shades. They’ve determined to take every thought captive in obedience to a culture war team. They can’t even read the Bible without a red or blue tint.

If your views on current events make sections of the Bible off-limits, you’re not following Jesus. You’re an idolator.

Proverbs roots wisdom in the fear of the LORD (1:7; 9:10). Fear of the LORD manifests itself socially in a life committed to “righteousness, justice, and equity” (1:3; 2:9). A wise life, in other words, is a life committed to a right relationship with God (fear of the LORD) and a right relationship with God’s world (righteousness, justice, and equity). Such a life, in Proverbs, disadvantages oneself to protect vulnerable populations like the poor (29:7), the widow (15:25), and the orphan (23:10-11). How important is such a life for God? “To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice” (21:3).

Conservatives rightly criticize progressives for pursing unjust causes in the name of “social justice.” Biblical social justice certainly doesn’t include radical DEI initiatives and championing LGBTQ perversity. However, in attempting to eliminate wokeness, conservatives too often run past biblical wisdom in the other direction. As we seek to see all reality through the lens of Christ, let’s make sure we don’t throw the wise baby out with the work bathwater.

Most of us spend our lives trying to move beyond such a lowly position. We go to school, hoping to one day graduate from the tyranny of assignments and due dates. We turn eighteen and immediately begin excitedly plotting life beyond parental restraint. We work various jobs hoping to one day own our own business or ascend the top of the corporate ladder. We want to “be our own boss.” When one church applies pressure we don’t like, it’s easy to find another down the street.

At the very least, we tend to relegate submission to the early stages of life, and there’s certainly an appropriate process of maturity wherein the nature of submission changes as we grow up. We rightly see a problem, for example, when a healthy twenty-five-year-old continues to take orders from his parents because he’s still living in their home and depending on their income. As we grow up, submission ought to look different. A fifty-year-old under authority is not the same as a twelve-year-old. But should it disappear altogether? Is it good for us to graduate completely from submission to authority?

I’ll show my cards. I do not believe it’s wise for any human being, at any life stage, to live completely free from life-on-life submission to authority. Whether it’s a pastor, spouse, friend, or mentor, we all need at least one person in our lives who has the authority to deny us our desires.

We live in an age of scandal. As an American evangelical (whatever than means these days), I often think to myself after another high-profile pastor falls, “I wonder who will be next.” Because of human sin and deceit, I don’t believe there’s a fool-proof way to completely eliminate such scandals. However, I often wonder if the fallen pastors I read about genuinely had authority in their lives. Sure, many of them presided within a “plurality of elders.” But authority on paper isn’t the same thing as authority in practice. Did these fallen pastors submit their lives to anyone? Would they have listened if someone told them, “That aspect of your life is problematic and you need to change.”

I’ve been the lead pastor of my church, which started as a church plant, for nearly a decade now. When we first started, our church plant was part of a larger church that sent me and several other families to plant. I was the only local pastor at the church plant, but I was still part of the sending church and under the authority of the pastors of that church who were ultimately under the authority of the church. However, for the past three years, our church plant has been autonomous. As we became our own church, we ordained two other pastors to serve with me so that I wouldn’t be the only pastor. For a variety of reasons, we believe that a plurality of pastors is the wisest approach.

However, there was still a problem. The two pastors that joined me were men I had mentored and pastored for several years. I am older than both and further along in life and ministry. Both looked up to me as a mentor before joining me as pastors. So, theoretically, we had a plurality of pastors, but practically, we were in danger of functioning as a hierarchy with me at the top.

For the past three years, I’ve faced a personal dilemma. I know I need personal day-to-day authority in my life. However, I also know that the other two pastors look to me as a leader and would probably hesitate to oppose me. It’s tempting to move forward under the banner of pastor plurality while enjoying the privilege of single pastor prominence.

Recently, the three of us met to discuss our authority structure going forward and decided to clarify the “veto” power we all share over any one of us. In other words, if any two of us disagree with the decision of the third, we have the authority to veto the decision. Further, if any two of us believe confrontation of a third is necessary, we’ve given the others permission to bring it. As alluring as it is to sit alone at the top, we collectively agree that we each need real authority in our lives. None of us are qualified to play the role of Frodo and bear the ring of power alone. For the health of our church and ourselves, we must share the privileged burden of authority entrusted to us by the church.

What about you? Have you eliminated submission to authority from your life? Does anyone have veto power over your decisions?

The slang term originates from a 1944 psychological thriller called, “Gaslight.” In the film, a husband manipulates his wife into believing she’s insane when, in reality, he’s deceptively robbing her of her inheritance. The title of the film derives from the wife’s observation that she often hears footsteps in the attic when the gaslights dim. The husband convinces her that she’s crazy to hide the fact that he’s up there searching for jewels. Throughout the film, the husband systematically and successfully causes his wife to doubt her own sanity.

To “gaslight,” then, means to manipulate someone into questioning their perception of reality for the sake of personal gain. However, in popular usage, the term has morphed into a catchall to describe basic instances of human disagreement. If you interpret these facts differently than I do and try to convince me you’re right, you’re gaslighting me. If you tell someone that they are interpreting something incorrectly, you may be accused of gaslighting them.

Those who apply the term wrongly seek to transform simple human disagreements into instances of manipulation and abuse. Particularly when used by someone perceived as having less power in a relationship, the accusation attempts to win sympathy from those not involved. To claim having been gaslit is to claim victim status which reaps immediate rewards in a culture rightly sensitive to abuse. Ironically, when used wrongly, accusing someone of gaslighting often serves as an actual instance of manipulation, for the accuser wields the label to win the power of public approval and validation.

Lately, I’ve heard the term used in the context of biblical counseling when counselees don’t agree with the advice they’ve been given. “I went to my pastor for counseling, but he gaslit me.” To counsel from the Bible is to apply Scripture to instances of human suffering and sin. Human beings encounter the crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus through his word, and counselors get to serve as conduits of that encounter. Since God’s word speaks relevantly to every human problem, a good biblical counselor will wisely lead in its careful application.

Practically, then, biblical counseling often takes the form of gently suggesting that the counselee has been looking at their situation wrongly. You may hear a biblical counselor say, “You’ve been looking at this situation one way, and its clearly not helping you flourish. Have you considered that God’s word may be calling you to look at that same situation differently in light of Christ?” Biblical counseling thus seeks to help human beings “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor 10:5) which often means patiently and wisely assisting them to discover wrong and unhelpful habits of mind.

Unfortunately, human beings often resist this kind of counsel. We say we want the truth, but we’re really sitting in that chair seeking validation. In such cases, the call to change offends, and the counselee resists. In our culture, the counselee may then turn to the ever-expanding glossary of therapeutic terms he or she has imbibed from social media to help make sense of the inner turmoil.

The accusation of gaslighting serves as a tantalizing option which enables victimhood and the transferal of blame. The counselor trying to help morphs into the villain, and the counselee gets to reap sympathy from others without the expectation of change. However, as mentioned above, this accusation ironically turns the accuser into the actual gaslighter.

How do we determine when actual gaslighting has occurred? First, don’t believe every accusation. I’ve learned in ministry that there are always two sides to every story, and I make it my habit to never form conclusions about a situation until I have spoken with all parties involved. Advice like “believe all women” sounds compassionate and caring, but it ignores the element of human sin within every person, male and female.

Second, make a distinction between disagreement based on truth and manipulation based on personal gain. Often, you can cut through the haze by simply asking the following question: Does the person being accused of gaslighting have anything to gain from the situation? While it’s certainly possible for a biblical counselor to manipulate someone for personal gain, encouraging change in obedience to Christ doesn’t meet the criteria.

Our therapeutic culture provides us with a new vocabulary for describing our inner struggles. In such a context, the church must work more diligently than ever to preserve the primacy of theological categories passed down through the ages and preserved in holy scripture. We must keep working to make sure our people understand the difference between loving counsel and gaslighting.

Of course, the fruit of this confidence is the fractious world we now occupy. Everyone claims to have the truth, but those claims often conflict. We can’t pursue the truth without bumping into questions related to whose truth. Everyone is still very certain they’re right even as they stare across at equally certain people with contrary truth claims. Yet, for some reason, our disputed truth claims haven’t led us to question the Enlightenment’s confidence in human reason. Despite the cultural confusion, we double down.

I’m going to refrain from turning this essay into a refutation of Enlightenment confidence. Instead, I want to make two controversial and interrelated points. First, you don’t need to understand everything to act. Second, receiving knowledge from trusted authorities is good and wise.

Imagine a scenario with me. A young man in a local church begins attending a discipleship group with older men. As time goes on, one of the older men gets to know the young man and cares enough to inform him that he exudes pride and arrogance in his interactions with the other men in the group. He talks down to them and often interrupts when they’re making a point. He doesn’t seem teachable.

The young man hears the criticism but doesn’t receive it well. He just doesn’t see it. In fact, he disagrees completely. He replies with a monologue about how his father always taught him to respect his elders. No one else has ever told him he has a pride issue. He really can’t correct the supposed prideful behavior until he sees it for himself. He commits to pray about it, but he can’t promise action until God reveals the sin to him. He must understand it for himself.

Here’s where post-Enlightenment self-confidence battles against biblical wisdom. The young man’s insistence on knowing for himself is really a mask for the very problem he denies. A humble heart would submit to the wiser man and receive the gentle rebuke on borrowed authority. It’s good and wise to say in such a scenario, “I don’t personally see it, but I trust you. If you say I’m prideful, I’ll take your word for it and commit to working on it.”

In her book, On Reading Well, Karen Swallow Prior uses Anne Elliot from Jane Austen’s Persuasion to illustrate this kind of virtue. At nineteen, Anne had fallen in love and been engaged to marry Frederick Wentworth. However, after receiving counsel from an older family friend, Anne had called off the engagement under the rationale that she could do better. Now, at twenty-seven, Anne is still unmarried, and Wentworth has returned to Anne’s town after greatly improving his station through a successful career.

From our vantage point, Anne should have never listened to the advice of her older friend. She should have trusted her gut. She was in love, and listening to bad advice had ruined her opportunity—the only one she’s had thus far—for marriage.

However, Anne doesn’t see it that way. She tells Wentworth, “I must believe that I was right, much as I suffered from it, that I was perfectly right in being guided by the friend. . . To me, she was in place of a parent. Do not mistake me, however. I am not saying that she did not err in her advice. It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides; and for myself, I certainly never should, in any circumstance of tolerable similarity, give such advice. But I mean that I was right in submitting to her, and that if I had done otherwise, I should have suffered more in continuing the engagement than I did even in giving it up, because I should have suffered in my conscience.”

Proverbs—the biblical book most synonymous with wisdom—comes to us as advice to a son from his parents. To receive wisdom from these trusted authorities is equated with fearing the LORD (2:1-5). Biblically, there’s a surer source of knowledge than the independent mind. Human reason is not the most reliable authority. Wise living seeks out trusted authorities to which to submit. “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice” (12:15).

A Billy Strings concert contains a mix of original music and traditional bluegrass standards. Because of the historical overlap between bluegrass and gospel, Billy often rolls out a gospel tune or two at his shows. On this night, for example, the band played “Harbour of Love” by the Stanley Brothers, a song about reaching heaven after repenting and praying to God for forgiveness. Resonating with the song’s message, we enjoyed the surprise of getting to hear our favorite guitar player perform a song about God’s grace. It was a cool experience for both of us.

However, we soon found out that not everyone appreciated Billy’s performance of a gospel song. During intermission, we waited in the long merchandise line to get a shirt and listened as people around us opined on the first set of music. Directly behind us in line, we overheard an inebriated man tell his friends in an expletive-filled tirade that Billy needs to shut up with all those songs about Jesus.

It was a jarring experience for me. I grew up in the Deep South. I’m talking prong on the buckle of the Bible Belt. I’m used to people not following Jesus, but where I’m from, no one ever talks bad about him. In fact, the favorite genre of music among my kin is country. For as long as I can remember, including a lyric about Jesus has served as a surefire way to guarantee a hit country song. Jesus, take the wheel. Jesus and mama always loved me. I don’t think Jesus done it that way. In the Deep South, we eat up songs about Jesus.

I’m used to being around people who think Jesus is cool. He reminds us of grandma. We’re used to seeing grandpa’s old Bible on the kitchen table underneath his deer rifle on the wall. No matter how we’re living, we’re going to be at church on Easter, and no one likes using God’s name before certain words. We may not pray personally, but we want our kids in schools where they’re still free to pray before football games on Friday nights. The Jesus I grew up learning about is always there to help you when you need a hand.

As I stood there in stunned silence listening to this man vocalize hatred toward my Lord and Savior, a strange thought occurred to me—perhaps this angry man at the YUM Center is closer to the truth than the people I grew up around.

Hear me out. In the Bible Belt, Jesus affirms, accepts, and assures but rarely makes demands. People like this version of Jesus because he doesn’t ask them for anything. He pretty much leaves us alone, waiting to be taken down off the shelf and used when needed. In other words, people in the Bible Belt are often cool with Jesus because the Jesus they’re cool with isn’t the real Jesus.

The drunk man in line at the Billy Strings concert certainly wasn’t a follower of Jesus, but he at least understood that Jesus is a threat. Jesus doesn’t leave us alone. He refuses to leave the status quo uninterrupted. This man went to the Billy Strings concert to party and have a good time. He didn’t like Billy making him think about grandpa’s Bible and the life he ought to be living. He rightly saw Jesus as a threat.

When we read the Bible, we discover that the people who understand Jesus only have one of two responses. They either hate Jesus or they submit to him in repentance and faith. In the leadup to Jesus’ crucifixion, the Jewish religious leaders understand Jesus’ claims and rightly see him as a threat who needs to be eliminated. Pilate doesn’t fully understand his significance and thus responds with lukewarmness. He doesn’t think he deserves death but ultimately caves to the demand to crucify him.

If you’ve never viewed Jesus as a threat, you’ve never understood who Jesus is. He’s either a threat or he’s Lord and Savior. He doesn’t give us the option of viewing him as cool and harmless.

During the Covid lockdowns, I made some progress. I read a poem per day and even began writing my own. They weren’t good poems, but it was a start. Apparently, success in this endeavor depends on forces outside of my control. Since I can’t quiet my own soul, I need the world to stop moving. I don’t like that feature of my character.

At this point, you may be wondering why. Why try so hard to like something that’s clearly not working? Maybe I’m just not a poetry kind of person. Shouldn’t I spend my limited time on things I already enjoy? There’s always a game to watch on TV. My ‘to-read’ list will already outlast my years on this earth without the added burden of poetry. Perhaps it’s not worth the trouble.

But herein lies the problem. I believe it is worth the trouble. I’ve tasted the joy of poetry enough to conclude that the genre contains transcendent potential unmatched by prose. While reading poetry continues to escape my mastery, I enjoy it in other forms. I pray the Psalms, one per day, and discover new depths of meaning in the repeated habit. I listen to music and love the lyrics of a well-crafted song. Certain songs capture memories and experiences in ways impossible to articulate otherwise.

Certain truths require poetry. If that’s true—and I wholeheartedly believe that it is—then I need a poetic imagination to grasp aspects of reality. If I lack such an imagination, I’m depriving myself of rich avenues of meaning in God’s universe. It’s like trying to live with one eye closed when God has given me two healthy eyes. If I can cultivate such an imagination, I can see reality more fully. Poetry helps me reach my full potential as God’s image-bearer. After all, God’s a poet.

Here’s Eugene Peterson’s attempt to articulate it: “Poetry is not the language of objective explanation but the language of imagination. It makes an image of reality in such a way as to invite our participation in it. We do not have more information after we read a poem, we have more experience. It is not ‘an examination of what happens but an immersion in what happens.’”

The poet engages our ears and our eyes, our sense of taste and smell. He appeals not just to our head but also to our heart. Prose informs us of reality; poetry invites us to experience it. Peterson speculated that God concluded the Bible with poetry because we already had the complete revelation of God before us. John’s Revelation functions as a poetic invitation to enter the story through Christ.

In another place, Peterson wrote that “imagination is the capacity to make connections between the visible and the invisible, between heaven and earth, between present and past, between present and future. For Christians, whose largest investment is in the invisible, the imagination is indispensable, for it is only by means of the imagination that we can see reality whole, in context.”

We need both explanation and imagination: “Explanation restricts and defines and holds down; imagination expands and lets loose. Explanation keeps our feet on the ground; imagination lifts our heads into the clouds. Explanation puts us in harness; imagination catapults us into mystery. Explanation reduces life to what can be used; imagination enlarges life into what can be adored.” I’ll add that explanation keeps us grounded in orthodox truth, while imagination ensures that truth never becomes formulaic and stale.

Our culture, however, lacks imagination: “But our technological and information-obsessed age has cut imagination from the team.” We need both. We won’t see the majestic glory of God and his world without both explanation and imagination.

Because of our cultural imagination deficiency, poetry is hard. It doesn’t come naturally. It must be cultivated through repeated practice. It’s easier to watch another reel or stream another show. If you don’t believe it’s worth pursuing, you won’t put the work in. Hopefully, I’ve convinced you, at least, that it’s worth the effort.

Here are some tips. First, read a psalm every day. Meet Christ in his own poetry. Second, listen to hymns. Church history supplies us with a rich storehouse of poetry intended to draw our imaginations into the unseen realm of God’s heavenly tabernacle. Third, pick one poet—George Herbert, for example—and read a poem per week for a year. Of Herbert, C. S. Lewis wrote, “Here was a man who seemed to me to excel all the authors I had ever read in conveying the very quality of life as we actually live it from moment to moment.”

Don’t give up. There’s more to reality than what you currently see.

My mother-in-law prioritizes having everyone together, too. She often reschedules get-togethers because one person has a conflict. She works hard to make her home a welcoming place everyone enjoys. She used to get mad at me for telling her I had “things to do” as a reason for not showing up. It’s a joke now—“I bet Casey has ‘things to do.’”

For the longest time, I didn’t get it. Don’t we see each other enough? We just did this last year, and I’ve done it every year of my life. It’ll be fine if a few people miss. Life will go on, and we’ll try again next year. Don’t they realize some people just have “things to do”?

I see it their way now. You see, my MaMa passed away a couple years ago. Those meals with everyone present aren’t possible anymore. We only have our memories of them now.

There’s a reason the Bible connects wisdom with growing older. Psalm 90:12 is one of my favorite verses: “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” My MaMa knew something I did not yet understand. She had lived long enough to know that the ability to get the whole family together doesn’t last forever. It’s only a matter of time before the young people get too busy and the old people die off. She fought until her dying day to keep us all together because she understood the significance of having everyone present for a meal.

The meal is never the point. It’s just an excuse for the opportunity to forge something more significant—identity, belonging, and love. When we gather around that table, we affirm that we belong to each other. By prioritizing the meal with our presence, we remind one another that we’re committed to them in love.

This dynamic helps us understand the significance of the Lord’s Supper. In Luke 22:14-23, Jesus gathers with his disciples in an upper room in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. Unlike the disciples, he knows that this will be his last meal with them, giving him perspective that they clearly lack. He also knows that he’s about to give profound significance to this meal beyond the normal significance of Passover. This meal will serve as a meal of remembrance and proclamation until his return (1 Cor 11:26).

In the history of the church, we’ve really made a mess of the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist, if you prefer. In response to the Roman Catholic error of literally sacrificing Christ upon each observance, Protestants too often overreact by underemphasizing its importance. I grew up in a church tradition that celebrated the Lord’s Supper four times per year. When we did gather on those seldom occasions, confusion abounded on what we were even doing.

Just as family get-togethers aren’t really about the meal, the Lord’s Supper isn’t really about the bread and the wine. In both cases, the meal represents something far greater.

In Luke’s account, the meal does at least four things. First, it fulfills the past. Jesus connects his new meal to the Passover because it fulfills the Passover. For Israel, Passover was synonymous with salvation. In the Exodus, God had delivered and covenanted with his people. For 600 years before Jesus, the prophets had been promising a second exodus would occur. Jesus’s life and death is the new exodus. Just as Israel went through the sea and into the wilderness where they were fed miraculously by God, Jesus went through his baptism and into his wilderness testing before miraculously feeding the five thousand. The Lord’s Supper reminds us that before we can go forward, we must look back. Advancement depends on remembering.

Second, the Lord’s Supper anticipates the future. It’s an appetizer preparing us for greater fulfillment. We eat the meal “until he comes” because when he comes, we will sit down with him for a greater meal (Rev 19:6-9). Just as we look back to acknowledge that he has already saved us, we look forward to remember that our salvation is not yet complete.

Third, the Lord’s Supper enacts the gospel. In the Passover, Israel would physically replay the events of the Exodus from Egypt. In the Lord’s Supper, we physically enact the sacrifice of Jesus. He’s not sacrificed again, but his one sufficient sacrifice is tasted anew by faith. The physical bread and cup help us get the story of Christ’s sacrifice down into our bones.

Fourth, the Lord’s Supper creates family identity. In the new covenant in his blood, we belong to him and to one another. Our new family is not defined by ethnic identity. Our family isn’t nationalistic; it’s Christocentric. When we gather around the table with the church, we affirm that we belong to each other and that we will keep loving each other. Our presence signifies our commitment.

Because of prayer’s inherent difficulty, I hesitate to critique how others pray. If you’ve discovered habits that work and are faithful to God’s self-revelation, who am I to mess that up? If people are praying at all, shouldn’t we simply celebrate that accomplishment without comment?

For the most part, I abide by the mindset of the previous paragraph. I generally steer clear from critiquing the personal prayer lives of other Christians. However, public prayer is a separate issue, and I’ve got a small bone to pick.

The other week, I attended my son’s high school basketball game at a small Christian school located about an hour from where we live. Thankfully, the team begins each game with a prayer from a local pastor. The pastor did a fantastic job praying for the players, the visiting families, and Christ-centered sportsmanship. Then, to conclude his prayer, he said, “in your name, Amen.”

It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard a public prayer end in such a way. In fact, in recent years, I’ve noticed that “in your name” has overtaken “in Jesus’ name” as the most prevalent way to conclude a public prayer. I’m not accusing pronoun prayers of heresy. However, I do want to make the case that Christians should explicitly name Jesus when we pray publicly. Praying “in your name” publicly muddles the glory of Christian prayer.

First, praying explicitly in Jesus’ name accurately describes what’s happening when a Christian prays. Apart from Christ, we have no access to God because of our sin. However, “through him we both (Jew and Gentile) have access in one Spirit to the Father” (Eph 2:18). We pray “in Jesus’ name” because our access to the Father depends on Jesus’ character and redemptive work on our behalf. While Christians should enjoy prayerful communion with both the Son and the Spirit, the most common pattern of biblical prayer goes to God the Father, through God the Son, in the power of God the Holy Spirit (Rom 1:8; Eph 1:16). Thus, praying explicitly in Jesus’ name avoids confusion about the nature of our Triune God and accurately describes the theological realities that make our prayers possible.

Second, praying explicitly in Jesus’ name explicitly claims a promise that Jesus made to us. In John 14:13-14, Jesus says, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” Whether we are praying to the Father or to the Son, Jesus instructs us to pray in his name. Praying in Jesus’ name grounds our prayers in the reality of who Christ is and leads to fruitfulness as we continue to pursue Christ’s mission on earth. When Jesus makes this promise, he is not giving his name as a magical incantation. Rather, he’s instructing his people to pray in continuity with his kingdom purposes. According to Jesus’ promise, when we do that, our prayers will be granted.

Third, praying explicitly in Jesus’ name is public proclamation of the gospel. We are often encouraged to use vague language to avoid controversy. When we pray “in Jesus’ name,” we exclude those of other faiths from our prayers. However, as we’ve already seen, those outside of Christ are already excluded from access to God because of their sin. Only “in Jesus’ name,” can we approach the throne of grace. Rather than cave in to the cultural pressure, Christians should see public prayer as an opportunity to boldly and compassionately witness to the truth of the gospel. We don’t pray “in Jesus’ name” to shove our beliefs down anyone’s throat. We pray thusly because we believe Jesus is the only hope for the world.

Let’s explicitly name our Lord and Savior when we pray publicly.

Of course, she’s right. Through Christ, sinners have become saints. It’s a wondrous miracle of God’s grace. When Paul wrote his letters to the “saints” in various locales, he wasn’t singling out super-Christians. He wrote to the baptized believers who gathered locally as the body of Christ. He wrote to people just like me, and assuming, dear reader, that you are also in Christ, people just like you, too. We are now “saints”—holy ones—not because we’ve radically reformed our behavior, but because Christ has given us a new status in himself.

But, of course, Paul’s new status as a saint did not negate the reality that he was also a sinner: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim 1:15). Similarly, John writes to saints, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). How do we reconcile these two opposite truths without affirming a contradiction? Are we sinners or are we saints?

Here’s the truth that I think my friend wanted to emphasize in her rebuke: In Christ, our primary identity has radically changed. Because of Christ’s righteousness, we are righteous. We are not sinners in the same way we were before Christ. In fact, from one extremely important vantage point, we are not sinners at all. When we think of ourselves in Christ, we “must consider [ourselves] dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Rom 6:11). As saints, we are no longer enslaved to sin (Rom 6:6). Sin does not reign over us. Essentially, we are saints rather than sinners.

However, because of our essential identity as saints in Christ who are no longer enslaved to sin, we must put sin to death (Col 3:5). John Piper puts it this way, “The fight against our ongoing sinning is the evidence that we are in Christ—and in him without sin in our inmost, essential identity.” Because we are essentially saints and not sinners, we put indwelling sin to death as we await the future day when every remnant of sin is removed completely. Our daily battle to defeat sin and cultivate righteousness arises out of our status as saints. If we weren’t saints, we wouldn’t put sin to death. We wouldn’t want to. We wouldn’t be able to.

If we forget we’re saints, we will lose our battle against sin. This battle is extremely difficult, humanly impossible. Without confidence that Christ has graciously and supernaturally changed our essential identity, we will lack the resources to fight. We defeat sin by saying, “That’s not who I am anymore. In Christ, I’m a holy person. Sin doesn’t have dominion over me. I’m going to live according to my new status as a saint.”

However, if we forget we’re sinners, we will grow lax in living out our status as saints in battle against a powerful internal enemy that wants to destroy our souls. When Paul reminds us that we’re saints, he’s not calling us to ignore our shortcomings. Instead, he’s strengthening us for the battle against those shortcomings. We need to know we’re saints so that we can defeat the sin that indwells us. We need to know about sin’s continued presence so that we don’t obliviously give it a foothold in our lives.

My friend has a point. In terms of identity, we are saints and not sinners. However, practically, we continue to sin in violation of who we are in Christ. We must remember that essentially we’re saints and practically we sin. However, there’s coming a day when “saint” will be all there is to say.

We read an article that describes something we’ve long internalized yet struggled to express. We listen to a complete stranger verbally capture something we feel deeply. We sit down to talk to a professional who finally gets us. Has he been listening to my inner dialogue? How does she know what I’m feeling? It’s a powerful experience.

“I just want to be heard!”

We shout into the void in hopes that someone—anyone—would listen. We grow frustrated in our relationships because it seems like even the people closest to us have given up trying. We feel isolated and alone. We wonder if we’re the only one alive experiencing this..

When we feel seen or heard, we’re expressing the relief of validation. We’re all terrified of not being recognized, of living invisible lives. We google our symptoms in hopes of experiencing that powerful “you, too!” moment. We search for diagnoses because labels validate us. If it has a medical name then other people have it too, and it must exist outside of my own head. It must be real. I’m finally seen!

We turn to social media because every like, share, and comment is immediate validation. Someone else resonates with what we’ve expressed. We check back chronically with every ping or red dot. We’re addicted to validation. It feels good. We’ve been heard (Substack/Twitter) or seen (Instagram/TikTok). We’re hooked.

But what if we’re settling? What if there’s something better than feeling seen or feeling heard? What if the fleeting satisfaction of immediate gratification is preventing us from experiencing validation infinitely more substantive and more satisfying?

I imagine the poor widow in Luke 21:1-4 felt unseen and unheard. Jesus had just condemned the scribes—respected by all for their piety and wealth—for devouring widows’ houses (20:47). Only Jesus seemed to notice her. The world did not see widows. We don’t even get this one’s name. They were invisible with nothing to offer—poor, past their prime, useless, dependent on the generosity of others. Drags on society.

Amidst all the activity of temple worship, no one should have noticed the poor widow putting two pennies into the offering box. Richer people were giving far more impressive amounts. The value of two copper coins hasn’t really changed since then. Inflation doesn’t impact what’s already next to worthless. The scholars tell us that her gift was the smallest lawful gift permitted. Clang. That should’ve been the end of it.

But Jesus noticed it. He sees her. Remember that “the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Sam 16:7). And what does Jesus see with his cardiogram vision? Sacrifice. He sees a poor woman giving everything she has in devotion to her God. He praises her. He sees her. He sees everything.

Jesus sees you. He sees your hidden labors to love a difficult spouse. He sees your sleepless nights serving sick children. He sees what never escapes the anonymity of your four walls. He sees your work that will never be Instagram-worthy or garner offers from corporate sponsors. He sees diary entries never published and remembers prayers never heard by human ears. He sees unnoticed service to your church and offerings that kept you from putting more presents under the tree. No human eye will ever see some of those things. If they did, it wouldn’t be noteworthy. But Jesus takes notice of every sacrifice.

Jesus hears you. He hears your cries and notices your pain. He knows what you’re experiencing even before you know how to articulate it yourself. He knows because “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15). He knows because he too suffered in a human body that didn’t always cooperate. He’s attuned to you even when no other person has a clue.

What’s better than feeling heard and feeling seen? How about being heard and being seen completely and perfectly by your Lord and Savior? How about having the attention of the only One who can complete your sentences and express your feelings better than you can?

Don’t settle for feeling heard and feeling seen. In Christ, you have perfect validation.

Indeed, whatever the merits of discouraging humans from ranking sins, Jesus treats hypocrisy with heightened moral indignation. The scribes who dress to impress and love public greetings and seats of honor but devour widow’s houses will receive “the greater condemnation” (Luke 21:47). The Pharisee offended that Jesus did not wash his hands before eating inspires an entire discourse pronouncing “woe” on those who seek outward righteousness while neglecting “justice and the love of God” (Luke 11:42).

Why does hypocrisy draw such fury? It’s hard to imagine a sin that so clearly violates both tables of the law—the-love-the-LORD-your-God half and the-love-your-neighbor-as-yourself half. To hide inward corruption behind a façade of false righteousness lies to your neighbor in the name of serving God. In fact, hypocrisy seeks to use God to dupe neighbor in pursuit of personal gain. It’s undistilled atheism, living completely before the eyes of men to prop up the illusion that God won’t see what’s really happening.

Jesus surrounds himself with sinners—tax collectors, prostitutes, thieves, lovers of money, murderers, and liars. He never excuses these sins and calls all to repent. But hypocrites get the full brunt of his anger. At them, our Lord lashes out.

It’s important to recognize two things about hypocrisy. First, every human being has a little hypocrisy in them. We all live with inconsistencies between the outward person—the one everyone sees—and the inner person—the one visible only to God. Eugene Peterson used to write about the journey toward congruence—the lifelong endeavor to match inner life to outward behavior. When people say, “the church is full of hypocrites,” there’s always an element of truth to it. It’s best to analyze hypocrisy on a scale between two poles. On one extreme, you’ll find repentant hypocrites who are striving in Christ toward congruence. On the other side, you’ll discover brazen hypocrites using pretense to devour others, probably so hardened they don’t even notice the inconsistency anymore.

Second, hypocrisy preys on religious people most. To be effective, temptation must feed on existing desires. Who has the most interest in appearing righteous? Who has the most to gain from moral performance? Church people do. The unrepentant sinner gives up such illusions as soon as he realizes no one is fooled anymore. The person in the church, however, has much to gain from it—respect from peers, positions, power. Plus, the people of God, themselves saved by grace, usually give a lot of rope. Hypocrisy is not exclusively a church sin, but it thrives there.

This brief exploration leads to one obvious question: If hypocrisy is so prevalent and yet also so dangerous, how do we defeat it? How practically do Christians ensure that hypocrisy does not take root in their lives? Here’s a few practical tips.

First, make sure you’re focused on the root before you mind the fruit. Jesus makes this connection in Luke 6:43-45. The quality of the fruit is determined by the quality of the tree. Hypocrites try to make bad fruit look good. They don’t pay attention to the tree, to their inner lives. Jesus’s teaching here calls to mind Jeremiah’s prophecy of the new covenant wherein God promises to change the hearts of his people. To focus on the root instead of the fruit means that the starting point for a life of congruence is the new covenant in Christ. In repenting and believing the gospel, we receive new hearts imprinted with God’s law. Before we can manifest truly righteous deeds, we must first become, by grace alone, lovers of God and neighbor with right motives.

Second, put more emphasis on the inner person than the outward person. In 1 Peter 3:3-4, the apostle warns against overemphasizing outward beauty to the neglect of the heart. Paul makes a similar point about bodily training in 1 Timothy 4:7b-8. Do you spend more energy cultivating your physical appearance than pursuing godliness? Answering this question will help you determine whether you live before the eyes of God or man.

Third, don’t major on minors. Hypocrites look for easy ways to distinguish themselves from others. In our culture, it’s tempting to take great pride in health fads and diets, parenting philosophies, and political opinions. We’re often loud about these minor issues and silent about the important ones because the minor ones are easy and the important ones cost us something.

Fourth, beware social media. Social media is a factory of hypocrisy. It entices us to present the best version of ourselves—often a dishonest version. Social media allows us to see ourselves through the eyes of the admirers of our curated selves. Guard yourself.

Fifth, let your true friends see the real you. Be honest. Dig into real relationships in your local church where you confess your sins and open yourself to real feedback.

Sixth, strive for consistency between public and private. Are you the same person in every setting? Do you notice disparity between your life in private and who you try to be before others? If you need help here, ask your spouse.

Finally, pursue daily communion with Christ. Pray and read his word. Worship him daily. Tell him how much he means to you and ask him to direct your steps. No one sees you in the prayer closet except him, but it’s here where the real heart work begins.

It’s also where I first experienced the pain of entry denial. One year, I tried to follow my big sister and cousins onto a ride, but I didn’t meet the height requirement. The plywood clown’s hand rested an inch or two above my head. In my MaMa’s words, I pitched a fit. Exclusion never feels good. When we want to enter, we don’t like being told no.

In Luke 18, we encounter back-to-back stories about entry and exclusion, but the destination isn’t a fair ride; it’s the kingdom of God. If you hang around Jesus long enough, eventually you’re going to want to know how to enter his kingdom. In this passage, he clearly defines the requirements.

First, in Luke 18:15-17, his disciples rebuke people for bringing their babies to Jesus to bless. Jesus responds with his own gentle rebuke: let them come, for “to such belongs the kingdom of God.” In fact, Jesus continues, if you don’t receive the kingdom like a child, you can’t enter either.

What is it about children that Jesus wants us to have? I’ve often heard this passage taught as if Jesus wants us to imitate the humility and trust of children. In this interpretation, children are presented as inherently virtuous, and we need to cultivate the same kind of virtue. However, in context, I don’t think that’s the right conclusion. The passage under consideration comes right after Jesus’s parable about the self-righteous Pharisee and the tax collector who prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” In that parable, the empty-handed tax collector went home justified.

Jesus doesn’t commend children for their virtue. Instead, he points to their deficits. Children were not valued in that culture. They had nothing to offer. Children are small, weak, and lacking in knowledge and power. They don’t have resumes yet, and I think that’s the point. The kingdom belongs to empty-handed people, to those who admit they have nothing to offer. To receive the kingdom like a child is to admit that your only hope is God’s mercy to sinful people.

Then, to drive this point home, Luke tells us an exclusion story. The rich ruler is quite the contrast to children. He’s highly successful and has amassed considerable wealth. Nevertheless, he asks Jesus how to inherit “eternal life,” which is synonymous with “kingdom of God” in this conversation. Something about Jesus and his message appeals to this man, and he wants in.

Surprisingly, Jesus doesn’t reply with a gospel invitation. Instead, he points to the second half of the Ten Commandments. It’s important here to note that Jesus isn’t suggesting that this man can enter the kingdom on his own merit. Jesus is initiating a conversation to inspire this ruler to pull out his resume. He exposes his heart, and it works. The ruler responds, “All these I have kept from my youth.” Now Jesus has him right where he wants him.

In v. 22, Jesus tells him that he’s still lacking one thing. If he really wants in, he needs to sell everything he has and give the proceeds to the poor. The point of the law, as Jesus teaches elsewhere, is neighbor love. The commandments that the ruler obeys are supposed to be expressions of love. Here, Jesus is saying, “If you want to play the resume game, here’s what the law really requires.” Outward righteousness is no substitute for heartfelt neighbor love. When God calls people to righteousness, he demands the real thing.

Tragically, the rich ruler walks away with sadness. To whatever extent he desired the kingdom, it wasn’t enough to give up his possessions. He valued his stuff more than Jesus. And because he couldn’t come empty-handed, as a child, he couldn’t come in. Unlike the ride at the fair, the kingdom is for children. Where does that leave you?

Where does your mind go when you read the above assertion? It’s Christmas time. Do you think about the so-called “war on Christmas” and get angry about Starbucks renaming their classic “Christmas Blend” to the boring “Holiday” alternative? Or perhaps you imagine fighting for the right side in a great cultural conflict that neatly divides along the partisan line separating Republicans from Democrats?

I recently received a letter in the mail that began like this: “Our country and state are in a war to maintain conservative and Christian values.” We’re so used to hearing such rhetoric that few who prize conservative and Christian values dare to question it. We don’t have time to debate worldviews when we’ve got an urgent culture war to win!

I’m a person who prizes conservative and Christian values. If you gave me a conservative values test, I predict I would ace it. As a Christian, I value marriage the way God designed it. I believe God created us male and female. Because each human being is created uniquely in the image of God, I abhor abortion and euthanasia. I value family and church and want my children to grow up in a culture that also champions these irreplaceable institutions. When I vote, I exclusively support candidates who live out these values in their personal lives and commit to them through sound policy agendas.

With that said, I reject the framework that Christians are at war to maintain conservative and Christian values. In fact, adopting this worldview may cause us to lose the real war God calls us to fight.

The Bible certainly calls Christians to war. However, the battle lines never place Christians on one side against secular enemies in the culture. Our primary war is against our own passions (1 Pet 2:11). After that, we put on God’s spiritual armor to fight against “the schemes of the devil” (Eph 5:11). James tells us that the “world” is our enemy and that we should resist friendship with it, but here too the target of our attack is the “passions at war within you” (Jam 4:1-4). Paul even explicitly denies that our war is against “flesh and blood” (Eph 5:12) and forbids “waging war according to the flesh” (2 Cor 10:4).

Does this mean that Christians should withdraw from politics and be unconcerned with cultural values? Absolutely not. We “seek the welfare of the city” where we are exiled (Jer 29:7). Jesus’s call to neighbor love certainly includes working toward a just society wherein human beings can flourish according to God’s good design. Faithful Christians must enter the public square to bear witness to Christ and his ways. We advocate for truth, goodness, and beauty for the benefit of all. Practically, we should vote our values and seek policies that align with God’s character and design.

However, as we advocate for truth and righteousness, we must remember that our real war is never against flesh and blood. Our enemies are not the people who vote differently and contradict our values. If those people do become our enemies—if they actively resist and persecute us—then we must love them: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 5:43-45).

It’s exciting to imagine life as war. It gives us purpose and a mission. When life is war, we wake up each day trying to gain new ground for our cause. We forge camaraderie with our fellow soldiers who join us on the battlefield. We fill our days studying strategies to outflank our enemies. We sacrifice our lives to the cause.

But what if you’ve been fighting the wrong war? What if the Culture War is a diversion tactic from your true enemy and you’ve allowed him to outflank you? What if you’re feeding the “passions at war within you” rather than defeating them by stirring up hatred for other people? What if you’ve made the world your friend in the name of making the right side win? What if you’re so locked into the “war to maintain conservative and Christian values” in our country that you’ve already lost the war against your own passions? What if the intensity of your hatred for the other has overcome your desire to see them redeemed in Christ?

Don’t fight the wrong war.

If the thought of Christmas brings “war” to mind, then it’s probably the culture war. Sadly for many, the “War on Christmas” means responding grumpily when the cashier says, “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” We’ve got important battles to win.

But Christmas has everything to do with real war, like the violent and bloody one being fought between Russia and Ukraine right now. War occurs because human beings are enslaved to our passions. It is the expression of unfulfilled human desire. We want something and other people stand in our way, so we eliminate them (Jam 4:1-2). We kill in the name of getting what we want—whether land, money, power, or glory. We would rather shed innocent blood than withhold something we want from ourselves. While it is impossible to know for sure, some estimate that as many as one billion people have been killed in war in human history. Human desire is a powerful killer.

No generation has ever experienced life without war. Sure, some eras are relatively peaceful for some people in some nations. However, wars and threats of war are a constant feature of the human experience. Calls for “world peace” manifest utopian illusions. To be human is to know war.

Reflecting on the ubiquity of war in human history helps us respond appropriately to Isaiah’s radical vision in Isaiah 2:1-4. The word God gives the prophet ought to astound us. He tells Judah that one day God’s temple will be lifted higher than any mountain on earth and that all nations will flow to it. Remarkably, the peoples who come do not come by force of bayonet or under threat of assault. They come willingly to learn God’s ways. In this glorious future, weapons of war are no longer even needed. In fact, they’ve been repurposed as farming tools because “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

How do you get a race that has only ever known war—one that God wiped out once before because it “was corrupt in God’s sight” and “filled with violence” (Gen 6:11)—to finally stop fighting and live peaceably with one another? How do you finally succeed in the impossible ideal of world peace? How do you finally stop the nations and politicians from tearing each other to shreds? The answer, in one word, is Christmas.

How can the baby lying in a manger end all wars? If we skip ahead, we will learn that the baby born of Mary is the eternal Son of God and that he will one day grow up to judge God’s enemies, bringing destruction upon their heads. That ought to do the trick. Jesus will use violence to condemn violence. He will thrash God’s enemies without mercy. Judgment is coming, and Jesus will be the Judge. We might not like that part of the story, but it’s coming.

But let’s not skip ahead too quickly. Again, the nations at peace in Isaiah’s prophecy are coming, not to face the wrath of God, but to learn God’s ways in submission. They want to be a part of his new kingdom. No one forces them to do it, which means there’s a way to enter Jesus’ peace without experiencing his just wrath. There’s a way to know the end of all wars without having to endure the just war of Jesus.

Before the conquering King judges sinners, he endures their violence. Before he pours out his wrath on them, he submits to the war sparked by their sin. Why does Jesus do this? Why does he suffer? Why does he submit to shame, humiliation, and ultimately, death on the cross? He does it because he loves the people he made. He does it to fulfill a divine promise to Abraham that one day his offspring would bless all the nations of the world. He came to “reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:20).

Christmas has everything to do with war. Jesus came to endure war to save his enemies. His enemies who refuse him will endure their own war. But, in the end, his war will end all wars. A day is coming when humans will no longer need to learn war to live. That day starts now if you’re willing to submit to him.