We’re all bombarded with more information than we can process. Recounting the most popular articles and videos from Out of Neutral at the end of the year is my way of helping you see what you might have overlooked or missed. But it’s also a way for me to see the kinds of themes that people are interested in learning about. This year, people were drawn to posts about the Bible, theology, and some of the challenges of the Christian life. Here are the top 10 of 2024.

10. How To Start a Christian Cult

Cults thrive on twisting truth. By isolating verses, ignoring context, and using fear over grace, they turn gospel freedom into chains.

9. Good Things God Might Be Doing When Bad Things Happen

Why does God allow suffering in our lives? While the question is timeless, Jesus’ perspective offers surprising insights into how God redeems trials for our good.

8. Three Ways Our Views on Money Would Shock the Early Church

What would a first-century Christian think of our excuses for not giving? Their radical generosity might challenge everything we believe about what it means to follow Jesus.

7. How To Love Your Enemy When Your Enemy’s an Abusive Family Member

Christians are called to love their enemies, but with an abusive person, it's not so simple. When does loving become enabling? How do you protect your personal safety? This post examines the tensions.

6. Is the King James Version the Only Bible Translation You Should Read?

The King James Version has been a reliable translation and trusted Bible for more than 400 years. This post looks at how to evaluate the modern translations in light of it.

5. What Happens When We Confuse Friendship and Fellowship

Our longing for connection reflects how God designed us, but true fellowship in the church is more than friendship—it’s about mutual growth and encouragement in Christ. This post looks at why that distinction matters.

4. How Baptists and Christian Reformed Believers Speak Past Each Other on Baptism

The when and how of baptism sparks passionate debate among Christians, but the conversation deepens our understanding of God’s covenants and calls us to reflect on Scripture with humility.

3. Four Lessons From Joshua About the Battle for Your Faith

What can an ancient book about warfare teach Christians today? Joshua reveals surprising truths about spiritual victory, struggle, and the hope we have in a greater Saviour.

2. Why Don’t Catholics and Protestants Read the Same Bible?

Why do Catholic and Protestant Bibles differ? It’s not about translations or changes over time. The answer reveals the heart of what each believes.

1. What Attracts Us to the Story of Noah’s Ark Distracts Us From Its Message

What if everything you thought you knew about Noah’s Ark missed the point? Beyond the animals and the flood, there’s a message we need to hear.

That wraps up this year’s posts! If you have a question—big or small—that you’d like me to explore in the new year, let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear from you.

In awe of Him,

Paul

For many people, the happiness we expect at Christmas only magnifies the pain of the challenges. The over-the-top joy in sugary-sweet Christmas movies can make us feel like we’re the only ones who are hurting. But the story of the first Christmas is actually a dark tale that both acknowledges our pain and points to our hope. Consider the harsh realities of the first Christmas described in Luke’s Gospel and what they reveal.

The census stirred financial stress and political resentment

A reading of the Christmas story often begins with a statement about a census (Luke 2:1-2). We usually think about those forms we get in the mail where we’re asked how many people live in our home and what languages we speak. A census in biblical times was usually about taxation. When Joseph and Mary got the news that they would have to register, it would come with both financial burden and political resentment. Rome wanted more money! It’s not what you wanted to hear when you were expecting your first baby in an unplanned pregnancy.

The journey was dangerous and exhausting

We tend to romanticize Joseph and Mary’s journey to Bethlehem (Luke 2:3-4). We picture Mary on a donkey and Joseph leading the animal gently, but nowhere in Scripture does it mention how they travelled. What we do know is that the distance is about 150 kilometres. You can drive that by car today in two to three hours, but it would have taken closer to a week for Joseph and Mary. And since everyone was travelling at the same time, it would have felt like rush hour traffic on a long weekend. We can imagine the discomfort that Mary would have felt.

The stable spelled rejection and disappointment

I’m not sure nativity scenes would have ever become a holiday tradition if Jesus had been born in a hospital. There’s something about those animals and the rustic surroundings that made for a great Christmas decoration. But the lack of a proper room must have felt like the last straw (Luke 2:7). After a long journey, you want to relax. And surely every pregnant mother craves a little comfort. Having to put your newborn in an animal feeding trough must have felt cruel.

Every detail in the chaotic story had a good, but invisible, purpose

The painful realities of the Christmas story can change how we see our own circumstances. Neither Joseph nor Mary could have seen anything good about what was happening to them. And yet as we look back at their story, we can understand God’s purposes. The census ensured that Jesus’ birth would be dated since these events were of interest to historians, religious or otherwise. The journey to Bethlehem fulfilled a 700-year-old prophecy of where the Messiah would be born (Micah 5:2). And the fact that there was no room in the inn foreshadowed the rejection Jesus would face but also His willingness to stand with the poor and the outsiders. Everything was just as God wanted it after all.

As you reflect on how these painful circumstances could fulfill God’s good purposes, it gives you hope as you consider your own disappointments. The Christmas story is not so much about happy endings or perfect circumstances. It’s about light in the darkness. It’s about a Saviour born in the midst of the struggle. It’s about a wise God carrying out a good plan when it must have seemed like everything was out of control. If God did that at the first Christmas, then He’s continuing to do that today. Think about something that makes Christmas hard this year, and choose to trust God’s good purposes by faith, and find hope in His plan for you.

In awe of Him,

Paul

Painful trials have a way of testing our coping strategies. The Book of Job introduces a man whose suffering included unimaginable financial devastation, unrelenting physical pain, and the tragic loss of his children. His story helps us to see the limitations of some of our usual responses and gives us more effective means of relief.

1. Sometimes friends can do more harm than good

As tragedy hits Job, three friends “made an appointment together to come to show him sympathy and comfort him” (Job 2:11). It feels at first as if they will be just what he needs. Unfortunately, they aren’t. As they begin to speak into his life and try to interpret what’s happening to him, it’s clear that they are just adding to his pain. At one point, Job calls for them to stop: “I have heard many such things; miserable comforters are you all” (Job 16:2).

It seems that Job’s friends are given to us as a warning. Well-meaning people can say some insensitive and hurtful things in times of grief – particularly if they haven’t suffered themselves (2 Corinthians 1:4).

2. Hiding under your covers can make things worse

If you’re struggling with your circumstances and hurt by your friends, the temptation is to withdraw altogether. Job tried this, too. At one point, he said, “My bed will comfort me, my couch will ease my complaint” (Job 7:13). It didn’t. His problems were only amplified under the covers. The way Max Lucado put it was, “The cave has no answers.” Hiding and hoping for the storm to pass only gives it more power over us.

3. Adding regret to your pain steals from your comfort

As his suffering intensified, Job was helped by reminding himself of the big picture. He would eventually be remembered for the decisions he had made and the life he lived despite his circumstances. He encouraged himself that a life of faithfulness is its own comfort. In Job 6:10, he said, “This would be my comfort; I would even exult in pain unsparing, for I have not denied the words of the Holy One.” When the heat is turned up, it’s easy to turn to temptation, but Job realized that would only add regret to his pain. He purposed to glorify God.

4. God’s truth brings comfort in suffering

The physical losses in Job’s case were made so much harder by the emotional anguish he experienced. His friends condemned him with a steady barrage of accusations that weren’t true. At one point, he says to them, “How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood” (Job 21:34). While Job’s friends may have been unique, most people struggle with confusing or condemning thoughts of one form or another when hard times hit. Job had an incomplete picture of God, but focusing on what he knew and understood of God’s truth gave him hope and counteracted the lies that he kept hearing (Job 16:19; 23:10; 19:25-27). When we suffer, we need to hear God’s truth more than ever.

5. Repentance unlocks comfort in our pain

When you’re reading a book of the Bible and see a word repeated a number of times, it’s worth checking the occurrences of that word in a concordance or app that allows you to search it. Often the biblical authors would point to a theme they were developing by using repetition.

Comfort is one of the keywords in Job’s story. In Job 42:6, however, the underlying Hebrew word is translated with a different word – “repent.” After hearing God speak out of the whirlwind, Job says, “Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” That one Hebrew word can include the sense of either comfort, repentance, or both. Here both are probably intended.

God’s words have brought clarity and self-awareness to Job that he didn’t have before, and so it’s correct to say that he repented. But that repentance also brought great comfort to Job. He was reoriented to God’s truth, and it built his hope, undid the lies, and released him from the confusion he struggled with. This is the turning point in Job’s healing.

When life is difficult, we think that comfort will only come in gentle thoughts and quiet relief. Often, what we most need is an encounter with God. We need to see Him more clearly and trust Him more deeply. We need to better understand His purposes and see where we’ve lost sight of them. This ultimately brings comfort to a true believer.

6. God will eventually bring His people the comfort they long for

Job found relief in an encounter with God while he was still on the ash heap. But that wasn’t the only comfort he got. Job’s story ends with his losses restored and his life renewed. The isolation he felt from his unsympathetic friends was replaced by reconciliation (Job 42:8) and reunion. Job 42:11 says, “Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him. And each of them gave him a piece of money and a ring of gold.”

This is the comfort that Job had been seeking since he first experienced his tragedy. It comes to him now only after he’s learned to find comfort in other places. It’s given to us here to encourage us that a day is coming for all of God’s people when we will meet God and experience the comfort we so desperately long for. That hope can comfort us even as we wait for it to be realized.

Reading a single keyword, in this case, “comfort,” across an entire book can give us a view that no single chapter or verse can provide. Learn to look for repetition as you read, and may you find the comfort you need as you look to God today.

In awe of Him,

Paul

Interested in learning more about the Book of Job?
Click here for the sermon series: When Tragedy Strikes

Imagine explaining our lifestyle to a Christian from the first century. Cars, smartphones, streaming services, and online shopping have turned luxuries into necessities. Our homes overflow with furniture, closets with clothes, and refrigerators with food. Yet, in this age of unparalleled wealth, our giving reveals a poverty that would have baffled the early church. Consider the following statements through the eyes of Jesus’ first followers.

“I can’t afford to give”

There’s no question that many people are struggling financially right now. Inflation is crazy, housing prices are unaffordable, and credit card debt burdens many. And yet the standard of what we “need” to live today would be unrecognizable to almost any other generation in history.

The early church believed that a commitment to Jesus should involve an adjustment in a person’s lifestyle. People sold properties to have more money to give to the work of God (Acts 4:34-35). Even people with very little were commended for the sacrifices they made to give.

Jesus famously praised a poor widow for putting a penny in the offering box – not just because it was so little but because “she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live one” (Mark 12:42-44). Similarly, Paul held up the example of the Macedonians whose “generosity” came from “their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty” and resulted in them “begging … earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints” (2 Corinthians 8:1-4).

To someone who couldn’t afford to give, the early Christians would surely advise them to reduce their expenses, be content with less, and put God first in their finances. Statistics reveal that as income rises, the percentage people give away often decreases. In the end, giving reflects the priorities of the heart.

“I don’t have to tithe”

Statistics say that only 5 to 10% of church attendees give at least a tithe or 10% of their income to God. Some argue: “None of the New Testament letters ever mention tithing.” I’ve addressed this topic before (“Why Doesn’t the New Testament Talk More About Tithing?”) but this feels like a case of being technically right but spiritually wrong.

If you’re going to be precise and talk about the fact that there aren’t any Christian commands to tithe, you also need to note that Jesus said to “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy” (Luke 12:33) and warned that “any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). It’s not as if Jesus was urging people to scale back from giving a tithe. If anything, he was encouraging more.

Research shows that Christians who tithe seem to understand this. Most committed tithers go beyond 10%, with 77% giving more than a tenth of their income to God. Once you understand Christian giving, generosity and gratefulness guide the amount.

“I like to give to more personal needs than my local church”

One of the reasons people give for not contributing to the church is that they like to give to other needs. Missionaries make direct appeals, family members want our help, and in some countries a little money can go a long way. Generosity dictates that we try to respond where we can. But to not give priority in your giving to the local church you attend would be a strange idea to the early church.

Even as they saw that the needs were great, rather than everyone independently responding, the first disciples brought their offerings and “laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need” (Acts 4:35). In the Old Testament, no one would have considered withholding their temple offering to help a relative buy seed for his field." It’s a question of both/and not either/or.

While personal giving often feels more rewarding because of the immediate impact, somebody still needs to pay for less glamorous essentials like heating bills, elevator maintenance, and children’s ministry curriculum. Neglecting the local church in favour of personal giving may feel satisfying, but it ignores the place that the body of Christ is called to play in fulfilling Jesus’ mission.

The early church understood that giving as a Christian is about declaring that Jesus is Lord over every part of life. If we truly grasped their perspective, it would free us from the values that burden us with financial strain and give money such power over our lives.

In awe of Him,

Paul

I thought I had strong convictions. Maybe you do, too. What I learned was that many of my beliefs were borrowed from other people and hadn’t been tested, applied, or internalized. What I thought were convictions were loosely held ideas that wouldn’t hold up. I’ve come to recognize the cheaper substitutes to convictions that we often mistake for the real thing. As you consider them, reflect on your own beliefs and try to discern whether they’re truly rooted or just borrowed.

1. Things we don’t have strong reasons to deny

Maybe it’s something you heard from your parents or picked up in a sermon. It sounded right, so you assumed that you believed it. In reality, though, you just didn’t deny it. You may not have thought deeply enough to test it against alternatives you might face.

The example of the Bereans is helpful here – they took the things they heard and then personally examined them in light of Scripture “to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). When we skip this step, true conviction isn’t formed.

2. Things we go along with when others around us do

When we’re surrounded by people who act and speak in certain ways, our tendency is to mirror them. We may not be birds, but we tend to flock together. There are certain truths that we think we believe because we like a preacher who believes them or because we attend a church that teaches them. And it’s a positive thing when your beliefs and actions are shaped by the people around you, but unless you take the time to personally own those beliefs, you’ll find them slip away when you’re in the company of people who oppose them. In Jesus’ day, John tells us, “Many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it” (John 12:42). If you’re a different person depending on who’s watching, you don’t have convictions, you just have opinions.

3. Things we might deny if it costs us something to believe them

Jesus talked about people who are genuinely excited when they hear the good news, but he warned of the person who “has no root in himself” and so “endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away” (Matthew 13:20-21). It surprises many today to hear about individuals deconstructing their faith. We assume their enthusiasm reflected deeply held convictions, but often it didn’t. But the real test of a conviction is how it stands up to testing. Today, Christian beliefs in North America are being tested in ways that they haven’t been for a long time. It costs something to hold to biblical truth today and many are unprepared to pay the price.

Jesus’ disciples faced the same challenges we do. At one point, “many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him” (John 6:66). When Jesus asked the twelve whether they wanted to turn back as well, Peter showed us the path to true conviction. He replied, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God” (John 6:68-69). You build convictions by recognizing that the alternatives are counterfeits. Convictions are founded on “the words of eternal life.” And they form as you choose to follow “the Holy One of God” when other voices compete for your loyalty.

True convictions take time, testing, and trust in Christ. May we pursue beliefs that will stand when the pressure is applied to them.

In awe of Him,

Paul

The mob hitman confessing his sins in church after another brutal killing is cliché. We instinctively know that God doesn’t forgive people so that they can go on sinning. Yet we struggle to understand the tension. We say things like “God gives you a clean slate,” and “Jesus helps you turn over a new leaf.” There’s a sense in which those statements are true, but they can also be misleading. God’s forgiveness isn’t like pressing CTRL-Z on your computer. It doesn’t erase the sin as if it never existed. The “guilt offering” or “reparation offering” in Leviticus helps to clarify the tension.

A sacrifice that was all about making things right

Each offering in Leviticus taught God’s people something different about the nature of sin and forgiveness. Despite the name, the purpose of the “guilt offering” wasn’t to make people feel guilty. It taught people about the debt of sin and the restitution required of His people. It dealt with sins like financial corruption (Leviticus 6:2), theft, and oppression (Leviticus 6:3). When the person became convinced of their wrong, they wouldn’t just confess it to the priest. And they didn’t just offer a sacrifice to God. They were to first go to the person whom they had wronged and restore to them whatever they had cheated them of. In fact, the law required that the person “restore it in full and shall add a fifth to it, and give it to him to whom it belongs on the day he realizes his guilt” (Leviticus 6:5). It was only then that he was to bring his sacrifice to the Lord and receive God’s forgiveness.

New Testament echoes of the Guilt Offering

Hundreds of years of guilt offerings shaped the conscience of the Jewish people. So, it’s not surprising that when someone like Zacchaeus who had extorted people’s money as a tax collector responded to Jesus’ message, his first instinct was to try to make things right. He immediately vowed to give half of his possessions to the poor and pay back four times the amount of anyone whom he had cheated (Luke 19:8). Similarly, John the Baptist called people to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8) and the Apostle Paul told people to perform “deeds in keeping with their repentance” (Acts 26:20). It’s not that you have to earn your forgiveness, but you do need to make things right.

A clean slate?

When you put your faith in Jesus, you’re not only completely forgiven by God but also credited with the righteousness of Christ (Philippians 3:9). And there’s nothing extra we have to do to earn it. But while our slate with God is wiped clean that doesn’t change the fact that there are people we may have hurt, wrongs we may have left undone, and things that we need to make right. A murderer can be forgiven by God but still need to go to jail.

In my case, I tried to list the people I felt I owed something to. I thought of something I had broken but never replaced and sent money and an apology. I thought of someone I had hurt deeply with my words and called to express my remorse. I wasn’t trying to earn God’s forgiveness or add to my salvation, but what Jesus did in making things right between me and God taught me that I needed to take measures to make things right between me and the people I had offended. The guilt offering reminds me of that.

Is there anyone you need to make things right with? Any wrongs you’ve left undone? God’s grace gives us the courage to face our sins rather than deny them. It offers us a new start with Him, but part of the new start involves taking responsibility for the people we’ve hurt. May God give you help as you do.

In awe of Him,

Paul

The hippie movement of the 1960s sought peace through drugs. Celebrities like Julia Roberts seek it through yoga and meditation, while Richard Gere looks for it in Tibetan Buddhism. Stress at work, problems with kids, and our mental health push us to look for peace in different ways. But the instructions for the Peace Offering in the Book of Leviticus give us a unique insight into how God intends for us to experience lasting peace.

1. To know peace, you need to end the war

The Peace Offering in Leviticus 3 begins similarly to the Burnt Offering in Leviticus 1. The worshipper would offer an animal as a substitute sacrifice – an action that points back to the Garden of Eden. It was in the Garden that we lost our peace, and so we can’t reclaim it without addressing what happened there. Sin destroyed the peace we enjoyed with God, each other, and our conscience, so God uses the sacrifice to point to His means of resolving that problem. The sacrifice of the Peace Offering teaches us that you can’t find peace without dealing with your sin. If you’re at war with God, your neighbour, or your brother, no amount of meditation is going to make it easier to sleep at night. To know peace, you need to end the war – at least as far as it depends on you. The sacrifice that begins the Peace Offering points to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. As Romans 5:1 says, “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

2. To know peace, you need time in God’s presence

Some people have confessed their sins and made peace with God through faith in Jesus, but they still struggle to feel that peace. That’s where the Peace Offering is so helpful. The Peace Offering was prepared as a meal. It describes it as “a food offering to the LORD” (Leviticus 3:3) and details which part of the offering is for God. Specifically, God gets the fat which is the juiciest, tastiest part of the animal. Imagine setting aside the best cut of marbled Kobe beef for God as a way of expressing your love to Him. To know peace, you don’t just need to end the war, you spend time in God’s presence expressing to Him what He means to you. Separation from Him robbed us of the peace we crave, and so drawing close to Him fuels that peace and deepens our experience of it.

3. To know peace, you need to celebrate it with others

The unique thing about the Peace Offering was that it was enjoyed in the context of a group meal – a kind of “shalom party.” Leviticus 7:11-13 describes various kinds of breads that were included in the offering, all meant to be shared. These were eaten, along with the sacrifice, in God’s presence. And there were instructions to eat everything right away – leftovers weren’t allowed (Leviticus 7:15). This is unusual since an adult sheep could feed 40 to 50 people. Since eating meat was relatively rare in ancient Israel, the temptation would be to eat a little and take the rest in a doggy bag for the trip home. By requiring it to be eaten in one sitting, it would include the worshipper gathering his relatives, neighbours, and friends. Even then, there would be leftovers, so the poor and needy would be encouraged to join in. And the worshipper would gather everyone and declare to them the wonders of a God who provides peace to people who don’t deserve it.

As our culture increasingly turns to mysticism and meditation, looking within for peace, Leviticus calls us to look upward and outward – to confess, to connect, and to celebrate.

May God lead you into that peace today!

In awe of Him,

Paul

The promises and principles of Scripture are comforting and directly applicable. They don’t take a lot of work to relate to. Leviticus has to be read in a different way. It’s like a manual from a different age, but it helps you to visualize scenes of devotion and worship that can help you relate to God in ways that other Scriptures don’t explore so clearly. The grain offering shows you how to express your love to God.

An opportunity to express your love

The grain offering usually followed the burnt offering, the substitute animal sacrifice that Christians are more familiar with. The worshipper has just offered a lamb from his flock and felt the forgiveness and acceptance of God. He feels clean inside and at peace with the Lord. He’s moved to respond. He wants to communicate to God something of what he feels inside. With the grain offering, God suggests that he bake a cake. The grain offering is essentially an offering of cake. It became a personal way of saying, “Thank you.”

Bring a gift with some personality

There was a lot of variety with this particular gift. It was possible to just bring flour and pour oil and frankincense on it (Leviticus 2:1), but often it was baked in an oven (Leviticus 2:4), fried in a pan (Leviticus 2:7), or cooked on a griddle (Leviticus 2:5) – pancakes anyone? The point was that you could bring some personality and flair to this offering.

No hypocrisy in this relationship

When you baked a cake for God, there was one thing you had to remember to exclude and another that you had to add. While you’d be tempted to add yeast or leaven to make it rise, God repeatedly warns not to (Leviticus 2:4, 5 11). It was often used as a symbol of sin and hypocrisy and God wanted to make it clear that He wants neither. Honey was susceptible to fermentation, so it was excluded for a similar reason (Leviticus 2:11).

Preserve our relationship

Salt, on the other hand, had to be added (Leviticus 2:13). Salt was a preservative, but ancient treaties were often symbolically salted to express a desire for the covenant to last. By adding salt to the cake, the worshipper was saying, “May you sustain this relationship forever!”

But God doesn’t eat cake!

What’s amazing about this offering is that God needs nothing, and He doesn’t eat cake. In His divinity, He’s never been hungry, so it’s not as if He’s craving the taste. And yet twice it says that the fragrance of this offering is “a pleasing aroma to the LORD” (Leviticus 2:2, 9). That tells me that God is pleased with my heartfelt expressions of love for Him, no matter how inadequate they might seem. If they come from a place of sincere worship and covenant relationship, they bring a smile to the heart of God.

The grain offering reminds me of when I was in kindergarten. I was walking home through a field and picked some dandelions for my mother. When I got home, I handed them to her as if I had just given her a bouquet of roses. And she took great delight in them! Not because of what they were but because of what they meant.

God invites us to offer our lives not our cake

Leviticus is from a different time. It teaches that responding to God’s forgiveness in tangible acts of love and devotion is appropriate. Today, instead of cake, God says to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” He calls this our “spiritual worship” and tells us that it’s “holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1). We might not bake literal cakes for God, but we can offer Him something even more meaningful. Whether it’s taking time to care for a neighbour, setting aside extra time to pray, or giving something extra to support God’s work, these acts are like the grain offering—simple, heartfelt ways to show God our love. And He takes pleasure in them. He’s never thinking, “What did you do that for?” He sees them and notices.

Take time today to offer God a piece of your life – a prayer, a kind gesture, or a word of testimony—and know that it’s a pleasing aroma to Him.

In awe of Him,

Paul

In my second year of university, a roommate and I were desperate to be accepted as engineering orientation leaders. They hosted the parties, led the events, and maintained the faculty’s wild reputation. For our interviews, we drank too much and dressed in one-piece long johns and leather jackets to try and look the part. I arrived with a massive, custom-order pizza to bribe them, and my friend swallowed a live goldfish in front of them to prove his qualifications.

Looking back, it seems absurd that we were willing to sacrifice so much to be accepted. Why was I so desperate for the approval of people I barely liked? It wasn’t the last time I would wear a mask to try to prove myself to someone. But surprisingly, it was a deep dive into a book that most people avoid that helped reshape my thinking in this area.

The masks we wear and why we wear them

As you begin reading Leviticus, you’re immersed in a strange world of animal sacrifices. You can’t help but wonder what’s going on. The sacrifices in Leviticus can be explained in part by a sacrifice God provides in the opening chapters of the Bible.

In the Garden of Eden, the Bible explains that Adam and Eve “were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25). Before God and one another, they lived with nothing to hide. But sin changed that. As soon as they disregarded God’s command, their first instinct was to hide from one another and from God. They famously sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves (Genesis 3:7). They were trying to put something on the outside to hide the shame they felt on the inside. We’ve been doing the same thing ever since.

Is it possible that my desperation to be accepted by an orientation committee stemmed from a yearning for the acceptance we lost in the garden? Were the long johns and goldfish antics the fig leaves we chose to hide who we were?

God’s alternative to our fig leaves

You can imagine how ineffective a bra and underwear made out of leaves would be – not to mention uncomfortable! Interestingly, God doesn’t tell them that the idea is silly. He knows that their shame is real. They were covering their bodies as a way of finding acceptance despite the guilt they felt.

God graciously provided a more effective covering for them. Genesis 3:21 says, “And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” God somehow sacrificed an animal and covered Adam and Eve with it. The first fur coat? The birth of the leather industry? At least they wouldn’t have to deal with the constant embarrassment of wardrobe malfunctions. More importantly, God was giving them a hint that the solution to our longing for acceptance lies in a sacrifice.

Leviticus points to the sacrifice that heals our hiding

It helps to visualize the Book of Leviticus rather than just read it. It reads more like a manual than a novel. As you try to picture the first chapter, you see a person going through their flock and choosing their very best sheep (Leviticus 1:2-3). You didn’t just hand it over to the priest. You instead had to lay your hand on it and then kill it yourself. As you placed your hand on the animal, you’d remember how God had warned Adam and Eve that the penalty for ignoring Him was death. As you raised the knife to kill your very best animal, you’d be thinking, “It should have been me.”

I deserve to die for my sin, but God says that He’ll accept a substitute in my place. You’d think that the result would be mixed. Leviticus tells us that it’s complete. When the sacrifice is burned before the Lord, God calls it “a pleasing aroma” (Leviticus 1:9). God doesn’t just tolerate people whose sin has been covered by a sacrifice, He accepts them fully. They’re covered, cleansed, and received by the God against whom they’ve sinned.

Jesus died to provide the acceptance we long for

Hundreds of years of those sacrifices prepared people for a greater sacrifice that He was planning. When Jesus came, John the Baptist said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) God brought the sacrifice, so we didn’t have to. God covered our sins, so we didn’t need any more fig leaves. And through faith in His sacrifice, we experience His full acceptance.

As long as we live in a world where people make you jump through hoops to earn their acceptance, we’ll feel the temptation to hide behind long johns and goldfish. But when you know the full and free acceptance of the God who made you, it makes you less desperate for the approval of people who often withhold it.

If you know the acceptance of God, re-read Leviticus 1, picture the scene, and rejoice in the God who breathes in the aroma of a sacrifice offered on your behalf and is fully pleased with it. He’s fully pleased with you!

In awe of Him,

Paul

Life is complicated. That makes it difficult when you try to apply the Bible simplistically. Everybody knows the command to honour your father and your mother (Exodus 20:12), and Jesus called us to love our enemies (Luke 6:27-28). But what if our enemy is also our abuser? What if the parent we’re called to honour is mistreating or exploiting us? Some say the Christian response is to turn the other cheek. Others follow the recent explosion in articles advocating that you cut off all the toxic people in your life. The biblical tension is somewhere in between. There are at least 4 ways we’re called to love an abusive family member.

1. Pray for them and desire their good

If Jesus could pray for the good of those who killed Him (Luke 23:34), then His command to “pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:27-28) likely has no exceptions. Stephen, the first martyr, followed Jesus’ example in this. Even as he was being stoned to death, he prayed, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them” (Acts 7:60).

I can’t help but think that the repeated encouragements to “bless those who curse you” (Luke 6:28; Romans 12:14) are given, not only to change abusive people but also to free those who have been abused from the bitterness that would otherwise destroy them. One of the greatest dangers in our response to toxic people is that we become toxic ourselves.

In prayer, we learn to seek the good of people we would otherwise want to harm. That’s why the command to bless those who persecute you is followed by “bless and do not curse them” (Romans 12:14). It’s also why the Book of Proverbs warns against not rejoicing when your enemy falls (Proverbs 24:17). If we’re glad to see our enemy’s downfall, then the destructive circle is complete, and the oppressed has become the oppressor. Pray for your enemies, not only for their sake but for yours.

2. Release your grudges against them

Related to our prayers for our enemies is the release of our anger towards them. You can’t love someone whom you’re bitter towards. Leviticus 19:18 puts it like this: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”

When you trust that God will carry out His perfect justice, it frees you from having to play judge and jury yourself (Romans 12:19). If crimes have been committed, that doesn’t mean that you don’t play your part in the justice system, but it does mean that bitterness isn’t what’s driving you. We have to let go of the grudges, or they’ll destroy us.

3. Meet the needs that are safe for you to respond to

If you’re praying for someone’s good, and you’ve released your anger against them, it’s not surprising that God would call us to express our love in tangible acts. Jesus said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27), and Paul said, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink” (Romans 12:20-21). Even the Old Testament prescribed that you had to rescue your enemy’s donkey if you found it (Exodus 23:5).

Scripture shows that meeting needs like this isn’t always realistic, however. When he was on the run from King Ahab, Elijah wasn’t thinking about whether there was enough food on the royal table. But I think it is worth asking, “Are there needs in this person’s life that it would be safe for me to respond to?” That’s different than doing whatever an oppressive person demands or whatever a tender conscience requires.

4. Absorb the offence, but flee the danger

For victims of abuse, it’s unfortunate that “turn the other cheek” has become entrenched in the English language, but “take the child and his mother, and flee” hasn’t. The first is a quote from Jesus about how to respond to personal offences. The second is an angel’s warning to Joseph when King Herod was seeking Jesus’ life (Matthew 2:13). It shows what should be obvious: the command, “Do not resist the one who is evil” (Matthew 5:39), shouldn’t be applied to a person’s safety.

We see examples of this in John 7:1 where Jesus avoids the region of Judea because the religious authorities were trying to kill him. We see it again in Luke 4:29-30, where the crowd in Nazareth wants to throw Jesus off a cliff and he slips away. When Paul’s enemies were staked out at the city gates looking to kill him, he was lowered in a basket through an opening in the wall (Acts 9:24-25). The message is clear, if your safety is threatened, don’t turn the other cheek.

In fact, while turning the other cheek is Jesus’ prescription for a slap in the face, I imagine His message would be different for someone who was slapped in the face, day after day. At that point, what started as an insult has become damaging. While an offence can be absorbed, danger is something we run from.

I’ve tried to lay out the basic principles of how to love an abusive family member, but the biggest challenge is the healing needed to recover from the abuse. May this help you with the one while you pursue the other.

In awe of Him,

Paul