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To understand what the Bible says about anxiety—and to understand anxiety itself—it’s helpful to look at the words that are translated as anxiety through Scripture. In the Old Testament, what’s used for anxiety comes from the Hebrew verb דָּאַג, daag, or the noun דְּאָגָה , deagah, meaning care, fear, heaviness, or sorrow. The connotation is that the fear, dread, sorrow, and worry is a weight pulling the person down. In the New Testament, anxiety comes from the Greek word μεριμνάω, pronounced merimnao, a verb that means to take apart or divide, carrying the negative connotation of having a divided or distracted mind.

Anyone with anxiety can attest that both of these aspects are true; anxiety causes the brain to go in several different directions, and it feels like the heart and body are torn apart. Under such duress, the stress of this pulling can make someone feel immobilized and heavy—which is one reason why anxiety and depression often go hand in hand.

I’ll admit that I do not pretend to understand anxiety. I believe, perhaps, I have felt remnants of it at particularly stressful moments of my life. But I have been diagnosed with depression, and there is one caveat that my doctor has explained to me which I think is helpful to apply here when thinking about the biblical statements about anxiety: everyone, to an extent, has anxiousness, but what makes anxiety a mental illness is when it becomes debilitating to daily life.

Some of the instances of anxiety in Scripture are merely descriptive of people’s fear or dread. This is especially true with the Hebrew usage in the Old Testament. Most of the instances of daag or deagah are used to describe how people feel in various circumstances, including worry (1 Samuel 9:5 and 10:2, Jeremiah 17:8), trouble (Psalm 38:18, Jeremiah 49:23), dread (Isaiah 57:11, Jeremiah 42:16), and fear (Jeremiah 38:19, Joshua 22:24). Many versions of Ezekiel 4:16 and 12:18-19 do translate deagah to anxiety when God says he is about to cut off the food supply in Jerusalem and “the people will eat rationed food in anxiety.”

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While most people are chasing the idea of being “successful,” what if we got the definition of success wrong? What if we don’t even know what success really is? Which would mean we’ve been seeking the wrong thing.

I’ve been guilty of seeking the rewards of success more than real success. Problems arise when we get the two mixed up.

Getting the promotion, the pay raise, the corner office, the big house, the early retirement, the trophy, fame, scholarship, etc.—those are rewards of success.

The problem comes if you don’t believe success has arrived until you experience the rewards of success. Then that leads to burn out, a dog-eat-dog mentality, climbing the ladder at all costs, self-promotion, and exhaustion.

Success is not getting the pay raise or promotion. Success is being the type of employee day-in and day-out, arriving on time, working hard, and enhancing the company. Whether you get the promotion or not, you are successful.

Success is not getting the joy of having a genuine, trusting relationship with your adult children. That’s simply the reward of success. Success is being the type of parent that showed them devotion to the Lord, taught them how to pray, made yourself available to them, prayed for them, and showed that you had their best interests in mind. Whether or not you get to have that mature relationship with your adult children does not make you successful or unsuccessful. You were being successful when you made time to sit around the dinner table with your kids for the first 18 years of their life. That’s success.

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One of the more charming elements of the modern workplace is the conducive environment it provides for comparing yourself to others. Sometimes it feels like we are all in one big cage match, competing with one another for jobs, status, resources, and promotions. As a result, we feel compelled to continually check out one another’s progress. We need to know how much of the boss’s attention we’re getting or how fast our career is advancing compared to our peers. There’s a built-in incentive to continually check the rearview mirror—or heaven forbid, look ahead—to see where everyone else is.

As if I need any more incentive to do that.

I’m constantly comparing myself to others. Who’s up? Who’s down? Who got to add headcount in their department? Who sat at the same table as the regional director at the company picnic? Who wiped out with a gaffe-filled presentation to the board of directors? Every little thing is a potential metric by which I can compare myself to others. And the worse the metric makes them look compared to me, well, giddy up.

One of the more charming elements of the modern workplace is the conducive environment it provides for comparing yourself to others. Sometimes it feels like we are all in one big cage match, competing with one another for jobs, status, resources, and promotions. As a result, we feel compelled to continually check out one another’s progress. We need to know how much of the boss’s attention we’re getting or how fast our career is advancing compared to our peers. There’s a built-in incentive to continually check the rearview mirror—or heaven forbid, look ahead—to see where everyone else is.

As if I need any more incentive to do that.

I’m constantly comparing myself to others. Who’s up? Who’s down? Who got to add headcount in their department? Who sat at the same table as the regional director at the company picnic? Who wiped out with a gaffe-filled presentation to the board of directors? Every little thing is a potential metric by which I can compare myself to others. And the worse the metric makes them look compared to me, well, giddy up. 

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Your view of Jesus is probably too small.

Throughout Jesus’ life, we see people divided over Jesus. Some hated him, some loved him for the miracles he did, almost everybody misunderstood him, and a few (who understood him best) worshiped him.

Same is true today.

Everybody has their opinions about Jesus, many of which fall far short of who he really is. We need to carefully test how people speak of Jesus, since many present a false version of Him. Many call Him not much more than a teacher, some a social justice revolutionary, some an extraterrestrial or enlightened master. Jehovah’s Witnesses equate Him with Michael the Archangel, and Latter-day Saints say He’s the spirit-brother of Satan. Islam calls Him a prophet. The Freemasons claim compatibility with all religions, which is why we find Freemason writings which use Scripture with the name of Jesus cut out. But all of those views and versions of Jesus miss the mark. He is bigger and greater than all of these!

We need to be aware of false versions so we are not deceived into thinking that, just because someone mentions Jesus in a positive light, we are on the same team. Too often, competing ideologies claim Jesus for their team, instead of letting Him be everything He claimed to be.

But false views of Jesus aren’t just a problem out there. I want to talk to you specifically about your view of Jesus. If you have a small or inaccurate picture of Jesus, you can find yourself stuck in sin, addiction, fear, anxiety, and so on and look to things of the world for the solutions to your problems, even as you claim to be a follower of Him.

A major battle we Christians face today is over the temptation to look primarily to popular philosophies or political parties or self-help strategies for help and deliverance from our deepest problems. In this way, we can find similarities with the Colossian Christians Paul wrote to in the first century.

Our problem is, and theirs was, having too small of a view of Jesus.

Like them, we can have scales blurring our vision—scales that need to fall if we are going to see how big Jesus really is. When we face sin, struggles, or suffering, it can feel overwhelming. Addiction seems unbreakable. Fear feels constant. Anxiety, grief, betrayal, or temptation can leave us crushed. We begin to think: This is just too big for me. But Scripture reminds us: it’s usually not that our problems are too big—it’s that our view of Jesus is too small.

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It’s a question I’ve been asked more than once—especially since God moved our congregation into the heart of our city and we began walking closely with people experiencing homelessness, addiction, and mental illness.

It’s a fair question, but it’s not the one I think we should lead with.

Every week, I worship with people who were once unhoused, who are still unhoused, addicted, or written off by society, who now stand next to lifelong believers, lifting their voices in worship. Some still smoke. Some still struggle. But they’re seeking Jesus. And He’s changing them.

So when someone asks, “Is smoking a sin?” I understand the concern. But I also want to reframe the question: What does it look like to disciple someone who still smokes? Because that’s where the real conversation begins.

The Bible doesn’t specifically mention smoking, vaping, or THC. That means we need to look to biblical principles to guide our thinking.

In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NIV), Paul writes, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?…Therefore honor God with your bodies.” This is a clear call to stewardship. Our bodies matter. How we treat them matters.

Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 6:12 (NIV), “‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say—but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything’—but I will not be mastered by anything.’” That’s where the issue of addiction comes into focus. If something is controlling us—whether it’s nicotine, alcohol, opioids, or anything else—it’s worth asking if we’re still walking in freedom.

Does a new believer (or a seasoned one, for that matter) seeing me smoke cause them to stumble? Then I should never do it in front of them again. The same is true for overeating, drinking, saying certain words. To riff off of Paul: if I destroy Christ’s work in someone else’s life by something that isn’t a sin to me but is to another, then I will not do that thing.

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Once upon a time, so the legend goes, there was a man named Xenophon who loved horses. He loved horses so much that he wrote an entire treatise “On Horsemanship.” (This part is true. You could stop reading this and go buy it on Amazon, right now.) This little manual digs deep into the selection, training, and care of horses—including horses trained for war. Legend has it that, when it came to war horses, Xenophon used the word “meek” to describe these dangerous beasts. Therefore, “meek” means “power under control.”

Anyone who has ever heard a sermon on “Blessed are the meek” (Matthew 5:5) has heard that “meek is not weak.” This rhymes, which is satisfying. Unfortunately, it is based on a fairy tale. The legend simply isn’t true.

Xenophon does use “meek” words (noun, adjective, adverb) a handful of times,[1] but the only time he specifically calls a group of horses “meek,” they aren’t war horses. After being at the grind all day long, work horses tend to congregate and just stand there sedately. Or, as Xenophon puts it, “meekly.” This is hardly the picture of restrained ferocity that the legend requires. In fact, Xenophon also refers to other animals as “meek”—like farm animals and fish. No “hidden superhero” vibes, here.

Meekness has nothing to do with whether someone has power or not. It’s concerned with something else. So what gave this legend legs? Put “meekness and war horses” in a search engine, and AI will weave this tale anew. It’s everywhere. Why did we embrace “meekness is power under control” so enthusiastically, sources un-cited?

Fear.

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There’s a good chance when you hear the name Bear Grylls, the first thing that comes to mind is outdoor adventurist and survival expert, not “author of a book about the Bible.” Bear Grylls became somewhat of a household name for television shows like Man vs. Wild and various spin offs of the same kind. He’s written 100 books before this one, and those other books have been related to the world of adventure and outdoor survival, and personal motivation from tales of adventure and survival.

But Bear Grylls has an active faith in Jesus that is also a central part of his life.

And this latest book, The Greatest Story Ever Told, is an outgrowth of that faith. In an interview for Premier Christianity, Grylls had this to say about this book: “I am proud of my other books, and I don’t want to belittle them, but this is different. It’s the proudest thing in my work world I’ve ever done.” In a nutshell, this book is a retelling of the life of Christ from a first-person perspective.

When I was working on my doctorate, Haddon Robinson required us to read about first-person preaching and to preach a first-person narrative sermon. This felt more like theater to me and was definitely out of my comfort zone. But it had to be done, so I preached a sermon on Samson in the college chapel where I was teaching. And I was amazed at the amount of exegetical work I had to put into that message, and stunned by the impact on the students.

So, overcoming my inhibitions, I decided to preach another first-person sermon on Easter Sunday. I’ll never forget the gal who caught me after service to tell me she had been kind of dreading going to church that Sunday figuring it would be “just another same old Easter message”—but the first-person narrative approach was a moving, compelling experience that made Easter come alive for her.

All of that to say, I appreciate what Grylls is seeking to do in The Greatest Story Ever Told.

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As someone who teaches, speaks, and trains the church to share Christ with Muslims, I often encounter two vital questions: “Can we be concerned about Islamic ideology without fearing Muslims?” And the follow-up: “How should Gospel-centered Christians respond?”

These fair and necessary questions sit at the crossroads of theology, culture, and compassion. The short answer to the first is yes, but when it comes to the “how” question, walking that line requires wisdom, humility, and courage. In a time when fear, anger, and misinformation dominate conversations about Islam, followers of Jesus have an opportunity to model something different.

We can be people of conviction and compassion, guided by truth but grounded in love. This balance is not easy, but it is both possible and powerful when our confidence is rooted in Christ.

The first and most important truth in this conversation is this: Islam and Muslims are not the same thing. Islam is a system; Muslims are people trapped in that system.

Islam is the ideology; Muslims are the image-bearers. To confuse the two is to fight the wrong battle. When we treat people as the problem, we can fall into hatred. When we treat false ideas as harmless, we fall into compromise. The Gospel calls us to clarity about both.

Islam promises submission but not salvation. It offers law without grace, devotion without the assurance of pardon. It binds the conscience under commands but cannot cleanse the heart from guilt. Those who live within its shadow are not villains to be feared but souls to be pitied, prayed for, and pursued in love.

This is why Christians must see Islam for what it is: a spiritual system that enslaves, not a community of people to despise. The sharper we recognize the chains, the more we must remember the Captive. Every Muslim is someone loved by God, held captive by an ideology that blinds them to the Son who died for them. They do not need our suspicion; they need our witness. They do not need our retreat—they need our courage.

To fear Muslims is to forget who the real enemy is. Scripture tells us that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual powers that hold humanity in darkness (Ephesians 6:12). Islam is one of those powers, namely a fortress of ideas exalting itself against the knowledge of Christ. Yet the Gospel is stronger. It alone can demolish strongholds and set captives free.

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In today’s cultural seismic shifts, the boundary between sacred and secular continues to blur—and that’s a positive development. As pastors, we have a unique opportunity to extend our influence beyond Sunday mornings by training our congregation’s leaders to become “pastors in the workplace,” while also sharpening our own leadership abilities. This mutual coaching relationship reflects Jesus’ model of servant leadership and expands our impact in ways we may never have imagined.

Every Sunday, professionals with decades of leadership experience gather in your congregation. They lead teams, navigate complex organizational challenges, and influence workplace culture every day. These individuals aren’t just church attendees—they’re potential kingdom ambassadors who spend more hours each week with non-believers than you ever could.

The Master Leader model, inspired by Jesus’ example, offers a framework for equipping workplace leaders to expand your church’s ministry beyond its walls. As Jeff Osborne states in The Master Leader, leadership demands “constant attention, training, and investment to achieve excellence.” By intentionally developing these leaders, you’re not just growing your church—you’re spreading Christ’s influence into boardrooms, schools, hospitals, and businesses across your community.

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The early church “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42, NIV). Prayer was their lifeline, their strength, and their source of courage as they faced persecution. Today, that same Spirit strengthens believers in India who are enduring severe hardship for the name of Jesus.

Across India, persecution has increased dramatically.

Churches are being burned, prayer meetings raided, and believers beaten brutally, including women and the elderly.

Many have heard about the persecution in Nigeria. We are grateful for the attention that has been placed upon the persecuted church there, but many are not aware of the situation in India (and other countries), which also calls for our prayers and support.

In many states in India, new rules now allow police to arrest Christians under non-bailable charges simply for praying, sharing their faith, or gathering for worship (they are imprisoned and left there). Ministers/pastors are facing life-threatening situations, falsely accused of trying to escape custody, putting them at risk of being shot or detained indefinitely. Christian institutions, Bible colleges, and mission organizations are being shut down.

A clear message is being sent: the government wants to create fear in the hearts and minds of Christians and all minority communities. Yet just as in the book of Acts, persecution cannot stop the gospel. The church in India continues to grow with courage, humility, and deep faith.

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