Stopping to Think

My oldest daughter wrote this story for school. I really enjoyed it, and asked her if I could share it with you. She graciously agreed. (you can read another of her stories here)

You Can’t Please Everyone

by L.E. Dole

There was once a poor miller (we’ll call him Walter) who always aimed to please everyone. One day he was going to town to sell his donkey. With him went his son (we’ll call him Lewis), a youth who was obedient to a fault. On their way to the village, they passed a cluster of gossipy and extremely opinionated women. The bossiest of the group, Jenny Inyourbusiness, stepped forward to give them some advice.

“Why would you walk when you can ride?” she called out. So Walter put Lewis up on the donkey and they continued on. Soon they went by the house of Old Man Grumpybeard, who was sitting on his front porch and smoking a pipe. “You lazy boy!” he yelled irritably, “Why don’t you let your poor father ride?” So Lewis got off and Walter got on the donkey. An hour had passed when another traveler overtook them on the road. He looked at them in disgust. “You cruel man! How can you ride when that lad can hardly keep up?” As he rode off Walter pulled Lewis up on the donkey with him.

By now the poor creature was feeling horribly overloaded. The pair was almost to town when the same rider from earlier came back riding down the road. “That animal is so exhausted you might as well carry him!” he scoffed. Walter, wanting to please, and Lewis, not being too bright, hopped off the donkey. They tied the donkey to a pole, hoisted him up onto their shoulders, and continued on their journey to town. Before long they were within a stone’s throw to town with only a bridge between them and the village when an assembly of people across the river saw the spectacle and burst into hysterical laughter. The donkey, who was already tired of this rude treatment, was spooked by the noise and started to struggle against the ropes. He kicked and struggled until he broke through his bonds and fell into the rushing water below. As he struggled his hooves tragically struck the heads of Walter and Lewis, killing them instantly. As for the donkey, he swam downstream and finally clambered out onto a grassy bank where he lived a long and peaceful life, undisturbed by fools who try to please everyone.

Editor’s note: I could have subtitled this “a lesson in leadership.”

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

I recently published an article with Lifeway Research on Bi-Vocational Ministry (5 Things Bi-Vocational Pastors Wish You Knew) and will be writing some occasional posts here in the coming months considering the concept of bi-vo ministry. Some will be prescriptive, some observational, some personal narrative. This is the one of the latter.

SLY-lights

In the previous post in this series I discussed some of my earliest ministry opportunities, and I’m basically going to pick up where I left off there. So if you haven’t read that post…you might want to before reading this one.

In early 2010, South Lake Youth Ministries (SLY) began planning another worship tour for the Summer of that year. At the same time, I was talking non-stop to Andie—the girl from the internet who I found endlessly interesting, and who would eventually become my wife.

This tour was a lot more realistic in terms of pace, compared to the tour of the previous Summer. We spent four days each in four towns, with a full-day for travel and set up between each, and no one (especially idiot me) was allowed to come/go during the time. You were either in or out. I was very much in, with both feet, this time around.

In prep for this tour, we traveled to churches in each of the host communities to gather support for the tour, and spent time in local churches, doing what we called “pitching and preaching”—one of the other team members (usually the young lady who handled a lot of the trip coordination) would “pitch” the idea by explaining what we were planning to do, and then I would stand up and “preach”…which at this remove I would probably characterize less as preaching and more as trying to take verse or two out of context and guilt-trip people into seeing why if they didn’t want the young people in their community to go to hell, then they had best support what we were trying to do.

When the tour rolled around, I was again preaching one night in each of those stops—and while I’m sure those sermons were still objectively bad, the feedback of “I was helped” continued to come in. This was, to me, the sort of thing that makes a person scratch their head and go… “hm.”

During that trip I had a long conversation/experience that will be left for another time, but the result of it was Wayne, the director of South Lake Youth Ministries (SLY), essentially inviting me to come on staff with SLY. After about 7 and a half minutes of prayer, I was pretty certain that I was supposed to take that opportunity. That was a problem, though. Because talking to Andie all the time had moved to an “official” long-distance relationship (another story for another time), and I was planning to move to Iowa in August of 2010. I was driving out there in July, and had at least one job interview lined up, with hopes of more.

Instead, when I went out, I had to break the news to Andie that I was pretty sure I was supposed to stay in Idaho and work with SLY.

Providence

What I could never have planned, nor would I have even hoped to pray for, was that God was already working in Andie, via a couple of conversations I would have had no way of knowing about, to consider the idea of her moving, instead of me. And so it was, that when I said “I don’t know what this means for us—I don’t want us to end, but I understand if this is a deal-breaker…” that is was not, in fact, a deal-breaker. She flew out to Idaho over my 20th birthday, which was also the day when it was publicly announced that I was going on staff with SLY. Seven months later she would move to Idaho; four months after that, we were married.

There’s a whole lot more to that story than I’m going to get into, but at the same time I went on staff with SLY I also started taking classes though the Rocky Mountain Bible Mission’s Bible Training Center (BTC) in Missoula, Montana. Through these classes, and working with SLY to help rural churches, the Lord made clear to me that rural church ministry was where I was supposed to be. I thought at that point I was going to be in parachurch work long-term, but it became evident to me within a couple of years that I wasn’t really wired for that. I had had thoughts of moving to the city to be a church planter, because that was the sexy thing to do at the time. But it became obvious to me that the city idea was my pride thinking I needed something “bigger and better” and through BTC I was meeting pastors who were smarter than me and more godly than I was likely to be anytime within the next few decades, and here they were investing in rural people, rural churches, and rural places. If God had raised me in a rural place, and given me those instincts, why wouldn’t he want me to stay there? It was a clarifying time.

It was also clarifying on another front, because in that position with SLY I was support-raising, trying to raise money so that I could leave of my Post Office job and the dreaded status of “bi-vocational.” I just knew I needed to be “full-time” in ministry.

And then Jim Hunter, one of my BTC teachers and a pastor whom I greatly admire to this day, asked me what seemed a very rude question: “why do think God has prevented you from raising full-support?”

Now, looking backwards a decade and a half, there is a very simple human-centered answer to that question: he prevented me by not forcing me to actually learn how to raise support. We didn’t raise enough funds to live on because I was completely inept (I may also have simply lacked the network for that to be a reasonable goal at that time). But that really only answers the how, not the why. And I didn’t want to consider the why. How, if God wanted me in ministry, could it even be possible that he would only want me to do it “part-time”?

That question sat like a burr under my saddle for a very long time.

We’ll pick it up again in the future. If you want to keep following this and aren’t subscribed, please do so below to have new posts come to your inbox.

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This is part of a series of communion meditations working through the Lord’s Prayer, the previous post can be found here

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

Today, as we consider the Lord’s Prayer, we come to the sixth petition — “lead us not into temptation.”

The first question I have, when I read that, is: isn’t this a silly request? I mean, obviously God isn’t leading his children into temptation, right? In James 1:13 we are exhorted, ‘Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.’

But there is a world of difference between whether or not God, who is Good itself, will tempt you with evil (he won’t), and whether or not he will allow you to be tempted, or even guide your steps so that you are so tested (this he will do). In the Scriptures we see that God is providentially in control of every temptation.

Consider Job, a man who was upright and blameless in all his ways—according to God himself! And Job chapter 1 tells us that God suggested to Satan that Job would be a good man for testing and tempting through the removal of all his earthly goods, most of his family, and his health as well. So the Lord clearly does have some important role to play in the hard, evil, and tempting things that come into our lives.

And consider your own life. Are you ever tempted? Of course you are. Now, let me ask you—would it be more comforting to think “well, God has nothing to do with this, this is all the devil’s doing, I hope maybe God can help me out of it”; or would it be better to know, as the Scripture teach, that God is in control of every single event. That if a trying or tempting circumstance comes, that he is in complete control? It is only in knowing that God is in complete control that we can find confidence like that of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability…”

It is from this confidence that we can pray, “Oh Father, do not put in my path temptations that would cause me to fall. Do not let me tempted beyond the capacity you have given me through your Spirit to resist, or to flee. I want to be faithful to you.” We are praying here, not that no temptations ever come, but that the Lord would preserve us from temptations which would overwhelm us.

And as we pray this, we pray fully aware of the many times we have been tempted and have fallen. We pray painfully aware of our sinfulness. But we also pray remembering the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus who was tempted by the devil in the desert and remained faithful. The Lord Jesus who was tempted in the Garden, and remained faithful. The Lord Jesus who was tempted and tried in every way as we are, and yet did not sin. Instead, he went to the cross as a sinless sacrifice in our place, bearing our sin and our guilt and our shame, in his body on the tree. By his wounds are we healed, by his shed blood are we forgiven. Through faith in him alone do we receive forgiveness and life.

Thanks for reading Stopping to Think! This post is public so feel free to share it.

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This is part of a series of communion meditations covering the Lord’s prayer.

Last time we considered the simple and central request of the Lord’s prayer: forgive us our trespasses. But, of course, there is a second half to the verse as well. We pray, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Or, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. That hits a little close to home. Do I really want to pray that God will forgive me the same way I’ve forgiven others?

Jesus really leans into this point in the verses which follow the Lord’s Prayer—almost as if he is anticipating the objections or concerns: “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15).

Is God’s forgiveness conditional? In some clear sense, the answer is yes. And the condition is really quite simple: do you see yourself as someone who needs but does not deserve the forgiveness of God? If so, you will recognize what I said earlier—that the debt you owe to God really is beyond your ability to pay.

Jesus tells a parable in Matthew 18 about a man who owed 10,000 talents—something roughly in the neighborhood of 10 billion dollars by today’s reckoning. Jesus is picking an absurdly large number to make a point. And when that debt is called due, he begs and begs for just a little more time, I’ll pay it off if you give me a few more days. The king, to whom the debt is owed, knows he can’t pay. So he wipes the slate clean.

Then this same man, who had been forgiven a 10 billion dollar debt, comes across a guy who owes him $15,000—a substantial sum, but something less than 10 billion—and he takes the $15,000 dollar debtor, grabs him by the throat, demands payment, and then had him thrown in debtors prison. Someone else saw what happened and let the king know. How do you think the king responded? He wasn’t thrilled. His forgiveness and generosity had, effectively, been squandered by this petty servant. Instead of passing on the free forgiveness of the king, he acted like he was greater and more worthy than the king. And so the king was angry, and delivered him over to permanent prison. He did not forgive, and was not forgiven.

Friends, we have the same choice before us today: do you see yourself as needing Jesus’ forgiveness? Then it is incumbent upon you to give what you have so graciously received. A heart that won’t let go of bitterness doesn’t know the freedom that Christ gives. Jesus demands that you forgive others from the heart. Not because their sins against you are small or meaningless—quite the contrary! Again, in the parable it’s a large debt. But it is less than you owe to God. Forgiven sinners forgive other sinners, not because they deserve it, but because our Father in heaven is making our hearts like his. Trust his judgement, trust his justice, trust his direction. Forgive.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

I recently published an article with Lifeway Research on Bi-Vocational Ministry (5 Things Bi-Vocational Pastors Wish You Knew) and will be writing some occasional posts here in the coming months considering the concept of bi-vo ministry. Some will be prescriptive, some observational, some personal narrative. This is the first of the latter.

Underserved Opportunities

There is a real sense in which most of my ministry “background” is story-after-story of undeserved opportunities.

I grew up in church. Sunday morning worship, Sunday School, VBS, the works. But my parents, mainly my mom, were anti youth group. So I wasn’t allowed to attend youth group until my senior year. But shortly after I started attending, the youth leader broke the boys and girls into different groups and then had students leading the groups. As a church-kid and a know-it-all, I kind of naturally fell into leading the guys group.

During those same years, our youth group was part of a number that worked together to put together monthly meetings that we called Worship Worship Revolution (WWR, for short), which was something like a 3 hour long “youth service” with music, testimonies, often some sort of skit, and a message. I say youth service, but we actually had a pretty broad swath in attendance, as older church-folks are often (rightly) excited to see young people taking their faith seriously. The first time I ever preached was at one of these services. I was 17. I think my text was something out of John 17, and I was up there for maybe five minutes. Mercifully, to my knowledge, there is no recording of this.

The next summer, those same youth groups came together to put together a “worship-tour,” heading to five small towns across our area for three days each. The days were filled with door-to-door evangelism, field games played with kids in the community, prayer walks, and community service projects. Then, in the evening, we would host a community meal and hold one of those long, WWR-style, worship services, usually inside of the large, green, army-surplus tent we had bought. And on the second night of those three night stops I would preach the sermon. They were bad. Some were really bad.

Part of this was due to what I was attempting—I had not joined on the trip “full-time.” I was still working my job, mostly in the mornings, with the Postal Service in my hometown of Plummer. Most of the ministry sites for this tour were from 1-3 hours away from Plummer, so I would work, then drive up to the ministry site, be there until 10 or 11pm, and then drive home in order to get up at 5am for work the next day. I was averaging 3-4 hours of sleep, and probably (definitely) was not operating at peak cognitive function.

I also had no idea what I was doing. I’d never taken a class on how to read the Bible, or study the Bible, or any other text for that matter. I’d never even had an English course in my “homeschooling.” I certainly had never taken a speech class or had any instruction on how to fashion any idea into an essay, let alone a public talk, let alone a sermon. I mostly was just standing up and talking until I figured I should probably be done.

I also was not walking with the Lord in any serious way during this time. I was reading my Bible, because it was interesting. And I knew what it said was true. But I was operating toward God with a fairly strong sense of entitlement and anger, which is another story for another day, but at a principial level it’s worth noting that poor spirituality often makes for poor and lifeless preaching.

But after that tour, and some emotional turmoil that terminated in an evening where I skipped out on bible study to go “hang out at the lake” with some friends, and the following morning in which I was fighting both a hangover and an intense sense of disgrace, the Lord started to turn my internal life. This is the period which I typically think of as Him grabbing me by the scruff of the neck, and holding my face to the mirror so that I could actually see my sinfulness and self-centeredness.

It was not long after this that doors of opportunity started to open in even more ridiculous (speaking retrospectively) ways. In September of the year, Wayne (the founder/director of South Lake Youth Ministries) approached me about taking leadership of those WWR meetings. I agreed, though I had basically zero idea what I was doing. I could usually find people to fill all the slots, except for the preaching part. Unless Wayne agreed to do it, I would basically be left with no other options than to do it myself. So, at age 19, I began preaching at least once a month.

I remember—very vividly—the sense of panic I would sometimes have as the evening would be approaching and I would sit down with my NKJV MacArthur Study Bible in the pastor’s office and just look blankly at the page: what was I ever going to talk about? And then I would write two or three ideas on a post-it note and walk up to the pulpit that night, and stand there and talk for 45 minutes or an hour. Again, praise the Lord there are no recordings. It had to have been awful.

And here’s the thing: I knew it had to be awful, because I was clueless as to what I was doing. But then strangest thing began to happen with semi-regularity: people would comment that they were helped by the sermon, sometimes even with that oh-so-rare gift for a preacher—specific details about what was now more clear or understandable to them, or what phrase or concept was encouraging or challenging. So I was still clueless, and clearly not good by any objective means. But God, in his mercy, was using it. And I started to wonder what that meant.

That wonder would grow over the following year until an unexpected door opened.

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This is part of a series of communion meditations on the Lord’s Prayer

“Forgive us our Trespasses”

Matthew 6:12, “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

Here, at the center of the Lord’s prayer, Jesus teaches us to ask God for the forgiveness of our debts. This might, at first blush, seem like a strange request. Does God own a credit card company? Is he a mortgage lender? In what sense do we owe God a debt that must be forgiven?

The term that Jesus used in the book of Matthew does often refer to financial obligation. But the parallel passage in Luke chapter 11 can help us understand what Jesus means: there Luke records Jesus as praying, “forgive us our sins, as we forgive everyone who is indebted to us.” Here, Jesus draws a connection between our sin and debt. To sin is to, in some form or fashion, incur a debt toward the one sinned against.

So how does our sin indebt us toward God? We might first ask what we owe God. Human beings were created, in the beginning, to image God and reflect his character and rule to all of creation. As those who are made by him, we owe him gratitude for the gift of life, and we owe him unfailing praise, worship, and obedience. So, if that is our obligation—just by virtue of existing—we should ask, do we fulfill our obligation? And, of course, the answer is no. We don’t even come close. Ever since Adam and Eve first rebelled in the garden against the rule of the Almighty and sought their own way, human beings have been born in sin. We are implicated in the sin of Adam, who was there as the representative head of the human race, but we then compound our guilt each day with attitudes, actions, and words which fall short of God’s Holy standard.

We recite the version of the Lord’s prayer found in the Book of Common Prayer, which uses the translation “trespasses” — and that’s the same idea. When we transgress the standard of God’s law in any way, we are trespassing against his holiness. And so we incur a debt to God.

But this is a debt which we literally have no way of paying for. Because the standard is unfailing obedience and praise, unceasing worship, we have no way to accumulate a surplus. If, in any given moment, you are obedient, that is simply what you owe to God in that moment. There is no way for you to stockpile good works to offset your failings. And so what we need is not a list of good works to make up for the bad ones. We need forgiveness for how we have trespassed. We owe God an incalculable debt, a debt we could never pay. And so we plead for his mercy. Forgive us our debts. Those places we have transgressed the law of God are too numerous to count.

And this, of course, is the point of the Table. To remind us of the price that was paid for the forgiveness of our transgressions. The Lord Jesus paid the debt we owe, so that we can be forgiven.

So, brothers and sisters, let us draw near with grateful hearts. If you have not trusted Jesus as your personal Savior, let the bread and the cup pass by. The apostle Paul warns against receiving the elements in an unworthy manner. But if you know the Lord Jesus, then take and eat. Remember his blood shed and his body broken for your sake. To purchase and seal the forgiveness you need.

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This is part of a series of communion meditations considering the Lord’s Prayer

We’re meditating through the Lord’s Prayer, and we now come to Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. What is the Lord’s will? How is the Lord’s will done in heaven?

Let’s start with the first question. Classically, Christian theologians have spoken of God’s will, the Lord’s will, in two main senses. First, His will of decree, or His secret will. It’s in this sense that the 17th Century English theologians at the Westminster Assembly spoke of God’s foreordaining whatsoever comes to pass. In this sense, anything and everything that happens is according God’s will. Nothing happens outside his will because he is Almighty. He’s in control of everything. As it says in Daniel chapter 4 verse 35, there is none who can stay his hand. None who can say to him, what have you done? God is in control of everything. Nothing happens apart from the will of the Father. That’s what Jesus says in the Gospels. There’s no higher authority for God to answer to.

But generally when normal people, who aren’t 17th century theologians, speak of God’s will, we speak of it in a second sense: namely, his will of precept. That is, what does God want us to do? An older brother might ask: is it God’s will for me to kick my brother. Probably not. That’d probably be a failure to love my neighbor as myself. You might say that’s obvious and common sense, but how do I know God wants me to love my neighbor as myself? Through what he tells us. And we find that written down in The Book.

So when Jesus teaches us to pray, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, especially right on the heels of having prayed, thy kingdom come, I think the point he’s driving at is clear: He’s praying for God’s word to be obeyed by human beings on this earth as joyfully and immediately as the angels in heaven obey his will moment by moment. Where does such obedient living start? It starts when we listen to his word, repent of where we have disobeyed, and ask for his hep to follow what he has told us.

In following Jesus’ model of prayer, we are praying, in essence, Lord, help me to be joyfully obedient to you. Help us, as your church, to walk in conformity to your ways.

It’s in living a life devoted to this form of thy will be done that we’re able to embrace the other form of thy will be done. The way Jesus uses those same words in the Garden of Gethsemane. Maybe you remember the story.

The night on which he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus looked at the bitter cup—in the Garden of Gethsemene he looked at the awful price of the cross—knowing he was about to bear our sins and God’s wrath against those sins in order to bring us salvation. And he prayed, Father, if it is possible, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. In pursuing a life lived in obedience to the revealed will of the Father as laid down in Scripture, the Lord Jesus came to his greatest hour of testing and was able to lay aside his human desire to be spared that bitter cup, and he drank it in obedience to the Divine will.

We can pray Thy will be done because Jesus prayed it first. We can pursue obedience to Him because He first was obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. So if you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, this table is for you. If you know him, join us in celebrating his perfect obedience to the Father’s will. Bearing our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to disobedience and live to the Father’s will. It’s in Jesus’ broken body and shed blood that we are healed.

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This is the first in a series of communion meditations considering the Lord’s Prayer.

Today, we are beginning a consideration of the Lord’s Prayer. And the first thing to notice about the Lord’s Prayer is that in common Christian speech, it goes by two different names: The Lord’s Prayer, and the Our Father. Both names make sense and are simple to explain. It is called The Lord’s Prayer, because it is the prayer that our Lord Jesus taught to his disciples. Pray then in this way, he said to them. It is called the Our Father because those are the first two words of the prayer. And like many songs take their names from the opening lines, so too, this prayer has been known by Christians by its opening words throughout history. Both names make sense and are perfectly acceptable, and I intentionally use them both.

But as we consider this prayer, I think it’s important to start with those first two words, and the four that follow it: Our Father, who art in heaven.

There are three documents make up the core “discipleship curriculum” of the historic Christian church: the 10 Commandments, The Lord’s Prayer, and the Apostles’ Creed. It’s instructive that each of those three documents begin with the identity of God. In Exodus 20:2 God says, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” God wanted his people to know that he was the one who had delivered them, who had redeemed them, who was their Savior. But while that identity does not change—he is still the only Savior, and besides him there is no God (Isaiah 43:11)—nonetheless, when we confess the Creed or approach him in prayer as Jesus taught, the named relationship is different: we believe in God the Father almighty. We pray to Our Father in heaven. This was an important shift that Jesus introduced.

In Old Testament times, God had revealed himself as the Father of Israel as a nation. To the extent that any individual might see God directly as a father, the king might do so, especially in his role as representative head over the whole nation.

But when Jesus, who by his sacrificial death in our place became the New Adam, the Head of a new Humanity, he brought every single believer into a newly intimate relationship with God. We now, this side of the cross and the empty tomb, and this side of the Spirit’s outpouring at Pentecost, do not simply relate to God as the Almighty God in Heaven. He still, most emphatically, is Almighty God in Heaven. But he now welcomes us into his presence as his children. He is our Father in heaven. We come as welcome children, those who have been given all the rights of sons and daughters. We come to him in prayer not as strangers or foreigners, not as those unfamiliar with him, but those who know that he has set his name upon us. We know the Father (1 John 2:12-13), and therefore we come to him with our every need.

We can have such confidence because he sent his Son to save us. The Lord Jesus, in coming to earth to purchase us by his blood, was doing the will of the Father; bringing many sons and daughters to glory. And so we pray now, enabled by the Holy Spirit, coming on the basis of the broken body and shed blood our our Savior and older brother, Jesus, into the throne room of the Father—expectant that he will do us good.

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One of the most frequent comments I hear when I talk to people about reading the Bible is “it just doesn’t make any sense to me.” This little guide is my attempt to give some guidance on getting started. (video version at the bottom of the post)

I. What

What is the Bible? The Bible, in short, is the very Word of the Living God.

When I refer to the Bible, I am referring to the 66 books which include the Old and New Testaments. Included in this “canon” are the 39 books of the Old Testament that make up the Hebrew Bible, and the 27 books of the New Testament.

You’ll read a lot on the internet these days about the church “making” the Bible and suppressing these ideas that contradicted what the “powerful” people wanted everyone to believe. This is simple hogwash. The truth is far more simple, and less sensational. The church did not “pick and choose” which books to include in the Bible, but rather came to recognize those books which had the marks of true Divine Authorship, and in the course of time the church came to a clear consensus.

The Scriptures themselves testify to their own Divine Origin and Authority: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable” (2 Timothy 3:16), “no prophecy ever came by human will, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).

In the Scriptures we hear the very voice of God, graciously disclosed in the written speech to his creatures.

II. Why

Why would you want to read the Bible? What are you hoping to get out of it? Well, based on our definition above—that the scriptures are the self-disclosure of God to his creatures—the core reason we come to the Bible is to hear God’s voice.

We need to hear God’s voice, first of all, to know him. The Bible reveals to us the character of God and the work of God, especially his saving work revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We need to hear God’s voice in order to see ourselves, both as we were made to be (Genesis 1:26-28), and as we are this side of the fall (Romans 3:23).

We need to hear God’s voice in order to live in accord with his intention. The Scriptures are fundamentally relational documents. They are not mere history, or a record of God’s words and work in the past. They are his word for us today (Romans 15:4, cf. 1 Corinthians 10:6).

III. How

Okay, if the Bible is God’s word, how should we then read?

Many years ago I was taught an acronym for Bible reading: CPRS. We should read:

* Carefully

* Prayerfully

* Repeatedly

* Slowly

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Carefully

What does it mean to read carefully? It means that we must pay attention to what we are reading. This is harder than it sounds, and frankly it’s a lot harder than it was when I first learned this acronym. We live in a world where multi-billion-dollar-companies are entirely invested in harvesting and selling your attention and the associated data. This is linked to that handy glowing screen, on which you are likely reading this very article. You might feel focused at the moment, but we are only seconds away from you being distracted by a text or a phone call or an email notification. And even if those things don’t come, you are distracted, at least subconsciously, by the anticipation.

Practically speaking, this means that careful Bible reading is going to require some separation.

So, practically speaking, this means that careful Bible reading is going to require some separation. It’s going to mean you need to create a time and place—even if it’s just 10 minutes—where your phone isn’t with you, and you pick up your paper Bible and carefully read. Give yourself some space to think. As Sinclair Ferguson put it plainly, “Christians need to think about what the Bible says.”

Try to notice things. What do you notice? It helps to keep a note pad or even a sticky note in or near your Bible to jot things down. Ask questions. What kind of questions? I’ll include a starter list below.

Prayerfully

The Psalmist wrote: “Help me understand your instruction” (Psalm 119:34, CSB). If we are going to rightly understand God’s word, then we must ask God to help us understand his words.

Pray for understanding and pray…to obey

We also pray as we read the Bible because the Bible itself is the best school of prayer. As you read the Bible, you will learn God’s language. You will encounter God’s actions in history, you will learn about his power, his promises, and his priorities. And while normal reading skills are genuinely useful, and advanced study and thought will help you along the way, ultimately, this is a spiritual endeavor. To quote Martin Luther, the 16th century church reformer:

“That the Holy Scriptures cannot be penetrated by study and talent is most certain. Therefore your first duty is to pray…for no master of the divine words exists except the Author of these words.”

Pray for understanding, and pray for the ability and desire to obey his words (Philippians 2:13-14).

Repeatedly

I was once listening to a lecture by New Testament scholar D.A. Carson, and he said something that, at one level, was obvious…but that I had never really integrated intentionally into my Bible reading. What he pointed out was that the Bible is meditative literature.

You shouldn’t expect to sit down and give it a single read-through and understand everything.

What he meant by that is that the Bible is meant to be read little by little, with you going back over and chewing on, mulling over, meditating, upon what you’ve just read. You shouldn’t expect to sit down and give it a single read-through and understand everything.

That should encourage you. Over the years I’ve heard many people bemoan the fact that they read something and don’t understand it, or even forget it. Friends: it’s okay. Just read it.

And read it again.

And again.

And again.

“Blessed is the man…[whose] delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:1–2). Meditation, biblically speaking, is not the emptying of your mind. It is fixing your mind on something, focusing on it, and turning it over and over and over. Reading something repeatedly is a basic form of meditation.

Slowly

Don’t be in a hurry. Even if your time available is short, just be okay with reading a very short passage and slowly reading over it. I would encourage you to read out loud. This is a great way to slow yourself down, engage more of your senses, and increase your comprehension and retention. I will even do this with longer passages if I have a lot of time but am trying to fightmy mind drifting away.

“You don’t read the Bible to finish. You read the Bible to change.”

Don’t be embarrassed to read slow. I love what my old pastor, Dave Donnerberg, used to say: “You don’t read the Bible to finish. You read the Bible to change.” Reading the Bible in such a way that God changes you, from the inside out, does not come from speed reading. It comes from slow reading.

IV. Specifics

As you start reading the Bible, I would suggest you set a specific time of day when you will read the Bible every day. That’s not because God will zap you dead or be disappointed in you if you miss a day, but because if you want this to be a habit, it really is going to be hard to establish if you don’t make it an every day thing. Most people are going to have better success in the morning. And I would set aside 10-15 minutes to start with. Even if you have more time available, start there until the habit is established, so that it doesn’t feel overwhelming. And then, don’t feel bad or give up if you miss a day (or a week!), just hop back on the horse and keep going.

It will also be beneficial to establishing the habit if you set a regular place. For me that has some flex—my kitchen table is “the place”, but I will move outside to my patio if the weather is nice. It really helps me to smell fresh air and hear the birds as I read and pray.

I would suggest starting with some well-known passages. Read those passages repeatedly until you feel ready to move on…

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I’m never early to a writing party. This is the second in a two-part series, which logically would have come out last week. But here we are. I think the truths are timeless, so you can schedule a text or email to yourself with the link to read it before next Father’s Day, if you find it helpful. Here’s part one.

3 John 1-15 (ESV), 1 The elder to the beloved Gaius, whom I love in truth.

Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul. 3 For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth. 4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

5 Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, 6 who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. 7 For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. 8 Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.

9 I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. 10 So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church.

11 Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God. 12 Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself. We also add our testimony, and you know that our testimony is true.

13 I had much to write to you, but I would rather not write with pen and ink. 14 I hope to see you soon, and we will talk face to face.

15 Peace be to you. The friends greet you. Greet the friends, each by name.

In the previous post, I argued that John’s statement in verse 4, I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in truth, expresses an important biblical principle: joy in Jesus is a communal reality, not merely an individual one. Specifically, the joy fathers and pastors experience in the obedience of their children (physical or spiritual) to the truth should be our greatest earthly joy.

But as I reflected on that reality while reading 3 John, it also seemed to me that John is helpfully demonstrating for us some principles as to how we can help our children walk in the truth. And so I want to share those with you here.

I think this short letter gives us at least five angles from which to approach this task, and they’re all verbal (which we’ll lean into with the sixth and the final point). So we might call these five modes of speech to help your children walk in truth.

1. Pray for them, v2-3

Once he’s past the formal greeting, the first thing John says is that he is praying for Gaius. And his prayer is a simple one: he wants all to go well with him. And that wellness consists of two parts. Earthly wellbeing and spiritual wellbeing. “Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.”

Friends, it’s easy to get really busy doing stuff for the wellbeing of our children. We haul them to games and concerts and school activities of various flavors. We take them to church and children’s and youth activities because we care about their souls, too. You put money in the 529 plan, you help them look for good scholarship opportunities. You’re making sure they get work experience to develop that part of their character. You make sure they get the medical help they may need. These are all good.

But do you pray for your children? Do you pray for the Lord to give them their daily bread, today and tomorrow, and in the decades to come? Do you pray for those real material needs to be met, and that all would go well with them? Some Christians feel guilty praying that way. Should I really pray for earthly blessings for my children? That doesn’t seem very spiritual. But you don’t need to bad. John didn’t. Your children need, as Jesus says, all these things. And you should pray for God’s provision in their lives.

You should also pray for their spiritual lives. For the Lord to give them the gift of faith, for their eyes to be open to the reality of his presence and provision. It’s easy to be blinded by the horizontal and forget the vertical. Your child’s deepest need is reconciliation with the Almighty God of the Universe through His Son Jesus Christ. Do you pray for them to trust in him, and then to grow in grace? Do you pray for them to keep in step with the Spirit? I’m sure part of John’s joy in seeing the obedience to the truth in his spiritual children was the fact that he was seeing something he had prayed for. “For I rejoiced greatly when the brothers came and testified to your truth, as indeed you are walking in the truth” (v3).

Fathers, pray for your children.

2. Affirm them (where they are), 5-6a

Fathers, you ought also to affirm your children. “5 Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, 6 who testified to your love before the church.”

In his previous letter, John had warned the church about false teachers who had gone out into the world, and exhorted them not to receive such people into the church or support them in any way. Here, we find the opposite. Gaius has welcomed true ministers of the gospel, though he did not personally know them. And John makes it a point to say that was a faithful thing you did. This is not just “good job” in a generic sense, but it’s observing a specific action and calling out the goodness of that action, recognizing it as an evidence of grace, and making clear that it was not in vain.

There are few things more powerful when leading people than words of specific positive affirmation. I saw this as someone who is quick to point out the negative, speedy to correct an error, with a keen eye to every flaw—and friends, there’s a time and a place for that—but those things will only be heard and received if they are coming in the context of love. And love presents itself as being for the other person.

Fathers, do your kids know that you are for them, not against them? Have you created an oppositional atmosphere in your home, or do you view your children as a gift—like arrows in the hands of a skilled warrior meant to be sent into the battle?

This is something you can do whether your children are two or twenty-two or forty-two or sixty-two. If you recognize something good—an action, an attitude, or a word—something that is pleasing to the Lord, meditate on it, and tell your son or daughter what you see. Affirm that which is good and noble and right in them. And then, encourage them to build on that.

3. Encourage them (to go further), 6b-8

John commended Gaius for his reception of these brothers, and then continued,

“You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. 7 For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. 8 Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth.”

John called out a specific action in Gaius: now he points out how he can build on that foundation and continue to grow in godliness. He tells him how he can act in a manner worthy of God and be a fellow worker with these traveling brothers in their dissemination of the truth. This is why I made a point under the previous heading to say this was not generic praise. “You’re a good boy” isn’t that helpful.

Being a pastor, I hear a lot of “good sermon, pastor” — and while I’m thankful for that and strongly prefer it to, “that stinks, you’re awful” — it’s really not much to build on. Specificity gives a place to build either a constructive critique or, to our point here, a clear vision for growth.

Fathers, we are living …

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