Christian Living

Republished, with permission, from Voice magazine, Sep/Oct 2013.

Recently I read a blog post written by a conservative political columnist and radio host for whom I have mixed feelings. Even though I find that I agree with many of his political views, I find his tone and style of politics not to be my particular style. Still, he’s a gifted writer and this time he shared something I think Christians need to hear. His point is that while he cares about politics and advocates for his point of view, outrage is not all there is to life.

This columnist wrote:

I’m sorry, but I can’t live my life constantly fixated on the political outrage of the day and I can’t be outraged about every…thing under the sun. I go out with friends and talk about stuff other than politics, I play with my kids, I love my wife, I cook gumbo and make fantastic ice cream, I watch a bit of TV, don’t read as much as I should, I go to church, and I try to focus on the good in a world filled with sin and bad and evil.^*

There is such an important message here for Christians. A message for me, particularly. While it is good and right to be outraged at injustice in the world, we can’t live on outrage. While it is good and right to roll up our sleeves and make a difference in the world by our lives and our actions, we can’t live on activism. You see, the narrative of the Scriptures is not just about what’s right and what’s wrong in the world and in our own hearts. The grand story is that there is good news available.

God didn’t ignore the evil that the Fall produced by sin. He spoke by the entrance of His Son, Jesus, into the world (Hebrews 1:2). When Jesus cried those anguished three words on the cross, “It is finished,” it signaled the beginning of the end. The power of sin and death, which so strangles the human soul, which ravages the planet, which obscures the glory and grandeur of our great God—this has been defeated, and like a helium balloon, is dying a slow death. Evil, my friends, is not winning.

About three years ago, I decided to preach through a single chapter of the book of Proverbs. No one, it seems, does this. Most sermons that address Proverbs are either solo shots or they cluster a number of proverbs by theme. But to get the most from the book—in my opinion—one must contemplate each specific proverb.

Most of the proverbs in the book of Proverbs were written by Solomon, whom we also believe wrote Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. Solomon was noted for many things: his great power, his huge empire, his great wealth, his many wives and concubines (1,000 total, 1 Kings 11:3), and certainly his great wisdom.

Solomon’s wisdom was a special gift from God, but Solomon himself often chose to make decisions that ignored the very wisdom he had asked God to give him. It is one thing to know the right course, another to follow it.

When we deal with Solomon, his wisdom, and the nature of wisdom, we must narrow our focus. Here, I would like to highlight an important principle: wise people crave more and more wisdom, for wisdom is given to those who value it.

I have long compared the love of wisdom to the love of cooking. The best cooks are usually cooks who enjoy cooking. Many folks cook out of necessity but do not enjoy it—to them, cooking translates to heating food. The love of cooking itself entices cooks to be creative, improve, and learn from others. Same thing with wisdom; those who love it pursue it and attain more wisdom. It is almost of a case of, “to him who has, more will be given.”

In discussing the unity and maturing of believers, Paul describes in Ephesians 4 how God’s comprehensive and unified work results in grace for each individual believer (Eph 4:7). Each of us can rejoice, knowing that God has given us individually the grace we need, while at the same time we can understand that we are not independent of Him nor of each other. We are designed to function as His body—as one—even though we are individual members of His body.

Considering the unique source of grace and the gifts that stem from grace, Paul explains that Christ gave the gift (4:7), and He gave gifts (4:8). His grace included not just the singular gift of salvation (as described in Eph. 2:8-9), but also everything necessary for complete sanctification (as described in Eph. 2:10).

Ephesians 4:11 identifies four vital gifts: “and He gave indeed the apostles, and the prophets, and the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.” This is a literal translation accounting for each Greek word in the passage. Notice that the objects of verb gave are preceded in each case by the definite article the. Also notice the passage does not say that He gave the gift of apostleship, prophecy, evangelism, and pastoring and teaching—if that is what Paul intended to say, he could have easily structured the passage to make that meaning clear. Instead, he identifies the gifts as the apostles themselves, the prophets themselves, the evangelists themselves, and the pastors and teachers themselves.