By Monte E. Wilson ^{1 2}

(Continued from part 1 and part 2.)

The Spiritual Elite

One of the driving forces behind pietistic evangelical fundamentalism is its desire to be on the cutting edge of true spirituality. We will have none of that two-tiered Roman Catholic brand of Christianity where the priests are required to live holy lives on behalf of a people who get to be normal! No way! Every believer is a priest who is required to talk like an epistle and live like an apostle.

Do you go to church only on Sundays? You are clearly in need of some sort of Damascus Road experience. Have you failed to read all of Sproul’s or Swindoll’s or Tozer’s books? Slacker! You don’t pray for an hour every day and read your Bible through at least twice a year? And you really think you’re saved?

For the average serious evangelical, a church is not really a church unless it is filled with Green Berets for Jesus. We hold to the notion that the true church is the home of the Spirit-filled elite and the apostolic meat-eaters. And if not? Look out. Ministers will be brought into such ordinary congregations to exhort the people to be like a missionary society or a para-church organization. How can they prove their commitment? They must give more than a tithe. They must daily get up at 5 a.m. and pray for an hour. They must evangelize every unbeliever in their office before the next service where they will be expected to give their testimony of success. They must dress like Ozzie and Harriet, talk like Charlton Heston doing Moses, and eat like St. Francis of Assisi.

In the early days of the church, one of the major battles to be waged was against the infiltration of Gnosticism. Usually, these people believed that the truly spiritual were those who had received special knowledge, special revelation. Gnostics did not believe that created matter (e.g., the flesh, the earth, time) could ever attain to something like holiness. Matter was evil, spirit was holy. People who lived normal lives—who did things like get married, have children, work with their hands—were worse than dogs. Only those who sought to escape this world of matter and ordinariness to the perfect world from where they originated were holy.

So what happened when those who wished to be uncommon came into contact with the blacksmith who claimed to have been born-again—and remained a common blacksmith with a common wife and common children, who lived common lives and died commonly? “This cannot be! How can this laborer claim to have had the same spiritual experience that we have enjoyed?” This would not do. If the masses could accept the faith, then something more must be required. There had to be a higher plane, a deeper life: one where the meat-eater would not have to rub shoulders with milk-drinkers.

It was simply not acceptable to these Gnostic elite to be lumped together with such earthy people. What was the solution to their dilemma? Create another tier of spirituality—The Deeper Life Club, which alone could claim to be the truly, authentic, spiritual, holy, New Testament church!

(Tomorrow: What happens when Christians grow more enamored with spiritual elitism and Movements, rather than Christ and the Gospel?)

By Monte E. Wilson¹

(Continued from part 1.)

“Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

For the next few weeks I wrestled with what I should do with my life. Music did not appear to be the vehicle that was going to take me where I wanted to go. And where was that? I didn’t really know. All I knew was that I had to give my life to something bigger than myself,  something transcendent, something that would demand every ounce of my being, every second of my existence.

One evening, while walking the aisles of the library at Samford, my eyes trained on the top shelf, I tripped over a stack of books lying on the floor. While restacking the books, my eyes focused on the name of a man whom I had read about years before. I picked up the book and began reading.

He was back in his native Scotland to receive an honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Glasgow. As he walks across the stage to receive the honor, the audience sees the great David Livingstone: a man gaunt and emaciated from years of living in Africa with hostile temperatures and people. He has suffered malaria well over twenty times. One of his arms hangs useless by his side, having been mauled by a lion. And rather than clapping and yelling (or taunting, as the students usually did on such occasions), they stood and greeted him with the ovation of  reverential silence.

He announced that he will soon return to the continent that had captured his soul years before. Knowing people wondered about the sanity of going back to such horrendous conditions, living nearly every day with the threat of death, he tells the students why he will go back with gladness. His confidence was based on a promise from God, Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. “On those words I staked everything, and they never failed!”

As I read this story, I knew that I was called to take the gospel of the kingdom to the world: Other people may wish to live out their lives in the same neighborhoods as they grew up in, with the same friends, eating at the same restaurants for the next fifty years, but this was not my destiny. I wanted to take the gospel to wherever spiritual darkness was the greatest. Neighborhoods would suffocate me; only the needs of nations would make me want to get up in the morning!

For the next several years, I preached in bus stations, bars, colleges, churches and on street corners. For close to eighteen months I spoke an average of five times a day on radio and television, before prayer groups and in “revival services.” Thousands of young people confessed Christ as their Lord.

It was an amazing time. I could stand in a park in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, and within moments after I had begun speaking, hundreds of people gathered around to listen. When I exhorted young people to come with me after a church service was dismissed, scores of them followed me to the beach, to a park or to the racetrack where we shared the gospel with those who never dreamed of being approached on such a subject in such a place. The unbelievers were hungry, the believers were on fire.

But what happened when many of the older adults or even some of the young people had other things to do or did not “feel led” to follow me in my quest? Well, isn’t it obvious? They were deadbeats with spiritual mononucleosis. They were lukewarm Christians whom God was going to puke out of His mouth, Pharisees upon whom He would send His judgment!

It was one thing for my fellow ministers and me to give away nearly all the money we earned, forgoing certain creature comforts, witnessing from city to city. We crossed the line, however, when we began to believe that all Christians should have the same experiences we had and share the gospel with the lost with the same intensity and frequency that we did. We went over the edge when we deemed ourselves more spiritual than those who refused to follow our lead.

(Tomorrow: While attempting to avoid the caste-system-like tenets of religions such as Catholicism, do evangelicals fall into the same trap?)

Radical by David Platt, an Alabama pastor, did get a lot of things right — but did not address several issues that would have made it more balanced. That’s what I wrote in my review last week. But a few related topics remained, some leftovers I wasn’t able to get into that review.

For instance, there’s the main theme of chapter 6, “How Much is Enough?” The question, and much of the chapter, reference Mark 10 and its description of Jesus’ encounter with a rich man.

Platt summarizes the account, ending with the rich man’s dejected departure from Jesus, clearly not wanting to follow Jesus’ commandment to sell all he has and follow Him. God bless Platt, he focuses on the truth that the rich man didn’t just have a moral failing. “Fundamentally, the rich man needed a new heart, one that was radically transformed by the gospel,” Platt writes.

Radical’s author also focuses on two errors people derive from the passage: acting as if the New Testament commands all Christians to sell all they have, or assuming that “Jesus never calls his followers to abandon all their possessions to follow him.

“This means he might call you or me to do this,” Platt notes.

But how would we know that? The author stops short of offering thoughts. What solution will fill the empty space? My concern: all those assumptions about listening for some “inner leading” from God, a nudge or a pull this direction or that, are still around. And many Christians will lurch toward them automatically.

Yes, a longer discussion of discerning God’s will would take more time. But Platt was good at including other disclaimers. A short aside like this would have helped: We can’t know for sure if God wants you to sell all you have. That’s another topic (try so-and-so book about it). But we do know Scripture doesn’t support some ideas of listening for God’s “inner nudge.” Our only sure source of knowing God’s will in advance is the written Word.

Without such disclaimers, Radical could permit wrong ideas to enter readers’ minds. To be sure, that’s often not an author’s fault. But Platt’s other asides, such as the hmm-hmm-maybe-that’s-naughty line about French fries, contribute (likely unintentionally) to a guilt-inducing edge. ¹

As Kevin DeYoung notes in his critical, though friendly review:

To his credit, Platt says we don’t need to feel guilty for everything that is not an absolute necessity (127). But earlier we are made to feel bad for the money we spend on french fries (108). It is easy to stir people to action by relating how little everyone else has and how much we have in America, but we are not meant to have constant low-level guilt because we could be doing more.

Even more than Platt’s French fries part, this aside from page 77 provoked my raised eyebrow:

In all this missions talk, you may begin to think, Well, surely you’re not suggesting that we’re all supposed to move overseas. That is certainly not what I’m suggesting (thought I’m not completely ruling it out!).

And why not completely rule that out? No — let’s completely rule it out! If the entire body were in overseas missionary work, where would the sense of domestic missionary work be? If the entire body were on the missionary dole, where would the sense of financial support be?

It doesn’t take much to show why Christians should avoid even hinting that one ministry calling would be better than another. That is true even if they’re passionate about certain ministries, such as overseas missionary work. And I argue it’s true even if a Christian book’s audience may be the sorts of people who truly need to consider that their callings may be greater than preserving their American Dreams and leaving the harder missionary work to Those People.

Platt’s lyrics may say all the right things. I just wonder if he let slip some assumptions about the best Christian living, however unintentionally, in the music of his asides and anecdotes.

(Continued from parts 1, part 2 and part 3.)

Varying Christian vocations

Christians who are faithful dispensing coffee behind a Starbuck’s counter can be just as radical for Christ’s sake. Christians who work in business, raise their families and even own nice houses — even those who may have unwittingly compromised with a consumerism-driven life — can devote those tasks to the glory of God. Factory workers, stay-at-home moms, scholars, authors and pastors can live radically, even if they have never helped build an orphanage in Costa Rica.

I really do wish I could write that hypothetical book I mentioned earlier. Maybe someone will. For if compromising with consumerism is one blight on the church, so is a failure to see all of life — including Official Ministry such as caring for the poor and evangelizing in a foreign land — as ministry for God’s sake. This, by the way, is one surefire way to support missionaries.

Maybe a Radical sequel or two could address such things: Radical At Home, Radical At Church, Radical In the Workplace, etc. Yes, that would be much too market-driven; I suggest that only tongue-in-cheek. Yet Platt’s book almost exclusively emphasizes only Radical in Overt Ministry.

Avoiding hints of do-ism

It’s not that I’m opposed to direct explanations of what we’re supposed to do with the Gospel, not that we have it. Yet Platt seemed to explain the basis for the Christian’s radical good works, the Gospel and the rewards Christ offers, in only about 20 percent of Radical. The rest seemed to be exhortations of what to do, with only several callbacks to an assumed foundation. Though I haven’t tabulated total phrases or words, it might be a ratio of about 80 – 20, do versus done.

Even for those Christians who fit most directly into Platt’s audience — the wealthy suburbanites who have long since neglected the Gospel call in practice, even if not in belief — would it not be better to reverse the ratio? Like Scripture itself, should we focus more on done rather than do?

Such wrong views about possessions, and failures to follow Christ’s Great Commission, are not overthrown only by calls to radical living. They are overthrown by focus on the radical Gospel, God’s truly astounding nature and plan of redeemed His people, not just for their good and happiness but for His own glory. Shouldn’t that be Christians’ main points for those who still live a consumerism-driven life? Instead, Platt seemed to focus more on the fruits, and assuming the case had been made for the roots. Those still trapped in moralism won’t see much difference.

(Finally: Radical accidentally reinforces false Heaven-versus-Earth dichotomies.)

(Continued from part 1 and part 2.)

Different gifts, same Spirit

In his finale, Platt recommends five very simple options to living radically. They include: pray for the whole world, read the entire Bible in one year, sacrifice money for a specific purpose and commit to a local church. It’s the fourth item that bugs me, again not so much because of what Platt says but what he doesn’t say, and what he does imply: that truly radical Christians will be able to do some kind of missionary work in another nation, or at least an inner city area.

Jesus called His disciples, and by proxy all Christians, to find, teach and disciple new believers in the Gospel (Matt. 28). Too many Christians ignore or dismiss His call. Yet I wonder if Platt might be subtly, similarly overlooking the fact that Christians obey this call in different ways.

“[W]e know that each of us has different gifts, different skills, different passions, and different callings from God,” Platt does recognize (page 73). “God has gifted you and me in different ways.” Yet almost all of Radical, and in all but a few anecdotes, it seems Platt focuses narrowly on certain gifts: missionary work, caring for the poor, ascetic living, or personal discipleship.

No one should object to reminders of neglected foreign mission fields, or reiterating the Gospel call. But for many readers who already struggle with basic needs, who aren’t in Platt’s main audience of consumer-driven Christians, and who want to support a local church, what does the call to radical faith look like? One answer: very often it looks like being faithful in small ways, living a quiet life and working with one’s hands (1 Thess. 4:11). Very often Christians who have not devoted more time to Ministry are already being radical in their homes, churches and jobs.

Should we not encourage those who are already living “radically” in ways unique to their lives? My mother-in-law is a single mom, with two daughters still at home, and is restricted to being a nontraditional student, having striven to earn a bachelor’s degree before their life insurance runs out, and working. My own mom forsook her nursing career to raise and homeschool not only myself, but my five younger siblings; meanwhile, my father works to support his family in an intense full-time job, leaving little chance for the kinds of missionary work that get displayed in church slideshows. For any of them, trying to meet another kind of “radical” lifestyle would be sinful.

Being radical can mean different things for different Christians. It often takes on small forms. Author Kevin DeYoung calls this being a “plodding visionary.” It is not Big. But it is faithfulness.

I’m sure Platt knows this already. But shouldn’t such vital truths get more air time in Radical?

Platt does say he offers more questions than answers, and I’m certainly not looking for anyone to give an exact formula for every situation! Yet a few more disclaimers about missionary work, or praise for those living radically, outside the missionary spotlights, would have been helpful.

(Tomorrow: Radical stops short of better discussing truths of Christian vocation; and should the book’s apparent content ratios of Jesus-has-done versus you-must-do be reversed?)

(Continued from part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.)

The very act of writing this week’s series has taught me more about its theme.

For months since starting YeHaveHeard, I have had doubts. This site will never be another Challies.com or Gospel Coalition (and in fact, I don’t want it to be like that). Still it’s very difficult to avoid thinking: am I doing enough? Is this site Big enough?

Such a notion is more insidious than I thought. I’ve had it even while writing about how Christians often subtly believe they’re not doing enough Hard Things.

True, God saves His people for the purpose of spreading His Gospel and making disciples from all nations (Matthew 28: 18-20). His gospel is of unearned grace, yet will result in good works (Ephesians 2:10). Still, God’s redeemed saints so often ask more of themselves than He asks.

Millions of Godly Christians are not do-do-do-ing all the obvious Hard Things:

• We may not be sailing around the world, or raising a million dollars for charity before age 17, or publishing books, or being as spiritually impactful as this or that famous missionary.
• We may not be leading huge churches that pack out the pews, blogging to thousands or writing the next bestseller with endorsements from D.A. Carson, Mark Dever or J.I. Packer.
• We may not be charging into politics to Change the Nation and Preserve Societal Morals.
• And we may not have the widest-read blog in the world.

… But God only wants His people to be faithful to what He has given them to do. And He is clear throughout Scripture that any motivation to do, do, do, is in the Gospel, and nothing else.

So I’ve slowly come to realize: maybe I don’t need to turn out some complex and in-depth essay twice a week. Maybe instead I can work to be faithful in the little things — like putting up a short post, or long post, every day. Maybe that is how I can best glorify God in this way, and not keep building up projects in my own mind as if they must be Big, or else I shouldn’t try.

It seems this commitment has actually helped me do actual Big Things this week after all. I’ve not only blogged here every single day, but helped re-launch the co-op blog Speculative Faith, and blogged there four days out of this week. Do I say this to brag? Not at all — only to cross-promote.¹ Yet it also reminds to me, that God will in His own time bring us to do the Big Things, if He has them for us, only when we’re faithful in the small things.

Wrapping up: on ‘radicals’

Much of this series was inspired by Todd Friel’s monologue on Wretched Radio some weeks ago. He finally worked to a close by discussing something that’s been on my mind for weeks: institutionalized Do-do-do-ism. Some Christians, often with very good and even Gospel-based intentions, give direct voice to the notion that if you’re not doing Big Things, you may not be faithful at all. It’s not so much that they oppose small faithfulness. They just forget about it.

I don’t worry about Christians who truly need to hear such a message, or about those who already have solid foundations — about the Gospel and how it affects all of life, not just the obviously spiritual parts. Instead, what about those who could assume that if they are not doing clearly Big Things, such as writing books or being missionaries, they’re not doing enough?

This emphasis these days (is on the notion that everyone must do obviously hard things to be a truly serious Christian) — and it’s sneaky, I’m telling you, it’s sneaky.

There’s another pastor out there — and I want to do a little more research before we get into it a little bit deeper, but I suspect it’s the same thing. “Unless you are living —” well, what a coincidence — “like me, in this crazy radical way, you’re not doing the Big Thing, unless you’re living like me.” Well I’m sorry, sir. That’s a type of yoke and a type of legalism, and do, do, do system, I’m not interested in.

(The Duran Duran song starts up again …)

We are to be faithful where we are.

(“Do-do, do-do-do, do-do-do, do-do-do, doo-doo …”)

And if God calls you someplace, then go, if you’ve fulfilled your responsibilities at home. That’s the Big Thing. That’s the Hard Thing. That’s the difficult thing to do. And when people try to load up stay-at-home moms or pastors with d-do, do, do —

(And) young people has got to be the third group. … Really, it’s all of us, but I think even more on the young group. “Hey —” and it comes a lot from the parents, doesn’t it? “We’re gonna get into sports, we’re gonna get you into athletics, we’re gonna get you into ballet, we’re gonna get you into drama, and you’re gonna do something big!” — as the world defines it.

How’s about this as a Big Thing for a kid? You wake up every single morning, and you make your bed, and you get your room cleaned up, and you come downstairs, and you help with the dishes after you’ve made yourself some food, and then you say to your mom and dad, “Mom and Dad, I’m so grateful to be here. And I’m so grateful that you’ve grown me up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. And I would like to show my gratitude to God and to you. How can you plug me in? I would like to do that today.”

And let me tell you something: that’s Big. … That’s harder than becoming a celebrity, or becoming a famous person. We must resist the temptation to do that to each other.

(Another Duran Duran song begins; apparently, “Hungry Like the Wolf” …)

Watch out for the do-do-dos.

(Continued from part 1, part 2 and part 3.)

If I said, “We evangelicals better think long and hard about our continued infatuation with and endorsement of … Sarah Palin,” what might be the reactions?

1) Yeah, that woman’s a nutty conservative, doesn’t care for the poor, is surely racist, etc.

2) Have you bought into compromising Christianity? We need to save America from liberalism.

Well, I haven’t said that yet. Actually it was Todd Friel, host of Wretched Radio, who said it. But regarding this issue, I’m about to start agreeing with him.

Fighting feminism

Sometimes Friel seems to forget that feminism is not the only threat to Christians. Yes, feminism gets a lot more press; it is more prevalent than other wrongs. Yet the other extreme is out there: chauvinism, often called “patriarchy,” an un-Biblical and God-slandering notion that daughters belong to fathers (who are like “high priests” of their own homes), that working outside the home automatically makes a woman a feminist, and other things.¹

Thus I would not simply criticize Palin for having any kind of job outside her home. Scripture does not directly forbid this, so why should I?

But if a church elder/overseer is called to keep his family well-cared for, and such a person must be a man, how much more should a woman who professes to know Christ want to avoid going out to be a leader if her home is a mess? (And when Friel talked about this, a certain news story hadn’t even yet broken.)

I feel sorry for the Palins. My reaction is similar to my thoughts last year, when all manner of Christians were ready to support a certain beauty pageant contestant who’d given a close-to-Biblical answer to a gay-marriage question. Given her raunchy behavior, shouldn’t the Church want to love this young woman, and correct her, helping her grow closer to the Jesus she professes to know? No — instead, Christians used this person. It’s like we care more for popularity and getting in the press than loving and teaching those who claim to be our own.

Sarah Palin and her family are not characters in an evening drama. They are not larger-than-life figures who can “handle it” because they’re somehow different. Flaws and positive attributes and all, they are real people. They need real help, from a real and active church. They need to be loved, taken in and taught. And yes, I wonder if Sarah’s children need their mom.

What they do not need is to be placed on pedestals and asked to lead us. That doesn’t love them. It doesn’t respect the God who places such value on being glorified in a Christian family.

Meanwhile, do other wives and mothers who want to glorify Christ feel pressure to Do, do, do, more, more, more? Does getting into politics, being the latest greatest Articulate Conservative Spokeswoman Running for Office, sound more appealing and worthy of acclaim than simply staying home and taking care of your family, loving your husband, and mostly loving the Lord?

It certainly is not wrong to seek high office. But when those who are — or who can — are rising to the top and doing all these Big Things in America, what might other women be feeling like?

Do other women’s sacrifices mean nothing? Is God more pleased with the women who plan to Save the Country? Is it well-just-okay to stay at home and work full-time to help your husband educate and raise your children, while the Big People go out and do the Really Big Things?

Faithful things

I’ll close with another quote from Friel, the second-to-last in this Do, do, do series.

Friel had talked about how pastors are under many pressures from Christians. Sometimes, without even knowing it, Christians may imply their pastor isn’t doing enough, or needs to have more attenders, better sermons, bigger buildings, and all that. Then Friel went on to say that Christian women are under some very similar pressures.

Number Two group would have to be stay-at-home moms. Has to be — stay-at-home moms. Shellacked for, “ohhhh, living at home and letting that oppressive man control you.” You know what? Staying at home, and doing that with your kids — that’s plenty big, ‘cause that’s the faithful thing. And I gotta tell you — that is the hard thing.

I really felt bad for those women who thought that they to go leave their babies at home, in the care of somebody else, so that they could go rescue society.

And by the way, what a slap in the face of every single man in this country. You mean, there’s no men who’ve already raised their kids who couldn’t do this?

Sorry, I can’t help but throw this in. We evangelicals better think long and hard about our continued infatuation and endorsement of — sorry, you can send us emails if you like — Sarah Palin. Her kids need her. “Well, they seem to be doing all right.” Uhhh, have you read the papers? Are you kidding me?

… Aren’t we the stay-at-home-mom people? Aren’t we the ones who say, “Well done, madam! You did the faithful thing. … You did the big thing.” One family at a time.

… God is smart, and He says to each and every one of us: “You do not have to do the big thing. You need to do the hard thing, which is the faithful thing.”

Tomorrow: The true Big/Hard Things and Radical Lives often seem so small.

(Continued from Part 1 and Part 2.)

How often do you wish your pastor was one of the Big Pastors? Perhaps you don’t at all, and come to think of it, I’m not sure I have (that I can remember). Yet surely the hint of temptation is there. It’s a sort of covetousness: I really like my pastor, and thank God for him, but he’s so (insert flaw here) and doesn’t know about (insert favorite doctrine or Christian-practice issue here) and often doesn’t go as deep or isn’t as Big as (insert Big author/pastor’s name here.)

Maybe this is a habit for Christians. It’s the quiet, nagging, often subconscious notion that what we do — in church ministry, home ministry, work ministry or anywhere else God has called us — just isn’t as spiritual. The Bigger Christians, authors, musicians, more-popular pastors and Christian conference speakers, seem to be have much more influence for the Kingdom of Christ.

But according to one of those “bigger” guys himself, Wretched Radio host Todd Friel, Christians should stop that subtle implication. And it can be particularly hard on pastors.

[At the Do Hard Things conference], I ran into a woman. (And I apologized of course, because I almost knocked her over. Thank you.) … White woman, carrying a little black baby. Clearly adopted. I’m no geneticist, but I’m almost certain it was an adopted child.

Now that’s a big thing. That is not gonna make the history books. That is a hard thing. But it doesn’t need to be a spotlight thing. It doesn’t need to be a monstrous thing.

… There’s several groups of people that I think get hammered by this message more than anybody else.

… Let’s start with you, pastor. The pastor gets shellacked constantly with this message. “Hey, what are your numbers? What are your numbers, preacher? How many people you got at your church? How many square feet? How many does your worship center seat? Do, do, do! Get big, big, big!”

And there’s a huge amount of pressure on a pastor to be the biggest in town. And pastor, you feel it, don’t you? A lack of contentment. Just banging out that sermon, 20, 30 hours a week. And you think, “Oh, it seems so small.”

No no — that’s the world telling you it’s a small thing. Do a faithful thing. The hard thing is being faithful to God and growing in holiness.

And pastors are getting just the opposite message, not just from the world, but from the church too — not intentionally, I’m sure. But all the growth conferences: “Get bigger. Do more. How to get published. How to wear these clothes to attract that group. Put on those glasses, and they’ll think you’re nifty, and the numbers will go up.”

There’s huge pressure. Pastor, you resist it. And you do the faithful thing. Do the hard thing of growing in holiness, right where you are.

Tomorrow: For women especially — is political activism superior to being a mother?

(Continued from Part 1.)

Wretched Radio host Todd Friel continued with questioning why Christians imply (or say directly) that living for God in the best ways mean doing things for Him in the biggest ways.

I mentioned that I went to the conference this week, and a little bit of it — didn’t get to see the whole thing. What I saw was very nice and very good. But there is even a danger in a nice conference like Do Hard Things. That’s the name of the book by Alex and Brett Harris, encouraging teenagers: “do something hard. … Do something for God.”

But we gotta be careful that we don’t do Do Hard Things, and turn it into Do Big Things.

… We are so inclined to grab a story like — okay, pick your favorite missionary. “Look at what this missionary did and accomplished by the age of six. Do that.” And I’m afraid that we put a monstrously big burden on people, first of all, especially if it is not Gospel-centered. “Do this in response!” needs to be our do message, not just do it because — hey, do you want to be considered great?

(The Duran Duran song starts up again …)

Do you want to be in the history books?

(“Do-do, do-do-do, do-do-do, do-do-do, doo-doo …”)

We gotta get away from that message.

Fortunately, though I haven’t read the book, I understand the Harrises include a chapter about how it’s often hard to do small things. Yet I also know, based on human nature with supporting evidence from my own thought processes, that it’s very easy for those who’ve done the big Hard Things to rise to the top. And those who’ve attempted the Hard Things, but for whatever reasons failed, don’t get as much time to share their testimonies, do they?

To paraphrase Kevin DeYoung: sometimes we need to Do Plodding Things. Such tasks may not save the world, or be worth hosting a conference or writing a book, but they glorify our God.

Tomorrow: Pastors have many pressures to do more; but God only wants faithfulness.

It is something we all spend almost all our days doing. When pastors, teachers or friends issue the challenge to avoid living like a “Sunday only Christian — any answer should include it. And it’s something the whole Bible often addresses.

But it’s something that many Christian books, teachers, leaders and sermons don’t often touch.

I think that [a] great heresy of the Christian faith in the 21st century is that here, people spend their time and life at work … [and] it’s a whole area of life that we have not addressed in theological seminaries, in churches. I think people don’t think about it because they’ve never been challenged to do it. And yet as you go through the Bible you find that the Bible has a lot to say about work. But we somehow just go right over it.

That’s according to Dr. Haddon Robinson, theologian, preacher and teacher, and cohost of RBC Ministries’ “Discover the Word” daily radio broadcast.

Don’t let the program’s 15-minute length (or RBC’s famousness for the pithy devotionalette Our Daily Bread!) fool you. Well, it fooled me at least. Somehow I thought this program might not have a lot of doctrinal depth. Last year, when they spent months going over commonly misread and misunderstood Bible verses, I found I was so wrong.[And in fact, their grace-based and truth-imbued exploration of such verses formed an idea that would later become this site.]

Discover the Word began its series on Godly vocation in early January. Their first week, they began discussing the practical side of what people who’ve lost their jobs go through, how they recover and how others can help. On Jan. 11, they began focusing on Biblical doctrine of work.

Here most doctrine issues, Robinson noted, are from a lack of Christian teaching on the subject. Thus wrong ideas — including false divisions of “secular” and “sacred” — can infest our minds.

And if Christians do talk about our daily work, Robinson continued, it’s often limited to certain contexts. For example, if a theme is following God’s will in normal ways, we might mention the need to avoid stealing from the workplace. Much more common is the encouragement for people to witness and share the Gospel with others, including at work, he said. But in addition to those truths, do Christians spend equal time talking about God’s approval of work itself?

The following day they played a clip of a simulated sermon. It’s something that Christians might hear at a church whose pastor may not intend to further false ideas, but falls into this practice anyway because of ignorance or a perception of the false sacred/secular dichotomy.

“God wants you to give yourself to Him. He wants you think seriously about how you spend your time and where you spend your money.

“As you know, we desperately need people to teach our junior-high boys. But many of you are too busy with your job, your work, that you don’t have time for God’s work. The roof of our church building is in need of repair, and many of you are busy making money. But you can’t find money to invest in the house of God.

“Now I’m not scolding you. But I’m just asking: are you so busy working and making money that you’ve pushed God and the church out of your lives?”

My initial reaction: maybe few people have heard someone say that so directly. But do we have such assumptions deep down in our minds? Do we hear Biblically based, Gospel-driven truth against these notions? If not, the lies may keep growing. And so will the false belief that what we’re doing in our workplaces, or our tasks at home, are less important than “official” ministry.

Cohost Alice Matthews wondered if such guilt trips are more common than we might think.

It completely ignores everything that goes into the work week of the person in the pew. This person who is having to make money in order to pay the rent, or pay the mortgage, buy groceries for the family — the whole life of that person, Monday through Saturday, is being put aside in favor of only dealing with what is going on in the church.

And that, Robinson added, does nothing to aid the “don’t just be a Sunday Christian” truth.

That’s one of the [problems]. The other [problem] is: “the real work that you do for God is what you do on Sunday at the church. And what you’re doing out there in the workplace is somewhat questionable.” … I’ve had businesspeople say that when their work is addressed [at church], it’s always addressed in a way to make them feel guilty. Now you’re out there making money, and that’s somehow a terrible thing to be doing.

“Necessary, but terrible,” Matthews quipped. And she and cohost Mart De Haan went on to acknowledge the truth that the Bible does views some things as “set apart” for God. That includes Old Testament prophets’ references to the Jews building their own houses instead of working on the Temple, and Jesus’ encouragement that we must lay up treasures in Heaven.

Yet we can also lay up treasures in Heaven, and glorify God well, even in “secular” jobs. And Christians should honor that truth as much as they honor more-direct Kingdom work.

That’s what I draw from Robinson’s finish to that broadcast.

You don’t hear it the other way. You don’t hear, “Some of you are spending too much time working with the junior boys. And you’re not out there in the workplace doing the kind of work you ought to be doing, that’s quality work.”

… Pastors and Christian leaders do preach this kind of thing: that the really important work in life has to do with what you do with the church. Obviously it’s another sermon to say — you got to have balance. But we don’t talk about the balance of doing good work in the workplace. … There are inadequate ways of bridging the gap between worship and work. And I think serious Christians need to think about that in an honest way.”