By Monte E. Wilson ¹

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

There is therefore … condemnation

What happens when a local church is captured by the notion that all of its members are to live like David Livingstone? Is it enough that this church faithfully partakes of the Lord’s Supper, baptizes, sits under the Word of God every Sunday, visits the sick and shut in, leavening the area where God placed it? No, it is not. Every member must be like Livingstone, or Blessit, or Graham, or Müller.

We not only evaluate our churches by the inapplicable standard of one man’s calling, but we also evaluate them by the standard of the “renewal movement.” We started out in youth rallies, moved to charismatic conferences, and then on to seminars about reforming the church and nation. We are Movement oriented.

Renewal movements are exciting, fresh, intense. But this is not the normal Christian life. So when my particular church ceases being “on the cutting edge” of whatever it is God-is-doing-in-the-earth, I take off looking for the next “wave,” the next movement, the next spiritual rush. I want to ride the waves, not build the church.

I believe that a vast majority of evangelicals are addicted to the psychological highs which come with the new renewal movement: the new churches it produces, the new paradigm, the new practices, etc. There is absolutely no commitment to the church as the church because it is the church. No. We see our local church as a movement Which has ceased moving us—so it is time to move on.

Green Beret Christians evaluate themselves and their churches by the standard of a renewal movement or revival. If they are not experiencing the conscious presence of God, something is wrong with them or the church: I am in sin, they are in sin, someone is in sin! If there are not times of intense focus upon religious things, they are “being distracted by the world.” If they are not learning new music every Sunday, “God has departed.” If souls are not being converted at a good pace, “We have no heart for the lost.” What do they do? They go start another franchise of The Church of What’s Happenin’ Now, or The Church Which Is Doing It Right.

What happens to the normal Christian when living a normal life as a Christian is thought to be far less than what God requires? They have only two options. They can (a) fake it, secretly living with the condemnation of their commonness, or (b) leave the church altogether. Of course, there are a few brave, mature souls who refuse to bow to the extra-scriptural demands of the elite and patiently wait for us all to run out of steam.

Given this mindset, are we surprised to learn of the havoc we have brought into the church? Can we see that when we demanded a church of pure spirituality that we embarked on a road inevitably leading to schismatic behavior? When we withdrew our loyalty from churches because they were filled with tares, were we not requiring more than God Himself requires this side of eternity? What would happen if we judged our own souls with the same perfectionistic standard we hung like the Sword of Damodes over our local churches?

Can we see the damage caused by our pride and ignorance? Meat-eaters shunning milk-drinkers; the spiritual elite leaving the “carnal” church to start their own “First Church of the Green Berets” —a church where one’s spirituality (to place the best possible light on it) is judged by the standard of one particular calling and gifting rather than his saltiness in day-to-day living. Will there be growth in grace in this sort of atmosphere?

(Tomorrow: Did Biblical apostles teach only “Green Beret” Christianity?)

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?)

Green Berets for Jesus

It was late one evening when a friend came to my dorm room at Samford University. I had been practicing piano for hours and was just getting to my room for some dreaded work on a Western Civilization assignment. The friend excitedly told me of a revival at one of the Baptist churches there in Birmingham, Alabama. Apparently, he had “never seen or heard of anything like what was going on there.” Being the son of a Southern Baptist pastor, I seriously doubted if there was anything I had not already seen or heard. However, since I was weary of being secluded in a windowless room for three hours of piano practice, I “felt led” to go to church that night.

We arrived forty-five minutes early and there were no more seats available in an auditorium that seated 750 or more people. Rather than standing outside with all the latecomers and listening to the service via loudspeakers, I led my friend around the back where we sneaked in through some closets, crawled through the choir loft and sat down on the floor directly in front of the pulpit.

After some rousing music, the janitor came out to do something with the pulpit. I knew he was the janitor because he had longhair, was wearing faded blue jeans, a pullover and sandals. To my surprise, however, the “janitor” turned out to be the speaker—Arthur Blessit [sic], the “father” of the Jesus Movement. For forty-five minutes, Arthur exhorted the crowd of young people to give their lives to Jesus Christ. The man’s very pores exuded the love of Christ. I was mesmerized by his passion for the lost and his obvious devotion to reach those whom the church had ignored.

When the sermon was over, an invitation was given for people to come forward to give themselves to Jesus. Scores came down the aisle and emptied their pockets of drugs and related paraphernalia. While Arthur was working his way through the crowd, I could see that he was moving in my direction. As I tried to back up and give the pagans room to talk with the man, I could see that he was focused on reaching me. When he took my hand, before I could say— “I am a Baptist who hasn’t missed Sunday School in fourteen years and my dad is a leading pastor in the denomination so don’t confuse me with the riffraff” —he told me to sit in a pew and not leave until he had spoken with me. His tone was stem, his demeanor was commanding.

While I had the urge to run, I waited for Arthur to return. “No one talks to me in that tone. What happened to the love that was dripping from his every word? Why did he look so angry with me? Does he think I am one of those pagans?” Before I could let him know that he had made a mistake, he sat down beside me and told me that I was obviously running from God’s call on my life. “What call is that?” I asked. “The call to the ministry,” he shot back.

Now I had already explained to God a year before that I would serve Him, but not in any pulpit. I loved my dad; I thought he was an incredible man of God. However, the vocation seemed quite stressful, laden with poverty and filled with men who needed some lessons in savoir faire. Not a lifestyle I was attracted to. So, as a compromise with the Almighty, I offered my services in the world of music. Obviously, Arthur had not been made privy to this agreement. However, before I could explain my case to this misguided evangelist, he told me that we—as in, the two of us—were going to go out and “witness to people for the Lord.”

When we pulled up in front of the Boom-Boom Room, I knew I was in trouble. I had frequently patronized this establishment but had not “felt led” to speak to anyone there about his spiritual condition. While I had never been carded there before, this time I begged God to see to it that the gentleman at the door noticed I was under age. He did not.

While Arthur began cheerfully speaking to individuals about the gospel I did my best to disappear into the shadows and hoped that no one recognized me. But then 1 heard a man ask me if I was “with that long-haired guy over there.” I nodded yes, eyes staring forward. He then asked me if I believed the same things that Arthur was telling people over at the bar. I affirmed my agreement with another nod, and still would not look at the gentleman who was speaking to me.

“Do you mean to tell me that Jesus will forgive me all of my sins, if I ask Him to?” His voice was filled with amazement.

“Yes,” I answered, with a voice filled with a not-so-subtle tone that said, “Go Away, You Bother Me!”

“Do you mean that I could pray right here and give my life to Jesus Christ and He would wipe my sins away?” His voice was growing louder.

“Yes.” My answers were more quiet than the still small voice heard by Elijah.

“I can repent … and He will forgive anything and everything I have done wrong?”

I sighed a “Yes” in his general direction.

“Okay. Let’s pray. I want to give my life to Jesus!”

I couldn’t believe it. I looked over at the elderly gentleman whose cheeks were bathed in tears and … drew a blank. What was I supposed to say? Finally I remembered that I should lead him in prayer, and so offered my hand and bowed my head. With the gusto of a Pentecostal, the man yelled out, “No, I want to kneel like those people over there are doing with your friend!” And before I could explain that we were not saved by such works, he had yanked me to the floor to kneel beside him and began repenting of every sin he had ever committed, his anguish filling every syllable. Before I had time to cover myself by acting as if I had dropped my contact lenses, I was awash in tears of humiliation over my arrogance and fear of man. Here was an unbeliever who, without hesitation, was willing to humble himself before God and man while I, a longtime believer, refused to do anything that would take me out of my ego’s comfort zone.

(Tomorrow: do all Christians have the same calling as “Green Berets” like David Livingstone?)

(Loosely continued from yesterday’s column, Law and love — did Jesus contradict God?)

How many steps is it from confused Christianity to non-Christianity? When it comes to the question of how Jesus Christ and His love relate to God’s Law, it’s only a few:

1. Biblical truth: Jesus came not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17).
2. Step down, still true, but less clear: Jesus came not to uphold the Law, but to fulfill it.
3. Step down, questionable: Jesus came not to uphold the Law, but to love.
4. Step down, more questionable: God now doesn’t uphold the Law, but only loves.
5. Step down, un-Biblical belief: God doesn’t punish breakers of the Law, but only loves.

In just one simple, four-step process, with slight modifications — perhaps over generations, perhaps over only a few years in one church — a Biblical position becomes un-Biblical. Thus a slight confusion about how Jesus relates to the Law turns into universalism.

And some Christians may act or think like Universalists even if they do not believe everyone in the world will somehow, someday, eventually be saved.

For example, nowadays there’s a derivative view out there that greatly resembles universalism. Proponents refer to this by other names, such as the wider mercy view. From what I’ve read, that refers to God’s mercy supposedly being wider than we often think, and in fact, the most extreme versions of this view claim that people can be saved without consciously repenting of their sins and professing faith in Jesus Christ.

Teaching vacuums

I can understand a few factors contributing to this view.

1. “God is love.” Evangelicals have long overcorrected for notions — which apparently arose from somewhere in the past — that God was a mean tyrant. But for years many of our best and brightest have been saying “God is love” without defining love, or the “rest of” God — including His character traits of holiness, justice and sovereignty.
2. “Make a decision.” Many have overdone the call for a response to the Gospel, as if God Himself is not powerful enough to save someone unless he/she “opens the door” to let Him do it. In response, some others may ask, even if only subconsciously, “why do we think God so powerless”? And to compensate for one extreme, some may lapse into yet another extreme idea: surely God is big enough to save people without their response.
3. “What about those who have never heard?” Though answers to this question can be tricky, Christian leaders and teachers should not shy away from it. A vacuum of teaching about God’s sovereignty and man’s sinfulness (which says: those who have never heard are still guilty for what they do know) leads to the wrong answers filling the space.

From some professing Christian universalists, or “wider mercy” proponents, I’ve heard the reasoning: oh no, this doesn’t mean we believe God is unjust, or fails to punish evil. One person once told me he believes God will punish evil, just not in the ways we assume, etc.

But our intent should not be to maintain a Theology System, whether or not it has all the reasonable facsimiles we’d like of all the moving parts. Rather: does a System follow Scripture?

Apparently enough evangelicals have expressed doubts about whether conscious repentance and belief in Jesus really is the only way to God, that author/pastor John Piper has written a book on the topic. Last week The Gospel Coalition posted a review, which I’ll excerpt here. Based on Scripture alone — not hopes, emotional appeals, or definitions of Biblical terms and themes based not on Scripture but outside sources — it’s wrong to claim anyone is saved without a conscious repentance and faith in Christ.

Is conscious faith in Christ necessary for salvation? According to Piper, it is. His argument comes in four parts. First (chapter four), Christ’s first coming triggered a shift in the history of salvation. The “mystery of Christ” has been revealed,  (Rom 16:25-27; Eph 3:4-10). The “times of ignorance” are past, and God now calls all peoples to turn to him (Acts 17:30-31). Jesus “is now openly installed and declared as Judge, and he alone can receive the appeals for acquittal” (76).

Second (chapter five), the case of Cornelius (Acts 10) shows that true God-seekers still need the gospel. Cornelius was not saved apart from the gospel. He was saved through it.

Third (chapter six), the apostolic message was that men are saved by Jesus’ name (Acts 4:12; Rom 9:30-10:21). Nowhere do we see men saved unaware. All are saved by an explicit confession of Christ. And this comes only through the preaching of Christ.

Fourth (chapter seven), the missionary vision of Paul and John called for repentance and faith of all. Their message was “Repent and believe, and you will be saved.” It was never, “Great news, you’ve already been saved!” They preached the necessity of explicit repentance and faith to both Gentiles (Acts 26:15-18) and Jews (Acts 13:38-52).

As if that Biblically based reasoning wasn’t enough to overthrow “wider mercy,” I’m also still trying to figure out why “wider mercy” proponents seem to deny man’s free will. Do they really believe in a God who won’t respect a person’s meaningful choice to go on hating Him?

No one is saved apart from conscious faith in Christ and the Gospel. Jesus died not to show us that God had moved on from all that Law stuff, but to fulfill the Law’s requirements and to make possible a person’s repentance and faith. To imply that all are saved, or will be saved, is a blatant lie, trying to be more “spiritual” than God — and it does not love others.

(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, this 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.)

The book was a light read; and a tough read. It was short, yet seemed to take longer. I agreed with almost all of it, yet often grew frustrated. Its author reinforced truth, yet proved very challenging — and often not for the reasons one might assume.

After hearing about Radical by David Platt for so long, I was finally able to read it myself.

And I meant every word of the seeming paradoxical reactions I described above.

First, what did Platt get right? Much in every way! Radical may not be the first to call Christians to abandon materialistic assumptions (the “American dream,” as Platt references it), but it’s one of the few I’ve read that starts off grounding that call not in moralistic motives, but the Gospel.

Megachurch methods, program-driven pragmatism, topical sermons about how to Live Better, and pray-this-prayer-and-be-safe ideas are popular, but weaken the Gospel, Platt often repeats.

If we have been saved by this amazing God from our just fate under His wrath, Platt asks, why are we not responding out of gratitude to Him? Why do many Christians take God’s blessings as a means to their own end, substituting comfort for God’s call on all believers to take His Gospel into the world to others? And why, Platt asks, do many Christians who claim not to believe all people will be saved (universalism), in practice act as if it’s not necessary to preach the Gospel?

Platt bases his calls to action in solid Scriptural ground: Christian hedonism, not just (as others might say) We Must Build a Better World, or It’s the Right Thing. Those who give all they have to Jesus aren’t just doing their duty. They do so for the sake of Him as their reward:

You know that in the end you are not really giving away anything at all. Instead you are gaining. […] So with joy—with joy!—you sell it all, you abandon it all. Why? Because you have found something worth losing everything else for. [… Jesus] is something—someone—worth losing everything for. And if we walk away from the Jesus of the gospel, we walk away from eternal riches. (page 18)

That’s what I most appreciated about Radical: Platt’s Gospel basis. In many ways, yes, the rest was challenging to my own sin-shrapnel of practical universalism, or lack of care for the poor and those who haven’t heard the Gospel. Yet it was challenging in many other ways — not for anything Platt said, but for some truths and Biblical balance he could have also easily included.

(Tomorrow: might some who encourage “radical” Christianity forget “ministry myopia”?)

(Continued from yesterday’s excerpts from pastor/author Kevin DeYoung’s recent post …)

Earlier this year, DeYoung also went through seven common Scripture passages that are often used to support notions of “social justice” in secular society. He shows how such texts can’t be taken out of the context of God’s redemptive history and used for mere social improvement, and addresses many truths about what Scripture actually does say.

My contention is that these passages say more and less than we think, more about God’s heart for justice than some realize, and less about contemporary “social justice” than many imagine.

And my wish is that DeYoung will sometime adapt this series into a book.

Seven Passages on Social Justice (1)

Isaiah 1: Can we take God’s condemnation of Judah then and apply it to our society now?

Seven Passages on Social Justice (2)

Isaiah 58: Does Scripture support stopping perceive wealth inequities as “social justice”?

Seven Passages on Social Justice (3)

Jeremiah 22: Whom did God critique — Judah’s rulers, or all Judah’s people? If so, what for?

Seven Passages on Social Justice (4)

Matthew 25:31-46: When Jesus describes caring for “the least of these,” who does He mean?

(If you read any of these columns, read this one. It’s the first place I heard it clarified, with Biblical balance yet careful exegesis, that “the least of these” has a more-specific meaning.)

Seven Passages on Social Justice (5)

Amos 5: Back in the Old Testament — who defines real “justice,” God or modern-day activists?

Seven Passages on Social Justice (6)

Micah 6:8: Does Scripture here vaguely endorse improving society, or outline specific injustices?

Seven Passages on Social Justice (7)

Luke 4:16-21: Did Jesus claim He came to Earth to focus on “the materially destitute and the downtrodden […] to bring the year of jubilee to the oppressed […] to transform social structures and bring God’s creation back to shalom” (as opposed to that whole dying-on-the-Cross business)? Or did He mean something else here: not helping the downtrodden achieve justice in this world, but sinners to awake from their spiritual death and delight in Himself?

(Imagine fuzzy, crackling black-and-white fast-motion footage over the following process …)

1. Hosts of professing Christians get comfortable with their easy lives, satisfied with blessings and any benefits obtained from a stable country, and lifestyle, based on some Biblical truth.
2. The next generation of professing Christians, likely the children of the above generation, gets sick of the whole easy-living Christianity and its lack of emphasis on caring for the poor and destitute. Christ came to bring Social Justice! is their cry, and they talk a lot about this.
3. In reaction to them, more Christians get sick of that and dismiss Social Justice as just a bunch of liberal talk. For Gospel-driven reasons or not, they don’t help the poor and so on.
4. All sides get together, on the internet and sometimes even in person, and yell at each other.
5. People from either sides switch to either more “liberal” or “conservative” views. Each “side” has children, or other protégés, to teach their views.
6. (Repeat as many times as desired.)

Which of the two “sides” — or an overlapping viewpoint — do you fall?

Scripture doesn’t let Christians get away with either extreme view. Neither does pastor and author Kevin DeYoung, who last week concluded an ad-hoc series to encourage Christians not to fall off into one ditch or the other. Don’t base your view on what the Other Side is or isn’t saying or doing, DeYoung cautions. Instead, we must have Biblical balance:

#1: Don’t Undersell What the Bible Says About the Poor and Social Justice

In recent years there’s been so much talk about the poor and social justice that some conservative Christians, especially if that conservatism is political as well as theological, are tempted to tune out any time a well-intentioned evangelical chastises the church for neglecting “the least of these.”

[…] But there actually is a lot in the Bible about the poor, even more if you expand the category to include wealth, money, possessions, and justice.

[…] Because we have been given grace in Christ, we ought to extend grace to others in his name. Tim Keller is right: ministering to the poor is a crucial sign that we actually believe the gospel.¹

But now, for those closer to the the-church-hasn’t-done-enough-for-the-poor side of things:

#2: Don’t Oversell What the Bible Says About the Poor and Social Justice

Just as some Christians are in danger of over-reacting against social justice, other Christians, in an effort be prophetic, run the risk of making the Bible say more about the poor and social justice than it actually does.

[…] Some Christians talk […] as if the story from Genesis to Revelation is largely the story of God taking the side of the poor in an effort to raise the minimum wage and provide universal health care. As we tried to show earlier, the biblical narrative is chiefly concerned with how a holy God can dwell with an unholy people.[1.]

Moreover, the Bible’s references to “poor” are most often about those righteous people, God’s people, who are humble and waiting on Him, and may or may not be economically poor. Scripture encourages Church members to take care of their own poor first, DeYoung notes. After that comes seeking justice in the world — though knowing that only Jesus brings justice.

(Tomorrow: links to more resources from DeYoung. Social-justice myths are certainly not new.)

(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.