Personal evangelists, in their zeal to see people converted, make promises to the evangelized that leave the wrong impression. “If you follow Christ, you will know a life of joy and peace.” They’re not wrong, but they’re not telling the entire story, which can leave new converts disillusioned with the faith. The Christian life is one of joy and peace. Joy, however, comes through sorrow and suffering, and peace is experienced amid problems and persecution. So says Jesus at the end of his Farewell-For-Now Address in John 16:16-33.

The cross is a few hours away. Joy lies on the other side of the cross (Heb 12:2), but joy is on the other side of the cross. The cross must be endured. The new creation is on the horizon, but it will come through labor pains. As the woman was promised after the fall that she would give birth through pain to the seed-son who would crush the serpent’s head, so the old creation will give birth to the new creation through sorrow and suffering (Gen 3:16; Jn 16:21). Jesus must endure suffering so that the new creation can be born.

Though Jesus is speaking of his imminent crucifixion and subsequent resurrection, he is also explaining how God has and continues to bring about new creation: death and resurrection. The world and everything in it moves from glory to glory through death and resurrection. Jesus’ death and resurrection is the apex of that movement, but the whole world, and especially his disciples, follow that pattern. Jesus tells his disciples, “In the world, you will have tribulation” (Jn 16:33). There is no birth of new life without the labor pains. There is no glory without suffering (cf. Rom 8:17).

However, just as with a woman in labor, the suffering is purposeful and short-lived. The purpose of the woman’s labor is not suffering for suffering’s sake. Rather, her suffering is needed to bring life into the world. Though a woman in labor may feel that labor is interminable as she endures it, the pain is relatively short-lived. The joy on the other side of that labor is so great that she practically forgets it, even to the point of wanting to endure it all again to have another child (Jn 16:21). The suffering cannot be compared to the glory (cf. Rom 8:18).

Joy is at the end of sorrow, and peace is experienced amid tribulation (Jn 16:33). Jesus doesn’t promise the peace of escape. He promises that because of our hope in God’s promises, we will experience a tranquility that will guard our hearts and minds even in the most anxious of times (Phil 4:6-7). We know the peace of God because we know that Jesus has overcome the world. He hasn’t merely subdued the world or is now holding the world at bay. He overcame the world in his cross and resurrection. He defeated the world’s greatest power: death. There is absolutely nothing that the world can do to defeat us, even if they kill us.

This All Saints’ Sunday, we commemorate our fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters who know joy at the end of sorrow and peace through tribulation. Many of them kept the faith though the world threatened and eventually killed them. Others lived faithfully throughout their entire lives, moving from glory to glory through sorrow, pain, and suffering, and now enjoy their rest. Jesus’ words and their examples call and encourage us to follow them in the faith so that we might join their joy and peace and be worthy examples for those who come after us.

Introduction

The wreckage of evangelicalism is easy to spot. Fog machine spirituality. Revolt against confessionalism. Hyper-subjectivity. Truce with Sigmund Freud. Friends with Russell Moore. Degradation of obedience as legalism and sacraments as meaningless. Feminism so entrenched that it now passes for common theology. Forced diversity. Institutional gatekeepers that double as sanguinary tyrants. A movement that boasts of gospel-centeredness while neglecting the gospel of fuller consequence.

When left with such unprofitable chicanery—such thinness—it’s easy to understand why professing Christians are pining for more, wishing to see evangelicalism deposed. Some race to the Eastern Orthodox Church or the Roman Catholic Church, hoping that a new system of authority will compose a new nature, education, and habit of life. Others race in the opposite direction and adopt an anti-institutional bias, a full-on embrace of autonomy, insisting that no name, no power, no function, and no artificial institution has more virtue and wisdom than the sovereign self.

Still others drift into something different, a substance and mass that together constitutes a sub-Christianity. What is this? Sub-Christianity is a desertion of the real thing, while maintaining the label. It is to melt certain beliefs and practices into something new, at once a reactionary and liberalized “Christian” life. It is to invest with great power and authority certain habits that bastardize Christianity into a lesser version of the real thing.

Consider three mores that professing Christians openly practice and call Christian, but scripture energetically contradicts.

Three practices of sub-Christianity.

First, pray to AI instead of God

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as praying to a machine. But there is such a thing as idolatry, namely, when a person parks a created thing into the temple of sublime exaltation. With Artificial Intelligence (AI), there is the irresistible pull to seek its help, and, in turn, forget to seek God’s help. So, if a child is sick, the parents go to AI for answers forgetting prayer to the Great Physician.

It’s important to understand how this happens and what’s the result.

How does this happen? Human nature craves assistance from a higher, mysterious, and unseen being. This is God’s design that leads his image bearers to pray and worship the Creator (Ps. 149:5). But, due to the sin nature, people have a tendency to create approximations—i.e., idols—that are more responsive on human terms (Ps. 97:7). These half-creations appear to have some characteristics of the divine, but they also do away with the characteristics people don’t like. So, gone is the waiting and the need for patient persistence in prayer (Lk. 18:1-8). Gone is the difficult answer and the need for humble submission (Job 40:2-5). Gone is the painful reform of reordering loves in confessional repentance (Acts 9:10-19). Now, when an immediate answer is needed, it is received. No need to bother God about that one.

What is the result of asking AI for support while ignoring God? To worship the wrong thing is to become the wrong thing (Ps. 115:4-8; 135:15-18). If you worship a chatbot, then you will trust the algorithm and grow deaf to the Word of God. If in everything, by prayer and supplication, you let your requests known to Grok, then the machine will guard your heart and mind (Phil. 4:6-7). If you give thanksgiving to an avatar, then you will become futile in your thinking and your foolish hearts are darkened (Rom. 1:21). If Claude’s thoughts are your thoughts, then Anthropic’s invisible attributes and power are perceived (Rom. 1:20).

If you pray to AI instead of the living God, what have you done? You’ve exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man (Rom. 1:23). On the surface, facts merely appeared in order like a procession marshalled by an omniscient herald. But what have you become? Someone possessed materially, but not spiritually. You know more about the sickness, and there is no harm on that front. But you’ve forgotten that you need the Resurrected Man to heal a sick child.

Second, pursue lust rather than resist

Even though Scripture clearly and repeatedly forbids sexual activity outside of marriage, and lusting after someone not your spouse (Col. 3:5), evangelicals think they can safely ignore such prohibitions. Church members, married and unmarried alike, use porn. Divorce fills the church. And young people create a church-based hook-up culture.

Evangelicals today think that personal, sexual morality is of minor moral significance. Why do they think this? They think that what they do with their bodies is personal and private. No one will get hurt, they mistakenly believe, and no one will find out. If it is sin at all, it’s just a minor sin with minor consequences. Shouldn’t we focus on issues with real consequences, like the Joos and the libs?

But this is a sub-Christian way of thinking. God’s word says the consequences of living in sexual sin are not minor. “On account of these things the wrath of God is coming” (Col. 3:6). There is no bigger consequence than living in sexual sin with no resistance to the flesh.

The Apostle John said, “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. ⁹ No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:8-9).

The Apostle Paul said, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, ¹⁰ nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10).

Just like praying to AI instead of God is less than Christianity, so too giving into lust without a fight is less than Christianity.

Third, rage instead of peace
The tendency in the church today is to let red pill rage rule the heart. And then, once you’ve worked up a fervor of outrage, you insist this response is “masculinity.” Christians increasingly respond to the insanity of the Left by taking, what they think are, red pills that help them see the world for what it really is. They see that society has lied about feminism and fatherlessness. They see God’s good design has been smothered by unstoppable forces. They see the gross injustice of the system. And then, they let the intense anger of outrage fill them.

The problem is that while some red pills help you see the world for what it is, some are laced with poison. The poison pills make people think they are seeing what’s true. But, it’s put into an untrue frame, or it’s organized into an untrue system, or true facts are presented with an untrue disposition.

The Colossian church lived in a society of lies too. Paul tells them to put off wrath (Col. 3:8) and put on the peace of Christ (Col. 3:15). Christians must not allow the root of bitterness or hatred toward others fester in their hearts. The peace of Christ must rule their hearts. Jesus said in John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.”

The peace of Christ is other-worldly because it is eternal salvation. Second Thessalonians 3:16 calls Christ the Lord of Peace. The new man, the Christian person, lives in the sphere of gospel peace. The peace of Christ holds sway over the new creation, over the whole of the new man, such that letting wrath rule your heart is less than Christianity.

Conclusion

Unless your righteousness exceeds that of sub-Christianity, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Christ told the Pharisees it’s a bad bargain to trade in utter falsehoods. They made the temple of God unrecognizable. The worship of God became a colossal combination of self-importance, hypocrisy, and greed. Jesus said to them, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in” (Mt. 23:13).

Sub-Christianity hides behind the colorable pretext that the success of the modern church depends on creating an atmosphere, manufacturing a mentality, and assuming a point of view that is virile enough to survive the unique threats of the current moment. But, when praying to idols, sleeping with prostitutes, and raging against enemies are passed off as Christianity, it suggests an enemy has tunneled underneath our stronghold, snuck into the cathedral, and replaced devotion with counterfeits. As Shakespeare put in in the Merchant of Venice, “There is no vice so simple but assumes/Some mark of virtue on his outward parts/How many cowards, whose hearts are all false/As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins.” We must call these things what they really are, a false religion of farce and folly, a destroyer of church and country, an enemy of truth and liberty.

^{Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.}

Remember when?... Memory is a wonderful gift from God. The whole Bible is full of “memories” we call “history.” Throughout Scripture, we hear of God’s mighty acts in creation and redemption. We are called to remember what he has done for his people through the ages, not merely as a mental exercise, but to learn of the character of God and how he acts for his people and against his enemies. We remember so that we may know God and know how he will act in the future.

As with all gifts of God, memory can be sinfully twisted. I’m not talking here of distorting history, though that is certainly sinful. Memory can be sinfully distorted by a nostalgia that keeps us stuck in the past. We long for what we had (or think we had) in former days. “Remember all the good times we had in Egypt, where we had all the fish we wanted to eat, cucumbers, melons, leeks, and garlic?” (Num 11:5). Nostalgia can kill. You don’t want to let go. You live quixotically in the past, refusing to suffer loss and move forward. Nostalgia becomes your casket.

When Jesus told his disciples he was going away, he gently rebuked them for letting sorrow fill their hearts (Jn 16:6). I say gentle because their grief was understandable, especially given the less-than-happy circumstances of his departure through his disciples’ betrayal and denials. For sorrow to fill their heart meant that they were so overcome with grief at Jesus’ departure that they lost perspective on the advantages that they would gain (Jn 16:7). They wanted everything to remain as it was. They didn’t understand that losing their present lives would give them greater life in the future. It was time for them to grow up and take on the responsibilities for which he had been preparing them. That would mean loss, but it was time to put away childish things and become an adult (1 Cor 13:11). They would never forget Jesus’ ministry. That’s why we have the four Gospels. But they must move on to complete the mission, which will mean Jesus’ absence.

There are some things you can’t hold on to forever. Maturity means loss. Many times we desire to hold on to things so badly that we insist we can still squeeze into the clothes we loved when we were eight years old. But you’re twenty-five now. It’s time to take the clothes to Goodwill.

Not letting go, not suffering loss, will stifle your growth, keeping you in a perpetual state of immaturity, frustration, and bitterness. You can’t live in the past. God’s world is always moving forward through death and resurrection. Memories are precious, but they are past. Though we may legitimately grieve loss, we must also keep it in perspective. Yes, we lost this, but we gain so much more.

As I alluded to, desiring to remain in a past stage of life isn’t healthy. Furthermore, Jesus won’t allow it. He was going away whether the disciples came to grips with it or not. Jesus will move everything forward. He will take away your “childish” things. You have two choices: 1) You can kick and scream and become bitter, refusing to move forward, or 2) you can joyfully embrace the loss and focus on the new opportunities and responsibilities Jesus is giving you. Jesus’ disciples were in danger of choosing the former option. Jesus leads them to embrace the latter.

Change isn’t easy. Watching children grow and leave, marriage, new jobs, and new opportunities always present challenges. Sometimes we just want to go back to the “simpler days.” Those were happier times. If you try to live there in your mind, it will be your death. Don’t hold on too tightly to the things that will keep you stuck and eventually bitter. Jesus will make you let go of them one way or another because it’s for your good. Submit to the changes. Rejoice in past graces. Build upon them. But move forward.

Introduction

There is one thread tying together the greatest evils of American paganism, a fashionable and flaming war on human beings as human beings. No longer is man made in the image of God with dignity and worth. No longer is man the prize of creation as body and soul. No longer is man an embodied being of essence preceding existence, fashioned by a Maker with a Nature making humans with a nature.

The noble reality of spirit and body; mind and brain, and the corresponding necessity for respect and rank, is under attack. So, a pregnant woman is afflicted with a “medical condition” that can be terminated. A vulnerable teenager is goaded into gender fluidity while doctor’s profit. Each is the same lie of autonomy concealed under the protective cover of “Progress!” So-called “progress” turns out to be the reduction of human nature into a self-chosen identity of amorphous abstraction that wrecks embodiment, suppresses the truth, and yells on X.

And so all around us is a secular culture that rests on lust rather than restraint, perversion rather than beauty, scientism rather than Creator, child sacrifice rather than “women and children first,” physical mutilation rather than biological realism, euthanasia rather than caring for the weak, self-promotion rather than generosity, “social justice” rather than justice, immodest dress rather than decorum, rudeness rather than courtesy, public assassination rather than debate, ALL CAPS rather than gentleness of speech, mother murderers rather than nurturers, TikTok at 1.25 speed rather than the inner dispositions of the soul, Andres Serrano rather than Rembrandt, Sexyy Red rather than Bach, individual rather than the household, suppression of speech rather than exchange of ideas, prodigious lies rather than curiosity about the truth, self-assertion rather than love.

Let’s take a closer look at two occurrences that demonstrate the claptrap of modern life, and what it does to human beings.

First, Lame Apologies

Imagine Dylan, an executive at a national corporation that is riding high on self-indulgence and promotions. There he is, climbing the corporate ladder, selling his soul to his boss, per company policy. But then, one day an internet sleuther uncovers some iffy tweets from a decade ago. Pictures of racially insensitive Halloween costumes, posts about how Colin Kapernick was no hero, and Dylan liking a message that expressed grief at the death of Rush Limbaugh. Some truly outrageous stuff, it is.

In the course of these operations, at length comes out that the actions, tweets, likes, and costumes don’t reflect Dylan’s “core values.” Renewed resolutions are laid down insisting that he is “learning” and that his hands are now habituated to all thing’s inclusion. Really, they are. So, obviously, whoever was offended misunderstood. Dylan’s been taken out of context and misrepresented, so all should be stimulated to a settlement of ‘forgive and forget.’ These actions were a long time ago and not a reflection of Dylan’s up-to-date motives, which remain in unassailable support of ‘women’s reproductive freedom.’

When the apology is over and the news cycle switched over, the “offended” begin searching anew for the next person to bring into submission to the death works of secular ideology. Mere onlookers are left with the empty feeling that to agree with the ‘apology’ is to participate in the fraud. Yet, since everyone else is nodding along without resistance, they find themselves doing the same.

This is a lame apology for at least two reasons. First, while it assumes right and wrong, Dylan’s got them in the very reverse of God’s judgment. He is apologizing for things that merit no apology. The prophet Isaiah might interject, “Woe unto them that speak good of evil, and evil of good, which put darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for sour” (Is. 5:20). Second, Dylan’s apology is as sincere as his desire to keep his paycheck. It’s not rooted in a standard higher than his standard of living, which is coercion of the spineless variety. One’s left wondering how much pandering is needed to qualify as “apology.”

In contrast to the lame apologies of secular society stands Christian’s apology in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. Christian offers a sincere apology to his friend Hopeful after leading him off the straight path. Christian says, “Good brother, be not offended; I am sorry I have brought thee out of the way, and that I have put thee into such imminent danger. Pray, my brother, forgive me; I did not do it of an evil intent.” Hopeful responds, “Be comforted, my brother, for I forgive thee; and believe, too, that this shall be for our good.”

This is a proper apology for at least two reasons. First, Christian is apologizing about the right thing. He did wrong leading Hopeful off the path. This put the pilgrim’s in mortal peril. Christian did wrong and apologized for his sin. Second, Christian’s apology is not a half-baked sincerity to the effect that there is nothing real. There is no play-acting. It is earnest and in submission to the divine standard.

Second, Forced Diversity

Diversity is the goal of secular society. This is the movement that tears down America and builds up other civilizations. It is called multiculturalism. People of a different time would have seen plainly that you cannot teach people to respect other cultures by teaching them to despise their own. Nevertheless, in the secular ethos, diversity is pursued with unmatched vigor, which leads to diversity officers twisting themselves into a pretzel, as in the recent Stanford photoshop scandal.

If you missed it, Stanford University used artificial intelligence to alter a photo of three students, whose appearance and ethnicity were changed to reflect more diversity. The original photo was taken in the Stanford dining hall. But then it was altered using AI before being used in promotional material.

What’s odd about this story is that Stanford already has a diverse student body that was reflected in the original photo. A Hispanic student was replaced with an AI-generated Black female, presumably because the Hispanic person was not deemed “diverse” enough. Others in the photo were edited to be more attractive.

Stanford has been met in their “progress” with opposition. But it will soon fade away because their heart was in the right place, pursuing the “core value” of diversity.

In truth, even a place like Stanford, which has students from sixty different countries, is among the least diverse places in the United States, as confessional Christians and political conservatives are made to feel very uncomfortable. And heaven help the poor student who volunteers at the local pro-life ministry. In elite American life, diversity stands for the philosophy of those who claim to be tolerant long after their tolerance was proven hypocritical.

Conclusion

The fakeness of the secular “values” leaves one with a nihilistic aftertaste. In contrast to forced diversity standards, the church is the one place that brings together people of different backgrounds based on something real. Diversity, which is self-righteously claimed by the revolutionaries, is in fact owned exclusively by the church. Christ’s death and resurrection creates a system of morals, metaphysics, and meaning that is incomprehensible for those that are committed to the broken shards of identity politics.

Atop God’s New Society is King Jesus, the Great Reconciler and Peacemaker, who has made a church by death and resurrection; blood and sacrament; love and life. Because of the love of Christ, divisive sins are abolished. In Colossians 3:11, Paul mentions various barriers that divide people. There are ethnic barriers (“Greek and Jew”). But in Christ, Jews and Gentiles are part of the church together. There are cultural barriers (“Barbarians, Scythian”). But in Christ, people of different cultures are part of the church together. There are social barriers (“Slave and free”). But in Christ, people of different social status are part of the church together. By faith in Christ, sins are forgiven and crushed. And, when two people, previously divided, are baptized into the body of Christ, they are bound together in Christ.

Nothing needs to be forced or faked. People of different colors don’t have to be bussed across town so that every church meets the “diversity” quota. Every congregation doesn’t have to look like a Crayola box. In the New Covenant of Christ’s blood, God saves those of different ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds, and this fulfillment is found in the Church Universal, which makes mandated diversity in the local church, just as empty as the mandated diversity in secular society.

_{Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.}

Once upon a time in first-century Israel, ten virgin young ladies were excited about attending a wedding. They didn’t know exactly when the bridegroom would come, so they had to make adequate preparations while they waited. Five of these young ladies wisely worked diligently to prepare for any length of time that the bridegroom would delay. Whenever he came, they would be ready to go into the wedding feast. The other five young ladies foolishly didn’t work diligently but assumed everything would work itself out.

As the time of absence of the bridegroom lengthened, the inadequate preparation of the five foolish young ladies became evident. They were running out of supplies. They asked the five wise young ladies to share what they had. The five wise young ladies told them that their foolish lack of preparation put no obligation upon them to give what they had collected in their wisdom. The foolish five needed to go to the market to restock.

The five foolish ladies were irate. They accused the five wise young ladies of being the beneficiaries of “wise privilege.” They only had proper supplies because they were in this wisdom-foolish system constructed by “their kind” in order to privilege themselves through the oppression of others. They were hoarding all the wealth and were probably responsible for the foolish virgins’ lack of boyfriends. Those who are wise shouldn’t have more than those who are foolish. The foolish are entitled to just as much as the wise.

After declaring their oppression, rioting, and fomenting guilt among those who had been the beneficiaries of wise work, they convinced the “wise-privileged” in power to give them what they wanted despite their foolishness. Because people accepted the guilt and gave the fools what they wanted, they subsidized even more foolishness and ensconced a sense of entitlement in the fools. Eventually, after everything was consumed, no one had anything because every person believed that foolishness was more profitable and easier than wisdom.

This retelling of Jesus’ parable illustrates the foolish sloth. Twice in Proverbs, when he is called to work, he responds, “There is a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets!” (Pr 22:13; 26:13). This is not only a silly excuse (lions were no more prevalent in the streets in ancient Israel than they are in any city of America); it is an excuse that seeks to turn the tables on the one calling the sloth to work. The sloth has an irrational fear of the dangers of his responsibilities for dominion, and his tone becomes accusatory to those who call him on it. “What are you trying to do? Get me killed? It’s dangerous out there!” They turn the wise into villains who care nothing about people in general or this person in particular. They seek to engender empathy from others about the real threats that they face out there. “How dare you encourage me to work on my marriage/work hard at my job/train the children/!... Don’t you know that this is not good for my mental health? My therapist told me to avoid anything that might cause me stress; anything that triggers anxiety, and here you are telling me to walk headlong into stress. You obviously don’t love me. If you loved me, then you wouldn’t press me like this. You’re trying to kill me!”

The sad truth is that many times this turning-of-the-tables-guilt-manipulation works on us. “No, no. I love you. You’re right. I shouldn’t be asking you to do these things. Your friendship is valuable to me, and I don’t want to lose it.” The sloth finds validation in those unwilling to call him to own his responsibilities. When he gets this validation, he will continue to manipulate the gullible, who will then affirmingly hold his hand all the way to hell.

We must see through the excuse-making and blame-shifting in our own lives and the lives of others and own our responsibilities. Owning our responsibilities means that we must first define our responsibilities. We must know for what or to whom we are responsible. Those places are where we have authority. God doesn’t give responsibility where he doesn’t also give authority. He’s not going to hold you responsible for something you have no power to control.

Once responsibilities have been defined and you know where you are obligated, then you need to fully own the responsibility. This means that you embrace it, learn to love it, work hard at it, and accept the consequences of your decisions, good or bad, no excuse-making, no blame-shifting. If things go wrong, you own it. You back up, evaluate, and learn. Could you have prepared better? What kind of training or correction needs to take place for me or the people I am overseeing to accomplish my responsibilities?

The fool is always trying to justify himself when he doesn’t do what he is supposed to do by blaming circumstances, others, and even potential problems. “My porn problem is due to the easy accessibility of it on the internet.” “My not attending worship regularly is because it is at a bad time. The elders should change it for me.” “I can’t drive to work because of the potential of a sinkhole.” (”There is a lion in the streets!”) On and on it goes; excuse after excuse. Seven wise men can refute everything sensibly, but the sloth is wiser in his own eyes than all of them (Pr 26:13).

Wisdom works. Wisdom is open to counsel from others. Wisdom doesn’t avoid responsibility through flimsy excuses and self-justifying blame-shifting. Wisdom owns it.

Guest Post: Mark Jones

Our church is swimming with babies right now. Most of our parents with young children are paedobaptists, but some are still anti-paedobaptists. Nonetheless, we welcome them as members and not only love them but love how they love and raise their children, even if they are inconsistent.

The question of paedobaptism sometimes goes astray when certain interpretative features move to the forefront, such as household baptisms or what Peter meant in Acts 2:39. These are not unimportant topics, but the strongest argument for paedobaptism for me is “the impossibility of the contrary.”

I visited Australia last year and spoke at a delightful Baptist church’s family conference. Not a few of the members, knowing I was Presbyterian, inquired about why I baptize babies. I focused on one line of argument, namely: I wouldn’t know how to raise my children if they weren’t baptized.

Here is what I mean.

Suppose on Sunday I see little Johnny (4 years old) and little Richie (4 years old) playing with a ball outside on the grass after church. And little Johnny pushes little Richie down in anger because Richie is too good with the ball and so Johnny can’t get near him. Johnny’s frustration turns to sin and he breaks the 6^th commandment towards Richie (see WLC 136).

Scenario: Johnny’s parents are paedobaptists; Richie’s parents are Baptists.

Johnny’s parents ask him if he was nasty towards Richie and, with tears in his eyes, he says, “Yes, I pushed him down because I couldn’t get the ball.” They then say to Johnny, “you need to ask for forgiveness from Richie.” Johnny says to Richie, “please forgive me.” Richie says, “it’s okay, I forgive you.”

Then there is prayer. God is invoked – the God who forgives sinners. Johnny prays to God, “please forgive me for pushing Richie.”

Here’s the question: has Johnny been forgiven the pain caused to Richie or has he also been forgiven his guilt before God?

Can we say to Johnny, you are forgiven by Richie and, more importantly, God?

Because, as I see it, if you are going to offer the greater to Johnny (i.e., forgiveness from above), how can he not also receive the visible sign of that forgiveness (i.e., baptism)? As a baptized individual, Johnny is living out the reality of his baptism when he calls upon God for forgiveness in particular circumstances.

Christian parents seem willing to grant forgiveness to their repentant children, but the question must be asked, is this granting of forgiveness consistent with our theology of children.

In the scenario highlighted above, what if the roles were reversed and the “Baptist” child asked for forgiveness from God as well as from his friend? What if the “Baptist” child prayed for forgiveness? Can an anti-paedobaptist parent assure Richie that his sin has been forgiven by God but also withhold the visible sign of that reality? Can you offer the greater and withhold the lesser?

For paedobaptists, we raise our children in a way that our theology allows us to give them assurance that their sins are forgiven when they repent before God. There’s a consistency with their identity (children of God) and their practise (repentance & forgiveness).

When Johnny continues to play outside, he does not have the cloud of guilt hanging over his head because his repentance can’t be proven to be genuine till he’s older.

To witness a child ask for forgiveness but not offer them forgiveness is impossible (and cruel). Paedobaptism rests on the impossibility of the contrary: we would have no idea how to raise our children if we could not offer them God’s forgiveness after sinning. We are not Reformed agnostics.

For a Baptist family to tell their child they are forgiven, but to also say you cannot have the sign of that forgiveness is a major inconsistency. You are offering the reality but not the thing signified by the reality. In a certain sense, you are elevating the sign to something greater than what is signified.

Or, perhaps you are consistent: little Richie sins against Johnny and you can only hope for the pain of Johnny’s sin to be forgiven, but you are in no position to tell Richie that God forgives him for the guilt of his sin….not until he’s older…because, after all, the kingdom of God belongs to older people who can prove their faith is real.

In the end, the debate over whether the children of believers should be baptized gets to the most fundamental part of our lives: can a child live before God knowing that their sins are forgiven or do they live in a realm of uncertainty for an extended period of time, a sort of Reformed purgatory?

The next time a 4-year-old sins, think about whether your response and their response make sense for a pagan, which basically amounts to this:

“Daddy, am I forgiven?”

“Yes, all who ask will receive.”

“Then why don’t I have the sign of that forgiveness?”

“Because we can’t be sure of the genuineness of your faith and repentance yet.”

Do you know what the world hates? I mean, really hates? Love. Genuine love. That’s right. All their protestations aside, all their singing about what the world needs now is love, sweet love, all their desires to buy the world a Coke and teach it to sing in harmony, when they are confronted with genuine love, they hate it. They believe they love. Love is love, no matter who or what you love. Love doesn’t discriminate. Love consumes whatever it desires. They do love, but their loves are disordered. They love death and all that destroys. When they come face-to-face with genuine love, it must be eliminated.

In his Farewell-For-Now Address, Jesus told his disciples of the love he and the Father had for them and commanded them to abide in his love. Abiding in this love will mean that they will love one another in a way that produces a fullness of joy (Jn 15:9-17). This joyful, loving community will have strong families, with husbands and wives being faithful to one another in well-ordered homes. People whose lives have been devastated by sin will find a place of redemption and restoration. These people will live quiet, peaceful, productive lives, doing good for their surrounding communities. If Jesus’ disciples do all this, surely the world will welcome them with open arms.

Not so. Jesus follows up everything he says about his disciples forming a loving community by telling them of the stark reality that the world will hate them. “The world,” in this context, is God’s created order under the control of sin and Satan, who was the ruler of the world before Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension (cf. Jn 16:11). The hate of which Jesus speaks is the enmity God set between the woman and the serpent, between her seed and his seed immediately following the fall (Gen 3:14-15).

The God-ordained enmity placed between the woman and the serpent and her seed and his seed reveals two fundamentally different ways of seeing and ordering the world. Our mere existence as a loving community loyal to Christ is a threat to them. The two can never be reconciled. One must be defeated. Jesus and his disciples are the woman’s seed and, therefore, hated by the serpent and his seed. At times, the hatred is highly emotional and expressive. We see it in the verbal and physical abuse of the enemies of Christ’s church, whether the protests of the deviants in our country or the persecution of Christians in other countries. But hatred need not be highly charged. It may simply be settled opposition that is quite civil. But make no mistake, whether loud, obnoxious, and violent or polite and courteous, the enmity is there. They are the enemy. We are to love our enemies, but part of loving our enemies is recognizing that they are, indeed, enemies.

We must be careful to draw the antithesis in the right place. The line is not between Jews and Gentiles, whites and blacks, Europeans and Asians, or any other such ethnic division. There are people on both sides of the antithesis in every one of these groups. The antithesis is drawn between those loyal to Christ and his enemies. Don’t draw the line in the wrong place.

Jesus didn’t tell his disciples these things to discourage them but to prepare them (16:1). Don’t be surprised or discouraged when the world hates you. They hated Jesus. They will hate you. This enmity will exist until our mission is complete and Satan is fully crushed under our feet (Rom 16:20). If the world hates you, you might just be doing something right.

In the beginning, God gave the man and woman the blessing and command to be fruitful and multiply, filling the earth. In this language, God established a correlation between men and plants. Just as plants had seeds in themselves and could reproduce, so men had seed and could reproduce. From the beginning, the man was a farmer, not merely a tiller of the soil (though he was that), but a gardener of children. Seed is planted in the womb of the mother, cultivated, and grows.

Once born, the process continues. They are plants. Psalm 128 says that they are olive shoots. Fathers and mothers are gardeners, given the responsibility to cultivate these plants so that they can be fruitful.

As Jesus tells us in John 12, unless a seed falls into the earth and dies, it cannot bring forth fruit. This was the original process, but it was intensified by sin. Because of sin, death was final. The seed would remain in the earth, dead. However, Jesus came and restored the process so that the seed would rise again to life and produce fruit. The seed must be buried in him; the seed must die in Christ.

Today, that is what is occurring with this child. He is a seed being buried and watered in Christ so that he can live and bear fruit. Parents, God has given this little seedling to you to cultivate. God has provided the water here today, and you must continue to feed him through loving discipline and instruction so that he may grow in the faith and be fruitful. Your son’s baptism is your call to be faithful gardeners.

Church, let us come alongside Drew and Elizabeth and provide them all that we can to help them fulfill their task.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

“Trust and obey / for there’s no other way / to be happy in Jesus / but to trust and obey.” The refrain of the hymn Trust and Obey is simple, but truth sometimes is. This refrain reflects the words of Jesus in John 15:9-11, “As the Father loved me, I also have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” To abide in the love of Jesus and to know his joy, you must trust and obey.

These words rub evangelicals the wrong way. It sounds as if we are meriting God’s love. “Is Jesus telling us that abiding in his love is a works-based, meritorious abiding? Do we earn God’s love through our obedience?” The short answer to that is, “No,” but I will explain.

Keeping God’s commandments is not, nor ever has been, a matter of legalistic merit. God has never set up a system whereby we earn enough points to merit his love. This was not true before the fall or after. Keeping commandments is a matter of trust.

Consider the children of Israel after God delivered them from Egypt through the Sea. God promised to provide their daily bread. He had some commandments: collect manna each morning for six days; don’t keep it until the next morning; and collect double the amount on the sixth day because it will not be there on the seventh day. Simple enough. What did they do? They kept the manna until the next morning so that it bred worms, and they went out on the morning of the seventh day to collect manna. Why did they disobey God’s commands? You might say, “They had rebellious hearts.” True, but their rebellion was rooted in a fundamental lack of trust that God would provide for them as he said he would.

When we don’t obey authority, it reveals our fundamental lack of trust in the authority. He is trying to take something away from me. He is trying to make me unhappy. He is trying to hurt me or kill me. When a child disobeys a parent, the child is thinking (in part) that the parent is trying to keep him from having fun or keep something away from him that will help him. When a wife refuses to follow her husband, she is saying that he is incompetent, unable, lacks character, lacks knowledge, and/or lacks love for her, not having her best interests at heart. The same is true in relation to church and civil leadership. Sometimes there might be legitimate reasons not to trust leadership, but the fundamental principle remains: we don’t keep commandments because we don’t trust the authority, his knowledge, his ability, and/or his care for us. He is in it for himself and is only trying to oppress me for his purposes.

If we were to know that someone had infinite knowledge and wisdom, knowing us and our purpose thoroughly, knowing every possible outcome to every situation, and knowing the best course of action, and we knew that this person loved us beyond comprehension, only and always wanting what was best for us, it would stand to reason that we would obey his commandments even when we didn’t understand everything. He understands and cares for us. He wants what is best for us. We can trust him.

Obedience is not a matter of legalism but love. You can’t earn God’s love through works. God calls you to faith, an allegiance to him borne out of love for him, relying on his knowledge and love.

Abide in the love of God. Trust and obey.

Have you ever considered that other people might not be the problem, but your expectations are? Granted, we should have reasonable expectations of people in different relationships. I should expect that a bank that holds my money will not steal it. I should expect that other people on the road will obey the laws (or, at least, drive courteously when ignoring speed limits). There are reasonable expectations that we should have of others in our various relationships. When people don’t meet those reasonable expectations, I have two choices: 1) change my relationship with the person, or 2) continue to maintain my expectations even though they never meet them. The first response maintains, “If this is the way you want to be and the decisions you want to make, then I can’t go with you.” Your expectations change for the person and the relationship, and though it may hurt, you change the relationship.

The second response–continuing to maintain your expectations for a person who consistently disappoints–means that you will live in constant frustration or anger. You know what they are doing is foolish, and you want what is best for them. So, you continue to expect that they will come around. However, they consistently do the same things and are unwilling to change. Because you say you care for them, you maintain your expectations and, therefore, live in a constant state of disappointment and anger. Your anger in that situation is not the other person’s fault. He is who he is and does what he does. You can’t control that … and that’s what’s making you angry. You want him to do what you want him to do. You have no control over another person’s decisions, and you hate it. Why do you keep expecting a horse to act like a cat? Adjust your expectations and your relationship to where the person is. Maybe you can’t be as close to the person as you wish, but that’s the other person’s decision. By his actions, he is saying he doesn’t want to be close to you, at least not if he must change his ways to do so. He likes what he is doing more than he wants a close relationship with you. Accept his decision. But you think you can force it somehow. You can’t. Change the nature of the relationship. Why do you want to stay in a state of constant anger concerning someone over whom you have no control?

Expectations constantly frustrate idealists. They keep up with the latest influencers who portray themselves as having it all together. Their families are perfect. Their churches are perfect. Life is wonderful. But your family is messy, and your church is messy. You have an idea of what everything ought to be, and nothing meets your expectations. Welcome to this little thing called reality. No matter where you go, people are messy. I don’t care what is broadcast online; people are sinners, and if you move into that situation, you will be disappointed. It’s “the grass is greener” syndrome. Sure, some of those messes need to be dealt with, but you also need to manage your expectations. Maybe you have an idea in your head of what this other person ought to be and how he ought to relate to you, but he never committed to that; he never even hinted that he was going to do anything that you dreamed he would do. Your disappointment is your fault, not his.

Manage your expectations. Keep them real. Don’t set up demands for people that they never committed to. Let people be who they are. Help them where they want help. Adjust your life accordingly.

What do you think when you hear the phrase, “abide in Christ?” It is common in American evangelicalism to understand this in an almost Buddhistic nirvana-type way … or if you prefer, a 60s burned-out hippie: “You just have to abide, man.” Abiding in Christ is understood as a Zen-like detachment that simply accepts things the way they are and goes with the flow, allowing the Spirit to flow through us like water through an inanimate pipe. Jesus’ teaching about abiding in him is reduced to our inner, individualistic life and is quite passive. Christ is the house, and we are abiding in the recliner.

Abiding in Christ, however, is not a passive relationship in which you “let go and let God.” Jesus commands us to abide in him in John 15:4, which calls for activity. This activity includes having Jesus’ words abide in you (Jn 15:7). Jesus’ words abiding in you is the same as Jesus himself abiding in you (compare Jn 15:5 and 15:7). To have Jesus/Jesus’ words abiding in you means that his words captivate your heart; his words control your mind, will, emotions, affections, and actions. Earlier in his Farewell Address, Jesus told his disciples, “If you love me, keep/guard my commandments” (Jn 14:15). The one who abides in Christ is the one who guards or cherishes Jesus’ commands and, therefore, obeys him. You are only abiding in Christ when the entirety of your life is governed by the words of Jesus. The faithful, fruitful disciple is the one who thinks Jesus’ thoughts after him because his heart is saturated with Jesus’ words.

To have your heart controlled by Jesus’ words, for the word of Christ to dwell in you richly (as Paul says in Colossians 3:16), you must know his word. To know his word, you must hear and meditate on his word. You don’t receive his word by osmosis or some direct revelation. You receive his word by reading it and/or hearing it in and through the Scriptures.

While we have individual responsibilities to abide in Christ, we do not abide in Christ in isolation. Abiding in Christ has a corporate or communal dimension. To be a branch in the True Vine is to be a branch with all the other branches. Abiding in Christ requires remaining in active, peaceful communion with other Christians. Abiding in Christ means living faithfully as an individual with the rest of the members of the church. The call to abide in Christ is for you to be a faithful individual within the church.

You are to actively live with the words of Christ controlling you so that you contribute to the overall life and mission of the church. This goes to the fruit that the Father expects from the branches. The fruit is that which contributes to transforming a chaotic and sinful world into a place of peace under the lordship of Jesus. This fruit is anything and everything about us that participates in Jesus’ mission.

Your inner life is important, but it is not the be-all-and-end-all of the fruit God expects. What the word of Christ produces in and through us is the world God intends. Our thoughts, words, and deeds should aim to create God’s peace in relationships. When the Spirit is operating in our relationships, this is what we see (Gal 5:22-23). When our lives produce this fruit, we know we are truly abiding in the Vine.

Have you ever wondered why the Holy Spirit is called the Holy Spirit? We are to baptize into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19). Why not the “Holy Father” and “Holy Son” as well? Every member of the Trinitarian Family is holy, but rarely is the adjective “holy” attached to the Father and Son. However, it is frequently attached to the Spirit.

The reasons for this are many, and there are some, I’m sure, that I don’t know. But names are not given without purpose. In some of Jesus’ last words to his disciples in John 14, after calling the Spirit the Paraclete, he calls him “the Holy Spirit” (Jn 14:26). Names in Scripture describe someone’s mission. Jesus is named “Jesus,” for example, “because he will save his people from their sins” (Mt 1:21). Jesus means “Yahweh is salvation.” When Jesus calls the Spirit “the Holy Spirit,” he is not only telling us who he is in his Person, but also his mission.

What does it mean to be “holy?” Holiness speaks of purity or integrity. (Unfortunately, people have said that it means “separation” or “otherness,” but that is only in the presence of sin. God is eternally holy. He is holy before the creation of the world and, therefore, before sin and separation or otherness from anything.) Being the Holy Spirit distinguishes God’s Spirit from evil spirits. Evil or unclean spirits in Scripture are agents of chaos, disorder, and death. They are impure and create impure environments. What they are in their persons is revealed in what they do. The Spirit of God, however, is holy in himself, and he creates holy environments. He is pure and creates purity. He is integrous and creates integrity.

We see the Spirit’s holiness in his original creation work. He broods over the formless, void dark waters and brings integrity to them. That which was disordered is ordered in accordance with his character and is declared “good.” He creates right relationships, bringing peace.

When Jesus sends the Holy Spirit, he will create a holy people, which will also be a holy environment. He will create us to be a dwelling place for God, uniting us to the Son in whom the Father dwells. He creates bonds. He does so as the bond of love eternally between the Father and the Son (for he is the Spirit of the Father and the Son). He also binds us to the Father in the Son. He also binds us together as the church (1 Cor 12:12-13). The church is a holy environment, fit for God’s dwelling place.

Because the Spirit unites us to the body of Christ–we are in Christ–we are positionally holy. But he also creates a holy environment for the Father and the Son by making us progressively holy. That is, he changes us over time so we become holy as God is holy; we come to share the integrity of God’s character because of the work of the Spirit.

Holiness emphasizes who he is in his mission. “Spirit” emphasizes his power. While “spirit” does connote his immateriality, Scripture stresses energy and activity. As Sinclair Ferguson notes in his (highly recommended) book, The Holy Spirit, “The emphasis is, rather, on his overwhelming energy; indeed one might almost speak about the violence of God.” (17) The Holy Spirit is the power of God to create holiness.

If you are a member of Christ’s church, you are in the holy environs created by the Spirit and are therefore expected to walk in step with the Spirit (cf. Gal 5:25). You are not to grieve him through sin, especially sins that create divisions in the body of Christ. You are to work with him to create integrity, health, wholeness, or peace within the body of Christ.

Walk in the Spirit.

Commandment. What do you think of when you read or hear that word? Does it seem cold and unfeeling? Do you cringe, become defensive, or feel anxious? Because of our sinful hearts and bad experiences, “commandment” provokes images of tyranny or self-serving authoritarianism. Commandments are given to keep the powerful powerful and the oppressed oppressed. Commandments are the means of control keeping everyone under thumb.

Jesus, however, associates obedience to his commandments with love for him. In John 14:15, 21, and 24, Jesus says that those who love him keep his commandments. Jesus’ disciples do what Jesus commands because they love him. Obedience is not cringing anxiety that comes from being ruled by a despot. Jesus didn’t say, “I am your King. What I say goes. Keep my commandments!” He could have said that. It is true that he is our King and may command what he wishes and expect obedience. However, this display of raw authority doesn’t accomplish God’s goal in our obedience. The use of raw authority may bring about outward conformity so that people go through the motions, but God calls us to something more. We are called to be members of his Divine Family and, therefore, participate in the deep culture of the Trinity, to share the life of the Father, Son, and Spirit. This means, in part, that we share their heart. We love what they love. We desire what they desire. We become one with them in desire, will, purpose, and action.

What each member of the Trinity does, he does out of love for the others. The Son takes on human flesh and eventually goes to the cross out of love for the Father and the Spirit. While obedience is conformity to an authority’s commands, the first and greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. God requires deep, abiding loyalty.

Obedience rooted in love implies a trust in authority, namely, that he has my best interests at heart and will do nothing that is ultimately detrimental to me. Obedience springing from love fully trusts God and therefore conforms to all that he commands, knowing that his commands are for our good.

God’s commandments are not tyranny. God doesn’t command attitudes and actions to watch us jump through meaningless hoops. God loves us and his entire creation. He wants what is best for both. Negatively, God’s commandments are guardrails that keep us from careening off the cliff to our destruction. Positively, God’s commandments are the instructions that lead to life (Dt 30:16; Pr 4:4; 7:2). God’s commandments are not there to spoil your fun or keep you from being all that you can be. They are for your good, and therefore, you are to keep them.

When Jesus says, “If you love me, keep my commandments,” the word translated “keep” may also be translated as “guard.” Guarding implies cherishing something. Jesus isn’t calling for his disciples to go through the motions. They are to cherish his commandments. Jesus’ disciples, those who love him, are those who keep his commandments, and to them his commandments are not burdensome (1 Jn 5:2).

The test of our love for Jesus is not in our feelings but in our loving obedience. Do we love what he loves so that we delight to do what he commands?

What is a pointless life?

A pointless life involves no sacrifice, no discipline, and no courage.

From where does purpose come?

Purpose is not something I create. It is something I receive from the Lord. Each Christian receives different talents and gifts which establish their role in God’s Kingdom. Yet each Christian, united to Christ by faith, has the same responsibility to worship and obey the Lord Jesus Christ.

How do I live with spiritual purpose?

The only way is to depend entirely upon the grace of God, which, through faith in Jesus, covers my sin and enables my fight against it. Faithfulness is as active as ants. It is the virtue of drinking up as much living water as each situation spouts. It requires exceptional vigilance, which is why I pray for the Holy Spirit’s help.

How are men and women different?

Women are not driven by the same goals and inner springs as men. The distribution of wants among the two sexes is distinct enough that they don’t want the same things from their lives. With respect to work outside the home, men want competition in the market. With respect to work inside the home, women want to provide care for the family.

What is the source of such differences?

Since the roles and gifts of men and women are from God, equality-of-result ought not be socially engineered or biologically buffeted. God hard-wires into women a feminine nature that is not a prison crippling her humanity, but a clarifying summons enabling her faithfulness.

How are men and women most themselves?

C.S. Lewis said that the masculine is oriented toward strength, rigidity, and protection of life, while the feminine is oriented towards softness, fluidity, and creation of life. So, men act according to their nature when they embrace their strength and duty to protect others. Women act according to their nature when they create environments that nurture life.^[1]

How should I spend my time?

I must reject the self as my sole obsession and cultivate a love for others. This happens by making things in real life to build culture and life outside myself. My time and attention are too valuable to give it away to social media companies. Instead, I will rouse up myself and fill my days with creativity and labor directed to worthy objects that bring value and esteem, such as learning a foreign language and how to play an instrument, learning to grow things and corral a group of kids, learning to organize events and a lead a book club, and learning to sew and prepare a meal.

How does displaying the fruit of the Spirit affect those around me?

When I live out the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control—I am most myself. When I live in sin—sexual immorality, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, envy, drunkenness—I am less myself.

By living the fruit of the Spirit, dressing modestly, acting with self-control, and adorning myself with good works (1 Tim. 2:9-14), I have the power to transfer the sincerity and love of Christ onto every person I know and to strike at error and wrongdoing in a way that makes the adversary cower.

Should women be educated?

Women should be educated in God, God’s Word, and God’s world. Those who are so inclined are free to pursue higher education, provided it leads to the fulfillment of God’s design. Scripture provides the example of Mary, who nurtured baby Jesus and also wrote the stinging words of the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). And there is the example of Jael who was a homemaker who turned her domestic tools into weapons of violence when needed (Judges 4:17-5:27).

What does Titus 2:4-5 says about the education of girls?

“Train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” The Bible does not prescribe preparation for a girl boss feminism of hustle culture that says career success, promotions, and prioritizing job above family are the most important things. The Bible does affirm the goodness of marriage, the blessing of children within marriage, and the virtues, skill, and honor necessary to run a home well.

What does 1 Peter 3:4 say about a woman’s beauty?

“Let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” This means I should cultivate the quality of soul that makes me loved by little children, strong to help those in sorrow or trouble, and sympathetic to the human heart because of genuine concern for other people.

How can I become the Proverbs 31 woman?

I develop skills for being a faithful woman who works from home, is productive, hardworking, skilled at management, and able to conduct family business. I must become competent to make decisions and exercise my agency with intelligence, cultivating the skills of discernment, shrewdness, resourcefulness, hospitality, and wisdom. It’s not that women will never or should never work outside the home. But as a girl in training, I ought not be burdened by career expectations as my paramount concern.

What does 1 Timothy 5:14 say about young women?

“I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander,” meaning girls must be trained to become housemasters, exercising real authority to manage the house in submission to the headship of her husband (1 Tim. 3:5). I must beware of the Betty Friedan message that centralizes career as a woman’s path to self-actualization, and regards children and marriage as perfunctory.

What did G.K. Chesterton mean when he said that only “domestic education” is particularly true?^[2]

The opening line of G.K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man, explains that “There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there.”^[3] His point is that domestic life is the larger matter. Commercial or official life is the lesser matter. This is why Titus 2:5 instructs women to be about the greater matter of “working at home.” This means a mother providing conversation, culture, meals, and moral support for her own child is more important than social work for one hundred children absorbed by the system. Chesterton’s point isn’t that girls can never choose public life. The point is to teach them that commercial life is the smaller life.^[4]

If the role of a wife is to respect her husband, what should women be looking for in a man?

Respectability. If she respects him, and if her parents and pastor respect him, then that enhances the chances that she can respect him for the rest of her life. A woman might desire her husband to be a certain height, make a certain amount of money, or take her on fancy dates. But God’s standard is that she respects and submits to him (Eph. 5:22-33).

What should a woman be working toward in preparation for a husband?

Since the husband’s job is to (1) love his wife sacrificially, (2) nourish her, (3) cherish her, and (4) lead her like Christ leads the church (Eph. 5:23-29), then a woman looking for a husband needs to become the sort of lady that a man can (1) love sacrificially, (2) nourish, (3) cherish, and (4) lead.

What does living the good life require?

Because of Christ, life is strong in me. I will press on and live with gratitude. I will seek truth, make beauty, live well, and love big. This is my spiritual act of worship as a happy warrior of the Kingdom of God.

^{Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.}

^{[1] C.S. Lewis, Perelandra (New York: HarperOne, 2003), 172-174.}

^{[2] Dale Ahlquist, The Story of the Family: G.K. Chesterton on the Only State that Creates and Loves its Own Citizens (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2022), 172.}

^{[3] G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (Rough Draft Printing, 2013), 7.}

^{[4] Dale Ahlquist, The Story of the Family: G.K. Chesterton on the Only State that Creates and Loves its Own Citizens (San Francisco: Ignatius, 2022), 170-180.}

Growing up in a Baptist church in the country, we used to sing a hymn written by Ira Stamphill titled “Mansion Over The Hilltop.” Reverend Stamphill was inspired by John 14:2, which he, no doubt, read in the King James Version: “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” Having a story about a rich man building a mansion just over the hilltop ringing in his head, Stamphill wrote:

I’m satisfied with just a cottage below / A little silver and a little gold / But in that city where the ransomed will shine / I want a gold one that’s silver lined. [Refrain] I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop / In that bright land where we’ll never grow old / And some day yonder we will never more wander / But walk on streets that are purest gold.

Elvis even recorded the song on one of his religious albums. That heavenly mansion has been a source of comfort given to families at funerals and the longing of many Christians, particularly in the evangelical South.

My aim is not to disappoint anyone who was looking forward to living in something like the Biltmore Mansion in Asheville, NC, but it is my responsibility to tell what Jesus was actually talking about. Jesus’ imagery here is actually quite complex and requires that we put a few things together.

We must first begin by understanding his Father’s house. What is his Father’s house? “Heaven.” That is not wrong, but it is not the complete picture either. Jesus told us what his Father’s house is at the beginning of his ministry when he cleansed the Temple. He told the moneychangers to “Take these things away! Do not make my Father’s house a house of merchandise!” (Jn 2:16). His Father’s house is the Temple. The Temple is the Father’s earthly palace, the footstool of his throne. The Temple is an image of heaven and connects heaven and earth, but it is the Father’s house.

To add another layer, Jesus then redefines the Temple as his body. Jesus told the Jews that day, “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John tells us that he was speaking of the temple of his body (Jn 2:19, 21). Jesus’ body is the Temple, the house of God the Father. John told us this in his introduction when he said that the Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us, revealing his glory (Jn 1:14).

Heaven is a real place just as earth is a real place. The two were separated from the first days of creation, waiting for the earth’s maturity so that they could be reunited. This is realized in Christ’s incarnational work. In his body, he unites heaven and earth, making a new heaven and earth, or a new creation. To be united to Christ, or to abide or dwell in Christ, is to dwell with the Father.

The word translated “mansions” or better “dwelling places” is related to the word that Jesus will later use to speak of abiding in him in chapter 15. The Father’s house is the body of Christ, the new Temple, and the new heavens and earth.

The new creation has been the focus of Jesus ministry and a primary theme of John’s Gospel. John begins his Gospel as if it is a new book of Genesis. Jesus performs seven signs within the first twelve chapters, indicating that he is undoing the effects of sin in order to make a new creation. Jesus is making a new creation in himself, which is the Father’s house, and there are many dwelling places for the disciples in this new creation. Jesus is going to the cross and through the cross to resurrection and ascension to prepare this place for them.

If he goes to prepare this place for them, he will come again to receive them unto himself. Is Jesus speaking about his resurrection or his final second coming? Yes. Jesus will go to death to prepare the place for them, but he will come back for them, freed from the chains of death to receive them and cause them to sit in heavenly places with him. Jesus’ resurrection and eventual ascension are guarantees that he will come again in like fashion to finish the work of new creation and receive us all to himself as the angels told the disciples in Acts 1 and as Paul told the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 4.

When you abide in Christ, whether you are on earth in this life or in heaven after death, you are dwelling in the Father’s house. To be united to the body of Christ is to be in the Father’s house.

The Old Testament calendar is a full life liturgy that regulated temple activity, moral expectations, legal codes, and purification processes. It also regulated work and rest. But how many days did the calendar prescribe work and how many days was spent not working?

It’s not a simple answer. Counting the work and rest days of Israel’s calendar requires a biblical-theological reckoning on a 49-year cycle with a concordance in one hand and a calculator in the other.

This reckoning can be organized according to five categories:

First, the ordinary year.

Second, the annual feast days.

Third, the seventh year.

Fourth, the Jubilee year.

Fifth, the implications.

Let’s get started.

First, the ordinary year

The expectation for an ordinary week was that the people would work six days and rest one day. The pattern was established at creation. In Genesis 2:1-3, God finishes his work in six days and rests on the seventh day. Notice several things. First, this occurs before the Fall, which means this pattern is not a reaction or result of the Fall. Second, this pattern predates the Mosaic Law, which means it is a creation ordinance. Third, Adam’s first day on earth is a full day of rest, not labor, meaning that in God’s calendar, rest precedes labor.

The 6/1 pattern was then commanded in the Decalogue. Exodus 20:8-10 says, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it, you shall not do any work.” Why are people to rest on the seventh day? The answer is in Exodus 20:11, “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” This means that the 6/1 pattern is imitation.

Deuteronomy 5 also contains the Decalogue, but the fourth commandment contains a different rationale for the 6/1 pattern. Why must they rest on the seventh day? Deuteronomy 5:15 says, “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand.” So, the reason for the 6/1 pattern in Exodus 20 is creational imitation. The reason for the 6/1 pattern in Deuteronomy 5 is in memorial of redemption. Different reasons, it seems. Or are they? In both cases, rest is God’s blessing to his people. The backdrop of Egypt reminded them that slavery is the condition of the person who cannot stop working.^[i]

The 6/1 pattern is also reflected in the surrounding laws of the Torah. Sabbath mercy is extended downward, to servants, foreigners, and animals, suggesting that a society that cannot stop their labor especially harms the dependent parts of the community (Ex. 23:12). During the harvest season when economic pressures is heightened, God’s command for rest is still in force (Ex. 34:21). This is why Nehemiah shut down the Tyrian merchants, wine pressers, and grain loaders working on the Sabbath (Neh. 13:15-22). In the passages about the construction of the tabernacle Moses writes, “Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest” (Ex. 31:15; 35:2), reminding the people that even the construction of God’s house does not override the command to rest.

Those who resent the disruption of their work grumble and complain about the command to rest (Amos 8:5). But required rest is God’s good design. Six days of work suffices for seven days needs. The story of the manna in Exodus 16:22-30 includes a double portion on the sixth day. This is God’s provision to protect the rest day of the people.

The ordinary year also includes the new moon days (Num. 10:10; 28:11-15). These days don’t explicitly include the no-work clause. They are primarily a day for sacrifices to God. But then in other passages they are described as special days when work ceased (1 Sam. 20; 2 Kings 4:23; Amos 8:5; Ez. 46:1-3). Sometimes the new moon days are mentioned alongside Sabbaths and feasts, as if they are one class of holy days (Hos. 2:11; Is. 1:13f; 66:23; Col. 2:16). There is one new moon at the beginning of each month (Num. 28:11; Ps. 104:19; Ex. 12:2). The year has twelve months (1 Kings 4:7; 1 Chronicles 27:1-15). So, there are twelve new moon days a year. One out seven new moon days occur on a Sabbath, which was already a non-work day, meaning new moon days add ten or eleven days to the 52 Sabbath days.

Now for the calculation. One sabbath rest day a week for 52 weeks means 52 rest days per year, plus ten new moon days equals 62 non-work days, which is just over 17% of total days in the year.

Second, the annual feast days

Leviticus 23 is a catch-all description for the feast days in the liturgical calendar.

The Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread is seven holy days for the year on which “you shall not do any ordinary work” (Lev. 23:6-8).

Next is listed the Feast of Firstfruits (Lev. 23:9-14). More slender and subtle, no additional holy days result from the Feast of Firstfruits. When there is a holy day of no work, like with the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev. 23:7), Pentecost (Lev. 23:21), Trumpets (Lev. 23:24), Atonement (Lev. 23:27), and Tabernacle (Lev. 23:35-36), it is explicitly said there is “no ordinary work.” The Feast of Firstfruits has no such statement, suggesting it is not a day of rest (Lev. 23:9-14).

The Feast of Weeks (AKA Pentecost) is described in Leviticus 23:15-22 and has one holy day (Lev. 23:21). The Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement, likewise, receive one holy day each (Lev. 23:24, 27). The Feast of Tabernacles (AKA Booths) has eight holy days. The first and eighth days are for solemn rest. Days two through seven are feast days. No ordinary work is done on these days.

The feasts tell a story. It begins with redemption in the Passover feast, then resurrection in the Feast of Firstfruits anticipating Christ in 1 Cor. 15:20, then the creation of a people at Pentecost where they receive unleavened bread for the first time (Acts 2), then the Feast of Trumpets where a trumpet blasts summons the congregation, then the Feast of Atonement where the blood is carried into the holy place anticipating Christ (Heb. 9-10), then the Feast of Tabernacle where God dwells with them (Zech. 14:16-19; Rev. 21:3). The point of the story is to train the popular instinct to return to it, even in times when the doubting instinct is let loose.

The calendar of feasts and holy days annually walk the people through the story of redemption, past, present, and future. This would continue until the Messiah came to fulfill it. The body and soul are being trained to look to the higher work of the Lord. God is writing a story that has a plot, a crisis, and a resolution. It moves. There are twists and turns; ups and downs; bad guys and good guys. And walking through the shadows of the story, the people see the One True Good Guy, the Messiah. When the Savior fulfills the feast days, it satisfies rather than replaces the need to set aside time to look to the higher things and be shaped by them. This is the real R&R of Scripture. In the divine calendar, the harvest is preparation for the feast. The work is preparation for rejoicing.

The feast days in total add eighteen holy days. When you account for the overlap with Sabbath days, which were already rest days, that means, at minimum, an additional 15 non-work days for the year. So, Sabbath/new moon days (62) plus non-overlapping feast days (15) is 77 rest days a year, which is 21% of the total days in the year.

Third, the seventh year

Leviticus 25:1-7 says that when Israel comes into the land, the land shall be given a Sabbath (Lev. 25:2). For six years Israel works the land and harvests the crops. The seventh year is a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land. This is a time when the people will not work the land (Lev. 25:3-5). This is the 6/1 pattern of the week stretched and applied into years.

What exactly is prohibited on the seventh year? Active, productive agricultural work. Leviticus 25:4-5 say, “You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine.” Reaping is prohibited, meaning they may not harvest the field systematically for the purpose of stockpiling. Gathering is prohibited, meaning, they may not strip the vines completely to press the grapes and store the wine.

What is permitted on the seventh year? Leviticus 25:6-7 says, “The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you.…all its yield shall be for food.” So, on that seventh year, the land is not under cultivation, but it doesn’t stop producing. The people and their animals must still eat. What will they eat? Whatever the untended land yields of itself. But this volunteer growth may not be treated like a harvest. Day by day the people pick and eat what they need.

There are other components of the seventh year. First, as Exodus 23:10-11 explains, the fallow year is a means of provision for those with no land of their own. So, in years 1-6, the person treats the land as their harvest. They own it. In year 7, the owner denies his special claim on the harvest, making it open to those in need. Second, as Deuteronomy 15:1-11 explains, the seventh year is a release from debt. “Every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the Lord’s release has been proclaimed” (Dt. 15:2).

So, in the seventh year, people still eat, worship, keep the weekly Sabbath, and keep the feasts. They still tend the flocks and gather the volunteer growth. Trades and craft work continue, as does commerce, study, and domestic labor.

How should we handle this in our calculation? Are these 365 rest days? Not exactly. There is prescribed resting from some work. The farmers are given a distinct kind of rest, while other work remains. A significant category of work is removed, but not work as such. For a herdsman or craftsman, the seventh year apparently changed very little. For the agrarian majority of Israel, the seventh year changed a great deal. They experienced a lighter year. Mathematically, these are not counted as additional non-work days, but as lighter work days for a majority of the people.

Fourth, the Jubilee Year

Leviticus 25:8-11 describes a Jubilee year that should take place every “fiftieth year,” which is probably referring to the last year of the 49-year cycle and the first year of the next cycle. So, the “fiftieth year” is overlapping in a way that makes it the 49^th year itself.^[ii] The Jubilee was announced on the Day of Atonement with a trumpet blast (Lev. 25:9). Three releases are commanded. The release of the land (Lev. 25:11-12) where the land was given rest, the release of the property where land reverted to its original family holding (Lev. 25:10, 13-34), and the release of the slaves where Israelite indentured servants went free (Lev. 25:39-55).

The Jubilee year adds no new category of human rest day beyond what we’ve already counted. The Jubilee sets right who is free and who owns what. The free servant returns home, not to rest, but to work his own land. So, it’s not extra rest from work. It’s a different kind of gift, a sort of homecoming of money, people, and land such that everyone is returned to their inheritance. It’s a reset, a refresh, a re-creation, which is what all the work and all the rest was pointing toward, a time when the people and the land would be made whole.

So, the rest days point to the Jubilee year, and the Jubilee year points to the Great Jubilee of the Messiah. Isaiah had foreseen a coming Messiah anointed to “proclaim liberty to the captives” and to announce “the year of the LORD’s favor” (Is. 61:1-2). This is the language of the Jubilee horn, now applied to all history. When Jesus stood in the synagogue at Nazareth and read Isaiah 61, He closed the scroll and said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). He was declaring Himself the Jubilee Incarnate. Every seventh year that rested the land, every “fiftieth” that freed the slave and restored the field was a preview of Christ, the Son of God arriving to cancel the true debt, to set the real captives free, and to return His people to the inheritance lost since Eden. Christ accomplished the homecoming the Jubilee year pictured. The rest and worship that Israel practiced one day in seven, Christ offers without end, saying “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28).

Fifth, the implications

When it comes to rest and work, we should strive to talk about it as biblically as possible, which means we must understand God’s liturgical calendar. We must see and count the days. We must run the calculation. We must see the purpose of resting from work.

What is the purpose? The point of rest and leisure is not to make people more efficient cogs in the economic system, but to restore the soul to wholeness. This allows a person to worship the Lord and Giver of Life, celebrate existence in God’s world, see the goodness of reality, and receive truth and beauty as gifts not measurable on a P&L sheet. A feast day, or celebration, or Sabbath that merely stops work for the sake of work serves no higher purpose than work. When the entire liturgical calendar, or corporate calendar, is reduced to fine-tuning man to be a tool for profits, then work becomes a cult—a religion—as if work included the whole field of human existence, activity, and life. This changes the nature of human existence by making “worker” the whole conception of man.

In the Old Testament calendar, 77 out of 365 days are explicitly non-work days, which makes for 1.5 days out of 7. So, the weekly ratio is to work 6 and rest 1, while the annual average is to work 5.5 and rest 1.5, which is the floor for rest days. The seventh year of land rest must also be accounted for. The seventh year hasn’t entered this calculation because some people kept herding, cooking, trading, and foraging.

But, for the agrarian majority, including the farmers and vine dressers who made up most of ancient Israel, the seventh year was dramatically lighter, even if not classified as a rest day. In a normal year, the farmer’s calendar was dominated by the grueling labor of cultivation, plowing, sowing, pruning, weeding, and harvest time. Exodus 34:21 singles out the work of the farmer as part of the covenant renewal need for Sabbath rest.

In the seventh year, all of that work stops. No plowing, no sowing, no pruning, no harvesting. What remains for the farmer is lighter than the work of the other six years. For the majority of people then, the seventh year wasn’t 1.5 rest days a week; it was closer to a year-long reduction to subsistence gathering. This can’t be neatly fit into the calculation, but it is part of the calendar to keep in mind.

It’s true that the laws and ceremonies of the Old Testament expired with that nation-state, including the liturgical calendar of feast days, new moon days, and so on. But the general equity principles still remain for the people of God, which suggests there is biblical wisdom in trying to apply the biblical-theological calendar, calculations, and commission of work and rest.

There are other factors to think about before these principles can be comprehensively formulated, such as (1) how work is not equal to a job/career, (2) how much of the work days should be spent working at the job and how much time should be spent doing other work, (3) the change from an agrarian society to an industrial one, (4) the shift of work as something that once took place inside the home to something that now takes place outside the home, (5) the difference between manual labor and desk work, (6) the intolerance of laziness in the covenant community (2 Thess. 3:6-10), (7) the exact nature of a convocation day, a feast day, and a Sabbath day, (8) the nature of leisure as awakening your soul to higher things, and (9) how the purpose of rest days points to the work of Christ as the great giver of rest (Mt. 11:28).

But for now, we can say this. Israel’s calendar built rest in at every scale. One day in seven, an extra half-day worth of feasts, and then an entire agricultural sabbatical every seventh year. Rest is woven into the day, the week, the month, and the year, all the way up to the Jubilee, which is not a corporate Christmas party to build company loyalty, but an entire year of receiving divine gifts. God’s divine design is a society that works hard and unto the Lord (Col. 3:17). But the people were forbidden from working endlessly. The whole calendar was pointing to the rest, not just as a time to put your feet up, but as the time to worship, celebrate, and receive the divine rest of the Redeemer who is Lord Sabbath.

Without the liturgical calendar, Israel would have been like the Canaanites, where strange gods were worshiped under strange skies. God’s design of worship, rest, celebration, and work points to the King of King’s defiance of the pagan program that thrusts people up against a vast and vague hostility to divine rest. So odd and beautiful is God’s movement toward rest that the faithful might hear not only the blast of the trumpet, but the voice of the outsider singing along, longing for the perilous grace that is poised to receive him in eternal rest.

^{Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.}

^{[i] The author of Hebrews had something to say about the rest of God (Heb. 3:7 – 4:13).}

^{[ii] We should note that there is another view that this is a distinct 50th year. For our purposes, it matters only very little, as it will change the math slightly if we are calculating on a 49-year window or a 50-year window.}

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Cor 5:17)

Prayer: Almighty God, who formed the earth out of water and through water by your word, who saved Noah and his family through water while destroying the wicked, who delivered your people Israel through the Sea while defeating Pharaoh and his armies, all of which are types of baptism into Christ Jesus, we pray that you will look mercifully upon these children, saving them with your people while destroying sin and death. May they, throughout their lives, relying upon the grace you give to them this day, continue to mortify sin so that at the last day they may participate in the resurrection of the just and reign with Christ Jesus eternally. Amen

Since the time of the fall, new creation was the plan. New creation wouldn’t be the annihilation of the old creation but its transformation into what God intended from the beginning. New creation would be old creation transformed through overcoming sin and death.

The new creation couldn’t be realized until sin and death were conquered because death interrupted the movement from one stage of glory to another. The old creation had to die. Death was the just desert for sin. As long as sin and its death dominated the creation, God’s purposes for the world could never be realized.

We are all conceived in sin, inheriting the guilt and corruption of Adam’s sin. We are conceived as old creation. For this reason, we must die. To say that Jesus died for us is not to say that we no longer must die. Death is an absolute necessity. The benefit of Jesus’ death for us is that we can die with him; that is, we can participate in his death and in his death our old creation selves die.

When we die in union with Christ Jesus, we die with the promise of his resurrection. The old creation man must still die. That is why each of us must be baptized, because in baptism we are buried with Christ in death, as Paul says to the Romans (Rom 6). But if we die with him in baptism, we will also be raised with him, Paul concludes. Christ is the new creation. To be united with Christ, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, is to be new creation.

Today these children will die with Christ just as the rest of us in the church have died with Christ. But they will also be raised with him and be a new creation in Christ Jesus. They, like the rest of us, are a part of God’s promised future world.

New creation like the original is not a completed product but a project. They will need to cultivate their faith consistently, learning what it means to live as God’s new creation.

They must develop this new creation that God has given them just as Adam and Eve were to develop the original creation.

Fathers and mothers, your role in their lives is vital for their continuing lives in the faith. They belong to Jesus, but he has given them to you to be faithful stewards, bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of our Lord. Be faithful to your calling.

Church, encourage these families to faithfulness.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit

.

Introduction

The Old Testament calendar is a full life liturgy that regulated temple activity, moral expectations, legal codes, and purification processes. It also regulated work and rest. But how many days did the calendar prescribe work and how many days was spent not working?

It’s not a simple answer. Counting the work and rest days of Israel’s calendar requires a biblical-theological reckoning on a 49-year cycle with a concordance in one hand and a calculator in the other.

This reckoning can be organized according to five categories:

• First, the ordinary year.

• Second, the annual feast days.

• Third, the seventh year.

• Fourth, the Jubilee year.

• Fifth, the implications.

Let’s get started.

First, the ordinary year

The expectation for an ordinary week was that the people would work six days and rest one day. The pattern was established at creation. In Genesis 2:1-3, God finishes his work in six days and rests on the seventh day. Notice several things. First, this occurs before the Fall, which means this pattern is not a reaction or result of the Fall. Second, this pattern predates the Mosaic Law, which means it is a creation ordinance. Third, Adam’s first day on earth is a full day of rest, not labor, meaning that in God’s calendar, rest precedes labor.

The 6/1 pattern was then commanded in the Decalogue. Exodus 20:8-10 says, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it, you shall not do any work.” Why are people to rest on the seventh day? The answer is in Exodus 20:11, “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” This means that the 6/1 pattern is imitation.

Deuteronomy 5 also contains the Decalogue, but the fourth commandment contains a different rationale for the 6/1 pattern. Why must they rest on the seventh day? Deuteronomy 5:15 says, “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand.” So, the reason for the 6/1 pattern in Exodus 20 is creational imitation. The reason for the 6/1 pattern in Deuteronomy 5 is in memorial of redemption. Different reasons, it seems. Or are they? In both cases, rest is God’s blessing to his people. The backdrop of Egypt reminded them that slavery is the condition of the person who cannot stop working.^[i]

The 6/1 pattern is also reflected in the surrounding laws of the Torah. Sabbath mercy is extended downward, to servants, foreigners, and animals, suggesting that a society that cannot stop their labor especially harms the dependent parts of the community (Ex. 23:12). During the harvest season when economic pressures is heightened, God’s command for rest is still in force (Ex. 34:21). This is why Nehemiah shut down the Tyrian merchants, wine pressers, and grain loaders working on the Sabbath (Neh. 13:15-22). In the passages about the construction of the tabernacle Moses writes, “Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest” (Ex. 31:15; 35:2), reminding the people that even the construction of God’s house does not override the command to rest.

Those who resent the disruption of their work grumble and complain about the command to rest (Amos 8:5). But required rest is God’s good design. Six days of work suffices for seven days needs. The story of the manna in Exodus 16:22-30 includes a double portion on the sixth day. This is God’s provision to protect the rest day of the people.

The ordinary year also includes the new moon days (Num. 10:10; 28:11-15). These days don’t explicitly include the no-work clause. They are primarily a day for sacrifices to God. But then in other passages they are described as special days when work ceased (1 Sam. 20; 2 Kings 4:23; Amos 8:5; Ez. 46:1-3). Sometimes the new moon days are mentioned alongside Sabbaths and feasts, as if they are one class of holy days (Hos. 2:11; Is. 1:13f; 66:23; Col. 2:16). There is one new moon at the beginning of each month (Num. 28:11; Ps. 104:19; Ex. 12:2). The year has twelve months (1 Kings 4:7; 1 Chronicles 27:1-15). So, there are twelve new moon days a year. One out seven new moon days occur on a Sabbath, which was already a non-work day, meaning new moon days add ten or eleven days to the 52 Sabbath days.

Now for the calculation. One sabbath rest day a week for 52 weeks means 52 rest days per year, plus ten new moon days equals 62 non-work days, which is just over 17% of total days in the year.

Second, the annual feast days.

Leviticus 23 is a catch-all description for the feast days in the liturgical calendar.

The Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread is seven holy days for the year on which “you shall not do any ordinary work” (Lev. 23:6-8).

Next is listed the Feast of Firstfruits (Lev. 23:9-14). More slender and subtle, no additional holy days result from the Feast of Firstfruits. When there is a holy day of no work, like with the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Lev. 23:7), Pentecost (Lev. 23:21), Trumpets (Lev. 23:24), Atonement (Lev. 23:27), and Tabernacle (Lev. 23:35-36), it is explicitly said there is “no ordinary work.” The Feast of Firstfruits has no such statement, suggesting it is not a day of rest (Lev. 23:9-14).

The Feast of Weeks (AKA Pentecost) is described in Leviticus 23:15-22 and has one holy day (Lev. 23:21). The Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement, likewise, receive one holy day each (Lev. 23:24, 27). The Feast of Tabernacles (AKA Booths) has eight holy days. The first and eighth days are for solemn rest. Days two through seven are feast days. No ordinary work is done on these days.

The feasts tell a story. It begins with redemption in the Passover feast, then resurrection in the Feast of Firstfruits anticipating Christ in 1 Cor. 15:20, then the creation of a people at Pentecost where they receive unleavened bread for the first time (Acts 2), then the Feast of Trumpets where a trumpet blasts summons the congregation, then the Feast of Atonement where the blood is carried into the holy place anticipating Christ (Heb. 9-10), then the Feast of Tabernacle where God dwells with them (Zech. 14:16-19; Rev. 21:3). The point of the story is to train the popular instinct to return to it, even in times when the doubting instinct is let loose.

The calendar of feasts and holy days annually walk the people through the story of redemption, past, present, and future. This would continue until the Messiah came to fulfill it. The body and soul are being trained to look to the higher work of the Lord. God is writing a story that has a plot, a crisis, and a resolution. It moves. There are twists and turns; ups and downs; bad guys and good guys. And walking through the shadows of the story, the people see the One True Good Guy, the Messiah. When the Savior fulfills the feast days, it satisfies rather than replaces the need to set aside time to look to the higher things and be shaped by them. This is the real R&R of Scripture. In the divine calendar, the harvest is preparation for the feast. The work is preparation for rejoicing.

The feast days in total add eighteen holy days. When you account for the overlap with Sabbath days, which were already rest days, that means, at minimum, an additional 15 non-work days for the year. So, Sabbath/new moon days (62) plus non-overlapping feast days (15) is 77 rest days a year, which is 21% of the total days in the year.

Third, the seventh year

Leviticus 25:1-7 says that when Israel comes into the land, the land shall be given a Sabbath (Lev. 25:2). For six years Israel works the land and harvests the crops. The seventh year is a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land. This is a time when the people will not work the land (Lev. 25:3-5). This is the 6/1 pattern of the week stretched and applied into years.

What exactly is prohibited on the seventh year? Active, productive agricultural work. Leviticus 25:4-5 say, “You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. You shall not reap what grows of itself in your harvest, or gather the grapes of your undressed vine.” Reaping is prohibited, meaning they may not harvest the field systematically for the purpose of stockpiling. Gathering is prohibited, meaning, they may not strip the vines completely to press the grapes and store the wine.

What is permitted on the seventh year? Leviticus 25:6-7 says, “The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you.…all its yield shall be for food.” So, on that seventh year, the land is not under cultivation, but it doesn’t stop producing. The people and their animals must still eat. What will they eat? Whatever the untended land yields of itself. But this volunteer growth may not be treated like a harvest. Day by day the people pick and eat what they need.

There are other components of the seventh year. First, as Exodus 23:10-11 explains, the fallow year is a means of provision for those with no land of their own. So, in years 1-6, the person treats the land as their harvest. They own it. In year 7, the owner denies his special claim on the harvest, making it open to those in need. Second, as Deuteronomy 15:1-11 explains, the seventh year is a release from debt. “Every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the Lord’s release has been proclaimed” (Dt. 15:2).

So, in the seventh year, people still eat, worship, keep the weekly Sabbath, and keep the feasts. They still tend the flocks and gather the volunteer growth. Trades and craft work continue, as does commerce, study, and domestic labor.

How should we handle this in our calculation? Are these 365 rest days? Not exactly. There is prescribed resting from some work. The farmers are given a distinct kind of rest, while other work remains. A significant category of work is removed, but not work as such. For a herdsman or craftsman, the seventh year apparently changed very little. For the agrarian majority of Israel, the seventh year changed a great deal. They experienced a lighter year. Mathematically, these are not counted as additional non-work days, but as lighter work days for a majority of the people.

Fourth, the Jubilee Year

Leviticus 25:8-11 describes a Jubilee year that should take place every “fiftieth year,” which is probably referring to the last year of the 49-year cycle and the first year of the next cycle. So, the “fiftieth year” is overlapping in a way that makes it the 49^th year itself.^[ii] The Jubilee was announced on the Day of Atonement with a trumpet blast (Lev. 25:9). Three releases are commanded. The release of the land (Lev. 25:11-12) where the land was given rest, the release of the property where land reverted to its original family holding (Lev. 25:10, 13-34), and the release of the slaves where Israelite indentured servants went free (Lev. 25:39-55).

The Jubilee year adds no new category of human rest day beyond what we’ve already counted. The Jubilee sets right who is free and who owns what. The free servant returns home, not to rest, but to work his own land. So, it’s not extra rest from work. It’s a different kind of gift, a sort of homecoming of money, people, and land such that everyone is returned to their inheritance. It’s a reset, a refresh, a re-creation, which is what all the work and all the rest was pointing toward, a time when the people and the land would be made whole.

So, the rest days point to the Jubilee year, and the Jubilee year points to the Great Jubilee of the Messiah. Isaiah had foreseen a coming Messiah anointed to “proclaim liberty to the captives” and to announce “the year of the LORD’s favor” (Is. 61:1-2). This is the language of the Jubilee horn, now applied to all history. When Jesus stood in the synagogue at Nazareth and read Isaiah 61, He closed the scroll and said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). He was declaring Himself the Jubilee Incarnate. Every seventh year that rested the land, every “fiftieth” that freed the slave and restored the field was a preview of Christ, the Son of God arriving to cancel the true debt, to set the real captives free, and to return His people to the inheritance lost since Eden. Christ accomplished the homecoming the Jubilee year pictured. The rest and worship that Israel practiced one day in seven, Christ offers without end, saying “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28).

Fifth, the implications

When it comes to rest and work, we should strive to talk about it as biblically as possible, which means we must understand God’s liturgical calendar. We must see and count the days. We must run the calculation. We must see the purpose of resting from work.

What is the purpose? The point of rest and leisure is not to make people more efficient cogs in the economic system, but to restore the soul to wholeness. This allows a person to worship the Lord and Giver of Life, celebrate existence in God’s world, see the goodness of reality, and receive truth and beauty as gifts not measurable on a P&L sheet. A feast day, or celebration, or Sabbath that merely stops work for the sake of work serves no higher purpose than work. When the entire liturgical calendar, or corporate calendar, is reduced to fine-tuning man to be a tool for profits, then work becomes a cult—a religion—as if work included the whole field of human existence, activity, and life. This changes the nature of human existence by making “worker” the whole conception of man.

In the Old Testament calendar, 77 out of 365 days are explicitly non-work days, which makes for 1.5 days out of 7. So, the weekly ratio is to work 6 and rest 1, while the annual average is to work 5.5 and rest 1.5, which is the floor for rest days. The seventh year of land rest must also be accounted for. The seventh year hasn’t entered this calculation because some people kept herding, cooking, trading, and foraging.

But, for the agrarian majority, including the farmers and vine dressers who made up most of ancient Israel, the seventh year was dramatically lighter, even if not classified as a rest day. In a normal year, the farmer’s calendar was dominated by the grueling labor of cultivation, plowing, sowing, pruning, weeding, and harvest time. Exodus 34:21 singles out the work of the farmer as part of the covenant renewal need for Sabbath rest.

In the seventh year, all of that work stops. No plowing, no sowing, no pruning, no harvesting. What remains for the farmer is lighter than the work of the other six years. For the majority of people then, the seventh year wasn’t 1.5 rest days a week; it was closer to a year-long reduction to subsistence gathering. This can’t be neatly fit into the calculation, but it is part of the calendar to keep in mind.

It’s true that the laws and ceremonies of the Old Testament expired with that nation-state, including the liturgical calendar of feast days, new moon days, and so on. But the general equity principles still remain for the people of God, which suggests there is biblical wisdom in trying to apply the biblical-theological calendar, calculations, and commission of work and rest.

There are other factors to think about before these principles can be comprehensively formulated, such as (1) how work is not equal to a job/career, (2) how much of the work days should be spent working at the job and how much time should be spent doing other work, (3) the change from an agrarian society to an industrial one, (4) the shift of work as something that once took place inside the home to something that now takes place outside the home, (5) the difference between manual labor and desk work, (6) the intolerance of laziness in the covenant community (2 Thess. 3:6-10), (7) the exact nature of a convocation day, a feast day, and a Sabbath day, (8) the nature of leisure as awakening your soul to higher things, and (9) how the purpose of rest days points to the work of Christ as the great giver of rest (Mt. 11:28).

But for now, we can say this. Israel’s calendar built rest in at every scale. One day in seven, an extra half-day worth of feasts, and then an entire agricultural sabbatical every seventh year. Rest is woven into the day, the week, the month, and the year, all the way up to the Jubilee, which is not a corporate Christmas party to build company loyalty, but an entire year of receiving divine gifts. God’s divine design is a society that works hard and unto the Lord (Col. 3:17). But the people were forbidden from working endlessly. The whole calendar was pointing to the rest, not just as a time to put your feet up, but as the time to worship, celebrate, and receive the divine rest of the Redeemer who is Lord Sabbath.

Without the liturgical calendar, Israel would have been like the Canaanites, where strange gods were worshiped under strange skies. God’s design of worship, rest, celebration, and work points to the King of King’s defiance of the pagan program that thrusts people up against a vast and vague hostility to divine rest. So odd and beautiful is God’s movement toward rest that the faithful might hear not only the blast of the trumpet, but the voice of the outsider singing along, longing for the perilous grace that is poised to receive him in eternal rest.

^{Jason Cherry is an elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Huntsville, Alabama, as well as a teacher and lecturer of literature, history, and economics at Providence Classical School in Huntsville. He graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary with an MA in Religion and is the author of The Culture of Conversionism and the History of the Altar Call and The Making of Evangelical Spirituality.}

^{[i] The author of Hebrews had something to say about the rest of God (Heb. 3:7 – 4:13).}

^{[ii] We should note that there is another view that this is a distinct 50th year. For our purposes, it matters only very little, as it will change the math slightly if we are calculating on a 49-year window or a 50-year window.}

I believe understanding duty in this way is misguided. Duty reflects an allegiance that runs deeper than present emotions. It is being committed to people so that you do what is best for them no matter how you feel in the present.

Jesus loved us dutifully. On the night Jesus was betrayed, he told his disciples that his being glorified by the Father for their sakes would involve him going on a lonely journey (Jn 13:33). No one else could do this. This was Jesus’ personal responsibility, his duty. We know from Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane that he didn’t have the warm fuzzies about enduring the cross. Emotions may have been screaming at him to find every way to avoid the cross, but he had a deeper allegiance to his Father, his disciples, and the world than his present feelings of dread. He had a duty.

Jesus gave the same duty to his disciples when he told them, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (Jn 13:34). Loving one another is our duty. We are to have an allegiance to God’s people that runs deeper than our present emotions of irritation or impatience. While we are to work to get our emotions in line with our duty, we are to dutifully love whether we feel like it or not. We are to serve others’ genuine needs when it disrupts our comfort or even when they don’t understand (as the disciples didn’t always understand why Jesus was doing what he was doing).

Only as we do our duty in love will all men know that we are Christ’s disciples. They will not know that we are Christ’s disciples by how we demonstrate our intelligence or how many online arguments we engage in. The world will know that we are Jesus’ disciples when we fulfill our duty to love one another

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In order for your family to fulfill its God-given mission, the first thing that must be done is for you and your family to be subdued to the lordship of Jesus. This begins in fulfilling our mission to enter into the presence of God to hear from and speak to him. This is prayer. God’s plan is for the world to take a certain shape, to look like heaven. We won’t know what that is unless we first hear from him. This is where family worship or family prayer comes in. Family worship is time dedicated to prayer and the Scriptures in the context of daily life. It is focused and purposeful reading and meditation on Scripture and responding to God in confession, praise, thanksgiving, and supplication. One of the goals of family worship is to shape your family as a whole and each individual more into the image of Christ.

Those whom God has placed in authority in the home (principally husbands and fathers but also wives and mothers) are expected to be leading the household to be shaped by the Scriptures. God expected Adam to lead Eve. Paul instructs the Corinthian women to seek instruction from their husbands at home (1Cor 14:35) as well as fathers to bring up their children in the culture and instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4). Proverbs speaks several times not only of a son listening to his father, but also to his mother (Pr 1:8; 6:20; 23:22). This instruction is to take place throughout the course of daily life (Deut 6:4-9) as well as having dedicated times for prayer. No one method of family worship is prescribed by Scripture, but the principle of developing our families as Christian families begins by leading them to be worshipers of God. It is incumbent upon Christian families to spend time in prayer.

Family worship has a bigger purpose than your specific household. Your family worship serves the church, the family of God. Regular, faithful family worship has each of our families dealing with sin, being instructed in righteousness, and praying for the needs of others. When we are being confronted with the Scriptures, dealing with our own sins, and praying for others, the peace, purity, and unity of the church are being promoted. As we practice faithful family worship throughout the week, we are also being prepared to gather with our larger family, the church, to participate in corporate worship. Our minds, hearts, and bodies have been cultivated all week for this gathered worship. Our children have been trained to distinguish worship time from playtime. As your family is disciplined to set aside time in which the children are trained to speak and not speak, they are learning how to submit, deferring to others, and worship in unity with their brothers and sisters. Family worship contributes not only to your own personal discipleship but also to the discipleship of the entire family, thus fulfilling Christ’s commission to his church.

Family (or household) worship should never be seen as a replacement for worship with the rest of the church. Paul distinguishes what goes on in households from the gathering of the church when he speaks to the Corinthian church (1Cor 11:17-34). Nevertheless, family or household worship is vital to the health of the church. Since the church doesn’t gather every day for prayer, our health is maintained through individuals and families being disciplined to meditate on the Scriptures and spend time in prayer. In order for the church to be faithful, its individuals and families must be faithful. To remain faithful, we must be continually transformed by the renewing of the way we think about God, one another, and the world around us. This does not happen by meeting together once or twice a week. We must be shaped daily by meditation on the Scriptures and prayer. Your family worship is one discipline that shapes you and your family to think and act biblically.

If family worship is to take place, it must be deliberately scheduled. Like any other discipline, family worship will not “just happen.” If left unscheduled, it will be left undone. Due consideration needs to be given to the schedules in the household, and there will need to be flexibility at times. But if family worship is to be a part of your family’s life as it should be, there will have to be some time in which you say, “Everything else must be set aside. Now is the time for family worship.” It is good to have family worship around meal times since that is generally when everyone, or most everyone, is there. Whenever it is scheduled, it must be scheduled.

Family worship will also require some preparation. This may not be extensive preparation as if you are preparing a lecture, but there will need to be a “plan of attack.” What are you going to do? Is there a liturgy/order you follow? Where will you be reading? Those things need to be thought through. There are many materials out there to help you work through the Scriptures. You may even draw from weekly sermons, focusing on different points in the sermon and discussing them with your family. Even if you are only reading through books of the Bible, have a plan.

Family worship should include Scripture reading and prayer, but it may also incorporate the use of catechisms and creeds. You may want to include singing as well. There are no hard and fast rules about what you should and shouldn’t do. If you only read the Scriptures and pray, that’s fine. If you have very small children, those may be the only things you are able to do. The situations change depending on the life stage of your family. If your children are really young, ten to fifteen minutes may be a long family worship time. As they grow older and interact, you might spend much longer. Know your family and adapt. But whatever you do, don’t neglect the Scriptures and prayer in your home. The discipline is rewarding, and the rewards are eternal

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