“That was the best thing I’ve read,” I said to Brooke, sitting stunned in our living room.

Last night I read “The Weight of Glory” by C.S. Lewis. Turning each page, I resonated deeply with his words as if I knew exactly what Lewis was thinking—as if our minds had merged in the act of reading. After setting it down, I sang the doxology to myself. It felt like the only proper response.

Many of us struggle to put our deeper feelings into words. For me, these are my longings, those wordless groans only the Spirit of God knows. In writing, I attempt to reach with my words, hoping a hand comes out to grasp them. So I scribble in my notebook. But my words only reach so far. But through Lewis, what existed on an intuitive level moved into the clear light of consciousness.

Maybe like me, you’ve been gripped by a deep sense of longing for a place you’ve never been to. Traces of its memory are likely somewhere inside you, whether you realize it or not; in your dreams, in your furthest memories, in the remainder of your childlike imagination. And hopefully, like me, Lewis’ refined words will help pave a way there.

Desires

Lewis begins by talking about desires. In Christian circles, it’s easy to find talk of denying one’s desires. It’s a prevalent theme in the New Testament. But Lewis is quick to point out that the goal of self-denial is having ultimate and good desires met.

The fasting monk enjoys a feast more than the king.

The problem for Lewis is not our appetite for desire, but rather our lack. What we lack is the imagination of how our desires might be met in a fuller, endless, and ultimate way.

You may have come across these words before. But as for myself, I didn’t realize the greater point Lewis was making in the essay as he continues.

Contemplating A World Full of Symbols

Lewis describes our real destiny as that which is transtemporal and transinfinite good (beyond time and quantity). And if this is so,

If you can grasp this point, you can understand the Christian practice of contemplation. Saints were drawn into deep longing for God, for paradise, by beholding. In their beholding, they would see how the object, a tree, a person, a piece of music, participated in the heavenly. In other words, every thing in the natural order is a little sign, a symbol, of that ultimate fountain of the good.

In this way, Lewis aligns himself with the great spiritual fathers of Christianity who believed that all creation was one great theophany, where God reveals his invisible qualities visible to be pondered and transcended.

Beauty Unveiled

I believe understanding Lewis in this register is important for what we read next. In the modern world, speaking in this way has been drowned out by various pressures. But we can only ignore the glory of God hidden in creation for so long. The secret always finds a way to get out.

How often are we struck by meaning and by beauty and have nothing meaningful or beautiful to say? We have the words, the grammar handed to us by Scripture. And we don’t use it.

The role of theology is precisely to give words for this desire. (When I say theology, I don’t mean merely precise explanations of theological truths. Good theology must show us, paint a picture for us, not just tell us. Since we’re referencing Lewis, his book Till We Have Faces may be one of the best narrative examples of what I mean by theology. Theology is a word prone to many abuses today. People new to the task often speak of “talking about theology.” But that phrase makes less and less sense to my ears, since theology means to speak of God. We can speak of God directly through prayer, descriptively through doctrine, or experientially through contemplation. Nothing about theology needs to be abstract.)

Lewis’ point is that we don’t know what to do with moments of so-called ‘beauty’. We could offer praise, a word of prayer, or a small unspoken poem in our heart. Without beautiful, theological or doxological language, praise-making language, we resort to vague notions of ‘pretty’ or ‘nice.’ Some moments deserve more than this, moments when a hallelujah is more fitting.

And then there’s that horrible tendency of me and others of my generation to ruin a good moment with sarcasm. Sarcasm profanes and dulls our sense of beauty. I’m still a recovering user.

Remembering What We Never Experienced

I am prone to nostalgia. The memories that go furthest back seem to have the glow of Eden about them. And like Lewis, I believe that’s because nostalgia, at its best, is remembering further back than the memories themselves. I believe we have a sense of the sacred embedded in us. But for a while, I was haunted by the thought that my “desire for that far-off country” was just nostalgia for its own sake. In other words, that the memory is all there is.

Lewis names an example of someone who thought this way. English poet William Wordsworth. For him, the longing we speak of was just nostalgia, the reflection of a childhood memory. It all is just one’s ‘imagination’, or ‘beauty’, as if either of those were self-explanatory. Pay attention to how people abuse the word just. Charles Taylor called them subtraction stories. These are modern stories, woven to psychologize and explain away anything in us that detects the presence of something sacred.

The memories that shine the most are little signposts of Eden.

I have one such memory that stands out. It’s a memory of being in my Grandma’s garden as a child. It wasn’t one specific instance. Nothing crazy happened to embed it in my memory. And I’m positive my young self, the one experiencing the memory, wouldn’t have thought much of living in that present moment. But I know something in me was captured by a remembering that went further back than my own lifetime.

We see this in animals. They have memories, call them instincts, that extend ages back. It’s easy to reduce instincts to some evolved biological hardware. But that doesn’t actually explain what it is in the first place. There’s nothing imaginal about instinctual memory. It’s grounded in reality. As humans, we have an instinct for the sacred.

Echoes of Eden

Now Lewis takes us further. Beauty is not a human construct nor a relative and ambiguous category. Beauty, like truth and goodness, does not originate in the objects themselves—it shines through them.

Then came the line that just about sent me into a mystical state.

This last line hit me with overwhelming force. And I was thinking about why. Because maybe it didn’t for you.

I’ve been trying to put this feeling into words, but never could. But Lewis, in that moment, gave me the words to do so. People nowadays think I read books because I’m hypothetically smart. Or, they think I want to accumulate vast amounts of useless knowledge. But really, I’m simply on a quest to find the words, images, and stories that get at ultimate meaning. I’m chasing after whispers of that far-off land—the Grey Havens of Tolkien, Eden, and at the same time, the New Jerusalem—the City of God.

The Subtraction Spell Can’t Rid Our Hunger

Right after the previous quote, Lewis breaks in with a question.

I believe Lewis is speaking of the binding spell of reductionism. Earlier, we mentioned Taylor’s notion of a subtraction story, which is the propaganda of a reductionist worldview. Lewis’ point is that, for the past hundred years, a story has been told—an enchanting myth, if you will—disguised as an utter non-story. Call it ‘real life.’ Call it ‘normal’, secular life. It’s a myth that tries so desperately to convince us of something that no human throughout our history has believed: that earth is all there is for us, that humanity is its own only hope, and that we can construct our own values, meaning, and purpose. There is no beyond.

To break us out of this spell, we need a better, more compelling story—a deeper magic, to borrow from the Narnia books. In the face of the secular myth, one only needs to point out that we remain hungry souls. This is the classic Argument from Desire.

Meanwhile, anticipating the intelligent reply, Lewis states, “A man’s physical hunger does not prove that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic.” “But,” he continues.

Hunger is the right word for it. It’s not just seeing, but a yearning to partake of the object of desire.

The Journey Back To The Habitual Self

There is a moment, at the end of every sunset, every good movie, as the words The End fade into sight in big letters, right when I’m supposed to be satisfied. Right then, I’ll get the slightest intimation of melancholy. Something deep inside me will ask why, why did it have to end? Call it greed, but these moments almost always feel incomplete. Rather, it’s the completeness of the moment I don’t like. I want more.

Endings, I believe, are part of the old creation. Our fall from transcendence back into the mundane is a part of the fall indeed.

We yearn to know that world. But more than that. We want to be known within it. This sets Christian longing apart from nirvana. True longing, human longing, is not to dissolve, but to be changed, to know and to be known.

Kids leaving a week at camp get this. They just experienced deeper intimacy with God and maybe glimpsed the kingdom for the first time. And then it’s time to go home, back to “the habitual self.” And they’ll want to take something with them. However, the camp high will wear off just like their face paint. But thankfully that’s not the end of the story. That world remains accessible to them whether they realize it or not.

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Communion

Earlier, we spoke of hunger. We hunger not only to partake of the thing we long for, but to become one with it.

A skeptic could say that the Christian is in no better position than the rest. No one gets to make contact with that far-off land, in this life. Neither to breathe its air nor taste its fruit. And that’s true to some extent. However, no other worldview (think about that word) can afford us better insight into that reality like the Christian story can. For the Christian, the pink skies on a summer evening are no mere accident of meteorology. The sky truly is a canvas. The stars are signs and symbols (Gen. 1:14) of God’s own light. And by contemplating these things, we ready ourselves for our destiny beyond the heavens.

One word we can use for what Lewis describes is communion. It’s no wonder that’s also the word we use for a meal that aims to satisfy our hunger and bring us into deeper union with Christ. According to a Reformed view of the sacrament, when we partake, we participate in the heavenly realms where Christ is seated (Col. 3:1).

Glory

Communion is the how. But what will it be like? To be in that state of blessedness? We’re left with one word—Glory, the subject of Lewis’ essay. Lewis observes that glory has to do with two things in Scripture: recognition and splendor.

Glory is like a child receiving praise from their father. The child can commune with God because of her humility, her wonder, and her limitless imagination.

We’re back to what began Lewis’ essay in the first place. Self-denial was only a path to the endless innocent joy of being loved.

Lastly, the glory that awaits us is like a splendor we cannot describe.

By awakening the child in us, we get glimpses of that splendor. But, as Lewis says in his final words of the essay, it can’t just be for ourselves. Our neighbor, and all of creation too, needs to get in on this. And by God’s grace, we can have ears to hear and eyes to see that far-off country we long for.

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Indifference and diversion. And we find both consistently as we read the gospels.

Here is Matthew 11:16-18 (My translation).

To what can I compare this generation? It’s children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

‘We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a lament,
and you did not mourn.’

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He’s crazy.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drinker, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.

This is a strange passage. Yet I hold to the traditional view that Jesus is referring to himself and John. Jesus depicts their prophetic duet as children in the street calling out to a deaf and uninterested people.

Their songs seem to oppose one another. John is singing a dark and introspective lament. It’s time to fast and repent before the terrible arrival of God’s kingdom. Jesus, on the other hand, is singing a cheerful tune. God’s kingdom is here! It’s time to feast and celebrate. And as you listen to the two, you realize they are harmonizing.

But the crowds won’t have it. Some listen for a moment. And then they’re carried on by the next thing. Others could care less.

John calls us to repent. And we stare at him.

Jesus tells us the good news. But we don’t care.

This is indifference.

Indifference

Reflecting on Blaise Pascal’s Pensées, Peter Kreeft gives words to the predicament.

Those who genuinely seek God will find him. But the indifferent person will not do this on their own. Instead, they will find themselves surrounded by people who, like themselves, don’t care.

If we are indifferent instead of seeking, we simply will not find, that is, we will not be saved. Hell is not populated mainly by passionate rebels but by nice, bland, indifferent, respectable people who simply never gave a damn.

That last line hits hard. And it raises a question.

How do we respond to someone who simply doesn’t care?

Indifference is to be expected in ministry. Jesus faced it, and so will we. My leaders and I face it all the time in youth ministry. Dealing with indifference requires us to be passionate, yet patient. Passion is a good thing. But it must be accompanied by a recognition of the human condition, a patience for the Spirit to do what we cannot.

Adding knowledge to indifference only heaps on boredom and familiarity. Furthermore, it gives a feeling that we know God when we do not. If adding knowledge won’t work, compulsion won’t work either. You can’t force someone out of their indifference.

The solution to indifference requires something far more compelling—care.

Here’s Kreeft again.

To care is even more important than to know, for it is the only way to know the most important thing: yourself, your purpose, your destiny…

To care, to love, is the means by which we know God. And in turn, we then come to know who we are.

When it comes to indifference, care is not only the problem, it’s the solution. What I mean is care is what’s lacking in the indifferent soul. But care is the only way out. It is not a care that can be conjured up on its own. Care has to come from the outside.

The only thing that can ignite the embers of our heart is the breath of God’s own Spirit.

Diversion

Another roadblock is diversion—to avert my attention, to distract myself from examining my own heart, and how the Spirit might change it. Diversion isn’t just a sign of immaturity. At its worst, it’s an avoidance of the soul.

Pascal would often say that “the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.”

Here’s Kreeft again, commenting on this passage.

We want to complexify our lives. We don’t have to, we want to. We wanted to be harried and hassled and busy. Unconsciously, we want the very things we complain about. For if we had leisure, we would look at ourselves and listen to our hearts and see the great gaping hold in our hearts and be terrified, because that hole is so big that nothing but God can fill it.

And so instead of confronting the message of Jesus and John, we would rather forward excuses for why we won’t follow Jesus (or follow him to the extent he calls us to). Well, after all, I don’t want to be that Christian. That’s crazy. Or, I don’t want to be that kind of Christian. That would mean compromising on my other values.

In the face of the gospel message, we all have a basic tendency towards indifference or diversion.

What are some solutions?

One way we can break people out of their distractions and indifference is to pursue growth ourselves. Coupled with loving care, we need to model lives that are singular in their aim amid the endless distractions calling out to us.

As leaders, we can model curiosity for others. In fact, this is proven to be one of the most transformative things we can do as leaders. If we are curious, we will inevitably shape others to be curious as well. If we want students to grow, we need to model that growth.

• What’s an area of active growth in your walk with Jesus?

• Which do you face more with the people you serve? Indifference or diversion?

• Which one do you see most in yourself?

Pray that the Spirit would soften indifferent hearts and fix our diverted attention on the Word of God, the one calling out to us, “God’s kingdom has arrived in your midst.”

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My hermitage stay was on the high coastal hills south of Big Sur. Upon my arrival, it lay between clouds above and below. The vast horizon of the Pacific was veiled, drawing me into contemplating God’s hiddenness.

Divine Hiddenness

God’s hiddenness isn’t a mistake. It isn’t a point against the truth of Christianity. Neither is it solely a result of sin. It is an aspect of God’s nature.

Yet we were made in his image, blessed with the ability to peer not only into mysteries on earth (the workings of cells, molecules, and particles), but mysteries in heaven (the movement of the stars, the ideas of our age, and God Himself). However, we remain blind to much of reality—and sin further obscures our sight.

The whole biblical story is about the Father and Creator of all, revealing himself. But not everyone has eyes to see.

God wants to restore us to reach out and to love Him with our minds. And by seeking him in love, we will find him. When we learn to love, he accommodates himself to our perception, using the created order to reveal aspects hidden within God. This is what the practice of contemplation is for.

God’s hiddenness is often categorized as a reason for disbelief in God. You may find it placed beside the problem of evil among other issues. The Problem of Divine Hiddenness, it is called. It used to be a problem for me. Now I marvel in it.

The Most Beautiful Is Hidden

I love the National Parks, but there’s something about the wide accessibility that cheapens the experience. Tour buses. Traffic. Noise. Lines of people waiting to capture the perfect shot.

I think we try to do the same with God. We try to make him accessible, comodified, obtainable beyond how he has already been revealed. Like tourists, we would try to ‘capture’ God, maybe record our encounter with him, posting it for likes and shares, if only he had not remained hidden from our sight.

More beautiful are ravines unseen,
than public parks and ocean scene,
than Sherman Tree or Yosemite Falls,
than places tall and touristy

Beautiful these remain
But not like the hidden domain,
where trails are long and narrow,
The river sings with songs of sparrow

When hiking in the High Sierras above Mineral King, my friends and I discovered a meadow alive with flowers, descending with a mountain stream. The variety of wildflowers and growth was like nothing else. And reflecting on that section of the hike, I’m glad that meadow is hidden from tour buses, far off accessible roads. A picture here would only diminish its beauty. The fact that it’s hidden makes it more beautiful, in part because it takes more effort, but also because it was more preserved, more set apart—more sacred.

It was on this descent, with my pack on, that I was struck with this realization about the beauty of divine hiddenness.

The Mystery of God - Being & Non-Being

Far from trying to put God into neatly categorized boxes, theology begins with mystery. This is not a lazy sense of mystery, a throwing up of hands and refusing to think. Theology is a way of honoring God with language, what we can know (positive theology), and what we don’t know (negative theology). The mystery of God avades idolatry, which we are so prone to. Here is Oliver Clement in his book, The Roots of Christian Mysticism.

History, including the history of Christianity, is littered with caricatures of God, like so many mental idols which have led people either to cruelty or to atheism… People never cease to project on to God their individual and collective obsessions, so that they can appropriate and make use of him.

This is where negative theology becomes really important. It sounds like a bad thing, but negative theology is simply what we can say God is not in order to avoid creating caricatures of God in our heads. Negative theology is a way of holding onto the mystery of God and avoiding idolatry. Here’s one example of negative theology.

God is not a being.

The god characterized by atheists and pagans alike is simply a powerful and benevolent being who lives in the skies, temperamental and dependent on animal sacrifices. However, the God of Scripture reduces these caricatures. Take Acts 17:25-25; 28, when Paul is speaking to the Athenians.

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else… In him we live and move and have our being.

God is the ground of all being. It’s no wonder He commands no image be made of him. This is Paul engaging in negative theology with the men of Athens.

Here’s Clement again on the mystery of God and mental idols.

The world masks the mystery as much as it expresses it. A negative approach is therefore indespensible, one which sweeps away the idols of the mind, the systems, the intellectual concepts, along with the images of sense expereince… That philosophical idol, the ‘Good Lord’ of a certain type of Christianity, or the ‘supreme being’ of spiritualism, has brought about simultaneously the ‘death of God’ and the loss of mystery of Being.

While God evades definition and idols of the mind, we can describe him as Love. This paradox is stated wonderfully by St. John Climacus.

God is love. Whoever sought to define him would be like a blind person trying to count the grains of sand on the sea shore.

God’s disposition is not of indifference, the emotionally ‘unmoved mover’ of Aristotle. Rather, His is one of care, of person-making love. Agapē.

Trinity

It’s easy to start naming a list of attributes for God: Holy, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omnibenevolent… But each of these attributes easily becomes an abstraction. And we’re left with the description of a nameless ‘God of Theism’ that might as well be synonymous with Allah of Islam, El of Ugarit, or Ahura Mazda of ancient Persia.

Okay, so you want to try your hand at describing the Christian God? You read some theology books. You affirm the creeds. God is three and one. Three persons. One essence. This is true. However, as Maximus the Confessor points out,

Even if the godhead, which is beyond all, is worshiped by us as Trinity and as Unity, we know neither the three nor the one as numbers. (On the Divine Names)

Did you catch that? We can’t even use mathematical “one” or “three” to describe him. That’s because God is plural in his singularity, while his three-ness gives way to perfect unity. In other words, the three persons of the Trinity are in one another. The Father is in the Son and the Spirit. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Son is in the Father and the Spirit. There is no ‘God’ category containing them or behind them. And no analogy will illustrate this perfectly. Each person is one with the other. Together, they are one, existing in perichoreisis, a dance, a creative and mysterious love from which flows all there is.

From the divine dance of God’s triune nature, love leaps from mystery into history. The Trinity is where beauty leaps forward from, where goodness radiates, and where truth is absolute.

If there is one scriptural analogy we can use to understand the Trinity, it’s that of speech. The Father speaks. His word does the creating. Just as the words are the outward expression of the mind, so the Word (the logos) is the exact representation of the Father. The Word is distinct from, one in with God in essence. Yet the word cannot go unless it is carried by the breath. The word for Spirit in both Greek and Hebrew also means “breath.” The Spirit and the Son and the Father are One in this way.

The Son, the logos, gives form to the breath of God. And by taking on humanity, the Son becomes the ultimate revelation of God.

The Mystery Made Flesh

In the incarnation, we have access to the fullness of God. No man has ever seen God. Not Enoch. Not Moses. Not Elijah. Not any of the prophets. Only the Son. And through him, we have direct access to the Father. Jesus is, after all, the image of God, the radiance of His glory (Heb. 1:3). As a word is one with the mind, so the Son is one with the Father. When we see Him, we see the Father.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?
John 14:6–10

Although many people witnessed Jesus, few could see him for who he was. His divine nature was concealed. And while Jesus makes God more tangible, Jesus also makes God even more of a mystery and stumbling block.

What do the prophets say about Jesus Christ? That he will plainly be God? No, but that he is a truly hidden God, that he will not be recognized, that people will not believe that it is he, that he will be a stumbling-block on which many will fall.
Pascal, Pensées

For if Jesus is God incarnate, that means God is a crucified God. If Jesus is God with us, he is a God who defies categories.

‘God’ has been defined by a few classical categories: God is immortal. God is spirit. God is unchanging. Yet in Jesus, even these traditional attributes are defied, evading categories and scandalizing neat religious systems.

“Even when manifest, he is always the stranger”
Maximus the Confessor, Ambiguia

For if Jesus is fully divine, we can say things about God that are true and truly scandalous. In Jesus, God becomes the despised prophet, the estranged pilgrim, the wild man who confronts authorities and baptizes with words of fire. He becomes needy, weak, and thirsty. He is born, and yet he remains I AM. His divine and human natures exist in perfect union.

The modern divorce between ‘the Jesus of history’ and ‘the Christ of Faith’ are modern inventions that can’t tolerate the mystery of Christ—two natures united in one desire. As with the Trinity, we are not wise enough to comprehend or contain the person of Jesus in full. So we shouldn’t be surprised by the reductionist accounts used to explain him away or divide him in two.

In the bridging of humanity and divinity, Christ welcomes us even now into the communion he shares with the Father and the Spirit for all of time. Since knowledge of this is impossible, we are simply called to trust. And by trust, we declare the mystery of our faith: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Being a Christian in a generation that’s perpetually online, it’s been hard to miss the rising interest in patristics among Protestants. You don’t have to look far to find Protestant pastors and the theologically curious with an icon of the anastasis (the resurrection) on display in their home or office. Is it used as an object of veneration? Not necessarily. However, it’s a sign of this yearning to recover the beauty and authenticity of the ancient church. To illustrate the interest in patristics, I will show how various ideas and key figures have culminated in our current moment. These include the resurgence of Orthodoxy among young men yearning for mystery, the pitfalls of evangelicalism, the rise of new thinkers, and the desire for embodied practices.

To begin, the rising Protestant interest in patristic writings raises an interesting question. What’s been missing? Before I attempt to explain the corresponding rise of interest in Orthodoxy, it’s worth addressing what many people feel is missing in their Protestant churches. Since extremes make a point, it’s worth taking a glance at the extreme ends of evangelical Protestantism. Many have taken issue with what’s happening with churches that follow the mega-church model, which has been synonymously named by some, “big box churches.” We’re talking about a church that is a giant box-shaped building with no natural light, featuring smoke machines, LED walls, and a big stage. It’s the liturgy of the concert venue.

Despite the seeker-sensitive strategy that brought people into these churches, it couldn’t hold many young people (primarily men) who wanted something more deep and less modern. If “contemporary” is the mode of the evangelical seeker-sensitive churches, these Protestants felt what’s been missing was the “ancient.” What happens next is a swing to the opposite side, liturgically speaking, thus the rise of Orthodoxy in America, and with it, a discovery of patristics.

If Protestantism majors in preaching, Orthodoxy majors in liturgy. And one feels this when entering an Orthodox church. One year, I attended a Greek Orthodox church in Grand Rapids for Pascha. As an observer, it was difficult not to feel transported into the church of antiquity through the Divine Liturgy of St. Chrysostom. It’s ties like this that make people feel as if they are part of the ancient church, or maybe the “original church,” some might say. True as that may or may not be, it’s this feeling, the aesthetic, that is the draw. Nevermind, that it’s not necessarily the earliest church that’s being modeled in an Orthodox basilica, but a liturgy and architecture modeled after the 4th-century onward. That’s not the point. What matters here is the appeal it has to many who feel as if Church history (and tradition) has been either cut out or left completely out of their own churches.

Strangely, this appeal not only applies to Christians, but to secular people as well. It’s been somewhat of a meme in circles online to find people outside the faith saying something to the effect of, “If I were to become a Christian, I would be Orthodox.” My reaction is, Really? Do you really want to be an Orthodox catechumen? You want to submit to a priest? Are you sure about that? Your priest might tell you to cut a lot of your lifestyle choices out. But this, again, is beside the point. It’s about the draw–the sentiment that if the true Church is anything, it should feel ancient, have icons of saints, and long-bearded priests. How did this all happen?

Recently, an article was published in the New York Times titled, “Orthodox Church Pews Are Overflowing With Converts.” Despite the title, the author, Ruth Graham, does a good job of showing the complexity of the matter. Some churches are overflowing, while still many remain unaffected by this trend and struggle by. But in places where Orthodoxy is growing, we notice a few themes that Graham identifies.

Across the country, the ancient tradition of Orthodox Christianity is attracting energetic new adherents, especially among conservative young men. They are drawn to what they describe as a more demanding, even difficult, practice of Christianity. Echoing some of the rhetoric of the so-called manosphere, new waves of young converts say Orthodoxy offers them hard truths and affirms their masculinity.

Ironically, the internet plays a significant role in all of this. I say ironically, given the comparatively Luddite reputation of Orthodoxy. Many of the new converts are referred to, sometimes critically, sometimes jokingly, as “the Orthobros.” Like the “Trad-Caths” of internet Catholicism, these young people want more tradition, more rigour, and a more ancient church. And they are discovering this interest largely through the internet.

Enter Jonathan Pageau. Pageau may be the single biggest factor in the rising interest in patristics recently. To explain his impact, a little background is needed. Pageau is an Orthodox Icon carver by profession and runs a YouTube channel. He’s an artist with an eye for the symbolic. Pageau grew up in a Baptist, biblicist household. Feeling like many of his yearning for beauty and his love for art unfulfilled by his Protestant tradition, he pursued a career in art. After being disappointed also with schools of contemporary and Postmodern art, with its aim to either to comment or to deconstruct (i.e., destroy), he discovered symbolic thinkers that led him to the Church fathers. The way the Church fathers spoke catalyzed Pageau’s own way of thinking and speaking about Christian symbolism. And in iconography, he found the highest form of art he could find. Later, he began his YouTube channel, now a thriving online community, called “The Symbolic World.” Since then, he’s been posting videos, giving public talks, and re-telling classic fairy tales, all through the lens of Christian symbolism.

Now Pageau was described by a friend, cognitive scientist John Vervaeke, as being one of the few people alive who can think and talk like a 4th-century Christian thinker. And it’s true. In addition, a well-known colleague of Vervaeke struck up a friendship with Pageau before his own enormous rise to fame. This was none other than Jordan Peterson. Peterson was also so drawn to Pageau as a religious and symbolic thinker, making Pageau his right-hand man in helping him understand perception, symbolism, and the question of God. While this might sound strange, you’ll find that many were drawn to Peterson for similar reasons Graham mentions drew people to Orthodoxy–both drew in young men who felt rejected by their culture. And Pageau, I believe, helped bridge many who Peterson got interested in the Bible (who until that point never cared for it) to Orthodoxy, and therefore the church fathers. Pageau’s popularity, his approach to reading Scripture, and his take on our current cultural moment were catalyzed by his reading of Church fathers such as St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Maximus the Confessor, and St. Ephrem the Syrian. So what is it about Pageau and these church fathers that has attracted people?

What Pageau has done for many people is help them understand Christian symbolism and symbolic thinking more broadly, which has largely been lost in the West. We can understand Pageau and the rising interest in patristics by looking at the four senses of Scripture. For much of the modern period, the literal and moral sense has dominated the scene. The anagogical sense might linger behind these. But the one that has been largely forgotten is the allegorical, or more specifically, the symbolic sense of Scripture.

What we mean by symbolism here is not something that is disconnected from reality. This would put too much distance between the sign and the thing signified. On the contrary, the word symbol means to bring things together. For example, when we say that the bread and the cup are symbolic of Christ’s sacrifice, we mean that the two come together mysteriously. Likewise, a symbolic approach to Scripture seeks to see threads connecting all throughout, weaving together, leading ultimately to Christ.

In reading something like St. Ephrem’s Hymns on Paradise, you realize how beautifully the symbolic sense weaves stories together: Paradise and Golgotha; God clothing Adam and Baptism clothing us in glory; The cosmos and Christ. Many of the church fathers used symbols to point beyond perceivable reality to divine mystery. As Ephrem explains, even words themselves are but garments, concealing a deeper meaning. Compared to the literalist or critical readings of Scripture, there is something deeply beautiful about the way the church fathers approach Scripture and reality itself.

Within my own story, it’s this approach to reality that attracted me to the church fathers. More and more, scientific thinking is realizing that we do not have unfiltered access to ‘objective’ reality. The world beyond our inner experience is more illusory than the picture modernity painted—beyond the limits of science and reasoning. How we access this world has always been through the means of pattern, symbol, metaphor, myth, and logos (rationality/meaning/words). That philosophically and theologically charged word, logos, is making its way back into the conversation.

In addition to the ideas, figures, and trends mentioned above, I believe the resurging interest in patristics has to do with embodied practices. People want a faith that is less intellectualized and more participatory. Here, the monastics shine in particular. But regardless of how many people actually pursue the lifestyle, it is becoming attractive once more to imitate what was at one time a regular mode of Christianity. I myself have taken great interest in trying to incorporate a monastic modality into my own walk with Christ.

In sum, I believe that regardless of how people arrived at the fathers, regardless of the particular brand of Christianity, I think it is to be welcomed. Everyone can benefit from these saints whose words have stood the test of time. Once introduced in the fathers, Christians can discover both a beautiful diversity of voices expressing the same beauty, the same mystery–that in Christ, God is bringing all things together.

Postscript

My own exposure to the fathers has taken me on an unexpected journey. It’s taken me into forgotten corners of mystical theology (which is not as crazy as it sounds), to contemplation, poetry, monastic practices, and more. Eastern Orthodoxy is not the only way to access these aspects of the Christian faith. I hope to write more on this. But none of this should be foreign to us protestants. Calvin and the reformers were students of patristics. And they utilized their writings better than their adversaries from Rome. Today, however, it is hard to find protestants who even know their names. But things are changing. And with the changing landscape of Christian faith, people are turning back to the fathers.

Out of all the ways we receive messages from our culture (social media, news, etc.), music is by far the most powerful. It can also be the most subtle. We hum, we sing a song in our head, all the while remaining blissfully ignorant of its meaning.

Music is a pre-literate form of celebrating, embodying, telling, or resonating with a story. Before we hear a word of conversation from Adam, he bursts into poetic song. “Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh!…” (Gen. 2:23).

Every song tells a story. Whatever story we sing shapes our desires. It forms us to be certain people who participate in that story. In other words, all music forms us toward some end. We become what we love, what we celebrate, what we sing.

One thing I’ve done from time to time in youth group is to have students analyze a piece of popular media (“cultural liturgies” as James K.A. Smith would put it). It’s like studying our culture as we would Scripture. By putting music under the microscope, we discover the meaning, what’s redemptive about it, and what maybe isn’t.

Recently, I had my students analyze the song Ordinary by Alex Warren. At the end of September, it was on its way up the charts. The following week, it was the number one song.

If you haven’t heard it, give it a listen. I’ll be referencing the lyrics below. This may have been my favorite youth group night, given the discussions it catalyzed. You can find the music video below. Watching the music video helps reveal the message of the song. I’ll simply be commenting on the lyrics.

Make no mistake. This is a worship song. Or rather, every piece of secular music is and fails to admit it. Ordinary could not make it any clearer. It is also a deeply religious song. This is so much the case that many people I know who heard the song, at first glance, mistook it for a Christian song.

But we’ll see why that is far from the case. So take the deep dive with me on the song Ordinary, by Alex Warren.

“Ordinary” - A Commentary

They say, The holy water’s watered down
And this town’s lost its faith
Our colors will fade eventually
So if our time is runnin’ out
Day after day
We’ll make the mundane our masterpiece

Let’s try and understand this verse. Stated differently, the notion of ‘the sacred’ has eroded. Post-enlightenment suspicion has seemingly exorcised the spirit of religion. And as Nietzsche prophesied, nihilism now reigns (that is, the belief that all amounts to nothing). The universe hurls further towards its eventual nothingness, along with our human endeavors. Meaning, like us and our universe, will fade away.

And if this is the case, the artist concludes, ‘Let’s make our own meaning, our own values. We’ll make our own cathedrals to what we deem sacred. If heaven is off the table, we seek a new source of spiritual elevation. And we need not look further than the mundane (earth) itself. We’ll make it our masterpiece.’

I take one look at you
You’re takin’ me out of the ordinary
I want you layin’ me down ‘til we’re dead and buried
On the edge of your knife, stayin’ drunk on your vine
The angels up in the clouds are jealous, knowin’ we found

Something so out of the ordinary…

The religious element of the song quickly becomes explicit. To be taken outside of the ordinary is by definition to move toward the sacred, the holy, and proximity to the gods.

Next comes sacrificial symbolism. He is lying down, knife ready for the offering. And then, complementing the sacrificial symbolism, is that of communion. He is sustained on the wine of the divine other, further complementing the sacrificial lyrics.

A nod towards human sacrifice and wine-induced cultic worship. Sounds interestingly similar to the ancient cult of Dionysus. Let’s at least call it a perverted form of communion.

Note that this is a sacramental verse, meaning the heavenly touches down through sacrifice.

Next line. Because of the transcendent object of the artist’s praise, even heaven’s hosts are stricken with envy, knowing heaven has been established on earth.

But pause. Who is the ‘you’ of the song? Who is the one taking him out of the ordinary? If you listened, did you catch it? It’s only mentioned once. The previous line exclaims, “My love.” With this in mind, pay attention to the next verse.

Somethin’ so out of the ordinary
You got me kissin’ the ground of your sanctuary
Shatter me with your touch, oh Lord, return me to dust
The angels up in the clouds are jealous, knowin’ we found

The woman here is described as sacred space. I don’t have time to explain how this actually parallels Genesis 2. In this way, the woman is described as being at least an image of the divine. However, the lyrics flirt with the fact that she is no mere icon. She is described as a god. He is but a mere observer of divine mysteries, too much for his mortal soul.

An encounter, a touch, would return him to dust. This is actually a profoundly ancient sentiment to describe prophetic and ecstatic revelations (Mircea Eliade, The Sacred And The Profane). The feeling of awe reduces the beholder to rubble, not far off from Isaiah 6.

But this is no trip into heaven. Don’t forget, the story of this song presents a closed world in which the mundane is all we have.

Hopeless Hallelujah
On this side of Heaven’s gate
Oh, my life, how do ya
Breathe and take my breath away?
At your altar, I will pray
You’re the sculptor, I’m the clay

Now the artist turns the dial of religious language up even more. However, this hallelujah is hopeless. As we learned earlier in the song, there is no hope beyond this world. It’s a closed-off cosmos. However, he finds hope in being in the arms of his love, his divine sculptor—language straight out of Isaiah 64:8. He will be a priest devoted to his one and only god.

Somethin’ so heavenly, higher than ecstasy
Whenever you’re next to me, oh my, my
World was in black and white until I saw your light
I thought you had to die to find

Something so out of the ordinary…

Despite the immanent being all there is, neither heaven nor cosmic significance can escape the conversation. Except here, heaven is reduced to some old religious idea about post-mortem bliss.

His discovery was like a conversion. He became a new creation the day he encountered her. It’s as if he went from darkness until the light of romantic love dawned on him. Think Genesis 1:3—“And God said, ‘Let there be light’…”

Finally, he is elevated. Ecstasy literally means ‘standing out.’ It’s a word behind how we think about ‘out of body experiences.’ In ancient prophetic traditions, excluding the Hebrew Prophets, an encounter with the divine takes the agent out of their body so that one loses control of themselves (Heschel, The Prophets).

Romantic transcendence

To treat this as a ‘secular’ song about romantic love does not do it justice. This song is closer to an ancient Greek hymn to Aphrodite than a (hypothetically) value-neutral modern pop song.

Songs like Ordinary reveal that secularism was just a cover-up for hidden idols: romance, sex, money, power. Old gods, new pop-culture guise. What’s termed ‘secular’ (e.g., secular music) pretends to be neutral on questions of religion. But this is impossible. There is no value-neutral stance. There is no ‘view from nowhere.’

Secularism, in its multiplicity of forms, seeks to elevate, to transcend, to step into the sacred just like any religion. The question is how. How does one achieve transcendence?

On this point, the music video didn’t disappoint. As the song builds, we come to the climax of the song’s meaning.

The ascension.

We could call it (ecstatic) romantic transcendence. United to the divine, man is lifted above the earth up into the heavens by the sacred other.

Here, the secular myth accomplishes its great sleight of hand. After all, according to the song, isn’t the material world all there is? Yearning for the transcendent, the lyrics leap off the ground. And they have to; otherwise, the song wouldn’t be very deep.

But don’t miss the performative contradiction. We are tricked into imagining we inhabit a closed world when, in reality, the transcendent has always been there. We either pursue it through illegitimate means or we simply have the wrong destination. Romantic love is a kind of transcendent ideal, but it is subservient to higher ones. It is not to be confused with the ultimate. Here, we have a basic definition of idolatry. And so, as exemplified in this song, something, some idol, becomes our means of lifting us up, drawing us, toward whatever is deemed ultimate. In this case, it is the spirit of romantic love.

Christ and the ordinary

Our secular myths cannot provide a sufficient story. The yearnings of this song are an example of reaching for something that cannot be satisfied in an ultimate way. Outside of the Christian story, our quests to elevate ourselves are vain and empty.

Being united with Christ is the only way to achieve true transcendence. When this happens by faith, we leap into a new reality. We become new creations having been justified through his sacrifice. Instead of merely taking us out of our ordinary existence, the ordinary is transfigured. A table, bread, wine, water, a wooden cross, a marriage, humanity... Each now begins to glow with its intended meaning.

When he was lifted up from the earth, Jesus began drawing all people to himself. Romantic love (eros) is only a shadow of the uniting power of the agapē love of God. The God of love is the only one who can give us what we ultimately seek: to have God fill the ordinary with himself.

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven… And when you pray, do not be like the stage actors (hypocrites), for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 6:1-,5-6

Awards, photoshoots, applause, praise… That last one is ironic. Of course, I’m talking about the landscape of Contemporary Christian Music (CCM).

This one might hurt a little. But hopefully the sting comes more from Jesus’ sermon than mine. The text cited above mentions a word. Hypocrites. Sometimes we take that word to mean someone who says one thing and does another. But that only gets at one aspect of this word. From the Greek, hypocritēs, it is a word that means “stage actor,” “one who puts on a mask,” “performer.” In this context, Jesus is pointing out how even one’s religiosity (generosity, prayer, fasting) can be used to draw attention to oneself instead of our audience of One, as Os Guinness termed it.

I’m calling this phenomenon Performative Christianity. That is, a way of being Christian that seeks the spotlight, the stage, the audience. It’s promoted in social media through catchy sermon reels, Christian influencers, and church fashion aesthetics. It infects churches, pastors, Christian influencers, and of course, the industry of praise (CCM)

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I became aware of the prime example of this.

The Dove Awards.

If you were like me a couple of weeks ago, I wasn’t really aware that it existed.

My attention was grabbed by the recent flare-up with Jelly Roll and Forrest Frank. The details don’t matter. However, my a lot students follow Forrest. You can look up the drama yourself if you're interested. But that’s not what I’m writing about.

Jelly Roll and Brandon Lake won Song of the Year. Hard Fought Halllelujah. Catchy song. But I can’t say there’s much that’s distinctly Christian about it. Jelly’s song, Save Me, was probably closer to a Christian song than this one with Brandon Lake. It’s very “I”-centered, which is why I’m not the biggest fan of the song.

But hey, isn’t it cool that a celebrity collabed with a worship artist?

I then ask, Why is that so cool? What is it about celebrities that makes us esteem them so highly above others? Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy when celebrities embrace or flirt with the faith, a common phenomenon as of late. But is it a bigger deal than what’s happening in your local church? Bigger than baptisms? Bigger than discipleship? Sometimes, if we’re not careful, we can spend more time focusing on Christian celebrities than we do on our own brothers and sisters in church. And I think we all know why.

We pay too much attention to the spotlight. And we love to see people from our team in the spotlight.

This was horribly true at the Dove Awards, which included its very own red carpet to display artists’ pricey designer fashion.

“Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.”
Matthew 23:5–7

Swap the word ‘Rabbi’ for ‘artist.’

Worship leaders and Christian influencers getting their share of photos and interviews. Praise from interviewers. Praise from fellow artists. Praise from fans. Praise for… praise?

This is not Christian.

And I’ll go further to argue that it’s worse than the secular alternative. In quality, yes, but more importantly, because of the mixing of a secular medium with Christian messages. Christianity, by its nature, is contrary to the liturgy of secular award shows. Form matters, not just content. And we really can’t separate the two. It’s Marshall McLuhan’s famous saying, “The medium is the message.”

In its imitation, the Dove Awards reveal the image it wants to conform to. It’s not the image of the Son. It’s the image of society. Which is horribly ironic, given that the same churches where artists lead worship will go to great lengths talking about how Christianity is so radically different from the world. The performative contradictions are not difficult to spot.

Appropriating celebrity culture for Jesus, we might call it. Some say it’s a pragmatic move: “Maybe if the world sees how relevant Christian music is, they will see how relevant Jesus is too!”

I don’t think so.

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them
1 John 2:15

By the way, if I weren’t a believer, I think seeing a worship leader dressed in a leopard-print suit holding trophies for worship wouldn’t be the biggest draw…

Yes, God gets lots of lip service in these award shows (he does in secular ones from time to time as well). But it goes completely against how Jesus said we are to express our devotion, especially when God is on our lips.

To think I’ve covered the worst of the Dove Awards would be a mistake. Dispersed throughout the show were repeated sponsor plugs for investing in gold and silver (i.e., that stuff James says will rot our souls). Don’t forget the latest books from highly questionable televangelists and prosperity preachers, the first Christians to master the digital medium.

All this to say, I wouldn’t touch this award show with a 10-foot pole.

And the artists are complicit in creating this culture. But some are sounding the alarm. Take artist, Jeremy Riddle.

Consider a Pharisee, a man about 30 years old. He’s zealous for his God. After years of listening and learning from the public prayers of his teachers, he gives his best go at it. Standing on a busy street corner at noon, he delivers an orthodox and sanctimonious prayer. Friends, family, onlookers, and his teachers thank him and applaud his worshipful prayer.

Along comes a prophet from Galilee about the same age. “Woe to you,” he says. “Stage-performer! You look good on the outside, but inside you are image-obsessed. Stop babbling like the nations do. Instead, go into your room and pray to your Father. If you keep chasing after the praise of others, you will have no reward in the kingdom.”

Performative Christianity doesn’t start or end here. The problem is pervasive, maybe one of the most definitive temptations of a digital age. Through social media, every single person can adopt a platform and gain an audience. Social media trains us to be stage-actors in the sense that Jesus warned against. But that’s for a future post.

In the future, I hope to show how it has seeped into youth and pastoral ministry.

Matt. 6 offers deep cuts in our culture that worships self-promotion and maximizing our influence. But it’s been that way for a long time. It’s no wonder that hypocrisy became a cardinal vice identified by the early church. Greek culture celebrated the stage, worshipped the spotlight. So it is with American culture today.

Maybe providing an attractive witness in the future means avoiding the spotlight and only letting praise go unhindered to the audience of One.

“Blessed are the poor and spirit,
for their is the kingdom of heaven…”

Blessed. That’s the repeated word that opens up the Sermon. In its familiar unfamiliarity, this word has likely lost its meaning for you (like the word Beatitude). Blessed is one of those words that, to some, is clothed in vague religiosity, like an AI-generated image of a pastor. Or worse, an example from an outdated meme…

For those who don’t know, that’s a picture of Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan from Star Wars Episode II.

Here’s my point: Translations like “blessed” look good at first glance, but are a bit misleading.

There are a few different words for “blessed” in Greek that Matthew could have drawn on. None of these are the words we find here at the beginning of the Sermon.

So what did Jesus say? What did he mean when he said it? And is there a better English word or phrase to communicate what the beatitudes are? I believe so.

To do this, we need to open up our Hebrew Bibles for some context.

Ashrei - Experiencing the good life as God intended it

“Blessed is the one…” These are the words that open up the Psalms scroll. It continues, “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked of the wicked… but whose delight is in God’s law, and who meditates on his law day and night… That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season…whatever they do prospers!… For God watches over the path of the righteous.”

The word that opens up this psalm is likely the same word Jesus uses to address the listeners of his beatitudes. It’s the Hebrew word ashrei. In Greek, this gets translated as makarios. But its translation into English isn’t as simple as a one-word equivalent.

In Psalm 1 (and elsewhere), ashrei is used for someone experiencing the good life as God designed it. Here, the good life is experienced by the one who meditates on Torah daily. Their work prospers. Their relationships flourish. Their vision is clear because they follow God’s ways. They are on the path of righteousness (Ps. 1:6).

To avoid more religious lingo. Righteousness is a state of right relationships with God and neighbor (i.e., what the Torah is all about). Hint, hint—this is what the Sermon (Torah fulfilled) is all about.

But let’s return to Jesus’ opening words. I offer the following translation (inspired by Dr. Mackie and other scholars) to prompt us to see these words with fresh eyes.

How good is life for the powerless,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
How good is life for those who grieve,
for they will be comforted.
How good is life for the unimportant,
for they will inherit the earth.
How good is life for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
How good is life for those who show mercy,
for they will be shown mercy.
How good is life for the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
How good is life the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
How good is life for who have been persecuted for doing what is right,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

How good is life when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Hopefully, this makes it clear how surprising Jesus’ words are. How is it that the powerless, the afflicted, the mourners, and the persecuted are experiencing the good life?

Jon Guerra puts it well in his song, Kingdom of God.

Blessed are the poor who have nothing to own
Blessed are the mourners who are crying alone
Blessed are the guilty who have no-where to go
For their hearts have a road to the kingdom of God
And their souls are the songs of the kingdom of God
And they will find a refuge
For theirs is the kingdom of God

Their hearts have a road to the kingdom. That’s better than I know how to put it. In other words, these are the people who can best receive the kingdom Jesus is bringing about. And when they seek the kingdom, they are experiencing a good life like nothing else, a state often cheaply named “happiness.”

After reading The Happiness Hypothesis, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt confirms much of Jesus’ teaching in the New Testament through the lens of happiness studies (yes, that’s a field of research). Through Haidt’s findings (as confirmed by ancient wisdom), we know that happiness is not merely in having, but in striving toward a goal. It’s not in getting the Amazon package, but waiting for its arrival.

Gaining wealth can increase one’s happiness, but the drop-off is swift. People who move from middle to upper class don’t experience a drastic increase in happiness. On the other hand, going from having nothing to having something marks an enormous uptick in happiness, even if the person is still on the lower strata of wealth. But more importantly, these studies confirmed that we are happiest when our relationships are healthy, regardless of tax bracket. All other factors aside, being in a state of relational wealth is what matters most.

This matters because Jesus isn’t simply offering post-mortem bliss to those who believe and suffer while in this earthly shell. He’s offering a better and more surprising form of happiness, a better picture of the good life, than the world has to offer. And it’s something they can receive right now.

“Want in?” Jesus asks, “Become like the child, the exile, the foreigner. Be singular in your desire for God’s kingdom. Leave any other allegiances behind and join those who are mending relationships back together. These are the ones who know the good life of the kingdom.”

The good life is preceded by humility.

A Road Paved By Humility

For me, they convict me as a ministry leader. The ‘kingdom moments’ are not achieved through having all the right resources, the time, the skills, and the charisma. My very American understanding of success is very skewed, to say the least. If I were to try building the kingdom, it would end up looking like me.

Left to my own devices, I have a mistaken vision of God’s kingdom. I slip into thinking the kingdom is one of visibility, of recognition, of Christianity being in the spotlight, being loved by the world.

Ministry is full of temptations to be charismatic, relevant, and image-obsessed. At my worst, I think the kingdom of God is something that can be gamed, something that can be planned out like a construction project. I think, “Maybe if we can control every factor, we’ll enable God to come down in glory.” The same logic as the building of Babel, by the way.

In reality, my personality, my master’s degrees, my status, and my intelligence carry absolutely no currency in the kingdom.

The kingdom of God has nothing to do with earthly recognition. It’s not hype. It’s not a worship vibe. It’s not your favorite Christian leader getting quoted by the NY Times. It’s not writing a best-selling book. It’s not a well-shot Christian production for the world to admire. I like the thought that the kingdom has never been caught on camera, but that’s probably overstating things.

It’s not even Christianity when it is tolerated or held in high esteem by the world. In fact, it’s not anything the world is going to admire, just like the people of the beatitudes.

The kingdom is not of this world, nor is it of the people of this world. Neither is it something that can be observed by most people.

Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in within you.”

If I think I can manifest the good life of God’s kingdom in my own creative way, being my ‘authentic self’, I haven’t understood a word Jesus said.

Instead, I must prepare my heart for the work that Jesus’ sermon will do to it. Taking Jesus at his word, if I’m truly ready for the kingdom, my life will look weak and powerless. My heart needs rendering. Then, and only then, will I be able to see the kingdom.

When I look back at times when the kingdom was put on display before my very eyes, I was always in a state of lack. It wasn’t in the spotlight. And it wasn’t always pretty. There was mourning and hungering. But when the Spirit showed up, I wasn’t tied down to the world. My attention wasn’t splintered in so many different directions. This is what I think Jesus meant when he said the following.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God

In other words, those who develop a singular focus, hearts without mixed motives, see God act.

At other times, it feels like the first famous beatitude. How good is life for those who have the wind knocked out of them” (my highly interpretive paraphrase). To be “poor of spirit” is not to be lacking ‘spiritual’ fire. It’s a state of being powerless, lacking the vitality that normally propels us forward. Why? Why are these people in an optimal position? Because they are yearning to fill their lungs with the breath of God—to be animated by a different power than their own, since they have none.

All that said, maybe it’s not a matter of forcing ourselves to be like the kinds of people Jesus elevates in the beatitudes. We can’t manipulate our way into the kingdom. But each of us will find moments in our lives when we are grieving, powerless, hungry, hated, and insignificant. Maybe it requires remembering our humble state when we were children, those models for entering God’s kingdom (Matt. 18:3).

The question is, what will our heart posture be? Will we notice the narrow path that leads us upward? Or will we descend the well-traveled path to a worldly picture of the good life? Every moment of perception places this choice before us. Oh, that we would have eyes to see.

For now, let’s ponder Jesus’ surprising wisdom, “How good life is for the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”

We’re starting a youth group series on the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). Before the sermon begins, we hear these important words from Matthew:

When Jesus heard that John had been put into prison, he withdrew to Galilee…He went and lived in Capernaum, which was by the lake inwhich was by the lake in the area of Zebulun and Naphtali—¹⁴ to fulfill what was said through the prophet Isaiah: ¹⁵
“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
¹⁶ the people living in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”
¹⁷ From that time on Jesus began to announce, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

That word “kingdom” has gotten popular again recently in churches, and for good reason. It’s a central concept in the Christian story. But many questioning teenagers (like I was) might be wondering what exactly we’re talking about. Just because “kingdom” might be a familiar term doesn’t mean it can’t drift into cliche, and then become unfamiliar altogether.

What is this kingdom Jesus talks about?
Is it here? Is it waiting for us?
Do we build it?

If we study the places Jesus talks about the kingdom of heaven (also known as the kingdom of God), we would begin to notice that the kingdom is somewhat veiled in mystery. With that being the case, it might be better to talk about what the kingdom is NOT before we clarify what it is. Below are three popular views, each with its half-truths and misconceptions.

#1. The kingdom when we die

This one is by far the most popular. It’s on our lips whenever we talk about heaven. “When we go to heaven…” The assumption in this view is that Jesus is announcing the way to “go to heaven when we die.”

The only thing this view gets right is the fact that there is an element of the kingdom that is forthcoming and entered upon death (think of the man next to Jesus on the cross promised to enter paradise that day). Part of this confusion is in the name, the kingdom of heaven. But that word heaven is tricky.

At its most basic meaning, heaven is the word for that which is above, even literally “the sky.” However, within the biblical story, 'heaven' can refer to God’s space, which is not limited to the destination of post-death existence.

However, so often heaven is thought of in a disembodied way. Souls floating off to an airy, spiritual realm. The kingdom is from heaven, not heaven in and of itself. Heaven on its own is not our ultimate hope, since it must incorporate resurrected bodies and a renewed earth. See N.T. Wright’s monumental book Surprised by Hope for more on this.

Or you can watch this classic video from Bible Project. It’s a must-watch if you haven’t already.

This brings us to the next related view.

#2. The ‘apocalyptic’ (not-yet) kingdom

Popular among a large number of biblical scholars, some view that when Jesus announced the kingdom, he was announcing the end of the world. There’s a phrase loaded with meaning. By ‘end of the world’, it is usually meant the destruction of the world in ‘apocalyptic’ fashion.

Most Christians have their own version of this view. It’s as if when Jesus is telling people to repent for the sake of the kingdom, he’s warning them about his second coming (when the end of the world will take place). But that’s strange. The implicit assumption here is that Jesus came simply to warn of his return, a view many Christian cults have latched onto.

Popularized by (big word warning) dispensationalism, this view has taken the kingdom to generally refer to the return when Jesus would return to rule for 1000 years on earth (Rev. 20:4). In other words, the kingdom doesn’t truly get going until Jesus finally returns.

Some in this view would rightfully notice that Jesus taught about the kingdom in the Sermon on the Mount. However, so often interpreters have taken what Jesus says to be an unattainable ideal—not possible in this life except for Jesus alone. While this teaching is guised in humility, it completely misses the end of the sermon where Jesus expects his listeners to take his teachings and “put them into practice” (Matt. 7:24).

The kingdom is not entirely about the age to come. It’s especially not about ‘the end of the world’ as it was put before. New Testament Scholar, N.T. Wright appears again to clarify. This time, I draw from the book I’m currently reading, The New Testament and the People of God. Describing Jewish belief of the 1st century, Wright states that “The ‘kingdom of God’ has nothing to do with the world itself coming to an end. That makes no sense either of the basic Jewish worldview or of the texts in which the Jewish hope is expressed.” Continue reading to gain insight into how the kingdom was understood by the Jewish sects of the 1st century.

The only aspect the not-yet view gets right about the kingdom is that, like the previous view, the kingdom is not yet here in its fullness. That brings us to the options that swing the opposite direction.

#3. The kingdom we build

In the early 20th century, the word ‘kingdom’ became popular among Christians who believed in something called post-millennialism. These people had a very optimistic theology. They believed that things would eventually improve as Christians spread the gospel, performed good works, and established Christian institutions. Slowly, do-good Christians would usher in the kingdom of heaven on earth. Then Christ would come down to finally begin his earthly rule.

However, this over-optimism about the state of the world was largely crushed by the World Wars… While post-millennialials popularized the idea of “building God’s kingdom,” it’s been around for a long time. Roman Catholicism, for example, has long confused the kingdom with the buildings and institutions it built.

But we protestants are no better. It’s become rampant in churches to speak of being “kingdom builders”. What is meant by such a phrase? Popular in evangelical protestantism (and beyond), building the kingdom often means giving to the church or growing a church numerically. Either way, it’s usually about the numbers. In one case I witnessed, congregants who gave a certain amount of money to this church were termed “kingdom builders”, as if the church had various subscription levels.

Alternatively, this view is abstracted to the ambiguous claim of making the world a better place. If you want more about how this goes wrong, read John Nugent’s book, Endangered Gospel.

For all it misses, the kingdom-building view at least affirms it being something that’s already here on earth, and that we even have a hand in seeing it through. The question is how. Do we build it? Or does God? What is our role?

Before we attempt to come up with our own ideas about the kingdom, we should carefully study the words of Jesus.

How Jesus talks about the kingdom

Let’s approach a way of thinking and talking about the kingdom that’s at home with the sayings and teachings of Jesus himself.

Here’s what he says about the kingdom in Matthew’s Gospel.

It’s here (Matt. 4:17)
It’s not yet (Matt. 8:11)
It’s for the poor and persecuted (Matt. 5:3,10)
It can be on earth just like it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10)
It’s been subject to violence (Matt. 11:12)
It grows like a mustard seed and spreads like yeast (Matt. 13:31-33)
It’s a merchant looking for pearls (Matt. 13:45)
It’s like a net that catches many (Matt. 13:47)
It will be seen by his disciples before they taste death (Matt. 16:28)
It’s for those who become like children (Matt. 18:3)
It’s difficult for the rich to enter (Matt. 19:23)
It’s been since the creation of the world (Matt. 25:34)

From John’s Gospel:

It’s invisible to those who aren’t born again (John 3:3)
It’s not of this world (John 18:36)

Probably my favorite from Luke 17:20-21:

Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in within you.”

If the tactile and practical part of your brain is frustrated at these riddles, that’s to be expected. But I invite you to open yourself to the spiritual and relational reality of God’s kingdom.

The kingdom is not something we can grasp with our hands. At the same time, it’s closer to us than we could ever imagine. It’s more real than buildings of brick, and it will be there long after them, too.

I’m going to attempt to land the plane, but if you want to keep exploring the big picture of the kingdom, I suggest you (as usual) go to the Bible Project series on it. The kingdom of heaven is an idea that goes back to the first pages of the Hebrew Bible. Tim and Jon will provide a more in-depth survey than I can here.

The Jesus Way and Its Alternatives

When Jesus announced the arrival of the kingdom, he was also announcing the end of Israel’s exile (not the end of the world). This was the long-awaited hope of Israel. But since the close of the Hebrew Bible and the Maccabean revolt, many kingdom alternatives had emerged in the 1st century.

The aristocratic compromisers, primarily Sadducees, had been set up by Rome in Jerusalem. As far as they were concerned, they were the leaders of their own kingdom project of grabbing for power and influence in Jerusalem. They saw no need for the arrival of another kingdom “not of this world.” In their eyes, they were its architects, builders, and maintainers.

Among the many critics of the Jerusalem establishment were the Pharisees, who worked from within to bring about a Torah and purity revolution for Israel. If covenant appearances were maintained (purity laws, traditions, Sabbath teachings, circumcision, etc.), then God would bring about his kingdom (like the post-millennialists), exulting those who intensified Torah and its surrounding traditions.

Others, like the Essenes, rejected the whole current Jerusalem establishment wholesale until God would purge the ‘sons of darkness’ from Zion. That meant waiting in the desert for Yahweh’s return to vindicate them and punish the nations and those compromisers in Jerusalem (Pharisees included). To the Essenes, the kingdom could only be otherworldly until it destroyed the current fallen world.

Lastly, there were the Zealots. They saw the kingdom as hijacked by Rome (and those who partnered with them), which needed to be retaken by force. In their eyes, as long as Rome loomed, there could be no victory.

In this mixture of kingdom hopes, there was Jesus.

The Kingdom as Spiritual-Relational Reality
An invitation to the Sermon on the Mount

Bringing this together, the kingdom of heaven is God’s eternal reality breaking into the present. It’s where his wise rule reigns, where his will is done on earth as it is in heaven. It’s wherever God’s new world is put on display.

It’s begun in Jesus. And it will come in full on the appointed day.
It’s already. It’s not yet.

In Jesus, God established a kingdom that could never be corrupted and Rome could never touch.

Disease and death did not threaten it. Rather, the kingdom posed a threat to them.

Torah was never the final solution for the kingdom’s arrival, as the Pharisees thought. Instead, Torah pointed forward to its fulfillment in the Messiah. And his kingdom could not be corrupted by the world (gentiles and sinners), because his kingdom is a reality not from this world (Jn 18:36).

We don’t build the kingdom. If we did, we would try to make it look like us. Instead, it is animated by the Spirit who “blows where it pleases. It makes a sound, but you do not know where it came from or where it is going” (Jn. 3:8). This may upset some. “So the kingdom is just airy and spiritual?” some may ask. Depends on what you mean by that slippery term ‘spiritual’. It is spiritual in the sense that it is governed by Holy Spirit-infused people, meaning the kingdom is in every sense embodied.

If the kingdom were a purely objective reality, Jesus wouldn’t need to speak about it primarily in riddles and parables. But throughout the Gospels, Jesus is ever so careful in his teaching so that ideas about his kingdom and his title as king are not hijacked by those who would abuse them.

So how does the kingdom come about? Jesus said it’s already here. But how does it continue to spread? On this, Jesus taught us to pray for it to come. But we also act on it. When we announce the good news, that message goes out and changes people. People are drawn into the kingdom through repentance, then forgiveness, then reconciliation (I have an older post exploring all three of these concepts). In doing so, we are reconciled to God, and therefore one another (see 2 Cor. 5:16-20). That’s the righteousness that makes up members of God’s kingdom.

Toward this end, we display the kingdom by practicing the way of Jesus—doing as he said, praying as he prayed, and loving as he loved. To sum it up, look to the Sermon on the Mount to see what it looks like to live as a part of the kingdom of heaven.

Once we can see this, we realize something important.

The kingdom is a relational reality. It’s a people. We call it the Church. In the Church, God’s new reality is displayed when people are living in restored relationships with God and one another.

Wherever the true Church is, there are the people who go the extra mile, who turn the cheek, who don’t use religion for recognition, who fulfill the law by their love, who illuminate the world with Christ’s love. Wherever human beings are restored to their God-given role, there, right there, is a small glimpse of the kingdom of heaven.

And so between one another, and yes, within our very selves, we experience the beautiful mystery that is the kingdom of heaven. Through this way of understanding the kingdom, we can approach Jesus’ most central sermon with open eyes and let it change us, restoring us to our place as beaming images of God.

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.”

For more in-depth treatments of the Sermon, check out the Bible Project’s in-depth podcast series on the Sermon on the Mount.

If you’ve tried reading through the Bible cover to cover, you may have gotten stuck right after the law is given at Sinai. However, I hope that if you grasp the importance of the exodus story, it will prove an excellent lens for the rest of the book, the Torah, and the whole Bible. And hopefully, you’ll be able to press on through the giving of the Torah (the law) and the instructions for the tabernacle, seeing how they too fit in the dynamic story of Scripture.

Now, let’s do a quick survey of the biblical story through the lens of the Exodus.

Tracing the exodus theme through Scripture

The exodus in Exodus

Despite calling what happened at the Red Sea ‘the exodus event’, the exodus is far from over. Israel was brought out of Egypt and slavery, but they must travel through a desert, and then find their way into a land controlled by rebellious clans.

Gifted with the Torah and tabernacle, Israel was on their way out of the desert when they found one last watery boundary to cross. Joshua records how God instructed the priests to pass through the waters of the Jordan. And just like their fathers, Israel walks between the waters onto dry land into the land promised to Abraham.

But the exodus still wasn’t over…

The goal of the exodus wasn’t just escape. It wasn’t just an exodus from Egypt but to the place where Yahweh would dwell. The Exodus anthem Moses sang made this clear. “You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance—the place, Yahweh, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, Yahweh, your hands established.” (Exodus 15:17). The tabernacle, then, was a mobile temple to deliver them to where God would permanently dwell in Zion, Jerusalem, the Holy City.

Moreover, the exodus wasn’t just from slavery and to the promised land but for Israel to be a kingdom of priests and a blessing to all nations (Gen. 12:2-3; Ex. 19:6).

In the course of the Hebrew Bible, the exodus was finally seen as coming to a close when God’s glory entered the temple built in Solomon’s day.

The end of the exodus? - Israel established in the land

God had said to Solomon, “Since the day I brought my people out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city in any tribe of Israel to have a temple built so that my Name might be there” (1 Kings 8:16). Throughout Solomon’s prayers of dedication for the temple, the exodus from Egypt is named repeatedly. And then, the long-awaited hope is finished. Yahweh’s dwelling place is complete.

But just as we get our hopes up, the author of 1 Kings creatively points out how Solomon used “forced labor” (slavery) to accomplish this. Furthermore, he built his own palace much grander than the temple. Meanwhile, the author goes to great lengths to highlight all of Torah’s prescriptions for kings Solomon disregarded (marrying many wives, having standing armies, entering into treaties with the nations, and having a slave labor force). Not a very good start for God’s kingdom of priests. From here on out, the Davidic dynasty notoriously spirals downward into division and then exile.

Exodus in the Psalms

During this time, the songbook of the Hebrew Bible was being shaped and formed, incorporating many Psalms from Israel’s great king, David. Throughout the Psalms, we see the exodus patterned individualized. No better example can be found than Psalm 18 (you can find the same song in 2 Sam. 22). In it, David recounts his rescue from the hands of Saul.

“In my distress I called to Yahweh
I cried to my God for help…
The valleys of the sea were exposed
and the foundations of the earth laid bare
at your rebuke, Yahweh,
at the blast of breath from your nostrils.
He reached down from on high and took hold of me
he drew me out of deep waters.”

This is the exact phrasing from the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15. But here, David applies it to his own life. God provided a way out (an exodus) for him from death by his enemies. The pattern of the exodus is mapped onto his current situation. It was psalms like these that sustained faithful Israelites when they were scattered and exiled. They can do the same for us.

Exile and prophetic hope

The exodus hope of God establishing his rule in Zion was put on pause when Babylon destroyed Solomon’s temple and carried large populations of Israel away to a foreign land. Israel was under the oppression of a new pharaoh. And more would come, one after the other, each with different kingdoms to their name.

During exile, when the hopes of Israel seemed their bleakest, God sent prophets who told of a future, grander exodus that would take place. Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel spoke of an ultimate exodus when God would send his anointed (prophet/priest/king), crush the enemy, redeem his people, and then he himself would come down to dwell forever. Even when Israel returned from exile in Babylon, many understood that the greater exodus was not complete. They were still in Exile.

The words of Isaiah were the brightest beacon of hope during this time.

Isaiah 52:4-10

⁴ For this is what the Sovereign Lord says:
“At first my people went down to Egypt to live; lately, Assyria has oppressed them.
⁵ “And now what do I have here?” declares the Lord.
“For my people have been taken away for nothing, and those who rule them mock,” declares the Lord. “And all day long my name is constantly blasphemed.
⁶ Therefore my people will know my name; therefore in that day they will know that it is I who foretold it. Yes, it is I.”
⁷ How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
⁸ Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices; together they shout for joy.
When the Lord returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes.
⁹ Burst into songs of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.
¹⁰ The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.

In the time between the testaments, it was the hope proclaimed by these prophets that people clung to for comfort. Egypt was only one of many empires to enslave God’s people, puppets of much more sinister masters—sin and death. But there was good news coming: when God would bring salvation (yeshua, Jesus’ Hebrew name) by redeeming (key exodus word) Israel from the enemy.

Only when God acted to save Israel from its (true) enemies would exile be over, and the exodus complete. This was Israel’s hope during the Second Temple period, the not-so-silent period between the testaments. It was this time, this world, in which Jesus was born—when the fruit of prophetic hope was ripe enough to come crashing down from above.

New Moses, New Exodus

In the Gospels, Jesus confronts the powers of darkness, disease, and death with the power of his word. The ‘lamb of God’ confronted the powers of darkness and became ‘the firstborn from among the dead.’ Notice the Passover theme.

As a child, he was delivered from Israel’s corrupt king, Herod. His family’s flight to Egypt nods to the fact that Israel was under the control of a more sinister Pharaoh. Things must be bad in Israel when you have to flee to Egypt.

He is the greater Moses and the future prophet he spoke of (Deut. 18:15). His priesthood is greater than Aaron’s and his descendants (Heb. 5). He is Israel’s awaited king and judge of all nations, the Messiah (Ps. 2).

He is greater than the law because he is the lawgiver. He is the very Word of God by which the prophets spoke.

He is the greater tabernacle. If you read through Exodus, you’ll notice how much page space is given to the construction of the tabernacle—much more than Solomon’s temple is given. It seems as if God’s presence was meant to be mobile.

The parallels go on. You can read more about them in the previous devos posted on my Substack. But I want this point to stick as we open up our New Testaments and hear the exodus echoes ringing throughout the gospels (and the rest). The arrival of Jesus was seen as the completion of a final exodus.

The post-exodus inauguration of God’s Kingdom - those delivered through death’s waters by the Messiah

When the final exodus happened and God restored his kingdom, what would it look like? What is the future that awaited God’s people on the other side of deliverance?

For that, stay tuned for the next reflection, which opens up our next youth group series on Jesus’ kingdom manifesto—The Sermon on the Mount.

15 Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord:

“I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea.

² “The Lord is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.

He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.

³ The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name.

⁴ Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he has hurled into the sea.

The best of Pharaoh’s officers are drowned in the Red Sea.

⁵ The deep waters have covered them; they sank to the depths like a stone.

⁶ Your right hand, Lord, was majestic in power.

Your right hand, Lord, shattered the enemy.

⁷ “In the greatness of your majesty you threw down those who opposed you.

You unleashed your burning anger; it consumed them like stubble.

⁸ By the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up.

The surging waters stood up like a wall; the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea.

⁹ The enemy boasted, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake them. I will divide the spoils;

I will gorge myself on them. I will draw my sword and my hand will destroy them.’

¹⁰ But you blew with your breath, and the sea covered them.

They sank like lead in the mighty waters.

¹¹ Who among the gods is like you, Lord?

Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?

¹² “You stretch out your right hand, and the earth swallows your enemies.

¹³ In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed.

In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling.

¹⁴ The nations will hear and tremble; anguish will grip the people of Philistia.

¹⁵ The chiefs of Edom will be terrified, the leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling,

the people of Canaan will melt away; ¹⁶ terror and dread will fall on them.

By the power of your arm they will be as still as a stone—

until your people pass by, Lord, until the people you bought ⁱ pass by.

¹⁷ You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance—

the place, Lord, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, Lord, your hands established.

¹⁸ “The Lord reigns for ever and ever.”

The Song of the Sea is one of the loudest thematic movements in the biblical symphony. It’s the tune you hear at the beginning of a movie that picks back up when the hero emerges victorious at the end, which provokes a question. Who is the hero of this song?

There’s no missing it. Yahweh gets all the glory for Israel’s exodus.

If you’ve seen DreamWorks’ legendary “The Prince of Egypt,” you may remember the song at the end of the movie. On their way out, the Hebrew children begin singing, “Ashirah l’adonai, ki goah ga’ah…mi kamochah baelim adonai? mi kamochah ne’dar bakodesh?…” Translation: “I will sing to the LORD, for he is highly exalted. Who among the gods is like you, LORD? Who is like you—majestic in holiness?” These are the very ancient words of praise we find in Moses’s song at the sea. Well done, 1998 DreamWorks.

The shape of the song

This song has a specific shape. If you’re interested in what the shape it takes, it’s a chiasm (ABCB’A’)—not a surprise if you’re familiar with how biblical poetry works! The design of this song shows us how Yahweh’s deliverance echoes forward into the biblical drama. Let’s explore the three main movements of this song and what it teaches us about our God. They start at the beginning and end, then work their way in.

Let’s begin with the first (and last) movement.

Yahweh is a warrior

At the outset, Yahweh is depicted as a warrior who destroyed the ‘god-man’, Pharaoh, and his armies. “He has hurled [them] into the sea… The deep waters (tehōmōt) have covered them.” We first find this word (tehōm) in verse two of the Bible, the watery abyss that covers the world before dry ground appears.

In light of this, we can think of the Red Sea moment as a return, a de-creation moment, for Pharaoh’s army. “They sank to the depths like a stone (eben).” Meanwhile, those who trusted Yahweh and were covered by the blood of the lamb emerged from the other side of the waters onto dry land.

But Yahweh wasn’t just a threat to Pharaoh in the rear-view mirror. There are other ‘pharaohs’ on the horizon. Look at verse 14 and onward. “The nations will hear and tremble. Anguish will grip the people of Philistia. The chiefs of Edom will be terrified, the leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling, the people of Canaan will melt away… By the power of your arm, they will be as still as stone (eben).” Here, Israel’s immediate future enemies are named. Egypt’s king sank like a stone (eben), and the idolatrous kings of the nations will be turned to stone (eben).

God’s judgment is aimed at those who elevate themselves to be their own gods, icons to be worshipped. Idols. Those who worship idols will become like them (Ps. 114:8).

The breath of God

The center of the song is bracketed by how God used his breath (ruach) to create the way for Israel. “By the breath (ruach) of your nostrils the waters piled up…the deep waters (tehōmōt) congealed in the heart of the sea… You blew with your breath (ruach) and the sea covered them.”

The word ruach has a range of meanings depending on the context. It can mean ‘wind,’ ‘breath,’ or ‘spirit.’ It was the Spirit (ruach) of God who hovered above the abyss in the beginning (Gen. 1:2).

In the narrative before this song, what splits the waters of the Red Sea was “a strong east wind (ruach)” (Ex. 14:21). There’s our word again. In doing this, the story doesn’t distinguish between what looks like a ‘force of nature’ and God’s own Spirit, intervening to act ‘supernaturally.’ Those categories won’t always work for us. Instead, what matters to Moses, the author of this song, is that we have an eye for when the Spirit acts, either on its own or through another medium. And in this case, it’s hard to distinguish between the two.

Here’s the greater point. God’s Spirit has always made a way. In the beginning, the Spirit caused the waters to separate and the dry ground to appear, when chaos was turned into cosmos. The Spirit separated the waters of the Sea to allow Israel to walk on dry ground. The same breath of God parts the chaos of our hearts and shows us the way to Jesus.

And nothing can silence the holy breath of God.

Boasting drowned out

In between these lines, we find the center of the song. They are the words of the boasting enemy. “I will pursue…overtake…divide…gorge…destroy…”

Big talk for a great and powerful nation, a powerful ruler, yes. But it doesn’t matter. Pharaoh is a fly in the path of a semi-truck.

The enemy doesn’t stand a chance in the face of God’s power. So let’s cease from quivering at the state of the world. Even when people rise up and threaten our sense of peace, or world peace for that matter. In the scope of history, this is not a close match. The proud, the murderous, the hateful, the builders of their own kingdom are going to be utterly wiped out. None of them has a seat in the only kingdom that will last. Because, according to Scripture, a great flood is coming. Instead of water, the old world will be swept by fire (2 Pet. 3:10). This final wonder will consume the old creation and refine it with the new. As the desert Christians said, that fire is the love of God. It will purify the world and eliminate what does not have God’s loving Spirit.

To tie a neat bow on the Exodus event, let’s look to see how this song of the sea goes cosmic in the final book of the Bible.

The cosmic exodus of Revelation

Revelation 15:1-4

15 I saw in heaven another great and marvelous sign: seven angels with the seven last plagues—last, because with them God’s wrath is completed. ² And I saw what looked like a sea of glass glowing with fire and, standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name. They held harps given them by God ³ and sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb:

“Great and marvelous are your deeds,

Lord God Almighty.

Just and true are your ways,

King of the nations.

⁴ Who will not fear you, Lord,

and bring glory to your name?

For you alone are holy.

All nations will come

and worship before you,

for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

The signs, the plagues, the fire, the sea, the lamb. Can you hear the speakers blasting the Exodus theme? The sea of glass, the curtain of the sky, will make way for the army of the Lamb. The enemies of God (the beast) have finally been vanquished for good.

God’s people sing the song of Moses (and the Lamb) from the new creation—this time, with a fascinating twist. Did you catch how the nations are portrayed? In the first song, the enemies were foes to be subdued. Here, in Revelation 15, they are subdued by being gathered to worship God. No longer are they a threat to God’s people. They are God’s people.

This is what baptism accomplishes. When we are baptized, the cosmic exodus becomes our reality. We were outsiders, enemies, and idolaters. But now, we are people who have been delivered through the waters into the life of the age to come.

The only boasting going on in the new creation is singing about what God has done. Jesus Christ won the victory by bringing his people through death and out the other side. We are the people of the new exodus, so let’s continue to sing of God’s acts of old, his work in Christ, and his bringing the age to come.

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12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, ² “This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. ³ Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb ^t for his family, one for each household. ⁴ If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. ⁵ The animals you choose must be year-old males with

out defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. ⁶ Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. ⁷ Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. ⁸ That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. ⁹ Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs. ¹⁰ Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. ¹¹ This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.

¹² “On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. ¹³ The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

¹⁴ “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance. ¹⁵ For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶ On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is all you may do.

¹⁷ “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. ¹⁸ In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. ¹⁹ For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. ²⁰ Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.”

²¹ Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. ²² Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. ²³ When the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

²⁴ “Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants.²⁵ When you enter the land that the Lord will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. ²⁶ And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ ²⁷ then tell them, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’ ” Then the people bowed down and worshiped. ²⁸ The Israelites did just what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron.

²⁹ At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. ³⁰ Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

Passover is central to the Jewish calendar, the Jewish story, and the Jewish psyche. Much of its symbolism might be lost on us today, but it was central for Jesus and the Gospels.

Therefore, if we are to make sense of Jesus, his death, and the storied framework of our salvation, we need to understand Passover. We can achieve this by unfolding the three primary symbols at work: the bread, the blood, and the lamb. But first, let’s look at this festival with a wide-angle lens.

The evening of Passover occurred simultaneously with the tenth plague, the death of the firstborn, which comes as a shock to us. But God had warned Pharaoh at the outset, “Israel is my firstborn son… Let my son go so he may worship me! But you refused to let him go, so I will kill your firstborn son” (Ex. 4:23). Each of the previous plagues were chances for Pharaoh to change course. But at this point in the story, his heart is frozen over. God will now act alone, without the assistance of Moses or Aaron, to cut off Pharaoh’s line of ‘divine’ kingship.

As you read the following chapters (especially Ex. 13), you will see much talk about firstborns. As you read the laws of Torah, firstborns are a big deal. They are a stand-in, a representative, for the entire family. All of whom belong to God. Passover, as we’ll see, is a visceral reminder that the firstborn, and everyone in the family, belongs to God. And everyone needs to be redeemed.

Onto the three symbols.

The Bread

Bread, often a stand-in for food more broadly, is what sustains. Simple enough. But why unleavened bread? Unleavened bread became a symbol of the haste with which this meal was eaten. Beginning this night of Passover, Israel will live as nomads, just like their ancestors, until they are settled within the land, ending a long Exodus. The way out is a long journey through a desert land.

The bread, therefore, is baked quickly, without yeast. And for the rest of the feast, any yeast is forbidden. This may be symbolic of the state of oppression under Pharaoh, prevented from being able to multiply and spread. Either way, yeast, as it was for Jesus, was symbolic of multiplying one’s qualities (thus the warning against the ‘yeast’ of the Pharisees, Matt. 16:6).

All in all, the unleavened bread was emblematic of the new mode of existence Israel would have until Yahweh set up his temple in Zion. Israel lived off manna, what the land provided, and every word that God gave them.

The Blood

Blood is life. Not just metaphorically. Yes, that is also true throughout the Hebrew Bible. But blood is our life. Innocent blood (life) is what covers the entrance to the home so that “the destroyer” would not enter. The scarlet streaks were a stark reminder of the first plague and the slaughter of the boys by Pharaoh that began the book. The blood is a sign. A sign that God will look to the life of a blameless representative instead of taking back the life of the firstborn. God will “pass over.”

But what does that mean?

Here is a puzzle. Unlike its common name, the Hebrew word pesah, doesn’t simply mean to ‘pass’ or skip over. It means to cover. Isaiah 31:5 uses it as a synonym for ‘shielding’ or ‘protecting’. It’s what Yahweh himself does. He stands at the entrance, in between destruction and the life inside. In other words, Yahweh identifies with the blood of the lamb.

As Passover continued to be celebrated by Israel, wine became a parallel symbol for the blood. However, unlike the blood, the wine becomes an ingested symbol of the life given in your place. As Passover tradition developed, there were four cups to commemorate the fourfold promise of God (Ex. 6:6-7).

The Lamb

The spotless lamb is a blameless representative for the firstborn sons of Israel. This lamb is how the sons of Israel are redeemed. There’s that too familiar word. But what does it mean? Redemption is all about obtaining back something that belongs to you. All of the sons belong to God. God has a claim on their lives. However, Pharaoh enslaved them. So God will redeem them from their slavery.

Moreover, God has a claim on all life. And he’s going to follow through with that claim. The only way one can be redeemed from slavery and death is by another life taking their place. God then gives the lamb as a placeholder. When the lambs are slaughtered, it reminds them that they were redeemed through the shedding of blood, a gift of God.

If you want to know more about the idea of redemption, Bible Project is currently doing a word study series on redemption. I can’t recommend it enough.

All together, the Passover marks a new beginning. The archaic calendar Israel used now resets, centering on the moment in history when Yahweh delivered them from slavery and death. This is Israel’s foundation story, their birth as a nation. More than any other festival in the Hebrew Bible, Passover defines the story of Israel.

With this in mind, we can now shift to how Jesus interpreted the Passover story in light of his suffering and death. From there, we can see what applications we can glean if you’ve stuck this far.

Jesus and Passover

When Jesus looked toward Jerusalem, he spoke of (lit.) his “exodus” that was going to be fulfilled (Lk. 9:31). And as tensions rose in his final confrontations with the temple leadership, Jesus seems to have intentionally chosen Passover weekend to accomplish his exodus. Knowing his arrest was at hand, it seems Jesus celebrated Passover with his disciples early, reinterpreting the meal in light of what would take place that very day (the Hebrew day begins at sundown).

On that note, some have noticed a strange discrepancy between the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) and the Gospel of John. The Synoptics portray the Last Supper and the crucifixion as happening on Passover evening, while John describes the crucifixion happening before the Passover celebration, when the lambs were being selected for sacrifice. Instead of a conflicting account, John is working with a different chronological frame for the same events. In doing so, he is communicating that Jesus is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (Jn. 1:29). Meanwhile, the Synoptics are drawing on the Passover meal, the Last Supper, to show what the death of Jesus means. All the symbols now come together in the four Gospels. The bread, the blood, and the lamb.

What should be obvious now is that the Last Supper was not just some meal. The bread and cup were not just convenient symbols that Jesus hijacked for his own purposes. No. This meal already told a story, a story that pointed forward to a greater fulfillment, a greater exodus, a cosmic salvation story. Here, the bread, blood, and lamb, but also the firstborn, the bloodied wooden frame, the prophet, and God himself find fulfillment in one person. The Passover story, with its symbolism, its new beginning, collapses into the Messiah and his story.

To comprehend the death of Christ means for us, we are given a template. Passover, even more than the Day of Atonement, paints this picture for us. What then did the death of Jesus accomplish on that Passover day?

God gave Jesus as a ransom for us. That is, he took our place as a blameless representative. We deserved to be handed over to the powers of Sin and Death. But Jesus stood in our place to redeem us, to take ownership of us. He did this by shedding his blood, giving up his life, to cover over our sin. Therefore, we are freed to journey towards the full arrival of God’s kingdom as people who have passed through the waters of death, our baptism intoist.

Passover and The Lord’s Supper

To close, let’s apply this to our situation as Christians celebrating the Lord’s Supper.

The Lord’s Supper is not Passover. Nor is it simply ‘like’ Passover, an Old Testament callback. It is the fulfillment of and destination of the Passover meal. In it, we feast on the bread of life, the lamb of God, who shed his blood, forging the new covenant. We now have full communion with our God through the Son. And so we take this reality into our bodies.

In communicating the meaning of his death, Jesus didn’t give a theological explanation or sermon. He gave us a meal. The Lord’s Supper is a tangible reminder of the salvation accomplished by the death of the firstborn of all creation.

However, unlike Passover, it’s not just symbolic. When we partake in this meal, we are communing with the Father, in Christ, who draws us in by the Spirit. And the more we meditate on this reality, the more we can grow in our intimacy with God. But we can’t do this without understanding the Passover notes of the Communion feast.

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7 Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. ² You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country. ³ But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in Egypt, ⁴ he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites. ⁵ And the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it.”

The hardened heart

As we approach Exodus 7 and the following chapters, two problems emerge. First is the famous hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Few passages have caused as many theological problems as this. For this reason, it’s been subject to much debate about free will and God’s role in condemnation. So let’s look closely at the problem and see if we can make sense of it in light of the larger story.

Let’s not beat around the bush with regards to how these verses come off. It seems as if God is making matters worse, multiplying the destruction that’s at hand. Worse yet, we might wonder if Pharaoh is a picture of God overriding someone’s freedom and dooming them to destruction (As we’ll see, I think the opposite is true). Does Pharaoh have any say in the matter? Do we? If God saves, does he also go out of his way to prevent others from believing?

In order to make sense of this, we need to understand the target of God’s wrath. We’re not just talking about some guy. We’re talking about Pharaoh, the god-man, the tyrant. Pharaoh sees himself as the incarnation of the divine. He’s as stubborn and proud as the rebellious project against God’s kingdom gets.

Even before God acted, Pharaoh was obstinate. For God to “harden Pharaoh’s heart” is to have him remain the way he is. That’s why it can also be said later in the story that Pharaoh “hardened his own heart.” Think about the implied metaphor. To harden means to stay the same. If you want water to remain the way it is, cool it to the point of freezing. If you want clay to harden, let it be, don’t add water or try to mold it. Even iron is moldable after being subjected to extreme heat and repeated strikes. But cool it, and it will become impossible to manipulate. This is reflected in the Hebrew text. “Pharaoh’s heart is [kavēd], he refuses to let the people go” (Ex. 7:14). For something to be kavēd is to be as heavy, weighty, dull, and stubborn as a boulder. As it is with Pharaoh, so it is for all who suffer from unrepentant pride. And God will allow Pharaoh to be left in his state for his purposes.

It’s a dangerous thing for God to leave a man be.

Nahum Sarna says it well in his book, Exploring Exodus. “In short, the ‘hardening of the heart’ becomes synonymous with the numbing of the soul, a condition of moral atrophy.” Atrophy is the wasting away that occurs when life remains static, unchanged. Things die when they fail to be changed. Death is when there is only being and no becoming. And so Pharaoh will die in the cold and callous state of his soul. Tragically, he’s willing to bring the entire nation down with him. But God will allow this only to further his own purposes of rescuing his people.

The point of all this is to say that ‘free will’ is the problem, not the solution. Pharaoh willfully chose to be the person he was. And God furthered him down his own road of self-destruction. What we need is for God to change our hearts. We need to be molded, carved, softened. Circumcision becomes an important image here. Better for God to cut off what doesn’t belong than to be left alone. That’s what circumcision is all about. It was always a physical reminder of what God needs to do to our hearts. In other words, like Moses says in Deuteronomy 10, “Circumcise your hearts and don’t be stiff-necked any longer!”

What Israel and Egypt together need is for Yahweh to strike. And when Yahweh strikes, he aims to strike the heart.

Ten strikes

Enter the famous ten plagues. The plagues, then, aren’t ten oppressive, torturous punishments. They are ten chances to turn things around. Ten proddings. Ten acts of grace. Wait, where else might I discover a famous set of ten in the book of Exodus…? See Exodus 20 - The Ten Commandments. The creation story also follows this pattern of ten speech acts (“And God said…”). But unlike the creation story, these are 10 acts of de-creation.

Looking at the big picture, we see that the plagues follow a specific pattern. Moving from the ground up, Yahweh begins to strike the nature gods of Egypt (Num. 33:4). Unlike our modern era, the ancient pagan world did not distinguish between the forces of nature and its gods. Yahweh alone controls the created order, because he is beyond it. And he can take away the orderly functioning of the cosmos as he pleases.

First, God strikes the Nile along with its god, Hapi. The Nile was the artery of Egypt, and now it is bleeding out with no one to stop it. Out from the Nile come frogs and [kinnam]. The third plague is likely mosquitoes that hatch from the Nile marshes. These plagues are the emergence of chaos out of the waters.

Next are the plagues that strike the flesh of the land. Humans and cattle alike face the bite of flies, pestilence, and boils. The earth itself becomes covered in itching reminders of Pharaoh’s callous soul. Only Goshen (in Hebrew, this name sounds oddly close to ‘garden’) remains a protected sanctuary for Israel.

The third set of plagues is aimed at the heavens. Hail rains down, locusts swarm the skies, and the sun is turned to darkness. The ninth is particularly targeted. Re, the sun god, is robbed of his power. The luminous power of Egypt has gone dark.

But none of this is enough. Pharaoh does not yield. And so God does what he warned much earlier he would do. Pharaoh put to death the firstborn of Israel and enslaved God’s firstborn. We’ll talk more about this in the next devo. For now, let’s bring it back to how the ten strikes relate to our current situation as Christians.

The plagues, gone cosmic

The book of Revelation explores this theme for our days, awaiting the return of Jesus. According to John’s vision, our whole world is under a sort of cosmic oppression. The nations, led by other tyrannical pharaohs, emperors, and kings, are under the wrath of God’s unveiling. The seven churches of Revelation are under a new version of tyranny under Rome. But Revelation makes it clear that behind the human powers are rebellious spiritual rulers, gods if you will, who have the nations in their grip.

John’s vision depicts an array of signs/plagues unleashed on the nations (Rev. 8-11;15). But the nations do not repent (9:20-21). The rulers of the earth remain hard-hearted. Only the lamb of God can save the people from final destruction. John receives the symbolism and imagery of the passover to describe the cosmic rescue that has happened for the world.

Passover, the slaughtered substitute lamb, becomes the solution to the tyranny of Pharaoh. Stick with us to see how Passover makes sense in light of Exodus and the story of Jesus.

In our age, the Church is like Moses, proclaiming the undoing of the old creation and the new creation breaking in. The old kingdoms of this world are on their way out. And everyone feels the wrath that is being unleashed (Rom. 1:18-32). Only the blood of the lamb, the death of the firstborn of all creation, can save us.

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3 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ² There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. ³ So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

⁴ When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” ⁵ “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶ Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

⁷ The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. ⁸ So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ⁹ And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. ¹⁰ So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

¹¹ But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” ¹² And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”

¹³ Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” ¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ” ¹⁵ God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’

“This is my name forever,

the name you shall call me

from generation to generation.

Moses is a confused character by the time he is a shepherd in Midian. Who is he? Is he Hebrew? Egyptian? Midianite? Is he royalty or a shepherd? He fled Egypt after killing a man who mistreated his people. Is he a murderer or a savior? A hero or a criminal?

The story doesn’t attempt to resolve Moses’ ambiguous identity. So it is with us. Our sense of self doesn’t rest on our insecure and ever-changing passions. It rests within God’s revelation of who he is.

Let’s set the scene.

While shepherding, Moses arrives at a place called Horeb where “The angel of Yahweh appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.” Horeb is a typical name for the Sinai wilderness to which Moses returns with the people of Israel. The angel of Yahweh speaks from a (Hebrew) sineh, a type of bramble bush whose name is a wordplay on Sinai. This is indeed ‘the mountain of God’ where God will reveal himself again.

As we learned in the last devotion, Moses endures first all that Israel is to experience. Moses was delivered through the waters before he received God’s self-revelation. Israel will later experience the same.

But did we catch what the text says? The angel of Yahweh was in the flames within the bush. The angel of Yahweh is no ordinary messenger. First introduced in Genesis 16:7, this figure is, at the same time, distinct from Yahweh and co-identified with him, just as he is in Exodus 3:4. The transcendent God of the universe becomes localized within an agent of flickering flame. This is the burning and holy presence of God.

But the small tree God inhabits is not consumed by the flames. This image prefigures God’s plan to take residence in his creatures in holy fire at Pentecost. In some ways, every believer becomes like the burning bush, animated by God’s Holy Spirit.

Following this line of thought, some Orthodox icons depict Mary, the mother of Christ, as the bush—the first person to house the presence of God without being consumed.

God calls to Moses from the bush, and he answers. God then sets forth the fact that he has come down to rescue his people himself. It’s going to happen. But then God says to Moses, “So go! I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt.”

“Who am I?” Moses replies. Good question. Who is this guy? However, God’s response is not to resolve this for Moses but rather to reply, “I am with you.” Trust me. I will accomplish what I said through you. And that’s all we need to know. We need a trust in God deeper than our fleeting sense of self.

“But who are you? Who should I say is sending me?” Moses replies.

“I am who I am.” God eternally exists. He is the ground of all being. He is the origin, the living one in the present, and the one guiding history towards its destiny. Beginning and end cannot contain him. Matter, the laws of nature, and time itself are mere creations of his will.

This is God’s name. But what’s in a name? In the ancient world, a name wasn’t just a title. It is a way of referencing a god’s reputation. The God of Israel simply is. Everything else is a created extension of the I AM.

In this way, Exodus 3 presents the fascinating theological puzzle. God is the eternal I AM, yet he can also condescend to reside within a particular desert bush at a specific point in history to commission a confused man and rescue a nation.

Let’s land the plane. Moses only continues to wonder how the details will work out, doubting the one who can topple empires with his word. How will God use my mouth? And we’re the same way. We’re always so anxious about our capabilities instead of trusting in God’s. I remember how much I used to dread confrontation, let alone public speaking. My body would shake. My breath would become short, and my voice would stammer. But time and time again, God would give me the words. More and more, I became less self-focused. And the less conscious of myself I become, the more his Words would flow through me. There’s no better comfort to our confusion than God speaking those words, ‘I AM.’

René Descartes was a philosopher who coined the famous phrase “I think, therefore I am.” In doing so, he helped pave the road to a world where we only trust what’s in our misguided sense of who we are (that so often used word, ‘identity’). God’s words “I AM…therefore go” are both more compelling and comforting words to hear spoken to us.

As I’m writing, I’m also reminded of how much this echoed in the Great Commission, “Therefore go and make disciples…and I AM with you always.” (Matt. 28:16-20)

I AM has become the signature of God’s reputation ever since the burning bush. From this moment on, God reinforces that he is to be referred to as Yahweh (‘He is’). Pronouncing the divine name seems to have gone out of style sometime between the testaments. Jews to this day now say the word Lord (adonai) instead of pronouncing the divine name (Yahweh). But I want to bring back saying the name God gave us to refer to him. Not as some for the sake of sounding more authentic. Rather, it’s a way of reminding ourselves not that God is Lord (adonai) but that HE IS (Yahweh).

Again, our purpose, even our very existence, doesn’t rest in our sense of self. It rests within God’s revelation that HE IS.

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1:8 Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. ⁹ “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. ¹⁰ Come, let us deal wisely with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”

¹¹ So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. ¹² But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites ¹³ and worked them ruthlessly. ¹⁴ They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly.

¹⁵ The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, ¹⁶ “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” ¹⁷ The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. ¹⁸ Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”

¹⁹ The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are lively and give birth before the midwives arrive.” ²⁰ So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. ²¹ And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own. ²² Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”

2:1 Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, ² and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that he was good, and she hid him for three months. ³ But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus ark for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. ⁴ His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

⁵ Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. ⁶ She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. ⁷ Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” ⁸ “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. ⁹ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. ¹⁰ When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

Oppression. There’s a lot of talk about oppression today. Attempts have been made to divide the world into categories. “We are the oppressed!” “Those people are the oppressors!” However, even in the Exodus story, these categories are not clear-cut. As Aleksandr Solzhenitzen famously said, “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the human heart.” This will be especially true for Moses in the following chapters.

If we’re tracking with the story so far, the story that began in Genesis, we should notice something isn’t right. Abraham’s descendants, the children of Israel, are not in the land God promised them. How did they get here?

In Genesis, every time Abraham went down to Egypt, bad things happened. But before leaving Egypt, Abraham acquired an Egyptian slave. Her name is Hagar (meaning “the immigrant”). Sarai, Abraham’s wife, hatched a plan to build their line through their slave. But when Hagar became pregnant, Sarai grew bitter with envy. Genesis 16:6 says that Abraham gave Hagar into her control. “Then Sarai oppressed Hagar; so she fled from her.” This is the same word we find in our text. Pharaoh’s hands oppressed the people of Israel with brutal forced labor (Ex. 1:11).

On some level, what Abraham and Sarai did reflects the situation their descendants now find themselves in. Their grandsons, the sons of Israel, sold their brother into slavery in Egypt, setting the scene that opens Exodus. Israel is now like Hagar—an oppressed foreigner.

But God made a promise to Abraham and his descendants. Just as God brought Abraham out from Ur of the Babylonians (Babel), God would bring Israel out from the Babel-like project of Egypt. Speaking of Babel, the language used in the first chapter of Exodus strongly resembles the Tower of Babel story: “Look…numerous…Come, let us…build cities…brick and mortor…” (See Gen. 11) This oppressive, babel-like kingdom turns to sacrificing children to preserve itself. Sound familiar? This is what our culture does to this day, through abortion, in order to protect itself from other perceived threats.

However, the even more cunning midwives outwit and out-deceive the shrewd Pharaoh. Interestingly, the text does not specify whether these midwives are Hebrews or simply midwives for the Hebrews. In other words, these women are possibly dissident Egyptians, not tolerating the wickedness of thier king. We know their names. Shiphrah and Puah. Meanwhile, the name of this Pharaoh is not mentioned, forgotten in a failed attempt to make a name for himself.

Speaking of failures, let’s address the attempt to “throw every boy in the Nile, but to let every girl live.” Through the overlooked women, God delivers the deliverer. And it won’t be the only time this happens.

Moses, the child, was placed in a tevah. The word tevah is only used in one other story. And that’s the story of Noah. The tevah is the “ark” which God uses to deliver Noah and his family through the waters of the flood. Interestingly, in the Egyptian context, this could either be an image shrine or a casket. Talk about a picture of the resurrection. As we keep reading, notice how God must do first for Moses what he will do for Israel. What God does for his annointed, he will do for his people.

Now let’s bring all these things together.

When Jesus began his ministry, he went through the waters of the Jordan to “fulfill all righteousness.” Being baptized, Jesus began to enact the deliverance he would provide for Israel and the world, ultimately culminating on the cross. He did this “to deliver us (key exodus word) from the present evil age” (Gal. 1:4)—from the cosmic Pharaoh. But the oppression we face isn’t just outside of us; it’s in our sinful hearts—the line dividing good and evil cuts through every heart. And “Anyone who sins is a slave to sin” (Jn 8:34). So Jesus gave us his Spirit so that we could be freed from slavery to sin.

And even though the oppressive evil age still looms, we are not abandoned. When God raised Jesus from the dead, we too were delivered from death’s dark waters.

Why don’t the categories of “oppressed” and “oppressor” always work?

In what ways does our world resemble Egypt?

How does this story so far make sense in light of Jesus?

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“‘Truly I tell you, some of you who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.’ About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went on a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke of his [exodus], which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.” Luke 9:28-31

The story you just read is Luke’s version of the transfiguration story. In this story, Jesus reveals the heartbeat of his mission. If we have eyes to see it. But before we get there, we must remember that Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi. His way of life, his identity, and his story were formed by the Hebrew Bible (The Old Testament). The Hebrew Bible formed the symbolic world that packed Jesus’ own actions with deep meaning.

Amidst the Torah, the central books of the Hebrew Bible, we come across the founding story of Israel, the Exodus. Jews believed that when the Messiah came, there would be a new Exodus. The prophets hit hard on this theme (see Isaiah 43). It’s no wonder, then, that Jesus saw his mission as an Exodus-shaped one. That’s why, when explaining his plans in Jerusalem with Moses himself (the first deliverer), Jesus calls what will be accomplished (in Greek) “his exodus.” That word, exodus, literally means “the way out.” Jesus himself is this way (John 14:6).

It’s also no wonder that Jesus chose Passover weekend to accomplish his exodus. Passover, more than any other Jewish institution, becomes the way Jesus communicates the meaning of his death. The lamb, the blood, the bread, the cup, the firstborn, the waters, and the salvation accomplished all find their truest form in the person of Jesus.

As we discover, the theme of the exodus is all over the New Testament. We cannot escape this central pattern from Jesus’ baptism to his passing through death. Christians, therefore, have every reason to flip back to the second book in their Bible after reading the gospels, and then return to them again (and repeat).

This way of reading our Bibles teaches us to see the storied and symbolic world Jesus knew. Before the New Testament was written, followers of Jesus turned to their Hebrew Bibles to make sense of their deliverer as a new Moses, the Lamb of God, and as God himself who redeems humanity from slavery and death.

With that, I invite you to study Exodus as followers of the way. In studying this book, we will discover new facets of our salvation and how God is still making ways out for us. Here are some questions to ponder in the meantime.

Why is it important for us as Christians to study the book of Exodus?

What is your familiarity with this book?

What are some ways the exodus story echoes throughout Scripture?

Lastly, if you want further content on this topic, I invite you to track with the recent podcast series by the Bible Project, “The Exodus Way.”

“The good life is for the one who does not walk in step with the wicked…”
Psalm 1:1

This year, the youth group began with a new series on “The Good Life.” It’s a positive title for a series that walks through the notorious “seven deadly sins.” So why the title? In the beginning, God has freely offered the gift of the good life to us: happiness; flourishing; freedom compelled by love. However, instead of trusting our good God, human beings pursue a false version of the good life on their own terms, dragging themselves and creation into decay.

Each of the seven are false pursuits of the good life. That’s what makes them so “deadly”. The seven are not individual sins, but habits. If virtue is defined as habits of the good life, we’re dealing with seven vices, an older word for distorted and false habits of chasing happiness.

Far from being an outdated list, understanding the seven vices is central for Christian discipleship. They have been for a long time.

Following the words and life of Jesus, some of the earliest Christians took to the desert to face these vices head-on. What did they find? They encountered testing. They found humility. They discovered the difficult path to the good life, the Jesus way of not living for yourself.

Uprooting Pride

In the desert, following the way of Jesus, the desert Christians found happiness that doesn’t fit the world’s definition, a definition authored by the vices, all of which find their root in pride. Pride is what fuels each vice. If love is the chief virtue, pride is its opposite. Pride seeks good for oneself alone. Love desires the good of others.

Last week we saw a good example of this as we looked at Pride’s first offshoot, vainglory. Vainglory is an older word for “false glory”, or attention gained through illegitimate means. This vice includes doing good things for the purpose of being seen or praised. For example, take the pretenders or “hypocrites” (literally, “actors”) Jesus addresses in his most famous sermon (Matt. 6)

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.”

What is the way out of this deadly sin? What remedy can be found? The Christian life is not merely sin management, but actively cultivating virtuous habits. These are habits of the good life, the process that sin tries to shortcut in hopes of obtaining the product.

Jesus continues.

“But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

The way out of this particular vice is practicing good deeds when nobody’s looking. Or rather, as Os Guinness phrased it, living for an audience of One.

Practicing the way of Jesus

I invite you to integrate language about the seven deadly sins into your thinking about your walk with Jesus as the desert fathers did. When ignored, they continue to fester and grow, tightening their deadly grip on our joy. But by addressing each with the remedies of Christian spiritual practices, we can see the freedom that comes with the good life.

Here is a brief description of the seven along with possible remedies. Much of this was both inspired by and taken from Glittering Vices by Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung.

• Vainglory (Pride) - “Image is Everything”

  • Practicing good deeds in hiddenness (Matt. 6)

• Envy - “Bitter when others have it better”

  • Prayers of Thanksgiving: Thanking God for the good you see in others

• Sloth - “Resistance to the demands of love”

  • Regular acts of love that require sacrificing your love of leisure

• Avarice (Greed) - “I want it all”

  • Simplicity: Giving up or selling possessions

• Wrath (Anger) - “Slow to forgive, quick to get even”

  • Theological contemplation: Remind yourself of the grace of God

  • Silence and Solitude: Create space for reflective distance (Jonah 4)

• Gluttony - “Feeding your face and starving your heart”

  • Fasting: Tempering the things that have a grip on your happiness

• Lust - “When love’s flame starts a house-fire”

  • Spiritual Friendship: The greatest love and source of intimacy, the love that “lays down one’s life for his friends” (John 15).

For more on each of the seven deadly sins, please read DeYong’s book. It’s an excellent read and shows how love frees us to pursue the good life.

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What is inoculation?

The idea of inoculation was introduced to me by my first pastor, Dave Beelen. By doing so, he helped me make sense of what I and many others have experienced. But before we understand inoculation in a spiritual sense, let’s unpack the word itself.

Inoculation is a term from virology. It’s what happens after we immunize people against diseases. By introducing an organism to a weakened or imitation form of a virus, our immune systems then automatically trains in detecting and suppressing the real deal. Once inoculated, the virus has a weakened effect on the body. In fact, you might not even notice the presence of a virus if inoculation has done its work.

While defending against pathogens is a wonderful gift, spiritual inoculation works the other way around.

Spiritual inoculation

How does inoculation work in the Church? A young person is introduced to Christianity in a weakened form. This form of Christianity could be reinforced through Sermons, Sunday School, and Christian School. Years go by and even while exposed to gifted preachers, church programs, and community, this person becomes numb to the gospel in its purest form.

Spiritual inoculation is common. So don’t mistake it for ‘not being saved’. I’ve experienced inoculation before, as have many. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. When the Church or the beliefs of Christianity no longer afford the spiritually inoculated what they want, they leave or fall away; all the while still holding onto a Christian identity.

A common way to spot inoculation is a faith that is only skin deep. A faith that means agreeing to some propositions. Those propositions (although familiar) become tamed, boring, and lifeless. The inoculated Christian fits into the modern definition of religion (a system of beliefs) but maybe not into the ancient definition (a way of life).

Christian inoculation plays out in a couple of different ways. Maybe the inoculated Christian will use faith to maintain his or her good standing. Maybe their self-understood faith will devolve into a political tool for the culture war. Or worse, they will use the Church as a way to exercise their control. Either way, the goal of the enemy is accomplished, to numb our desire for God and his kingdom.

Accustomed to the extraordinary

Consider these segments from Lewis’s first pages of The Screwtape Letters. The fictional arch-devil, Screwtape, writes to his demon in training:

Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a doxen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily ‘true’ or false’, but as ‘academic’ or ‘practical’, ‘outworn’ or ‘contemporary’, ‘conventional’ or ruthless’. Jargon, not argument is your best ally in keeping him from the Church.

Reason is not the enemy. Reason reinforces faith. Jargon, on the other hand, reinforces a faith that doesn't think, doesn’t wonder, and doesn’t respond to the living Word.

Your job is to keep his attention on the stream [of immediate sense expereinces]. Teach him to call it ‘real life’ and don’t let him ask what he means by ‘real’… Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things.

Ordinary. That’s often what we want. A faith that’s ‘ordinary’ or ‘practical’ (we might call it at times); a faith that only registers at the level of our immediate sense experience. But what exactly is ordinary about the Christian faith? A crucified king? the resurrection of the dead? feasting on the body and blood of Christ? being animated by the Spirit of God?

Inoculated by bad theology

My aim is not targeted at everyday churchgoers as much as it is people in my position—leaders in the Church. Theology matters (it turns out). The Church needs gifted pastors and theologians to keep the Church on course and defend the gospel. Jesus pulled no punches on this point. The only thing worse than inoculated disciples are inoculated teachers.

Good theology is not just a matter of getting your propositions in order. Ecclesiology, (theology about the nature and structure of the Church) is of maximal importance. The following example may illustrate this.

The default settings of American Christianity

I recently watched the Hillsong documentary (of which I had mixed feelings about). If you don’t know, Hillsong is a network of (neo-pentecostal) seeker-movement churches. Their music is recognized worldwide. Of their churches, Hillsong New York was the most popular. Hillsong NY was where Carl Lentz (spiritual mentor of Justin Bieber) preached. Hillsong NY was incredibly popular. Almost every mainline evangelical Church wants what they achieved—relevance, fame, and attendance in tens of thousands.

Hillsong’s ultimate demise was marked by the moral failures of Lentz and others in leadership—however, the roots were much deeper. People were quick to decry Hillsong and the hurt caused by the leadership, but few drew the most important lesson from the Babel-like fall.

Hillsong’s preachers and its ecclesiology created thousands of disaffected and inoculated Christians. People were going to church not to be pastored or to grow in the depths of Christian faith and practice. They came for TED-talk-like ‘sermons’ immersed in a spirituality indistinguishable from a concert hype. Churches that fail to delegate authority well through elders and deacons are susceptible to becoming personality cults.

While it’s easy to point the finger at Hillsong (or Mars Hill), the temptation to become shallow motivational personality cults exists in every church. Many Churches unknowingly fail to participate in Christianity and instead promote the religion of Moral Therapeutic Deism (MTD), a term coined by Christian Smith. MTD is a religion that is full of moral feel-good platitudes about a God who can encourage us from afar as we seek authentic self-fulfillment here on earth.

Inch deep faith

One pastor recently told me the devil’s best tactic is “a mile wide and an inch deep.” In other words, by trying to appeal to everyone’s sense perception, you starve them of depth. This is the seeker-sensitive model that thousands of Churches are still running today. And it’s a model youth ministries have been running for far too long.

A church with flashy programs can easily fool itself into thinking it is making disciples when it is doing the opposite. It’s a sobering thought, but dead faith can be traced to the spread of bad teaching.

Despite the threat of inoculation, God’s grace is more than enough to save imperfect people. As Dave Beelen would say, “If you find the perfect church, don’t join it, cuz you’ll ruin it.” This was a way of affirming that the Church is full of totally depraved people like you and me. And while each church has its fair share of idols and inoculated consumers, God is the one in charge of winning hearts.

Spending time in John’s gospel has reminded me of a comforting truth. On its own, no strategy, argument, or program is capable of creating faith in a person.

Shocking the system

How do we get out of the fog of spiritual inoculation? I’ll offer three things. First, we need Christians who are steeped not only in God’s word but the practices the Spirit uses to form our hearts. Spiritual disciplines work on our hearts to desire God more when we struggle to feel his presence. Second is sharing spaces with non-Christians. It’s easy for Christians to create a bubble. Spending time with non-Christians can remind us that faith is nothing ordinary but something worth sharing. Lastly, we need pastors and leaders steeped in the theology and practice of the Christian faith.

My encouragement? Dive deep with the spiritual leaders at your church. They want to equip you. Resources like theology books, videos, and podcasts are great. But make sure you’re processing them with the wisdom of Christ’s body.

It takes the Spirit of God working through people to shock the system out of spiritual inoculation. It takes the Spirit working through Spirit-filled followers of Jesus. White-washed tombs exist in abundance. Alluring on the outside, yet dead on the inside. It turns out the saints, even Jesus himself, didn’t seem so spectacular on the outside, yet on the inside were gushing with living water that refreshes the soul.

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At Camp Jubilee, we have a no-phones policy. Nevertheless, we confiscated a number of phones from campers. While good intentions abound, the mere presence of phones disrupts the chance for campers to experience the benefits of camp, namely, detox. Take, for example, the comment from leading social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt.

Detox. That’s a technical word for allowing our brains to recover from toxic and harmful patterns phones expose us to every hour.

My goal is to disrupt the stories we tell ourselves that phones are neutral or even a normal part of growing up. Even though smartphones have existed since I was a teenager, they are far from normal. As normalization continues, I'm discovering an increasing need to push back against some harmful results I’ve not only read about but seen firsthand.

Jonathan Haidt again enters the conversation with his book, The Anxious Generation. In the book, he outlines four primary harms to healthy childhood caused by smartphones. These serve as categories to consider for the teenagers in your life. Here’s what he found.

Four Foundational Harms

1. Social Deprivation

People ages 15-24 are spending dramatically less time with friends today. Studies show that time spent socializing with friends was halved when smartphones were introduced.

2. Sleep Deprivation

Likewise, when smartphones are introduced into a teen’s life, the amount of sleep they receive drops, and so does the quality of sleep. The effects of sleep deprivation have been extensively well-studied and include anxiety, depression, irritability, decreased ability to learn, and an even higher risk of death from accidents.

3. Attention Fragmentation

Smartphones disrupt one’s ability to spend on one mental path for a prolonged period. An influx of notifications and other attentional black holes create a state of anxiety in the brain.

4. Addiction

Smartphones are designed to hack the dopamine networks in your brain. “Dopamine release is pleasurable, but it does not trigger a feeling of satisfaction. Rather, it makes you want more of whatever you did to trigger the release.” (Haidt, 140). While we may warn against drug and alcohol addiction, it’s easy to ignore the most common form of addiction today.

No More Brainrot

Put together, these four foundational harms explain some of the unhealthy trends over the past years. The findings of The Anxious Generation have given credibility to the meme of “brain rot” content online. Brain rot is a term for hyper-stimulating and random content designed to capture the attention of children and young teens.

The effects of brain rot are horrifying to watch. People are noticing their children, younger siblings, and students become shells of their former selves. One of the interesting things about youth ministry is the vantage point. You get to see multiple different generations at the same phase in life. One of the patterns I’ve noticed is the difference between those who got a smartphone before or during middle school and those who got one later.

That brings me to what may be a controversial teaser. I agree with Haidts conclusion: Giving your child a smartphone before 16 is not worth the harm it causes. You’ll find practical tips for parents and more on this in the next post on this topic.

Recently I began teaching an adult Sunday School class. We’re walking through Genesis 1-11 in its ancient context. The goal is simple. If we can grasp the Bible's prologue, we will understand the Bible as one unified story that culminates in Jesus. After all, Genesis 1-11 frames the entire biblical story.

The Bible was not written to us. Ancient Israelites did not have a detached scientific and theoretical view of our universe. The Bible was written to people who thought of the world in universal symbolic categories (chaos, order, heaven, earth). They were not aware of modern scientific theories. However, they were keenly aware of neighboring ancient cosmologies that gave differing narratives of the world they experienced.

Ancient Cosmologies, Chaos, & Order

Cosmology: An account (logos) of the world (kosmos) we live in.

The surrounding cultures of Israel (Canaanite, Egyptian, and Babylonian) shared similar ways of accounting for the world around them. Of course, there are also key differences. But the similarities are noteworthy. All ancient accounts begin with a state of chaos. In the beginning, there were only primeval waters. A god would emerge who would tame the chaotic waters and establish order. Order was sustained by creating the functions of the cosmos (time, weather, food). Humans were created as slaves to the gods. These gods were part of the cosmos itself (sun, storms, seas). The goal of the gods was to create localized temples so that they could achieve rest.

Ancient Cosmology | Bible Project Podcast

The Lost World of Genesis One

If we fail to understand the Bible on its own terms, we will force a modern materialist interpretation on the Biblical authors who were neither modern nor materialists.

This tendency of ours gets us into trouble when we discuss modern scientific questions about our material world: How old is the earth? Do the days of Genesis 1 reflect the big bang? Did humans evolve? Let’s be clear. Ancient people were asking none of these questions. So before we can take anything away from Genesis 1, our reading must first make sense within its original hearers. The first page of the Bible does not offer a material account of the world. Instead, it is telling us something about the world we live in.

My quest to better understand the ancient world of Scripture took off when I first encountered John Walton’s seminal book, The Lost World of Genesis One. Previously, I had held every possible position on the earth’s age and human origins. I will now summarize the view I share with Walton about the meaning of Genesis 1.

God sets up his cosmic temple

God created our material universe. We trust that along with the ancients. But Genesis 1 is not about the material creation of the universe. It is about God setting up the land underneath the heavens (the sky) we live in—to be his temple.

Days 1-3

We begin with a state of “formless and empty” or “wild and waste” as I prefer (Gen.1:2). God then sets up the functions of human experience. He creates day and night (time). He separates waters above from waters below (weather). Then God draws the dry ground up from the waters to create vegetation (food). Heaven, earth, and the waters. The three-tiered cosmos has been established. After ordering the cosmos, God fills each tier with life.

Days 4-6

The heavenly host is set up to govern day and night in the heavens. Sea creatures fill the waters below. Birds fill the expanse of the sky. Animals fill the land. Finally, God creates his image. Human beings.

Within Israel’s ancient neighbors, “the image of god” was reserved alone for kings. The role of kings was to rule, maintain order in the cosmos, and represent the deity. However, in the Biblical story, humanity is the image of the creator God. Both men and women are co-rulers and partners with God in ruling the world.

The word “image” also appears in our Bible as “idol” elsewhere. In ancient temples, a god would have an image of themselves placed in sacred space. Idols functioned to embody the god with its blessings as well as to worship the god represented. However, the temple of Israel’s God had no such images. Famously, in most sacred place in the temple, the holy of holies, there is nothing in between the wings of the cherubim. That’s because humans are God’s images.

The Seventh Day

When God rests on the seventh day, he is not taking a nap. This was the understood language of indwelling a temple. As Walton puts it, Genesis 1 is not about the construction of a house, but the setting up of a home. A house is just a building until the functions are put in place (electricity, plumbing, stored food). But even then, the house still isn’t serving its purpose. What you need is people to inhabit and rest within it. Then the house becomes a home.

So it is with a temple. What makes something a temple is not the structure of the building. You still need the light of the menorah, the curtain to separate the spaces, and priests to maintain it all. Even then, it isn’t a temple until God rests within it. A temple is a place where heaven and earth overlap. And in the Bible, the entire cosmos was created to be a temple—where God’s space and human space overlap on earth as it is in heaven.

For more on the structure of Genesis 1, check out the following video.

God’s Vision for the Cosmos

This is how Jesus saw the world. All the earth is destined to be permeated by God’s rest. This vision was derailed by Adam and Eve, by Israel, and restored by Jesus. His kingdom has arrived. And it will be complete in the age to come. But how is God currently bringing about his kingdom on earth?

God extends his rule on earth by making disciples. Making disciples is all about forming us into the image of God—Jesus himself. The Holy Spirit is doing a work of new creation—renewing the world by restoring humanity to its role as God’s image. By doing so, Satan, the ancient serpent is being subdued by the kingdom of God. Our world belongs to God. And his presence will be with us always. Like the seventh day, the reign of Jesus has no end.

There is much else to be said on this topic, but I’ll close with the following Scripture:

Ephesians 1:8–10.

With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

Revelation 21:1

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

Revelation 21:22-24

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.

Additional Resources:

Heaven and Earth | Bible Project Classroom

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“What should I do about my child’s phone?”

One of the most frequent questions you get as a youth pastor is not about the Bible. Not even about faith. It’s about phones.

Understandably so. Phones predictably alter a person’s relationship with their parents like nothing else. A similar story repeats itself. One parent will say, “I gave her a phone to be more connected with her friends,” or “I want to know where she is so she can be safe.” Time passes. “But then I noticed her not being herself, becoming more closed off and irritable.”

In conjunction with recent findings, I have reached a set of takeaways about this novel digital world and its impact on human development. These takeaways will be broken up over a couple of articles. This particular article deals with how phones degrade our spirituality.

In his book, The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt delivers the latest findings of how phones are rewiring childhood with serious psychological and spiritual harm. I cannot recommend this book enough to parents.

Spiritual degradation & elevation

Before surveying the other findings of the book, I want to highlight the chapter that goes beyond the statistics. No doubt you may be aware that smartphones can harm mental health. The findings of the research are stark. But, while statistics are important, it can be difficult sometimes to know what they mean for our lives. That’s why I’ll begin by focusing on Haidt’s comments on spirituality. Smartphones are what Haidt calls “spiritually degrading.”

In a word, the Christian tradition seeks to elevate us. Its practices, saints, and liturgies, seek to bridge heaven and earth. All of this flows from the incarnation, the harmony of heaven and earth in the person of Jesus. The Christian life is the participation of our new life in Christ. As Christians, we believe that, by the Spirit, we are elevated to participate in this new life hidden in Christ.

However, phones do the opposite of this, technically speaking. They drag us downward, spiritually speaking. With their endless allure, phones keep our attention fixed on lower, profane, realities. For those of us growing up in a digital world, our spiritual lives have been degraded to the point that focus, meditation, and regular prayer are much more difficult. This is because the algorithms we interact with on our phones are designed to hack our attention and desires.

While spiritual practices allow us to transcend our selfish desires, phones multiply them. As Haidt points out, merely opening our phones puts our brains in a state known as the default mode network (DMN). You can think of the DMN as “thinking about what I want, what I need to do next, or what other people think of me.” When our DMN is turned down, we can be our healthy selves freed from the digital hall of mirrors.

Haidt, an atheist, explains one of the only antidotes to the selfish default mode network comes from religion. Religion (for our purposes, the Christian Faith), aims to train us in the art of being slow to anger and quick to forgive (James 1:19). Haidt then quotes from none other than Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

This is exactly what phones have taught millions of us NOT to do through social media—and instead to make thousands of judgments as we scroll.

Since I have been spending lots of time in the Sermon on the Mount recently, I am reminded of how the wisdom of Jesus can be applied to our materialistic and digital age. Jesus famously reminds us not to let our earthly possessions master us. “Where your treasure is, your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:21). Likewise, for many teens and young adults, their hearts are in their pockets. Who can blame them? Through phones, we’ve been given access to infinite information and novelty in our hands.

Jesus continues, “You cannot serve both God and Mammon.” The strange word Jesus says at the end is often translated “money.” But this is a rare Hebrew word Matthew has recorded in Greek letters. Mammon literally means “that in which one puts trust.” Many items we have could fit in this category—treasures we trust. Jesus recognizes that some created things receive so much devotion that they compete with God for our attention. Without a doubt, the smartphone has won the prize for objects that receive god-like trust in such a way that it degrades our spirituality.

If spirituality sounds too esoteric, think of it this way. Religion, technically speaking, is what “binds” (Latin, religio) people together. Phones bind people to a closed-off alternative reality and atomize them in the real world.

Phones drag us down to earth. Our spiritual blindness and apathy are often compounded by those powerful treasures we hold so near to us at all times. But there are ways out. We could alternatively seek time-tested means of being elevated.

Keep your children and teens plugged into the embodied communities and practices that elevate. Collective practices such as corporate worship, youth group, family dinners, and prayer, all get us outside ourselves. Children and teens need quality time with peers, family, and other adults in their community in a way that phones only disrupt. We can’t give young teens everything they want and expect them to salvage meaningful spiritual life.

Jesus gives us a stark choice, not to be legalistic, but to make us wise. We can be mastered by treasures on earth and become judgemental and impatient. Or we can be mastered by love and forgiveness. We can be dragged down by algorithms and false fulfillment. Or we can be lifted up through pursuing meaningful face-to-face relationships.

So what should you do with your child’s phone? Wisdom is required to address this difficult question. However, now that we’ve set up the rewiring of spirituality, stay tuned for what we can do about the anxious generation we care about so much.

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