my take-away from TGCW12

I had the privilege of spending last weekend in Orlando at The Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference with over 3500 women. It was a marathon of speakers and workshops, punctuated by coffee breaks and quick calls home to check in with loved ones. I knew why I had come: last summer I sat transfixed at my computer as Kathleen Nielson spoke about her hope for the conference, and about the need for sound teaching by women to women. I heard her saying exactly what I had been saying for ten years, and I sat there and sobbed. Then I blew my nose and started saving my pennies. As a retreat speaker, I don’t look for extra opportunities to spend a weekend away from my family with an accumulation of women, but there was no way I was missing this.

Were the speakers edifying? Absolutely. Were the seminars informative? Yes. But the image that stays with me from last weekend is this: young women, hordes of them, some still in their work clothes, some with strollers, some eight months pregnant, some with that look a girl gets when she knows her family is probably eating Cheerios and Skittles for dinner and she.just.doesn’t.care for the next forty-eight hours. Some of them from a thousand miles away. All of them out-of-their-minds excited to be taught, and taught well.

Do you know why I cried at my computer last summer? I cried because I want to end the crisis of biblical illiteracy in the church. I cried because I am determined to rescue a generation of young women from a faith grounded only in the shifting sands of emotionalism. I cried out of sheer relief that I wasn’t alone in my hope that things can change.

For too long women of belief have been the willing recipients of gender-specific teaching that patronizes their intellect and panders to their emotions. For too long churches have neglected to raise the bar, settling for a ministry model that is content to connect women in relationships without challenging them to deeper understanding of the Word. For forty-eight hours this weekend I got to hear influential voices raise a cry for a different standard. For forty-eight hours I got to entertain the very real possibility that the tide could turn.

Do you know how hard it is for the average woman to get away for the weekend? And they came by the thousands. There were many messages worth pondering at the Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference of 2012. The one written plainest on my heart is this:  “Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” May the workers be many. May we ask this in His Name.


UPDATE: You can find audio/video of the conference sessions here.

recalculating: how study bibles can limit bible study

We love our study Bibles. Many of us spend our daily reading time with a study Bible in hand, stopping at trickier passages to glance to the bottom of the page for help with interpretive difficulties. And we make progress – our reading plans stay on schedule, and we find that we reach the end of a passage with greater understanding than when we started. But are study Bibles as helpful as they seem?

Several years ago I moved from Houston to Dallas. Having lived in Houston for thirteen years, I could drive its streets with ease. I had no idea how to navigate Dallas, so I used a GPS to get everywhere I needed to go. It was a great feeling – knowing almost nothing of the city, I could map a route to my destination instantaneously. I never had to feel lost or waste time wandering around on the wrong roads.

But three years later, I still didn’t know my way around Dallas without that GPS. If its battery died or if I left home without it, I was in big trouble. And then another strange thing happened: I took a trip back to Houston. In a city I knew well, I found that my GPS didn’t always pick the route that made the most sense. It still spoke with the same tone of authority it used in Dallas, but I could tell that it was choosing the obvious route over the most direct one.

The Benefit of Getting Lost

When I got back to Dallas I knew what I had to do: I had to allow myself to get lost. I had to wander around a bit, plan extra travel time, miss some exits, make wrong turns in order to learn for myself the routes my GPS had spoon-fed me. And in some cases, in order to learn better routes.

This is the same lesson I have learned about study Bibles. If I am not careful, they can mask my ignorance of Scripture and give me a false sense that I know my way around its pages. I do not labor for understanding because the moment I hit a hard passage, I immediately resolve my discomfort of feeling “lost” by glancing down at the notes. And hearing their authoritative tone, I can grow forgetful that they are, in fact, only man’s words – commentary, an educated opinion, profitable but not infallible.

My intent is not to question the value of commentary. Sound commentary is invaluable to the Bible student. My intent is to question its place in the learning process. Unless we consult it after we attempt to comprehend and interpret on our own, we tend to defer completely to its reasoning. The problem is not with our study Bibles, the problem is with our need for instant gratification and our dislike of feeling lost.

In short, if I never allow myself to get lost, I never allow the learning process to take its proper course. If I never fight for interpretation on my own, I accept whatever interpretation I am given at face value. And that’s a dangerous route to drive.

Right Use

So, what is the right use for a study Bible? What should you do if you, too find it limits your Bible study because it is just too easy to consult? I would suggest the following:

• Don’t throw it away, just put it away. Keep your study Bible on the shelf when you read. Get a Bible with only cross-references to use as your primary copy. Investigate cross-references to help you comprehend and interpret.
• Treat study Bible notes as what they are: commentary, and brief commentary at that. Remember that they are man’s words, subject to bias and error. Read them respectfully but critically.
• Consult multiple sources. Study notes should be a starting point for further inquiry, not a terminus. Once you have read for personal understanding in a note-free Bible, consult not one, but several study Bibles and commentaries from trusted sources. Look for consensus and disagreement among them.
• Ask the Holy Spirit for insight. Humbly ask the Spirit to reveal truth to your heart and mind as you read for understanding on your own, and as you compare your own discoveries to those of trusted commentators. Even if you find you have drawn the wrong conclusion from a text, you are more likely to remember the better conclusion because you have worked hard to discover it.

So use your study Bible as it is intended to be used: as a reference point for your own conclusions, but not as a substitute for them. And get lost a little bit. Allow yourself to feel the extent of what you don’t understand. It’s a humbling feeling – but if your destination is wisdom and understanding, humility makes an excellent starting point for the journey. Seek with all of your heart, trusting the promise that those who do so will find that which they seek.

weaker vessels

Recently my husband and I attended an outdoor concert for a band we both like. At the beginning of the first set a fight broke out behind us between a woman and a man. Both appeared to have lost track of their beverage count, and the woman was hitting and pushing the man, yelling that he was a child and an idiot. The man gently tried to calm her down, but after smacking him on the chest a few more times she stumbled toward the exit with him trailing behind. There was awkward laughter in the surrounding seats, and then everyone started listening to the music again.

Except me. I started thinking about weaker vessels.

In the study of First Peter I taught this spring, we covered those tricky passages on submission in Chapters 2 and 3, finally arriving at Peter’s words to husbands in 3:7:

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Peter’s comments to husbands are a subset of a discussion about how to live among unbelievers in a God-honoring way, urging submission to others as an expression of submission to God.  Having just addressed how a believing wife ought to live with an unbelieving husband, Peter addresses believing husbands about how to live with an unbelieving wife, describing her as the “weaker vessel”.  In the study homework I asked the women what Peter meant by “weaker vessel” – was he saying that women were morally weaker? Intellectually weaker? Emotionally weaker? Physically weaker? Their responses were telling: almost everyone correctly checked “physically weaker”, but about half of the group checked “emotionally weaker” as well.

I was bothered by this. It is probably fair to say that, generally speaking, women have easier access to their emotions than men do. But what message, implied or stated, had these women absorbed that led them to view this as weakness? Emotions are not a sign of weakness – emotions unchecked are. And anyone who has seen men hurl remote controls at sports coverage can verify that unchecked emotions are a problem for both genders. Both men and women can sin by letting emotions run wild, or by locking emotions away.  “Weaker vessel” must mean something else.

help from history

This is where historical context becomes our friend.  At the time Peter writes, Roman law had begun to soften towards women. During the first century A.D., laws began to be passed giving women rights of property ownership and protection from domestic abuse, but for hundreds of years before this, the concept of the pater familas had reigned in the lawbooks and in the home.

The pater familias, or “family father” held sway in the home on all decisions regarding property and family. All property remained legally his until his death – should he live to be eighty, none of his adult sons could hold property. Moreover, he held the power of life and death (vitae necisque potesta) over every member of his family. Infants deemed too expensive to be raised could be left on the temple steps at his order, either to die from exposure or to be taken and raised as slaves.  Adult children could be executed by fathers who believed them to be rebellious or deceitful. And most relevant to our discussion, wives whose husbands held the legal power to put them to death could hope for little protection from domestic violence.

So, the Rome to which Peter writes, much like the American South in the eighty years following Abolition, is a Rome in which new laws are on the books but practices remain much the same. Peter instructs wives on how to live carefully with an unbelieving husband who could cause them (or their children) physical harm for having converted to a new religion, and then he admonishes husbands of unbelieving wives not to deal harshly with them, even though the culture would allow it.

fragile or useful?

So the intent of “show honor to the woman as the weaker vessel” would not seem to be "tiptoe around your wife's emotions" as my study members had speculated. Nor would it seem to be “treat your wife like fine china”, as is often taught. Though it is well-intentioned, I wish we would stop teaching that. Fine china is fragile, rarely used, rarely useful, and largely decorative. I don’t believe that is the picture Scripture paints of godly women, here or elsewhere.  Even Peter’s use of the word “vessel” should point out that usefulness to God is inherent in defining not just womanhood but personhood. Peter uses the term “weaker vessel” to point to the general truth that women are comparatively physically weaker than men. Take, for example, the fight I witnessed at the concert: Because she was hitting him we had an awkward moment. If he had been hitting her we would have called security. Peter is reminding husbands of this relationship. He is warning them not to use physical strength to intimidate or harm their wives.

Peter in no way diminishes the worth or capability of wives by comparing their physical strength to that of their husbands with a simple word picture. He is, in fact, guarding them from being treated contemptibly. Wives, your emotions are not a sign of weakness – they are a gift from the Lord and can be a great strength. You and your husband share equal potential for strength or weakness in all things moral, intellectual and emotional - question any teaching that states or implies otherwise. Husbands and wives, may we treat each other at all times as honored vessels of different kinds, as vessels of mercy, as co-heirs of grace ordained for high and holy service to our Lord.

it's not personal

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Parents, when your young child disobeys, what is your emotional response? Does a screaming fit in Walmart cause you embarrassment? Does the declaration “You’re not my mommy any more” hurt your feelings? Does a refusal to come when called make you angry? 

I want you to write this on a note card and put it on your fridge: “It’s not personal.”

It’s a reminder we need, because the emotions we feel when our kids disobey will directly affect the way we discipline. Before we had children, the idea that a three year old could cause us embarrassment, hurt or anger seemed silly. But once we have them, it can be hard not to read their disobedience as evidence of our failure as a parent. But the disobedience of a small child is not personal – it’s just the product of immaturity. And our reaction to it will either reinforce or retrain the behavior.

Children, like the rest of us, are usually looking for a way to elevate their wills above those in authority over them. They don’t want to submit to the authority of a parent, a teacher or a caregiver unless that person’s will aligns with theirs. In other words, as long as Mom wants what I want, the day will go smoothly. As soon as Mom wants something different that what I want, I will employ whatever means of influence I have to bring her back to my agenda. What means of influence are available to a young child? His weapons are few but effective, and they fall into two categories: verbal and physical.

His verbal arsenal includes (but is certainly not limited to) whining, yelling, arguing, backtalk and good, old-fashioned crying. His physical arsenal includes (but is certainly not limited to) hitting, throwing, running away, door-slamming, refusal to hand-hold or hug, and my personal favorite: the full body-flop, usually executed in the middle of a grocery store aisle in front of as many onlookers as possible.

Children like to combine verbal and physical weapons for even greater effectiveness, and I do not have space here to illustrate the glorious near-infinite spectrum of disobedience that can occur. But the unlimited number of disobedient scenarios is not the point. The limited number of parental reactions is. Parents, when faced with a screaming flopper, you have a choice: will you take this personally and respond out of anger or hurt, or will you hold the parental high ground and respond out of love? Your child will come to the battle of wills fully armed. Your response will determine whether she is armed with a sniper rifle or a squirt gun.

Anger is our natural emotional response to having our will violated. Anger, in its initial state, is not sinful. Acting out of anger almost always is. Your child yells or throws a fit because she is angry her will has been violated by yours. If you respond by acting in anger (yelling back or punishing to “even the score”), you show her that her angry behavior is valid, acceptable, and even “adult”. You actually reinforce the negative behavior and prolong the learning process - even if you follow through with an appropriate consequence.

Do the compassionate thing: disarm your child by remaining calm in conflict and responding with emotionally neutral speech and facial expressions. Children are smart and observant. Though they may not have begun a behavior to manipulate you, they will quickly pick up on its manipulative power by watching your response. If you yell, lecture, or act wounded in any way they will sense the power of their actions to control you. This is a power a responsible parent does not give to her child. A parent who takes her child's disobedience personally risks reinforcing not only her child’s emotional immaturity, but her own as well.

So be the bigger person. Be the parent. Don’t be lured into an emotional battle by a small person who can’t fight fair. Teach your young child that conflict cannot be escalated by hurtful words or actions. Do this by keeping anger out of the equation. Set it aside. And in so doing, model the loving correction we receive from our Heavenly Father who has set aside His anger toward His children.

And save that “It’s not personal” note card on the fridge. It just might come in handy in case adolescence rings your doorbell in full battle regalia.

For more thoughts on training young children in obedience, listen here.

Related post: Civility in the Christian Home

why transformation eludes us

“When all your favorite preachers are gone, and all their books forgotten, you will have your Bible. Master it. Master it.” - John Piper

I meet with women all the time who are curious about how they should study the Bible. They hunger for transformation, but it eludes them. Though many have spent years in church, even participating in organized studies, their grasp on the fundamentals of how to approach God's Word is weak to non-existent. And it’s probably not their fault - unless we are taught good study habits, few of us develop them naturally.

Why, with so many study options available, do so many professing Christians remain unschooled and unchanged? Scripture teaches clearly that the living and active Word matures us, transforms us, accomplishes what it intends, increases our wisdom, and bears the fruit of right actions. There is no deficit in the ministry of the Word. If our exposure to it fails to result in transformation, particularly over the course of years, there are surely only two possible reasons why: either our Bible studies lack true converts, or our converts lack true Bible study.

I believe the second reason is more accurate than the first. Much of what passes for Bible study in Christian bookstores and church resource libraries just isn't: while it may educate us on a doctrine or a topic, it does little to further our Bible literacy. And left to our own devices, we pursue a host of unsavory (and un-transformative) self-constructed approaches to “spending time in the Word”. Here are several that I encounter on a regular basis:

The Xanax Approach: Feel anxious? Philippians 4:6 says be anxious for nothing. Feel ugly? Psalm 139 says you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Feel tired? Matthew 11:28 says Jesus will give rest to the weary. The Xanax Approach treats the Bible as if it exists to make us feel better. Whether aided by a devotional book or just the topical index in our Bibles, we pronounce our time in the Word successful if we can say, “Wow. That was touching.” The Problem: The Xanax Approach makes the Bible a book about us. We ask how the Bible can serve us, rather than how we can serve the God it proclaims. The thing is, the Bible doesn’t always make us feel better. In fact, quite often it does just the opposite (feeling awesome? Jeremiah 17:9 says you’re a wicked rascal). Yes, there is comfort to be found in the pages of Scripture, but context is what makes that comfort lasting and real. The Xanax Approach guarantees that huge sections of your Bible will remain unread because they fail to deliver an immediate dose of emotional satisfaction.

The Pinball Approach: Lacking a preference or any guidance about what to read, you read whatever scripture you happen to turn to. Hey, it’s all good, right? You’ll just ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you through whatever verse you flip to. Releasing the plunger of your good intentions, you send the pinball of your ignorance hurtling toward whatever passage it may hit, ricocheting around to various passages “as the Spirit leads”. The Problem: The Bible was not written to be read this way. The Pinball Approach gives no thought to cultural, historical or textual context, authorship, or original intent of the passage in question. When we read this way, we treat the Bible with less respect than we would give to a simple textbook. Imagine trying to master Algebra by randomly reading for ten minutes each day from whatever paragraph in the textbook your eyes happened to fall on. Like that metal pinball, you’d lose momentum fast. And be very bad at Algebra.

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The Magic 8 Ball Approach: You remember the Magic 8 Ball – it was able to answer even your most difficult questions as a child. But you’re an adult now and you’re wondering if you should marry Bob, get a new job, or change your hair color. You give your Bible a vigorous shake and open it to a random page. Placing your finger blindly on a verse, you then read it to see if “signs point to yes”. The Problem: The Bible is not magical and it does not serve our whim. The Magic 8 Ball Approach misconstrues the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the Word, demanding that the Bible tell us what to do rather than who to be. And it’s dangerously close to soothsaying, which people used to get stoned for. So, please. No Magic 8 Ball.

The Personal Shopper Approach (AKA the topical Bible study): You want to know about being a godly woman or how to deal with self-esteem issues, but you don’t know where to find verses about that, so you let [insert famous Bible teacher here] do the legwork for you. The Problem: The Personal Shopper Approach doesn’t help you build “ownership” of Scripture. Much like the Pinball Approach, you ricochet from passage to passage, gaining fragmentary knowledge of many books of the Bible but mastery of none. Topical studies serve a purpose: they help us integrate broad concepts into our understanding of Scripture. But if they’re all we ever do we’re missing out on the richness of learning a book of the Bible from start to finish.

The Armchair Quarterback Approach: This approach involves reading books about the Bible instead of reading the Bible itself. If you can quote Piper more than you can quote Paul, you may be the Tim Tebow of the armchair quarterback approach. I don’t actually know anything about football, so that metaphor may make no sense at all. The Problem: We’re called to love the Lord our God with all of our mind, not John Piper’s mind. Get in the game. You’ll get way more out of Piper if you read the book he loves above all others.

The Jack Sprat Approach: This is where we engage in “picky eating” with the Word of God. We read the New Testament, but other than Psalms and Proverbs we avoid the Old Testament, or we read books with characters, plots, or topics we can easily identify with. The Problem: All scripture is God-breathed and profitable. All of it. Women, it’s time to move beyond Esther, Ruth and Proverbs 31 to the rest of the meal. Everyone, you can't fully appreciate the sweetness of the New Testament without the savory of the Old Testament. We need a balanced diet to grow to maturity.

Why do these six habits of highly ineffective Bible study persist in the church today? Why does Biblical ignorance continue to dog the church, despite the good intentions of leadership to obey the Great Command to make disciples? I believe the answer lies in our definition of a disciple.

A disciple is, literally, a learner - “one who follows another’s teaching”. But the modern church has shown a tendency to define a disciple as a “doer” instead of as a “learner”. We have been asked to do service projects, join home groups, find an accountability partner, get counseling, fix our marriages, sing on the worship team, get out of debt, help in the nursery, hand out bulletins, go on mission trips, give to the building fund, share the gospel at Starbucks – but we have rarely been challenged to pursue the most fundamental element of discipleship – earnest study of the Word. Yes, a disciple is decidedly a doer, but one motivated to act by a love of the God proclaimed in the Word.

I don’t know how long it will take the church to return to a love of the study of Scripture, but why wait? Disciple, stop waiting for your community of believers to call you to be what Christ already has. Be a student. Be a good student. Read repetitively and in context, line by line. Keep the God of the gospel at the center of your study. Strive for comprehension before interpretation. Give application ample time to emerge from a passage. Watch ignorance flee and transformation flourish. Study the Word. Master it, master it.


Related posts:
How Should We Approach God's Word? - audio
Dangerous Bible Study and Puffy Christianity
Albert Mohler: The Scandal of Biblical Illiteracy

Need some good study resources to get started? Try these:
ESV Study Bible
NavPress LifeChange series
Precept Ministries
...or any of the studies linked on my blog

otherness

Dear child-of-my-heart,

Today you came to me sad and I wanted to comfort you. Your friends spoke of owning things you do not own, watching movies you do not watch, going to places you do not go, and wearing things you do not wear. Even in the telling, they spoke in ways you do not speak. You were feeling very sharply your “otherness” today.

But what comfort can I give you? How can I pull the sharp thorn of comparison from your tender flesh? Mothers don’t like to see their children hurt. My own heart wants to find the shortest path to the removal of your pain, a pain that spills over on to me because I remember being thirteen. And because I know you are being singled out for boundaries you did not set.

Should I comfort you by giving you the things that separate you from the well-provided, worldly-wise woman-girls at the lunch table? Not everything you do not have right now is a “no” – some things are just a “not yet”. So I might revisit what you’re ready for, not because I want your friends to like you, but because I want to give right things at right times. Your friends would have you believe that being different is an unbearable state, but I would have you believe otherwise.

Sweet child, study the way you are feeling today. Because I love you, I ask this of you: lean into your “otherness” – learn the contours of its face, feel out the steady grip of its hand. Because I intend it to be your lifelong companion. It is a truer friend than those who surround you now. More than I want your comfort I want you to be an alien and a stranger. You are beginning to understand what that means – that not-fitting, that dissonant chord, that unease in the midst of ease that has been the faithful travel companion of the children of God for millenia. And I rejoice in the faithfulness of the God who is showing you this truth.

Here is what you must come to see: what the lunch table calls your enemy I call your friend. “Otherness” is a sensation not to be dulled or diminished but to be cultivated and cherished. So though it goes against every mothering instinct, I will not pull the thorn from your flesh, not because I want to withhold comfort, but because there is no true comfort in a lie. This world is not our home. We are sojourners, travelers on our way to the only true comfort the human heart can know. I will not help you populate your life with things that lessen your grip on this reality.

Because I love you, yes. But because I love your Heavenly Father above all else. And I will give an account to Him for whether I have raised citizens of Earth or citizens of Heaven.

I pray for you – do you know how much? – I pray for you to be able to say with David that the boundary lines have fallen for you in pleasant places. It is not a mindset that we reach with ease. But it is the mindset of someone who has learned the safety and joy of “otherness”. I am willing to give you the years you will need to learn this truth. I am trusting the Father to show you the comfort of being called His own. There is no real comfort besides this.

I could not love you more.

Love, Mom


"LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure.The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance." Psalm 16:5-6

a unified sisterhood

Today is International Women’s Day, a day when the world pauses to think about human rights, harmful female stereotypes and sexism. It’s a day when women ask men to think a little harder about the words they use and the attitudes they hold. Within the walls of the church the debate over male/female roles rages as hotly as ever, but in our hurry to align with one side or the other we sometimes neglect to take a step back from the fight and look for common ground.

I propose we do just that. But I’m not asking men to do a gut check – I’m asking my sisters in Christ to face squarely some of the unhelpful stereotypes that we hold for other Christian women. What follows is a collection of attitudes or statements that I have encountered during my years of ministry to women. See if any of them sound familiar to you:

• Single women are leading second-best lives.
• Single women in their 30’s are too picky.
• Single women who are self-confident need to “tone it down” if they want to find a man.
• Women who don’t have children are leading second-best lives.
• Women who are childless or single by choice are selfish.
• Women who express their opinions with confidence are threatening.
• Confident women marry weak men.
• Wives who study the Bible more than their husbands threaten male headship.
• Wives who commit to evening activities are neglecting their husbands and children.
• Mothers who choose to work love God and their families less than mothers who stay at home.
• Daughters need less education than sons because they won’t need it to be a mother.
• Daughters need fewer career options than sons because their husbands will support them.
• Divorced women and widows need our help, but not so much help that they start eyeing our husbands.

Why are we so mean to each other? Why are we still pushing each other down on the playground? It is the hallmark of little girls to dress alike and speak alike to avoid being marginalized by the crowd. But we are not little girls, and we must stop. At the root of some of these stereotypes is fear: fear that someone else’s choices somehow threaten the validity of our own. At the root of others is pride: pride that our own choice is more righteous than another woman’s. If we embrace these stereotypes we say no to the unity we are called to in Scripture - a unity centered not around fitting into a certain mold, but around loving a certain God.

Do we really think womanhood should look one way? In order for that to be true, so many factors would have to be within every woman’s control. But of course, they’re not.

What if we spent less time drawing lines in the sand to separate the righteous from the unrighteous and spent more time cultivating a gracious heart? What if we embraced the idea that womanhood looks many ways because the Church needs many kinds of women to flourish? God sanctifies single women and married women and divorced women and educated women and uneducated women and loud women and soft women and working women and women who stay at home, and He uses them all uniquely to fill out the mosaic of the church to its full vibrancy. Give grace to your sister, and guard your heart from calling something sin that is not sin to justify your own actions or choices. “Love one another with sisterly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.”

What unhelpful stereotypes have you encountered that you could add to the list? Leave a comment and join the discussion.

robe your minds for action

I had the pleasure of returning to my alma mater, Texas A&M University,  to speak at All Women's Breakaway last week. Breakaway is a campus Bible study that began over 20 years ago when I was a student at A&M. My husband (boyfriend at the time) and I used to go to it when it met in a community center and numbered about 45 people. Now it meets in Reed Arena and numbers in the thousands each week. The Lord is moving at Texas A&M.

Once a year, Breakaway hosts an evening for women only. This year they asked me to come speak. Rudder Auditorium was filled to the rafters with college women ready to hear from the Word. I thought hard about what I most wanted those young women to hear, and if you have heard any of my teaching, you won't be surprised that I decided to challenge them to love God with their minds. It was a very fun night.

You can listen to the audio here.

sundered and sealed

Why do you believe the Bible is the book it claims to be? Why do you believe it is the very Word of God?

Scholars say it can be trusted because of manuscript evidence, archaeological evidence, prophetic accuracy, and the statistical probability that a message could be written so consistently across so many different authors and so many years. M-A-P-S. I’ve taught that acronym many times, and it is reassuring to think about even now. Knowing there is objective proof that the Bible is the book it claims to be appeals to my love of reason and my desire to keep reason and faith inseparably joined. But I have a deeper reason for believing the Bible is what it claims to be: I believe it to be the Word of God because it has done exactly what it said it would do.

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

And this it has done: it has divided me. It has cut me to the bone.

It has severed the offending hand of my greed and gouged out the offending eye of my desire.

Over and over again.

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True to its diagnosis, I am a creature of a thousand grasping hands and a thousand roving eyes. Yet it continues its ministry of a thousand faithful amputations, parsing the sin from the sinner, separating the lie from the truth, dividing the darkness from the light.

And in the dividing, miracle of miracles, it is rendering me whole.

So, yes. I believe the Bible is true. It says this is who you were and it is right.

It says this is who you are and it is dead on.

So when it says this is who you shall be I can readily hope.

And when it says this is who I AM I can readily worship.

No blind leap required. This book has not lied to me. Not once.

It knows me. I am known by it.

I thank God for dusty scrolls and artifacts and fulfillments and probabilities all raising their voices in a chorus of affirmation: this book is what it claims to be.

And I add my own voice to the clamor: “You have sanctified me by the truth: thy word is truth.”

I believe because I have been sundered. I believe because I have been sealed. Living Word, cut and cut again, that truth may be found in my innermost parts. Separate me from my sin. Seal me unto salvation. And what you join let none put asunder.

a lesser communion

"Thou preparest a table before me...my cup runneth over." Psalm 23:5

If you were to visit my home, you would see this sign hanging above the cook top in my kitchen:

It started off as a joke - a little irony directed at the Martha Stewart mindset that anything less than the perfect pork roast could potentially unhinge the cosmos - but as time has passed it has become less of a witticism and more of a manifesto.

When the kids were small I remember thinking that family dinners were a tool to bind us together as a family for the time we lived under the same roof. They would help Jeff and me to raise our children to adulthood with good dialogue and good nutrition. Check, and check. Family dinners were a snap back then. Now, four adolescents and their accompanying schoolwork and schedules have made shared meals more of a challenge than I ever anticipated, even with our notoriously stingy approach to activities.

But I’ll continue to fight for family dinner around our table. It is where little heads learned to bow in prayer, little hands learned to serve one another, little voices learned “please” and “thank you” and how to take turns in a conversation. It is where we learned to read the Word as a family and to talk about how it changes us. More and more, it is a place where we are all learning that we would rather be together than apart.

Friendships may wax and wane – this year’s best friend may be next year’s acquaintance because of a schedule change or a falling out, or anything that severs the fragile thread of our overlapping experience. But the people who remain constant in our lives, the relationships worthy of our deepest investments, are our family. With family, overlapping experience is not a fragile thread but a strong cord, binding us together and lending us the strength we need to navigate the years ahead.

And that’s why much depends on dinner. Though work, school and activities may pull us in different directions, nightly dinner is our chance to sit down together and strengthen the cords of family. Dinner is the time we gather to share not just a meal, but the stories of our day, our victories and losses, our observations and questions. Though it may happen at other times as well, dinner is the time of day when biblical community consistently happens in our home.

I hope that we are building at our kitchen table a bond that holds not just for the eighteen or so years we will share the same roof, but for the 60 years after those – years during which our children will navigate marriage, having children of their own, job successes and failures, moves, the decline of their parents, and their own aging as well. Whether we like them or not, our family travel the length and breadth of life with us. How much better, then, to like them? To welcome their company on that path? Yes, much depends on dinner because dinner deepens our dependence on each other. It binds us together for the long haul. And we will need each other for the years ahead.

Here is what I am coming to realize: there is only one shared table in this life more holy than that table in my kitchen. This lesser communion we gather for each night whispers of that other table: the breaking of bread, the sharing of truth, a nightly remembrance of what matters most. No, not a sacramental meal, but certainly a sacred one. This lesser communion we gather for each night differs from that other table: its gaze is fixed not backward but forward. Tonight we gather as parents and children, but one day we will gather as brothers and sisters. Tonight we hunger and thirst for food that will fill us for a time, but one day our hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied. Tonight we give thanks together around a simple kitchen table, but God willing, one day we will give thanks together around a banquet table in the presence of the Lord.

I want my children there. I want my children’s children there. So, yes, much depends on dinner. No coach or choir director or church program or career gets to supersede this ritual. Whether we dine on chateaubriand or cereal, this nightly intersection of our lives means strength for today and hope for tomorrow. We will not grow weary of meeting together. A table is prepared for us. This is the place where we are fed.

Related posts:
Guarding Sabbath for our Children
Worship Together