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How to Be More Public with Your Faith
Helpful counsel about how to be more public with your faith, from Tim Keller:
It’s no surprise every poll and study shows the same thing: Over the past two decades, there has been a steady increase in the number of Americans who say they are atheists, agnostics, religiously unaffiliated, or believe “nothing in particular.” Each generation—from Gen X to Millennials to “Gen Z”—is significantly less religious and less churchgoing than the generation before.
This should mean Christians talk more to their neighbors, colleagues, and friends about the reasons they believe, but that isn’t happening. A recent study commissioned by Lutheran Hour Ministries found that since 1993 the number of Christians who said “I believe every Christian has a responsibility to share their faith,” and the number who said they’d speak to others about the benefits of becoming a Christian, has dropped precipitously. So at a moment when there is more need for evangelism—sharing the good news about Jesus—there is less willingness to do it.
Why? There are many factors. First, talking about Christian faith is more complicated. A generation ago you could assume that the vast majority of people believed in a personal God, an afterlife, moral absolutes, the reality of their sin, and had a basic respect for the Bible. Christians routinely assumed the existence of these concepts (or “dots”), and evangelism was mainly connecting the dots to show them their personal need for Jesus. No longer can we assume, however, that any of these basic ideas are common knowledge or, if they are, even acceptable. To talk about faith now entails working to establish basic concepts before Jesus’s gift of salvation can have any meaning.
Second, talking about the Christian faith is more difficult. In the past, those who didn’t believe usually granted that religion is a good thing for society, though “not for me.” But Christianity and religion in general is no longer accepted as a good influence in society or in individual lives. From the history of the church supporting slavery and religious wars to the current involvement of religious persons in politics and abuse scandals, the flaws and sins of the Christian church are foregrounded in our culture. There is particular anger over traditional Christian views of sexuality. To talk about faith now means being peppered with often-hostile questions.
Third, younger adults have been told repeatedly that “no one has the right to tell others what to believe, so you shouldn’t be trying to convert anyone.” This very statement, of course, is self-contradictory, since it’s doing the very thing it forbids. Nevertheless, it’s a slogan with enormous cultural power, and it’s hard for younger Christians not to be swayed by it. In addition, Sherry Turkle, in her book Reclaiming Conversation, points to studies that show the more people use social media, the less able they are to empathize or put themselves in another’s shoes, and the more unable they are to talk face to face with anyone who disagrees with them.
In short, doing evangelism today will take more patience, courage, and thoughtfulness than was needed a generation ago. And yet there is no substitute. Jesus told his disciples: “You will be my witnesses, in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). In Acts 8:4 we’re told that after the persecution in Jerusalem all the Christians were scattered (except the apostles) and that they “evangelized wherever they went.” Obviously, not all Christians are either gifted or called to do public speaking. It meant, and means, that every Christian talked to friends, neighbors, and colleagues about the gospel.
In the end, what we most need to be public about isn’t more training (although that’s highly recommended), but proper motivation arising from a grasp of the gospel—that we are sinners saved by grace.
There are at least three major reasons for evangelistic unfruitfulness. There is a lack of sensitivity—countered by the humility that comes from knowing we are undeserving sinners. There is a lack of courage—countered by the boldness that comes from knowing we are unconditionally loved.
Finally there is indifference. We look around us and see people struggling to find meaning, satisfaction, hope, confidence. The biggest reason we keep our mouths shut is that we’re failing in love for them. But the gospel produces love (Gal. 5:6). Now you may say, “Well, yes, I see I ought to be that humble, that confident, that loving—but I’m not.” But see, you’ve confirmed the point. The problem is ultimately in our hearts, not in our lack of training or knowing how to answer all the questions.
Remember the woman of Samaria who Jesus met at the well. “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony” (John 4:39). Why? She had no training, but he had changed her with his mercy, and now she didn’t need to care what people thought. “Come,” she said, “See a man who knew all my failures and still loved me.” And they came. “They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world’” (John 4:42).
Lord, change our hearts so that we have a love for our sorrowing, perishing friends that will fuel our bold yet humble witness to the grace that can only be found in Jesus.
Don’t be like the bee
Chrysostom, commenting on 1 Thessalonians, with an observation from nature:
Do you not see how the bee dies upon the sting?
By that animal God instructs us not to grieve our neighbors.
For we ourselves receive death first. For by striking them perhaps we have pained them for a little time, but we ourselves shall not live any longer, even as that animal will not.
Short and simple, right? When we’re tempted to “sting” those around us, we should remember the parable of the bee. We may in fact be able to hurt someone, if we try. But by doing so we will also injure ourselves. In fact, Chrysostom says, like the bee when it stings, injuring others will bring death into all different areas of our lives.
Just one more reason to obey Christ’s command to love our neighbor.
Poor Faith, and Poor Thinking about Faith
A couple days ago I posted D.A. Carson’s commentary on the incident in Matthew 17 when Jesus told told his followers they had “little” faith. “Probably,” Carson notes, this word “does not refer so much to the littleness of their faith as to its poverty. Little faith, like a little mustard seed, can be effectual; poor faith, like that of the disciples’ here, is ineffectual.”
A person who commented asked for further explanation of this idea. So, here’s the rest of what Carson wrote:
Despite the etymology of the word [“little”], it probably does not refer so much to the littleness of their faith as to its poverty. Little faith, like that of the disciples’ here, is ineffectual. The noun occurs only here in Matthew, but the cognate adjective occurs at 6:30; 8:26; 14:31; 16:8, and always refers to disciples.
Removal of mountains was proverbial for overcoming great difficulties (Isa 40:4; 49:11; 54:10; Mt 21:21-22; Mk 11:23; Lk 17:6; 1 Cor 13:2). Nothing would be impossible for them—a promise that, like its analogue in Philippians 4:13, is limited by context, not by unbelief. Here it refers to the accomplishment of the works of the kingdom, for which they had been given authority.
Jesus’ answer in Matthew is not the same as the one in Mark 9:29 (“This kind can come out only by prayer”), but if the comment [above] on oligopetia ([the Greek word that means] “poverty of faith”) is correct, then at least the two answers are complementary, each shedding light on the other.
At a superficial level, the disciples did have faith. They expected to be able to exorcise the demon. They had long been successful in this work, and now they are surprised by their failure. But their faith is poor and shoddy. They are treating the authority given them (10:1,8) like a gift of magic, a bestowed power that works ex opera operato.
In Mark, Jesus tells them that this case requires prayer—not a form or an approved rite, but an entire life bathed in prayer and its concomitant faith. In Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples that what they need is not giant faith (tiny faith will do) but true faith—faith that, out of a deep personal trust, expects God to work.
So maybe the idea here is that Jesus called the disciples faith “little” because it was of poor quality, because they thought that trusting God was some kind of magic they could wield whenever they wanted. But this incident shows that faith, and the miraculous power of God, do not work like that. This needs to be said today, right? There are whole groups of Christians in America who teach that true faith operates exactly this way—that if you have faith you can just speak to things and change circumstances. And they might even read this passage to mean that Jesus was rebuking the disciples for not having that kind of power-speaking faith. But actually, when you look at the text, the issue seems to be the opposite of that. They did think that faith was the power to tell things to change, even to make demons submit, with just a word. And that was that kind of faith they had. But that kind of faith is, as Jesus described it, poor, and small. That’s not the point of faith.
And, as Carson rightly points out, Jesus specifically says, in this passage, “This kind [of spirit] does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” His point seems to be that faith is not necessarily about commanding things or speaking to them at all. Sometimes it’s about the long, unseen work of prayer and fasting.
This puts the whole incident (especially the part about moving mountains) into a larger Biblical framework which, if we’ll give it real thought, will guard us from treating faith like a magic power to remove demons, or mountains. That’s never been the point of faith. The disciples thought it was. But, Jesus says, that’s a poor way to think about faith.
Good Citizens in a Tumultuous Culture
I appreciate Carl Trueman (who until recently pastored a fellowship not far from ours) as, among other things, an insightful thinker on public issues. For instance, recently on the First Things website, he commented on disagreements among American Christians about how to approach the current political climate. He writes:
As Charles Taylor has argued, the rise of expressive individualism is connected to the breakdown of old, honor-based medieval hierarchies and the rise of an egalitarian emphasis on the universal dignity of all human beings. Christians should welcome this. The idea that we are all made in the image of God is vital to Christian ethics, especially in connection to the unborn, the vulnerable, and the infirm. This should temper any nostalgia we have for the pre-modern world, where such universal dignity was not practically acknowledged, and also lead us to reflect on how we might affirm such universal dignity without the problems of expressive individualism.
I suspect that expressive individualism merely provides the general plausibility structure of the specific problems we face. That it has taken on the aggressive form of sexual identity politics is not a necessary concomitant of such but rather the result of a confluence of various social, cultural, and historically contingent conditions. The real problem is the abolition of the pre-political, that we now operate in a society where everything has been politicized and where (in the United States at least) this total politicization of culture finds its resolutions not through the ballot box, but through the judicial branch of government.
This has two obvious effects. First, it renders the idea that we can have a confident pluralism…a practical impossibility. The politicization of everything means that all disagreements will be cast in moral terms, a simple clash of good and evil, which makes dialogue impossible.
Second, the increasing focus on the judiciary makes for an atmosphere where politeness, respect, and decency simply carry no weight. When the judiciary plays the decisive role in the most pressing social decisions of the day, this fuels further social division by effectively bypassing the democratic process. When five Supreme Court justices can decide the fate of a nation on divisive issues, then those issues simply become yet more divisive as the “losers” lose all confidence that their voices will be heard. When one side loses at the ballot box, accepting the result is the price of living in a democracy. When one side loses in the Supreme Court, it feels utterly disenfranchised.
Trueman argues that Christians in America should not give in to impulses which push us towards aggressiveness and anger. Instead, he says that while a “strategy of politeness is unlikely to prove politically successful, I still believe it is worth considering.”
And he points to the some of the earliest Christian history, the second century AD, as providing some helpful parallels to our time time:
At that time, the church was a misunderstood minor sect in a vast empire. It was not subject to widespread, coordinated persecution but it was often suspected of subverting the public good. So the Greek Apologists of that time taught Christian doctrine and ethics, and they made it clear to the pagan authorities that they intended to be good citizens and should therefore be allowed to function as members of Roman society. They spoke respectfully of emperors and made sure that any offense caused was demanded by the gospel, and not by some other ambition or agenda.
This captures the New Testament emphasis on blessing when cursed, turning the other cheek, and speaking well of those who speak evil. Of course, Paul was capable of polemical sharpness (typically directed against enemies within the church, not the secular authorities) and he was quite happy to use the civil rights that he possessed as a Roman citizen. But at no point does he say that it is legitimate for Christians to be as brutal and ferocious in opposing pagan enemies as those enemies are in opposing the church.
He admits that this strategy may not “succeed” in terms of politics or even cultural influence. But he finishes his article with this final thought:
…Christians do not do things because they think they will succeed. They do them because the New Testament tells them that this action or this way of speaking is the right way to reflect the character of God to the world.
What Faith Doesn’t Work
Here’s D.A. Carson, writing about the incident recorded in Matthew 17, when Jesus told told his followers they had “little faith”…
“Probably,” Carson notes, this word “does not refer so much to the littleness of their faith as to its poverty.”
“Little faith, like a little mustard seed, can be effectual; poor faith, like that of the disciples’ here, is ineffectual.”
Wisdom About Your Heart
On Monday night we continued our study of the book of Proverbs by looking at what God’s wisdom tells us about our hearts. Here are the notes:
1. Wisdom about your heart begins with understanding how important your heart is. The Heart is the center of who you are.
Proverbs 4
20 My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. 21 Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; 22 For they are life to those who find them, And health to all their flesh.23 Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.
The idea of v.23 is that everything you do comes from your heart. So if you ask God, “what’s the big deal about my heart?” He’ll say something like, “Well, it runs your whole life.” Bruce Waltke, in his commentary on Proverbs, paraphrases the last half of verse 23 as “the heart is the source of all your behavior.” “The heart,” he says, “governs all activity.”
Here is the extended quote from Waltke on the word “heart” in Proverbs:
This word—“Heart (leb/lebab) is the most important anthropological term in the Old Testament, but the English language has no equivalent. It occurs 46 times in Proverbs and 858 times in the OT…The ancients attributed the body’s functions to the heart…The heart in biblical anthropology controls the body, its facial expressions, its tongue, and all its other members. The Old Testament also attributes the psyche’s functions to the heart. No other English word combines the complex interplay of intellect, sensibility and will…The Lord, who knows the heart, experiences all of its emotions. The heart also thinks, reflects, and ponders. As the eyes were meant to see and the ears to hear, the heart is meant to discern and prompt action…it is the inner forum where decisions are made. Then, too, the biblical writers attributed spiritual functions to the heart; it accepts and trusts in the religious sphere. The heart feels all modes of desire, from the lowest physical forms, such as hunger and thirst, to the highest, spiritual forms, like reverence and remorse…[The] direction or bent of the heart determines its decisions and thus the person’s actions.” [Waltke on Pr 4:23, Proverbs. 90-91]
And this is what New Testament scholar R.T. France says about the idea of the heart in the New Testament:
“’Heart’ is the term most commonly used in biblical literature for the essential personality. Whereas in English ‘heart’ tends to connote emotion, in both Hebrew and Greek it conveys equally, and perhaps more strongly, the spiritual and intellectual processes, including the will. It refers to what makes people what they really are, their individuality.” [France on Mark 7:19, Mark]
So there is such a thing as a crucial part of you. It’s not true that nothing really matters, or that everything matters the same. Your heart matters. And in some ways, it’s more important than other things.
2. Therefore, if we are wise about our hearts, we will do two things:
First, (v. 21) We will “keep” the wise words of the scriptures “in our hearts.” This could go with Josh’s study last week. He was talking about how Proverbs teaches us to get wisdom—and this would have to be part of that. Proverbs 2:1 says “treasure my commands within you,” that’s along the same lines of thinking. What these kinds of thoughts point to is the fact that one of the first wise things we can do for our hearts is to stock our hearts with wise words. God likes this kind of imagery. He returns to it several times through the scriptures—this idea that one of the best things we can do is to fill our hearts with his words. Questionà will you do this? Do you do this? Do you give real time and effort and thought (and heart) to making sure your heart is continually stocked with God’s word? Is it on auto-order? Are you reading and listening and studying and discussing God’s words with others—so that when you need wisdom in life, you’ve God a heart full of God’s wisdom, and then, wisdom is what flows out of you? That’s the first bit of wisdom about our hearts that we can easily apply.
Second, (v.23) We will “keep (guard) our hearts.” What does this mean? Possibly you guard your heart by “stocking” your heart with God’s wisdom (v.21)? Possibly it is by doing the things listed in 4:24-27?
24 Put away from you a deceitful mouth, And put perverse lips far from you. 25 Let your eyes look straight ahead, And your eyelids look right before you. 26 Ponder the path of your feet, And let all your ways be established. 27 Do not turn to the right or the left; Remove your foot from evil.
So guarding our hearts has to do with what actions we take to make sure that the center of who we are—our inner environment where our thoughts and emotions live—that that part of us is full of God’s words. And, we see in verses 24 through 27, it also has to do with understanding that our hearts are the source of all our actions. If you look at those verses, they’re describing the things that we do with our lives—how we talk, where we look, what we want, where we go—and all those things come from our hearts.
Wise men and women hear the bible tell them to guard their heart guard their hearts, and they listen to those words, because they understand how important the heart is—they’ve let the wisdom of the bible tell them what’s true about themselves—that the heart is the center of who we are, and because humans are the kind of creatures whose actions are determined by what’s in their hearts, what flows out of our lives is determined by what lives in the center of our being.
And that means that no one can ignore their heart or neglect the bible’s wisdom about their heart without heading towards life-disaster. It’s that crucial. And that’s exactly how Proverbs talks about all these things.
3. Wisdom understands that the heart can be made to do things. It can be “applied” to understanding.
Proverbs 2:1-2
My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you, 2 So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding;
We have this idea today—an idea that’s dominating our whole culture—that whatever is inside of you is just this fixed thing. You have feelings and desires and thoughts about yourself, and that’s just it. You can’t help it, you can’t change it, it’s who you are, and you’ve just got to go with it. In fact, going with it is the best thing for you. The healthiest thing is to just to use your body to do whatever your heart wants. Let your heart lead and make the rest of you get in line. That’s the thinking a lot of people are into these days. And there’s this kind of weird idea of domination—like—it’s inevitable, resistance is futile, you will lose in the end, so just give in now.
But wisdom tells us the opposite of all that. You’re not a slave to your heart. You can be, and should be, in command of it. This is huge to say in our day! You can make your heart do things. Wisdom instructs us to “apply” our hearts to really understanding things. Think about how revolutionary that would be if people could get a hold of that concept today.
But then—doesn’t thinking that kind of make you realize immediately that, even if everyone knew that you could make your heart do things, in the end, we’d find out that, what many people want is to be led around by their hearts—and especially, by their appetites? When freedom shows up, do we want it? Or would many of us choose slavery to our own desires?
4. Wisdom understands the foolishness of two big ideas in our culture:
Trusting your heart is foolishness. Wisdom will lead you to beware of trusting your heart. See Proverbs 28:26 — “He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, But whoever walks wisely will be delivered.” Proverbs 28:26 keeps pushing us in the counter-cultural direction we saw in chapter 2. And when you realize what a huge, tragic thing foolishness really is—and all the destruction and loss and heartbreak it causes—you see how much our culture has decided to push against wisdom. In fact, we’ve taken this exact foolishness (from Proverbs 28:26) and made it our main motto. We’ve decided that the crowning achievement of our wisdom is to preach that everyone should follow their heart, and yet, God takes half a sentence and declares that idea foolishness. The second half of this verse hints at why—there is a kind of “deliverance” that every human needs, and as you read Proverbs, it turns out that what we need to be delivered from is the effects of our foolishness and the judgement of God on foolishness and sin. If our hearts aren’t full of wisdom, and submitted to wisdom, and instructed by wisdom, they’ll lead us straight into this destruction and judgement.
Delighting only in expressing your heart is foolishness. Wisdom will lead you to be careful in expressing your heart. See Proverbs 18:2 — “A fool has no delight in understanding, But in expressing his own heart.” This another piece of totally counter-cultural wisdom in Proverbs. And I think it’s just as shocking as 28:26. So if we listen to God’s wisdom, we won’t trust our hearts, and, we won’t be all about expressing our hearts. We won’t make it our life goal or ambition. We’ll learn to see the foolishness of making expressing ourselves such a big deal. In fact, what wisdom will probably teach us is that, if our hearts aren’t full of wisdom, then all we have to express is foolishness anyway, that same foolishness that lives inside our hearts and makes trusting them a bad idea. And so wisdom will teach us to restrain our hearts.
5. Wisdom is: taking God’s words and writing them on your heart. This is the way to be able to “trust in the Lord with all your hear.”
Proverbs 3:1-6
My son, do not forget my law, But let your heart keep my commands; 2 For length of days and long life And peace they will add to you. 3 Let not mercy and truth forsake you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart, 4 And so find favor and high esteem In the sight of God and man. 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.
So we’re finishing up with a little recap here. Like we saw in chapter 1, wisdom about our hearts includes making it a life project to get a heart full of wisdom—and here’s another way to say it. In fact, maybe what we can say after we’ve read and thought about all these verses is that training our hearts to trust in the Lord… is how we learn to apply them to wisdom. Memorize the things God’s says. Concentrate on actually living them out. And train yourself to be alert—notice when your heart is not trusting the lord—and bring it back (like a dog on a leash) to trust in God.
Use the words of God to corral and direct your heart into faith. Leash train that heart! Make the words of God your heart’s tether. Use them to redirect your heart off the path of foolishness that Proverbs warns us about, and back onto the path of wisdom. Now, if our hearts are full of the wisdom of people who don’t know God, or if they’re full of our own thoughts and wants, then this kind of language can sound unrealistic or old-fashioned. That’s the difference between a heart fed on God’s wisdom and a heart that’s not. A heart full of God’s words learns to develop a taste for true wisdom—because it leads us to God. Wisdom always leads us to God. And a heart that is with God finally has what our hearts most deeply need—fullness, wholeness, and eternal life.
How to Destroy Christianity in One Easy Step
I saw this title, “How to Destroy Christianity in One Easy Step,” and couldn’t help but watch. If you too are intrigued, here you go:
[tvideo type=”youtube” clip_id=”-JMF6hkOnmY”]
Some advice on dating
Matt Chandler, a pastor from Texas, shares some great advice on these questions:
- Is My Boyfriend (or Girlfriend) Godly Enough?
- Is There “Too Fast” in Christian Dating?
- Has Facebook Ruined Dating?
- Should My Church Help Me Get Married?
- Should I Date a Godly Girl I Do Not Find Attractive?
- Should a Boyfriend “Lead” His Girlfriend?
- Keys to Sexual Purity in Dating
- When Should a Single Stop Dating?
- Dating and Marriage for the Victims of Past Abuse
- What Hope Does God Offer Lonely Singles?
You can read the whole thing here.
Why does God use angels?
Have you ever thought about why God uses angels to do his work? Check out this passage from John Calvin’s Institutes:
Why it is through angels, rather than through himself without their service that God is wont to declare his power, to provide for the safety of believers, and to communicate the gifts of his beneficence to them? Surely, he does not do this out of necessity as if he could not do without them, for as often as he pleases, he disregards them and carries out his work though his will alone, so far are they from being to him a means of lightening difficulty.
See his point? God could, of course just do things, all by himself, so to speak, without employing lesser spiritual beings (whom he created) to do his work (or at least some of his work) for him. Maybe we can’t know the answer as to why he doesn’t do it that way, but I thought Calvin’s try at an answer was as good as any, and actually, I found it pretty encouraging and helpful. Check it out:
Therefore, he makes use of angles to comfort our weakness, that we may lack nothing at all that can raise up our minds to good hope or confirm them in security. One thing, indeed, ought to be quite enough for us: that the Lord declares himself to be our protector. But when we see ourselves beset by so many perils, so many harmful things, so many kinds of enemies – such is our softness and frailty – we would sometimes be filled with trepidation or yield to despair if the Lord did not make us realize the presence of his grace according to our capacity.
For this reason, he not only promises to take care of us, but tells us he has innumerable guardians whom he has bidden to look after our safety; that so long as we are hedged about by their defense and keeping, whatever perils may threaten, we have been placed beyond all chance of evil. I confess that we act wrongly when, after that simple promise of the protection of the one God, we still seek whence our help may come. But because the Lord, out of his immeasurable kindness and gentleness, wishes to remedy this fault of ours, we have no reason to disregard his great benefit.
We have an example of this thing in Elisha’s servant, who, when he saw the mountain besieged by the Syrian army and that there was no escape, was overwhelmed with fear, as if all was over for himself and his master. Here Elisha prayed to God that He might open his servant’s eyes. Straightway the servant saw the mountain filled with fiery horses and chariots, that is, with a host of angles, who were to protect him as well as the prophet [II Kings 6:17]. Strengthened by this vision, he recovered himself and was able with undaunted courage to look down upon his enemies, at sight of whom he had almost expired.
God makes use of the angels, not for his own sake, but for ours.
(Institutes, I.16.18)
What truly helps
What should be our focus as we read the scriptures? Consider these thoughts from John Calvin:
Not to take too long, let us remember here, as in all religious doctrine, that we ought to hold to one rule of modesty and sobriety: not to speak, or guess, or even to seek to know, concerning obscure matters anything except what has been imparted to us by God’s Word.
Furthermore, in the reading of Scripture we ought ceaselessly to endeavor to seek out and meditate upon those things which make for edification.
Let us not indulge in curiosity or in the investigation of unprofitable things. And because the Lord willed to instruct us, not in fruitless questions, but in sound godliness, in the fear of his name, in true trust, and in the duties of holiness, let us be satisfied with this knowledge. For this reason, if we would be duly wise, we must leave those empty speculations which idle men have taught apart from God’s Word concerning the nature, orders, and number of angles. I know that many persons more greedily seize upon and take more delight in them than in such things as have been put to daily use.
See what Calvin’s doing here? He’s trying to show us that our focus, when we read the bible should be on the big, central truths of the scriptures, and those things which can be “put to daily use.” He points out that this was how Jesus himself taught:
But, if we are not ashamed of being Christ’s disciples, let us not be ashamed to follow that method which he has prescribed. Thus it will come to pass that, content with his teaching, we shall not only abandon but also abhor those utterly empty speculations from which he calls us back. (Calvin, Institutes, 1.16.5)
In every age, there’s always a temptation for Christians to get sidetracked by pursuing very peripheral (and often weirdly speculative) things that kind of have to with the bible, but are only weakly related to the central truths of God and creation and redemption–in other words, the big truths of the gospel. To be direct, the internet, and YouTube in particular, have made it very easy to waste a lot of time looking into things that claim to be related to the bible but have no value at all in understanding God, trusting and spreading the gospel, and living the Christian life. Ever found yourself more interested in things like aliens or conspiracies than the person of God or the meaning of the cross? Let’s not get sidetracked!
In other words, let’s major on the majors.