Does God Answer the Prayer of Unbelievers?

Mike Leake

ben-white-ReEqHw2GyeI-unsplashIt’s always interesting for me to read things I wrote a few years ago. I don’t think I’ve changed all that much—but there are subtle shifts in my theology and certain emphasis today that weren’t present back in 2017.

I noticed this when my editor for Crosswalk approached me with a request to rewrite and lengthen a piece I wrote back in 2017.

Does God Answer the Prayers of an Unbeliever?

I had to add about 800 words to that piece to create the new piece. I changed the introduction and I also reframed it a little. I don’t necessarily agree with MacArthur or others who use John 9:31 or Isaiah 59:2 to argue that God doesn’t hear the prayer of an unbeliever.

I still believe that we are asking the wrong question here. And I still don’t think we have firm ground to stand upon to say that God does answer the prayer of an unbeliever.

If you’re interested you can check out the new version of this article here:

Does God Answer the Prayers of Unbelievers?

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Photo source: here

What Is The Difference Between Tradition and Traditionalism?

Mike Leake

B_R_fiddlerGuy: “I hate tradition!”
Same Guy: “I want to leave a legacy.”

Tradition often gets a bad wrap. And sometimes deservedly so. But tradition can actually have a positive impact on our well-being. Tradition can help us to stay grounded. I appreciate these words from Donna Rockwell, writing for Psych Alive:

Understanding that I do not live in a vacuum, that this period of time is connected to all other periods of time — those that preceded me and those that will come after — I become part of something larger than myself, part of the eternal mystery, taking my place in the fabric of life itself. It is during the holidays that our unique cultural traditions have the greatest potential to help in this process of self-definition, to contribute to well being, and to cultivate an all-important sense of belonging and a healthy perspective of our place in the world.

But we also know the dangers of tradition. You could almost argue that Jesus was crucified because of tradition gone bad. Part of their hatred of him was because he eschewed their traditions. He was new wine into old wineskins.

So, is tradition good or bad?

I love this quote from Os Guinness (or maybe John Seel):

Tradition as the living faith of the dead and traditionalism as the dead faith of the living are two very distinct things. –Os Guinness, No God But God, 19

This helps us to see the difference between tradition and traditionalism. Tradition is when the living faith of another is passed down to a present generation. In this sense, tradition is a good thing. It’s the guy saying he wants to leave a legacy. If that legacy is grounded in Christ, then it’s a good thing.

But if the living faith is not passed on to the next generation then tradition quickly becomes traditionalism. We go through the motions and mimic what our ancestors did, we fight to keep the outward expressions alive, but we have no part in the inner faith that gave rise to those outward expressions.

At this point tradition becomes deadly because it’s the “dead faith of living” but it is still masquerading as the legitimate thing. It carries the same name but it has lost its heart. It’s a zombie.

Andy Crouch, in his book Playing God, tells of the impact of zombie institutions:

Zombie institutions are institutions that have not faced the truth about their own failure. And because of their access to privilege—their ability to continue collecting rent—they continue to exist, crowding out institutions that might create true shalom. Zombie institutions are dedicated first and only to their own preservation, not to anyone’s flourishing. (Crouch, Playing God, 199)

He then speaks of zombie churches:

Because every church is built and sustained by volunteers, almost every church was at some point a thriving institution that contributed to real flourishing. But over time the imperatives of self-preservation can create a risk-averse culture that prevents continued learning and growth. Zombie churches exist to keep the lights on rather than to be the light in dark places; they turn inward rather than outward; they serve insiders and ignore outsiders. (Crouch, Playing God, 199-200)

What is the difference between tradition and traditionalism?

One word.

Life.

Being Angry And Doing Angry

Mike Leake

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“Do you do well to be angry?” –Jonah 4:4

I’ve found that those who struggle with the sin of anger tend to almost always answer this question in the affirmative. They feel angry, they have been wronged, their sense of justice is awakened, and they conclude that they ought to be angry.

Jonah was an angry man. And he came to the conclusion that his anger was justified—in fact, he was justified in anger to the point of death.

I share this about Jonah because it’s important to acknowledge this as we enter into Mark 3:1-6. That passage is filled with anger. The Pharisees are angry and Jesus is angry. But they are angry about different things and as we will see their anger leads to different results.

If I’m like Jonah, I will enter into this story and assume that my anger is like that of Jesus—righteous. But in reality it’s more akin to that of the Pharisees. How can I tell which kind of anger I have?

The Anger of the Pharisees

Why are the Pharisees so angry? What do they have against Jesus? Shouldn’t they be rejoicing that a man was healed in one of their services?

They are angry because they believe that Jesus has run roughshod over the Law of God. Somewhere along the way they had come to the conclusion that healing is a “work”. And work shouldn’t be done on the Sabbath. You could heal something that was life threatening, but if it wasn’t life-threatening then your issue could wait until it wasn’t the Sabbath.

The Pharisees, like Jonah, believe that their anger is justified. In their mind they are the ones who are honoring God. He is dangerous.

This blaspheming Sabbath breaker is gaining popularity and if they are about protecting the people, protecting the nation, and protecting themselves, then they need to stop this guy. If Jesus is allowed to keep teaching this stuff and leading people astray then God is going to be displeased with them. They’ll end up in exile. They’ll end up even further harmed by the Romans. This isn’t good. So for the sake of God’s kingdom and the sake of Israel this man must be stopped.

Their anger leads them to self-protection. It leads them to use a suffering and vulnerable man as a pawn to trap what they perceive as a threat. And it ultimately leads them to plot murder on the Sabbath, all in the name of the Lord.

Contrast this with Jesus…

The Anger of Jesus

The anger of Jesus is different than that of the Pharisees. His anger is a heartbroken type of anger. Their hardness of heart, that leads to the ill-treatment of this man, has him angry.

I think Spurgeon says it well:

He was heartbroken because their hearts were so hard. As Manton puts it, “He was softened because of their hardness.” His was not the pitiless flame of wrath which burns in a dry eye; he had tears as well as anger. His thunder-storm brought a shower of pity with it…He was grieved at their hardness because it would injure themselves; their blind enmity vexed him because it was securing their own destruction. He was angry because they were wilfully rejecting the light which would have illuminated them with heavenly brightness, the life which could have quickened them into fulness of joy. They were thus determinedly and resolutely destroying their own souls out of hatred to him, and he was angry more for their sakes than his own. (Spurgeon, Metropolitan Pulpit Sermons volume 32, 183)

His anger isn’t about self-protection. His anger is a compassionate anger.

Notice also what his anger leads to. It leads to action on behalf of another. It’s not mere words. It’s not a raging speech, a torrent of angry tweets, it’s not biting, it’s not shaming, it moves him to act for the sake of the vulnerable.

This, to me, is a good barometer of whether or not my rage is the Jonah and Pharisee type of anger, or the type of anger that was present in Jesus.

  • Is this anger propelling me towards self-protection or to protecting the vulnerable?
  • Is this anger moving me to loving action or simply words?
  • Is this anger motivating me to seek harm upon those I am angry with or am I moved with compassion and grief for them?

Conclusion

Much of what we call righteous anger isn’t really righteous. It’s about righteous things, maybe. But it’s not actually righteous. It’s often mere words and not acting upon behalf of another.

What is my anger leading me to do?

That’s how we can tell if it’s coming from Jesus or our own messed up hearts.

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Photo source: here

How Blood-Earnest Should a Preacher Be?

Mike Leake

hqdefaultC.S. Lewis once spoke about the difficulty of sustaining worship. Worship by it’s very nature is a looking outside of ourselves. As soon as we start thinking about worship we end up not worshipping, this is how Lewis said it:

The perfect church service would be the one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God. But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing than worshipping.

I was thinking about that Lewis quote recently while thinking through this address by John Piper on The Gravity and Gladness of Preaching. Piper is trying to make an argument for a seriousness to our preaching that conveys both the gladness and happiness and joy that we have in Christ but which moves away from frivolity or levity.

I’ve gleaned so much from John Piper over the years. I believe his blood-earnestness in preaching has had such a great impact upon me. The seriousness with which he considers the glory of God is helpful and challenging. And that is, I believe, what Piper is attempting to communicate in this lecture on preaching.

But there is something which I’ve observed among those of us who got our preaching legs while being immersed in the Reformed evangelicalism of Piper. It’s a particular tone, a way of organizing the service, a way of carrying ourselves with “blood-earnestness” but a seriousness that is more of a mask than that which comes from having been through the fire.

To put this another way, the blood-earnestness that accompanies powerful preaching doesn’t come from a fixation on blood-earnestness. That’s why I think of that Lewis quote. If we fixate upon the tone of the service—stamping out laughter and mirth—making sure we have the proper atmosphere of being around the holy, we’ll never arrive at anything more than contrived stillness. Because when you focus upon being blood-earnest you’re no longer really preaching.

When he was laboring to discern whether or not he was called to the ministry, John Newton, put together some of his thoughts upon preaching:

I do not think either sourness or gloominess become a preacher…True gravity is far from these and is a temperament of behavior arising from a fixed persuasion of the presence of God, the value of souls, the shortness of time, the influence of example, the love of mankind and the vastness and reality of eternal things, all impressed upon the mind together. (Newton, 180)

I’m not saying that Newton and Piper are necessarily disagreeing. But what I am saying is that Piper’s disciples would do well to hear this word of Newton. We don’t arrive at gladness or gravity by making either of them our goal in preaching. They arise from other things.

Focus upon the glory of Christ, aim to love your people and to honor Christ while doing so, and you’ll have plenty of experiences where the Spirit rests upon your congregation in such a way that a holy hush falls upon them. That is Newton’s point.

Dig deep in Jesus and the atmosphere will take care of itself.