Anger Works, Hope Lasts

Mike Leake

photo-1559816827-cd6130a58bf7On my drive to the office—actually on my drive to get a donut before work—I pass by a beautiful house. It’s positioned well away from the highway, its wonderfully manicured lawn, fenced off from society with beautiful cedar posts. And on that fencing are housed 5-6 canvas signs. One reads:

Fauci lied. People died.

The other one, I never can read quite fast enough, but it has something to do with if you voted for Biden you have blood on your hands. Each banner is accusatory and rather than injecting hope into each passerby it aims to move the needle on political debate by shaming the opponent. Hot takes preferred over hope giving.

As I drove by this morning I thought about that strategy. My first thought was, “don’t you know that people are inspired by hope more than shame.” But in reality, I only wish that was true. Fear motivates far more quickly than hope. You can gather an angry mob ten times quicker and ten times larger than you could gather a group to go spread hope. Hot takes, anger, fear, and shaming “work”.

The Pragmatism of Anger

Then I started thinking about pragmatism. Pragmatism is the philosophy that whatever works is what is true. In a purely pragmatic worldview truth is relative and ever-changing. It does not have its own existence. Truth is just the thing that works in some given moment. Therefore, the most fundamental question within this worldview is, “Does it work?”

From a pragmatic worldview, anger and hot takes are preferred because they get the results needed. Hope is more of a slow burn. You may never see the fruit of hope, this side of glory. That was certainly true of Abraham and so many other people of faith who “did not receive the things promised…” Hope isn’t practical.

I come from a certain tribe of evangelicalism. Early on I was heavily involved in critiquing movements like Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church. I have been an outspoken critic of things like firetruck baptistries, decisional regeneration, and governing a church by “what works” instead of by what honors God. I’ve labored to kick pragmatism in the teeth.

I still believe pragmatism to be dangerous. But I’ve failed to see pragmatism in my own heart. You know how I know? Because so often I’ve taken the path of a hot-take instead of slow-burning hope. And I’ve done that because I know that an angry missive will get a response whereas offering a hopeful perspective will largely be ignored. Anger works—graciousness doesn’t. When I light the short fuse instead of the long one, I’m likely being a pragmatist.

I can’t help but think about that beautiful house on the hill with the shame-inducing canvas. The truth is, here in Southwest MO, it has a ready audience. It’s red meat. 3/4 of our population did not vote for Biden. As I’m assessing those berating billboards I’m confronted with the pragmatic questions I ask of them. What is the point? Does it work? Does it accomplish what you want?

Hope Lasts

But there is a fundamental question which stands over all these. Are those placards the way of Jesus? Do angry hot-takes, shame-inducing billboards, and malicious missives honor God? Do these things accurately reflect the God of the Universe? And do they lead to human flourishing?

That question about human flourishing is very much connected to the question of whether or not something honors God. God is honored when we treat our fellow image-bearers with dignity and grace and wonder. Shame doesn’t create a culture you want to live in. Anger consumes culture it doesn’t make beauty.

Will shame be present in the new heavens and the new earth? Will anger? Or will hope? Our hope will be realized and our anger and our shame will fall like scales as we see Christ for who He really is.

Hope makes beautiful. It isn’t necessarily practical. Neither is faith and love. But they remain whilst our angry canvas’ withers into dust.

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love…

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Photo source: here

Should We Preach With a Wider Audience in Mind?

Mike Leake

photo-1620565404258-27ef4fbb0b72John Newton was not that great of a preacher. Newton preached during the time of great orators like Whitefield, Wesley, Davies, Tennent, and many more. Those who heard Newton were sometimes surprised that he had such a full congregation. He was sincere, orthodox, pious, but he was not “graceful in delivery”. Richard Cecil, a fellow Anglican clergyman, said this:

With respect to his ministry, he appeared, perhaps, to least advantage in the pulpit; as he did not generally aim at accuracy in the composition of his sermons, nor at any address in the delivery of them. His utterance was far from clear, and his attitudes ungraceful.

So why, in an age when preaching was at a premium, was a middling orator like Newton pastoring a congregation filled with people? Cecil gives the answer:

He possessed, however, so much affection for his people, and zeal for their best interests, that the defect of his manner was of littler consideration with his constant hearers: at the same time, his capacity, and habit of entering into their trials and experience, gave the highest interest to his ministry among them.

Newton genuinely loved his people. And they knew that he loved them. He wouldn’t use the pulpit to clobber them, to share their secrets, or anything of the sort. But he was often among the people and heard their hearts. This would inform his preaching.

When he picked a text he likely had a conversation in mind. He always aimed to help his congregation. His passion for Christ and his congregation bled out into the pulpit. He spoke their language. For an outsider looking in—he might have seemed bumbling, somewhat dry, and harder to follow. But he spoke their language and so they absorbed his words.

Should We Think of A Wider Audience When Preaching?

1 Peter 5:2 exhorts us preachers to “shepherd the flock of God among you”. That is a little more difficult to apply in our day. Who is “among us”? Do we include our wider online audience? Do we preach in such a way that our sermons would be fit for publication or YouTube snippets?

I think Newton may give us the answer here as well. He would converse often amongst his people: “Walking about an hour or two among the people, and sometimes drinking tea with them”. This would give him insight into their spirits were working and the things which they were struggling with. This would often give Newton direction in the pulpit. And as he noted,

“What is observed of ten persons in these different situations, may be applied to ten thousand. For though some circumstances vary, the heart of man, the aids of grace, and the artifices of Satan, in general are universally the same.

I think what this is telling us is that if we craft our sermons with our people in mind, the Lord will often see fit to give it a wider audience. Aim to help the people of whom God has sovereignly placed in your care and it will likely be fitting nourishment for a wider audience.

Of course, it is also possible that the way in which you speak to your people will land differently when it is picked up by a wider audience. We must be aware of this, but we cannot exchange speaking in the dialect of the flock of God which is among us.

Shepherd your flock. That is the one to which we will give an account when we stand before the Lord.

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Photo source: here

What Does “Becoming Fishers of Men” Look Like?

Mike Leake

photo-1583249598754-b7a2f59651fbI didn’t really grow up in church. I think I had a spell in 7th or 8th grade where I went to youth group some—but that had more to do with pretty girls than Jesus. I do, however, remember bits and pieces of one sermon I heard. It involved what I assumed was an expert fisherman explaining to us what Jesus meant by “becoming fishers of men”. He talked about bait and lure and “reeling them in”.

I think that metaphor stuck with me a little because when I first started teaching the Bible I put together a sermon on Jesus’ call to be fishers of men. And guess what I did? I studied fishing methods and I applied them to evangelism. If you want to catch people with the gospel you need to attract them with a lure.

That was a silly Bible study that I put together. For one, the fishing methods in the first century do not exactly match the methods used in trying to catch a bass in Northeast Missouri. But secondly, it missed an Old Testament connection. Jesus’ turn of phrase actually comes from Jeremiah 16.

16 “Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. 17 For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes. 18 But first I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations.”

Jeremiah 16 is in the context of judgment of the nations while the Lord restores Israel. These “fishers of men” will be overturning the works of idolatry as the fortunes of God’s people are restored.

A Negative Image or a Positive Image?

The metaphor in the OT of being “fishers of men” is predominately a negative one. Because the image in the OT is predominately negative this has led Robert Stein to say, “There does not appear to be any OT precedent for the expression ‘fishers of men’. Mark Strauss believes there is a connection, but believes “Jesus reverses this image to one of salvation. To fish for people is to rescue them from sin and death by calling them into God’s kingdom.”

But what if Jesus isn’t completely reversing the image? What if the “rescuing people from sin and death” is very much a part of what is happening even in Jeremiah 16? Perhaps we are given a picture of what this “becoming fishers of men” looks like even in the next passage. In Mark 1:21-28 we see Jesus teaching with authority and casting out a demon with authority. Mark’s major point in that text is about establishing Jesus’ authority. But that is also present in his calling of the disciples to “himself”. That’s a power move.

Mark loves to provide a section of teaching and then follow it up with an example. I haven’t seen others make this connection, but to me there is at least some connection between Jesus’ action with the demon possessed man and his call to be “fishers of men”. This is what it looks like to rescue people.

This, to me, is a helpful understanding of what it means to be fishers of men. I think for far too long this phrase has been of the stuff of fishing stories and piling bodies of fish up on the shore. But being fishers of men has much to do with human flourishing. I think what Andy Crouch says is fitting:

The best test of any institution, and especially of any institution’s roles and rules for using power, is whether everyone flourishes when everyone indwells their roles and plays by the rules, or whether only a few of the participants experience abundance and growth. (Crouch, 185)

Jesus uses his authority (his power) in order to “fish men” out of the clutches of demonic oppression. He sets the on the bank and into flourishing. That is what it means to “become fishers of men”. And the disciples must learn this lesson. It isn’t about catching enough fish to sink your boat and brag to your buddies about your haul, or to get filthy rich off your catch. You are “fishers of men” to rescue them from the wildness of the sea, to rescue from the clutches of idolatry, and to set free into flourishing under Jesus’ authority.

Any “fishing of men” that doesn’t lend itself to human flourishing isn’t the stuff of Jesus.

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Photo source: here

Engaging in Controversy Can Eat You Alive

Mike Leake

someone is wrong_zpsncnzkixrYou’ve likely seen the picture above. It’s humorous because even though we all realize engaging in online debate typically does little to persuade others, we still do it. This is not new.

In the late 1700s a fellow minister informed John Newton that he was going to engage another minister in a theological disagreement. Newton’s response, now titled On Controversy, encourages this minister to check his own heart when engaging in controversy. Newton admits that “it seems a laudable service to defend the faith once delivered to the saints”. But he also recognizes a significant danger in this enterprise. As Newton says, “we find but very few writers of controversy who have not been manifestly hurt by it.”

I could make a similar observation as Newton. Early in my blogging “career” I would have been found in some of those discernment ministry circles. I listened to Derek Webb’s Wedding Dress this morning and it stirred up in me some of the same affection which I had when I heard it twenty years ago. This line in particular is stirring: 

Cause money cannot buy
A husband’s jealous eye.,
When you have knowingly
Deceived his wife.

I have always been passionate about the church being people of integrity and walking in truth. And I’ve battled this call upon my own life as well. Newton has been a constant aid for me (this On Controversy letter in particular). I have watched as some of these warnings have consumed others—and I’ve seen the temptations bubble up within my own heart.

Newton’s Warning

Here is why Newton says “writers of controversy” are at a dangerous precipice:

  1. The temptation to grow in a sense of their own importance.

Controversy generates traffic. Flamethrowers and smoking dragons get attention on Twitter. But they often provide far more heat than light. When you engage in controversy and you get all this attention it can be a real temptation to think that you are more important than you actually are.

2. The temptation to imbibe an angry contentious spirit

Public anger seems to double rather than dissipate. The devil can easily put angry ideas within our mind, they can latch onto our disordered desires for anger, and then we can find a community ready to congratulate us. I have seen people who were once balanced, rational, gracious, and encouraging become absolutely overwhelmed by an angry spirit.

3. The temptation to insensibly withdraw attention from important matters to focus on secondary

There are things which will nurture our souls and will encourage the souls around us. These are often thrown to the side as we focus upon one particular area of truth or controversy. We can be consumed by our pet doctrines or our own causes.

This is why Newton called entering into controversy an honorable but dangerous task. He prayed that if this young man did enter into controversy that he would earnestly watch over his own soul. He further warned:

“it may become your own cause, and awaken in you those tempers which are inconsistent with true peace of mind, and will surely obstruct communion with God.”

I am taking this warning to heart. Fifteen years ago I was fighting for things like Calvinism and wanting to see pragmatism die within the church. The words of Newton tempered me. And I’m at a different place now. But I find that same impulse rising up within me when it comes to issues of justice and protecting the vulnerable. It’s a bit different battle, I think, but the temptations are the same. I need the words of Newton still today. Especially his call to “be upon your guard against admitting anything personal into the debate”.

Whatever side of any controversy you find yourself on these words of Newton are fitting and should be heeded:

If we act in a wrong spirit, we shall bring little glory to God, do little good to our fellow creatures, and procure neither honor nor comfort to ourselves. If you can be content with showing your wit, and gaining the laugh on your side, you have an easy task; but I hope you have a far nobler aim, and that, sensible of the solemn importance of gospel truths, and the compassion due to the souls of men, you would rather be a means of removing prejudices in a single instance, than obtain the empty applause of thousands. Go forth, therefore, in the name and strength of the Lord of hosts, speaking the truth in love; and may he give you a witness in many hearts that you are taught of God, and favored with the unction of his Holy Spirit.

May the glory of God be our aim at all times.