Author Archives: Svigel

About Svigel

Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Dallas Theological Seminary, author, husband, father.

Scoring Culture

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On my way to work today, I listened to a number of tracks from movie scores by John Williams, arguably the greatest film score composer alive today. After the third or fourth “main theme,” I realized why I don’t listen to this all the time. While Williams writes legendary film scores, the genre just doesn’t satisfy my musical sensibilities. See, I was trained in music performance and composition and grew up playing Mozart and Beethoven piano sonatas. Because of this, I feel like most film scores are to classical music what movie adaptations are to the books on which they are based—violent and vulgar parodies.

As I drove, ruminating on this analogy with the Jurassic Park theme assaulting my senses, I realized that the analogy also enlightens my perspective on much popular evangelicalism today.

My thesis is this: many forms of twenty-first century American evangelicalism are to classic Christianity what films scores are to classical music—violent and vulgar parodies. Movie scores are “incidental,” describing musically and thematically the ever-changing images projected on a screen. Similarly, contemporary evangelicalism reflects the ever-changing cultural values and pursuits in their superficial doctrinal and practical “norms.” To enhance the cinematic action, movie scores incorporate an eclectic variety of musical instruments, tempos, styles, and themes to fit the film without any unifying theory, structure, or progression. In the same way, many evangelicals assemble a mishmash of media and methods to appeal to the masses without an over-arching theology or structure.

I admit that my perspective has been skewed by my intense exposure to ancient Christianity. And my historical awareness of the dangers of conforming Christian practice to the prevailing cultural philosophies, values, and norms has made me leery of constant changes in evangelicalism under the guise of “incarnational ministry.” Adopting from and adapting to the cultural chaos is not the same as incarnational ministry. The fact is, God became fully human, but Jesus never really “fit in.” Paul became all things to all people, but he was beaten by Jews and beheaded by Gentiles. The ancient Christian apologists and theologians drew from philosophical concepts and rhetoric to explain the faith to a pagan culture, but that same culture rejected and killed them. Only when the Christians began to coddle up to secular authorities did they reap positive—if not genuine—responses from both the powerful and the powerless. The result was a corrupt mega-church rich in worldly goods but in desperate need of spiritual reformation.

I fear that evangelicalism today is heading in the same direction as liberal theology of yesteryear. Like the Schleiermachers and Bultmanns of centuries past, seeker-sensitive churches drive their pegs into the shifting sands of the popular cultural landscape with their emphasis on felt needs. Trying to be everything to everyone, they often become nothing to nobody. Church growth gurus plug business strategies, corporate structures, and bottom-line philosophies that increase numbers and revenue but devalue narrow-way discipleship. Trendy thirty-something congregations appeal to the glitz and glamour of entertainment-oriented eye candy or create a cozy, comfortable coffee-house environment, but often fail to drive home the essential truths of the Christian faith—the glory of the Triune God, the gracious incarnation of the Son, the new life that comes through His death and resurrection.

To avoid the liberal slide, evangelicals today need to reevaluate their relationship to popular culture. Many evangelical leaders today are infactuated with popularity, respectability, luxury, comfort, fame, and fortune. Evangelicals need to seriously rethink the essence of the Christian faith, then conform its forms and structures to match the central message. The way we represent Christianity must in some way reflect the heart of the Christian faith. Only by a careful and intentional reflection on history, theology, Scripture, and culture can we hope to arrive at genuine expressions of Christianity. Leaping from the latest marketing strategy or communications fad just doesn’t cut it.

In short, I believe evangelicalism should stop writing their music to conform to the reeling images of popular culture and return to the symphonic theory of the classics.

Evangelical Modalism

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If I polled members of most evangelical churches in America today, I’m afraid I would discover that most are basically modalists in their understanding of the Trinity.

Modalism is the heresy that confuses the persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity states that there is one God in three persons: Father, Son, and Spirit—equal in divine essence and power but distinct in person. However, heretics throughout church history have veered off this way into one of two ditches. The first is tri-theism, which separates the three persons and basically confesses three gods, three essences, and three separate persons (and usually one of the gods is greater than the others). The second is modalism, which confuses the three persons and confesses one god and one person with three different names, depending on what role he happens to be filling.

It has become more and more evident to me that evangelicals—while avoiding tri-theism—have inadvertently run headlong into the ditch of modalism. They have done so primarily by three means: modalistic pictures, modalistic prayers, and modalistic praise.

Modalistic Pictures

If you were asked to explain the Trinity to a five-year-old, how would you go about doing it? Most evangelicals would probably resort to some sort of illustration they learned in Sunday school, read in a book, or heard from the pulpit. Two pictures prevail: “The Trinity is like water: solid, liquid, and gas” (that’s modalism). “The Trinity is like a person with different names: I’m a son to my father, a father to my son, and a husband to my wife” (that’s modalism, too). Both of these well-intentioned illustrations communicate a modalistic—not Trinitarian—doctrine of God.

Two facts emerge from two thousand years of attempting to illustrate the Trinity: 1) no picture can adequately illustrate the unillustratable God; and 2) every picture results in communicating a non-Trinitarian heresy. (For a longer discussion about the dangers of illustrating the Trinity, see my essay, “The Unillustratable God.”)

I believe the evangelical knack for illustrating spiritual truths has unwittingly misled many evangelicals into a false understanding of the Trinity. This has to stop, even if it means resorting to bare creedal Trinitarian language to define (not illustrate) the Trinity.

Modalistic Prayers

Besides modalistic pictures, evangelicals spread a confused view of God by means of modalistic prayers.

Some time back I visited a somewhat progressive evangelical church led by a pastor who I know is not a modalist and could probably state the doctrine of the Trinity as clearly and concisely as anyone could hope. However, several times during the Sunday morning service he engaged in what amounted to a modalistic prayer, confusing the Father and Son.

His various prayers went something like this: “Our great heavenly Father, we love you, we praise you, we thank you for dying on the cross for our sins, etc. . . . Lord Jesus, we give you all the glory and honor, Father, etc. . . . In Jesus’s name, Amen.”

Over and over again this pastor kept mixing up the persons of the Trinity, attributing works of the Son to the Father and vice versa. It irritated me so much that I actually felt like walking out. All the while I couldn’t help but wonder how the people in the congregation were understanding the doctrine of God based on those prayers. Contrary to the gist of that pastor’s prayer, the Father did not die on the cross for our sins (an ancient modalistic heresy called “patripassianism,” or “the suffering of the Father”). Jesus is not the Father. Although the Father is God and the Son is God, the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father. Father, Son, and Spirit—though united in deity—are distinct in their persons.

Now, I know all of us slip up once in a while when we pray and end up accidentally mixing up the Father and Son and Spirit. That doesn’t make us modalists. But it does cause us to confuse those who are listening—especially if they already have a shaky understanding of what we mean by “Trinity.” One easy way to solve this problem is to actually follow Christ’s teaching on prayer—direct all prayer to God the Father in Jesus’s name and by the power of the Spirit. Address the Father, thank Him for sending His Son, praise Him for giving you the Spirit. By keeping your prayers addressed to God the Father, not only will you be following the overwhelming majority of biblical examples, but you will also avoid communicating a modalistic misunderstanding of the Trinity to those listening.

I believe the evangelical penchant for spontaneous prayer sometimes leads to a confusion of Father, Son, and Spirit, which in turn communicates a modalistic concept of the Trinity. This has to stop, even if it means writing out and reading our prayers to avoid errors.

Modalistic Praise

Along with modalistic pictures and modalistic prayers, evangelicals unwittingly engage in modalistic praise. This comes in the form of popular worship songs and hymns that convey an inaccurate concept of Father, Son, and Spirit.

One worship song that particularly troubles me is “You Alone.” The problematic chorus states: “You alone are Father / and You alone are good. / You alone are Savior / and You alone are God.” But that’s just not true. A Trinitarian Christian cannot confess that God the Father (the first person of the Trinity) is alone good, Savior, and God. These are appellations that Father, Son, and Spirit share. These lyrics could be fixed in one of two ways: 1) change “Father” to a different word, such as “holy,” which would render the address to the Triune God in unity. Or 2) somehow remove the word “alone,” because this suggests that a single person—the Father—is alone God, and for those who also believe in the deity of Christ, this would suggest that the Son and the Father are the same person with different names.

Postmodern praise songs aren’t the only ones producing modalistic melodies, however. The ancient Irish hymn, “By Thou My Vision”—which is one of my favorites—precariously approaches the borders of modalism. The second verse says, “Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word; / I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord; / Thou my great Father, I Thy true son, / Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.” In the ancient church, the names “Wisdom” and “Word” often referred to the Spirit and the Son, and in any case the “Word” (logos) is a name exclusively used in the Bible to refer to the Son in distinction to the Father (John 1:1–3, 14). Yet in the third line “Wisdom” and “Word” are both called “Father.” Then, in the last line, the normal function of the Holy Spirit—who indwells believers—is assigned to the Father. This is confusing.

I believe the evangelical approach to worship music—which sometimes emphasizes the emotional experience over doctrinal discernment—occasionally leads to a confused and confusing doctrine of God. This has to stop, even if it means changing worship songs and rewriting ancient hymns.

Conclusion

A modalistic concept of God that confuses the Father, Son, and Spirit is far too common among evangelicals today. Through sloppy pictures, prayers, and praise, the misunderstanding continues to be confessed over and over again in churches large and small. Because most believers learn their theology from preaching, prayers, and worship—that is, learning by observing and participating—we must all reevaluate our presentations and conform them to the biblical and orthodox doctrine of God.

Bible Foregrounds 1: The “Restrainer” in 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7

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Many passages of Scripture have been tirelessly debated not only in light of the meaning of the words and grammar, but also in light of the historical context or “background.” However, scholars often neglect the historical “foreground”—that is, the exploration of which interpretations make the most sense in light of what followed the apostolic period. The apostles and prophets who wrote the books of the Bible also taught large numbers of Christians who carried on their oral teachings in their own ministries. So we should expect that the correct reading of Scripture may “echo” forward into the writings of second and third generation teachers. As a sort of exegetical experiment, I’d like to trace the “Bible foregrounds” of a number of debated issues in theological and biblical studies, and I will do this over the course of the next several months in separate essays.

The Problem: What Restrains Him?

I begin this exploration with a relatively provincial—but interesting—test question: Does the removal of the “restrainer” described in 2 Thessalonians 2:6–7 refer to the rapture of the church described in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18?

Some understand the “restrainer” to refer to the Holy Spirit, as in John 16:7–8. Others refer it to the work of human government to restrain sin by its God-ordained system of punishment and reward (Rom 13:1–5). Or to the archangel Michael’s battle against demonic forces (Rev 12). And still others apply it to the church’s spiritual restraint (Matt 16:18–19).

First, we must explore the historical background of the passage. Paul, Silas, and Timothy had gone to Thessalonica during the second missionary journey around AD 50 (Acts 17:1–14). He wrote 1 Thessalonians around AD 51, and between the first and second letters the church had become confused—either by verbal teaching or by a letter—that suggested that the Day of the Lord had already begun and the persecutions they were suffering were at the hand of the coming “man of sin.” Paul therefore wrote 2 Thessalonians to correct their thinking regarding the order of anticipated end time events.

In connection with the issue of the coming “man of lawlessness,” “apostasy,” and “restrainer,” Paul wrote to the Thessalonians: “Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things?” (2 Thess 2:5). Unfortunately, because he had shared it with them orally, he did not clarify his meaning for us later readers. Instead, he wrote, “And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming.”

So the identity of the thing (or person) that restrains was already known to the Thessalonians, and was actually part of the first teaching about the faith they had received from Paul. This means that the order of end times events and the principle of the restrainer was important enough for Paul to share as part of his elementary teachings to new believers. We might assume, therefore, that Paul did the same for many of the other churches he planted. Therefore, because of the basic nature of Paul’s teaching regarding the end times and the restrainer, we would expect to see echoes of it in the early church.

I therefore pose the question: When we turn to the evidence from Bible foregrounds, which of the possibilities do we see emphasized in the early church—the restraining power of the Holy Spirit, of human government, of the church, or something else?

Bible Foregrounds: Who Knows What Restrains Him?

I should first point out that the early Christians did not see a real functional distinction between the God’s works through the Spirit and the means He uses to accomplish His purposes. So, whether we take the restrainer to be human government, the church, the conscience, or something else, ultimately God is the one who does the work through various means. To answer that the Holy Spirit restrains evil is ultimately correct, but what means of restraint was Paul describing in 2 Thessalonians 2? This leaves basically two common answers: human government or Christians (the church), among a few less common suggestions.

Human government as the Restrainer. In the early third century Tertullian gives us this following interpretation of the restrainer: “What is this but the Roman state, whose removal when it has been divided among ten kings will bring on Antichrist?” (On the Resurrection of the Flesh 24). This is the earliest clear interpretation of the passage as “human government.” Later in the third century, Chrysostom wrote that “some interpret this of the grace of the Spirit, but others of the Roman Empire, and this is my own preference. Why? Because, if Paul had meant the Spirit, he would have said so plainly and not obscurely, . . . but because he meant the Roman Empire, he naturally glanced at it, speaking covertly and darkly. . . . So . . . when the Roman Empire is out of the way, then he [Antichrist] will come” (Fourth Homily on 2 Thessalonians).

Thus, 150 years after Paul, there were already differences of opinion—the grace of the Spirit, or the Roman Empire. Tertullian and Chrysostom chose the latter, but acknowledged that there was some debate about the passage’s meaning coming out of the second century. In my study of second century literature, I have been unable to identify any clear development of the idea that human government holds back evil and the judgment of God, though some must have held this position for it to appear suddenly in the third century.

The Church as the Restrainer. If we back up to the first and second generation immediately following the apostles, however, the “foreground” looks a little different. Interestingly, in early writings we see clear examples of Christians who believed the church held back evil and that the presence of the church in the world stayed God’s hand of judgment.

Ignatius of Antioch, around AD 110, wrote: “Therefore make every effort to come together more frequently to give thanks and glory to God. For when you meet together frequently, the powers of Satan are overthrown and his destructiveness is nullified by the unanimity of your faith. There is nothing better than peace, by which all warfare among those in heaven and those on earth is abolished” (Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians 13.1–2).

The Christian philosopher and apologist, Aristides of Athens, wrote around the year 125, “And because they [the Christians] acknowledge the goodness of God towards them, lo! on account of them there flows forth the beauty that is in the world…. And I have no doubt that the world stands by reason of the intercession of Christians” (Aristides of Athens, Apology 16).

Justin Martyr, in the middle of the second century, wrote: “For the restraint which human laws could not bring about, the logos, being divine, would have brought about, save that the evil demons, with the help of the evil desire which is in every person and which expresses itself in various ways, had scattered abroad many false and godless accusations, none of which apply to us” (Justin Martyr, 1 Apology 10). Here Justin declared that human laws were, in fact, unable to restrain evil. However, the divine “Word”—the pre-incarnate Christ—worked as a force of good in the world. This force of good would ultimately manifest itself in God’s community, the church. Later, in 1 Apology 45, Justin noted: “And that God the Father of all would bring Christ to heaven after He had raised Him from the dead, and would keep [Him there] until He has subdued the demons who are His enemies, and until the number be completed of those who are foreknown by Him as good and virtuous, for whose sake He has not yet consummated His decree [of judgment]—hear what was said by David the prophet.” Justin believed that because of the presence of the virtuous Christians on earth, God withheld His judgment. Later Justin wrote against those who suggested that Christians should just kill themselves because they valued the afterlife so much: “If, then, we [Christians] all commit suicide, we will become the cause, as far as in us lies, why no one should be born, or instructed in the divine teachings, or even why the human race should not exist; and if we so act, we ourselves will be acting in opposition to the will of God” (2 Apology 4). Finally, in 2 Apology 7, Justin wrote, “Wherefore God delays causing the confusion and destruction of the whole world, by which the wicked angels and demons and people will no longer exist, because of the seed of the Christians, who know that they are the cause of preservation in nature.” Thus, in the apologetic writings of Justin Martyr, we see many instances in which he viewed the presence of the Christians as in some sense holding back evil and the coming judgment.

At about the same time, or perhaps a little later in the second century, we find an apologetic letter written to “Diognetus.” In that letter a similar thought prevails—Christians were the moral conscience and restrainer of evil in the world:

In a word, what the soul is to the body, Christians are to the world. The soul is dispersed through all the members of the body, and Christians throughout the cities of the world. The soul dwells in the body, but is not of the body; likewise Christians dwell in the world, but are not of the world. The soul, which is invisible, is confined in the body, which is visible; in the same way, Christians are recognized as being in the world, and yet their religion remains invisible. The flesh hates the soul and wages war against it, even though it has suffered no wrong, because it is hindered from indulging in its pleasures; so also the world hates the Christians, even though it has suffered no wrong, because they set themselves against its pleasures. The soul loves the flesh that hates it, and its members, and Christians love those who hate them. The soul is enclosed in the body, but it holds the body together; and though Christians are detained in the world as if in a prison, they in fact hold the world together. . . . Such is the important position to which God has appointed them, and it is not right for them to decline it. (Epistle to Diognetus 6.1–10)

Toward the end of the second century, Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, wrote to Autolycus:

For as the sea, if it had not had the influx and supply of the rivers and fountains to nourish it, would long since have been parched by reason of its saltiness; so also the world, if it had not had the law of God and the prophets flowing and welling up sweetness, and compassion, and righteousness, and the doctrine of the holy commandments of God, would long ere now have come to ruin, by reason of the wickedness and sin which abound in it. And as in the sea there are islands, some of them habitable, and well-watered, and fruitful, with havens and harbors in which the storm-tossed may find refuge, so God has given to the world which is driven and tempest-tossed by sins, assemblies—we mean holy churches—in which survive the doctrines of the truth, as in the island-harbors of good anchorage; and into these run those who desire to be saved, being lovers of the truth, and wishing to escape the wrath and judgment of God. (Theophilus, To Autolycus 2.14)

Conclusion: You Know What Restrains Him

The evidence throughout the second century indicates that many Christian teachers believed it was due to the church’s presence in the world that Satan’s full power was restrained, that the judgment was delayed, and that humanity was preserved. Thus, from the perspective of Bible foregrounds, the echoes of apostolic teaching confirm that the Holy Spirit working through the church is, in fact, the thing that restrains Satan from fully manifesting evil through the Antichrist. When the restraining presence or power of the church is removed, God will begin pouring out His judgment.

Those who hold to an actual future rapture of Christians as described in 1 Thessalonians 4:16–17 would therefore interpret the restrainer of evil described in 2 Thessalonians 2:6–7 as the presence of Christians in the world—a thought common to a number of writers of the first and second generations of Christians after the apostles. The removal of the Christian presence in the world would thus be equated with the removal of the church at the rapture.

A Few Thoughts on Origen-al Prayer

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Several weeks ago a friend of mine discussed his feelings toward the passing away of his wife’s grandmother. Besides the loss of a loved one, he especially lamented the loss of a strong believer who had prayed for his family every day for years. Yet when he said this, I immediately began to wonder whether the passing of that dear saint into the presence of the Lord was a loss or a gain. Are the souls of departed saints—once ushered into foyer of heaven—muzzled from intercessory prayer?

Without sounding like a proponent for the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox “cult of the saints” (which I am not), let’s explore whether or not departed saints may, in fact, continue to pray together with the saints on earth for the spiritual blessings of the body of Christ and the accomplishment of God’s will “on earth as it is in heaven.” We do know that Christ, the God-man, intercedes for us (Romans 8:34). The Spirit, too, intercedes on our behalf (Romans 8:26–27). Yet the Son and Spirit—as members of the Triune Godhead—hear our prayers and know our circumstances and needs even better than we do ourselves.

In the book of Revelation we see an example of the souls of departed saints petitioning God relative to events on earth. The “souls of those who had been slain” under the heavenly altar in Revelation 6:9 cry out to God for His judgments to begin. And because the angel of judgment later gets his prayers from the same altar (Revelation 8:3), many commentators believe the answer to the prayer of the departed saints is found in Revelation 8:4–5, when God casts judgments on the earth.

Of course, there is no evidence that departed saints are aware of our lives on earth. And if they are, it is only by mediated knowledge, not by omniscient awareness. Contrary to popular folk-theology, human beings never cease to be finite beings. Only God is infinite; all creatures are finite. Thus, they will forever and always be subject to the creaturely limits of knowledge. (No, grandma’s probably not clucking her tongue at you every time you sin.)

So, to me, prayer to or through departed saints seems neither biblical or reasonable. The same can be said about living believers praying for the souls of departed saints—an idea that makes no sense biblically or theologically. Because we believe that redeemed humans are immediately with the Lord upon physical death, and because we believe a person’s eternal fate is determined here—not in a post-death state—then praying for the dead is pointless.

However, this does not answer the nagging question about the spirits of saints once on earth, but now in heaven, offering up prayers and intercession for the living saints on earth. This is not the same as praying to or for dead saints. It is a question of whether or not the church universal, spiritual, and invisible unites together in prayer for the will of God to be done.

In the third century, the renowned Christian scholar, Origen, wrote a treatise on prayer, dealing with such issues as prayer and providence, the proper attitude of prayer, the purpose of prayer, and so forth. In On Prayer 11.2, he wrote:

And as knowledge is revealed to the saints now through a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face, so it would be unreasonable not to employ the analogy for all the other virtues also, which if prepared already in this life will be perfected in the next. Now the one great virtue according to the Word of God is love of one’s neighbour. We must believe that the saints who have died have this love in a far greater degree towards them that are engaged in the combat of life, than those who are still subject to human weakness and are engaged in the combat along with their weaker brethren. The saying: If one member suffer any thing, all the members suffer with it; or if one member glory, all the members rejoice with it, does not apply only to those who here on earth love their brethren.

In short, Origen taught—with many in the early church—that the departed pastors and saints, many of which were martyred for the faith, continued to pray for the churches with an even greater love and clearer sense of God’s purpose and will. Though he cites a number of apocryphal texts to support his claim, his primary arguments for the prayers of the departed believers are drawn from biblical principles, reason, and a keen conviction that departed saints are conscious and active before God . . . and, yes, still active members of the universal church.

Personally, I see no inherent problem with Origen’s reasoning on this matter. It seems reasonable that when I pass on into the presence of God and await the full redemption of my body, that I would pray for God’s perfect will to continue to unfold on earth, that I would pray for those still living for whom I promised to pray in this life, and that I would pray these things with greater sincerity and greater perfection. If I were to die tonight, I suspect the Lord would have to personally stop me from praying for my wife, children, and friends left behind.

Yet what practical application would this conviction have for we who are alive? It would not imply that we pray to or through saints, that we petition them to intercede for us. I don’t see how this would be possible or beneficial. Even if it were possible for them to hear our prayers, how would this change the fact that our temporal prayers are just as imperfect and riddled with sinful motives and limited knowledge as those offered directly to the Father, through the Son, and in the power of the Spirit? And, by the way, even Origen, who believed the saints in heaven continued to pray for those on earth, taught that Christians should pray only to God the Father, through the Son (On Prayer 15–16).

But I see no good reason to biblically, reasonably, or theologically reject the idea that the grandmother of my friend’s wife continues to intercede for her loved ones still caught in the throes of the spiritual battlefield of this present darkness. She promised to pray for them everyday in this life. What would prevent her from keeping her promise in heaven?

However, because we have no example from Scripture, we are here asking questions it does not clearly answer. If we answer at all, we rely on biblical, theological, historical, and experiential reasoning, which seems to allow—but does not demand—that our loved ones in heaven may still be praying for us here on earth.

But how would you answer this question? Did my friend lose a prayer warrior with the passing of that faithful saint . . . or did he gain a prayer victor who could continue to offer up more perfect prayers before the very presence of God?

Or is the question too speculative and irrelevant to even ask and answer?

Thorns and Thistles

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Broken dishes, broken parts / Streets are filled with broken hearts / Broken words never meant to be spoken / Everything is broken. / Seems like every time you stop and turn around / Someone else has just hit the ground. (Bob Dylan, Everything Is Broken)

Bob Dylan and I both grew up on the Iron Range of Minnesota. And we both left in search of something better than the drab drudgery of small town life in the upper Midwest. But it didn’t take long for me to learn what Bob Dylan had discovered years earlier: It doesn’t matter where you go. The brokenness of the world is already there.

Thorns and Thistles

“Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground.” (Genesis 3:17–19)

Anybody who has ever planted a garden knows that the curse is still in full effect today. But you don’t have to be a farmer or gardener to be pricked by the thorns and thistles of the curse. Every vocation has them. Whether you’re a doctor, lawyer, or parent; a pastor, teacher, or president—your labor and toil are frustrated with “thorns and thistles.” There are no exceptions.

But it seems like many of us act like we don’t believe this. Instead, we often embark on the foolish quest for the greener grass. We seem to believe that somewhere the soil will be just a little less cursed. Admit it. You’ve been through it, just as I have: The church down the road doesn’t look like it has the problems we have, does it? That woman at the office doesn’t have the blemishes my wife has. The new position I’m applying for has to be better than the job I’m in now. This politician . . . that restaurant . . . this new car . . . that new school . . . this new zip code . . . that new supermarket . . .

But every one of these quests for something better will inevitably end in disappointment. Because wherever you go, brokenness is there.

Inward Groans

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:22–23)

Within each of us lingers the idea that things just aren’t the way they’re supposed to be. And we’re right! Everything is broken. Thorns and thistles have invaded. And now believers especially groan for something better. But if we start seeking the redemption of creation somewhere in the here and now, we’ll begin a vain quest for Shangri-la that will only end in dissatisfaction and discontentment.

When we fail to grasp Bob Dylan’s maxim that “everything is broken,” discontentment reigns. When we fail to realize that the thorns and thistles of life are everywhere, we begin to believe we can avoid or minimize them by moving on to something new.

I know people who change jobs every year or so, spend a few months in the new “dream job,” then start whining and searching for a better one. I know others who have left their church because they were dissatisfied with the leadership or the worship. They felt things would be better somewhere else. I’ve seen others flutter like aimless butterflies from one educational philosophy to another—homeschool . . . no, private school . . . no, public . . . no, home . . . Yet in all these examples of pursuing the greener grass to graze, reality quickly sets in: No matter where we go, we will always discover that the thorns and thistles of life have already beaten us there.

We Were Meant to Live for So Much More

Maybe we’ve been livin’ with our eyes half open, / Maybe we’re bent and broken. . . . / We want more than this world’s got to offer. / We want more than the wars of our fathers. / And everything inside screams for second life. / We were meant to live for so much more. / Have we lost ourselves? (Switchfoot, Meant to Live)

Frustration with the thorns and thistles of this fallen world is normal. Believers especially know things aren’t supposed to be like this. We long for a time when the weeds will be pulled, the thorns crushed, and the thistles preened. We groan inwardly for our redemption, the resurrection of our bodies, and the renewal of this world (Romans 8).

How, then, should wise believers handle the thorns and thistles that aggravate every facet of our lives—from marriages to jobs to churches? Above all else, we must exercise contentment. Be aware that the thorns and thistles are everywhere, that you cannot escape them. Then deal with it. Put up with the imperfect job. Stay committed to the disappointing church. Make the most of a mediocre marriage. More fruits of the Spirit prepare us to tough it out than to flee (Galatians 5:22–23). Have you ever considered that God is more concerned about molding your character through tough situations than meeting your desire for comfort?

The world is teeming with thorns and thistles. While we try to keep our balance in this time between the fall and the redemption, mediocre to poor is sometimes all we can expect from this life. But don’t get cynical. Don’t become jaded. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus Christ has overcome the world and when He returns to reign His blessings will drive out the curse and the thorns and thistles will be no more. Until then, we have just enough foretaste of the coming age to make us frustrated with the age we’re in.

So, let’s keep our hearts on the way things ought to be . . . and our hands on the way things really are.