I have read Hamlet more than any other play. Each time I go through it, it goes through me. There’s a reason it is the most performed, most studied, most turned-into-film play in the world. Each culture is drawn into its depths. It speaks to the deepest problems of evil, human sin, and the question of redemption. It is pervaded by death, too. Act 5 is among the bloodiest passages in the annals of literature. If you want Disney sentimentality, don’t read Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Educated people will be familiar at a minimum with the most famous soliloquy in world literature, uttered by Prince Hamlet, when he’s weighing the most existential of questions, namely, amidst all his suffering, amidst all the sin and lies and betrayal, is it worth it to keep going? Is life worth living? That is his question:

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause—there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action (III, i, 56-88).

Hamlet’s questions, complaints, and frustrations play out Job-like throughout the play. We see the lies of his uncle. We see the lies of his mother. We see the Ghost of his father, King Hamlet, who summons Prince Hamlet to avenge his (the father’s) murder. We see sycophants who seek the favor of leadership. We see it all in Hamlet. We see a man who is nearly overcome by the prevalence of evil and suffering. And yet …

In Act V, we hear Prince Hamlet say this (and this is key to his earlier questions and the questions of the play):

“There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow” (V, ii, 220-21).

Why is that so important? Because Prince Hamlet recognizes that evil is under the sovereign hand of God. I would argue that Shakespeare had in mind here Matthew 10:29-31 where Christ says to his people:

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

See the image there? God knows the sparrow. God ordains their birth, life, provision, and death. God knows the number of hairs upon our heads. Why should God’s people, therefore, not fear? Because they know God and are known by God.

The Alternative: The worldviews that deny God have no such hope. Whether those worldviews go by the name of secularism, progressivism, naturalism, atheism, paganism, humanism, monism, scientism, Oneism, or any other ism (system) that rejects the triune God of Scripture, they all share a jettisoning of reason for hope. Why? Because bad things just happen but there’s no one there to fix them, to redeem them, to use them for good. Hitlers and Maos and Stalins and Pol Pots and Margaret Sangers just happen because there is no Judge of the earth who always does what is right. To put it plainly, if God does not exist, our complaints are dead on arrival because no one is listening.

Encouragement: When Prince Hamlet is killed via the poisoned tip of Laertes’ sword, Prince Hamlet again uses imagery straight out of the Bible to describe his dying wish to his faithful friend Horatio:

“As th’ art a man, Give me the cup. Let go. By heaven, I’ll ha’t! O God, Horatio, what a wounded name, Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me! If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw they breath in pain, To tell my story” (V, ii, 343-49).

See the imagery? The drinking of the cup. The cup would bring death. In Scripture, it’s the cup of God’s wrath meted out upon Christ the Son. In Hamlet, it’s the innocent Prince Hamlet slain for the sinful deeds of others. It’s the gospel, folks.

Why and how is this encouragement? Because in Christ alone, there is hope and the promise of redemption from evil and suffering because of the One who drank the cup of God’s wrath for the evil done by sinners.

Intro: In dealing with the question and problem of evil, it helps very much to have specific examples. That is one of the beauties of great literature. It makes the general specific. It makes the universal concrete. It makes the abstract and theoretical specific and concrete by way of personalizing it. What do I mean? Think of Job in the Old Testament. The book that bears Job’s name is filled with grand theology. It’s replete with discussions of ‘unjust’ suffering, of Satan and his power, of human sin, of God’s providence, of God’s sovereignty, and more. But still there’s this glaring reality right in front of us the whole time–Job himself. Here is a man that is Exhibit A, if you will, in the whole book of Job. He’s a husband, a father, a successful businessman and provider for his family, a man with a few close friends, who sometimes give him what he needs and who also sometimes give him horrible theological counsel.

My point is that if we read Job only as a textbook on suffering, pain, and/or evil, we miss the fact that it’s written about a real historical character who literally put skin in this issue (Job 2:7-8). The book of Job, in other words, makes the abstract problem of evil concrete and specific. It shows what was done to a man in order that he (and we by extension) might take heart, learn, and embrace the truths revealed in Job’s story.

Options for the Problem of Evil:

• Monism is one option that fails to adequately answer the problem. Evil is viewed in monistic systems as a “necessary counterpart to goodness.” Michael S. Horton’s writings on Providence are helpful on this and have helped me think through these matters more. Star Wars is an example of how monism is peddled to the masses via an engaging narrative. Choosing the ‘good,’ or ‘using the Force’ are just ways of dramatizing how pantheistic monism pervades pop culture in so many people’s thinking. If “all is one, and one is all,” then there’s nothing to gain in trying to solve the problem of evil.
• Dualism is a second option that fails to adequately answer the problem of evil. Dualism views evil as ”attributable to an equally sovereign deity . . . .” Horton calls our attention to Zoroastrianism and Gnosticism as examples of dualism in some people’s worldviews. Dualism does not actually solve or even adequately address the problem of evil.
• Thirdly, there is Christianity. Christianity teaches that evil does indeed exist but that it is under the sovereign authority of the triune God of Scripture. In front of me I have my Westminster Shorter Catechism. Question 11 goes to the heart of this issue: “What are God’s works of providence?” Answer: “God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.” In other words, evil is under the control of God. Proverbts 16:33 reminds us of the same truth: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”

It’s theology 101, if you will. How so? It is fundamental in that it cuts through the bromides to the doctrine of God, to the doctrine of man, and to the doctrine of redemption. We all know that this world is fallen, that we all suffer, and that we instinctively long to know that our lives have meaning and purpose. And we long to know how evil, suffering, and meaning can be reconciled with belief in a transcendent holy God.

The short answer, I am convinced, is that outside of Christianity there is no answer of redemption and restoration. Why? Because pantheism fails to distinguish good from evil. No amount of yoga is going to transform the human heart’s fallenness, but it may make you more limber. Secondly, no system of dualism does justice to the complexity of the questions surrounding the problem of evil. There cannot logically be two equal gods who are sovereign (one of light vs. one of darkness). Because then sovereignty does not mean what it does mean, and you are lost in a postmodern soup of self-referential linguistic word salad. In Christianity alone, you get answers to the enduring questions we all face about who we are, what is ultimately real, what’s wrong with the world, and what can fix it.

We are creatures fashioned in the Imago Dei, the image of God.

What is ultimately real is the triune God of Scripture.

What’s wrong with the world is that it is fallen, because we are fallen sinners who failed and continually fail to keep God’s law.

What can fix it is the One who bore the wrath that we deserve and who satisfies the justice of God. This requires a perfect sacrifice to both remove our guilt and satisfy God’s righteousness. And this One is God the Son, Christ, the Anointed prophet, priest, and king, Lord of lords, and King of kings.

Job’s Last Words: Throughout the exquisite book that bears his name, Job received much theological counsel from his friends. Some of it was okay, but much of it was quite poor and short-sighted. Because his friends assumed that Job’s sin was unconfessed, or that he just needed to do more good than bad, or that he was trying to hide from God’s holy eyes. But that was not true. Job just wanted to know that God was there, that God was good, and that God saw and cared. And when you get to Job 42, well, it’s exactly what I have written about above, namely, God uses evil but for his sovereign purposes to ultimately redeem a people for himself. Listen to Job’s words after God speaks to him:

“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:1). And just a few sentences later he says, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6). Job had seen things too wonderful for him to fully grasp (Job 42:3b). It reminds me of Paul’s doxology of God’s sovereignty:

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:33-36).

Issue: The Problem of Evil (Part 2/5)

When I am involved in discussions with skeptics of the Christian worldview or with those who are hostile to the God of Scripture, I ask a lot of questions to understand where the other people are coming from. It’s crucial to have clearly defined terms. Here are some samples of conversations I have had countless times. Below the doubter is “D” and I’m the Chaplain (CH):

D: I don’t believe in God, Chaplain. I cannot. Just look around! Are you kidding me? A good God? You guys all just wish there was a God up there to clean up all this mess, but there’s no one there.

CH: Can you tell me the reasons you describe this world as a mess?

D: Can you not see, Chaplain? It’s evil to the core.

CH: Why should this world be any other way than it is? Who says? What reasons do you have for your view? I want to be sure I understand you.

D: I don’t know why I even bother with you types. Y’all are all the same. Just the old man in the sky routine. Good grief. Give me reason, not myth and wish fulfillment.

CH: I can tell you are frustrated. However, again I ask you: Can you tell me the reasons you describe the world as a mess? Should it be another way? If so, how do you know that? Who says? Just you? What if someone else has a different view? By what standard are you correct and one who disagrees with you incorrect? What reasons do you have for your position?

D: I believe in reason, Chaplain, not in invisible things. Science is my religion.

CH: Okay, so you believe in science. It is, as you say, your religion. But did I miss your reasons for denying the existence of God? Remind me of what they are so that I can follow your argument. I did hear you say you believe in reason but not in invisible things, so that helps clarify things a bit for me.

D: What are you talking about?

CH: How much does reason weigh?

D: What?

CH: How about logic? Can you tell me the color and dimensions of logic?

D: What are you talking about? I never said anything about logic or reason having weight or dimension.

CH: But you did. You said you believe in reason, that science was your religion. But you said you didn’t believe in invisible things, right?

D: Exactly. Give me evidence—something I can see or actually evaluate.

CH: Again, this is very helpful. Can you please show me the dimensions of logic? Can you show me, since you believe in the visible only, the height, depth, and width of math—in order that we all might believe in it?

D: Everybody knows that math just is, Chaplain. Don’t be ridiculous.

CH: So, what I hear you saying is that you believe in something that you cannot see, taste, measure, weigh, or show me? But you believe in it, right? You have confidence that 2+2=4 always, whether people wish to accept it or not, but that math is admittedly non-empirical?

D: Chaplain, I hate these discussions. I just can’t reason with people like you.

A Question for Reflection & Encouragement:  

• By what standard? That is a key question to ask skeptics. They will posit a standard, but in an atheistic framework, standards are reduced to preferences.
• Recognize ad hominem attacks for what they are. When skeptics attack you as a person, lovingly call their attention back to the need for reasons: Can you provide me reasons for your belief system? Name-calling is not an adequate substitute for reasoned debate.
• Truth with grace. I think this cannot be overestimated. May we seek to win the person, not just the argument.  

In the opening chapter of Ecclesiastes Solomon writes, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” (1:9). The questions and complaints are not new to us, and they are certainly not new to God.

Evil is real. Math and logic are real. But so often skeptics and deniers create an idol and fail to realize the inherent reductionism of their position. In the above example, the Doubter believed, he said, in visible things, in things of science. But science itself rests upon articles of faith. Logic and math and coherence are all invisible realities, but they are invisible realities that we recognize because they are what’s known as “properly basic” or “foundational” realities. But when we are dealing with skeptics, we need to lovingly but firmly show them their lack on internal coherence and their faith commitment. Above all, let us aim for the person, not the trophy of just winning the argument.

This week I am on the road, but I would like to explore in (5) relatively short pieces an issue that never seems to expire, namely, the problem of evil.

Below are a few ways you may’ve heard the problem expressed:

• There’s so much evil in the world. How could a good God permit this?
• If God were omnipotent and good, he would prevent evil. But evil is seemingly everywhere. Therefore, God is either not all powerful or he is not all good. Either way, God loses. And so do we.
• I can’t believe in the God of the Bible because, well, just look at all the horrible things God commanded–the destruction of the Amalekites, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the stoning of homosexuals, etc. That’s not loving. And we know God is love.
• The God you Christians speak of is selfish. He wants us to believe he’s the only way. How narrow-minded. If God were good, he’d allow us to be free to worship and/or not worship him. He’s an insecure, needy God, and I cannot believe in that.

The list could go on and on.

First: Let me show my cards up front. I, too, have wrestled deeply with questions of theodicy. The problem of evil is never far beneath the surface in any serious conversation about our lives. If we are honest with one another, we all recognize that our world is a mess. We have broken families, we have broken marriages, we have broken vows, we have wars and rumors of wars, we have cancer and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s in our families or in families of those we know and love, etc. We know of abused children, battered spouses, drug-addled homeless, the poor and destitute, the persecuted believers across the earth, etc. This list could go on and on. It’s quite natural that the problem of evil will arise in any serious-minded conversation. So, right out of the gate, let’s acknowledge that the world is a mess. To use biblical language, the world is fallen.

Second: Before I follow this first installment with responses to the questions raised above, let me also say this: Christians should be the most welcoming audience of serious people with serious questions. Life is full of pain, so cant and snarky dismissals of legitimate queries are both unkind and unhelpful. When folks have sincere questions, Christians should welcome those questions and aim to give grace-filled biblical responses.

Third: My favorite book of all time remains Ecclesiastes, and so my responses are not my own. They come from Scripture. Primarily they come from the books of Job and Ecclesiastes. The last two books I pull from are Psalms and Genesis. I pull from other places (as seen below) but this is just a preview of coming attractions.

Lastly (for today at least), just one final thought to keep in mind as I try to address these concerns. It comes from the masterful book of Isaiah, written by the prophet of the same name in the 700s and 600s B.C.:

Woe to those who call evil good

 and good evil,

who put darkness for light

 and light for darkness,

who put bitter for sweet

 and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20)

There is more wisdom in that one verse than most will ever acknowledge in this lifetime. But it will one day be acknowledged by us all. I just submit it to you as something to think on as I write this first of what I think will be just five short pieces. Be encouraged, dear reader. Evil does exist; it is very real; but so is the one and only God who uses it and triumphs over it. But I am getting ahead of myself. Stand by for part two tomorrow.

Got home today. Hit the trail. Shared the woods with some deer. Found a few skeletal fragments, one of which was a skull.

Loved the sound of the water coming over the rocks down at the creek, especially.

Simple pleasures.

Videos are linked below.

Videos to some of my time:

The Issue: Depth of the Mission (Part 5/5)

“Most people worship their work, work at their play, and play at their worship.” It’s a line I have written in one of my Bibles that I picked up somewhere. It has stuck with me.

I cannot speak for others, but I have certainly been guilty of the charge. I love what I do for a living, because I don’t view it so much as a job as a vocation-a calling to minister amidst a pluralistic environment, amidst competing worldviews, because I know that some will respond to the truth, and God’s mission will be accomplished. Christ has told us plainly. When Christ was in the temple in Jerusalem in the colonnade of Solomon, he did not mince words: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). Earlier he told the hostile crowds, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37).

We all battle frustrations on the battlefield of trying to bear witness to the truth. It can be, if you are actually putting skin in the game, so to speak, costly. Just this week, Christians in Nashville, TN were arrested for praying and singing hymns at an abortion mill. Let that sink in: Who was arrested? Christians. What are they facing? Up to 10 years in prison. What were they doing? Praying and singing hymns at an abortion mill. Where? Not in Moscow, Russia. Not in Tehran, Iran. It was in Nashville, TN. That’s where we are in our nation.

Believers could be tempted to abandon hope and think that secularism is the religion demanded by the people. We will see what will become of our nation. I don’t know how much more polarized and acerbic it may become, but I do know that God’s determined counsel will prevail. When God speaks in Isaiah, he says, “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose'” (Isaiah 46:10b). If and how America fits into that plan is not for me to say. The vocation of believers is to be faithful, and not to play at our worship. The time of antics or pretense is long gone.

Encouragement & Application: I am blessed to work with some of the finest Soldiers I’ve ever known. And the Civilians, too, are usually retired veterans who are still putting skin in the game. Many of them serve as paragons of inspiration to me day in and day out. What is called for is nothing new. It is faithfulness. To complete the mission. To see it through. To give it all. Because that is what God gave in Christ the Son.

When it’s personal, you tend to take notice. Over recent days, three soldiers from GA were killed while deployed to the Middle East. Dozens of other soldiers were injured. The unit to which these soldiers belong is just meters from my office. And the flags are now at half-staff as part of honoring these soldiers and their sacrifice. But do we notice sufficiently? What do we actually do except pause, shake our heads as if to say, “What a shame,” and “They were so young,” and “Boy, the world sure is a mess”?

I ask this not just because I’m a soldier but because I don’t know that I believe the West is, or especially that most Americans are, awake yet to the reality of how dangerous the world is, or of how the idolatry of mindless comfort brings with it deadly consequences. It seems that just so long as folks can stream their videos, take selfies, and follow Taylor Swift’s every lipstick-laden moment, they feel (not think) the world is just fine. The issue, however, is real simple: it’s called reality.

In related news, an illegal alien gives some less than polite sign language to the world after being part of a gang who assaulted New York Police Department officers. You won’t be surprised to learn that the illegal alien was released, but not before giving the world the middle finger. Good thing the progressives want to defund the police. That should help us keep progressing into the promised utopia. We’re doing fine here.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/illegal-migrant-flips-middle-fingers-charged-attacking-nypd-times-square

If you have the stomach, enjoy:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/01/31/watch-migrants-brutally-attack-nyc-cops-get-freed-from-jail-without-bail/

And Iranian-backed Houthis attacked U.S. sailors and their vessels, too, but that may’ve happened while you were on TikTok or seeing what Taylor had for breakfast.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/houthis-target-u-s-destroyer-carney-british-merchant-ship-missile-attacks-red-sea-gulf-of-aden/

Did I mention that our nation’s flags are at half-staff, again? Sorry, didn’t mean to distract you.

May I suggest a little inconvenient truth to us: You will be made to care.

That’s the way evil operates, you see. You can coast for a while. You can think it won’t affect you, but pretty soon that group of Christians who have now been indicted for praying and singing Christian hymns at an abortion mill …. well, their being persecuted will come to your doorstep eventually, you see. It’s called the silencing and the putting down of every vestige of Christian witness and sanity. You will be made to care.

We don’t want to mess with the moms murdering their babies, you see. Instead we want to punish and silence those who work to preserve life, save the babies, and minister to them and their mothers.

https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/30/dad-of-11-convicted-for-praying-at-abortion-facility-alongside-5-other-pro-lifers-targeted-by-doj/#:~:text=A%20%E2%80%9Cpeaceful%E2%80%9D%20pro%2Dlife,a%20federal%20jury%20in%20Nashville.

Just throwing it out there, folks. Ideas have consequences. Ghastly and demonic ideas tend to be followed by ghastly and demon-scented consequences. In plainspeak, it’s called the law of the harvest. We reap what we sow. And the stormclouds are gathering.

You may not see them quite yet on your social media feeds all a-glitter and sparkling with starlets and football icons, but that’s just the way the enemy of your souls wants it.

Just stay distracted; just ignore those flags at half-staff; just think it’s not your problem and that someone else will fight the bad guys on your behalf. All’s fine here, don’t you know? Social media told you so.

Oh, what’s that sound? Sounds like it’s getting closer to your zip code, to your neighborhood. Ah, nevermind. All’s well.

Sounds like a good time for some of Neil Young and Stephen Stills’ days as Buffalo Springfield:

There’s something happening here
But what it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it’s time we stop
Children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

It’s time we stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

What a field day for the heat (Ooh ooh ooh)
A thousand people in the street (Ooh ooh ooh)
Singing songs and they carrying signs (Ooh ooh ooh)
Mostly say, “Hooray for our side” (Ooh ooh ooh)

It’s time we stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
Step out of line, the men come and take you away

We better stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

You better stop
Hey, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

You better stop
Now, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

You better stop
Children, what’s that sound?
Everybody look, what’s going down?

This morning at PT was just another iteration in years and years of morning training but I never seem to tire of watching the sky, especially on clear mornings, come alive.

Psalm 108 reads, “Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!” (Ps 108:2 ESV).

All you need is eyes to see and ears to hear what good things God has done.

Issue: Wisdom vs. Folly: The Bible’s Binary (Depth: Part 4/5)

Recently I was having a conversation with my wife when I shared with her my love and appreciation for a teacher in my life who made a huge impact. His name was Dr. Higgins. He was an English professor in my college days who was used by God to inspire me almost like no other teacher I’d had up until then. He had read more than anyone else I’d ever met. He was one of those people who had actually read all the books that people brag about having read but few have—tomes like Anna Karenina, War and Peace, Moby Dick, all of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, Tom Jones, Bleak House, etc. Dr. Higgins seemed to have read nearly everything and for us literary types, he became a paragon of what it meant to truly be well-read and educated. Dr. Higgins became an easy model for me to emulate in my own way. 

I still think of him often, of how his lectures in the English Department building would be my favorite courses, of how he would draw a T-chart on the dry erase board, and say to us, “Learn to think clearly. On the left side of the chart are atheistic writers who share the same beliefs, the same worldview, and this is how and why their books are anti-God, anti-life books, plays, and poems (The Stranger, “Dover Beach,” Thomas Hardy’s novels, etc.)” Then on the right side of the T-chart, he’d list several theistic authors and their life-affirming works (Milton’s Paradise Lost, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, etc.).and say, “Learn to think clearly. See the pattern?” Then he would begin his lectures, and we English graduate students would feast, then be dismissed to go and learn, go and write, go and grow. 

Question: How does this relate to the Bible’s binary of wisdom vs. folly and the issue depth in the Christian life? In Proverbs, the main idea is wisdom. That’s the whole point of the book. Be wise. It’s a book of instruction delivered from a wise father to a son. It’s filled with practical wisdom for how to navigate life as a wise person rather than as a fool. 

Again and again, wisdom vs. folly is the T-chart model. Not this but that. Do this rather than that. Don’t be this way, but instead be that way, etc. Here are just a few examples:

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Pr 1:7)

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Pr 9:10)

“The fear of the LORD prolongs life, but the years of the wicked will be short” (Pr 10:27)

“The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor” (Pr 15:33).

Encouragement & Application: The binary is so clear in Scripture. Don’t be shallow but be a person of depth. Don’t be a mocker of God, but worship God with reverence and awe. Don’t be a fool, but rather be wise. Don’t skate upon the surface of life but examine your life in light of what ultimately matters. As John Piper wrote in a book with the same title, don’t waste your life, but rather invest it by investing in the things of eternity—truth and the souls of men. 

P.S. I miss you, Dr. Higgins. You were a wise man.

Issue: The Importance of Depth in Godly Leadership

Text: Philippians 1:9 reads, “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment . . . .”

Context: Philippians is one of the apostle Paul’s prison epistles. The label is accurate. Why? Paul was incarcerated in Rome for evangelizing his culture. History does indeed repeat patterns. Truth has always had its angelic and human enemies since Genesis 3, and even before that in the heavenlies. Light vs. darkness. Truth vs. lies. The Savior vs. the serpent.

But when Paul wrote, the theme that most characterizes this epistle of Philippians was not anger. It was not resentment. It was not hopelessness or helplessness. No, it was joy.

Paul’s prayer for his fellow believers was that their love would abound with joy. Isn’t that striking?

What’s more, he prayed that they would be knowledgeable and discerning. That is, he prayed for their spiritual depth.

The specified task was to love the brethren, and the implied tasks were that knowledge and discernment buttressed true love.

Encouragement: When I look back on the best bosses for whom I have worked, I see a common thread in all of them: They have had a joy and wisdom that underlaid and informed their leadership. That sort of demeanor is contagious. It motivates people. It attracts the right people. And it is worth our emulating.