Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. – Ephesians 4:32
When I was filming The View in New York City, I rode the subway. Every day. Multiple times a day. Glamorous, I know! As a California girl, used to the wind in my hair, I found that traveling in the dark underground was hard to get used to. But any self-respecting New Yorker has a Metro card. It’s just part of living in the city. One afternoon, headed home after my workout, I stepped onto the sweaty, standing-room-only subway car at rush hour.
Picture me wearing gym clothes, running shoes, a baseball cap, backpack on my back, earbuds in, trying to be incognito. Got the picture? Maybe this will help: imagine me peeking out from under some tall man’s arm, trying to keep a grip on the germy pole while the car jerks and screeches to a stop.
As I stood there, a woman who looked at least eight months pregnant slid in and grabbed a pole near me. I stood there feeling helpless and anxious, scanning the car, hoping someone would give up their seat for her. I’ve been pregnant three times. It wasn’t too hard to imagine how miserable it would be to stand in a crowded, jerky car with feet swollen after a long day!
But all eyes in the subway car were either closed or focused on phones. Each time we stopped and a seat opened, someone would slide into it before this woman could get there. It was so frustrating to watch. I could hear my mother’s voice saying, “What kind of person lets a pregnant woman ride 40 blocks standing?” Part of me wanted to yell at the other commuters, but I knew that wouldn’t help. So I did what I could. I caught the woman’s eye—a real no-no on the subway—and compassionately smiled. The relief in the smile she returned made my day.
Is a smile between strangers on the subway a little thing? Sure, but it’s the little things that keep us going. The small gestures of compassion and kindness that give us strength to carry on in a crazy day in this crazy world. Maybe a smile doesn’t seem like much, but in a city where people are so quick to get where they’re going, where we pass each other by without any human interaction, it mattered to me. This woman and I saw each other, even if just for an instant.
That’s the invitation kindness offers to you and me: will we stop for even a moment to truly see each other? Every person we pass every day, whether on the street or in the subway, in the checkout line or carpool line, possesses an incredible story, often mixed with beauty and pain.
I see you, sister. Some days, it can be as simple as that.
When you think about it, we’re all looking for a bit of simple kindness. We have a deep desire for empathy—some little sign that another person can imagine walking in our shoes. We want to feel valued, respected, and loved. And when we don’t feel like we’re being respected or loved, that’s when we can get out of sorts.
We’re all prone to feeling tired, overworked, and underappreciated. In those moments, we forget to be empathetic, to consider how the tired, overworked, and underappreciated people around us feel. Ironically, we tend to be least empathetic when others are unkind to us. Rather than stopping to consider what might be causing them to act so prickly, we respond by being rude in return. Rudeness compounds rudeness. It’s a cycle that can go on indefinitely.
That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news. This is a cycle we can break, one interaction at a time.
Consider for a moment Genesis 1:27: “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
Don’t race past this. It’s too important! What we read here is that humans were made in the image of God. Bible scholars call this idea the imago Dei. There’s such dignity and holiness in this truth. God is the definition of all good things, and we are made in God’s image! Each and every one of us mirrors our Creator in a unique way. That alone is reason for us to respect each other.
As a woman in today’s world, you know what it’s like to feel pressure on all sides from clashing cultural expectations. How can you stay true to who God has uniquely created you to be in the face of the script you’ve been given? What’s more, how can you stand your ground with grace?
The classy confidence you know and love—whether it’s on set at Full House or Fuller House, Dancing with the Stars, The View, or Candace’s Hallmark films—is no act. But it hasn’t come easy. In fact, learning to stay true to herself with grace has been one of the biggest fights of Candace’s life.
The secret, she has learned, is kindness: it’s classy, unexpected, even counter-cultural, and ultimately wins the day.
In Kind Is the New Classy, Candace reveals the thought patterns and practices that have empowered her to stay centered in who she is while practicing radical graciousness toward others. Whether you’re navigating major life choices, questions of calling and career, relationships, or personal goals, this book will show you how to:
Keep your cool under pressure
Respond to criticism with grace
Stay grounded yet go places in life
Stay true to who you are despite the expectations of others
Stay centered in what ultimately matters the most
Kind Is the New Classy is your permission to go off-script, to say goodbye to society’s “should’s” and to step into a new way to flourish as a woman today.
Candace Cameron Bure, actress, producer, New York Times bestselling author, beloved by millions worldwide from her role as D.J. Tanner on the iconic family sitcoms Full House and Fuller House, Hallmark Channel movies, former co-host of The View, inspirational speaker, and Dancing with the Stars Season 18 finalist, is both outspoken and passionate about her family and faith. Candace continues to flourish in the entertainment industry as a role model to women of all ages. She lives in the Los Angeles area with her husband and three children.
This is the eighteenth lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.
If someone asked you who your favorite teacher was when you were growing up, chances are someone specific would come to mind. And chances are you still respect that person today not because he or she was a fantastic lecturer, or had a superior knowledge of the subject matter, or had a memorable voice. Our favorite teachers—the ones who influenced not just our thinking, but our lives—are usually those people who taught us about life. And it wasn’t just with their words. Their own lives were distinctive.
Jesus is widely considered the greatest teacher of all time. But we will only understand him in this capacity if we consider setting and context. Jesus was not a college lecturer or a mystical philosopher. Those who were under the teaching of Jesus were following him on foot, from one village to the next. They heard a parable when he walked into a field of grain, a discourse on being the bread sent from heaven after he fed a multitude, and debriefings with his disciples after many argumentative flareups with the Pharisees and teachers of the law. At a Jewish festival where water was used, he stood and said in a loud voice: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink” (John 7:37). Jesus’ teaching was dynamic and interactive. It spoke into both the practicalities of everyday life, and into cosmic, eternal issues.
No wonder people were amazed.
We’ll best appreciate the Gospels if we understand the forms of Jesus’ teaching and the main themes of his teaching. One form was exaggeration or hyperbole. Few believers have ripped out their eyes or cut off their hands because Jesus said in Matthew 5:29-30 that it would be better to do that then end up in eternal condemnation. We understand Jesus’ point, made through a shocking statement.
When Jesus said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter God’s kingdom, his point was that it is extremely difficult for a self-sufficient person to admit their insufficiency. There is an often-repeated interpretation that in Jerusalem there was a small gate in the wall that necessitated a camel to go to its knees to enter. The problem is, there is no archaeological or epigraphical evidence that any such gate ever existed. Unfortunately, there are many interpretations of Scripture that have been repeated countless times but were never based in fact.
Jesus used similes and metaphors. “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12; 9:5). “I am the true vine” (John 15:1). “You are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:14). These have immediate impact, and they are memorable. Some of his most powerful metaphors explained the kingdom of God. The kingdom is like a mustard seed, leaven, a net, a man who finds a treasure, the sprouting of seed from the soil. These require careful reading. For instance, Jesus did not say the kingdom is like treasure, but it’s like what happens when a man finds a treasure and does everything to get it.
Jesus also spoke in short, memorable aphorisms or proverbs. “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:31). “Do not judge, and you will not be judged” (Luke 6:37). “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matt. 12:50). Jesus acknowledged that he spoke figuratively for effect: “Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father” (John 16:25).
Jesus spoke in riddles and he used irony. He used almost every kind of verbal method you could imagine, including parables (which we’ll come to in the next chapter). But the power of Jesus’ teaching for his original hearers and for us is not in the method. There was a ring of truth, a veracity, and a power in his teaching. For example, Matthew tells us, “When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law” (Matt. 7:28-29). We would have been amazed too.
As with every other kind of text in Scripture, we need to take time to study the context of any given teaching of Jesus. To whom was he speaking? What were the circumstances? Were there any special cultural details? Even in the teaching of Jesus, Scripture means something specific to us that is based in what it meant to Jesus’ original audience. That is where we’ll find the true meaning, and thus, the authority.
[If you believe this series will be helpful, this is the perfect time to forward this to a friend, a group, or a congregation, and tell them they too may sign up for the weekly emails here]
Mel Lawrenz (@MelLawrenz) trains an international network of Christian leaders, ministry pioneers, and thought-leaders. He served as senior pastor of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, for ten years and now serves as Elmbrook’s minister at large. He has a PhD in the history of Christian thought and is on the adjunct faculty of Trinity International University. Mel is the author of 18 books, including How to Understand the Bible—A Simple Guide and Spiritual Influence: the Hidden Power Behind Leadership (Zondervan, 2012). See more of Mel’s writing at WordWay.
“On the morning of December 31, 2000, I watched a white, cardboard coffin travel up a conveyor belt into the belly of a Boeing 757, along with the other baggage. The body in that coffin had belonged to my son. But he had gambled with it once too often.”
Thus opens the memoir of bestselling author, pastor, and professor Jack Deere, in which he confronts the question of where is God when your life falls apart.
You describe your book as an “unsanitized version of the Christian life.” What do you mean?
Jack Deere: I was speaking at a businessman’s home Bible study last fall. These men have met together for years. They all attend the same church. The leader said to me, “The next time I hear a pastor say that he lost his temper in traffic, I’m going to get up and walk out of the church.”
I sympathized with him. For years, I was trapped in a religious system where pastors and leaders were not permitted to acknowledge their sins. If a pastor did confess a sin it was trivial (for example, “I took the biggest piece of pie and my conscience smote me for days afterward”), or it was a sin far back in their past that he or she had overcome. This kind of pastoral dishonesty teaches people to go underground with their sins, and our sins flourish best in the darkness. It also teaches people a version of the Christian that does not exist and sets them up for massive discouragement.
I have not found the Christian life to be easy. I have not yet had a day where my good deeds and thoughts outweighed my bad. I’ve found mercy to forgive my sin. And I’ve felt enough of the affection of the Lord in my weak, immature, and inconsistent state to enjoy the life he’s giving me. When I’m open about my sins and tell my true story, people find hope to walk out into the light.
In the Bible, God’s heroes are capable of monstrous evil. And God doesn’t hide this evil. David committed adultery and then murdered an innocent man to cover it up. David also wrote a public confession of his sin. And there’s no way to know how many despairing believers have found their way back to God through Psalm 51.
Jesus said, “Only God is good.” That really is true. So we can’t expect good results to come from pretending otherwise.
How do you answer the universal question, “Where is God when one’s life falls apart”?
Jack Deere: When the worst day of my life came, I didn’t know that it was only the beginning of bad. I lost the story that I lived by; the story that made my days make sense.
The first place we found God was in the friends. Our friends gathered around us. They listened to our wails, our hollow spiritual affirmations springing from shock not faith; ridiculous assertions that have no other purpose than to keep you from questioning aloud the rightness of what God has done to you. Our friends had no explanations. They just held us and cried.
In addition to our friends, from the beginning of our trauma, God broke through our darkness with glimpses of his unconditional love. I write about these encounters in Even in Our Darkness. His love did not take away our pain. It helped us to find the grace to endure the pain.
When King David was in the pit, he counted on God’s compassion to lift him out. I chose to believe God would do the same for us. Not because our souls are so strong, but because our God’s compassion is so great. And he did bring us up from the pit. Not as quickly as I had hoped, and not in the ways I thought he would. And not before I was dragged through days of greater pain than the day of Scott’s death. I can’t point to any single act or moment of final healing. It was a whole series of unanticipated graces that kept coming until one day I could find only the sweetness of Scott in my heart and none of the pain of Scott.
What effect has the Bible had on you in your years of despair and sorrow?
Jack Deere: When I was 17, my Young Life leader, Scott Manley taught me to memorize Scripture. I’ve been hiding the word of God in my heart ever since then and proving that it restores my soul, makes me wise, rejoices my heart, and gives light to my eyes (Ps. 19:7-8).
The Bible is usually the first and always the main way that God speaks to me. Over and over, the words of Scripture have led me back to the Anchor of my soul. All the young people that I disciple memorize Scripture as a basic life-long skill of the spiritual life.
Your family was not particularly religious. How did you “come over to God’s side,” as you put it in the book?
Jack Deere: I had just turned 17 when my friend told me that Jesus died for me and that if I would trust him to forgive me and give me a new life, he would come into my heart and never leave me. I asked my friend how he knew Jesus would never leave me. He quoted John 10:28, “I give them [my sheep] eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” It was the first verse of Scripture that I ever heard, and I was instantly born again. I have been in love with Scripture ever since.
You’re unsparing in revealing your own hypocrisy and pride, writing that “people who already feel righteous don’t hunger and thirst for it” and that you were “blind to the wounds of others,” including your wife and son. How were you confronted by these failings?
Jack Deere: I came to God out of a world of sexual impurity, stealing, drunkenness, lying, and obscenities. For the first part of my Christian life, I concentrated on avoiding these sins.
I didn’t know what pride was. I simply knew that the Southern Baptists (my denomination) was the greatest of all the denominations. My church was the greatest of all the Baptist churches. When I left the church for Young Life, I knew it was the greatest ministry in the world.
Then I came to Dallas Seminary and felt it was the greatest seminary in the world. Then I became a professor at 27 in the Old Testament Department at DTS, and felt we were the greatest department in the seminary. I was aware that I felt superior to most people. I didn’t know this was pride, and that pride is the greatest of all sins. I had never heard a definition of humility, let alone a sermon on humility.
I never knew that humility was the pathway to friendship with God even though I read texts like Psalm 138:6, “Though the Lord is on high, he looks on the lowly, but the proud he knows from afar.” I had mentors in exegesis and theology, but I had no one to mentor me in humility. Toward the end of my seminary career, God sent some humble men into my life who taught me that God wanted a friendship with me. He wanted me to feel his affection and enjoy him more than anything else in my life. They also taught that pride was a hindrance to my friendship with God.
When I set my heart on becoming friends with God, I asked him to expose my sins with prayers like Psalm 139:23-24. And he’s been doing it ever since. I can’t see my worst sins; not because they’re too small, but because they’re too characteristic. I need the illumination of the Holy Spirit to see my most destructive sins.
The more of God’s love I feel, the easier it is for me to reveal my hypocrisy. Over the years, I’ve found that people are far more encouraged by my failures than by my successes. I think we learn more from our failures than our successes. Recently, I confessed some of my failures as a father to a men’s group. A young father asked, “How do you handle the guilt from those kinds of failures?”
“The guilt is long gone,” I said, “I’ve been forgiven. Though in tender moments, I still cry over those sins. This morning, I’m happy because by telling you about the traps I fell into as a father, I may help you to avoid them.” That’s one way God redeems my pain and my sin.”
How did you come to believe the miraculous gifts of the Spirit are still active today, after dismissing them for so long?
Jack Deere: A godly and intelligent author that I admired told me that he’d seen God perform miracles. That conversation caused me to study every healing in the New Testament. After four months, I was convinced that God was still doing miracles and that the Holy Spirit was still giving all his gifts to the church. I tell this story in full in my book Surprised by the Power of the Spirit.
What are some examples of God’s surprising and unexpected beauty breaking through your experiences of loss?
Jack Deere: Eight weeks after we buried Scott, a church in Amarillo, Texas that I spoke at once a month needed me to introduce a special speaker at their weekend services because all their senior pastors were out of town. So I left Leesa in the care of Stephen and Alese for 24 hours. It was my first time to be in church since I lost Scott eight weeks earlier.
After the first service ended, I stood at the front of the church with the prayer team. I spotted someone moving toward me. I could not tell if the person was a man or woman, girl or boy. The person did not have a face. Where the mouth should have been, was a misshapen hole, and what once was nose was now a curve flattened against a concave surface. The blind eyes were slits sealed shut. A plastic tube protruded from a hole in the throat: a permanent tracheotomy.
A pretty blond lady was leading the person by the arm.
“Hi, I’m Michelle,” she said. “This is my son Aaron. Five years ago, at Christmas time, his father and I were going through a painful divorce. Aaron was so distraught that he put a shotgun under his chin and pulled the trigger. The blast blew away his face. It has taken multiple surgeries to get him to this place. He doesn’t believe in God, but he came down here with me because I asked him to. Would you pray for Aaron?”
The last time I laid hands on a person in prayer was when I held Scott’s head and asked God to bring him back from the dead.
“Aaron, my name is Jack,” I said. “Would you like me to pray for you?”
He put his finger over the tube to keep the air from escaping before it could go through his vocal folds and said, “Yes.”
I put one hand over his heart and one hand on his back. Power fell on me. It rippled down my neck, down my back, down my legs. I knew what to pray.
“Aaron,” I said, “my 22-year-old son Scott pulled the trigger at Christmas, but he didn’t make it. God spared your life because he still has purposes for you, if you want to fulfill them.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Michelle, “I didn’t know. I heard about the minister whose son…whose son… I didn’t know it was you. I’m just so sorry. I would never have brought my son to you if…”
“Michelle, don’t be sorry. You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m glad you came to me. I’m glad to pray for Aaron. God made this appointment between us,” I said.
I finished praying for Aaron. Then I prayed for Michelle and felt the same power descend on me.
After they walked away, I couldn’t tell who had benefited more from the encounter—Aaron or I. I looked up and offered a silent, spontaneous prayer.
“Man!” I said, “You are really something!”
God was strengthening me in the most broken of places, and teaching me to embrace a mystery, as if it were a friend.
This was my first time to be in a church service since Scott’s burial, and my first time to lay hands on anyone in prayer since I held Scott’s shattered head in my hands and asked God to bring him back to life. When I lost Scott, I lost my story to make sense of life. God began a new story for me that day with Aaron and Michelle. I knew he was saying, “Stay with me Jack, and I’ll heal the places in you that broke, and I’ll give you power to help the hopeless.” And he gave me this hope in the most powerful way I could imagine.
What have you learned about dealing with grief?
Jack Deere: First of all, I don’t trust rigid paradigms of grief. The key word in that sentence is “rigid.” The four of us in our family all had different relationships with Scott, and we are all different people. After the paramedics took Scott out in a body bag, I gathered my family together by the big stair case in our living room and told them three things:
This was no one’s fault but Scott’s. We thought he had turned from drugs, but he hadn’t.
We all have the freedom to grieve however we want.
We all have the freedom to grieve as long as we want.
Second, we fell into the arms of our friends. They cried with us, comforted us, and took care of every physical need we had. Thank God for life-long friends.
Personally, I did not take the stoic route. I cried more than I’ve ever cried. I let myself feel the guilt of my failures as a father without taking responsibility for Scott’s suicide. I felt God’s mercy and forgiveness. Once, while I was weeping so hard I couldn’t see the road on which I was driving, God let me know that my tears were proof of my love for Scott.
Most importantly, I talked to God about everything I was feeling. And I still made the goal of life to love God and feel his love for me. I felt his love in very special ways that I describe in Even in Our Darkness. His love did not take away the pain quickly, but it did give us grace to bear the pain and let that pain do a deep work in us. I can’t tell you exactly when or exactly how it happened, but I’m healed today. The pain and anger are gone. I have peace and a longing to be reunited with Scott in heaven. I know he is praying for us to finish our races with honor.
What is a favorite Bible passage of yours and why?
Jack Deere: For 3,000 years, the people of God have been praying and singing the prayers of David. This great saint boiled all his prayers down to a single prayer in a single verse of Scripture:
One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life
To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple (Ps. 27:4).
To “see the beauty of the Lord” is to experience a facet of his character that dazzles us with his love. When I feel his love, my love for him increases. There’s a huge difference between “knowing” that God loves us and actually feeling his love. Paul prays that we may feel the love that transcends knowledge and tells us that this is where our stability in life lies (Eph. 3:16-19).
Bio: Jack Deere, is a writer and lecturer who speaks throughout the world. Formerly he was an assistant professor of Old Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary for more than ten years, until he was fired in 1987 for reversing his stance on the gifts of the Holy Spirit—he had come to believe that gifts such as healing and prophecy are accessible today. This experience became the basis of his bestselling books, Surprised by the Power of the Spirit and Surprised by the Voice of God. Deere then spent four years with John Wimber at the Vineyard Christian fellowship in Anaheim California, and went on to pastor other churches. Jack and his wife Leesa currently live in St. Louis. They are the parents of Stephen, Alese, and the late Scott Deere.
How well do you know your fantasy literature classics? In this quiz can you distinguish a quote from the Bible from a quote that merely sounds like it’s from the Bible?
This Bible Gateway quiz takes a dozen quotes from A Game of Thrones, The Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter series, and the Bible, and challenges you to identify where each one comes from. Take the quiz below to see how you do—and challenge your friends and followers to beat your score!
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The invitation-only funeral service for evangelist Billy Graham in Charlotte, North Carolina was attended today by about 2,000 people, including the president and vice-president of the United States.
Throughout the service, speakers reminisced about how the Bible was central in Billy Graham’s preaching, with son Franklin Graham saying, “My father would want you to know that he believed the Bible to be the infallible Word of God. He didn’t understand it all, but he sure believed it all. The Bible was his sole authority.” [Watch the Funeral Service video]
Franklin continued, “When he preached, he always took the Bible to the pulpit with him. And for most of his messages he would hold the Bible in his hand and he would quote Scripture after Scripture. His sermons were filled with Scripture. And when he would quote the Scripture he would always say, ‘the Bible says.’ Why? Because it was his authority.”
Bible passages were quoted and referenced often during the memorial service, including the following:
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. John 14:6
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:4-9
For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Luke 19:10
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:23
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and the one who is wise saves lives. Proverbs 11:30
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. 2 Corinthians 4:5 (KJV)
But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Bible Gateway is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a new sweepstakes every month this year! Winners have already been selected for the months of January and February. Enter every month!
This month enter for a chance to win a copy of the ESV Illuminated Bible, Art Journaling Edition, blue clothbound hardcover with slipcase (Crossway, 2017), which has a suggested retail value of $44.99. Two winners will be selected at random. One entry per person; legal residents of the USA 18 years of age and older. Entry period: Mar. 1, 2018 (midnight ET) – Mar. 25, 2018 (11:59 pm ET).
Once you’ve entered, tell your friends and followers about Bible Gateway’s 25th Anniversary—and what Bible Gateway means to you—in your posts on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media; when you do, use the #MyBibleGateway hashtag to communicate the fun!
Venture back to the year 1993. The first widely used graphical World Wide Web browser, Mosaic (later to become Netscape), was introduced, representing a major turning point in the Internet’s journey toward wide-scale user acceptance; US President Bill Clinton put the White House online; the first ever webcam connected to the Internet; and, topping the news in 1993, Bible Gateway, a fledgling idea in the mind of a college staffer, launched as an internal Bible research tool for college students.
Twenty-five years ago, the nascent World Wide Web accounted for only 1% of telecommunications information flow. By 2007, that number rose to 97%. Today, in the center of the information deluge flowing on the Web, sits BibleGateway.com (@biblegateway), the most-visited Christian website in the world; home to more than 200 Bible versions in more than 70 languages; and a trusted resource for more than 140 million people in more than 200 countries every year. Rely on it every day for all your Bible needs.
What is your description of a passionate Jesus follower?
Phil and Diane Comer: A passionate Jesus follower is not a perfect human. Nor is he flawless in following the ways of Jesus. Because the Bible does not give us a nifty definition, we must conclude that followers of Jesus do not look, talk, think, or live exactly alike! Instead they follow Jesus in the reality of everyday life.
As always, it’s Jesus who says it best: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Mt. 22:37).
A. W. Tozer called such people a part of “the fellowship of the burning hearts.” George Barna calls them Revolutionary Spiritual Champions; Bill Hybels coined the term: fully devoted followers of Christ.
You get the idea! These are people who are all in, unreservedly seeking first the kingdom of God (Mt. 6:33)
What do you mean, “for real faith to thrive, each generation must become the first generation”?
Phil and Diane Comer: With this statement we’re urging parents to make sure their children don’t miss “their own soul-changing experience with a God who redeems.”
A first generation Christian is one who experiences God. Or as evangelist Luis Palau puts it: “God has no grandchildren, only children.”
How does the Bible urge husbands and wives to inspire their children?
Phil and Diane Comer: The short answer? TOGETHER.
In Proverbs 6:20-23, God gifts us with a beautiful metaphor: the Lamp and the Light. It’s a picture of a home in which both parents are giving guidance, teaching, correction, and instruction. This gives a child security and a clear path to the ways of God.
What do you mean “the home should be a holy place”?
Phil and Diane Comer: Continuing with the Lamp and the Light, we explain how the Hebrews would have instantly understood this metaphor in their everyday lives. This same lamp that represents the father in the home, was used to light the Holy Place in the tabernacle: the place where God meets with us.
In the same way, the home is to be a holy place where our children can draw close to the light and love of God.
By creating an atmosphere that’s safe and loving, where each member of the family is treated with respect and tenderness, where forgiveness is sought and granted quickly, your children are able to find a refuge from our conflict-riddled world that knows so little about the way of Jesus.
Unpack the chapter titled, “Goals versus Values.”
Phil and Diane Comer: The point of chapter 6, Goals versus Values, is to remind parents that as followers of Jesus, we have one primary goal for our children. We find it first stated in Deuteronomy 6:5, that our kids would “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
But we have many values! Some of those will be good, biblical values, but others will be legitimate ways we hope our children will adopt as their own.
The danger happens when we forget and allow the goal to be overshadowed by our values.
What’s the biblical difference between punishment and discipline?
Phil and Diane Comer: Great question! Godly discipline is formative, not punitive. The Greek word translated discipline actually means to instruct, chasten, correct, educate. While the word for punish refers to penal infliction and retribution.
Punishment says, “You get what you deserve.” It’s characterized by rejection and humiliation. Discipline, on the other hand, says, “Let me help you change.”
The long-range intent of godly discipline is to equip your child to obey God over his own willful impulses and compulsions.
What is The Box you speak of in the book and why is it important?
Phil and Diane Comer: The Box is simply a tool parents can use to ensure the emotional, spiritual, and relational thriving of their child. It’s based on the idea that parents can intentionally create an environment in which their child can flourish—even (and especially!) when discipline is needed.
The Box brings Jesus into the situation, as well as godly discipline. It reminds us to order our child’s world so he or she can succeed at what we’re asking of them. And then it adds all the fun, affection, and affirmation we daren’t forget lest bitterness creep in to infect our child’s tender heart. We urge parents to tighten all four sides of The Box simultaneously during those inevitable times of testing. Rather than grow sullen and withdrawn, your child will lighten up with relief.
What are a few of the items on your list of Ten Things You’ve Got To Teach Your Kids?
Phil and Diane Comer: We urge parents to create a list of ten values they want to not only pass on to their kids, but even see become real in the way they choose to do life. Then, by a process of reverse engineering, we start teaching and training our kids in these areas long before it’s time for them to leave home.
Perhaps the most unexpected item on our list is #10: A Biblical Theology of Suffering. Who thinks of that when their child is three? Or even 13? This value comes from Diane’s story. How she began to inexplicably lose her hearing when she was 26, and how she almost lost her faith in the process. All because she had a faulty theology of suffering that didn’t allow the concept that a good God would allow her to go deaf. She wrote her story in He Speaks in the Silence: Finding Intimacy with God by Learning to Listen.
How should parents guard against showing love and grace to a rebellious child to such a degree that it becomes destructive enablement of the child’s rebellious behavior?
Phil and Diane Comer: Ruth Bell Graham wisely reminded us that, “God has trouble with his kids too!” Yet his is a love that watches and waits for us to come home. We urge parents to become compelling leaders rather than tyrants when their teenager questions the boundaries they’ve lovingly erected. And to discipline out of close relationship with their child.
God tells us that his discipline is a sign of his everlasting love for us! He then adds the beautiful admonishment to respond to discipline with earnest repentance (Revelation 3:19).
Which tells us that there’s a time to hold the line with our children in the great hope that they will ‘come to their senses’ (Luke 15:17).
What do you have to say to parents of grown children who are now wayward?
Phil and Diane Comer: Pray! Stay alert to the Spirit so that you can be used by God to pray your child back to Jesus. Pray specifically and biblically. Passages like Ephesians 6:10-18 and Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:14-20. This is God’s heart for his people!
At the same time be discerning and wise, using the “gracious words” (Luke 4:22) that so disarmed people who came into contact with Jesus.
What is a favorite Bible passage of yours and why?
Phil and Diane Comer: Where do we start? Diane is relishing Ephesians 3:19 in the New Living Translation. It’s Paul’s prayer for the people he loved: “May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”
As a worship leader, Phil’s favorite verse for the past 40 years has been Psalm 28:7 (NASB): “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, and with my song I shall thank Him.”
What are your thoughts about Bible Gateway and the Bible Gateway App?
Phil and Diane Comer: We couldn’t have finished Raising Passionate Jesus Followers without it! This is our go-to resource for finding just the right verse, then following the lead of the references to explore further. Diane keeps the App handy on her phone, while Phil uses it every time he prepares a sermon or teaching. The work you’re doing at Bible Gateway is a gift for parents, teachers, preachers, and anyone who wishes to study the Scriptures in depth.
Bio: Phil Comer, with assistance from his wife Diane and his son, John Mark, was the founding pastor of Westside: A Jesus Church, a large and vibrant church that welcomes millennials in Portland, Oregon. After handing the lead role over to his son, he and Diane launched Intentional: Raising Passionate Jesus Followers conferences as a way of teaching and training the hundreds of young parents in their church who were now raising families of their own. With his 40 years of pastoral experience and counseling, and lessons learned through his own parenting, he and Diane are bringing parents hope and practical help to accomplish their God-given task of raising children who will walk with God in vibrant fiath. Phil has also worked with Luis Palau ministries around the world. He and Diane have been married for over 35 years and have four grown children.
Diane Comer is an author, speaker, and co-laborer with her husband Phil in planting Westside: A Jesus Church, a large, vibrant, and growing church in Portland, Oregon. She and Phil have also founded Intentional, a conference for parents whose great hope is to raise passionate Jesus followers. Diane mentors young women growing in their faith and seeking to become better parents. She is also the author of He Speaks in the Silence: Finding Intimacy with God by Learning to Listen. Diane and Phil have been married over 35 years and have four grown children and a growing family of delightful grandchildren.
The Jewish holiday of Purim is based on the biblical story that’s familiar to most churchgoers: the deliverance of the Jews from planned genocide at the hands of the Persian official Haman. The agent of that deliverance is Esther, one of the most famous heroines of the Old Testament.
Esther is the perfect example of a regular person who finds herself suddenly and unexpectedly in a position to do great good—or to refrain from acting and let terrible evil play out. When she confronts the Persian king to plead on behalf of her people, she is risking her life. When Esther points this out to her uncle Mordecai, he responds with an inspiring challenge, quoted here from Esther 4:10-14 (VOICE):
Esther ordered Hathach to return to the city gate and reply to Mordecai.
Esther: How am I supposed to see the king? It’s known throughout the land, from the greatest of the king’s officials to the common folk who live in the provinces, that any person who approaches the king in the inner chamber without being invited is sentenced to death. That’s the law! There’s only one exception, and that’s if the king were to hold out the gold scepter to that person and spare his or her life. It’s been 30 days since the king last summoned me!
Hathach and the other servants took Esther’s response to Mordecai.
Mordecai: Tell Esther, “Don’t be fooled. Just because you are living inside the king’s palace doesn’t mean that you out of all of the Jews will escape the carnage. You must go before your king. If you stay silent during this time, deliverance for the Jews will come from somewhere, but you, my child, and all of your father’s family will die. And who knows? Perhaps you have been made queen for such a time as this.”
God is not mentioned in the book Esther. But as 18th century commentator Matthew Henry says, “Though the name of God be not in it, the finger of God is, directing many minute events for the bringing about of his people’s deliverance. The particulars are not only surprising and very entertaining, but edifying and very encouraging to the faith and hope of God’s people in the most difficult and dangerous times. We cannot now expect such miracles to be wrought for us as were for Israel when they were brought out of Egypt, but we may expect that in such ways as God here took to defeat Haman’s plot he will still protect his people.”
we all have the opportunity — and responsibility — to let God use us, despite our history of moral failure
God makes use of the actual circumstances of our lives
serving God requires risking our positions.
If you haven’t read the story of Esther recently (or ever), this is a perfect time to do so. As Esther demonstrates, God puts each of us in positions where we can serve him, even though that’s often not clear until the moment we’re called upon to act.
Image: Queen Esther depicted by Andrea del Castagno, 1450
Learn more about the book of Esther and all the books of the Bible by upgrading your Bible Gateway experience with Bible Gateway Plus. Try it right now!
Editor’s Note: The following post describes events during one of the gatherings of the 1986 Greater Washington Billy Graham Crusade in Washington, DC.
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Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” – Matthew 28:18-20
An old black prophet shuffling along inside a word-jammed sandwich board tried to convince the thousands who streamed past him into the convention center that Billy Graham was an aide-de-camp to the Antichrist, but they did not buy it. To them he was the living symbol of Evangelical Christianity, the man who had preached Christ to hundreds of millions of people throughout the world and now brought his message to the capital of what many still regarded as the Redeemer Nation, the “nation with the soul of a church.”
Inside, some grabbed Cokes or hot dogs at concession stands. Others lingered at tables set up in the center’s cavernous lobbies, browsing over devotional guides, souvenir picture books, how-to manuals on personal evangelism, and rapidly shrinking stacks of volumes by and about Graham and sundry relatives and associates. For the most part, the assembling multitude was solidly middle- and working-class: clean, neat, and conforming to standards of dress and decorum they felt best reflected their self-image as the good, decent people who affirm and embody the core values of American society. A well-schooled usher corps funneled folks into the stands or to special areas for the deaf or for those who spoke one of the eight foreign languages into which the service was being translated.
In the cramped quarters of a TV-production truck parked at a loading dock off the main hall, a small crew checked monitors and controls as they prepared to transform a live service into a television program that would be seen by millions a few weeks later. Meanwhile, in one of the center’s many conference rooms, Elwyn Cutler gave instructions and seating assignments to the ministers and other professional churchmen whose contribution to the crusade would be honored by a spot on the platform, a tangible symbol of importance to massage their egos, impress their parishioners, and consequently boost attendance. In another room, comfortably furnished with sofas and chairs and stocked with an abundance of soft drinks and snacks, Billy Graham spent the last few minutes before the service visiting with former District of Columbia mayor Walter Washington, Mayor Marion S. Barry, Jr., and Vice-President George Bush.
When the appointed moment approached, T. W. Wilson unobtrusively indicated it was time for this inner circle to join Elwyn Cutler’s larger group in its procession to the platform. Inside the arena the choir fell silent and attention shifted to the stage, where the organ, piano, and synthesizer sounded the first notes of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring. Moments later, as Graham and his party mounted the rear steps and came into view, 25,000 people rose in sustained ovation.
Because it was the opening service, introductions ran somewhat longer than usual, but they provided a good view of the thin line between Church and State and of Billy Graham’s position as an icon not just of American Christianity but of America itself. Mayor Washington, noting that he had raised the first dollar to build the magnificent convention center, announced that Billy Graham came to Washington, like Queen Esther in the Bible, “for such a time as this.” Mayor Barry, observing that it was he who brought the $98 million facility to completion, praised Graham’s stand against apartheid in South Africa and racism in America, then assumed the evangelist’s support of the mayor’s own programs regarding drugs, unemployment, the rehabilitation of prisoners, and sex education for young people. To close, Barry wrapped his own career in the mantle of God’s providence, noting that his rise from a sharecropper’s shack in Mississippi to the leadership of this great city and a spot on the platform with Billy Graham proved that “the Lord moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.” George Bush provided the final cachet. “We welcome to America’s city,” he said, “America’s pastor, Dr. Billy Graham.” He affirmed his own belief in the separation of Church and State but insisted the nation would be strong only so long as its faith is strong, and he thanked Graham for his role in reawakening the faith of citizens in “this one nation, under God, the last, best hope of man on earth.”
Other preliminaries included a stirring religiopatriotic song and a low-key collection. Then, just before Graham spoke, “America’s beloved singer of sacred songs,” George Beverly Shea, a gentle bear of a man who became the first member of Graham’s team in 1944, stepped to the microphone, anchored himself to the pulpit with both hands, and sang, “In times like these we need the Bible. . . . This rock is Jesus . . . Yes, He’s the one.” At 77, Shea sounded 20 years younger, his deep rich voice rolling out over the auditorium and settling on the audience like a down comforter.
With no further fanfare—at most services, Graham receives no introduction whatever—America’s Pastor began to speak. He commended local officials for giving “the greatest cooperation we have ever received in any crusade we have ever held,” announced that on Tuesday night he would talk about “The Richest and Sexiest Man Who Ever Lived,” and urged everyone to make a special attempt to fill RFK Stadium for the final service the following Sunday. Then, apparently because he feels a preacher ought to tell a few jokes to show he is a regular fellow, he related a couple of the small handful of stories he has been repeating for decades. Neither was a four-star anecdote, but the crowd laughed generously, as crowds often do when famous noncomedians tell jokes.
The sermon, when he finally got to it, was a classic piece of Graham homiletics. Its theme was Christ and its five subheadings were the Creative Christ, the Compassionate Christ, the Crucified Christ, the Conquering Christ, and the Coming Christ. As in virtually all his sermons, he recited a laundry list of problems: poverty, drugs, broken hearts, emptiness, guilt, loneliness, spiritual blindness, and fear. He knew these were problems and that secular remedies were bound to fail because one of the greatest biochemists in the world and rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and Harvard president Derek Bok had told him so. He had other evidence as well: “a Roman Catholic priest studying for a PhD in Chicago . . . Simon LeBon of the rock group Duran Duran . . . a girl in Japan . . . the managing partner of one of Washington’s most prestigious law firms . . . a new movie out . . . a recent Gallup poll . . . a magazine cover story . . . a taxicab driver on Donahue . . . a letter that came to me last month. . . . “And most important of all, “the Bible says. . . .”
To no one’s surprise, Graham proclaimed, with monumental conviction and certainty, that the sole and sufficient answer to these problems is Jesus Christ. In the early years of his ministry, he spoke with such volume and driving rapidity that journalists dubbed him “God’s Machine Gun.” He still generated considerable intensity in his later years when the topic and occasion demand it, but his style had become almost conversational, and the conversation had a tendency to ramble despite his increasing use of full manuscripts. Nonetheless, many of the familiar gestures—the clenched fist, the pointing finger, the ambidextrous slashes, the two-pistol punctuation, the hands drawn down to the Bible like twin lightning bolts—were still there and still riveting in their effect.
The sermon moved inexorably to its goal: the “invitation”—to accept Christ for the first time, to receive assurance that one’s prior acceptance and salvation are still under warranty, or to acknowledge a backslid condition and to rededicate oneself to walking a straighter and narrower path. “Life is uncertain,” he said. “God does not give us the date of our death.” And then, the words that bring virtually every sermon of his to an end: “I’m going to ask you to get up out of your seat and come and stand here in front of the platform, and say by your coming, ‘Tonight, I want Christ in my heart.'” As he suddenly fell silent, his head bowed in prayer, chin resting on right fist, elbow cradled in left hand, the convention center swelled with the simple melody and words of the quintessential invitation hymn:
Just as I am, without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me, And that Thou bidd’st me come to Thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
And from every section of the auditorium, they came, they came. Serious of mien but devoid of tears or other overt signs of emotion, more than a thousand souls answered Billy Graham’s call to be washed in the blood of the Lamb.
The program would not air for several weeks, but Graham stepped back into the pulpit to say, “To you watching on television, at home, in a hotel room, in a college dormitory, wherever you are, call that telephone number you see on the screen.” Then, to the “inquirers” who had streamed into a large open space immediately in front of the platform, he said:
“You have not come to Billy Graham. I have no special powers. I’m just another human being like you. I’m just the messenger. The message comes from God. You have asked for his forgiveness. I want to tell you on the authority of Scripture that he will give you that forgiveness. Not because you deserve it, but because Christ died for you. And he rose again, and he’s alive, and he’s willing to come into your heart now by the Holy Spirit and give you a new power, a new strength, a new joy, and a new peace.”
He then led them through the “sinner’s prayer”:
“O God, . . . I am a sinner. . . . I’m sorry for my sins. . . . I’m willing to turn from my sins. . . . I receive Christ as my savior. . . . I confess him as Lord. . . . From this moment on. . . . I want to follow him . . . and serve him . . . in the fellowship of his church. . . . In Christ’s name, Amen.”
This ostensibly life-changing transaction so simply accomplished, he urged them to read the Bible every day, to pray regularly, and to witness for Christ by inviting others to become Christians and by manifesting a loving and helpful spirit, particularly across racial lines. Finally, he encouraged them to affiliate with a church and worship regularly, not just stay home and watch TV preachers: “Many are far better than I’ll ever be, but Christians need to worship together.” With that, Graham left the platform and his associates took control, making sure all inquirers were matched with counselors who would help them clarify and confirm their decisions. As the last remaining strays found shepherds, the area began to hum with quiet conversation and prayer. Counselors helped their charges fill out decision cards and gave them a booklet entitled The Living Christ, a copy of the Gospel according to John, a brief Bible correspondence course, and suggestions for further study. The cards would reveal that few inquirers were confirmed pagans. Most already had some connection to a church or had come to the crusade as the guest of a church member.
Within minutes, runners rushed the decision cards to rooms where a Co-Labor Corps of over 200 volunteers waited to feed them into an elaborate follow-up procedure designed to link them to cooperating pastors and channel them into local congregations. The head of this operation, Dr. Robert L. Maddox, who had served as Jimmy Carter’s liaison to the religious community before becoming executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, admitted that the crusade could not be expected to reshape Greater Washington. “Billy will go home next week and the city will swallow him up and the effects will be gone. But as a matter of fact, in the lives of individuals, it may be absolutely pivotal. I have seen that happen. It won’t rock Washington, DC, for the Lord, but it might make some congressman struggling with key legislation think a little bit differently. Last night, I watched two or three guys that I know who grew up out here in Virginia and were as segregationist as they could be. They were working right alongside black people without any regard to color at all. When this is over, white churches will still do their thing and black churches will do theirs, and there is not going to be any great crossing of that line. But there will be greater understanding. It could have some impact.”
Back on the sidewalk outside the convention center, the old prophet had retired for the night. A policeman who had asked a departing counselor for an inquirer’s packet and had, after a brief conversation, “trusted Christ,” held up his hand to stop traffic for one of the last groups to leave the building. He was singing a gospel song.
A Prophet with Honor is the biography Billy Graham himself invited and appreciated for its sympathetic but frank approach. Carefully documented, eminently fair, and gracefully written, it raises and answers key questions about Graham’s character, contributions, and influence on the world religious scene. In this engaging and comprehensive book, William Martin gives readers a better understanding of the most successful evangelist in modern history, and the movement he led for over 50 years.
A Prophet with Honor makes a vital contribution to the Billy Graham legacy and allows us to understand why his words, actions, and personality endeared him to popes and preachers, kings and presidents, and millions of Christians in virtually every nation and culture around the world.
Martin draws on:
extensive conversations with Graham himself
nearly two hundred interviews
previously untouched resources, including documents from six presidential libraries and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association archives
personal observation of Graham’s crusades and conferences in the United States and Europe
decades of research on evangelical Christianity.
Martin pays particular attention to Graham’s controversial relationships with Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. He also describes how Graham’s lifelong determination “to do something great for God” led him to organize international conferences that spearheaded the worldwide spread of the liberating message of Jesus, and prompted him to help strengthen religious freedom in the Soviet bloc and China.
Tracing Graham’s life and ministry from his rural and religious roots in North Carolina to his place as the elder statesman of American evangelicalism, examining both his triumphs and his tribulations, Martin shows the multidimensional character of the man who has become one of the most admired persons in the world.
William Martin (BD, PhD, Harvard) is the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Chavanne Senior Fellow for Religion and Public Policy at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He has appeared on many national radio and television programs, including 60 Minutes, Nightline, 20/20, Today, Frontline, and All Things Considered. He has been published in numerous national and regional periodicals including The Atlantic, Harper’s Esquire, and Texas Monthly. While researching this book, he was given exclusive access to the Billy Graham archives.
The Bible Gateway Blog features the latest news, announcements, and reflections from Bible Gateway. We hope what you find here will add to your understanding of and appreciation for the Bible.
By Candace Cameron Bure
I see you, sister. Some days, it can be as simple as that.
Taken from Kind is the New Classy: The Power of Living Graciously by Candace Cameron Bure. Click here to learn more about this title.
He then led them through the “sinner’s prayer”:
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