The teen years can be notoriously tumultuous as identity questions often begin to influence our sense of understanding who we are, the world around us, and our place within it. In pubescence, our bodies often change quicker than our minds; causing unharnessed emotions to erupt outwardly or retreat inwardly in ways that only God fully understands.
It is usually during this time that we begin asking deeper questions concerning the things that matter in life, even if we don’t have the vocabulary to articulate them. Those seed-formed questions often carry within them the DNA roadmaps to answers that we’ll carry with us for the rest of our lives.
My existential teenage identity crisis was accelerated by three factors. First, a seemingly overnight growth spurt that found 13-year-old me towering over my peers at six feet tall. In mid-90’s North Carolina, being somewhat near Michael Jordan’s stomping grounds, one might imagine what everyone assumed that I should pursue.
Secondly, being in a very racially polarized environment, I was the only black guy in my grade within the academically gifted classes; therefore I felt like a misfit in the classroom, and an outsider among my black peers in the hallways. Both groups labeled me an Oreo, “black on the outside, but white on the inside.” Additionally, I was a known “church boy,” which felt more derogatory than endearing to me.
Thirdly, I was trying to process and reconcile the goodness of God with some of the most painful parts of human history. Particularly, the dark periods surrounding the experiences of my African-American ancestors and both of my parents who had been raised in the Jim Crow era of the South. I was asking, “God, if you’re good like they say you are, then why were we enslaved? Where have you been and why have we been treated this way? Where were you during the Holocaust?”
How does a child make sense of their identity while carrying such depth of curiosity in relation to the range of unique human experiences, which have been informed by the plan of God, the fall of humanity, and the rage of Satan? Today, how do we make sense of God’s activity in, through, and over the affairs of mankind?
Perhaps the answer is as simple as: like a child.
Become Like Children
You may be familiar with the discussion that Jesus’ disciples were having among themselves one day when they approached Him and asked, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” I imagine that like teenagers, there was a little bit of an identity struggle among this new and growing leadership team. Matthew 18 records Jesus’ response:
“And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.'”
— Matthew 18:2–5 (ESV)
In this modern era, everything from social movements to identity politics are producing increased pressure to conform to certain groupthink dynamics. Childlike humility and holy inquisition at Jesus’ feet through the posture of prayer, will slice through the malaise of cultural expectations, social structures, and human or demonic ideologies that seek to shape us.
God shares His secrets with His children, granting us access to the heavenly treasures of wisdom. His eternal storehouse is the source location of the ministry of reconciliation that was inaugurated by the Son as a means of helping us close the gaps between earth’s brokenness and heaven’s wholeness. This ministry is critical for us to possess a healthy understanding of who and where we are, in light of where we’ve been.
The Ministry of Reconciliation
About Jesus Colossians 1:19-20 (ESV) says, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”
Notice that Jesus’ ministry of reconciliation here is completely unrestricted. His ongoing intention is to bring divine resolution in the form of wholeness to “all things.” This includes every possible conflict or conundrum that has ever existed in both the celestial and terrestrial realms. His bloodshed on the cross released power to not only reconcile us to God and one another, but to actively reconcile the pain of our past and the perplexity of our present, with the promise of our future.
How? By completely changing our primary identities.
The issues of slavery, racism, and cultural identity — which so deeply informed my life and influenced my search for a clarity that only God could bring — are devastating consequences of what I’ll call the Human Being Virus (HBV). After the fall, every generation of Adam’s children were born with it in their blood. Today, there are no people groups who haven’t suffered from the destruction that HBV or sin has wrought through the broken and fallen systems it has produced.
Hostility that leads to separation is the most pre-eminent symptom and consequence of this disease. The Father’s solution was to destroy the disease entirely through His Son. Jesus did not just provide a blood transfusion; as the second Adam, he gave birth to a new humanity.
“For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us, abolishing the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it.”
— Ephesians 2:14-16 (ESV)
Because of this new ontology, our primary identity is not anything that can be defined by carnal language. Although in the flesh I’m still very much an African-American man in terms of the unique cultural and social dynamics that have shaped my expression and experiences in life, I’m a new creation son first.
“For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
— Galatians 3:26-29 (ESV)
Understanding the Times
A mature understanding of our identity as children of God produces within us the ability to more clearly understand ourselves and the times in which we live. In Luke 12:56, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for having trained their senses to accurately discern or understand the weather patterns, but not the times in which they live. They were experts in Torah and all the ancient prophecies concerning the coming Messiah, but failed to possess the ability to discern that the One they have been looking for was standing right in front of them.
Possessing clarifying insight into the activity of God amid the chaos of our times is a distinctive portion of our inheritance which empowers us to enter our Father’s peacemaking work.
1 Chronicles 12 captures the unique skills of King David’s mighty men. Each of these royal military units possessed a unique ability that reads almost like superpowers from a Marvel movie.
“Of Issachar, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, 200 chiefs, and all their kinsmen under their command” (1 Chronicles 12:32 ESV).
The tribe of Issachar’s power is what the Church must recover in these times. They not only possessed knowledge amidst embattlement, but a pronounced gift of wisdom that was potent enough to assist David in the leadership of the nation.
How might we recover such a gift?
Get Eyes to See and Ears to Hear
The prophetic ministries of Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah all begin with some sort of ethereal vision. While Ezekiel enters into visions of God by the river Chebar, Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up. Both Jeremiah and Zechariah are asked, “What do you see?”
And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see an almond branch.” Then the LORD said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.”
— Jeremiah 1:11-12 (ESV)
The Lord’s response is what we need to ask ourselves. In all that we see happening around us, are we seeing well? Do we possess the ability to discern His word and His work beyond what may appear to be darkness to our natural eye?
Gaining the ability to process our world with spiritual eyes from heaven’s perspective requires a change in elevation. Everything in the valley looks different from the mountaintop and the prophet Isaiah said that in the last days, all the nations will ascend the mountain of the Lord to be taught His ways (Isaiah 2:2). In Revelation 4:1, the Lord gives the Apostle John a command to ascend in order to be shown what to do next. Perhaps He is extending that to our generation — not as an invitation, but as a command.
We must see and hear. We can’t know what He is saying without having our spiritual ears opened. Reading the Word is a visual exercise, where we begin to understand what He is saying to us based upon what is before our eyes. Similarly, the Lord speaks through the circumstances we see around us, but we need ears to hear what He is speaking through them.
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27 ESV).
The way to get eyes and ears is to go up — and the way up is down. Our prayer closets must become elevators. Like King David in Psalm 119, we must be resolute in spiritual discipline, experience His delight, and our souls must be gripped with longing.
I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.
I will delight in your statutes;
I will not forget your word.
Deal bountifully with your servant,
that I may live and keep your word.
Open my eyes, that I may behold
wondrous things out of your law.
I am a sojourner on the earth;
hide not your commandments from me!
My soul is consumed with longing
for your rules at all times.
— Psalm 119:15-20 (ESV)
As we set our minds on heavenly things through the renewal that comes from meditating on His word, and the joy of communion in prayer and fasting, our minds are transformed. Slowly but surely, our identity becomes more rooted in the reality of our heavenly citizenship; and instead of an earth-to-heaven approach, we began to engage the world around us from heaven to earth. Through this perspective, we can operate as Shalom builders and reconcilers in a world that is desperately longing for the sons of God to be revealed (Romans 8:19).
Matthew 5:9 (ESV) clearly defines who they are: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
In Make Straight the Path, join Civil Righteousness founder Jonathan Tremaine Thomas as he equips you with a Spirit-led roadmap to navigate division with Christlike engagement and reconciling action.
Many Christians feel frustrated, heartbroken, and powerless over what is happening in American culture and across the globe. Surrounded by increasing conflicts, the church often feels the most divided of all. How do we move from lament, fatigue, and overwhelm to Spirit-empowered impact?
Rich in truth and grounded in love, Make Straight the Path is a timely invitation to step off the sidelines and join the sacred work of bringing Jesus-shaped transformation to a divided world.
What Should I Do When I Encounter Weird Stuff in the Bible? #5: Mock the Serpent
In my last article, I asserted that the Serpent’s fate isn’t to keep doing what he’s doing now, then keep wreaking the same havoc on humanity for forever. Without a doubt, he will ultimately be done away with and has no part in the New Kingdom (see Rev. 20:10a), where Jesus will rule and reign. He is a defeated foe, and he knows it. Because of the relentless work of the Serpent Crusher, the dust eater’s (see Gen. 3:14b) time is limited, he and his minions’ powers have been stripped, and their memory will be mocked. The Apostle Paul states this quite clearly in Colossians 2:15:
“God made you alive together with him [Christ], when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.” (Col. 2:13-15 NRSVue)
There it is. The emphatic assertion that the Serpent would be eternally disarmed, mocked and defeated, through the cross, ultimately being made a “public example.” The very instrument used to kill the Serpent Crusher would be the door to eternal life for all who would follow Him through it. The script of death would be flipped to one of eternal life. Paul helps us again in 1 Corinthians 2:6-8 as he speaks of the brilliantly subversive tactic waged by God upon the rulers of Hell through the scandalous cross:
“Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are being destroyed. But we speak God’s wisdom, a hidden mystery, which God decreed before the ages for our glory and which none of the rulers of this age understood, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” (1 Cor. 2:6-8 NRSVue)
There it is again. The unadulterated, majestic, Hell-mocking, world-turning power of the cross. So mysterious and so powerful, that even the devil and all his religious and civil minions were played like pawns into crucifying the Lamb of God, sealing their eternal fates and blowing the doors of Heaven wide open.
Mocked by a Giant Skull
The blowing “wide open” of the doors of Heaven occurred at one of the nastiest places on earth: Golgotha. Why do I say that it was nasty? Because for thousands of years Golgotha looked like a rocky skull, and the innocent Lamb of God, Jesus, was slain there. He was mocked, chided, bruised, beaten, and stabbed into a heap of shredded flesh and bone — then hung on a cross there. But, as nasty as it was, it was all part of a mysteriously subversive plan that began thousands of years before. A plan enacted before time as we know it. The Apostle Peter emphasizes:
“You know that you were ransomed from the futile conduct inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake.” (1 Pet. 1:18-20 NRSVue)
This place was Jesus’s destiny. Leviticus 16:27 requires the sin-offering of animals to be burned outside the camp, and Hebrews 13:11-13 applies this directly to Jesus’ suffering outside Jerusalem’s gate at Golgotha:
“For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also suffered outside the city gate in order to sanctify the people by his own blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured.” (Heb. 13:11-13 NRSVue)
While the name Golgotha was not specifically prophesied, other details of the crucifixion — such as the piercing of his hands and feet (see Psalm 22:16), the casting of lots for his garments (see Psalm 22:18), and being numbered with transgressors (Isaiah 53:12) — were explicitly foretold. It was certainly a nasty place, meant to mock Jesus and the God with whom He claimed to be One (see John 10:30). I believe that Golgotha was strategically chosen by God as a place where He would shout to the world that the head of the Serpent would be dealt with both temporally and eternally by the Seed of the Woman.
The Head of the Serpent-Giant
If you have been following this series, you might remember that in article #3, “Who Crushes the Dragon-Snake?,” I stated that David engaged in an epic battle with an ominous serpent-like giant named Goliath (see 1 Samuel 17). In this battle, David crushed his huge “hairy crown” (see 1 Samuel 17:49-54, and Psalm 68:21), cut it off, lifted it up, displayed it for all the world to see, then carried it around for an unspecified amount of time.
It might be a morbid thought, but for many years I had wondered what might have happened to the huge head after David was done carrying it around. Where might he have taken it? Following a gruesome custom of the day, I feel that he probably placed it on a pike (wooden pole) in a very public place, for all the world to see. It was important to him that friend and foe alike would know that there was a God in Israel and that He was powerful enough to deal with any Serpent. One scholar, Dr. Taylor Marshall, believes that the giant’s head was ultimately kept in a famously infamous place:
“This would explain why the “place of the skull” is oddly named “Golgotha.” The term is a corruption of Hebrew for “Goliath Gath”: Goliath Gath > GoliGath > GolGath > GolGatha. So King David killed the enemy of Israel (Goliath of Gath) and then brought the giant’s head to Jerusalem. Jews would not have permitted the Gentile giant’s head to be buried in the city walls. It would have been buried outside the city walls. This matches with what we know about the location of Golgatha. It was outside the city walls. The slaying of Goliath by David was one of the most important events in ‘Israelite history.’ The location of the giant’s head would have been known by all. Hence, “Golgotha” is likely the place of not just any old skull, but the place of the skull of Goliath of Gath.”
Professor Rick Shenk agrees with Marshall and gives context to the magnitude of the battle between David and Goliath and its accompanying ramifications:
“This battle was not merely about Philistines and Israelites; it was about who rules over heaven and earth: the Serpent or YHWH! And now comes David, not with Serpent armor or weapons, but with powerful declarations: “this day YHWH will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head” (1 Samuel 17:46 ESV). That should ring a bell for us! Indeed, David proceeds to bruise Goliath on the head with a stone. The Serpent-warrior fell on his face and ate dust. And then, David removed Goliath’s head with his enemy’s own sword. In this battle against the Serpent, the seed won! … Whether or not Goliath of Gath is the correct etymology of Golgotha, it was in this very city to which the head of Goliath was taken. It was on this very hill where Jesus’ feet were pierced by the nails. It was in this very place that he crushed the head of the Serpent.”
‘It Is Finished’
It would be another one thousand years until Jesus, the Son of David, would triumphantly utter the words “it is finished” on Golgotha, the place of the skull (John 19:30). In the same place where David had placed the dead giant’s head on a pole, Jesus would crush the giant of death on one. Death would be finished and killed in that gloriously nasty place. The seed had passed from David through the generations, ultimately being brought to life at the perfect time. The apostle Paul describes the miraculous occurrence, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman …” (Gal. 4:4).
That’s why it is so important to read the lineage of Jesus in the Gospels (see Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38). They are the record of the kingdom seed of the woman, traveling miraculously through time. God used imperfect, faith-filled people throughout the ages to accomplish His perfect redemptive plan. The serpent-crushing plan He had prophesied in the garden in Gen. 3:14-15 had come to full fruition in Jesus at the place of the skull. The Ultimate Serpent Crusher had been born, lived a perfect and sinless life, to be crucified on Golgotha for all who would follow Him in faith.
The Second Adam
The prophesied Seed had been carried through time by Spirit-filled individuals. God had used them to birth an entirely new race of humanity led by a second Adam. An Adam who would not fail. One who would not fall. He would travel through a broken humanity, live on a broken planet, then be impaled on a cross, bloodied at the place of the skull, to bleed for the broken. The serpent would strike at his heel, temporarily bloodying him. Then, after bleeding on that skull of a rock called Golgotha, for all the world to see, he would declare: “It is finished.” A crushing and eternal blow delivered to the serpent’s head. The first Adam’s penalty, which cast a shadow over all his children, was paid for by the untainted blood of the second.
Then, an unexpected (for the serpent) second blow: an eternal nail to death. The crushed serpent, now forever beheaded. Jesus was alive. He had risen from the dead according to the Scriptures. Never was there one like Him, nor will there ever be again. He is the first and last of His kind. He is solely unique and uniquely sole. He is the “Alpha and the Omega” (Rev. 1:8, 22:31).
Go and Crush the Serpent!
For those who will follow Him, by faith, there lives an eternal hope, that they too, through Him in them, will live by His life. It will be a new life where all things will be made new (2 Cor 5:17). They too will crush the serpent all day long and for eternity. We, as those who follow Him, are called to live and establish serpent-crushing communities all over the world. Communities where the alive, resurrected, serpent-crushing Jesus is The Center — the Thesis of the Story of God. Where individuals set about following a living, Serpent-Crushing Savior. One who eats with them, teaches them, gives them marching orders, then empowers them to march and crush serpents in like fashion.
So, go out and crush the serpent today, by living for the Serpent Crusher.
Join Dr. Jeff Voth and Dr. Nathan French for Weird Stuff in the Bible, a unique video series from Cavetime and Study Gateway! Try it free for 7 days!
In the Weird Stuff series from Cavetime, Dr. Jeff Voth and Hebrew scholar, Dr. Nathan French, discuss and make sense of some of the weird stuff in the Bible to ultimately point us back to the needed redemption of Jesus Christ.