Whenever we have out-of-state guests, we try to go to San Antonio to show them the Alamo. Perhaps the best know phrase regarding the history of this fort is, “Remember the Alamo.” The fort sits today in the midst of a concrete jungle as a commemoration of that historic battle and in memory of those who fought and died there.

Today, we have learned to say, “Remember 9/11.” As a dark moment in our nation’s history, we don’t remember 9/11 in order to drudge up memories of that terrible event. Instead, we remember 9/11 in commemoration of those who lost lives and family members.

According to the New World Dictionary, to commemorate means “to preserve or honor the memory of.” As Christians, when we observe the Lord’s Supper we commemorate Christ; we remember and honor His name and His sacrifice for sin. The supper is a remembering of a specific event in the life of Christ. We preserve the memory of Christ and honor his name by remembering and reflecting upon what the bread and the fruit of the vine signify. Michael Green reminds us that every time we observe the Lord’s Supper we do so in remembrance of Him in . . .

We look up in adoration. Whenever we eat the Lord’s Supper we remember God’s mercy and grace as the loving Father sent His beloved Son to die on the cross for sin.

We look back in commemoration. Whenever we eat the Lord’s Supper we remember that Christ came into this world to save sinners. He lived a life without sin, yet He was rejected by His own, beaten and ultimately killed for our sake. Through His death, Jesus paid the penalty for sin and liberated those who trust in Him from the bondage of sin.

We look forward in anticipation. Whenever we eat the Lord’s Supper we are eating and drinking in anticipation of the great marriage supper of the Lamb, where a place has been reserved for all those who belong to Christ’s family.

We look outward in proclamation. Whenever we eat the Lord’s Supper our actions proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

We look inward in examination. Whenever we eat the Lord’s Supper we reflect upon our own lives, asking the Holy Spirit of God to expose our own sins, so that we might come into the presence of Christ with clean hands and pure hearts.

We look around in consideration. Whenever we eat the Lord’s Supper we are forced to look around at our brothers and sisters in Christ being reminded that we are sitting at the table as a family.

Next time you participate in the Lord’s Supper, I encourage you to examine your hearts as you sit together at the Lord’s table with God’s people in remembrance of Him.

On April 26-27 I will have the privilege of joining men I admire and respect at the Advance the Church conference in Durham, North Carolina. My assignment is to speak on “contextualization without compromise.” I address this very issue at length in my book Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different. The organizers of the conference have asked me to share some of my thoughts on contextualization. So, for better or for worse, here they are (taken straight from Chapter 8 of Unfashionable).

***

The principle behind Paul’s exhortation in 1 Corinthians 9:22 to “become all things to all men” is what Christian thinkers call “contextualization.” Contextualization is the idea that we need to be translating gospel truth into language understood by our culture. Cross-cultural missionaries and Bible translators have been doing this for centuries. They take the unchanging truth of the Gospel and put it into language that fits the context they are trying to reach. Contextualization simply means translating the Gospel—in both word and deed—into understandable terms appropriate to the audience. It’s Gospel translation that is context sensitive.

Genna, my eight-year-old daughter, loves going to her Sunday school class for various reasons. She loves seeing her friends and singing her favorite songs. But she also loves to learn from her capable and creative teacher. He works hard to use language, concepts, and illustrations that she and the other children in the class will understand as he faithfully teaches them the Bible. And as a result, Genna gets it. She walks away Sunday after Sunday excited about what she’s learned. This thrills Kim and me. We’re both grateful that her teacher understands the need to contextualize.

Similarly, every English Bible translation is an effort to contextualize the Scriptures (originally written in Hebrew and Greek for ancient peoples) for an English-speaking audience of today.

Contextualization also involves building relationships with people who don’t believe. We don’t expect them to come to us; we go to them. We meet them where they are. We enter into their world by seeking to identify with their struggles, their likes, their dislikes, their ideas. Chuck Colson speaks of it as entering into people’s “stories”:

We must enter into the stories of the surrounding culture, which takes real listening. We connect with the literature, music, theater, arts, and issues that express the existing culture’s hopes, dreams, and fears. This builds a bridge by which we can show how the Gospel can enter and transform those stories.

Edith Schaeffer, wife of the late Francis Schaeffer, wrote about a visit the two of them made to San Francisco in 1968. One night they went to Fillmore West to hang out with the druggies and hippies and take in a light show. She records how heartbroken they were as they witnessed on that night “the lostness of humanity in search of peace where there is no peace.” She concluded, “A time of listening is needed—listening to what the next generation is saying, listening to the words of the music they are listening to, listening to the meaning behind the words. If true communication is to continue, there is a language to be learned.”

Contextualization begins with a broken heart for the lost and a driving desire to help them understand God’s liberating truth. Only by real listening and learning can we hope to persuasively communicate God’s unchanging Word to our constantly changing world.

Sadly, some well-meaning Christians conclude otherwise. For these Christians, contextualization means the same thing as compromise. They believe it means giving people what they want and telling people what they want to hear. What they misunderstand, however, is that contextualization means giving people God’s answers (which they may not want) to the questions they’re really asking and in ways they can understand.

This misunderstanding of contextualization has led these people to argue that cultural reflection and contextualization are at best distractions, at worst sinful. They admonish us to abandon these things and focus simply on the Bible. While this sounds virtuous, it ends up being foolish for two reasons. First, as we’ve already seen, the Bible itself exhorts us to understand our times so that we can reach our changing world with God’s eternal truth. To not contextualize, therefore, is a sin. And second, we all live inescapably within a particular cultural framework that shapes the way we think about everything. So if we don’t work hard to understand our context, we’ll not only fail in our task to effectively communicate the gospel but we’ll also find it impossible to avoid being negatively shaped by a world we don’t understand.

In a recent interview, pastor Tim Keller put it this way: “to over-contextualize to a new generation means you can make an idol out of their culture, but to under-contextualize to a new generation means you can make an idol out of the culture you come from. So there’s no avoiding it.”

Whether translating the Bible or developing relationships with non-Christians, we’re to be missionary minded in everything we do. That takes work—the hard effort of maintaining the big picture and communicating comprehensibly and compellingly to those who don’t share our convictions and worldview. Therefore, every day and in every circumstance, we need to be consciously and rigorously translating our faith into the language of the culture we’re trying to reach.

This is the challenge: If you don’t contextualize enough, no one’s life will be transformed because they won’t understand you. But if you contextualize too much, no one’s life will be transformed because you won’t be challenging their deepest assumptions and calling them to change.

Becoming “all things to all people”, therefore, does not mean fitting in with the fallen patterns of this world so that there is no distinguishable difference between Christians and non-Christians. While rightly living “in the world,” we must avoid the extreme of accommodation—being “of the world.” It happens when Christians, in their attempt to make proper contact with the world, go out of their way to adopt worldly styles, standards, and strategies.

When Christians try to eliminate the counter-cultural, unfashionable features of the biblical message because those features are unpopular in the wider culture—for example, when we reduce sin to a lack of self-esteem, deny the exclusivity of Christ, or downplay the reality of knowable absolute truth—we’ve moved from contextualization to compromise. When we accommodate our culture by jettisoning key themes of the gospel, such as suffering, humility, persecution, service, and self-sacrifice, we actually do our world more harm than good. For love’s sake, compromise is to be avoided at all costs.

As the Bible teaches, the Lordship of Christ has a sense of totality: Christ’s truth covers everything, not just “spiritual” or “religious” things. But it also has a sense of tension. As Lord, Jesus not only calls us to himself, he also calls us to break with everything which conflicts with his Lordship.

Contextualization without compromise is the goal!

Hebrews 10:19-25 is a text I return to fairly often, especially when I am preparing myself for corporate worship. My default mode is to read “enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus” and “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” from an individualistic perspective. I can read those words and think primarily about the great privilege I have to approach the Majesty on High (Hebrews 1:3) privately. But the writer of Hebrews is not so much thinking of believers approaching God privately as he is about believers approaching God corporately. Just consider the repetition of “let us” in these verses (vv. 22, 23-24). The writer is thinking primarily about believers drawing near to God together. Approaching the Majesty on High as a corporate body is the incomparable opportunity and privilege of the blood bought church.

What I find striking about these verses is that the writer says that we together have confidence to draw near to God. He writes, “We have confidence to enter the holy places” (Hebrews 10:19). He doesn’t say that some believers do and some don’t have confidence to enter based upon how they may or may not have lived the previous week. No, he just declares that believers have confidence, period.

I find this remarkable for two reasons. First, if I’m not vigilant, I tend to base my confidence in drawing near to God on how I have “measured up” the previous several days. If I think I’ve lived up to a particular list of standards, I have confidence. If I consider myself to have failed in living as I believe I should have, I don’t have confidence. But the writer doesn’t appear to be thinking in these categories at all. He just says, “Brothers, we have confidence.”

Second, if you read Old Testament accounts of Israel approaching God through the sacrificial system, the word confidence is not what immediately comes to mind. Rather, “fear and trembling” comes to mind (cf. Hebrews 12:18-24; Numbers 4:20; 17:13).

So what accounts for this confidence? How is it that people who sin in word and deed can be said to have objective confidence to enter the holy places, a confidence that doesn’t dissipate in the wake of personal sin and in the contemplation of the God who is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29)? The writer answers this question for us: “We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh” (Hebrews 10:19-20). Our confidence to enter is not based upon what we’ve done or not done but upon what Christ has done through the shedding of his own blood. Our confidence is based upon the work of Christ. It is Christ who “entered once for all time into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12).

The implications here are many. Let me highlight just one. The work of Christ frees us to gather not as those who have our lives together but as those who don’t. The fact that our confidence is based upon the work of someone else, namely, Christ, means that we gather corporately with the freedom to acknowledge our sin and not hide it from other believers. I have gathered with the saints with a plastic “I’m-doing-well-spiritually-this-week” smile upon my face too many times. This plastic smile is a sad attempt to feign confidence, to fake it, and it’s evidence that I’ve forgotten the gospel. Only when I gather with the saints knowing that I have objective confidence to enter by the blood of Jesus will I be free to acknowledge my sin before others. Only when I approach in the truth of the gospel will I not have to conceal my sin from myself or from the fellowship of believers. The gospel frees us to gather as we really are, namely, as people who are in need of drawing near to God by the blood of Jesus. Ultimately, the only alternative is to gather with the saints in loneliness, even though we are surrounded by people who are just like we are. Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood this very well.

He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their…service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break through to fellowship does not occur, because though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among them. So we remain alone with our sin, living lies and hypocrisy. The fact is we are sinners. But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great desperate sinner; now come as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you … He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. God has come to save the sinner (Life Together).

Bonhoeffer describes what happens to us when our confidence is based not upon the work of Christ but upon our own attempts to measure up. So, the writer of Hebrews says, “since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:19-21). The confidence that Hebrews 10:19 declares we have comes to us through the work of the Messiah. It is ours by the blood of Jesus. When the work of Christ is our confidence, we draw near to God with confidence.

J. D. Payne, the director of the Church Planting Center at Southern Seminary, writes:

I have been troubled by what I believe is a missiological malpractice among many church planters today. If we say we are Kingdom citizens living by a Kingdom Ethic, then that Ethic must govern all of life, including our church planting philosophies and methods.

Payne proposes 11 ethical guidelines for church planting. Here are the first four:

• Guideline #1:  Since the global need for the gospel is so great, unless God reveals otherwise, we will begin our ministry among people with the greatest need and with a high level of receptivity to the gospel.
• Guideline #2:  Since the world consists of four billion unbelievers, with two billion who have never heard the gospel, our strategy will involve the use of highly reproducible church planting methods.
• Guideline #3:  Since biblical church planting is evangelism that results in new churches, we will not prioritize transfer growth over conversion growth by designing ministries that will primarily attract believers.
• Guideline #4:  Since unity among churches in a geographical area is a powerful witness to the gospel, we will be concerned with other evangelical pastors laboring in the same area as our team, and will take the initiative to meet with them to share our calling, vision, and ethic.

See all 11 guidelines.

Read Payne’s full paper, “Ethical Guidelines for Church Planters: A Suggested Proposal,” which he presented at a meeting of the Evangelical Missiological Society last year.

1 Corinthians 13 is a remarkable passage to use in order to investigate the motives and idols of our heart. How do we love? Is our love patient and kind or is it envious and boastful? What are we craving that prohibits us from loving others?

Sadly, I tend to read this passage without reflecting on the implications of the nature of how I love. It’s overly familiar to someone like me who has been in the church for a number of years. I read verse 4, “Love is patient” – ok, I must be more patient with others, my wife and children. Then, “Love is kind” – ok, I need to work on being kind. And on and on and on, until I’ve read the entire passage in a way that secures no possible change in my heart.

A perceptive reader, however, will read “love is patient” and then ponder, what does it mean for me not to be patient with others? It will mean a number of things, but at the very least it means that you value your own needs — perhaps idolizing them — in such a way that the needs of others become barriers to meeting your own. It means that you crave your time in such a way that you will lash out against those who threaten it. You will be easily offended (they are wasting my time!), irritable and resentful (see 13:5), and will respond to others, not in light of the Gospel, but in light of your momentary lusts of the heart.

An even more perceptive reader will read this passage in light of what Paul has already written to the Corinthians. He has rebuked them for not waiting for the poor among them to take the Lord’s Supper (chapter 11) and has urged them to care for one another as one body (chapter 12). I Corinthians 12:26 describes the church as one body where, “if one member suffers, all suffer together.” The tragedy of the impatient heart is that it idolizes its own needs and craves its own time to such an extent that it is unable to suffer with those who are suffering. To the impatient, Scriptures asks, “Do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” (1 Corinthians 11:22).

Your suffering will show you that the timing of teaching and touching is crucial….When you walk through your own valley of darkness you learn these things. This is your lifelong seminary. If you are called to counsel others, I entreat you, do not begrudge the seminary of suffering. -John Piper

Many factors over the course of the past two months play into the unmistakable truth that I am in a semester in the seminary of suffering. Academically, I just finished an extensive study of 1 Peter in my Greek Exegesis class, where one major theme is suffering. I also recently took an intro to counseling course that exposed me, albeit briefly, to the reality of the vast suffering experienced throughout local churches all over the world. For work, I am helping to prepare a sermon series on suffering. Personally, I have heard several sermons as of late on the theme of suffering and I have begun to explore my life and the painful losses that occurred in my past. Finally, my time in the Word has opened up my eyes to the consistent message of suffering presented after Genesis 3.

However, I’m also learning that we in America balk at that word suffering. We want to avoid it at all cost. We medicate ourselves with all society offers as means for comfort, security, and safety. Even when we know it is okay to suffer–whether it be the loss of a loved one, experiencing rejection, being abused or neglected–we don’t want to embrace the pain and the hurt. Instead I know so many people who just suppress it all, burying it deep within their hearts. But it never actually goes away; it never heals. And if it never gets dealt with it destroys them. They either become violent and angry, bitter at everyone or, and maybe even more frightening, they become numb to life and to God. He or she is a shell of a human being, an illusion of who they once were.

As I journey through this semester in the seminary of suffering, I am realizing that I have sought too long to avoid suffering in my life. Furthermore, my eyes are opening to the plain truth that I know too many people–Christians–like me. We do not have a proper theology of suffering. We do not get trained in a proper theology of suffering that incorporates both the mind and the heart. As a result, we do not know how to minister to others in their suffering, providing trite, cliché, theologically and emotionally hollow answers to questions we’re unwilling to wrestle with before the Living, Triune God.

My journey has brought me to several conclusions I wish to develop over the coming weeks and months. The two major ones that constantly come to the surface are here, but I believe there are many more.

1. Suffering in Light of Eternity

“But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed” (1 Pet 4:13). This verse sums up the tone of the entire letter (1:7, 11, 21; 4:11, 13, 14; 5:1; 5:10). Peter is writing specifically about suffering because of persecution, but the principle of rejoicing in the midst of suffering as we look to Jesus’ return can be extended to all areas of life. Moreover, we must realize that each and every person in this world has experienced some level of suffering. Their experience is unique and valuable because they are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27). C.S. Lewis states it poignantly:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations–these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But is is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit–immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

In light of eternity, how are we approaching suffering in our lives and the lives of others, both believer and unbeliever?

2. The Language of Lament

We do not need to be taught how to lament. What we need is simply the assurance that we can lament. -Michael Card

Put simply, our theology does not allow for the category of lamenting in our suffering. Somewhere we lost it and I, for one, grew up in a generation that knew little to nothing about it’s place in the Christian’s life. Yet we can look to Scripture–more specifically the lives of Job, David, Jeremiah and Jesus–not only to see that lament is possible for us, but that it even produces a stronger dependence on God than ever before.

Have you ever been taught about lamenting? If so, what did you learn? Have you ever seriously lamented? Is this a foreign concept to you?

I plan on expanding each of these ideas because we have to further probe how these categories inform a proper theology of suffering–and practice of it–as we and others in our lives will undoubtedly suffer.

For now I must ask, are you too walking through a semester in the seminary of suffering?

By His Grace.

What’s the worst day of the week for pastors? Probably Monday. For the previous seven days we’ve poured ourselves into sermon preparation, pastoral visitation, counseling, evangelism, problem solving, prayer, etc. The Sunday climax (anti-climax?) has come and gone. We may have been discouraged by low attendances, limited or negative feedback, etc. Our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual reserves are in the red. Yet we have to climb the mountain all over again. Monday “blues” can very quickly become Monday “blacks.”

However, without ignoring the real difficulties, let us also remember the joys of pastoral ministry. Here are seven I try to keep before me, especially on Monday mornings.

1. Preparing Joys

Every time I enter my study I think, “What a privilege!” Many are stuck on frustrating freeways or down dangerous mines; others are at monotonous conveyor belts or life-threatening fires; still others work in the midst of cursing and swearing. Yet, here am I looking forward to my Bible, good books, and quiet hours spent in the study of God and His grace. I never enter my study without turning to God and saying, “Thank you. I do not deserve this.”

2. Preaching Joys

Preaching can be frustrating and even frightening.  But it can also be so enjoyable and even exciting. How many times we see God work as we speak His Word. We see souls being sobered, saints being encouraged, the sad being uplifted, seekers becoming finders, and sinners becoming servants.  Sometimes we sense unique and (humanly) inexplicable help when expounding a difficult passage, or making a pointed application. “Where did that come from?” we sometimes wonder. It is the Lord.

3. Pastoring Joys

I love my study. Sometimes, I love it too much. Books are far less complicated than people. In my last congregation, I tried to visit every home or family once a year. That worked out about 3-4 visits a week. The sick, the elderly, and the bereaved added another 3-4 a week. Problems and counseling added maybe another 1-2 a week. So probably ten visits a week on average. That meant two afternoons and two evenings a week. If it was Florida, that would be easy. However, it was the Outer Hebrides: often raining, cold, wet and windy (and that was the summer). I have to admit, it sometimes took my wife to say, “Come on David, get out of the study and get visiting!” And though I sometimes went reluctantly, I almost always returned home encouraged and uplifted by the fellowship with God’s people, and from hearing what God was doing in their lives with His Word.

4. Provision Joys

No one enters pastoral ministry for money. In fact, there will be times when you are really tight financially, and you will wonder how you can get by. However, God will always supply your needs. He moves His people in remarkable ways to give exactly what you need. And even when you don’t “need” it, God’s people will often express their gratitude by loving gifts. How many times I came home from visiting in rural areas with fresh eggs, joints of lamb, wild salmon, etc. You can taste the love of God’s people in a special way in these special meals.

5. “Professional” Joys

No, “we are not professionals,” but we are in a profession, “a vocation based upon specialized education.” And what great colleagues we have in this vocation! Twenty years ago, I worked in the financial services industry. It was cut-throat competitive. Now it’s my joy to have godly pastors and missionaries as my colleagues and co-laborers. Since coming to the USA I’ve been privileged to attend The Gospel Coalition Conference and the Desiring God Conference for Pastors. What a contrast to the financial conferences I used to attend! Of course, there are differences and disagreements between us, but our shared love of Christ and His grace is more powerful than what divides us.

6. Personal Joys

One of the greatest joys I had as a Pastor was to hear my wife and children being prayed for at every weekly prayer meeting. And I believe that was a reflection of the private prayers of my congregation. Yes, pastors and their families are special targets for Satan, but they are also given a special place on the Church’s prayers.

Pastors have to work long hours. However, it is often forgotten how much time they have with their wives and children. To have coffee-breaks with your wife, and often three mealtimes a day with your small children, what other calling will allow you to enjoy that!

7. Perpetual Joys

Pastoral joys will last forever. Christ’s good and faithful servants will enter into the joy of their Lord (Matt. 25:21). “They that be wise, shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever” (Dan. 12:3).

Although I now teach in a Seminary, I’m thankful for the many pastoral opportunities I still have, both in the Seminary and in the congregations I serve. So, though I still have Monday morning blues, I am still privileged with pastoral joys to strengthen me. Let’s remember the joys, focus on the joys, and value the joys.

With Sunday quickly approaching and sermon prep happening all over the world in anticipation of what God will do this Lord’s Day, it is vital that we remember where the preacher’s power resides.

In his excellent book on preaching Him We Proclaim: Preaching Christ From All the Scriptures, Dennis Johnson unpacks the apostle Paul’s theology of preaching. Commenting on Colossians 1:29, Johnson highlights what makes preaching ultimately powerful and life-changing:

Paul rejoices in suffering and boasts in weakness because both show that in apostolic preaching more is at work than human intelligence or articulateness. Nothing can explain the life-changing effects of the message of the Cross except the almighty operation of God’s sovereign Spirit. Therefore, Paul’s toil and struggle are sustained by “all [Christ's] energy that he powerfully works within me” (Col. 1:29).

In 2 Corinthians 10:4-5, Paul compares the preacher’s task to the siege and conquest of forbidding fortresses: “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.” The strongholds are cleverly defended, deep-seated error that arrogantly opposes God’s truth in Christ. These defenses of the human heart are harder fortifications to breach than the massive walls of unscalable stone that encircled ancient Jericho. Yet, the apostolic preacher has in his arsenal the very weapons that can pierce stone-hard hearts and invade spiritual death with new life: the gospel of Christ, carried forward by the invincible Spirit of Christ. (90)

This is why preachers and listeners go confidently into church this weekend, trusting God to do what only God can do.

At Wrestling with an Angel Greg Lucas shares the lessons in life he has learned as the father of a disabled son. In a recent post, “I love you no matter what,” Greg describes the daily violence he experiences as he tries to care for his dear son:

Almost daily I have to physically restrain my son. It is a physical battle to change his diaper and clean his body. Many times while cleaning and changing him I have been kicked in the face, bitten, smacked, clawed, or hit with flying objects. It is not all that uncommon to come away from a cleanup with a bloody lip or a new scratch.

I must confess that on many mornings I leave Jake’s room dejected, hurt and emotionally drained. And many nights I find myself restraining the violent resistance of a struggling boy by wrapping him in my arms against his will and gently whispering, “I love you. I love you. I love you…no matter what.”

But deeply moving though this is, Greg goes on to describe how it is only his own experience of the unconditional love of God the Father, who keeps on loving…no matter what, that keeps him loving…no matter what.

An unforgettable insight into the love of God for sinners like us is only one click away.

David Brainerd (1718-1747) was a missionary to the Native Americans of New York. He died of Tuberculosis in Jonathan Edwards’ home. Two years later Edwards published The Life of David Brainerd, which consists almost entirely of Brainerd’s journal entries. Brainerd’s Life has been influential on countless missionaries after him. It had a major impact on people like William Carey, Henry Martyn, and Jim Elliot.

One of the instructive elements of Brainerd’s life is how much time he spent in prayer, not only by himself, but with other Christians. For example:

Sept. 10, 1742: In the afternoon, prayed with a dear friend privately, and had the presence of God with us; our souls united together to reach after a blessed immortality.

Dec. 11, 1742: I rode to Bethlehem, came to Mr. Bellamy’s lodgings, and spent the evening with him in sweet conversation and prayer.

Dec. 23, 1742: I rode to New-Haven, and there enjoyed some sweetness in prayer and conversation, with some dear Christian friends. My mind was sweetly serious and composed.

Dec. 26, 1742: In the evening, rode from New-Haven to Branford, after I had kneeled and prayed with a number of dear Christian friends in a very retired place in the woods.

Feb. 17, 1743: In the evening, spent some time with a dear Christian friend; and felt serious, as on the brink of eternity. My soul enjoyed sweetness in lively apprehensions of standing before the glorious God: prayed with my dear friend with sweetness, and discoursed with the utmost solemnity. And truly it was a little emblem of heaven itself.

March 19, 1743: In the afternoon, rode to Newark, and had some sweetness in conversation with Mr. Burr, and in praying together. O blessed be God forever and ever, for any enlivening and quickening seasons.

Observations:

1. Brainerd nearly always reports a vibrant time of prayer when praying with friends. Secret prayer is necessary and important. But we should remember that praying out loud with others is a means God often uses to minister to our souls in a powerful way.

2. Brainerd’s secret prayer was often more lively and focused after spending time together with friends in prayer.

3. Brainerd went as a missionary, sometimes with a translator, but often with no friend but his horse. He was working among tribes with zero Christians. He often struggled with despair and horrible loneliness. I wonder how his ministry or walk with Christ may have been different if he had a like-minded co-worker.

Applications:

1. We should pray together. Every time Brainerd records staying with someone or seeing friends they had “spiritual conversations” and prayed together. How much of our spiritual weakness stems from our silence about God and toward God when we are together?

2. If we don’t have friends that would want to pray with us, we should seek out additional friends. Biblical community is not something we drift into accidentally.

3. We need to ask others to pray for us and with us if we want to grow in Christ or be useful in advancing the gospel.

4. We should pray with missionaries (not just for missionaries) whenever we have the opportunity.

5. We should probably never “fly solo” as Brainerd did the last few years of his life. If you are in a rough work environment, feel alone, or have a difficult ministry (and even if you don’t), you need friends to come alongside you. The American way may be individualistic and self-reliant, but that is not the biblical way.