One of the benefits of serving churches on both sides of the Atlantic is the ability to see a culture with fresh eyes, from the “outside-in.” For me, the biggest difference between serving churches in Romania and in the U.S. is in the area of “pragmatism.”

“What Works?”

Church leaders in the U.S. tend to view numerical growth as success and then ask the question “What works?”

Church leaders in Romania, because of their Eastern orientation and past history under Communist persecution don’t find “What works?” a terribly important question at all. They are more likely to view church practices in light of other questions:

• How does this strengthen our identity? 
• Does this build the church? 
• Has this been done before? 

Sometimes, I yearn for the simplicity of Eastern European ministry. Pastoral ministry is stressful anywhere, but the stress in Romanian contexts is almost always connected to shepherding, whereas the stress in American contexts is connected to growing. Pastor Paul Negrut describes the American mindset quite well:

“Numbers have become the fundamental criterion for evaluating success in ministry. But the truth is…fruit that does not remain is not true fruit and brings no glory to God.”

As a result of having served in both contexts, I confess a sense of frustration in both the overabundance of pragmatic thinking in American churches and the utter lack of pragmatic thinking in Romanian churches.

The following statement is a generalization, but there is truth to it. Romanians ponder and sometimes fail to act; Americans act and sometimes fail to think.

There’s got to be a better way, and I believe it can be found in the questions we ask.

It’s Good to Ask Good Questions

Church leaders should always be asking good questions, even pragmatic ones.

In Romania, Christians are used to being the beleagured minority. But sometimes, I wonder if my Romanian brothers and sisters are too satisfied with how things are. Their self-preservation in the midst of persecution can keep them from self-sacrifice for the mission.

That’s why I counsel Romanian pastors to ask some of the pragmatic questions they hear from their American friends. Every church ought to ask three:

1. What does fruit look like? 
2. Are we seeing fruit?
3. What would help us see fruit? 

Americans fast forward to the “what brings fruit” question without having firmly established what true fruitfulness is. But if you skip the first question, you lose the emphasis on true discipleship and wind up with superficial churches filled with unregenerate people. (And don’t be surprised when lost people who think they’re saved don’t evangelize.)

Romanians, on the other hand, are often so focused on the nature of true faith and repentance that they fail to ask the difficult questions related to their effectiveness in missions and evangelism. Moving on to the second and third points (both of which are somewhat pragmatic in nature) can be helpful in evaluating the spiritual state of a congregation.

Precarious Pragmatism

Don’t fall into the trap of making numerical growth the goal, but don’t fall into the other ditch of being satisfied with little to no fruit. Instead, examine what the Scripture teaches about fruitfulness. Then, think like a missionary. Find the best ways to share the gospel in your context. Ask tough questions. Trust God to work.

The supernatural work of a sovereign God in conversion is not a reason to sit satisfied with unfruitfulness, but a reminder to kneel before King Jesus and beg Him for wisdom and passion in bringing the harvest.

During the first few years I spent in Romania, I kept a detailed journal. In recent months, I’ve been revisiting those notebooks, interested to see what I was doing ten, eleven, or twelve years ago on the same day.

Last week, I came across an interesting phrase. A pastor from the U.S. was visiting my university campus. We spent some time talking about ministry and the challenges of mission work. “We talked at lunch for quite awhile. It was so good to see him again. He is an inspiration…” and then came this line, “…and I always feel a bit revived after I’m with him.”

This got me thinking about friendship, and the strengthening effect of spending time with people who are life-giving. I always feel a bit revived…

This kind of feeling can only come from the person who is strong enough to give life without becoming the weaker for it. It’s the person who draws strength from strengthening others.

Sometimes, it seems like the critical person is the one who is powerful. Nagging, criticizing, constantly demonstrating their superiority… these types also exert a certain amount of control over people. But I doubt people walk away feeling “revived.” Rather, they probably feel drained. It’s life-taking not life-giving when you get an earful of everything that’s wrong with something or someone else.

I’m convinced that the stronger person, however, is the one who draws life from giving it, who is revived by reviving others, who is strengthened by strengthening others. The critical friend feels stronger by taking life from someone else. But the life-giving friend knows that true strength is demonstrated by giving life to others.

There are certainly times when friendship requires confrontation, when brotherly love requires constructive criticism. But the life-giving friend manages to offer criticism in a way that strengthens and builds up another, making sure the conversation is motivated by love and undergirded by joy.

What kind of person are you? Don’t analyze yourself; ask your friends and family members, the people who know you best.

Are you the kind of person others would talk about this way: “I always feel a bit revived after I’m with him or her.”

I don’t think I’m there yet. But one day, I hope to be.

I know firsthand the difficulty of learning a new language.

When I first moved to Romania, I spent my weekends in a village where only a handful of people spoke any English. I had a heart for the teenagers in the village, and I knew that my mission depended in great measure on my diligence and determination to speak Romanian.

Early on, I accumulated enough knowledge to think that I could understand about half of what was being said. Actually, my understanding covered about half of the general ideas of the conversation, and that was true mainly because my years of studying another Latin language (Spanish) were finally paying off.

Once, after preaching at a church, I was met at the door by one of the older ladies. I was with a translator, so I thought couldn’t mess up the conversation too badly. I had met with this lady and her husband in their home a few months before, so I asked her how her husband was doing. Tears welled up in her eyes as she told me he had passed away. But instead of understanding that she had spoken of his death, I understood that she was crying because he was near death. So, I answered back quickly that I would pray for God to do a work! The translator looked at me, stunned, and said in English, “Trevin, she said he’s dead!” Needless to say, I started being more cautious about assuming I understood.

Babeling

The difficulty of learning another language made me wonder why there are different languages anyway.

Biblically speaking, this question takes us back to the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. There we see people uniting around a common cause – to make a great name for themselves and build a tower up to the heavens. God, however, will have no part of any empire except His own. So He comes down and confuses their languages so that they scatter across the earth.

[On a related note, isn't it fascinating to see how different languages are a result of our sin, and yet God takes even the effects of our sin and transforms them into something that will give Him praise? At the end of time, God is not going to obliterate all languages. Now He sees the diversity of languages as part of the beauty of His creation. Every tongue, tribe, and nation will praise God. The different languages won't go away. They'll all be in service to praising King Jesus. It's amazing to consider how God will transform even the effects of our sin and somehow put them in service to praising King Jesus!]

Reversal of Babel

On the Day of Pentecost, we see an initial reversal of Babel. God gives everyone understanding so that instead of God’s mighty works being proclaimed in just one language – Hebrew, for example – they can be proclaimed in many languages. O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise!

This is the end of Babel and the beginning of a new humanity.

Instead of people climbing up to God, we testify that God came down to us – not in judgment, but for salvation.

Instead of people gathering in one location to make their own name great, we are now scattering all over the earth to make God’s name great.

Instead of language being a barrier to man’s mission of self-glorification, languages are now redeemed in order for the Triune God’s mission of glorifying Himself to move forward!

Pointers to Pentecost

There are pointers to Pentecost in the Old Testament that we shouldn’t miss.

• This was a celebration of harvest. The crops were ready for harvesting.
• Not only that, the Jews of this time celebrated the giving of the Law to Moses.

At Pentecost, we see the Holy Spirit harvesting hearts, coming into the fields of people’s lives and cutting them to the heart with conviction.

At Pentecost, we don’t receive a new Law on Sinai. We receive the Spirit who will write God’s Law on our hearts.

The Holy Spirit gives us power. These people were filled with the Spirit. They watched as He spoke to ordinary people in their own language.

The beauty of Pentecost is that God wants to receive glory from all kinds of people, and to that end, He ensures that His gospel will be proclaimed in all kinds of languages. It’s easy to stumble over the tribes and nations listed here. It’s a long list of obscure names. But they aren’t unknown to God. He knows every one.

He knows your nation, your city, your town, your neighborhood. The Holy Spirit knows your dialect. He speaks to ordinary people like you and me, prompting us to share our faith, reminding us of what Jesus taught us.

Babel is no match for Pentecost. The nuances of thousands of languages are not enough to capture the glorious nature of salvation through Christ.

You may be surprised to discover just how much your culture determines what you see in the Scriptures.

A great example of this phenomenon is found in Mark Allan Powell’s helpful little book What Do They Hear?: Bridging the Gap Between Pulpit and Pew. Powell recounts an experiment with 12 American seminary students assigned to read the parable of the prodigal son and then recount it from memory. Interestingly enough, not one of them mentioned the famine in Luke 15:14: 

Perplexed, he went to St. Petersburg, Russia, and did the same experiment with 50 Russians. He was shocked when 42 of them remembered the famine. Only 6 out of 100 Americans, but 42 out of 50 Russians.

Second, we should consider how our sermons fall on the ears of others. We must be aware of the social context of our listeners and consider not only what we mean to say but how it might be heard. In order to get our intended meaning across, we must know the people we are preaching to and be able to understand how they hear us.

Powell mentions how Bible readers often remain “oblivious to what they themselves are bringing to the process, unaware that the sorting and organizing of data is influenced by particular factors of their own social location. People who hear our sermons do the same thing – they sort the auditory data, prioritizing, organizing, remembering, forgetting: they create a meaning that seems appropriate to them with little awareness of the extent to which their social location has influenced that process” (19).

Better Bible interpretation and better preaching happens when we keep social location and cultural background in mind: the social location of the Scriptures, of ourselves as interpreters, and of those who hear us preach.

The Southern Baptist blogosphere has erupted in conversation on whether it’s proper to use phrases like “asking Jesus into your heart,” “accepting Christ,” or methods like the “sinner’s prayer” when sharing the gospel. Like many online conversations, this one has tended to generate more heat than light, and I get the feeling that good folks on both sides of this issue may be talking past one another.

This discussion over methods and terms has been bubbling under the surface for a good while now. A younger generation of pastors look out at the state of evangelicalism and are rightly concerned that many people with cultural Christianity in their background cling to assurance they are saved despite an overwhelming lack of evidence of genuine conversion. It’s no surprise that some pastors are blaming the methods and terms that became prevalent in the previous generation. That’s why we hear a pastor like David Platt consider a phrase like “asking Jesus into your heart” to be “dangerous” and “damning.”

The response to this critique has been to trot out the biblical and historical precedent for using such terminology. That’s not hard. The idea of “receiving Christ” is all over the New Testament. It is certainly a part of the good news that we are not only in Christ, but that Christ is in us. Pastor Steve Gaines’ rebuttal to David Platt, for example, focused on the biblical preponderance of such language and how it offers a full-orbed view of what takes place when a sinner places faith in Jesus Christ.

A Global Perspective

The first time I questioned the legitimacy of expressions like “ask Jesus into your heart” was when I was a student in Romania. Several Romanian pastors challenged the use of such terminology. They considered it to be another example of the American tendency to water down the nature of true repentance, and they recommended the use of such phrases only if fully explained. They saw these expressions as distinctively “American” and worried that they did not give sufficient weight to the idea of surrendering one’s life to King Jesus in repentance and faith.

Though some in the Southern Baptist Convention want to make this a debate between Calvinists and non-Calvinists, a broader perspective shows that this is part of an ongoing conversation between Christians in the U.S. and Christians in other parts of the world. The pastors I knew who had concerns with this language were not Calvinistic at all. Still, they were afraid of creating false converts and offering them false assurance. It ought to at least give us pause that many Christians in other parts of the world are uncomfortable with this terminology.

The Real Issue is False Assurance

At the end of the day, the conversation about “the sinner’s prayer” and “asking Jesus into your heart” is not really about the legitimacy of such methods or the biblical justification for using expressions like “having a personal relationship with Christ” or “receiving Jesus.” I believe that properly understood and explained, any of these methods and terms can be used, to good effect. And I bet David Platt would have no problem at all with the careful way that Steve Gaines explains what it means to “receive Jesus.”

The real issue comes down to finding our assurance in these methods and phrases. False assurance is when a pastor says, either explicitly or implicitly, “as long as you walked an aisle, prayed a prayer, or asked Jesus into your heart at some point in time, you’re safe.” It’s the kind of false assurance that doesn’t take into account a Christian’s fruitfulness (as Jesus commanded us to) and tries to convince tares they are wheat. The debate is not really about the usefulness of a sinner’s prayer, but the grounding of one’s assurance in a particular moment in time where one felt remorse for sin, regardless if true repentance was present or later evidenced.

Growing up in independent Baptist circles, I recall how much emphasis was placed on the moment of conversion. Revival speakers would come into town and scare us as teenagers, telling us, “If you don’t remember the when, the where, the how, and the who of when you got saved, you’re probably not. So come down and get it settled today!” Multiple baptisms were good for the evangelist’s PR and dozens of teens getting re-baptized made the church feel good (“Look what God is doing in our young people!”).

Despite the hype, I never got re-baptized. I couldn’t articulate all the reasons why this was wrong, but I knew something wasn’t right. It felt like the shenanigans of these revival speakers put way too much emphasis on a moment in time and not on a life of fruitful faith.

True Conversion

This conversation about our methods and terminology in evangelism is an important one. I just hope that people who share a lot of the same concerns will understand the common ground they have and not impute mistakes to one another.

To my young pastor friends, we are often more apt to express concern about the precision of evangelistic language than we are to celebrate the passion of evangelistic outreach. Let’s not impute the excesses of revivalism to everyone who uses terms that are familiar within that stream of evangelicalism.

To my older pastor friends, please don’t assume that those who critique shallow evangelism are necessarily criticizing you or your ministry. And don’t think that young guys are gun-shy when it comes to evangelism, afraid to call people to personal faith and repentance, or have a problem with a moment of conversion.

Again, the issue is one of false assurance. No pastor wants to stand before God and find he offered false assurance to someone who showed no signs of genuine repentance and faith. We all ought to tremble at the thought.

Meanwhile, is it biblical to ask Jesus into your heart? Absolutely. We ought to say more than this when we evangelize, and our main focus ought to be on the biblical terminology of repentance and faith, but surely it is proper to speak of receiving Jesus.

Let’s just make sure we explain our terms and phrases so that the nature of true repentance and saving faith is communicated clearly, boldly, and graciously. I hope that’s something all of us can agree on.

A couple weeks ago, I posted a review of a new book edited by Robert Plummer, Journeys of Faith: Evangelicalism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and Anglicanism, that chronicles the journeys of four individuals between four Christian traditions. Dr. Plummer was my hermeneutics professor at Southern Seminary, and he is also the author of 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible. Today, he joins me for a conversation about his experience in editing this intriguing new book.

Robert Plummer: As I explain in the introduction to the book, I began to notice a trickle of Evangelicals converting to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy – both from my local church and the seminary where I teach. When I looked for resources that helped in understanding this migration and responding biblically, I had difficulty finding anything helpful. I originally thought about describing and assessing the phenomenon myself but decided that the book would be much more interesting and accurate if recent converts were allowed to tell their own stories.

Robert Plummer: Frankly, I originally did not want to include Anglicanism in this book because Anglicanism is, in some expressions, thoroughly Evangelical. But the publisher convinced me that enough “free church” Evangelicals convert to Anglicanism that it is a related phenomenon we could not ignore. For example, Todd Hunter, former head of the Vineyard movement has recently written a book about his conversion to Anglicanism (see The Accidental Anglican).

Robert Plummer: I have several different hopes for the book, but let me focus on one here – for the Evangelical readership – that it would help us both understand and respond to persons leaving our churches for liturgical Christian traditions. Speaking quite directly… I believe an Evangelical understanding of the gospel, salvation, and the Scriptures is correct. (If I did not, I would leave Evangelicalism.) Yes, I respect persons leaving my faith tradition.

Nevertheless, through the responder sections of the book, I want to lay before potential converts the reasons I think they are making a mistake to leave Evangelicalism. And for those with friends leaving Evangelicalism, I hope this book equips them to make a loving appeal to stay. Chris Castaldo’s riveting account of his journey from Catholicism to Evangelicalism also highlights the strengths of Evangelical claims, I think.

Robert Plummer: Yes, authority is big. Who or what has the final say in matters of faith and practice – Scripture? Tradition? Experience? Or some combination? Obviously, as an Evangelical, I believe Scripture is the final authority, but I also understand the important secondary role tradition plays in all Christian churches – even those that deny they have traditions.

1. Ask questions and listen. Don’t immediately criticize. Try to understand the attraction of Eastern Orthodoxy.  Visit the church they are attending and graciously observe. Admit your own biases and erroneous preconceptions.
2. Read up on Eastern Orthodoxy in places like Wilbur Ellsworth’s and Craig Blaising’s chapters in Journeys of Faith. Another recommended book is Robert Letham’s Through Western Eyes. Eastern Orthodoxy: A Reformed Perspective.
3. Pray.
4. Speak the truth in love.

I love to listen to the testimonies of my American friends who have recently been to Romania to do mission work. They inevitably comment on the prayer practices of Romanian churches.

• The prayer time blew me away!
• I couldn’t believe how much time they spent praying! 
• They are so fervent and passionate in their public prayers!

I always nod, smile, and – with great affection – recall the years I spent serving in Romanian churches that valued corporate prayer. For the Christians whose identities were forged through the fire of Communist oppression, prayer is an act of quiet desperation that manifests itself in bold supplication. I’ve never seen humility and confidence so perfectly married as when listening to (and joining) Romanians in prayer.

Here are five things about prayer I learned from Romanian believers:

1. Prayer is not wasted time.

Prayer takes up a big portion of a Romanian worship service. The typical service on Sunday morning begins at 9:00 a.m. The entire first hour is spent in prayer. Bigger churches open up the floor for spontaneous prayers about various requests. Smaller churches go pew by pew, so that every church member gets an opportunity to pray out loud. This tradition of soaking everything in prayer makes a strong statement: Prayer matters. It is not a waste of time. 

I often struggle with prayer because I am not fully aware of my utter dependence on God. I’m a “let’s get to it!” kind of activist. Prayer often seems passive. The Romanian testimony of prayer challenges me that it is never a waste of time to enter the throne room with our brothers and sisters and petition the King to act on our behalf. This is, in fact, the most effective type of activism for a child of God.

2. We should affirm one another as we pray.

Romanian Baptists pray out loud, one person at a time. But the prayers are never individualistic. The rest of the congregation listens carefully and affirms the requests of the person praying. When the public petitioner asks for something specific, other church members audibly affirm the request.

The Pray-er: “Lord, we thank You for giving us the privilege of coming into Your presence.” This petition is followed would be a chorus of spontaneous voices saying, “We thank You” or “Yes, Lord.”

When the pray-er starts making petitions, “Speak to us this morning, Lord!” the chorus gets louder and more united with their firm “Amen’s.”

Affirming others in prayer is hard for me to do in the United States. It seems like a charismatic or Pentecostal practice. No one else does it, so I’m the odd man out. Still, I miss leading people in prayer and hearing their “amens.” The public agreement in prayer reinforced the corporate blessing of my individual request. I often felt like I was being held up by my brothers and sisters in Christ, that I was lifted up to the throne room while I expressed the desires of everyone’s hearts. Then, when it came time for the next person to pray, it was like coming down and joining the chorus, reinforcing another brother or sister’s requests.

Audible affirmation during prayer is easiest for me when I’m praying with my wife. Affirmation reminds me that praying together isn’t just taking turns. It’s affirming each other’s requests, so that what the other is saying is also being delivered as the cry of our own heart.

3. Prayer is for everybody.

The Romanian church taught me that everyone can pray and that everyone should pray. That means that prayer in church is not the exclusive domain of the man in the pulpit or the church leadership. Men in the pews pray. So do women. Out loud. Children pray softly in their rows. Teenagers pray for their lost friends.

The Romanian practice of prayer embodies the priesthood of all believers. We are all granted equal access to the throne of God through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. This emphasis on prayer from all kinds of people in the church made the service seem like a family. We were there, affirming our mothers and sisters and fathers and brothers in the Lord as they prayed.

4. Prayer can be spontaneous and theological.

Once you make prayer the purview of everyone, you open the door to all sorts of messy requests, right? It’s true. New believers often prayed for odd things, or they mimicked phrases they’d heard that weren’t theologically precise.

Still, the majority of Romanian prayer services convinced me that prayers can be heartfelt, spontaneous, and theological. Head and heart go together. Many Romanian believers unconsciously followed the Lord’s Prayer pattern, beginning with praise to God for His salvation before moving into general requests and ending with specific desires for deliverance. Romanian believers peppered their prayers with snippets from psalms and other biblical petitions.

The cool thing was… no one felt “super-spiritual” by praying this way. It was the way we talked to God. One reason American evangelicals are increasingly fond of written prayers is that our experience has shown spontaneous prayers to sometimes be superficial. It doesn’t have to be this way. When you are immersing yourself in gospel truth, richly theological prayers pour forth from the heart spontaneously.

5. Prayer teaches.

Many churches want to be “gospel-centered” today. We want the gospel to be presented in our songs before the sermon even begins. I’m encouraged by these developments. At the same time, I’m convinced that one of the places we need to push for gospel centrality is in our corporate prayer life.

Prayer teaches. Often times, as I listened to the prayers of my Romanian brothers and sisters, I realized that the gospel was clearly articulated in these praises and petitions. Before the pastor even had the chance to get up in the pulpit, the gospel had been proclaimed through the prayers of the people in the congregation.

Conclusion

I’m grateful for my Romanian brothers and sisters, and for the prayer practices that they taught me. What about you? What are some prayer practices you have learned from brothers and sisters in other parts of the world?

This 10-minute video clip explores the persecution of Christians under Ceausescu’s Romania. It includes video and audio from Richard Wurmbrand, Nicolae Moldoveanu, and more. We in the West would do well to learn from our brothers and sisters who have endured persecution for their faith.

Here are some lines from the latter part of the video that stand out:

• For you, it is not just a prison. It’s your parish.
• God will judge us not according to how much we endured, but how much we could love.
• “Lord, how can I thank you that I am among those being tortured and mocked and that because of your mercy, I was not among those who torture and mock!”
• “With every blow you give, a prayer rises to God so you may be forgiven.”
• Here is the greatest thing: when you see that the man torturing you is more afflicted than you who are being tortured.
• Without love, we are absolutely nothing.

The song “Break My Plans” was composed by a group of Americans as a tribute to Romanian hymnist Nicolae Moldoveanu. The music  video clip below shows a reenactment of Moldoveanu’s journey to prison in Communist Romania. While in prison, he composed more than 360 hymns – all without any instruments, pen or paper.

I wish that many of Moldoveanu’s hymns were translated. Several of them are personal favorites: “Numai harul” (Only Grace), “Dacă ne-adunăm în Domnul” (If We Gather Together in the Lord), “Nu te-ndoi, ci crede!” (Don’t Doubt, but Believe!),and  ”Învață-mă să făptuiesc” (Teach Me to Do Your Will).

In Counterfeit Gospels, I mention Moldoveanu as an example of how we should find our joy in God alone:

The therapeutic gospel makes Christ a tool for getting something else. The biblical gospel says “Christ is all.”

The writer of Hebrews commends his readers, saying: You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one. (Hebrews 10:34) The therapeutic gospel has no category for pleasing God through times of suffering, because pain is always, somehow caused by your own lack of faith. And yet the writer to the Hebrews can commend people for joyfully losing everything because their ultimate treasure was God alone.

What kind of gospel would lead someone to be joyful even in the midst of great earthly loss? Not the therapeutic gospel. Only the biblical gospel that magnifies Jesus Christ as the treasure of greatest worth can lead someone to great joy in the midst of great loss.

The most prolific Romanian hymn writer of the 20^th century was Nicolae Moldoveanu. He wrote thousands of hymns during his long life, composing many of them in prison as he suffered at the hands of the Communist authorities. One of Moldoveanu’s most beloved songs was written just after the police had plundered his home and left him without any belongings. Only someone gripped by the biblical gospel could pen these words. His song (“Ție-Ți Cânt Dumnezeul Meu”) is translated like this:

I sing to you, my God

For your goodness, for your great grace,
I will bless you in whispers and in shouts.

I sing to you, my God,

For all that you have given to me, for your sweet care
For all that you have taken from me,
I worship you with thanksgiving.

I sing to you, my God.

In words I wish to tell you, my song my burning plea,
You are the greatest treasure of all

The following music video of “Break My Plans” begins with these words from Moldoveanu:

1959 was the year when my life was split in two. The work of the Lord needed men who were tested.

Last Thursday, James MacDonald gathered a group of mega-church pastors for a conference called “The Elephant Room.” The sessions featured lively discussion and friendly debate regarding a number of controversial methodological, theological, and practical issues related to church ministry. (See notes here.) One of the most interesting sessions was David Platt and James MacDonald’s conversation on sacrifice and generosity.

David Platt made the case that wealth and money, though not inherently sinful, are dangerous in the hands of sinful people. Our current context of self-indulgence needs to be challenged. Spiritual transformation leads to material transformation. The gospel gives us generous hearts that overflow into radical sacrifice for God’s eternal purposes. When God blesses us financially, He intends us to give to others.

James MacDonald warned that a distorted version of Platt’s teaching equates “poverty” and “spirituality.” Instead, MacDonald believes we need a full-orbed theology of joy in God that includes joy in the good gifts God has given us. Emphasizing radical sacrifice can lead to poverty theology that is all about the immediate divesting of money rather than the multiplication of money that will lead to greater involvement in mission.

The Points of Agreement

The MacDonald/Platt discussion was tense at times, perhaps because the practical ramifications of how we think about money always hit close to home. Still, there are three major points on which Platt and MacDonald agree:

1. Money and possessions are a good gift from God.
2. Money and possessions can become idolatrous.
3. We are called to exercise stewardship of our finances in a way that pleases the Lord and furthers the spread of His name.

The Debate

Even though Platt and MacDonald would “Amen” each of these points, they have diverging views on the particulars of how these truths should be applied. MacDonald believes we need a theology of joy that reiterates point #1. Platt believes we are underestimating the idolatrous pull of point #2. Then, because MacDonald emphasizes #1 and Platt focuses on #2, they have radically different notions about how to apply #3.

I feel the tension of this discussion at a deeply personal level. When I lived in Romania, I wrestled daily with the tension of being one of the “haves” in a world of “have-nots.” Over the course of my years overseas, all my categories were shattered, so that I was confused, challenged, content, frustrated, joyful, and well-meaning at different moments and in different ways. Here are the cycles of my personal journey:

1. Culture Shock at Poverty

When I first began ministry overseas, I was deeply moved by the poverty I noticed. Early on, I wrote an email to family and friends:

You know I am not one to dwell on the bad things or poverty, but sometimes, the situations here can really get to me… Every now and then I wish to be home to just have a good long cry about all the things that happen here. Here, it’s impossible, because it’s almost like you’re in a bubble, and you have to separate your heart from your mind somewhat, just to make it through emotionally. Your mind can see something, but you have to keep it from getting to your heart until you have time to really process what you’ve seen and carry with you the emotional baggage that comes with it.

The longer I was in Romania, the more I realized that even poor Romanian villages would be considered “rich” by the standards of third-world countries. Poverty is defined in so many different ways, and the way we define poverty impinges on how we spread the gospel. Many times, I have asked David Platt’s question: “How do we proclaim the gospel in a world in which utter poverty (no drinking water, starving people, enormous economic needs) is so prevalent?”

2. Culture Shock at Wealth

Upon returning to the U.S. after spending a year away, I was surprised by our wealth. I remember arriving back in Nashville, and asking – in the fog of jet lag – “When did they put a new car lot near the airport?” Dad answered: “That’s just the parking lot, Trevin.” Strange, but after so much time away, my mind couldn’t conceive of the fact that all the new, shiny cars were owned by average citizens. Even now, I remember the feeling I had when I noticed how easy it was to walk downstairs and get a glass of water. After having lived in a village with no indoor plumbing, water from the refrigerator seemed like a luxury.

3. Frustration with Materialism

The longer I looked at the U.S. from the outside in, the more I noticed our excess wealth. Closets stuffed full of junk… credit card debt racked up on frivolities… churches budgeting thousands of dollars to activities that seemed designed more for the comfort of church members than God’s mission in the world… Our priorities seemed so out of line!

And then there was the day I received an email invitation to take a pastor-led cruise with a number of famous preachers. I remember the odd feeling of walking from the computer to the window where I could see homeless Gypsies scavenging through the dumpster outside our apartment complex. The jarring juxtaposition of wealth and poverty frustrated me.

4. Repentance for my Patronizing Attitude

After the period of frustration, the Lord convicted my heart for my superior attitude toward my Romanian brothers and sisters. My initial mindset had been: “I’m the rich American here to help the poor Romanians.” That attitude was unhealthy, anti-gospel, and ultimately untrue.

God opened my eyes to see the problem of dividing people into categories of “rich and poor.” I had the opportunity to serve alongside “poor” Romanians who were doing mercy ministry to poorer people. We prayed as Romanian missionaries went to third-world countries to spread the gospel. Over time, my categories were shattered. Christians are poor in spirit, called to be generous. Forget the categories. Quit patronizing our brothers and sisters, many of whom are richer spiritually than we’ll ever be. We’re united in our service by the cross, not the size of our wallets.

5. Repentance for my Judgmental Attitude

Then, God started in on me from another angle. He exposed my judgmental attitude toward “wealthy Americans.” Though I had looked with disgust at the idea of a “pastor’s cruise,” I eventually realized that this type of vacation was attractive to many pastors – not because they were idolatrous materialists, but because being “inaccessible” on a cruise is one of the only ways they can feel truly “off”. A pastor-led cruise may, for some, lead to rest and spiritual renewal in a way I had not considered. Whatever the reasons, I needed to repent of my patronizing attitude to the poor and my superior attitude to the rich.

Where Do We Go from Here?

One of the most helpful books I have read on the subject of wealth is Neither Poverty nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Possessions by Craig Blomberg. The points that Platt and MacDonald agree on are declared loudly and clearly in Blomberg’s work. We can gratefully enjoy God’s gifts. We must beware of the idolization of wealth. We must give where we want our heart to be.

I don’t claim to have figured out the debate about radical generosity and stewardship. But there are places where I think both emphases could lead to unhealthy extremes.

MacDonald is right that there is nothing inherently spiritual about poverty. But I’m cautious about his statement that financial blessing flows to fruitfulness. Sometimes. Maybe often. But not all the time. I’ve served alongside many pastors who didn’t reap financial rewards, even though they had very fruitful ministries. Conflating financial blessing with fruitfulness can lead to unwarranted appreciation of prosperity-gospel teachers who confuse the two (just as the ancient world did). Christ has set us free from the shackles of “success” defined by the world.

Platt is right that we live in a culture that seeks joy in more and more things. His focus on “radical sacrifice” as the outworking of gospel generosity should be commended. But I’m cautious that Platt’s teaching could be turned into a legalistic, obligatory exercise that leaves little room for the full-orbed theology of joy that MacDonald talks about.

A couple months ago, Platt tweeted: About to coach my first T-ball practice. Scared. Really scared. The next tweet was: Exhausted. Stressed. Filthy. Sore. Glad to be coach. Grateful to be dad. I chuckled when I read those tweets, and I was glad to see them. Why? Because that image of joy-filled leisure and recreation can easily get lost in the “radical” image that comes through Platt’s books, conference messages, and the branding machine of the publishing industry.

Conclusion

The more I think about those three points, the more I am convinced that it’s not a “balance between the three” that is necessary, but a radical, unshakeable commitment to all three.

• We need to pursue joy in the God who gives us good gifts, intentionally basking in His goodness to us, growing in gratitude for His provision, and enjoying His gifts as the good things they are.
• We also need to be radical in our realization of how idolatrous good things can become when they take the throne of our lives. Our commitment to enjoying the good things of life should be matched by our ruthless efforts to root out idols from our lives, to find our satisfaction in God alone, and not just the gifts He gives us.
• In the end, radical stewardship will look different from person to person, from church to church, – but we are all called to be good stewards, to prioritize rightly, to sacrifice for the King out of gospel-soaked generous hearts. Radical sacrifice must always overflow from a heart that is gripped by the gospel; otherwise, it becomes a joyless and fruitless effort of self-righteousness.