I’ve worked with building materials for most of my life. When you spend a lot of time with materials, like wood, you start to learn how wood behaves. Wood can twist and crown, it can also split or curl, especially when you apply pressure. You learn that moisture greatly affects wood, causing it to swell or shrink. Wood is dynamic. So are vinyl, copper, and steel. They change with seasons and weather conditions. And because building materials are prone to change, you have to think long-term about them and anticipate the environment and how they will react in warm or cold, wet or dry weather.
I learned this lesson best when installing vinyl siding. You don’t fasten siding to a house, you hang siding. When you first install siding, every instinct in you is to nail the siding tight to the house, but that would be a big mistake. Once the weather changes, the siding either swells or contracts, and every place the siding is nailed tight can’t move. You end up with waves in the siding. It looks bad. You never bury the nail head when hanging siding, you leave the nail head slightly proud, giving the siding room to adjust up or down, left or right, depending on the weather. Hanging siding allows you to maintain a proper look.
Knowing how materials act greatly informs how builders join materials together. Sometimes slack is necessary, but whenever possible, every builder likes to see nice, tight joints. This is especially true if you’re building furniture or doing trim carpentry. A tight, crisp joint is almost a signature for a master craftsman. The tighter the joint, the better the craftsman. But some building materials want slack in the joints, they want room for expansion and contraction. Some things want to be accommodated more than they want to be shaped; that’s just how they are.
When I think about building things, I also think about the church, and when I think of joining materials together, I think of the Apostle Paul. Paul was a master craftsman, and he knew a little something about joining things together. When writing to the church in Corinth Paul said, “According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it” (1 Corinthians 3:10 ESV). God is also a master craftsman, and when Paul described God’s work in the church he said, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10 ESV).
God is a master craftsman who always puts his signature on what he makes. God makes the best joinery and the material he uses when building his church is people. God likes his joints nice and tight and he intends for them to stay together. “What God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:6). The problem is that sinners prefer slack in the joints. We like wiggle room and we often resist conforming to the pattern of godliness, let alone loving the pattern.
Conforming to the Pattern
The process of formation is a part of how God builds his church. God joins things together and shapes his people. Christian formation is a biblical concept that is found in both the Old and New Testaments. Paul’s references to Christian formation in Scripture are frequent and derive from Paul’s use of the verb morphao. This term and its cognates are regularly translated as “form,” “conform,” or “transform.” Paul uses this term with some frequency and in each case, there is reference to believers being formed (built) to better reflect or resemble Jesus Christ in their lives.
Such examples include:
- Galatians 4:19 “my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!” (ESV).
- Romans 8:29 “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers” (ESV).
- Philippians 3:10 […] “that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death;” (ASV).
- Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (ESV).
- 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (ESV).
Jesus is interested in formation, which is why he died. His death on the cross sets us free from the bondage of sin so that we can be transformed and then conform to the pattern of his life and his teaching. That is why Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15 ESV). We are joined with Christ by the Spirit and our job as disciples is to keep a close eye on the pattern that Jesus gives us as we are sanctified and grow in virtue. The church has a responsibility to help others conform to the pattern.
Before ascending to the Father, Jesus commissioned the church with the following, “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age”” (Matthew 28:18–20 ESV). The great commission includes a mandate to observe all that Christ commands, which means paying close attention to the pattern of godliness. Jesus wants his church built in a particular way and he likes his joints tight. So how is the church doing with this mandate? Sadly, not well.
Dallas Willard was a theologian deeply concerned about the lack of formation in the church and among Christ’s disciples. In an article entitled “Spiritual Formation in Christ: A Perspective on What It Is and How It Might Be Done,” Willard makes a remarkable claim. He writes,
Spiritual formation in Christ is oriented toward explicit obedience to Christ. The language of the Great Commission, in Matthew 28, makes it clear that our aim, our job description as Christ’s people, is to bring disciples to the point of obedience to “all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”
Willard goes on to write,
[…] I know of no current denomination or local congregation that has a concrete plan and practice for teaching people to do “all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” Very few even regard this as something we should try to do, and many simply think it to be impossible. Little wonder, then, that it is hard to identify a specifically “Christian” version of spiritual formation among Christians and their institutions.
The mandate could not be clearer. The church must adhere to the pattern, that is the nature of obedience. But most Christians prefer slack in the joints over formation in Christ and obedience to his word. As a result, churches often work to accommodate their disciples rather than form them. How does that happen?
Enter Negotiations
There are several obstacles that impede formation. Some of them are old, others are new. Accommodating individual desires within the church is nothing new. It’s been happening since the creation of the church and was often the predicate for many of the epistles written to the church. Someone in the church in Corinth wanted to have sexual relations in a manner that was not even accepted among the pagans. Despite this sin, they also wanted to be considered within the scope of orthodoxy. Paul had to write to the church and tell them that the Christian faith simply could not accommodate this behavior.
I call this kind of interaction “negotiations.” The church, or members of it, are constantly trying to negotiate to get more slack in the joints. This is usually how it goes. Someone in the church doesn’t want to conform to the pattern of Christ. They think their situation is exceptional or unique, or they believe what they are doing isn’t actually in conflict with the scriptures or the teachings of the church.
When they hear something from the pulpit or Sunday school class that puts their behavior in question, the person usually gets offended, or they suddenly develop “concerns” about the ministry. It won’t be long before they seek out others who may “share their concerns.”
Sooner or later, the concerned party asks for a meeting and their concerns show up at the pastor’s office or at an elders meeting. That’s when negotiations begin. The concerned party is looking for room, they want their behavior or beliefs accommodated, and they want assurances from the leadership that there is slack in the joints. Negotiations like this usually lead to three possible outcomes, depending on the pastor/elders and the concerned party.
Outcome one: Departure. If the pastor is faithful and sticks to the pattern of sound doctrine (2 Timothy 1:13), but the concerned party is highly motivated, then the concerned party starts negotiating the pastor’s removal. Conflict emerges and either the pastor will be run out or the concerned party will find another church that is more accommodating to their wants.
Outcome two: Compromise. If the pastor is open to negotiations, then the conversation usually results in some kind of compromise. The pastor agrees to avoid certain “hot button” subjects and the concerned party agrees to stay, and by extension support the ministry financially, including the pastor’s salary. Slack is introduced into the joints and everybody gets a little bit of what they want, except the Lord Jesus Christ.
Outcome three: Obedience. If the pastor is faithful and the concerned party is teachable, then negotiations can actually be an opportunity for discipleship. If the Scriptures are affirmed for what they say, sin is identified for what it is, and repentance is engaged, then formation ensues. This outcome is a sign of church health. A church that is committed to option three is well on its way to addressing Willard’s concern and developing a concrete plan and practice for teaching people to do “all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”
Getting Slack into those Joints
Sadly, outcomes one and two are far more common in the church than outcome three. The reason for this is that there are several effective levers out there one can pull to help produce slack in the joints. All the levers share one feature in common, when pulled they undermine and weaken the principle of biblical authority.
Modern egalitarianism is an effective lever for negotiating slack in the joints. I’ve written about egalitarianism before. Egalitarianism is a means of trying to rebalance the table and level the playing field. Egalitarianism eliminates distinctions in order to soften obedience. Paul dealt with this phenomenon in his ministry when he engaged the so-called “super-apostles” in 2 Corinthians. The super-apostles were negotiating with Paul to get a little slack. They didn’t want to adhere to his teaching so they elevated their status and tried to diminish Paul’s position as an Apostle. If the super-apostles could successfully demote Paul, then his teachings could be received merely as good advice rather than a command from the Lord.
This phenomenon continues in the church to this day. Often, negotiations include appeals to one’s personal experience or to some level of professional expertise as authoritative. Most often there is an appeal to interpretive authority. The egalitarian spirit wields its interpretive authority by saying, “Well, that’s your interpretation, I don’t read the Bible that way.” This assertion is made to produce a stalemate and to get a little wiggle room in a situation. The liberal church made an art form out of this type of negotiation. It always leads to a compromise of the Scriptures and a failure to obey “all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”
If negotiations are able to produce some distance from the text, the result is slack in the joints and now there is all kinds of space to work. But nature abhors a vacuum so something will eventually enter into the space that’s been created. Space creates room for things like success, pragmatism, and sabotage.
Success filled the void when the evangelical church adopted the church growth model of the 80s and 90s. The church growth model was predicated on compromise and could only be successful if the church privileged growth over formation. The church took that bargain and jettisoned hundreds if not thousands of years of tradition and practice in favor of relevance and winsomeness. In addition, the evangelical church signaled to everyone its tacit commitment to negotiations. A line formed out the door.
You don’t like the hymn book, fine we’ll bring in praise choruses. You don’t like wearing a coat and tie to church, fine, we’ll wear Hawaiian shirts in worship. You don’t like what the Bible teaches about Hell, fine, we won’t mention it again. Negotiations with the culture were in full flower and slack was introduced to every joint in the church. As long as the church was growing, successful, and comfortable the evangelical church would happily accommodate the wobbliness.
But with all this success, we would need pragmatic managers to help run the church. The Bible doesn’t teach you anything about how to run a successful ministry, we were told, or how to build attractive programs. You need skilled managers and “visionaries” for that kind of work. Negotiations commenced and the biblical pattern for “rulers” in the church were substituted with “leaders” from the managerial class.
Alasdair MacIntyre’s magisterial work After Virtue describes the ascendancy of the managerial class, and its weaknesses. According to MacIntyre, a manager is a pragmatist, someone who focuses on achieving efficiency and effectiveness within a given system without regard to a moral or theological framework. A manager leads the church without reference to Christ’s commands. Managers and analysts emerged to help the church be successful, so long as they have room to work. Once there was distance from the authority of the word of God, the environment was perfect for the visionaries, the analysts, and the managers.
But the world is not morally neutral, let alone the church. Something must govern the hearts of men and institutions. If the word of God is not the governing principle of our lives, then what is? Emotions. Emotions are now the governing principle of most people. According to a recent Barna study, “74% of adults trust feelings over facts to discern moral truth, two-thirds reject absolute moral truth, and nine out of 10 embrace Syncretism—a blending of competing worldviews.” Christian formation is not possible when three out of four adults follow emotions over obedience to the truth.
Another lever used to create slack in the joints is sabotage, particularly in the form of relational pressure. Joe Rigney has written perceptively in his book Leadership and Emotional Sabotage about how concerned parties in the church apply pressure to create slack in the joints. Rigney writes,
This is frequently how pressure works in Christian communities. The world puts pressure on Christians to act in a certain way. As a faithful Christian, you don’t care what the world thinks; that pressure doesn’t hit you directly. But Christian A cares. But you don’t care what Christian A thinks, because you think he’s compromised. But Christian B cares what Christian A thinks. But you don’t care about Christian B either; he’s not in your community. But Christian C cares what Christian B thinks, and Christian C is a pastor in your denomination, an elder on your council, a respected member of your community, a close friend. And now he is channeling and amplifying the worldly pressure directly to you. This is an important principle: the greatest pressure comes from those closest to you. This of course is not a bad thing. It’s a good and glorious thing. You ought to care what your fellow pastors think, or what respected members of your community think. You ought to desire their wisdom. Humility demands that you look at yourself with sober judgment and receive counsel from other godly leaders. But you ought to also be alert to the way that this good gift can be hijacked and used to trouble and derail your church, your school, and your community. […]Sometimes the greatest pressure in an elder meeting originates in a fellow elder’s household. He channels the world’s angst and agitation into the meeting, because his wife is channeling it into his home. You can begin to predict a pastor’s sermon application on Sunday by reading his wife’s Facebook page on Friday.
When the process of offering godly counsel is hijacked by a concerned party, it becomes a powerful lever to apply tremendous pressure to create slack in the joints. Whenever the pastor is preaching the Bible and the message is getting a little too close to home, that’s when friends and elders start sharing their concerns. But what I’ve learned is that the presenting problem is rarely the real problem. The actual problem is conforming to the standards of the Scripture in a way that is uncomfortable. The pain of biblical correction elicits a reaction from an individual within the church, or someone close to them, and negotiations begin.
Learning to Love the Pattern of Sound Words
I’ve been invited to participate in a fair number of negotiations during my ministry. The particulars are always unique, but the contours of the negotiations are always the same, and slack is always the desired outcome. People will tell you that you’re being insensitive, impatient, maybe even reckless. They’ll say almost anything they can if they think it will create space. But if you are staying true to the Scriptures, then none of the allegations are true. Their conflict is with the word of God, not with you.
I recently had someone tell me, “We’re not in negotiations because you’re just telling us what to do.” While I understand how it might look or feel that way, the reality is that Jesus is telling his church what to do. Jesus’ expectation for the church is conformity to the pattern and to observe all that he has commanded us.
The pastor’s responsibility is to proclaim the word of God, and the church’s responsibility (including the pastor) is to obey. Today, we have a dearth of pulpits willing to stand on the authority of the Scriptures. Far too few preachers are willing to “follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 1:13).
D. Martin Lloyd-Jones recognized this problem in his slim book Authority. Lloyd-Jones writes,
At this point, in order to make all this practical, I want to emphasize that fact. When the apostle Paul (our great example in this matter of preaching, teaching and evangelizing) went to Corinth, he reached a certain decision. Whatever his reason, Paul determined solemnly at Corinth “not to know anything among them, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” This was a deliberate decision, reinforced by strong determination on his part. In other words, Paul decided that he was not going to waste his time with them in arguing about presuppositions. He was not going to start with a preliminary philosophical argument and then gradually lead them on into the truth. No! He begins by proclaiming authoritatively the Lord Jesus Christ…I have an increasing feeling that we must come back to this. I am not sure that apologetics has not been the curse of evangelical Christianity for the last twenty to thirty years. I am not saying that apologetics is not necessary. But I am suggesting that, with a kind of worldly wisdom, we have been approaching the world on the grounds of apologetics instead of (with the apostle Paul), determining not to know anything “save Christ crucified.” […]We assert Him, we proclaim Him, we start with Him, because He is the ultimate and the final Authority. We start with the fact of Jesus Christ, because He is really at the centre of the whole of our position and the whole of our case rests upon Him. It is to me interesting and rather extraordinary that we ourselves as Evangelicals should ever seem to forget this. I suppose that one reason may be our familiarity with the Scriptures. We are guilty of missing the wood because of the trees. I am convinced that most of our troubles today are due to the fact that we have become so immersed in secondary details that we have lost the main picture. We are missing the whole, because of our interest in the parts. If we could but stand back and just look at the New Testament and the whole Bible with fresh eyes, I believe we would be rather amazed at the fact that the really big claim which is made in the whole of the New Testament, is for the supreme authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. If what they say about Jesus Christ is not true then they have nothing much at all to offer us.
The evangelical church today has to tighten the joints and to do that, the church must return to and cultivate a loving obedience to the Scriptures. The psalmist describes this kind of love as “delight.” Psalm 119 is a love letter to the Scriptures that reveals the psalmist’s delight in the commandments of God. The psalmist writes,
Let your steadfast love come to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your promise; then shall I have an answer for him who taunts me, for I trust in your word. And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for my hope is in your rules. I will keep your law continually, forever and ever, and I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts. I will also speak of your testimonies before kings and shall not be put to shame, for I find my delight in your commandments, which I love. I will lift up my hands toward your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes. Psalm 119: 41-48.
We can’t conform to the pattern of sound words if we do not delight in the commandments of Jesus more than our own feelings, and certainly more than our sin. The best way to fall in love with the Word of God is to spend time with it. Yes, we must read it daily, but more than that, we must meditate on it, wrestle with it, internalize it and understand how it works. There can be no meaningful reflection of the image of Christ in our world without a revival of the word of God. If we don’t love the Word of God and come under it, then our lives will be as warped and twisted as poorly hung siding in a July heatwave.
Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash
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