Solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
In a brief conversation with a young father one day about this book, he raised a common concern found in many Christian homes today. Talking with other parents in his circles, he pointed to the deep-seated desire to uncover some fail-safe parental technique or method that would guarantee a dazzling array of trophies, dean’s lists, mission trips, and upwardly mobile careers. In short, he was looking for a guarantee of success. When life’s routine calamities interrupt these dreams, however, the result is often anger and confusion—a sense of betrayal. Did God not promise that if we followed the steps, kept the rules, and used the instruction manuals that the outcome would be guaranteed? Why then do our kids continue to struggle with their faith? Why do they fail to apply the lessons imparted to them in our homes?
The unvoiced assumption seems to be that the exhortations of Scripture to “train up a child in the way he should go” function like some kind of spiritual software that ushers in automatic transformation. This is a simple but profound misunderstanding of the biblical picture of wisdom. As we’ve seen, our modern world tends to foster the three broad misconceptions in some Christian parents: fear protects, information saves, and spiritual education belongs to experts. Consequently, we regard the surrounding culture with deep suspicion, scan the Scriptures for saving information, and, if we encounter something that eludes our grasp, we seek professionals who can solve the problem for us. Experts rule!
But the biblical understanding of wisdom has to do with more than knowledge. It has to do with skilled living. Presently, we have access to reams and reams of information. Most of us are overwhelmed by the daily deluge of it on our phones. We have no shortage of information and knowledge, but the social fabric of our culture continues to fray. Depression, anxiety, and suicide levels are surging, and mental-health professionals are struggling to address the epidemic. When it comes to information, we’ve got an embarrassment of riches. Yet we still don’t know how to live. If you want a poignant example of the limitations of mere information, look no further than the state of our nation.
To live well is a perennial challenge, and the most common source of this difficulty is not a lack of information, but a conflict of loves. With this in mind, I remember an incident that occurred between my older brother and me when we were boys. Model building was a great passion of mine at the time, and my side of our room was filled with the fruits of my labors. Small planes, tanks, and ships lined my shelves, and I was always eager to add new additions to my small fleet. On this particular occasion, I had nearly completed an elaborate version of the luxury ship Queen Elizabeth II. It sat in the room awaiting the final details of paint and decals. During an argument with my brother, unable to get my way (my good), I got so angry with him, I took his cricket bat and smashed my model into a hundred pieces. At first glance this may look like nothing more than a juvenile outburst. On closer inspection, however, it gives us insight into the complexity of living well.
To clarify this complexity let’s place my competing loves in this story on a gradient scale. On the one hand we’ve got my love of model building. More than a wholesome hobby, the full realization of this pursuit was independent of my own will in the sense that I had to follow the rules to see the project completed successfully. I had to submit to the vision and values of the manufacturer. I was free to deviate from the instructions, of course, but my model would suffer the consequences. Ideally, my will would be in alignment with the microcosmic world of the model. If I wanted to succeed, I had to submit to the rules of its instructions. In this sense, model building required me to move “with the grain of the universe.”1
On the other hand we have my selfish love that prioritizes my own will over everything else. Unlike my love of model building, success in this department does not operate independently of my will. Indeed, as this story shows, the successful appeasement of one’s will often comes at one’s own expense. In this case my selfish love for having my way at any cost outweighed my love of model building, and I satisfied my desire by destroying something else that I loved.
Sadly, this conflict was not limited to model ships, and as I grew older I destroyed items of much greater significance. How many of us have stood in the wreckage of broken relationships and honestly wrestled with the fact that, to a significant degree, we’ve gotten what we wanted? How many of us can look at the damage in our lives and see the incriminating marks of our selfish desires? Think of the psychological acuity of Paul’s remarks in Romans 7:15: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” We can know our basic conundrum inside out, but that’s not enough to stop us from smashing the things we love on a routine basis. We need more than knowledge. We need wisdom and the power to live life the way it was intended.
My own home life had shaped in me a largely unconscious view of life as a struggle. If survival constituted our most noble aspiration, it paid to be ruthless and aggressive. Be the big wolf. At least, that’s what my dad would have me believe. For all its inherent ruthlessness, this worldview was remarkably simple from a moral standpoint. Use your power (and your wits) to get what you want. This basic philosophy had led me to drop out of school and leave home at age fifteen. It then took me to a successful career as a criminal in Glasgow’s underworld. What I failed to take into account was my consistent propensity for smashing things I loved. Just as my powers had led me to demolish my beloved Queen Elizabeth II, so my present desires were frequently inflicting damage on my own life and those around me.
Reading the Bible and meeting real Christians opened up a new world for me by complicating my moral vision. My moral life and my decisions could not be anchored merely in my subjective preferences and feelings; they needed to conform to reality. I came to see that there was an objective, independent moral structure to life, one that demanded my surrender. I needed to not only be challenged but to be changed.
Things grew even more complicated when I joined OM and began smuggling Bibles and Christian literature into communist nations in the late 1970s. In this context the simple sentiments and easy black-and-white judgments of well-meaning Christians in their suburban homes in the affluent West rang hollow amid the panoply of daily deceptions in an irrational, totalitarian regime. Honing in on this strained social dynamic, Czeslaw Milosz points to the need for citizens (and especially state officials) to become expert actors.
Such acting is a highly developed craft that places a premium upon mental alertness. Before it leaves the lips, every word must be evaluated as to its consequences. A smile that appears at the wrong moment, a glance that is not all it should be can occasion dangerous suspicions and accusations. Even one’s gestures, tone of voice, or preference for certain kinds of neckties are interpreted as signs of one’s political tendencies.2
The believers behind the Iron Curtain didn’t even have the luxury of a carefree trip to the grocery store to get the items they wanted. Something as simple as buying coffee required careful prayer and discernment since it was an item that was frequently only available on the black market. Given Milosz’s strained description, such luxury items might also signify Western “decadence” to state officials.
Moral reasoning, I discovered, was complex. My own experience crossing borders with Bibles and Christian books in concealed compartments in our vehicles, facing corrupt police in Eastern European countries and using various forms of dishonesty (hidden compartments, aliases, concealed addresses, etc.) to protect those we were trying to serve alerted me to the need for a more robust discernment and moral imagination. Many situations didn’t come with ready-made answers or simple solutions that could be quickly and painlessly applied. The need, I soon understood, was to learn to cultivate wisdom, discernment, and courage, and this would remain a constant challenge for me.
Wisdom is a neglected topic in a culture that prioritizes technique and methodology. But the idea of a way to live in consistent recognition of God’s presence, under his authority, and for his glory (coram Deo) is vital. The wisdom tradition is designed to help shape skills in living—giving attention to God’s words, being diligent to not let them depart from one’s mind, and keeping them in one’s heart. Why? Because they are life to those who find them and health to the whole body. At the center of all of this is the well-known Scripture that warns us to “keep [our] heart with all vigilance” because “from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23).
Though training and education play an indispensable part, discernment is learned in the practical details and outworking of everyday life. Recognizing the moral complexity of my competing desires was one thing, but navigating the spiritual wasteland of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc opened my eyes to a whole new level of life’s difficulty. My journey of faith also allowed me to observe many expressions of the Christian faith, not only different denominations but also the different ways it’s lived in many different countries. I observed rich treasures and practices in various homes. Deep hospitality and incredible generosity in a Baptist home in Poland. Serious prayer and devotion in a Lutheran home in Germany. Abounding joy and passionate expectation of God’s blessing in a Pentecostal home in Peru. God’s gift of creativity and skills in an Anglican home in India, and I could add more. Each brought something unique, some aspect of God’s truth and work, and over time I learned that I had to cultivate eyes to see the rich tapestry of God’s abundance on display throughout the globe. God was at work in ways that I could scarcely imagine!
Reflecting on Proverbs 4:23, the value of a transformed heart is surely where the Bible leads us. The instruction aims to shape us into the kind of people who can handle any of life’s challenges, whether they involve abundance or scarcity. This aim is evident in Paul’s words to the Philippians: “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need” (Philippians 4:12). Don’t miss Paul’s holistic emphasis here: In a fallen world our “successes” are just as liable to ruin our souls as any form of failure. Think of my former life in the Glasgow underworld. There was no shortage of money, power, and pleasure at my disposal. Yet my success there was nearly my undoing.
Years later, I would experience a dramatic reversal in a prison cell in Eastern Europe. My teammates and I had been apprehended at the border on one of our Bible distribution missions. In short order our heads were shaved, our passports were confiscated, and we found ourselves effectively stripped of all our rights. As terrifying as the situation was, I can honestly say that each of us experienced true joy in that squalid cell. Though each of our personal Bibles was impounded, the Holy Spirit brought a flood of verses to our minds, and we spoke them all out loud. We also sang hymns and thanked the Lord for every bite of prison slop that was delivered to us on our filthy meal trays. This is a picture of what it means to face scarcity with eager expectation and joy. Paul is celebrating the spiritual liberty of being able to endure both need and abundance. In our context here in the West, I think we struggle most with the latter.
But the wisdom of bringing my entire personality under the authority of Christ remained a challenge. I remember being stunned one day as I listened to a visiting friend, David, who was a management consultant. He had been tasked with helping our team in Vienna to work together more effectively. During one of his teaching sessions, he said, “We do what we value, not what we believe.” I was taken aback and immediately protested. After all, we were missionaries deeply convinced of the truth and the priority of God’s Word. We had uprooted our families to live in a foreign nation and devote our lives to its people. How were we not putting what we believed into practice? Our imaginations were constantly being challenged by stories of pioneers who laid down their lives for Christ in difficult places and circumstances. We were also inspired by those who forsook all and went to unreached peoples or translated the Bible or trusted God to do the impossible and reach the most resistant groups or nations. There was an expectancy that God was active by his Spirit all the time and an urgency that we needed to be attentive to his will and his way. At this point I had been walking with Christ for a good number of years, and I assumed the lessons had sunk in and were deeply owned. Yet as David spoke to us, I soon realized I still had much to learn.
With alarming simplicity David pointed out that though we all extolled the virtues of being servants, one of the major sources of conflict among us was the mounting pile of unwashed dishes in the kitchen sink. He also added the usual suspects of gossip and character assassination to the list. The more I thought about it, the more I saw how easy it was to conceal the actual truth of our motives and circumstances. True, we could all hide behind the camouflage of our Christian lingo, but the actual conditions of our office belied a very different set of convictions. This deep-seated penchant for self-deception drew me to the work of the writer M. Scott Peck. In his book The People of the Lie, Peck provides case after case of the creative strategies we use to hide from ourselves when confronted by facts that contradict our perceptions.3 It might be something as simple as the unwashed dishes in the sink.
Peck brought me back to my small Queen Elizabeth II once again. While it was all too easy for me to verbally proclaim my devotion to Christ, this devotion was frequently undermined by the lure of the same selfish love that inspired me to wreck my little vessel with my brother’s cricket bat. For all my spiritual growth since my conversion, I still struggled with the crucial distinction between my own will and that of my Lord. I was still a child, at times, throwing a temper tantrum. I also did not fully grasp the distinction between what I thought was my good and Christ’s superior plan for my life—that these were not always in sync. Indeed, more often than not, they clashed. It was all too easy to embrace a form of simple moralism, where rights and wrongs were easily spelled out and where outward conformity could give the appearance of living in truth. (This issue is particularly pronounced in the North American church.)
The team dynamics in my office were a challenge, but what about my family? As young parents, Mary and I devoted a good deal of our prayers and thinking to showing our children what a life set apart for Christ looks like. We were especially focused on teaching them the distinction between outward appearances and inward realities. Mere conformity was not the goal. We wanted to make it clear to them that the Lord desired their hearts.
In our search as parents for ways to connect our spiritual convictions to everyday living, we found that certain movies and selected TV programs opened up space for discussions on competing worldviews and ideas that often conflicted with or outright denied Scripture. Rather than viewing these competing visions as a threat, however, Mary and I saw them as opportunities to explore the implications of our faith. Cameron calls this practice of unveiling the spiritual realities behind our various entertainments “apocalyptic realism.” We didn’t simply want our kids to consult with sources that cataloged expletives, sex scenes, and onscreen violence. We wanted them to learn to discern between good and evil. In Areopagitica, his celebrated tract against censorship, the poet John Milton argues,
Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice in this world is necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner of reason? And this is the benefit which may be had of books promiscuously read.4
No doubt, this quote might set off alarm bells for some readers, and Milton’s wording is certainly provocative. But note the careful distinction he’s making. He’s arguing that the “survey of vice” and the “scanning of error” is necessary in “this world.” That is, to cultivate a robust moral sensibility in a fallen world, it’s crucial to gain a deeper understanding of the surrounding darkness.
Milton is no idealist, and he knows that true virtue can’t make an appearance amid ignorance. It’s in this sense that Milton distinguishes between “innocence” and “virtue.”5 In Milton’s formulation, innocence is closer to ignorance while virtue constitutes a principled resistance to sin. If someone abstains from illegal drugs because they’re blissfully unaware of the horrors of addiction, we can count it as fortunate, but it wouldn’t be accurate to call it virtuous. Conversely, if someone makes a conscious decision to forgo the momentary gratification of illicit substances in favor of long-term well-being, we can rightly call that virtue.
When Milton asks, “How can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates and hearing all manner of reason?” he makes it clear that he’s not offering a carte blanche with regard to our cultural diet. He’s calling for a safe approach that treads cautiously in the fallen terrain of our world. Mary and I wanted to avoid two tendencies we encountered with great frequency in our cloistered missionary community, namely, a fear-based approach that demonized “secular culture” and a naive insularity that mistook ignorance for virtue.
One particular “region of sin” that constitutes an intimate part of most of our lives is our entertainment. Movies and TV programs offer us the chance to help our kids navigate a cultural landscape that often stands in stark opposition to Christ’s authority. The movie or program in question has been written and produced with specific intent. The layout of the scene, the lighting, the music, the nature of the dialogue, what was included and excluded from the camera—all of these elements are carefully planned. What does it say? What does it leave out? Why does the producer do it that particular way?
These kinds of discussions helped our kids to peer behind the curtain of many cultural assumptions and played an instrumental role in cultivating the skills of discernment. It’s important to point out that neither Mary nor I simply approached these movies and shows with philosophical scalpels; we enjoyed them as well. I could point to the casual nihilism on display in most of our sitcoms without coming across as a legalistic killjoy. After all, I was laughing with everyone else. At the same time, enjoyment need not preclude careful reflection, and I aimed to instill this balance in my children.
One big question bothered us a lot. Why did fear play such a central role for so many in raising their kids? Then as now, Christian parents were afraid of seduction, bad ideas, and the prospect of their kids walking away from the church. These are real issues, and they deserve our serious consideration. We know we live in enemy territory and that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). We know there is dark power in the universe and that the enemy of souls is intelligent, active, and brutal (Ephesians 6:12). The challenge remains for us to distinguish between healthy caution and vigilance on the one hand and reactionary fear and paranoia on the other. A distorted fear may lead to ignorance or outright hostility, but it certainly won’t engender virtue. Virtue requires awareness, and awareness requires discernment.
One of the lamentable byproducts of the fear-protects mindset is its increasingly heavy-handed attempts at control for many parents. If we think that a campaign of constant surveillance and scrutiny will strengthen our kids’ convictions, we’ll be in for a rude awakening. Likewise, a full roster of youth events, church camps, Bible studies, mission trips, and spiritual retreats will also do little to soften a hardened heart. Neither saturation nor separation fosters spiritual maturity. I do not mean to mock or disdain the use of many of these things, which have both value and their place. But they’re not fail-safe methods for spiritual indoctrination. The key issue remains formation.
Let’s call to mind once more the three misguided mindsets that undermine spiritual maturity in so many homes: Instead of cultivating wisdom and discernment, we often work to instill an abiding sense of fear and suspicion of the surrounding culture (fear protects). Likewise, by placing all the emphasis on the right doctrine, scriptural knowledge, and information (information saves), we betray naive anthropology that construes human beings as being defined by what they think rather than what they love. When we encounter the limitations of information, however, we often outsource our children’s spiritual education in the hopes that some specialist can repair their damaged convictions (spiritual education belongs to experts).
All of these mindsets ignore or seriously neglect questions that ought to be answered in the home. Left unanswered, these concerns can then become the roots of doubt. Elaborating on the thinking in his book God in the Dark, I once heard Os Guinness say, “Doubt is a halfway house between faith and unbelief.”6 If we take time as parents to address the doubts our kids are dealing with, it can result in a strengthened and mature faith.
Both Cameron and I have asked struggling parents whether their homes are question-safe zones. Are certain topics simply banished? If we avoid our kids’ questions or, worse, if our kids don’t even feel the freedom to raise them in the first place, they’ll seek other sources of authority to guide them. Other sources and alternatives to the gospel are readily available, and it’s all too easy to find competing ideas and narratives that answer these doubts. The stakes are high.
When my kids were small, most of their questions popped up right before bed. Like many young boys, Cameron was deeply curious about his dad’s past. Rather than conceal the sordid details, I wanted both kids to know that I had once lived as a spiritual rebel. I began by telling Cameron a story of a bad man who was angry and who fought constantly with his parents and then left home to do his own thing. I outlined some of this man’s journey and his determination to live without limits—to live for his own pleasures and will. Cameron was engrossed. I then told him that the bad man was me. I explained how Christ had come into my life, changed me in my inmost being, and how I then sought to follow him. I wanted him to understand that God was not a mere idea to me; he was not a concept, nor was Christianity a moral system to be outwardly conformed to. When I met the Lord of all creation, the result was not spiritual expertise; it was transformation. It all centered on the reality of the living God and his will and purpose for us all. It was a faith that had to be personal and encountered, not mimicked and performed.
To this day Cameron maintains that this was his first genuine encounter with a transformed life. Notice that he didn’t have to travel countless miles to a conference or youth retreat to hear a celebrated expert. He simply laid in bed and listened to his dad tell him of the wonders of his salvation.
I have suggested three crucial pursuits as an antidote to the irrational fear on display in so many Christian homes. First, loving God supremely and making him the center of all your pursuits. Second, cultivating wisdom and discernment in the household rather than reactionary fear. Finally, modeling fidelity to Christ and his Word with consistency so our kids “may see [our] good works and give glory to [our] Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Our devotion must move from a limited domain of the church and religious activities to the place where all of life is seen as the “theater of God’s glory,” to use John Calvin’s phrase. This vision requires that we work deeply and internally on our attitudes and our orientation. Seeking satisfaction and contentment in God is a crucial, lifelong pursuit.
Wisdom is a central feature of scriptural teaching. Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job provide deep pools of insight that should be gleaned, known, and translated into daily life. Our witness then is the visible expression of these truths taken seriously and lived out before God and others. It is summed up in Jesus’s reminder in Matthew 5:13-16:
You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
Challenging? Yes! But we are far from alone: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).