Stopping to Think

Bible Study ConversationsOver the years, I’ve had occasion to read through the Bible—in part or in whole—with several folks. And, especially for people who are new to it, one of the concerns they have is an understandable one: how can I understand this great big book? Christianity has been around for two thousand years, and people who claim to be Christian, and claim to value the Bible, disagree over all kinds of issues.And I don’t want to minimize any of that—those disagreements are present, they are real, and sometimes they’re of a sort where even as Christians we functionally can’t worship in the same church.The Plain Things Are the Main ThingsNonetheless, there is a profound level of agreement across Christianity on some really big issues. It’s worth considering here the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, etc. But when it comes to simply reading your Bible at home and trying to understand what it’s saying, here is a simple maxim (not original to me): the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things. When you’re looking at the Bible, yes, there are things that can be confusing, there are things that are hard to understand—and it all matters. God wouldn’t have recorded it for us if it didn't matter. But the most important things are really, really clear. One such verse, that very plainly and very clearly captures the message of the Bible is John chapter 3 and verse 16. It says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”The Reality of GodI think one of the things that's most interesting to me is where this verse starts— it starts in the same place the whole Bible starts: the reality of God. It’s so easy in our thinking and the way that we perceive the world, even if we’re people who believe in God, to begin our thought process with our experiences. Our feelings. We start with the things that we think we know from our life and from what we have learned throughout the course of our life. But the Bible starts with the reality of God. Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created in the heavens and the earth.” Before anything else exists, God exists. He is the ultimate defining reality that stands behind and over everything else that exists. The book of John itself is the same way. Speaking specifically of the second person of the Trinity, the Son, says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” And so God is the starting point of the whole Bible's message. God is assumed as the Creator and the Maker and the Ruler of every one and every thing. And as such, he also is the Judge.God's Love for the WorldBut here in our text, it says that he does something. It says, “For God so loved the world.” He loved the world. He loved the cosmos—the whole world, everyone and everything in it, the world itself, even the literal earth—dirt and rocks and trees and raindrops—is loved by God. And we know this again from the beginning of the Bible in Genesis chapter 1: God made the world and over and over again it says “and God saw that it was good.” And after he makes the man and the woman on day six of creation it says “and God saw that it was very good.” God loves his creation and he most of all loves the people, the human beings, who are the pinnacle of his creation.But I still think it’s remarkable that it says he loved the world after Genesis 1. Sure, God made the world and it was very good. Two chapters later, though, man and woman are tempted by the serpent, and they sin. And in Adam’s fall, the old children’s reader tells us, we sinned all. The Apostle Paul says in the book of Romans that the wages of sin is death. So Adam and Eve were a death sentence—and we, as their descendants, are under a death sentence because of our sin. Further, even creation, the earth itself, is condemned by God because of human sin. Adam is told by God in Genesis 3 that “cursed is the ground because of you.” Romans 8 says that “all of creation groans under the weight of our curse.” It would seem that God would be within his rights as Creator and Judge to look at the the sinful world and zap it and make it—and everyone on it—disappear. Yet it says he loved the world. Even in the Genesis narrative, there with Adam and Eve, he doesn't instantly give them death. Instead of instantly giving them death, he gives them temporary consequences that would lead up to death. There’s a pause, and with that pause there’s also a promise that One would come who would crush that serpent who had tempted them. One would come, who would take care of sin so that they could be reconciled to God. And the Bible’s story afterward is the story of God bringing reconciliation, bringing about a plan of reconciliation between sinful humanity and the Holy Creator God.God Gave His Only SonAnd here in this verse it tells us how that plan culminates. It says he so loved the world, in this way he loved the world—that he gave his only Son. His only Son. As Christians, we believe in the God of Scripture who reveals himself as a Triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit. And God the Father sent the Son into the world. The eternal Word of the Father entered the world. John 1:14 says, “He took on flesh and dwelt among us.” Back in Genesis 3, God himself offered a sacrifice for human sin. He killed an animal and from its skin clothed the man and the woman to cover their shame, their nakedness, there in the garden after they had sinned. And all through the Old Testament there were animal sacrifices which God commanded for the people to offer as an expression of faith in his forgiveness. But while that blood symbolically covers their sins, the blood of those sacrifices—according to Hebrews 10:4—could never take away sin. God allowed it as a temporary covering, an expression of faith, a recognition that sin requires death.But it couldn't actually solve the problem. For our sin to actually be atoned for someone who was actually human—and perfect—had to stand in our place. And so the eternal Son of God became Incarnate. He took on a human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary so that there would be a man, a human being who could stand in our place, who was also God and sufficient to stand not just in the place of one person, but in the place of everyone. So God sent his Son into the world so that when Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, went to the cross, he could be a fitting substitute as a man and a sufficient substitute as the God-man.Salvation Through FaithAnd he did this so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. And the next verse for 17 says, “God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” God desires to save the whole world, to save everyone who believes. This salvation is free and open to anyone. Though we deserve God's judgment, he judged his Son in our place so that if we trust in him, we could have life. And that’s the last piece here that we see: while Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient for everyone, it must be received by faith. You must believe in order to not perish, but instead have eternal life.Friends, you must repent of your sins—agree with God about your fallen condition and willful rebellion against his ways—and humbly trust in the gift of grace he has given in Christ: Jesus bore the weight of your rebellion and sin, and freely offers life if you will trust in him. Place your life—your earthly life and eternal destiny—in the nail scarred hands of Jesus Christ.The Central Message of ScriptureWhat is the plainest thing in all the Bible? Well, Jesus says in John chapter 5 that all of the Old Testament Scriptures—three -quarters of the Bible—is pointing to him. And then, in the gospels, we see four pictures of him coming. Jesus is the central point of the Book, and his work on the cross in our place is the central point of his coming. The central message of the Bible is that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. This is a public episode. 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Prefer to print and read? Here is this article in pdf form.The Fakeness of the MachineThe other day I was scrolling though substack—which feels different than scrolling through other parts of the social internet, but frankly, I’m not convinced it’s any more productive—when I came across this gem of a note by Griffin Gooch:This made me laugh—because it was 1) boring, 2) insipid, and 3) very clearly not the sort of thing Griffin would write. But it did get me to thinking: what would happen if I asked it the same thing? I don’t use ChatGPT, preferring Claude, but I gave it basically the same prompt: write a substack note in the voice of Will Dole. Now, given that I don’t write for Christianity Today or have 4,000 plus substack subscribers, I had to give it a little help by providing links to this site and to our church substack, which has most of the sermons I’ve preached over the past few years. That ought to give an LLM the info it needed on my writing. It still wanted a prompt in terms of topic, and so I decided to be meta and give it the prompt of “thoughts on AI.” And after it combed through my writing and then received this prompt it proceeded to spit out not a substack note-length piece of “writing”, but a full substack article-length piece [this is not that product]. I was surprised by how well it reproduced my style, in the sense of presenting an issue, attempting to come at it from an unexpected angle, and seeking to resolve the issue with principles based on Scripture. It even did some of the Eugene Peterson-inspired allusions to Scripture that don’t directly bear on the topic but that do shed light from a slantwise angle that I try to include in my writing. That was, frankly, impressive. It even was able to predict that the guy who writes Stopping to Think would be more than a little concerned about how we might end up using AI to short circuit thinking. Again, I consider that impressive. But, this much was also clear: anyone who has read more than two pieces of my work, with any level of attention, would surely be able to tell that what Claude had churned out was not my voice. It hit the right topics. Included a lot of the same ingredients. And still felt, basically, soulless. Because it was.What is Writing For?If you asked me, “what is writing for”, my short answer would be: thinking. The use of language to move ideas, concepts, and images from one mind to another is the most human thing possible. Made in the image of the speaking God of Genesis 1, Psalm 33, Isaiah 55, and John 1, human beings are creatures who think and speak. And, though evolutionary biologists disagree, the Biblical record would indicate that, perhaps not from the very beginning, but at least very early in human existence, human beings write. Writing and reading are not natural in the same way speech is. They are skills that must by learned, honed, and developed over time. Though some folks are born with more aptitude than others (as is true with any skill), no one is born reading and writing. The capacity to communicate with words that can go beyond your presence—further than the limits of your voice and ears—is a further extension of this human gift of language. Reading and writing are uniquely human activities. This is part of what makes the outsourcing of reading and writing—be it “content” on a blog, an essay for your school paper, or the idiotic suggestion I read on substack for people to talk to ChatGPT to get summaries of classic books instead of reading them for themselves—so concerning. When the LLM summarizes the data for you, you haven’t had to think and wrestle and chew through it yourself. When you have ChatGPT write the paper, you fail to gain anything from the actual process of reading, meditating, agreeing, disagreeing, articulating, or changing your thoughts. When I’m writing, I’m exploring ideas as much as I am trying to communicate them. In the process of writing, I am gaining clarity on what I think about this subject or that. Even in my sermon writing process, though I prefer to preach without a written manuscript, I will often till write the sermon (or at least key parts of it) in order to make sure I have thought the issue or the statement or the transition through. There are an awful lot of ideas that feel great in your head, until the start coming out of your mouth. Or pouring out before you on the screen or the page. If you outsource that work—and yes, it is work—you’re also outsourcing the clarity and growth that come with it. How I Use AISo, all of that to say, I’m rabidly anti-AI, right? No, not exactly. I’m still grappling with how best to use (or not use) the various AI tools out there. Here is where I’ve landed for now, though.I’m not a Luddite—I’m not completely opposed to all technology invented after some randomly selected date. But I am deeply skeptical. It has often been noted that technologies don’t just give abilities, they actually shape us. They shape the way we think and the way we act. In the case of AI, based on what I wrote above, I would argue that the way many people are using AI is actually reducing their capacity to think clearly at all.The most important thing I do is think. If a tool is functioning to bypass or short-circuit that process, what good is it doing? If the drive to be more “impactful”, more “efficient”, or “more” whatever robs me of the opportunity to be more human, and therefore, more fully imaging my Creator, then is it really moving the ball forward for my life? Is it truly doing my congregation any good if I used ChatGPT to draft a better conclusion to a sermon if that conclusion wasn’t the result of my labor in study and thinking and growth? I would argue that, even if the paragraph is better than what I could have written on my own, we are all worse off (see 1 Timothy 4:14-16).If the whole idea of this newsletter is to ask you to stop and think—how could I, with any sense of honesty, do that if I haven’t first done so? I would rather not post than post and have it feel like a shortcut or a lie.But I still do, sometimes, utilize AI. Here is the line I have drawn: I use AI tools to capture, not create.Here are two examples of what I mean by that.* Very often I have an idea or set of thoughts which I don’t have time to work out in writing. But I want to get them spit out into some usable form or fashion. So I pull out my phone and record a voice note. I then upload that voice note into some form of (AI-powered) voice transcription software. And then, because those software (at least the free ones) often do a marginal job of formatting what they’ve transcribed, I will upload a .txt file of the transcript to an LLM—usually Claude—and give it a prompt something along these lines: “format to paragraph. remove timestamps. retain original wording.” I then treat what it gives me back as a first draft which I go over and rework, reformat, and refine until it’s where I feel comfortable publishing it.In this process, AI has not done any of the creative work for me. It has essentially served as an unpaid amanuensis. I suppose, hypothetically, that some folks would consider the use of an amanuensis to not be real writing. However, if luminaries such as Thomas Aquinas and the Apostle Paul (Romans 16:22) used such scribes in their writing, I don’t really feel out of bounds to call such speaking a form of writing. Further, when I sit down then to edit, I am not simply going over the work of a LLM-generated piece of copy. I’m working over my own thoughts, my own ideas, and—crucially—my own words.Occasionally I have written pieces for this newsletter that way.* The other way I have used AI is very similar to what I wrote above, but with something closer to a finished product. As I noted earlier in this piece, I prefer to preach with either an outline or with no notes—not always, but usually. However, one of the main drawbacks to this is the lack of a manuscript for future reference and use.So, when I upload the sermon audio here to substack (remsenbible.substack.com), I will often then follow the process I outlined above: download the .txt file from substack, upload it to Claude, and then prompt with “format to paragraph. remove timestamps. retain original wording.” If I have time to go over that manuscript and make sure everything is correct, I will post it no differently than if I had written the manuscript prior to preaching. However, I usually don’t have that time available on Sunday afternoon when I’m doing this, and so I put a little notice at the top along the lines of: “this transcript was generated by AI: please let me know if you notice any errors.”I think there is a crucial distinction to be made before an after-the-fact transcript and a before-you-preach manuscript. If my manuscript were AI generated, again, I think I would be cheating myself of growth, my church of spiritual nourishment they would receive as a result of my personal study and growth, and I would feel pretty Acts 5:1-11, Ananias and Saphhira-y about the whole thing. But to record what has already been said? And put it in a readable format? That seems, at least to me at this point, like a blessing of our current technological age.ConcernThat final point is what makes me concerned when I see posts urging places like substack to add “AI free” badges to the work of writers and artists. I agree with the motivation and thought process behind those desires—writers want it to be clear that they aren’t dependent upon machines for their ideas, that their work is, in fact, human. I’m here for that all day long.I also couldn’t put that label on all my work, for the reasons outlined above. And as a result, I think it could create confusion. In the same way that “organic” came to describe a government certification which was expensive and difficult to maintain, rather than a set of practices possible for any farmer to exercise, I worry that “AI free” could come to describe a certain set of writers whose work is subs

Psalm 77:1, I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me. In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord. In the night my hand is stretched out without wearying. My soul refuses to be comforted. When I remember God, I moan. When I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah.In this psalm, the author is crying out to God. He feels abandoned by the Lord. He continues in verses 7 through 9, Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion? Selah.Do you ever feel like God has forgotten about you? Like he's abandoned you? Like he doesn't know that you're even there anymore—or that he does know you're there, and he simply doesn't care?I recently had someone ask me if it’s okay to doubt. To have doubts in your faith. To question the Bible—to even question the character of God. And the response I gave is basically how I always answer those questions: look at the Psalms. Look at how the psalmists speak to and about God. They had doubts. They had questions. They had uncertainties. But they knew where to go with their uncertainties. They went to the Lord. Psalm 77:10, Then I said, I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High. The psalmist is going to go to God and he's going to appeal to the works of God across the years: across the decades of his own life and the centuries of his people’s existence.Is this where you go with your doubts? Do you go interior and ruminate, turning the doubts around in your head over and over and over again? Or do you fix your gaze elsewhere? Friends, the only way doubts resolve is for you to get outside your own head. You must fix your gaze outward—upon God and upon His works.Psalm 77:11, I will remember the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will ponder all your work and meditate on your mighty deeds.The psalmist resolves to think about that which is not inside his own head. He is going to remember the things that God has done. Remember his works from of old and ponder all his works.Do you ponder God’s work—his mighty deeds—in creation? Do you, like David in Psalm 8, look up at the sky and wonder, “when I look at the heavens, the work of your fingers, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” Do you look at the butterfly and consider the God who designed that marvelous creature cares about me?I was just recently on a hiking trip in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and some of the scenery there is simply staggering. I was walking around and thinking—the God who fashioned and formed this magnificent and grandiose landscape is the same God who considers the ant. Whole feeds the fieldmouse. And who cares for me.And what about the good things that God has done in your life? The blessings he has poured your way? Have you considered those, my friend?Think of the words of the old hymn, “Count Your Blessings”, by Johnson Oatman:When upon life's billows you are tempest-tossed, when you are discouraged, thinking all is lost, count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.Have you ever sat and counted God’s blessings when you face doubts?And what about considering the works of the Lord from of old? Do you remember his wonders? Do you consider his works in the book of Exodus: leading the people out of bondage and slavery in Egypt and into the promised land? Do you remember his deliverance of the people of Israel by the hand of a shepherd boy with a sling and a stone? Do you remember the work of Christ on the cross for you?Psalm 77:13 continues, Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God?You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples.You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. SelahHe goes on to recount the way that God delivered his people from Egypt. Is it okay to have doubts? Of course it is. But do not linger in your doubts, nor should you wallow in them. Too many today glory in doubt as if it were some sort of a badge of honor. Doubt is a reality of our human weakness, frailty, and lack of sight. God does not hold these things against us—he remembers our frame, he knows that we are dust (Psalm 103:14). But he does expect us to do something with those doubts. And that something is to bring them to him.The way the psalmist regains his spiritual footing is to reestablished in his confidence in God: to remember—to meditate—on who God is and what he has done.May we go and do likewise. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

This post is part of a series of communion mediations working through the Apostles’ Creed. You can read the creed here. And the previous post here.We believe that Jesus “ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” Why is it important to believe that Jesus ascended and then—wonder of wonders—sat down?The ascension is, of course, simply the plain teaching of Acts 1:9: “as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” Jesus physical body—the one which had died on the cross, and been raised on the third day, and in which he had appeared before the disciples for the previous 40 days was lifted up, up, and away. Jesus had told his disciples that this day was coming and that, though it was going to cause them sorrow, it was a necessary prerequisite to his sending the Holy Spirit upon them, and thus it was ultimately for both their good and their joy that he would leave (John 16:6-7). So we believe that he ascended, because he said he would and the text tells us he did. And this is good news for us, because it was necessary for him to do so before pouring out the Holy Spirit on his followers—which includes those of us gathered here today in Jesus’ name. We are, Paul says, the Temple of the Holy Spirit. This, one of the key features of the New Covenant, could only be true after Jesus’ physical body departed the earth and ascended to heaven.The second part of that statement is perhaps less clear. Why does it matter that Jesus sat down? The book of Hebrews connects this to the exaltation of the Son. Though the Son is coeternal and coequal with the Father, in his Incarnation the Son accomplished our redemption, and is now exalted above heaven and earth—not simply as God, but as the God-Man. Hebrews 1:3b-4, “After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”Ten verses later, the writer to the Hebrews quotes from Psalm 110, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool under your feet.”The author of Hebrews clearly sees that the seated-ness, or session as it has classically been called, of Christ is an indicator of at least two things:* the finished nature of his work. This action of our Lord came after he made purification for sins. He is seated at the Father’s right hand because he, the Word, accomplished the purpose for which the Father had sent him out (Isaiah 55:11).* he has been given the seat of authority. The is the point of the quote from Psalm 110—the place where the Son is seated is the Father’s right hand. (The author of Hebrews will quote Psalm 8 to the same effect in the following chapter). These things are good news for us, and right preparation as we come to the table. Because Jesus is ascended and seated, we can be confident that his work is finished, his Spirit is poured out on all who believe, and we can trust that the One whose death we remember is the One who even now rules and reigns over heaven and earth. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

Familiar Words, Fresh ConvictionMatthew chapter 7 contains many familiar words, but when I read them recently, I found them convicting afresh. Here, towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, ‏ “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)I found these words convicting because very rarely do I find myself asking, seeking, or knocking.Anemic My prayer life could best be described as anemic. This is something many of you—though hopefully not all of you—will sympathize with. I find myself saying, “I wish I prayed more.” And part of the problem is what you just read: the passive voice. Rather than purposefully pursuing prayer, I instead wait for a moment that feels like I should pray, or I wait until it strikes me that, oh, now would be a good time to pray. But that falls pretty far short of what Jesus shows us in these three word pictures: intentional pursuit. I shouldn’t be waiting for a prayer life to fall on my like a lighting bolt from the sky. Instead, the picture Jesus gives is to intentionally pursue a pattern of consistent prayer.God's Character Part of this has to do with motivation. You see that in how Jesus continues with his sermon. Jesus illustrates for his hearers from their own experience. He says, “9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:9-11)What motivation for prayer can we discern in these words?Jesus is pointing his disciples to the character of God. He does this by holding a mirror up—do you give your kids rocks when they ask for bread? Or snakes when they ask for fish? I didn’t think so. Don’t you think God is more loving than you are?We can and we should approach approach our Heavenly Father with confidence because he is a kind and loving Father whose heart is set on giving us good gifts. However, in his divine wisdom, he often does not give those gifts to us when we fail to ask for them.Why Keep Asking?Okay. So we need to ask. But why do we have to keep asking, seeking, knocking? Why isn't one time good enough? Why should I have to keep asking, seeking, and knocking? If God is a kind and loving Heavenly Father, is he also forgetful? Is he busy and needs to be reminded? I mean, that’s the kind of father I am. I have a lot of irons in the fire. My kids ask me something, and I may genuinely have a desire to do good things for them or provide good things for them—but I'm busy. I often have other things on my mind. So, is God like that—you know, he loves us, he cares about us, but he's got a lot on his mind, and so we have to just keep bringing it before him so that he doesn't forget. Is God forgetful like us?It's About Our Memory, Not God'sNo, he is not forgetful. God is not an absent-minded Father. God is not a distracted Father. God is omniscient. He knows all. And he's omnipotent. He is able to handle any and every circumstance. But he also has a perspective that is different than ours. His thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways. His timing is not our timing. His timing is perfect.On the other hand, we are forgetful. Our minds are prone to wander away from contemplating the kindness of the Lord. And so I think part of the reason that he wants us to keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking, is so that we recognize when he answers our prayers, when we do receive, when we do find, when the door is opened. It is only if we have continued to pray that we will understand that this is happening as an answer to prayer.A Personal ExampleA number of years ago, our church was going through some struggles. We were an older church, in terms of attendance demographics. We were going through what turned into a church split. Church split may seem like an exaggeration considering the small number of people who left, but when you're a church of 17 people, it doesn’t take much to feel like a split.In the midst of that, I went back home to visit family. As I was having lunch with my spiritual mentor, a man I consider my older brother in the faith (I mean, I suppose that is a literal description of our relationship, but it really feels that way with Wayne in a way it doesn’t with other people). At that time I told him that one of my main prayer requests was for God to bring one young family to our church. At that time, there was no one in our congregation younger than us. We had one other couple with a kid in high school and a kid in college, but no one else with small children. And I told my mentor I would love to see one other family in church.Stopping to Think is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The Forgotten AnswerFast forward a year: God had brought a young couple into our church. They both came from varyingly difficult upbringings and were working to get established in their own life as a Christian couple. They were seeking to grow in maturity and conformity to the Lord.As I was again talking again with my mentor, almost exactly a year after our previous conversation, I was expressing to him some of my difficulties in figuring out how best to minister to the church as a whole and this couple in particular. And he paused me and said, “Do you remember that a year ago you were asking God to bring a young couple into your church?”My response was both honest and embarrassing—“Well, now that you mention it, I do remember that conversation and I remember those prayers. But I had stopped praying about it, and until now I’d completely forgotten.” Thankfully, I was able to have a conversation with someone who had not forgotten my prayer. But I had forgotten. I had stopped asking, seeking, knocking. And so I was missing the blessing of God that was directly in front of my face.Friends, we need to keep asking, seeking, knocking. Lest we miss his answers.A Practical StepSo practically, what do you do with this? What do you do with this information? I don’t have any kind of cure all, but I will share with you what I have been doing recently. This has not solved all of my prayer problems. But it has helped me immensely as I seek to pursue an intentional prayer life where I am coming before the Lord regularly.Earlier in out marriage, my wife kept a series of names on 3x5 index cards on a ring. And she would flip through those cards and pray for people. I was contemplating that, but it felt a little too abstract to work for me. So, okay, I've got this person's name in front of me. What do I do with it?What I decided to try was to incorporate that practice with my Bible reading and Scripture memory. And so I have those same 3x5 note cards on a ring, and I have the name of the person that I'm praying for at the top. Then, as I'm either working through my Scripture memory or my daily Bible reading with that series of index cards in front of me, I will write the date and the text of Scripture that I was praying over as I thought about that person.And then I flip to the next one. If I'm trying to memorize a verse, I may pray that same verse over numerous individuals. Or if I'm doing my daily Bible reading, I'll just look at who is up next and as I come across a verse that seems to speak to my understanding of their situation or our last conversation or in some other way seems appropriate to pray over that person, again, I will write down the date and the text of Scripture that I prayed over that person, the reference for that text, and then I flip to the next person.I am still playing with how I organize this, but here is what it looks like at the moment: at the front I have my immediate family—my wife and my children. And the next concentric circle out is our church family. And then I have my extended family, parents, siblings, my grandmother, et cetera, along with some close friends. And then the next layer out is employees in our business, then community members, ministry colleagues, other friends and family, supporters of our ministry, and a few churches.In this, what I’m seeking to do is to consistently pray through the people who I have the most contact with in my life. That doesn’t mean this is the only time I'm praying. This doesn't mean that praying for people is the only thing I'm praying about. But what this practice had done is provide some structure and a way for me to reference, back. To say, “here’s what I was praying over this person on this date”, and to think back over what has God done in response to those prayers.Ask, Seek, KnockI don’t think this is a perfect solution. It may not be a universally applicable one, but it is a practical step that I’m taking to try to put into practice this principle of asking, seeking, knocking.Whatever it looks like for you, whether it be 3x5 note cards, or an app on your phone, or a journal that you keep, I want to encourage you to be consistently pleading with the Lord to provide for all of your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.Thanks for reading Stopping to Think! This post is public so feel free to share it.There’s another lesson here about the value of Christian friendship. Another article for another day. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

The One and the Three approach His glory— Behold His splendor, may my heart render Praise Sinful heart and hands from Your Presence banned until I'm made clean. Inner truth seen— Confess Joy! Your mercy more, My heart shall adore— Bless Your name above; Give for steadfast love Thanks With Your word fill me, and let my speech be a word is season— guard me from treason I prayStopping to Think is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

* Give your children work to do* It needs to be real work, not just busy work.* Don’t make excuses for them* That just teaches them to make excuses for themselves* You don’t want that.* Make sure they have enough activities* Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop* And they need to be able to handle adult responsibilities when they get older* Which will be impossible if they spend half their time whining about “adulting.”* Don’t overload their schedule and set a poor, restless, example* Because they also need to realize they aren’t the center of the universe * So if they pause in obedience to God, that is a good thing.* Read together (bet you weren’t expecting that one here, ha!)* Pray together* Laugh together* Be outside together* Listen together to the music you thought was cool when you were young* Then they will grow to love it as well* And you’ll rediscover why you loved it to start with.* Unless it was bad, then scratch that advice.Thanks for reading Stopping to Think! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

This post is part of a series of communion mediations working through the Apostles’ Creed. You can read the creed here. He Rose AgainWe believe that on the third day Jesus rose from the dead. Having just finished the Easter season, wherein we celebrated Resurrection Sunday, we remember that this is the central confession of all of Christianity. Yes, Jesus died in our place. Yes, he bore our sins. But this is only good news because of what came next. Three days after his death, Jesus rose again from the dead. In the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul tells us that it is by virtue of this resurrection that Jesus was shown to be the Son of God in power. Jesus is the Son who saves.His sacrifice was sufficient. When he cried out from the cross, “it is finished,” he was not joking, he was not mistaken, he was not overstating the case.He drank the cup of the wrath of God down to the dregs. He emptied it, and God proved that by raising the physical body of Jesus from the dead. This is good news because all of those who are united to Christ by faith will receive a resurrection like his. This is the point the Apostle Paul made in 1 Corinthians 15, which we read two Sundays ago. Christianity is the religion of Resurrection. We live in a world of sin, we live a life marred and broken and ultimately ended because of sin. But as believers, we have hope for a resurrection. We have hope that one day a perfect sinless body will be reunited with a cleansed spirit, and we as living souls, body and spirit united forever, will live in the presence of the Lord. We know that this is our fate, this is our destiny, this is our future, if we have trusted in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ in our place.This death and this resurrection are what we remember—and what we proclaim—as we corporately join at the Lord’s table, sharing in these symbols of his body and blood.If you don’t know Jesus as your Lord, let the elements pass by. There is no magic here which brings salvation. But there is spiritual nourishment for the child of God who has received the gift of the Spirit through faith in Jesus. And so if you know this hope, then this table is for you. It's where we remember. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

This post is part of a series of communion mediations working through the Apostles’ Creed. You can read the creed here. He Descended Into Hell As we have been for the past several months, today we continue moving phrase by phrase through the Apostles’ Creed. Today we come to a sticky one: he descended into hell. That is a weird phrase. It’s also worth noting that it’s not in the earliest versions of the Apostles Creed. The creed, which began as what we call the old Roman standard, became pretty well standardized in Christian churches by the mid second century. It did not come directly from the Apostles, despite the name. But it did form within a couple generations after the disciples were off the scene, and is a very early summary of the Apostles’ teaching; specifically about Jesus and his life.But that phrase, “he descended into hell,” didn't start appearing with regularity in the Creed until about the fourth and fifth century. But that's still a long time ago, right? For 1500 years Christians have been confessing this, so we should think about what it is driving at. We shouldn't jettison it simply because it seems weird to us.We should ask: what they were talking about? This has been debated since the start. Further Punished?One possible view is that when Christ descended, he spent the time between his crucifixion and his resurrection in hell being punished more for sin.I think we can reject that as flatly false on its face. Jesus says on the cross, “it is finished.” His work was done. I would say we can even go so far as to call this view heretical. It’s not only incorrect, but anti-Christian teaching. It’s in Christian garb, but it contradicts that central element of the gospel: the sufficient nature of Christ’s work on Calvary. GolgothaThe second opinion became popular with the teaching of John Calvin in 16th century Geneva. Calvin, author of the famous Institutes, was one of the prominent reformers in that century. And he taught the hell referred to in the creed is the hell that Jesus endured on the cross. As recorded in the gospels, we find there was a period when the noonday sun went black, and the wrath of the Father against the sin of the world was poured out on Jesus. On the cross, Jesus faced the hell of God's wrath.I get where Calvin is going with that. I think what he's saying is true. Jesus did, on the cross, experience what we would call hell. But I doubt that's what the early church meant by it. The Place of Departed SpiritsAnother option would be to consider this as Jesus descending to the place where departed spirits live. The departed spirits of deceased people, as well as those fallen angels who are no longer allowed to roam the earth.This is a quick—but hopefully not too sloppy—description, but here goes: in the Hebrew understanding you had Sheol, the place of the dead. This was carried over into Greek as Hades. And in Hades or Sheol, there is a place of torment and there is a place of blessing.The place torment is not Hell in the full sense you find in the book of Revelation. Nor is the place of blessing “heaven” as we think of it, it’s not the immediate presence of God. Rather, it's a place where the departed who are righteous go—Abraham's bosom is how they would've thought about it. And so you have these two places. But they're all grouped together in the term Sheol. And, based on 1 Peter chapter three and Ephesians chapter four, many Christians throughout history have thought that Christ descended here to proclaim his victory over those who are in torment—or at least to the evil spirits there.In this view, he’s also proclaiming his victory and he's leading out the captives who had been in a blessed state, but had not previously been in the presence of God. After his death, he takes them to heaven, to be with God, to be in the presence of Christ: to paradise. This, of course, is the very place he had promised to meet the thief on the cross.The GraveThe fourth option is that it's just a reference to the place of the dead. As I said earlier, the Creed doesn't get this line added to it until the fourth and fifth centuries, and it's added in Latin as inferno. Now inferno, to our ears, sounds like a place of punishment. That sounds like hell.But that’s over-reading our modern perception of those words into an ancient text. The inferno is the place where dead people are. This is where dead bodies are. Inferno is the place beneath. And so the Creed could just be reiterating the fact that Jesus was buried—his real physical body was buried. That’s an important concern. It was a major concern of the Apostle's Creed, to emphasize the physicality and the humanity of Jesus. That's why it says he suffered under Pius Pilate. There’s a real historical event that his real human body experienced. Likewise, his body was placed in the ground. Again: I think that's true. But it would be kind of redundant when we've just said was crucified, died, and was buried. ConclusionI think all three of those last options are actually within the scope of orthodox Christianity.If I had to pick one, I would say I leaned towards that third option: that Christ descended into the place of the dead and led forth the captives of death who were at Abraham’s bosom. He led forth those who are now able to be in the presence of God because Christ has paid authoritatively for their sins that God had passed over their sins in the past.They were not suffering for their sins post-mortem, but after three years of living in perfect human obedience, the Lord Jesus now leads the captives into the presence of God. This marks a fundamental shift in the intermediate state for those who have trusted in God for salvation. We might call it a heavenly transition where sinners who have been forgiven are now not only passed over, but are now welcomed into the presence of God.I won’t go to the mat for this distinction. Again, I think options two, three, and four are all within the scope of historic Christianity. But I think option three is probably what was meant by the early church when they said he descended to the dead. And I think it lines up with the broader biblical teaching on the afterlife. All of these things should bring our mind to this: the stunning reality that the Lord of glory set aside his throne and he did endure hell at the cross. His body was buried and souls were brought into the presence of God. This includes those of us who trust in Christ today: at death our spirit departs to be with Christ, which is better by far—because Christ Jesus’ blood was shed on our account.His body was broken for us, and he is resurrected from the dead. Sealing the promise that those things were accepted by God. His sacrifice was an effective and sufficient sacrifice. And for that we should be grateful.This unites us to him—and to one another, as those who are blood kin. Let us celebrate the Lord, who endured hell for us—and who liberates us by his love.Stopping to Think is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

I occasionally like to do a little run-down on those things I’m reading and enjoying…or maybe not enjoying. And in this case, I’ll touch on a little beyond reading as well. ReadingLast year I read Matthew Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft. Sitting with that book was one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I’ve ever had. So for Christmas I put his other books on my wish list. I finally just started reading The World Beyond Your Head, which is part epistemology, part political philosophy, part social theory. Now, I realize I just lost a whole bunch of you, so let me put it in more compelling terms: in this book, Crawford is calling into question whether we really ought to view ourselves as choice-making machines, and whether the shortest route to immediate gratification is actually the route to living a good—or even happy—life. I’m about half-way through, but so far this is the best book I’ve read all year.Come June, I’ll be taking a class on faith communication in a town and country context. One of the assigned books for that course is Tex Samples’ book Ministry in an Oral Culture: Living with Will Rogers, Uncle Remus, and Minnie Pearl. This book was both laugh-out-loud funny and frustrating almost to the point of infuriating. When describing rural people and oral cultures, Samples is great. When telling stories, he’s brilliant. When then turning his gaze to the liberal academics and ministers who are his target audience, he starts speaking is DEI talk that was 30 years ahead of his time. It essentially reads: “you need to understand and be more sympathetic toward oral-culture folks…and then learn to speak their language and use those techniques to show them how backward they are, all in the name of Justice.” Hm. Yuck.Concise Theology has long been a favorite of mine, but I had always just read on a screen with my Logos version. However, when a young man in our church and I started to read through, I purchased the beautiful hardcover edition put out by Crossway in 2020 (linked above). J.I. Packer has an astounding ability to pack enormous truths into small packages—his economy of words is instructive for me both a a pastor and a writer. These chapters are from 1-4 pages long, and cover the gamut of what you would expect from a systematic theology. To grab a representative example, here is how Packer tackles the historically fraught question of human responsibility and it’s relationship to the sovereignty of God in salvation:“It is worth observing that will is an abstraction. My will is not a part of me that I choose to move or not move, like my hand or my foot; it is precisely me choosing to act and then going into action. The truth about free agency, and about Christ’s freeing sin’s slave from sin’s dominion, can be expressed more clearly if the word will is dropped and each person says: I am the morally responsible free agent; I am the slave of sin whom Christ must liberate; I am the fallen being who has it in me only to choose against God till God renews my heart.” (Concise Theology, 102)Stopping to Think is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.ListeningI listen to a number of podcasts on a regular basis, and try to make audiobooks a steady part of my travel diet, as well. I recently finished listening to Christianity & Liberalism, by J. Gresham Machen. Machen, the founder of Westminster Theological Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, wrote this book over 100 years ago. But friend, let me tell you: it feels as relevant today as I’m sure it must have to his contemporaries. His main argument is this: the “liberal Christianity” of the early 20th century was not a new type of Christianity, but was, in fact, a different religion altogether. He was right then, and he’s right now.I’ll link the Youtube version below, but I’ve been listening on Apple Podcasts to Andrew Huberman’s six-part series with Matt Walker on the subject of sleep. I’ve been trying to get my sleep figured out this year, in an effort to be more alert and productive during my waking hours—and to hopefully be less disruptive to Andie’s sleep…Huberman and Walker’s discussion is really helpful (though I only listened to about 45 minutes of the final session, on dreams…that failed to hold my interest). The biggest takeaway for me has been to work toward a consistent go-to-sleep and wake-up time, as well as establishing an evening pre-bed routine to help myself wind-down. Which is to say, I’ve been drinking more tea in the evening and reading more by lamplight.WatchingI don’t watch a lot of TV or movies. But I did recently watch a documentary, as well a Russel Crowe movie, that I have a few thoughts about.Some generous friends purchase an annual subscription Canon+. There is a lot of great stuff on there, but my favorite thing we have watched lately is a documentary on the self-proclaimed “lunatic farmer”, Joel Salatin. Salatin has long been someone I’ve found interesting, as my political and life proclivities veer distinctly toward what Rod Dreher once termed “Crunchy-Con.” Watching the story of how, using regenerative agriculture techniques that are often associated with the “nutty” left, this evangelical Christian farmer has restored health to a landscape in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley is truly inspiring to me. It seems like a logical and beautiful example of Genesis 1:26-28 at work. It’s available on Canon, but also on Angel, to which I’ll link here.It had been a hot minute—by which, I mean way over a decade—since I had watched Master and Commander. I thought my boys were going to really enjoy it; however, I think the realistic war imagery was a little much for them yet—it’s different to watch boys not much older than them fighting against men than it is to watch elves fighting orcs, I suppose. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it more than any movie I have watched in a really long time. Here are three quick reasons:* Well-shot. This movie is beautiful and sweeping in it’s presentation. It also makes you feel like you are aboard HMS Surprise.* Patriotic tension. There is a palpable tension between the two main characters: Captain Jack Aubrey (played by Russell Crowe) and the ship’s surgeon, Stephen Maturin (played by Paul Bettany). Crowe is patriotic in the classic sense—duty toward king and country. Maturin is idealistic (I do not mean this in a negative sense), and cares about the how and why of what they do—though one sometimes wonders if his ideals are completely realistic with the early 19th century. But it seems to fit. (As an aside, I couldn’t help but think of a similar dynamic between the characters played by John Wayne and William Holden in John Ford’s 1959 movie, The Horse Soldiers.) There often seems to be an implicit paradox when it comes to executing a mission—are the methods we’re using compromising the character of the mission itself? This movie does a great job of helping you feel and consider that tension.* A picture of leadership. As implied in the name of the movie, Aubrey truly is master and commander of his ship. He is in command of every scene he enters. Crowe’s presence as an actor fills the screen, and that is symbolic of Aubrey’s filling the room or the deck. But this isn’t a command that is merely based on hierarchy and rank. As is seen in one tragic subplot (which I will not spoil), this authority is achieved via competence. Also, and again this may seem a paradox, but that authoritative competence is also the basis of true rapport. How many leaders (or parents) seek to build rapport by being buddies with those in their charge? But that is not the model here. Rather, we see excellence in the given task—in this case, fighting naval battles—building trust. And the men will love a man they trust, to the point of following him to the far edges of the world. His leadership is also, notably, one of words. I just listened to a fascinating conversation between Aaron Renn and Tanner Greer, in which one of the topics of conversation was how well-trained in elocution were the leaders of past centuries. Which is to say, if you were a public leader, or someone who aspired to such a role, you learned how to use words. Specifically, you learned to speak clearly and persuasively in public. This truth is on full display at multiple points in this film, when the Aubrey character leads through the words he speaks. Not in long or flowery discourses: but in clear, direct, and rousing words.And that last point reiterates a point the Aubrey character makes in one discussion toward the latter part of the film: men must be led. That truth is illustrated beautifully as we spend time aboard the HMS Surprise. And it’s one our world desperately needs to embrace today.So, that’s that. A little window into a few of the books, podcasts, and movies that are helping me to stop and think here in this spring of 2025.And if you’re still reading, let me add one more book for you to consider:Thanks for reading Stopping to Think! This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

Tonight our church comes to the sixth of Jesus’ seven saying from the cross: “It is Finished.” This is the text of that sermon.It is FinishedWhy is Good Friday called “good”? How could the day of the history’s greatest crime—the unjust execution of the only innocent man to ever live—be a “good” day? The answer is found in three simple words which Jesus uttered from the cross: “It is finished.” We find those words in the nineteenth chapter of the gospel according to John.In John 19:28-30 we read,After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of the sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”I want to meditate for a few minutes this evening on those words in verse 30—“It is finished.” To what, exactly, was Jesus referring?Public MinistryWe can see, first of all, a reference to his earthly ministry. Jesus’ outward, crowd-facing, ministry was completed at the cross. Though Paul mentions Jesus appearing to over 500 people at one time after the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15), this seems to primarily be as evidence of his victorious resurrection from the dead, not a continuation of the teaching and healing ministry which he had initiated some three years earlier.Even before the cross, Jesus’ focus had shifted from the crowds and onto his immediate followers. John 17:9, “I am praying for them [his disciples]. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” Just before this, in John 17:6-8, we read: “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.”Jesus had come to make the Father known, both through his actions and his words. Though no one had ever seen God the Father, Jesus made him known—one of the great themes of John’s gospel (John 1:18). He did this, to be sure, through his powerful actions, but those actions were generally meant to illustrate and validate the authority of his words. Thus we read in John 5:19-20,“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.”At the point Jesus spoke those words in John 5, he had turned water into wine, healed a man’s sick son, restored a man’s ability to walk after he had been lame for 38 years. And Jesus would multiply signs of power over the physical realm: feeding the five thousand, walking on water, healing a man born blind, and raising Lazarus from the dead. John tells us that these are but a small part of a list so long that, were it all written down, the whole world could not contain the books (John 21:25). But all of these mighty works, all of this powerful, authoritative, and God-revealing teaching, were but the tip of the iceberg. There was greater power to show, greater love to demonstrate, more of God’s character to be revealed.Jesus’ public ministry was completed before the cross. His public teaching, which had led to this moment, was finished before he hung there. His public miracles of healing and provision, these, too, were completed before the cross. Something else was completed—finished—as he hung there on that tree.Lifted and PlantedIn John chapter three, Jesus makes a cryptic-seeming statement to Nicodemus. In a reference to Numbers 21, Jesus reminds Nicodemus of the time that God sent fiery serpents into the midst of the people of Israel. He judged them for their complaining spirit when they grumbled against God and his servant, Moses. After many of the people died, and those who lived began to repent, God told Moses to lift up a bronze serpent, and that all who looked upon that serpent—lifted up—would live. Jesus told Nicodemus that the Son of Man would be lifted up in the same way. Lifted up on a pole, a staff: a tree. As the serpent, the source of death, was lifted high, so sin would be lifted high as the Son of Man was raised on a cross.Jesus uses another metaphor when speaking to Andrew and Peter in chapter 12. After telling them it was his time to be glorified, Jesus said in John 12:24, “Truly truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Does a kernel of wheat, or a grain of corn, sitting in a silo or a seed bag do anything? No. But if you put that seed in the ground and it dies—it ceases to be a seed and is utterly transformed—it produces much fruit.What connection does the lifted serpent have with a planted seed? And in what way is either image glorious? In the image of the serpent lifted up, what we see is the source of death lifted up so that all who looked upon it would be saved. And in the analogy of the grain of wheat we find a life buried in death: hidden from sight, that it might produce abundant life. This is a strange kind of glory. Death lifted high, life buried in the ground.And as perplexing as it is to us, it was that troubling to Jesus. So we read in John 12:27, “Now my soul is troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.” What Jesus was about to endure was apparently so troubling that he considered asking for it to be removed. In fact, Luke records Jesus doing just that. “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42)But the Father’s will, and ultimately that of Jesus himself, was to follow through with their eternal plan. Indeed, as we read, for this purpose Jesus had come to the hour of his betrayal and crucifixion. He came to be lifted up and then planted, to be crucified and buried, that the Father might display his glory. So we read in John 12:28, “Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”The crowd didn’t recognize the voice of God, but I imagine it must have been reassuring to Jesus in that moment to have God’s voice audibly confirm the truth of everything he said.How was God glorified in the death of Christ? A key component, one we can’t overlook, is the glory God receives when sin is judged. And there, on the cross, Jesus cries out “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). The Son forsaken by the Father as the Son was made sin (2 Corinthians 5:21) and judged. In a very real sense, the cross became the full expression of hell.But why would Jesus be the one who bore this wrath of God, his judgment against sin? Shouldn’t God give that punishment to us, the creatures who deserve it? Here we find help from the words of Jesus in John 15:13, “Greater love has no man than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” God is love (1 John 4:8). And that love comes to full display when Jesus lays down his life for his friends.We each are under a death sentence for our sins, but if we will become Jesus’ friends, if we will trust in him for the forgiveness of our sins, the pardon of our guilt, and embrace him as our only access to eternal life with the Father, then that death on Good Friday transforms from being the worst tragedy in human history to being the greatest gift ever given. The glory of Jesus, and thus the glory of his Father, is on full display at the cross because there is no clearer picture of God’s love for you. And when Jesus had paid the full price, fulfilled the prophecies, absorbed the wrath of God against human guilt, he had three simple words: “it is finished.” And with that, he gave up his spirit.As we’ve noted a couple of times in recent weeks, it’s important that Jesus “gave up” his spirit. He said in John 10:17-18, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” Jesus voluntarily laid down his life for his sheep. Are you one of his sheep? Have you listened to his voice calling you to accept the gift of his death in the place of your sin? Will you give up on loving sin and calling your own shots - a path that Jesus calls darkness, and that leads to eternal separation from God? Hear the words of the Good Shepherd - “it is finished.” He’s paid for your sins, you can lay them down. He has provided perfect righteousness, having died to sin so that you might walk in newness of life. Your old life can be finished. Is the shame of your past too much for you to bear? “It is finished”—he takes the shame away. His death was for you. And he calls us to embrace his death as our own.One writer put it this way,He hell in hell laid low;Made sin, he sin o’erthrew;Bowed to the grave, destroyed it so,And death, by dying, slew.Jesus died for you. He did it for his own Joy: the joy he experiences by having purchased sons and daughters for God. He did it for his Father’s glory: for on the cross the justice and love of God were on full display. And he did it for you, that you might be forgiven, and reconciled to God. Jesus paid it all. “It is finished.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

You can read the original article here This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

You can read the original post here:Stopping to Think is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

The original post: Thanks for reading Stopping to Think! This post is public so feel free to share it.Stopping to Think is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

Today I’m reading from this piece in my newsletter backlog:The part which I am reading was inspired by this Substack post by Samuel James This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

The original post:Stopping to Think is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

Before you read anything I write - this really is more important:Cards on the TableThis is a newsletter post about preaching. Obviously, my target audience here is other pastors. But I hope it will be instructive for any believer as they consider the practice in their own church (especially if you are in leadership and have the structural/institutional ability to effectively encourage faithfulness). For members of our congregation, Remsen Bible, hopefully this serves as an encouragement that - right or wrong - there is a method to what I am doing week-by-week.Stopping to Think is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.I about to recommend my pattern. To which I must say—well, I wouldn’t follow this pattern if I didn’t think it was right. But, follow me only insofar as I follow Christ. And the apostles’ preaching. And, to some extent, your own gifts and preferences. I’m done caveating. Consecutive ExpositionThe meat of the preaching ministry in our church is consecutive exposition. I love to preach the Bible, and I think this is generally the most faithful way to approach preaching God’s word. Why do I love consecutive exposition?Here are a couple of personal reasons:* personal growth. As believers in Jesus Christ, we grow in relationship to Christ largely, though not exclusively, through growing in our knowledge of his word. And being regularly immersed in the same portion of Scripture, the same book of the Bible, over the course of weeks and months (maybe years) gives you a depth of knowledge that you won’t gain from bouncing around all of the time. It’s how the texts were written - each thought building upon the last - and we do well to absorb them in the same manner. As I prep to preach, then, I am marinating in that text. And so, I grow.* simplicity of planning. I think any pastor benefits from forward planning, but I feel this acutely as a bi-vocational pastor. When I am working consecutively through a book, I never have to wonder what to preach next week. I take this a step further, by planning how those sermons will break down. I try to chart all the way through the next year or so. Every 4ish months, I sit down and look at my Service Information Spreadsheet (I keep the file name prosaic so I can remember it), think through where I’ll be going in the next year, and make adjustments as needed. Would this hypothetically be possible with other styles of preaching? Sure. But it’s a lot easier when working consecutively through a particular book. Further, I feel confident that even if my mood changes, or my thoughts on certain subjects change, Genesis 14 is still going to be there on November 10th, and so I will still be able to find the point of the text and write a sermon from it. Those are a couple of personal reasons for consecutive exposition—it helps me grow, and it helps me plan. Here are more important reasons for the congregation:* the whole counsel of God. The apostle Paul communicated to the Ephesian elders that he had not shrunk from proclaiming to them the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27). Now, he did this in a pretty short time frame (three-ish years). So, in some sense, he must mean that he got the whole point of the Bible across to them in that time. He clearly didn’t do line-by-line exposition of all 39 OT books in three years. Nonetheless, if a local church pastor is going to commit to teaching the whole counsel of God, he would do well to establish a practice of consecutive exposition. This is because such a pattern means you don’t get to skip the hard, confusing, or potentially offensive passages. Even if you take for your text a fairly long passage, you are putting yourself in a position where people will notice if you are skipping hard or offensive bits. That’s a helpful check on the natural tendency many of us have to duck away from hard issues. The whole of God’s word is profitable for teaching, reproof, and training in righteousness. So put yourself in a position where you have to cover the hard stuff. * Providence. An overlooked advantage of consecutive exposition is the providential ordering of events. Some will advance the “inflexibility” of this method of teaching as a way of criticizing it pastorally. Don’t we need to be sensitive to the current moment, preach to what people are thinking about right now, or otherwise let outside factors shape the content of our preaching? I’d submit that such “sensitivity” to the moment actually misses how universally relevant the word of God is. To use a very simple and recent example from my preaching calendar: I didn’t preach an advent series in 2024. Instead, I kept trucking through the book of Genesis. So on December 15th, we were in the first part of Genesis 18, considering Sarah’s laughter at the promises of God. That might not seem like a very Christmas-y theme, and therefore tone-deaf to the moment. However, as I prepped the sermon, it occurred to me that a useful contrast for Sarah would be Mary in Luke 1. So, in seeking to illuminate the meaning of Genesis 18, I was also able to help the congregation think usefully about an important aspect of the Christmas story. Examples like this could be multiplied, but the point is simple: God always has something to say from every part of his word. Therefore, we don’t need to panic about “will this be relevant?” You can just preach the next passage and trust that God is going to say something helpful and eternally relevant to his people from that text.* grasping the movement. Consecutive exposition also forces me to think biblically-theologically. I’m always asking “how does this passage fit into the broader context of the book it’s in, and the Bible as a whole?” This is a very important tool for helping our congregations understand the whole Bible. Now, bad expositions can extract the text from its context and treat the passage at hand as if it exists in isolation, but I think this is less of a temptation if I am constantly in the headspace of a particular book. Incidentally, I believe this type of thinking is spurred more consistently when I am reading widely in the Bible, while focusing my intense study on one place (Genesis, for instance). * topically. Finally, before I start talking about topical preaching, I think it is important to bring this up: consecutive exposition often brings up important topics which I would otherwise duck, or perhaps more likely, simply would not occur to me. God’s word truly is comprehensive in the way it touches human life, and when we work our way systematically through the text, we will encounter topics which often surprise us, and will surely surprise our congregations.So, that is my partial argument for the superiority of consecutive exposition as the regular preaching diet for your local church. But: there’s a difference between saying something ought to be the main staple in your diet, and saying it’s the only thing you should ever eat. Because I think there is a good argument to be made for intelligently deployed topical preaching as well. there’s a difference between saying something ought to be the main staple in your diet, and saying it’s the only thing you should ever eatThe Dangers of Topical PreachingI grew up in a church where consecutive exposition was the norm, and have run in those circles my entire adult life. We tend to make fun of topical preachers. But I don’t want to simply ridicule. Rather, I want to recognize the real perils that lie on the topical side of the road:* It’s easy for the topical preacher to have his priorities shaped by a vapid and secular calendar. If I were going to line up some sacred cows for slaughter here, I’d point out that Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Independence Day, and Valentine’s Day are not Biblical holidays. “Back to School” is certainly a time of year, but is it so spiritually significant that we ought to structure our preaching calendars around it? It’s ironic that many pastors who would mock liturgical churches for following an “unbiblical” traditional church calendar (which is designed to reflect the life of Christ and cultivate attention to that life), will then willingly let their churches and preaching be shaped by unbiblical and even, sometimes, anti-biblical holidays. To make this point more concise: the topical preacher is in greater danger of being driven by his culture, not the Bible.the topical preacher is in greater danger of being driven by his culture, not the Bible* Further, topical preaching is often dependent upon the cleverness and current learning of the preacher: which means it will be both narrow (his interests/hobby horses) and shallow (limited by his knowledge - or perhaps, in a large church, the abilities of his research team). The plain fact of the matter is that to consistently come up with new topics and ideas that are both interesting and well-executed in terms of content and style is far beyond the capacity of your average preacher. Most guys can’t pull it off in a way that is well-done, whether in regard to research or delivery or both.* Most of my growth as a preacher, in terms of my biblical knowledge, comes through exposition, and sitting with unfamiliar texts, or familiar texts that I didn’t know as well as I thought I knew. As a pastor, my congregation’s growth is largely (though not completely) tied to my own growth. If I learn less in topical preaching, then to make that my regular practice means I’m putting our whole congregation on the hamster wheel of my current state of knowledge. That seems like a foolish method of feeding God’s sheep. We’ll all starve.The Usefulness of Topical PreachingHaving flagged those dangers, I still want to advocate for a measure of topical preaching in the church. Here’s why, pastor, you should preach topically: your people need you to.That’s a very broad-to-the-point-of-being-completely-useless statement, so let me flesh it out a bit.* The first category of topi

I read today a piece from Samuel James over at The Gospel Coalition, which made me think of this piece that I wrote here last year. I’m reading it today on the podcast. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

This post is part of a series of communion mediations working through the Apostles’ Creed. You can read the creed here. The previous post can be found here.He Suffered Under Pontius PilateWe believe - that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate.” Now, if you are familiar with the gospel narratives, this part of our confession in the Creed isn’t exactly a newsflash. Pilate plays an important role - he was, of course, the one who had legal authority to have Jesus executed (John 19:10). But, when we’re looking at the creed - speaking, as it does, of the very core matters of the faith - doesn’t this reference to Pilate feel a little out of place? What is it doing here? This reference to Pilate, random though it may seem to us, is very important: it locates the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus at a real point in time, it emphasizes the historical fact of Jesus’ work on our behalf. Liberal theologians of the 19th and 20th centuries wanted to extract the “unimportant” historical claims from the Bible, in order to leave us with the “spiritual truth.” You can see a similar impulse in the work of a secular scholar like Jordan Peterson today - he thinks there is all kinds of truth in Christianity, but he isn’t quite willing to submit to the truth of Christianity.But the creed won’t give us this easy way out. Similar to the argument of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, where he appeals to the more than 500 witnesses to the resurrection, the creed reminds us the crucifixion is a real crucifixion, which took place under a real Roman procurator, and led ultimately, to a real resurrection from the dead. Friends, if this work of Christ in our place did not actually happen in space and time, then our faith is in vain, our hope is in vain, this is all meaningless and silly.But it did happen. Jesus did suffer under Pontius Pilate. But Pilate was not ultimately the one responsible, his authority was given by those higher up - higher up in Rome, but ultimately, by God the Father in heaven. As Jesus said John 10:18, “no one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” Jesus suffered under Pilate not, ultimately, because Pilate was a weak and evil ruler (though he was that). Jesus suffered under Pilate because this is why he had come into the world. To seek and to save - by his suffering - that which was lost. Jesus laid his life down at Calvary for you and for me. And because of this, all of those who trust in his sacrifice in their place are promised participation in his resurrection life. We are bound to him, and in that binding, we are also bound to one another. This is what we celebrate in communion - that Jesus really did lay his life down for sinners, and that he really has made us one through the blood of his cross. It’s a historical fact: you can bank eternity on it.Stopping to Think is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe

This is not a typical Stopping to Think post. I’m planning to re-start some of my story writing efforts this year, and I’ll post some of those in this feed, as they will - in content, if not style - fit in with a lot of what I normally touch on in this space. However, this is a little story I submitted to “The Dole Weekly”, the newsletter that my oldest daughter has occasionally put together in our home. She graciously accepted this submission, and it was originally published there in 2023. I retained the copyright, however, and now share it with you. It is, as noted above, a silly story. From: Will DoleTitle: The SkunkIt was a cold and rainy November morning in the Sandhills of western Nebraska. School started at 8am, and I had to check my trapline before school, in case there was any skinning to do. If I had enough fur in my traps, I might be able to talk dad into letting me skip school to skin racoons and muskrats all morning instead. Who needs another history lecture, anyway?This particular morning I ate my oatmeal and was out the door by 5:53, which was better than my goal of 5:55. Those extra two minutes come in handy when you have to peddle your bike through the mud while wearing hip waders.I didn’t have anything in the first two cubby sets I had made along the north bank of Spring Creek. Then I crossed to the south side of the creek and checked the three footholds I had set at places where trails entered the water. Still nothing. After I had passed 10 more unsuccessful sets, I finally came to my last set, and I was just praying I hadn’t been skunked.I came around the corner, checking a cubby set I had made right where the creek flowed into the North Platte River. Well, I guess I didn’t get skunked. Or, to be more accurate, I had been skunked - there was a great big double striped skunk, held firmly in place by the number 2 Victor which was guarding the entrance to that cubby.Needless to say, I wasn’t quite prepared for this scenario. I walked slowly up behind the trap, hoping the furry friend wouldn’t see me and spray before I thumped him in the head with the branch I had in my hand. It was all going well, I had closed the distance from 25 yards down to about 6 feet. I was just going to take one more step before I took a swing when I heard him hiss and lift his tail…I had never run so fast in my life, but it sure didn’t matter. I was so covered in skunk essence that the teacher sent me home from school, and wouldn’t let me come back for a week. I was hoping that would mean some extra fishing time, but it’s supposed to snow tomorrow.Stopping to Think is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit willdole.substack.com/subscribe