Calvin on Faith as a Ship at Sea

I came across the following quote from a John Calvin sermon while I was preparing my own sermon on 1 Timothy 1:19-20. In the passage the Apostle Paul warns young Pastor Timothy against forgetting the goal of Christian ministry, which is a life of love driven by clear faith and both positional and practical rightness with God (see 1:5). If the goal is forgotten, one suffers “shipwreck” of faith, a vivid image of utter disaster and death, employed to describe when someone seems steady in Christ but then proves their unsteadiness by leaving their faith. 

Calvin’s admittedly long quotation is as follows: 

What is human life, and what is the whole of its course? A navigation. Not only are we travelers, as the Scripture tells us (1 Pet. ii.11,) but we have no solidity. They who travel by land, either on foot or on horseback, have still their sure and firm road; but in the world, instead of being on foot or on horseback, we must be, as it were, on a sea, and have no solid footing. We are like people who are in a boat, and who are always within half a foot of their death; and the boat is a sort of grave, because they see the water all around, ready to swallow them up. Thus is it is with us, while we live here below. For on the one hand, there is the frailty that is in us, which is more fluid than water; and then all that surrounds is like water, which flows on all sides, while at every minute winds, and storms, and tempests arise. Let us therefore learn that our life is but a kind of navigation, which we perform by water, and that we are, at the same time, exposed to many winds and storms. And if it be so, what shall become of us when we have not a good boat or a good pilot?*

This profound set of insights is well worth extended meditation, but I’ll only note a few items. First, Calvin rightly notes that Paul, in the 1 Timothy passage, takes the frequent biblical illustration of the believer’s life as a journey, and adds that the journey is like a sea-journey, navigated by boat. Journeys at sea are at least by some measures much more dangerous than other modes of travel. Water, which we need for survival, can also easily be the means of our death. And, as Calvin notes, we live our lives surrounded, as it were, by water all around, with no apparent solid footing as though we were on land. As such we step and are shaken, sliding a bit, living ever so close to our demise. Storms rise, tempests come, all threats to the boat’s integrity without which we will easily sink into the deep, and drown. Isn’t it the case that, as Christians, we can’t walk with faith and fruit apart from Christ keep and empowering us? Without him we’re like a boat with no navigator. But I’ll get back to that later. Suffice to say that we do experience all manner of trial, suffering, pain, and fear, even as we look to Christ.

Second, note that the frailty is both outside of us and inside of us. Yes it’s a storm outside, but there’s also a world of ungodliness within us: “Their throat is an open grave” (Rom.3:13); “Out of the heart come evil thoughts” (Mk.7:21); “Your passions are at war within you” (Jms.4:1). Even if the sailing is smooth because the “weather” becomes serene, we still have the inner storm of sin, pride, anger, unforgiveness, covetousness, etc. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child (cf. Prov.22:15) and since we remain God’s “children” all of our days (1 Jn.3:1-2), it ever applies to us for the duration of our days. Thus we are to take heed if we think we stand, or else we’ll fall (1 Cor.10:12)—we might make ourselves fall even if the boat is steady. While I understand the monastic impulse (think monks and nuns) because it means separation from the world and its darkness, I also know that there’s plenty of darkness and worldliness in my own heart that I can’t really escape it. 

Finally, note Calvin’s takeaway question: Since the faith journey is like a boat on the water, what will happen if it is not a good boat or captained by a good pilot? Remember that this quote is from a Calvin sermon, not a book. It seems then, at least to me, that this was Calvin’s pastoral question to his congregation about the state of their sight of Christ by faith (the pilot) and their commitment to stick with him regardless of the danger, outcomes, etc. (the boat). If we have Christ the Pilot as well as a clear commitment to trust him with the ship, we’re safe: “He who calls you is faithful” (1 Thes.5:24); if we’re looking to him and sticking with him, committed to truly die to ourselves and take up the cross daily, the dangerous journey to the Celestial City will be a success. But the question remains, are we looking to him? Are we living our daily lives bearing the cross? As you look at your own life, are you sure that Christ is the pilot of the vessel? And do you make the conscious decision every day to take up the cross, and live crucified to the world and the world to you? Liberal folks, as far as I can tell, are usually in love with the present world. But conservative folks are often in love with the world of yesterday, drowning in nostalgia, wanting to go back. Is that any better? 

But let’s think about cross-bearing a different way. Ask yourself this question: How much do you depend on your habits, your phone, your social media, your “me-time” every day? Do you get grumpy if any of it is threatened? I do! And I have to remember this life is not about my plans and my wants, but Christ’s plans and Christ’s wants. In discipleship, a good ship is under the handle of a good captain. Here the good ship is submission to Christ, and the captain is Christ himself. 

Jesus calls us to see our lives as such a ship journey, him leading us through the darkness, storms, and sea, as we trust him to get us home in the end. May we love where we’re headed and love the one who loved us first and is taking us there. The ship will arrive safely in harbor, with much wear and tear, but nevertheless, still floating and safe in the hands of its able Pilot.

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*The quote is from a Calvin sermon, and is footnoted in his commentary to 1 Tim.1:19 in his Commentaries on the Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, translated from the original Latin by William Pringle (Baker Book House), 47.

Tozer, and a Post-Easter Caution

“To the early Christians, Easter was not a holiday…It wasn’t even a holy day for them. It wasn’t even a day at all. To the early Christians, it was an accomplished fact that lived with them all year long. They did not celebrate his rising from the dead and then go back to their everyday lives and wait another year. They lived by the fact that Christ has risen from the dead and they had risen with him.” -- A.W. Tozer

Tozer (1897-1963) couldn’t have summed up my post-Easter caution any better. It seems at least on the outside, that we modern church folks relegate the cognizance of Jesus’ resurrection to Easter. I wonder if it's because we’re not really living with it in our sights the rest of the year? To the early Christians, Christian life was resurrection life. Paul’s whole ministry was driven by his apprehension of “the resurrection of the dead” (Ac.24:21), that is, “the resurrection of both the just and the unjust” (24:15). 

Why did the resurrection matter so much? Because death came through sin, and God, who can “make alive” (Deut.32:39) promised his people that he’d one day swallow up/abolish death (Is.25:8). The effect of this abolition is a resurrection of humanity from the dust of the earth (Dan.12:1). Ezekiel saw it imagined figuratively at the valley of dry bones, where the pile of dead peoples’ bones come back together to form a living army for the Lord (Ezek.37). Behind all of this, the promised messiah would bear the peoples’ sins and death, after which he would then “prolong his days” (Is.53:11-12), suggesting that the resurrection everywhere else promised comes by him, to be given out to others. 

So the apostles’ message is that Jesus is the New Adam who takes our sin at the cross along with sin’s judgment (death), and then rises from the dead to give his resurrection to us. Paul, then, centered his preaching ministry around Jesus, who is “first to rise from the dead” (Ac.26:23), the “firstfruits” of the resurrection (1Cor.15:20, Col.1:18). The reason Paul was so committed to this is that Jesus’ resurrection was “the promise made by God to our fathers” (Ac.26:6), vivified to Paul when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Paul couldn’t help but preach it, since his life had been re-centered on the risen Christ. Christians, likewise, are those who’s lives center on and flow out of the risen Christ. 

So to the early Christians everyday was supposed to be Easter: Our life is lived in union with the risen Christ even now: Being reconciled to God by the death of his Son, now much more we’re saved by his life (Rom.5:10). His life in us is our very hope of making it to the new heavens and new earth (Col.1:27). How could we relegate the resurrection to one day out of 365, when Jesus’ risen life is the very fuel of our own hope for life from the dead? What would everyday life look like for you if every day was Easter? To be a Christian is to believe, contrary to external or even internal pressures, that it is.

Palm Sunday and the Point of No Return

In preparation for my fifteenth Palm Sunday standing in a pulpit, I was reminded of a particularly lucid quote from an oft-used passion week commentary. On Palm Sunday Jesus enters Jerusalem as a king riding on a baby donkey, and is heralded by crowds with the very words of Psalm 118:25-26, which ask the Lord for his messianic salvation, rejoicing that he’ll provide in due time. For crowds to praise Jesus as the king from David’s line who fulfills these words would not have only been controversial. It would have been treasonous. Here they’re saying Jesus—not Caesar—is king. And Jesus, who often would deflect such treatment because it wasn’t yet time for him to be treated as king (cf. Jn.6:15), here receives the treatment as appropriate. 

Reflecting upon this Andreas Köstenberger and Justin Taylor conclude:

The whole city is shaken by the events, and the crowd keeps spreading the word to any in Jerusalem who have not yet heard who Jesus is (Matt.21:10-11). Some Pharisees instruct Jesus to rebuke the crowds for their dangerous messianic exuberance, but he refuses to correct or curtail the excitement of the crowd over his entrance into the city (Matt.21:15-17; Luke 19:39-40). It would be hard to overestimate the political and religious volatility incited by Jesus’s actions—the Pharisees were taken by surprise and had no idea how to respond (John 12:19). Up to this point in Jesus’s ministry, he could still have managed to live a long, happy, peaceful life but his actions on Sunday set in motion a series of events that could result only in either his overthrow of the Romans and the current religious establishment—or his brutal death. He has crossed the point of no return; there would be no turning back. Caesar would allow no rival kings.*

Imagine what must have stirred in Jesus’s heart as he rode the colt, treated with praise by a crowd likely mixed with true believers and unbelievers who are just subject to that day’s zeitgeist. The latter would, in a few days, call for his crucifixion. Was Jesus smiling at people? Was he looking at them with a broken heart because he saw their fakeness? We know that he then weeps as he enters Jerusalem (Luke19:41-44). We also know that when the religious leaders told him to tell the people to stop praising him, he responded that if they stopped, the rocks would cry out (Luke 19:40). So he’s engaged in the moment, then gets emotional when approaching Jerusalem, understandably so. 

But whatever was going on internally, this Sunday was no normal Sunday, and neither was it the typical bright, celebratory and somewhat chipper Sunday that precedes the darkness of Good Friday. No, this, as the quote above said, was the point of no return. To receive the label of promised King from David, and to do so with signs that reflect both Solomon (1 Kn. 1:33) and a newly anointed king of Israel (2 Kn. 9:13), was to challenge the (divinely-appoint) establishment and say, “This whole creation, from the Emperor of Rome down to the scum on the public bathroom floor, is mine, for the purpose of glorifying me.” Jesus knew what he was doing, and that his kingship would soon include with a painful crown of thorns, and a throne from which he’d hang until his breath gave out.

So I don’t know what he felt and thought as he rode. But I bet the heaviness was beginning.

 

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*Andreas Köstenberger, Justin Taylor, The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014), 32. 

Piper on Anxiety and the Promises of God

Where I live it is currently deep winter. There are about 18 inches of snow on the ground outside, and the temperature hasn’t risen above freezing all week. There is supposed to be more snow coming this weekend. 

Now let me be clear: I very much enjoy winter. Snow is beautiful, and I think American life is so hopelessly busy that the slow-down of winter storms is a healthy thing. It’s also basketball season, to which I look forward all summer. 

But it’s no secret that the short sunlight days, long hours inside, and relative isolation has a depressing and angst-producing effect on many people. Whether it’s some sort of seasonal anxiety or depression thing or whatever, the majority of winter, following Christmas, can be a hard time of peace for many. 

So I was especially struck rereading through a section of John Piper’s monumental Future Grace today. I call the book “monumental,” because I think that if only one of his many books is still being read generations from now, if Jesus doesn’t return before, it might be this one. The chapter in which this section comes is entitled “Faith in Future Grace vs. Anxiety,” and in the chapter Piper does well to show the reality of fear and anxiousness all of our lives, and how it is in those moments that we learn God’s nearness. 

For example, the psalmist says “When I am afraid, I trust in you” (Ps.56:3). As Piper shows it is not “So that I’m not afraid, I trust in you,” but “When I am afraid.” It is in the moment of fear that there can also be trust. Consider also Peter’s words, “Cast all your anxieties on him (Christ), because he cares for you” (1 Pet.5:7). There is never promised a time when there won’t be anxieties; but there is definitely promised the ever-present nearness of Christ in those times, so that we can cast our anxieties onto him.* Indeed, he is an ever-present help in time of trouble (Ps.46:1). 

So, Piper concludes the chapter with an excellent list of Scriptures he recites to himself in times of particular anxiety. See, we’ll fight unbelief all the time: Abraham followed God despite his unbelief (note that no unbelief made him waiver in following God, Rom.4:20, which must mean that he had some unbelief in the first place. But he didn’t let it win). But we fight the unbelief with God’s promises, and therefore we “live not by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God’s mouth.” Here’s Piper’s helpful list for particular anxieties: 

-For some risky new venture, Is.41:10: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for 

I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” 

-For the fear that ministry will be useless and empty, Is.55:11: “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” 

-For weakness in work, 2 Cor.12:9: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 

-For hard decisions, Ps.32:8: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.” 

-For facing opponents, Rom.8:31: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

-For our children’s well-being, Matt.7:10-11: “If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” 

-For fear of sickness, Ps.34:19: “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all,” and Rom.5:3-5, that “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, for God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” 

-For fear of getting old, Is.46:4: “Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save.” 

-For fear of dying, Rom.14:7-9: “None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.” 

-For fear of making shipwreck of faith and falling away from God, Phil.1:6: “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ,” and Heb.7:25: “He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.”**

By such promises, Piper says, we make war with our own unbelief. Armed with God’s loving, Fatherly promises, we can be confident, because as Luther famously wrote, God “must win the battle.” 

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*John Piper, Future Grace: The Purifying Power of the Promises of God, rev. ed. (New York: Multnomah, 2020), 54.

**Ibid., 58-59.

Christ in Home Alone?

Via Twitter/X, from Jeremy Wayne Tate: 

Annual reminder that Home Alone is a Christian movie.

Watch this scene (where Kevin enters the church) very carefully, where Kevin is drawn to the beauty and warmth of the church. As he walks inside to "O Holy Night", he hears the words "Fall on your knees, Oh hear the angel voices!" A sanctuary candle passes across the foreground, indicating that Christ is present inside the church. Kevin then has an encounter with a Christ figure: Old Man Marley. Kevin makes a confession to him, then shakes his hand and we see a bandage on Marley's hand. It's never explained why his hand is wounded, but earlier in the movie we saw that his hand was actually pierced ALL THE WAY THROUGH — like the nails driven through Christ's hands on the cross. At the end of the movie, Kevin cannot save himself from the burglars, and so Marley appears again to rescue him. Home Alone is a Christian movie.

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Interesting thoughts that I've never considered, but it seems like either Chris Columbus (director) or John Hughes (writer) wanted to place a sort of gospel easter egg into the story. Being Christ-obsessed I get the impulse to want to find Christ in everything. But being a little OCD, I also want to be careful not to stretch too far. This construal of Home Alone seems un-forced because it's so robust. 

A little later in the twitter/X thread, a user named BeachComber replied: 

Interesting. Kevin has the only truly Christmas experience in the film, as for the rest of his extended family it's all consumerism and travel and the 'holiday season'. So Kevin's loneliness and abandonment brings him to a faith experience, which is the message of Christmas. 

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My hope is that if the holiday season is a little lonely for you, you'll have a sense of Christ's drawing near to you to draw you near to him. That's what Christmas is about: Christ comes to us to bring us to him (1 Pet. 3:18). And you're included. 

John Owen on Christ in the Old Testament

I’m sharing a quote from John Owen’s awesome little book The Glory of Christ. This book has long been available as a Puritan Paperback (hereafter just "paperback") from Banner of Truth trust, but has more recently been included in Crossway’s new Complete John Owen Works. Personally—and probably to your surprise—I’m partial to smaller books, so I appreciate the paperback. 

The quote below is long, spanning an entire page of the paperback. Here Owen, arguably the greatest protestant theologian of the 17th century, shows us a mature understanding of Christ’s presence in the Old Testament. To me, reading Owen is like reading CS Lewis: Much of what I find is challenging to my assumptions and presuppositions. But as I process it and give it time, I find that I agree with it. Before I know it, I’m listing the book in which I found the challenging quote as a personal influence. I think the below quote, typical of Owen’s mature theology but atypical of (even early) modern theology’s shallowness, is a worthy example of my point. 

In expounding “The Glory of Christ Under the Old Testament,” Owen says: 

The glory of Christ was represented and made known under the Old Testament in his personal appearances to leaders of the church in their generations. In these appearances he was God only, but appeared in the assumed shape of a man, to signify what he would one day actually be. He did not create a human nature and unite it to himself for a while. Rather, by his divine power he appeared in the shape of a man. In this way, Christ appeared to Abraham, to Jacob, to Moses, to Joshua and to others. 

Further, because Christ was the divine person who dwelt in and with the church under the Old Testament, he constantly assumed human feelings and emotions, to intimate that a time would come when he would assume human nature. In fact, after the fall everything said of God in the Old Testament ultimately refers to the future incarnation of Christ. It would have been absurd to represent God as grieving, repenting, being angry and well-pleased and exhibiting all other human emotions, were it not that the divine person intended to take on him human nature in which such emotions dwell. 

The glory of Christ under the Old Testament was (also) represented in prophetic visions. So John tells us Isaiah’s vision of the glory of the Lord was a vision of the glory of Christ (Isa.6; John 12:41). ‘The train of his robe filled the temple’ (Isa.6:1). This symbolized the glorious grace which filled the temple of his body. This is the true tabernacle, which God pitched, and not man; it is the temple which was destroyed, and which he raised again in three days, in which dwelt the fullness of the Godhead (Col.2:9) This glory was revealed to Isaiah, and it filled him with fear and astonishment. But by the ministry of one of the glorious seraphim, his iniquity was taken away by a coal from the altar, which symbolized the sacrificial blood which cleanses from all sin. This is food indeed for the souls of believers.**

Note just a few things: First, to Owen many Old Testament theophanies (appearances of God) were in fact Christophanies (appearances of Christ). When God appeared in the shape of a man—think Jacob’s wrestling match God (Gen.32), Abraham’s sight of the three angels of the Lord (Gen.18), Moses’ sight of God in the burning bush (Ex.3) as well as his time speaking to God on the mountain (Ex.33-34), and Joshua’s conversation with the commander of the Lord’s army (Josh.5)—it was actually Christ showing himself in a form like he would one day appear. Thus the idea of an incarnation should not have seemed off-limits to the scribes of Jesus’ day, nor should it seem odd to the scribes of our day. 

Second, note that Owen subsumes the Old Testament’s teaching about God’s “emotions” under the prophetic scope of Christ’s eventual coming as a man. That is, the fact that God was “sorry” that he made man (Gen.6:7), or “regretted” making Saul king (1 Sam.15:10) doesn’t indicate that he experiences emotions the same way that man does. And truly he couldn’t, since he a) prophesies his wrathful response to sin (Deut.31:17) meaning that he is in utter control of his wrath, b) doesn’t change but remains the same (Mal.3:6), and therefore, c) is not like man in having regrets (1 Sam.15:29). Rather, these examples of God’s “emotions” were intended prophetically to point to Christ who would one day come as the radiance of God’s glory in human body, with emotions the same as man, yet without sin. Just see Jesus' exasperation with his generation (Matt.17:17), and his emotions over Jerusalem's unbelief (Lk.19:41). In these moments we see God the Son responding to the world's sin as the antitype of God's earlier prophetic "emotions" toward Old Testament sin. What an interesting explanation for God’s emotions! 

Finally, note that to Owen the heavenly glory which Isaiah peeked (Is.6)—which the Apostle John very clearly states was the glory of Christ himself (Jn.12:41)—was itself a type of God’s glorious gospel. Isaiah saw heavenly temple glory as a type of the fullness of God’s filling Christ in his coming to earth (Col.2:9). The touching of the coal to Isaiah’s mouth to atone for his sin was a type of Christ’s working to atone for our sins in fullness. The reason such a vision of glory must be thought of as an accommodation is that God dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim.6:16a), and no one has seen or can see God (Jn.1:18, cf. 1Tim.6:16b). So it must be that Isaiah’s sight of glory was an accommodation to his senses. Owen’s reading of it as a picture of the gospel is not only appropriate but unavoidable. 

As you can see, Owen read the Scriptures as a witness to the Incarnation of God the Son in the person of Jesus. Owen’s world was a Christ-centered world, like it was for the church fathers all those generations ago. Truly, the world is Christ-centered; it is only for us to labor to see it. But as we meditate on the types of things Owen says above, we find our blurry eyes beginning to see a little more clear. And indeed this gospel truth is food for the soul! 

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**John Owen, The Glory of Christ: Abridged and Made Easy to Read by RJK Law (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1994), 70-71.

A Dedication Post to John MacArthur, and a Life-Changing Book From His Pen

John Macarthur was the pastor of Grace Community Church in Southern California from February 1969 until November 2024. He went to be with the Lord in July 2025, nine months after preaching his final sermon. 55 years in the same pulpit is almost unheard of in late modern times—the only other example of whom I’m aware is Peter Masters, the pastor at Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle since 1970. As a preacher who has done a lot of moving over the years, I’ve only grown in my admiration for John MacArthur staying in the same place for as long as he did. He was committed to biblical exposition, and God used and blessed his ministry probably beyond anything he could have imagined when he first began. 

As a young pastor who had cut his teeth on the likes of Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll (by the way, could pastoral approaches be any more different?), I hadn’t really spent much time listening to John. But after a year or so of preparing and delivering regular Bible exposition, I began to be drawn to the faithfulness and steadfastness of John’s ministry. I’ve so appreciated his work over the years. The fact that he spent his first 42 years preaching through the entire New Testament is nothing to be sniffed at. 

I disagree with some positions that John held. His understandings both of the relationship of ethnic Israel to the church and of the end-times are not the same as mine. No big deal; he and the late RC Sproul were close friends, sharing pulpits and conference platforms regularly, while Sproul held decidedly divergent views from John. To be clear, I don’t agree with all of RC’s views either! (Neither do I agree with my own views all the time, constantly reconsidering, changing, etc.) 

Now for why I wanted to write this post: To praise God for John’s likely most well-known book: The Gospel According to Jesus (hereafter GATJ). John wrote GATJ after a sermon series on Matthew’s gospel proved transformative for Grace Church. He had been confronting and challenging the so-called Free-Grace Movement, arguing that while Christ saves by grace, the saved must follow and obey him. It took John some seven years to preach through Matthew, but the church had been transformed into a thriving ministry center by the end of it. The literary outcome was (by the final edition) a 24 chapter book explaining the gospel from Christ’s own teaching in the writings of the Evangelists. 

At the time that I read GATJ I had been struggling with reconciling what I perceived to be opposing messages when comparing Paul’s letters with the gospel accounts themselves. This supposed dichotomy “between Paul and Jesus” was nothing new, having been present in theology for 100 years or so prior, and continuing now. J. Gresham Machen, the great critic of theological liberalism, wrote The Origin of Paul’s Religion in 1921 because of the “Paul vs. Jesus,” debate. I had also read some cases made for a real dichotomy from the likes of current Christian thought leaders like Scot McKnight. In short, and probably at the risk of being reductive, proponents say that while Paul preaches salvation by grace through faith, Christ preaches obedience and works. There’s more to it, but if you can get your hands around that summary you can get an idea of what’s at stake in the debate. I found myself comforted reading Paul but struggling reading the gospels. I believed it all. But I had a sort of background anxiety about the issue. 

Into my own struggle came John’s GATJ. I found it at a used bookstore in Pittsburgh, and I started reading it at a Panera while Kate was at a work meeting. I was stunned at what I found: Jesus preaches the same salvation by grace that Paul did, explaining it in a way that we should expect the incarnate God-man to explain it. The difference in his explanation compared to Paul is easily understood when one considers perspective: Christ is the author of salvation, and Paul is a herald of it. If you dig in, you see that the gospel is the gospel is the gospel, whether from Jesus’ mouth or Paul’s or Peter’s or John’s or David’s or Isaiah’s, etc. There is no dichotomy, only the seemingly paradoxical marriage of depth and clarity. So, after reading GATJ, the gospels opened up to me in a way that has proved transformative.

At the risk of keeping you from reading GATJ yourself, what follows is a brief summary of every chapter under section headings. Please know, such a summary will never replace reading Gospel According to Jesus yourself; it is so helpful if one wants the gospels to come alive. Nevertheless, I hope that a quick survey of the chapters might stir you up to seek it further. 

(I Introduction: I’m skipping this section, which includes chapters one and two, in my summary)

II Jesus heralds his gospel

3 He calls for a new birth (Jn.3: To Nicodemus, “you must be born again”) 

4 He demands true worship (Jn.4: To the Woman, “Father must be worshiped in spirit and truth”) 

5 He receives sinners and refuses the righteous (Mt.8-9: Only the unwell/sinners can get  in on this) 

6 He opens blind eyes (Jn.9: Blind man didn’t “see the light”; Jesus opened his eyes) 

7 He challenges an eager seeker (Mt.19: Rich young man was proud and didn’t know it; Jesus wasn’t going to let him come amiss) 

8 He seeks and saves the lost (Lk.19: Zaccheus) 

9 He condemns a hardened heart (Judas—heart can harden though in Jesus’ presence) 

10 He offers a yoke of rest (Mt.11:28-30 Invites broadly, promising rest; but we only come if He gives it to us, 11:27)

III Jesus illustrates his gospel 

11 The Four Soils (Mt.13:3-9, 18-23: only one soil was ready to bear the desired fruit; most who hear the gospel won’t come and stay following Jesus) 

12 Wheat and Tares (Mt.13:24-30, 36-43: the ungodly can seem righteous and fool everyone. But God knows who is who) 

13 Treasure in the field (Mt.13:44 coming to faith means joyfully leave all for Christ) 

14 Laborers in the field (Mt.20:1-16: It’s all grace, no one earns more than the other. All who come to Christ want to labor for him because he’s good.) 

15 Lost and found: Lost sheep, coin, and son (Lk.15: God is active in seeking and finding; the lost must see themselves as lost in order to “come home”) 

16 Vine and branches (Jn.15:1-12 believers are united to Christ by faith; but some are broken off because they’re not fully plugged in, bearing fruit) 

IV Jesus explains his gospel 

17 Call to repentance (Mt.4:17, 21:28-32 Parable of two sons: God becomes preeminent in our lives; there are only two types of people, those who feign repentance and those are rebels who then repent) 

18 True faith (Mt.5, 18: True faith is lowliness (Mt.5:3-12 beatitudes) & child-like dependence, Mt.18:1-5) 

19 Promise of justification (Lk.18:9-14 parable: no delusions, the man begs for mercy) 

20 The way of salvation (Mt.7:13-23 Two ways, two crowds, & two destinations. Choose wisely) 

21 Certainty of judgment (Mt.7:21-27: Saying without doing=empty words; hearing without obeying=empty hearts) 

22 Cost of discipleship (Mt.10:34-49 “I’ve not come to bring peace…father and moth”: Unquestioning loyalty to Christ) 

23 Jesus is Lord (Jn.7:30: his arrest didn’t happen prematurely, because he’s Lord of all) 

V Jesus fulfills his gospel 

24 “It is finished” (Jn.19:30: we don’t need to add to his work, because it’s magnificent in itself; our work shows him in us.) 

If you would have told me in early 2017 that by late 2025 we would have lost Sproul, Packer, Keller, and Macarthur, I would have said, “No way—what can happen if we lose them all so close to each other?” But a work like GATJ stands as a testament that Jesus’ gospel continues on wherever there are faithful believers opening their Bibles, choosing “the good portion” (Lk.10:42), and inviting others to do the same. I’m so grateful for all of these men; or, put better, for the Lord’s work through them. His working through us explains why we can sometimes still be fools and yet be capable of doing great, life-giving things. None of these men were perfect men (though they are now), but God used them powerfully. If the Lord wasn’t in us, our lives would be only foolishness, right? Better is to plug into the Author of life (Ac.3:15) under his promise that he’ll use us to bring saving goodness into the world he created for his glory. 

Thanks Lord for John MacArthur, and for how you used his gospel labors to crystalize my utter confidence in Scripture. Raise up more gospel laborers, great Lord of the Harvest.